Israel’s fate is compared here to a grain field that has been harvested and gleaned. Israel will become desolate like such a field. The prophet makes two parallel comparisons here. Each one begins literally “And it will be as when….”

And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears is the first comparison. The pronoun it points back to Israel, as Good News Translation makes clear. Reaper refers to someone who harvests ripe ears of grain by cutting off its stalks. Instead of reaper, the Hebrew has “harvest,” which Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends (so Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Nouvelle Bible Segond), so the first line of this verse is literally “And it will be like at the time of the harvest of standing grain.” However, we cautiously support the reading in Revised Standard Version, which most versions follow. Standing grain is ripe grain. This may be rendered “grain ready to be harvested.” Grain is a cereal crop, such as wheat and barley. And his arm harvests the ears may describe the farmer with his scythe or sickle in his hand cutting the stalks of grain, or it may depict him gathering the stalks on his arm and then cutting them off. Ears refers to the top part of the grain plant, the part where the grain grows. For modern readers who may be unfamiliar with the whole process here, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch provides a good model for the first half of this verse: “At that time it will be like the wheat harvest: the reaper gathers up the ears/stalks together in his arm and cuts them off with the sickle.” If harvesting grain with a sickle is unknown in a culture, an alternative model is “It [Israel] will be empty like a field that a farmer has harvested.”

And as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim is the second comparison. Gleans means to gather what was left in the field after the harvest since the reapers often left a small amount of the crop uncut. They may have done this deliberately or accidentally. Usually the poor and the widows had the right to glean after the reapers cut the grain (see Deut 24.19; Ruth 2). When they gleaned a field, there was little or nothing left. So this comparison pictures the complete destruction of Israel. The Valley of Rephaim was located southwest of Jerusalem (see Josh 15.8; 18.16). It was a well-known farming area. The Rephaim were an ancient population in Canaan (see Gen 14.5; 15.20). In the prophetic and wisdom traditions the Rephaim are those who inhabit the world of the dead (see the comments on 14.9; see also Job 26.5). Therefore it is likely that there is a veiled and sinister reference here to “the shades” (rephaʾim in Hebrew) of 14.9 and 26.14, 19.

For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• It [Israel] will be picked clean like a grain crop by a farmer who takes armfuls of stalks and cuts off the ears of grain; it will be like the gleaning of the ears of grain in the Rephaim Valley.

• It [Israel] will be barren like a grain field that a farmer has harvested by taking the stalks in his arms and cutting off the ears of grain; it will be like cleaning up after the harvest in the Valley of Rephaim.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .