Va. 5-11: THE ASSYRIAN AN INSTRUMENT IN GOD’S HAND

1. A “woe” is pronounced upon the Assyrian even though God will use him as an instrument in the disciplining of His erring people, (Verse 5; comp. Isa 9:19).

2. Through the Assyrian the Lord will unleash His wrath upon a profane nation; He commissions him to take spoil and prey, (Isa 37:26-27; Jer 34:22) – bringing them to extreme degradation.

3. The Assyrian, however, fails to view himself as God’s instrument; in the arrogance of his own proud heart, he lays ambitious plans for world conquest, (Verse 7; comp. Mic 4:11-12; Gen 50:20; Act 2:23-24).

4. The proof of his boastfullness, selfishness and pride is clearly set forth in verses 8-11.

a. He boasts of his princes as kings: wise, subtle and powerful, (Verse 8).

b. He boasts of his achievements: with apparent ease his armies have taken the wealth of one city after another – their accumulation of protective idols falling helplessly before his onslaught.

c. Samaria, the capitol of the northern kingdom (Israel), is no different from the others – for God has given her up to exile.

d. Nor will the Assyrian be satisfied with Samaria; according to his view, Judah and Jerusalem need not think their God (or gods, as he reasoned) can save them from his powerful hand, (Verse 11; comp. Isa 36:18-20; Isa 37:10-13).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

5. O Assyrian. What now follows relates to the threatening of punishment, but at the same time mingles some consolation for alleviating the distresses of the godly. Indeed, the greater part of the discourse is occupied with this doctrine, that all the afflictions which shall be brought upon them by the Assyrians are a temporary scourge inflicted by God, but that unbelievers, after having too freely indulged themselves, will at length be brought to submission. הוי ( hoi) is sometimes an interjection expressive of lamentation, Ah! Sometimes it denotes addressing, O! Sometimes it means, as the old translator rendered it, Wo to. But here it cannot be explained in any other way than that God calls the Assyrians, or assumes the character of one who sighs, because he is compelled to inflict punishment on his people by means of the Assyrians

But when I more closely examine the whole matter, I rather come to this opinion, that here the Lord calls on the Assyrians, as if he armed them by his authority to carry on war. He had formerly said that they would come; but hypocrites are so careless that they are never moved by the fear of God, till his scourges are not only seen but felt. This is the reason why he now addresses them, Come; as if a judge called an officer and ordered him to put a malefactor in chains, or delivered him to the hangman to inflict capital punishment upon him. Thus the Lord calls the Assyrians to execute his vengeance by their hands.

And the staff in their hand is mine indignation. This may be viewed as referring to the Assyrian, and may be explained so as to be a repetition of the same statement, with a slight change of the words. But I distinguish between them in this manner, that the Assyrians are called the rod of God’s indignation; and next, that the swords and weapons with which they are furnished are nothing else than God’s anger; as if the Prophet had said, that God, according to his pleasure, made use of the Assyrians in the same manner as swords for the execution of his anger; and further, that although they bear swords, still there will be no reason to be afraid of them, except so far as the wrath of God shall be displayed against the Jews.

The general meaning is, “All the strength which the enemy shall possess proceeds from the wrath of God, and they are moved by his secret impulse to destroy the people, for otherwise he would not move a finger.” God declares that the staff which is carried in their hand is his anger, in order to inform the Jews that the blind attacks of the enemies are regulated by a heavenly providence. The phrase בידם ( beyadam) (160) is rendered by some, in place of them, or, into their country; but I do not approve of this, and it is too far-fetched. In a word, the Lord calls the Assyrians, as the ministers of his wrath, to punish the sins of his people by their hand, and declares that everything that is in their hand is his wrath

This doctrine has two objects in view; first, to terrify the ungodly, and to inform them that not in vain does the Lord threaten their destruction; next, he points out the reason why he punishes them. This was of the greatest importance for shaking off the sluggishness of the ungodly, who laughed to scorn all the discourses and threatenings of the Prophet. Secondly, this doctrine was of great importance when the people themselves began to be afflicted by the Assyrians; for then they actually saw that what the Prophets had foretold was not without foundation, and that these things did not happen by chance.

It will be objected, Why does he afterwards call the staff his anger, since he formerly said that the Assyrian is the rod of his indignation; for he ought rather to have spoken thus: “The Assyrian is my wrath, and the staff which he carries is the staff of my indignation.” But we need not solicitously detain ourselves with the words, when we understand the Prophet’s meaning. He calls men the staff of his anger, because he uses them like a staff. He calls men’s weapons the wrath of God, because they are not regulated by their own choice, but are proofs of the wrath of God. The Prophet therefore spoke appropriately, that we might not think that the wicked rush forward, without control, wherever their lawless passions lead them; but, on the contrary, that a bridle restrains and keeps them back from doing anything without the will of God.

Hence we ought to learn that the Lord acts even by the hand of the wicked. But here we must think and speak soberly; for it is proper to make a wise and judicious distinction between the work of God and the work of men. There are three ways in which God acts by men. First, all of us move and exist by him. (Act 17:28.) Hence it follows that all actions proceed from his power. Secondly, in a peculiar manner he impells and directs the wicked according as he thinks fit; and although nothing is farther from their thoughts, still he makes use of their agency that they may kill and destroy one another, or that by their hand he may chastise his people. Of this method the Prophet speaks in this passage. Thirdly, when he guides by his Spirit of sanctification, which is peculiar to the elect. Whether, therefore, we are attacked by tyrants or robbers, or any other person, or foreign nations rise up against us, let us always plainly see the hand of God amidst the greatest agitation and confusion, and let us not suppose that anything happens by chance.

(160) In their hand. — Eng. Ver.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE ASSYRIAN INVASION OF JUDAH

Isa. 10:5-34. O Assyrian, the rod of Mine anger, &c.

This prophecy may be used to illustrate the following truths of abiding interest.

I. The power of empires and the policy of statesmen are all under the control of God. Free-will is one great fact of the universe; an all-controlling providence is another; and God knows how to harmonise both. In investing man with free-will, God did not abdicate the throne of the universe; He still rules, and whether they do it voluntarily or involuntarily, all men further His purposes.

1. This is a truth to be ever remembered by those who rule. Their desire should be to work along with God, and not merely in subordination to Him. This is the one secret of true prosperity and abiding power.

2. It is full of consolation for good men when rulers are yielding to a mad and wicked ambition (Psa. 76:10).

II. God exercises His control of empires and statesmen for the pro motion of the welfare of His people. Every great empire has some under lying policy that guides and controls all its actions; e.g., the underlying policy of Russia is said to be the ultimate acquisition of Constantinople. Gods great policy is the promotion of the welfare of His people. In raising up or casting down kingdoms He has this object always in view. This again is a profoundly practical truth.

1. The ruler who remembers it will at least abstain from every form of assault on the Church of God. He who undertakes to persecute the Church, undertakes to make war upon Him from whom he received his power, and who can instantly resume it (Act. 9:4 and Mat. 28:18).

2. Remembering it, Gods people will not be dismayed in times of calamity. They will look with assured confidence, not for the destruction of the Church, but of her persecutors; and they will not look in vain. When the whole work that God has in view shall be accomplished, the ungodly instrument by which it was effected shall be utterly broken (Isa. 10:12-20). [All this belongs to a realm of truth, the importance and preciousness of which is not likely to be appreciated in these times of freedom from persecution, but by the martyrs in all ages it has been well understood].

III. In the view of God the welfare of His people is promoted precisely in pro portion as their holiness is promoted. We see from Isa. 10:20-21, that while God intended by the Assyrian invasion to punish iniquity (Isa. 10:6), His ultimate design was to bring His people back to Himself in penitence and faith. Here we have,

1. A correction of our views. We are apt to suppose that by the welfare of the Church is meant peace and outward prosperity. We are satisfied if her revenues and social influence are increasing. God often thinks it better to take these things away. The day of true welfare for Judah begins when the fierce armies of Assyria come up against her (H. E. I., 3666).

2. Light is cast upon Gods estimate of holiness. So precious is it in His sight, that He overrules even the policies of great empires for the promotion of it among His people. It is distinctly revealed that this is His aim in all the discipline of our personal life (Heb. 12:10; H. E. I., 8590, 2842, 2843). This should be to us, then,

3. An instruction. We should estimate holiness as God does. We should constantly follow it (Heb. 12:14; H. E. I., 28452848). And besides humbly submitting to His chastisements (Lam. 3:22), we should thankfully acquiesce in whatever calamities He is pleased to send upon His Church or on ourselves, even though they be relatively as terrible as an invasion by the Assyrians, remembering that His purpose therein is to bring us back to Himself, to make us like Himself, and so render us capable of a happiness that shall be perfect and eternal.

THE ASSYRIAN

Isa. 10:5-34. O Assyrian, the rod of Mine anger, &c.

The Assyrian. I. His commissionsubordinate, a mere rod in Gods handsdefined. II. His pridehe boasts of his schemeshis achievementshis strength and wisdomof what he will do against God. III. His rebukejustkeenhumiliating. IV. His punishmentirresistiblesuddensignaleffected by Divine power.

I. The mightiest nations are but instruments of the Divine will. II. Are employed to execute wrath upon the guilty. III. God appoints their special work. IV. Defines its limits. V. Controls their ambitious purposes. VI. Rewards them accordingly.J. Lyth, D.D.: Homiletical Treasury, p. 16.

We know what the Assyrians were in the history of the world. They do not stand alone; they belong to a class of men who have appeared again and again, and are numerously represented in the world to-daymen of enormous force, of abounding energy, of vast ambition, of unscrupulous determination. Such men as Ghengis-Khan, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Csar, and Napoleon, are their conspicuous representatives, but their representatives only. They are to be found elsewhere than on thrones and at the head of armies. They have been represented in the Church by ambitious and unscrupulous popes, cardinals, and bishops not a few. They are represented among our nobles by domineering landlords; in commerce by great capitalists, who brook no competition, but will crush a rival at any cost. This chapter concerns men who live in England to-day, and it has for us more than an historic interest.

I. The ambition of powerful men. Having power, they naturally and lawfully wish to use it. The astonishing and lamentable thing is the manner in which they delight to use it. God intends all the power that He gives to be used for the same purposes as He uses His ownfor the upholding of weakness, the relief of the needy, the dispensing of blessing. But almost always those to whom God intrusts much power use it for self-aggrandisement. Their delight is to crush others (Isa. 10:13-14; H. E. I. 243; P. D. 244). Instead of doing their best to resemble God, they do their utmost to resemble the devil. What a pitiable mistake! How much the ambitious man thus loses! What a horrible per version of means of blessing!

II. The godlessness of powerful men.

1. Mistaking the use to which their strength should be put, they also forget its source. They are so besotted as to think that it is theirs, something which they have originated; as if the jets of a fountain should boast of the water that leaps up through them, forgetful of the reservoir whence it comes (1Co. 4:7). We see how foolish this is; let us not forget how common it is; let us be on our guard against an error so common and so absurd (Deu. 8:10-18; Dan. 4:29-31. P. D. 2861).

2. Their godlessness appears, too, in their imagination that there is no limit to their power (Isa. 10:8-11; chap. Isa. 37:24). In their projects there is no dependence on Divine guidance and support, no submission to the Divine will (Jas. 4:13-15).

III. The real position of powerful men. They imagine that they are autocrats: they really are merely instruments in the hand of God. God will be served by us, voluntarily or involuntarily. He knows how, without impairing the freedom of the will, to use powerful men for the accomplishment of His purposes; in much the same way as the miller deals with the stream that rushes past his millhe does not try to destroy it, or to stop it, he merely turns it in among his wheels, and then unconsciously it uses its mighty force in doing his work (Isa. 10:5-6; P. D., 2899). So it was with Pharaoh: though resolved not to serve Jehovah (Exo. 5:2), he did serve Him most effectually (Exo. 9:16). So, though we may not be able in all cases to trace it, we may be sure it is with all wicked men (Psa. 76:10). God absolutely controls the vast universe over which He rules: if we will not serve Him as sons, we must do it as slaves or as tools.

IV. The end of men who forget the source of their power, and use it in a godless spirit. They are but rods in Gods hand, and when He has accomplished by them what He intended to do, He breaks them, and casts them aside. In their folly they imagine that they can never be broken (Psa. 10:6); yet how easy is it for Him utterly to destroy them! Far-stretching and mighty they seem as a forest, yet how easily is a forest destroyed by fire (Isa. 10:16-19). Gods judgments are as axes, by which even the monarchs of the forest are brought low (Isa. 10:33-34). By Isaiah we are reminded of three historic instances in which all this has been verified: the Egyptians (Isa. 10:24; Isa. 10:26); the Midianites (Isa. 10:26); the Assyrians (Isa. 10:17-18; Isa. 10:32-34; Isa. 37:36). If we needed any proof that God and His government of the world are still the same, surely we have it in the history of Napoleon I. Let the mighty nations of the earth lay these lessons to heart (P. D., 2787). Let all who are disposed to vaunt their wealth or power be mindful of them: the ruler or the merchant-prince of to-day may be a beggar to-morrow (1Sa. 2:3-4; 1Sa. 2:7-10; H. E. I., 4404, 4976; P. D., 149, 1617).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

2.

SCOURGE OF GOD

TEXT: Isa. 10:5-11

5

Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indignation!

6

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

7

Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations not a few.

8

For he saith, Are not my princes all of them kings?

9

Is not Calno as Carchemish: is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

10

As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;

11

shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

QUERIES

a.

Who is the Assyrian of Isa. 10:5? How was he to become a rod?

b.

Why is the Assyrians attitude portrayed as one of resistance?

PARAPHRASE

Assyria is the whip of My anger; his military strength is My weapon to bring My punishment upon this godless nation, says the Lord. He will enslave them and plunder their treasures and trample them like dirt beneath his feet. But the King of Assyria will not have My Divine will as his purpose when he comes against Israel. His purpose will be to attack My people as part of his plan to conquer the world. He is persuaded that all his princes will soon be ruling as kings over the various nations he plans to conquer. He says, I shall destroy Calno just as I did Carchemish and Hamath will go down before us as Arpad did; and we will destroy Israel just as we did Damascus. Indeed, we have finished off many a kingdom whose idols were far greater and more glorious than those in Jerusalem and Samaria. So when we have defeated Samaria and her idols we will destroy Jerusalem with hers.

COMMENTS

Isa. 10:5-6 GODS INTENTIONS: This is one of those unique passages of the Old Testament which reveals the majestic, omnipotent, cosmic, sovereign purposes of God being carried out in conjunction with and in spite of the evil machinations of human power inspired and supported by the forces of hell. It is grand and glorious good news that Jehovah God controls and uses men and nations and events to carry out His purposes of redemption and salvation. God is going to take the evil purposes and intentions of the king of Assyria and use them to serve His long-range plan of preparing the Hebrew people to deliver the Messiah to the world! How breathtaking, how it staggers the mind and exhilarates the emotions to contemplate it! The terrible, bloodthirsty, cruel, inhuman Assyrians are, of their own choice, bent on conquering and plundering the whole world. God says, Go ahead, have your way for a seasonIll use it to chasten My holy people and then Ill requite your wickedness upon your own heads. God plans to chasten and discipline His people so that those who believe Him and remain faithful to Him in the midst of this chastening may form the remnant through which the Messiah and the messianic kingdom (the church) may come to the world. The evil scheme of the Assyrian empire will serve that Divine purpose. Both Old and New Testaments teach such a philosophy or theology of history (Cf. Jer. 27:1-11; Dan. 2:20-22; Isa. 45:1-7; Joh. 19:11, etc.). For a fuller discussion of this see Minor Prophets, by Paul T. Butler, pub. College Press, 1968, pgs. 39111, art. entitled, Theo-Ramic Philosophy of History. Gods ways are above us all. Should we ask, Why would God permit such a wicked and ruthless pagan people to plunder His chosen peopleand then how can God claim such a perverse nation to be His instrument or servant? God does not forbid our asking. Habakkuk is a prime example of a believer with such a problem. Habakkuk could not understand how and why God would permit the evil and wickedness of the Hebrew people to continue unpunished (Hab. 1:1-4). God told the prophet He was going to punish the wickedness of Judah by sending the Chaldeans (Babylon) upon them (Hab. 1:5-11). This created the more perplexing problem in Habakkuks mind of why God would use a pagan nation to punish the Chosen people (Hab. 1:12-17). Habakkuk was confused but he did not despair. He couldnt understand but he had faith and waited for God to answer (Hab. 2:1). Gods answer to Habakkuk is still valid today. That answer is, God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Cf. Rom. 8:28). God works all things out in His own good time. We are told simply to wait upon the Lord with faith and endurance (Hab. 2:2-4). Paul quotes Hab. 2:4 in Rom. 1:17 to indicate that we cannot understand the working of Gods redemptive scheme but we can accept it by faith and thus be justified. God always gives enough experiential, concrete, factual, historical evidence to convince the honest-minded person of His existence and nature. The Hebrew people at this stage of their national experience (Isaiah) had more than abundant evidence of Gods active, providential, redemptive control of history so they could easily believe His use of the Assyrian empire, if they wanted to.

