Isaiah 18:6

"For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches."

Key Reflection

The original audience would have immediately recognized this imagery of agricultural cycles as symbolic of divine judgment. The reference to cutting off sprigs and spreading branches, which occurs before the grape fully ripens, suggests a sudden and unexpected intervention by God that disrupts the plans of nations or rulers before they can reach their anticipated fulfillment. This metaphor conveys that even when things seem on track for success, divine power can intervene swiftly and decisively, as if pruning a vineyard to ensure only the best grapes are left.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

They shall be left together -The figure here is dropped, and the literal narration is resumed. The sense is, that the army shall be slain and left unburied. Perhaps the “branches and twigs” in the previous verse denoted military leaders, and the captains of the armies, which are now represented as becoming food for beasts of the field and for birds of prey. To the fowls of the mountains -Their dead bodies shall be unburied, and shall be a prey to the birds that prey upon flesh. And to the beasts of the earth -The wild animals: the beasts of the forest. And the fowls shall summer upon them -Shall pass the summer, that is, they shall continue to be unburied.

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