Bible Strands
Isaiah 7:8
For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD speaks through Isaiah to announce the collapse of a hostile coalition, identifying the political hierarchy of Aram and Damascus while forecasting the end of Ephraim as a nation.
The words — רֹאשׁ (rosh) literally means head or ruling authority, structuring the verse as a chain of command from Aram to Damascus to Rezin. וּ/בְ/ע֗וֹד (u./ve./'od) translates as and in yet, marking the precise temporal boundary for Ephraim's destruction.
The thread — The judgment on Damascus resurfaces in Isaiah 17:1 as a completed burden of ruin, while 2 Samuel 8:6 and Genesis 14:15 anchor Damascus and Aram within Israel's ongoing geopolitical history.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that national power operates on a fixed divine timeline, demanding acceptance of political collapse as a settled fact rather than a conditional threat.
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
For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 17:1 This is the burden against Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is no longer a city; it has become a heap of ruins.
- Genesis 14:15 During the night, Abram divided his forces and routed Chedorlaomer’s army, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus.
- 2 Samuel 8:6 Then he placed garrisons in Aram of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to David and brought him tribute. So the LORD made David victorious wherever he went.
- 2 Kings 17:5 Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
- Ezra 4:2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families, saying, “Let us build with you because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to Him since the time of King Esar-haddon of Assyria, who brought us here.”
- Isaiah 8:4 For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”
- Hosea 1:6 Gomer again conceived and gave birth to a daughter, and the LORD said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I should ever forgive them.