It is evident from Jeremiah’s prophecies in this chapter that the fierce monster from the North: Assyria will be the tool of God’s wrath against Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee. God’s tool of affliction, but present ally of Judah, would later turn against Jerusalem as punishment for its impenitent idolatry.
Assyria had just come to the aid of Judah to protect Jerusalem and Judah’s borders against the confederated forces of Syria’s King Rezin and Samaria’s King Pekah.
Assyria’s presence was in response to the Ahaz’s distrust of Jehovah, (vs.12) and her military might would first vanquish Egypt, Syria, Samaria, and Galilee before marching on its one-time ally Judah.
However, the Chaldeans from Mesopotamia’s Babylonia (vss.13-16) would sack Nineveh and the Assyrian empire would be hamstrung and crippled. The doom of Nineveh was predicted by the prophet Nahum some 150 years after Jonah brought it to repentance.
Chapter ten’s two difficult passages (Jeremiah 10:17-19; & 10:28-34) were written to confuse Isaiah’s enemies, including those in the royal court. They should not deter the reader comprehending the unique accuracy, manifest in the annals of ancient history. Then too, the glorious prophesied promises of the return of the captives from Babylon, and the gathering of the Diaspora, first under the Greek Alexander the Great, and then in the modern era their 19th and 20th century global migration to Palestine.
1. The power of Babylon that will break the kingdom of Assyria: vs. 23-27;
2. The return of the scattered Diaspora back to Palestine
a. Under Cyrus the Persian within two decades of Nebuchadnezzar’s decease;
b. Under Alexander the Great, the empire that superseded the Chaldean empire of Babylon;
c. In the modern era Jewry would:
i. return to the Land in the early 19th C (1817-1917);
ii. increasingly flow into Palestine after UK General Allenby retook Jerusalem from Islamic Turk control (1917-1944);
iii. migrate in even greater numbers after Israel’s 1948 Independence by sea and air from Eastern and Western Europe;
iv. in the largest Jewish air migration of Jews in history, return to Israel by a U.S. air armada which had gathered exiles, outcasts and endangered Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic territories of the globe.
BRIEF HISTORICAL SUMMATION.
1. ABRAHAM. Call of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees.
2. JACOB. (Israel) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (renames the latter grandson into ‘Israel’) preserves Abram’s seed by sending Jacob’s son Joseph to Egypt.
3. THE EXODUS. 430 years later the Exodus of the Hebrews occurs.
4. JOSHUA ENTERS PALESTINE. 40 years later Israel’s people enter Palestine.
5. POST SOLOMON PERIOD Israel splits into two kingdoms. 1380 years after Joshua crossed Jordan Israel and its two kingdoms end in captivity.
6. THE PERSIANS TAKE BABYLON. After Cyrus the Persian frees the captives a remnant return to Palestine under Ezra & Nehemiah to rebuild.
7. GREEK EMPIRE supersedes Persia. Alexander the Great preserved the almost destroyed Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures by translating them into the Koine Greek Septuagint (LXX). Thus the kind Persian and Greek empires superseded Babylonia, but preceded the antagonistic Roman Empire.
7 a. ROMAN EMPIRE. For 450 years it persecuted the Jews so intensely that it became a burnt earth policy. The burning of the world renowned Alexandria Manuscript Library by Julius Caesar was an example. Under Roman Palestine 15,000 were commonly crucified each year.
8. ROMAN EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. Early in the 4thC AD the new emperor Constantine arranged with Rome an Edict of Toleration towards the Jews and Christians. But the new Church of Rome was no friend to the Jew or the regenerated believer in Christ born again of His Spirit.
9. THE DARK AGES: 300-800 AD. The dark ages that followed the sacking of Rome by Goths and Huns showed little more tolerance to the Jews than to the Romans.
10. THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: 800-1800. Thus in 800 AD Pope Leo ordained Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor for the new Franco-German Holy Roman Empire. It lasted a thousand years, until 1800, though it was weakened by the Reformation of 1517.
This Germanic reign of Roman religious power from Europe discriminated against Jews throughout its vast global empire. Jewish historians attest to the continued, but devastating disenfranchisement, quarantine, ghettos, and mass deportation of the whole Jewish populace from cities and their region or country.
11. DIASPORA RETURN STARTS. (1817 to 1917) At the end of a thousand year blot on the annals of history a few Jews of Europe began to migrate from Europe to Palestine, despite its Muslim rulers. This was concurrent with USA’s ‘Golden Age of Evangelism’. From 1817 to 1917 the first trickle had steadily increased to a stream. God sparked a flame among the scattered Jews that grew into a bright light 150 years later, with the creation of the State of Israel. This fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the minor prophets of the Old Testament.
12. UK ARMY CAPTURE JERUSALEM. 1917-1944. British General Allenby freed Jerusalem from the Islamic rule of the Turks in December 1917 and in the ensuing twenty seven years the stream broadened to a steady flow of returning Jews to Palestine.
13. BRITISH BETRAYAL. (1945-1948) Despite the new British (Labour) Government’s betrayal of post war Jewry from sudden new anti-Semitic hostility in Westminster the Jews of Palestine turned to fight for their Land, not only with Arab Muslim saboteurs, but also with British hostile troops. Their onetime ally and saviour became an enemy. But to fulfil God’s prophetic predictions the Jews survived hostilities and achieved national independence against all odds.
In spite of Britain abstaining in New York and an intransigent Washington, President Truman worked behind the scenes to outsmart the U.S. State Department and the United Kingdom by working directly with Jerusalem and the United Nations. By God’s grace Truman worked a modern miracle and Palestine became the prophesied State of Israel.
In May 1948 the UN voted to accept the new State of Israel into its fraternity as a valid, fully fledged, sovereign Nation State.
DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN ISAIAH 10.
These are purposely interwoven by the prophet to confuse his godless enemies within the palace and the priesthood. The indirect vagueness is typical of the prophet’s writings early in the book.
1. Isaiah 10:17-19 in which the simile of trees is likened to the coming Assyrian conquering princes.
2. Isaiah 10:28-34 filled with a poetic topographical complexity.
3. Isaiah 10:20-22 describes the godly remnant inclosing the Diaspora return from Babylon etc. as described above.
.
* Foreword, Footnotes, Chapter Heading and Sub Headings by John David.
Isaiah 10. King James Version of the Bible (Public Domain).
Isaiah predicts Jerusalem’s destruction & survival of a holy remnant.
1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
9 Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
10 As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
11 Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.
13 For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:
14 And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.
15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.
16 Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.
19 And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the Lord of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
28 He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages:
29 They are gone over the passage: they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
30 Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
31 Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at Nob that day: he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled.
34 And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.
FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 10:5. Assyria is the ‘rod of God’s anger and indignation’ against all twelve apostate tribes, (ten in the North & two in the South) including Levi, the 13th tribe, not given a territory, but dispersed among the cities. Only a remnant of Jewry, called the tenth, will turn to God in repentance and faith after the Babylonian captivity. They will abandon idolatry; return to temple worship and restore Sabbath observance.
