The Book of the Prophet Isaiah
Isaiah 17
Chapter XVII · Vol. III, pp. 1166–1167
1 Syria and Israel are threatened. 6 A remnant shall forsake idolatry. 9 The rest shall be plagued for their impiety. 12 The woe of Israel's enemies.
1 The burden1 of Damascus. aBehold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
B.C. cir. 740.
1 Denounced heavy judgments, ch.13.1; 14.28; 15.1; 19.1; 22.1; 23.1. 2 Ki.9.25.
a ch.7.16; 8.4; 25.2. Am.1.3-5. Je.49.23-27. Zec.9.1. [fulfilled] 2 Ki.16.9.
2 Theb cities of Aroer are forsaken; cthey shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and dnone shall make them afraid.
3 Thee fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of 2hosts.
e ch.7.8,16; 8.4; 10.3. Ho.1.4,6,9; 3.4; 5.7-14; 8.7-9; 9.11-17; 10.14; 13.7,8,12. 1 Ch.5.26. 2 Ki.15.29; 17.6; 16.9.
2 Damascus, Moab (represented by Aroer), Ephraim, and Aram (Syria), are here grouped together because they had formed a confederacy against Jerusalem, and they were involved in a common ruin by the invasion of the Assyrians.—P.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass, gthat the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
g Ps.49.16,17. ch.9.8; 10.3,16; 24.16. Am.4.1,2; 7.2,5. De.32.15-27. ch.10.22. 2 Ki.17.6.
5 And hit shall be as when the harvest-man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in ithe valley of Rephaim.3
h Ho.6.11. Je.51.33. Joel 3.13. Re.14.15-20. 2 Ki.15.29; 17.6. 2 Ch.32.1; 33.11.
3 This is a striking and graphic figure. The people of Ephraim, that is, the northern tribes of Israel, shall be swept away from the land, just as the harvest-man sweeps away the grain from the harvest-field. Not even a remnant would be left; for they would be gathered up as the gleaner gathers ears of corn. The valley of Rephaim is a fertile upland plain lying just south of Jerusalem on the road to Bethlehem. It took its name from the gigantic aborigines who in primitive times occupied that part of Canaan.—P.
6 Yetj gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel.
j ch.1.9; 6.13; 10.22; 24.13-16. 2 Ch.30.10,11; 35.18. Je.5.10,18; 46.28; 30.11; 3.14.
7 Atk that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves or the images.4
4 Or, sun-images, 2 Ch.34.4,7.
9 Inl that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left, because5 of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.
5 Or, in respect, Je.9.7. Ps.61.4.
l ch.1.8; ver.4,5; ch.6.11,12; 7.16. Ne.1.3. Ho.13.15,16. ch.28.3,4; 27.10; 24.1,3,6.
10 Becausen thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, otherefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants,6 and shalt set it with strange slips:
A.M. cir. 3264. B.C. cir. 740.
n De.8.14. Ps.106.13,21. Je.17.13; 2.32; 3.21; 13.25. Eze.22.12. Ho.8.14. De.32.15,16, with Ps.25.5; 31.2-4.
o Le.26.19,20. De.28.29,30,33,38,39,40,51. ch.2.6. Mat.15.13. Eze.13.18. Ga.6.7,8. Ps.44.21.
6 Strange and idolatrous practices, pleasant to the senses of a sensual people.—C.
11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; pbut the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.7
12 Woeq to the multitude8 of many people, whichr make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty9 waters!
q ch.9.4,5; 10.5-33; 29.7,8; 30.8,9,30,31; 14.25. 2 Ch.32.7.
8 Or, noise.
r ch.5.25-30; 10.7-15; 8.7,8; 30.27; 29.7; 22.1-7; xxxvi. xxxvii. 2 Ki.xviii. xix.
