Discovery BoxIsaiah 10:12-19 
Context10:12 But when 1 the sovereign master 2 finishes judging 3 Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I 4 will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. 5 10:13 For he says:
“By my strong hand I have accomplished this,
by my strategy that I devised.
I invaded the territory of nations, 6
and looted their storehouses.
Like a mighty conqueror, 7 I brought down rulers. 8
10:14 My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest,
as one gathers up abandoned eggs,
I gathered up the whole earth.
There was no wing flapping,
or open mouth chirping.” 9
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? 10
As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,
or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!
10:16 For this reason 11 the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. 12 His majestic glory will go up in smoke. 13
10:17 The light of Israel 14 will become a fire,
their Holy One 15 will become a flame;
it will burn and consume the Assyrian king’s 16 briers
and his thorns in one day.
10:18 The splendor of his forest and his orchard
will be completely destroyed, 17
as when a sick man’s life ebbs away. 18
10:19 There will be so few trees left in his forest,
a child will be able to count them. 19
Isaiah 10:33-34
Context10:33 Look, the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies,
is ready to cut off the branches with terrifying power. 20
The tallest trees 21 will be cut down,
the loftiest ones will be brought low.
10:34 The thickets of the forest will be chopped down with an ax,
and mighty Lebanon will fall. 22
1 tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
2 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 23, 24, 33 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
3 tn Heb “his work on/against.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “on”; NIV “against.”
4 tn The Lord is speaking here, as in vv. 5-6a.
5 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.
6 tn Heb “removed the borders of nations”; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “boundaries.”
7 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has כְּאַבִּיר (kÿ’abir, “like a strong one”); the marginal reading (Qere) is כַּבִיר (kavir, “mighty one”).
8 tn Heb “and I brought down, like a strong one, ones sitting [or “living”].” The participle יוֹשְׁבִים (yoshÿvim, “ones sitting”) could refer to the inhabitants of the nations, but the translation assumes that it refers to those who sit on thrones, i.e., rulers. See BDB 442 s.v. יָשַׁב and HALOT 444 s.v. ישׁב.
9 sn The Assyrians’ conquests were relatively unopposed, like robbing a bird’s nest of its eggs when the mother bird is absent.
10 tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”
11 sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.
12 tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”
13 tc Heb “and in the place of his glory burning will burn, like the burning of fire.” The highly repetitive text (יֵקַד יְקֹד כִּיקוֹד אֵשׁ, yeqad yiqod kiqod ’esh) may be dittographic; if the second consonantal sequence יקד is omitted, the text would read “and in the place of his glory, it will burn like the burning of fire.”
14 tn In this context the “Light of Israel” is a divine title (note the parallel title “his holy one”). The title points to God’s royal splendor, which overshadows and, when transformed into fire, destroys the “majestic glory” of the king of Assyria (v. 16b).
15 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
16 tn Heb “his.” In vv. 17-19 the Assyrian king and his empire is compared to a great forest and orchard that are destroyed by fire (symbolic of the Lord).
17 tn Heb “from breath to flesh it will destroy.” The expression “from breath to flesh” refers to the two basic components of a person, the immaterial (life’s breath) and the material (flesh). Here the phrase is used idiomatically to indicate totality.
18 tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. מָסַס (masas), which is used elsewhere of substances dissolving or melting, may here mean “waste away” or “despair.” נָסַס (nasas), which appears only here, may mean “be sick” or “stagger, despair.” See BDB 651 s.v. I נָסַס and HALOT 703 s.v. I נסס. One might translate the line literally, “like the wasting away of one who is sick” (cf. NRSV “as when an invalid wastes away”).
19 tn Heb “and the rest of the trees of his forest will be counted, and a child will record them.”
20 tc The Hebrew text reads “with terrifying power,” or “with a crash.” מַעֲרָצָה (ma’aratsah, “terrifying power” or “crash”) occurs only here. Several have suggested an emendation to מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad, “ax”) parallel to “ax” in v. 34; see HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד and H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:448.
sn As in vv. 12 (see the note there) and 18, the Assyrians are compared to a tree/forest in vv. 33-34.
21 tn Heb “the exalted of the height.” This could refer to the highest branches (cf. TEV) or the tallest trees (cf. NIV, NRSV).
22 tn The Hebrew text has, “and Lebanon, by/as [?] a mighty one, will fall.” The translation above takes the preposition בְּ (bet) prefixed to “mighty one” as indicating identity, “Lebanon, as a mighty one, will fall.” In this case “mighty one” describes Lebanon. (In Ezek 17:23 and Zech 11:2 the adjective is used of Lebanon’s cedars.) Another option is to take the preposition as indicating agency and interpret “mighty one” as a divine title (see Isa 33:21). One could then translate, “and Lebanon will fall by [the agency of] the Mighty One.”
