Abstract
Seeking to demonstrate that Isa. 10.5–19 was influenced by the Song of Moses (Deut. 32), this article first examines the links between the two texts, primarily their common theological perspective, and then proceeds to substantiate the argument by evincing that Isaiah son of Amoz develops and adapts the Song’s description of God sending an adversary to punish Israel who fails to understand the role he is assigned (Deut. 32.26–30). The discussion focuses on the way the prophet employs the Song in order to present his theology of the Assyrian enemy.
The relationship between the Song of Moses (Deut. 32) and the prophecies of First Isaiah has long been debated. 2 Early scholars (e.g., Driver), followed by later ones (e.g., Tournay), deny any links between the two, arguing that, even if parallels can be adduced, they are insufficient to prove any influence. 3 Others (e.g., Rignell, Ginsberg, Gosse, et al.) point to close linguistic and theological associations between the two sets of texts. 4 While Gosse and Ginsberg hold that the Isaian prophecies influenced the composer of the Song of Moses, 5 Rignell, Bergey, and others posit the reverse. 6
The view espoused often rests on preconceptions regarding the date of the Song. Many attribute it to a period later than Isaiah, thereby precluding any influence of the Song on the Isaiah text. Those who do accept the possibility of influence generally maintain that the direction was from Isaiah to the Song.
By contrast, some scholars claim not only that the two texts evince a measure of influence but also assert that the Song served as the bedrock for Isaiah’s prophecies. 7 Comparing linguistic expressions and ideas with other prophecies in Isaiah, they note Isa. 1 in particular. 8 Indeed, Schwartz recently claimed unequivocally: ‘The literary connection between Isaiah’s inaugural exhortation [Isa. 1] and Moses’s closing exhortation [Deut. 32] is… one of the most recognizable in the Hebrew Bible altogether’. 9 Earlier, Wildberger wrote about Isa. 1 (with reference to Deut. 32 as well as other chapters): ‘The composition presumes that the readers were familiar with the traditions of the covenant’. 10 Rignell suggested that Isaiah employed this opening to indicate that the words delivered to Israel in the Song were valid in his day, and applicable to his countrymen. As in the Song, the verses which follow thus depict the Israelites as God’s sons who, despite his care for them, go astray after other gods (Isa. 1.2–4; Deut. 32.5–18). On both occasions, their sin is indicated by the root שח”ת. 11 Fisch pointed to the words כי ה’ דבר ‘for the Lord has spoken’ (Isa. 1, 2. cf. v. 20) as a unique expression referring to Deut. 32. 12 Continuing in this vein, Tigay much later also demonstrated the influence between these two verses. 13
Kaufmann adduces an example from Isa 7: אם לא תאמינו כי לא תאמנו ‘If you will not believe, for you cannot be trusted’ (v. 9) in relation to אל אמונה ‘A faithful God’ (Deut. 32.4) and בנים לא אֵמֻן בם ‘Children with no loyalty in them’ (Deut. 32.20). 14 Lahav cites קטב מרירי ‘Deadly pestilence’ (Deut. 32.24) in light of שַׂעַר קָטֶב ‘A shower of pestilence’ (Isa. 28.2) and איכה ירדף אחד אלף ושנים יניסו רבבה ‘How could one have routed a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight’ (Deut. 32.30) vs. אלף אחד מפני גערת אחד מפני גערת חמישה תנוסו ‘One thousand before the shout of one—you shall flee at the shout of five’ (Isa. 30.17). 15
Bergey subsequently published an article, in which he contended that the numerous linguistic affinities between chapters 1, 5, 28, and 30 indicate an Isaian borrowing from the Song of Moses. He also draws attention to the thematic associations between the two texts and their positioning in key places in the Isaian chapters, thereby giving greater weight to the linguistic commonalities between the two sources. 16
In this study, I wish to contribute to this approach by comparing the Song with Isa. 10.5–19 17 —a prophecy that to date has rarely been studied in light of Deut. 32. After identifying the similarities between the two texts, I shall then discuss the direction of dependence, adducing Isaiah’s idiosyncratic use of the Song and his own expansion.
