이사야 Chapter 10

Translation: ESV

1

Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,

Key Message

Using the authority of law to institutionalize injustice is the sin God most strongly rebukes.

▸Isaiah directly accuses legislators who enact unjust laws.

Isaiah directly accuses legislators who enact unjust laws. Law should protect justice, but instead it has become a means to institutionalize injustice. 'Writers' refers to the role of scribes who draft legal documents, criticizing the act of using the authority of law to legalize oppression.

Related Verses

For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.
2

to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

Key Message

God's woe is declared against those who exploit the socially weak, and protecting them is the core mission of God's people.

▸The specific consequences of unjust decrees are listed.

3

What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?

Key Message

Everything accumulated through injustice is of no help on the day of judgment, and there is no escape from God's judgment.

▸These rhetorical questions constitute a warning of judgment.

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 stretched out still.

Key Message

God's judgment does not fully end, and without repentance the hand of judgment continues.

▸The result of judgment is only being taken captive or killed in battle.

5

Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!

Key Message

God uses even foreign nations as instruments of judgment in history, but the instrument itself cannot escape judgment if it becomes proud.

▸A woe declaration against Assyria.

6

Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Key Message

God uses foreign nations as his instruments to judge his own people's sin, showing that God governs all of history.

▸God declares he sent Assyria as his instrument to strike Israel.

7

But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few;

Key Message

Human intentions and God's purposes may differ, and God is the Lord of providence who uses even evil intentions for good purposes.

▸Assyria's intent and God's intent were different.

8

for he says: "Are not my commanders all kings?

Key Message

Pride that attributes one's success to one's own ability rather than God's grace becomes the cause of judgment.

▸The beginning of the Assyrian king's proud boasting.

9

Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

Key Message

The pride intoxicated by past military successes that does not fear God is the seed of destruction.

▸Assyria lists the cities it has conquered and boasts of its military victories.

10

As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

Key Message

The pride of equating the LORD with other gods is blasphemy, and God will certainly act to defend his honor.

▸The Assyrian king boasts that he conquered nations serving foreign idols and that even the idols of those nations were no stronger than the gods of Jerusalem and Samaria.

11

shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I did to Samaria and her images?"

Key Message

Pride that equates God with human idols brings the judgment of God who defends his honor.

▸Assyria boasts that it can destroy Jerusalem just as it destroyed Samaria.

12

When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

Key Message

God uses evil powers for his purposes, but after their use is complete, he certainly judges their pride.

▸God first uses Assyria as an instrument to judge Israel, but after that work is finished, he will also judge proud Assyria.

13

For 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; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.

Key Message

Pride that denies God as the source of all ability and wisdom, attributing it to oneself, is the gravest sin.

▸The proud monologue of the Assyrian king continues.

14

My hand found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped."

Key Message

Human pride ignores the limits God has set, and this inevitably provokes God's response.

▸Using the metaphor of taking eggs from a bird's nest, he boasts that Assyria's conquests were accomplished without resistance.

15

Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!

Key Message

Creation cannot boast before the Creator, and all ability and mission come from God.

▸Assyria's pride is refuted with the metaphors of an axe, saw, rod, and staff.

16

Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.

Key Message

Even the proud superpower will certainly wane before God's judgment, and God's judgment is certainly fulfilled.

▸Specific judgment on Assyria is declared.

17

The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day.

Key Message

God himself becomes the fire that burns his people's enemies, and that judgment is swift and complete.

▸The God of Israel will become a fire and flame to Assyria.

18

The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.

Key Message

God's judgment destroys every trace of the glory and power of the proud.

▸All of Assyria's glory—its forest and fruitful land—will be completely destroyed.

19

The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.

Key Message

No matter how powerful the military might, it can face a devastating rout leaving only a few before God's judgment.

▸So completely destroyed is Assyria's military power that even a child can count what remains.

20

In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

Key Message

The remnant who passes through judgment recovers the purity of faith that relies on nothing vain but trusts solely in the LORD truly.

▸The transformation of the remnant after judgment is described.

21

A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

Key Message

The remnant returning to the Mighty God is the heart of Isaianic theology, and this foreshadows salvation through the Messiah.

▸The promise of salvation that the remnant will return to the 'Mighty God.

22

For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.

Key Message

Many numbers do not guarantee salvation, and only the remnant who return in genuine faith pass through God's righteous judgment.

▸A solemn warning that even if Israel's numbers are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

23

for the Lord GOD of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.

Key Message

The judgment of the LORD of hosts is decreed and will certainly be accomplished, and its scope extends throughout the whole world.

▸The judgment God has already decreed will be accomplished throughout the entire world.

24

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: "O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did.

Key Message

Even amid the pain of judgment, God comforts his people with 'do not be afraid,' and the Exodus experience of salvation is the basis of present hope.

▸Even amid judgment, God comforts his people with 'do not be afraid.

25

For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction.

Key Message

God's anger is momentary, and after it he destroys the enemy and restores his people.

▸God's anger is not eternal.

26

And the LORD of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt.

Key Message

God has repeatedly saved his people throughout history, and past salvations become the guarantee of present and future salvation.

▸Two past salvation events—the defeat of Midian at the rock of Oreb (Judg.

27

And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the anointing.

Key Message

God is the liberator who completely removes the yoke of oppression, and this salvation is ultimately completed through the Messiah.

▸The promise of salvation that Assyria's burden and yoke will be completely removed.

28

He has come to Aiath; he has passed through Migron; at Michmash he stores his baggage;

Key Message

Prophecy is not abstract but fulfilled in concrete history, and God governs the actual flow of history.

▸The Assyrian army's advance route is described place by place.

29

they have crossed over the pass; at Geba they lodge for the night; Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled.

Key Message

Even in situations that appear desperate from a human perspective, God's saving history can begin.

▸The scene of cities trembling before the Assyrian army's advance.

30

Cry aloud, O daughter of Gallim! Give attention, O Laishah! O poor Anathoth!

Key Message

Sounding alarms in times of crisis is a responsibility to protect the community, and God's warning is similar.

▸An appeal to sound the alarm in cities around Jerusalem.

31

Madmenah is in flight; the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.

Key Message

All human places of refuge collapse before God's judgment, and the true refuge is found only in God.

▸Another scene of cities fleeing for safety.

32

This very day he will halt at Nob; he will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

Key Message

The very moment the threat reaches its extreme is the moment God's intervention begins, and when human pride reaches its zenith, God's judgment also reaches its zenith.

▸The Assyrian army has finally come to Nob, from where Jerusalem is visible.

33

Behold, the Lord GOD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low.

Key Message

No matter how high human pride soars, it will certainly be brought low before God's judgment, and God alone is truly exalted.

▸A dramatic reversal against Assyria.

34

He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.

Key Message

The fall of proud superpowers is not the end but the starting point from which new saving history begins.

▸The fall of Assyria is depicted as the felling of the Lebanon forest.