What does Isaias Chapter 17 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Damascus and Ephraim lose aid and kingdom while Jacob grows thin. The remnant and return to the Maker retain agricultural images. The closing army identification belongs to the separately labeled edition note.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 17 announces Damascus becoming a stone heap, Aroer's cities left to undisturbed flocks, Ephraim's aid ending and Damascus losing its kingdom. Syria's remnant is compared with Israel's glory. Jacob grows thin; harvest gleaning in Raphaim, a remaining grape cluster and a few olives describe what is left.

Man turns toward the Maker and Holy One rather than handmade altars, groves and temples. Strong cities are forsaken like abandoned ploughs and corn; the edition identifies the earlier abandonment with the Chanaanites. Forgotten divine help accompanies good plants and strange seed, wild grape at planting, early flourishing and a harvest taken away with grief. The chapter does not narrate foreign diplomatic negotiations, solar pillars or a clinical wasting disease.

Roaring multitudes and overflowing waters meet rebuke and flight, compared with mountain dust and whirlwind before tempest. Evening trouble ends with morning absence, the portion of those who wasted and spoiled us. The edition identifies this concluding oracle with Sennacherib's Assyrian army; that interpretation remains separately attributed. A universal claim that suffering necessarily purifies every person is not supplied.

The story inside

Opening: Damascus and Ephraim lose aid and kingdom while Jacob grows thin. Development: The remnant and return to the Maker retain agricultural images. Conclusion: The closing army identification belongs to the separately labeled edition note.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Damascus and Ephraim lose aid and kingdom while Jacob grows thin.
2
The remnant and return to the Maker retain agricultural images.
3
The closing army identification belongs to the separately labeled edition note.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79878–79879
17:1. The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones.
Lines 79884–79886
17:3. And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel: saith the Lord of hosts.
Lines 79888–79889
17:4. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.
Lines 79895–79898
17:6. And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, saith the Lord the God of Israel.
Lines 79900–79901
17:7. In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
Lines 79903–79905
17:8. And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made; and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples.
Lines 79914–79916
17:10. Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not remembered thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant good plants, and shalt sow strange seed.
Lines 79922–79923
17:12. Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters.
Lines 79933–79935
17:14. In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us.