Isaiah used a metaphor to indicate that the Lord would use Assyria as an instrument of his chastisement against his chosen but wayward people. By making an alliance and paying tribute to Assyria, Ahaz hired the razor called Assyria to cut off Syria and Israel. The Lord then used the same razor to cut off part of the people of Judah. Shaving captives is symbolic of humiliation, but it is also literal: cutting off the beard was a sign of degradation to Israelites (compare 2 Samuel 10:4–5); “the hair of the feet” in the Hebrew text is hair of the legs, a euphemism for the human genital area.