Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they don’t look to the Holy One of Israel, and they don’t seek Yahweh!
Yet he also is wise, and will bring disaster, and will not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of those who work iniquity.
Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When Yahweh stretches out his hand, both he who helps shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall, and they all shall be consumed together.
For Yahweh says to me, “As the lion and the young lion growling over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds is called together against him, will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for their noise, so Yahweh of Armies will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its heights.
As birds hovering, so Yahweh of Armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will pass over and preserve it.”
Return to him from whom you have deeply revolted, children of Israel.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Meaning, that they forsake the Lord, that put their…
Meaning, that they forsake the Lord, that put their trust in worldly things: for they cannot trust in both.
There were two special causes, why the Israelites should not join amity with the Egyptians: first, because the Lord had commanded them never to return thither, Deut. 17:16 and 28:68, lest they should forget the benefit of their redemption: and secondly, lest they should be corrupted with the superstition and idolatry of the Egyptians, and so forsake God, Jer. 2:18.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Isa 31:1 Woe to them that go down to…
Isa 31:1 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because [they are] many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!
Ver. 1. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help.] The prophet saw them set upon it to send down to Egypt; he therefore addeth another woe to such refractories, and layeth before them more reasons to dissuade them from doing so: a good precedent for preachers. Oecolampadius rendereth it, O descendentes, O ye that go down to Egypt, &c. Oh ye are a wise company of you, and full well ye have done it!
Read full note →
But they look not to the Holy One of Israel.] They trust not God at all, that not alone. He that stands with one foot on a rock, and another foot upon a quicksand, will sink and perish as certainly as he that stands with both feet on a quicksand. See Psa 62:5-6.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–6 That go down to Egypt for help; as the…
That go down to Egypt for help; as the Jews did, contrary to God’s command, Deu 17:16.
And stay on horses; for Egypt had many and choice horses.
Read full note →
They look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord; their confidence in the creature was accompanied with and did produce a distrust of God, and a neglect of seeking to him by prayer for his help.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 This is the last of four chapters together that…
This is the last of four chapters together that begin with woe; and they are all woes to the sinners that were found among the professing people of God, to the drunkards of Ephraim (Isa 28:1), to Ariel (Isa 29:1), to the rebellious children (Isa 30:1), and here to those that go down to Egypt for help; for men's relation to the church will not secure them from divine woes if they live in contempt of divine laws. Observe,
I. What the sin was that is here reproved, Isa 31:1. 1. Idolizing the Egyptians, and making court to them, as if happy were the people that had the Egyptians for their friends and allies. They go down to Egypt for help in every exigence, as if the worshippers of false gods had a better interest in heaven and were more likely to have success of earth than the servants of the living and true God. That which invited them to Egypt was that the Egyptians had many chariots to accommodate them with, and horses and horsemen that were strong; and, if they could get a good body of forces thence into their service, they would think themselves able to deal with the king of Assyria and his numerous army. Their kings were forbidden to multiply horses and chariots, and were told of the folly of trusting to them (Psa 20:7); but they think themselves wiser than their Bible. 2. Slighting the God of Israel: They look not to the Holy One of Israel, as if he were not worth taking notice of in this distress. They advise not with him, seek not his favour, nor are in any care to make him their friend.
Read full note →
II. The gross absurdity and folly of this sin. 1. They neglected one whom, if they would not hope in him, they had reason to fear. They do not seek the Lord, nor make their application to him, yet he also is wise, Isa 31:2. They are solicitous to get the Egyptians into an alliance with them, because they have the reputation of a politic people; and is not God wise too? and would not infinite wisdom, engaged on their side, stand them in more stead than all the policies of Egypt? They are at the pains of going down to Egypt, a tedious journey, when they might have had better advice, and better help, by looking up to heaven, and would not. But, if they will not court God's wisdom to act for them, they shall find it act against them. He is wise, too wise for them to outwit, and he will bring evil upon those who thus affront him. He will not call back his words as men do (because they are fickle and foolish), but he will arise against the house of the evil-doers, this cabal of them that go down to Egypt; God will appear to their confusion, according to the word that he has spoken, and will oppose the help they think to bring in from the workers of iniquity. Some think the Egyptians made it one condition of their coming into an alliance with him that they should worship the gods of Egypt, and they consented to it, and therefore they are both called evil-doers and workers of iniquity. 2. They trusted to those who were unable to help them and would soon appear to be so, Isa 31:3. Let them know that the Egyptians, whom they depend so much upon, are men and not God. As it is good for men to know themselves to be but men (Psa 9:20), so it is good for us to consider that those we love and trust to are but men. They therefore can do nothing without God, nothing against him, nothing in comparison with him. They are men, and therefore fickle and foolish, mutable and mortal, here to day and gone to morrow; they are men, and therefore let us not make gods of them, by making them our hope and confidence, and expecting that in them which is to be found in God only; they are not God, they cannot do that for us which God can do, and will, if we trust in him. Let us not then neglect him, to seek to them; let us not forsake the rock of ages for broken reeds, nor the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns. The Egyptians indeed have horses that are very strong; but they are flesh, and not spirit, and therefore, strong as they are, they may be wearied with a long march, and become unserviceable, or be wounded and slain in battle, and leave their riders to be ridden over. Every one knows this, that the Egyptians are not God and their horses are not spirit; but those that seek to them for help do not consider it, else they would not put such confidence in them. Sinners may be convicted of folly by the plainest and most self-evident truths, which they cannot deny, but will not believe. 3. They would certainly be ruined with the Egyptians they trusted in, Isa 31:3. When the Lord does but stretch out his hand how easily, how effectually, will he make them ashamed of their confidence in Egypt, and the Egyptians ashamed of the encouragement they gave them to trust in them; for he that helps and he that is helped shall fall together, and their mutual alliance shall prove their joint ruin. The Egyptians were shortly to be reckoned with, as appears by the burden of Egypt (ch. 19), and then those who fled to them for shelter and succour should fall with them; for there is no escaping the judgments of God. Evil pursues sinners, and it is just with God to make that creature a scourge to us which we make an idol of. 4. They took God's work out of his hands. They pretended a great deal of care to preserve Jerusalem, in advising to an alliance with Egypt; and, when others would not fall in with their measures, they pleaded self preservation, and went to Egypt themselves. Now the prophet here tells them that Jerusalem should be preserved without aid from Egypt and that those who tarried there should be safe when those who fled to Egypt should be ruined. Jerusalem was under God's protection, and therefore there was no occasion to put it under the protection of Egypt. But a practical distrust of God's all-sufficiency is at the bottom of all our sinful departures from him to the creature. The prophet tells them he had it from God's own mouth: Thus hath the Lord spoken to me. They might depend upon it, (1.) That God would appear against Jerusalem's enemies with the boldness of a lion over his prey, Isa 31:4. When the lion comes out to seize his prey a multitude of shepherds come out against him; for it becomes neighbours to help one another when persons or goods are in danger. These shepherds dare not come near the lion; all they can do is to make a noise, and with that they think to frighten him off. But does he regard it? No: he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself so far as to be in the least moved by it either to quit his prey or to make any more haste than otherwise he would do in seizing it. Thus will the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, with such an unshaken undaunted resolution not to be moved by any opposition; and he will as easily and irresistibly destroy the Assyrian army as a lion tears a lamb in pieces. Whoever appear against God, they are but like a multitude of poor simple shepherds shouting at a lion, who scorns to take notice of them or so much as to alter his pace for them. Surely those that have such a protector need not go to Egypt for help. (2.) That God would appear for Jerusalem's friends with the tenderness of a bird over her young, Isa 31:5. God was ready to gather Jerusalem, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Mat 23:37); but those that trusted to the Egyptians would not be gathered. As birds flying to their nests with all possible speed, when they see them attacked, and fluttering about their nests with all possible concern, hovering over their young ones to protect them and drive away the assailants, with such compassion and affection will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. As an eagle stirs up her young when they are in danger, takes them and bears them on her wings, so the Lord led Israel out of Egypt (Deu 32:11, Deu 32:12); and he has now the same tender concern for them that he had then, so that they need not flee into Egypt again for shelter. Defending, he will deliver it; he will so defend it as to secure the continuance of its safety, not defend it for a while and abandon it at last, but defend it so that it shall not fall into the enemies' hand. I will defend this city to save it, Isa 37:35. Passing over he will preserve it; the word for passing over is used in this sense only here and Exo 12:12, Exo 12:23, Exo 12:27, concerning the destroying angel's passing over the houses of the Israelites when he slew all the first-born of the Egyptians, to which story this passage refers. The Assyrian army was to be routed by a destroying angel, who should pass over Jerusalem, though that deserved to be destroyed, and draw his sword only against the besiegers. They shall be slain by the pestilence, but none of the besieged shall take the infection. Thus he will again pass over the houses of his people and secure them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for…
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help,.... Or, "O ye that go down", &c.; what poor foolish creatures are you! And in the end what miserable and wretched ones will ye be! Such were the Jewish rulers and people, who either went themselves, or sent ambassadors to the king of Egypt, to supply them with men and horses against the king of Assyria, contrary to the express command of God, which forbid them returning to Egypt; and which showed their unmindfulness of deliverance from thence, and their not having a due sense of that mercy upon them; as well as their so doing exposed them to the danger of being drawn into the superstitions and idolatries of that people:
and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; having their dependence upon, and placing their confidence in, the strength and numbers of the cavalry of the Egyptians:
Read full note →
but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord; they did not look unto the Lord with an eye of faith, nor seek him by prayer and supplication; or ask any counsel or instruction of him, as the Targum paraphrases the last clause; so that their sin lay not only in their confidence in the creature, but in their neglect of the Lord himself; and so all such persons are foolish and miserable, that trust in an arm of flesh, that place their confidence in creature acts, in their own righteousness, duties, and services, and have no regard to the Holy One of Israel, to the holiness and righteousness of Christ, neglect that, and do not submit to it; thus the Targum interprets the former clause of the Word of the Holy One of Israel, the essential Word Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–5 The folly and punishment of trusting in Egypt, ver.…
The folly and punishment of trusting in Egypt, ver. 1-3. God will fight for Jerusalem, ver. 4, 5. If they will turn unto him, ver. 6, 7. The fall of Assyria, ver. 8, 9.
