NOTES for Isa 10:15

Assyria, against which this prophecy of Isaiah is directed, was an extremely unattractive country. It was the first military-fascist state in history, practicing genocide and forced resettlement of peoples on a mass scale. Plunder and the extermination of the defenseless became the basis of policy for this thoroughly militarized power. "The scourge of God" was what people in antiquity called not only locusts, but also the hordes of Assyrians. When at the end of the seventh century B.C. Assyria fell under the blows of Babylon, the prophet Nahum said: "All who hear the news about you will clap their hands over you, for on whom has your endless malice not fallen?"

And now, in response to the words of the Assyrian king, "I seized the whole earth, and no one... even chirped," the prophet Isaiah proclaims the word of God. "Does the ax boast over the one who hews with it?" says the Lord. This arrogant and proud power, thinking that the whole world had submitted to it, turns out to be only an instrument in the hands of the true Ruler. And the Lord says that for cruelty and violence, for the robber and murderer, the Light of Israel, His Holy One, becomes a fire, becomes a flame that will devour everything lofty and exalted. This is a very important image: God's light, which becomes flame for every sin.

Intuitively we expect two actions from God: saving the good people, meaning us, and punishing the bad people, the Assyrians, Chechens, Jews, bourgeois, Catholics... But God in His infinite Wisdom performs only one action: He comes. Everything after that depends on people themselves. Whether the Light of Israel becomes for you a light opening the path to life, or a devouring fire, depends on your will and your moral condition.