Agnosticism holds that we cannot know if there is a transcendent God out there or not. There are a variety of agnostics. The most common are the practical agnostics. They act in their lives as if there is no transcendent power. They are even too lazy to declare that there is no God. They just act as if there is none. To the question of whether there is a God or not, they say, “who cares?” Then there are the intellectual agnostics who says that the question is too difficult, so just leave it alone, since they believe that they can never know if there is a God or not.
too difficult
The devastation of the land of Ephraim (Isa 17:4-17:6)
“‘On that day,
The glory of Jacob
Will be brought low.
The fat of his flesh
Will grow lean.
It shall be
As when reapers
Gather standing grain.
Their arms harvest the ears.
It shall be
As when one gleans
The ears of grain
In the Valley of Rephaim.
Gleanings will be left in it,
As when an olive tree is beaten.
Two or three berries
On the top of the highest bough
Will be left.
Four or five on the branches
Of a fruit tree
Will be left.’
Says Yahweh
God of Israel.”
Here is another oracle of Yahweh, via Isaiah, but about Ephraim of northern Israel. This rebuke is against Jacob, not Damascus. There is a reference to the Valley of Rephaim, which is northwest of Jerusalem in the Ephraim territory. Thus this land of Ephraim will be devastated. The fat animals will grow lean. All that will be left are the gleanings of left over grain that the pickers left behind. The olive trees will only have a few berries that were too difficult to pick, since all the others would have been shaken out of the trees. There will only be a few branches on any trees. There will not be much left after this day of destruction in northern Israel.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 