Horses - For Egypt had many and choice horses.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–6 The Jews again reproved for their confidence in Egypt,…
CHAPTER XXXI
The Jews again reproved for their confidence in Egypt, finely
Read full note →
contrasted with their neglect of the power and protection of
God, 1-3.
Deliverance and protection are, notwithstanding, promised,
expressed by two similes; the first remarkably lofty and
poetical, the latter singularly beautiful and tender, 4, 5.
Exhortation to repentance, joined with the prediction of a more
reformed period, 6, 7.
This chapter concludes like the preceding, with a prophecy of
the fall of Sennacherib, 8, 9.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXI
Verse 1. Wo to them that go down to Egypt] This is a reproof to the Israelites for forming an alliance with the Egyptians, and not trusting in the Lord.
And stay on horses - "Who trust in horses"] For ועל veal, and upon, first twenty MSS. of Kennicott's, thirty of De Rossi's, one of my own, and the Septuagint, Arabic, and Vulgate, read על al, upon, without the conjunction, which disturbs the sense.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6 Isa 31:1-3. Wo to them that go down to…
Isa 31:1-3. Wo to them that go down to Egypt, &c. — As the Jews did, contrary to God’s command, Deu 17:16. And stay on horses — For Egypt had many and choice horses. But they look not unto the Lord — Their confidence in the creature was accompanied with, and produced, a distrust of God, and a neglect of seeking to him by prayer for his help. Yet he also is wise, &c. — You think you are wise, in engaging the Egyptians; but God is not inferior to them in wisdom or strength, but much superior, and therefore you have done foolishly in preferring them before him, who will execute his judgments upon you, notwithstanding all the Egyptians can do. And will not call back his words — His threatenings denounced against you; but will arise against the evil-doers — Against this wicked and rebellious people; and against the help — That is, the helpers, as it is explained in the next verse; of them that work iniquity — That act in direct opposition to the express command of God. The Egyptians are men, and not God — And therefore are utterly unable to defend you, either without or against God’s will; and their horses, flesh — Weak and frail, and not spirit — Not like spiritual substances, such as the angels, who are immortal, and invisible to men. When the Lord shall stretch out his hand — Shall exert his power to oppose or punish them, both he that helpeth and he that is holpen shall fall, &c., together — And their alliance shall prove their joint ruin.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Wo - (see the note at Isa 30:1).
Wo - (see the note at Isa 30:1).
To them that go down to Egypt - (see the note at Isa 30:2).
Read full note →
And stay on horses - (see the note at Isa 30:16).
And trust in chariots - (see the note at Isa 21:7). That they were often used in war, is apparent from the following places Jos 11:4; Jdg 1:19; 1Sa 13:5; 2Sa 8:4.
Because they are many - Because they hope to secure the aid of many. See the references above. It is evident that their confidence in them would be in proportion to the number which they could bring into the field.
But they look not ... - (see the note at Isa 30:1)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Chariots. He continues to inveigh against this practice, chap.…
Chariots. He continues to inveigh against this practice, chap. xxx. 16. (Calmet) --- Salmanasar will ruin the ten tribes. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Isaiah 31-32
IV.—THE FOURTH WOE
Isaiah 31-32
Read full note →
1. EGYPT CANNOT PROTECT WHAT THE LORD DESTROYS
Isa_31:1-4
1 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help;
And stay on horses,
And trust in chariots, because they are many;
And in horsemen, because they are very strong;
But they look not unto the Holy One of Israel,
Neither seek the Lord!
2 Yet He also is wise,
And will bring evil, and will not 1 call back His words:
But will arise against the house of the evil-doers,
And against the help of them that work iniquity.
3 Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;
And their horses flesh, and not spirit.
2 When the Lord shall stretch out his hand,
3 Both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down,
And they all shall fail together.
4 For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me,
Like as the lion and the young lion 4 roaring on his prey,
When 5 a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him,
He will not be afraid of their voice,
Nor abase himself for the 6 noise of them:
So shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight 7 for mount Zion,
And for the hill thereof.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_31:1. לעזרה comp. on Isa_10:3; Isa_20:6.—Note the structure of sentence in this verse. First a participle depends on הוֹי, which, according to familiar Hebrew usage, in the second clause immediately changes to a verb. finitum, and that the Imperfect, because a continuous, not concluded action is meant; to this is joined the third clause by the Vav consecutivum, because it contains a special consequence of the preceding general clause; whereas the two negative concluding clauses are in the perfect, because they express the fundamental fact, complete and present, that conditions all that precedes. Comp. Isa_5:8; Isa_5:11; Isa_5:18; Isa_5:20 sqq.——פרשׁים comp. on Isa_21:7; Isa_21:9; Isa_22:6 sq.; Isa_28:28.—שׁעה comp. on Isa_17:7 sq.; Isa_22:4.—קדושׁ י׳ comp. on Isa_1:4.
Isa_31:2. The aorist ויבא depicts the certainty.—הסיר comp. Jos_11:15.—The expression בית מרעים occurs only here: yet comp. Isa_1:4; Isa_14:20; Psa_22:17; Psa_26:5; Psa_64:3.—עזרה stands here as abstractum proconcreto: the help for the totality of those helping.
Isa_31:4. הגה of the growling of a lion only here; comp. on Isa_8:19.—מלא, comp. Isa_6:3 : Isa_8:8, is the full number the totality.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Woe to them——the hill thereof.
Isa_31:1-4. The Prophet raises anew his warning voice against trusting to Egyptian help, by representing its uselessness; on the other hand, he promises most glorious help from the grace of Jehovah, on condition of turning back from idols. For the fourth time from 28. on הוי, “woe,” appears here at the head of a section, so that we may regard this resemblance as a sign that these chapters belong together. We must understand by “those that go down,” not only those physically going down to Egypt, but also those that accompanied them in spirit and shared their intention. Five clauses depend on “woe,” which all belong to one and the same degree of time, and in our way of speaking depend on one relative notion: woe to those who go down … lean on … trust … but look not to God … and seek not the Lord. See Text. and Gramm.
The sending to Egypt seemed to the friends of this policy a particularly prudent measure. They plumed themselves far too much on their penetration. In antithesis to it the Prophet says: Jehovah, too, who opposes that policy, is wise. [The comparison is double-edged: “God was as wise as the Egyptians, and ought therefore to have been consulted; He was as wise as the Jews, and could therefore thwart their boasted policy.”—J. A. A.] This statement, humble as it appears, contains, however, only a divine irony. For if God, comparing His wisdom with that of men, says: “I am wise also,” it means in effect: “I am wise and ye are fools.” The words that the Lord will not recall must be threatenings that He had uttered against the Egyptian alliance (comp. Isa_29:14 sqq.; Isa_30:12 sqq.). That God keeps His word under all circumstances is declared Num_23:19; 1Sa_15:29. The people in Egypt are indeed persons, therefore רוּחוֹת, yet only finite, creature persons, thus not of a divine sort, and no equals of God. But their horses are not even spirit, not even creature spirit, but only weak, perishable flesh. Therefore neither man nor horse in Egypt is to be relied on, and Jehovah has but to stretch forth His hand, and both Egypt that is called to help and Judah that is supported by this help will be laid low.
