Agency in Executing Judgments

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Then Samuel said to Saul, “The LORD sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel. Now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. …

I will be his Father, and he will be My son. When he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.

So Jehu got up and went into the house, where the young prophet poured the oil on his head and declared, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anoint you king over the LORD’s people Israel.

And you are to strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets and the blood of all the servants of the LORD shed by the hand of Jezebel.

Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.

Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.

Ahaziah’s downfall came from God when he went to visit Joram. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab.

Arise, O LORD, confront them! Bring them to their knees; deliver me from the wicked by Your sword,

…from such men, O LORD, by Your hand—from men of the world whose portion is in this life. May You fill the bellies of Your treasured ones and satisfy their sons, so they leave their abundance to their children.

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.

Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.

As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.

“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin. …