Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16
Chapter 10
Assyria, God’s Instrument
Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my fury!Against a godless nation, I send him, against a people who provoke my wrath, I dispatch him, to plunder and pillage, to tread them down like mud in the streets.
But the mind of his king is far from this, his heart harbors other thoughts; what he wants is to destroy, to make an end of all nations.
For the king says: “By my own strength, I have done this and by my own wisdom, for I am clever. I have moved the frontiers of people, I have plundered treasures, I have brought inhabitants down to the dust, I have toppled kings from their thrones.
As one reaches into a nest, so my hands have reached into nations’ wealth. As one gathers deserted eggs, so have I gathered the earth’s riches. No one flapped a wing or opened its mouth to chirp a protest.”
Does the ax claim more credit than the man who wields it? Does the saw magnify itself more than the one who uses it? This would be like a rod wielding the man who lifts it up; will those not made of wood be controlled by the cudgel?
This is why the Lord Sabaoth is ready to send a wasting sickness upon the king’s sturdy warriors. Beneath his plenty, a flame will burn like a consuming fire.
Commentaries
Assyria, God’s Instrument.
Even without realizing it, the powerful of the time become instruments of God’s punishment (cf. Is 13:5; 5:26; 7:18; 8:7). Carchemish, Hamath, and Arpad are Syrian cities that were conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians. Damascus was captured in 732 B.C., and Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, fell in 722. What happened to these cities serves as a warning to Jerusalem. Ironically, the Lord uses the pride and strength of a pagan king to punish his people, who have abandoned him to worship their idols (11).