Isa_31:4 proves the statement of Isa_31:3 by a comparison. It might, for instance, seem strange that the Lord, Isa_31:3, made no difference between Judah and Egypt, as if the former were no more to Him than the latter. Therefore He assures most expressly that no power will be able to deter Him from the judgment determined against Judah. The formula of transition, “for thus hath the Lord spoken unto me,” we had identically or at least similarly Isa_8:11; Isa_10:24; Isa_18:4; Isa_21:16; Isa_28:16; Isa_30:15. For when a lion has stolen one of the flock, all the shepherds are called to help (note the allusion to the calling on Egypt to help) and save it. But the lion is not alarmed (comp. Isa_7:8; Isa_30:31; Isa_51:6 sq., etc.) by their cry and does not crouch (Isa_25:5) at their noise. He does not let them deprive him of his prey. From Bochart (Hieroz. I, cap. 44) on, expositors here recall similar images in Homer,Il. XII. 298 sqq.; XVIII. 161 sqq. So the Lord does not suffer Jerusalem, in as far as He has made it the object of His wrath, to be seized from Him by the mutual aid of Judah and Egypt. Mount and hill of Zion are put antithetically, also Isa_10:32. It is seen from this passage that the Prophet understands by the mount the highest summit, the places of the temple and of the king’s house; but by the hill the other dwelling-places of the people. But most expositors understand Isa_31:4 of the protection that the Lord would extend to Jerusalem. [Thus Barnes, J. A. Alexander, Birks,etc.] The meaning would then be, not that Egypt, but that He, the Lord, would protect Zion and not suffer His city to be taken from Him. But (with Hitzig, Hendewerk, Delitzsch) I am decidedly of the opinion that the Prophet would say that the Lord will not suffer Jerusalem, as the prey of His anger, to be taken from Him (comp. Isa_29:1 sqq.; and regarding צבא with על, Isa_29:7-8; Num_31:7). In Isa_31:3 He has emphatically said, in fact, that both, the protector and the protected, should be destroyed. To this thought the “For” (כִּי, init.) of Isa_31:4 must relate. For did it only relate to כשׁל עזר (“the helper shall stumble”), there would arise a direct contradiction between Isa_31:3-4. It is urged that Isa_31:5 requires Isa_31:4 to be taken in a sense favorable to Jerusalem [see Translator’s note on Isa_31:5]. But then the fact is overlooked that Isa_31:5 has no sort of connecting word that joins it to Isa_31:4. It follows abruptly, whereas Isa_31:4 is closely joined to Isa_31:3 by כִּי. The Prophet purposes here an abrupt transition from darkness to light. In all preceding chapters night and sunshine alternate. All begin with severe threatening, that is to change to glorious promise. This transition is effected in the preceding chapters in a variety of ways. But it accords with the facile spirit of our Prophet once, in the present case, to effect this transition with a leap, as I might say. Would he thereby intimate, perhaps, that the deliverance also shall presently come, with a leap, quite suddenly and unexpected?
Footnotes:
[1]Heb. remove.
[2]But.
[3]And.
[4]growling.
[5]the totality.
[6]Or, multitude.
[7]against.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–6 he also is wise--as well as the Egyptian priests,…
he also is wise--as well as the Egyptian priests, so famed for wisdom (Act 7:22), but who are "fools" before Him (Isa 19:11). He not only devises, but executes what He devises without "calling back His words" (Num 23:19).
home--the whole race.
Read full note →
help--the Egyptian succor sought by the Jews.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6 Differently presented, and perhaps better, the same subjects respecting…
THE FOURTH WOE.
Differently presented, and perhaps better, the same subjects respecting alliance with Egypt are here continued. Perhaps a space of time intervened between the two presentations.
Read full note →
1-3. Stay on horses… trust in chariots — Horses abounded in Egypt. Solomon had filled his stables from that country. The ancients thought more of cavalry than of infantry in war. The Hebrews, denied of it by their law, on becoming worldly under the monarchy were distressingly uneasy without cavalry. This gives occasion for the prophet to denounce it as a vain help, and he hurls his woes upon it uncompromisingly. He still preaches dependence alone upon Jehovah their God as a sufficient safety. But the princes did not look to him. Hezekiah himself, good king as he was, was timid, at first sight, of the approaching Assyrian strength upon him. The prophet insists that God knows best whether Judah needs foreign aid; that he has the people in his own guidance and care if they will; that he will discomfit all outside aid, and punish Judah for seeking it; that divine help is indispensable; that Egypt is deceitful, weak, and untrustworthy; and that in depending on such help, both the helper and the helped shall be overthrown.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1. Woe to them that put their trust in…
1. Woe to them that put their trust in the horses and chariots of Egypt! The Jews were painfully conscious of their weakness in cavalry as compared with the Assyrians, and this was one of the considerations that made a league with Egypt so attractive in their eyes (see ch. Isa_30:16, Isa_36:8-9). Egypt was always renowned in antiquity for its strength in this arm (Hom. Iliad ix. 383; Diodorus, i. 45). To the prophets horses and chariots were in themselves objectionable as embodiments of irreligious militarism (cf. ch. Isa_2:7); they were of course doubly so when obtained through compacts with foreign states.
neither seek the Lord] i.e. seek His counsel (Isa_30:2).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 (1) Woe to them that go down . .…
XXXI.
(1) Woe to them that go down . . .—The Egyptian alliance was, of course, the absorbing topic of the time, and Isaiah returns to it yet again. As in Isa_30:16, the princes of Judah were attracted by the prospect of strengthening themselves in their weakest point, and reinforcing the cavalry of Judah, which could hardly be mentioned by an Assyrian ambassador without a smile (Isa_36:9), with an Egyptian contingent. Isaiah once more condemns this as trusting in an “arm of flesh “instead of in the “Holy One of Israel.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6 Vers. 1-3. A FURTHER WARNING AGAINST SEEKING THE ALLIANCE…
Vers. 1-3. A FURTHER WARNING AGAINST SEEKING THE ALLIANCE OF EGYPT. This prophecy seems to be quite independent of the last. (Isa_30:1-7) It may have been given earlier or later. The chief point brought out, which had not distinctly appeared previously, is the value set on the horses and chariots of Egypt in the conflict with Assyria. (comp. 2Ki_18:24)
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help. (comp. Isa_30:1, Isa_30:2; and see also the earlier prophecy, Isa_20:2-6) The examples of Samaria, Gaza, and Ashdod might well have taught the lesson of distrust of Egypt, without any Divine warnings (see G. Smith"s "Eponym Canon," pp. 125-131). But the Jews were infatuated, and relied on Egypt despite her previous failures to give effective aid. And stay on horses. The Assyrian cavalry was very numerous, and very efficient. It is often represented on the monuments. Egyptian cavalry, on the other hand, is not represented at all; and it may be questioned whether, in the early times, the Egyptian war-horses were not entirely employed in the chariot-service (see "Pulpit Commentary" on Exodus, p. 321). The later dynasties of Egyptian kings, however, employed cavalry, as appears from 2Ch_12:3; Herod., 2:162; "Records of the Past," vol. it. pp. 68, 70, 72, etc. And trust in chariots, because they are many. The large number of the chariots maintained by the Pharaohs is abundantly evidenced. Diodorus assigns to Sesostris twenty-seven thousand (1. 54, This is, no doubt, an exaggeration; but the six hundred of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, (Exo_14:7) and even the one thousand two hundred of Shishak (2Ch_12:3) are moderate computations, quite in accord with the monuments, and with all that we otherwise know of Egyptian warfare. Egypt exported chariots to the neighboring countries, (1Ki_10:29) and was at this time the only power which seemed capable of furnishing such a chariot-force as could hope to contend on tolerably even terms with the force of Assyria. They look not unto the Holy One of Israel. (comp. Isa_30:11, Isa_30:12) The trust in the Egyptian alliance was accompanied by a distrust of Jehovah and his power, and a disinclination to look to him for aid.
Read full note →
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Ver. 1. Wrong sources of help.
"Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help." Egypt is used in Scripture as a symbol of all foreign worldly powers. It represented carnal force in chariots, horses, and horsemen, because they are very strong." "Looking," as the same verse says, "to them," and not looking unto the Holy One of Israel.
I WOE, BECAUSE GOD HAS SAID IT. He is wise, and knows the end from the beginning. We are dazzled with the show of power. The neighing of the war-horse and the glitter of the golden chariot and the flashing steel of the warriors, all look like strength. But God says to Israel, "This is not your strength. This may succeed for a time, but it is an empire held by the throat, not by the heart.
II WOE, BECAUSE WE HAVE SEEN IT. The facts of history are on our side. When Israel was pure and pious she prospered. Deliverance from Egypt was wrought out in the face of superior force; and an undisciplined band of slaves were too mighty for the cohorts of Pharaoh. So have we seen in history ever since. In the end it is "righteousness that exalteth a nation;" but shame, reproach, and defeat come to those who forsake God. Woe! Yes; the fires of London had to hum out its profligacies. The plague followed its debaucheries.
III WOE, BECAUSE DIVINE LAWS ARE IMMUTABLE. It is not only said and seen, it is sure. For to find true help in Egypt would be like reversing the law of gravitation, or making the stars change their courses, or water forsake its level. "God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.
There are many Egypts force, fashion, fraud; these have empire at times; but woe to those who, forsaking the simplicities and spiritualities of the gospel, seek "help" therefrom! W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-5. The arm of flesh.
How important is this subject we may gather from the fact that the prophet is inspired to return to it, and to reiterate his condemnation. (see Isa_30:1) The disposition to lean on the arm of flesh instead of trusting in the living God is not Jewish, but bureau; not peculiar to any age or dispensation, but is an abiding spiritual peril. We learn here
I THE FALLACY WHICH IT INVOLVES.
1. The Jews were trusting in numbers. Looking to the horses and chariots of Egypt, "because they were many" (ver. 1). We are apt to be imposed upon by numbers, to think there is safety and even salvation in them, to indulge the notion that, because we are among a great crowd or are supported by a very large majority, we are all on the side of truth and victory. Yet nothing is more uncertain; often the vast hosts have been overthrown in conflict by the devoted and determined few; often the small section, "everywhere spoken against" and despised, has been proved to be in the right and has ultimately prevailed. If God be on one side and the mightiest multitude on the other, we may be sure that the fact that "the chariots and horses are many" will be of no account at all. Divine providence is not by any means necessarily or constantly "on the side of the strongest battalions.
