Isaiah 17:9 · Bible study
Isaiah 17:9 Commentary: Judgment as Forsaken Places
Hebrew · 11 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Examine the prophecy of desolation in Isaiah 17:9: the enigmatic 'forsaken bough,' the textual debate, and what it means for God's people.
Research Summary
- Meaning: The fortified cities of Israel will become as abandoned as a forest thicket or a summit stripped bare, total desolation.
- Key words: chōresh (forest, thicket), āmīr (treetop, summit), ăzūvâ (forsaken place). The terms create parallels with harvest leftovers (v.6) and the Canaanite dispossession.
- Main debate: Whether the original text refers to forest remnants (Hebrew) or to the Amorites and Hivites (LXX). The interpretive choice shapes whether the focus is agricultural or historical.
- Theological theme: Divine judgment reverses salvation history. The people who received the land will lose it because they forgot the Giver.
- Best use: The verse is ideal for teaching on the certainty of judgment, the danger of misplaced trust, and the hope of a remnant.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken thickets and summits, abandoned to the Israelites and to utter desolation.
WEB World English Bible 2000
In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.
KJV King James Version 1769
In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
In that day shall their strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it shall be a desolation.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
In that day are the cities of his strength As the forsaken thing of the forest, And the branch that they have left, Because of the sons of Israel, It also hath been a desolation.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract in the woodland, and the mountain-top which they forsook before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel, and thou shalt be desolate.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
En aquel día las ciudades de su fortaleza serán como los frutos que quedan en los pimpollos y en las ramas, las cuales fueron dejadas á causa de los hijos de Israel; y habrá asolamiento.
Naquele dia suas cidades fortificadas serão como plantas abandonadas e os mais altos ramos, os quais eles abandonaram por causa dos filhos de Israel. E haverá assolação,
En ce jour, ses villes fortes seront
Zu der Zeit werden die Städte ihrer Stärke sein wie verlassene Burgen im Wald und auf der Höhe, so verlassen wurden vor den Kindern Israel, und werden wüst sein.
Te dien dage zullen zijn sterke steden zijn, als een verlaten struik, en opperste tak, welke zij verlaten hebben, om der kinderen Israels wil, hoewel daar verwoesting zal wezen.
In quel giorno, le sue città forti saranno abbandonate, come le foreste e le sommità dei monti furono abbandonate all’avvicinarsi de’ figliuoli d’Israele: sarà una desolazione.
Dnia onego miasta mocy jego będą opuszczone, jako chrościnka i rószczka, które opuszczone będą od synów Izraelskich, i będziesz ziemią spustoszoną.
В тот день укрепленные города его будут, как развалины в лесах и на вершинах гор, оставленные пред сынами Израиля, - и будет пусто.
在那 日，他們的堅固 城 必 像樹林中 和山頂上 所 撇棄的地方，就是 從前在以色列 人 面前 被人撇棄的。這樣，地就 荒涼了。
In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Isaiah 17:9
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators agree that this verse pronounces certain desolation on Israel's strong cities. The strongholds the people trusted in will become as abandoned as a place left behind, whether a forest thicket, a mountain summit, or a city deserted before invaders. The precise image, however, is disputed. Calvin and Barnes interpret the Hebrew words chōresh (forest) and āmīr (treetop or mountain top) literally: the cities will be like the scraps left after a clearing, barren and useless. The Cambridge Bible and Adam Clarke, following the Septuagint, read the phrase as a reference to the Amorites and Hivites, the Canaanite peoples who forsook their land before Israel. Both readings converge on the same point: what once seemed strong will become a wasteland. The verse echoes Isaiah 6:11, where the land is waste without inhabitant. The cause, as verse 10 makes clear, is Israel's forgetfulness of God.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: High
Main views:
- Canaanite peoples (LXX): The Septuagint reads 'Amorites and Hivites'; this gives a clear historical parallel to the conquest and avoids the obscure agricultural metaphor.
- Forest and treetop (Hebrew): The Masoretic Text's 'forest and treetop' connects with the harvest imagery of verse 6, emphasizing the totality of destruction with a slight remnant.
- Symbolic desolation (both): Regardless of textual choice, the verse clearly announces that the strong cities will become like abandoned, empty places.