Isa. 10:7-11 ASSYRIAS INTENTIONS: The king of Assyria certainly does not admit that he is an instrument of the Hebrew God. It is not his intention to serve any purpose but his own purpose of world-conquest. This is a graphic description of the thinking processes of a carnal-minded dictator. He reasons, Calno was taken by me (738 B.C.), Carchemish on the Euphrates was subdued by my people (717 B.C.), Hamath on the Orontes fell to us in 720 B.C. and Arpad in 740. Samaria was conquered in 721 B.C. and Damascus in 732 B.C. Where were the gods of these great peoples when I overcame them? Surely Judahs God is no greater than the gods of these. They did not stop me and neither will the God of Judah. The attitude of the Assyrian emperor is manifested in the words of Rabshakeh in later years when the armies of Assyria had made invasion of Judah and had Jerusalem surrounded, Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? (2Ki. 18:33-35). There was a long line of Assyrian kings with intentions of world-conquest: Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser IV, Sargon II and Sennacherib. Sennacherib was probably the king of Assyria predicted by Isaiah here. He is mentioned in Isaiah chapters 3638. He was planning to overrun Jerusalem and plunder her treasury and temple just as he had already done to most of the ancient world. He would take the people captive into slavery to build his palaces and city walls, etc. But, although the Assyrians captured most of the land of Palestine, they would never conquer Jerusalem.

QUIZ

1.

What does Isaiah say is Gods purpose for the king of Assyria?

2.

What does the rest of the Bible have to say about this grand philosophy of history?

3.

What if we cannot understand how God does His work through pagan empires?

4.

What is the king of Assyrias intention in history?

5.

What is the Assyrian kings attitude toward the God of Judah?

6.

Who was probably the king predicted by Isaiah here?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(5) O Assyrian.The words open, as has been said above, a perfectly distinct section. Assyria had been named in connection with the Syro-Ephraim alliance against Judah (Isa. 7:17-20; Isa. 8:7-8); but this is the first prophetic utterance of which it is the direct subject. Anticipating the phraseology of Isa. 13:1, we might call it the burden of Assyria. In the judgment of the best Assyrian scholars, some years had passed since the date of the alliance and invasion. Tiglath pileser had taken Damascus and reduced Samaria to submission. Pekah and Ahaz had met at Damascus to do homage to their common suzerain. In B.C. 727 Salmaneser succeeded to the throne of Assyria, and began the conquest of Samaria and the deportation of the Ten Tribes in B.C. 722 (2Ki. 17:3-6). On his death, in B.C. 721, the throne was seized by Sargon, who had been his Tartan, or commander-in-chief (Isa. 20:1). The achievements of this king are recorded at length in an inscription discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad (Records of the Past, vii. 28. Lenormants Manual, 1 p. 392). In it he says:I besieged, took, and occupied the city of Samaria, and carried into captivity 27,280 of its inhabitants. I changed the form of government of the country, and placed over it lieutenants of my own. In another inscription discovered at Kouyunyik, but unfortunately incomplete, Sargon speaks of himself as the conqueror of the far-off land of Judah (Layard, Inscriptions, 33:8). It was probably to this king, exulting in his triumphs and threatening an attack on Judah, and not (as was commonly thought prior to the discovery of the inscription) to his son Sennacherib, who succeeded him B.C. 704, that the prophet now addressed himself. The first words proclaim that the great king was but an instrument working out the Divine intent, the rod, and the staff, the axe and the saw (Isa. 10:15). So in Isa. 7:20, the earlier king of Assyria is as the razor that is hired. So Nebuchadnezzar in Jer. 51:20 is the battle-axe or hammer of Jehovah. (Comp. Isa. 37:26.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

ASSYRIA’S DESTRUCTION PREDICTED; JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM UNDER MESSIAH; AND A HYMN OF PRAISE THEREON, Isa 10:5 to Isa 12:6.

5. The pieces of prophecy beginning here and closing with chap. 12 are with fair reason thought to belong to the period of Ahaz. The objections to this, found in Isa 10:9-11; Isa 10:28-32, will be considered in the comments there. High and miraculous prophetic power in our seer is assumed throughout, of course, as hitherto.

Judgment upon Israel has been fearfully depicted as seen in vision; and now upon Assyria, the instrument of Israel’s calamities, (Isa 10:15,) like judgments are denounced.

O Assyrian Woe to, or, as some suppose, Ho, what ho! address in the second person rather than in the third.

Rod of mine anger The instrument to execute it.

The staff in their hand The sceptre he wields over punishment-deserving Israel is the sign of my indignation. The general term “Assyrian” includes king and people.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1). God First Calls On His Selected Instrument To Act But Then Rebukes Him For Overreacting ( Isa 10:5-15 ).

In this vivid illustration Assyria is depicted as being the rod of God’s anger. Assyria might think that they are acting under the instructions of their own gods, but the real truth is that they are being used by Yahweh to do His will.

Analysis.

a Ho, Assyria, the rod of My anger, in whose hand is the staff of My indignation. I will send him against a profane (godless) nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets (Isa 10:5-6).

b However he does not mean so, nor does his heart intend so, but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few (Isa 10:7).

c For he says, “Are not my princes all of them kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? (Isa 10:8-9).

d As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols whose graven images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria (Isa 10:10).

d Will I not, as I do (perfect tense) to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? (Isa 10:11).

c For this reason it will come about that when the Lord has performed His whole work on mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish (visit on) the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks (Isa 10:12).

b For he has said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am so astute. And I have removed the bounds of the people, and have stolen their treasures, and I have brought down as a man of valour, those who sit on thrones. And my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathers eggs that are deserted, I have gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved wing, or that opened the mouth, or that chirped (Isa 10:13-14).

a Will the axe boast itself against the one who hews with it? Will the saw magnify itself against the one who saws (moves to and fro) with it? It is as if a rod should shake those who lift it up, or as if a pole should lift up one who is not wood (Isa 10:15).

In ‘a’ the king of Assyria is to be Yahweh’s instrument, but in the parallel he is not considered to have behaved like a true instrument of Yahweh. In ‘b’ his intention is to is to go beyond his remit and destroy and cut off nations and in the parallel his proud attitude towards them in doing so is described. In ‘c’ he boasts about his ability to destroy kings, and in the parallel Yahweh will punish him for the glory of his proud looks. In ‘d’ he boasts at having conquered kingdoms with greater gods than those of Israel and Judah, and in the parallel boasts of what he will do to what he sees as the gods of Judah.

Isa 10:5-6

‘Ho, Assyria, the rod of my anger,

In whose hand is the staff of my indignation.

I will send him against a profane (godless) nation,

And against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge,

To take the spoil, and to take the prey,

And to tread them down like the mire of the streets.’

‘Ho.’ A peremptory call to Assyria like that of a master to his beast. (Or ‘woe to’, either is a possible translation. But ‘ho’ fits the context better. He is calling on His instrument in carrying out the woes).

God now calls on Assyria to act as the rod of His anger against Samaria and against Judah and Jerusalem. The Assyrians hold in their hands the means of chastisement and punishment which will express the ‘snorting anger’ (‘aph) and wrath of Yahweh. So Assyria is ‘sent’ (intensive, indicating the authority of the sender) by Yahweh against the people who have rejected Him, and are given a charge against the people with whom God is angry. Their charge is to collect spoil, to take booty and to tread the people down as men tread down the mire in the streets. This was their God-given task. Note the limit to His purpose. It was that these people might be despoiled and punished, but not more than that. Assyria, however, would not be satisfied with that.

Note the reference to ‘spoil’ and ‘booty’, both included in the name of Maher-shalal-hash-baz. They are to fulfil God’s will as prophesied.

Isa 10:7

‘However he does not mean so,

Nor does his heart intend so,

But it is in his heart to destroy,

And to cut off nations not a few.’

Assyria, however, has far wider plans. It does not align itself with Yahweh’s plans but has plans against many nations. Here we have the conflict between sovereignty and free will. God is sovereign over the activities of Assyria, they come at His call, but He does not restrict them to that but allows them their freedom to reveal what they are by what they do, so that they will deserve the fate that will come on them. It is not that they openly disobey Him. They were not aware of the charge given to them. They are like a young stallion, controlled by its rider, but given freedom to express itself meanwhile, and that they do, revealing just how evil they are.

Isa 10:8-11

‘For he says, “Are not my princes all of them kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols whose graven images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria, will I not, as I do (perfect tense) to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?” ’

The pride of the king of Assyria is laid bare. He declares that his princes are in fact nothing less than kings who have been subdued, and now obey their overlord’s will. King’s are nothing to him, and princes even less. (So much for Ahaz’s expectations). None can resist him. He has conquered cities galore. These are named in such a way as to indicate a slow progress towards Samaria and Jerusalem, although not to be taken literally as signifying the order in which they were captured. Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Hamath, Damascus – and then Samaria next! Whatever their boasting they were all the same to him. And in each case their idols had been superior to those of Samaria and Jerusalem. Thus let Jerusalem consider. What chance do they have? Compare here Isa 36:19; Isa 37:12-13.

Note his proud assumption that Samaria was already in his hands (expressed in terms of the perfect tense, the tense which signifies something which is complete, sometimes called the ‘prophetic’ perfect because regularly used by the prophets), although the way he describes the situation suggests otherwise. He mentions Samaria in such a way in Isa 10:10 as to signify that it was not yet so taken. The word used for idols again signifies ‘worthless things, nonentities’ as in Isa 2:8.

Carchemish, was on the upper Euphrates, Calno, Arpad were in northern Syria. Hamath in central Syria. Damascus was further south and the capital city of Syria.

It is worth noting that his words actually bring home a significant message, especially in the light of the later deliverance of Jerusalem. The idols of these cities, with all their grandeur and proliferation, had been truly powerless to help them, nor therefore, he assumed, would any idols aid Samaria and Jerusalem. All were useless. And he was right. But unknown to the king of Assyria Jerusalem had a secret weapon, Yahweh, the living God. And that was a different matter.

Isa 10:12

‘For this reason it will come about that when the Lord has performed his whole work on mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish (visit on) the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.’

Assyria’s proud boasting is noted and because of it, once they have fulfilled God’s purpose, their boasting and their behaviour in the light of it will be visited on them.

‘When the Lord has performed His whole work on mount Zion and on Jerusalem.’ The mention of mount Zion is significant. Mount Zion was the site of Yahweh’s dwellingplace, a kind of meeting place between earth and heaven, and yet it too has a place in the work Yahweh has to do. For through its earthly connection it has been defiled by idolatry and needs to be cleansed once those who participate in the false worship have been removed. And the same applies to Jerusalem which is seen as a wider area than Mount Zion for this purpose. Both need to be purified.

‘I will punish (visit on) the fruit of the stout (arrogant) heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.’ Then, once he has fulfilled Yahweh’s will, the king of Assyria will be punished, both for his behaviour as a result of his arrogant heart, and because of the vainglory of his eyes which reveal his overweening pride. God had called him to administer punishment. He had not called on him to be cruel.

Isa 10:13-14

‘For he has said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it,

And by my wisdom, for I am so astute.

And I have removed the bounds of the people,

And have stolen their treasures,

And I have brought down as a man of valour,

Those who sit on thrones.

And my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people,

And as one gathers eggs that are deserted,

I have gathered all the earth.

And there was none that moved wing,

Or that opened the mouth, or that chirped.’

The king of Assyria saw what he had achieved as revealing that he was both mighty and supremely astute. He boasted that he had changed boundaries, setting up provinces as he would, and he had appropriated their treasures and resources, and like ‘a mighty man’ he had brought down those who sat on thrones. Like an egg collector he had come across the riches of the people, in the same way as a man who feels for a nest which he cannot see, in the hollow of a tree, and he had gathered all the earth like an egg collector gathers eggs from nests which have been deserted by their parents because of his presence. It was all so easy. And as with the parent birds no one had given any sign of protest, by either movement or words or chirp of protest. And all this was because he had gone beyond his remit.

Isa 10:15

‘Will the axe boast itself against the one who hews with it?

Will the saw magnify itself against the one who saws (moves to and fro) with it?

It is as if a rod should shake those who lift it up,

Or as if a pole should lift up one who is not wood.’

But there was One who raised a protest, One Who saw the Assyrian as but a tool, and an arrogant one at that. The One Who had given him his remit. Will an axe or a saw boast against the carpenter and make a big thing of themselves? Of course not. They have nothing to boast at because they are only instruments that the carpenter uses. The boast is his, not theirs. Nor would a rod shake the one who held it. It rather responds to the one who holds and flourishes it. Nor would a pole lift up the flesh-and-blood bearers of the pole. It would lift up the wooden gods that were placed on it by the bearers. Thus the bearers are more significant than the helpless wooden gods. The implication is that the pole would of course lift up its wooden gods, assisted by those bearers, such was the helplessness of those gods. So the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’. They are all but instruments in the carpenter’s hands. So why then does the king of Assyria boast against The One Who uses and directs him? It is totally illogical and ridiculous, and indeed arrogant and worthy of punishment.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Chapter Isa 10:5-34 Assyria Will Advance And Conquer As A Judgment On God’s People But Will Finally Be Brought Down, For Final Deliverance Is Certain.

In the remainder of this chapter is described God’s call on Assyria to fulfil His will and act as His punitive rod, and Assyria’s subsequent arrogance in doing so which will bring judgment rebounding on themselves. This is followed by assurance of final deliverance for God’s people. But before that they must experience the Assyrian advance,

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Woe Against Assyria

v. 5. O Assyrian, the rod of Mine anger, and the staff in their hand is Mine indignation, literally, “Woe to Asshur (which is) the rod of My wrath, and the staff, that in their hand, Mine indignation. ” The Lord here pronounces a woe upon Assyria; for whereas He wanted to use this nation merely as His instrument in punishing Israel, the Assyrians took the opportunity to gratify their own lust for conquest and bloodshed.

v. 6. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, one that is impure, corrupt, and wicked, and against the people of My wrath will I give him a charge, bidding Assyria smite Israel for its sins, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets, destroy their power, render them utterly helpless. So much the charge of the Lord to Assyria included, not, indeed, as if the Lord had sent this command by some messenger, but that He places even the heathen nations into His service to carry out His plans, to punish the disobedient.

v. 7. Howbeit he, that is, Assyria, meaneth not so, does not hold the same idea that the Lord holds, neither doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few, that is, Assyria was driven only by the thought of conquest and destruction and therefore was guilty before God, even while carrying out His plans. The plans of sinners are no less to be condemned, though they by them unwittingly fulfill God’s designs. The selfish and blameworthy pride of Assyria is now described.

v. 8. For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings? Assyria was a world-power, and even its provinces had the extent and the might of kingdoms, so that their governors could well rank with kings.

v. 9. Is not Calno, a large city on the Tigris, as Carchemish, an important commercial center on an island in the Euphrates? Is not Ramath, an important city and formerly a capital on the Orontes, as Arpad, a city in Syria proper? Is not Samaria as Damascus? Three pairs of cities are named in such a way that boasting Assyria emphasizes the great ease with which its conquests were made.

v. 10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, conquering those upon whom the people of Judah looked down as idol-worshipers, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria, being more plentiful than they and therefore supposedly better able to defend their cities;

v. 11. shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, which had been destroyed in the sacking of the city, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? The God of Jerusalem, so the speaker boastfully asserts, would no more be able to protect this city titan the gods of the other cities had succeeded in doing. Cf. Isa 36:18-20; Isa 37:11-13. This blasphemous boast could not remain unpunished, as the Lord now shows.

v. 12. Wherefore it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed His whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, Assyria being His instrument of chastisement upon those whom He had chosen for His people, and a remnant of whom remained true to Him in the general apostasy and now bowed under His chastening hand, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, the blasphemous pride which showed itself in his boasting, and the glory of his high looks, literally, “the haughtiness of the loftiness of his eyes,” the description showing the self-complacent nature of his assumed glory.

v. 13. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, ascribing his success entirely to his own ability; for I am prudent, always making use of proper understanding; and I have removed the bounds of the people, changing their boundaries to suit himself, and have robbed their treasures, taking at will everything that they had accumulated, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man, butting down those occupying thrones like a mighty hero or an angry steer;

v. 14. and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people, locating them with an experienced hand; and as one gathereth eggs that are left, forsaken by the mother bird, have I gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved the wing, in defense, or opened the mouth, or peeped, in terrified protest. All nations had bowed in dumb resignation under the hand of the mighty Assyrian, and for this he took all credit to himself. But the prophet counters with a reproof of bitter irony:

v. 15. Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Or shall the saw magnify Itself against him that shaketh it, drawing it to and fro in severing the wood? It is just as foolish for a tool to boast over against the workman as for the king of Assyria to ascribe to himself all the might which he possesses only by divine permission. As if the rod should shake [itself against] them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood, literally, “as if a staff should lift up” (that which is) “not wood,” that is, the person handling it. That rod or staff should lift up or shake those who have hold of them presents the very extreme of absurd presumption. So it was utterly absurd for the king of Assyria, who, although unknown to himself, carried out God’s punishment upon Israel, to ascribe to himself the wisdom and power, the design and success of this campaign. The very evil in the world is used by God to serve His objects. Cf Gen 50:20. The punishment upon Assyria is now pronounced:

v. 16. Therefore shall the Lord, the All-powerful, the Lord of hosts, who commands the untold legions of heaven, send among his fat ones leanness, consuming the mighty ones of Assyria, and under his glory He shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire, to consume it in a moment, with a mighty crackling and hissing.

