Isaiah 7:21
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, [yowm] that a man ['iysh] shall
nourish [chayah] a young [baqar] cow, [`eglah] and two [shanayim] sheep; [tso'n] KJV-Interlinear
21 Now
it will come about in that day that a man may keep alive a heifer and a pair of
sheep; NASB
In an agriculture
society, a single cow and two sheep represent poverty.
In the normal sense of an
agricultural society, people are expected to possess herds and flocks with
numerous animals, so the reduction to just three animals for the entirety of
ones subsistence, means huge losses and huge poverty.
This is not only the
poverty of a single person, but of a family, and then extends to the nation.
When people are lowered
in life that they must survive on meager means, then when this applies to an
entire nation, then that nation is in extreme poverty, and that means
horrendous stress and a substandard life for all.
So, when Judah is overrun
by Assyria and Egypt, then what will result is not only the humiliation of the
defeat, as well as the fear and terror brought about by the invasion, but whoever
remains must live in phenomenal poverty.
Recovery from that low
state of life is extremely difficult if not impossible. It certainly does not happen overnight, and
often times takes several generations to bring about some semblance of a
recovery.
When these prophetic
verses eventually apply to the Tribulational generation, then time simply will
not exist for any type of recovery in the usual sense of historic
recovery. The punishment of poverty will
not only be extreme, but life will be beyond the unbearable.
