Isaiah 27:11
When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.
Isaiah 27:11 stands in the first part of Isaiah, chapters 1 to 39, which is a collection of varied, single, distinct prophecies and historical accounts written while Isaiah was actively engaged as God's messenger in the public concerns of the rulers and the people, published at different times and on different occasions and afterward brought together into one collection. That section looks especially toward the last days and God's judgments on the earth. Its warnings applied in Isaiah's time and apply to the last days because the sins and false prophets of that time would be like those of the last days, and the same God who was mighty to save then is mighty to save now.
The withered boughs that are broken off and burned and set on fire are unbelieving Israel, a people of no understanding. Because of unbelief and turning from God, he that made and formed them will show them no mercy or favour. The unbelieving part of Israel would be removed, the unbelieving Jews cut off because of unbelief and left without mercy. Only the believing remnant remains as the living branches of holy Israel, loved because of the fathers, while the unbelievers removed for unbelief are treated as enemies for the sake of believing Gentiles who are grafted into the tree in their place. The breaking off is the same as and parallel in wording to that described in Romans 11.
The verse introduces a turn from judgment to gathering: its judgment and loss precede the gathering described in verses 12-13, which is the gathering of God's people at Christ's coming. That final gathering is the Lord gathering the children of Israel one by one with the blowing of the great trumpet from Assyria and Egypt to worship in the holy mount at Jerusalem. It is the New Testament gathering at the coming of the Saviour to gather his elect from the four winds, the opening of the graves of the whole house of Israel and bringing them into their land, fulfilled when the Lord descends with the trump of God and the dead in Christ rise and the living are caught up to meet him, the only gathering of Israel still to be fulfilled. As applied to those abiding in Christ, the breaking off of withered boughs teaches that God does not break people off until they have become withered and separated from the life that bears fruit.