WHEN IS an idol not an idol? When it’s the demonic minion of a fallen angel.

We move from Nahum’s condemnation of Nineveh, and by extension Assyria, to the judgment decreed against Assyria by God through the prophet Isaiah.

This week, we look at a fascinating passage in Isaiah 10, where a word translated “idols” (and elsewhere in the Old Testament as “worthless idols”; see Psalm 97:7), the Hebrew ʾelîl, according to some scholars derives from the Akkadian name of Assyria’s chief god, Ellil.

In other words, the elîl or ʾelîlim are essentially the minions of the father-god of Mesopotamia, Ellil, also known as Enlil, Assur, El, Kronos, and Saturn, who we believe is the Watcher chief Shemihazah, the leader of the Genesis 6 rebellion.

So, while Isaiah’s prophecy of imminent judgment against the king of Assyria had a near-term fulfillment when his kingdom was destroyed by the Chaldeans of Babylon in 605 BC, it is also a “not yet” prophecy of the ultimate destruction of Assur/Shemihazah and his demonic minions at the end of the age.