Isaiah 10

When a powerful oppressor is at his high point, it may be hard for him to imagine that anyone could stand in his way. He can oppress the poor and the fatherless, and who will stop him? Of course he knows about God somewhere deep in his soul, but that can seem so distant an idea as to barely be real. But all of this can change very quickly. When a mightier adversary threatens, even the strong begin to look very weak.

What if the adversary is God himself? There is no one that can stand against the power of God. In Isaiah 10, God speaks in judgment through the prophet against those powerful rulers who imagined that they were invincible. He reveals that they will be the prisoners soon, or even among the slain.

How would an invisible God accomplish such a thing? God uses anything he wishes in the world of the visible and invisible to accomplish all His holy purposes. In the case of His people Israel, God will use Sennacherib and the formidable military might of the Assyrian empire as a rod of discipline and destruction from His hand.

Though God calls Assyria “the rod of my anger,” Assyria also will be judged by God. They were only His tool to use against His people at the appointed time, yet they exalted themselves beyond limit. They considered the God of Jerusalem as nothing more than all the idols of the earth. The time would come when God would finish His work of judgment against His own people, and there would be no safe place of hiding for a rod (Assyria) that tries to lift itself up against the One who lifts it (God). The great Ruler of rulers is the Lord of hosts, the master of men and angels. Why do we ever think that it is safe for us to raise a defiant challenge against the Lord God?

Assyria’s day will come and go, God will preserve a remnant from Immanuel’s land, the remnant of Jacob, and they will return to the land one day. The rest will be gone. It is more than frightening to consider the tremendous scope of the Lord’s judgment against Israel. The remnant will be the object of His eternal affection. The others will be gone from His sight, destroyed before the One Almighty God who shall accomplish all His sovereign will.

The march of the Assyrian army toward Israel and Judah must have been extremely frightening. Nonetheless, Jerusalem itself was finally spared, a fact we will have occasion to reflect upon in future chapters in the weeks ahead. This fact is subtly recorded by Sennacherib himself in his record of his own military conquests. He writes on a clay prism this artifact for public consumption, meant to terrify the enemies of Assyria who would dare to challenge his authority:

“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered by means of well-stamped ramps, and battering-rams brought near, the attack by foot soldiers, mines, breeches as well as sapper work. I drove out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting and considered booty. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving his city’s gate.”

He may have had the King of Judah as a bird in a cage, but that particular wolf never did get that bird. He had to be content to “shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.”

How many have arrogantly exalted themselves against the Lord Jesus Christ, a descendant of Hezekiah, and against the heavenly Zion over which He reigns. They imagine that they will only deal with the pale Galilean who died on a cross, when they will instead have to answer to the exalted Lion of the tribe of Judah. We need to consider the facts of the resurrection, and the power of the immortal Son of God.

It will be very obvious in the day of His visitation that we are not a match for the Lord of Glory. Why do we test His anger today through unbelief and disobedience? He gave His blood for His holy remnant. We must not turn against Christ and His church. Where will we turn if we turn away from the mercy of the cross? Where will we hide if the most powerful Adversary ever known should one day come against us?