Isaiah 17:6 - Meaning and Application

Mercy is reserved here, like a parenthesis in the middle of judgment, for a remnant that would escape the common ruin of the ten tribes. Though the Assyrians did all they could to make sure no one slipped through their net, the meek of the earth were hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger. Their lives were spared, and their retreat to Judah, where they had access to God’s courts, became a comfort to them.

They would be only a small remnant, a very few marked for preservation (Isaiah 17:6). The land would be left with a few gleaning grapes, while the main body of the people went into captivity. Here and there one would remain, perhaps one of two in a bed when the other was taken (Luke 17:34). The most severe judgments in this life still fall short of the final judgment, which will reach everyone and spare no one.

In the greatest calamities, some are kept safe, just as in the greatest times of sin, some are kept pure. But the small number who escape shows how many more were carried away. The ones left are like the few olives that remain after the tree has been carefully shaken, maybe two or three berries at the topmost branch, out of reach of the one who shook it. That is what the remnant is like according to grace, very few compared with the many who keep walking the broad road.

This remnant will also be a holy remnant, as Isaiah 17:7-8 says. These few preserved ones were either people who had already repented and turned from their sins as judgment came near, and so were snatched out like brands from the fire, or they were refugees in foreign lands who were awakened by God’s mercy and by their ongoing troubles to return to him.

They will look up to their Maker and ask, “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?” in a night of suffering like this (Job 35:10-11). They will see God’s hand in all that happens to them, both in mercy and in hardship, and they will submit to him. They will give him the honor his name deserves and feel rightly moved by his dealings with them. Their hope will be in him for help and rescue. Their eyes will be turned toward him, as a servant’s eyes are fixed on his master’s hand (Psalm 123:2).

This is always our duty, to keep our eyes on God, both as our Maker, the author of our being and the God of nature, and as the Holy One of Israel, the God of the covenant and of grace. In trouble especially, our eyes must be toward the Lord, so that he can pull our feet out of the net (Psalm 25:15). His providence aims to bring us to this, as our Maker, and his grace aims to bring us to this, as the Holy One of Israel.

They will also turn away from their idols, the products of their own imagination. They will no longer worship them, seek help from them, or expect anything from them. God will be the only one they regard, or else he does not count himself as truly honored. Anyone who looks to his Maker must not look to the altars, the work of his own hands. He must reject them and cast them off, and not keep any respect for what his fingers have made, but break it in pieces, even if it is his own workmanship, the groves and the images. These images were made in honor of the sun and used in sun worship, one of the oldest and most attractive forms of idolatry (Deuteronomy 4:19; Job 31:26).

We have good reason to count it a blessing when affliction comes between us and our sins. By showing us clearly how empty the world is, that great idol, suffering can cool our love for it and lower our expectations from it.