Bible Strands
Isaiah 1:7
Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Isaiah to Judah, pronouncing immediate national ruin following the detailed description of the people's unhealed wounds in the prior verse. The prophecy addresses a community that has violated its covenant, resulting in the total loss of territorial security and civic infrastructure.
The words — שְׁמָמָה (she.ma.mah) translates literally to "desolation," describing the complete abandonment of the land, while זָרִים (za.rim) means "strangers," specifying the foreign agents who occupy the territory. These terms ground the judgment in concrete, observable reality rather than abstract spiritual failure.
The thread — The motif of land desolation and foreign exploitation recurs in Deuteronomy 28:33 and Deuteronomy 28:43 as covenant curses, and resurfaces in Lamentations 5:2 during the post-exilic lament. Each reference maintains the same structural link between covenant breach and territorial displacement.
Why it lands — The text states that rebellion produces irreversible physical loss before any theological explanation is offered, requiring the reader to acknowledge that sin carries immediate, tangible consequences. It demands a clear-eyed assessment of cause and effect without resorting to comfort or evasion.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 28:33 A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.
- Deuteronomy 28:43 The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.
- Lamentations 5:2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.
- Ezekiel 30:12 I will make the streams dry up and sell the land to the wicked. By the hands of foreigners I will bring desolation upon the land and everything in it. I, the LORD, have spoken.
- Hosea 7:9 Foreigners consume his strength, but he does not notice. Even his hair is streaked with gray, but he does not know.
- Deuteronomy 28:48 you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
- 2 Chronicles 28:5 So the LORD his God delivered Ahaz into the hand of the king of Aram, who attacked him and took many captives to Damascus. Ahaz was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with great force.
- 2 Chronicles 28:16 At that time King Ahaz sent for help from the king of Assyria.
- Leviticus 26:34 Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
- Psalms 107:34 and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.