1. The correspondences between the Song of Moses and Isa. 10.5–19
Examination of the thematic ties between the Song and Isa. 10.5–19 reveals two significant conceptual correlations:
1.1 Both literary units contain five similar elements. Although these elements are general and occur in other passages, in these two units they all appear together in a cause-and-effect relationship.
1.1.1 Israel’s sin: ‘So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked’ (Deut. 32.15); ‘ungodly nation’ (Isa. 10.6). 18
1.1.2 God’s wrath: ‘For a fire has flared in my wrath’ (Deut. 32.22); ‘rod of my anger, in whose hand, as a staff, is my fury … against a people that provokes me’ (Isa. 10.5–6).
1.1.3 Sending an enemy to punish Israel: ‘I’ll incense them with a no-folk, vex them with a nation of fools’ (Deut. 32.21); ‘I send him against an ungodly nation, I charge him against a people that provokes me’ (Isa. 10.6). 19
1.1.4 Failure to recognize the enemy as an instrument in God’s hand: ‘[Lest their enemies] say, “Our own hand has prevailed; none of this was wrought by YHWH!”’ (Deut. 32.27); ‘For he thought, by the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill, for I am clever’ (Isa. 10.13).
1.1.5 Punishing the adversary: ‘vengeance will I wreak on my foes, will I deal to those who reject me’ (Deut. 32.41); ‘I 20 will punish the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria’ (Isa. 10.12).
These five components, which occur in both sources, clearly outline God’s working in Israel’s history.
1.2 The theme of the enemy boasting in his own strength rather than acknowledging his status as an instrument in God’s hand to punish Israel.
Lahav drew attention to this principle in his discussion of the Song’s historical background. 21 Building on and sharpening his argument, I suggest that the enemy’s pride, expressed in a failure to recognize the God of Israel, forms the strongest thematic link between the two units—particularly in light of the presentational similarities. It is adduced in both texts via an ‘entering into the enemy’s thoughts’ indicated by the root אמ”ר: ‘The enemies who might misjudge and say [פן יאמרו], “Our own hand has prevailed; none of this was wrought by YHWH!”’ (Deut. 32.27). Isa. 10.13 also ‘quotes’ the Assyrian king: ‘For he thought [כי אמר], “By the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill, for I am clever: I have erased the borders of peoples; I have plundered their treasures, and exiled their vast populations.”’ Both texts intimate that the enemy’s hubris risks a misunderstanding of God’s power. He thus brings down divine punishment upon him, demonstrating his sovereignty.
While not numerous, the verbal parallels between the two passages are also significant. Firstly, the adversary’s pride is described via the nouns יד and חכמה and the root בי”ן, contesting his agency as a tool in God’s hand. In Deuteronomy, they appear in v. 27, where the enemy is liable to declare: ידנו רמה ‘Our own hand has prevailed’ (v. 27) and vv. 28–29: כי גוי אבד עצות המה ואין בהם תבונה. לו חכמו ישכילו זאת יבינו לאחריתם ‘For they are a folk void of sense, lacking in all discernment. Were they wise, they would think upon this, gain insight into their future’.
In Isaiah, they similarly occur primarily in the words of the enemy in v. 13, expressing his hubris: בכֹח ידי עשיתי ובחכמתי כי נבֻנותי ‘by the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill, for I am clever’. 22 The noun יד also appears in the adversary’s speech in v. 10: כאשר מצאה ידי ‘Since I was able to seize’ and 14: ותמצא כקן ידי ‘I was able to seize, like a nest’. As we shall discuss below, the expression גבולות עמים likewise occurs exclusively in these two places (Deut. 32.8; Isa. 10.13). It should be stressed that the linguistic parallels are not presented here as standing on their own but as supporting the conspicuous thematic parallel of the pride of the enemy, who believes that his victory is due to his own strength, as these words and phrases are employed in both places precisely as a way of describing this pride.
