Isaiah 9:11 - Exposition

Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him . "Against him" means "against Ephraim," or the kingdom of Israel. "The adversaries of Rezin" could only be the Assyrians; but these seem precluded by the next verse, which mentions only "Syrians" and Philistines." Hence many critics accept the variant reading of several manuscripts sarey for tsarey—which gives the sense of "the princes of Rezin" (so Lowth, Ewald, Houbigant, Weir, Cheyne).