v. 17. And the Light of Israel, the Holy One of Israel Himself, shall be for a fire and His Holy One for a flame; and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day, the Assyrian nation being devoured in one great destruction,

v. 18. and shall consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, the majesty of his leaders and the wealth of his merchants, both soul and body, in a complete destruction; and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth, rather, as when a consumptive pines away, hurrying forward to an early death.

v. 19. And the rest of the trees of his forest, the few that have survived the devastation of the fire, shall be few, that a child may write them, put down the number which he easily counted. Thus the Lord, even in the midst of His enemies, has some few whom He has chosen, who are saved in the general destruction which will come upon the unbelievers.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Isa 10:5. O Assyrian, &c. We have here the fourth section of the fifth sermon, which reaches to the end of this chapter, and which is two-fold; containing, first, a proposition in this verse, and secondly, an unfolding of that proposition; which consists of five parts: the first contains an explanation both of the cause for which God had decreed to permit the Assyrians to have such power over his people; namely, for the punishment of hypocrites and the purification of the church; as also of the crimes which the kings of Assyria would commit in the executing of his judgments; and of the punishment ordained for them, Isa 10:6-13. Secondly, We have the confirmation hereof, and a new exhibition of the pride of the Assyrian, with a fuller declaration of the divine judgment upon him: Isa 10:13-20. Thirdly, We have a purer state of the church, after having passed through the afflictions brought upon it by the Assyrian; Isa 10:20-24. Fourthly, The application of the above prophecy concerning the fall of the Assyrian to the comfort of the church; Isa 10:24-28. And, fifthly, A more particular description of this or some other powerful Assyrian monarch, about to lay waste Judaea, with its effects and consequences; from Isa 10:28 to the end of the chapter. It is supposed that Isaiah delivered this prophecy concerning the Assyrian at the same time with that preceding. The prophet, in the former chapters, had foretold the fate of the Ephraimites and Syrians, who had determined to attack, and, if possible, subvert the Jewish church and state. He therefore turns his discourse to the Assyrians, the executors of this judgment, who also in their time should make the same attempt against Judaea, and denounces their punishment; teaching at the same time in what light they were held by God, and consequently were to be considered by the careful observers of the ways of God. The proposition in this verse is elegant, but very difficult to be turned into another language according to its original force. Its immediate meaning is, “Woe to the Assyrian, who is the rod of mine anger; and the staff, which is in his hands, is my severity:” that is to say, “Whatever strength or power they have, which they have used in afflicting my people, would have been none at all, if my people had not provoked my wrath and severity; so that, not the Assyrians themselves, but my wrath and severity, and the decrees of my justice, ought to be esteemed the rod and staff beating my people; since, without that severity, the Assyrians themselves could have done nothing.” Vitringa remarks, that all the characters of this prophecy belong to Sennacherib; though possibly it may have a more extensive scope, and refer to the destruction of all the enemies of God, and the following great empires, which God made use of as rods and scourges to chastise and amend his people till the manifestation of the kingdom of his Son in the world. See Jer 51:20. Bishop Newton observes, that, as the Assyrians totally destroyed the kingdom of Israel, and greatly oppressed that of Judah, no wonder they are the subject of several prophecies. The prophet here denounceth the judgments of God against Sennacherib in particular, and against the Assyrians in general; God might employ them as ministers of his wrath, and executioners of his vengeance; and so make the wickedness of some nations the means of correcting that of others. Prophecies, vol. 1: p. 249.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

C.ASSYRIAS DESTRUCTION THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL

Isa 10:5 to Isa 12:1

This address is related to the two that precede as bright day to dark night. After Israel is compelled to hear that the same Assyria to which Judahs king had appealed for help shall be the instrument of his severe chastisement, now Assyria must hear that the Lord will destroy His instrument, because it fulfilled its mission, not in the mind of God, but in the sense of its own brutal lusts, and with proud boasting about its own might. Out of the toils of the world-power, whose totality Assyria represents here, shall redeemed Israel return home. Out of the almost dried up root of the race of David shall a sprout grow up that shall set up a kingdom which shall pervade and rule all nations with the spirit of peace.

As regards the time of the composition of this prophecy, it must be noticed, first of all, that Isa 10:5-34 did not originate at the same time with chapters 11 and 12 Concerning Isa 10:5-34, every thing depends on whether the passage Isa 10:9-11 is understood in the sense of an ideal or an actual time past. Vitringa, Caspari, Drechsler, Delitzsch take the view that the destruction of Samaria, that took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah, appears as a past event in our passage only in the contemplation of the Prophet. I cannot join in this view. The reasoning of the Prophet must have been without meaning and effect to his hearers if the conquest of the cities Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Hamath, Damascus and Samaria were not at that time an accomplished fact and well known to all contemporaries. In addition, the messengers of Sennacherib, according to Isa 36:18 sq.; Isa 37:11 sq., really boasted thus. Nowhere in chap. 10 is Ephraim spoken of as one that is to be conquered. Only the conquest of Jerusalem is lacking in order to let the destroying work of Jehovah on the people of His choice appear complete (Isa 10:12). Of course one may say that our passage then belongs in the neighborhood of chapters 36 and 37. But those chapters, as they stand, are a historical report complete in themselves; whereas an essential piece, forming a consolatory conclusion, is lacking to the cycle of prophecies affecting Assyria, which begins chap. 7, if Isa 10:5 sq. does not belong to it. As long as we have no proof that the passage Isa 10:9-11 is not to be understood of things historically past, I can only assume that the Prophet combined the later address with the earlier, in order to give to that earlier the suitable conclusion. Concerning chap. 11 we have a datum for determining the period of its composition in the short prophecy against Philistia, Isa 14:28-32. This short passage lives in the sphere of ideas of chap. 11. In fact, without chap. 11. it is not at all intelligible. On the contrary, we learn from Isa 14:28 that Isaiah recognized in Hezekiah in a certain sense the root () or branch ()through which the kingdom of David was to spring up with new life. The passage Isa 14:28-32 was written in the year of Ahazs death (728). The young king Hezekiah is described there as the basilisk () that shall proceed from the root of the serpent ( ). It is known that Messianic hopes were connected with Hezekiah (comp. Delitzsch on Isa 7:14 sq and Isa 9:6); how far Isaiah shared them we know not. At all events chap. 11. was written after the death of Ahaz, and just as the hopeful Hezekiah ascended the throne (728 B. C.). Chap. 12 is a doxology that certainly belongs to that period in which the whole prophetic cycle, chaps, 712. were put together.

In accordance with this combination, the discourse plainly subdivides into three principal parts, and each principal part again into three subdivisions, so that three forms the underlying number. In the first part is Assyria, in the second Israel, in the third the Messiah, the chief subject. The chief traits of the discourse may be represented in the following scheme:

Assyrias Destruction The Salvation Of Israel (Isa 10:5 to Isa 12:6)

I. Woe against Assyria (Isa 10:5-19).

1. Woe to the instrument that does not execute the will of God according to the mind of God (Isa 10:5-11).

2. Woe to the instrument that knew not that it was an instrument (Isa 10:12-15).

3. The execution of the woe (Isa 10:16-19).

II. Israels redemption in general (Isa 10:20-34).

1. The believing remnant of Israel returns out of the shattered world-power (Isa 10:20-23).

2. The condemned world-power is also not to be feared in the present (Isa 10:24-27).

3. The impetuous onset of the condemned world-power in the light of its final ruin (Isa 10:28-34).

III. Israels redemption in relation to the Messiah (Isa 11:1 to Isa 12:6).

1. From the apparently dried up root of the house of David shall go forth a sprout that shall found a kingdom of most glorious peace (Isa 11:1-9).

2. The return of Israel takes place only when the Messiah has appeared and the heathen have gathered to Him (Isa 11:10-16).

3. Israels song of praise for the wrath and the grace of his God (Isa 12:1-6).

I. WOE AGAINST ASSYRIA

Isa 10:5-19

1. WOE TO THE INSTRUMENT THAT DOES NOT EXECUTE THE WILL OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE MIND OF GOD

Isa 10:5-11

55O 6Assyrian, the rod of mine anger,

7 8And the staff in their hand is mine indignation.

6I will send him against an 9hypocritical nation,

And against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge,

10To take the spoil, and to take the prey,

And 11to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

7Howbeit he meaneth not so,

Neither doth his heart think so;
But it is in his heart to destroy

And cut off nations not a few.

8For he saith,

Are not my princes altogether kings?

9Is not Calno as Carchemish?

Is not Hamath as Arpad?

Is not Samaria as Damascus?

10As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols,

12And whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;

11Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols,

So do to Jerusalem and her 13idols?

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

On Isa 10:5. As remarked at Isa 10:1, this occasioned the existing arrangement of the chapter. What we have said concerning the origin of Isa 9:7 to Isa 10:4, and Isa 10:5-12, shows that this coincidence of the is accidental. The expression is clear. It is found only here. Analogous is Pro 22:8; Lam 3:1; comp. Pro 22:15; Job 9:34; Job 21:9.The second clause is difficult. The translation: The staff which in their hand, is the staff of my anger (Gesenius) is grammatically incorrect. For then must not be wanting before . Quite as grammatically impossible is that of Hendewerk and Knobel, who point and connect it, across as a parenthesis, with : and the staff of my anger, it is in their hand. To treat as a gloss, like Hitzig, Ewald, I. Edit and Diestel do, is violence. Only that rendering is grammatically possible that takes as subject, and what precedes as predicate. Then only serves to mark as predicate. For, were it not there, it would not be known which of the two words and is subject, and which predicate. Comp. e.g. Deu 12:23. beside here, is found Isa 10:25; Isa 13:5; Isa 26:20; Isa 30:27.

On Isa 10:6. comp. on Isa 9:16. like Jer 14:14; Jer 23:32, with Isa 27:4.

On Isa 10:7. Piel is found also Isa 14:24; Isa 40:18; Isa 40:25; Isa 46:5; but is used in the last three texts in the sense of to make like, compare, in which sense Hithp. (to make ones-self like) is used Isa 14:14.

On Isa 10:10. with like Isa 10:14; Psa 21:9; comp. 1Sa 23:17. are carved images; comp. 1Sa 21:9; 1Sa 30:22; 1Sa 12:8. Before is to be supplied comp. Isa 5:29; Isa 13:4.

On Isa 10:11. The (in Isaiah again only Isa 46:1) are not essentially different from . For as the underlying meaning of is caedere, caedendo fingere (Exo 34:1; Exo 34:4; Deu 10:1-2; 1 Kings 5:32), so, too, , (kindred to ,) originally meant caedere, secare, to cut out, to shape by hewing (Job 10:8; Jer 44:19).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The Lord denounces woe against Assyria that is to be the instrument of His judgments (Isa 10:5). For He sent him against Israel (Isa 10:6), but Assyria did not execute the mission in the spirit in which he was commissioned, but in the spirit of his brutal and insatiable greed of conquest (Isa 10:7). This his sentiment appears in the grounds he assigns for his confidence that he will make conquest of Jerusalem: 1) his princes are all of them kings, which gives a measure of the extent of his might; 2) a row of conquests of great cities proves his invincibility. Having conquered kingdoms whose idols excel those of Samaria and Jerusalem, he will be able to treat Jerusalem as Samaria (811).

2. Woe unto Assyrianot a few.

Isa 10:5-7. The pivot on which the whole of the following announcement turns, is that the Lord denounces woe against the instrument of His wrath. In Isa 10:5 (see Text. and Gram.), the Prophet expresses the thought that not only is Assyria the rod of Gods anger, but that the anger of God is also the staff, as it were, the magicians staff (comp. Isa 10:24; Isa 10:26, where allusion is evidently to the rod of Moses) in the hand of Assyria. This turn of the image need give no surprise in our artistic Prophet. How far Assyria is used as a rod is explained, Isa 10:6. He is to be commissioned against the impure people, that on account of this impurity are objects of divine wrath, as it were on an official mission, to rob and trample down Israel, that they may become as the mire of the streets (Isa 7:25), comp. Jer 51:20 sqq. Assyria will indeed trample down Israel, and as many other nations as possible, but not in order to execute the purpose of Jehovah on them, but only to gratify his own lust for world-conquest.

3. For he saidher idols.

Isa 10:8-11. Assyria confides only in his own strength. He has no suspicion that he is Jehovahs instrument, the rod of His anger. Hence he enumerates the facts that justify his hope of easily subduing Israel. First, his princes are kings (comp. 2Ki 25:28). When such have only second rank in the army of the great king of Assyria (Isa 36:4) how wide must be his dominion. His second ground of confidence is past great successes. Three pairs of conquered cities are named. The conquest of one is premised as an event that made sure that the next one named must in turn succumb. Is not Calno like Carchemish? Carchemish was a city on an island in the Euphrates at the mouth of the Chaboras, called by the Romans Circesium, Circessum, Circusium,Jer 46:2-12; 2Ch 35:20, and appears from the text to have been subdued earlier than Calno. The latter is called Gen 10:10; and Amo 6:2 : perhaps the of Eze 27:23 is the same city. It lay North-east twenty hours from Babylon on the East bank of the Tigris opposite Seleucia, and belonged to Babylon. Rebuilt at a later day by the Persian king Pacorus (90 b. c.), it received the name Ctesiphon. Thus Carchemish and Calno were two cities of Mesopotamia. Did Calno become as Carchemish, it appears that the conquest of the latter was not merely a happy chance, but the proof of the existence of a real power, which in every like case will conquer in like manner. Arpad is mentioned Isa 36:19; Isa 37:13; Jer 49:23; 2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13. The classics do not mention the city. According to the Arabian geographer Marassid, (comp.Knobelin loc.), an Arphad lay in the Pashalik Haleb (Aleppo) North-west from the latter place. According to Kiepert (D. M. G. XXV. p. 655) Arpad lay 3 German miles north of Haleb on the spot where is found at present the ruins of Tel Erfad. In every passage where Arpad is mentioned, Hamath is found too. But, beside that, Hamath is often mentioned in the Old Testament. According to Num 34:8 the northern border of the land to be possessed by the Israelites, was to extend to Hamath, which, according to 2Ki 14:25; 2Ki 14:28; comp. 2Ch 8:4, was actually the case at times. Comp., beside Amo 6:2; Amo 6:14. The city lay on the Orontes and was called later Epiphania. Arpad and Hamath were thus Syrian cities lying nearer the Holy Land.

Damascus and Samaria lay still nearer Judah. After naming three pairs of names of conquered cities as proof of the irresistibleness of Assyria, the Prophet could simply proceed; so will Jerusalem, too, be unable to resist. But three thoughts suggest themselves, which he would express before that conclusion. First, that the idols of the conquered heathen cities surpassed the (supposed) idols of Jerusalem and Samaria. Second, the point that Samaria is already conquered; and third, the thought that Samaria and Jerusalem, may just as well be set in a pair as Carchemish and Calno, Arpad and Hamath, Damascus and Samaria. Now the Prophet might, of course, have said: as I have conquered the heathen kingdoms, whose idols surpass those of Samaria and Jerusalem, and as I have subdued Samaria itself, shall I not be able just so to subdue Jerusalem? But then Samaria would belong to the premise, and Jerusalem would alone form the apodosis, and there would be lacking conformity to the pairs before named. Hence he combines Samaria and Jerusalem together in the apodosis, beginning with shall I not, Isa 10:11, but forms again within this apodosis, another protasis and apodosis, whereby, of course, the construction becomes abnormal; but still the thought is expressed that Samaria and Jerusalem should join as a fourth comparison, to the foregoing three. It is to be noticed that our passage assumes the conquest of Samaria, by the Assyrians (722 b. c.). According to 2Ki 16:9, Tiglath-Pileser subdued Damascus. Samaria fell by Shalmaneser, according to 2Ki 17:5 sq., but according to the Assyrian monuments by Sargon, in the third year of the siege. It was long after, that Rabshakeh actually used the language against Judah (Isa 36:18 sqq.; Isa 37:10 sqq.). that Isaiah here prophetically puts into the mouth of the Assyrian. Perhaps Isaiah had here in mind, what Amos (Isa 6:1 sqq.), at an earlier period held up to the people, though it must remain in doubt, whether Isaiah means the same conquest of Hamath and Arpad, that Amos refers to. Moreover, nothing more is known of the conquest of the cities Carchemish, Calno, Hamath and Arpad, by the Assyrians. But comp. on Isa 36:19. That the Assyrian speaks of ( as collective in the singular) the kingdoms of the idols is a Judaism. The Prophet presents the Assyrian as making a distinction between idolatrous kingdoms and Israel, the monotheistic: whereas, the Assyrian knows nothing of monotheism, and afterwards speaks of the idols and images of Samaria and Jerusalem. Moreover the Prophet describes them as nothings (comp. Isa 2:8; Isa 2:18; Isa 2:20; Isa 19:3; Isa 31:7) whereas the Assyrian by no means regarded them so; for he held them all to be superterrestrial powers; only he maintained a distinction among them in respect to power. Thus we see how Isaiah suffered here some mixing of his point of view with that of the Assyrian.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Isa 7:1. Hierosolyma oppugnatur, etc. Jerusalem is assaulted but not conquered. The church is pressed but not oppressed.Foerster.

