Cometh up from the North the Destroyer.
He is come upon Ai; marcheth through Migron; at Michmash musters his baggage.
They have passed through the Pass; "Let Geba be our bivouac."
Terror-struck is Ramah; Gibeah of Saul hath fled.
Make shrill thy voice, O daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! Answer her, Anathoth!
In mad flight is Madmenah; the dwellers in Gebim gather their stuff to flee.
This very day he halteth at Nob; he waveth his hand at the Mount of the Daughter of Zion, the Hill of Jerusalem.
This is not actual fact; but it is vision of what may take place to-day or to-morrow. For there is nothing—not even that miserable treaty—to prevent such a violation of Jewish territory, within which, it ought to be kept in mind, lie all the places named by the prophet.
But the invasion of Judah and the arrival of the Assyrian on the heights over against Jerusalem does not mean that the Holy City and the shrine of Jehovah of hosts are to be destroyed; does not mean that all the prophecies of Isaiah about the security of this rallying-place for the remnant of God's people are to be annulled, and Israel annihilated. For just at the moment of the Assyrian's triumph, when he brandishes his hand over Jerusalem, as if he would harry it like a bird's nest, Isaiah beholds him struck down, and crash like the fall of a whole Lebanon of cedars (vv. 33, 34).
Behold the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, lopping the topmost boughs with a sudden crash,