Isaiah returns to the fate of Ephraim, or Jacob, or Israel: the northern kingdom.
In the face of the Assyrian threat, the natural thing to do would be to band together with another small nation. There is strength in numbers.
What about Damascus? They're in the same boat as us. Surely the Arameans will come to our aid!
But Isaiah looks, and sees desolation in Damascus. Isaiah looks, and all across the countryside it looks as if the harvest has come early. All the growing crops have been cut down. Nothing to be seen but the leftovers that the poor were allowed to glean. Proud fortifications taken over by weeds. It had happened before - when Israel took the land from the nations that had lived there before - their fortresses were left in ruins.
Isaiah looks, and sees it happening again. A nation of tall, smooth-skinned strangers are going to sweep over the land and ravage it.
And yet, and yet ... chapter 18 ends with an unlikely picture: these tall, smooth-skinned strangers are bringing tributes to the Lord! Even the Assyrians will bow the knee to Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel.
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