2. On Isa 7:2. Quando ecclesia, etc. When the Church is assaulted and Christ crucified over again in His elect, Rezin and Pekah, Herod and Pilate are wont to form alliance and enter into friendly relations. There are, so to speak, the foxes of Samson, joined indeed by the tails, but their heads are disconnected.Foerster.He that believes flees not (Isa 28:16). The righteous is bold as a lion (Pro 28:1). Hypocrites and those that trust in works (work-saints) have neither reason nor faith. Therefore they cannot by any means quiet their heart. In prosperity they are, indeed, overweening, but in adversity they fall away (Jer 17:9). Cramer.

3. On Isa 7:9. (If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.) Insignis sententia, etc. A striking sentiment that may be adapted generally to all temptation, because all earnest endeavor after anything, as you know, beguiles us in temptation. But only faith in the word of promise makes us abide and makes sure whatever we would execute. He warns Ahaz, therefore, as if he said: I now promise you by the word, it shall be that those two kings shall not hurt you. Believe this word! For if you do not, whatever you afterwards devise will deceive you: because all confidence is vain which is not supported by the word of God.Luther.

4. On Isa 7:10-12. Wicked Ahaz pretends to great sanctity in abstaining from asking a sign through fear of God. Thus hypocrites are most conscientious where there is no need for it: on the other hand, when they ought to be humble, they are the most insolent. But where God commands to be bold, one must be bold. For to be obedient to the word is not tempting God. That is rather tempting God when one proposes something without having the word for it. It is, indeed, the greatest virtue to rest only in the word, and desire nothing more. But where God would add something more than the word, then it must not be thought a virtue to reject it as superfluous. We must therefore exercise such a faith in the word of God that we will not despise the helps that are given in addition to it as aids to faith. For example the Lord offers us in the gospel all that is necessary to salvation. Why then Baptism and the Lords Supper? Are they to be treated as superfluous? By no means. For if one believes the word he will at the same time exhibit an entire obedience toward God. We ought therefore to learn to join the sign with the word, for no man has the power to sever the two.

But do you ask: is it permitted to ask God for a sign? We have an example of this in Gideon. Answer: Although Gideon was not told of God to ask a sign, yet he did it by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not according to his own fancy. We must not therefore abuse his example, and must be content with the sign that is offered by the Lord. But there are extraordinary signs or miracles, like that of the text, and ordinary ones like Baptism and the Lords Supper. Yet both have the same object and use. For as Gideon was strengthened by that miraculous event, so, too, are we strengthened by Baptism and the Lords Supper, although no miracle appears before our eyes. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, also asked the Lord to show him the right wife for Isaac by means of a sign of His own choosing, (Gen 24:14).

It ought to be said that this asking a sign (opening the Bible at a venture, or any other book) does not suit Christian perfection (Heb 6:1). A Christian ought to be inwardly sensible of the divine will. He ought to content himself with the guarantees that God Himself offers. Only one must have open eyes and ears for them. This thing of demanding a sign, if it is not directly an effect of superstition (Mat 12:39; Mat 16:4; 1Co 1:22), is certainly childish, and, because it easily leads to superstitious abuses, it is dangerous.

5. On Isa 7:13. Non caret, etc. That the Prophet calls God his God is not without a peculiar emphasis. In Zec 2:12 it is said, that whoever touches the servants of God touches the pupil of Gods eye. Whoever opposes teacher and preacher will have to deal with God in heaven or with the Lord who has put them into office.Foerster.

6. On Isa 7:14. The name Immanuel is one of the most beautiful and richest in contents of all the Holy Scripture. God with us comprises Gods entire plan of salvation with sinful humanity. In a narrower sense it means God-man (Mat 1:23), and points to the personal union of divinity and humanity, in the double nature of the Son of God become man. Jesus Christ was a God-with-us, however, in this, that for about 33 years He dwelt among us sinners (Joh 1:11; Joh 1:14). In a deeper and wider sense still He was such by the Immanuels work of the atonement (2Co 5:19; 1Ti 2:3). He will also be such to every one that believes on Him by the work of regeneration and sanctification and the daily renewal of His holy and divine communion of the Spirit (Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26; Joh 14:19-21; Joh 14:23). He is such now by His high-priestly and royal administration and government for His whole Church (Mat 28:20; Heb 7:25). He will be snch in the present time of the Church in a still more glorious fashion (Joh 10:16). The entire and complete meaning of the name Immanuel, however, will only come to light in the new earth, and in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:3; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5).Wilh. Fried. Roos.

Isa 8:7. On Isa 8:5 sqq. Like boastful swimmers despise small and quiet waters, and on the other hand, for the better display of their skill, boast of the great sea and master it, but often are lost in it,thus, too, did the hypocrites that despised the small kingdom of Judah, and bragged much and great things of the power and splendor of the kingdom of Israel and of the Syrians; such hypocrites are still to be found now-a-dayssuch that bear in their eye the admiranda Romae, the splendor, riches, power, ceremonies and pomp of the Romish church, and thereupon set their bushel by the bigger-heap. It is but the devils temptation over again: I will give all this to thee.Cramer.Fons Siloa, etc. The fountain of Siloam, near the temple, daily reminded the Jews that Christ was coming.Calvin on Joh 9:7.

8. On Isa 8:10. When the great Superlatives sit in their council chambers and have determined everything, how it ought to be, and especially how they will extinguish the gospel, then God sends the angel Gabriel to them, who must look through the window and say: nothing will come of it.Luther.Christ, who is our Immanuel, is with us by His becoming man, for us by His office of Mediator, in us by the work of His sanctification, by us by His personal, gracious presence.Cramer.

9. On Isa 8:14-15. Christ alone is set by God to be a stone by which we are raised up. That He is, however, an occasion of offence to many is because of their purpose, petulance and contempt (1Pe 2:8). Therefore we ought to fear lest we take offence at Him. For whoever falls on this stone will shatter to pieces (Mat 21:44). Cramer.

10. On Isa 8:16 sqq. He warns His disciples against heathenish superstition, and exhorts them to show respect themselves always to law and testimony. They must not think that God must answer them by visions and signs, therefore He refers them to the written word, that they may not become altogether too spiritual, like those now-a-days who cry: spirit! spirit! Christ says, Luke 16 : They have Moses and the prophets, and again Joh 5:39 : Search the Scriptures. So Paul says, 2Ti 3:16 : The Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So says Peter, 2Pe 1:9 : We have a sure word of prophecy. It is the word that changes hearts and moves them. But revelations puff people up and make them insolent. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther.

Chap. 911. On Isa 9:1 sqq. (2). Postrema pars, etc. The latter part of chap. 8 was (legal and threatening) so, on the other hand, the first and best part of chap. 9 is , (evangelical and comforting). Thus must ever law and gospel, preaching wrath and grace, words of reproof and words of comfort, a voice of alarm and a voice of peace follow one another in the church. Foerster.

12. On Isa 9:1 (2). Both in the Old Testament and New Testament Christ is often called light. Thus Isaiah calls Him a light to the gentiles, Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6. The same Prophet says: Arise, shine (make thyself light), for thy light is come, Isa 60:1. And again Isa 9:19 : The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light. In the New Testament it is principally John that makes use of this expression: The life was the light of men, Joh 1:4, and the light shined in the darkness, Joh 9:5. John was not that light, but bore testimony to the light, Joh 9:8. That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, Joh 9:9. And further: And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, Joh 3:19. I am the light of the world, (Joh 8:12; Joh 9:5; comp. Joh 12:35).

13. On Isa 9:1 (2). The people that sit in darkness may be understood to comprise three grades. First, the inhabitants of Zebulon and Naphtali are called so (Isaiah 8:23), for the Prophets gaze is fixed first on that region lying in the extreme end of Palestine, which was neighbor to the heathen and mixed with them, and on this account was held in low esteem by the dwellers in Judah. The night that spreads over Israel in general is darkest there. But all Israel partakes of this night, therefore all Israel, too, may be understood, as among the people sitting in darkness. Finally, no one can deny that this night extends over the borders of Israel to the whole human race. For far as men dwell extends the night which Christ, as light of the world, came to dispel, Luk 1:76 sqq.

14. On Isa 9:5 (6). Many lay stress on the notion child, inasmuch as they see in that the reason for the reign of peace spoken of afterwards. It is not said a man, a king, a giant is given to us. But this is erroneous. For the child does not remain a child. He becomes a man: and the six names that are ascribed to Him and also the things predicted of His kingdom apply to Him, not as a child, but as a man. That His birth as a child is made prominent, has its reason in this, that thereby His relation to human kind should be designated as an organic one. He does not enter into humanity as a man, i.e. as one whose origin was outside of it, but He was born from it, and especially from the race of David. He is Son of man and Son of David. He is a natural offshoot, but also the crowning bloom of both. Precisely because He was to be conceived, carried and born of a human mother, and indeed of a virgin, this prophecy belongs here as the completion and definition of the two prophetic pictures Isa 7:10 sqq.; Isa 8:1 sqq.He came down from heaven for the sake of us men, and for our bliss (1Ti 1:15; Luk 2:7). For our advantage: for He undertook not for the seed of angels, but for the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). Not sold to us by God out of great love, but given (Rom 5:15; Joh 3:16). Therefore every one ought to make an application of the word to us to himself, and to learn to say: this child was given to me, conceived for me, born to me.Cramer.Cur oportuit, etc. Why did it become the Redeemer of human kind to be not merely man nor merely God, but God and man conjoined or ? Anselm replies briefly, indeed, but pithily: Deum qui posset, hominem, qui deberet. Foerster.

15. On Isa 9:5 (6). You must not suppose here that He is to be named and called according to His person, as one usually calls another by his name; but these are names that one must preach, praise and celebrate on account of His act, works and office. Luther.

16. On Isa 9:6. Verba pauca, etc. A few words, but to be esteemed great, not for their number but for their weight. Augustine. Admirabilis in, etc. Wonderful in birth, counsellor in what He preaches, God in working, strong in suffering, father of the world to come in resurrection, Prince of peace in bliss perpetual. Bernard of Clairvaux. In reference to a child is born, and a son is given, Joh. Cocceius remarks in his Heb. Lex. s. v. : respectu, etc., in respect to His human nature He is said to be born, and in respect to His divine nature and eternal generation not indeed born, but given, as, Joh 3:16, it reads God gave His only begotten Son.

In the application of this language all depends on the words is born to us, is given to us. The angels are, in this matter, far from being as blessed as we are. They do not say: To us a Saviour is born this day, but; to you. As long as we do not regard Christ as ours, so long we shall have little joy in Him. But when we know Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, as a gift that our heavenly Father designed for us, we will appropriate Him to ourselves in humble faith, and take possession of all His redeeming effects that He has acquired. For giving and taking go together. The Son is given to us; we must in faith receive Him. J. J. Rambach, Betracht. ber das Ev. Esaj., Halle, 1724.

On Isa 9:6 (7). The government is on His shoulders. It is further shown how Christ differs in this respect from worldly kings. They remove from themselves the burden of government and lay it on the shoulders of the privy counsellors. But He does not lay His dominion as a burden on any other; He needs no prime minister and vicegerent to help Him bear the burden of administration, but He bears all by the word of His power as He to whom all things are given of the Father. Therefore He says to the house of Jacob (Isa 46:3 sq.): Hearken unto me ye who were laid on my shoulders from your mothers womb. I will carry you to old age. I will do it, I will lift, and carry and deliver,on the contrary the heathen must bear and lift up their idols, (Isa 46:1; Isa 46:7).Rambach. In the first place we must keep in mind His first name: He is called Wonderful. This name affects all the following. All is wonderful that belongs to this king: wonderfully does He counsel and comfort; wonderfully He helps to acquire and conquer, and all this in suffering and want of strength. (Luther, Jen. germ. Tom. III. Fol. 184 b.). He uses weakness as a means of subduing all things to Himself. A wretched reed, a crown of thorns and an infamous cross, are the weapons of this almighty God, by means of which He achieves such great things. In the second place, He was a hero and conqueror in that just by death, He robbed him of his might who had the power of death, i.e., the devil (Heb 2:14); in that He, like Samson, buried His enemies with Himself, yea, became poison to death itself, and a plague to hell (Hos 13:14) and more gloriously resumed His life so freely laid down, which none of the greatest heroes can emulate.Rambach.

17. On Isa 9:18 (19) sqq. True friendship can never exist among the wicked. For every one loves only himself. Therefore they are enemies one of another; and they are in any case friends to each other, only as long as it concerns making war on a third party.

Isaiah 10-18. On Isa 10:4. (Comp. the same expression in chap. 10). Gods quiver is well filled. If one arrow does not attain His object, He takes another, and so on, until the rights of God, and justice have conquered.

19. On Isa 10:5-7. God works through men in a threefold way. First, we all live, move and have our being in Him, in that all activity is an outflow of His power. Then, He uses the services of the wicked so that they mutually destroy each other, or He chastises His people by their hand. Of this sort the Prophet speaks here. In the third place, by governing His people by the Spirit of sanctification: and this takes place only in the elect.Heim and Hoffmann.

20. On Isa 10:5 sqq. Ad hunc, etc. Such places are to be turned to uses of comfort. Although the objects of temptation vary and enemies differ, yet the effects are the same, and the same spirit works in the pious. We are therefore to learn not to regard the power of the enemy nor our own weakness, but to look steadily and simply into the word, that will assuredly establish our minds that they despair not, but expect help of God. For God will not subdue our enemies, either spiritual or corporal, by might and power, but by weakness, as says the text: my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2Co 12:9).Luther.

21. On Isa 10:15. Efficacia agendi penes Deum est, homines ministerium tantum praebent. Quare nunc sibilo suo se illos evocaturum minabatur (cap. Isa 5:26; Isa 7:18); nunc instar sagenae sibi fore ad irretiendos, nunc mallei instar ad feriendos Israelitas. Sed praecipue tum declaravit, quod non sit otiosus in illis, dum Sennacherib securim vocat, quae ad secandum manu sua et destinata fuit et impacta. Non male alicubi Augustinus ita definit, quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse; quod peccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenebras prout visum est dividentis (De praedest Sanctt.).Calvin Inst. II. 4, 4.

22. On Isa 10:20-27. In time of need one ought to look back to the earlier great deliverances of the children of God, as to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or later, from the hand of the Midianites. Israel shall again grow out of the yoke.Diedrich.

Isaiah 11-23. On Isa 11:4. The staff of His mouth. Evidence that the kingdom of Christ will not be like an earthly kingdom, but consist in the power of the word and of the sacraments; not in leathern, golden or silver girdles, but in girdles of righteousness and faith.Cramer.

24. On Isa 11:10 sqq. If the Prophet honors the heathen in saying that they will come to Christ before Israel, he may be the more readily believed, when Isa 11:11 sqq., he gives the assurance that the return out of the first, the Egyptian exile, shall be succeeded by a return out of the second, the Assyrian exile, (taking this word in the wider sense of Isaiah). It is manifest that the return that took place under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only an imperfect beginning of that promised return. For according to our passage this second return can only take place after the Messiah has appeared. Farthermore, all Israelites that belong to the remnant of Israel, in whatever land they may dwell, shall take part in it. It will be, therefore, a universal, not a partial return. If now the Prophet paints this return too with the colors of the present (Isa 11:13 sqq.), still that is no reason for questioning the reality of the matter. Israel will certainly not disappear, but arise to view in the church of the new covenant. But if the nation is to be known among the nations as a whole, though no more as a hostile contrast, but in fraternal harmony, why then shall not the land, too, assume a like position among the lands? But the nation can neither assume its place among nations, nor the land its place among lands, if they are not both united: the people Israel in the land of their fathers.

