And it shall come to pass, when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stoutness of heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.
Assyria was the tool God picked up to strike His own guilty people. This verse says what happens to the tool afterwards: God finishes His work on Mount Zion first, then punishes the proud king who carried it out.
Assyria's power over Israel was real, but God had lent it. One writer states the pattern, then points to a later example:
God uses the pride and wickedness of the wicked to discipline His people. Afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian is God's rod to strike Israel, yet he glorifies himself against God, and God breaks the rod. In the same way, Napoleon Bonaparte struck all the peoples of the Roman empire in the early nineteenth century. He was in the wrong, and afterwards he was struck himself.
God's charge to the Assyrian and the Assyrian's own plan were two different things, and that gap is why judgment follows.
The Assyrian was first used as a rod to chastise Israel. "Ho, Assyrian, the rod of my anger... I will send him against a godless nation, and against the people of my wrath I will give him a charge, to take the spoil and to seize the plunder... But he does not mean so, neither does his heart think so; it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few." But he did not acknowledge God... His own doom is therefore sealed.
The order in the verse matters. The Assyrian is not judged while the work on Jerusalem is still running.
Israel is blessed, but the Assyrian is not yet judged. Israel had been wrong, but the Assyrian had been merciless. God had dealt with Israel. Now He must deal with their foes, as Isaiah 10:12 tells us.
Not the conquest — the heart behind it, and the speech that came out of it. God weighs why a man does what he does:
God takes into account not only what men do, but their purpose in doing it. Jehu carried out the judgment of the Lord on the house of Ahab... But he carried out the Lord's just judgments with harshness, and for his own selfish reasons. That was far from acceptable... Assyria was the rod of His anger, by which He chastised Israel. But the rod boasted itself against the One who lifted it up.
The verses that follow spell the boast out — "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom" — and God answers it with a question about tools:
He is only an axe and a saw in the hand of God; a staff and a rod wielded by God to do His will. After God has used the Assyrian as His instrument He "will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field."
One writer reads the verse as God's direct word to the empire, a limit set on how far a chosen instrument may go:
God, so to speak, says to this mighty power: I am using you to discipline My straying people. But if you lift yourself up against Me, I must bring you down.
Several commentators take the opening clause as proof that this punishment has not yet happened. The test is simple and checkable:
God uses this rod for the chastisement of His guilty people Israel. But in the end God judges this proud enemy. With that judgment His anger against Israel comes to a close... Now the Lord has clearly not yet finished His whole work on Mount Zion and Jerusalem. So this punishment of the Assyrian is certainly still future.
William Kelly places this blow at the end of the line:
Does this not seem to show that this is the Lord's last act of judgment connected with the blessing of Israel?
- Rod. God lifted Assyria as the rod of His anger against His own people. Its success was a charge given to it, not a strength it owned.
- Rod's own heart. The tool did not mean what God meant. It planned to destroy nations for its own sake, and that gap seals its doom.
- Rod judged by motive. God weighs not only what men do, but why they do it. Jehu did the right work for selfish reasons, and God did not accept it.
- Rod broken last. God finishes His work on Zion and Jerusalem first. Only then does He turn on the merciless foe. Correcting His people and judging their enemy are two different acts.
- Rod still standing. The work on Zion and Jerusalem is not yet finished. So writers here read this punishment as still ahead, and one of them as the last act of judgment before Israel's blessing.
For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done [it], and by my wisdom, for I am intelligent; and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and, like a valiant man, I have brought down them that sit [on thrones];
These words are not the prophet's own. They are the boast of the king of Assyria, who credits his conquests to two things: his own strength and his own wisdom. The chapter raises one question: who was doing the conquering?
God had taken up Assyria as a tool to discipline His people. This verse is the tool talking back.
But the Assyrian himself did not realize this. He did not mean it that way. He intended to ravage Jerusalem as well as Samaria, doing to them what he had already done to many of the surrounding peoples. The history books of Scripture show that he troubled and threatened Jerusalem, but never took it. As verse 12 shows, God would use him to do to Jerusalem what He intended, and would then punish him and humble him. He was only like an axe or a rod in the hand of the Lord and could not dictate to the One who wielded him. The Holy One of Israel would consume him and bring down his pride and importance.
Being useful to God did not make the Assyrian safe.
God uses the pride and sin of the wicked to discipline His people. Afterwards He destroys the tool. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod.
The Assyrian's campaigns did carry out God's judgment. That did not make him innocent.
God takes into account not only what men do, but their aim in doing it. Jehu carried out the judgment of the Lord on the house of Ahab, and on all his guilty partners, until not one of them remained alive. By his hand God also punished the wickedness of Jezebel in Jezreel. But the harshness with which he carried out the Lord's just judgments was far from acceptable, and so were his own selfish reasons for it. So God said through the prophet Hosea that in a little while He would punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel (Hos. 1:4).
He claims to have erased the borders of nations, emptied their treasuries, and toppled kings from their thrones. But those borders were never his to redraw.
It matters little how bold and arrogant the ambition of would-be world-rulers may be. It matters little how vast their preparations for conquest, or how remarkable their apparent success as they push toward their goal. All of it lies in God's hand in the end: "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage" (Deut. 32:8-9).
(Here Mawson quoted an older translation: "according to the number of the children of Israel.")
The same instinct lives in hearts that never commanded an army. The danger is not only taking credit we never earned. It is taking credit for what God has done for us.
Sadly, what material there is in us! What ignorance of our own hearts! ... We are capable of turning God's actions on our behalf into an occasion for self-satisfaction. Instead of seeing in those gracious actions a reason for heartfelt praise to God, we use them as a reason to exalt ourselves.
Commentators read Isaiah 10 on two levels: the Assyrian power of Isaiah's own day, and a ruler of the last days.
As so often in Old Testament prophecy, there is an ultimate fulfilment as well as a nearer one, and that is surely the case here... In the same way, "the Assyrian" has this double application. It means the great power of that day, centred in Nineveh. It also means the "king of the North" — Assyria again — whom we read of in the last days.
On that reading, this boast is made once more at the end — and God answers it at once.
It would appear that at this time he will consider himself invincible and will say, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding" (Isa. 10:13). The boast will barely be out of his blasphemous mouth before the Lord strikes him and brings him to his shameful end.
- Rod. Assyria's victories were real. But he was only an axe in another's hand, and an axe gives no orders to the one who swings it.
- Rod that boasts. The sin is not the conquering; it is the word "my" — strength and wisdom claimed for himself.
- Rod weighed. God weighs the aim behind the act. Jehu did the right work with wrong motives, and his house paid for it.
- Rod broken. God uses the pride of the wicked to discipline His people. Then He destroys the tool.
- Rod copied. The same boast returns in the last days. It shows up in any heart that turns God's gracious actions into a reason for boasting.
and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the peoples, and as one gathereth forsaken eggs, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped.
