Isaiah 1:7

Your country [is] desolate, your cities [are] burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Ver. 7. Your country is desolate.] Here the prophet speaketh plainly, what before, parabolically. Thus many times the Scripture explaineth itself. Job 7:3-9

Your cities are burnt.] So that there is sometimes but an hour's time, inter civitatem magnam et nullam, saith Seneca, between a fair city and a heap.

Your land, strangers devour it.] That is, enemies; in which sense also a harlot is called "a strange woman," seemingly a friend, but really an enemy: a she will destroy his peace who is overcome by her.

In your presence.] To your greater grief. Witness the experience hereof in our late stripping and desolating times, whereof we have here a kind of theological picture.

a Zar, "alienum" significat et "hostem."