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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>Isaiah 31 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/isaiah/31.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because <i>they are</i> many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!</div>XXXI.</span><p>(1) <span class= "bld">Woe to them that go down . . .</span>—The Egyptian alliance was, of course, the absorbing topic of the time, and Isaiah returns to it yet again. As in <a href="/isaiah/30-16.htm" title="But you said, No; for we will flee on horses; therefore shall you flee: and, We will ride on the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.">Isaiah 30:16</a>, 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 (<a href="/isaiah/36-9.htm" title="How then will you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?">Isaiah 36:9</a>), with an Egyptian contingent. Isaiah once more condemns this as trusting in an “arm of flesh “instead of in the “Holy One of Israel.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-2.htm">Isaiah 31:2</a></div><div class="verse">Yet he also <i>is</i> 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.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">Yet he also is wise.</span>—The words have a ring of sarcasm in them. Isaiah admits ironically that the counsellors of Hezekiah were wise in their generation. He reminds them that there might be some little wisdom in Jehovah, and in the prophet by whom He spake.<p><span class= "bld">And will not call back his words.</span>—Such words, <span class= "ital">e.g., </span>as those of the preceding chapter (<a href="/context/isaiah/30-12.htm" title="Why thus said the Holy One of Israel, Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:">Isaiah 30:12-13</a>; <a href="/context/isaiah/30-16.htm" title="But you said, No; for we will flee on horses; therefore shall you flee: and, We will ride on the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.">Isaiah 30:16-17</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-3.htm">Isaiah 31:3</a></div><div class="verse">Now the Egyptians <i>are</i> 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.</div>(3) <span class= "bld">The Egyptians are men . . .</span>—We hear again the key-note of Isaiah’s teaching. The true strength of a nation lay in its spiritual, not in its material, greatness: in seeking the Holy One of Israel by practising holiness. Without that condition the alliance with Egypt would be fatal both to those that sought for help and those who gave it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-4.htm">Isaiah 31:4</a></div><div class="verse">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, <i>he</i> 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.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">Like as the lion . . .</span>—The similitude is note worthy, as for its fulness and vividness, so also for the fact that the lion is made the symbol, not of destruction, but protection. As the king of beasts stands haughtily defiant over the prey which he has made his own against the shepherds who seek to rob him of it, so will Jehovah, in His character as the Lord of hosts, refuse to surrender Jerusalem, His peculiar possession, to the armies of the Assyrians. (Comp. Homer<span class= "ital">, Il.,</span> 18:161.)<p><span class= "bld">To fight for Mount Zion.</span>—The preposition has been differently rendered as <span class= "ital">for, on, against. </span>The lion in the last case is claiming the sheep as his own prey, and will not suffer interference from without. Jehovah, using the Assyrian armies as His instruments, will fight against Jerusalem, and will not allow the Egyptian allies to interfere with His chastisements. (Comp. <a href="/context/isaiah/29-7.htm" title="And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her fortification, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.">Isaiah 29:7-8</a>.) The second clause simply marks Jerusalem as the scene of the conflict, but agrees in substance with the first. Looking to the verse that follows, the idea of protection seems more natural than that of hostility. The thought of supreme ownership, however, includes both; Jerusalem belonged to Jehovah to protect or to chastise.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-5.htm">Isaiah 31:5</a></div><div class="verse">As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver <i>it; and</i> passing over he will preserve <i>it</i>.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">As birds flying . . .</span>—The picture that follows (Æschylean, as the former was Homeric; see “Æsch. <span class= "ital">Agam. </span>49-54, though there the point is the wailing of the parent birds over the plundered nest) is, at least, not doubtful in its meaning, whether it be meant as a counterpart or antithesis to that which precedes it. The eagles hovering over their nest, and scaring off man or beast that attacked their nestlings, supplied the most vivid image possible of protection. (Comp. the image, like, but not the same, in <a href="/deuteronomy/32-11.htm" title="As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings:">Deuteronomy 32:11</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Passing over.</span>—The word is the same as that used in connection with the Passover festival, and may perhaps imply a reference to it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-6.htm">Isaiah 31:6</a></div><div class="verse">Turn ye unto <i>him from</i> whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Turn ye unto him.</span>—Then, as ever, this was the sum and substance of the prophet’s teaching, conversion; with that, all was hope; without it, all was fear. (Comp. <a href="/2_chronicles/30-6.htm" title="So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, You children of Israel, turn again to the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.">2Chronicles 30:6</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-7.htm">Isaiah 31:7</a></div><div class="verse">For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you <i>for</i> a sin.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">In that day every man shall cast away . . .</span>—The act is the same as that of <a href="/isaiah/2-20.htm" title="In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;">Isaiah 2:20</a>, but with a marked difference of motive: there it springs from the terror of despair, here from the repentance which is the ground of hope.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-8.htm">Isaiah 31:8</a></div><div class="verse">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.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">Not of a mighty man . . .</span>—The Hebrew has no adjectives, but the nouns are those which are commonly opposed to each other in this way, as in <a href="/isaiah/2-9.htm" title="And the mean man bows down, and the great man humbles himself: therefore forgive them not.">Isaiah 2:9</a>, like the Latin <span class= "ital">vir </span>and <span class= "ital">homo. </span>The thought expressed is, of course, that the whole work would be of God, and not of man. The “sword” was that of the Divine judgment (<a href="/deuteronomy/32-41.htm" title="If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my enemies, and will reward them that hate me.">Deuteronomy 32:41</a>), perhaps, as in <a href="/1_chronicles/21-16.htm" title="And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.">1Chronicles 21:16</a>, of the destroying angel of the pestilence.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/isaiah/31-9.htm">Isaiah 31:9</a></div><div class="verse">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 <i>is</i> in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">He shall pass over to his strong hold for fear.</span>—Most recent critics translate, <span class= "ital">His rock will pass away for terror, </span>the “rock” (not the same word, however, as that elsewhere, <span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/deuteronomy/32-31.htm" title="For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.">Deuteronomy 32:31</a>, used for God) being the symbol of Assyria’s strength. The laws of parallelism point to our taking the noun as the subject of the sentence, corresponding to “princes” in the next clause, and so exclude the Authorised version.<p><span class= "bld">Whose fire is in Zion.</span>—Fire, as the symbol of the Divine glory, giving light and warmth to the faithful, and burning up the evil. (Comp. <a href="/context/isaiah/10-16.htm" title="Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.">Isaiah 10:16-17</a>.)<p><span class= "bld"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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