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Isaiah 10:26 Darby English Bible (DARBY)

26 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.

Cross Reference

Habakkuk 3:7-15 DARBY

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was Jehovah wrathful with the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy rage against the sea, That thou didst ride upon thy horses, Thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made naked, The rods [of discipline] sworn according to [thy] word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee, they were in travail: Torrents of waters passed by; The deep uttered its voice, Lifted up its hands on high. The sun [and] moon stood still in their habitation, At the light of thine arrows which shot forth, -- At the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, Thou didst thresh the nations in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, For the salvation of thine anointed; Thou didst smite off the head from the house of the wicked, Laying bare the foundation even to the neck. Selah. Thou didst strike through with his own spears the head of his leaders: They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me, Whose exulting was as to devour the afflicted secretly. Thou didst walk through the sea with thy horses, The heap of great waters.

Isaiah 51:9-10 DARBY

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of old, [as in] the generations of passed ages. Is it not thou that hath hewn Rahab in pieces, [and] pierced the monster? Is it not thou that dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

Isaiah 37:36-38 DARBY

And an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead bodies. And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and abode at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

Isaiah 10:16-19 DARBY

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: 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, 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. And the remainder of the trees of his forest shall be few: yea, a child might write them.

Psalms 106:10-11 DARBY

And he saved them from the hand of him that hated [them], and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their oppressors: there was not one of them left.

Nehemiah 9:10-11 DARBY

and didst shew signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them, and thou didst make thee a name, as it is this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry [ground]; and their pursuers thou threwest into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters.

Exodus 14:25-27 DARBY

And he took off their chariot wheels, and caused them to drive with difficulty; and the Egyptians said, Let us flee before Israel, for Jehovah is fighting for them against the Egyptians! And Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, that the waters may return upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength toward the morning; and the Egyptians fled against it; and Jehovah overturned the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 10

Commentary on Isaiah 10 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verses 1-4

Strophe 4. “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who prepare trouble to force away the needy from demanding justice, and to rob the suffering of my people of their rightful claims, that widows may become their prey, and they plunder orphans! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the storm that cometh from afar? To whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye deposit your glory? There is nothing left but to bow down under prisoners, and they fall under the slain. With all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” This last strophe is directed against the unjust authorities and judges. The woe pronounced upon them is, as we have already frequently seen, Isaiah's Ceterum censeo . Châkak is their decisive decree (not, however, in a denominative sense, but in the primary sense of hewing in, recording in official documents, Isaiah 30:8; Job 19:23); and Cittēb ( piel only occurring here, and a perfect, according to Gesenius, §126, 3) their official signing and writing. Their decrees are Chikekē 'aven (an open plural, as in Judges 5:15, for Chukkē , after the analogy of גללי , עממי , with an absolute C hăkâkim underlying it: Ewald, §186-7), inasmuch as their contents were worthlessness, i.e., the direct opposite of morality; and what they wrote out was ‛ âmâl , trouble, i.e., an unjust oppression of the people (compare πόνος and πονηρός ).

(Note: The current accentuation, ומכתבים mercha , עמל tiphchah , is wrong. The true accentuation would be the former with tiphchah (and metheg ), the latter with mercha ; for ‛âmâl cittēbu is an attributive (an elliptical relative) clause. According to its etymon, ‛âmâl seems to stand by the side of μ ῶλος , moles , molestus (see Pott in Kuhn's Zeitschrift , ix. 202); but within the Semitic itself it stands by the side of אמל , to fade, marcescere , which coincides with the Sanscrit root mlâ and its cognates (see Leo Meyer, Vergleichende Grammatik , i. 353), so that ‛âmâl is, strictly speaking, to wear out or tire out (vulg. to worry).)

