Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 17:9 - 17:14

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 17:9 - 17:14


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

A Woe upon Israel's Enemies

v. 9. In that day shall his strong cities,
namely, those of Ephraim, the northern kingdom, be as a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch, literally, "like the forsaken places in the forests and mountain summits," ruined strongholds in remote parts of the country, which they left because of the children of Israel, which the Canaanites deserted in retiring before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation, all the great fortresses of Israel sharing the fate of these ruined castles. The prophet now addresses Ephraim directly:

v. 10. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation,
the only one who can bring true redemption, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength, Jehovah being the one true Rock of Ages, Deu_32:15-18, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants and shalt set it with strange slips.

v. 11. 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.
It was because the northern kingdom, on the whole, had left the true God that its people had, literally, "planted plantings of pleasantness," had taken up the various sensuous heathen cults and had then planted a strange vine in their garden, namely, by becoming allies of the king of Damascus. The new plant had then been carefully fenced in, namely, by shrewd political schemes, so that the strange plant grew to maturity very rapidly, like a hothouse plant, for the alliance brought about a plan to attack Judah. But the whole scheme was frustrated by the action of Jehovah, who promptly reserved the garden of Ephraim as a heap, heaped up in the harvest, in the day of grief. Such is the consequence of the denial of the Lord and of fraternizing with the enemies of God. While Jehovah, however, used Assyria as His tool in punishing Ephraim, the great world-power itself would not escape His avenging power.

v. 12. Woe to the multitude of many people,
with the turmoil and tumult of their advance, 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 enemies of Israel, who are also types of the enemies of the Church, are pictured as being in a state of seething unrest, anxiously striving to harm the Lord's people.

v. 13. The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters,
in an apparently irresistible tidal wave; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, rather, it, the threatening tide of hostility, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, the picture being taken from the open threshing-floors of the Orient, which were usually situated in elevated places, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind, like whirling dust or particles of straw from the threshing-floor, as the wind picks them up and flings them away.

v. 14. And behold at evening-tide trouble,
horror falling upon the approaching enemies; and before the morning he is not, before ever the day dawns, they are destroyed. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us. Thus the Lord will finally carry out His sentence of punishment upon all enemies of His Church and its work.