2. They trusted in apparent human strength. "In horsemen, because they are very strong." Many regiments of cavalry have a very imposing aspect to the eye which looks upon and judges by the surface of things; they seem invincible, overwhelming, an invaluable ally when the enemy is approaching. And not only the well-equipped cavalry in time of war; but, in time of peace and in the ordinary life of men, the sagacious counselor, the wealthy merchant, the influential statesman or courtier, the eloquent and admired speaker or pleader these men seem to have in them a source of strength on which we may build, or to which in the time of peril we may repair. But "the Egyptians were men, and not God," etc. (ver. 3); their promised word might be broken, their overtures might turn out to be selfishly made and to be unscrupulously withdrawn; their cavalry might be ridden down by troops still stronger than they. Being but men and but horses, they might prove as they would prove nothing better than a broken reed, which would pierce the hand that leaned on it. (Isa_36:6) And the human strength on which we are all so inclined to lean will very likely prove to be nothing more or better. How often the sagacity of the prudent, the riches of the wealthy, the influence of the great, the eloquence of the orator, fail us at our hour of need, and we "go down to our house" bitterly disappointed, or perhaps stricken, stripped, ruined! "The arm of flesh will fail you.
II THE FRUIT WHICH BELONGS TO IT. "God will not call back his words" of condemnation. (ver. 2; see Isa_30:1-13) He is grieved and offended that his word has been disobeyed, and himself distrusted and deserted. (See homily in foe.)
III THE PENALTY WHICH WILL FOLLOW IT. God will arise against both those that seek and those that offer help; at the stretching out of his hand they will both fall together (vers. 2, 3). They who, distrusting God, put their trust in man will fall under God"s high displeasure, and, according to their circumstances and the character of their error, wilt fall into discomfiture, into disrepute, into disappointment, into shame.
IV THE RESOURCE WHICH IT OVERLOOKS. All the while that Judah was leaning on "that broken reed, Egypt," it had at hand a sure Support, an almighty Deliverer, One that would be as a lion for fearlessness and irresistible strength, One that would be as a mother-bird for swiftness and tenderness (vers. 4, 5), to whom it might have looked, and by whom it would have been graciously received and effectually succored. By our side, in our time of trouble and of peril, is an almighty Friend, whose delivering hand no army can resist, who will come at the right time to redeem us, who will treat us with more than parental tenderness and care. Shall we not go unto him, and say, "My soul trusteth in thee, yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast"? C. (Psa_57:1)
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. Names for God.
Here the Lord, or Jehovah, is called the "Holy One of Israel." When the mysterious name "Jehovah" was given, another name, suited for more familiar use, was commended, even this, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Instructive suggestions come from placing these three names together, as representing
(1) God absolute;
(2) God in relations;
(3) God in history.
I "I AM" (YEHVEH); OR, GOD ABSOLUTE.
1. This name in truth involves the namelessness of God. It is as if he had said to Moses, "You ask for my Name. "I am," and that is all that you can say about me." The words are not, properly speaking, a name; they are but the assertion of a fact about God. They are a refusal of God to put all his great glory into a name. A name is the brief summing-up of a definition, and since it must ever be an impossible thing wholly to define God, he cannot permit any name to be used which shall appear to assume that a definition has been found.
2. This so-called name involves the unity of God. It is as if he had said, "I am, and there is none beside me." In a magnificent conception, the prophet represents Jehovah as rising up from his place, scanning the whole universe, from the infinite east to the infinite west, and then, seating himself again upon his eternal throne, saying, "There is no God beside me; I know no other.
3. This so-called name involves the self-existence of God. It is as if he had said, I am, and no one made me." None gave him being. On no one has he to depend. He has life in himself. He is the very Fountain of life. And thus is declared the perfect and eternal distinction between God and all created existence. Nowhere can we find uncaused being. Everywhere are effects which can be more or less perfectly traced to their causes. In Jehovah we have effect without cause. "In the beginning God." "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.
4. This so-called name involves the eternity of God. It is as if he had said, "I am, and shall be forever." It is absolutely impossible for us to conceive of the force which can stop his existence. There is no death that can touch him. "How dread are thine eternal years, O ever-living Lord!
This impression of God as the Unknowable, Unseeable, August, and Awful One, our souls greatly need in these light and frivolous times. God is revealed to the soul in awe. A horror of great darkness fell on Abraham, and under it he saw God. Trembling agony filled the soul of wrestling Jacob, and in the awe of his conflict he heard God. We may heed the voice that says, "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen; I will be exalted in the earth.
II "GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB," OR, GOD IN PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH US. We are to know what God, is by observing what he has been to his people, and what he has done for them. By calling himself thus, God represents himself as the Promise-maker and Promise-keeper. At the call of God Abraham had broken away from his Chaldean home, and wandered forth, a sojourner in a strange land; but God was faithful to his word, and proved towards him an unchanging Friend. Guilty Jacob fled from home, and God met him, revealing himself as the faithful Watcher, willing to be in close and gracious personal relations with him. For years, while in service, God blessed his basket and his store. When journeying back to Canaan, God defended him, subdued the enmity of Esau, and gave him prosperity and honor. Few lives are offered for our study which bear such manifest traces of the nearness and providence of God. Few names could suggest so much to us as this most simple one the God of Jacob. Stilt God is what he has ever been Defense of his endangered people; Wisdom for his perplexed people; Support of his enfeebled people; Correcter of his mistaken people; Savior of his sinning people. For all the actual needs of a tried, toiling, tempted life, we may come, even as the patriarchs did, into close personal relations with God, for this is his Name forever, and this is his memorial to all generations." Graves, in his work on the Pentateuch, says, "The peculiar and incommunicable character of God is self-existence; he is the great "I Am." But this abstract and philosophical description of the Supreme Being was not sufficiently calculated to arrest the attention, conciliate the confidence, and command the obedience of a people entirely unaccustomed to scientific speculations, and incapable of being influenced by any other than temporal motives; it was therefore necessary to represent to them the Governor of the universe in a more circumscribed and attractive form, as the God of the fathers, who had conferred the most distinguished honors on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to whom their posterity might from the full confidence which fact and experience supply look up and trust as their peculiar guardian God.
III "HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL;" OR, GOD IN HISTORY. This is the new name given to God, when his dealings with our race through many generations could be reviewed, and the character of all those dealings make due impression of the character of God himself. What one thing comes out most plainly from all reviews of God in history? The prophet says, in reply, his holiness. This estimate of God may be illustrated on the following lines.
1. The Holy One or Israel has ever been faithful to his covenant.
2. The Holy One of Israel has ever required the holiness of a simple and trustful obedience.
3. The Holy One of Israel has ever been swift to mark iniquity.
4. The Holy One of Israel has ever been redeeming and saving.
5. The Holy One of Israel has ever been jealous of his supreme claims. His glory he would never give to another." So the three great names on which we have been dwelling
1. touch us with reverence and awe;
2. open our eyes to see his working all round about us; and call upon us to render to him hearty trust and lowly service. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for…
Isa_31:1
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help
Read full note →
The abundance of horses in Egypt
The abundance of horses in Egypt is attested, not only in other parts of Scripture, but by profane writers.
Homer describes Thebes as having a hundred gates, out of each of which two hundred warriors went forth with chariots and horses. Diodorns speaks of the whole country between Thebes and Memphis as filled with royal stables. The horses of Solomon are expressly said to have been brought out of Egypt. This kind of military force was more highly valued, in comparison with infantry, by the ancients than the moderns, and especially by those who, like the Hebrews, were almost entirely deprived of it themselves. Hence their reliance upon foreign aid is frequently identified with confidence in horses and contrasted with simple trust in God (Psa_20:7). (J. A. Alexander.)
Seeking God:
To seek Jehovah is not merely to consult Him, but to seek His aid, resort to Him, implying the strongest confidence. (J. A. Alexander.)
Looking
I want you to remember how much often depends in life on a straight and steady look. A few weeks ago there was a great rehearsal of Sunday-school choirs. All the children were assembled in a vast building, and away in front of them stood a man holding a little stick in his hand. And he said a few words to them. To succeed, said he, you must keep your eyes on me and watch the movements of my hand. Every now and then part of the choir went wrong in the time; they had taken their eyes off the conductor; they were not steadily, earnestly, intelligently looking to him. (C. Silvester Horne, M. A.)
Unholy alliances
I. THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE which the Jewish people formed with Egypt. God had promised to be their Protector; He had also prohibited alliances with heathen nations (Exo_23:32; Deu_7:2). This alliance with Egypt was a violation of this command.
1. This unholy alliance is an old sin. They could see and feel the horses and chariots of Egypt. They allowed their senses to be their sovereigns, instead of making them their servants. Has not this been the ruin of the race? Fleshly lusts war against the soul. History is crowded with examples. Eve in Eden; Esau; the Israelites in the wilderness; David.
2. This unholy alliance is marked by peculiar features.
(1) It was a wretched choice. Egypt. What good thing had Egypt ever done for them? Not one. Yet they chose Egypt in preference to God.
(2) They were influenced by sensuous motives. They were carried away by the strength of the horses and the beauty of the chariots of Egypt.
(3) It led them to reject God.
3. This unholy alliance incurred severe punishment. Woe, &c. Sin leads to punishment. The safety of a nation does not consist in the strength of her army, nor in the extent of her commerce, but in her loyalty to God Pro_14:34; Isa_60:12).
II. This unholy alliance is COMMON IN THE PRESENT DAY. This unholy alliance is formed--
1. When relief is looked for from wrong sources in the day of trouble. God is a refuge and helper to all true souls in trouble who trust in Him. Yet how common it is for many in the day of trouble to enter into a league with sin and make a covenant with death! A woe follows such, and sooner or later will overtake them.
2. When happiness is sought in wrong paths. True happiness is obtained when our will is brought into harmony with Gods will. Many look for it in other directions. E.g., the miser, the sensuous, the ambitious, the worldling.
