\\INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 10\\

This chapter contains denunciations of punishment, first on the
governors of the Jewish nation, and then upon the Assyrians; a woe is
denounced on the makers and imposers of bad laws, whereby the poor and
the needy, the widows and the fatherless, were deprived of their right,
\\#Isa 10:1,2\\ which woe or punishment is explained to be a desolation
of their country by the Assyrians, that should come afar off, and which
they could not escape; under whom they should bow and fall; and yet
there should not be an end of their punishment, \\#Isa 10:3,4\\ next
follows a prophecy of the destruction of the Assyrians themselves, for
the comfort of God's people; in which is observed, that the Assyrian
monarch was an instrument in the hand of the Lord to chastise his
people, and therefore is called the rod and staff of his wrath and
indignation, \\#Isa 10:5\\ the people are described against whom he was
sent, and the end for which is mentioned, \\#Isa 10:6\\ though this was
not his intention, nor did he design to stop here, but to destroy and
cut off many other nations, \\#Isa 10:7\\ which he hoped to do from the
magnificence of his princes, who were as kings, and from the conquests
he had made of kingdoms, and their chief cities, \\#Isa 10:8-11\\
wherefore, when the Lord had done what he designed to do by him among
his people the Jews, he was determined to punish him, because of the
pride of his heart, and the haughtiness of his looks, and his boasting
of his strength and wisdom, and of his robberies and plunders, without
opposition; which boasting was as foolish as if an axe, a saw, a rod,
and a staff, should boast, magnify, move, and lift up themselves
against the person that made use of them, \\#Isa 10:12-15\\ which
punishment is said to come from the Lord, and is expressed by leanness,
and by a consuming and devouring fire; for which reason his army is
compared to thorns and briers, to a forest, and a fruitful field, which
should be destroyed at once; so that what of the trees remained should
be so few as to be numbered by a child, \\#Isa 10:16-19\\ and, for the
further consolation of the people of God, it is observed, that in the
times following the destruction of the Assyrian monarchy, a remnant of
the people of Israel should be converted, and no more lean upon an arm
of flesh, but upon the Lord Christ, the Holy One of Israel; even a
remnant only; for though that people were very numerous, yet a remnant,
according to the election of grace, should be saved, when it was the
determinate counsel of God, and according to his righteous judgment, to
destroy the far greater part of them, for their perverseness and
obstinacy, \\#Isa 10:20-23\\ wherefore the people of God are exhorted
not to be afraid of the Assyrian, though chastised by him; since in a
little time the anger of the Lord would cease in his destruction, which
should be after the manner of the Egyptians at the Red sea, and as the
slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; whereby they would be free
from his burden and yoke, because of the anointed King that should
reign, or the King Messiah, \\#Isa 10:24-27\\ and then follows a
description of the expedition of the king of Assyria into Judea, by
making mention of the several places through which he should pass with
terror to the inhabitants, until he should come to Jerusalem, against
which he should shake his hand, \\#Isa 10:28-32\\ and then, under the
similes of lopping a bough, and cutting down the thickets of a forest,
and the trees of Lebanon, is predicted the destruction of his army and
its generals by an angel, \\#Isa 10:33,34\\.