Isaiah 10:3

And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) And what will ye do in the day of visitation . . .?—The question was not without a certain touch of irony. Had those corrupt judges asked themselves what they would do when the Supreme Judge should call them to account? Had they an ally who could protect them against Jehovah? Or had they found a hiding-place for the treasures which they had made their “glory”? Had they made a covenant with Hades and with death? (Isaiah 28:18).

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 10:3-4. What will ye do — To save yourselves? in the day of visitation? — When I shall come to visit you in wrath, as the next words limit the expression. The desolation which shall come from far — From the Assyrians. This he adds, because the Israelites, having weakened the Jews, and being in amity with the Syrians, their next neighbours, were secure. To whom will ye flee for help — To the Syrians, as now you do? But they shall be destroyed together with you, 2 Kings 16:9; and where will you leave your glory — To be kept safe for your use, and to be restored to you when you call for it? By their glory, he means, either, 1st, their power and authority, which now they so wickedly abused; or, 2d, their wealth, gotten by injustice, as glory sometimes means: see Genesis 31:1; Psalm 49:16-17. Without me — Without my favour and help, which you have forfeited, and do not seek to recover; they shall bow down — Notwithstanding all their succours; under the prisoners — Or among the prisoners; and they shall fall under the slain — Or among the slain. The meaning is, that it was in vain for the Israelites to trust in their own strength, or in the assistance of the Syrians, or any other allies, since it was from God alone they could obtain deliverance, without whose aid, or when he deserted them, they should all bow down under the yoke of the Assyrians. In the Septuagint, and vulgar Latin, these words are joined to the foregoing verse, to this sense: “Whither will this people flee for refuge to preserve themselves, that they may not bow down, or be subdued among the captives, or destroyed among the slain?”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-4 These verses are to be joined with the foregoing chapter. Woe to the superior powers that devise and decree unrighteous decrees! And woe to the inferior officers that draw them up, and enter them on record! But what will sinners do? Whither will they flee?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And what will ye do - The prophet here proceeds to denounce the judgment, or punishment, that would follow the crimes specified in the previous verses. That punishment was the invasion of the land by a foreign force. 'What will ye do? To whom will you fly? What refuge will them be?' Implying that the calamity would be so great that there would be no refuge, or escape.

In the day of visitation - The word "visitation" (פקדה peqûddâh) is used here in the sense of God's coming to punish them for their sins; compare Job 31:14; Job 35:15; Isaiah 26:14; Ezekiel 9:1. The idea is probably derived from that of a master of a family who comes to take account, or to investigate the conduct of his servants, and where the visitation, therefore, is one of reckoning and justice. So the idea is applied to God as designing to visit the wicked; that is, to punish them for their offences; compare Hosea 9:7.

And in the desolation - The destruction, or overthrowing. The word used here - שׁואה shô'âh - usually denotes a storm, a tempest Proverbs 1:27; and then sudden destruction, or calamity, that sweeps along irresistibly like a tempest; Zephaniah 1:15; Job 30:3, Job 30:14; Psalm 35:8.

Which shall come from far - That is, from Assyria, Media, Babylonia. The sense is, 'a furious storm of war is about to rage. To what refuge can you then flee? or where can you then find safety?'

Where will ye leave your glory - By the word "glory" here, some have understood the prophet as referring to their aged men, their princes and nobles, and as asking where they would find a safe place for them. But he probably means their "riches, wealth, magnificence." Thus Psalm 49:17 :

For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away;

His glory shall not descebd after him.

See also Hosea 9:2; Isaiah 66:12. The word "leave" here, is used in the sense "of deposit," or commit for safe keeping; compare Job 39:14. 'In the time of the invasion that shall come up like a tempest on the land, where will you deposit your property so that it shall be safe?'

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. what will ye do—what way of escape will there be for you?

visitation—of God's wrath (Isa 26:14; Job 35:15; Ho 9:7).

from far—from Assyria.

leave … glory—rather, "deposit (for safekeeping) your wealth" [Lowth]. So Ps 49:17.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

What will ye do to save yourselves? In the day of visitation: when I shall come to visit you in wrath, as the next words limit it, and as this phrase is oft used; although sometimes it signifies a visitation in mercy, as Luke 19:14, and elsewhere.

From far; from the Assyrians. This he adds, because the Israelites, having weakened the Jews, and being in amity with the Syrians their next neighbours, were secure.

To whom will ye flee for help? to the Syrians, as now you do? But they shall be destroyed together with you, as they were, 2 Kings 16.

Where will you leave, to be kept safe for your use, and to be restored to you when you call for it, your glory? either,

1. Your power and authority, which now you so wickedly abuse; or,

2. Your wealth, got by injustice, as glory is taken, Genesis 31:1 Psalm 49:16,17, &c.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And what will ye 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 ye 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 (h) 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 ye 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 9:11,

and where will ye 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.

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

Geneva Study Bible

And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from {b} far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your {c} glory?

(b) That is, from Assyria.

(c) Your riches and authority, that they may be safe and that you may receive them again.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. The unjust lawgivers are reminded that there is a day of revision, when they must answer to the Supreme Judge.

