Isaiah 10:12 Meaning Therefore It Will Happen That When

Avijjā: Not knowing Avijjā is the dark that hides how things stand. The king of Assyria burns his way toward Jerusalem believing the fire is his own, never seeing that he has been picked up and put to work like a rod in a hand. A saw does not know the arm that drives it, and that blindness is the soil the punishing grows in.

Māna: Conceit Māna is the habit of measuring oneself against others. Arrogant looks are that measuring done with the eyes: this one is beneath me, that city is mine to take, my hand is the tallest thing on the horizon. A heart swells like that only because it is keeping score, and the raised eyes over Zion are the score read aloud.

Paṭicca-samuppāda: Dependent arising Things stand up out of conditions and stay only while those conditions hold. Assyrian power rose out of iron, roads, hungry seasons, weak kings, and a work being done on Jerusalem that had nothing to do with Assyrian glory. Wind fills a sail and the sailor calls himself fast; when the wind drops, so does everything the willful heart claimed as its own doing.

Kamma-vipāka: Deeds ripening into fruit Vipāka is what an action becomes when it comes due. Pride here is spoken of as a tree, and trees set fruit: the arrogance that emptied villages does not stay a mood inside one man's chest, it grows outward into a harvest with his name on it. Fruit also hangs until its season, which is why the reckoning waits until the whole work on Mount Zion is finished.

Anicca: Impermanence Everything assembled comes apart. Assyria stood at full height when this was spoken, its king the most powerful man alive, and the insolence in his face rested on the assumption that such height stays. Nineveh's walls became a mound of dirt that later travelers walked over without knowing what lay beneath their feet. Arrogance is, in large part, a bad estimate of how long one will be standing.