9 Or, many.
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: sbut God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing1 before the whirlwind.
s ch.50.2; 9.4,5; 10.16-19,25-27,33,34; 14.25; 27.1; 28.21; 29.5-8; 25.4,5.10; 30.30-33; 31.8,9; 33.1,3,4,10-12,23; 41.15,16; 37.7,33-38. Ps.9.5; 93.4; 83.13; 68.1,2. Pr.28.1. Job 18.7,11,18; 15.21,22,24,30; 34.20. Ho.13.3.
1 Or, thistle-down.
14 And, behold, at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. Thist is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
t Je.2.3. Ju.5.31. Ps.83.9-18.
Notes
Ver. 3-5. The Syrians shall be in as despicable and ruined a condition as the Israelites; and the glory and multitude of Israel shall be exceedingly diminished, like one dying of a consumption. And being ripe for ruin, the Assyrians shall make a clean riddance of them, as reapers in harvest do of the fields of standing corn. 9-11. The cities of the Israelites shall stand as high heaps in the country, forsaken by the inhabitants, as they were by the Canaanites in the days of Joshua or Barak. Because they have forsaken their God, Saviour, and Protector, nothing shall thrive with them; but after all their care to strengthen their state, the Assyrians shall seize everything they have, and carry them into a miserable and lasting captivity. 12-14. But notwithstanding all their vast multitudes, fury, noisy ravage, and blasphemous boasting, God, by his just rebuke, shall destroy the Assyrian army before Jerusalem, and make the small remains thereof flee homeward with the utmost terror and precipitation.
Ver. 1. Damascus is taken away. The inhabitants of Damascus were taken away captive by Tiglath-Pileser, 2 Ki. 16. 9; and to what ruinous condition it was then reduced, and how long it remained so, history gives no information. It has, however, still continued a city of great note and importance; but that fact forms no contradiction to the prophecy, as it is evident from ver. 3, that by 'being a city,' the prophet meant the capital city of a Syrian monarchy. But to that estate it never returned: for since the death of Rezin, its last king, the country around Damascus has always continued a mere province of some of its conquerors. These have successively been Sennacherib, whose capital was Nineveh (2 Ki. 19. 36). Nebuchadnezzar, the generals of Alexander, Judas Maccabeus, the Romans, the Saracens, the Crusaders, Tamerlane, the Mamelukes, the Turks, lately the Egyptians, from whom, by aid of England, it has again been wrested by the Turks. C.
Ver. 2. Aroer. For Aroer, on the Arnon, the Septuagint, followed by Boothroyd, reads for ever; but there appears no sufficient authority for the change. The verse is a prediction of the destruction of Moab. See Burckhardt's Syria, p. 364. C.
Ver. 8. This prediction began to be fulfilled when many of the survivors of the captivities of Salmaneser and Esarhaddon turned from idols to the true God, 2 Ch. 30. 10, 11; 35. 18, and it continues to be fulfilled in the gleanings that are still gathered to Christ. C.
Ver. 14. The multitudinous host of Sennacherib seems to have been immediately in the eye of the prophet, of whom the angel of the Lord smote 185,000 in one night, 2 Ki. 19. 35. But similar destruction is predicted against all the spoilers and robbers of Israel—a prediction amply verified in the overthrow of the Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman powers, mainly on account of their cruelty to the people of God. C.
Reflections.—Companions in wickedness are soon made partners in punishment. Nor can the strongest fortifications defend from God's almighty wrath. Sin fearfully sickens and consumes persons and societies. And when nations are ripened by it, easily and extensively God strips them of their numbers, glory, power, and wealth. But thrice happy is it when the destruction of many is rendered instrumental for the conversion of a remnant to Christ, and when the loss of outward things makes us look off from them all to God himself. Alas! how professors, by their forgetfulness of God, ruin themselves and their country, and turn their most noted outward comforts into real plagues! But puny and empty nothings before God are the mightiest armies of his adversaries. He triumphs over those in his judgments who triumph over his people in their wickedness. And short-lived are the terrors or troubles of believers. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Let them therefore treasure up past experiences as a ground of future confidence in the like temptations.