In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Parallel Translations
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In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
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In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
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In the day of thy planting thou didst make it to grow, and in the morning thou didst make thy seed to blossom — a heap of boughs in the day of grief and of desperate pain.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Isaiah 17:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 4:8 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.
- Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
- Psalms 90:6 In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.
- Isaiah 18:5-6 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches. They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer, and all the animals of the earth will eat them in the winter.
- Isaiah 65:13-14 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed; Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.
- Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
- Hosea 9:1-4 Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor. The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her. They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house.
- Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.”
- Hosea 10:12-15 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you. You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men. Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children. So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.
- Joel 1:5-12 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house. The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn. The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men.
- Matthew 8:11-12 I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
- Romans 2:5 But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
- Romans 2:8-9 but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation, oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
- Galatians 6:7-8 Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain As the Lord threateneth the wicked in his Law,…
As the Lord threateneth the wicked in his Law, Lev. 26:16.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 17:11 In the day shalt thou make thy…
Isa 17:11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: [but] the harvest [shall be] a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Ver. 11. In the day thou shalt make thy plant to grow.] So Pro 22:8, he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity; and the more serious and sedulous he is at it, the worse shall it be with him. {Gal 6:8}
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But thy harvest shall be an heap.] This is a proverb among the Jews, to signify labour in vain.
In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.] Heb., Aegrae, sc., plagae; for grapes ye shall gather thorns, for figs, thistles.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain In the day shalt thou make thy plant to…
In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; thou shalt from day to day, beginning early in the morning, use all care and diligence that what thou hast planted and sown may thrive; and thou shalt see some effect of thy labours, and some hopes of success.
But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow: the sense of the words thus rendered is this, But in the time of your grief, &c., or when this grievous calamity shall come, all your harvest shall be but one heap, which in itself is very inconsiderable, and is easily carried away by your enemies. But the place is and may be otherwise rendered, and that very agreeably both to the words and order of the Hebrew text; But the heap (or, heaps, the singular number being most commonly put for the plural) of the harvest (i.e. instead of those heaps of corn which thou didst expect, and which men usually reap in harvest)
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in the day or time (to wit, of the harvest; or, in the day of calamity, of which I have spoken, Isa 17:4,9; or, in a day, i.e. speedily or suddenly) shall be (or, thou shalt have)
grief and desperate sorrow. This shall be all thy harvest, and the event of thy labours.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain In the day shall thou make thy plant to…
In the day shall thou make thy plant to grow,.... Not that it is in the power of man to make it grow; but the sense is, that all means and methods should be used to make it grow, no cost nor pains should be spared:
and in the morning shall thou make thy seed to flourish; which may denote both diligence in the early care of it, and seeming promising success; and yet all should be in vain, and to no purpose:
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but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief; or "of inheritance"; when it was about to be possessed and enjoyed, according to expectation, it shall be all thrown together in a heap, and be spoiled by the enemy: or, "the harvest" shall be "removed in the day of inheritance" (w); just when the fruit is ripe, and going to be gathered in, the enemy shall come and take it all away; and so, instead of being a time of joy, as harvest usually is, it will be a time of grief and trouble,
and of desperate sorrow too, or "deadly"; which will leave them in despair, without hope of subsistence for the present year, or of having another harvest hereafter, the land coming into the hands of their enemies.
(w) "recedit messis in die hereditatis sive possessionis"; so some in Vatablus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain In the day - Thou shalt from day to…
In the day - Thou shalt from day to day, beginning early in the morning, use all diligence that what thou hast planted may thrive. But - When this grievous calamity shall come, all your harvest shall be but one heap.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In the day ... - Thou shalt cultivate it…
In the day ... - Thou shalt cultivate it assiduously and constantly. Thou shalt be at special pains that it may be watered and pruned, in order that it may produce abundantly.
And in the morning - With early care and attention - denoting the pains that would be bestowed on the young plant.
