Chapter Twenty-Seven

1–9. The destruction of world powers and the joyful exaltation of Zion. 10–13. The ruin of the world city and the joyful return of Israel home.

Isa 27:1-9. Mighty world powers, depicted by the prophet under the image of enormous monsters, will be struck by God’s judgment, and on that day Israel will sing a song in which it acknowledges that the Lord has always treated His chosen people far more mercifully than the heathen peoples. Moreover, if these hostile forces should again wish to harm Israel, God will destroy them completely, unless they humbly make a covenant with Him. And in the future Israel may expect complete well-being – this cannot be doubted on the basis of God’s former relations with Israel.

Isaiah 27:1. In that day the Lord will punish with His sword – hard and great and strong – Leviathan the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan the coiled serpent, and He will slay the dragon of the sea. The enemies of Israel in Sacred Scripture are often depicted under the image of monsters (compare Ps 67:31; Ps 73:13; Dan 7:3 and following; Rev 12:3; Rev 13:1). The kingdom of God is depicted in human features (Dan 7:13), while the world power, cruel and heartless, is under the image of an animal or beast. “Leviathan” (properly, the bound one) is the name of a crocodile (Job 40; Job 41), but here, in Isaiah, it undoubtedly means a great serpent, as is evident from the definitions given to both Leviathans (the straight-running serpent and the coiled serpent), which do not fit the concept of a crocodile. The straight-running serpent – this is the Tigris River, which flowed straight as an arrow (its very name – hadiglath – among the Assyrians meant “arrow”), and the Assyrian state situated near it. “The coiled serpent” – this is the Euphrates River, extremely abounding in turns and coils and thus giving the illusion of a coiled serpent. Here the prophet has in mind the Babylonian kingdom, whose chief city, Babylon, stood on the Euphrates. “The dragon of the sea” (in Hebrew, tonnin) – this is undoubtedly Egypt, which is often so called in Isaiah and in other Sacred books. (Isa 51:9; Ps 73 and others).

Isaiah 27:2. In that day sing to her – to the beloved vineyard: Here – the theme of the following song and an invitation to sing this song. “In that day” – that is, when the enemy powers will be struck down. “To the beloved,” that is, to the pleasant, the beautiful. “Vineyard.” Here, evidently, is meant the people of Israel (compare Isa 5:1).

Isaiah 27:3. I, the Lord, am its keeper, I water it every moment; night and day I guard it, lest anyone violate it. Isaiah 27:4. There is no wrath in Me. But if anyone presents Me with thorns and briers, I will go to war against it; I will burn it completely. Isaiah 27:5. Or let him take hold of My protection and make peace with Me; let him make peace with Me. “I, the Lord, am its keeper.” By putting these words in the mouth of the people of Israel, the Lord at the same time assures the people of special confidence in God’s love. “Lest anyone violate it” – according to the translation of Duhm and Condamin: “that its leaves do not fall.” “There is no wrath in Me.” This does not mean that the Lord generally does not become angry (in Sacred Scripture God’s wrath is mentioned more than 300 times), but indicates only the future time when God will no longer be angry with His people. “Thorns and briers.” Here the prophet designates everything that can hinder the development of the people of Israel – both the external enemies of Israel and the internal defects of the people themselves, even bad representatives of this people. “I will burn it completely.” In the Synodal (Russian) translation it is quite evident that the discourse is about burning the entire vineyard. 31 “Or let him take hold of My protection.” Yet toward such people in Israel God will be merciful, if they repent (in verses 4 and 5 the singular: “it” (I will burn) and “he” (takes hold) should be replaced by the plural: “them” (thorns) and “they” (take hold)).

Isaiah 27:6. In the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and flower, and the world will be filled with fruit. “Jacob... and... Israel” – often appear in the prophet as designations of the entire Jewish people (2, 3, 5, 6, and other chapters), in part designate only the northern, ten-tribe kingdom (Isa 9:8). Here, it seems, these words are used in the first meaning.

Isaiah 27:7. Does He strike him as He struck those who struck him? Does He slay him as he slew those who slew him? Isaiah 27:8. By measure You corrected him when You rejected him; He removed him with His mighty wind as on the day of the east wind. To justify the thought just expressed in verse 6 about the preservation of the people of Israel at a time when all other powers will be destroyed, the prophet refers to the fact that even in former times God, even while punishing Israel, punished him not so severely as the heathen peoples hostile to Israel (compare Isa 10 and following). “By measure” – in the Hebrew text here is used the word seah, meaning the third part of an ephah (a measure for dry goods). The prophet wishes to say thereby that the Lord sent upon the Hebrews comparatively insignificant punishments. “He removed him,” that is, He exiled them from Palestine. The prophet has in mind both the already accomplished deportation to Assyria of the subjects of the Kingdom of Israel and the future deportation to Babylonian captivity of the Jews. “Wind.” This expression indicates the gentleness with which God punished His people. He acts against the Hebrews not with blows, but only with a wind, although a very strong one, resembling the mighty breath of the east wind blowing in Palestine (Job 27:21; Hos 13:15).

Isaiah 27:9. And through this Jacob’s iniquity will be pardoned; and the fruit thereof will be the removal of his sin, when all the stones of the altars he makes into fragments of lime, and the groves and the sun-images will stand no more. “Through this.” The mighty sweep of the wind not only crushes everything in its path, but at the same time cleanses the air of the country from all harmful miasmas. So also God’s punishment, which fell upon the people of Israel (captivity), was to act beneficially upon the moral state of the people, removing from it the elements of stubbornness and disobedience to the law of the Lord. As a result, sin or guilt will be removed from Israel. “When all the stones of the altars he makes into fragments of lime.” The fruits of Israel’s sanctification will be concentrated in the fulfillment of the first commandment of the law of Moses, which forbids idolatry. Israel will make all the stones of its idolatrous altars completely unfit to serve as material for new idolatrous altars. In Palestine the stone is for the most part of limestone composition and therefore can be converted into lime.

