Isaiah 1:7

Your country [is] desolate,.... Or "shall be"; this is either a declaration in proper terms of what is before figuratively expressed, or rather a prophecy of what would be their case on account of

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. Your country is desolate, your cities (are) burnt with fire.

All this and what follows was verified in the days of king Ahaz, 2 Chronicles 28, in whose time, and upon which occasion, this prophecy seems to have been delivered, as more exactly agreeing with that time than with any other. If any object, that this being the first of his prophecies, must rather belong to the days of Uzziah, they must take notice, and it is agreed by interpreters, and it is undeniably true, that the prophecies of Isaiah, as also of the other prophets, are not set down in the same order in which they were delivered, but oftentimes the latter are put before the former. In your presence; which your eyes shall see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As overthrown by strangers, Heb, as the overthrow of strangers, i.e. which strangers bring upon a land which is not theirs, nor likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons that come in their way, and they spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same or of a neighbour nation.

Isaiah 1:7 Your country [is] desolate, your cities [are] burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers.Ver. 7. Your country is desolate.] Here the prophet speaketh plainly, what before, parabolically. Thus many times the Scripture explaineth itself. Your cities are burnt.] So that there is sometimes but an hour’ s time, inter civitatem magnam et nullam, saith Seneca, between a fair city and a heap. Your land, strangers devour it.] That is, enemies; in which sense also a harlot is called "a strange woman," seemingly a friend, but really an enemy: she will destroy his peace who is overcome by her. In your presence.] To your greater grief. Witness the experience hereof in our late stripping and desolating times, whereof we have here a kind of theological picture. Zar, "alienum" significat et "hostem."

(7) Your country is desolate . . .—It is natural to take the words as describing the actual state of things when the prophet wrote. There had been such invasions in the days of Ahaz, in which Israel and Syria (Isaiah 7:1), Edom and the Philistines, had been conspicuous (2 Chronicles 28:17-18); and the reign of Hezekiah already had witnessed that of Sargon (Isaiah 20:1). The Hebrew has no copulative verb, but joins subject and predicate together with the emphasis of abruptness: Your land—a desolation, and so on. The repetition of the word “strangers” is characteristic of Isaiah’s style. As overthrown by strangers.—Conjectural readings give (1) “as the overthrow of Sodom;” (2) “as the overthrow of (i.e., wrought by) a rain-storm.” The word rendered “overthrown” is elsewhere applied only to the destruction of the cities of the plain (Deuteronomy 29:23; Amos 4:11; Jeremiah 49:18). So taken, the clause prepares the way for the fuller comparison of Isa 1:9-10.

Verse 7. - 9. Your country is desolate] The description of the ruined and desolate state of the country in these verses does not suit with any part of the prosperous times of Uzziah and Jotham. It very well agrees with the time of Ahaz, when Judea was ravaged by the joint invasion of the Israelites and Syrians, and by the incursions of the Philistines and Edomites. The date of this prophecy is therefore generally fixed to the time of Ahaz. But on the other hand it may be considered whether those instances of idolatry which are urged in Isaiah 1:29 - the worshipping in groves and gardens - having been at all times too commonly practised, can be supposed to be the only ones which the prophet would insist upon in the time of Ahaz; who spread the grossest idolatry through the whole country, and introduced it even into the temple; and, to complete his abominations, made his son pass through the fire to Molech. It is said, Isaiah 1:2; Isaiah 15:37, that in Jotham's time "the Lord began to send against Judah, Rezin - and Pekah." If we may suppose any invasion from that quarter to have been actually made at the latter end of Jotham's reign, I should choose to refer this prophecy to that time. AND your cities are burned. - Nineteen of Dr. Kennicott's MSS. and twenty-two of De Rossi's, some of my own, with the Syriac and Arabic, add the conjunction which makes the hemistich more complete. Ver. 7. זרים zarim at the end of the verse. This reading, though confirmed by all the ancient versions, gives us no good sense; for "your land is devoured by strangers; and is desolate, as if overthrown by strangers," is a mere tautology, or, what is as bad, an identical comparison. Aben Ezra thought that the word in its present form might be taken for the same with זרם zerem, an inundation: Schultens is of the same opinion; (see Taylor's Concord.;) and Schindler in his Lexicon explains it in the same manner: and so, says Kimchi, some explain it. Abendana endeavours to reconcile it to grammatical analogy in the following manner: " זרים zarim is the same with זרם zerem; that is, as overthrown by an inundation of waters: and these two words have the same analogy as קדם kedem and קדים kadim. Or it may be a concrete of the same form with שכיר shechir; and the meaning will be: as overthrown by rain pouring down violently, and causing a flood." On Sal. ben Melech, in loc. But I rather suppose the true reading to be זרם zerem, and have translated it accordingly: the word זרים zerim, in the line above, seems to have caught the transcriber's eye, and to have led him into this mistake. But this conjecture of the learned prelate is not confirmed by any MS. yet discovered.

7. The situation here described (which was undoubtedly present at the time of utterance) is that of a land ravaged by foreign troops (land is “cultivated land”). It has been contended that the word strangers (foreigners) must refer to the Assyrians, and could not be used of the allied Syrians and Ephraimites. But there seems no good reason why an army mainly composed of Syrians should not be designated as “foreigners.” and it is desolate … strangers] Lit., “and a desolation like an overthrow of strangers.” If the text is sound it must mean “is such an overthrow as might be expected at the hands of strangers” (the so-called Kaph veritatis). This is a weak sense; and hence Ewald’s plausible emendation, “like the overthrow of Sodom,” has been accepted by most subsequent writers. The word for “overthrow” never occurs elsewhere except in connexion with Sodom (ch. Isaiah 13:19; Deuteronomy 29:23; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40; Amos 4:11).

Your country is desolate - This is the literal statement of what he had just affirmed by a figure. In this there was much art. The figure Isaiah 1:6 was striking.

7. The figurative language is now dropped, and words direct and literal are used. Country… desolate… cities… burned with fire, etc.