Isaiah 10:23

For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:20-34 By our afflictions we may learn not to make creatures our confidence. Those only can with comfort stay upon God, who return to him in truth, not in pretence and profession only. God will justly bring this wasting away on a provoking people, but will graciously set bounds to it. It is against the mind and will of God, that his people, whatever happens, should give way to fear. God's anger against his people is but for a moment; and when that is turned from us, we need not fear the fury of man. The rod with which he corrected his people, shall not only be laid aside, but thrown into the fire. To encourage God's people, the prophet puts them in mind of what God had formerly done against the enemies of his church. God's people shall be delivered from the Assyrians. Some think it looks to the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity; and further yet, to the redemption of believers from the tyranny of sin and Satan. And this, because of the anointing; for his people Israel's sake, the believers among them that had received the unction of Divine grace. And for the sake of the Messiah, the Anointed of God. Here is, ver. 28-34, a prophetical description of Sennacherib's march towards Jerusalem, when he threatened to destroy that city. Then the Lord, in whom Hezekiah trusted, cut down his army like the hewing of a forest. Let us apply what is here written, to like matters in other ages of the church of Christ. Because of the anointing of our great Redeemer, the yoke of every antichrist must be broken from off his church: and if our souls partake of the unction of the Holy Spirit, complete and eternal deliverances will be secured to us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For the Lord God of hosts - Note, Isaiah 1:9.

Shall make a consumption - The Hebrew of this verse might be rendered, 'for its destruction is completed, and is determined on; the Lord Yahweh of hosts will execute it in the midst of the land.' Our translation, however, expresses the force of the original. It means that the destruction was fixed in the mind or purpose of God, and would be certainly executed. The translation by the Septuagint, which is followed in the main by the apostle Paul in quoting this passage, is somewhat different. 'For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness, for a short work will the Lord make in the whole habitable world' - ἐν τῇ οἰκουμένῃ ὅλῃ en tē oikoumenē holē; as quoted by Paul, 'upon the earth' - ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς epi tēs gēs. For the manner in which this passage is quoted by Paul, see the notes at Romans 9:27-28.

In the midst of all the land - That is, the land of Israel for the threatened judgment extended no further.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23. even determined—"A consumption, and whatever is determined," or decreed [Maurer].

midst—Zion, the central point of the earth as to Jehovah's presence.

land—Israel. But the Septuagint, "in the whole habitable world." So English Version (Ro 9:28), "upon the earth."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Shall make a consumption, even determined; the same thing is repeated in other words, with some addition; God will execute his own decree concerning the destruction of Israel, which he is well able to do, because he is the Lord of hosts.

In the midst of all the land; in all the parts of the land, not excepting Jerusalem, which was to be preserved in the Assyrian invasion, when almost all the other fenced cities of Judah should be taken; but should afterwards be taken and destroyed, as it was, first by the Babylonians, and then by the Romans.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption,.... Not of the land of Judea, as at the destruction of Jerusalem; but the meaning is, that he that is Lord of all, who does what he pleases in the armies above and below, will execute and accomplish a precise and absolute decree of his, concerning the salvation of the remnant of his people; which is his decree of election, and that standing sure, not upon the foot of works, but his own sovereign will: hence their salvation is sure and certain, and not precarious;

even determined, in the midst of all the land; that is, the determined decree should be executed in the several parts of the land of Judea, where this remnant was; for which reason the Gospel was preached in the several cities of Judah, in order to accomplish it, both by Christ and his apostles.

Geneva Study Bible

For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a full end, even {r} determined, in the midst of all the land.

(r) God will destroy this land as he has determined and later save a small portion.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - The Lord... shall make a consumption; rather, a consummation - a final and decisive end of things. Even determined; i.e. "determined on beforehand." In the midst of all the land. "Throughout the entire land," not merely in some portions of it. Isaiah 10:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

To Him the remnant of Israel would turn, but only the remnant. "For if thy people were even as the sea-sand, the remnant thereof will turn: destruction is firmly determined, flowing away righteousness. For the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, completes the finishing stroke and that which is firmly determined, within the whole land." As the words are not preceded by any negative clause, ci 'im are not combined in the sense of sed or nisi; but they belong to two sentences, and signify nam si (for if). If the number of the Israelites were the highest that had been promised, only the remnant among them, or of them (bō partitive, like the French en), would turn, or, as the nearer definition ad Deum is wanting here, come back to their right position. With regard to the great mass, destruction was irrevocably determined (râchatz, τέμνειν, then to resolve upon anything, ἀποτόμως, 1 Kings 20:40); and this destruction "overflowed with righteousness," or rather "flowed on (shōtēph, as in Isaiah 28:18) righteousness," i.e., brought forth righteousness as it flowed onwards, so that it was like a swell of the penal righteousness of God (shâtaph, with the accusative, according to Ges. 138, Anm. 2). That cillâyōn is not used here in the sense of completion any more than in Deuteronomy 28:65, is evident from Isaiah 10:23, where câlâh (fem. of câleh, that which vanishes, then the act of vanishing, the end) is used interchangeably with it, and necherâtzâh indicates judgment as a thing irrevocably decided (as in Isaiah 28:22, and borrowed from these passages in Daniel 9:27; Daniel 11:36). Such a judgment of extermination the almighty Judge had determined to carry fully out (‛ōseh in the sense of a fut. instans) within all the land (b'kereb, within, not b'thok, in the midst of), that is to say, one that would embrace the whole land and all the people, and would destroy, if not every individual without exception, at any rate the great mass, except a very few.