Isaiah 4King James Version
A short chapter promising that after the judgment, a remnant will remain holy. The branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion a cloud by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, a recollection of the wilderness pillar.
A short chapter of sharp contrasts. The opening verse pictures the social chaos of war's aftermath, seven women sharing one man. Then a sudden shift: the Branch of the LORD brings beauty and glory, the survivors are called holy, God's presence returns as pillar of cloud and fire, a canopy over Zion. Judgment gives way to sheltered remnant.
After the fire of judgment, a remnant survives under God's direct protection. The Branch renews what the nation destroyed.
verse: "In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel", the Branch becomes a recurring messianic image throughout Isaiah, first appearing here as the answer to the desolation of chapter 3.
The same battered Jerusalem imagined in chapter 3, now emptied and quiet. The surviving remnant stands under a restored divine presence. The prophet sees the city refounded, not rebuilt by human hands but sheltered by something far older, the pillar of cloud that once moved through Sinai.
Isaiah the prophet. The daughters of Zion, now reduced and humbled. The escaped remnant of Israel. The Branch of the LORD, a figure of restoration who grows from the devastation.
Chapter 4 is the first appearance of the Branch motif, which returns fully developed in chapter 11. The cloud and fire imagery deliberately recalls the Exodus, suggesting God will re-enact his wilderness presence with the purified remnant. It reframes catastrophe as purification rather than abandonment.
After three chapters of mounting accusation, this brief chapter comes as an exhale. The tenderness of a canopy protecting the remnant is a striking image after the burning.
1And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
2In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.
3And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:
4When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
5And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence.
6And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.