Isaiah 10

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Woe to those who decree injustice

¹ Woe to those who decree unjust decrees, and to the writers who keep writing oppression, ² to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of My people of their right, so that widows become their spoil, and they plunder the fatherless! ³ What will you do in the day of punishment, in the devastation that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth? ⁴ Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this His anger has not turned away, and His hand is still stretched out.

Assyria, the rod of Yahweh's anger

⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hand is My indignation! ⁶ I send him against a godless nation, and against the people of My wrath I command him, to take spoil and to seize plunder, and to trample them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷ But he does not intend so, and his heart does not think so; for it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few. ⁸ For he says, "Are not my commanders all kings? ⁹ Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? ¹⁰ As my hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, ¹¹ shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her idols?"

¹² When Adonai has finished all His work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful pride of his eyes. ¹³ For he says, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I have removed the borders of peoples and plundered their treasures, and like a mighty one I have brought down those who sit on thrones. ¹⁴ My hand has found the wealth of the peoples like a nest, and as one gathers eggs that are forsaken, I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped." ¹⁵ Shall the axe boast over the one who chops with it? Shall the saw magnify itself against the one who wields it? As if a rod should wield those who lift it up, as if a staff should lift up the one who is not wood! ¹⁶ Therefore the Adon Yahweh Tsevaot will send leanness among his fat ones; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire. ¹⁷ The Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day. ¹⁸ And it will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. ¹⁹ And the rest of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child could write them down.

The remnant will return

²⁰ In that day the remnant of Israel, and those who have escaped of the house of Jacob, will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. ²¹ A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty El. ²² For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. A destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. ²³ For Adonai Yahweh Tsevaot will carry out a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.

²⁴ Therefore thus says Adonai Yahweh Tsevaot: O My people who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, when he strikes you with the rod and lifts up his staff against you, as Egypt did. ²⁵ For in a very little while My indignation will come to an end, and My anger will turn to their destruction. ²⁶ And Yahweh Tsevaot will stir up a whip against him, as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and His staff will be over the sea, and He will lift it up as He did in Egypt. ²⁷ In that day his burden will be taken from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fatness.

The enemy marches on Jerusalem

²⁸ He has come to Aiath; he has passed through Migron; at Michmash he stores his baggage. ²⁹ They have crossed over the pass; at Geba they lodge for the night. Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled. ³⁰ Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! Poor Anathoth! ³¹ Madmenah has fled; the inhabitants of Gebim gather to flee. ³² This very day he will halt at Nob; he shakes his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

³³ See, the Adon Yahweh Tsevaot will lop off the boughs with terrifying power; the tall in stature will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. ³⁴ He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by a mighty one.

Notes

• 10:3 "Punishment" is pekuddah, from paqad, "to visit": a day when Yahweh "visits" the land to call it to account. "Wealth" is kavod, literally "weight" or "glory", the riches that gave the powerful their standing.
• 10:4 This is the last of four times the refrain sounds in this poem (Isaiah 9:12, 17, 21 and here; compare 5:25). Each stanza names a sin of Israel, and each ends the same way: the punishment so far has not brought the people back, so His hand is still raised.
• 10:5 Assyria, the great empire of the day, is the rod in Yahweh's hand to punish His unfaithful people. Yet the same oracle holds Assyria accountable for its pride and cruelty (verses 7, 12-15): Yahweh uses a proud nation without approving it. Hezekiah heard the same message in Yahweh's answer to Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:25-28).
• 10:9 The king boasts of cities Assyria had taken one after another: Carchemish on the Euphrates (717 BC), Calno (Calneh) and Arpad in the north of Syria (738 and 740 BC), Hamath (738 and 720 BC), Damascus (732 BC) and Samaria (722 BC). The dates are those usually given by historians. His point: Jerusalem will be no different.
• 10:15 The answer to the boast of verses 13-14. Assyria is only a tool in Yahweh's hand, an axe, a saw, a rod; for the tool to boast against the one who uses it is as absurd as a stick lifting the man who holds it.
• 10:21 "A remnant will return" is shear yashuv, the very name of Isaiah's son Shear-jashub (7:3), a living sign to Ahaz. Shuv means both coming back from exile and turning back to Elohim in repentance. "Mighty El" is El Gibbor, the same title given to the child in 9:6, and here it plainly names Yahweh Himself.
• 10:22 Yahweh promised Abraham seed "as the sand that is on the seashore" (Genesis 22:17), yet only a remnant will come through the judgment. Paul quotes verses 22-23 in Romans 9:27-28 to show that Elohim has always worked through a faithful remnant within Israel.
• 10:26 Two great deliverances of the past promise a third: Gideon's victory over Midian, when the prince Oreb was killed at the rock that kept his name (Judges 7:25), and the staff of Moses stretched out over the sea (Exodus 14:16, 26-27). As in Egypt, the oppressor's own rod will be answered by Yahweh's.
• 10:27 "Because of the fatness" (mippene shamen) is hard to read: shamen means fat or oil. Many take it as a picture of the ox grown so strong that the yoke bursts; the Aramaic Targum, a later Jewish paraphrase, hears "oil" as anointing and reads the line of the Messiah; and many scholars think the words were once a place name belonging to verse 28. The TRB keeps the Hebrew as it stands and does not choose between the readings.
• 10:28 In verses 28-32 the poet watches an invading army come down from the north, town by town through the hills of Benjamin, each place closer to Jerusalem: Aiath (Ai), Migron, Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Gibeah of Saul, Anathoth and finally Nob, within sight of the city. Several names make sound-plays in Hebrew.
• 10:34 The proud forest of Assyria, tall as the cedars of Lebanon, is felled to the ground. The next verse turns to a very different tree: from the stump left of David's house a new shoot will grow (11:1).

Isaiah 9 · Isaiah 11

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