3. When salvation is expected in any other way than through Christ.
4. When unworthy means are employed to spread the Gospel. Conclusion:--True loyalty to God will bring safety, happiness, heaven. Horses may bestrong, numerous, and swift; but they shall die and be forgotten. Chariots shall become lighter than dust; but they who do the will of God abide for ever. Some trust in chariots, &c. (J. Wileman.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER XIV
THREE TRUTHS ABOUT GOD
Read full note →
ABOUT 702 B.C.
Isaiah 31
CHAPTER 31, which forms an appendage to chapters 29 and 30, can scarcely be reckoned among the more important prophecies of Isaiah. It is a repetition of the principles which the prophet has already proclaimed in connection with the faithless intrigues of Judah for an alliance with Egypt, and it was published at a time when the statesmen of Judah were further involved in these intrigues, when events were moving faster, and the prophet had to speak with more hurried words. Truths now familiar to us are expressed in less powerful language.
But the chapter has its own value; it is remarkable for three very unusual descriptions of God, which govern the following exposition of it. They rise in climax, enforcing three truths:-that in the government of life we must take into account Gods wisdom; we must be prepared to find many of His providences grim and savage-looking; but we must also believe that He is most tender and jealous for His people.
I. YET HE ALSO IS WISE
(Isa_31:1-3)
We must suppose the negotiations with Egypt to have taken for the moment a favourable turn, and the statesmen who advocated them to be congratulating themselves upon some consequent addition to the fighting strength of Judah. They could point to many chariots and a strong body of cavalry in proof of their own wisdom and refutation of the prophets maxim, "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be saved."
Isaiah simply answers their self-congratulation with the utterance of a new Woe, and it is in this that the first of the three extraordinary descriptions of God is placed. "Woe unto them that go down to Egypt for help; upon horses do they stay, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong: but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, and Jehovah they do not seek. Yet He also is wise." You have been clever and successful, but have you forgotten that "God also is wise," that He too has His policy, and acts reasonably and consistently? You think you have been making history; but God also works in history, and surely, to put it on the lowest ground, with as much cleverness and persistence as you do. "Yet He also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back His words, but will arise against the house of the evil-doers, and against the help of them that work iniquity."
This satire was the shaft best fitted to pierce the folly of the rulers of Judah. Wisdom, a reasonable plan for their aims and prudence in carrying it out, was the last thing they thought of associating with God, whom they relegated to what they called their religion-their temples, worship, and poetry. When their emotions were stirred by solemn services, or under great disaster, or in the hour of death, they remembered God, and it seemed natural to them that in these great exceptions of life He should interfere; but in their politics and their trade, in the common course and conduct of life, they ignored Him and put their trust in their own wisdom. They limited God to the ceremonies and exceptional occasions of life, when they looked for His glory or miraculous assistance, but they never thought that in their ordinary ways He had any interest or design.
The forgetfulness, against which Isaiah directs this shaft of satire, is the besetting sin of very religious people, of very successful people, and of very clever people.
It is the temptation of an ordinary Christian church-going people, like ourselves, with a religion so full of marvellous mercies, and so blessed with regular opportunities of worship, to think of God only in connection with these, and practically to ignore that along the far greater stretches of life He has any interest or purpose regarding us. Formally-religious people treat God as if He were simply a constitutional sovereign, to step in at emergencies, and for the rest to play a nominal and ceremonial part in the conduct of their lives. Ignoring the Divine wisdom and ceaseless providence of God, and couching their hearts upon easy views of His benevolence, they have no other thought of Him than as a philanthropic magician, whose power is reserved to extricate men when they have got past helping themselves. From the earliest times that way of regarding God has been prevalent, and religious teachers have never failed to stigmatise it with the hardest name for folly. "Fools," says the Psalmist, "are afflicted when they draw near unto the gates of death; then," only then, "do they cry unto the Lord in their trouble." "Thou fool!" says Christ of the man who kept God out of the account of his life. God is not mocked, although we ignore half His being and confine our religion to such facile views of His nature. With this sarcasm, Isaiah reminds us that it is not a Fool who is on the throne of the universe; yet is the Being whom the imaginations of some men place there any better? O wise men, "God also is wise." Not by fits and starts of a benevolence similar to that of our own foolish and inconsistent hearts does He work. Consistency, reason, and law are the methods of His action; and they apply closely, irretrievably, to all of our life. Hath He promised evil? Then evil will proceed. Let us believe that God keeps His word; that He is thoroughly attentive to all we do; that His will concerns the whole of our life.
But the temptation to refuse to God even ordinary wisdom is also the temptation of very successful and very clever people, such as these Jewish politicians fancied themselves to be, or such as the rich fool in the parable. They have overcome all they have matched themselves against, and feel as if they were to be masters of their own future. Now the Bible and the testimony of men invariably declare that God has one way of meeting such fools-the way Isaiah suggests here. God meets them with their own weapons; He outmatches them in their own fashion. In the eighteenth Psalm it is written, "With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure, and with, the perverse Thou will show Thyself froward. The Rich Fool congratulates himself that his soul is his own"; says God, "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." The Jewish politicians pride themselves on their wisdom; "Yet God also is wise," says Isaiah significantly. After Moscow Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed, "The Almighty is too strong for me." But perhaps the most striking analogy to this satire of Isaiah is to be found in the "Confessions" of that Jew from whose living sepulchre we are so often startled with weird echoes of the laughter of the ancient prophets of his race. When Heine, Germanys greatest satirist, lay upon a bed to which his evil living had brought him before his time, and the pride of art, which had been, as he says, his god, was at last crushed, he tells us what it was that crushed him. They were singing his songs in every street of his native land, and his fame had gone out through the world, while he lay an exile and paralysed upon his "mattress-grave." "Alas!" he cries, "the irony of Heaven weighs heavily upon me. The great Author of the universe, the celestial Aristophanes, wished to show me, the petty, earthly, German Aristophanes, how my most trenchant satires are only clumsy patchwork compared with His, and how immeasurably He excels me in humour and colossal wit." That is just a soul writing in its own hearts blood this terrible warning of Isaiah: "Yet God also is wise." "Yea the Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses flesh, and not spirit; and when Jehovah shall stretch out His hand, both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they all shall perish together."
II. THE LION AND HIS PREY
(Isa_31:4)
But notwithstanding what he has said about God destroying men who trust in their own cleverness, Isaiah goes on to assert that God is always ready to save what is worth saving. The people, the city, His own city-God will save that. To express Gods persistent grace towards Jerusalem, Isaiah uses two figures borrowed from the beasts. Both of them are truly Homeric, and fire the imagination at once; but the first is not one we should have expected to find as a figure of the saving grace of God. Yet Isaiah knows it is not enough for men to remember how wise God always is. They need also to be reminded how grim and cruel He must sometimes appear, even in His saving providences.
"For thus saith Jehovah unto me: Like as when the lion growleth, and the young lion over his prey, if a mob of shepherds be called forth against him, from their voice he will not shrink in dismay, nor for their noise abase himself; so shall Jehovah of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion and the hill thereof." A lion with a lamb in his claws, growling over it, while a crowd of shepherds come up against him; afraid to go near enough to kill him, they try to frighten him away by shouting at him. But he holds his prey unshrinking.
It is a figure that startles at first. To liken God with a saving hold upon His own to a wild lion with his claws in the prey. But horror plays the part of a good emphasis; while, if we look into the figure, we shall feel our horror change to appreciation. There is something majestic in that picture of the lion with the shouting shepherds, too afraid to strike him. "He will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them." Is it, after all, an unworthy figure of the Divine Claimant for this city, who kept unceasing hold upon her after His own manner, mysterious and lionlike to men, undisturbed by the screams, formulas, and prayers of her mob of politicians and treaty-mongers? For these are the "shepherds" Isaiah means - sham shepherds, the shrieking crew of politicians with their treaties andmilitary display. God will save and carry Jerusalem His own way, paying no heed to such. "He will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase Himself for the noise of them."
There is more than the unyielding persistency of Divine grace taught here. There is that to begin with. God will never let go what He has made His own: the souls He has redeemed from sin, the societies He has redeemed from barbarism, the characters He has hold of, the lives He has laid His hand upon. Persistency of saving grace-let us learn that confidently in the parable. But that is only half of what it is meant to teach. Look at the shepherds: shepherds shouting round a lion; why does Isaiah put it that way, and not as David did-lions growling round a brave shepherd, with the lamb in his arms? Because it so appeared then in the life Isaiah was picturing, because it often looks the same in real life still. These politicians - they seemed, they played the part of shepherds; and Jehovah, who persistently frustrated their plans for the salvation of the State-He looked the lion, delivering Jerusalem to destruction. And very often to men does this arrangement of the parts repeat itself; and while human friends are anxious and energetic about them, God Himself appears in providences more lionlike than shepherdly. He grasps with the savage paw of death some one as dear to us as that city was to Isaiah. He rends our body or soul or estate. And friends and our own thoughts gather round the cruel bereavement or disaster with remonstrance and complaint. Our hearts cry out, doing, like shepherds, their best to scare by prayer and cries the foe they are too weak to kill. We all know the scene, and how shabby and mean that mob of human remonstrances looks in face of the great Foe, majestic though inarticulate, that with sullen persistence carries off its prey. All we can say in such times is that if it is God who is the lion, then it is for the best. For "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him"; and, after all, it is safer to rely on the mercies of God, lionlike though they be, than on the weak benevolences and officious pities of the best of human advisers. "Thy will be done"-let perfect reverence teach us to feel that, even when providence seems as savage as men that day thought Gods will towards Jerusalem.
