Isaiah 10:5-6

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ¹ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ² 

10:6 I sent him ³  against a godless ⁴  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ⁵ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ⁶  like dirt in the streets.

Amos 3:2

3:2 “I have chosen ⁷  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Habakkuk 1:12

Habakkuk Voices Some Concerns

1:12 Lord, you have been active from ancient times; ⁸ 

my sovereign God, ⁹  you are immortal. ¹⁰ 

Lord, you have made them ¹¹  your instrument of judgment. ¹² 

Protector, ¹³  you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. ¹⁴ 

Habakkuk 3:12

3:12 You furiously stomp on the earth,

you angrily trample down the nations.

¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.

² tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”

³ sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

⁴ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

⁵ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

⁶ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

⁷ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

⁸ tn Heb “Are you not from antiquity, O Lord?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, of course.” The present translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question, rendering it as an affirmation. When used in a temporal sense the phrase מִקֶדֶם (miqedem) means “from antiquity, ancient times,” often referring to earlier periods in Israel’s history. See its use in Neh 12:46; Pss 74:12; 77:11; Isa 45:21; 46:10; Mic 5:2.

⁹ tn Heb “My God, my holy one.” God’s “holiness” in this context is his sovereign transcendence as the righteous judge of the world (see vv. 12b-13a), thus the translation “My sovereign God.”

¹⁰ tc The MT reads, “we will not die,” but an ancient scribal tradition has “you [i.e., God] will not die.” This is preferred as a more difficult reading that can explain the rise of the other variant. Later scribes who copied the manuscripts did not want to associate the idea of death with God in any way, so they softened the statement to refer to humanity.

¹¹ tn Heb “him,” a collective singular referring to the Babylonians. The plural pronoun “them” has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.

¹² tn Heb “for judgment.”

¹³ tn Heb “Rock” or “Cliff.” This divine epithet views God as a place where one can go to be safe from danger. The translation “Protector” conveys the force of the metaphor (cf. KJV, NEB “O mighty God”).

¹⁴ tn Heb “to correct, reprove.”