Isaiah 17 YLT
Summary: This is "the burden of Damascus," foretelling that the city will cease to be a city and become a ruinous heap, with Israel's (Ephraim's) fortress likewise diminished, its glory made thin like a body wasting away. Only gleanings will remain, like a few berries left after an olive tree is shaken, because Israel has forgotten the God of its salvation and planted foreign, pagan slips instead. The prophet ties this to Israel's forgetfulness of the "Rock of thy strength" and warns that pleasant plants will yield only harvest of grief and incurable sorrow. The chapter closes describing many raging nations rushing like roaring seas against God's people, only to be rebuked and driven away like chaff before the wind, terror by evening turned to nothing by morning.
1The burden of Damascus. Lo, Damascus is taken away from being a city, And it hath been a heap--a ruin.
2Forsaken are the cities of Aroer, For droves they are, and they have lain down, And there is none troubling.
3And ceased hath the fortress from Ephraim, And the kingdom from Damascus, And the remnant of Aram are as the honour of the sons of Israel, The affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts!
4And it hath come to pass, in that day, Wax poor doth the honour of Jacob, And the fatness of his flesh doth wax lean.
5And it hath come to pass, As the gathering by the reaper of the standing corn, And his arm the ears reapeth, And it hath come to pass, As the gathering of the ears in the valley of Rephaim,
6And left in him have been gleanings, As the compassing of an olive, Two--three berries on the top of a branch, Four--five on the fruitful boughs, The affirmation of Jehovah, God of Israel!
7In that day doth man look to His Maker, Yea, his eyes to the Holy One of Israel look,
8And he looketh not unto the altars. The work of his own hands, And that which his own fingers made He seeth not--the shrines and the images.
9In that day are the cities of his strength As the forsaken thing of the forest, And the branch that they have left, Because of the sons of Israel, It also hath been a desolation.
10Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, And the rock of thy strength hast not remembered, Therefore thou plantest plants of pleasantness, And with a strange slip sowest it,
11In the day thy plant thou causest to become great, And in the morning thy seed makest to flourish, A heap is the harvest in a day of overflowing, And of mortal pain.
12Woe to the multitude of many peoples, As the sounding of seas they sound; And to the wasting of nations, As the wasting of mighty waters they are wasted.
13Nations as the wasting of many waters are wasted, And He hath pushed against it, And it hath fled afar off, And been pursued as chaff of hills before wind, And as a rolling thing before a hurricane.
14At even-time, lo, terror, before morning it is not, This is the portion of our spoilers, And the lot of our plunderers!
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