Isaiah 17:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the burden, or heavy message, about Damascus. The Chaldee paraphrase calls it “the burden of the cup of the curse to drink to Damascus,” meaning Damascus must drink the cup of God’s judgment. Since the ten tribes were allied with Syria, they must expect to share in that trembling cup as well.

First, Damascus itself, the chief city of Syria, must be destroyed. Its houses will likely be burned, at least its walls, gates, and defenses will be torn down, and its people carried away into captivity. For a time, it will no longer be a city at all, only a village or a ruin. Sin can do terrible work like that to cities.

Second, the towns in the country will be left empty because the people will flee or be driven out by the invaders. “The cities of Aroer” means a province of Syria by that name, and they will be forsaken (Isaiah 17:2). The defeated will not dare to live there, and the conquerors will not need them, since they took them from wantonness, not from need. The places meant for people to live in will become pastures for flocks, and grand houses will be turned into sheepfolds.

It is strange that proud conquerors should make themselves enemies of all mankind. Yet, however unjust they are, God is righteous when he drives out people who have made themselves vile by their wickedness. It is better for sheep to lie down there than for such people to live there in open rebellion against God and goodness.

Third, the strongholds of Israel, that is, the kingdom of the ten tribes, will also be brought low. “The fortress will disappear from Ephraim” (Isaiah 17:3), meaning from Samaria and the rest of the kingdom. Israel had joined with Syria in attacking Judah in a very unnatural alliance, and now both must share the ruin that comes with their sin. Those who were partners in guilt will justly become partners in judgment.

When the fortress fails in Ephraim and weakens Israel, the kingdom will also fail in Damascus and ruin Syria. The Syrians had led the attack against Judah, so they are punished first and most severely. And because they boasted of their alliance with Israel, they are now shamed by Israel’s weakness. The few Syrians who remain will be as low and weak as the children of Israel, and Israel’s former greatness will give them no help or honor. Sinful alliances will give no strength when God’s judgments arrive.

This shows what the glory of Jacob looks like when God opposes him. It also shows how little reason Syria has to boast that it resembled Jacob’s glory. The glory of Jacob, in one sense, was their great number, as many as the sand of the sea. But that glory will be made small when many are cut off and only a few remain. Their bodily fatness, which had fed their pride and false security, will fade away, and the people will be like a skeleton, nothing but skin and bones.

Israel died slowly, like a person with a wasting disease. The kingdom of the ten tribes gradually wore away, and God was to them like a moth (Hosea 5:12), quietly destroying them from within. That is what all worldly glory is like, it soon fades and grows thin. But there is a much greater and lasting glory prepared for the spiritual descendants of Jacob, a glory that does not decay, the rich fullness of God’s house, which will never grow lean.

Then their glory will be gathered up and carried off by the Assyrian army, just as grain is carried from the field by farmers (Isaiah 17:5). Grain is the glory of the fields (Psalm 65:13), but once it is reaped and gone, where is that glory? The people had made themselves ready for ruin by their sins, and their glory was taken away as quickly, as easily, as justly, and as completely as grain is cut from the field.

God’s judgments are compared to a sickle swung in when the harvest is ripe (Revelation 14:15). And the victorious army, like careful farmers in the valley of Rephaim, where the grain was especially plentiful, would not leave a single ear behind if they could help it. They would take everything they could lay hands on.