Isaiah 10:3

3 And what do ye at a day of inspection? And at desolation? -- from afar it cometh. Near whom do ye flee for help? And where do ye leave your honour?

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 Wo [to] those decreeing decrees of iniquity, And writers who have prescribed perverseness.
2 To turn aside from judgment the poor, And to take violently away the judgment Of the afflicted of My people, That widows may be their prey, That the fatherless they may spoil.
3 And what do ye at a day of inspection? And at desolation? -- from afar it cometh. Near whom do ye flee for help? And where do ye leave your honour?
4 Without Me it hath bowed down In the place of a bound one, And in the place of the slain they fall. With all this not turned back hath His anger, And still His hand is stretched out.
5 Wo [to] Asshur, a rod of Mine anger, And a staff in their hand [is] Mine indignation.
Young's Literal Translation is in the public domain.