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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.

26. And the LORD of hosts will stir up a scourge for him. Here Isaiah makes use of the word scourge, and not rod, meaning that the Lord will treat the enemies much more harshly and severely than they had treated the Jews. He threatens them with extermination, and makes it more evident by two examples; first, that of the Midianites, (Judges 7:25,) who were cut off by a dreadful slaughter in the valley of Oreb, which was so named from their leader, and, secondly, that of the Egyptians, whom the Lord, when they pursued after his people, sank in the Red Sea. (Exodus 14:27, 28.) In the former passage, he refers to a narrative which was somewhat more recent, and in the latter to one that was more ancient.

Hence we infer that the Lord hath displayed his power in defending his Church, in order that, when our affairs are in the most desperate state, we may remain steadfastly in the faith, and, relying on his grace, we still may cherish a pleasing hope. By means and in ways that are unexpected he often delivers his Church, as he did by the hands of Gideon and Moses. We ought always, therefore, to call to remembrance those benefits, that we may be excited more and more to confidence and perseverance.

Hence we ought also to infer that all the afflictions which we endure are the Lord’s rods with which he chastises us; and yet he does not permit Satan or his agents to inflict deadly chastisements upon us. On the other hand, an awful destruction awaits our enemies, as we see in the Midianites and Egyptians. It is therefore no small consolation that, when we compare our condition with theirs, we see them, for a time indeed, in all the madness of joy and of wickedness insulting the children of God, but at the same time learn what a dreadful sentence has been pronounced against them; for they are devoted to deadly and everlasting destruction.