Isaiah 17:13
The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.
Sermons
A Short TriumphIsaiah 17:12-14
Sounds from AfarE. Johnson Isaiah 17:12-14
The Overthrow of the Enemies of GodW. Clarkson Isaiah 17:12-14
The Punishment of the WickedW. Manning.Isaiah 17:12-14














In the distance the prophet hears a vague tumult, like that of the sea with its roaring, incoming tide. It is the noise of the invading host. Readers will recollect the powerful passage describing the eve of the battle of Waterloo - the dull distant sound repeated until the conviction flashes, "It is - it is - the cannon's opening roar!" So does the prophet listen to the uproar of the advancing Assyrians.

I. THE POETIC REPRESENTATION. It is one of sublimity and terror, appealing through the sense of hearing to the imagination, and calling up indefinable alarm and sorrow. He hears in the distance the gathering of a multitude of nations, represented by the imperial name of Asshur. These hosts spread out in long line like the rolling wave, one excited surging mass, threatening to carry everything before it into destruction. Such an image may represent any great movement which seems at any time to threaten the spiritual life of a Church, of a nation. Never was there a time when anxious listeners did not hear such rising sounds in the distance; the statesman trembling for the welfare of institutions, the believer for the stability of faith. Is there just cause for alarm? Let the prophet answer.

II. THE PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT. Remarkable is the picture of the sudden change. The power of the Divine Word is instantaneously felt. "It costs God simply a threatening word, and the mass all flies apart, and falls into dust, and whirls about in all directions; like the chaff of threshing-floors in high situations, or like dust whirled up by the storm." In the evening the destruction of the Assyrians begins, and in the morning they are completely destroyed. And the oracle ends with an expression of triumph over this portion and lot of the spoiler and the plunderer.

LESSONS.

1. The Church, Christianity, religion, civilization, seem in every age to be threatened; yet they are ever safe. Force, numbers, armies, have but the show of strength when confronted with the spiritual world.

2. God is ever in his heaven - cannot and will not desert his place.

3. His judgments and rebukes are the expression of the eternal truth of things, and must prevail. - J.

Woe to the multitude of many people.
These verses read the doom of those that spoil and rob the people of God. If the Syrians and Israelites invade and plunder Judah — if the Assyrian army take God's people captive, and lay their country waste, — let them know that ruin will be their portion. They are here brought in —

I. TRIUMPHING OVER THE PEOPLE OF GOD. They rely upon their numbers. They are very noisy, like the noise of the seas; they talk big, hector and threaten.

II. TRIUMPHED OVER BY THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. God can dispirit the enemies of His Church, when they are most courageous and confident, and dissipate them when they seem most closely consolidated. This shall be done suddenly (ver. 14).

( M. Henry.)

I. THE STRIKING CONTRASTS WHICH THE DAY OF VISITATION REVEALS RESPECTING THE CONDUCT AND POSITION OF THE WICKED. Verse 12 shows us the vast and varied host in fancied security; we have a magnificent picture of a state of might, pomp, vainglory, self-confidence; but ere we reach the end of verse 13, we see it scattered. We see the same contrast in everyday life; wicked men secure, strong, boastful — the next moment utterly cast down (Psalm 73:18-20); or, by the near approach of death, transformed into the subjects of a pitiable despair.

II. THE RESISTLESS EXECUTION OF THE SENTENCE OF DOOM.

III. THE SWIFTNESS WITH WHICH THE SENTENCE OF DOOM IS EXECUTED (ver. 14). It is true that the punishment of the wicked often seems to be delayed (Ecclesiastes 8:11); but —

1. Sin and punishment are inseparable.

2. Whenever the punishment comes it is sudden. Such is the blinding and delusive power of cherished sin that its penalty always finds the sinner unprepared to receive it; it is always a surprise and a shock to him. Conclusion —(1) Nations and armies cannot successfully evade the penalties of their sins; how much less can the individual sinner do so!(2) The certainty of the punishment of all unrepented sin should lead us seriously to reflect upon the attitude we are assuming before God.(3) The subject should lead to repentance, but not to despair (Psalm 130:7).

(W. Manning.)

People
Amorites, Aram, Hivites, Isaiah, Israelites, Jacob
Places
Aroer, Damascus, Syria, Valley of Rephaim
Topics
Afar, Chaff, Chased, Circling, Driven, Driving, Dust, Fled, Flee, Flight, Gale, Grain, Hills, Hurricane, Mountains, Nations, Peoples, Pursued, Pushed, Rebuke, Rebukes, Roar, Roaring, Rolling, Rumble, Rumbling, Rush, Rushing, Stop, Storm, Surging, Tops, Tumbleweed, Waste, Wasted, Wasting, Waters, Whirling, Whirlwind, Wind
Outline
1. Syria and Israel are threatened
6. A remnant shall forsake idolatry
9. The rest shall be plagued for their impiety
12. The woe of Israel's enemies

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 17:13

     4426   chaff
     4860   wind

Isaiah 17:12-13

     4045   chaos

Library
The Harvest of a Godless Life
'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, and shalt set it with strange slips: In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.'--ISAIAH xvii. 10, 11. The original application of these words is to Judah's alliance with Damascus, which Isaiah was dead against.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Child Jesus Brought from Egypt to Nazareth.
(Egypt and Nazareth, b.c. 4.) ^A Matt. II. 19-23; ^C Luke II. 39. ^a 19 But when Herod was dead [He died in the thirty-seventh year of his reign and the seventieth of his life. A frightful inward burning consumed him, and the stench of his sickness was such that his attendants could not stay near him. So horrible was his condition that he even endeavored to end it by suicide], behold, an angel of the Lord [word did not come by the infant Jesus; he was "made like unto his brethren" (Heb. ii. 17),
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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