Poor persons who wanted to commence legal proceedings were not even allowed to do so, and possessions to which widows and orphans had a well-founded claim were a welcome booty to them (for the diversion into the finite verb, see Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 8:11; Isaiah 49:5; Isaiah 58:5). For all this they could not escape the judgment of God. This is announced to them in Isaiah 10:3, in the form of three distinct questions (commencing with ūmâh , quid igitur ). The noun pekuddah in the first question always signifies simply a visitation of punishment; sho'âh is a confused, dull, desolate rumbling, hence confusion ( turba ), desolation: here it is described as “coming from afar,” because a distant nation (Asshur) was the instrument of God's wrath. Second question: “Upon whom will ye throw yourselves in your search for help then” ( nūs ‛al , a constr. praegnans , only met with here)? Third question: “Where, i.e., in whose hand, will ye deposit your wealth in money and possessions” ( c âbōd , what is weighty in value and imposing in appearance); ‛ âzab with b'yad (Genesis 39:6), or with Lamed (Job 39:14), to leave anything with a person as property in trust. No one would relieve them of their wealth, and hold it as a deposit; it was irrecoverably lost. To this negative answer there is appended the following bilti , which, when used as a preposition after a previous negation, signifies praeter ; when used as a conjunction, nisi ( bilti 'im , Judges 7:14); and where it governs the whole sentence, as in this case, nisi quod (cf., Numbers 11:6; Daniel 11:18). In the present instance, where the previous negation is to be supplied in thought, it has the force of nil reliquum est nisi quod (there is nothing left but). The singular verb ( c âra‛ ) is used contemptuously, embracing all the high persons as one condensed mass; and tachath does not mean aeque ac or loco (like, or in the place of), as Ewald (§217, k ) maintains, but is used in the primary and local sense of infra (below). Some crouch down to find room at the feet of the prisoners, who are crowded closely together in the prison; or if we suppose the prophet to have a scene of transportation in his mind, they sink down under the feet of the other prisoners, in their inability to bear such hardships, whilst the rest fall in war; and as the slaughter is of long duration, not only become corpses themselves, but are covered with corpses of the slain (cf., Isaiah 14:19). And even with this the wrath of God is not satisfied. The prophet, however, does not follow out the terrible gradation any further. Moreover, the captivity, to which this fourth strophe points, actually formed the conclusion of a distinct period.


Verse 5-6

The law of contrast prevails in prophecy, as it does also in the history of salvation. When distress is at its height, it is suddenly brought to an end, and changed into relief; and when prophecy has become as black with darkness as in the previous section, it suddenly becomes as bright and cloudless as in that which is opening now. The hoi (woe) pronounced upon Israel becomes a hoi upon Asshur. Proud Asshur, with its confidence in its own strength, after having served for a time as the goad of Jehovah's wrath, now falls a victim to that wrath itself. Its attack upon Jerusalem leads to its own overthrow; and on the ruins of the kingdom of the world there rises up the kingdom of the great and righteous Son of David, who rules in peace over His redeemed people, and the nations that rejoice in Him: - the counterpart of the redemption from Egypt, and one as rich in materials for songs of praise as the passage through the Red Sea. The Messianic prophecy, which turns its darker side towards unbelief in chapter 7, and whose promising aspect burst like a great light through the darkness in Isaiah 8:5-9:6, is standing now upon its third and highest stage. In chapter 7 it is like a star in the night; in Isaiah 8:5-9:6, like the morning dawn; and now the sky is perfectly cloudless, and it appears like the noonday sun. The prophet has now penetrated to the light fringe of Isaiah 6:1-13. The name Shear-yashub , having emptied itself of all the curse that it contained, is now transformed into a pure promise. And it becomes perfectly clear what the name Immanuel and the name given to Immanuel, El gibbor (mighty God), declared. The remnant of Israel turns to God the mighty One; and God the mighty is henceforth with His people in the Sprout of Jesse, who has the seven Spirits of God dwelling within Himself. So far as the date of composition is concerned, the majority of the more recent commentators agree in assigning it to the time of Hezekiah, because Isaiah 10:9-11 presupposes the destruction of Samaria by Shalmanassar, which took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah. But it was only from the prophet's point of view that this event was already past; it had not actually taken place. The prophet had already predicted that Samaria, and with Samaria the kingdom of Israel, would succumb to the Assyrians, and had even fixed the years (Isaiah 7:8 and Isaiah 8:4, Isaiah 8:7). Why, then, should he not be able to presuppose it here as an event already past? The stamp on this section does not tally at all with that of Isaiah's prophecy in the times of Hezekiah; whereas, on the other hand, it forms so integral a link in the prophetic cycle in chapters 7-12, and is interwoven in so many ways with that which precedes, and of which it forms both the continuation and crown, that we have no hesitation in assigning it, with Vitringa, Caspari, and Drechsler, to the first three years of the reign of Ahaz, though without deciding whether it preceded or followed the destruction of the two allies by Tiglath-pileser. It is by no means impossible that it may have preceded it.

