Isaiah 17

Isaiah 17:1-5

Syria and Ephraim were confederate against Judah, chap. vii. 1, 2. Here they are joined in ruin, for companions in sin will ever be companions in suffering. 1. The destruction of the strong cities

VOL. II.

both of Syria and Israel is here foretold, ver. 1-5. and again, ver. 9-11. 2. A gracious promise is made, that a common should be performed from their calamities, and should get good by them, ver. 6-8. 3. The murderous of the Afyrian army before Jerusalem is pointed at, ver. 12-14. In order of time this chapter should be placed next after chap. ix. for the destruction of Damascus here foretold happened in the reign of Abaz, 2 Kings xvi. 9.

1. THE burden of Damascus. Behold, ‘Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2. The cities of Aroor are forsaken; they shall be for flocks which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3. ‘The fortrels 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, faith the LORD of hoffs. 4. And in that day it shall come to pals, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall was lean. 5. And it shall be ‘as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

The cup of trembling goes round; Syria and Israel must drink of it. They were chiefly allied; but the strongest confederacies in sin will fail. The burden begins with Syria; Damascus, the capital, is doomed to fall, and lie for a while in ruins; her fertile villages desolate; the deserted houses become shepherds huts; and in the streets, once thronged with crouds of citizens, the sheep shall graze unmolested. The few who remain poor and despicable, shall be as the glory of Israel, an ironical expression, since Israel’s glory too was alike departed, and her fate as desperate. The fortness of Ephraim, Samaria, shall be demolished, the government dishonest; to that it should no more recover: and all the fatness of Israel, her riches, and multitudes, once her glory, like a man wafted with a consumption, shall pine away, destroyed by famine or the sword; ripe for ruin as the corn in harvest, and cut down by the armies of the Afyrians, as the reaper gathers the Sheaf, and with as much care as the husbandman in the vale of Rephaim, where the corn was peculiarly excellent, collected every ear. Note, (1.) If pining consumption from the body natural or politic, we may quickly trace the origin of the disease to Sin, the cause of every human misery. (2.) The strongest fortrels hath no defence, when God stretches out his arm to destroy. (3.) When the sinner is ripe for destruction, death, as the harvest-man, will put in the fickle, and none can deliver out of his hands.

6. (¶ Yet 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, faith the LORD God of Israel. 7. At 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.)

Isaiah 17:6-8

One gleam of mercy beams through the darkness, to comfort the hearts of God’s faithful amidst these desolating judgments. They shall be preserved from the destruction, and hid in the day of the Lord’s fierce anger, by escaping to Judah, or being overlooked by the Afyrians.

1. They are but few, very few, like the gleaning grapes when the vintage is over, or two or three olives left on the top-most bough, which were not shaken down. Note, (1.) They who are led captive by the devil at his will are many, whilst those who escape his bondage are, comparatively, few. (2.) Such as are careful in the evil day to keep close to God, he will keep them from the hour of temptation.

2. They are drawn nearer to God by their danger. At that day of Israel’s calamity shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the holy One of Israel. In prayer the faithful will spread their case before God their Saviour, and cast their care on him, renouncing every vain confidence, such as the idol altars and images of their apesitate countrymen, which themselves might have formerly worshipped, but now abhorred and rejected; they cleave to the Lord alone, as able to save them in the day of evil. Note, (1.) They are blessed afflictions that bring us nearer to God. (2.) As naturally as a child runs to its parent for protection, so doth the child of God in the day of distress in prayer betaxe himself in the arms of Jesus his Saviour. (3.) Nothing serves more to detach the soul from earth and creature-comforts and confidences, than those strokes of Providence that convince us of their vanity.

H 9 ¶ 10 Babour-Clark No. 1. b. Pf. xvi. 11. Hof. mit. 1. 1 Pf. xxii. 2. b. Lev. xxvi. 11. Depr. terim. 2. 1. Mf. xv. revised in the day of infortance, and there shall be ready forrow. Or. nois 1 Jer. ii. 23. Pf. xviii. 4. a. Pf. lxxxiii. 13. Hof. xiii. 1. Or. bodedown. Chap. xxxiii. 1. 1. King xx. 3. 36.

9. ¶ In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch which they left, because of the children of Israel: and there shall be defoliation. 10. Because thou hast a forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength: therefore shall thou plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with strange ships: 11. In the day shall thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shall thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief, and of desperate forrow.

Isaiah 17:9-11

The prophet having said to the righteous, it shall be well with them, returns to cry woe to the wicked, for it shall be ill with them.

1. The cause of all their misery is their departure from God, v. 10. They had forgotten his wonders of mercy and grace, neglected his worship, disregarded his commands, and forfeiting the rock of their strength, were justly forsaken by him. Note. (1.) Negligence about the things of God, and their souls, is the great sin and ruin of mankind. (2.) They who forsake the God of their strength, renounce their own mercies.

2. The consequence of their apocrycy is their destruction. As absolute as the cities of Canaan were made when full Israel seized them, so desolate should their own cities become through the sword of the Afyrians, as a withered branch shipped of its leaves, and a raumed bough bladed and dead. Their country, cultivated with such affidoury, full of pleasant fruits, its native produce, and improved by foreign trees and plants, promised a great increase: but, ere the day of harvest comes, all is blasted, a heap in the day of grief, or inheritance; when they expected to reap, the enemy should collect their fruits into a heap, destroying what he did not use, and leaving them nothing but defiles or joyous: not only their land wafted, but themselves carried captive, without any hope of ever returning to it again. Note. (1.) If the wicked Canaanites were cast out of their cities, let not wicked Israelites think to escape. (2.) When worldly hopes and cares engross our hearts, God justly blasts our prospects, and punishes our creatures—debatry.

3. ¶ Wo to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters. 13. The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but 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 thing before the whirlwind. 14. And behold, at evening-tide trouble, and before the morning he is not: this is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

Isaiah 17:10-14

This prophecy concerns the destruction of Sennacherib and his army.

1. Their multitude and impetuosity is described, like raging seas rolling their furious billows to the shore, and foaming out, in Rabihaketh’s blasphemy, their own shame, v. 12.

2. Their woe is denounced. God will take the cause into his own hand, and rebuke the wrath of these fierce enemies. They shall rush upon their ruin; his angel, like chaff, shall beat them small; and, as the down of thistles before the whirlwind, so easily shall they be dispersed, and the few that remain from the sword of the destroyer, flee far away, v. 13. Note. The mightiest foes of the church and people of God, before the Almighty, are less than nothing and vanity.

3. A quick period is put to the distress of God’s people. Though troubled at the evening, when they beheld the approaching hoths of Afiyria, one night removed their fears, and the next morning shewed them their dead corpses. Note. Tho’ the faithful may be now and then dismayed, their heaviness endureth but for a night, and joy cometh in the morning.

4. Such shall be the case of all the enemies of God’s church, and his servants must remember it for their comfort; for this is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us. Note. The past experience of God’s people should be treasured up as a ground of present confidence in the like temptations.