Bible Strands
Isaiah 33:9
The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is ashamed and decayed. Sharon is like a desert; Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks to Judah during a period of broken covenant and abandoned travel routes. This declaration occurs between the description of societal collapse in Isaiah 33:8 and God’s announcement of imminent intervention in Isaiah 33:10.
The words — אָבַל ('a.Val) literally means it has dried up or mourns, and קָמַל (ka.Mal) means it has withered or decayed. These verbs directly describe the physical desolation of Lebanon, Sharon, Bashan, and Carmel.
The thread — The same geographic list appears in Nahum 1:4 to mark divine judgment, while Isaiah 35:2 and 65:10 later reverse this image by promising those same regions will bloom and become pasture.
Why it lands — The text states that land desolation follows directly from treaty-breaking and despised witnesses. It requires the reader to acknowledge that ecological ruin is a documented consequence of covenant failure before any promised restoration occurs.
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
The earth mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 35:2 It will bloom profusely and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.
- Isaiah 65:10 Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for My people who seek Me.
- Nahum 1:4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
- Deuteronomy 3:4 At that time we captured all sixty of his cities. There was not a single city we failed to take—the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
- Song of Solomon 2:1 I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley.
- Isaiah 1:7 Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.
- Isaiah 2:13 against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, against all the oaks of Bashan,
- Isaiah 3:26 And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
- Isaiah 14:8 Even the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon exult over you: “Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes against us.”
- Isaiah 24:1 Behold, the LORD lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—