Isaiah 30:17

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

One thousand will scurry at the battle cry of one enemy soldier; at the battle cry of five enemy soldiers you will all run away, until the remaining few are as isolated as a flagpole on a mountaintop or a signal flag on a hill.”

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

אֶלֶף אֶחָד מִפְּנֵי גַּעֲרַת אֶחָד מִפְּנֵי גַּעֲרַת חֲמִשָּׁה תָּנֻסוּ עַד אִם־נוֹתַרְתֶּם כַּתֹּרֶן עַל־רֹאשׁ הָהָר וְכַנֵּס עַל־הַגִּבְעָה׃

Transliteration

One ʾelep from before [the] gaʿărat of one, from before [the] gaʿărat of five you shall tānusû, until you are nôtartem like a tōren upon [the] top of [the] mountain, and like a nēs upon [the] hill.

Grammar Details

• *ʾelep*: masculine singular noun - thousand
• *gaʿărat*: feminine singular construct - rebuke/threat of
• *tānusû*: qal imperfect 2nd person masculine plural - you will flee
• *nôtartem*: niphal perfect 2nd person masculine plural - you are left/remain
• *tōren*: masculine singular noun - mast/pole
• *nēs*: masculine singular noun - banner/signal

Word Meanings

• *ʾelep*: thousand/military unit
• *gaʿărat*: rebuke/threat/scolding of
• *tānusû*: you will flee/escape/run away
• *nôtartem*: you are left/remain/survive
• *tōren*: mast/pole/flagstaff
• *nēs*: banner/signal/standard

Referenced Verses

• Lev 26:8 : 8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.
• Lev 26:36 : 36 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer.
• Deut 28:25 : 25 Curses by Defeat and Deportation“The LORD will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
• Deut 32:30 : 30 How can one man chase a thousand of them, and two pursue ten thousand; unless their Rock had delivered them up, and the LORD had handed them over?
• Josh 23:10 : 10 One of you makes a thousand run away, for the LORD your God fights for you as he promised you he would.
• Prov 28:1 : 1 Α wicked person fled, though no one was pursuing, but the righteous person can be as confident as a lion.
• Isa 1:7-8 : 7 Your land is devastated, your cities burned with fire. Right before your eyes your crops are being destroyed by foreign invaders. They leave behind devastation and destruction. 8 Daughter Zion is left isolated, like a hut in a vineyard, or a shelter in a cucumber field; she is a besieged city.
• Isa 6:13 : 13 Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.”
• Isa 27:11 : 11 When its branches get brittle, they break; women come and use them for kindling. For these people lack understanding, therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them; the one who formed them has no mercy on them.
• Isa 37:3-4 : 3 “This is what Hezekiah says:‘This is a day of distress, insults, and humiliation, as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. 4 Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. When the LORD your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. So pray for this remnant that remains.’”
• Jer 37:10 : 10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’”
• Zeph 3:12 : 12 I will leave in your midst a humble and meek group of people, and they will find safety in the LORD’s presence.
• Zech 13:8-9 : 8 It will happen in all the land, says the LORD, that two-thirds of the people in it will be cut off and die, but one-third will be left in it. 9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire; I will refine them like silver is refined and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name and I will answer; I will say,‘These are my people,’ and they will say,‘The LORD is my God.’”
• Matt 24:21-22 : 21 For then there will be great suffering unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
• John 15:2-6 : 2 He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. 3 You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me– and I in him– bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up.
• Rom 11:17 : 17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in the richness of the olive root,
• Neh 1:2-3 : 2 Hanani, who was one of my relatives, along with some of the men from Judah, came to me, and I asked them about the Jews who had escaped and had survived the exile, and about Jerusalem. 3 They said to me,“The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!”