a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
man
אִ֛ישׁ'ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
nourish
יְחַיֶּהye.chai.yeh-
H2421
to live · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
young
בָּקָ֖רba.Kar
H1241
beef cattle or an animal of the ox family of either gen… · noun, common both genders singular absolute
cow
עֶגְלַ֥ת'eg.Lat
H5697
a (female) calf · noun, common feminine singular construct
two
וּשְׁתֵּיu.she.tei-
H8147
two · conjunction + cardinal number, feminine dual construct
sheep
צֹֽאןTzon
H6629
a collective name for a flock (of sheep or goats) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
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 5:17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
Jeremiah 39:10 But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards a…
Isaiah 17:2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
Isaiah 37:30 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same:…
Isaiah 7:25 And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 7:17–end
After the comfortable promises made to Ahaz as a branch of the house of David, here follow terrible threatenings against him, as a degenerate branch of that house; for though the loving-kindness of God shall not be utterly taken away, for the sake of David and the covenant made with him, yet his iniquity shall be chastened with the rod, and his sin with stripes. Let those that will not mix faith with the promises of God expect to hear the alarms of his threatenings.
I. The judgment threatened is very great, Isa 7:17. It is very great, for it is general; it shall be brought upon the prince himself (high as he is, he shall not be out of the reach of it), and upon the people, the whole body of…
THE COMING DESOLATE STATE OF THE LAND OWING TO THE ASSYRIANS AND EGYPTIANS. (Isa 7:21-25)
nourish--that is, own.
young cow--a heifer giving milk. Agriculture shall cease, and the land become one great pasturage.
John Gill on Isaiah 7:21
And it shall come to pass in that day,.... Not in the days of Hezekiah, after the destruction of Sennacherib's army, when there followed great fruitfulness and plenty, Isaiah 37:30 as Kimchi and Jarchi interpret it; but in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when some poor men were left in the land to till it, Jeremiah 39:10 for of these, and not of rich men, are the following words to be understood:
that a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep; this seems to denote both the scarcity of men and cattle, through the ravages of the army of the Chaldeans; that there should not be large herds and flocks, only a single cow, and two or three sheep; and yet men sho…
And it shall come to pass on that day. In these verses, down to the end of the chapter, the Prophet describes the state of a country torn and wasted; for he intends to present a striking and lively picture of such overwhelming distress that, wherever you turn your eyes, nothing is to be seen but the traces of frightful desolation. Some think that a mitigation of punishment is here promised, but we shall soon see that this does not agree with the context. Though he employs the appellation, a man, without any limitation, yet strictly it is of the richest men that he speaks; for he does not say that every one will have so many; but they who formerly were accustomed to rear a large number of oxe…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 21 onwards) And it shall come to pass on that day, a man shall nurture a cow of oxen, and two sheep, and because of the abundance of milk, he shall eat butter; for everyone who is left in the midst of the land shall eat butter and honey. And it shall come to pass on that day, every place where a thousand vines were worth a thousand silver shekels, there shall be thorns and briers. With arrows and bows they shall come there, for thorns and briers shall cover the whole land. And all the hills that were once cultivated with a hoe shall no longer be afraid of thistles and thorns; and they shall become pastures for cattle and a trampling ground for livestock. After the subversion of Jerusalem, the captivity of the people, and the burning of the Temple, Nabuzardan, the prince of the army whom the Seventy called the chief cook, left a few of the people, and those poor, in the land to till the vineyards and fields. Finally, Godolias, who had been appointed over them from the royal line, encourages them and says: Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans; dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you (2 Kings 25:24). Therefore, at that time when all the wealth of the Jews had been transferred to Chaldea, there will be such a great desolation in the land of Judaea and such incredible devastation that they will by no means have herds of cattle or flocks of sheep as they used to have before: but scarcely a rare inhabitant will be able to support one cow and two sheep; not for plowing, but for food and clothing of milk and wool. Indeed, because of the scarcity of wheat and everything that the land produces for eating, they will subsist on milk, butter, and wild honey. And what he says: He will eat butter from the abundance of milk, signifies that the land will be more fertile due to the scarcity of farmers and more suitable for grazing. In that time, due to the scarcity of people, there will be such a shortage of wine from deserted vineyards, which will not be considered a concern for hostile fear, that each vine will barely be bought with silver sickles. For all the land will be reduced to brambles and thorns: and there will be such fear, with swords raging everywhere, that no one will dare to visit their own field without a bow and arrows, and abandoning the open fields, they will seek refuge in the mountains, and there, fortified by the…
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
Ahaz — Possessor. (1.) A grandson of Jonathan (1 Chr. 8:35; 9:42). (2.) The son and successor of Jotham, king of Judah (2 Kings 16; Isa. 7-9; 2 Chr. 28). He gave himself up to a life of wickedness and…
Cow — A cow and her calf were not to be killed on the same day (Lev. 22:28; Ex. 23:19; Deut. 22:6, 7). The reason for this enactment is not given. A state of great poverty is described in the words of Isa.…
Heifer — Heb. ‘eglah, (Deut. 21:4, 6; Jer. 46:20). Untrained to the yoke (Hos. 10:11); giving milk (Isa. 7:21); ploughing (Judg. 14:18); treading out grain (Jer. 50:11); unsubdued to the yoke an emblem of…
Pekah — Open-eyed, the son of Remaliah a captain in the army of Pekahiah, king of Israel, whom he slew, with the aid of a band of Gileadites, and succeeded (B.C. 758) on the throne (2 Kings 15:25). Seventeen…
Sheep · Milk of, used as food — Milk of, used as food
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).
"And it will come to pass in that day, that a man will keep a small cow and a couple of sheep; and it comes to pass, for the abundance of the milk they give he will eat cream: for butter and honey will every one eat that is left within the land." The former prosperity would be reduced to the most miserable housekeeping. One man would keep a milch cow and two head of sheep (or goats) alive with the greatest care, the strongest and finest full-grown cattle having fallen into the hands of the foe (היּה, like החיה in other places: shtē, not shnē, because two female sheep or goats are meant). But this would be quite enough, for there would be only a few men left in the land; and as all the land…
shave off everything: your land, your crops, and your people: In the ancient Near East, forced shaving was an act of disgrace (see 2 Sam 10:4-5). Here it was a metaphor for the despoiling of the country.
Rashi on Isaiah 7:21
a man shall keep alive and since the land will be empty, for the armies will pillage the livestock, and in the few that remain I will give a blessing.
