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Isaiah Chapter
Thirty-one
Isaiah 31
Chapter Contents
The sin and folly of seeking help from Egypt. (1-5) God's
care for Jerusalem. (6-9)
Commentary on Isaiah 31:1-5
(Read Isaiah 31:1-5)
God will oppose the help sought from workers of iniquity.
Sinners may be convicted of folly by plain and self-evident truths, which they
cannot deny, but will not believe. There is no escaping the judgments of God;
and evil pursues sinners. The Lord of hosts will come down to fight for Mount
Zion. The Lion of the tribe of Judah will appear for the defence of his church.
And as birds hovering over their young ones to protect them, with such
compassion and affection will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. He will so
defend it, as to secure its safety.
Commentary on Isaiah 31:6-9
(Read Isaiah 31:6-9)
They have been backsliding children, yet children; let
them return, and their backslidings shall be healed, though they have sunk deep
into misery, and cannot easily recover. Many make an idol of their silver and
gold, and by the love of that are drawn from God; but those who turn to God,
will be ready to part with it. Then, when they have cast away their idols,
shall the Assyrian fall by the sword of an angel, who strikes more strongly
than a mighty man, yet more secretly than a mean man. God can make the stoutest
heart to tremble. But if we keep up the fire of holy love and devotion in our
hearts and houses, we may depend upon God to protect us and them.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 31
Verse 1
[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!
Horses — For Egypt had many and choice horses.
Verse 2
[2] Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not
call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and
against the help of them that work iniquity.
He is safe — You think you are safe, in
engaging the Egyptians; but God is not inferior to them in wisdom or strength,
and therefore you have done foolishly, in preferring them before him, who will
execute his judgments upon you, notwithstanding all the Egyptians can do.
The help — The helpers, as it is explained in the next verse.
Verse 3
[3] Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses
flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that
helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall
fail together.
Flesh — Weak and frail.
Verse 4
[4] For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the 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 abase himself for
the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount
Zion, and for the hill thereof.
For — Although you have done evil in sending to Egypt for
help, yet the Lord himself will, of his own grace, give you that help which you
do not deserve.
Verse 5
[5] As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend
Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve
it.
As birds — Which come from above, and so cannot be kept off;
which fly swiftly, and engage resolutely, when their young ones are in danger.
Passing over — The destroying angel shall pass
over Jerusalem.
Verse 8
[8] Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a
mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall
flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited.
The sword — Not of any man, but of an angel.
Discomfited — Heb. shall melt away, a great
part of them being destroyed by the angel; and the hearts of the rest melting
for fear.
Verse 9
[9] And he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear, and
his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the LORD, whose fire is in
Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
He — Sennacherib shall flee away, from Jerusalem, to his
strong city of Nineveh.
The ensign — Of the Lord's ensign, which he
hath lifted up against them.
Whose fire — Who is, and will appear to be in
Zion, like a fire to defend his people, and to consume their enemies.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
31 Chapter 31
Verses 1-9
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help
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 (Psalms 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 (Exodus 23:32; Deuteronomy 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.
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 Proverbs 14:34; Isaiah 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 God’s 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.)
Yet He also is wise
God works in history
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. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Forgetfulness of God
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. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The religion that ignores God
It is the temptation of an ordinary Christian, churchgoing 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. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Man no match for God
After Moscow, Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed, “The
Almighty is too strong for me.” (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Men, and not God . . . flesh, and not spirit
Spiritual existences the chief forces of the world
It is here evidently implied that a spirit is mightier than a
horse.
The ancients attached the idea of immense force to a well-trained war-horse.
I. SPIRIT IS THE
ORIGINAL POWER We see power everywhere around us. We see it in the inanimate
world, as the effect which one element produces upon another, and in the motion
which one body, in a certain relation, produces upon another. We see it, also,
in the world of life: in the plant that turns to its use, and transmutes into
its own essence, the elements that play about it; in the beast that drags along
the farmer’s harvest-wain, and in the bird that rises on the wing, and chants
its victories over that force that binds the earth and links it to the sun. All
these powers are manifestly effects, not ultimate causes--are derived, not
primal. All true science suggests this, and the Bible declares it. Spirit is
the fontal force. It was spirit that gave to the elements the proclivity to act
and re-act on each other; and that so poised the masses of the universe that
one should gently press its fellow into lines and ratios of motion, and thus
conduce to the harmony and well-being of all. And the forces of life too,
whether in the fibres of plants or the muscles of flesh, are but the breathings
of that Spirit which “reneweth the face of the earth.” “He stretcheth out the
north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” “By His Spirit
He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent.”
