Isaiah 10:16-17

10:16 For this reason ¹  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ²  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ³ 

10:17 The light of Israel ⁴  will become a fire,

their Holy One ⁵  will become a flame;

it will burn and consume the Assyrian king’s ⁶  briers

and his thorns in one day.

[10:16]  ¹ sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.

[10:16]  ² tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”

[10:16]  ³ tc Heb “and in the place of his glory burning will burn, like the burning of fire.” The highly repetitive text (יֵקַד יְקֹד כִּיקוֹד אֵשׁ, yeqad yiqod kiqod ’esh) may be dittographic; if the second consonantal sequence יקד is omitted, the text would read “and in the place of his glory, it will burn like the burning of fire.”

[10:17]  ⁴ tn In this context the “Light of Israel” is a divine title (note the parallel title “his holy one”). The title points to God’s royal splendor, which overshadows and, when transformed into fire, destroys the “majestic glory” of the king of Assyria (v. 16b).

[10:17]  ⁵ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[10:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “his.” In vv. 17-19 the Assyrian king and his empire is compared to a great forest and orchard that are destroyed by fire (symbolic of the Lord).