Isaiah 17

¹ The burden of Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

² The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.

³ The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says the LORD of Armies.

⁴ “It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

⁵ It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶ Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says the LORD, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles or the incense altars.

⁹ In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.

¹¹ In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

¹² Ah, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!

¹³ The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴ At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.

Around Isaiah 17

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Isaiah as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

It begins with a vision. In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet sees the Lord on a throne, high and lifted up, and voices call, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies!” Then comes a call for someone to go, and the answer, “Here I am. Send me!”

What he is sent to say is hard and then tender. To Judah and Jerusalem, the first part of the book (chapters 1 to 39) warns of the consequences of injustice and false trust, and it promises a child who will rule on David’s throne. The second part (40 to 55) opens with “Comfort, comfort my people” and speaks to a people in exile, and it tells of a servant who suffers for others. The last part (56 to 66) looks ahead to a renewed people and to a new heavens and a new earth.

Background

Isaiah son of Amoz prophesied in Jerusalem in the second half of the eighth century before Christ, while the Assyrian threat hung over the land. Many scholars think chapters 40 to 66 come from later prophets in his tradition, speaking during and after the exile. Others hold that Isaiah wrote the whole book. Either way, the book reads as one long conversation between God and a people who swing between fear and false confidence.

How Christians read it

No prophet is quoted more in the New Testament. Readers have long weighed who the suffering servant is. Christians read the servant of chapter 53 as fulfilled in the death of Jesus, and Jewish interpretation has most often understood the servant as Israel. Passages such as 7:14 and 9:6 are read by Christians as pointing to Christ, while also having a meaning in Isaiah’s own day. These are old readings held by people who love the same pages.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 20 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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