Isaiah 10:1 - Meaning and Application

It is not certain whether the prophet is speaking against the princes and judges of Israel or Judah, or against both. If he means Israel, then these verses belong with the end of the previous chapter, which is quite likely, since he repeats the burden of that warning here, saying, “for all this his anger is not turned away” (Isaiah 10:4). If he means Judah, then these verses show why God brought the Assyrian army against them, namely, to punish their rulers for bad government, even though no court among men could hold them to account.

Before he speaks comfort to God’s own people, he first speaks woes against these oppressors. The first charge is that they make evil laws and orders. They create unfair decrees, against common justice and against God’s law, and then their officials write them down and give them legal form. The higher authorities are guilty for planning and ordering these laws, and the lower officials are guilty for recording them. Both the leaders and their helpers fall under the same warning.

This is a serious sin, because it is one thing to do harm, and worse to do it on purpose. It is even worse to hurt many people by design and to drag many others into the guilt of wrongdoing. The second charge is that they twist justice when these laws are carried out. No nation had better laws and judgments than Israel did, yet corrupt judges still found ways to turn the needy away from justice. They blocked poor people from getting what was rightfully theirs, because the poor could give them nothing and could offer no bribes.

The third charge is that they enriched themselves by oppressing the helpless, people they should have protected. They treated widows’ houses and property as plunder, and they robbed orphans of what little was left to them, because no one was there to defend them. If they had simply failed to help these people, that would already have been sinful in rulers with wealth and power. But to rob them because the oppressors had power and the oppressed had no defender was a shocking cruelty, something one would not expect from anyone who had either human feeling or the name of an Israelite.

Then comes a challenge to their pride and power. “What will you do? Where will you run?” They can crush widows and orphans now, but what will they do when God rises up? Powerful people often think they will never be called to account for their tyranny. They imagine they will never hear of it again, or that nothing will come of it. But will not God punish such things? Will there not be ruin for those who have made others ruined?

That ruin may come from far away, and so it may seem slow in coming. But it will come at last, and a delay is not the same as a pardon. If judgment comes from a quarter least expected, it will be all the more sudden and dreadful. What then will happen to these unjust judges? Right now they think they have help at the city gate, where legal matters are handled, but where will they flee for help on that day?

There is a day of visitation coming, a day when God will examine and expose everything. It will be a searching day that brings every person and every work into the light. For wicked people, that day of visitation will also be a day of desolation, when all their comforts and hopes are swept away and they are left empty. Impenitent sinners will be at a loss on that day. They cannot run and hide, and they cannot fight their way out. They will have no refuge to protect them from present trouble, and no place to store up better days for the future.

“What will you do with your glory?” means, what will become of the wealth and honor they had gained? They had no safe place to keep it, and they would certainly lose it. If our souls are our true glory, as they should be, and if we make them our chief concern, then we know where to leave them. We can trust them into the hands of a faithful Creator. So we should all seriously ask what we will do in the day of visitation, in a time of trouble, and in the day of death and judgment, and make sure we are ready to do well then.

The sentence on these rulers is that some will be thrown into prison and captivity. They will bow down among the prisoners, or beneath them, because those who were highest in sin will be most heavily loaded with trouble and brought the lowest. Others will die. They will fall first and then lie beneath the rest of the slain. Those who trampled on widows and orphans will themselves be trampled down (Isaiah 10:4).

This is what it comes to, says God, when people live without him, desert him, and push him out of their lives. Nothing but total ruin can be expected from those who live without God in the world and cast him behind their back, shutting themselves out from his protection. And even after this, his anger is not turned away. That means God will keep pressing his case against them, and they will live in constant fear of his hand still being stretched out against them. Nothing will remain for them except a dreadful waiting for judgment.