Isaiah 17:1-14--An Oracle Concerning Damascus

Isaiah 17English Standard Version

An Oracle Concerning Damascus
17 An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city
    and will become a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of Aroer are deserted;
    they will be for flocks,
    which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.
3 The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,
    and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Syria will be
    like the glory of the children of Israel,
declares the LORD of hosts.

4 And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
    and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.
5 And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain
    and his arm harvests the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
    in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Gleanings will be left in it,
    as when an olive tree is beaten--
two or three berries
    in the top of the highest bough,
four or five
    on the branches of a fruit tree,
declares the LORD God of Israel.

7 In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. 8 He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

9 In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
    and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant plants
    and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,
11 though you make them grow on the day that you plant them,
    and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,
yet the harvest will flee away
    in a day of grief and incurable pain.

​12 Ah, the thunder of many peoples;
    they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
Ah, the roar of nations;
    they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!
13 The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,
    but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind
    and whirling dust before the storm.
14 At evening time, behold, terror!
    Before morning, they are no more!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
    and the lot of those who plunder us.

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Damascus was the capital city of Syria, which was just to the north of the northern kingdom of Israel.  It was a great city, and it would be hard to imagine that city becoming a heap of ruins.  With the destruction of the Syrian superpower to their north, Israel (called Ephraim here because they were the most powerful of the 10 tribes in the north) would soon fall, as they often paid Syria for protection from other enemies.  It would not just be Israel, but also Judah that would be brought low in that day though, as Judah too had tried to depend on Syria to protect them from the Assyrians and the Babylonians.  Invaders would come in that would strip the Land of all of its resources and take everything of value.  Only gleanings would be left.

The Temple will be destroyed so that anyone who wants to worship the LORD will not be able to go to His altar to offer sacrifices but will have to lift his eyes to heaven to pray to the LORD for atonement.  Why would the LORD allow this?  Because His people had forgotten Him--rejected Him and broken His covenant.  They had become as wicked as the nations around them--sometimes even more wicked than them.  Now the other nations were crying out to God how He could let "His people" get away with this evil and when judgment would come on His own house.  The time had come for this judgment to fall on the house of Jacob.  For His name's sake, He was going to discipline His children.

This does not mean that the LORD hated His people.  He still had a plan for them and still does have a plan for them.  Salvation would come to the world through the Jewish people, and the Scriptures would be written by them, and they would be the first to take the gospel to the world and to lead His Church.  He also has plans for them to be great evangelists for Him in the end times and use 144,000 them of take the gospel to the whole world before the end comes.  No, God discipled them for His glory and their good (and our good too).  This was as much an oracle to Israel and Judah who had trusted in the power of Syria to save them as it was to Syria.