Ah! the Assyrian! the rod of mine anger! and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
God speaks to a world empire the way a man speaks to a tool in his hand. Two questions follow. How can a cruel pagan empire be God's own rod? And what happens to the rod when God has finished with it?
The nation terrorising the region was not acting outside God's reach. One writer ties the verse to the prophet Habakkuk, who struggled with the same problem: God using a worse nation to correct His own. He also names the part of Israel the Assyrian was sent against.
God had taken that people up as the rod of His anger to chastise many a nation that was far from Him — and Israel among them. Later God used the Chaldeans in the same way. This disturbed Habakkuk. He protested that, bad as Israel might be, the Chaldeans God was about to use to discipline them were worse. We see here what we also see in Habakkuk. God may use an evil nation to chastise His unfaithful people, but only under His strict supervision and control. God was now sending him, as verse 6 says, against a hypocritical nation — clearly the ten tribes and Samaria.
Being God's instrument is not the same as serving God. The Assyrian meant something different from what God meant. There was also a reason God gave Israel up to him.
That is, the Lord employed him as a means of beating down the pride of Israel. "But he does not so intend." He only seeks to gratify his own pride. If only Israel had held to their true boast, the Lord Himself, and humbly looked to Him to plead their cause. But no, they wanted what the surrounding nations wanted; and their God gave them up to the haughty and cruel foe.
The Assyrian looked like the one in charge. One writer names what he really was.
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 gave Assyria no protection. The pride God used against Israel became the charge against Assyria.
God uses the pride and sin of wicked men to discipline His people. Afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod.
Where the ESV reads "my fury," older translations read "my indignation." One writer explains why God lets a later oppressor prosper for a time.
God permits it, because it is the time of His indignation against the Jews... This indignation is the period spoken of in Isaiah 10:5, 24, 25: "For in a very little while my fury will come to an end." There is an indignation with a certain limit.
Some writers see more here than an ancient invasion. They point to verse 12: God punishes the Assyrian only after He finishes His work on Zion.
God uses this rod for the chastisement of His guilty people Israel. But at length God judges this haughty enemy, and with this judgment, His indignation against Israel comes to a close... The Lord has clearly not yet finished His whole work on Mount Zion and Jerusalem. So this punishment of the Assyrian must still be future.
Writers also warn that the Assyrian is not the Antichrist. These are two different people:
Another chief will arise, completely opposed to this Antichrist in Jerusalem, who is allied with the western power. This chief is an outside enemy of the Jews. He is the Assyrian, or Daniel's king of the north, who appears so often in the prophecies. Of him Sennacherib, to a certain extent, was a type.
The picture is not only about empires. One writer applies it to the Midianites, a nation God once used against Israel, and then to God's children today.
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. As with the Assyrian... When He has done 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.
- Rod — Assyria is a tool God picks up. He keeps it under His strict supervision and control; it never acts on its own.
- Blind rod — the tool does not mean what the hand means. The Assyrian served his own pride while doing God's work.
- Broken rod — God uses the pride of wicked men, then destroys the tool. Being useful to God saves no one.
- Limited rod — God's indignation runs for a set time, and He fixed its limit in advance.
- Present rod — even Satan can be a rod in God's hand to discipline His children. When God is done with a rod, He can break it or burn it.
I will send him against a hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge; to take the spoil, and to seize the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
God calls a pagan empire "him" and gives it a charge. The invasion looks like Assyria's ambition; Isaiah calls it God's errand. So two questions follow. What had Israel become, that God would hand them over like street mud? And what happens to a nation God uses as His weapon?
The empire that terrified the region was on assignment. One writer names the nation God sent it against, and shows how tightly God held the whole thing. (Older translations read "hypocritical nation" where the ESV has "godless nation".)
In Isaiah's day the power of Assyria was threatening all the nations. God had taken that people up as the rod of His anger to chastise many a nation that was far from Him — and Israel among them. Later God used the Chaldeans in the same way. That is what disturbed the mind of Habakkuk. He protested that, bad as Israel might be, the Chaldeans were worse — and God was going to use them against Israel for their discipline. We see here what we see also in Habakkuk. God may use an evil nation to chastise His faithless people, but only under His strict supervision and control. God was now sending him, as verse 6 says, against a hypocritical nation — clearly the ten tribes and Samaria.
The charge is not open rebellion. It is pretended religion: worship kept up while the heart had moved away. One writer traces that hypocrisy from Isaiah's day to the crowds who met Jesus.
And the Lord said through His prophet, "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment taught by men" (Isa. 29:13). This was God's word in the prophet's day. Our Lord Jesus confirms it, applying the same word to the Jews in His day (Matt. 15:7-9). Hypocrisy was their character, and it filled the prophet's day. And what is more hateful than hypocrisy? To the tax collectors and prostitutes the Lord said, Come; to the hypocrites He said, Woe. "I will send him against a hypocritical nation."
God gives the charge; the Assyrian never hears it. He marches for his own reasons and reaches God's ends.
Verse 5 of this chapter tells us why God allowed this powerful, destructive nation to attack His people. They were proud of their great victories. But 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. Yet the Assyrian had no idea what God was doing. His heart was full of pride, and he was bent on destroying and subduing nations. He never saw that he was only God's instrument to carry out His will against the nations because of their evil.
"Tread them down like the mire" sounds unlimited. It is not. God fixes both how long the rod strikes and how hard.
Their rescue from Babylon taught them a lesson. The Lord may use the wicked for a time as a rod of anger on His people. But He will not let that rod rest or remain on them. He will argue with His rod. He gives it a measured length as well as a measured severity. In His grace He remembers that the spirit might fail under an oppression that lasts too long.
Serving God's purpose is no protection. The empire that carried out the sentence comes under sentence itself.
God employs the pride and wickedness of the wicked for the chastisement of His people, and afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod.
Commentators differ on how far this verse reaches. Some tie it to Samaria in Isaiah's own day. Others say that invasion only pictured something later.
He uses them as the "rod of His anger" against His rebellious people, to break them down because of their apostasy. But this invasion is ruthless and defies God. So He judges them in turn and destroys them, after He has used it to carry out His work of judgment on the Jews and Jerusalem. (See Isaiah 10:5-34. It describes an invasion that was partly fulfilled long ago under Sennacherib. But the prophecy goes far beyond that, to this invasion at the time of the end. The old Assyrian invasion is a picture of it.)
- Cause. God names the sin: hypocrisy. Lips near God, hearts far off. One writer traces it from Isaiah's day to the crowds who heard Jesus.
- Charge. The invasion is God's errand before it is Assyria's ambition. He sends, He commands, and He keeps it all under strict control.
- Blindness. The rod never knows it is a rod. Assyria marched for plunder and pride, and never knew whose will it was carrying out.
- Limit. God measures how hard the rod strikes and how long. He knows the spirit can fail under oppression that lasts too long.
- Reversal. God destroys the instrument afterwards. The rod that lifted itself against the hand holding it gets broken. Assyria's story ends, not Israel's.