Isaiah 10:11

For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings? -Vauntings of the Assyrians. Illustrated by the self-laudatory inscriptions of Assyria deciphered by Hincks. Verse 8. (ARE) NOT MY PRINCES ALTOGETHER KINGS? Eastern satraps and governors of provinces often had the title and diadem of kings. Hence, the title "King of kings," implying the greatness of Him who was over them (; ). Verse 9. (IS) NOT CALNO AS CARCHEMISH? - Was there any one of these cities able to withstand me? Not one! So Rabshakeh vaunts (). CALNO - Calneh, built by Nimrod (, "Calneh, in the laud of Shiner"), once his ca...

5-19 See what a change sin made. The king of Assyria, in his pride, thought to act by his own will. The tyrants of the world are tools of Providence. God designs to correct his people for their hypocrisy, and bring them nearer to him; but is that Sennacherib's design? No; he designs to gratify his own covetousness and ambition. The Assyrian boasts what great things he has done to other nations, by his own policy and power. He knows not that it is God who makes him what he is, and puts the staff into his hand. He had done all this with ease; none moved the wing, or cried as birds do when their nests are rifled. Because he conquered Samaria, he thinks Jerusalem would fall of course. It was lamentable that Jerusalem should have set up graven images, and we cannot wonder that she was excelled in them by the heathen. But is it not equally foolish for Christians to emulate the people of the w...

The argument in these two verses is this: ‘The nations which I have subdued were professedly under the protection of idol gods. Yet those idols were not able to defend them - though stronger than the gods worshipped by Jerusalem and Samaria. And is there any probability, therefore, that the protection on which you who are Jews are leaning, will be able to deliver you?’ Jerusalem he regarded as an idolatrous city, like others; and as all others had hitherto been unable to retard his movements, he inferred that it would be so with Jerusalem. This is, therefore, the confident boasting of “a man” who regarded himself as able to vanquish all “the gods” that the nations worshipped. The same confident boasting he uttered when he sent messengers to Hezekiah; 2 Kings 19:12 : ‘Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my father destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezep

EXPOSITION ISAIAH 10:1 The prophecy begun in Isaiah 9:8 terminates with this stanza, which contains a warning against injustice and oppression, addressed to Israel and Judah equally, and accompanied by the threat of a "day of desolation," when those who have refused to make God their Refuge will have no resource, but to go into captivity with the "prisoners," or to perish with the "slain." A foreign conquest, accompanied by slaughter, and the deportation of captives, is not obscurely intimated. ISAIAH 10:1 WOE UNTO THEM THAT DECREE UNRIGHTEOUS DECREES (comp. Isaiah 1:17

SHALL I NOT, AS I HAVE DONE TO SAMARIA, AND HER IDOLS,.... Kimchi observes, that what is said in the preceding verses was said before Samaria was taken, but this after it was taken: SO DO TO JERUSALEM, AND HER IDOLS; he had taken Samaria, and carried the ten tribes captive, and now his eye was upon Judah and Jerusalem; and such was his insolence, impiety, and blasphemy, that he reckons the true God, whom the Jews worshipped, among the idols of the Gentiles, and upon a level with them, if not inferior to them, especially to his own idol, and thought himself superior to him....

CHAPTER 10 The Assyrian, His invasion of Immanuel's land, and His end 1. _The first four verses belong to the preceding chapter. A description of the Assyrian enemy (Isaiah 10:5)_ 2. _The overthrow of his army announced (Isaiah 10:12)_ 3. _The punishment (Isaiah 10:16)_ 4. _The return of the remnant (Isaiah 10:20)_ 5. _The faithful remnant comforted (Isaiah 10:24)_ 6. The Assyrians march against Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:28

ASSYRIA'S BOASTFULNESS AND ITS PUNISHMENT. This prophecy, so far as it is Isaiah's, must be later than the capture of Carchemish in 717 and before Sennacherib's invasion in 701. Narrower limits cannot be fixed. Non-Isaianic material appears to be present in it. ISAIAH 10:5. Assyria is Yahweh's rod to smite any nation that has aroused His anger, but, inspired by lust of blood, plans to exterminate many peoples, and boastfully thinks to destroy Jerusalem with her divine nonentities, less powerful than those of cities she has seized. So, when she has served His purpose, He will punish her boastfulness in ascribing her conquests to her own wisdom and might. She has abolished the boundaries of subject peoples, merging them in her empire; plundered their treasures and abased their rulers, robbing the nations as a man takes the eggs from a nest abandoned by the panic-stricken birds, n

IDOLS. effigies....

The first speech of the Assyrian....

HOWBEIT, HE MEANETH NOT SO, &C.— The prophet had taught the pious in what light they should consider the Assyrian, leading a large army with a splendid apparatus, and bringing under his power the people of God, so called, in the same manner as other nations; he shews that, though a great prince, he is only the minister of the divine providence and indignation; the executor of the counsels and decrees of the supreme ruler, Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, without whom he could do nothing: and that in those very expeditions which he undertook against the Ephraimites and Syrians, he was to obey the secret rule of the divine providence. "Yet this prevents not, says the prophet, his becoming guilty of great crimes before God, in the execution of these secret decrees; for, ignorant of the divine counsels, he had far different thoughts in his mind; sacrificing only to his ambition and lust by this w...