II. SPIRIT IS THE
SUBORDINATING POWER. The horses of the Egyptians were “flesh and not spirit.”
Implying, probably, the fact, that the Egyptian cavalry lacked that
intelligence and skill necessary to render the noble animal of service in the
field of battle. The value of the steed in the strife is ever in proportion to
the skill of the rider. “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” Reason is
mightier than brute force. What force is there on earth that man cannot
subordinate to his will? Man can press every element into his service as well
as every living creature. Let us rise to a sense of the greatness of the nature
with which God has endowed us. We are spirit; emanations of the Infinite Mind,
and members of that spiritual system for which matter, in all its functions and
forms, was made. Let us assert our supremacy over the material--“use the world
as not abusing it.” In one sense we can never think too highly of ourselves.
“what shall it profit a man?” &c. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Spirituality of the Divine nature
In these words we are reminded of an important and infinite
disparity between God and man, arising from a great peculiarity in the
character of the former, which rendered the Egyptian monarch and his cavalry
infinitely inferior to Him in power, and Gall those other qualities which
entitle the possessor of them to confidence and trust.
I. The
spirituality of the Divine nature is intimately connected with THE POSSESSION
OF ALMIGHTY POWER. The vulgar notion which would restrict the exercise of power
to what is corporeal, and deny it to that which is spiritual and immaterial, is
a mere prejudice, founded on gross inattention or ignorance. If we inquire
after the original seat of power, we shall invariably find it in mind, not in
body; in spirit, not in flesh. The changes we are able to effect in the state
of the objects around us are produced through the instrumentality of the body,
which is always previously put in motion by the mind. As we can move certain
parts of our bodies at pleasure, and nothing intervenes betwixt the volition
and the corresponding movements, so the great original Spirit impresses on the
machine of the universe what movements He pleases, and without the intervention
of any other cause. “He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands
fast.”
II. His
spirituality is closely connected with His INVISIBILITY. “The King eternal,
immortal, invisible,” “whom no man hath seen, nor can see.”
Whatever is the object of sight must be perceived under some
determinate shape or figure; it must be, consequently, bounded by an outline,
and occupy a determinate portion of space, and no more; attributes utterly
incompatible with the conceptions of an infinite being. He was pleased
formerly, indeed, to signalise His presence with His worshippers by visible
symbols, by an admixture of clouds and fire, of darkness and splendour; but
that these were never intended to exhibit His power, but merely to afford a
sensible attestation of His special presence, is evident, from the care He took
to prevent His worshippers from entertaining degrading conceptions of His
character, by the solemn prohibition of attempting to represent Him by an image
or picture.
III. That God is
spirit, and not flesh, is a view of His character closely connected with His
OMNIPRESENCE. Matter is subjected to a local circumscription; God, as a Spirit,
is capable of co-existing with every other order of being.
IV. Because God is
spirit and not flesh, He is possessed of INFINITE WISDOM AND INTELLIGENCE.
Thought and perception are the attributes of mind, not of matter; of spirit,
not of flesh; and, for this reason, the original and great Spirit possesses
them in an infinite degree.
V. The
spirituality of the Divine nature lays A FOUNDATION FOR THE MOST INTIMATE
RELATION BETWEEN THE INTELLIGENT PART OF THE CREATION AND HIMSELF. He is
emphatically “the Father of spirits.”
VI. The
spirituality of the Divine nature FITS HIM FOR BECOMING OUR ETERNAL PORTION AND
SUPREME GOOD. (Robert Hall, M. A.)
Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey
A Homeric passage
There is no passage in Isaiah which is so Homeric in ring as this;
cf.
Iliad, 18.161 f., 12.299 ft. (F. Delitzsch.)
The lion and the shepherds
Is it 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
and military display. God will save and carry Jerusalem His own way, paying no
heed to such. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The lionlike mercies of God
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 benevolenees and
officious pities of the best of human advisers. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
As birds flying
Three pictures of one reality
I.
THE
VERY STRIKING AND BEAUTIFUL PICTURES. There are three of them.
