Chapter 30 warns the people, during the interval between the first and second attacks of the Assyrian, not to seek help from their neighbors. Their strength is to sit still.
For the most part we have noticed the prophecies which take up the people of God, Judah first, then all Israel, and their being placed in the Land after the consumption, but still under the threat of the Assyrian. Jehovah encamps about His house, suggested by the cloud and the pillar of fire. We now come to the day of vengeance in which the vintage terminates, as well as the indignation.
In the very first chapter of Isaiah, Jehovah says that He shall ease Himself of His adversaries and avenge Himself of His enemies. This includes not only the apostates of Israel but all those as sheaves, gathered to the floor, from the nations who have had a testimony of some kind in regard to Jehovah or His people.
We notice, too, that in Isa. 8:1010Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. (Isaiah 8:10), a confederacy is warned that "God is with us," and although this Assyrian shall come in like a flood to overflow, yet the fact of his gathering all the earth against Jerusalem shall only be to him as thick clay when he tries to escape. Whatever character other battles might have taken, this one shall be with "burning and fuel of fire."
God tells His people in chapter 10 not to be afraid of the Assyrian. The deliverance shall be just as spectacular and complete as when they went out of Egypt to cross the Red Sea the first time. When this indignation of Jehovah's against Israel shall end in the destruction of the Assyrian, who is the indignation, the burden and yoke shall be removed forever. His itinerary until his fall is noted in chapter 10.
In chapter 14 the Assyrian, who is the last to fall, is identified with the image of Babylon in its last form, i.e., of power in the earth to usurp the throne which belongs only to One. (See chapter 22.)
"This purpose" concerns the whole earth and all the nations. As we near the climax, chapter 30:30 gives the glorious voice and arm of deliverance whereby the Assyrian falls. The result shall be that just when Israel, dwelling in peace in their own land, are about to become the object of an overwhelming flood, as all of the nations under the Assyrian descend upon them, the Lord in fury delivers His people. This shall be the binding up the breach and the healing of the people. Tophet is prepared for the Assyrian who smote with a rod, as well as for the king. The king is mentioned twice, perhaps three times, in Isaiah, chapter 30:30, 57:9, 8:21. He is the one who is referred to in chapter 22 as Shebna who is to be driven from his station and state, verses 15, 19, 25. Tophet is a picture of everlasting fire, no one to hear the cry.