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
10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,
or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? 3
As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,
or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!
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 tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”