Isaiah 10:15-17 New English Translation
15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,
or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it?[a]
As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,
or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!
16 For this reason[b] the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies
will make his healthy ones emaciated.[c]
His majestic glory will go up in smoke.[d]
17 The Light of Israel[e] will become a fire,
their Holy One[f] will become a flame;
it will burn and consume the Assyrian king’s[g] briers
and his thorns in one day.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 10:15 tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”
- Isaiah 10:16 sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.
- Isaiah 10:16 tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”
- Isaiah 10:16 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 yeqod 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.”
- Isaiah 10:17 tn In this context the “Light of Israel” is a divine title (note the parallel title “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).
- Isaiah 10:17 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
- Isaiah 10:17 tn Heb “his.” In vv. 17-19 the Assyrian king and his empire are compared to a great forest and orchard that are destroyed by fire (symbolic of the Lord).
New English Translation (NET)
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