Yet gleanings will remain, like an olive tree that has been beaten—two or three berries atop the tree, four or five on its fruitful branches,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
6. Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it. This metaphor has a different meaning from the former; for as if the name of the nation were to be entirely blotted out, he had expressly foretold that nothing would be left after the slaughter.
Mercy is here reserved, in a parenthesis, in the midst of judgment, for a remnant that should escape the common ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Though the Assyrians took all the care they could that none should slip out of their net, yet the meek of the earth were hidden in the day of the Lord's anger, and had their lives given...
Commenting on Isaiah 17:6-8
Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it,.... In Ephraim or Jacob; that is, in the ten tribes, a few of them should escape, a remnant should be saved; comparable, for the smallness of their number, to grapes that are gleaned after the vintage is got in: though Kimchi interprets it of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who were but few, in comparison of the ten...