Delightful Plants and a Harvest of Pain
Introduction: The Gardener's Folly
Every man is a gardener. Every man is planting something, tending something, and hoping for a harvest. We cannot help it; we are wired for cultivation, for dominion. The question is never whether you will plant, but rather, in whose garden you will labor, and by what rules you will play. Our modern secular age is filled with the most diligent and meticulous gardeners. They plant their "delightful plants" of progress, of technological salvation, of political utopias, and of personal fulfillment. They fence them in with legislation, with educational institutions, with media narratives, and with corporate policies. And for a season, in the morning, their seeds appear to flourish. Things look green. Things look promising.
But Isaiah comes to us here as a prophet with dirt under his fingernails, and he tells us the blunt, agricultural truth. If you forget the God of your salvation, if you neglect the Rock of your strong defense, then it does not matter how carefully you tend your garden. It doesn't matter how innovative your techniques are or how much you sweat. The harvest will be a heap. The harvest will be a day of sickliness and incurable pain. This is not a petty threat from a distant deity. It is a statement of spiritual reality, as fixed and unalterable as the law of gravity. To forget God is to forget the sun and the rain, and then to wonder why all your plants have withered.
The central issue in this passage, and in all of human history, is one of vision. Where are you looking? Man is a worshiping creature, which means he is a looking creature. He will either look to his Maker, or he will look to the work of his own hands. There is no third option. You cannot serve God and mammon, and you cannot have your eyes fixed on the Holy One of Israel and on your man-made altars simultaneously. Isaiah is showing us the great exchange. He is laying out the choice between two gazes, and the two harvests that inevitably follow. One leads to life and restoration. The other leads to desolation and a pain for which there is no cure, because the only Physician has been forgotten.
The Text
In that day man will have regard for his Maker, And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel. He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands, Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, Even the Asherim and incense stands. In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest, Or like branches which they forsook before the sons of Israel; And the land will be a desolation. For you have forgotten the God of your salvation And have not remembered the rock of your strong defense. Therefore you plant delightful plants And set them with vine branches of a strange god. In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in, And in the morning you cause your seed to flourish; But the harvest will be a heap In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.
(Isaiah 17:7-11 LSB)
The Great Reorientation (vv. 7-8)
The passage begins with a glorious promise of repentance, described as a fundamental shift in vision.
"In that day man will have regard for his Maker And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel. He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands, Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, Even the Asherim and incense stands." (Isaiah 17:7-8)
The phrase "in that day" points to a time of divine reckoning. It is the day when God intervenes, when illusions are shattered and reality asserts itself. In this day of clarity, man's gaze is lifted. True repentance is not primarily about feelings of remorse, though that is involved. It is about a reorientation of your sight. Where have your eyes been? They have been looking down, at "the work of his hands." They have been looking at the altars, the Asherim, the religious and cultural projects that man constructs to make himself feel secure and significant.
Idolatry is the worship of the horizontal. It is looking to something within creation, something you can make or manage, for your ultimate deliverance. But "in that day," man will "have regard for his Maker." The creature will look to the Creator. The eyes will look to the "Holy One of Israel," the transcendent God who is outside and above the whole system. This is the essence of salvation. It is looking away from yourself and your own pathetic efforts, and looking to God.
And notice the consequence. When your eyes are fixed on the Maker, you "will not have regard" for the work of your hands. You cannot look in two opposite directions. When the sun comes up, you stop paying attention to the candles. When you see the glory of the living God, the cheap idols your own fingers have fashioned are exposed for the tacky, powerless things they are. Our modern idols are not carved poles; they are ideologies, political saviors, economic systems, and the cult of self-fulfillment. But the principle is identical. Repentance means turning your eyes away from them and fixing them on the Holy One.
The Desolation of Self-Reliance (v. 9)
Verse 9 describes the inevitable result of looking to the work of our own hands. Our strength becomes our ruin.
