ישעיהו, פרק ז׳, פסוק כ״א

In the aftermath of war and upheaval, the economic and agricultural landscape changes completely, forcing people to adapt to a much smaller way of life. The survivors remaining in Jerusalem [אבן עזרא] find themselves sustaining their lives with very few animals, perhaps just a single young cow and two sheep [אבן עזרא]. On the surface, this paints a picture of deep poverty, a time stripped of economic comfort where each person is left with almost nothing [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

However, there are two very different ways to understand this new reality. The primary approach among commentators is that this actually highlights a time of immense blessing and divine abundance. This period of plenty is expected to happen during the days of Hezekiah, following the defeat of Sennacherib. Even though enemy armies had looted the livestock and stripped the land of its wealth, God will place such a powerful blessing in the tiny amount of property that remains. A person raising just one cow and two sheep will find them producing the amount of milk and butter normally expected from entire herds. This small number of animals will be more than enough to provide comfort and full satisfaction [רש"י, רד"ק, מצודת דוד, אברבנאל].

In contrast, other scholars view this situation not as a time of peace and blessing, but as a continuation of the disaster and destruction of the land. According to this view, the Assyrian armies will ruin the farmed fields and consume most of the livestock, turning the nation into a wasteland. Because the ground will no longer be worked, huge, overgrown pastures will naturally form. The few scattered individuals who still own a cow or a couple of sheep will graze them in these empty spaces. Stripped of normal crops and agricultural produce, these survivors will be forced to live entirely off milk, butter, and wild honey, enduring a life of deep loss and hardship [שד"ל, מלבי"ם].