Isaiah 17: The Burden of Damascus
Two allies fall, a few olives remain, gardens for foreign gods, and the roar of nations stilled
"The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap… The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus" (17:1–3).
"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… At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands" (vv. 6–8).
"Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants… but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief" (vv. 10–11). "Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas… but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off… And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not" (vv. 12–14).
| Verses | What it says | What to notice |
|---|---|---|
| 17:1–3 | Damascus a ruin; Aroer's towns for flocks; Ephraim's fortress and Damascus's kingdom end | Aram and Israel, the allies of 7:1. |
| 17:4–6 | Jacob's glory thin; like reaped grain in the Valley of Rephaim; a few olives left | Gleaning: the remnant theme. |
| 17:7–8 | People will look to the Maker, not altars, Asherim or incense altars (hammanim) | Hammanim: small altars; found in excavations. |
| 17:9 | Strong cities forsaken like those of the former inhabitants | Greek reads "Amorites and Hivites." |
| 17:10–11 | Forgetting God; planting "pleasant plants" and foreign slips; a failed harvest | Possibly gardens for a dying-and-rising god (see below). |
| 17:12–14 | The nations roar like seas; God rebukes; chaff before the wind; gone by morning | Often read of Sennacherib's retreat (37:36). |
The fall of Damascus and Samaria
Tiglath-pileser III took Damascus in 732 BC, executed Rezin and made Aram an Assyrian province; Samaria fell in 722/720 BC. Damascus was not abandoned: it became an Assyrian provincial center and has been inhabited ever since. "Ruinous heap" is the language of judgment on the kingdom, not a statement that the site was never lived in again. The chapter's two parts may come from different moments: Damascus's fall (732) and Israel's (722).
"Pleasant plants" (17:10)
Nit'ei na'amanim, "plantings of pleasantness." Na'aman ("pleasant one") was an epithet of a Phoenician vegetation god later identified with Adonis, whose "gardens" (quick-growing plants in pots that soon withered) were part of his mourning rites. Many scholars think Isaiah alludes to such gardens: plants that sprout fast and die, like Israel's misplaced trust. The allusion is plausible but not certain.
An oracle from the 730s: Damascus and Ephraim, allied against Judah (Isaiah 7), will both fall; a remnant of Israel will turn to God. Verses 12–14 picture hostile nations scattered overnight, which later editors and readers connected with Sennacherib's withdrawal (37:36).
Jewish interpreters read it of the Assyrian conquest of Aram and the northern kingdom, and of the scattered Assyrian army.
The New Testament does not quote Isaiah 17.
During the Syrian civil war (from 2011), some popular prophecy teachers claimed 17:1 was about to be fulfilled by a total destruction of modern Damascus. The site records the claim as a modern reading: in its own setting, the oracle concerned the Aramean kingdom of the 8th century, which Assyria ended in 732 BC.
What the evidence shows
- Tiglath-pileser III captured Damascus in 732 BC. Assyrian annals; 2 Kings 16:9.
- Damascus was never inhabited after 732 BC. It remained an inhabited city.
- The "pleasant plants" of 17:10 are Adonis gardens.
- Isaiah 17:1 predicts a future destruction of modern Damascus. A modern popular reading; the text addresses the 8th-century kingdom.
Continue the journey
Connected in this bookIsaiah 7: The Sign of ImmanuelIsaiah 7:1–9; 8:4: Damascus and Samaria's alliance and its end.More from this lesson
Why this matters to the rest of Scripture
- Isaiah 7:1–9; 8:4Damascus and Samaria's alliance and its end.
- 2 Kings 16:9; 17:5–6The fall of Damascus and Samaria.
- Amos's oracle on Damascus.
- The army gone by morning.