10 For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plantations, and shalt set them with foreign slips:
and forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and thou art afraid continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepareth to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?
Confide ye in Jehovah for ever; for in Jah, Jehovah, is the rock of ages.
[He is] the Rock, his work is perfect, For all his ways are righteousness; A ùGod of faithfulness without deceit, Just and right is he.
They forgot ùGod their Saviour, who had done great things in Egypt,
Bring us back, O God of our salvation, and cause thine indignation toward us to cease.
And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof: they shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They have sown wheat, and they reap thorns; they have put themselves to pain, [and] do not profit. Be ye therefore ashamed of your revenues, because of the fierce anger of Jehovah.
Thou hope of Israel, Jehovah! all that forsake thee shall be ashamed. They that depart from me shall be written in the earth; because they have forsaken Jehovah, the fountain of living waters.
And I will visit upon her the days of the Baals, wherein she burned incense to them, and decked herself with her rings and jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith Jehovah. Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; for thou hast rejected knowledge, and I will reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.
For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.
Forasmuch, therefore, as ye trample upon the poor, and take from him presents of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, and ye shall not drink the wine of them.
Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Of the Rock that begot thee wast thou unmindful, And thou hast forgotten ùGod who brought thee forth.
and your strength shall be spent in vain, and your land shall not yield its produce; and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
Beware that thou forget not Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command thee this day;
then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;
Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not eat of it.
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall devour it. Thou shalt plant and till vineyards, but shalt drink no wine, nor gather [the fruit]; for the worms shall eat it. Olive-trees shalt thou have throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; for thine olive-tree shall cast its fruit. Sons and daughters shalt thou beget, but thou shalt not have them [to be with thee]; for they shall go into captivity. All thy trees and the fruit of thy ground shall the locust possess.
I also will do this unto you -- I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and fever, which shall cause the eyes to fail, and the soul to waste away; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
For their rock is not as our Rock: Let our enemies themselves be judges.
The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my ùGod, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation, thou confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the distant regions of the sea. ...
Blessed be the Lord: day by day doth he load us [with good], the ùGod who is our salvation. Selah. Our ùGod is the ùGod of salvation; and with Jehovah, the Lord, are the goings forth [even] from death.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 17
Commentary on Isaiah 17 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 17
Syria and Ephriam were confederate against Judah (ch. 7:1, 2), and, they being so closely linked together in their counsels, this chapter, though it be entitled "the burden of Damascus' (which was the head city of Syria), reads the doom of Israel too.
In order of time this chapter should be placed next after ch. 9, for the destruction of Damascus, here foretold, happened in the reign of Ahaz, 2 Ki. 16:9.
Isa 17:1-5
We have here the burden of Damascus; the Chaldee paraphrase reads it, The burden of the cup of the curse to drink to Damascus in; and, the ten tribes being in alliance, they must expect to pledge Damascus in this cup of trembling that is to go round.
Isa 17:6-8
Mercy is here reserved, in a parenthesis, in the midst of judgment, for a remnant that should escape the common ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Though the Assyrians took all the care they could that none should slip out of their net, yet the meek of the earth were hidden in the day of the Lord's anger, and had their lives given them for a prey and made comfortable to them by their retirement to the land of Judah, where they had the liberty of God's courts.
Isa 17:9-11
Here the prophet returns to foretel the woeful desolations that should be made in the land of Israel by the army of the Assyrians.
Isa 17:12-14
These verses read the doom of those that spoil and rob the people of God. If the Assyrians and Israelites invade and plunder Judah, if the Assyrian army take God's people captive and lay their country waste, let them know that ruin will be their lot and portion. They are here brought in,