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The harvest shall be a heap - The margin reads this, ‘the harvest shall be removed in the day of inheritance, rendering it as if the word נד nêd usually meaning a heap, were derived from נוד nûd, to shake, move, wander; or, as if it were to be removed. Probably the translation in the text is correct; and the sense is, ‘When from the plant which was so beautiful and valuable, and which you cherished with so much care, you expected to obtain a rich harvest, you had only sorrow and inexpressible disappointment.’ The figure used here is supposed by Rosenmuller to be that of hendiadys (ἕν διὰ δυοῖν hen dia duoin)by which the phrases ‘shall be an heap,’ and ‘desperate sorrow,’ are to be taken together, meaning ‘the heap of the harvest shall be inexpressible sorrow.’
In the day of grief - The word rendered ‘grief’ here (נחלה nachălâh) means, properly, “inheritance, heirship, possession,” and should have been so rendered here. It means that in the day when they “hoped” to possess the result of their planting, or in the time of the usual harvest, they would obtain only grief and disappointment.
And desperate sorrow - The word rendered ‘desperate’ (אנשׁ 'ânash), denotes that which is “weak, mortal, incurable” Job 34:6; Jer 17:16; Jer 30:12, Jer 30:15. The sense here is, that there would be grievous disappointment, and that there would be no remedy for it; and the idea of the whole is, that calamities were coming upon the nation which would blast all their hopes, and destroy all their prospects. The prophecy was fulfilled in the invasion by Tiglath-pileser, and the army of the Assyrians.
The twelfth verse commences a new prophecy, which has no connection with that which precedes it; and which in itself gives no certain indication of the time when it was uttered, or of the people to which it relates. It is a broken and detached piece, and is evidently the description of some army rushing to conquest, and confident of success, but which was to be overtaken with sudden calamity. The entire description is so applicable to the invasion of the land of Judah by the army of Sennacherib, and his overthrow by the angel of Yahweh, that by the common consent of interpreters it has been regarded as referring to it (see the notes at Isa. 10). But when it was spoken, or why it was placed here, is unknown. It may be added that many commentators, and, among the rest, Gesenius, have supposed that the following chapter is a part of this prophecy. The general sense of the prophecy is, that numerous hostile nations would overrun Palestine, but that Yahweh would destroy them all.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Much. Thou hast laboured earnestly, but reaped no benefit.…
Much. Thou hast laboured earnestly, but reaped no benefit. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain In the day . . . thy plant--rather, "In…
In the day . . . thy plant--rather, "In the day of thy planting" [HORSLEY].
shalt . . . make . . . grow--MAURER translates, "Thou didst fence it," namely, the pleasure-ground. The parallel clause, "Make . . . flourish," favors English Version. As soon as thou plantest, it grows.
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in the morning--that is, immediately after; so in Psa 90:14, the Hebrew, "in the morning," is translated "early."
but . . . shall be a heap--rather, "but (promising as was the prospect) the harvest is gone" [HORSLEY].
in . . . day of grief--rather, "in the day of (expected) possession" [MAURER]. "In the day of inundation" [HORSLEY].
of desperate sorrow--rather, "And the sorrow shall be desperate or irremediable." In English Version "heap" and "sorrow" may be taken together by hendiadys. "The heap of the harvest shall be desperate sorrow" [ROSENMULLER].
The connection of this fragment with what precedes is: notwithstanding the calamities coming on Israel, the people of God shall not be utterly destroyed (Isa 6:12-13); the Assyrian spoilers shall perish (Isa 17:13-14).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 11. Make thy plant to grow — On the…
11. Make thy plant to grow — On the very day of (or, quite at the immediate) planting of his pleasant garden-ground, (of his overture with Damascus,) he assiduously guarded it by a hedge. He turned away totally from Jehovah.
