The Precious in the Midst of the Abominable

So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, As a hut in a garden of cucumbers, As a besieged city.

      “And” – A simple coordinating conjunction used to connect on thought to another. Here it connects the thought of the ravished city in the verse before with the idea of the daughter of Zion that follows. In this instance it is quite useful as it personalizes the passage and causes us to think, not in terms of the nation, but takes our thoughts and with the introduction of the term “daughter” next, to much more personal and intimate level where we will not detached, but will be more apt to take to heart what Isaiah will be saying. It is actually quite a good bit of writing.

     The word might also be translated “So” as it is in the NKJV. This implies some contrasting or otherwise joining event that is coupled with the foregoing events. Here we would see that, in spite of what was said in the prior verses, there was a remnant, a “daughter of Zion” that remained.

    “She was Left” - The word used here denotes left as a part or remnant is left - not left entirely, or complete, but in a weakened or divided state. In the particular form it is in here it means to be spared or preserved[1]. It is as if Isaiah is saying that the Daughter of Zion has escaped the punishment in the sense that God preserved her from the entire effect of it. It is used, for instance, in this form in Joshua 11:11:

     And they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was none left breathing. Then he burned Hazor with fire.

     The normal effect of such judgment would be to wipe out the entire group, but that was not the case here, this group “escaped” the full effect. The idea is further developed by the use of the passive voice. She did not escape, she was “escaped”, the implication is by the only force that could do that, namely God Himself.

     The clear statement of Isaiah here is that God was judging Israel and that the condition of the nation was only indirectly the result of the result of the attacking nations. More directly it was the result of God’s actions in bringing chastisement. But even in the midst of that judgment, a remnant had “remained” or be “spared” that judgment and been allowed by God to remain in Israel, in Jerusalem. That remnant is described as “The Daughter of Zion”.

     In these words Isaiah introduces the doctrine of the remnant for the first time. Even this remnant, as Herntrich well points out, is itself a witness to the frightful character of the destruction.[2] It is interesting that even in the midst of the prophecy of destruction, God holds out the branch of good news to His people! He will not leave the comfortless!

     “The daughter of Zion” - Zion, or Sion, was the name of one of the hills on which the city of Jerusalem was built. On this hill formerly stood the city of the Jebusites, and when David took it from them he transferred to it his court, and it was called the city of David, or the holy hill. It was in the southern part of the city. As Zion became the residence of the court, and was the most important part of the city, the name was often used to denote the city itself, and is often applied to the whole of Jerusalem.

     The phrase appears in some 36 verses in the Bible, 34 of them in the OT. It seems to mean Zion itself, or Jerusalem. It is a personification of Jerusalem, standing in this case for all of Judah.[3] The name daughter is given to it by a personification in accordance with a common custom in Eastern writers, by which beautiful towns and cities are likened to young females. The name mother is also applied in the same way. Perhaps the custom arose from the fact that when a city was built, towns and villages would spring up round it - and the first would be called the mother-city (hence, the word metropolis). The expression was also employed as an image of beauty, from a fancied resemblance between a beautiful town and a beautiful and well-dressed woman. Thus Ps. 45:13, the phrase daughter of Tyre, means Tyre itself; Ps. 137:8, daughter of Babylon, that is, Babylon; Isa. 37:22, ‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion;’ Jer. 46:2; Isa. 23:12; Jer. 14:17; Num. 21:23, 32, (Hebrew); Judg. 11:26.

     Aside from 2 uses (Ps. 9:14; SoS 3:11) which are centered on worship; and 10 other uses by Isaiah himself (including the present one) which follow the same general sense as the current verse; we are left with 22 occurrences of the phrase that are all, generally speaking, either apocalyptic or Messianic in nature. They are all fairly clear in that they are direct references to Jerusalem as a representative of the nation of Israel as a unit. We could add to those the two occurrences in the NT as they as simply quote of OT passages (Matt. 21:5 and John 12:15).

     And so, the “Daughter of Zion”, this one that was the apple of God’s eye has been judged, but a remnant has been left. Isaiah now goes on characterize the quality of just how they have been “left”.

     Before we go on and consider that idea we need to think a moment about the choice of the word “daughter”. A “daughter” here uses a Hebrew word referring to any female, usually, in this context, of marrying age (not a pre-adolescent young girl). Daughters of pre-adolescent age were referred to as children. Actually, the of in this phrase is somewhat misleading. “Daughter of Zion” seems to indicate that Zion has a daughter. In fact, Zion is the daughter—the daughter of the Lord.[4]

     The word bath, “daughter,” is a feminine singular collective noun with neuter force, signifying the aggregate of the inhabitants of a city or country personified as a female. This phrase means not Zion’s daughter, but the daughter who is in Zion. Zion refers to the entire city rather than to the hill Ophel alone, and is thus a synonym for Jerusalem.[5] In the Old Testament cities are frequently designated in poetical fashion as women (cf. 2 Sam. 20:19; Ps. 87:5; Isa. 47:1; and Amos 5:2).[6] It seems likely, given the rest of the OT narrative concerning the love of God for Israel, that the expression “daughter of Zion” also implies some sense of tenderness, and characterizes Jerusalem as the beautiful city which was a delight to the Israelites as well as to God Himself. That city remains, but it remains alone, as both a witness to the fearfulness of the judgment and to the faithfulness and fullness of God’s power and ability to preserve Israel through that judgment. This would surely not be out of character when we consider the sentiments of our Lord Jesus Christ Who came and preached, taught, pled and wept over that same Jerusalem 7 centuries later!

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[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 3855, #2). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] Young, E. (1965). The Book of Isaiah: Volume 1, Chapters 1-18 (55). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

[3] MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Is 1:8). Nashville: Word Pub.

[4] Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1997). The Nelson study Bible : New King James Version. Includes index. (Is 1:8). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.

[5] Op. Cit., Young.

[6] Ibid.