Judgment to Come
The LORD says He will bring on Judah days unlike any since the division of the kingdom, specifically through the king of Assyria. He will whistle for distant powers to come like flies and bees, and Assyria will act as a hired razor that shaves Judah bare, making foreign intervention an image of humiliation and exposure.
T17he LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since the day Ephraim separated from Judah— He will bring the king of Assyria.” 18On that day the LORD will whistle to the flies at the farthest streams of the Nile and to the bees in the land of Assyria. 19And they will all come and settle 20On that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates — the king of Assyria— to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to remove your beard as well.
The chapter ends with the land so reduced that survival depends on a few animals and the simple food they yield. Where vineyards once flourished only briars and thorns remain, and formerly cultivated hills become rough pasture, showing that the trusted political solution yields economic and agricultural desolation.
21On that day a man will raise a young cow and two sheep, 22and from the abundance of milk they give, he will eat curds; for all who remain in the land will eat curds and honey. 23And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found. 24Men will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns. 25For fear of the briers and thorns, you will no longer traverse the hills once tilled by the hoe; they will become places for oxen to graze and sheep to trample.