The prophet commences with hoi (woe!), which is always used as an expression of wrathful indignation to introduce the proclamation of judgment upon the person named; although, as in the present instance, this may not always follow immediately (cf., Isaiah 1:4, Isaiah 1:5-9), but may be preceded by the announcement of the sin by which the judgment had been provoked. In the first place, Asshur is more particularly indicated as the chosen instrument of divine judgment upon all Israel. “Woe to Asshur, the rod of mine anger, and it is a staff in their hand, mine indignation. Against a wicked nation will I send them, and against the people of my wrath give them a charge, to spoil spoil, and to prey prey, to make it trodden down like street-mire.” Mine indignation :” za‛mi is either a permutation of the predicative הוּא , which is placed emphatically in the foreground (compare the אתּה־הּוּא in Jeremiah 14:22, which is also written with makkeph ), as we have translated it, though without taking הוּא as a copula (= est ), as Ewald does; or else בידם הוּא is written elliptically for בידם הוּא אשׁר , “the staff which they hold is mine indignation” (Ges., Rosenmüller, and others), in which case, however, we should rather expect הוא זעמי בידם ומטה . It is quite inadmissible, however, to take za‛mi as a separate genitive to matteh , and to point the latter with zere , as Knobel has done; a thing altogether unparalleled in the Hebrew language.

(Note: In the Arabic, such a separation does occur as a poetical licence (see De Sacy, Gramm . t. ii. §270).)

The futures in Isaiah 10:6 are to be taken literally; for what Asshur did to Israel in the sixty year of Hezekiah's reign, and to Judah in his fourteenth year, was still in the future at the time when Isaiah prophesied. Instead of וּלשׂימו the keri has וּלשׂוּמו , the form in which the infinitive is written in other passages when connected with suffixes (see, on the other hand, 2 Samuel 14:7). “ Trodden down: mirmas with short a is the older form, which was retained along with the other form with the a lengthened by the tone (Ewald §160, c ).


Verses 7-11

Asshur was to be an instrument of divine wrath upon all Israel; but it would exalt itself, and make itself the end instead of the means. Isaiah 10:7 “Nevertheless he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; for it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.” Asshur did not think so ( lo' - cēn ), i.e., not as he ought to think, seeing that his power over Israel was determined by Jehovah Himself. For what filled his heart was the endeavour, peculiar to the imperial power, to destroy not a few nations, i.e., as many nations as possible, for the purpose of extending his own dominions, and with the determination to tolerate no other independent nation, and the desire to deal with Judah as with all the rest. For Jehovah was nothing more in his esteem than one of the idols of the nations. Isaiah 10:8-11 “For he saith, Are not my generals all kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish, or Hamath as Arpad, or Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath reached the kingdoms of the idols, and their graven images were more than those of Jerusalem and Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, do likewise to Jerusalem and her idols?” The king of Asshur bore the title of the great king (Isaiah 36:4), and indeed, as we may infer from Ezekiel 26:7, that of the king of kings. The generals in his army he could call kings,

(Note: The question is expressed in Hebrew phraseology, since sar in Assyrian was a superior title to that of melek , as we may see from inscriptions and proper names.)

because the satraps

(Note: Satrapes is the old Persian (arrow-headed) khshatra (Sanscr. xatra ) pâvan , i.e., keeper of government. Pâvan (nom. pâvâ ), which occurs in the Zendik as an independent word pavan (nom. pavao ) in the sense of sentry or watchman, is probably the original of the Hebrew pechâh (see Spiegel, in Kohler on Malachi 1:8).)

