Isaiah 27:11. When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire.
In the East it is the business of women and children to gather fuel. This is the reason the statement is so explicitly made here that “the women” shall come and set them on fire. It has an odd sound to us, for the question naturally arises why women rather than men are mentioned; but to the people of Isaiah’s time the expression was perfectly natural, as it is to the people of the East today.