25. On Isaiah 11 We may here recall briefly the older, so-called spiritual interpretation. Isa 11:1-5 were understood of Christs prophetic office that He exercised in the days of His flesh, then of the overthrow of the Roman Empire and of Antichrist, who was taken to be the Pope. But the most thorough-going of those old expositors must acknowledge, at Isa 11:4, that the Antichrist is not yet enough overthrown, and must be yet more overthrown. If such is the state of the case, then this interpretation is certainly false, for Isa 11:4 describes not a gradual judgment, but one accomplished at once. There have been many Antichrists, and among the Popes too, but the genuine Antichrist described 2 Thessalonians 2, is yet to be expected, and also the fulfillment of Isa 11:4 of our chapter. Thereby is proved at the same time that the peaceful state of things in the brute world and the return of the Jews to their native land are still things of the future, for they must happen in that period when the Antichristian world, and its head shall be judged by Christ. But then, too, the dwelling together of tame and wild beasts is not the entrance of the heathen into the church, to which they were heretofore hostile, and the return of the Jews is not the conversion of a small part of Israel that took place at Pentecost and after. The miracles and signs too, contained in Isa 11:15-16 did not take place then. We see just here how one must do violence to the word if he will not take it as it stands. But if we take it as we have done, then the whole chapter belongs to the doctrine of hope (Hoffnungslehre) of the Scripture, and constitutes an important member of it. The Lord procures right and room for His church. He overthrows the world-kingdom, together with Antichrist. He makes of the remnant of Israel a congregation of believers filled with the Spirit, to whom He is near in an unusual way, and from it causes His knowledge to go out into all the world. He creates peace in the restless creatures, and shows us here in advance what more glorious things we may look for in the new earth. He presents to the world a church which, united in itself, unmolested by neighbors, stands under Gods mighty protection. All these facts are parts of a chain of hope that must be valuable and dear to our hearts. The light of this future illumines the obscurity of the present; the comfort of that day makes the heart fresh. Weber, der Prophet Jesaja, 1875.

Chap. 1226. On Isa 12:4 sq. These will not be the works of the New Testament: sacrificing and slaying, and make pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre, but praising God and giving thanks, preaching and hearing, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. For to praise our God is good; such praise is pleasant and lovely (Psa 147:1). Cramer.

27. On Chap. 12 With these words conclude the prophetic discourses on Immanuel. Through what obscurity of history have we not had to go, until we came to the bright light of the kingdom of Christ! How Israel and the nations had to pass through the fire of judgment before the sun arises in Israel and the entire gentile world is illumined! It is the, same way that every Christian has to travel. In and through the fire we become blessed. Much must be burnt up in us, before we press to the full knowledge of God and of His Son, before we become entirely one with Him, entirely glad and joyful in Him. Israel was brought up and is still brought up for glory, and we too. O that our end too were such a psalm of praise as this psalm! Weber, Der Pr. Jes. 1875.

Footnotes:

[6]Heb. Asshur.

[7]Or, though.

[8]And in whose hand my fury is a staff.

[9]unclean.

[10]To plunder plunder, and to prey prey.

[11]Heb. to lay them a treading.

[12]And yet their graven images excelled them, etc.

[13]carver images.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

I pray the Reader to remark with me, how the Lord taketh to himself the whole of the destruction of Judah. If the Assyrian destroy the kingdom, it is because the Lord hath commissioned and appointed it. It is the Lord that sends Assyria against an hypocritical people, even his own people; and what the Assyrian doth, is because the Lord hath ordained it. Let the Reader turn to (Isa 36 ) the 36th chapter of this prophecy, and behold the fulfillment of what is here foretold. And while he reads the proud boasting of the Assyrian captain, in his master’s name, let him recollect what is here said by the Lord concerning him. It is always blessed to trace effects to their causes. And this comparative view will be very profitable, under divine teaching, to the Reader’s mind; for he will see by the sequel of the history, that though the Lord made the Assyrian his instrument, it was but as his rod to correct, and not to destroy. The Lord saith in this passage, that when he hath performed his whole work upon his Church and people, then shall come the punishment of Assyria, by whom he accomplisheth his purpose; and like as a father who corrects his child, when finished, throws the rod away, so shall the axe, that boasteth itself against him that heweth with it, be no more. If the reader will read the close of the 37th chapter of Isaiah from the 21st verse to the end (Isa 37:21 ), he will see the accomplishment of what the Lord hath here said.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Burden of Assyria

Isa 10:5 to Isa 12:6

Anew section begins at Isa 10:5 , and goes to Isa 12:6 . The section deals with Assyria, and might be called in some sense “The Burden of Assyria.” It is most difficult to understand. All annotators have been more or less perplexed by it. The translators have put in words with which to help themselves over literal difficulties. Sometimes Assyria seems to be speaking as the prophet himself, and sometimes the prophet seems to be speaking as if Assyria were uttering judgments upon wrong. All we can do is to endeavour to find some central line upon which can be strung all the wise and abiding words which history has proved to be just and useful.

In studying the history of Assyria as given in this section we shall see at least some principles of the divine government. Assyria itself is dead and gone; for us the vision in its literal detail is useless; it has taken its place in antique, grey history; but it is of infinite importance that we should trace the common line of providence, the abiding quantity of history, the thing that never changes, and thus feel that we are still under a government strong in righteousness and gracious in discipline. The thing always to be sought after is the abiding unit; the unit without which calculation is impossible: that we may discover with gracious certainty in a narrative so graphic and vivid as that which is given in the text. Let us say that God speaks by the mouth of the prophet, saying:

“O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation” ( Isa 10:5 ).

The meaning might be this: “I will choose a staff with which I will chastise my people: I have fixed my choice upon Assyria; I will so use that proud nation that my people shall begin to fear that for their sin they shall be heavily dealt with: I will choose Assyria as an instrument of vengeance.” We must not omit the reflection that this was a terrible thing for Assyria. What man likes to be an instrument through which righteousness will punish some other man? Who would willingly accept a calling and election so severe? The man himself may have nothing to avenge upon the one to whom he is sent as a judgment, and yet he is doing things without being able to explain them; as we have already seen, he is setting up hostilities which he can only partially defend and hardly at all explain:

“I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets” ( Isa 10:6 ).

Thus nations are sent to do work they do not like. What are the nations but instruments in the hands of him who made them? So we are puzzled and perplexed by many an imperial policy; we do not like it, and yet still it proceeds to work out all its mysterious issues now severe, now beneficent. We are in tumult and darkness and perplexity, thick and that cannot be disentangled; and how seldom we realise the fact that all this may be a divine movement, a clouding of the divine presence, and an outworking of divine and eternal purposes.

“Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so” ( Isa 10:7 ).

Assyria does not know what he is going to do; he is quick at giving an explanation of his own action, but it does not occur to him that he is instrument, servant, mere errand-bearer to the King of glory. “He meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so,” that is to say, it never occurs to him that he is an instrument of providence, that he has been selected in order that he might manifest divine judgments. We cannot tell what we are doing. Assyria said that it was in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few; he was simply a warrior; it did not enter into his conception that he was anything more than a conqueror, a proud destroyer, one before whose advent all nations quailed. Thus the Lord useth the pride of man. For a moment he gratifies human vanity; for a little while he allows man to proceed upon certain conceptions, that in the long run he may work out his own judgment, and illustrate and vindicate his own providence. If the action were within a definite time, then moral criticism might fall upon its enouncement; but the Lord speaks in circular periods, in complete lapses of time; all the ages lie in their nakedness before him when he declares judgment or blessing: his action, therefore, is not to be interrupted at some inferior point of punctuation, but is to be allowed to roll itself out in all its fulness, and when the unfoldment is complete the judgment may be pronounced. How many men there are just in the position of Assyria at this particular time! They lift up their hand, and nations tremble; they inflict a studied discourtesy, and all the land wonders why it should have been, and begins to predict unrest, unsettlement, war, and great ruin. The particular man, seeing all this as the issue of his policy or his neglect, inflames himself with pride, burns with vanity, lifts himself up as if he would touch the stars, feels in all his blood the tingle of sovereignty. Poor fool! he does not know that he is like a saw which God has taken up to sever a piece of wood. The Lord knows what a man is; he knows all that is in man, and he uses him for the education of man, he employs one nation for the deliverance of another. The scheme of providence is a tessellated scheme, full of little pieces, marvellously related to one another, and no one can lay his hand upon a single point and say, This is all. There is no single point in divine providence; all history is consolidated; all the action of time means the grand significance that it issues in. We are to beware of temporary definitions and temporary conclusions. Any conclusion to which we can now come is open to the modification of to-morrow. Only God can conclude; only Christ can say, “It is finished!”

Assyria, then, begins to exult; he says:

“For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings? is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?” ( Isa 9:8-9 ).

I have done all these things, and all that is yet to be done is part and parcel of the same triumph:

“As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?” ( Isa 9:10-11 ).

This is intoxication; this is the wilderness of military vanity. The king of Assyria sees all things falling into his hands: he says, Calno shall be no more than Carchemish was; and Hamath shall be as Arpad, and Samaria as Damascus: as I have killed many, I will kill more; as I have subdued hitherto all along the line, so I will continue my work of subjugation until the whole series fall at my feet. Thus providence is unknown and misinterpreted; thus do men get hold of the wrong end of things, and talk idiotically. Assyria does not pause, and say, Why is this? is there more blood to be shed? are there more people to be trampled upon? This is hard work: I would the gods would save me from this execution. Then Assyria would have been a child of heaven. But who ever takes the events of life as chastening, instructing, and disciplining the mind? Who receives his wages in order that he may do good with the money? who accepts his rewards in order that he may encourage and deepen his gratitude? Let us pray for a right conception of providence. If we are sent on cruel errands, let us go about them diligently, but with a subtle reluctance that will import into our hardest judicial tones some gospel of God Assyria misunderstood providence, which we are doing every day; we are taking our influence, and magnifying it so as to feed our vanity, instead of accepting it as a trust, and asking God to be merciful to us even in the bestowment of power.

Now another section opens, a wholly distinct view looms upon the vision:

“Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man” ( Isa 10:12-13 ).

I will choke him in his boasts. While his throat is inflamed with his own vanity I will lay my hand upon his, and murder him in the sight of heaven. Providence is a large term. It is not a government of fits and starts and spasms that are unrelated to one another; it is righteous, solemn, tranquil, yea, tranquil though the detail, the immediate phenomena may be associated with tumult and riot and wantonness; within the whole action there is a zone of calm. We are not to misunderstand the clouds, though they be laden with snow. Where are they but in God’s hand? Beyond them the moon shines nightly without a flutter, and the sun holds his court all day without dread of the interruption of his sovereignty. All that may be within the eye-line is full of darkness, and tumult, and trouble; we are filled with distress because of what we see, but then we only see that which is as a handful of a very small space. All the tranquillities of the universe are undisturbed by the little thunder that roars and vibrates in the lower atmospheres. So is it with the purpose of God. Assyria shall be used to an end; he shall accomplish that end; but for his pride he shall be punished. All self-idolatry is punishment; all presumption comes to a bad end. Assyria said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it,” and God shall prove that it was otherwise, that his poor little fist did nothing in the matter but as it was directed by the palm of omnipotence. Assyria said, “I am prudent,” and God will turn his prudence to shame and confusion, for the whole scheme was not planned by his military wit; it was all laid out by him whose artillery is the starry heavens, and whose resources are his own infinity.

Then Assyria makes a figure. The metaphor is to be found in the following verse ( Isa 10:14 )

“And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.”

So Assyria represents himself as a gigantic fowler who had gone out and captured all the feathered tribes, and not one of them rebelled against his well-laid schemes. The image is graphic; the vanity of Assyria has made him for a moment poetical. How otherwise could the pagan mind think? When a man has both hands full, what else can he say but that he is rich? If all his schemes prosper, how other can he lay down on his own couch at night than as a prudent man? When not a line of his policy has failed, is he not at liberty to say, None moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped; I seemed to fasten all the birds like the eye of a basilisk; they all gave themselves up to me: behold, how great I am, and how my wonder eclipses the sun? The pagan mind must talk so, because it has no worthy centre; it does not calculate by the right standard or regulate by the one meridian; it can see no farther than itself: itself is its universe. Only when right conceptions of a religious kind enter the mind does the mind look round for deepest causes, and wonder, and pray, and say, Would God I could find out the reality of this case! things come too easily to me: surely God must be using me for some purpose I cannot understand; why do these eagles fall into my hand? how large they are and strong, with wings that were made to darken the sun; why do I capture them so easily? why does my business prosper more than my neighbour’s? he complains, and I proceed, adding store to store; other men devise plans, and they come to nothing; my policy always blossoms and fructifies, and comes back upon me a hundredfold: how is this? surely God is using me to an end, and I cannot tell what it is. O God, make me humble, calm, watchful; I do not wholly like this; I would there were more resistance to me; the very facility of my progress through a land of rock and mountain and darkness makes me feel that I am being impelled or lured, rather than walking by my voluntary motion and determination. This would be sacred talk, speech of salt; a sacrifice of the tongue acceptable unto God.

Then the Lord reasons thus:

“Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood” ( Isa 10:15 ).

How satiric is God! Can sarcasm whet a keener edge than this? O Assyria, thou art but an iron axe with a wooden handle, and God has been using thee for smiting trees: thou art but a sharp-toothed saw, which God himself has sharpened in order that he might cut with it a piece of timber: do not shake thyself against them that lift thee up; and, staff, forget not that thou art only wooden after all. So we are abased; yea, those who stand near the altar and speak the eloquence of God are told by a thousand angels that like themselves they are “but ministers”: they have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of men.

And still further, God reduces the pride of those that lift themselves up against him “The rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them” ( Isa 10:19 ). Even what is left is just sufficient to provoke contempt. A completer desolation would have been more a blessing, but to have two or three trees left out of a whole forest seems to add to the bitterness of the loss. The trees are a little number, and children please themselves by counting the number on their fingers; and the man whose trees they count was once the possessor of unmeasured forests: “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Riches take to themselves wings, and flee away. The wicked have been in great power, and they have departed without telling whither they have gone; they have not left even the rustle of a wing behind them to indicate the direction of their flight. We have much now; upstairs and downstairs, all full; to-morrow every chamber will be emptied, and yet not a door will have been opened by human hand. Seal up your treasures; take wax, and plenty of it; melt it down, stamp it with your crest frailest sign of vanity and to-morrow will find you empty-handed, and you will open your mouth in wonder, and ask who did it; and the secret-keeping air, the confidant of God, will not allow even a little bird to tell you whither the property has gone. Use it well! Blessed is the true and faithful servant who toils and prays!

Then a word of hope. When could the Lord conclude a speech without some tone, gospel-like in its cheerfulness and tenderness and gentleness?

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God” ( Isa 10:20-21 ).

Where have we found that expression before “the mighty God”? We found it only a chapter back, and in the sixth verse of the ninth chapter “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God” the same word in the Hebrew: what if it be the same God in reality, and that God be Christ? There shall be a remnant, and God can use that remnant as he can use seed for planting, for sowing, for purposes of raising a new generation, planting a new forest, holy unto himself.

This is the providence, then, under which we live. Facts prove it. We are under law and criticism of a moral kind: our conduct is examined, our motives are inquired into and pronounced upon by the just One; every morning is as a white throne set in the heavens; every noonday is as an eye of fire watching the ways of men; every night is a pavilion of rest, or an image of despair. The axe of heaven is lifted up against all the thick trees that suppose themselves to be independent of God. All moral loveliness is cherished as the pearl greater in value than all others. This is the economy under which we live! We are not left without law, judgment, supervision, criticism; every one of us must give an account of himself to God. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing.” If for a few years we grow towards strength, we soon turn the growing point, and go down into old age and weakness, that we may know ourselves to be but men. Life is a great triumph up to middle age, because the man may be always well; he may grow in strength and in prosperity, and he may represent himself as a successful fowler; but after that grey hairs are here and there upon him, and he knoweth it not, and presently men may say as he passes by, He stoops a little more; his memory will begin to be a little blurred and clouded, and though he can keep good reckoning, yet he must trust to paper more than he ever trusted before. If we plant vineyards and forests, and subdue wildernesses by generous culture, we die whilst we gaze on our success, and are buried under the very flowers which have rewarded our toil. This is the economy under which the nations have ever lived, and under which every little life works out its little day. If we do wrong a spectre touches us in the darkness, and makes us cold with fear. What is it? It is the right hand of God; it is the feeling of righteousness; it is the sign of justice. If we do right, all heaven broadens its glory over our heads, and fills the path we walk with flowers of light. This is the economy under which we live: let us not be fools, but wise, understanding all these claims and demands, owning their righteousness, and responding to their appeals. And the end? so near, always so near. We shall see all the meaning of sword and pestilence and grim famine, of cloud and storm and angry thunder, of love, and mercy, and hope, and gospel sacred with the blood of sacrifice. By-and-by, yet a little while, no cloud is eternal; it is but vapour after all, and the wind will cleanse it away. When the vision is declared we shall know that Righteousness is the security of the universe, hell the necessity of unrepented sin, and heaven is the God-built, eternal home of men who touched the atoning Saviour with the reverent, grateful hand of faith. History is in a great tumult: nation clashes against nation in the shock of war; man eats the flesh of the arm of man, and grows the hungrier for his feast of blood; the poor are little counted of, the weak go to the wall; banners red as blood are being figured all over with lines of fire, with the motto, “Might is right.” O Lord, how long? In reply to this question we are entitled to go back upon all the record of history, and trace the line of providence through the whole a line now terrible as righteousness, now gracious as the love of Christ. The Lord reigneth!

