Read Isaiah 17 and 18 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions
Isa 17:1-3 {p} Damascus will cease from being a city/ the fortress will cease from Ephraim
Isa 17:4-9 {s} The glory of Jacob will wane/ in that day he will look to his Maker, not to idols
Isa 17:9-11 {s} Because Jacob forgot the God who saved him, his pleasant plantings will be a heap of ruins
Isa 17:12-14 {p} The nations will roar + rush, but God will rebuke them: the lot of those who plunder Jacob
Isa 18:1-3 {s} Messengers sent to Ethiopia/ see the banner lifted on its mountains + hear the trumpet blown
Isa 18:4-6 {s} The vines + shoots cut off and taken away in the summer, before the grape ripens
Isa 18:7 {p} At that time Ethiopia will bring a present to the LORD of hosts, to Mount Zion
The strong themes
Isa 17:4-14 {s+s+p} Jacob’s glory diminished because they forgot God, but they will return + He will secure them
Isa 18:1-7 {s+s+p} Ethiopia will see the banner lifted on the mountains and will worship YHVH of hosts
Isa 17:1-11 (p+s+s} chiastic structure
The Burden against Syria.
Which is part of a larger chiastic structure in Isaiah:
Isa 11:1-18:7 chiastic structure
What an unusual central axis, that within three years what YHVH has spoken will come to pass. If we take all eight chapters as a whole, and look at the message of the chiastic structure from beginning to end, we see that the prophecy of Messiah Yeshua is front and center. His righteous reign puts an end to the reign of Babylon, or, as Revelation calls it, Mystery Babylon the Great (Rev 17:1-6). This is a metaphor for the kingdoms of this world, of which Babylon is the head of gold (Dan 2:38). And the kingdom of our Lord and His Messiah overthrows the kingdoms of the this world.
So speaking of the big picture, the nations will roar against Jacob, but God will rebuke them, and will instead lift up His banner – Messiah Yeshua, the Root and Branch of Jesse – to those same nations. Three is a sign of Messiah in Scripture, in its teaching tools, indicating to the reader that the passage is indeed prophetic of Messiah.
For further study
Isa 17 through 19 and the burden against the nations
Revelation 17 studies
The Babylon Connection
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