Isaiah 24:13 · Bible study
Isaiah 24:13 Commentary: Judgment and Hope in Olive Shaking and Gleaning
Hebrew · 10 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Explore how Isaiah 24:13 uses olive shaking and grape gleaning to depict universal judgment while preserving a faithful remnant.
Research Summary
- Meaning: After worldwide judgment, only a tiny remnant survives, like a few olives left after beating or a few grapes after harvest.
- Key words: noqef (striking/shaking of olives); olelot (gleanings); eretz (land/earth).
- Main debate: Whether “the land” refers to Judah or the whole world, and whether the remnant is historical Israel or an eschatological company.
- Theological theme: Judgment and mercy coexist; God’s judgment is thorough but never final, he always preserves a seed.
- Best use: A text for preaching patience and hope in times of upheaval, and for reminding believers that small, hidden faithfulness matters to God.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
So will it be on the earth and among the nations, like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest.
WEB World English Bible 2000
For it will be so within the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.
KJV King James Version 1769
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 when the vintage is done.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
For thus shall it be in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive-tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
When thus it is in the heart of the land, In the midst of the peoples, As the compassing of the olive, As gleanings when harvest hath been finished,
Darby Darby Bible 1890
For so will it be in the midst of the land among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive-tree, as the grape-gleanings when the vintage is done.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
Porque así será en medio de la tierra, en medio de los pueblos, como aceituno sacudido, como rebuscos acabada la vendimia.
Porque assim será por entre a terra, e no meio destes povos; como quando se sacode a oliveira, e como as uvas que sobram depois de terminada a vindima.
Car il en est dans le pays, au milieu des peuples,
Denn es geht im Lande und im Volk eben, wie wenn ein Ölbaum abgepflückt ist, wie wenn man nachliest, so die Weinernte aus ist.
Want in het binnenste van het land, in het midden dezer volken, zal het alzo wezen, gelijk de afschudding des olijfbooms, gelijk de nalezingen, wanneer de wijnoogst geeindigd is.
Poiché avviene in mezzo alla terra, fra i popoli, quel che avviene quando si scuoton gli ulivi, quando si racimola dopo la vendemmia.
Albowiem tak będzie w pośród ziemi, w pośrodku narodów, jako gdy otrzęsą oliwy, i jako bywa z gronami, gdy się dokona zbieranie wina.
А посреди земли, между народами, будет то же, что бывает при обивании маслин, при обирании винограда, когда кончена уборка.
在 地上 的萬民 中，必 像打過的 橄欖樹，又像已摘 的葡萄 所剩無幾。
For it will be in the heart of the earth among the peoples, like the shaking of an olive-tree, as the last of the grapes after the getting-in is done.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Isaiah 24:13
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 describes the aftermath of a catastrophic judgment in which only a tiny group survives. The images of a shaken olive tree and grapes left after harvest come directly from Isaiah 17:5-6, where they already signal a remnant preserved for Israel. Here the metaphor is widened. Barnes identifies “the land” with Canaan and sees a few survivors “as in gathering olives a few will remain on the highest and outermost boughs.” Calvin extends the promise to the nations: the prophet “promises that some hope is left to the ruined nations,” because this prediction “applies strictly to the kingdom of Christ.” The Cambridge Bible states flatly that “the whole human race must perish, with the exception of an insignificant remnant.” Gill reads the verse eschatologically, linking it to the destruction of mystical Babylon and the call of God’s people out of her (Revelation 18:4). All traditions unite on the core point: judgment is so thorough that the world is stripped bare, yet God does not leave himself without a witness. A few, like olives on high branches or grapes missed by the pickers, remain.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Low
What is clear: After an extensive judgment, only a small remnant survives—God does not make a full end.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of the judgment | The judgment is severe and strips the earth of its inhabitants, leaving only a small number. | Some commentators (Barnes, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown) limit 'the land' to Canaan/Judah; others (Calvin, Cambridge Bible) understand it as the whole world. |
| Nature of the remnant | The remnant is a small, preserved group, like olives or grapes that were missed. | Gill reads the remnant as the elect called out of Babylon before the final destruction; Calvin sees it as believers from all nations in the kingdom of Christ; Matthew Henry views it as faithful Israelites during the Assyrian/Babylonian invasions. |
| Timing of fulfillment | The verse speaks of a future judgment from Isaiah's perspective, with a remnant surviving. | Historicist readings (Barnes, Henry) associate it with the Assyrian or Babylonian crisis. Eschatological readings (Gill, to some extent Calvin) see it as the end-time judgment of the world. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Isaiah 24 opens the so-called “Isaiah Apocalypse” (chapters 24, 27), a sweeping vision of divine judgment on the whole earth. The preceding verses (vv. 1, 12) describe a world reduced to chaos: the city is broken down, houses are shut, joy has vanished. Verse 13 sits as a hinge between this devastation and the song of the remnant that follows (vv. 14, 16). Keil and Delitzsch call the ruined city kiryath tohu, “a city of chaos”, representing the world’s centre of power and pleasure, now brought back to its primeval formlessness.