Lahav’s observation that the theme of hubris constitutes a prominent parallel in the texts serves as part of his argument that the Song dates to the Assyrian period, the correspondence being so clear and the direction of influence so obvious in his opinion as to prove that the enemy described herein is none other than the Assyrian army mentioned in Isaiah 10. He thus contends that the Song deals with the destruction of Samaria in 720 BCE, Isaiah borrowing from it some 20 years later, during Sennacherib’s Judean campaign in 701 BCE. 23
The premise that the Song serves as the basis for Isaiah’s prophecy allows us to presuppose that the terminus ad quem for its composition is the Assyrian period. Contra the prevalent view today that it belongs to the seventh/sixth or even fifth century BCE, it may thus have been written in the eighth century BCE. 24 In order to substantiate this view, we must both present the verbal and ideological parallels between the Song and Isa. 10.5–19 and demonstrate the direction of influence.
2. Direction of influence
According to Bergey, it is easier to understand how various prophecies relating to diverse circumstances/events were influenced by a well-known source than to argue that one passage borrowed from disparate, divergent sources. 25 Despite the plausibility of this claim, it is not decisive. Therefore, I shall examine it in light of Isa. 10.5–19, paying particular attention to the theme of hubris in Deut. 32.26–30. 26 Hereby, I hope to further substantiate the theory that Isa. 10.5–19 is dependent upon the Song of Moses rather than vice versa.
My working hypothesis is that, despite the fundamental conceptual and linguistic parallels between the two units, Isa. 10.5–19 develops and elaborates the outlook succinctly embodied in Deut. 32.26–30 in such a way as to make it difficult to maintain that the latter condensed Isaiah. This embellishment is evident not only in the number of verses devoted to the adversary’s pride but also in the refining of the idea, its details, and the way it affects the prophecy. It is exemplified by three phenomena:
2.1 The incorporation of elements not present in the Song:
2.1.1 The enemy’s grandiose plans for total destruction and broad-scale campaigns that run counter to God’s intent: ‘But he has evil plans… for he means to destroy, to wipe out nations, not a few’ (Isa. 10.7). The scheme to go further than God’s own plans appears to be an Isaianic addition, reflecting the Assyrian Empire’s modus operandi during this period—namely, ‘destroying and wiping out nations, not a few’. The use of these verbs to indicate violation of the divine intentions adduced in v. 6 evince the view that the Assyrian king employed ‘disproportionate force’. This element serves as another expression of Assyrian hubris. In the Song, the adversary’s boasting is only expressed in the idea of its own military prowess: ‘“Our own hand has prevailed; none of this was wrought by YHWH!”’ (Deut. 32.27). Isaiah conveys the Assyrian king’s pride both via the parallel notion (‘“By the might of my hand have I wrought it”’ [Isa. 10.13]) and the ambitious project to wipe out many nations.
2.1.2 The foe’s likening of himself to God: Deut. 32.8 states that God ‘fixed the boundaries of peoples’ (יצב גבֻלֹת עמים)—that is, determined national territories. In Isa. 10.13, the Assyrian king states the converse: ‘I have erased the borders of peoples’ (וְאסיר גבולֹת עמים). 27 In addition to the linguistic correspondence, the two verses are also linked contrastively, highlighting the Assyrian king’s contravention of the divine order and consequent interference in God’s plan. Isaiah thus takes one of the divine attributes adduced at the beginning of the Song and applies it to the Assyrian king to describe his pride.
The verse then continues: ‘I have … exiled their vast populations’ (וְאוריד כאביר יושבים). Numerous scholars contend that the term אביר is not original, being the result of corruption. 28 Irvine’s suggestion that it should be read כְּאַבִּיר is more convincing, however, yielding the sense ‘strong’ (כ of comparison). Aster translates ‘like a bull’, here, too, signifying ‘powerful’. 29 The clause וְאוריד כאביר יושבים is put in the mouth of the Assyrian king, with the epithet אביר generally being attributed to God. Irvine goes one step further, suggesting that if we read the word as determined (כַּאַבִּיר), the Assyrian king’s comparison of himself with God then becomes explicit. 30 This thus constitutes a further example of the foe likening himself to God—an element absent in the Song. The comparisons heighten and strengthen the motif of the enemy’s hubris beyond what may be seen in Deuteronomy 32, thus developing the concept of the foe’s pride. This, too, helps establish the direction of influence.
