Isaiah 17

Isaiah 17:3-5

The Syrians shall be in as despicable and ruined the 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

Isaiah 17:9-11

The cities of the Israelites shall stand as high heaps in the country, forsaken by their 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 every thing they have, and carry them into a miserable and lasting captivity

Isaiah 17:12-14

But, notwithstanding all their vast multitudes, fury, noisy ravage, and blasphemous boasting, God, by his wrathful rebuke, shall destroy the Assyrian army before Jerusalem, and make the small remains thereof flee homeward with the utmost terror and precipitation

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVII.—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 82 in their wickedness. And short-lived are the terrors or troubles of his chosen. 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