Olive harvesting in ancient Israel was done by beating the tree with long poles, as implied by the Hebrew word noqef (literally “striking off”). This method could damage the tree, but it also meant that some olives on the highest, thinnest branches were left behind. Similarly, the law of gleaning (Leviticus 19:9, 10) required landowners to leave the edges of fields and the fallen grapes for the poor. The prophet draws on these familiar agricultural practices to make a theological point: the same harvest that strips the tree also, by its very nature, leaves something behind. Wesley notes that “there shall be left a remnant; as there are some few olives or grapes left after the vintage is over.” The image would have been immediately vivid to an audience that lived by the cycle of olive and vine.
The connection to Isaiah 17:5-6 is deliberate. There the metaphor is applied to Israel alone; here it is extended “in the midst of the earth among the peoples.” This universalizing move suggests that the pattern of judgment-and-remnant is not limited to one nation but is the way God deals with the whole world. The remnant, though small, becomes the seed of future joy and praise.
Textual Notes
The supplied commentaries note no significant textual variants for Isaiah 24:13. The Hebrew text is stable across the Masoretic tradition, and the translations (WEB, KJV, ASV, BSB, YLT, Darby, Douay) agree closely in sense. Lange's Commentary offers grammatical notes on the infinitive forms in the chapter but not on verse 13 specifically.
Reception History
Jewish tradition, as preserved in the Targum, interpreted the verse as a promise that “the righteous in the midst of the earth, among the kingdoms” would be left alone, a remnant of the faithful. Matthew Henry (1710) used the verse to encourage believers who lose earthly comforts to find joy in God, reading it alongside Habakkuk 3:16-18. Gill (1748) gave the verse a strongly eschatological turn, connecting the remnant to the elect who heed the call of Revelation 18:4 to come out of Babylon before its fall. Across traditions, the verse has been a steady anchor for the doctrine of the remnant, God’s sovereign preservation of a people for himself even in the darkest judgments. Calvin’s interpretation extended this hope to the Gentiles, seeing it as a prophecy of the spread of the gospel through Christ’s kingdom. The verse remains a favorite for sermons on hope in times of national or global crisis.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- Judgment strips the earth bare. The shaking of the olive tree and the completion of the vintage picture a total harvest, nothing is left but the thinnest leftovers. Verses 9, 12 make the same point: wine, song, and joy are gone. This is God’s decisive act against human rebellion.
- Yet a remnant remains. The same harvest that strips the tree also, by the nature of the work, leaves olives on the highest branches and grapes missed by the pickers. This is not an accident; it is God’s design. He always preserves a seed (Isaiah 1:9; 6:13).
- That remnant becomes a source of praise. Immediately after this verse, the survivors lift their voices to shout for the majesty of Yahweh (v. 14). The remnant is not just saved from destruction; it is saved for worship.
Five-point outline
- The scope of judgment: universal (“the whole human race must perish”, Cambridge Bible).
- The thoroughness of judgment: “as the shaking of an olive tree”, every branch is beaten.
- The mercy within judgment: “gleanings” are left, God does not make a full end.
- The identity of the remnant: a faithful few, scattered, hidden, known only to God.
- The purpose of the remnant: to be the beginning of a new song, glorifying God in the east and in the islands (v. 15).
Illustration hooks
- A farmer walks his vineyard after the pickers have gone. Row after row looks bare, but here and there a cluster of grapes hangs low, hidden by leaves. The harvest was complete, but not entirely.
- After a forest fire, the first thing that grows back is a small green shoot. The landscape is blackened, but life has not been wiped out.