The Assyrian king ends his boast here: he took the wealth of nations like eggs from an empty nest, and no bird fluttered a wing. But who did it, and what does God do with a conqueror who claims credit for work God gave him?
The whole speech is one long claim of self-made success. Notice the picture he picks: eggs in an abandoned nest cannot fight back, and he says the nations were that easy. What he cannot see is that God handed him every campaign.
The Assyrian thought he was only doing his own will when he punished Samaria and Jerusalem, saying, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom" (Isa. 10:13). He did not understand that he was only the rod of God's anger. God was using him to carry out judgment on His rebellious, idol-worshipping people.
These lines are not invented. Commentators trace them to a servant of the Assyrian king, and to a letter the king himself sent to Hezekiah.
In verses 9-14 the prophecy puts words in his mouth. They are the words Rabshakeh, Sennacherib's servant, spoke, and the words the king wrote to Hezekiah. The same boastful spirit that marked Sennacherib then would later mark Antiochus Epiphanes, as Daniel 8:10-12 foretold. And it would appear in full in the king of the north in the last days (Daniel 8:19-25).
God answers this boast. He is the one who picked up this rod, and He tells it what happens if it turns on Him:
God, in effect, says to this mighty power: I am using you to chasten My straying people. But if you lift yourself up against Me, I must bring you down.
The principle reaches well beyond Assyria. God has used many hands that never intended to serve Him.
The Midianites did not know that the Lord had handed Israel over to them. In reality they were only the rod He chose to punish His people with... When He has finished with His rod, He can break it or burn it... Satan himself is very often the rod used by God for the discipline of His children.
Being useful to God is not the same as pleasing Him. The order never changes: first the chastening, then the reckoning.
God uses the pride and sin of the wicked to chasten His people. Afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod.
God broke this rod in Sennacherib's own day.
The Lord sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valour, leader and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria... Sennacherib returned in shame to his own land. In the temple of his idolatrous god, his own sons killed him with the sword. How helpless his god was to deliver him!
Several writers read this passage as reaching past Sennacherib to a last invader, the king of the north. He will make the same boast, and it will end the same way.
It seems he will consider himself invincible and will say, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom..." (Isa. 10:13-14). The boast will barely be out of his mouth before the Lord strikes him down to a shameful end.
- Used — Assyria's victories were real, but God assigned them. He uses the pride of the wicked to chasten His people, and the conqueror never knows it.
- Claimed — Verse 14 takes all the credit. The nations came like eggs from an empty nest, and no wing lifted against him. He counts the plunder and forgets the hand that holds him.
- Answered — God's word to this power is plain: I am using you, but lift yourself against Me and I bring you down.
- Broken — When God has finished with a rod, He can break it or burn it. Sennacherib went home in shame, and his own sons killed him in his god's temple — a god helpless to save him.
- Repeated — The same spirit shows up in later oppressors and in one last invader. His boast will barely leave his mouth before his end comes.
-- Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him that wieldeth it? As if the rod should wield them that lift it up; as if the staff should lift up [him who is] not wood!
God had just called Assyria "the rod of my anger," a nation sent to discipline His people — and Assyria, seeing only its own victories, took the credit. Verse 15 answers with four questions about tools: can an axe, a saw, a rod or a staff claim glory over the hand that lifts it?
The Assyrian king had claimed his conquests as the work of his own strength and wisdom. He never guessed whose hand he was in.
But the Assyrian himself did not realise this. He did not mean it that way. He intended to ravage Jerusalem as well as Samaria... As verse 12 shows, God would use him to carry out on Jerusalem what He intended, and then would punish and humble him. He was only like an axe or a rod in the hand of the Lord, and he could not dictate to the One who wielded him.
An axe has no aims of its own. Assyria had plenty, and God weighs those aims as well as the blows He allows.
If God put power into the hand of the Gentile, and gave his armies success — even against the nation of His choice, and to the overthrow of Zion, which He loved — He still does not overlook that rod. He sees the pride of heart, the lust of power, the self-will and the violence of the rod He uses to correct His erring people. Again and again these nations invaded His land and destroyed life and property without restraint. They were His instruments for correcting His stubborn and unyielding people. But doing the will of God was far from the thought of any one of them.
Being chosen as the rod gave Assyria no safety. The same rule holds wherever God uses one nation against another.
In God's governmental ways with nations He may use one as His rod to punish another; we see this constantly in Old Testament Scriptures. But it will go badly for the nation He uses if she grows proud of the role. As surely as God rules with justice, so surely will He humble her in her turn — and justly.
The picture also settles what happens to the tool when the work is done. And it reaches further than Assyria.
When He has done with His rod, He can break it or burn it... Satan himself is very often the rod God uses to discipline His children.
The verse looks beyond Assyria's own century. One writer sets it in the closing scene, where two enemies still wait for judgment.
It is the closing scene. The Lord has not even yet carried out His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem. He will not have done it as long as the Antichrist is in the land. Once Christ has dealt with the Antichrist at His appearing from heaven, the Assyrian still remains to be punished. The first is the enemy of Christ's heavenly rights and divine glory, and he denies the Father and the Son. Christ will destroy him by His sudden shining out from heaven. The second dares to oppose Christ's rights over the earth. Christ will deal with him as he deserves when He comes to reign here.
The verse is not only about empires. Anyone God uses faces the same question, and one writer answers it by comparing the worker to a poker.
There is a fine moral lesson here for everyone the Lord uses, in any small way, in His blessed work. We must always remember that God is the doer of every work done on the earth. If He is pleased to use us, let us never forget that we are only instruments, just as helpless and powerless as the poker. No doubt we have enjoyment in the work; but we are not dealing here with the question of enjoyment, but of ability. If any real work is done, God is the doer of it. To Him be all the glory.
- The hand, not the tool. Assyria's victories were real, but the power was never its own. An axe cannot dictate to the hand that swings it.
- The hand's purpose is hidden. The nations God used to correct His people never meant to do His will. Their pride and cruelty were their own, and He did not overlook them.
- The hand judges the tool. Being used as God's rod was no protection. God humbles in its turn any nation that grows proud of the role.
- The hand can break the rod. When God has finished with an instrument, He can break it or burn it. Even Satan serves at times as His rod to discipline God's children.
- The hand is still raised. The Assyrian's boast gets its final answer when Christ comes to reign. Until then, no servant may claim credit: God is the doer of the work.
Therefore shall the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness, and under his glory he shall kindle a burning, like the burning of a fire
Assyria had just boasted that it conquered nations by its own strength and wisdom. Verse 16 is God's answer: He drains the strength of the empire's best warriors and sets a fire under its glory.
The word "therefore" attaches this judgment to something the Assyrian said. He did real damage to Samaria and Jerusalem. But he counted the success as his own.
