3, 4. (a) In ancient times, what nation was used as a mere hand instrument? (b) In what prophecy of Isaiah is the name of the One using the Assyrian nation as a tool embedded?

³ In ancient times, centuries before the submission of the Irish Church, there was an instance of where a mighty, highly militarized nation was employed as a tool or an instrument by a still greater power. That ancient nation was Assyria, at the time that it was the world power of the day, the second world power of Bible history. What, though, was the greater power that was able to use the Assyrian World Power as a mere tool or hand instrument? The identity of that greater power was made known to men sometime before the Assyrians under King Sennacherib invaded the land of the Kingdom of Judah in the year 732 B.C.E. The identification of the power superior to the Assyrian Empire was imbedded among the following words:

⁴ “Will the ax enhance itself over the one chopping with it, or the saw magnify itself over the one moving it back and forth, as though the staff moved back and forth the ones raising it on high, as though the rod raised on high the one who is not wood?

5, 6. What does Isaiah say later on about the capability of Jehovah to use Assyria as a mere tool?

⁵ Those words were recorded by the inspired prophet, Isaiah the son of Amoz, who completed writing his marvelous book of prophecy about the year 732 B.C.E., the year in which the Assyrian invasion of the land of Judah took place. Thus Isaiah declares that the Great Power using the tool is “the true Lord, Jehovah of armies,” yes, “Israel’s Light . . . and his Holy One.” Is this Holy One capable of using an entire nation as a mere tool? For an inspired answer to this question let us hear what the prophet Isaiah says, later on, about “the true Lord, Jehovah of armies,” as follows:

⁶ “Who has measured the waters in the mere hollow of his hand, and taken the proportions of the heavens themselves with a mere span and included in a measure the dust of the earth, or weighed with an indicator the mountains, and the hills in the scales? . . . Look! The nations are as a drop from a bucket; and as the film of dust on the scales they have been accounted. Look! He lifts the islands themselves as mere fine dust.”​—Isa. 40:12-15.

THE SYMBOLIC AX

7. So, in comparison with Jehovah, the nations are like what, and, in Isaiah 10:15, He likens himself to what?

⁷ In comparison with the “true Lord, Jehovah of armies,” all the nations, including Assyria, are like a tiny drop of water falling from a bucket or like the film of dust on the scalepans. With the greatest of ease, then, he can use any nation that he chooses as his tool in carrying out his divine purpose. So, in Isaiah 10:15, he likens himself to a chopper, a sawyer, a wielder of a staff, a brandisher of a rod. He declares that He is “not wood.” No, he is not the handle of the ax, or the staff or the rod. He is the living God, the almighty Handler of these symbolic instruments. What, then, is the symbolic ax with which he does a chopping work?

8. Exactly who is “the Assyrian” spoken of in Isaiah 10:5, 6?

⁸ Earlier in the same tenth chapter of Isa Isaiah’s prophetic book Jehovah himself identifies what the symbolic ax is. So, in Isaiah 10:5, 6, we read these words of Jehovah: “Aha, the Assyrian, the rod for my anger, and the stick that is in their hand for my denunciation! Against an apostate nation I shall send him, and against the people of my fury I shall issue a command to him, to take much spoil and to take much plunder and to make it a trampling place like the clay of the streets.” Ah, yes, the symbolic instrument that Jehovah uses in the carrying out of his stated purpose is “the Assyrian.” This designation does not mean an individual Assyrian, not even the imperial king of Assyria. It means the entire nation of Assyria, the Second World Power of Bible prophecy. No individual Assyrian, not even the king himself, could single-handedly carry out the work that Jehovah has assigned to “the Assyrian.” This is indicated by the fact that, after calling the Assyrian the “rod for my anger,” Jehovah addresses the “stick that is in their hand for my denunciation!” (Isa. 10:5; note Isa 10 verse 24.) From this it is clear that a composite Assyrian is meant, namely, the whole nation of Assyria, and particularly its military forces.