What is clear: The strong cities of Israel will be utterly desolate because the people have forgotten God, echoing the abandonment of the land before the original inhabitants.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning of 'forsaken bough and uppermost branch' | All traditions agree the phrase depicts something abandoned and worthless, signifying desolation. | Catholics and some Protestants (following LXX) read it as the Amorites and Hivites, emphasizing historical reversal; others (Calvin, Barnes) see it as forest and summit imagery, emphasizing agricultural desolation. |
| Extent of the remnant | Verse 6 speaks of gleanings; Christians agree a small remnant survives judgment. | Some traditions (e.g., dispensationalism) see this as a literal future remnant for Israel; others (e.g., covenant theology) see it fulfilled in the faithful within the church. |
| Primary fulfillment | The prophecy was historically fulfilled in the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom. | Some interpret it as a type of final judgment (eschatological), others as a past event with ongoing spiritual application. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Isaiah 17 delivers an oracle against Damascus and the northern kingdom of Israel (Ephraim). Around 732 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III launched a campaign that devastated Samaria and its allied cities. The prophet speaks into that crisis. The 'strong cities' are the fortified towns Israel relied on for security, the same 'rock of your strength' they forgot, as verse 10 will charge.
The verse draws a direct line back to the conquest of Canaan. When Israel entered the land, the Canaanite inhabitants fled or were driven out, leaving their cities behind. Now Israel faces the same fate: the people who once dispossessed others will themselves be dispossessed. The agricultural imagery in verses 5, 6 strengthens the point. Like olive trees with only a few berries left after the harvest, only a remnant of the people will remain. The judgment reverses the Exodus story: the nation that conquered will be conquered, because they have become like the nations they displaced.
Cross-references support this reading. Isaiah 7:16 promises that the land of the two kings Israel fears will be forsaken before a child knows right from wrong. Here, the land of Israel itself is forsaken. The connection to the law (Deuteronomy 24:19, 21, the gleaning laws) adds depth: what was once a provision for the poor becomes a sign of devastation.
Textual Notes
The Hebrew text of Isaiah 17:9 reads ka‘ăzūvat hachōresh vehā’āmīr ('like the forsaken place of the forest and the summit'). The Septuagint (LXX) translates this as 'like the forsaken places of the Amorites and the Hivites,' suggesting a different Hebrew Vorlage or a deliberate interpretive rendering. The Cambridge Bible and Adam Clarke argue that the LXX preserves the original reading, noting that 'Amorites and Hivites' fits the historical context of the Canaanite dispossession. The words chōresh and āmīr appear elsewhere in the Old Testament only rarely (chōresh in 1 Samuel 23:15; 2 Chronicles 27:4; āmīr in Isaiah 17:6). The variant does not change the core message of desolation, but it affects whether the primary image is agricultural or historical.
Reception History
Early Christian interpreters, such as Jerome, read Isaiah 17:9 as a prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans: the cities would be forsaken just as the Canaanites were before Israel. During the Reformation, Calvin focused on the forest imagery, emphasizing that human defenses are no more protection than bushes are. The King James Version and later English translations largely followed the Hebrew, rendering 'forsaken bough and uppermost branch.' Modern scholarship (Cambridge Bible, Keil and Delitzsch) often adopts the LXX reading, arguing it makes better sense of the verse's reference to the nations Israel displaced. Across the centuries, the verse has been used to warn against spiritual amnesia: losing sight of God's past deliverance leads to present ruin.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- Strongholds become wastelands. The cities that represented security and pride will be abandoned, as empty as a forest clearing or a deserted summit.
- The pattern repeats. As the Canaanites forsook their land before Israel, so Israel will forsake theirs before a stronger enemy. The story that began with conquest ends with exile.
- A remnant remains. Verse 6 promises gleanings, a few olives left on the tree. The desolation is not total. Judgment serves both as end and as beginning.
Five-point outline
- The day of the Lord. The phrase 'in that day' marks a specific time of divine intervention in judgment.
- Human defenses fail. Strong cities, the pride of human ingenuity, cannot stand against God's purposes.
- Abandonment as a sign. The forsaken places in the woods and on mountains mirror the internal abandonment of the people who have forgotten God.
- The cause exposed. Verse 10 names the root: 'you have forgotten the God of your salvation.' Desolation flows from a broken relationship.
- Desolation as a warning. The verse calls readers to examine their own foundations. Only what is built on God endures.
Illustration hooks
- A once-thriving downtown district now full of boarded-up shops. The buildings still stand, but the life is gone.