The Assyrian thought he was only doing his own will when he punished Samaria and Jerusalem, saying, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures…" (Isa. 10:13). He did not understand that he was only the rod of God's anger. God used him to carry out judgment on His rebellious and idolatrous people. So the Lord said to him, "Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it… as if a rod should wield him who lifts it" (verses 5, 15). This proud boasting of the Assyrian only brought God's judgment upon them (verse 12).
A rod belongs to the hand that holds it. When the work is done, the hand that picked it up decides what becomes of it. Verse 16 is that decision.
God says of the Assyrian (Isa. 10): "Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury," and so on. When He has finished with His rod, He can break it or burn it. Satan himself is very often the rod God uses for the discipline of His children.
Serving God's purpose is no defence. Other nations attacked Judah without knowing they were God's instrument, and God still repaid their motive.
God used those attackers as unconscious instruments to chasten His people. Their motive was entirely of another kind. Eighty years later God measures out to them the punishment their attack on the land of Judah deserved. This is an important principle to keep in mind in any study of God's ways in government, with either men or nations. (See Isa. 10:5-19.)
For Israel, this fire is good news. The chastening has a limit. Burning the rod is where it stops.
Though the Lord may for a season use the wicked as a rod of anger upon His people, He will not let that rod rest or remain on them. He will argue with His rod, giving it a measured length as well as a measured severity. In His grace He remembers that the spirit might fail under too long an oppression. Indeed He will end His indignation on Israel by the destruction of that rod. (Isa. 10:5-25)
The wasting of the "stout warriors" came true one night in Assyria's camp. God needed no army to do it.
A few words record God's judgment: "And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies." One angel from the Lord was enough to destroy the flower of Assyria's army, and to send Sennacherib back to his own land. There he met the judgment God had reserved for him, just as Isaiah the prophet had said.
This judgment reaches further than one night. Verse 16 belongs to a scene that is still unfinished.
It is the closing scene. The Lord has not even yet performed His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem… The Assyrian still remains to be punished… He dares to oppose Christ's earthly rights, and Christ will deal with him when He comes to reign over the earth.
- The rod is lifted. God sent Assyria against His own people as a deliberate act of discipline, not as an accident of history.
- The rod boasts. The Assyrian credited the strength of his hand and his wisdom, not seeing whose hand held him.
- The rod is burned. When God has finished with a rod, He can break it or burn it. The wasting of the strong men and the fire under the glory is that burning.
- The rod answers for its motive. Serving God's purpose excuses nothing. God judges the instrument for what it wanted.
- The beating ends with the rod. God measures both the severity and the length of the chastening. He ends His anger against His people by destroying the very power He used.
and the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briars in one day,
Isaiah has just described Assyria as the rod in God's hand — a nation God used to punish His own people, and then judged for its pride. In verse 17, two of God's own names turn into fire.
Pride turned God's instrument into God's target.
God used Assyria as His rod to punish His guilty people Israel. Then, as in other cases, the rod itself had to bear God's judgment for its pride and wickedness. Some of the passages about the kings of Assyria are prophetic. They refer to what is still future, when as "kings of the north" they will again have to do with Israel, and God will judge them. The indignation against Israel ceases in the destruction of the Assyrian.
The verse calls God Israel's Holy One. That name has a definite meaning.
The name "Holy One of Israel" means that the God of Israel is completely separated from all evil, for He is of purer eyes than to look on evil. This is what the seraphim express too, who cry out in front of His throne: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts."
Fire says something about what holiness is.
How is fire living holiness? It is judicial holiness — killing holiness, therefore. Our God is a consuming fire. The fire tests every man's work, what it is.
The fuel is named. Thorns carry their own meaning in Scripture, and it reaches back to the beginning.
These thorns and briers picture those whom David calls "worthless men." He says they "shall all of them be as thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand." You remember that thorns were the sign of the curse at the beginning. They are, as botanists tell us, failed leaves — parts of a plant that cannot do what a leaf was made to do. So the symbol links sinners with the curse upon sin.
Commentators differ on whose thorns these are. Grant reads them of sinners under the curse. Others read on to the next verse, where what burns is the invader's own glory.
After God has used the Assyrian as His instrument, He "shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field."
The verse gives one day. For Sennacherib's Assyrian army, one night was enough.
That night the judgment stroke fell. The angel of the LORD struck down the whole Assyrian army of 185,000 men. Prophetically it stands for the end of the Assyrian, who will enter Israel's land during the great tribulation and who will perish like Sennacherib's army.
Prophecy often works on two levels at once.
As so often in Old Testament prophecy, there is an ultimate fulfilment as well as a more immediate one. This is surely the case here. "The Assyrian" has this double application — the great power of that time centred in Nineveh, and also that "king of the North," which was Assyria, that we read of in the last days.
Two enemies fall, and not at the same time.
It is the closing scene. The Lord has not even yet carried out His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem. He will not have finished it as long as the Antichrist is in the land. Once Christ has dealt with him at His appearing from heaven, the Assyrian still remains to be punished. The first is the enemy of the heavenly rights and divine glory of Christ, denying the Father and the Son. Christ will destroy him by suddenly shining out from heaven. The second dares to oppose His earthly rights, and Christ will deal with him as he deserves when He has come to reign over the earth.
The same appearing carries opposite meanings, depending on who is standing there.
When Jesus appears in this way, He will also be a destroying flame of vengeance. He will consume the glory of the forest of wickedness. He will cut down the tall branch of human arrogance, and it will be terrible. To the remnant He has spared in mercy, He is the staff and crown of their unending joy.
- Rod — God used Assyria to punish His people. The rod grew proud, so God judged the rod. Israel's punishment ends when the Assyrian falls.
- Fire — the flame is holiness in action. God stands apart from all evil, so His holiness does not sit beside evil. It consumes it.
- Fuel — thorns and briers trace back to the curse; they are growth that failed its purpose, and that is what burns.
- Day — 185,000 Assyrians dead in one night shows how fast "one day" works, and stands as a sample of the end.
- Remnant — the same appearing burns the arrogant and becomes staff and crown to those God spares.
and it shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and they shall be as when a sick man fainteth.
God is speaking here about the Assyrian empire. He raised that power up to punish His people, and it grew proud of the work. This verse is the sentence on the tool He used: everything it called its glory goes up in the fire God kindles.
The forest here is not woodland. Isaiah is using a picture the prophets use often.
A tree is an apt and familiar figure of human greatness; of pride and of high position among men.
So the fire falls on his greatness itself.
The reason for the fire is given a few verses earlier. God had used this empire as a tool; the tool began to congratulate itself.
God will punish the Assyrian, because he boasts of what he does. He says, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent. I have removed the boundaries of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures." He is only an axe and a saw in the hand of God, a staff and a rod wielded by God to do His will. After God has used the Assyrian as His instrument He "shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field."
