Isaiah 27 · a question people ask
"the fortified city is solitary" (27:10). Which city is it?
The chapter doesn't name it. It says only what the city has become: "For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches" (27:10). The next verse speaks of "a people of no understanding" (27:11), and doesn't name them either. The chapters before this one also speak of a city without naming it: "The confused city is broken down" (24:10), "you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin" (25:2), where fortified is the same Hebrew word, and "the lofty city" (26:5). These notes don't supply a name the chapter leaves out or say whether these verses speak of one city, and they apply the verses to no city or people today.
The verses
“For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches. When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.”
“The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.”
“For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.”
“For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust.”