Isaiah 17:7-11

Context

17:7 At that time¹ men will trust in their creator;²

they will depend on³ the Holy One of Israel.⁴

17:8 They will no longer trust in⁵ the altars their hands made,

or depend on the Asherah poles and incense altars their fingers made.⁶

17:9 At that time⁷ their fortified cities will be

like the abandoned summits of the Amorites,⁸

which they abandoned because of the Israelites;

there will be desolation.

17:10 For you ignore⁹ the God who rescues you;

you pay no attention to your strong protector.¹⁰

So this is what happens:

You cultivate beautiful plants

and plant exotic vines.¹¹

17:11 The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow;¹²

the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout.

Yet the harvest will disappear¹³ in the day of disease

and incurable pain.

[17:7] ¹tn Heb “in that day” (so ASV, NASB, NIV); KJV “At that day.”

[17:7] ²tn Heb “man will gaze toward his maker.”

[17:7] ³tn Heb “his eyes will look toward.”

[17:7] ⁴sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[17:8] ⁵tn Heb “he will not gaze toward.”

[17:8] ⁶tn Heb “and that which his fingers made he will not see, the Asherah poles and the incense altars.”

[17:9] ⁷tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[17:9] ⁸tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “like the abandonment of the wooded height and the top one.” The following relative clause appears to allude back to the Israelite conquest of the land, so it seems preferable to emend הַחֹרֶשׁ וְהָאָמִיר (hakhoresh vÿha’amir, “the wooded height and the top one”) to חֹרֵשֵׁי הָאֱמֹרִי (khoreshe ha’emori, “[like the abandonment] of the wooded heights of the Amorites”).

[17:10] ⁹tn Heb “you have forgotten” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[17:10] ¹⁰tn Heb “and the rocky cliff of your strength you do not remember.”

[17:10] ¹¹tn Heb “a vine, a strange one.” The substantival adjective זָר (zar) functions here as an appositional genitive. It could refer to a cultic plant of some type, associated with a pagan rite. But it is more likely that it refers to an exotic, or imported, type of vine, one that is foreign (i.e., “strange”) to Israel.

[17:11] ¹²tn Heb “in the day of your planting you [?].” The precise meaning of the verb תְּשַׂגְשֵׂגִי (tÿsagsegi) is unclear. It is sometimes derived from שׂוּג/סוּג (sug, “to fence in”; see BDB 691 s.v. II סוּג). In this case one could translate “you build a protective fence.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one derives the form from שָׂגָא/שָׂגָה (saga’/sagah, “to grow”); see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:351, n. 4. For this verb, see BDB 960 s.v. שָׂגָא.

[17:11] ¹³tc The Hebrew text has, “a heap of harvest.” However, better sense is achieved if נֵד (ned, “heap”) is emended to a verb. Options include נַד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד [nadad, “flee, depart”]), נָדַד (Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד), נֹדֵד (noded, Qal active participle from נָדַד), and נָד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular, or participle masculine singular, from נוּד [nud, “wander, flutter”]). See BDB 626 s.v. נוּד and HALOT 672 s.v. I נדד. One could translate literally: “[the harvest] departs,” or “[the harvest] flies away.”