In addition then to remembering, when men seem by their cleverness and success to rule life, that God is wiser and His plans more powerful than theirs, we are not to forget, when men seem more anxious and merciful than His dark providence, that for all their argument and action His will shall not alter. But now we are to hear that this will, so hard and mysterious, is as merciful and tender as a mothers.
III. THE MOTHER-BIRD AND HER NEST
(Isa_31:5)
"As birds hovering, so will Jehovah of hosts cover Jerusalem; He will cover and deliver it: He will pass over and preserve it." At last we are through dark providence, to the very heart of the Almighty. The meaning is familiar from its natural simplicity and frequent use in Scripture. Two features of it our version has not reproduced. The word "birds" means the smaller kind of feathered creatures, and the word "hovering" is feminine in the original: "As little mother-birds hovering, so will Jehovah of hosts protect Jerusalem." We have been watching in spring the hedge where we know is a nest. Suddenly the mother-bird, who has been sitting on a branch close by, flutters off her perch, passes backwards and forwards, with flapping wings that droop nervously towards the nest over her young. A hawk is in the sky, and till he disappears she will hover-the incarnation of motherly anxiety. This is Isaiahs figure. His native city, on which he poured so much of his heart in lyrics and parables, was again in danger. Sennacherib was descending upon her; and the pity of Isaiahs own heart for her, evil though she was, suggested to him a motherhood of pity in the breast of God. The suggestion God Himself approved. Centuries after, when He assumed our flesh and spoke our language, when He put His love into parables lowly and familiar to our affections, there were none of them more beautiful than that which He uttered of this same city, weeping as He spake: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"
With such fountains in Scripture, we need not, as some have done, exalt the Virgin, or virtually make a fourth person in the Godhead, and that a woman, in order to satisfy those natural longings of the heart which the widespread worship of the mother of Jesus tells us are so peremptory. For all fulness dwelleth in God Himself. Not only may we rejoice in that pity and wise provision for our wants, in that pardon and generosity, which we associate with the name of father, but also in the wakefulness, the patience, the love, lovelier with fear, which make a mothers heart so dear and indispensable. We cannot tell along what wakened nerve the grace of God may reach our hearts; but Scripture has a medicine for every pain. And if any feel their weakness as little children feel it, let them know that the Spirit of God broods over them, as a mother over her babe; and if any are in pain or anxiety, and there is no human heart to suffer with them, let them know that as closely as a mother may come to suffer with her child, and as sensitive as she is to its danger, so sensitive is God Almighty to theirs, and that He gives them proof of their preciousness to Him by suffering with them.
How these three descriptions meet the three failings of our faith! We forget that God is ceaselessly at work in wisdom in our lives. We forget that God must sometimes, even when He is saving us, seem lionlike and cruel. We forget that "the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind."
Having thus made vivid the presence of their Lord to the purged eyes of His people, patient, powerful in order, wise in counsel, persistent in grace, and, last of all, very tender, Isaiah concludes with a cry to the people to turn to this Lord, from whom they have so deeply revolted. Let them cast away their idols, and there shall be no fear of the result of the Assyrian invasion. The Assyrians shall fall, not by the sword of man, but the immediate stroke of God. "And his rock shall pass away by reason of terror, and his princes shall be dismayed at the ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem." And so Isaiah closes this series of prophecies on the keynote with which it opened in the first verse of chapter 29 that Jerusalem is Ariel-"the hearth and altar, the dwelling-place and sanctuary, of God."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 Isa_31:1-3. Woe to the rebellious children, &c.
THE ONLY COUNSELLOR
Isa_31:1-3. Woe to the rebellious children, &c.
Read full note →
These words were spoken by the prophet at a time when the Jewish nation was in great and imminent danger. They were addrest to the rulers of the nation, who were endeavouring to ward off the danger: and their purpose is to rebuke those rulers for the measures they were taking with that view, by entering into alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, in the hope that he would deliver them out of it. But we should make a great mistake if we imagine that there is nothing in them that concerns our duty as individuals. God’s reproofs of nations are such as we may all take home to our hearts, ponder, and learn from; for they contain principles of righteousness which, like the sun which shines at once upon half the world and ourselves, are intended for the guidance both of nations and of individuals. Of this truth a striking example is afforded by our text. Its object is to rebuke the Jewish rulers for the line of policy which they were taking with the view of defending their country from her enemies. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was marching against Judah, with the intent of conquering it, and reducing the people to slavery, as Israel had already been conquered and enslaved a few years before by Shalmaneser. The danger was very great. What was King Hezekiah to do? How was Judah to stand against Assyria? If you were to ask any of the politicians who are wise in the wisdom of this world, they would all say, there could be no question about the matter; that the only way of saving Judah was to obtain the alliance and aid of some powerful nation, whose succour might render her more nearly a match for the armies of the invader. This is exactly what the rulers of Judah set about doing. They entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt, with the view of gaining assistance from him, which might enable them to cope with Sennacherib in the field. This is just what a statesman, who plumed himself on his wisdom in these days, would do. Yet it is for doing this very thing that the prophet Isaiah in the text reproves and denounces woe against them. Their conduct, therefore, must have been sinful. Let us try to discover in what their sin lay.
1. They were making use of human means alone, to ward off the danger which threatened. It is not sinful to use such means; the sin lies in fancying they can help us without the blessing of God, and in not seeking that. This was what Isaiah denounced, and what we do. When any danger threatens us, we forthwith take counsel—of ourselves, or of our friends, forgetting that all our counsel in the first instance ought to be taken of God, by searching His law with the purpose of discerning what He wills us to do, and by praying Him to enlighten our understandings, that we may be enabled to discern His will. So too we are ever seeking to cover ourselves with a covering, to find some protection or other whereby we may be preserved from danger: only the covering we should cover ourselves with is the covering of the Spirit of God. We should make Him our shield and buckler; and then we need not fear what man can do unto us.
Our unwillingness to take counsel of God can only proceed from an evil heart of unbelief [1156] and it is as unwise as it is undutiful. None but God’s counsel is infallible, and only His covering is sure. But we choose to have a covering of our own making, and send up mists and clouds to hide the covering of God’s Spirit from us, thus “adding sin to sin.”
[1156] From that unbelief which loses sight of and forgets the Ruler and Lawgiver of the world, and which is prone to worship whatever dazzles the senses and flatters our carnal nature. What should we say if a child, in a time of doubt or danger, would not run to ask its parents what to do, but were to run away from its parents and ask a stranger, or were to ask its own ignorance, or its own whims, or the ignorance of its playfellows—yea, were to ask its toys? Surely such conduct would be-speak a loveless, undutiful heart, and a silliness such as could only be excused during the faint early dawn of the mind. So is it a proof of a loveless, undutiful heart not to seek counsel of God; nor is such conduct less unwise than undutiful. For what do we want in a counsellor except wisdom and foresight—wisdom to know the principles and laws of things, and foresight to discern their consequences? Now, neither of these faculties can we find in any earthly counsellor, except in a very low degree. For, not to speak of the numberless accidents which warp and bias our own judgments and those of our fellow-men, and lead them awry, even at best man’s understanding, unless so far as it is enlightened from above by a knowledge of heavenly laws, can only reckon up what is wont to be, without any insight into what must be; and his eyes are ever so hoodwinkt by the present that he cannot even look forward into to-morrow. Whereas everything that God ordains must be right and true, and must stand fast for ever, even after heaven and earth have past away. He knows what we ought to do, and He will bear us through in doing it. Yet we choose rather to be led by the blind than by the Seeing.… Herein the very heathens condemn us. For they, though they know not the true God, yet believed there were powers in the heavens far wiser and longer-sighted than man; and so believing, they acted accordingly. Rightfully distrusting themselves, they sought to ascertain the will and purpose of those powers by searching it out according to the means whereby they imagined it would be revealed.—J. C. Hare.
2. Observe, the princes of Judah were not merely taking counsel of man, instead of God, and covering with a covering which was not of the Spirit of God: but the arm they were trusting to was the arm of Egypt. Now Egypt had from the first been the deadly enemy of the Israelites, and of their God. Egypt was the source from which all manner of idolatrous abominations flowed in upon them: out of Egypt they had been called; and they were no longer. Therefore the prophet goes on to forbid their seeking help from Egypt, and to predict that the help of Egypt would end in their confusion. If we are guilty of their sin, we shall not escape their woe. When trials come upon men to-day, they are apt to listen to Satan’s assurance that in that particular emergency he can help them better than God can. They listen; they sin, and the one sin leads to other sins; and ere long they are ruined (H. E. I., 173–175).
Still it is wo to those who take counsel of anything earthly! In times of difficulty it is of God alone that we must seek and take counsel. He alone can give us such counsel as will never fail us even in this life: and the wisdom of His counsel, which we now see only through a glass darkly, will become brighter than the sun at noon, when the veil of this world is drawn away from before it.—Julius Charles Hare, M.A.: Sermons Preacht in Herstmonceaux Church, pp. 305–323.
THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE
Isa_31:3. “The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.”
Among the sins to which the ancient Israelites were addicted, one of the most prevailing was a disposition, in seasons of invasion or calamity, to place confidence in the power of surrounding nations, and to seek the assistance of their sovereigns, instead of trusting in the living God. Egypt, being the largest monarchy in their immediate neighbourhood, was frequently their refuge in times of distress and difficulty. Remonstrance (Isa_31:1-2).