The fire in the verse before is God Himself. One writer links that flame with the appearing of Christ.
When Jesus is revealed, He will also be a destroying flame of vengeance, to consume the glory of the forest of wickedness. He will cut down with terror the full bough of human arrogance, while to the remnant of His mercy He is the staff and crown of their unending joy.
The verse says the fire takes "both soul and body." One writer renders that line this way.
Isaiah 10:18: And shall consume from the soul even to the flesh.
Commentators differ on the timing. Some read the verse as history already fulfilled. They point to Sennacherib, the Assyrian king who attacked Jerusalem when Hezekiah ruled.
We know how all this was fulfilled in the days of Hezekiah. Samaria was led away captive. But when Sennacherib tried with proud boasts to take Jerusalem, his forces received a decisive blow straight from the hand of God. Two of his own sons killed him soon afterwards, as we read in 2 Kings 19:37.
Others hold that the words reach on to a final scene, where Christ deals with the Assyrian as King on earth.
It is the closing scene. The Lord has not even yet performed His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem... the Assyrian still remains to be punished. The Antichrist is the enemy of the heavenly rights and divine glory of Christ, denying the Father and the Son. Christ will destroy him by His sudden shining out from heaven. The Assyrian dares to oppose His rights on earth, and Christ will deal with him when He has come to reign over the earth.
The burning of the forest is not the chapter's last word. It is the turning point.
When the Assyrian has done his work, it is the ceasing of the indignation against Israel: an important point in Israel's history. The destruction of the Assyrian (not of Antichrist) is the end of Jehovah's anger. The Antichrist will have appeared and been judged before this. The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God, who will search out and punish the glory of man's high looks on all sides.
- Rod. Assyria was an axe and a saw in God's hand, sent to chastise His people — never acting on its own.
- Pride. The tool boasted of its own strength and wisdom, and that boast, not its usefulness, sealed its doom.
- Fire. The flame that burns the forest is God Himself. One writer sees it in the appearing of Christ — terror to the proud, joy to the remnant.
- Completeness. The burning takes "both soul and body." The glory of forest and fruitful field is not damaged but consumed.
- End. When the rod is broken, God's long anger against Israel is over. The blow that ends an empire also ends His people's punishment.
And the remainder of the trees of his forest shall be few yea, a child might write them.
This verse pictures Assyria as a burnt forest, with only a handful of trees left — few enough for a child to write down. Why did God burn the very tool He used to punish His people, and what still stands when the smoke clears?
The trees are the Assyrian's strength and splendour. The fire that thins them out is God's answer to his boasting.
The Assyrian boasts of what he does. He says, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures." So God will punish him. He is only an axe and a saw in the hand of God; a staff and a rod wielded by God to do His will. After God has used the Assyrian as His instrument He will "destroy the glory of his forest and of his fruitful land."
A tool has no claim on the hand that holds it. When the discipline is done, the tool itself comes under judgment. Writers see the same pattern later in history.
God uses the pride and wickedness of evil men to chasten His people; and afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod. So in the early part of the nineteenth century Napoleon Bonaparte struck all the peoples of the Roman empire. But he was in the wrong, and afterwards he was struck himself.
God also sets a limit to that rod, for the sake of the people under it.
Though the Lord may for a season use the wicked as a rod of anger upon His people, He will not let that rod rest or remain on them. He will deal with His rod. He gives it a measured length of time as well as a measured severity. In His grace He remembers that the spirit might fail if the oppression lasts too long. Indeed He will end His indignation on Israel by the destruction of that rod.
The thinning of this forest was literal history.
We know how all this was fulfilled in the days of Hezekiah. Samaria was led captive. But when Sennacherib tried with proud boasts to take Jerusalem, the hand of God struck his forces a decisive blow. Soon after, two of his sons killed him, as we read in 2 Kings 19:37.
Commentators read the passage as having two horizons.
As so often in Old Testament prophecy, there is an ultimate fulfilment as well as a nearer one, and that is the case here… "the Assyrian," whom we are now to consider, has this double application. He is the great power of that day, centred in Nineveh. He is also that "king of the North," which was Assyria, that we read of in the last days.
That future scene has an order to it. Two enemies fall, and not at the same moment.
It is the closing scene. The Lord has not yet done His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem. He will not have finished it as long as the Antichrist is in the land. Once Christ's appearing from heaven has dealt with the Antichrist, the Assyrian still remains to be punished. The first is the enemy of Christ's heavenly rights and divine glory, denying the Father and the Son. Christ will destroy him by His sudden shining out from heaven. The second dares to oppose Christ's rights on earth. He will be dealt with when Christ comes to reign over the earth.
The fall of this enemy is more than destruction. It marks a turning point for Israel.
When the Assyrian has done his work, God's indignation against Israel ceases. That is an important point in Israel's history. The destruction of the Assyrian (not of Antichrist) is the end of Jehovah's anger. The Antichrist will have appeared and been judged before. The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God… Christ will maintain Israel.
The cutting down is not the end of the story. What follows in the next chapter grows out of the stump.
The image used here fits perfectly. It prepares the way for Messiah, who is brought in by the next and connected chapter — the shoot from the stump of Jesse, and the fruitful sprout to grow from his roots.
- Rod. Assyria was an axe and a saw in God's hand, used to chasten His people — never an independent power.
- Boast. The rod claimed the victory as its own strength and wisdom, and that boast is why God turned to punish it.
- Fire. The burning consumes the glory of his forest, so that the survivors are few enough for a child to write down.
- Few. History showed this in Sennacherib's shattered army and his death at his sons' hands. Prophecy points on to a later invader from the north.
- Shoot. When that enemy falls, God's indignation ends, the remnant returns to Him, and the felled forest gives way to the shoot from the stump of Jesse.
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 rely upon him that smote them; but they shall rely upon Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
Assyria had struck Israel, and God had used that blow to discipline His own people. So why did leaning on a foreign power fail, and what makes the new reliance on the LORD last "in truth"?
The one who "struck them" is Assyria. King Ahaz turned to Assyria for safety instead of to God.
Two enemy kings frightened Ahaz. But God sends the very one he tried to rest on as a chastening on him. There is what one should fear — that God should take the rod. God would be our strength; the heart of man never wishes it. The fear of evil coming on us makes us seek support in what looks like a safe road. And these are the very things God uses to chastise us. Ahaz and his people would lean on the king of Assyria; and God makes the Assyrian come against them in the end.
Isaiah calls them the remnant of Israel and those who escaped. Scripture has a settled name for this small company that God raises up to witness to Him.
They are a little company. Scripture speaks of them by a term which, once you grasp it, will help you understand the Old Testament Scriptures much better... God never left Himself without a witness on earth, and He never will. In that day He raises up a company who testify to Jehovah. Countless passages of the Old Testament Scriptures speak of them, often by this term, "the remnant."
