Isaiah 10:3

3 What will you do on the day you are called to account [for these things], when the disaster comes from far away? Where will you run for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

Isaiah 10:3 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 10:3

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 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 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 Isaiah 9:12 ) : 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.
FOOTNOTES:

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

Isaiah 10:3 In-Context

1 How horrible it will be for those who make unjust laws and who make oppressive regulations.
2 They deprive the poor of justice. They take away the rights of the needy among my people. They prey on widows and rob orphans.
3 What will you do on the day you are called to account [for these things], when the disaster comes from far away? Where will you run for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
4 Nothing's left but to crouch among prisoners and to fall with those who are killed. Even after all this, his anger will not disappear, and he is still ready to use his power.
5 "How horrible it will be for Assyria! It is the rod of my anger. My fury is the staff in the Assyrians' hands.
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