who led their several contingents were equal to kings in the extent and splendour of their government, and some of them were really conquered kings (cf., 2 Kings 25:28). He proudly asks whether every one of the cities named has not been as incapable as the rest, of offering a successful resistance to him. Carchemish is the later Circesium (Cercusium), at the junction of the Chaboras with the Euphrates (see above); Calno , the later Ctesiphon , on the left bank of the Tigris; Arpad (according to Merâshid , i. p. 47, in the pashalic of Chaleb, i.e., Aleppo) and Hamath (i.e., Epiphania) were Syrian cities, the latter on the river Orontes, still a large and wealthy place. The king of Asshur had also already conquered Samaria, at the time when the prophet introduced him as uttering these words. Jerusalem, therefore, would be unable to resist him. As he had obtained possession of idolatrous kingdoms ( ל מעא , to reach, as in Psalms 21:9 : hâ - 'elil with the article indicating the genus), which had more idols than Jerusalem or than Samaria; so would he also overcome Jerusalem, which had just as few and just as powerless idols as Samaria had. Observe there that Isaiah 10:11 is the apodosis to Isaiah 10:10, and that the comparative clause of Isaiah 10:10 is repeated in Isaiah 10:11, for the purpose of instituting a comparison, more especially with Samaria and Jerusalem. The king of Asshur calls the gods of the nations by the simple name of idols, though the prophet does not therefore make him speak from his own Israelitish standpoint. On the contrary, the great sin of the king of Asshur consisted in the manner in which he spoke. For since he recognised no other gods than his own Assyrian national deities, he placed Jehovah among the idols of the nations, and, what ought particularly to be observed, with the other idols, whose worship had been introduced into Samaria and Jerusalem. But in this very fact there was so far consolation for the worshippers of Jehovah, that such blasphemy of the one living God would not remain unavenged; whilst for the worshipers of idols it contained a painful lesson, since their gods really deserved nothing better than that contempt should be heaped upon them. The prophet has now described the sin of Asshur. It was ambitious self-exaltation above Jehovah, amounting even to blasphemy. And yet he was only the staff of Jehovah, who could make use of him as He would.


Verse 12

And when He had made use of him as He would, He would throw him away. “And it will come to pass, when the Lord shall have brought to an end all His work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will come to punish over the fruit of the pride of heart of the king of Asshur, and over the haughty look of his eyes.” The “fruit” ( peri ) of the heart's pride of Asshur is his vainglorious blasphemy of Jehovah, in which his whole nature is comprehended, as the inward nature of the tree is in the fruit which hangs above in the midst of the branches; tiph'ereth , as in Zechariah 12:7, the self-glorification which expresses itself in the lofty look of the eyes. Several constructives are here intentionally grouped together (Ges. §114, 1), to express the great swelling of Asshur even to bursting. But Jehovah, before whom humility is the soul of all virtue, would visit this pride with punishment, when He should have completely cut off His work, i.e., when He should have thoroughly completed ( bizza' , absolvere ) His punitive work upon Jerusalem ( ma‛aseh , as in Isaiah 28:21). The prep. Beth is used in the same sense as in Jeremiah 18:23, agere cum aliquo . It is evident that ma‛aseh is not used to indicate the work of punishment and grace together, so that yebazza‛ could be taken as a literal future (as Schröring and Ewald suppose), but that it denotes the work of punishment especially; and consequently yebazza‛ is to be taken as a futurum exactum (cf., Isaiah 4:4), as we may clearly see from the choice of this word in Lamentations 2:17 (cf., Zechariah 4:9).


Verse 13-14

When Jehovah had punished to such an extent that He could not go any further without destroying Israel - a result which would be opposed to His mercy and truth - His punishing would turn against the instrument of punishment, which would fall under the curse of all ungodly selfishness. “For he hath said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my own wisdom; for I am prudent: and I removed the bounds of the nations, and I plundered their stores, and threw down rulers