A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 17: The Burden of Damascus

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 17: The Burden of Damascus

As we hope to have demonstrated discussing the Burden of Moab and Isaiah chapters 15 and 16, the prophecy actually concerns the children of Israel who had dwelt in the land of Moab, the northern portion of the original land of Moab which the Moabites had first lost to the Amorites, and which the children of Israel had later taken for themselves in the days of Moses. This is because all of the cities mentioned in the prophesy were in the lands which were occupied by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, with the possible exceptions of Ar and Kir. However the children of Israel had long held the Moabites themselves as a subject state, and it is plausible that Israelites had also dwelt in those places, after an occupation of nearly 300 years from the time of David. But it is also possible that since Ar and Kir are generic terms, they very likely also applied to Israelite cities in other ways. For example, the Ar mentioned in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 15 is very likely a reference to the city Aroer found on the banks of the river Arnon, a town of Reuben which is mentioned in Joshua chapter 13. While the name Ar simply means city, Aroer means ruins, so it could also be a pejorative for any city. It is used as a pejorative here in a different context in Isaiah chapter 17.

As a digression, this interpretation of the use of the term Moab, which is fully substantiated in Isaiah chapters 15 and 16, also supports our interpretation of the Book of Ruth, and our assertion which is based on several points of evidence within that book, that Ruth was an Israelite in Moab, who was only called a Moabite because of the circumstances of her geographic origin. So if the tribes of Reuben and Gad were called Moab here by the prophet, for reason that they were Israelites dwelling in Moab, then Ruth was also an Israelite dwelling in Moab, as the internal evidence suggests. Certainly Boaz, a pious man, and the elders of Israel with him, portrayed as having been pious men, were also all described as having upheld the law of Moses, so it is not just to imagine that they would transgress that same law of Moses by bringing a racial Moabitess into the congregation, which is contrary to the law. One law cannot force a man to transgress another.

As a pejorative, there may be an even greater significance to calling the children of Israel who had dwelt in the land of Moab after the name of Moab. That is because at an early time they had evidently also begun worshipping the idols of Moab, as we read in Judges chapter 10: “6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.” With that description, it is quite likely that the Israelites dwelling within proximity of the Sidonians had worshipped the idols of Sidon, those near to the Philistines had worshipped the idols of Philistia, and those in proximity to Moab had worshipped the idols of Moab, etc. So in the eyes of Yahweh, having abandoned Him, they would have been no better than Sidonians, Philistines and Moabites. However being His children, He would punish them and take them away, rather than destroying them completely. That is the primary message found here throughout the prophecy of Isaiah, and it also applies in the burden of Damascus which now follows, as we come to Isaiah chapter 17.

Perhaps it is a prophetic type, that the steward to whom Abraham had wished to leave his inheritance, but whom Yahweh God had rejected in favor of a true, genetic son, was named Eliezer of Damascus. However the law in Deuteronomy chapter 23, if it is to be read properly and in context with the balance of Scripture, says “7 Thou shalt not abhor a Syrian; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.” Unfortunately, the words Aram and Edom were often confused in Scripture, but we are not compelled to accept the confusion as Holy Writ. This interpretation of Deuteronomy 23:7 is supported in Deuteronomy chapter 26 where we read: “5 And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.” The Syrian in that passage is a description of Jacob himself, a Syrian by geography.

The promise to Abraham was a promise of lands far beyond the traditional boundaries of the inheritance of the twelve tribes in the days of Joshua. First, in Genesis chapter 13, where Abram is on the mountain ridge near Hebron, we read:

14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

Then in Genesis chapter 15 we read:

18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.

From the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates comprises most of the lands later known as Israel, Judah, Lebanon, and both Syria and parts of Arabia as far as the border of Mesopotamia, which is the river Euphrates. It would include lands inhabited by the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Midian, Edom and Ishmael as well as many of the Canaanite tribes.

This promise was not fulfilled in the days of Moses or Joshua, but it was fulfilled in the time of David. So in 2 Samuel chapter 8, not long after David became king of all Israel, we read:

1 And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them: and David took Methegammah out of the hand of the Philistines. 2 And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts. 3 David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. 4 And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: and David houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred chariots. 5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men. 6 Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went. 7 And David took the shields of gold that were on the servants of Hadadezer, and brought them to Jerusalem. 8 And from Betah, and from Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, king David took exceeding much brass. 9 When Toi king of Hamath heard that David had smitten all the host of Hadadezer, 10 Then Toi sent Joram his son unto king David, to salute him, and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadadezer, and smitten him: for Hadadezer had wars with Toi. And Joram brought with him vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass: 11 Which also king David did dedicate unto the LORD, with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued; 12 Of Syria, and of Moab, and of the children of Ammon, and of the Philistines, and of Amalek, and of the spoil of Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah.

