Discovery BoxIsaiah 10:5 
Context10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, 1
a cudgel with which I angrily punish. 2
Isaiah 10:15
Context10:15 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!
Isaiah 10:24
Context10:24 So 4 here is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, even though they beat you with a club and lift their cudgel against you as Egypt did. 5
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.”
4 tn Heb “therefore.” The message that follows is one of encouragement, for it focuses on the eventual destruction of the Assyrians. Consequently “therefore” relates back to vv. 5-21, not to vv. 22-23, which must be viewed as a brief parenthesis in an otherwise positive speech.
5 tn Heb “in the way [or “manner”] of Egypt.”
