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10. Lord's Anger Against Israel

¹ Woe to those who make unjust laws,
   to those who issue oppressive decrees,
² to deprive the poor of their rights
   and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
   and robbing the fatherless.
³ What will you do on the day of reckoning,
   when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
   Where will you leave your riches?
⁴ Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
   or fall among the slain.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.

God’s Judgment on Assyria

    ⁵ “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
   in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
⁶ I send him against a godless nation,
   I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
   and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
⁷ But this is not what he intends,
   this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
   to put an end to many nations.
⁸ ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.
    ⁹ ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
   and Samaria like Damascus?
¹⁰ As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
   kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—
¹¹ shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
   as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”

¹² When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. ¹³ For he says:

   “‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
   and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
   I plundered their treasures;
   like a mighty one I subdued Or treasures; / I subdued the mighty, their kings.
¹⁴ As one reaches into a nest,
   so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations;
as people gather abandoned eggs,
   so I gathered all the countries;
not one flapped a wing,
   or opened its mouth to chirp.’”

    ¹⁵ Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
   or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
   or a club brandish the one who is not wood!
¹⁶ Therefore, the Lord, the LORD Almighty,
   will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;
under his pomp a fire will be kindled
   like a blazing flame.
¹⁷ The Light of Israel will become a fire,
   their Holy One a flame;
in a single day it will burn and consume
   his thorns and his briers.
¹⁸ The splendor of his forests and fertile fields
   it will completely destroy,
   as when a sick person wastes away.
¹⁹ And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few
   that a child could write them down.

The Remnant of Israel

    ²⁰ In that day the remnant of Israel,
   the survivors of Jacob,
will no longer rely on him
   who struck them down
but will truly rely on the LORD,
   the Holy One of Israel.
²¹ A remnant will return, Hebrew shear-jashub (see 7:3 and note); also in verse 22 a remnant of Jacob
   will return to the Mighty God.
²² Though your people be like the sand by the sea, Israel,
   only a remnant will return.
Destruction has been decreed,
   overwhelming and righteous.
²³ The Lord, the LORD Almighty, will carry out
   the destruction decreed upon the whole land.

²⁴ Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD Almighty, says:

   “My people who live in Zion,
   do not be afraid of the Assyrians,
who beat you with a rod
   and lift up a club against you, as Egypt did.
²⁵ Very soon my anger against you will end
   and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.”

    ²⁶ The LORD Almighty will lash them with a whip,
   as when he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb;
and he will raise his staff over the waters,
   as he did in Egypt.
²⁷ In that day their burden will be lifted from your shoulders,
   their yoke from your neck;
the yoke will be broken
   because you have grown so fat. Hebrew; Septuagint broken / from your shoulders

    ²⁸ They enter Aiath;
   they pass through Migron;
   they store supplies at Mikmash.
²⁹ They go over the pass, and say,
   “We will camp overnight at Geba.”
Ramah trembles;
   Gibeah of Saul flees.
³⁰ Cry out, Daughter Gallim!
   Listen, Laishah!
   Poor Anathoth!
³¹ Madmenah is in flight;
   the people of Gebim take cover.
³² This day they will halt at Nob;
   they will shake their fist
at the mount of Daughter Zion,
   at the hill of Jerusalem.

    ³³ See, the Lord, the LORD Almighty,
   will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
   the tall ones will be brought low.
³⁴ He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
   Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

21. A remnant shall return. This is a confirmation of the former statement. Yet in the words שאר ישוב, (Shear Yashub,) a remnant shall return, there appears to be an allusion to that passage in which Isaiah’s son was called Shear-jashub. (Isaiah 7:3.) In our observations on it, we stated that this peculiar name was given him in reference to the event, that it might be regarded as a pledge of the future deliverance concerning which his father prophesied. It was necessary that the Jews should be confirmed in various ways, that they might be convinced that the Lord would at length bring them back. This is also the design of what he immediately adds —

To the mighty God; that is, to him whom the people, after having returned from their former apostasy, will acknowledge to be the guardian of their salvation. This attribute, mighty, is ascribed to God for the sake of the occasion on which the words were used. He might have thought it sufficient to have expressed power by the name אל, (El,) God, which also signifies mighty; but he chose likewise to add to it גבור, (gibbor,) that is, strong or mighty, in order to excite the people to greater confidence. How was it possible for the people to betake themselves to the Assyrians and Egyptians, but because they did not think that God was sufficient for them? This is the source of all evils, when we are not fully convinced that in God is everything that can be desired for our salvation.

22. For though thy people be. He casts down hypocrites from foolish confidence; for they reckoned it enough to be the descendants of holy Abraham according to the flesh, and, therefore, on the sole ground of their birth, they wished to be accounted holy. Yet he exhorts the godly to patience, that they may learn to await calmly that calamity and diminution of their number, lest, when it took place, it should be unexpected, and give them uneasiness. He therefore comforts them, that they may not be grieved at so great desolation; for the Lord will at least collect a remnant of it.

The consumption decreed. כלה (chalah) means to finish, and it means also to consume. The latter is more appropriate. He calls this diminution of the people a consumption, and one that is completed; for he employs exaggerated language, the import of which is, that they were not far from utter extermination, there being very few that were saved.

The word Israel may be taken either in the genitive case, of Israel, or in the vocative case, O Israel, ¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸ That is, the passage may either be rendered, Though thy people of Israel be as the sand of the sea; or, Though thy people, O Israel, be as the sand of sea. — Ed. so that in this way he addresses the patriarch Jacob, or all the godly under his name. But it is of little importance, for the meaning is the same, in whichsoever of these ways it be taken; and therefore it may be read in the genitive case, of Israel. Yet I am more inclined to view it as a proper name, to denote the true, and not the spurious Israelite. The bold address to the patriarch has a striking effect; for God, addressing a dead man, declares to the living that what he had formerly promised, (Genesis 13:16, 22:17,) that the posterity of Abraham would be like the sand of the sea, did not apply to a promiscuous multitude, which had apostatized from godliness, but that there would be a kind of interruption in a corrupt nation, till shortly afterwards it should be renewed.

Overflowing with righteousness, or overflowing righteousness. ¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹ Shall overflow with (Heb. in, or, among) righteousness — Eng. Ver. Another consolation is added, that this very small company will overflow righteousness. When we see the Church distressed by such heavy calamities, that we think that it cannot be far from destruction, we are in danger of giving way to despondency, and of entertaining doubts about the mercy of God. Those whose minds are impressed with just views of the judgment of God, feel that this is the severest of all temptations. It was therefore necessary that godly minds should be fortified against it, that they might soothe their grief by pondering the benefit which would result from this calamity. The benefit was, that righteousness would overflow the whole world like a river; and he had formerly noticed this, when he said (Isaiah 10:20) that the remnant would trust in God in truth

The word righteousness is explained in various ways. Some refer it to the preaching of the gospel, because by means of it, as Paul says,

the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, (Romans 1:17;)

and by the agency of the Apostles, who were a small remnant of the Jews, it spread over the whole world. (Mark 16:15.) Others choose rather to view it as meaning that that consumption was an evidence and proof of the righteousness of God in inflicting punishments so severe on his own people. But I prefer a more general exposition of it, namely, “This consumption will be sufficient to fill the whole world with righteousness. The remnant which shall survive it, though small, will be sufficient to cause such rivers of righteousness to flow, that the whole world shall be overflowed by them.”