Now in the balance of the passage which follows, there is another occurrence of the confusion between the words for Edom and Aram:

13 And David gat him a name when he returned from smiting of the Syrians in the valley of salt, being eighteen thousand men. 14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went. 15 And David reigned over all Israel; and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people.

This error is from a simple mistake in reading two very similar Hebrew letters, the d or daleth and the r or resh, which are indeed easily confused on account of their similarity. In a modern typeface, the word Edom is אדם, a-d-m or e-d-m and the word Syria, or properly, Aram, is ארם or a-r-m. However in the handwriting of at least many scribes, the daleth and the resh are very often easily mistaken. This was not a problem with the original Hebrew alphabet, but only with the Hebrew character set which is used today, which was apparently contrived in the third or second centuries BC. The Dead Sea Scrolls are said to have used both scripts. So in 2 Kings chapter 14 there is a recollection of this event in the Valley of Salt and we read: “7 He slew of Edom [not of the Syrians, as the King James has it in 2 Samuel] in the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day.” So there the word for Edom was read properly, where in 2 Samuel chapter 8 it was mistaken by the English translators for Aram. This is a translation problem, but it might also have been caused by scribes copying Hebrew manuscripts.

With this, it is evident that David had subjected all of the land of the Levant, from the River of Egypt, which had apparently been the border of the Philistines with Egypt, to the edges of the river Euphrates in the north and west. Much of the land between Israel proper and the Euphrates had belonged to various, independent tribes of Aram, one of them being in Damascus, and another being in Zobah, both of which were mentioned here. [1]

Later, it is apparent in several places that Judah had retained these nations as subject states for quite some period of time, but had evidently lost control of its subject states in Syria at some time in the period of the divided Kingdom. Therefore, speaking of Jeroboam II, who had ruled Israel in the early 8th century BC and who died about thirty-two years before the fall of Samaria, we read in 2 Kings chapter 14: “28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”

Accounts of the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah are usually portrayed in a simplistic manner, firstly because the narrative in Scripture is centered on Israel and Judah within the lands of the inheritances of the twelve tribes as they were described in the Book of Joshua. However there were many things which had transpired in these peripheral areas, upon which Scripture is very often silent, or sometimes, interpreters and commentators do not fully realize the implications of certain statements.

Abraham was told that his seed would possess all the land which was later subjected by David, and apparently Israel had flourished throughout that land as well as in their original tribal inheritances. One example of that is in the activities of the so-called Phoenicians, who were certainly of Israel, and another is in Damascus. So even though there may have been people of Aram who had remained in those places, they belonged to Israel even here as late as the time of Isaiah, and Jeroboam II had reasserted political control of them over the decades which immediately preceded the time of Isaiah.

The Israelite presence in Damascus should be evident in the account of the ministry of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. First, in 1 Kings chapter 19, Yahweh spoke to Elijah concerning Syria and Israel and we read:

15 And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: 16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.

Later, Elisha, was sent to Damascus by Yahweh in order to anoint Hazael as its king. This would be not long after the deaths of Ahab and Jezebel, which were about ninety years before the death of Jeroboam II. So we read, in 2 Kings chapter 8:

7 And Elisha came to Damascus; and Benhadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither. 8 And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? 9 So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? 10 And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the LORD hath shewed me that he shall surely die. 11 And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept. 12 And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. 13 And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The LORD hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria. 14 So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover.

This raises questions that we may only answer with suppositions, however as we proceed here in Isaiah, we shall see those suppositions are supported to some great degree. When David had subjected these states, he would have appointed governors over them, as he had placed garrisons of troops in them. This is evident concerning Edom, in the days of Jehoshaphat, as it is recorded in 1 Kings chapter 22: “47 There was then no king in Edom: a deputy was king.” That deputy would have been appointed by the king of Judah in Jerusalem, because Edom was a subject state of Judah. Here in the account of Elisha, the king of Damascus, Benhadad, was portrayed as having recognized Elisha as “the man of God”, and as having recognized that God as Yahweh, the God of Israel. Then sending Hazael to meet Elisha, Hazael had brought Elisha numerous gifts, and subjected himself to Elisha calling him lord, so being a representative of Benhadad, he did so on behalf of the king of Damascus. Then when he was told of his own fate, Hazael was ashamed at the thought of slaying Israelites, to the point where he had likened himself to a dog.

