For the fortified city is isolated, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf will graze, and there it will lie down and consume its branches, establishing that the destruction of the fortified city—perhaps Samaria or another city of the Northern Kingdom—leads to its abandonment and return to wilderness. The desolation imagery suggests the reversal of civilization, the return of human habitation to wild nature. The grazing calf suggests that what had been a center of human pride becomes feeding ground for beasts. The consumption of branches suggests that vegetation returns to what had been the city's site. This verse uses the imagery of desolation to suggest both the totality of judgment and the return of creation to its wild state when human civilization abandons covenant faith.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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