Isaiah 17:4-6 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And in that day, &c.— The Ephraimites and Syrians, guilty of the same fault, were to suffer the same punishment; wherefore, in the former period, wherein the prophet foretold the fate of Damascus, he at the same time mentioned that of the Ephraimites. But here, in describing their punishment more particularly, he proceeds in such a manner, that his prophesy approaches nearly to history. He shews, very clearly, that the judgment which God would inflict upon the Ephraimites should be twofold. In the former, wherein their distress from Tiglath-pileser is described, he shews that God would throw in some alleviation, Isaiah 17:4-8 in the other, that God would consummate his judgment against the impenitent, and would bring upon the land of the Ephraimites entire desolation, Isaiah 17:9-11 which is the calamity brought upon them by Salmanezer. The prophet explains the judgment upon Ephraim by two similes, and both elegant; the first taken from a beautiful body, reduced by a consumption; the meaning whereof is, that their state should be deprived not only of its chief citizens, but of all its power, wealth, and honour: whatever it formerly possessed, which gave excellence and beauty, should entirely waste away and be consumed. See chap. Isaiah 10:16. 'The second simile is taken from the autumnal gathering-in of fruits, or from that fertile harvest, whether of corn, wine, or oil, which used to be gathered in the valley of Rephaim. Whereas the reapers leave a few ears of corn, or the gatherers of the grapes and olives a few of the worst bunches of the grapes and of the worst berries of the olives; so from the Assyrian harvest in Ephraim, a few men and those of the least consequence, should be left as a remnant in the land. Bishop Lowth renders the 6th, verse. A gleaning shall be left in it, as in the shaking of the olive-tree; two or three berries on the top of the uppermost bough, &c. See Joshua 15:8; Judges 18:16 concerning the valley of Rephaim, or the giants.