Isaiah 17, which is “an oracle concerning Damascus,” starts with a declaration of the fall of Damascas. It will “cease to be a city” and will become “a heap of ruins.” The cities will themselves become a wilderness roamed by flocks rather than a picture of civilized man ruling, filling, and subduing the earth as the imagio dei. In this oracle concerning Damascus, the fates of Damascus and Israel are interwoven. “The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus.” In saying that Syria will “be like “Israel (v. 3), too, Isaiah refers to what will become of Syria as “remnant.” Remember from Isaiah 7 that God told Isaiah to confront Ahaz his king with Isaiah’s “son” named “a remnant shall return.” God, for some reason, appears to be tying the fate of Syria to that of Israel. Isaiah had even previously referred to Israel’s fate as that of a “heap of ruins” in Ch. 3, v. 6.
So, what will become of Israel? When Damascas is ruined and deserted, Jacob’s “glory” “will be brought low.” In the context of Northern Israel’s political and military alliance with Damascus to attack Judah, the question comes to mind: is Jacob brought low because he looked to Damascus for his glory? What will be left of (the remnant of) Israel when Damascus falls is offered in the images of an olive tree with very few fruits or of a harvested field left over of merely gleanings. So, these images in vs. 4-6 serve as the picture of what was meant in vs. 3 when it was declared that the “remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel.”
Why is the glory of Jacob brought low? Why will it happen when Damascus falls? “For man will look to his Maker…” Man will “will not look to…the works of his hands…” The obvious implication is that Jacob and Damascus can give thanks to idols for their fate. So, “in that day,” the “looking to” the works of his hands will lead to its inevitable end. “Strong cities” will become “deserted.” The image of Damascus as a wilderness from the opening verses of the chapter is affirmed again in v. 9.
Why is the glory of Damascus brought low? Why will cities that appeared impenetrable become wastelands of ruins? Why is the question repeated? The answer had just been given in verses 7-8, and yet it’s answered, and, thus, implicitly asked again in verses 10-11! “FOR you have…” Where Jacob will be brought low when Damascus falls, because Jacob looked to Damascus and her idols for her glory, Damascus will fall because Jacob has “forgotten the God of your salvation” and has “not remembered the Rock of your refuge,” which is a reference to the very presence of One True God in Israel’s midst (see Isaiah 3: 8). And, in speaking of Damascus’ ruin, God tells Israel – in these same verses – that “though you sow the vine-branches of a stranger…on the day that you plant them” your “harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain.” How does any of this make any sense?
Jacob falls because of Damascus, and Syria falls because of Israel. Why will Damascus fall because of Jacob’s forgetting of God? And, why will Israel fall because of Syria’s idols? I think the answer is Israel’s union with Syria. The politico-military alliance between Damascus and N. Israel to attack Judah is like a marriage. That “the two became one flesh” is the whole reason God forbade marriage with the Canaanites as Jacob entered the promised land. This is precisely why God seems to be tying together the fates of Damascus and Jacob in Isaiah 17. It’s also why God is pointing to Israel’s punishment in this “oracle against Damascus!”
Not only did God forbid Israel to intermarry with the Canaanites, but He also promised that Israel, as part of her favor in the eyes of God and as an extension of the covenant blessings laid out in Deuberonomy 27-30, would live in houses he didn’t build and reap the harvest of plants he didn’t sow. So, in verse 10, when Isaiah says “though you plant pleasant plants” (that “grow in a day”) and “sow the vine-branch of a stranger, yet the harvest will flee away,” is God mocking Damascus for what is becoming of their marriage with a hated foreigner, or is God reminding Israel of what He told them not to do? If God is ironically reminding Israel how they have twisted the blessings of the covenant into curses, then “sowing the vine-branch of the foreigner” becomes both a pointer to Israel’s alliance with Damascus and a re-affirmation of the imagery of verse 6, in which Jacob’s glory comes to that of an empty and already harvested field.
Isaiah 2: 1-4, rather than a picture of the identity of Israel becoming one with that of the nations, is a picture of Israel blessing the nations through obedience, bringing peace.
And, speaking of Jacob’s glory, Isaiah goes on to refer to the glory of mighty armies covering mountains of the earth. Their “thunder like the thundering of the sea” brings forth the image of the terribly fearsome battle cry of so many warriors brought together by this false union between foreigners.
And, yet, verses 13 and 14 reveal that the false union between Jacob and Damascus was born out of the false divorce between Northern Israel and Judah in the first place. Damascus and N. Israel gather a mighty, glorious army to attack Ephraim’s brother, and God “rebukes them” (v. 13). Their “rebuke” is constituted by their disappearance from the mountains. They will blow away “like chaff on the mountains before the wind” (vs. 13) – again echoing what will become of the glory of Jacob in vs. 6 and 11.
These terrible armies will disappear like mere dust in a wind storm (v. 13). The great mountains of man’s power will be revealed as small hills that parody the peaceful mountain of God, the “Rock of [Israel’s] refuge” (v. 10). Isaiah 2: 2: “…the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills…” This was to be accomplished through the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, Israel blessing the nations through obedience.
The terrible glory of man in the battle cry of his voice will behold the terror of God in the wind (v. 14). The thunderous voice of man’s battle is juxtaposed against the power of God by which the brotherhood of man “shall beat their swords into plowshares” in Isaiah 2: 4. “…behold, terror!…This is the portion of those who loot US, and the lot of those who plunder US” (Isiah 17: 14). Though the violently divorced half of Israel remarries a foreigner and his gods and lashes out in attack of her ex, God mysteriously preserves the original unity of His people in the punishment of their enemies, which is itself – because of both the false division of divorce and the false unity of the remarriage – the curse of disobedience upon Israel herself. Hebrews 12: 6.
Israel pursued what appeared to be a glorious beauty, through union with it, no less. The image of Israel that appeared as a result of this union with another Jezebel, though, was far more terrible than beautiful. A fruitless olive tree can actually look pretty, but, with a deeper look into the fabric of reality – all fabrics have a maker, who has a purpose for said fabric – the terror of death is beheld. This is why the picture above is of a “beautiful” but fruitless olive tree. This is not said without self-reflection. It becomes a question and prayer of what “glory” I am “looking to” unite with my flesh, and, thus, to what end (vs 7-8). Isaiah 17 is also not without its political implications for the church in America, having married its identity to the United States of America through the idea of America as a “Christian nation.”
Knowing God 