Bible Strands
Isaiah 36:17
until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Assyrian king speaks through his envoy to Judah’s officials and populace during a military siege. He demands surrender and promises relocation to a fertile territory as an alternative to remaining under Hezekiah’s authority.
The words — עַד־ ('ad-) translates literally as "until" and אֶרֶץ ('E.retz) as "a land." The text uses these terms to mark the temporal endpoint of the siege and the specific geographical destination of the forced deportation.
The thread — The identical phrasing appears in 2 Kings 18:32, while the motif of relocation to a productive land connects to Exodus 3:8 and Deuteronomy 8:7. These references establish a pattern of land relocation used both as imperial threat and divine promise.
Why it lands — The verse presents a concrete choice between accepting a political offer of immediate material security or resisting for covenantal reasons. It requires readers to evaluate whether earthly comfort justifies abandoning established leadership and divine instruction.
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
Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 18:32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’
- Exodus 3:8 I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- Deuteronomy 8:7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;
- Deuteronomy 11:12 It is a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.
- 2 Kings 17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
- 2 Kings 18:9 In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.
- 2 Kings 24:11 And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.
- Job 20:17 He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
- Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are only cruelty.