Isaiah 1:7 (DBY)

Passage

Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers eat it up in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Nearby Context

Isaiah 1:5 Why should ye be smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

Isaiah 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in him; wounds, and weals, and open sores: they have not been dressed, nor bound up, nor mollified with oil.

Isaiah 1:7 Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers eat it up in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Isaiah 1:8 And the daughter of Zion is left, as a booth in a vineyard, as a night-lodge in a cucumber-garden, as a besieged city.

Isaiah 1:9 Unless Jehovah of hosts had left us a very small residue, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "country", "desolate", "cities", "burned", "fire", "land", "strangers", and "presence". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "country" and "desolate", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 6's "From the sole of the foot even..." into verse 8's "And the daughter of Zion is left...", so "country" and "desolate" belong inside that flow. In Isaiah context, the local focus is the Holy One of Israel, judgment and restoration, the servant of the LORD, and Zion's hope.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "country" and "desolate" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.