Isaiah 27:10. For the fortified city will lie desolate, the habitation will be abandoned and left like a wilderness. There a calf will feed, and there it will recline and eat the branches thereof. Isaiah 27:11. When its branches are dried up, they will be broken off; women will come and burn them. For it is a people without understanding, therefore He who made them will not have mercy on them, and He who formed them will not pity them. Before the spiritual gaze of the prophet again arise the outlines of a world power, which has its center in a great world city. He depicts this city laid waste and dried up like a tree. Meanwhile Israel will return to Jerusalem from captivity and will dwell quietly here. “The fortified city.” The prophet has in mind not one city, but fortified cities in general, mentioned in the first verse of chapter 27, as heads of the world powers (compare Isa 24:10-12; Isa 25:2; Isa 26:5). “A people without understanding.” So the prophet calls the heathen for the reason that they did not take care to develop for themselves a more or less correct worldview (compare Rom 1:28).

Isaiah 27:12. But in that day: the Lord will shake from the great river to the stream of Egypt, and you, the children of Israel, will be gathered one by one; Isaiah 27:13. and in that day: a great trumpet will sound, and those lost in the land of Assyria and those exiled to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. In contrast to the sad picture which pagan world powers will present, the life of the people of Israel will be the happiest.

Isaiah 2:11. “In that day” see Isaiah 2:11. “The Lord will shake.” This word shake can indicate the great shaking that will be produced by God’s judgment over the entire space over which the captive Israelites were scattered. One can also see here a simple indication of the gathering of fruit from olive trees, which were shaken, shaken from the trees or beaten with a rod (Deut 24:20). In any case, the result of this shaking will be that the Israelites will be gathered together, like fruit in one basket or like sheaves – in bundles. “The great river” – this is the Euphrates, as an emblem of northern lands, to which the majority of Israelites were deported into captivity. “The stream of Egypt” – here, corresponding to the Euphrates, it is better, it seems, to understand not the Rhinokorura, which marks the boundary of Palestine from the Sinai peninsula (Gen 15:18), but the actual Egyptian river, the Nile, as a symbol of the southern land of captivity. “A great trumpet” – again a symbol. The prophet here points to the decision of God’s will, by virtue of which the Jews were to return from captivity (Ezra 1:1). However, there is no doubt that, concluding his apocalyptic section, the prophet had in mind here also the return of all redeemed mankind to the heavenly house of the Father of all people and the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:2). This section, whose chapters have similarity to each other in form and content, represents a kind of apocalypse. As to the historical occasion that brought forth this section, on the basis of certain features of the prophecy indicating the writer as an inhabitant of Judea, having in mind his own Jewish interests and relations (Isa 24:2; Isa 25:10-12; Isa 25:1-10), one can conclude that the prophet wrote his apocalyptic discourses on the occasion of the fall of Samaria, which was already approaching, when, according to his expression, it was being cast to the earth like a wreath (Isa 28:3). The authenticity of this section is proven by the similarity of the terms and expressions found in it with other sections that undoubtedly belong to the prophet Isaiah (compare Isa 25:9 and Isa 27:9-10 and following Isa 27:16 and more: Isa 24 and Isa 23:9; Isa 24 and Isa 13:2; Isa 24:1; Isa 25:4-5 and Isa 4:5-6; Isa 27:2 and others). No traces of post-exilic origin of this section are apparent. The division of this section into strophes is a difficult matter. Condamin for this had to make some rearrangements in the placement of verses. Here are the strophes into which he divides the entire poem. Strophe 1 – Chapter 24, verses 1–6 – (3, 3, 2) Strophe 2 – Chapter 24, verses 7–13 – (3, 3, 2) Strophe 3 – Chapter 24, verses 14–18(a) – (3, 3) Strophe 1 – Chapter 24, verses 18(b)-20 – (2, 2) Strophe 2 – Chapter 24, verses 21–23 – (2, 2) Strophe 3 – Chapter 25, verses 6–8 – (2, 2, 2) Strophe 1 – Chapter 25, verses 9–12 – (2, 2, 3) Strophe 2 – Chapter 26, verses 1–6 – (3, 2, 2) Strophe 1 – Chapter 25, verses 1–3 – (2, 3) Strophe 2 – Chapter 25, verses 1–5 – (2, 3) Strophe 3 – Chapter 26, verses 7–13 – (2, 2, 2; 1, 1, 1) Strophe 1 – Chapter 26, verses 14–18 – (2, 3) Strophe 2 – Chapter 26, verses 19–21 – (2, 3) (Chapter 27, verse 1 – not counted) Strophe 1 – Chapter 27, verses 2–5 – (3, 2) Strophe 2 – Chapter 27, verses 6–9 – (3, 2) Strophe 3 – Chapter 27, verses 10–11 – (1, 1, 1, 1) Strophe 1 – Chapter 27, verse 12 Strophe 2 – Chapter 27, verse 13 * * * Notes In the Slavonic translation it is also quite unambiguously said that the burning of the entire vineyard is meant – “because of this enmity I have rejected it and... And it was burned, and those dwelling in it cried out: let us make peace with him, let us make peace.” Note of the editor.