1. “As birds flying,” &c. 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 old 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. 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. “Like as a lion,” &c. 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 one 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? 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.
2. The second picture is not so obvious to English readers, but it is
equally striking. The word that is translated in our text twice “defend” and
“defending,” 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 from the broad and burnished
surface of the almighty buckler, all the darts that any foe can launch against
us.
3. “Passing over, He will deliver.” 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 are swept back to
that night when the Destroying Angel stalked through the land, and “passed
over” the doors on which the blood had been sprinkled.
II. THE REALITY
MEANT BY THESE PICTURES. They mean the absolute promise from God of protection
for His people from every evil.
III. THE WAY BY
WHICH WE CAN MAKE THE REALITY OF THESE PICTURES OURS. All the promises and
prophecies of the Old Testament are conditional, and there are many of them
that were never fulfilled, and were spoken in order that they might not be
fulfilled, because the people took warning.
1. Put thou thy trust in God, and God is to thee the hovering bird,
the broad shield, the angel that “passes over.”
2. 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.
3. Another condition of Divine protection is obedience. (A.
Maclaren, D. D.)
A twofold representation of God
Like a lion descending from the mountains (Psalms 76:4) to seize its prey, whom the
shepherds are impotent to dismay, so Jehovah at the head of the Assyrian
battalions, will advance against Jerusalem; the city is already within His
grasp--when suddenly the image changes, and the impetuous lion is transformed
into a bird protecting and shielding its threatened nest. (Prof. S. R.
Driver, D. D.)
God’s care for His people
Egyptian horses cannot fly, but “as birds flying, so will the Lord
of hosts defend Jerusalem.” The image is clear and impressive. There lies the
fair city, more a thought than a thing, a poem in architecture, God’s poetry
set forth in types and letters of stone, and the Lord Himself is as a thousand
birds, curling, circling, watching, protecting His loved Zion. No figure is to
be driven to its furthest issues; we are to take out of it that which is
substantial in reason and in truth: and from this figure we extract the
doctrine that God hovers about His people, cares for them, watches them,
sometimes sends a raven, it may be, to help them when they come out of their
dream-sleep, wondering in daze and bewilderment what the universe was made for,
and what they themselves can do, Any image that brings God nearer to us is an
image that the memory should treasure. The Lord knows what the issue of
trusting in Egyptian horses will be, and what the end of all idolatry will be.
(J. Parker, D. D.)
The Lord, whose fire is in Zion
The Lord’s furnace
This very remarkable designation of God stands ere as a kind of
seal set upon the preceding prophecy.
It is the reason why that shall certainly be fulfilled. And what precedes is
mainly a promise of a deliverance for Israel, which was to be a destruction for
Israel’s enemies. We shall not understand these great words if we regard them
as only a revelation of destructive and terrible power. It is the very beauty
and completeness of this emblem that it has a double aspect and is to less rich
in joy and blessing than pregnant with warning and terror.
I. IN THE CHURCH
GOD IS PRESENT AS A GREAT RESERVOIR OF FERVID LOVE. Every language has taken
fire as the symbol of love and emotion. He dwells in His Church, a storehouse
of blazing love, heated seventy times seven hotter than any creatural love, and
pouring out its ardours for the quickening and gladdening of all who walk in
the light of that fire and thaw their coldness at its blaze. Then, how comes it
that so many Christian Churches are ice-houses instead of furnaces? If God’s
blazing furnace is in Jerusalem, it should send the thermometer up in all the
houses of the city. But what a strange contradiction it is for men to be in
God’s Church, the very focus and centre of His burning love, and themselves to
be almost down below zero in their temperature! A fiery furnace with its doors
hung with icicles is no greater a contradiction and anomaly than a Christian
Church or a single soul which professes to have been touched by the infinite
lovingkindness of God, and yet lives as cold and unmoved as we do. There is no
religion worth calling so which has not warmth in it. We hear a great deal
about the danger of an “emotional Christianity.” Agreed, if by that they mean a
Christianity which has no foundation for its emotion in principle and
intelligence; but not agreed, if they mean to recommend a Christianity which
professes to accept truths that might kindle a soul beneath the ribs of death
and make the dumb sing, and yet is never moved one hair’s-breadth from its quiet
phlegmaticism. If there is no fire, what is there? Cold is death. We want no
flimsy, transitory, noisy, ignorant, hysterical agitation. Smoke is not fire.
