10. Isaiah Chapter Ten

Isaiah Chapter 10 The first four verses of this chapter are a continuation of chapter nine. Evil is again denounced, fresh sins are exposed, and warning of impending judgment is given. Injustice, robbery of the poor, the fatherless, the widows, will bring the day of visitation and desolation. There will be no one to whom to flee for help. His presence in their midst had been their "glory" (Isaiah 10:3). Now it would "fly away as a bird" (Hosea 9:11). They would suffer desolation, shame and captivity (Isaiah 10:3). The presence of the Lord in the midst of His people is their highest glory, their greatest privilege. It is the secret of blessing, of power in testimony, of strength against the spiritual foe. At the same time His presence is intensely solemn. It is designed to enable us to live in His fear, not the fear that shrinks from Him, but the fear that shrinks from grieving the Holy Spirit. Failure to apprehend this leads to spiritual declension, resulting either in a mere form of godliness without the power, or in manifest ungodliness. So it was in Israel.

Isaiah 10:5-19 give a striking example of how God has used gentile nations to chastise His earthly people, permitting these nations to attain to a high degree of domination. They on their part have prided themselves on what they consider to be their own attainments, and on this account have brought upon themselves the retributive judgments of the Lord. That was the case with Assyria, "the rod of His anger," against His "hypocritical nation," "the people of His wrath." Isaiah 10:7-11 and Isaiah 10:13-14 recount his self-glorying and pride, his determination to found a universal empire. So it has been with recent tyrants and their schemes. So it will be with the Man of Sin, who will achieve a greater measure of success than all his predecessors. What an axe or rod is in relation to him who handles it, so is a mere man to Almighty God Who uses him. A stick unused is virtually "not wood" (Isaiah 10:15). When therefore the Lord had accomplished "His whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem," purging out its abominations, He punished "the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks" (cp. Habakkuk 1:11). This likewise applies to the final events of the present age. The Divine titles in Isaiah 10:16 are significant. "The Lord" (Ha-Adon) is used by Isaiah always in connection with the power exerted judicially and penally. Adonai Sabaoth, "the Lord of hosts," is used here only, and indicates His absolute Sovereignty. The fat men of Assyria would be made lean. Under its boasted glory God, as "the light of Israel" (Isaiah 10:17), and "His Holy One" would be a consuming fire, making a bonfire of the mighty ones as of briars and thorns (just as with Israel, Isaiah 9:18). The armed forces, "the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field," would be consumed "from the soul even to the flesh," i.e., internally, externally, and therefore "utterly," the whole army being demolished. In Isaiah 10:19 the fewness of "his forest" depicts the scattered remnants of the army that march against Jerusalem, so few that a boy could easily count them. On the other hand, the remnant of Israel (Shear-jashub, Isaiah 7:3) would no more rely upon the Gentile power, the Assyrian, that smote them, but upon God (Isaiah 10:20-21; see 2 Chronicles 30:6).

Isaiah 10:22 makes clear that here again (as often in O.T. prophecy) the passage points not merely to the immediate fulfillment, as in the case of the Assyrian invasion, but looks on to later circumstances. For the apostle Paul in Romans 9:27 applies Isaiah 10:22-23 to the yet future time, when Israel, passing through the great tribulation, will be reduced in number to a mere remnant, the nucleus of the redeemed nation at the inception of the Millennium. This will be the issue of "the consumption decreed," i.e., the judgments of "the time of Jacob’s trouble," executed "with righteousness" in the midst of the land. Accordingly the prophecy relates to the future time of "the Day of the Lord." The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a prediction of the actual details of the Assyrian invasion and the overthrow of the invader. On which account God’s people were not to be afraid of him. The rod must be used, but the smiter must himself be smitten. So it was with Egypt (Isaiah 10:24, Isaiah 10:26). Assyria and Egypt are coupled again in Isaiah 52:4. In Isaiah 10:27 the statement "the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing" is understood in two ways. The English Version points to the anointing of the kings and priests in Jerusalem as those who were consecrated to God, on account of which God would destroy the foe. The mention of the yoke and the neck, however (metaphors from the wooden yoke on the ox), suggests that the neck of the bullock is so fat that the yoke will not go round it. So Israel would grow strong and assert its freedom. Accordingly the rendering will be, "the yoke shall be destroyed by reason of the fat" (cp. Deuteronomy 32:15). The whole scene foreshadows the doom of the Antichrist.