Isaiah 10:10

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath. ⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets. ⁷But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. His purpose is to destroy and cut off many nations. ⁸"Are not all my commanders kings?" he says. ⁹"Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? ¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms, whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,¹¹and as I have done to Samaria and its idols, will I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols?" ¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, "I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes." ¹³For he says: "By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers. ¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the kingdoms: Isaiah 10:14, 2 Kings 18:33-35, 2 Kings 19:12, 2 Kings 19:13, 2 Kings 19:17-19, 2 Chronicles 32:12-16, 2 Chronicles 32:19

Reciprocal: 2 Chronicles 32:13 - I and my Psalms 12:3 - tongue Isaiah 36:19 - and have Hosea 8:11 - many Romans 8:39 - height

Cross-References

Genesis 11:2
And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Genesis 11:9
That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.

Genesis 14:1
In those days Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim

Isaiah 10:9
"Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

Isaiah 11:11
On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Isaiah 39:1
At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard about Hezekiah's illness and recovery.

Jeremiah 50:21
"Go up against the land of Merathaim, and against the residents of Pekod. Put them to the sword and devote them to destruction," declares the LORD. "Do everything I have commanded you.

Daniel 1:2
And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them into the treasury of his god.

Amos 6:2
Cross over to Calneh and see; go from there to great Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?

Micah 4:10
Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies!

Gill's Notes on the Bible

As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols,.... Which worship idols, as the Targum paraphrases it. He speaks of them as being very easily taken by him; he had no trouble in subduing them; no sooner did he come up to them, and looked on them, and saw where they were, but they fell into his hands; they gave up themselves to him at once, and he took possession of them.

And whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; being made of better metal, or more richly ornamented, or worshipped in a more pompous manner; or were "more" than they of Jerusalem and Samaria, exceeded them in number; or were "stronger" and mightier than they, as Kimchi supplies it, and yet could not protect them; or were "from Jerusalem, and from Samaria"; the wicked men of Israel, Jarchi says, supplied all the nations with images, they all sprung from them; and if the idols which came from hence could not secure the nations of the earth from falling into the hands of the Assyrian monarch, neither could they preserve Jerusalem and Samaria from being taken by him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The argument in these two verses is this: ‘The nations which I have subdued were professedly under the protection of idol gods. Yet those idols were not able to defend them - though stronger than the gods worshipped by Jerusalem and Samaria. And is there any probability, therefore, that the protection on which you who are Jews are leaning, will be able to deliver you?’ Jerusalem he regarded as an idolatrous city, like others; and as all others had hitherto been unable to retard his movements, he inferred that it would be so with Jerusalem. This is, therefore, the confident boasting of “a man” who regarded himself as able to vanquish all “the gods” that the nations worshipped. The same confident boasting he uttered when he sent messengers to Hezekiah; 2 Kings 19:12 : ‘Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my father destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Thelasar?’ Isaiah 36:18-20 : ‘Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?’

Hath found - That is, ‘I have found them unable to defend themselves by their trust in their idols, and have subdued them.’

The kingdoms of the idols - The kingdoms that worship idols.

And whose graven images - That is, whose idols; or whose representations of the gods. The word properly signifies that which is hewn or cut out; and then the block of wood, or stone, that is carved into an image of the god. Here it, refers to the gods themselves, probably, as having been found to be impotent, though he supposed them to be more powerful that those of Jerusalem and Samaria.

Did excel - Hebrew, ‘More than Jerusalem,’ where the inseperable preposition מ m, is used to denote comparison. They were “more” to be dreaded; or more mighty than those of Jerusalem.

Of Jerusalem - Jerusalem and Samaria had often been guilty of the worship of idols; and it is probable that Sennacherib regarded them as idolaters in the same sense as other nations. They had given occasion for this suspicion by their having often fallen into idolatrous habits; and the Assyrian monarch did not regard them as in any manner distinguished from surrounding nations. It is not improbable that he was aware that Jerusalem worshipped Yahweh (compare Isaiah 36:20); but he doubtless regarded Yahweh as a mere tutelary divinity - the special god of that land, as Baal, Ashtaroth, etc., were of the countries in which they were adored. For it was a common doctrine among ancient idolaters, that each nation had its special god; that the claims of that god were to be respected and regarded in that nation; and that thus all nations should worship their own gods undisturbed. Yahweh was thus regarded as the tutelary god of the Jewish nation. The sin of Sennacherib consisted in confounding Yahweh with false gods, and in then setting him at defiance.

Isaiah 10:11

Shall I not ... - ‘Shall I not meet with the same success at Jerusalem that I have elsewhere? As I have overcome all others and as Jerusalem has no particular advantages; as the gods of other nations were more in number, and mightier than those of Jerusalem, and yet were unable to resist me; what is there in Jerusalem that can stay my progress?’