2.1.3 Hubris as the cause of the foe’s punishment: Although both texts address the theme of boasting, Isaiah adduces it in order to resolve the theological difficulty created by the punishment meted out to the enemy. Despite serving as an instrument in God’s hands in both units, he is punished. Deut. 32.21 states: ‘I will incense them with a no-folk, vex them with a nation of fools’. Verse 30 similarly expresses God’s action on behalf of the enemy: ‘Unless their Rock had sold them, YHWH had given them up’. At the same time, however, vengeance is assured: ‘To be my vengeance and recompense, at the time that their foot falters. Yea, their day of disaster is near …’ (Deut. 32.35). 31 Likewise, ‘Vengeance will I wreak on my foes’ (v. 41), ‘For he will avenge the blood of his servants, wreak vengeance on his foes’ (v. 43). 32 In Isa. 10, God has the prophet proclaim regarding Assyria: ‘I send him against an ungodly nation, I charge him against a people that provokes me’ (v. 6). At the same time, he promises that Assyria will be punished: ‘But when my Lord has carried out all his purpose on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria’ (v. 12).
If the adversary is considered a divine agent, the question arises, why is punishment meted out? The Song does not explicitly tackle this issue. Isaiah, in contrast, is aware of it, citing the enemy’s pride as the reason for his penalty: “I will punish the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria” (10.12). 33 The prophet articulates that failing to acknowledge one’s role as a divine instrument is a sin deriving from arrogance, warranting retribution–even if the adversary unwittingly fulfills his plan. In Deut. 32, such hubris is presented as something that God seeks to prevent. Being hypothetical, it cannot be presented directly as the reason for the punishment. From this perspective, the difficulty remains unresolved. The development of Isaiah finds expression in offering a solution to it: the enemy’s boastfulness in Isaiah 10 is presented as a valid reason for punishment.
2.1.4 The breaking of the enemy’s pride: Isa. 10.5–19 presents God as directly responding to the Assyrian king’s hubris: ‘But when my Lord has carried out all his purpose on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the majestic pride and overbearing arrogance of the king of Assyria’ (v. 12). The punishment is humiliation and humbling. Verses 16–19 continue this description. While scholars debate whether this unit belongs to Isaiah, it builds on this foundation, detailing the punishment—which relates in toto to the breaking of the Assyrians’ pride: ‘The Sovereign LORD of Hosts will send a wasting away in its fatness and under its glory (JPS: body shall burn a burning like that of fire)’ (Isa. 10.16). 34 The ‘glory’ (כבוד) here refers primarily to the fertile lands the Assyrian king conquered and about which he boasted, as indicated in v. 18: ‘The glory (וכבוד) of his forest and his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body’ (NRSV). The burning of forests mortally wounds the Assyrians’ pride and might. This specification is intended to address the Assyrians’ pride by breaking it.
The Song does not contain this element, God rather promising there that he will avenge himself upon the enemy: ‘Vengeance will I wreak on my foes, will I deal to those who reject me’ (Deut. 32.41), ‘For he will avenge the blood of His servants’ (v. 43). This action is linked to the Israelites’ plight instead of the adversary’s pride: ‘Upon seeing that their might is gone and neither bond nor free is left’ (v. 36). Rather than directly punishing the enemy’s arrogance, God thus takes vengeance upon him for harming Israel.
Isaiah, in contrast, speaks of the breaking of the Assyrians’ hubris. This fact suggests that he expands and heightens the view of pride as a sin. 35 This reading accords with Kaufmann’s proposal that the theme of divine vengeance for Israel’s bondage is completely absent in Isaiah 1–33, the prophet rather accusing Assyria, Babylon, and the other nations of moral corruption and idolatrous pride. 36 According to Kaufmann, Isaiah systematically elaborates on the motif of breaking hubris while ignoring that of vengeance.
