Yesaya 10:5-6

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ¹ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ² 

10:6 I sent him ³  against a godless ⁴  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ⁵ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ⁶  like dirt in the streets.

Yesaya 14:24-27

14:24 ⁷ The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow:

“Be sure of this:

Just as I have intended, so it will be;

just as I have planned, it will happen.

14:25 I will break Assyria ⁸  in my land,

I will trample them ⁹  underfoot on my hills.

Their yoke will be removed from my people,

the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. ¹⁰ 

14:26 This is the plan I have devised for the whole earth;

my hand is ready to strike all the nations.” ¹¹ 

14:27 Indeed, ¹²  the Lord who commands armies has a plan,

and who can possibly frustrate it?

His hand is ready to strike,

and who can possibly stop it? ¹³ 

Yesaya 27:9

27:9 So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, ¹⁴ 

and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: ¹⁵ 

They will make all the stones of the altars ¹⁶ 

like crushed limestone,

and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 46:10-11

46:10 who announces the end from the beginning

and reveals beforehand ¹⁸  what has not yet occurred,

who says, ‘My plan will be realized,

I will accomplish what I desire,’

46:11 who summons an eagle ¹⁹  from the east,

from a distant land, one who carries out my plan.

Yes, I have decreed, ²⁰ 

yes, I will bring it to pass;

I have formulated a plan,

yes, I will carry it out.

[10:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.

[10:5]  ² tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”

[10:6]  ³ sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

[10:6]  ⁴ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

[10:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

[10:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

[14:24]  ⁷ sn Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the Lord appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations.

[14:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “to break Assyria.”

[14:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “him.” This is a collective singular referring to the nation, or a reference to the king of Assyria who by metonymy stands for the entire nation.

[14:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and his [i.e., Assyria’s] yoke will be removed from them [the people?], and his [Assyria’s] burden from his [the nation’s?] shoulder will be removed.” There are no antecedents in this oracle for the suffixes in the phrases “from them” and “from his shoulder.” Since the Lord’s land and hills are referred to in the preceding line and the statement seems to echo 10:27, it is likely that God’s people are the referents of the suffixes; the translation uses “my people” to indicate this.

[14:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations.”

[14:27]  ¹² tn Or “For” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[14:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “His hand is outstretched and who will turn it back?”

[27:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “be atoned for” (NIV); cf. NRSV “be expiated.”

[27:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and this [is] all the fruit of removing his sin.” The meaning of the statement is not entirely clear, though “removing his sin” certainly parallels “Jacob’s sin will be removed” in the preceding line. If original, “all the fruit” may refer to the result of the decision to remove sin, but the phrase may be a corruption of לְכַפֵּר (lekhaper, “to atone for”), which in turn might be a gloss on הָסִר (hasir, “removing”).

[27:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “when he makes the stones of an altar.” The singular “altar” is collective here; pagan altars are in view, as the last line of the verse indicates. See also 17:8.

[27:9]  ¹⁷ sn As interpreted and translated above, this verse says that Israel must totally repudiate its pagan religious practices in order to experience God’s forgiveness and restoration. Another option is to understand “in this way” and “this” in v. 9a as referring back to the judgment described in v. 8. In this case כָּפַר (kafar, “atone for”) is used in a sarcastic sense; Jacob’s sin is “atoned for” and removed through severe judgment. Following this line of interpretation, one might paraphrase the verse as follows: “So in this way (through judgment) Jacob’s sin will be “atoned for,” and this is the way his sin will be removed, when he (i.e., God) makes all the altar stones like crushed limestone….” This interpretation is more consistent with the tone of judgment in vv. 8 and 10-11.

[46:10]  ¹⁸ tn Or “from long ago”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV “from ancient times.”

[46:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or, more generally, “a bird of prey” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV; see 18:6).

[46:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “spoken”; KJV “I have spoken it.”