"In that day" is not limited to Isaiah's own time. The promise of a preserved remnant reaches two separate periods.
The double application of the latter part of Isaiah 10 is, we think, quite clear. In verses 20-23, God pledges Himself to preserve a remnant. He would still allow a great consuming in the land, according to His holy government. This promise covers the whole "house of Jacob," because God must have given it some years before the ten tribes went into captivity. He did preserve a remnant in those far-off days, when He gave the prophecy. And He will do so again in the coming days at the end of this age.
The verse does not say they will drop Assyria and find a better ally. It closes the door on that whole way of living.
Then Israel's unbelief will pass away for ever. Israel will trust no more in human strength, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, or any other.
The words "in truth" set this remnant apart from the rest of the nation.
This is the remnant of Israel. They no longer lean on the one who struck them, as the proud and godless mass do. They lean on Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and they do it in truth.
Some read this verse as a promise that God rescues an unbelieving nation. Faith, they say, comes afterwards. One writer answers that the verse says nothing of the kind.
It does say this: in that day the saved remnant will not go back. They will not repeat the sad story of decline that has happened so often in the past... It does not mean that He delivers them in an unbelieving condition, and then they believe. That is certainly not God's ordinary way of delivering, but to wake up a soul to faith and then answer it.
The small number is not a loss of God's promise. In Scripture, a representative group carries the name and the blessing of the whole.
Of the coming day Scripture says, "And in this way all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). But look at the prophecies that deal with that time. We find that only a very small "remnant" of Israel will be blessed, and that the great majority of the nation will be cut off in judgment. (See Isa. 6:9-13, Isa. 10:20-23... Jer. 23:3; Ezek. 6:8, 14:22...) This remnant, however, gets the place and blessings of Israel, and is thus the representative of the nation.
- Lean — Ahaz leaned on Assyria for safety, and God sent that same Assyria as the rod that struck him. The prop we choose out of fear often becomes the discipline we receive.
- Lean no more — the promise is not a better ally. It is the end of trusting human strength of any kind, Egyptian, Assyrian, or other.
- Lean on the LORD — the new reliance is on the Holy One of Israel, and "in truth" marks it off from the leaning of the proud mass.
- Lean and last — this remnant does not relapse. God's way is to wake a soul to faith and then answer it, not to deliver people while they are still in unbelief.
- Lean and inherit — only a few survive. That few receives the place and blessings of the whole nation, and stands as its representative.
The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
Long before Isaiah wrote this chapter, he gave one of his sons a name that carried this same promise. The verse raises two questions. Who is this remnant? And who is "the mighty God" they return to?
Commentators point to what that name meant and what the boy stood for.
It is very interesting and instructive to see the name given to one of Isaiah's sons, Shear-jashub. It means "the remnant shall return." He was a pledge that the enemies of Judah would oppress them, but would not in the end prevail against them.
The word can sound like leftovers — the scraps nobody wanted. One writer explains the word with a picture from everyday life.
A remnant is smaller than the whole it comes from, and it keeps the features of the original. Think of a carpet. But this does not imply inferiority in value. God values the minority who maintain the character of God's people.
"Return" could mean simply coming home from exile. But the verse names God Himself as the destination. Writers also see a fulfilment still ahead.
This was partly fulfilled when the Assyrian took the ten tribes captive. But it will have its complete fulfilment in the time of the end. God had a faithful remnant, and these are always under His eye. They do not only return to the land after the captivity. They also return to God: "A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God." The mass of the ungodly nation perish.
The title here is the Hebrew El Gibbor. One chapter earlier, Isaiah gives the same title to the Child who is born. Writers treat that overlap as an argument in itself.
In Isaiah 9 we have the description of the Messiah, clearly the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the names given Him there is "the mighty God" (v. 6). Now turn over to chapter 10. You will find the same name given to Jehovah, "the mighty God" (v. 21). So here in the Old Testament itself is conclusive proof that the Messiah, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is God, the mighty God.
Commentators differ on how much weight the title carries by itself. One writer reads the use in Isaiah 9 as a statement about Christ's place, not a proof drawn from the word alone:
In Isaiah 9, the title El Gibbor (the Mighty God) does not, in its direct force, speak of the essential deity of Christ. Yet, being in righteousness, it must be divine. He must be God. But the words assert His position, not His nature.
The verse before this one says they will stop leaning on the power that struck them. One writer sees that change as final.
Then indeed Israel's unbelief will for ever pass away: Israel will trust no more in an arm of flesh, be it Egyptian, Assyrian, or whatever else.
The New Testament picks up these verses. One writer traces the same pattern through every age.
The apostle in Romans 9:27-28 quotes this prophecy to prove from the Old Testament what the New Testament assumes all through: that only a remnant of the people had saving relations with God. So it is now under the gospel, as it was after Babylon. And so it will be when the last crisis comes, with the struggles of the Antichrist and the Assyrian, until the Messiah settles everything and displays His kingdom in power here below.
Does the remnant get delivered while still unbelieving, and only afterwards turn? One writer answers from the order set out here.
There is nothing about their only returning after God has accomplished His work. It does not mean that He delivers them in an unbelieving condition, and then they believe. That is certainly not God's ordinary way of delivering, but to wake up a soul to faith and then answer it.
- Named. God put the promise in a boy's name: Shear-jashub, "the remnant shall return." Judah's enemies would oppress the people, but never defeat them.
- Small. A remnant is not the scraps; it is the smaller part that still carries the character of the whole, and God values it.
- Homeward. The return is not just to a country but to God Himself — "the mighty God" — and no past homecoming has finished it.
- Mighty. Isaiah 9 gives the same title to the Child who is born. Some read this as proof of Christ's deity; others hear it first as a statement of His position.
- Finished leaning. They will never again trade Him for human strength. God wakes a soul to faith first, then answers it with deliverance.
For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, [only] a remnant of them shall return the consumption determined shall overflow in righteousness.
Isaiah names a huge number and a small outcome in the same breath: a people like the sand of the sea, and only a remnant returning. Two questions follow. Who are these survivors? And how can a decreed destruction overflow with righteousness?
The prophet grants the nation its greatness and then removes any comfort from it. Sheer size guarantees nothing. Isaiah admits the vast crowd, then limits the number who come back.
Isaiah had prophesied salvation only for a remnant of the children of Israel, in contrast to the mass. This is in fact the uniform testimony of all the prophets, so plain that no Jew could deny it unless he refused to believe. There can be no mistaking Isaiah's meaning. He accepts that Israel's children may be as the sand of the sea, yet insists that "a remnant shall return" to the Lord.
This return did not take place in any past homecoming. One writer sets the verse beside Isaiah 1:9, quoted here in an older wording, and places the return in days still to come.