Prayer

Almighty God, we thank thee for the promise of all bright days; we rejoice that there is coming a time when cloud and storm will be done away, and peace and loveliness and glory shall crown all things: this is the end of thy government, this is the meaning of thy love. We accept it as such, and cheer ourselves meanwhile with this bright and glowing hope. Thou wilt come and rectify all things; thou wilt set up the standard of the sanctuary everywhere; righteousness shall be the base and rock on which things are built, and at the top of the pillar there shall be lily work, so that strength and beauty shall be in the house of the Lord. All things hurtful thou wilt subdue; all violent forces thou wilt control; all iniquity and unrighteousness thou wilt put down, and the Sabbath of the Lord shall dawn upon a reconciled and purified earth. This is our hope; this is the poetry that sings to us; this is the prophecy that makes us glad. Lord, how long? say thy saints in their groaning. Lord, how long? do they say again when the burden presses upon their failing strength. Yet thou knowest all things; the ages are in thy keeping and under thy direction; all time is God’s instrument, and he will use it for the advancement of all causes true and pure and righteous. Enable us to control our impatience, to subdue all impious eagerness, and to wait in sweet contentment and solid assurance, knowing that the Lord will come at his own time, and set up his kingdom, and rule over all, and we shall know his coming as the earth knows the summer. The years are all thine, and thou dost mete them out one by one; to no man dost thou give five years, to another two; thou givest to each man one year, one day, one breath; and herein dost thou teach us the uncertainty of life and its necessary brevity, and suggest to us the coming and final judgment of all things. May we redeem the time; may we make the most of it; may we turn every day into a Sabbath, and every Sabbath may we sanctify with redoubled sacrifice: thus our life shall grow into a song, thus even the night-time shall be vocal with praise, and thus shall we magnify thy name, and return unto thee manifold, because of the seed thou hast sown in good ground. Thou knowest the want of every heart, the pain of every life, the shadow which darkens every path, and the cold wind which chills all the pulses that beat within us; we will, therefore, leave ourselves in thine hand. We can tell thee nothing; thou dost search us and try us, and see if there be any wicked way in us, that thou mayest not destroy us, but lead us in the way everlasting. Thy will be done. Receive us into thine own hands; direct us by thine own Spirit; fill us with wisdom and understanding, and endow us with a sagacious mind. May ours be the highest Christian courage, fearing nothing, hoping all things, seeing no danger, dreading no foe, but constantly moving onward, with the dignity of conviction, and with the patience of those to whom is entrusted an immortal hope. Lord, bless the land. God save the Queen: establish her throne in righteousness, and may its canopy be as a banner of love. The Lord bless all the nations of the earth, for all the nations should be one empire, ruled by the Son of God. Blessed Jesus, thou art the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world; for that world, therefore, do we pray, that every acre of it may be sown with gospel seed, that every handful of its soil may be consecrated by the touch of honest men, and that the whole world may be like a returned prodigal, received with joy and thankfulness into the family of the stars. Pity us in all our littleness; pardon us wherein our sin grows upon us like a rising mountain, and send comfort by thy Cross, Messiah, Emmanuel, Son of God! Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XIII

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 5

Isa 10:5-12:6

The general theme of this section is the abasement of the Assyrians and the exaltation of Israel, and the main divisions are:

1. The Assyrian exalted and then abased (Isa 10:5-27 )

2. Judah humbled and then exalted (Isa 10:28-12:6 ).

There are five distinct paragraphs in the first division:

1. The Assyrian was the rod of Jehovah, though he did not so thinker purpose it, and threatened Jerusalem because of his successes (Isa 10:5-11 ).

2. His abasement decreed because he took the glory to himself and became exalted (Isa 10:12-14 ).

3. Jehovah’s right to abase Assyria is the right of the hewer over the ax and the sawyer over the saw, therefore the punishment will be complete (Isa 10:15-19 ).

4. The remnant will be encouraged when they see Jehovah’s destruction of their enemies (Isa 10:20-23 ).

5. Jehovah’s exhortation to his people not to fear the Assyrians, for he meant good to them by this correction, but now he was about ready to stretch forth his hand to destroy their enemies, just as he had saved his people in their past history from their enemies (Isa 10:24-27 ).

There are five distinct items also in the second division:

1. A vivid description of the invading Assyrian, indicating his course and progress through the land and his threat against Jerusalem (Isa 10:28-32 ).

2. A prophecy of the destruction of the proud Assyrians by Jehovah himself (Isa 10:33-34 ).

3. A shoot out of the stock of Jesse becomes the Deliverer, the Prince of Peace (Isa 11:1-10 ).

4. The return of Jehovah’s people from all lands (Isa 11:11-16 ).

5. The song of the redeemed (Isa 12 ).

The last three items are messianic and need very careful and extended consideration which we now take up. An appropriate text with which to introduce this great messianic prophecy is a passage from Acts:

Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said. It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Act 13:46 f.

The single point in this passage to which attention is called, is the fact that Paul calls a prophecy, that the gospel should go to the Gentiles, a command; that what is prophesied by the Spirit of God becomes a command resting upon the children of God. He says, “We turn to the Gentiles, for so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles.” Now if a prophecy of the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles is a command upon God’s people, then a prophecy of the ultimate conversion of the Jews becomes also a command resting upon his people.

Now let us look at Isa 11:1 “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” In the book of Job it is said: “There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again; that through the vapor of water it will sprout and it will bring forth and bear.” We have seen that illustrated hundreds of times when from the stumps of trees that have been cut down shoots will spring up and make new trees. This means that the royal line of David, who was the son of Jesse, had fallen under great misfortune and under the curses of God for their sin, and that the house of David was brought very low. It was, as if it were a tree cut down. Now, when it seemed to be utterly gone, there should come out from the stump of that Davidic tree a tender branch, and that branch should become a fruit-bearing tree that would be more remarkable than the original tree itself. Jesse’s home was Bethlehem, and in the New Testament times the family of David had gotten so low that Mary and Joseph, who both belonged to it, were able to present as offerings only a pair of turtle doves, indicating their great poverty. Joseph was a carpenter and a very poor man. Now, when they came to Bethlehem and Christ was born, that, according to a multitude of scriptures which I will not take time to cite, was the springing up of the sprout from the stump of the tree of Jesse.

Isa 11:2 says: “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” This was fulfilled at his baptism, when coming up out of the water he prayed, and the Spirit of God descended upon him in the form of a dove. This was his anointing, and John says that on that day he received the Spirit of God without measure. All people upon whom the Spirit of God had descended before that time had received it in a limited degree, a measured degree) but the fulness of the Spirit’s power by the anointing rested upon the Lord Jesus Christ, so that it might be called the “spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” He himself in Nazareth, where he had been brought up, read a passage from this same prophecy of Isaiah, where the spirit of the Lord was promised to rest upon him, and declared that on that day that prophecy was fulfilled in their midst; that he stood before them as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, and that the Spirit of the Lord had anointed him to preach the gospel to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to give deliverance to the imprisoned, those that were in bondage, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, that is, the jubilee year, the fiftieth sabbatical year, that antitype of the Old Testament which prefigured the millennial day, when the trumpet should be blown throughout the ends of the earth, announcing that all bondage was ended, that all prison doors were open, that all the burdens and ails that flesh was heir to were to be removed. He announced that through his induement of the Spirit he came to preach that. Consequently the next verses say that this Spirit of induement shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall slay the wicked.

The life of our Lord as set forth in the Four Gospels illustrates all that is here foretold. Never before in the history of the world had there come one whose initiative perception of the realities of things was so vast; who was never misled by an apparent state of affairs, but who looked through all seeming and all masks to the very heart of things, so that he never made a mistake. He read the heart of every man that came and propounded a question to him. He understood the motive that was back of the question, and in making his reply to these inquiries he never for one moment used a flattering term, but he laid bare the secrets of the innermost heart, and all he said was in righteousness. When cases came before him in which the great were oppressing the small, in which the rich were grinding the poor, in which the hypocrite was taking advantage of the simple, in all these cases he reproved as the oracle of God. He swept away the subterfuges under which men disguised their real nature, and unveiled the iniquity of their purposes, and no earthly position and honor, no gathering of the multitude upon one side of the question, ever deterred him from speaking the plainest and simplest truth without fear, without favor, and without partiality. The earth had never been so reproved with equity for the meek. The lowly ones found in him their everlasting friend, a tower of strength, and the exalted ones found in him their mightiest enemy, when their exaltation was based not upon merit and not upon truth, but upon a fictitious or adventitious circumstance.

The prophecy goes on now to tell the ultimate results:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall go to the pasture; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Now, here is a fulfilment that has not yet come the prevalence of the knowledge of God over the whole earth and such an acceptance of the teaching of Jesus Christ as shall put an end to the strifes and bitterness of time; in the imagery here put forth, as if a cow and a bear should go out to the pasture together; as if a lion’s nature should be so changed that he should eat grass like an ox; as if a leopard and a kid should lie down together, the kid without a fear, and the leopard without the lust of the kid’s blood; that a baby, perfectly helpless, a little child, sucking child, should put out his hand upon a venomous reptile, and a child a little older, a weaned child, should thrust his hand into the den of a basilisk, or cockatrice, as it is here called.

Now, these figures indicate to us what is called the millennial times, the thousand years in which wars will cease and differences between peoples will be settled by arbitration, and according to another prophecy in this book, that Jesus Christ shall be the Arbiter between the nations, that is, that there will come a time when the principles presented in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and not the principles adopted at the Hague Conference, shall be the basis of the settlement of differences between nations. It is a long way to that time now but it will come.

It is the logical and inexorable result of the world’s full acceptance of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The hope of every Christian is turned to that time, and no matter how sinister, for the time being, may be the portents on the political sky, nor how gloomy the forebodings of the pessimistic mind, yet the true Christian is heart fired by faith and is essentially an optimist. He sees the good times coming. He does not believe that this world is going to destruction. He does not believe that God has vacated the throne of government, or allowed to slip from his hand the reins of government) but that on high, above all mutations of time and clouds and fogs and dusts of earth’s battle, in a serenity that is never clouded, he looks down calmly upon what seems to be the ceaseless perturbations of time, knowing that in his own way, retaining his control of every spring of activity, of every source of power and of the ultimate forces of nature and morals, he is bringing things to pass in a way that is perfectly irresistible. Every word of God ever spoken in the past, that was to be fulfilled up to the present time, has been fulfilled literally, and we shall see the fulfilment of this prophecy in due time.

The second part of the chapter, whose connections with Rom 11 would be apparent is as follows:

And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the peoples, to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

This is a distinct prophecy, connecting the gathering together of dispersed Israel in some way with that period of millennial peace and glory. It is to be in connection with that prevalence of the knowledge of the Lord that will fill the whole earth; not the first gathering, as when he led Israel out of Egypt; not the first gathering from Babylon, as when by the command of Cyrus the captives were ordered to return to their own land; not the first time, from Elam or Cush, whose kings issued decrees, that is, the decree of Cyrus, the decree of Darius Hystaspes, the decree of Artaxerxes, and the second decree of Artaxerxes, all bearing upon the return of the Jews to their native land. That was the first time. Now he says it shall come to pass in that day, that is yet ahead of us, that “A second time I will gather the dispersed of Israel from all the lands of the earth,” mentioning Cush, or Ethiopia, Egypt, Persia, and Assyria. This gathering will certainly come.

He says, “And he will set up an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart.” Ephraim, that is, the Ten Tribes, always envied Judah, and that envy had to do with the partition of the kingdom and the calamities that came upon the divided nation. Now when this gathering takes place the Ten Tribes shall this time be without envy against Judah, and “Judah shall not vex Ephraim. And they . . . shall fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines on the west . . . and the children of Ammon shall obey them.” That is to say, the Gentiles shall become nursing mothers and fathers to the Jewish people, and this gathering of the Jewish people shall be brought about through the action of the Gentile nations. That is yet to be fulfilled.

Whether the initiation of the movement shall take place by England, or Germany, or the United States, we do not know, but the Word of God, which has never failed, will yet bring about a change of the sentiment of Gentiles toward the Jewish people. The reproach of being a Jew will be taken away. For a long time the name of a Jew has been a stench in the nostrils of other nations. The Romans hated him. The Greeks hated him. The Russians hate him today. The Germans hated him. The English kings ground him to powder. From all parts of the world the hand of the oppressor has been stretched forth to smite the Jew. Now it is the prophecy of God that through the intervention of Gentile nations these despised Jewish people shall be gathered together.

Two thousand years have passed away since they cut off their Messiah and he cut them off, but Paul says, “Hath he cast them off forever? God forbid.” When they fell in betrayal of their Messiah did they fall forever? He affirms positively that they did not. They fell, but it was in the purposes of God only to allow the opening of a door of salvation to the Gentiles. Three years and a half after the crucifixion of Christ the gospel that had for the past seven years been preached exclusively to Jews took a different direction, and from that time on we have no historical account of any great number of Jews being converted. Multitudes of them were converted from the time of Christ’s baptism to the time of Saul’s persecution three thousand in one day, five thousand another day, great multitudes at other times, so that we may reasonably conclude that at least a hundred thousand Jews were converted in the seven years lasting from the beginning of the public ministry of Christ, at his baptism, when he was received and anointed, to the persecution under Saul of Tarsus, which turned the attention of the church to the Gentile world, and from that time on the thousands of converts have come from the Gentiles. The kingdom of God had been taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. Now, says the apostle Paul, Is that permanent? When they stumbled that way did they fall finally? He says, “No”; that stumbling was not final, because the gifts and callings of God are without any change of mind, and he has not utterly cast off his people, but he has permitted their fall to bring about the salvation of the Gentiles, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

But the Jews will be cut off as long as the great period of evangelization lasts among the Gentiles; just that long Jerusalem shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles. The Jew shall not occupy his holy land, nor his ancient city, but there will be a full measure ultimately, when because of sin on the part of the Gentiles the glorious opportunities that are enjoyed today will be taken away; when we have allowed our hearts to wax cold and our faith to become dim, and have turned away from that induement of power which comes by the Holy Spirit, and trust to money, and trust to personal influence, and trust to human eloquence; when we have shut our eyes to the shining of the galaxy of perfect stars that are blazing in the darkness. Then the fulness of the Gentiles will have come.

Another result is here described: “And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea.” The tongue of the Egyptian sea is the Red Sea which projects away up into Egypt, and when, in the olden time the captives were brought out of Egypt, with the wind God divided the tongue of that sea, and they passed over dry shod. Now, something similar to that will occur in the later times: “And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it into seven streams, and make men go over dry shod.”

When these Jews were approaching their Holy Land in the olden time, the Jordan was swelling in its flood, with full banks, and by the voice of God the river was cut in twain, and the people passed over it. Now, by miracles as astounding as the Red Sea and the passage of the river Jordan, shall the difficulties and obstacles in the way of the gathering of the Jewish people be removed in the later time. “And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” The King of Persia gave an order when the Jews were allowed to return, that men should be sent to prepare a way for them to go, and all of the officers of the Persian government along the entire line of the passageway to the Holy Land were commanded, by money and every kindness, to facilitate the passage of these people back to their ancient home. Now, in the time spoken of here, from every land of dispersion there shall be a highway, an easy traveling path, for the returning Jewish remnant. It is this conversion of the Jews that shall usher in the millennial times.

Zechariah’s testimony to this event is clear and that shall be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Zechariah: “I will pour upon the house of David) and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son.” Their mourning in that time shall be greater than their mourning when King Josiah died in the battle of Megiddon. There the independent monarchy of the Jews died a royal death. After that time the three descendants of Josiah were mere dependents upon Babylon. Consequently the mourning of the Jews when Josiah died was the greatest mourning in their history. Jeremiah wrote an elegy on him. Now, says this prophecy of Zechariah, They shall ultimately be so convicted of their sins by the outpouring of the spirit of God upon their hearts that they shall see the Messiah whom they have pierced, and the mourning that they will experience will be greater than the mourning in which they indulged when King Josiah died. The prophecy then goes on to state that in that day there shall be opened up for the house of Israel and the seed of David a fountain for sin and uncleanness. That is the prophecy upon which Cowper wrote the hymn that lingers on the lips of all congregations which praise God: There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains.

Now this prophecy declares that that fountain in that day shall be opened for the Jews. Gentile sinners already for two thousand years have been plunging into its cleansing stream, but Israel standeth afar off, a people under ban, an outcast, stricken and forlorn people, the contempt of the nations of the earth. But the full tide of millennial glory can never come until these Jews be converted.

I cited that passage in Act 13 , which said that when God prophesied that Jews should become a light to the Gentiles, that operated as a commandment upon his church to preach the gospel to the Gentiles; so now when God prophesies the future salvation of the Jewish people, and that operates as a commandment upon us to turn our attention to the salvation of the Jews, knowing that that is the last barrier between us and that glorious time when the leopard and the kid shall lie down together, when the cow and the bear shall go off together to the same pasture, when the lion shall eat straw like an ox, when the helpless babe will need no protection though coming in contact with the most ravenous wild beast or the most venomous serpent, because the power to hurt is taken away from all of God’s holy mountain, and the old paradise time has come back, when Adam and Eve without fear mingled with the beasts, and they even passed in review before them. The lion did not crouch at his coming, the tiger did not glare upon him with malignancy, but the fear of man was on all of the brute creation. Sin came and destroyed the majesty of man and brought about a war between the man and all the beasts of the field, and brought a curse upon the earth, so that it produces thorns and briers. Now, in the millennial times the disabilities which attach to present life, the misfortunes which come, the wars whose thunders today shake the Orient and whose echoes frighten the Occident, shall cease. God speed that day, when hatred shall lie down to ashes, when envies and jealousies and strifes have come to an end; when this world, this errant globe, that through sin swung out of its orbit of allegiance to God, and wandered rebelliously and darkly into space, shall feel the centripetal attraction of the sun of righteousness, and by the attracting power of the Son of God shall be brought back to its place among the realms of the universe and chaos is ended, and order and harmony restored.

