Isaiah-10

Isaiah 10:1-4 (ESV) –  Injustice leads to helplessness
¹  Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,
²  to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
³  What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?
⁴  Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

The corrupt elite of Israel huddling as prisoners of war or tossed onto a heap of dead bodies.

Occurred when Assyria overran Israel in 722 bc

Isaiah 10:5-15 (ESV)  –  When beaten down by the Assyrians it is only a tool in the hand of God
⁵  Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!
⁶  Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
⁷  But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few;
⁸  for he says: “Are not my commanders all kings?
⁹  Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
¹⁰  As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
¹¹  shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?”
¹²  When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.
¹³  For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.
¹⁴  My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped.”
¹⁵  Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!

V.5 – Shows us the ‘sovereignty of God’.  It is his ultimate position as King of the universe.  Thus, it is from his glorious Throne that he rules from and does all that he pleases.

V.6 – God uses worldly powers to discipline his godless covenant people.  These humans don’t have to be aware of that fact that God is using them for His purpose.

V.8-11 – The Assyrians were salivating over the northern Israelite kingdom as a trophy of imperialistic expansion.

God is no cardboard cutout. He is a real person with real anger and real love. He has wonderful things he wants to talk to us about. His grace can recover everything we have failed to be. But he will not negotiate with our self-exaltation. As we struggle against him, “Our relationship with God is a dramatic engagement, something like a bout of fencing, with its succession of offensives, retreats, feints and rallies.” God may walk up to you at some point and punch you right in the nose and knock you flat. And as you are sitting there on the ground wondering, “What was that all about?” he might kick you in the teeth. Think of Job. But why? Why does God blindside us at times? Because the only way we’ll listen is the hard way. He would rather lead us gently beside still waters. But he will not settle for a polite religious unreality with us.

I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his face.

Twas he who taught me thus to pray and he, I trust, has answered prayer;

but it has been in such a way as almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour at once he’d answer my request,

And by his love’s constraining power subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this he made me feel the hidden evils of my heart,

And let the angry powers of hell assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with his own hand he seemed intent to aggravate my woe,

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried, wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?

Tis in this way, the Lord replied, I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free,

And break thy schemes of earthly joy, that thou mayest seek thy all in me.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6).^[1]

God moves history to preserve his remnant:

Isaiah 10:16-19 (ESV)  Vast Assyria made few
¹⁶  Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.
¹⁷  The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day.
¹⁸  The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.
¹⁹  The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.

Ray Ortlund puts things right out there for use to think about – note quote below:

In this paragraph Isaiah uses the metaphors of sickness and fire to describe how effectively God cuts the armies of Assyria down to a comically skimpy number—like a child counting on his fingers. What is Isaiah saying? If sickness is a malaise working slowly from within, and fire is a sudden disaster catching on from without, then God has all means at his disposal to do whatever he wants with the forces of this world opposing his grace. The human conqueror reaches into the nest of Israel and plunders the eggs nestled there (v. 14); but he doesn’t see, until it’s too late, that he’s reaching into a plague with no antidote and a fire with no relief. This is why believers should never despair under the shocks of history. Whether the opposition to our joy is little “thorns and briers” (v. 17) or a vast “forest” (v. 18) makes no difference to the Fire.

Secondly, the grace of the Lord God of hosts purifies remnant Israel. When people are set apart by grace, they show it by a real faith.

In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. (v. 20)

Sometimes Christians cozy up to ideas, institutions, trends, and even emotions that strike at the heart of their faith. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough” (2 Corinthians 11:4). We are more susceptible to alien saviors, spirits, and gospels than we know.

This is the question Isaiah wants each of us to think through: Where do I get my security, coping skills, confidence for the future? Many salvations are vying for our allegiance. And every false support we lean on turns around and bites us. We do lean on forces that strike us, abuse us, sneer at us. But Jesus never betrays our trust. Isaiah is helping us understand the difference that grace makes. We learn to examine ourselves: “When I am stricken with disillusionment, emptiness, self-hatred, when these emotional undercurrents are dragging me down, what false savior am I leaning on?”

To his glory, God will not put up with that humiliation. He wants you to know what it means to lean on him “in truth”—a practical faith in him alone—because that is your salvation. When he rips from your arms some false trust that has struck you a thousand times, and a thousand times you’ve gone back to it in servile compliance, and you’re ready to go back again—when God tears it away, do you see what he is doing? His grace is setting you apart as one of his remnant, dear to his heart.^[2]

Isaiah 10:20-23 (ESV) – IN that day: remnant Israel made pure
²⁰  In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
²¹  A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.
²²  For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.
²³  For the Lord GOD of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.

Isaiah 10:24-26 (ESV) – Therefore, fearful Zion made confident
²⁴  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did.
²⁵  For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction.
²⁶  And the LORD of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt.
 

Isaiah 10:27-34 (ESV)  IN that day haughty Assyria made low
²⁷  And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”
²⁸  He has come to Aiath; he has passed through Migron; at Michmash he stores his baggage;
²⁹  they have crossed over the pass; at Geba they lodge for the night; Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled.
³⁰  Cry aloud, O daughter of Gallim! Give attention, O Laishah! O poor Anathoth!
³¹  Madmenah is in flight; the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.
³²  This very day he will halt at Nob; he will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
³³  Behold, the Lord GOD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low.
³⁴  He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.

^[1] Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (p. 108). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

^[2] Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (pp. 110–111). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.