Chaldee Paraphrase reads it, The burthen of the cup of the curse to drink to Damascus in; and the ten tribes being in alliance, they must expect to pledge Damascus in this cup of trembling that is to go round.
1. Damascus itself, the head city of Syria, must be destroyed; the houses, it is likely, will be burnt, at least the walls and gates and fortifications demolished, and the inhabitants carried away captive, so that for the present it is taken away from being a city, and is reduced, not only to a village, but to a ruinous heap, v. 1. Such desolating work as this does sin make with cities.
2. The country towns are abandoned by their inhabitants, frightened or forced away by their invaders; The cities of Aroer (a province of Syria so called) are forsaken, (v. 2.) the conquered dare not dwell in them, and the conquerors have no occasion for them, nor did they seize them for want, but wantonness; so that the places which should be for men to live in, are for flocks to lie down in, which they may do, and none will disturb or dislodge them. Stately houses are converted into sheep-cotes. It is strange that great conquerors should pride themselves in being common enemies to mankind. But, how unrighteous soever they are, God is righteous in causing these cities to spue out their inhabitants, who bytheir wickedness had made themselves vile; it is better that flocks should lie down there, than that they should harbour such as are in open rebellion against God and virtue.
3. The strong-holds of Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, will be brought to ruin; the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, (v. 3.) that in Samaria, and all the rest. They had joined with Syria in invading Judah very unnaturally; and now they that had been partakers in sin, should be made partakers in ruin, and justly. When the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, by which Israel shall be weakened, the kingdom will cease from Damascus, by which Syria will be ruined. The Syrians were the ringleaders in that confederacy against Judah, and therefore they are punished first and sorest; and because they boasted of their alliance with Israel, now that Israel is weakened, they are upbraided with those boasts; The remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel; those few that remain of the Syrians, shall be in as mean and despicable a condition as the children of Israel are, and the glory of Israel shall be no relief or reputation to them. Sinful confederacies will be no strength, no stay, to the confederates, when God's judgments come upon them.
See here what the glory of Jacob is, when God contends with him, and what little reason Syria will have to be proud of resembling the glory of Jacob.
(1.) It is wasted like a man in a consumption, v. 4. The glory of Jacob was their numbers, that they were as the sand of the sea for multitude; but this glory shall be made thin, when many are cut off, and few left. Then the fatness of their flesh, which was their pride and security, shall wax lean, and the body of the people shall become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones. Israel died of a lingering disease, the kingdom of the ten tribes wasted gradually. God was to them as a moth, Hos. v. 12. Such is all the glory of this world, it soon withers, and is made thin; but there is a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory designed for the spiritual seed of Jacob, which is not subject to any such decay; fatness of God's house, which will not wax lean.
(2.)It is all gathered and carried away by the Assyrian army, as the corn is carried out of the field by the husbandman, v. 5. The corn is the glory of the fields; (Ps. lxv. 13.) but when it is reaped and gone, where is the glory? The people had by their sins made themselves ripe for ruin, and their glory was as quickly, as easily, as justly, and as irresistibly, cut down and taken away, as the corn is out of the field by the husbandman. God's judgments are compared to the thrusting in of the sickle, when the harvest is ripe, Rev. xiv. 15. And the victorious army, like the careful husbandmen in the valley of Rephaim, where the corn was extraordinary, would not, if they could help it, leave an ear behind, would lose nothing that they could lay their hands on.
6. Yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. 7. At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. 8. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves or the images.
Mercy is here reserved in a parenthesis, in the midst of judgment, for a remnant that should escape the common ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Though the Assyrians took all the care they could that none should slip out of their net, yet the meek of the earth were hid in the day of the Lord's anger, and had their lives given them for a prey, and made comfortable to them by their retirement to the land of Judah, where they had the liberty of God's courts.
1. They shall be but a small remnant, a very few which shall be marked for preservation; (v. 6.) Gleaning-grapes shall be left in it; the body ofthe people were carried into captivity, but here and there one was left behind, perhaps one of two in a bed, when the other was taken, Luke xvii. 34. The most desolating judgments in this world are short of the last judgment, which shall be universal, and which none shall escape. In times of the greatest calamity, some are kept safe, as in times of the greatest degeneracy some are kept pure. But the fewness of those that escape, supposes the captivity of the far greatest part; those that are left, are but like the poor remains of an olive-tree, when it has been carefully shaken by the owner; if there be two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, (out of the reach of them that shook it,) that is all. Such is the remnant according to the election of grace, very few in comparison with the multitudes that walk on in the broad way.
2. They shall be a sanctified remnant; (v. 7, 8.) these few that are preserved, are such as, in the prospect of the judgment approaching, had repented of their sins, and reformed their lives, and therefore were snatched thus as brands out of the burning; or, such as, being escaped, and becoming refugees in strange countries, were awakened, partly by a sense of the distinguishing mercy of their deliverance, and partly by the distresses they were still in, to return to God. (1.) They shall look up to their Creator, shall inquire, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night, in such a night of affliction as this? Job xxxv. 10, 11. They shall acknowledge his hand in all the events concerning them, merciful and afflictive, and shall submit to his hand; they shall give him the glory due to his name, and be suitably affected with his providences; they shall expect relief and succour from him, and depend upon him to help them; their eyes shall have respect to him, as the eyes of a servant to the hand of his master, Ps. cxxiii. 2. Observe, It is our duty