In the text an important and infinite disparity between God and man, which rendered the Egyptian monarch infinitely inferior to Him in the qualities which entitle to confidence and trust. The spirituality of the Supreme Being is the contrast.
I. The spirituality of the Deity is intimately connected with the possession of that infinite, unlimited power which renders Him the proper object of entire confidence.
There is a prejudice in favour of matter and against spirit, as if the former were possessed of greater force than the latter. It arises from our mistaking secondary and remote effects for causes, instead of ascending to God the supreme cause. Thus we think of the elements of nature and of mechanical forces. We have no power of operating on the objects immediately around us, but by means of our bodies. But it is mind alone which is the seat of power. The power by which all changes are effected through the instrumentality of the body resides immediately in the mind. It is that mysterious principle called Will. Whatever motions the mind wills instantly take place. This is an illustration of the control which the Deity exercises over the universe. The Divine Being has only to will the most important changes and they are instantly accomplished. It is impossible to give any account of innumerable changes continually taking place in the visible world, without tracing them up to mind.
II. The spirituality of God stands in close and intimate connection with His Invisibility.
1Ti_6:15-16. Were He the object of sight, He must be limited. He cannot, therefore, be figured out by any art or skill of man (Act_17:24-29; Deu_4:15; Exo_20:4-5). Hence the great impiety of those who have attempted to paint and figure out the persons of the Trinity. The necessary effect of any attempt to represent the Deity to the human senses, by pictures or images, must be to degrade, to an incalculable degree, our conceptions of Him. Hence images of angels, the Virgin Mary, and saints of inferior character.
III. The spirituality of God is inseparably connected with His Immensity and Omnipresence (Jer_23:23-24; Psa_139:7-12).
1. It is necessary that matter should have some figure. But figure is circumscribed within a certain outline. To conceive of the Divine Being as material would involve absurdity.
2. If matter were unlimited there would be no possibility of motion.
3. If the Divine Being were material, He would render impossible the co-existence of created beings. Two portions of matter cannot occupy the same space. But the infinite Spirit is present with every part of His creation.
IV. The spirituality of God enables His infinite Wisdom.
This seems a necessary property of that Being who is present to all His creatures at all times. His infinite acquaintance with His creatures is a necessary consequence of His presence. Every one is as much within His survey at one moment as at another. We judge of men’s character by their actions, He by their motives. And His judgment is always according to truth.
V. The spirituality of God establishes an intimate relation between Him and all His intelligent creatures.
Their dependence on Him is absolute; their subjection to Him constant and incessant; but in a special manner is He the Father of spirits. The body has a tendency to separate us from God, by the dissimilarity of its nature; the soul unites us to Him by those principles and faculties which are congenial to His own. To estrange ourselves from God is to be guilty of a most enormous kind of offence: it is forgetting our proper parent, the author of our existence. To love Him, to seek union with Him, is to return to our proper original.
VI. The spirituality of God renders Him capable of being the satisfying Portion, the Supreme Good, of all intelligent beings.
He is the source and spring of all happiness (Lam_3:24-25; Psa_73:25-26).
1. That which constitutes the felicity of the mind must be something out of it. Whoever retires into his own mind for happiness will be miserable. God is qualified to be the everlasting and inexhaustible spring of happiness.
2. He who can always confer happiness on another being must be superior to that being. To be the source of happiness is the prerogative of God.
3. That in which the happiness of a rational and mental creature consists, must be congenial to the nature of that creature.
4. That which forms the principle of our felicity must be something that is capable of communicating itself to us. God, as He is a Spirit, is capable of communicating Himself to the spirits of His rational creatures. These communications will constitute the felicity of heaven. Even while they continue on earth, it is the privilege of the faithful to enjoy union with the Father of spirits through His Son.
IMPROVEMENT.
1. Let us raise ourselves, in contemplating the Divine Being, above what is sensible, visible, and corporeal.
2. Since God is a Spirit, there must be an everlasting connection established between Him and us, on which will depend our destiny for ever. Hence Jesus Christ has come. What movements are in your minds towards this great object?—Robert Hall: Works, vol. vi., pages 1–32.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v5
Isaiah
THREE PICTURES OF ONE REALITY
Read full note →
Isa 31:5.
The immediate occasion of this very remarkable promise is, of course, the peril in which Jerusalem was placed by Sennacherib’s invasion; and the fulfilment of the promise was the destruction of his army before its gates. But the promise here, like all God’s promises, is eternal in substance, and applies to a community only because it applies to each member of that community. Jerusalem was saved, and that meant that every house in Jerusalem was saved, and every man in it the separate object of the divine protection So that all the histories of Scripture, and all the histories of men in the world, are but transitory illustrations of perennial principles, and every atom of the consolation and triumph of this verse comes to each of us, as truly as it did to the men that with tremulous heart began to take cheer, as they listened to Isaiah. There is a wonderful saying in one of the other prophets which carries that lesson, where, bringing down the story of Jacob’s struggle with the angel of Peniel to the encouragement of the existing generation, he says,’ He spake to us.’ They were hundreds of years after the patriarch, and yet had fallen heirs to all that God had ever said to him So, from that point of view, I am not spiritualising, or forcing the meaning of these words, when I bring them direct into the lives of each one of ourselves.
I. And, first, I would note the very striking and beautiful pictures that are given in these verses.
There are three of them, on each of which I must touch briefly. ‘As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem.’ The form of the words in the original shows that it is the mother-bird that is thought about. And the picture rises at once of her fluttering over the nest, where the callow chickens are, unable to fly and to help themselves. It is a kind of echo of the grand metaphor in the song that is attributed to Moses, which speaks of the eagle fluttering over her nest, and taking care of her young. Jerusalem was as a nest on which, for long centuries, that infinite divine love had brooded. It was but a poor brood that had been hatched out, but yet ‘as birds flying’ He had watched over the city. Can you not almost see the mother-bird, made bold by maternal love, swooping down upon the intruder that sought to rob the nest, and spreading her broad pinion over the callow fledglings that lie below? That is what God does with us. As I said, it is a poor brood that is hatched out. That does not matter; still the Love bends down and helps. Nobody but a prophet could have ventured on such a metaphor as that, and nobody but Jesus Christ would have ventured to mend it and say, ‘As a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,’ when there are hawks in the sky. So He, in all the past ages, was the One that ‘as birds flying . . . defended’ His people, and would have gathered them under His wings, only they would not.
Now, beautiful as this metaphor is, as it stands, it seems to me, like some brilliant piece of colouring, to derive additional beauty from its connection with the background upon which it stands out. For just a verse before the prophet has given another emblem of what God is and does, and if you will carry with you all those thoughts of tenderness and maternal care and solicitude, and then connect them with that verse, I think the thought of His tenderness will start up into new beauty. For here is what precedes the text: ‘Like as a lion, and the young lion roaring on his prey when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor bow himself for the noise of them. So shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion.’ Look at these two pictures side by side, on the one hand the lion, with his paw on his prey, and the angry growl that answers when the shepherds vainly try to drag it away from him. That is God. Ay! but that is only an aspect of God. ‘As birds flying, so the Lord will defend Jerusalem.’ We have to take that into account too. This generation is very fond of talking about God’s love; does it believe in God’s wrath? It is very fond of speaking about the gentleness of Jesus; has it pondered that tremendous phrase, ‘the wrath of the Lamb’? The lion that growls, and the mother-bird that hovers-God is like them both. That is the first picture that is here.
The second one is not so obvious to English readers, but it is equally striking, though I do not mean to dwell upon it. The word that is translated in our text twice, ‘defend’ and ‘defending’-’So will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem, and defending will deliver’-means, literally, ‘shielding.’ Thus we have the same general idea as that in the previous metaphor of the mother-bird hovering above the nest: God is like a shield held over us, and so flinging off front the broad and burnished surface of the Almighty buckler, all the darts that any foe can launch against as. ‘Our God is a Sun and Shield.’ I need not enlarge on this familiar metaphor.
But the third picture I wish to point to in more detail: ‘Passing over, He will deliver.’ Now, the word that is there rendered ‘passing over,’ is almost a technical word in the Old Testament, because it is that employed in reference to the Passover. And so you see the swiftness of genius with which the prophet changes his whole scene. We had the nest and the mother-bird, we had the battlefield and the shield; now we are swept away back to that night when the Destroying Angel stalked through the land, and ‘passed over’ the doors on which the blood had been sprinkled. And thus this God, who in one aspect may be likened to the mother-bird hovering with her little breast full of tenderness, and made brave by maternal love conquering natural timidity, and in another aspect may be likened to the broad shield behind which a man stands safe, may also be likened to that Destroying Angel that went through Egypt, and smote wherever there were not the tokens of the blood on the lintels, and ‘passed over’ wherever there were. Of course, the original fulfilment of this third picture is the historical case of the army of Sennacherib; outside the walls, widespread desolation; inside the walls, an untroubled night of peace. That night in Egypt is paralleled, in the old Jewish hymn that is still sung at the Passover, with the other night when Sennacherib’s men were slain; and the parallel is based on our text. So, then, here is another illustration of what I started with saying, that the past events of Scripture are transient expressions of perennial principles and tendencies. For the Passover night was not to be to the contemporaries of the prophet an event receding ever further into the dim distance, but it was a present event, and to be reproduced in that catastrophe when ‘in the morning when they arose, they were all dead corpses.’ And the event is being repeated to-day, and will be for each of us, if we will.