"If the Lord of hosts had not left us a very small remnant, we would have been like Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah" (Isaiah 1:9). That is the prophet's admission. Even in his own day, countless disasters had come on the nation because of their sins. Still "the Lord of hosts had left a very small remnant."… Here it is clearly of "the remnant" in days still future that the prophet speaks.
What marks that remnant is not survival but a change of trust. William Kelly names what Israel will stop leaning on.
Then Israel's unbelief will pass away for ever. Israel will no longer trust in human strength, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, or any other.
Where the ESV says "destruction," older translations say "consumption." The word does not mean a partial correction. It means judgment carried right through to the end.
Elsewhere Scripture uses the word rendered consumption, or consummation, for the carrying out of God's judgments to the full. In Jeremiah translators give the same word as "full end" in several passages. The prophecy means this: the avenging judgments carried out by the destroyer will be the climax of God's judgment in His government of the earth.
The prophets often describe invading armies as rising water. That is the picture behind "overflowing."
A flood, an overflow, will come with the end. The prophets use this picture often. It stands for the crushing destruction that invading armies bring. See, for example, Isaiah 8:7-8; Isaiah 28:2; Jeremiah 47:2; Daniel 11:22. It may also point back to the flood of Noah's day. Those waters swept away the corrupt and the godless, and so purified the world of that time.
The flood is not blind. God measures it, and its very speed is part of His mercy. (The quotation below uses an older wording of Romans 9:28.)
There will be chosen souls on earth during the tribulation, and for their sake it will be cut short… As Romans 9:28 says, the Lord will make "a short work… upon the earth," so that a remnant may be saved. Today God is giving out mercy through the Gospel, and He has made a very long work of it, stretching over nineteen centuries. When He gives out wrath He will make swift work of it, cutting it short in righteousness… So God will show His goodness both in mercy and in wrath.
In Romans 9 this line becomes the answer to a hard question: has God's word to Israel failed? The answer is that God never promised to save the mass.
While grace goes out to the Gentiles, mercy is also in store for Israel. In the end a remnant will be saved — not the whole nation, but a remnant… When this age closes, they will pass through a time of judgment. In that period God will call a remnant of His people, in sovereign power and mercy. It is the remnant seen so often in the prophetic Word and in the Book of Revelation. God will save that remnant, and it will become the core of the coming Kingdom.
- Sand — God does not deny Israel's vast numbers. But size never saved anyone, and only a remnant returns.
- Return — the return is a change of trust. Israel will lean on the Lord, not on human strength.
- Decreed — the word behind "destruction" means judgment carried to a full end. It is a climax, not a passing correction.
- Overflowing — the prophets picture invading armies as rising water. The image recalls the flood that swept the world clean in Noah's day.
- Righteousness — God has made mercy a long work. He will make wrath a short one, so that a remnant lives to form the core of the coming kingdom.
For a consumption, and [one] determined, will the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, accomplish in the midst of all the land.
This verse closes a warning that began with Assyria as the rod in God's hand. Two questions follow: how much does God destroy, and how does anyone survive?
Where the ESV reads "a full end, as decreed," older translations read "a consumption, and one determined." One writer traces that word through the prophets.
Elsewhere this word — consumption, or consummation — expresses divine judgments carried out to the full. So we read in Isaiah, "For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return: the consumption determined shall overflow in righteousness." In Jeremiah several passages use the same word, translated "full end." The prophecy means that the avenging judgments the destroyer carries out will be the climax of God's punishment in His government.
The Assyrian invasion in Isaiah's own day did not exhaust this word. It reaches past that crisis to a final one, with the old invader as the pattern.
The Assyrian then reappears, in his true character as the rod of Jehovah. The prophecy announces that when God has completed all He had determined concerning Zion, He will break the rod He has used. Then the remnant shall seek Jehovah and shall rest on Him. This is the final act in the great drama of God's dealings with Israel. There is a consumption decreed by God for the land. But when at length the Assyrian lifts up his hand, Jehovah comes in and smites him… Sennacherib was a type of this. But it is a prophecy of the destruction of the Assyrian in the last days, when the indignation against Israel shall cease.
Paul quotes these words in Romans 9. Sheer numbers guarantee nothing.
He cites Isaiah 10 for God's ways with His people in view of the Assyrian… The prophet looks on to the close of the sorrowful history of the chosen people. Then the Assyrian, whom God first used as the rod of His anger, will no longer be a just object of dread. Those who used to lean on a staff which struck them, or even on that broken reed, Egypt, will lean on Jehovah the Holy One of Israel in truth… However many Israel may have been, not the mass of them but the remnant shall be saved. For He is finishing and cutting short the matter in righteousness. It will be no question then of patient mercy.
So why does anyone survive? The reason lies outside the survivors themselves.
Only the sovereign grace of the Lord spared this remnant. The prophet says, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah." Without grace they would have been destroyed completely.
The decree is not only severe; it is fast. One writer sets the speed of God's wrath beside the slowness of His mercy.
There will be chosen souls on earth during the tribulation, and for their sake it will be cut short. As Romans 9:28 says, the Lord will make "a short work… upon the earth," so that a remnant may be saved. Today God is giving out mercy through the gospel, and He has made a very long work of it, stretching over nineteen centuries. When He gives out wrath He will make swift work, cutting it short in righteousness. A brief three and a half years will cover it, as other scriptures show. So God will show His goodness both in mercy and in wrath.
A full end sounds like the last word. But the survivors are more than leftovers.
In the end a remnant will be saved — not the whole nation, but a remnant… When this age closes, they will pass through a time of judgment. In that period God in sovereign power and mercy will call a remnant of His people… That remnant will be saved and will become the core of the coming Kingdom. Judgment will sweep away the unbelieving Israel that has turned away from God.
- Decreed — The "full end" is a settled decision of the Lord of hosts. Jeremiah uses the same word for judgment carried out to the full.
- Delegated — God uses the Assyrian as His rod, then breaks the rod. Sennacherib's invasion is a small picture of a final one.
- Determined by grace — Numbers like the sand of the sea save nobody. A remnant is left only because the Lord left them offspring.
- Shortened — Mercy has run for centuries. Wrath will be swift, cut short in righteousness for the sake of the chosen.
- Renewed — The remnant left after the full end becomes the core of the coming Kingdom.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian; he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt
God gives this comfort just as He announces an invasion. He names the power He is about to use against His people, then tells them not to fear it: the blow is real, but fear is ruled out.
Earlier in the chapter God calls Assyria the instrument of His own anger.
Isaiah 10 speaks of this mighty power in relation to Israel: "Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!" (v. 5). God used this power, as His rod, to chasten His people... God, so to speak, says to this mighty power: I am using you to chastise My erring people. But if you lift yourself up against Me, I must bring you down.
The command not to fear is not a promise that nothing will happen. The next verse ties it to a time: "in a very little while." The chapter then traces the invader's advance town by town, right up to the edge of the city. Older translations speak of "the Assyrian," one figure, where the ESV has "the Assyrians."