So the words of Elisha to Hazael, where he told him “I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel”, do not preclude the possibility that Hazael was also an Israelite, or that many of the people of Damascus at this time may have been of Israel, since Israel had a three-hundred year occupation of Damascus. A prophecy made by Amos, an early contemporary of Isaiah, reflects what things Hazael had done in Israel. From Amos chapter 1:

3 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad. 5 I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.

While there are no definite records, it is also plausible that these kings of Damascus were deputies appointed by Judah, who later put off the yoke of Judah during the time of the divided kingdom, but fell subject to Israel once again in the time of Jeroboam II. It just as plausible that a significant number of the people of Damascus were also of Israel, because Damascus was a possession of Israel for several hundred years. With the people of Aram having been a kindred people and kin to Israel, and also having been accepted in the laws of Moses, there may also have been a large degree of assimilation over those same centuries. In any event, the kings of Damascus recognized Yahweh the God of Israel and they had submitted themselves to His prophets, while His prophets had apparently accepted them.

Therefore, just as the burden of Moab was a message for the children of Israel dwelling in the land of Moab, we would assert that the burden of Damascus is a message for the children of Israel dwelling in Syria, who were subjects of Damascus. While we are not informed in Scripture of the precise political status of Damascus at this time, and there were further wars between Damascus and Israel, here at the time of Isaiah Damascus and Israel had been partners in the plot to overthrow the kings of Judah, which we had seen in chapter 7 of Isaiah, in the days of Ahaz king of Judah, but shortly thereafter, Tiglath-Pileser III subjected Damascus to Assyria as well as Samaria. When Samaria revolted in the time of Shalmaneser V, Damascus did not follow.

As we proceed through this chapter, it will become even more apparent that the burden of Damascus was a burden for the children of Israel in Damascus. So with this background, we shall commence with Isaiah chapter 17:

Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 

Because Isaiah very frequently writes of events which had not yet transpired as if they had transpired already, a method which is an expression of the surety of the Word of Yahweh, it is often difficult to determine if something stated in the past tense had actually already transpired. As we have already described in Part 7 of this commentary, in the time of Ahaz and Tiglath-Pileser, while he apparently refused to help Ahaz against Damascus and Israel, as it was recorded in 2 Chronicles chapter 28, he did ultimately help Ahaz indirectly. In an inscription of which the date in relation to his rule evidently did not survive, some time after the ninth year of Tiglath-Pileser, it is recorded in his words that he had invaded Israel, and “They overthrew their king Pekah (Pa-qa-ha) and I placed Hoshea (A-ú-si-’) as king over them. I received from them 10 talents of gold, 1,000 (?) talents of silver as their [tri]bute and brought them to Assyria.” Of Rezin the king of Damascus, although his personal fate is not mentioned explicitly, in that same inscription we read “I laid siege to and conquered the town Hadara, the inherited property of Rezon of Damascus (Sa-imeriiu), [the place where] he was born. I brought away as prisoners 800 (of its) inhabitants with their possessions … their large (and) small cattle. 750 prisoners from Kurussa [… prisoners] from Irma, 550 prisoners from Metuna I brought (also) away. 592 towns … of the 16 districts of the country of Damascus (Sa-imeriiu) I destroyed (making them look) like hills of (mined cities over which) the flood (had swept).” [2]

So while it may seem that this had already happened to Damascus, since by this time Ahaz is dead, and Tiglath-Pileser had died around this same time, later Sargon II had also apparently put down a rebellion in Damascus. Sargon destroyed Samaria in the first year of his rule, and in the second year, both a repopulated Samaria and Damascus had revolted from him. His surviving inscriptions record that at that time he had taken over nine thousand inhabitants from Rapihu, his name for a town in Gaza, but for the others the numbers of captives are not provided. [3]

While the relevant inscription is found in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, here we shall repeat it in part from Luckenbill’s Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia:

5. In my second year of reign, Ilu-’bi’di of Hamath ….. of the wide [land of Amurru?] he gathered together at the city of Karkar and the oath ………. [the cities of Arpad, Simirra], Damascus, and Samaria [revolted against me] ………… [4]

