|
Click a verse to see commentary
|
Select a resource above
|
|
10 Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, 2 to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey! 3 What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, 4 so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.
Arrogant Assyria Also Judged5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger— the club in their hands is my fury! 6 Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 7 But this is not what he intends, nor does he have this in mind; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. 8 For he says: “Are not my commanders all kings? 9 Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? 10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols whose images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, 11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols what I have done to Samaria and her images?”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride. 13For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I have removed the boundaries of peoples, and have plundered their treasures; like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones. 14 My hand has found, like a nest, the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened its mouth, or chirped.”
15 Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one who wields it, or the saw magnify itself against the one who handles it? As if a rod should raise the one who lifts it up, or as if a staff should lift the one who is not wood! 16 Therefore the Sovereign, the L ord of hosts, will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire. 17 The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day. 18 The glory of his forest and his fruitful land the L ord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when an invalid wastes away. 19 The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.
The Repentant Remnant of Israel20 On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on the one who struck them, but will lean on the L ord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 21A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22For though your people Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. 23For the Lord G od of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in all the earth. 24 Therefore thus says the Lord G od of hosts: O my people, who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians when they beat you with a rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. 25For in a very little while my indignation will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. 26The L ord of hosts will wield a whip against them, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. 27On that day his burden will be removed from your shoulder, and his yoke will be destroyed from your neck.
He has gone up from Rimmon, 28 he has come to Aiath; he has passed through Migron, at Michmash he stores his baggage; 29 they have crossed over the pass, at Geba they lodge for the night; Ramah trembles, Gibeah of Saul has fled. 30 Cry aloud, O daughter Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! Answer her, O Anathoth! 31 Madmenah is in flight, the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety. 32 This very day he will halt at Nob, he will shake his fist at the mount of daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Look, the Sovereign, the L ord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. 34 He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
|
15. Shall the axe boast? He now ridicules more strongly the mad effrontery of the Assyrians in imagining that he could create mountains of gold; for he tells us that the case is the same as if an axe or a hammer should despise the hand which sets them in motion, and should be proud of their activity, though it is manifest that they have no power of their own to move. But before explaining the subject more fully, I shall touch briefly on the words. Like the rising up of a rod against him that raiseth it. 164164 As if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up. Margin, or, as if a rod should shake them that lift it up. — Eng. Ver. Our translators were uncertain whether את (eth) was the sign of the accusative or a preposition. — Ed This second class of the verse is somewhat obscure. The matter is plain enough, but in the form of expression there is some ambiguity, in consequence of which commentators greatly differ. Yet, when I examine the matter closely, the rendering which I have given appears to flow more naturally than the others. “What is this? If a staff rise against the hand of him that raiseth it, and forget that it is wood, what a shocking exhibition will it be!” For it is not uncommon that the particle את, (eth) which is the sign of the accusative, should mean against; and the copulative ו (vau) is often superfluous. We shall thus have a meaning which is not ambiguous, and which agrees with the words of the Prophet. He formerly reproached the Assyrian for ascribing to his schemes and his army the victories which he had gained. He now says, that in this manner he boasts against God, just as if an axe, reckoning as nothing the hand of him that cuts, claimed the praise of a workman, or a staff, as if it were not dead wood and without any strength of its own, rose up against him that wielded it. Hence we learn that men rise up against God, whenever they ascribe to themselves more than is proper, and that in such cases they war not with men but with God himself. Away, then, with those proud and blasphemous expressions, “By my power and wisdom and perseverance I have done and contrived and accomplished these things;” for the Lord is a jealous God, (Exodus 20:5,) and does not permit his glory to be given to another! We must attend to those comparisons by which he likens men to instruments; and we must not view it as referring to the universal providence by which all creatures are governed, as some do, who acknowledge that all the creatures are moved by God, because they cannot deny it, but add, that each of them is driven according to its nature, as the sun, the moon, the heavens, and such like. Thus they imagine that man is driven hither and thither by his own choice and by free-will; because God does nothing more than continue that power which he once bestowed at the beginning. Their false explanation amounts to this, that the whole machinery of the world is upheld by the hand of God, but that his providence is not interposed to regulate particular movements. Thus they ascribe to God the rain and the fair weather because he is the Author of nature, but contend that, strictly speaking, God commands nothing, that the rain is produced by vapours, and that fair weather also is produced by its natural causes. But this confused direction, which they leave to God, is hardly the thousandth part of that government which he claims for himself. Justly therefore, does Isaiah show that God presides over individual acts, as they call them, so as to move men, like rods, in whatever way he pleases, to guide their plans, to direct their efforts; and, in a word, to regulate their determinations, in order to inform us that everything depends on his providence, and not on the caprice of wicked men. It is objected, that it would be absurd to call men axes and swords, so as to take away from them will and judgment, and everything that distinguishes them from inanimate creatures, and to make them, not men, but stocks and stones. But the answer is at hand. Though God compares men to stones, it does not follow that they resemble them in all respects. No one thing is exactly like another, but they agree in some points; for as a staff cannot move itself in any direction, and yet is fit for inflicting blows, so wicked men have something which belongs to them by nature, and yet they cannot be moved hither and thither, without being directed by the providence and secret decree of God. This fitness of things, if we may so call it, is no reason why the action should not be ascribed entirely to God alone. But the question about the will of man is unseasonably introduced on the present occasion. If God controls the purposes of men, and turns their thoughts and exertions to whatever purpose he pleases, men do not therefore cease to form plans and to engage in this or the other undertaking. We must not suppose that there is a violent compulsion, as if God dragged them against their will; but in a wonderful and inconceivable manner he regulates all the movements of men, so that they still have the exercise of their will. In this passage Isaiah chiefly shows that all the efforts of men are fruitless, if God do not grant them success; and therefore that the Assyrian, even if he had attempted everything, would not have succeeded, if the Lord had not bestowed the victories; and, consequently, that he had no reason for laying claim to the praise of those things in which his success was owing solely to God. This is confirmed by another metaphor, that the lifting
up of a staff proceeds from the will of him who moves it, and not from the nature of the wood.
165165
“לא עף, (lo gnetz) ‘the no-wood;’ that which is not wood like itself, but of a quite different and superior nature. The Hebrews have a peculiar way of joining the negative particle לא (lo) to a noun, to signify in a strong manner a total negation of the thing expressed by the noun. |