a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
glory
כְּב֣וֹדke.Vod
H3519
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
Jacob
יַעֲקֹ֑בya.'a.Ko
H3290
Jaakob · proper noun, a man's name
thin
יִדַּ֖לyi.Dal
H1809
to slacken or be feeble · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
fatness
וּמִשְׁמַ֥ןu.mish.Man
H4924
fat · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
flesh
בְּשָׂר֖וֹbe.sa.Ro
H1320
flesh (from its freshness) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
lean
יֵרָזֶֽהye.ra.Zeh
H7329
to emaciate · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 10:16 Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burnin…
Deuteronomy 32:15-27 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made…
Isaiah 9:8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
Isaiah 9:21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand…
Isaiah 10:4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his…
Isaiah 24:13 When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes…
Isaiah 24:16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! th…
Ezekiel 34:20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 17:1-5
We have here the burden of Damascus; the Chaldee paraphrase reads it, The burden 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, as 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, Isa 17:1. Such desolating work as this does sin make with cities. 2. The country towns are abandoned by their inhabitant…
glory of Jacob--the kingdom of Ephraim and all that they rely on (Hos 12:2; Mic 1:5).
fatness . . . lean--(See on Isa 10:16).
John Gill on Isaiah 17:4
And in that day it shall come to pass,.... It being much about the same time that both kingdoms were destroyed by the Assyrians:
that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin; the same with Ephraim and Israel, the ten tribes, whose glory lay in the superior number of their tribes to Judah; in the multitude of their cities, and the inhabitants of them; but now would be thinned, by the vast numbers that should be carried captive:
and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean: like a man in a consumption, that is become a mere skeleton, and reduced to skin and bones: the meaning is, that all their wealth and riches should be taken away; so the Targum,
"and the riches of his glory shall be carried…
The glory of Jacob shall be diminished. [5] Although he had undertaken to speak of Syria and Damascus, he takes occasion to join Israel with the Syrians, because they were bound by a mutual league, and were united in the same cause. The Syrians, indeed, whom Isaiah chiefly addresses, were like a torch to inflame the Israelites, as we have already said. But the Israelites themselves were equally in fault, and therefore they were justly drawn, by what might be called a mutual bond, to endure the same punishment.
It is not easy to say whether under the name Jacob he speaks of the whole elect people, so as to include also the tribe of Judah. But it is probable that he refers only to the ten tri…
The Church Fathers
By this it is clearly promised that the glory of Israel and all her riches will be taken away, and only a few, who like the few berries on an olive branch can be counted easily, will be left. These are the ones who believe in the Lord. Just after this there is a prophecy of the entire human race turning away from the error of idolatry and recognizing the God of Israel.
(Verse 4) And in that day, the glory of Jacob shall fade, and the fat of his flesh shall waste away. After the remnants of Syria had been, just as once had been the glory of the sons of Israel, and their salvation had been given to the nations by their transgression, then all the glory of the Jews will be diminished, with which they were glorious in the entire world, and their plump flesh will waste away, lacking prophets, signs and wonders, the present help of God, and the dignity of the priesthood: but the whole body of their nation will wither away and be reduced to nothing.
(Verse 4.) And it shall come to pass in that day, the glory of Jacob shall be diminished, and his fatness shall wither away. When, he says, Damascus is captured, and the city ceases to exist, and such glory crowns it, as crowns Israel, that is, the ten tribes: then all defense, and the fattest flesh, and refuge shall wither away from Jacob: for he will not have anything with which to devastate Jerusalem. We read above that Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to fight against it: and it was announced to the house of David: Syria has rested upon Ephraim, of whom the Prophet speaks to Ahaz: Do not fear, and let not your heart be afraid of these two smoldering stumps, of these smoky tails, in the furious wrath of Rezin, the king of Syria, and the son of Remaliah, because he has plotted evil against you, both Syria, the worst enemy, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Lot — (Heb. goral, a “pebble”), a small stone used in casting lots (Num. 33:54; Jonah 1:7). The lot was always resorted to by the Hebrews with strictest reference to the interposition of God, and as a…
Israel, Prophecies Concerning · .Of — .Of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Second turn: "And it comes to pass in that day, the glory of Jacob wastes away, and the fat of his flesh grows thin. And it will be as when a reaper grasps the stalks of wheat, and his arm mows off the ears; and it will be as with one who gathers together ears in the valley of Rephaim. Yet a gleaning remains from it, as at the olive-beating: two, three berries high up at the top; four, five in its, the fruit tree's, branches, saith Jehovah the God of Israel. At that day will man look up to his Creator, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel. And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands; and what his fingers have made he will not regard, neither the Astartes nor the sun…
The vision shifts from Damascus (17:1-3) to the northern kingdom of Israel; Damascus and Israel were allies in the war against Judah, and both were later destroyed by Assyria.
17:4 Israel’s glory will grow dim: God will judge all human pride. • Israel’s robust body will waste away like a person who is ill.
Rashi on Isaiah 17:4
And the fatness of his flesh shall become emaciated Jonathan [renders]: And the wealth of his glory shall be exiled.