There in the translation of that inscription, there are rather long ellipses which indicate that lengthy portions of the text are missing in the inscription itself. So we do not know explicitly whether Damascus had met the same fate as Samaria had the year before, however in later inscriptions Sargon stated that he resettled in Damascus people from elsewhere in the empire who had also rebelled. It is evident in Scripture as well as in other Assyrian inscriptions from Sargon and other kings, that this replacement policy was employed once rebels from a particular city were removed. So it is evident that the original inhabitants of Damascus must have been removed in this year, where Sargon had left another inscription detailing the activities of the fifth year of his reign, we cite from the same source:

9. The people of the cities Pâpa and Lallukna, dogs who had been brought up in my palace, plotted openly against the land of Kakmê. I tore them from their homes (places) and brought them to Damascus of Amurru. [5]

It is evident in many places that the Assyrians considered the land west of the Euphrates to be Amurru, or the land of the Amorites, as much of it generally had been before the conquest of the Amorites by the children of Israel. Here, in his fifth year, Sargon was repopulating Damascus with rebels from other cities, and that policy is evident in Scripture in Ezra chapter 4, where certain people in Samaria were trying to prevent the rebuilding of the temple:

8 Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort: 9 Then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions; the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites, 10 And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river, and at such a time.

The name Asnappar is probably an epithet for the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. But this policy is also evident in the time of his predecessor, Esarhaddon, and we read a little earlier in that same chapter of Ezra certain of the aliens in Samaria had at first wanted to join the Judaeans, and they were refused:

2 Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3 But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.

Having this policy for many years, from at least the time of Tiglath-Pileser III, it is evident that Sargon II very likely had destroyed Damascus in the second year of his rule and, according to this prophecy in Isaiah, had deported its surviving residents to some place called Kir before bringing people from elsewhere into Damascus three years later. This may be explicit, if the surviving inscriptions were not damaged with large sections missing from the text. The Assyrians did not move new peoples in with the original inhabitants, since the policy was implemented as a means to maintain a forced peace within the empire, and not to create further strife. So Damascus must have been barren when Sargon II resettled the people from Pâpa and Lallukna. 

The second year of the reign of Sargon was about 7 years after the death of Ahaz, and no longer, as we have already explained in earlier portions of this commentary. That would be only a short time after Isaiah’s words at the end of chapter 14 here, that he received the burden concerning Babylon in the year that Ahaz died, and he then proceeded with the burden of Moab and this burden of Damascus. So if Sargon had destroyed Damascus at that time, which is apparent but not explicit in the surviving inscriptions, then that would be the near-vision fulfillment of this prophecy here in Isaiah. In any event, while Damascus was reduced and repopulated by these Assyrian kings at this time. The Damascus of later prophets, such as Jeremiah, had existed in entirely different circumstances, and if there were any of the original people left, they must have been from a small remnant which may have survived the time of Sargon II, as Isaiah shall indicate here.

2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 

The Septuagint has no reference to Aroer here, but instead seems to have interpreted the Hebrew word as a common adjective meaning forever, where it continues the sentence from verse 1 where it said of Damascus that “it shall be a ruinous heap”, and as it is in Brenton’s translation it reads: “abandoned for ever, to be a fold and resting-place for flocks, and there shall be none to go after them.” While the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible translates the passage in the same manner as the King James Version, the editors have Oraru rather than Aroer, for no other reason than a statement that it is a “possible form”, and in spite of the fact that there is no known place in the region which had bore that name.

We would rather translate the Hebrew word for Aroer, ערער or arar (# 6177), which Strong’s defined as nudity, after the meaning of its apparent root word ערר or arar, (# 6209), which is to bare or demolish, and interpret it here to mean that “The cities of ruin are forsaken”. We had first described the destruction of the cities surrounding Damascus in the time of Tiglath-Pileser III in relation to the prophecy of Isaiah in Part 7 of this commentary, where he foretold of the end of the reigns of Rezin, king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel. Now here we have once again cited the inscription from Tiglath-Pileser III stating that he took captives from Damascus, and destroyed 592 of the surrounding towns and villages. They would certainly be the “cities of ruin” which are now going to be forsaken to the point that even the flocks which gather there shall remain undisturbed.

