The Assyrians

“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of My anger, in whose hand is the club of My wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger Me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets. But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations.” Isaiah 10:5-7
God used the Assyrians to judge the northern kingdom of Israel for their sin and idolatry. Hundreds of years later, He used the Babylonians to judge the southern kingdom of Judah. So why, if the Assyrians were God’s instruments of judgement, does He pronounce woe and judgement upon them?
Here we see the reason: when God gave the all-clear for the Assyrians to attack the Israelites, He intended for them to loot and plunder the people and break their pride. But the Assyrians had other ideas. They wanted to wipe Israel off the map completely.
The Assyrians were brutal in their treatment of the nations they subdued, torturing and maiming the people they conquered. They also had a policy of relocating their captives and mixing them with the captives of other nations, to break down the national identities of the people. These were the things that God judged them for.