Gileadi’s translation uses more modern language: “In that day every plot of ground with a thousand vines worth a thousand pieces of currency shall be briars and thorns.”
The cultivated fields will return to a wild state and therefore become a location for hunters. Farming, the basis of civilization, will give way to hunting. In an agrarian society, crop-growing land was also the foundation for the social structure. These waste fields, in Isaiah’s culture, signified not only the failure of food, but also the failure of organized society. In such communities, civilization is symbolized by agriculture, and chaos by the hunters, who are too “wild” to farm. Isaiah’s message to Israel is that, despite abundant food, the quality of life will diminish sharply. The social order will be disrupted. Israel will no longer be civilized.