2.2 A coherent theological presentation of the enemy: While the Song places Israel center stage, only adducing the adversary’s pride as a specific divine apprehension on account of which God refrains from wiping Israel off the face of the earth, in Isa. 10.5–19 the Assyrians’ hubris forms part of a full-blown theology of the foe that constitutes the central focus of the prophecy. This is evinced by the exclamation ‘Ha, Assyria’ in the opening verse. The prophet begins by declaring that Assyria is none other than the staff of God’s wrath. His objectification of the nation via this means and the subsequent images of the ax and saw illustrate the way in which he develops the principle that the enemy does not act in his own power to punish the sinful nation. Failing to recognize its status, the empire is convinced that its success is due to its own strength.
The lengthy quotation of the king’s arrogant speech (vv. 8–11, 13–14) is a detailed embellishment of the enemy’s word in the Song: ‘“Our own hand has prevailed; none of this was wrought by YHWH!”’ (Deut. 32.27). God answers this by punishing the Assyrians’ hubris (vv. 12, 16–19). Notably, Isaiah applies the principle of punishment by a foe to all nations rather than Israel alone as per the Song, since the Assyrian king’s pride rests on the conquest of other peoples as well as Israel (v. 8). 37 This thus forms another brick in the consolidation of the concept, the prophet’s message thereby assuming a universal dimension.
Isaiah 10:5–19 encapsulates a comprehensive theological framework with adversaries functioning as a divine instrument for the purpose of chastising Israel, and their culpability in failing to recognize this designated role and the ensuing retribution being emphasized. The systematic development of this principle and the focus on the foe suggest that the passage is later than the Song, which only contains the first seeds of the idea. It thus indicates the direction of influence.
2.3 The absence of any treatment in Isa. 10.5–19 of the few overcoming the many which is present in the Song: Here, Isaiah’s reason for not incorporating this theme into his prophecy is clear, however. The principle of ‘How could one have routed a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight unless their Rock had sold them, YHWH had given them up?’ (Deut. 32.30) occurs elsewhere, generally being adduced in battle scenes in order to demonstrate God’s intervention. Lev. 26.7–8, for example, states: ‘You shall give chase to your enemies … five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred shall give chase to ten thousand’. In the story of Gideon, the three hundred ‘lappers’ save Israel from the Midianites (Judg. 7.7). Rather than depicting warfare, Isaiah portrays Assyria as a vast empire that conquered many cities without a battle: ‘“As one gathers abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the earth: Nothing so much as flapped a wing or opened a mouth to peep”’ (Isa. 10.14). Although Isaiah draws on the Song, he ignores this element in 10.5–19 in adapting the passage to his prophecy. He is nonetheless aware of it, making use of the motif in chapter 30 to describe the defeat Israel can expect to suffer if she trusts in Egypt and declares war on Assyria: ‘One thousand before the shout of one—you shall flee at the shout of five’ (v. 17).
While both passages relate to the same historical context—the Assyrian threat—they convey different messages, however. Isa. 10 highlights the Assyrians’ hubris, exemplified by their conquering of many peoples and lands without any military action. Here, the principle of the few vs. the many is irrelevant. Isa. 30, in contrast, addresses Israel’s lack of trust in God embodied in her alliance with Egypt. Here, the focus lies on her sin, her defeat by Assyria in war invoking the flight of the few before the many.
Each of these phenomena reflects Isaiah’s elaboration or adaption of the Song. They thus rule out the possibility that the author of the Song condensed Isa. 10.5–19 or borrowed from it while deleting parts that did not suit his purpose.
Conclusion
In this study I have sought to reinforce the suggestion that Isa. 10.5–19 is influenced by the Song of Moses in Deut. 32. Firstly, I presented the links between the two texts, the most prominent being their common theological outlook. These are complemented by linguistic similarities. Both passages hold that God intervenes in Israel’s history by sending enemies to punish them. In each case, the adversary receives his due. Pride and the refusal to acknowledge their status as an instrument in God’s hand form the dominant theme in both, with the shared vocabulary יד, חכמה, and בי”ן and the phrase גבולות עמים heightening the adversary’s hubris.