- A farmhouse abandoned after a foreclosure, with fields overgrown and the roof caving in. It was someone's refuge, now it is a shell.
- A military fort from a past war, now a tourist site with empty gun emplacements. Its strength belongs to a forgotten era.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Does God still judge nations and individuals today, or is that only an Old Testament pattern?
- If judgment leaves a remnant, how do I know whether I am part of the remnant or part of the desolation?
- What does it mean to 'forget the God of your salvation' in a culture that offers many distractions and securities?
Leading a Discussion
Isaiah 17:9 brings us face to face with the seriousness of forgetting God. The strong cities of Israel become like abandoned places in the forest, empty, useless, a sign of judgment. But the chapter also whispers hope: a few olives remain on the tree (v.6). This passage challenges us to consider where we place our trust and what happens when we drift from God.
Discussion questions
- What do you think the 'forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top' looked like to an Israelite hearing this prophecy? What emotions would the image evoke?
- Read Isaiah 17:5-6. How does the agricultural picture of harvest and gleaning prepare for the image in verse 9? What do the few leftover olives suggest about judgment?
- Verse 10 says Israel forgot 'the God of your salvation' and 'the rock of your strength.' In what ways do we as individuals or as a community forget God today?
- The verse connects the fall of Israel to the fall of the Canaanites before them. Why is it significant that the same pattern recurs? What does this say about God's consistency?
- Some interpreters read the Hebrew words as 'forest and treetop'; others, with the Septuagint, read 'Amorites and Hivites.' How does each reading affect the meaning of judgment? Which do you find more compelling and why?
- If judgment leaves a remnant, what kind of hope does the remnant represent? How does this shape your understanding of God's discipline in your own life?
- The prophecy was fulfilled historically in the Assyrian invasion. How does that event still speak to us as readers far removed from ancient Israel?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Isaiah 6:11 | Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste, |
| Isaiah 6:13 | If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak whose stump remains when they are cut down, so the holy seed is its stump.” |
| Isaiah 7:16 | For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. |
| Isaiah 7:20 | In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard. |
| Isaiah 9:9 | All the people will know, including Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart, |
| Isaiah 9:12 | The Syrians in front, and the Philistines behind; and they will devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. |
| Isaiah 17:4 | “It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean. |
| Isaiah 17:5 | It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
9 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes interprets the difficult phrase "as a forsaken bough" to mean that the strong cities of Damascus and Samaria will be reduced to a few scattered towns, like the sparse leftover trees of a cut-down grove or the few berries left on an olive branch. He sees these remnants as spared specifically for the children of Israel to continue dwelling there.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin argues that the "strong cities" are not place names but images of useless defenses—like abandoned branches or thickets. Their real point is that Israel's fortifications will prove as empty as the wilderness when God judges them. He also reads the phrase about leaving as a comparison to how God once drove out the Canaanites, warning that human defenses are nothing against his arm.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
The commentator argues that the King James translation "forsaken bough and uppermost branch" is grammatically unsound. The Septuagint points to a corrected text: "deserted places
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
In that day shall the cities of their strength be as the forsaking of boughes and branches, which they did forsake, because of the children of Israel, and there shall be desolation.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill points out a striking reversal: the same cities the Canaanites abandoned out of fear of Israel will themselves be abandoned by Israel out of fear of Assyria. The strong cities become like a dead, stripped branch, forsaken by their inhabitants in a pattern that mirrors the earlier conquest.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB reads the forsaken bough as the trees left behind by the woodcutter. He argues the enemies shall leave only a few cities standing in Israel, and this remnant is the result of God's sovereign purpose carried out through the Assyrian invasion.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch interpret the fate of Ephraim's fortified cities as matching the old Amorite ruins abandoned in forests and on mountain peaks. They link the prophet's word choice for mountain-top to the name Amorite. Ephraim's alienation from God led to cultivating pleasant things and forming alliances with Damascus, which seemed promising but became a harvest heap for judgment.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry compares Israel's deserted strong cities to a decaying tree's last dead branches: bare, dry and worthless. The same judgment Israel inflicted on Canaan's cities now returns on them, as the land itself rejects those who forgot the God of their salvation.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley sees the judgment on the Canaanites as a deliberate warning for Israel: God punished them for the very same sins Israel now commits. The fate of the Canaanites is not just history, but a present example meant to awaken Israel to believe the threat applies to them as well.