Compiled by WD Kemner January 2024
CHAPTER 17
Damascus and Ephraim after the Conflict
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Isaiah Chapter 17 verse 1-3 |
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The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.
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The King of Assyria was given a mission by God for punishing the Jewish people. Instead he announced to God that it was in his own power that he had done so, not in God’s. Read about this king in chapters 10, 36 and 37.
In the process, the King of Assyria says he had destroyed Samaria (capital is Damascus). Isaiah 10:11
Prophecy regarding Damascus was given in Isaiah Chapter 8.
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Isaiah Chapter 17 verse 4-6 |
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And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel.
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Very Descriptive of conditions during those years of the civil war and siege of the Assyrian armies.
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Isaiah Chapter 17 verse 7-8 |
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At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.
In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.
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The effect that all has on them, to cause some to start turning back to God. The price that is paid for God to get your attention.
Both Syria and Ephraim would be left destroyed. As seen in next verses.
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Isaiah Chapter 17 verse 9-11 |
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Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
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Reaping what you sow in every meaning.
GOD’S WARNING TO THE ENEMIES OF HIS PEOPLE
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Isaiah Chapter 17 verse 12-14 |
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Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
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This is a warning to the world who would want to take advantage. If the nation of Assyria can do what they did. Not without the will of God.