10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, 1
a cudgel with which I angrily punish. 2
10:6 I sent him 3 against a godless 4 nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, 5
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down 6 like dirt in the streets.
10:12 But when 7 the sovereign master 8 finishes judging 9 Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I 10 will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. 11
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
2 tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”
3 sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).
4 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”
5 tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”
6 tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”
7 tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
8 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 23, 24, 33 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
9 tn Heb “his work on/against.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “on”; NIV “against.”
10 tn The Lord is speaking here, as in vv. 5-6a.
11 tn Heb “I will visit [judgment] on the fruit of the greatness of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of the height of his eyes.” The proud Assyrian king is likened to a large, beautiful fruit tree.