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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 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! 4 BOOK 3 ORATIONS ON THE EGYPTIAN INTRIGUES AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS 705-702 B.C. Isaiah: 29 About 703 30 A little later 31 A little later 32:1-8 Later 32:9-20 Date uncertain ----------------- 14:28-21 736-702 23 About 703 WE now enter the prophecies of Isaiah’s old age, those which he published after 705, when his ministry had lasted for at least thirty-five years. They cover the years between 705, the date of Sennacherib’s accession to the Assyrian throne, and 701, when his army suddenly disappeared from before Jerusalem. They fall into three groups:- 1. Chapters 29-32., dealing with Jewish politics while Sennacherib is still far from Palestine, 704-702, and having Egypt for their chief interest, Assyria lowering in the background. 2. Chapters 14:28-21 and 23, a group of oracles on foreign nations, threatened, like Judah, by Assyria. 3. Chapters 1, 22, and 33, and the historical narrative in 36, and 37., dealing with Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem in 701; Egypt and every foreign nation now fallen out of sight, and the storm about the Holy City too thick for the prophet to see beyond his immediate neighbourhood. The first and second of these groups-orations on the intrigues with Egypt and oracles on the foreign nations-delivered while Sennacherib was still far from Syria, form the subject of this Third Book of our exposition. The prophecies on the siege of Jerusalem are sufficiently numerous and distinctive to be put by themselves, along with their appendix (38, 39), in our Fourth Book. CHAPTER XIV THREE TRUTHS ABOUT GOD ABOUT 702 B.C. Isaiah 31:1-9 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 God’s 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 ( Isaiah 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 prophet’s 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, Germany’s 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 heart’s 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 ( Isaiah 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 God’s 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 lion like 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. "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 lion like 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, lion like 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 God’s 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 mother’s. III. THE MOTHER-BIRD AND HER NEST ( Isaiah 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 Isaiah’s 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 Isaiah’s 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 mother’s 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 lion like 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." 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Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help. Isaiah 31:1 The abundance of horses in Egypt J. A. Alexander. 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 ( Psalm 20:7 ). ( J. A. Alexander. ) Seeking God J. A. Alexander. 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: C. Silvester Horne, M. A. 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 J. Wileman. : — 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.(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 ( 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 be strong, 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. Isaiah 31:2 God works in history Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. 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 Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. 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 Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. 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 Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. : — 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. Isaiah 31:3 Spiritual existences the chief forces of the world D. Thomas, D. D. 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 Robert Hall, M. A. 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. Isaiah 31:4 A Homeric passage F. Delitzsch. 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 Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. 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 Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. 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. Isaiah 31:5 Three pictures of one reality A. Maclaren, D. D. : — 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 Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. Like a lion descending from the mountains ( Psalm 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 J. Parker, D. D. 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. Isaiah 31:9 The Lord's furnace A. Maclaren, D. D. 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 J. Irons. 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." (1) He is melting; (2) He is manifesting; (3) He is making useful. These are the main purposes for which a furnace is used. 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. ).

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. 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.