Jesaja 10:12

And when He had made use of him as He would, He would throw him away. "And it will come to pass, when the Lord shall have brought to an end all His work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will come to punish over the fruit of the pride of heart of the king of Asshur, and over the haughty look of his eyes." The "fruit" (peri) of the heart's pride of Asshur is his vainglorious blasphemy of Jehovah, in which his whole nature is comprehended, as the inward nature of the tree is in the fruit which hangs above in the midst of the branches; tiph'ereth, as in Zac 12:7, the self-glorification which expresses itself in the lofty look of the eyes. Several constructives are here intentionally grouped together (Ges. 114, 1), to express the great swelling of Asshur even to bursting. But Jehovah, before whom humility is the soul of all virtue, would visit this pride with punishment, when He should have completely cut off His work, i.e., when He should have thoroughly completed (bizza', absolvere) His punitive work upon Jerusalem (ma‛aseh, as in Isa 28:21). The prep. Beth is used in the same sense as in Jer 18:23, agere cum aliquo. It is evident that ma‛aseh is not used to indicate the work of punishment and grace together, so that yebazza‛ could be taken as a literal future (as Schrring and Ewald suppose), but that it denotes the work of punishment especially; and consequently yebazza‛ is to be taken as a futurum exactum (cf., Isa 4:4), as we may clearly see from the choice of this word in Lam 2:17 (cf., Zac 4:9).

The prophet, in this chapter, is dealing, I. With the proud oppressors of his people at home, that abused their power, to pervert justice, whom he would reckon with for their tyranny (Isa 10:1-4). II. With a threatening invader of his people from abroad, Sennacherib king of Assyria, concerning whom observe, 1. The commission given him to invade Judah (Isa 10:5, Isa 10:6). 2. His pride and insolence in the execution of that commission (Isa 10:7-11, Isa 10:13, Isa 10:14). 3. A rebuke given to his haughtiness, and a threatening of his fall and ruin, when he had served the purposes for which God raised him up (Isa 10:12, Isa 10:15-19). 4. A promise of grace to the people of God, to enable them to bear up under the affliction, and to get good by it (Isa 10:20-23). 5. Great encouragement given to them not to fear this threatening storm, but to hope that, though for the present all the country was put into a great consternation by it, yet it would end well, in the destruction of this formidable enemy (Isa 10:24-34). And this is intended to quiet the minds of good people in reference to all the threatening efforts of the wrath of the church's enemies. If God be for us, who can be against us? None to do us any harm.

10:12 Any royal power that exalts itself against the Lord, the Great King, is proud and arrogant (see 2:11-12) and will be crushed.