“Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.”
Shall the axe boast itself against him who hews with it—the rhetorical question that reframes the relationship between Assyria and God by comparing Assyria to a tool in the hands of a craftsman. The implied answer is emphatic: of course not; an axe has no right to claim credit for the work done with it. This verse uses the instrument metaphor to expose the absurdity of Assyrian boasting and to reassert God's active agency in history. The relationship between God and Assyria is not one between peers but between craftsman and tool.
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