I then addressed the question of the direction of influence, establishing that Isa. 10.5–19 employed the Song’s presentation of God sending an enemy to punish Israel who fails to recognize his role (Deut. 32.26–30) as a theological model, developing and adapting it to his own context and purposes. He thus adds the elements of widespread destruction in line with the Assyrian conquests of his day, adducing the enemy’s comparison of himself with God, making hubris the reason for Assyria’s punishment and the breaking of her pride. The tailoring of the prophecy’s specific purposes is evinced by the omission of the motif of the few defeating the many. Isaiah is thus heavily influenced by the Song of Moses. On the basis of the ideas it contains, primarily those in vv. 26–30, which deal with the adversary’s commissioning and pride, he constructs a theological doctrine relating to Assyria’s hubris, articulating it in the prophecy in Isa. 10.5–19.
Footnotes
1.
This article was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation, no. 1003–2022.
2.
Unless explicitly indicated otherwise, Isaiah refers herein to First Isaiah. Likewise, biblical quotations follow the JPS, with minor variations noted ad loc.
3.
Driver (1902: 347); 
: 122). Both adduce affinities between the Song of Moses and the eighth-century prophets in general.
4.
Rignell (1958: 140–158); Gosse (1995: 110–117, here 114–116); : 92–94).
5.
Gosse (1995: 114–116) who identifies Isa. 34 as one of the sources of the Song; Ginsberg (1982: 92–94); see also Kuenen (1886: 257) in relation to Isa. 1, 2; : 113).
6.
Rignell (1958: 140–158); Lahav (1959: 83, Hebrew); Bergey (2003: 33–54); See also Kamphausen (1862: 2–6); Roberts (1982: 135); Tigay (1996: 511–512); Kaufmann (1937–1948: 3.212 n. 65, Hebrew); : 31–32).
7.
See the scholars adduced above.
8.
Early on in later Jewish tradition, the rabbinic Sages observed the correspondences between the stich in Isa. 1.2: שמעו שמים והאזיני ארץ ‘Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth’ and Deut. 32.1: האזינו השמים ואדברה ותשמע הארץ אמרי פי ‘Listen, O heavens, let me speak; let the earth hear the words I utter’. Sifre Deuteronomy adduces possible reasons for Isaiah’s re-ordering of the actions of hearing and listening: “Listen, O heavens”: Because Moses was close to the heavens, he said “Listen, O heavens”; and because he was far from the earth, he said “and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth”. Isaiah came and followed suit, saying (Isa. 1.2) “Hear, O heavens, and listen, earth”, being far from the heavens and close to the earth’ (306). cf. : 273).
12.
: 66–68; see also Berges 2012: 47). For additional parallels see Fisch (1988: 69–71, 73–77).
13.
Tigay (1996: 511–512). cf. Blenkinsopp (2000: 182). See also : 13, 23, 79).
17.
On the delimitation of the unit to these verses, see for example Beuken and Berges (2016: 100).
18.
The brief characterization ‘ungodly nation’ refers back to the detailed description in chapter 1 (vv. 2–4), where the ungratefulness of Israel is described as it is in the song of Moses (Deut. 32.6–18).
19.
In both texts, עם and גוי function as parallels, though the reference differs in each (the adversary vs. Israel).
20.
JPS: He (as per the LXX).
22.
Some scholars maintain that Israel is the subject of Deut. 32.28–29—verses that open with the statement ‘Were they wise, they would think upon this’: see, for example, Dillmann (1886: 405–406); : 370–371). On the premise that Isaiah borrowed the terminology in this unit to fashion his ‘citation’ of the Assyrian king: ‘by the might of my hand have I wrought it, by my skill, for I am clever’ (Isa. 10, 13), however, this is a case of ‘inner-biblical interpretation’ evincing that Isaiah applied vv. 28–29 to the foe.
24.
See, for example, Kuenen (1886: 257); Driver (1902: 347); Reichert (1985: 53–60)—who date it to the seventh century. For a sixth-century dating, see Budde (1920: 3; 6); Tournay (1958: 181–182). For a fifth-century dating, see Sellin (1925: 163); Hidal (1977–1978: 29, 112–116). Biddle (2003: 469), referring to considerations that lead to contradictory conclusions, hypothesizes that the song ‘underwent a process of transformation and growth for a long period prior to its inclusion in the book of Deuteronomy’. For other scholars and a survey of the various opinions, see : 6–36, 40–51).
