An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.
Isaiah opens a new oracle against Damascus, the capital of Syria — a power God had once used against His own people. Two questions run through the commentators here: why this city, and how far ahead does the sentence reach?
"Burden": a word with weight
The chapter opens with a term Isaiah uses to head several of these prophecies. Writers disagree about its exact force, and set out two options:
Morrish Bible DictionaryBesides its everyday use, this word occurs at the start of several prophecies, as "The burden of Babylon," "the burden of Moab" (Isa. 13:1; Isa. 15:1, etc.). Scholars are not agreed about the force of massa in such places. Its natural meaning would be "a judgment that lies heavy on the people," but some take its meaning to be "an oracle or sentence pronounced against them."
One writer draws out what the word pictures:
L. M. GrantThe word burden has the thought of a weight heavy to bear, for God is bringing His displeasure to bear on mankind, and He intends people to feel it.
A city that stops being a city
Damascus will not just be damaged. It will lose the status of a city altogether. One writer weighs that against the age and fame of the place:
drop context-less opener; plainer words
The reason: an alliance against Jerusalem
God does not judge Damascus for being foreign. He judges it for the alliance it joined. Syria had sided with Ephraim — the northern kingdom of Israel — against Jerusalem:
Morrish Bible DictionaryIsaiah prophesied that Damascus would become a heap of ruins, because it allied itself with Ephraim against God's city Jerusalem (Isa. 17:1; compare also Amos 1:3-5; Jer. 49:23-27; Zech. 9:1). God had used the kings of Syria to punish Israel; but, as in other cases, He afterwards brought them to nothing for their arrogance and cruelty.
Fulfilled in Isaiah's own century
One writer names the king who actually struck the blow:
split 36-word grade-18 sentence; plain wording
Present event, future horizon
That last sentence points to the method running through this whole block of Isaiah. The prophet takes a live crisis of his own day and uses it as the doorway into something much larger:
J. N. DarbyI do not see how it is possible, in all this part of Isaiah, from chapter 13 and even before, not to see that the Spirit of God is taking up the great plan of God, and speaking of future coming events, but taking hold of present ones as an occasion, and that connected with the government of God then, which will be fully displayed at the end.
The judgment reaches Israel too
The burden begins with Damascus, but the chapter turns to Israel as well. The chastening has a purpose:
archaic wording modernised, meaning kept
Summary
- Word. "Burden" heads the prophecy. It carries God's displeasure as a weight He means people to feel. Writers differ over whether the word means the heavy judgment itself or the sentence spoken against a people.
- Ruin. Damascus, the ancient and famous city of Syria, is not just defeated. It is unmade — a heap of ruins, with the cities of Aroer left as pasture for flocks.
- Reason. An alliance brought the sentence: Syria joined Ephraim against Jerusalem. God had once used Syria's kings to punish Israel, then brought them to nothing for their arrogance and cruelty.
- Record. Tiglath-Pileser, not Sennacherib, destroyed Damascus, as Isaiah 7 had foretold. Yet the prophecy runs on past him to a reappearance and overthrow in the last days.
- Remnant. The same burden reaches Israel, and there it turns to mercy. God takes away every other support until a small remnant looks to the Holy One of Israel alone.