Isaiah 10:3

3 What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

Isaiah 10:3 in Other Translations

KJV
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?
ESV
3 What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?
NLT
3 What will you do when I punish you, when I send disaster upon you from a distant land? To whom will you turn for help? Where will your treasures be safe?
MSG
3 What will you have to say on Judgment Day, when Doomsday arrives out of the blue? Who will you get to help you? What good will your money do you?
CSB
3 What will you do on the day of punishment when devastation comes from far away? Who will you run to 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 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.
5 “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!

Cross References 3

  • 1. S Job 31:14; Hosea 9:7
  • 2. ver 25; Psalms 59:5; Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 14:23; Isaiah 24:6; Isaiah 26:14; Isaiah 47:11; Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 9:9; Jeremiah 50:15; Luke 19:44
  • 3. S Psalms 108:12; Isaiah 20:6; Isaiah 30:7; Isaiah 31:3
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