Matthew Henry on Isaiah 10:5-19
The destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser king of Assyria was foretold in the foregoing chapter, and it had its accomplishment in the sixth year of Hezekiah, Kg2 18:10. It was total and final, head and tail were all cut off. Now the correction of the kingdom of Judah by Sennacherib king of Assyria is foretold in this chapter; and this prediction was fulfilled in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, when that potent prince, encouraged by the successes of his predecessor against the ten tribes, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them, and laid siege to Jerusalem (Kg2 18:13, Kg2 18:17), in consequence of which we may well suppose Hezekiah and his kingdom were grea…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 10:19
rest--those who shall survive the destruction of the host.
his forest--same image as in Isa 10:18, for the once dense army.
child . . . write--so few that a child might count them.
John Gill on Isaiah 10:19
And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few,.... Which were left unconsumed, that escaped this destruction, those of the Assyrian army that fled with Sennacherib their king; which, the Rabbins say (r), were no more than ten, as Jarchi and Kimchi observe; yea, some say there were but five left who escaped, and name them, Sennacherib and his two sons, Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuzaradan:
that a child may write them; count them, and take down their names; and it may be understood of a military muster, and the sense be, that the army should be reduced to so small a number by this stroke upon them, that there would be no need of an able muster master to take the account of them, a child woul…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Isaiah 10:19
And the remnant of the trees of his forest shall be a number. [167] When he adds that the remnant of them will be a number, he employs a Hebrew idiom to express that they will be few; and thus he only confirms the former statement, that the devastation produced, after the calamity which God will bring on the Assyrians, will be so great that there will be no difficulty in counting them.
That a child may number them. He goes so far as to say, that they will be so few that those who are left of them may be counted even by a child; for children have difficulty in counting as far as three or four. Accordingly, the kingdom of the Assyrians was formerly like some vast forest; but when the trees ha…
