Isaiah 17

Wesley: Damascus—both of that city and kingdom. A heap—this was fulfilled by Tiglath-pilneser, 2 Kings xvi, 9, although afterwards it was re-edified. Damascus falls as a city.

The oracle is a serious word to Syria. Damascus in the Assyria age, not a twenty-first-century map. Pride’s capital is undone while the league against Judah still stands.

Calvin: the burden of Damascus. Here he prophesies against the kingdom of Syria, and mentions the chief city in which the seat of the kingdom lay. The king of Syria had formed an alliance with Israel against Judah, as we saw formerly in the seventh chapter. To free Judah from doubts about God’s assistance, he threatens the destruction of that kingdom. Behold seals the certainty; the metropolis stands for the nation, because a polluted flood of crimes overflows from the chief city into the whole country.

Damascus falls by appointment, for Judah’s comfort. On this both agree: a heap of ruins.

Wesley: Aroer—of that part of Syria, called Aroer, from a great city of that name. These cities were possessed by the Reubenites and Gadites, whom Tiglath-pilneser carried into captivity, 1 Chron. “V, 26.” These he mentions here, as he doth Ephraim in the next verse, because they were confederate with Syria against Judah. Afraid—because the land shall be desolate, and destitute of men who might disturb them.

Flocks lie down where confederates lived.

Calvin: the cities of Aroer are forsaken. It is not probable that Aroer here denotes the city which is mentioned elsewhere; it is rather the name of a country. He draws the picture of a country which has been ruined; those places in which cities had been built will be devoted to pasture, and no habitation will be left there but huts and shepherds’ tents.

Pasture replaces towns because the Lord has emptied them. None will make the flocks afraid.

Wesley: The fortress—all their fortresses; the singular number being put for the plural. Remnant—the remainders of Damascus and Syria shall be an headless body, a people without a king. Of Israel—Syria shall have as much glory as Israel; that is, neither of them shall have any at all. Both see: fortress and kingdom cease together.

The league’s two heads fall as one.

Calvin: the fortress shall cease. He points out the reason why the Lord determines to cut off the kingdom of Syria: they had drawn the kingdom of Israel to their side for the purpose of making war against the Jews. All Israel is here denoted by the name Ephraim. The remnant of Syria: both of these nations shall be brought to nothing. When the Lord punished so severely those two kingdoms, he promoted the benefit of his Church, delivering it by the destruction of its enemies, employing the Assyrians as his agents.

The remnant’s glory is mockery: neither Syria nor Israel keeps what they boasted. Fortress gone from Ephraim, kingdom from Damascus.

Wesley’s gathereth at v. 5 still names the same thinning: so shall the whole body of the ten tribes be carried away captive, some few gleanings only being left. The glory brought low is still Jacob’s after the fortress of v. 3. Fatness grows lean where the ten tribes trusted the league.

Calvin: the glory of Jacob shall be diminished. Although he had undertaken to speak of Syria and Damascus, he takes occasion to join Israel with the Syrians, because they were bound by a mutual league. It is probable that he refers only to the ten tribes, who laid claim to the name of the nation; he describes them as glorious in mockery, because, being puffed up with their power and multitude and allies, they despised the Jews their brethren. The fatness of his flesh shall wax lean: on account of their prosperity they became proud, as horses that are fat grow restive; God threatens that he will take away their fatness.

Jacob brought low in that day.

Wesley: Gathereth—taking care, as far as may be, that all may be gathered in, and nothing left. So shall the whole body of the ten tribes be carried away captive, some few gleanings only being left. Rephaim—a very fruitful place near Jerusalem. A harvest that leaves almost nothing.

Rephaim’s field is a valley by Jerusalem. Do not turn the reaper into a modern coalition. The ten tribes are gathered as grain.

Calvin: it will be like when the harvest-man gathereth the corn. He shews by a comparison how great will be the desolation. As the reapers gather the corn in armfuls, so this multitude, though large and extended, will be mowed down by the enemies. That he may not leave a remainder, he adds that at the conclusion of the harvest the ears will be gleaned; even the shaken and scattered ears will not be left. He employs the metaphor of a harvest because the people, trusting to their great numbers, thought themselves beyond the reach of danger.

The Valley of Rephaim names how clean the field is stripped. Standing grain harvested, then gleaned.

Wesley: Yet—some few Israelites were left after their captivity, who joined themselves to Judah, and were carried captive to Babylon with them, from whence also they returned with them. A few berries on the highest bough.

The remnant is authentic and may yet look to the Maker in v. 7.

Calvin: yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it. This metaphor has a different meaning from the former. He comforts the remnant, that they may not be discouraged; though the people be almost wholly destroyed, God will reserve some remnant. Two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough: the remnant appeared to be almost none at all; this promise belongs also to a small church concealed in a few corners. The Lord will hold out a plank to rescue them from shipwreck.

Gleanings are the Lord’s reservation, not chance. Both readings: two or three berries left.

Wesley: A man—those few men that are left. Look—they shall sincerely respect, and trust, and worship God, and God only. Eyes on the Holy One, not on the altars of v. 8.