3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has fortresses, in the plural. The Septuagint seems to support this, where it has a plural form of a word meaning strong or secure, but translates the verb represented as cease here in a different manner. However Brenton translated the plural Greek noun in the singular, where he has in his Septuagint “And she [Damascus] shall no longer be a strong place for Ephraim to flee to…” however we would translate the same Greek clause to read “And there shall no longer be strong places for Ephraim to flee to…” In the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text, the word for fortress, or strong place, is singular. The verb which is translated in the Septuagint as to flee is more literally cease or interrupt, although it may also mean remove. In our opinion, flee is incorrect.

This is a warning of doom, as the glory of the children of Israel was in the process of being brought to shame. This we read in a prophecy in Isaiah chapter 6:

13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.1 14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

So we read another very similar warning here:

4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. 

Here there is more than what most readers may see on the surface. If fortress is plural, it could be describing the flight of Ephraim to the cities in and around Damascus. But when Ephraim was invaded by the Assyrians in the final year of Shalmaneser V, Damascus had already been subjected by his predecessor Tiglath-Pileser III, and Damascus did not revolt at the time of the siege of Samaria. So it is unlikely that people of Ephraim could have fled to Damascus, since Damascus was loyal to Assyria and could not have harbored the fugitives, since that would have been seen as an act of treachery. So in our opinion, the better reading is the singular fortress of the Masoretic Text.

The fortress ceasing from Ephraim is an indication that Ephraim would no longer be protected by Yahweh. For example, we read in the words of David in 2 Samuel chapter 22:

2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; 3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

Later, in Lamentations chapter 2, Jeremiah referred to Yahweh as the “wall of the daughter of Zion”.

Here, as the glory of Damascus and the remnant of Syria suffer the same fate as the glory of the children of Israel, the end of their glory contributes equally to the making thin of the glory of Jacob. So we must assert that their end is a factor in the waxing lean of the fatness of Jacob’s flesh. Ephraim is not a direct subject of this prophecy, but because Yahweh would withdraw His protection from Ephraim, Damascus and the remnant of Syria would fall, so those people must be of Ephraim.

The “remnant of Syria” are the Israelites in Syria, and the kingdom in Damascus is the kingdom of Israel in Damascus. All of this prophecy is for the children of Israel, and the judgment which is coming upon them at the hand of the Assyrians. Any people of Aram who were in their midst would only share their fate consequentially. When Yahweh ceased to protect Ephraim, Damascus and Syria in general were also doomed to the same fate, because the preponderance of those people were evidently also of Ephraim. Their having been diminished would contribute to the thinning of Jacob’s flesh. [If I repeat myself, it is only to ensure that I am giving the fullest possible explanation.]

Now the taking of Damascus and Syria are portrayed as a harvest:

5 And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim. 

Rather than “valley of Rephaim”, a place mentioned several times in the Old Testament, the Septuagint has only “rich valley.” The Valley of Rephaim, the reading with which the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible agrees, was apparently a very fertile plain, and this seems to indicate that the Assyrians would gather a great number of the people of Israel, the flesh of Jacob, from Ephraim and Israel out of Damascus and Syria. But a remnant would escape death or captivity, which is indicated here in verse 6:

6 Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel. 

This remnant seems to have been represented over a hundred years later, in the Damascus of the time of Jeremiah spoken of in Jeremiah chapter 49. There in that chapter people are warned to flee from the coming terror which would be brought upon the land by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, for which the remnants of Damascus and Hamath are portrayed as being in fear. To be precise, it was just under a hundred and twenty years from the death of Ahaz to the rise of Nebuchadnezzar (perhaps 721-605 BC).

Now there is further evidence that the people of Damascus and Syria who are the subjects of this prophecy were actually of Israel:

7 At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. 8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images. 

Throughout Scripture, Yahweh asserted for Himself to be the God of Israel, and not the God of any other nation, even kindred nations, in spite of the fact that He is also their Creator. All of the other nations of the sons of Noah were left “to walk in their own ways”, as Paul of Tarsus had explained in Acts chapter 14 (14:16). But only Israel had commandments prohibiting the idolatry which is illustrated here, and Yahweh being the Holy One of Israel, here He is referring to those same Israelites.

So evidently, Israel is the subject of verse 9, as Jacob was the subject of what had preceded:

9 In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation. 

While remnants of the people had survived, the cities of Israel had indeed been left desolate. Although Samaria and Damascus would later be repopulated with aliens, they would nevertheless be desolate in the eyes of Yahweh their God, because the people of Israel were, for the most part, either slain or taken away into captivity.

