I will send him against an hypocritical nation; or, against a corrupt nation. Israel in the wider sense, inclusive of Judah, seems to be intended. The people of my wrath; i.e. "the people who are the object of my wrath."
Will I give him a charge. In 2 Kings 18:25 Sennacherib nays, "Am I come up without the Lord (Jehovah) against thin, lace, to destroy it? The Lord (Jehovah) said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it" (compare below, Isaiah 36:10).
It has been usual to consider Sennacherib's words a vain boast; but if God instructed Nebuchadnezzar through dreams, may he not also by the same means have "given charges" to Assyrian monarchs? To take the spoil, and to take the prey; rather, to gather spoil, and seize prey.
The terms used carry the thoughts back to Isaiah 8:1-4, and to the symbolic name, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And to tread them down; literally, to make it a trampling. "It" refers to "nation" in the first clause.