Yesaya 10:5

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 

Yesaya 10:15

10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,

or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ³ 

As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,

or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

Yesaya 13:5

13:5 They come from a distant land,

from the horizon. ⁴ 

It is the Lord with his instruments of judgment, ⁵ 

coming to destroy the whole earth. ⁶ 

Yesaya 37:26

37:26 ⁷ Certainly you must have heard! ⁸ 

Long ago I worked it out,

in ancient times I planned ⁹  it,

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ¹⁰ 

[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.”

[10:15]  ³ tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[13:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the end of the sky.”

[13:5]  ⁵ tn Or “anger”; cf. KJV, ASV “the weapons of his indignation.”

[13:5]  ⁶ tn Or perhaps, “land” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT). Even though the heading and subsequent context (see v. 17) indicate Babylon’s judgment is in view, the chapter has a cosmic flavor that suggests that the coming judgment is universal in scope. Perhaps Babylon’s downfall occurs in conjunction with a wider judgment, or the cosmic style is poetic hyperbole used to emphasize the magnitude and importance of the coming event.

[37:26]  ⁷ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[37:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

[37:26]  ⁹ tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).

[37:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.