"In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest, Or like branches which they forsook before the sons of Israel; And the land will be a desolation." (Isaiah 17:9)
The very things they trusted in for their security, their "strong cities," will become monuments to their folly. The strength they built with their own hands was a mirage. When God is forgotten, the things that are intended to protect us become tombs. This is not just an arbitrary punishment; it is the logical harvest of idolatry. A society built on human autonomy is a society built on sand. When the rains of judgment come, it doesn't just get wet; it collapses into a desolate heap.
We can see this principle at work all around us. Think of the spiritual emptiness of secular Europe, with its magnificent cathedrals that are now little more than museums. These were once strong cities of faith, now they are forsaken places. Think of the urban decay in cities that have abandoned the law of God for generations. Their strength has become desolation. When men build a tower to reach heaven, God ensures that it ends in confusion and ruin. The desolation is the natural fruit of the rebellion.
The Diagnosis: Divine Amnesia (v. 10)
Verse 10 gets to the heart of the matter. It is the divine diagnosis for this terminal condition of desolation.
"For you have forgotten the God of your salvation And have not remembered the rock of your strong defense. Therefore you plant delightful plants And set them with vine branches of a strange god." (Isaiah 17:10)
Here it is, plain as day. The problem is forgetfulness. This is not a passive slip of the mind, like forgetting where you put your keys. This is a willful, culpable amnesia. It is the active suppression of the truth that Paul describes in Romans 1. They have forgotten "the God of your salvation." They have forgotten the one who delivered them. And they have not remembered "the rock of your strong defense." They exchanged an impregnable fortress of solid rock for cities that would crumble into dust. This is the definition of insanity.
But man cannot live in a vacuum. When you forget the true God, you do not stop worshiping. You simply redirect your energies. "Therefore you plant delightful plants." You get busy. You become a very diligent gardener in the service of a "strange god." These "delightful plants" are all the cultural projects, the philosophies, the political systems, the lifestyles that men create to build a paradise without God. They are attempts to cultivate meaning and security on their own terms. But because they are planted with "vine branches of a strange god," they are doomed from the start.
The Diligent Gardener's Harvest (v. 11)
The final verse is the punchline. It describes the heartbreaking futility of all this godless effort.
"In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in, And in the morning you cause your seed to flourish; But the harvest will be a heap In a day of sickliness and incurable pain." (Isaiah 17:11)
This is a crucial detail. These are not lazy idolaters. They are hard-working. They "carefully fence it in." They build protective systems, pass laws, create institutions to guard their precious plants. They get up early. "In the morning you cause your seed to flourish." And they see initial success! For a time, it looks like it's working. The secular project seems to be thriving. The economy is growing. The culture is vibrant. The plants look green and healthy.
But the story is not over. The final judgment is the harvest. And what is the harvest of all this careful, diligent, godless gardening? It is "a heap." A pile of rubble. It is a day of "sickliness and incurable pain." Why is the pain incurable? Because they have forgotten the only one who has the cure. They have rejected the Great Physician. They have forgotten the God of their salvation. The pain is incurable because the source of all healing has been deliberately and studiously ignored.
This is the biography of every man-centered project in history, from Babel to the Soviet Union to the secular West. We are diligently fencing in our delightful plants of sexual autonomy and materialism. We are seeing a temporary, morning flourishing. But the harvest is coming. The heap is inevitable. The pain is already setting in, and apart from repentance, it will be incurable.
Conclusion: Look to the Maker
But the passage did not begin with the harvest of pain. It began with the hope of repentance. "In that day man will have regard for his Maker." That is the only way out. The gospel is the proclamation of "that day." In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has intervened to cure the incurable.
On the cross, Jesus took upon Himself the desolation our idolatry deserved. He became a heap for us. He endured the day of sickliness and incurable pain so that we would not have to. He did this so that we might be forgiven for our divine amnesia, for looking to the work of our own hands.
The call of this text is therefore a call to look up. Stop looking at your own failing gardens. Stop trusting in the fences you have built. "Have regard for his Maker." Fix your eyes on the Holy One of Israel, who is Jesus Christ the Lord. When you do that, you do not cease from being a gardener. But you are transplanted into His garden. You begin to cultivate righteousness, peace, and joy for His glory. You build on the Rock, your strong defense. And the harvest, in His day, will not be a heap of pain, but a harvest of everlasting life.