And what will ye do?] cf. Hosea 9:5. day of visitation] cf. Hosea 9:7; Micah 7:4; Jeremiah 11:23; Jeremiah 23:12, &c.

desolation] or, storm; the word is only employed here by Isaiah. The “storm” of invasion “comes from far”; cf. ch. Isaiah 5:26, Isaiah 30:27.

leave your glory] i.e. “your wealth”; Genesis 31:1; Isaiah 61:6; Isaiah 66:12.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - What will ye do in the day of visitation? "The day of visitation" is the day when God reckons with his servants, and demands an account from each of the work done in his vineyard, being prepared to recompense the good and punish the bad (comp. Hosea 9:7). It is oftenest used in a bad sense because, unhappily, so many more are found to deserve punishment than reward. The desolation which shall come from far; rather, the crashing ruin (Cheyne). It is sudden, and complete destruction, rather than mere desolateness, that is threatened. Previous prophecies, especially Isaiah 7:17-20, had informed the Jews that it was to "come from far," "by them that were beyond the river." To whom will ye flee? The prophet speaks in bitter irony. Is there any one to whom ye can flee? any one who can protect you from the wrath of God? Ye well know there is no one. Where will ye leave your glory? With whom will ye deposit your riches, your magnificence, your jewels, your grand apparel? You cannot save them. They will all make to themselves wings, and "fly away like a bird" (Hosea 9:11). Isaiah 10:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Strophe 4. "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who prepare trouble to force away the needy from demanding justice, and to rob the suffering of my people of their rightful claims, that widows may become their prey, and they plunder orphans! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the storm that cometh from afar? To whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye deposit your glory? There is nothing left but to bow down under prisoners, and they fall under the slain. With all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." This last strophe is directed against the unjust authorities and judges. The woe pronounced upon them is, as we have already frequently seen, Isaiah's Ceterum censeo. Châkak is their decisive decree (not, however, in a denominative sense, but in the primary sense of hewing in, recording in official documents, Isaiah 30:8; Job 19:23); and Cittēb (piel only occurring here, and a perfect, according to Gesenius, 126, 3) their official signing and writing. Their decrees are Chikekē 'aven (an open plural, as in Judges 5:15, for Chukkē, after the analogy of גללי, עממי, with an absolute Chăkâkim underlying it: Ewald, 186-7), inasmuch as their contents were worthlessness, i.e., the direct opposite of morality; and what they wrote out was ‛âmâl, trouble, i.e., an unjust oppression of the people (compare πόνος and πονηρός).

(Note: The current accentuation, ומכתבים mercha, עמל tiphchah, is wrong. The true accentuation would be the former with tiphchah (and metheg), the latter with mercha; for ‛âmâl cittēbu is an attributive (an elliptical relative) clause. According to its etymon, ‛âmâl seems to stand by the side of μῶλος, moles, molestus (see Pott in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, ix. 202); but within the Semitic itself it stands by the side of אמל, to fade, marcescere, which coincides with the Sanscrit root mlâ and its cognates (see Leo Meyer, Vergleichende Grammatik, i. 353), so that ‛âmâl is, strictly speaking, to wear out or tire out (vulg. to worry).)

Poor persons who wanted to commence legal proceedings were not even allowed to do so, and possessions to which widows and orphans had a well-founded claim were a welcome booty to them (for the diversion into the finite verb, see Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 8:11; Isaiah 49:5; Isaiah 58:5). For all this they could not escape the judgment of God. This is announced to them in Isaiah 10:3, in the form of three distinct questions (commencing with ūmâh, quid igitur). The noun pekuddah in the first question always signifies simply a visitation of punishment; sho'âh is a confused, dull, desolate rumbling, hence confusion (turba), desolation: here it is described as "coming from afar," because a distant nation (Asshur) was the instrument of God's wrath. Second question: "Upon whom will ye throw yourselves in your search for help then" (nūs ‛al, a constr. praegnans, only met with here)? Third question: "Where, i.e., in whose hand, will ye deposit your wealth in money and possessions" (câbōd, what is weighty in value and imposing in appearance); ‛âzab with b'yad (Genesis 39:6), or with Lamed (Job 39:14), to leave anything with a person as property in trust. No one would relieve them of their wealth, and hold it as a deposit; it was irrecoverably lost. To this negative answer there is appended the following bilti, which, when used as a preposition after a previous negation, signifies praeter; when used as a conjunction, nisi (bilti 'im, Judges 7:14); and where it governs the whole sentence, as in this case, nisi quod (cf., Numbers 11:6; Daniel 11:18). In the present instance, where the previous negation is to be supplied in thought, it has the force of nil reliquum est nisi quod (there is nothing left but). The singular verb (câra‛) is used contemptuously, embracing all the high persons as one condensed mass; and tachath does not mean aeque ac or loco (like, or in the place of), as Ewald (217, k) maintains, but is used in the primary and local sense of infra (below). Some crouch down to find room at the feet of the prisoners, who are crowded closely together in the prison; or if we suppose the prophet to have a scene of transportation in his mind, they sink down under the feet of the other prisoners, in their inability to bear such hardships, whilst the rest fall in war; and as the slaughter is of long duration, not only become corpses themselves, but are covered with corpses of the slain (cf., Isaiah 14:19). And even with this the wrath of God is not satisfied. The prophet, however, does not follow out the terrible gradation any further. Moreover, the captivity, to which this fourth strophe points, actually formed the conclusion of a distinct period.