Isaiah10chapter 10

Isaiah 10:1-4

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees: The last of the chapter's woes turns from surrounding nations to Judah's own courts, judges who decree unrighteous decrees and write grievousness into law to rob the widow and the fatherless under color of legal process. The question that follows is a courtroom question turned back on the judges themselves: what will ye do in the day of visitation, and to whom will ye flee for help? Verse 4 closes with the refrain that has run since chapter 9, his hand is stretched out still, tying this woe to the series of national judgments already pronounced.

Isaiah 10:5-7

O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger: Assyria is named the rod of mine anger, an instrument sent against an hypocritical nation with orders straight from the Lord, to take the spoil and tread them down like the mire of the streets. The text is careful to separate the commission from the intention: howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so, for Assyria's own aim is simply to destroy and cut off nations not a few. The older writers read this as the doctrine of secondary causes stated as plainly as anywhere in the Old Testament, God using a wicked nation's own ambition to execute a purpose that nation never intends.

Isaiah 10:8-11

Are not my princes altogether kings?: Assyria's own words expose the blasphemy under the boast: are not my princes altogether kings, is not Calno as Carchemish, cities the empire has already swallowed and now treats as interchangeable trophies. The king reasons from the idols of Samaria and the surrounding kingdoms to Jerusalem itself, as though the Lord were simply one more conquered god among the graven images, a category error the chapter lets Assyria commit before it is answered. Gill notes the list of cities traces the actual line of Assyrian conquest, Carchemish, Hamath, Damascus, Samaria, each already fallen by the time Sennacherib's threat reaches Jerusalem's gate.

Isaiah 10:12-14

the fruit of the stout heart: Once the Lord has performed his whole work upon Zion, Assyria's own pride becomes the next object of judgment, the fruit of the stout heart and the glory of his high looks punished in their turn. The king's boast credits nothing to heaven, by the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent, claiming as personal skill what the earlier verses already named as a commission he did not know he carried. The image of gathering the earth's riches as one gathereth eggs that are left pictures conquest as effortless plunder, with none that moved the wing to resist.

Isaiah 10:15-16

Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth: The chapter's central image turns the boast back on the boaster: shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith, or the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it. The rod and staff of verse 5, the very words used of Assyria's commission, return as tools that have mistaken themselves for the hand wielding them, and the correction is itself the answer to conquest, therefore shall the Lord send among his fat ones leanness. The instrument theology of the chapter reaches its statement here, an axe has no glory of its own, whatever cutting it does.

Isaiah 10:17-19

the light of Israel shall be for a fire: The light of Israel, the ordinary name for the nation's God, becomes a fire, and his Holy One a flame that will burn Assyria's thorns and briers in a single day, the same title turned now against the invader rather than against Judah. The glory of his forest, Assyria's great host pictured as timber, is consumed both soul and body until the trees that remain are so few that a child may write them. The imagery sets up the next chapter directly, a felled forest and a stump left behind, out of which the Branch will grow.

Isaiah 10:20-21

shall no more again stay upon him that smote them: The remnant of Israel, such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, is promised a change of trust, no more again stay upon him that smote them but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. This is Shear-jashub cashed out, the son whose name means a remnant shall return and whom Isaiah brought with him to meet Ahaz back at 7:3, the sign now stated as prophecy rather than carried only as a name. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God, repeats the son's own name a second time inside one verse.

Isaiah 10:22-23

as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: Though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return, quoted by Paul at Romans 9:27, verified, a promise of return that is also, in the same breath, a warning that only a remnant survives the consumption decreed. The Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land, judgment on the nation running alongside covenant faithfulness to a remnant within it, not against it. Barnes reads the doubled decreed and determined as legal language, a sentence already fixed rather than a threat still open to appeal.

Isaiah 10:24-27

be not afraid of the Assyrian: O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian, the Lord God of hosts commands, promising that the indignation shall cease and his anger turn to their destruction after only a very little while. Two precedents anchor the promise, the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb and the rod lifted over the sea after the manner of Egypt, deliverances Judah already had in its own history to remember. His burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing, a phrase the older writers read as pointing past the immediate Assyrian threat toward a fuller deliverance.

Isaiah 10:28-32

He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron: The march that follows traces a real road north of Jerusalem, town by town, Aiath, Migron, Michmash where the carriages are laid up, the passage crossed, lodging taken at Geba, until Ramah is afraid and Gibeah of Saul has already fled. Each village's fear is named in turn, Gallim's voice lifted up, poor Anathoth, Madmenah removed, Gebim gathering to flee, a geography close enough to Jerusalem that the older commentators use it to fix the invader's line of approach within a single day's march. The catalogue is restrained on purpose, no theology attached to the town names, only the plain fact of an army closing the last few miles on the city.

Isaiah 10:33-34

shall lop the bough with terror: Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror, the same forest imagery from verses 18 and 19 returning as the chapter's last word, the high ones of stature hewn down and Lebanon falling by a mighty one, an image of Assyria stopped at the very gate it had marched to in verse 32. The chapter leaves a felled forest and nothing else standing, which the next chapter answers directly, out of that same stump, a rod out of the stem of Jesse, life comes up where the axe has already done its worst. Henry reads the placement as deliberate, judgment on the tall trees making room for the shoot the following verses describe.