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You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners,
or to fall among those who have been killed.[a]
Despite all this, his anger does not subside,
and his hand is ready to strike again.[b]

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

“Beware, Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger,[c]
a cudgel with which I angrily punish.[d]
I sent him[e] against a godless[f] nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry,[g]
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down[h] like dirt in the streets.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 10:4 tn Heb “except one kneels in the place of the prisoner, and in the place of the slain [who] fall.” On the force of בִּלְתִּי (bilti, “except”) and its logical connection to what precedes, see BDB 116 s.v. בֵלֶת. On the force of תַּחַת (takhat, “in the place of”) here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:258, n. 6.
  2. Isaiah 10:4 tn Heb “in all this his anger was not turned, and still his hand was outstretched”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “his hand is stretched out still.”sn See the note at 9:12.
  3. Isaiah 10:5 tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.”
  4. Isaiah 10:5 tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (beyadam) 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.”
  5. Isaiah 10:6 sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).
  6. Isaiah 10:6 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”
  7. Isaiah 10:6 tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”
  8. Isaiah 10:6 tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”