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17. Oracle Against Damacus

¹ A prophecy against Damascus:

   “See, Damascus will no longer be a city
   but will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer will be deserted
   and left to flocks, which will lie down,
   with no one to make them afraid.
³ The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
   and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
   like the glory of the Israelites,” declares the LORD Almighty.

    ⁴ “In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
   the fat of his body will waste away.
⁵ It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain,
   gathering the grain in their arms—
as when someone gleans heads of grain
   in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Yet some gleanings will remain,
   as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
   four or five on the fruitful boughs,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

    ⁷ In that day people will look to their Maker
   and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ They will not look to the altars,
   the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah
   and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹ In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

    ¹⁰ You have forgotten God your Savior;
   you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
   and plant imported vines,
¹¹ though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
   and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
   in the day of disease and incurable pain.

    ¹² Woe to the many nations that rage—
   they rage like the raging sea!
Woe to the peoples who roar—
   they roar like the roaring of great waters!
¹³ Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters,
   when he rebukes them they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,
   like tumbleweed before a gale.
¹⁴ In the evening, sudden terror!
   Before the morning, they are gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
   the lot of those who plunder us.

10. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation. He shews the reason why the Lord exercises such severity against the Ten Tribes, that they may not complain of being unjustly afflicted or too harshly treated. The sum of what is stated is, that all those evils come to them because they have wickedly despised God. It was excessively base and altogether inexcusable ingratitude, after having received so many favors, to prostitute their hopes to heathen nations and to idols, as if they had never in any respect experienced the love of God. Indeed, no unbelievers, when they are called to account, will vindicate themselves from the charge of offering an insult to God by wandering after creatures. But the argument was applicable, in a special manner, to the people of Israel, to whom God had revealed himself in such a manner that they ought to have left off all the impostures of the world and relied on his grace alone. They are therefore justly accused of ingratitude, for having buried in forgetfulness the object of true faith; and indeed, when God has once allowed us to taste the delight of his goodness, if it gain a place in our hearts, we shall never be drawn away from it to anything else. Hence it follows that they are convicted of ingratitude who, not being satisfied with the true God, are unsteady and driven about in all directions; for in this manner they despise his invaluable grace.

Accordingly, the Prophet expressly calls him the God of salvation and the God or Rock of strength צור (tsūr) has both significations; for it was a monstrous thing that they were not kept in fidelity to God, who had so often preserved them, and, as it were, with an outstretched hand. When he adds that they had not been mindful, this is an amplification; for he indirectly charges them with base slothfulness in not considering in how many ways they had formerly been made to know the kindness of God.

Therefore thou shalt plant. Next follows the punishment, that they might not think that this ingratitude would remain unpunished. That is, because they forsook the fountain of all good, though they labor to obtain food, yet they will be consumed by famine and hunger; for all that shall be obtained with great labor the enemy will either carry away or destroy. This passage is taken from Moses; for it is a curse pronounced amidst other curses.

“The fruit of thy land, and all thy labors, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up.” (Deuteronomy 28:33).

Hence we see what I have often mentioned before, that the prophets borrow many things from Moses, and are the true interpreters of the law. He speaks of choice vines and branches taken from them; because the greatness of the loss aggravates the sorrow.