Isaiah 17:6, commentary and pictures

The prophecy concerns God's judgments upon Damascus, and the gleaning left afterward pictures a remnant left in the land amid that judgment. After thorough shaking, harvest, judgment and devastation only a very small remnant remains, like two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough and four or five in the outmost fruitful branches. That very small remnant left in the midst of the land among the people will lift up the voice and sing for the majesty of the Lord and cry aloud from the sea, declaring Him as their God for whom they waited who will save them and in whose salvation they will be glad and rejoice.

The sparseness shows a lack of practical Christianity and living piety, where despite abundant profession and boasting genuine spiritual fruit is found only here and there. In the last days only a very small remnant among God's professed people will truly turn to Him and obey Him from the heart, for when the moral law with its downtrodden Sabbath and other Bible truths are brought before them the great mass refuse to frame their doings to turn to God and frame excuses to evade His law, leaving only here and there one obedient like the few grapes or olives left after gleaning and shaking. The same small remnant after harvest is the few faithful people still found among the churches after their moral fall and rejection of truth, who are called to leave that corrupt communion.

In mission work faithful converts matter more than large numbers of names on church rolls, as with the small number of genuine believers in China. The present time is gleaning times when multitudes will not be gathered to Christ, and the two or three and the four or five are the few souls still to be reached on the outermost and topmost branches, whom only those filled with the Holy Spirit through God's work first done in their own hearts will reach, while those who are strangers to God's inworking will reach no one and may hinder the work of others. The olive tree left with only a few berries after shaking is also a person whose inner religious life has grown empty, where outward signs of life and devotion may remain but only as a scant remnant.