The prophet goes right on from chapter II into the song of the redeemed, which is a perfect little gem of literature and reminds us of the song of Miriam and Moses on the banks of deliverance from the Egyptians, or the great song of deliverance from the apostate church as we have it in Revelation. Here they sing of Jehovah’s goodness and his comfort, his salvation and his strength, his excellence and his greatness. They are now drawing water out of the wells of salvation and rejoicing in their triumphs over their oppressors. That will be a glorious, good day for God’s people when the Jews accept the Messiah and add their joyous hallelujahs to the chorus of the redeemed. Then will they make glad the city of God in publishing the good tidings to earth’s remotest bounds. Ye pilgrims on the road To Zion’s city, sing: Sing on, rejoicing every day In Christ th’ eternal King.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the general theme of this section?

2. What is the main divisions of this section?

3. What are the several items of the first division, Isa 10:5-27 ?

4. What are the several items of the second division, Isa 10:28-12:6 ?

5. What would be an appropriate text with which to introduce this great messianic prophecy?

6. What is the single point of the application of this passage to the matter in hand?

7. Explain the “rod out of the stem of Jesse” and its application.

8. Explain the verse Isa 2 : when fulfilled, what the proof and what the results?

9. How are all these things here foretold illustrated in the life of our Lord?

10. What is the ultimate results as here foretold?

11. What can you say of the fulfilment as to the final results?

12. What is indicated by this prophecy, how to be realized, and what its bearing on the Christian’s outlook?

13. What is the prophecy of the second item of the chapter and with what other scripture is it connected?

14. When is this to be realized and what gathering is this to be?

15. How is all this to be brought about, i.e., by whom and what to be one of the glorious results?

16. How long now since the Jews were cut off, how, when, and why and what hope does Paul hold out to the Jews?

17. How long are the Jews to be cut off and what will indicate the approach of the end of the Gentile dispensation?

18. What is another result and what its meaning?

19. What is Zechariah’s testimony to this event?

20. What is our relation to this great future event?

21. What is the nature and contents of Isa 12 ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Isa 10:5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.

Ver. 5. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger. ] Or, Woe to the Assyrian; or, Heu Assur, Alas, the Assyrian! q.d., Alas, that I am forced by this sharp and iron rod to correct my people, whom I have bred so choicely! Dolentis vocem assumit Deus, saith Oecolampadius.

The rod of mine anger. ] Or, My rod of anger. A rod of anger to beat the little ones, and a staff of indignation to bastinado the bigger and more stubborn. So Nebuchadnezzar is called the “hammer of the whole earth.” Jer 50:23 Tamerlane called himself, The wrath of God, and the desolation of the world, a Attilas styled himself, King of Huns, Medes, Goths, Dacians; “The terror of the world, and God’s scourge.” The wicked are God’s rod, said that martyr, whom, when he hath worn to the stump, he will cast into the fire. b

a Ira Dei ego sum, et orbis vastitas.

b Acts and Mon., fol. 1544.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 10:5-11

5Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger

And the staff in whose hands is My indignation,

6I send it against a godless nation

And commission it against the people of My fury

To capture booty and to seize plunder,

And to trample them down like mud in the streets.

7Yet it does not so intend,

Nor does it plan so in its heart,

But rather it is its purpose to destroy

And to cut off many nations.

8For it says, Are not my princes all kings?

9Is not Calno like Carchemish,

Or Hamath like Arpad,

Or Samaria like Damascus?

10As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,

Whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

11Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her images

Just as I have done to Samaria and her idols?

Isa 10:5-19 This is a literary unit on God’s activity in the nation of Assyria. It was the cruelest ANE power. It was brutal toward captive people groups. YHWH will use this godless pagan nation to accomplish His purposes (cf. Isa 10:5 b; 6b; as Hab 1:12-17 asked God about His use of the Babylonian exile). God uses evil to do His biding! He did not make them (i.e., Satan, demons, fallen angels, evil empires), but He directs them for the larger good (cf. Job 12:23; Psa 47:7-8; Psa 66:7; Dan 2:21; Act 17:26, i.e., His universal redemptive plan, see Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan ).

However, evil reaps the consequences of their acts. One day they, too, will be judged (cf. Deu 32:34-43; Isa 14:24-27; Isa 30:27-33; Isa 31:5-9). What Assyria did to others, Babylon (cf. Isa 13:5) will do to them!

Isa 10:5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger God’s tool for punishing His people’s rebellion was the cruel nation of Assyria (cf. Isa 7:17; Isa 8:7). However, they were responsible for their acts (cf. Isa 10:24-27). The arrogance of Assyria is seen in Isa 10:8-12.

Isa 10:6 a godless nation. . .the people of my fury Oh, my, this refers to the nation of Israel (cf. Isa 9:17; Isa 9:19)! This same phrase is used of Israel in Isa 19:17; Isa 32:6. What irony, the covenant people are called godless and made morally equivalent to godless Assyria!

To capture booty and to seize plunder As Isa 10:21, a remnant will return, reflects Isaiah’s first son’s name (cf. Isa 7:3), this reflects his second son’s symbolic name (cf. Isa 8:1; Isa 8:3).

Isa 10:7 Yet it does not so intend

Nor does it plan so in its heart Assyria did not know that YHWH was directing its actions for His purposes. Assyria was only after more and more spoil.

The intent of YHWH for the king of Assyria is revealed in a series of Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTS (Isa 10:6) against Israel.

1. capture booty (BDB 1021, KB 1531)

2. seize plunder (BDB 102, KB 117)

3. trample down (VERBAL BDB 962, KB 1321, NOUN BDB 942)

The intent of the King of Assyria is expressed in two Hiphil INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTS in Isa 10:7 c,d.

1. to destroy (BDB 1029, KB 1552)

2. to cut off (BDB 503, KB 500)

Isa 10:8-11 The King of Assyria’s thoughts (i.e., boasts, TEV) are revealed in these verses

1. all his military commanders are kings (NRSV, TEV, NJB, REB, Peshitta), Isa 10:8

2. his (Tiglath-Pileser III or possibly Sennacherib in 701 B.C.) army has defeated several other trans-Euphrates cities and nations, along with all their gods, Isa 10:9

a. Calno (or Calneh), city in northern Syria (cf. Amo 6:2) fell in 742 B.C. (all these dates are estimates only)

b. Carchemish, major city of the Hittites near the headwaters of the Euphrates, joined Assyrian coalition in 738 B.C.

c. Hamath, city on the northern boundary of Israel (cf. 2Ch 8:4) on the Orontes River, fell in 738 B.C.

d. Arpad, city in northwest Syria fell in 741 B.C

e. Samaria (capital of Israel) fell in 722 B.C to Sargon II

f. Damascus (capital of Syria) fell in 732 B.C.

3. he threatened to destroy Jerusalem and her idols as he had Samaria, Isa 10:11. He had no knowledge of the distinction between idols (cf. Isa 2:8) and the true worship of YHWH.

Just a word about which Assyrian invasion is depicted. The place names follow a traditional invasion route of ANE empires from Mesopotamia. Because of the desert, they had to follow the Euphrates River to its headwaters and then go south along the coastal plain. The problem with identifying which Assyrian invasion is complicated because Sennacherib, who did approach Jerusalem to besiege it, actually came from the south of the city in 701 B.C. The fall of the cities mentioned occurred under Tiglath-Pileser III (i.e., Pul). Therefore, I think the route was idealized as a northern invader.

Isa 10:11 images This is an interesting word (BDB 47). Its basic meaning is uncertain, but it is spelled similarly to Elohim, which has caused scholars to assume it refers to weak and non-existent idols (cf. NIDOTTE, vol. 1, p. 411). Monotheism is the uniqueness of Israel’s faith. There are other spiritual beings, but only one true God (cf. Deu 4:35; Deu 4:39; Deu 6:8; Deu 32:39; Isa 43:9-11; Isa 45:21-22; Jer 2:11; Jer 5:7; Jer 5:10; Rom 3:30; 1Co 8:4; 1Co 8:6; 1Ti 2:5; Jas 2:19). The idols represent nothing, only the false hopes and fears (superstitions) of fallen humanity realizing there is more to reality than the physical, but unable to comprehend spiritual truth (i.e., revelation).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

O Assyrian. Not woe to the Assyrian. That woe comes later (Compare Isa 17:12, and Isa 33:1), after the latest woes on Ephraim and Judah. This is a Divine summons.

Assyrian. The monuments tell us that this was Sargon, the father of Sennacherib.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Isa 10:5-11

Isa 10:5-11

“Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. For he saith, Are not my princes all of them kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?”

Rawlinson, in his outline of Isaiah, made this the beginning of the division reaching through Isaiah 23, but, following Robinson (See Introduction), we believe the close connection with the fate of Judah and Jerusalem indicate rather that it belongs with the first division, Isaiah 1-12.

“Ho Assyrian …” This paragraph prophecies the destruction of Assyria, and at the same time also identifies this evil power as “The Rod” of God with which Jehovah will punish his hypocritical and profane people Israel. Assyria is thus the instrument God will use for the accomplishment of his purpose to punish Israel. This metaphor of God’s using wicked nations to achieve his purpose, and then turning upon those wicked powers in their ruin to punish them and destroy them is extensively mentioned in the Old Testament. Back in Isa 7:20 Assyria was identified as “God’s razor, other examples of the recurrence of this metaphor identify such wicked powers as “God’s bows” (Isa 13:17), “God’s battle-ax” (Jer 51:20), and “God’s arrows” (Jer 51:11).

The words “Ho Assyrian” actually mean, “Woe betide this Assyria” as in James Moffatt’s translation of the Old Testament. Cheyne rendered it, “Woe is Asher.

“A profane nation …” According to Rawlinson, hypocritical or a corrupt nation would be preferable to profane in this verse.

“However he meaneth not so …” This means that Assyria had no intention or desire whatever to serve God’s purpose in the destruction of Israel. Ah no! Assyria was motivated by blood-lust, insatiable greed and ambition, sadistic cruelty, and arrogant opposition to God himself, totally unaware, that when he had shortly fulfilled God’s purpose, the Lord would also totally destroy Assyria. Rabshakeh’s proud boast that he had Jehovah with him when he went up against Jerusalem (2Ki 18:25) was more than likely nothing but a ploy to frighten the city. “He had probably heard of the prophecies of the Judean prophets.

Isa 10:8-11 carry the arrogant boasts of Assyria. They do not for an instant see that God is using them. No! All of their exploits are due to their own power and their own devices! Just look at the cities they have already destroyed! Look at the gods they have already defeated. “Insignificant little Judah with their puny gods (nothing to compare with the costly and excellent idols of cities already taken), they declared, would easily fall.

This paragraph raises a question regarding the date of this prophecy. Hailey quoted Young as giving the dates when the cities mentioned here were taken by the Assyrians: “Calno in 738 B.C.; Carchemesh on the Euphrates in 717 B.C.; Hamath on the Orontes in 720 B.C.; Arpad in 740,720 B.C.; Samaria in 722 B.C.; and Damascus in 732 B.C. Delitzsch believed the prophecy was written before these conquests took place, because Isaiah often spoke of future events as having already taken place. Hailey believed it more probable that “This prophecy was written between the dates of the fall of Carchemesh (717 B.C.) and that of Sennacherib investiture of Jerusalem in (702-701 B.C.).

It appears to us that there may be good reasons for accepting the position of Delitzsch on this. McGuiggan’s warning that we should remember that, “Isaiah often speaks of things having been accomplished that are still in the future,” most certainly should be heeded. We shall observe many examples of this use of the present or the past tense for speaking of future events in Isaiah. First, “Isa 10:20-23 leave an impression that Ephraim has not fallen yet.

“The Assyrians’ argument in Isa 10:10-11 is: “How can Jerusalem, with fewer gods to protect it, hope to hold out successfully?.

Isa 10:5-6 GODS INTENTIONS: This is one of those unique passages of the Old Testament which reveals the majestic, omnipotent, cosmic, sovereign purposes of God being carried out in conjunction with and in spite of the evil machinations of human power inspired and supported by the forces of hell. It is grand and glorious good news that Jehovah God controls and uses men and nations and events to carry out His purposes of redemption and salvation. God is going to take the evil purposes and intentions of the king of Assyria and use them to serve His long-range plan of preparing the Hebrew people to deliver the Messiah to the world! How breathtaking, how it staggers the mind and exhilarates the emotions to contemplate it! The terrible, bloodthirsty, cruel, inhuman Assyrians are, of their own choice, bent on conquering and plundering the whole world. God says, Go ahead, have your way for a season-Ill use it to chasten My holy people and then Ill requite your wickedness upon your own heads. God plans to chasten and discipline His people so that those who believe Him and remain faithful to Him in the midst of this chastening may form the remnant through which the Messiah and the messianic kingdom (the church) may come to the world. The evil scheme of the Assyrian empire will serve that Divine purpose. Both Old and New Testaments teach such a philosophy or theology of history (Cf. Jer 27:1-11; Dan 2:20-22; Isa 45:1-7; Joh 19:11, etc.). Gods ways are above us all. Should we ask, Why would God permit such a wicked and ruthless pagan people to plunder His chosen people-and then how can God claim such a perverse nation to be His instrument or servant? God does not forbid our asking. Habakkuk is a prime example of a believer with such a problem. Habakkuk could not understand how and why God would permit the evil and wickedness of the Hebrew people to continue unpunished (Hab 1:1-4). God told the prophet He was going to punish the wickedness of Judah by sending the Chaldeans (Babylon) upon them (Hab 1:5-11). This created the more perplexing problem in Habakkuks mind of why God would use a pagan nation to punish the Chosen people (Hab 1:12-17). Habakkuk was confused but he did not despair. He couldnt understand but he had faith and waited for God to answer (Hab 2:1). Gods answer to Habakkuk is still valid today. That answer is, God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Cf. Rom 8:28). God works all things out in His own good time. We are told simply to wait upon the Lord with faith and endurance (Hab 2:2-4). Paul quotes Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17 to indicate that we cannot understand the working of Gods redemptive scheme but we can accept it by faith and thus be justified. God always gives enough experiential, concrete, factual, historical evidence to convince the honest-minded person of His existence and nature. The Hebrew people at this stage of their national experience (Isaiah) had more than abundant evidence of Gods active, providential, redemptive control of history so they could easily believe His use of the Assyrian empire, if they wanted to.

Isa 10:7-11 ASSYRIAS INTENTIONS: The king of Assyria certainly does not admit that he is an instrument of the Hebrew God. It is not his intention to serve any purpose but his own purpose of world-conquest. This is a graphic description of the thinking processes of a carnal-minded dictator. He reasons, Calno was taken by me (738 B.C.), Carchemish on the Euphrates was subdued by my people (717 B.C.), Hamath on the Orontes fell to us in 720 B.C. and Arpad in 740. Samaria was conquered in 721 B.C. and Damascus in 732 B.C. Where were the gods of these great peoples when I overcame them? Surely Judahs God is no greater than the gods of these. They did not stop me and neither will the God of Judah. The attitude of the Assyrian emperor is manifested in the words of Rabshakeh in later years when the armies of Assyria had made invasion of Judah and had Jerusalem surrounded, Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? (2Ki 18:33-35). There was a long line of Assyrian kings with intentions of world-conquest: Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser IV, Sargon II and Sennacherib. Sennacherib was probably the king of Assyria predicted by Isaiah here. He is mentioned in Isaiah chapters 36-38. He was planning to overrun Jerusalem and plunder her treasury and temple just as he had already done to most of the ancient world. He would take the people captive into slavery to build his palaces and city walls, etc. But, although the Assyrians captured most of the land of Palestine, they would never conquer Jerusalem.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

This is a prophecy of judgment on Assyria, and is full of interest. Assyria is the power which Jehovah is using for the punishment of His people, but because it fails to understand its true relation to God, it, in turn, will be judged.

The prophet first indicates this contrast of intention. Jehovah’s intention is that the Assyrian shall be a rod in His hand. The Assyrian intention is to destroy the people of God. He then declares the divine purpose. The Lord will accomplish His work on Jerusalem according to His intention, but then He will punish Assyria. The reason for this is that Assyria acts as though it were strong and independent, forgetting that it is but an instrument in the hand of Jehovah. The punishment is then described.

