Isaiah 17:14, commentary and pictures

Isaiah, whose name means Jehovah is salvation, prophesied between 760 and 698 B.C., beginning as a young man in the reign of Uzziah and continuing through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, with tradition extending his prophesying into the reign of Manasseh by whom he was martyred. The verse stands in the first part of the book, chapters 1-39, which contains prophecies and historical accounts from the prophet's period of public activity. These prophecies were given on different occasions and later collected together, in the section containing burdens on Babylon, Philistia, Moab and other nations in chapters 13-23. It is part of Isaiah 17, a prophecy of God's judgments on Damascus, an ancient and important Syrian city, one of the judgments pronounced against various nations and peoples. The times in Judah were crucial and typical of the great days to come, and as the Gospel prophet he speaks more than any other Old Testament prophet of the last days, the sufferings and work of Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of glory ahead.

The Hebrew word goh-rahl, translated lot, refers to the portion or fate assigned to those who spoil and rob, a determination of Providence by God rather than a lot of inherited land. The verse describes the sudden destruction and disappearance of those who plunder, spoil, attack and rob God's people: trouble comes at evening, but by morning the enemy is gone. This brief trouble and destruction is their appointed portion and lot.

The verse points to a coming time of trouble in which the enemy's threat appears in the evening but is gone before morning. The morning marks the end of Antichrist's reign and the beginning of Christ's reign: the unrighteous kingdom is broken, and the kingdom of the righteous rises in its place.