Shave with a razor, i.e. utterly spoil and destroy, as shaving takes away all the hair, and leaves not any thing of it visible, as there is when the hair is only cut or polled. Hired; either,
1. By Ahaz, who did hire them, 2 Kings 16:7,8. And so the prophet notes the just judgment of God, in scourging them with a rod of their own making; and by this threatening he endeavours to prevent that wicked design which then was on foot, of hiring Assyrian succours. Or,
2. By God, who did stir them up, and send them upon his errand against Judah, as he threatens, Isaiah 10:6, and paid them liberally for that service, as he did Nebuchadnezzar, of which see Jeremiah 25:9, Jeremiah 27:6,7 Da 2:37,38. The river Euphrates, called the river, by way of eminency, Psalms 72:8 Jeremiah 2:18, beyond which Assyria lay. By the king of Assyria; by the successive kings of the Assyrian empire, Sennacherib, 2 Kings 18:13, &c., Esarhaddon, 2 Chronicles 33:11, and especially by Nebuchadnezzar, who having subdued the Assyrian monarchy, from thenceforth was king of Assyria as well as of Chaldea. And the prophet rather mentions Assyria than Chaldea or Babylon, partly because the Assyrian began and continued to execute this judgment, although the Babylonian completed it; and partly to inform them that they laid the foundation of their own ruin, by opening the door to the Assyrian, who afterwards entered at his pleasure, and left it open for Nebuchadnezzar. The hair of the feet; of the lower or secret parts, which come under that name, Ezekiel 16:7,25, and elsewhere, as it hath been noted again and again; and which the Jewish writers affirm to have been shaved in the purification of lepers and Levites, Leviticus 14:8,9 Num 8:7. The beard, which they highly esteemed, as a great ornament. By these metaphorical expressions he signifies the total destruction of their state, from head to foot, from the highest to the lowest.