Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree, Two or three olives on the topmost branch, Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree, Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- KJV Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel.
- BSB 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.
- NKJV Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it, Like the shaking of an olive tree, Two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough, Four or five in its most fruitful branches,” Says the Lord God of Israel.
- NLT Only a few of its people will be left, like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest. Only two or three remain in the highest branches, four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,” declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A few gleanings will remain, like the last olives on a beaten tree, two or three on the top boughs. God preserves a small remnant even amid judgment.
Overview
After the harvest of judgment, only scattered survivors are left, like the stray olives missed in the shaking of the tree. This remnant motif runs throughout Isaiah, showing that God never utterly destroys his people. The preservation of a faithful remnant ultimately finds its fullness in the people of God gathered in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Isa 24:13For it will be so within the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.
- Deut 4:27Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away.
- Rom 11:4–6But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
- Obad 1:5“If thieves came to you, if robbers by night — oh, what disaster awaits you — wouldn’t they only steal until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn’t they leave some gleaning grapes?
- Judg 8:2He said to them, “What have I now done in comparison with you? Isn’t the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?
- Rom 9:27Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved;
- Isa 10:22For though your people, Israel, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.
- Rom 11:26and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
- Ezek 39:29neither will I hide my face any more from them; for I have poured out my Spirit on the house of Israel, says the Lord Yahweh.
- 1 Kgs 19:18Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”
- Isa 27:12It will happen in that day, that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.
- Isa 1:9Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom; we would have been like Gomorrah.
- Mic 7:1Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard: There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.
- Ezek 36:8–15But you, mountains of Israel, you shall shoot out your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel; for they are at hand to come.
- Ezek 37:19–25tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 17:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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