In view of this judgment the prophet delivers a message to the remnant of Israel. The issue of the Assyrian invasion will be that the remnant will stay on Jehovah. They are therefore not to be afraid, for the scourge will be scourged, and the burden upon the neck of the people of God will depart. This prophecy ends with a graphic description of the Assyrians’ approach, and a description of the judgment which will fall on the chosen people by their coming.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Mighty Laid Low

Isa 10:5-19

This question is addressed to the Assyrian invader, described as Gods staff and rod. He was the means of inflicting deserved penalty on the world of that age, and especially on the Chosen People. He had no thought of this, but considered himself free to wreak his will without reference to that Higher Power whose agent he was. But the ruthless manner in which he carried out his work was destined to come under the divine judgment, Isa 10:12-15.

The capture of Jerusalem seemed as sure as the taking of a nest of eggs. The strongest barriers that the nations could oppose to his arms had fallen before the Assyrian king; and surely the Hebrew city should not escape. But God had yet to be reckoned with, Isa 10:16-19. The conception here is borrowed from a forest fire, which begins among the brushwood and presently consumes the loftiest and stoutest trees; so would the fire of destruction be kindled during the attack on the Holy City, which finally would involve the whole Assyrian empire. Let us not fear the wrath of man. God makes some portion of it to praise Him, and He restrains the remainder.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

O Assyrian: or, Woe to the Assyrian, Heb. O Asshur, Gen 10:11

the rod: Isa 10:15, Isa 8:4, Isa 14:5, Isa 14:6, Psa 17:14, Psa 125:3, Jer 51:20-24

and: or, though

Reciprocal: 2Sa 16:11 – the Lord 1Ki 11:14 – the Lord 2Ki 5:1 – by him 2Ki 13:3 – and he delivered 2Ki 15:37 – to send 2Ki 17:3 – king of Assyria 2Ki 18:11 – the king 2Ki 18:13 – come up 2Ki 18:25 – Amos I now 2Ki 19:25 – Hast thou not 2Ki 24:3 – Surely 1Ch 5:26 – stirred up 2Ch 21:16 – the Lord 2Ch 24:24 – So 2Ch 28:9 – because the Lord God 2Ch 32:1 – king of Assyria Neh 9:32 – since the time Job 19:12 – His Psa 17:13 – thy Psa 94:10 – he correct Pro 22:8 – the rod of his anger shall fail Ecc 5:8 – matter Isa 7:17 – bring upon Isa 9:4 – the staff Isa 10:12 – when the Lord Isa 10:24 – smite thee Isa 13:4 – the Lord Isa 27:8 – his rough Isa 28:19 – the time Isa 29:2 – I will Isa 30:31 – which smote Isa 33:1 – thee that Isa 36:10 – General Isa 37:4 – for the Isa 37:26 – how I Isa 42:24 – General Isa 45:7 – I make Peace Isa 54:16 – I have Jer 5:10 – ye up Jer 25:9 – I Jer 29:4 – whom Jer 34:22 – I will command Jer 47:6 – thou sword Jer 48:17 – How Jer 50:17 – first Eze 7:10 – the rod Eze 21:3 – will draw Eze 23:22 – I will raise Eze 30:24 – and put Amo 3:11 – General Amo 6:11 – the Lord Amo 6:14 – I will Mic 1:15 – will Mic 5:6 – the Assyrian Mic 6:9 – hear Nah 2:2 – hath Hab 1:12 – thou hast ordained Zep 2:12 – my Zec 1:15 – and Mat 22:7 – his Rom 9:17 – I raised Rev 6:4 – and there Rev 17:13 – shall

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 10:5. O Assyrian, &c. We have here the fourth section of the fifth sermon, which reaches to the end of this chapter, and which is two-fold; containing, 1st, A proposition in this verse; and, 2d, The unfolding of it in the following verses. It is a new and distinct prophecy, and, as the former part of it foretels the invasion of Sennacherib and the destruction of his army, it must have been delivered before the fourteenth year of Hezekiahs reign. In the former chapters the prophet had foretold the fate of the Ephraimites and Syrians, who had determined to attack, and, if possible, subvert the Jewish Church and state. He therefore now turns his discourse to the Assyrians, the executors of this judgment, who also in their time should make the same attempt against Judea, and denounces their punishment, teaching, at the same time, in what light they were held by God, and consequently were to be considered by the careful observers of the ways of God. The proposition in this verse is elegant, but very difficult to be turned into another language, according to its original force. Its immediate meaning is, Wo to the Assyrian, who is the rod of mine anger, and the staff, which is in his hands, is my severity; that is, whatever strength or power they have, which they have used in afflicting my people, would have been none at all, if my people had not provoked my wrath and severity; so that, not the Assyrians themselves, but my wrath and severity, and the decrees of my justice, ought to be esteemed the rod and staff beating my people; since, without that severity, the Assyrians themselves could have done nothing. Vitringa remarks, that all the characters of this prophecy belong to Sennacherib; though possibly it may have a more extensive scope, and refer to the destruction of all the enemies of God, and the following great empires, which God made use of as rods and scourges, to chastise and amend his people, till the manifestation of the kingdom of his Son in the world: see Jer 51:20. Dodd. Be this as it will, the prophet here instructs us in a great and important truth: That God often prospers wicked and tyrannical governments to be his scourge and the instruments of his vengeance upon others; and when they have done the work which God allots them, he then punishes them for those very oppressions which they have exercised toward their neighbours, and to which they were carried on purely by their own ambition and covetousness, although Providence made them serviceable to better ends and purposes. Lowth.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 10:5-34. Assyrias Boastfulness and Its Punishment.This prophecy, so far as it is Isaiahs, must be later than the capture of Carchemish in 717 and before Sennacheribs invasion in 701. Narrower limits cannot be fixed. Non-Isaianic material appears to be present in it.

Isa 10:5-19. Assyria is Yahwehs rod to smite any nation that has aroused His anger, but, inspired by lust of blood, plans to exterminate many peoples, and boastfully thinks to destroy Jerusalem with her divine nonentities, less powerful than those of cities she has seized. So, when she has served His purpose, He will punish her boastfulness in ascribing her conquests to her own wisdom and might. She has abolished the boundaries of subject peoples, merging them in her empire; plundered their treasures and abased their rulers, robbing the nations as a man takes the eggs from a nest abandoned by the panic-stricken birds, none venturing a protest. What folly for Gods tool to vaunt itself against Him who wields it! God will punish with wasting disease, and with fire like the conflagration of a mighty forest, which spares so few trees that a child can count them.

Isa 10:5. Read, and the staff of mine indignation.

Isa 10:8. Assyrian governors were in some cases subject kings, or they ruled over territories larger than those governed by the kings of the small Syrian states.

Isa 10:9. Calno. (Amo 6:2*) perhaps Kullani, near Arpad, captured about 738 B.C. Carchemish (now Jerabis) was on the right bank of the Euphrates, the capital of the Hittites, 50 miles N.E. of Kullani, captured in 717. Hamath (2Ki 14:25*, Amo 6:2*) was on the Orontes, a little more than 100 miles N. of Damascus, reconquered by Sargon in 720. Arpad was near Aleppo, about 100 miles N. of Hamath; it was captured in 740. Damascus, the capital of Syria, was captured in 732 by Tiglath-pileser: Samaria by Sargon in 722.

Isa 10:10-12. Perhaps an insertion.idols: lit. nonentities.

Isa 10:12. fruit of the stout heart: the arrogant boasting in which his audacity has found expression.

Isa 10:13. Text at the close uncertain.

Isa 10:16-19. The metaphors are confused and the style falls off. Possibly the verses are late, embodying borrowed Isaianic phraseology; more probably they have an Isaianic basis, but have suffered in transmission.

Isa 10:16. his fat ones: better, his fat limbs. The figure is that of a body smitten by a wasting sickness.

Isa 10:18. The clause as when a sick man pineth away (mg.) would be more in place after Isa 10:16 a.

Isa 10:20-23. Then the remnant of Israel will no longer seek support in an earthly power, which, instead of helping, only smote it, but in Yahweh. For Israel, however numerous, will suffer Yahwehs righteous judgment of extermination, so that only a remnant shall be left.

Isa 10:24-27. A prophecy of encouragement now begins. Gods people in Zion must not fear the Assyrian, though he smite it as Egypt did before the Exodus. For very soon Yahwehs indignation will be passed, and His anger will be accomplished in the destruction of the oppressor, which shall be like Gideons overthrow of Midian (Jdg 7:25) and the lifting of the rod over the Red Sea, which opened the waters for the Hebrews and closed them over the Egyptians. Then Israels shoulder shall be freed from the oppressors burden and the yoke removed from its neck.

Isa 10:27. and the yoke . . . anointing: if MT is right, we should render as mg. But the meaning that Israel shall grow so fat, i.e. prosperous, that the yoke is burst from its neck, is unlikely. The clause should probably be connected with Isa 10:28 and the text emended. We should perhaps read, He hath come up from Pene-Rimmon, he is come to Aiath. Pene-Rimmon is about 10 miles N. of Jerusalem.

Isa 10:28-34. The march of the Assyrians on Jerusalem is depicted. The host of the enemy moves on till Jerusalem seems to be within its grasp, then suddenly God intervenes and cuts it down. Probably the Assyrian army did not advance on Jerusalem by this route. We are reading imaginative poetry. The central point is that the enemy will threaten Jerusalem with apparently irresistible power, but God will intervene in the citys extremity and annihilate the foe. It would do the prophet an injustice to press the details of this brilliant picture with prosaic literalness.

Isa 10:28 f. Aiath is probably Ai, 9 miles N. of Jerusalem. Migron may be identical with a place now known as Makrun. Michmash was about 2 miles S.E. of Ai. The pass is referred to in 1Sa 14:2. The enemy leaves the heavy baggage at Michmash, since he has to descend into the deep Wady es-Suwnit and then climb up the opposite side to Geba.

Isa 10:29. Geba is about 5 miles N. of Jerusalem, Ramah lies 2 miles to the W. of Geba, Gibeah is probably between it and Jerusalem.

Isa 10:30 f. The places are unidentified, with the exception of Anathoth, which lay between Geba and Jerusalem, and was Jeremiahs native city.

Isa 10:30 b. Read mg.

Isa 10:32. The Assyrian is represented as in sight of the city. Nob has not been identified (1Sa 12:1*).

Isa 10:33 f. Just when the Assyrian army catches sight of the city and it seems to be helpless in its grasp, Yahweh intervenes and cuts it down, as a forest is felled by the axe. Lebanon is a figurative expression for the Assyrians on account of its forest of cedars.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

10:5 O {e} Assyrian, the rod of my anger, and the staff in their hand is my indignation.

(e) God calls for the Assyrians to be the executioners of his vengeance.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The destruction of the destroyer 10:5-34

This segment presents Yahweh as the transcendent God who controls the destiny of all nations. He creates history just as He created the cosmos. The victory of the Assyrians did not prove the superiority of her gods, nor did Judah’s defeat mean that Yahweh was inferior. The whole passage contrasts sovereignties: Assyria’s and Yahweh’s.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

3. Hope of God’s deliverance 10:5-11:16

Earlier God revealed that He would use Assyria to destroy Judah for her lack of trust in Yahweh (Isa 7:1 to Isa 8:22). Now He revealed that He would also destroy this destroyer (cf. Hab 2:4-20). It is God who is sovereign, not Assyria, and He was with His people.

"The Messianic prophecy, which turns its darker side towards unbelief in ch. vii., and whose promising aspect burst like a great light through the darkness in ch. viii. 5-ix. 6, is standing now upon its third and highest stage. In ch. vii. it is like a star in the night; in ch. viii. 5-ix. 6, like the morning dawn; and now the sky is perfectly cloudless, and it appears like the noonday sun." [Note: Delitzsch, 1:264.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The instrument of destruction 10:5-11

Assyria was simply an unwitting tool in Yahweh’s hand that He would use to accomplish His purposes (cf. Hab 1:12-17). This pericope is one of the greatest revelations of the relation between heaven and earth in the Bible. [Note: Motyer, p. 112.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

"Woe" (Heb. hoy) introduces a judgment oracle. Assyria was like a rod in God’s hand; He controlled her actions. He would send her to discipline godless Judah, against whom God’s fury burned: "to capture booty and to seize plunder" (Isa 10:6, the meaning of Maher-shalal-hash-baz’s name, Isa 8:1; Isa 8:3). However, Assyria was in for woe herself (cf. Isa 10:1) because she failed to acknowledge that she was under the sovereign authority of Yahweh.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

BOOK 3

PROPHECIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF HEZEKIAH TO THE DEATH OF SARGON

727-705 B.C.

THE prophecies with which we have been engaged (chapters 2-10:4) fall either before or during the great Assyrian invasion of Syria, undertaken in 734-732 by Tiglath-pileser II, at the invitation of King Ahaz. Nobody has any doubt about that. But when we ask what prophecies of Isaiah come next in chronological order, we raise a storm of answers. We are no longer on the sure ground we have been enjoying.

Under the canonical arrangement the next prophecy is “The Woe upon the Assyrian”. {Isa 10:5-34} In the course of this the Assyrian is made to boast of having overthrown “Samaria” (Isa 10:9-11) “Is not Samaria as Damascus? Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?” If “Samaria” mean the capital city of Northern Israel-and the name is never used in these parts of Scripture for anything else-and if the prophet be quoting a boast which the Assyrian was actually in a position to make, and not merely imagining a boast, which he would be likely to make some years afterwards (an entirely improbable view, though held by one great scholar), then an event is here described as past and over which did not happen during Tiglath-pilesers campaign, nor indeed till twelve years after it. Tiglath-pileser did not require to besiege Samaria in the campaign of 734-32. The king, Pekah, was slain by a conspiracy of his own subjects; and Hoshea, the ringleader, who succeeded, willingly purchased the stability of a usurped throne by homage and tribute to the king of kings. So Tiglath-pileser went home again, satisfied to have punished Israel by carrying away with him the population of Galilee. During his reign there was no further appearance of the Assyrians in Palestine, but at his death in 727 Hoshea, after the fashion of Assyrian vassals when the throne of Nineveh changed occupants, attempted to throw off the yoke of the new king, Salmanassar IV Along with the Phoenician and Philistine cities, Hoshea negotiated an alliance with So, or Seve, the Ethiopian, a usurper who had just succeeded in establishing his supremacy over the land of the Pharaohs. In a year Salmanassar marched south upon the rebels. He took Hoshea prisoner on the borders of his territory (725), but, not content, as his predecessor had been, with the submission of the king, “he came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.” {2Ki 17:5} He did not live to see the end of the siege, and Samaria was taken in 722 by Sargon, his successor. Sargon overthrew the kingdom and uprooted the people. The northern tribes were carried away into a captivity, from which as tribes they never returned.

It was evidently this complete overthrow of Samaria by Sargon in 722-721, which Isaiah had behind him when he wrote Isa 10:9-11. We must, therefore, date the prophecy after 721, when nothing was left as a bulwark between Judah and the Assyrian. We do so with reluctance. There is much Isa 10:5-34 which suits the circumstances of Tiglath-pilesers invasion. There are phrases and catch-words coinciding with those in chapter 7-9:7; and the whole oration is simply a more elaborate expression of that defiance of Assyria, which inspires such of the previous prophecies as Isa 8:9-10. Besides, with the exception of Samaria, all the names in the Assyrians boastful catalogue-Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Hamath, and Damascus-might as justly have been vaunted by the lips of Tiglath-pileser as by those of Sargon. But in spite of these things, which seem to vindicate the close relation of Isa 10:5-34 to the prophecies which precede it in the canon, the mention of Samaria as being already destroyed justifies us in divorcing it from them. While they remain dated from before 732, we place it subsequent to 722.

Was Isaiah, then, silent these ten years? Is there no prophecy lying farther on in his book that treats of Samaria as still standing? Besides an address to the fallen Damascus in Isa 17:1-11, which we shall take later with the rest of Isaiahs oracles on foreign states, there is one large prophecy, chapter 28, which opens with a description of the magnates of Samaria lolling in drunken security on their vine-crowned hill, but Gods storms are ready to break. Samaria has not yet fallen, but is threatened and shall fall soon. The first part of chapter 28, can only refer to the year in which Salmanassar advanced upon Samaria-726 or 725. There is nothing in the rest of it to corroborate this date; but the fact, that there are several turns of thought and speech very similar to turns of thought and speech in Isa 10:5-34, makes us the bolder to take away chapter 28 from its present connection with 29-32, and place it just before Isa 10:5-34.

Here then is our next group of prophecies, all dating from the first seven years of the reign of Hezekiah: 28, a warning addressed to the politicians of Jerusalem from the impending fate of those of Samaria (date 725); Isa 10:5-34, a woe upon the Assyrian (date about 720), describing his boasts and his progress in conquest till his sudden crash by the walls of Jerusalem; 11, of date uncertain, for it reflects no historical circumstance, but standing in such artistic contrast to 10 that the two must be treated together; and 12, a hymn of salvation, which forms a fitting conclusion to 11. With these we shall take the few fragments of the book of Isaiah which belong to the fifteen years 720-705, and are as straws to show how Judah all that time was drifting down to alliance with Egypt-20, Isa 21:1-10; Isa 38:1-22; Isa 39:1-8. This will bring us to 705, and the beginning of a new series of prophecies, the richest of Isaiahs life, and the subject of our third book.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary