Isaiah 10:3

3 What will you do on the day when the LORD punishes you? On that day trouble will come from far away. Who will you run to for help? Who will you trust your riches with?

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 terrible it will be for you who make laws that aren't fair! How terrible for you who write laws that make life hard for others!
2 You take away the rights of poor people. You hold back what is fair from my people who are suffering. You take for yourselves what belongs to widows. You rob children whose fathers have died.
3 What will you do on the day when the LORD punishes you? On that day trouble will come from far away. Who will you run to for help? Who will you trust your riches with?
4 All you can do is bow down in fear among the prisoners. All you can do is fall among those who have died in battle. Even then, the LORD is still angry. His hand is still raised against them.
5 The LORD says, "How terrible it will be for the people of Assyria! They are the war club that carries out my anger.
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