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 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? ⁷ 

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

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

Yesaya 37:26

37:26 ⁸ Certainly you must have heard! ⁹ 

Long ago I worked it out,

in ancient times I planned ¹⁰  it,

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 46:11

46:11 who summons an eagle ¹²  from the east,

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

Yes, I have decreed, ¹³ 

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.”

[10:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[37:26]  ⁸ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[37:26]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).

[37:26]  ¹¹ 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.

[46:11]  ¹² tn Or, more generally, “a bird of prey” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV; see 18:6).

[46:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “spoken”; KJV “I have spoken it.”