2 The cities H5892 of Aroer H6177 are forsaken: H5800 they shall be for flocks, H5739 which shall lie down, H7257 and none shall make them afraid. H2729
And it shall come to pass in that day, H3117 that every place H4725 shall be, where there were a thousand H505 vines H1612 at a thousand H505 silverlings, H3701 it shall even be for briers H8068 and thorns. H7898 With arrows H2671 and with bows H7198 shall men come H935 thither; because all the land H776 shall become briers H8068 and thorns. H7898 And on all hills H2022 that shall be digged H5737 with the mattock, H4576 there shall not come thither H935 the fear H3374 of briers H8068 and thorns: H7898 but it shall be for the sending forth H4916 of oxen, H7794 and for the treading H4823 of lesser cattle. H7716
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,