Isaiah 5:26

"And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss for them from the end of the earth; and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly. None shall be weary or stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses hoofs shall be accounted as flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind: their roaring shall be like a lioness, they shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and carry it away safe, and there shall be none to deliver. And they shall roar against thee in that day like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof."

The extended metaphor of the lion, the lioness, and the young lions points squarely at the king of Assyria and his merciless armies as instruments through which the impending judgment of God's rebellious and wicked people would be executed. A reading of Nahum 2:11-13 will quickly reveal how this lion metaphor constituted the universally known logo of Assyria, an identification that clung to that evil kingdom until their own final destruction.

God's providential help of the enemies who would destroy Israel is indicated in the promise that not even the hoofs of the horses would be lame, and that at centuries of time before the shoeing of horses, as known to us, was ever heard of.

Here we also have another glimpse of the pattern in God's punishment of nations. The first chapter of Zechariah has the remarkable story of the horns that changed into smiths; and there it was revealed that the same nation, at first a horn to execute God's judgment upon the wicked; but when any "horn," that is, a persecuting power against God's purpose on earth, went beyond God's purpose, God at once changes another horn into a smith that destroys the offending horn. Thus Assyria was the "horn" that mined Egypt; but Babylon became the "smith" that mined Assyria. (See more on this in Vol. 4 of our series of commentaries on the minor prophets, pp. 35,36.)

In this mention of Assyria as the horn that destroyed Egypt, it should be recognized that Assyria was also the horn that destroyed the Northern Israel. Long prior to that, Israel had been the smith that wrecked the Canaanites under the leadership of Joshua. From the whole Biblical record, it seems reasonable to assume that when any nation reaches a certain degree of wickedness, God will destroy and remove them.