Now there shall be absolutely no doubt that Israel is the subject here, and nobody else is included, even though the burden is for Damascus:

10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: 

Yahweh was not the God of Aram, or the Rock of Aram, or the Salvation of Aram, and the people of Aram were never given the law so that they could be mindful of Him. Yahweh is the God of Israel, they alone were His pleasant plants, and having the law, they alone had any opportunity to be mindful of Him. This is in spite of the fact that Aram was a kindred people.

This exclusivity of the purpose of the Word of God would continue to be announced in reference to Israel throughout the prophesy of Isaiah. So, for example, we read in Isaiah chapter 40: “ 8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. 9 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.”

That Israel, and Judah, are Yahweh’s pleasant plant is apparent in Isaiah chapter 6:

7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

For that, as well as for other sins, their punishment is being announced here in the burden of Damascus, relative to the Israelites who had inhabited Damascus at the time of Isaiah.

Here where Yahweh had informed Israel that on account of their punishment their pleasant plants would be set with strange slips, the reference is to race-mixing, that these strong cities of ancient Palestine would become inhabited with people of mixed races. So for that reason:

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. 

The Septuagint has a completely different sense for verse 11, where Brenton has: “11  In the day wherein thou shalt plant thou shalt be deceived; but if thou sow in the morning, the seed shall spring up for a crop in the day wherein thou shalt obtain an inheritance, and as a man's father, thou shalt obtain an inheritance for thy sons.” While the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible translates the passage differently than the King James Version, the sense nevertheless agrees with the Masoretic Text, and not the Septuagint. These versions also render verse 11 in agreement with the context of verse 10, where a plant sprouting strange slips results in a harvest of sorrow, but the Septuagint rendering is not in agreement.

So here the far-vision aspect of Isaiah’s prophecy also seems to come into view, as Isaiah had prophesied for the distant future of the children of Israel as well as for the immediate present of his own time. Because Israel had done these things in antiquity, that is why Israel would be destined to be beset by other nations in later history. So there is a warning to the nations who would later come to occupy the lands which had belonged to Israel:

12 Woe to the multitude of many people, 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! 13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. 

The likening of the nations of the world to a sea is stronger in the Septuagint interpretation, where Brenton has these verses to read: “12 Woe to the multitude of many nations, as the swelling sea, so shall ye be confounded; and the force of many nations shall sound like water; 13 many nations like much water, as when much water rushes violently: and they shall drive him away, and pursue him afar, as the dust of chaff when men winnow before the wind, and as a storm whirling the dust of the wheel.” We may discuss this metaphor further, when we come to Isaiah chapter 21 and “the burden of the desert of the sea.” For now it shall suffice to say that rivers are often used as metaphors for races of men in Scripture, and the sea of Revelation chapter 21 where it says that “there was no more sea” seems also to represent the mass of the goat nations, those who are not written into the Book of Life, who are cast into the Lake of Fire.

At least most of the people of the Assyrian empire were Adamic, except for the Canaanites who had mingled with Rephaim and other aliens which had ostensibly come forth of the Nephilim. In the short term, this could describe the Assyrian armies, and all the armies of the empires which followed them. However until Israel is finally gathered together in Christ, this describes all people of all races which have encroached on the lands wherever Israel has dwelt throughout history.

The final verse of the chapter strengthens our interpretation:

14 And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us. 

The first clause here reflects the speed in which the enemies of Yahweh, who oppose His people Israel, shall ultimately be destroyed.

As we read in the prophesy of Obadiah:

15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. 16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

Then again, in Revelation chapter 18:

1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

Similar parallel prophecies are found in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 and elsewhere, but this should be sufficient to establish the far-vision reach of this prophecy of Isaiah for Israel. The Burden of Damascus is a burden for those Israelites who had dwelt in Damascus at the time of the Assyrian invasions, informing them that they would not avoid the judgment of God which would come upon all Israel.

This concludes our commentary through Isaiah chapter 17.

Footnotes

1 Damascus, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus, accessed January 2nd, 2025. 

2 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, pp. 283-284.

3 ibid., pp. 284-285.

4 Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, Volume II: Historical Records of Assyria from Sargon to the End, Daniel David Luckenbill, Ph.D., University of Chicago Press, 1926, p. 11.

5 ibid., p. 12.