If the temperature were higher, and the fire more wisely fed, there would not
be any. But we do want a more obvious and powerful effect of our solemn,
glorious, and heart-melting beliefs on the affections and emotions of
professing Christians, and that they may be more mightily moved by love to
heroisms of service and enthusiasms of consecration which shall in some measure
answer to the glowing heat of that fire of God which flames in Zion.
II. GOD’S
REVELATION OF HIMSELF, AND PRESENCE IN HIS CHURCH, ARE AN INSTRUMENT OF
CLEANSING. Fire purifies. In our great cities now there are “disinfecting
ovens,” where infected articles are taken, and exposed to a high temperature
which kills the germs of disease, so that tainted things come out sweet and
clean. That is what God’s furnace in Zion is meant to do for us. The true way
of purifying is by fire. To purify by water, as John the Baptist saw and said,
is but a poor cold way of getting outward cleanliness. Water cleanses the
surface, and becomes dirty in the process. Fire cleanses within and throughout,
and is not tainted thereby. The Hebrew captives were flung into the fiery
furnace; what did it burn? Only their bonds. They themselves lived, and
rejoiced, in the intense heat. So, if we have any real possession of that
Divine flame, it will burn off our wrists the bands and chains of our old
vices, and we shall stand pure and clear, emancipated by the fire which will
burn up only our sins, and be for our true selves as our native home, where we
walk at liberty and expatiate in the genial warmth.
III. GOD, IN HIS
GREAT REVELATION OF HIMSELF BY WHICH HE DWELLS IN HIS CHURCH, IS A POWER OF
TRANSFORMATION. Fire turns all which it seizes into fire. And so God, coming to
us in His “Spirit of burning,” turns us into His own likeness, and makes us
possessors of some spark of Himself.
IV. This figure
teaches that THE SAME DIVINE FIRE MAY BECOME DESTRUCTIVE. The emblem of fire
suggests a double operation, and the very felicity of it as an emblem is that
it has these two sides, and with equal naturalness may stand for a power which
quickens and for one which destroys. The difference in the effects springs not
from differences in the cause, but in the objects on which the fire plays. We
may make the furnace of God our blessedness and the reservoir of a far more
joyful and noble life than ever we could have lived in our coldness; or we may
make it terror and destruction. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The fiery ordeal of the Church
I. Let us
endeavour to understand THE NAMES BY WHICH GOD’S CHURCH IS DESIGNATED,
particularly under the Old Testament--“Zion” and “Jerusalem.” They are very significant.
Some tell us that the word “Zion” simply signifies a monument or heap of stones
in memorial. Nothing could be more significant with reference to the Church of
God--a chosen monument of grace, constituted of a heap of stones. “Jerusalem.”
It is very evident from the termination of it--Salem--that it signifies
“peace”; and it is conjectured by some to have been the capital of Melchizedec;
but one thing is certain, it was the organised city of the great King, the King
of peace, and so is the Church of the living God. No city on the face of the
earth was ever so warred against as Jerusalem. And, in this respect, Jerusalem
was exactly the picture of the Church of God. What was her paramount glory? Not
her extent; she never was a large city. Not the tractableness and teachableness
of her sons, for they were very rebellious against even the Lord their God.
What then was the glory of her city? The name and presence of her God there.
This is our stay, this is our confidence, this is our joy, this is our constant
expectation. His presence must be sensibly enjoyed, in order to know that He is
here.
II. THE ORDEAL
THROUGH WHICH THE CHURCH OF GOD MUST PASS. “His fire in Zion, and His furnace
in Jerusalem.” The saints of the living God may expect, and whether they expect
or no, they are sure to meet a succession of trials, both in a temporal and a
spiritual sense. I would take another view of the subject: if there were no
“fire in Zion,” and no “furnace in Jerusalem,” there would be no sacrifice, no
burnt-offering, no clouds of incense; and therefore God says, it shall ever be
burning. In this sense, it is the emblem of life Divine, the Holy Spirit’s
work. I would name three things which God is doing with the “furnace.”
III. THE TENDENCY
AND THE TERMINATION OF THIS PROCESS. The tendency is the exercising of all the
graces in personal religion; the termination is to demonstrate Divine love and
faithfulness in the deliverance and ultimate glorification of His saints. (J.
Irons.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》