The Lord would comfort the godly by telling them beforehand what would take place... Every step of the Assyrian's southward march through the land is traced. It runs from the moment "he has come to Aiath" until "he will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem" (Isaiah 10:28-32). His triumph over the ten tribes led to their captivity. But as we have seen, God set a limit to his power against Judah and Jerusalem.
The address is to "my people, who dwell in Zion." In Hezekiah's day God called the same threatened city "the virgin daughter of Zion." How could He speak that way about a city under siege?
How blessed and yet what an extraordinary word it was for these trembling Jews to hear. "The virgin, the daughter of Zion." Was there not fear? Was there not anguish of heart? How could that be true? Because God speaks according to His own thoughts. God looks at Zion as something the Assyrian's foot had never defiled... He had allowed him to ravage elsewhere. But Zion, however unfaithful Zion might be, was not reserved for the hand of the Assyrian.
That safety says nothing about the city's worth. It rests on the place God gave Jerusalem in His plan.
The one has a definite place in the divine plan; the other is used only for a temporary purpose. For the moment, then, it may triumph. But it has no mission of its own, no settled final purpose in the world, and so no special providence surrounds it. Jerusalem, however unworthy, was the actual centre of the world's history. Despite her weakness, despite how small she was by comparison, she must outlive the far mightier kingdoms of Nineveh and Babylon, of Persia and Macedon and Antioch. The carrying out of God's unchanging purposes depended on her survival.
The comparison to Egypt names how the enemy will strike — and how God will strike back.
The people who lived in Zion were "not to be afraid of the Assyrian," though he lifted up his rod as Egypt did (at the Red Sea, I take it). But the indignation ceases, and the Lord's anger in their destruction. God's rod will be upon him too, as it was on Egypt.
Commentators read this promise on two levels: kept in Hezekiah's day, and pointing beyond it.
Because he credited his victories to himself, God would "punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria." That would come after he had done God's work in government "on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem" (verse 12). A remnant of Israel would escape the judgment and return to God (verses 20-22). To them God says, "be not afraid of the Assyrian"... This happened in the days of Hezekiah, yet it was only the foreshadowing of what will take place in the time of the end.
- The rod — Assyria strikes, but the blow is God's chastening of His own people. The instrument never acts on its own authority.
- The limit — God holds the rod, so He measures its reach. The invader comes within sight of Jerusalem and no further.
- The name — God still says "my people" to those He is disciplining. He speaks of Zion by His own purposes, not by her condition.
- The pattern — Egypt comes up twice: the enemy raises his staff as Egypt did, and God will answer as He answered Egypt at the sea.
- The horizon — Hezekiah's deliverance was real. Commentators read it as a foreshadowing of a later crisis and a later rescue.
for yet a very little while, and the indignation shall be accomplished, and mine anger, in their destruction.
God speaks to people cowering under an invading empire, and His word to them measures time: the anger has a limit, and it runs out. Older translations call it "the indignation," and that is the word the commentators use for what the ESV calls "my fury."
The phrase is not a passing mood. Writers trace it as a fixed term running through Isaiah. Wave after wave of chastening fails to turn the people back. This verse sets a stop to it.
There I find this very expression, "the indignation." In the end of Isaiah 5, and then in Isaiah 9 and 10, this word, "indignation," comes back over and over again. The prophet shows why. Israel turned to idols, and their kings led the way, so God's indignation rose against His people. He sends a chastening upon them. Whatever the first effects of the chastening might be, the evil broke out again with fresh fury. Evil always does, unless someone puts it away. So that terrible word sounds out: "For all this His anger has not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still." His wrath burns again and again. Then, in Isaiah 10:25, we find the Lord saying His indignation shall cease.
The verse says the anger turns "to their destruction." Who are they? Commentators point to the Assyrian invader. His fall closes the whole discipline.
After giving the various instruments which God has used to chasten Israel, he comes to the last and terrible invader. That was God's indignation against the rebellious people. The word "indignation" describes God's last terrible judgment... Verse 25 makes the force of it clear. The whole judgment of God on Israel — His indignation — closes in the destruction of the Assyrian.
Assyria was the tool in God's hand. That gave it no safety. Its own pride brought it under the judgment it had carried out.
God used Assyria as His rod to punish His guilty people Israel. Then, as in other cases, the rod itself had to bear God's judgement for its own pride and wickedness.
Before this, the repeated note is wrath that never runs out. Here that reverses.
His final working is what the Holy Spirit mainly has in mind... It stands in contrast with the often-repeated formula of wrath that still continues and never runs out. Now, on the contrary, in this proud enemy of Israel we have the end of Jehovah's anger... His anger is now turned away, and His arm no longer stretched out. The rod should be broken and the scourge destroyed, because the chastening work is done.
Some will say Assyria is a dead empire, so nothing is left to fulfil. The answer given is a test anyone can apply.
Many people will tell me the Assyrians are all gone; no such nation exists today. But I ask: has the Lord finished His whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem? No! Then the Assyrian is not all gone... When God's power gathers the Jews back to their own land, that same providence will bring out the Assyrian's representative in the last days. And as the Assyrian was the first great enemy of Israel, so he is the chief one at the last.
Commentators differ here. Many have merged the Assyrian with the Antichrist. The writers quoted keep them apart.
Commentators from Eusebius to Horsley, and a crowd of others who confuse the two, are careless of the Scriptures without excuse. It is very clear that there will be a wilful king in the city and land. He will set himself up as Messiah and as Jehovah in His temple, and the apostate Jews will receive him as such. Altogether opposed to this Antichrist in Jerusalem, who is in league with the western power, another chief will arise. He is an enemy of the Jews from outside, and he is the Assyrian.
The end of the indignation is not the same as Israel's restoration.
There is an indignation with a fixed limit... It is a time when God does not step in to deliver Israel. He lets the trial run on, and lets Israel feel its effects... The passage does not say that when the indignation is over, Israel will be restored to the enjoyment of their promises. But Christ can then act for Israel, instead of leaving them under the indignation.
- Measured — "The indignation" is a set period of God's anger against His people. He fixed its length in advance.
- Turned — Here God turns the anger off Israel and onto the invader.
- Broken — God judges the rod He used, because of its pride. Serving Him never excused it.
- Future — God has not yet finished His work on Zion, so commentators hold that the Assyrian's fall is still ahead.
- Opened — The end of the indignation is not the blessing itself. It clears the way for Christ to act for Israel.
And Jehovah of hosts will stir up a scourge against him, according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and his rod [shall be] upon the sea, and he will lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
God's word to Zion here is a promise of rescue. He points His people back to two things He has already done: the night Gideon broke Midian at the rock of Oreb, and the day He stretched His rod over the sea in Egypt. The question the verse answers is not whether the Assyrian will strike, but who holds the whip in the end.
