Isaiah 27
The Defeat of Leviathan and the Protected Vineyard 1–6
The Purpose of Israel's Chastisement 7–11
The Final Gathering of the Remnant 12–13
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Isaiah 27
Verse 1
leviathan the piercing serpent — Livyathan is the sea creature of Job 41:1, whose heads God ‘brakest… in pieces’ (Ps 74:14). ‘Serpent’ is nachash, the word of Gen 3:1; ‘piercing’ (bariach) is a fleeing serpent and ‘crooked’ (aqallaton) a twisting one. ‘The dragon’ (tannin) is a third name. John sees ‘the great dragon… that old serpent’ cast out (Rev 12:9).
Verse 2
A vineyard of red wine — Chemer is wine as it ferments. This is a second song of the vineyard: in Isa 5:1–7 the LORD’s vineyard ‘brought forth wild grapes’ and was laid waste (5:2, 6), and here it yields wine. ‘Unto her’ points to the vineyard that the LORD speaks of keeping in v.3.
Verse 3
I will water it every moment — Natsar, to guard, and shaqah, to give drink, are the keeper’s work, and ‘every moment’ (rega) is the blink of an eye. ‘Lest any hurt it’ is literally ‘lest any visit it’ (paqad), the verb of ‘punish’ in v.1. The keeper of Israel ‘shall neither slumber nor sleep’ (Ps 121:4); Christ is ‘the true vine’, his Father ‘the husbandman’ (John 15:1).
Verse 4
the briers and thorns — Shamir and shayit are the pair of Isa 5:6, where the abandoned vineyard grew ‘briers and thorns’, and of Isa 10:17, where the LORD is ‘a fire’ that ‘shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day’. ‘Fury’ (chemah) is not in the keeper, and anything set against him he would burn ‘together’ (yachad).
Verse 5
take hold of my strength — Maoz is the stronghold of Isa 25:4, ‘a strength to the poor’. The one who has been set against the LORD is invited to ‘take hold’ (chazaq) of it and ‘make peace’ (shalom), the offer repeated twice in the verse. Paul states the terms: ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God’ (Rom 5:1).
Verse 6
shall blossom and bud — Three verbs of growth: ‘take root’ (sharash), ‘blossom’ (tsuts) and ‘bud’ (parach). The same root-and-fruit picture is given to Judah’s remnant in Isa 37:31, ‘take root downward, and bear fruit upward’. The fruit fills ‘the face of the world’ (tebel), and Paul says Israel’s fall is ‘the riches of the world’ and asks how much more ‘their fulness’ (Rom 11:12).
Verse 7
Hath he smitten him? — The question uses nakah, to strike, with makkah, a blow, and harag, to kill, with hereg, slaughter: has Israel been struck as hard as those who struck Israel? The LORD’s smiting of the Assyrians is told in Isa 37:36, ‘a hundred and fourscore and five thousand’.
Verse 8
In measure — Sa’sea, found only here, comes from seah, a dry measure: the LORD measures out his dealing. ‘Debate’ (riv) is to contend, and he ‘stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind’, the wind that ‘dried up her fruit’ (Ezek 19:12). Jer 30:11 states the same restraint: ‘I will correct thee in measure’.
Verse 9
the iniquity of Jacob be purged — Kaphar, to cover or atone, is the verb of the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:30). The ‘fruit’ is the removal of sin (sur) and idolatry: the altar stones become ‘chalkstones’ (gir, lime) ‘beaten in sunder’, and the ‘groves’ (asherim) cannot stand (cf. Deut 16:21). Paul applies the line to Israel: ‘when I shall take away their sins’ (Rom 11:27).
Verse 10
the defenced city — ‘Defenced’ (batsar) is the word of Isa 25:2, ‘of a defenced city a ruin’, and the city is again not named. The ‘habitation’ (naveh) is left ‘like a wilderness’. There ‘shall the calf feed’ and ‘lie down’ (ravats), as flocks do in Isa 17:2, ‘which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid’.
Verse 11
a people of no understanding — Binah, understanding, is what they lack: ‘a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them’ (Deut 32:28). ‘He that made them’ and ‘he that formed them’ (yatsar) is the Maker named in Isa 43:1, ‘he that formed thee, O Israel’. ‘Mercy’ is racham, compassion, and ‘favour’ is chanan, grace.
Verse 12
the LORD shall beat off — Harvest words run through the verse. Chabat, ‘beat off’, is the verb of beating the olive tree (Deut 24:20), laqat, ‘gathered’, the verb of gleaning (Ruth 2:2), and shibbol, ‘channel’, also means an ear of grain (Ruth 2:2). The bounds, ‘the river’ to ‘the stream of Egypt’, recall Gen 15:18, ‘from the river of Egypt unto the great river’.
Verse 13
the great trumpet — Shofar, the ram’s horn, sounded for the jubile (Lev 25:9), now calls home those ‘which were ready to perish’ (abad) in Assyria and ‘the outcasts’ (nadach, driven away) in Egypt to ‘worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem’. Christ speaks of a ‘great sound of a trumpet’ gathering his elect (Matt 24:31).