Isaiah 17

An Oracle Concerning Damascus

1An oracle concerning Damascus. Look, Damascus is being removed from being a city; it will become a heap of ruins.

2The cities of Aroer are abandoned; they will be for flocks, which will lie down with none to make them afraid.

3The fortress will cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Aram; they will be like the glory of the sons of Israel, declares Yahweh of hosts.

4And it will happen in that day: the glory of Jacob will grow thin, and the fatness of his flesh will waste away.

5And it will be as when a reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears; and it will be as when one gleans ears in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleanings will be left in it, as at the beating of an olive tree: two, three berries at the top of the topmost bough, four, five on its fruitful branches, declares Yahweh, the God of Israel.

7In that day humankind will look to their Maker, and their eyes will gaze toward the Holy One of Israel.

8And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not gaze at what his fingers have made—the Asherim and the incense altars.

9In that day his fortified cities will be like the abandonment of the woods and the mountaintop, which they abandoned before the sons of Israel; and it will become a desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and the Rock of your refuge you have not remembered. Therefore you plant pleasant plantings and sow with a foreign vine-slip.

11On the day you plant, you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed blossom—yet the harvest is a heap in a day of grief and incurable pain.

The Roaring Nations Rebuked

12Woe, the roar of many peoples—they roar like the roaring of the seas—and the din of nations—they crash like the crashing of mighty waters.

13The nations crash like the crashing of many waters; but he rebukes them, and they flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, like whirling dust before a storm.

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

Open in the interactive reader →

Cross-references in this chapter

Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.

An Oracle Concerning Damascus

• parallel Isaiah 24:13 — Both use the same image of gleanings left after the beating of an olive tree to depict a surviving remnant.
• allusion 2 Samuel 5:18 — The Valley of Rephaim named as a place associated with harvest imagery echoes the Philistine battleground of David's day.
• allusion Deuteronomy 32:15 — Both use the divine title Rock and accuse Israel of forgetting the God of their salvation.
• allusion Deuteronomy 32:18 — Shared accusation of forgetting the Rock who is the God of salvation.
• allusion Isaiah 2:8 — Both condemn worship of idols as the work of human hands, what their fingers have made.
• thematic Amos 1:3 — Both pronounce judgment oracles against Damascus and Aram, announcing the fall of its kingdom.
• thematic Isaiah 10:20 — Both describe a future day when Israel will lean on and look to the Holy One of Israel rather than idols or foreign help.
• thematic Jeremiah 49:23 — Both are prophetic oracles specifically concerning the destruction of Damascus.

The Roaring Nations Rebuked

• allusion Isaiah 29:5 — Both depict the enemy hordes being scattered suddenly like chaff and dust before the wind at God's rebuke.
• allusion Psalms 1:4 — Both describe the wicked/nations being driven away like chaff before the wind.
• thematic Isaiah 37:36 — Both describe enemy armies destroyed overnight, gone before morning, a sudden divine deliverance.