God Himself sends this invader against His own people. Then the invader boasts, and God turns on him.
The Assyrian is "the rod of His anger" — the staff in their hand is God's indignation. God sends him against a nation of hypocrites, but he boasts against the One who uses him to cut, and the Lord judges him. Israel leans no more on the one who struck him... The people who lived in Zion were "not to be afraid of the Assyrian," though he lifted up his rod the way Egypt did (that is, at the Red Sea, I believe). But the indignation ends, and the Lord's anger too, in their destruction. God's rod will be on him as well, just as it was on Egypt.
The place name in the verse comes from a man.
Prince of Midian: he invaded Israel, but Gideon defeated him and killed him at the rock of Oreb — and it seems this event gave the rock its name. Judges 7:25; Judges 8:3; Ps. 83:11; Isa. 10:26.
Why does God point back to Midian? Because that night showed what victory by His hand looks like.
God would then break the oppressor's yoke — the yoke of their burden, the staff on his shoulder, and the rod of the Assyrian. He is the very One it had boasted against. It would be like the day when Gideon took his 300, with empty jars and lamps inside them. The sword of the Lord had scattered the great armies of Midian. This would be more than a soldier's battle, with its confused noise and clothes rolled in blood. It would come with burning and fuel of fire — the fire of God's judgment would be there. (Compare Isaiah 10:12-27.)
The second half of the verse reaches back further, to the rod stretched over the Red Sea. God saves along a pattern: He does again what He has already done.
God now worked in the same way as those ancient deliverances, according to His mercies and His great loving-kindness. His rod had once been stretched over the sea. Now He lifted it up again, just as in Egypt, on the day He is exalted in judgment.
These two memories are not decoration. God gives them to a people who have stopped leaning on human allies.
Israel will trust no more in human strength, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, or anything else. The slaughter of Midian and the way God dealt with Egypt give the characteristic patterns of the deliverance to come.
Writers here take the prophecy as looking past its first fulfilment.
In Isaiah 10:26, Gideon's victory over Midian at the rock of Oreb foreshadows the final victory over the Assyrian. In the same way, Barak's victory over Sisera at Megiddo pictures the final slaughter of the armies that will gather in the last days at Armageddon.
So what about the Assyrian army that really did fall in Israel's history?
There was indeed the downfall of Sennacherib, and the slaughter of his army in the land of Israel, in the days of king Hezekiah, but this was only the partial fulfilment of God's judgment on the Assyrian, and on the great alliance from the north that will be lured to its judgment, described in some detail in Ezekiel 38 and 39.
- Rod — the invader strikes as the rod in God's hand; when the rod boasts against the One who wields it, God judges it.
- Oreb — a rock named after a fallen Midianite prince marks the spot where God ended an invasion.
- Three hundred — the pattern God recalls is Gideon's men with empty jars and lamps; the victory comes by God's fire, not Israel's strength.
- Sea — the second memory is the rod over the Red Sea; God saves by repeating what He has already proved He can do.
- Fear not — God tells those who lean on no human ally not to fear the invader, because His anger ends in the invader's destruction.
And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] 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. ...
Most of Isaiah 10 describes Assyria as the tool God picked up to strike His own people. This verse is the moment He puts the tool down for good. Two questions press: when does "that day" arrive, and what breaks the yoke?
The burden did not arrive by accident. Isaiah explains why God let this nation loose on His own people.
Verse 5 of this chapter tells us why God allowed this powerful, destroying nation to attack His people. They were proud of their great victories. Yet they were only the rod of God's anger. The power they used was only the instrument to show God's indignation. God sent the Assyrian to chasten His people because of their sins, but the Assyrian had no idea what God was doing.
The Assyrian who marched in Isaiah's day is not the whole story.
As so often in Old Testament prophecy, there is a final fulfilment as well as a nearer one, and that is the case here… In the same way, "the Assyrian" we are now to consider has a double application. He is the great power of that time, centred in the city of Nineveh. He is also that "king of the North," which was Assyria, whom we read of in the last days.
History already supplied one round of this rescue.
A remnant of Israel would escape the judgment and return to God (verses 20-22). To them God says, "Be not afraid of the Assyrians… For in a very little while my fury will come to an end" (verses 24-25). This happened in the days of Hezekiah. Yet it was only the foreshadowing of what will take place at the time of the end.
The burden lifts as part of something bigger than Israel's comfort. It marks the end of God's long anger, an anger the earlier chapters kept calling "not turned away."
When God has finished all He had determined concerning Zion, He will break the rod He has used. Then the remnant will seek Jehovah and will "lean upon" Him… But when at last the Assyrian lifts up his hand, Jehovah steps in and strikes him. Until now, the indignation of Jehovah and His anger against Israel had never been turned away. Both will come to an end in the destruction of this rod that magnified itself against the Lord who used it.
The same day that lifts the weight off Israel's shoulder also changes where Israel puts its trust.
Then Israel's unbelief will pass away for ever. Israel will trust no more in human strength, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, or anything else.
The last clause tells us why the yoke breaks, and it is the hardest part of the verse. The ESV ends it "because of the fat," while older translations read "because of the anointing." Commentators do not settle the question. One reference work marks the wording itself as unclear:
Isaiah 10:27, "the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing" (text obscure).
The chapter's own answer to the rod is clearer. Against Assyria's fall Isaiah sets an Anointed One — that is what "Messiah" means — who takes the place the rod once held.
The high and haughty Assyrian falls under Jehovah's stroke. In contrast, we have here a remarkable and full description of the Messiah: first from a moral point of view, and then in His kingdom, its character and all that comes with it. The one in view is no longer "the rod of His anger," the staff that carried God's fury. He is a Branch from Jesse's roots, and also the Root of Jesse.
This rescue comes last, at the close of God's discipline of His people. One writer ties it to a matching promise in Isaiah 14.
With the fall of the Assyrian… the Lord's chastening of His people will cease. The last foe God judges is the one who attacked them first — the Assyrian. Isaiah 14 predicts this in full: "I will break the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his yoke shall depart from them, and his burden from their shoulder" (verse 25).
- Rod raised — Assyria's power over Israel was on loan. God raised the rod against His people's sins, and the oppressor never grasped whose hand held him.
- Rod broken — the burden lifts only when God breaks the instrument He used. That same stroke ends an anger that had never yet turned away.
- Rod twice — Hezekiah saw this rescue in his own day. Writers read it as a small sample of a larger rescue from the "king of the North" at the end.
- Rod's riddle — the ESV ends the verse "because of the fat," older versions "because of the anointing." Commentators call the wording unclear.
- Rod replaced — God judges the first oppressor last, and the chapter answers the rod with a Branch from Jesse's roots. When the yoke goes, Israel's trust in human strength goes with it.