In the morning — On the very next morning he found what he had sown in full bloom — his agreement respecting alliance with a foreign power was hearty, he was ready to take the sensual worship of Damascus as his state religion; and the blossom was rapidly advancing to fruitage, that is, to a place of united attack upon Judah. But this plantation, so promising at first to Israel, and succeeding, apparently, so well, was all at once a harvest heap for the day of terrible judgment.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. The verse reads: In the day when thou…
11. The verse reads: In the day when thou plantest thou makest it to grow, and in the morning when thou sowest thou makest it to blossom, (but) the harvest disappears in a day of sickness and incurable sorrow. “However successful your enterprise may seem in its early stages, it is doomed to failure.” For “makest it to grow” we may render with R.V. “hedgest it in.” The words “plant” and “seed” must be construed alike, both are taken above as infinitives. The word for “disappears” means “heap” in Exo_15:8; Psa_33:7; Psa_78:13 and so A.V. here. But here it is better taken as a verb; R.V. rightly “fleeth away.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11) In the day shalt thou make.—Better, thou makest,…
(11) In the day shalt thou make.—Better, thou makest, or, thou fencest, thy plant. The alliance between Syria and Ephraim is compared in the rapidity of its growth with the “gardens of Adonis.” All the “harvest heaps” from such a planting would end, not in the wonted joy of harvest (Isa_9:3), but in “grief and incurable pain” There is no sufficient evidence for the marginal reading of the Authorised version.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain In the day; or, in a day (Kay). Shalt…
In the day; or, in a day (Kay). Shalt thou make; rather, thou makest. Each new slip that is planted is forced to take root and grow and flourish at once; the next morning it is expected to have formed its seed and reached perfection. So the harvest is hurried on; but when it is reached, the day of visitation has arrived a day of grief and of desperate sorrow. The mission of disappointment; or, disappointment used as a Divine judgment.
In this passage is presented the case of unrewarded toil. Seed is sown, blades spring up, there is every prospect of harvest; but all hopes are disappointed, the harvest proved a failure it was "a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." One special feature of the discipline of life is the disappointment of our most cherished hopes and expectations. We build our castles on some new enterprise, and at first all seems to go well; but at last our castle lies in ruins about us. We set our hopes on one of our children, and fashion for him a future of honor and success, and our disappointment in him almost breaks our heart. We make important changes, which promise much, and result in the humiliation of failure and distress. God works by disappointments; they are keener rods for smiting than afflictions are. They bear more quickly on the humbling of man"s pride and on the conviction of his self-helplessness. They try temper more. They too often result in hardening and increased willfulness. There is no harder lesson for us to learn than this one, that God works his work of grace by shutting doors against us, and not permitting us to achieve the success which is the desire of our heart. We plan, we work, but all proves in vain; and so we learn that it is the blessing of the Lord alone that maketh rich, and giveth good success. We observe
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I DISAPPOINTMENT DIFFERS FROM AFFLICTION. Take two scenes from David"s life. The rebellion of Absalom was an affliction. The refusal to permit him to build the temple was a disappointment. The one was no more under God"s overruling than was the other. They are perfectly distinct in character and in influence. One difference may be effectively illustrated. With "afflictions" there is usually an enfeebled and depressed state of body, involving weakened will and limitation of resistance. With "disappointments" there is usually the full health and energy; and the conflict, that ends in true submission, is therefore more severe.
II DISAPPOINTMENTS MAY INFLUENCE WHEN AFFLICTIONS WOULD NOT. That depends on dispositions. Many a man can bear sufferings who would be thrown into the most violent struggles by having his will crossed. Then that "crossing of his will" may be the only way to accomplish his sanctifying. We should rejoice that he who knows the best methods of chastisement also knows us on whom the correction comes. For us the way to heaven may be round by a series of lifelong disappointments. Most persons, perhaps, looking back over their lives, would say that their bitterest hours were those in which they realized that they "could not do the things that they would." St. Paul knew such times. The story of one such is very simply told, but those who read between the lines may find indication of much feeling. "We assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit Suffered us not." And it is not easy to estimate the educational influence on our Lord"s disciples of that overwhelming disappointment, which came when he who they thought should have redeemed Israel was "hung up and crucified." That may be just the kind of weapon which our heavenly Father may need for our correction; and, in our various disappointments, we may hear his gracious voice saying, "Should it be according to thy mind? R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.