26.
Isaiah dedicated the prophecy in chapter 10 to dealing with the Assyrian enemy. Since Deut. 32.26–30 deals with the enemy and his failure to recognize the God of Israel, the prophecy in Isaiah 10. 5–19, which deals with Assyria, is mainly influenced by these verses, adopting the motif of the enemy’s pride. The influence of the beginning of the song, which deals with Israel’s sins (Deut. 32. 6–18) is evident in the beginning of the book of Isaiah, which deals with the sins of Judah (Isa. 1, see above p. 2; Isa. 5, see : 42–44). The prophecy against Assyria is the last prophecy in a series of woe-oracles, following 10.1–4 and complementing the ones in 5.8–23. These prophecies are directed against Judah, but the last one is directed against Assyria, who was sent to punish her.
28.
On this view, the copyist accidentally omitted several words at the end of v. 13. Various attempts have been made to reconstruct the original. Marti (1900: 104) reads: ‘Ich lies niedersinken in Asche die Städte und … alle Bewohner der Erde’; Duhm (1922: 73–74): ‘Und liess niedersinken in Asche [die Städte] … die Thronenden’. Cf. : 413): ‘I brought down into the dust the cities … their inhabitants’. The noun ערים ‘cities’ is based, inter alia, on the LXX and Targum Jonathan.
30.
Irvine (1993: 142–144). See also : 490).
31.
According to the majority of scholars, Deut. 32.35 refers to the adversary: see : 374); Craigie (1976: 387); Christensen (2002: 818); Nelson (2002: 376); Lundbom (2013: 896–897); et al. Some regard it as relating to Israel, however: see Keil as quoted in Driver (1902: 374).
32.
Several believe v. 43 to allude more generally to all sinners: see, for example, Reider (1937: 319); Driver (1902: 381). Some also propose that it is a gloss: see Van der Kooij (1994: 93–100). : 54) argues for the originality of the clause כי דם עבדיו יקם.
33.
Many scholars argue that Isa. 10.12 is a secondary addition: see Gray (1912: 194); Kaiser (1972: 230–231); Berges (2012: 110); Williamson (2018: 498); et al. One of the textual considerations in this regard is the fact that the verse divides the Assyrian king’s speech—originally one long address—into vv. 8–9 and 13–14, with scholars holding this view maintaining that vv. 10–11 are a gloss. I do not accept this theory as v. 12’s location between the two speeches attests precisely to its centrality in the prophet’s worldview: Assyria will be punished for its pride. The terms פרי ,תפארת ,רום and the expression גֹדל לבב are characteristic Isaianic vocabulary (cf. פרי: 3.10; 4.2; 13.18; 14.29; 27.9; תפארת: 3.18; 4.2; 13.19; 20.5; 28.1, 4; רום: 2.11, 17; גדל לבב: 9.8). On the premise that Isaiah incorporated elements from the Song of Moses into his prophecy, we would also expect him to treat the enemy’s punishment (after Israel’s sin and the sending of the boastful adversary). Verse 12 is thus best read as an integral part of the original prophecy: see Barth (1977: 23–24); Oswalt (1986: 266); Childs (2001: 41, 43). For further discussion of the vital role v. 12 plays therein, see Machinist (2016: 193); : 202–204).
34.
Duhm (1922: 74) for example, dates it to the Seleucid period, Clements (1929: 113) to Josiah’s lifetime; Wildberger (1991: 430–431) and : 542) to the late Persian Empire. For an earlier dating, see Schoors (1972: 88–89).
35.
As in section 2.1.3, here, too, the absence of the punishment of the hubris in Deut. 32 is best explained on the grounds that, according to v. 27, the enemy never in fact boasted, God preventing this a priori. No room thus exists for any depiction of its punishment.
37.
While Israel is not cited in the expressions גוי חנף and עם עברתי in v. 6, the continuation (v. 12 in particular) makes it clear that she is included. The general language here is not coincidental, however, imparting a universal hue to the idea presented and making it a principle valid for all humanity.