The Burden of Damascus: Isaiah 17
Isaiah 17. gives light here. The prophet hails a wing-shadowing power, whose ambassadors are despatched in swift vessels by sea; and we note also that this power sendeth them by sea; and from the context, the power addressed is a mighty nation, whose mission is the bringing back of Jehovah’s nation to their own land. It is evident from the three preceding verses this hailing is at a time when all the nations are rushing and rolling as thistle down before the whirlwind, and is said to be the evening-tide trouble —[Read the chapter.]
— The Christadelphian, Volume 10, 1873, Page 306
This eighteenth chapter of Isaiah is part of a prophecy relating to that crisis in Israel’s history where “the judgment sits and the books are opened.” The beginning of the passage is the 12th verse of Isa. 17., the last three verses of which should be included in the eighteenth chapter. It belongs to the time when “the nations are angry, and God’s wrath is come,” and “the men upon the face of the land shake at his presence” Dan. 7:10; Rev. 11:18; Ezek. 38:20; a time of tumult and uproar among the nations rushing against each other to battle;
— The Christadelphian, Volume 29, 1892, Page 3
This morning it is a chapter (Isaiah 17.), which we may find not so barren as it looks. It is headed “the burden of Damascus,” but there is much more in it than this. There is burden for other places and people as well, and some things that are not burdensome, but contrarywise, lightsome and gladsome. “Burden” is that which is heavy, and, applied to a message, means heavy tidings. There is much of heavy tidings in the prophets which is one result of their message being divine; reproof and condemnation for evil ways come from God. When it is left to man he speaks pleasant things. The prophets do not deal in pleasant things, but the reverse. “Gladness is taken away,” says Isaiah in the chapter before the one we have read: “and joy out of the plentiful field; in the vineyards there shall be no singing.” In the chapter before us Damascus is to “become a ruinous hero: the cities of Aroer are to be forsaken: the fortress is to cease from Ephraim.” Even “the glory of Jacob” is to be “made thin in that day, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.” The harvest of the human activities then going on would not be such as they were aiming at and expecting: it would be “a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.” In a word, as at verse 9, “THERE SHALL BE DESOLATION.” Why all this terrible blackness in human prospects? The answer is in verse 10: “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength.”
— The Christadelphian, Volume 31, 1894, Page 263
Also see Ministry of the Prophets Isaiah, Chapter 17.
Also see Roberts, Robert, Further Seasons of Comfort, 1885, Vol. 2, Exhortation entitled: UNPLEASANT THINGS FOR THE WORLD
Hear Now These Words 