Isaiah 17:11 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; thou shalt from day to day, beginning early in the morning, use all care and diligence that what thou hast planted and sown may thrive; and thou shalt see some effect of thy labours, and some hopes of success. But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow: the sense of the words thus rendered is this, But in the time of your grief, &c., or when this grievous calamity shall come, all your harvest shall be but one heap, which in itself is very inconsiderable, and is easily carried away by your enemies. But the place is and may be otherwise rendered, and that very agreeably both to the words and order of the Hebrew text; But the heap (or, heaps, the singular number being most commonly put for the plural) of the harvest (i.e. instead of those heaps of corn which thou didst expect, and which men usually reap in harvest) in the day or time (to wit, of the harvest; or, in the day of calamity, of which I have spoken, Isaiah 17:4,9; or, in a day, i.e. speedily or suddenly) shall be (or, thou shalt have) grief and desperate sorrow. This shall be all thy harvest, and the event of thy labours.