Isaiah 10 opens up with a message to lawmakers:
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Plain and simple, if you create laws that favor yourselves and deny justice to those who need your protection what will you do on judgment day? Where will you go? Will your money protect you? No. Remember to walk in the fear of the LORD because ultimately, you can get by with what you want on this earth, but you will answer to God.
Now a message to Assyria. Assyria was the one used by God to wipe out the northern tribes. They were cruel, evil and feared among the nations. And what they did with the lost tribes of Israel is still a mystery.
When God sent them as agents of judgment against Israel, they went too far, beyond what God intended. They became arrogant and believed themselves to be gods that could destroy the whole earth. They assumed that they were greater than God.
God replies (v. 10):
Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
or a club brandish the one who is not wood!
Because they became arrogant, God was going to send a wasting disease upon “the well-fed of Assyria.” We have seen this “well-fed” judgment before. In fact, this is the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah:
“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned” (Ezek 16:49).
That is a highly troubling verse and should be troubling. There was a lot that happened in the scene with Lot and his guests and people pounding on the door to rape them. But this was their evil–arrogance, overfed and unconcerned.
And now the same indictment was brought against Assyria–arrogant and over-fed.
But it says in one day they will be destroyed by emaciating disease, and that did indeed happen. In Hezekiah’s time when they came against Israel, a wasting disease broke out and killed almost a couple hundred thousand of the Assyrian soldiers (2 Kings 19).
After that a remnant of Israel will return to the Lord. They will look to Him for help and safety and throw off the enslavement that wicked king Ahaz entangled them in when he was afraid.
The Lord tells them not to fear Assyria (v. 24) which was huge. Assyria was a massive nation and renowned for their torture. People surrendered just because Assyria was near and they feared being skinned alive (literally). But God says not to fear them as he will deal with them.
God will judge Assyria is the proclamation. Trust in the Lord as the Lord will judge these people who had become evil.
Which one would be their fear? The Lord who was unseen? Or the Assyrians who were butchers and were near and seen?