So, then, there are these three pictures-the Nest and the Mother-bird, the Battlefield and the Shield, Egypt and the Destroying Angel.
II. We note the reality meant by these pictures.
They mean the absolute promise from God of protection for His people from every evil. We are not to cut it down, not to say that it applies absolutely in regard to the spiritual world, but that it does not apply in regard to temporal things. Yes, it does entirely, only you have to rise to the height of God’s conception of what is good and what is evil in regard to outward things, before you understand how completely, and without qualification or deduction, this promise is fulfilled to every man that puts his trust in Him. Of course, I do not need to remind you, for your own lives will do so sufficiently, that this hovering protector, this strong Shield, this Destroying Angel that passes by our houses if the blood is on the threshold, does not guarantee us any exemption from the common ‘ills that flesh is heir to.’ We all know that well enough. But what does it guarantee? That all the poison shall be wiped off the arrow, that all the evil shall be taken out of the evil, that it will change its character, that if we observe the conditions, the sharpest sorrow will come to us with this written on it by the Father’s hand, ‘With My love to My child’; that pain will be discipline, and discipline will be blessed. Ah! dear friends! I am sure there are many of us that can set to our seals that God is true in this matter, and that we have found that His rod does blossom, and that our sorest sorrows have been our greatest mercies, drawing us nearer to Him; ‘Defending He will deliver, and passing over He will preserve.’
III. And now let me remind you of the way by which we can make the reality of these pictures ours.
You know that all the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament are conditional, and that there are many of them that were never fulfilled, and were spoken in order that they might not be fulfilled, if only the people took warning. I wish folk would carry a little more consciously in their minds that principle in interpreting them all, and in asking about their fulfilment. Not only in regard to these ancient events, but in regard to our individual experience, God’s promises and threatenings are conditional.
Take that first metaphor of the hovering mother-bird. Listen to this expansion of it in one of the psalms: ‘He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.’ The word for trust here means to ‘fly into a refuge.’ Can you not see the picture? A little brood round the parent bird, frightened by some beast of prey, or hovering hawk in the sky, and fluttering under its wings, and all safe and huddled together there close against the warm breast, and in amongst the downy feathers. ‘Under His wings shalt thou trust.’ Put thou thy trust in God, and God is to thee the hovering bird, the broad shield, the Angel that ‘passes over.’
Take the other picture of the Passover night. Only by our individual faith in Jesus Christ as our individual Saviour can we put the blood on our door-posts so that the Destroying Angel shall pass by. So, if we would have the sweetness of such words as these fulfilled in our daily lives, however disturbed and troubled and sorrowful and solitary they may be, the first condition is that under His wings shall we flee for refuge, and we do so by trust in Him.
But having thus fled thither, we must continue there, if we would continue under His protection. Such continuance of safety because of continuous faith is possible only by continued communion. Remember our Lord’s expansion of the metaphor in His lament: ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.’ We can resist the drawing. We can get away from the shelter of the wing. We can lift up our wills against Him. And what becomes of the chicken that does not run to the mother’s pinions when the hawk is hovering? That is what becomes of the man that stops outside the refuge in Christ, or that by failure of his faith departs from that refuge. ‘Ye would not; therefore your house is left unto you desolate.’ That house, in the Jerusalem which God ‘defends,’ is not defended.
Another condition of divine protection is obedience. We need not expect that God will take care of us, and preserve us, when we did not ask His leave to get into the dangerous place that we find ourselves in. Many of us do the converse of what the Apostle condemns, we begin ‘in the flesh,’ and think we shall end ‘in the Spirit’; which being translated is, we do not ask God’s leave to do certain things, to enter into certain engagements or arrangements with other people, and the like, and then we expect God to come and help us in or out of them. That is by no means an uncommon form of delusion. You remember what Jesus Christ said when the Devil tried to entice Him to do a thing of that sort, by quoting Scripture to Him-’He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways. Cast Thyself down. Trust to the promise as a kind of parachute to keep Thee from falling bruised on the stones of the Temple-court.’ Christ’s answer was: ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ You will not get God’s protection in ways of your own choosing.
And so, brethren, ‘all things work together for good to them that love,’ to them that trust, to them that keep close, to them that obey. And for such the old faithful promise will be faithful and new once more, ‘Because He hath set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver Him’-that will be the summing up of our lives; ‘and I will set Him on high because He hath known My Name,’ that will be the meaning of our deaths.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 1-5. Judah should trust not in Egypt, but in…
1-5. Judah should trust not in Egypt, but in Jehovah.
6-9. The wonderful deliverance from the Assyrian.
Read full note →
1. See Isa_30:16.
2. Somewhat sarcastic; Jehovah is wise, as well as the politicians of Judah. Evil] i.e. calamity.
5. Flying] i.e. hovering over the nest to protect it. Passing over] an allusion to the Passover, the same word being used.
6. The children, etc.] RV 'ye have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.'
8. The Assyrian's fall will be brought about by no human agency. For the fulfilment see Isa_37:36. Be discomfited] RV 'become tributary.'
9. And he shall, etc.] RV 'and his rock' (i.e. strength) 'shall pass away by reason of terror.' Ensign] the word denotes a standard, or signal, forming the rallying point of an army. In this context the signal is for the gathering of the foes of the Assyrian. Whose fire] see Isa_10:16, Isa_10:17. The presence of Jehovah is as a consuming fire to His enemies.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 (See Scofield "Psa 2:12")
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Fifth Woe Against Them that Go Down to…
CHAPTER 31
The Fifth Woe Against Them that Go Down to Egypt
Read full note →
1. The Egyptian Alliance condemned again (Isa 31:1-3) 2. Jehovah promises to deliver Jerusalem (Isa 31:4-9) All looks forward towards the future. It is Jerusalem’s glorious future. The Lord will deliver it; He will preserve it (Isa 31:5).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Egypt Cannot Protect Israel Against the Lord’s Wrath
Egypt Cannot Protect Israel Against the Lord’s Wrath
v. 1. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, making it a practice to turn to this world-power for assistance, and stay on horses and trust in chariots, because they are many, the chief strength of the Egyptian army being represented by their cavalry, which boasted some very powerful war-chariots, and in horsemen, because they are very strong, there being a powerful multitude of them; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord! They forsake the God of the covenant in order to put their trust in mere men.
Read full note →
v. 2. Yet He also is wise, said in divine irony, for God is wise in essence, far wiser than the Egyptians, and in comparison with Him the Jews had surely proved themselves fools in forsaking His mighty counsel and protection, and will bring evil, executing punishment upon those who ignore Him, and will not call back His words, He will not take back the threats which He had uttered against the Egyptian alliance, but will arise against the house of the evil-doers and against the help of them that work iniquity, both the Jews who sought assistance and the Egyptians who were ready to give assistance being condemned together.
v. 3. Now, the Egyptians are men, and not God, that is, on the one hand were finite, powerless creatures, on the other the almighty God; and their horses flesh and not spirit, not endowed with the power of spirit beings, but only weak and perishable flesh. When the Lord shall stretch out His hand, make use of His almighty power, both he that helpeth shall fall, namely, Egypt, and he that is holpen, namely, Judah, shall fall down, the helper stumbling and he who accepts the help being carried down to the ground in his fall, and they all shall fail together.
v. 4. For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, in a word which partakes of the nature of both a warning and a promise to Judah, His people, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, growling over an animal which he has stolen from the herd and is in the act of tearing to pieces, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, there being an allusion here to the help solicited from Egypt, he will not be afraid of their voice nor abase himself, shrinking back or slinking away in fear, for the noise of them, not permitting himself to be deprived of his prey, so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion and for the hill thereof, for the congregation of His children. Thus the visitation of the Lord becomes a chastisement of love to His people, for He will finally deliver them from every evil work.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah continues speaking to the people of Judah.
Read full note →
go down to Egypt
The phrase "go down" is used here because Egypt is lower in Elevation than Jerusalem.
those who go down
"those people of Judah who go down"
lean on horses
This speaks about people relying on their horses to help them as if they were leaning on their horses. AT: "rely on their horses" (See: Metaphor)
Holy One of Israel
See how you translated this name in Isaiah 1:4.
nor do they seek Yahweh
"nor do they ask Yahweh to help them"
he will bring disaster
Here the word "bring" means to "cause." AT: "he will cause disasters to happen" (See: Idiom)
will not retract his words
The phrase "retract his words" speaks of a person not fulfilling what they said they will do as if the words that he had said were something that he could pull back to himself. Here it says that Yahweh will not do this, meaning he will fulfill what he has said. AT: "he will do what he said he would do" (See: Metaphor)
arise against
"punish"
evil house
This refers to evil people who live there. AT: "all who do evil things" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
woe
Egypt
horse
trust
chariot
Israel
Yahweh
wise
word
evil
house
sin
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4 31:1-3 Isaiah delivered another vision regarding Judah’s negotiations with…
31:1-3 Isaiah delivered another vision regarding Judah’s negotiations with Egypt, which probably took place in 705–701 BC. During that time, the conquering Assyrians were on the move, threatening Judah. At first, Hezekiah tried political and military means to avert being totally conquered (see 2 Kgs 18:13-16).
31:1 What sorrow: This is the fifth of the six woes (see study note on 28:1–33:24). • Looking to the Lord implies seeking his guidance with a worshipful attitude (see Deut 4:29; Ps 105:3-4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.