Bible Strands
Isaiah 1:8
And the Daughter of Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city besieged.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Isaiah addresses Judah at the point of maximum desolation: cities burned, fields devoured by foreigners. The verse is the hinge between total ruin (v. 7) and the narrow escape from Sodom-like annihilation (v. 9).
The words — נֹתְרָה (not.Rah, H3498) is a passive form of נָתַר, "to be left, to remain." It carries both abandonment and preservation at once: she has been left behind, and she has been kept.
The thread — The same title, "Daughter of Zion," reappears in Zechariah 9:9 and Zechariah 2:10 in a tone of triumph, and is quoted in John 12:15 at the triumphal entry. The remnant left in Isaiah becomes the object of joy in the later prophets.
Why it lands — The verse refuses to let the reader equate survival with restoration. What remains is a shelter in a vineyard — temporary, exposed, not yet a home.
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
And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
Cross-references
- Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
- John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey.”
- Zechariah 2:10 “Shout for joy and be glad, O Daughter of Zion, for I am coming to dwell among you,” declares the LORD.
- Isaiah 62:11 Behold, the LORD has proclaimed to the ends of the earth, “Say to Daughter Zion: See, your Savior comes! Look, His reward is with Him, and His recompense goes before Him.”
- Isaiah 10:32 Yet today they will halt at Nob, shaking a fist at the mount of Daughter Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.
- Lamentations 2:6 He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.
- Job 27:18 The house he built is like a moth’s cocoon, like a hut set up by a watchman.
- Psalms 9:14 that I may declare all Your praises—that within the gates of Daughter Zion I may rejoice in Your salvation.
- Isaiah 4:4 when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains from the heart of Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire.
- Isaiah 37:22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.