John Gill Commentary Isaiah 10

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees
Or, "O you that decree" (ywh) being a sign of the vocative case, and an interjection of calling, as Aben Ezra observes; though the Targum and other versions understand it of a threatening denounced; and applies to lawgivers and judges, political rulers and governors of the people, that made unrighteous laws; laws which were not agreeable to the law of God, nor right reason; and were injurious to the persons and properties of men; and which were calculated for the oppression of good men, especially the poor, and for the protection of wicked men, who had no conscience about spoiling them.

and that write grievous laws which they have prescribed;
laws grievous and intolerable being made by them, they wrote them, or ordered them to be written, engrossed, and promulgated, published them, and obliged the people to be subject to them. This some understand of the scribes of judges, who sat in court, and wrote out the decrees and sentences made by them; but it rather intends the same persons as before; and not ecclesiastical but political governors are meant, and such as lived before the Babylonian captivity; otherwise, the whole applies to the Scribes and Pharisees, to the Misnic doctors, the authors of the oral law, the fathers of tradition, whose decisions and decrees were unrighteous and injurious, and contrary to the commands of God; heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and very oppressive of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow; for which they are reproved by Christ, (Matthew 15:3Matthew 15:6Matthew 15:9) (Matthew 23:4Matthew 23:14Matthew 23:23Matthew 23:25).

Jarchi says it is an Arabic ^F7 word which signifies scribes.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: So and Scriba, Golius, col. 1999; so the word is used in the Chaldee and Syriac languages. See Castel. col. 1828, 1829.

To turn aside the needy from judgment
Such laws being made as discouraged them from any application for justice; and, when they did, were harassed with such long, vexatious, and expensive suits, as obliged them to desist, and the cause being generally given against them, and for the rich:

and to take away the right from the poor of my people ;
for not to do justice to the poor is the same as to rob and plunder them, and take away by force what of right belongs to them; wherefore it follows:

that widows may be their prey, and [that] they may rob the
fatherless ;
who have none to protect and defend them, and whose protectors judges ought to be, in imitation of God, whom civil magistrates represent, who is the Judge of the widows and the fatherless; and therefore this is observed as an aggravation of their sin, which was very great indeed:

it is very wicked in a judge to pervert the judgment of the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless, contrary to laws that are made by God and men; but to make and prescribe wicked and unrighteous laws, that wickedness may be framed, and mischief committed by a law, that the poor and the needy, the widows and fatherless, may be injured under colour and pretence of law and justice, is the height of injustice. See (Psalms 94:20Psalms 94:21) .

And what will you do in the day of visitation
Not in a way of grace and mercy, but of wrath and anger, as the following clause explains it, when God should come and punish them for their sins; and so the Targum,

``what will you do in the day that your sins shall be visited upon you?'' it designs the Babylonish captivity, as the next words show; the same phrase is used of the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, (Luke 19:44):

and in the desolation [which] shall come from far ?
from Assyria, which was distant from the land of Judea: the word ^F8 for "desolation" signifies a storm, tumult, noise, and confusion; referring to what would be made by the Assyrian army, when it came upon them:

to whom will you flee for help ?
Rezin king of Syria, their confederate, being destroyed; and Syria, with whom they were in alliance, now become their enemy, see (Isaiah 9:11Isaiah 9:12):

and where will you leave your glory ?
either their high titles, and ensigns of honour, as princes, judges, and civil magistrates, which they should be stripped of; or rather their mammon, as Aben Ezra interprets it, their unrighteous mammon, which they got by perverting the judgment of the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless, of which they gloried; and which now would be taken away from them, when they should go into captivity.

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: (hawvl) "sub procella, quae a longinquo veniet", Cocceius; so the Targum renders it, "in tumult of tribulation".

Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and
they shall fall under the slain
That is, either, being forsaken by me, and destitute of my help, they shall bow down; or, "because they are without me", are not my people, and do not hearken to me, therefore they shall bow down, so David Kimchi; or, were it not for me, they would, as others; or that they might not bow down and fall; and so the words may be connected with the preceding verse (Isaiah 10:3).

Others render the word, translated "without me, besides"; and the sense is either, as Moses Kimchi, besides their bowing in their own land, when subdued by the Gentiles, a greater affliction shall befall them, captivity; when they should be either carried captive or slain; or besides him that shall bow down under the prisoners, they shall fall under the slain; besides those that are taken, others shall be killed; or none shall escape, but, or "except", him that bows, and hides himself under the prisoners, or in the place of the slain, that he might not be thought to be alive:

or the sense is, the desolation shall be so general, that none shall escape, either they shall be taken prisoners, or they shall be slain; agreeably to which Noldius ^F9 renders the words, "without me", everyone "shall bow down among the prisoners, or shall fall among the slain"; which gives the best sense of them; that, being left of God for their sins, they would either be bound and carried captive, or else slain with the sword, and one or the other would be the lot of everyone of them:

for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is
stretched out still ;
the final and utter destruction of the nation of the Jews being then not yet come, when carried captive to Babylon, there remained a greater calamity for them, to come by the hands of the Romans. These first four verses (Isaiah 10:1–4) seem more properly to belong to the preceding chapter (Isaiah 9:1–21) , and this should begin with the next verse (Isaiah 10:5) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F9: Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 201, 771.

O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger
Either as calling him to come against the land of Israel to spoil it, so Kimchi; or as grieving that he was obliged to make use of him in such a manner against his people; or as threatening him with ruin. So the Targum, Septuagint, and all the Oriental versions render it, "woe to the Assyrian"; wherefore this, and what follows, serve to comfort the people of God; that though they should be carried captive by the Assyrians, yet they should be utterly destroyed, and a remnant of the Jews should be saved.

The Assyrian monarch is called the "rod of God's anger", because he was made use of by him as an instrument to chastise and correct Israel for their sins: and the staff in their hand is mine indignation ; that is, the staff which was in the hand of the king of Assyria, and his army, with which they smote the people of Israel, was no other than the wrath and indignation of God against that people, and the execution of it, which he committed to them as instruments.

Kimchi interprets "their hand" of the land of Israel, into which this staff was sent, the Assyrian, to smite and chastise them.

The Targum is,
``woe to the Assyrian, the government of my fury; and an angel sent from before me against them for a curse.''