- In any large crowd, a handful of people will notice something everyone else misses. The remnant is like that, a small group who see the hand of God when everyone else sees only ruin.
Questions your congregation is asking
- If God judges the world so thoroughly, how can I be sure I will be part of the remnant that survives?
- Does “a faithful remnant” mean only a small number of people will be saved in the end?
- How do I find joy in God when everything around me is falling apart?
Leading a Discussion
Isaiah 24:13 sits in the middle of a passage that describes both total judgment and sudden praise. The group’s task is to hold these two realities together. The agricultural images, a beaten olive tree and picked-over vines, are ordinary things that carry extraordinary weight.
Discussion questions
- Observation: What do the words “shaking” and “gleanings” tell you about the process of harvesting? How would a farmer feel after the work was done?
- Observation: Compare Isaiah 24:13 with Isaiah 17:5-6. What is the same? What is different? Why do you think the prophet repeats the image?
- Interpretation: Some commentators say “the land” in verse 13 means Judah; others say it means the whole earth. What difference does that make for how we understand the verse?
- Interpretation: The remnant here is described as “gleanings”, leftovers. Why would God choose that language instead of calling them “champions” or “the faithful”?
- Application: Verse 14 says the survivors “shout for the majesty of Yahweh.” How is it possible to praise God when you have just been through a disaster?
- Application: In your own life, where do you see “gleanings” of grace, small, overlooked signs that God has not given up on the world or on you?
- Application: How does this passage shape your view of current events that seem to point toward judgment? Does it give you hope? In what way?
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 1:9 | Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah. |
| 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 10:20 | It will come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and those who have escaped from the house of Jacob will no more again lean on him who struck them, but shall lean on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. |
| Isaiah 10:22 | For though your people, Israel, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness. |
| 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. |
| Isaiah 17:6 | Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel. |
| Jeremiah 44:28 | Those who escape the sword will return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah few in number. All the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs. |
| Ezekiel 6:8 | “‘“Yet I will leave a remnant, in that you will have some that escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. |
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
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What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes points to the shaking of an olive tree as the controlling image: just as a few olives cling to the highest branches after harvest, only a small remnant will remain in the land of Canaan. His reading emphasizes the severity of the judgment and the slender margin of survivors.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin reads this promise as reaching beyond Israel to all nations through Christ, not as a message for Jews alone. He notes the olive-tree metaphor once pictured only the church, but now it extends the same sparing mercy to Gentiles. Yet the warning remains: the earth will be stripped bare, just as trees lose their fruit.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
The Cambridge Bible notes that this verse describes almost total destruction, with only a tiny, insignificant remnant surviving. The imagery of beating an olive tree and gleaning after the vintage is taken from Isaiah 17:6 and carries the same sense of severe loss.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva Notes draw attention to the certain outcome of God's judgment: only a small remnant will remain. The comparison to olives left after shaking a tree and grapes left after the vintage ends emphasizes how few survivors there will be when judgment sweeps across the earth.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill applies the olive tree shaking and grape gleaning imagery directly to the final destruction of Rome and the antichristian system. The few remnants left after the shaking picture the elect who will be called out of Babylon before her plagues fall, preserved as a seed for the church.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB insists the comma belongs after "land," not after "people," which changes the meaning. The remnant among the people will be like the few olives left on the highest branches after the main harvest, a small but real survival.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch identifies the ruined city not as Jerusalem but as the world's central city, estranged from God. Its inward nature was tohu—a breaking of divine order—so its end is tohu, collapsing back into chaos. The remnant of survivors scattered across the earth is like olives after the harvest.
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange sees the judgment unfolding in distinct stages: first only a remnant survives, then the earth itself is shattered, and finally even the angelic powers hostile to God are bound in the abyss for a time. He insists that "the host of the height" includes fallen angels, not just stars or earthly rulers, and that their temporary imprisonment will be followed by a later release.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry observes that even when judgment sweeps the land, God always preserves a small, scattered remnant. These few are hidden like olives left after harvesting or grapes missed by the vinedresser. Their comfort comes not from earthly things but from joy in God, which survives any calamity.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley compares God's judgment to a harvest that strips the field nearly bare, yet always leaves a few overlooked olives or grapes. This remnant shows that even in the fiercest execution of judgment, God spares a small, preserved group by grace.