When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.
11. When its harvest shall wither. {Bogus footnote} Some think that the Prophet has in his eye the metaphor of a vineyard, which he employed at the beginning of the chapter, and therefore they translate קציר (kātzīr,) branches. The word is certainly ambiguous; but as קציר (kātzīr) means also a harvest, and as the metaphor of a harvest is more appropriate, I prefer to take it in that sense.
Here is the prophet again singing of mercy and judgment, not, as before, judgment to the enemies and mercy to the church, but judgment to the church and mercy mixed with that judgment. I. Here is judgment threatened even to Jacob and Israel. They shall blossom and bud (Isa 27:6), but, 1. They shall be smitten and slain (Isa 27:7), some of them shall.
Commenting on Isaiah 27:7-13
When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off,.... This city is compared to a tree, whose branches are not only gnawed and consumed by cattle, as in the former verse Isa 27:10; but which, in a hot dry summer, are withered and dried up, and so are easily broken, and are fit for nothing but the fire; hence it follows: the women...