The leftover may yet look and live.

Calvin: at that day shall a man look to his Maker. He now shews the fruit of this chastisement, for the godly are thereby led to look to God. The looking is the turning of the heart to the true God, which is the end of afflictions. His eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel: they shall no longer wander after creatures.

The look is the remnant’s repentance under the rod, not process-theism. Held in common: man looks to his Maker.

Wesley: Not look—not trust to them, or to worship offered to idols upon them. The work—their own inventions. Groves—which were devised by men, as fit places for the worship of their gods. Images—worshipped in their groves. Fingers’ work is refused.

Application: groves and incense-altars of Israel. Do not copy the look that trusted what the hands made.

Calvin: and he shall not look to the altars. This contrast shews more clearly that the looking mentioned in the former verse is the true worship of God. The work of their hands: he will not place confidence in idols, the workmanship of his own hands. Groves or images: all the instruments of superstition shall be abhorred.

Not the work of their hands.

Wesley: In—the day of Jacob’s trouble, of which he spake v. 4. Uppermost branch—which he that prunes the tree neglects, because he esteems it useless and inconsiderable. Left—which they (the Canaanites) left or forsook because of (or for fear before the children of Israel; and this was a fit example, to awaken the Israelites to a serious belief of this threatening, because God had inflicted the same judgment upon the Canaanites, for the same sins of which they were guilty.

The same emptying that fell on Canaan now waits on Israel.

Calvin: in that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough. He follows out what he had formerly said about the destruction. As a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch which they left from before the children of Israel: the comparison is taken from the Canaanites, whose cities the Israelites occupied when they were driven out. The Israelites shall be driven out of the same cities, and those places shall be as desolate as they were when the Canaanites fled.

The pattern is the Lord’s: what he did to Canaan he will do to a faithless Israel.

Wesley: Thou—O Israel. The rock—that God who was thy only sure defense. Plants—excellent flowers and fruit-trees. Strange—fetched from far countries, and therefore highly esteemed. Forgotten Rock, then a stranger’s vine.

Pleasant plants do not replace the Rock. Do not baptize foreign vines as strength.

Calvin: because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation. He shews the reason why the Lord determines to inflict so severe a punishment: they have forgotten God, who was the author of their salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of their strength. Pleasant plants and strange slips: they were not satisfied with the production of their own country, but in the exercise of unbridled luxury sought for foreign plants; so they forsook God and ran after strange gods.

Israel has forgotten the God of its salvation and the rock of its strength.

Wesley: In the day—thou shalt from day to day, beginning early in the morning, use all diligence that what thou hast planted may thrive. But—when this grievous calamity shall come, all your harvest shall be but one heap. Undisputed: early care, then a harvest that flees.

Diligence at dawn does not buy off the stroke. Incurable pain is the Lord’s day, not a slogan.

Calvin: in the day. This denotes the incessant labor which is bestowed on plants and seeds. In the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: they will spare no labor, and will be so eager that they will not wait till the proper season, but will try to hasten the produce. But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow: all their labor shall be fruitless, and they shall receive no return.

Forced blossom cannot outrun the day of grief. Both traditions agree: the harvest flees. This is the planting described in v. 10.

Wesley: Woe—this is a new prophecy, added for the comfort of God’s people. Many—combined together against Judah. Seas—who invade my land and people with great force, as the sea does when it enters into the land by a breach. No dispute here: many peoples roar like waters.

The roar is still the nations around Judah in that age.

Calvin: Alas for the multitude of many people. Some render Woe, making it to denote execration. Sometimes, as we have said, it is an exclamation of pity. He describes the vast forces of the enemies, that the Jews may not be terrified by their number and power. They make a noise like the noise of the seas: a comparison by which he expresses their rage and violence.

On this both agree: thunder of many peoples.

Wesley reads vv. 12–14 as a new prophecy for the comfort of God’s people: the nations surge against Judah like a sea breaking its banks, yet the terror of evening is gone by morning.

The roaring nations sound unstoppable, yet one rebuke scatters them like chaff on the hills. Arminian readers take the image as comfort to Judah and warning to anyone who trusts the noise of armies.

Calvin: the nations shall rush. Although he appears to follow out that threatening, he now comforts the Church. God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off: a single rebuke of God will be sufficient to put to flight all those forces. Chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind: they shall be scattered with the same ease with which chaff is driven by the wind.

A single rebuke sends the nations fleeing. Both affirm: roaring waters become chaff.

Wesley: Behold—at even there is great terror among God’s people, for fear of their enemies; and before the morning comes, their enemies are cut off. Evening terror, morning emptiness.

The night’s fear is not softened, and the cut-off is the Lord’s.

Calvin: and, behold, at evening tide trouble. The meaning is, As when a storm has been raised in the evening, and as soon as day breaks it is calm, so the terror will be of short duration. Before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us: he addresses the believers who were concealed in the kingdom of Israel, and joins them with the Church. We see here what will be the end of the wicked who have persecuted us; they will be like storms which are subdued by their own violence and quickly disappear.