31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, relying on horses, putting their trust in immense numbers of chariots and vast forces of horsemen, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor inquire of the Lord! A similar vein as in the beginning of chapter 30. Going down to Egypt, regressing, relying on the arm of flesh, horses and chariots, the only power sufficiently strong to counter Assyria's world conquest or Assyrian Armies. But if it's not of God, then it will never prosper. They don't look to the Holy One of Israel nor enquire of the Lord. Those two things are in parallel, if we look to the Holy One of Israel we will enquire of him, for information, for knowledge or for direction. How do you do so? Well through the Lord's mouth, through his prophets. 31:2 Yet he too is shrewd and will bring disaster upon them, and not retract his words. He will rise up against the brood of miscreants and allies of evildoers. Because if you take that course it has its consequence and the Lord is bound by his own law of justice, which he keeps, to bring those consequences upon those who do that. He will bring disaster upon them, disaster, calamity is a covenant curse and not retract his words. He's not going to change his mind or be a respecter of persons or do one thing one day and do something else the next. He will rise up against the brood of miscreants and allies of evildoers. The brood of miscreants are those who rely on the arm of flesh. The allies or the evildoers are the same. The allies are the allies of the Egyptians. The evildoers are the Egyptians. So, the brood of miscreants are the wicked people in general, they all rely upon each other, not upon God. 31:3 The Egyptians are human, not divine; their horses are flesh, not spirit: when the Lord stretches out his hand, those who help them will stumble and those helped will fall; both shall come to an end together. The hand is the left hand, the King of Assyria, when the Lord stretches it out against his people, they will both fall. Those that rely upon the Egyptians and the Egyptians themselves. The stumbling and the falling are word links to previous ideas there are those that stumble over the Lord who is a rock of stumbling to them. They stumble over his word. They don't accept it. Both shall come to an end together. Also, the idea that the Egyptians are human and not divine implies that there is only divine protection or that divine protection is necessary at this time. Human protection won't help in that day only divine protection. The only real protection, at any time, is divine protection anyway. 31:4 For thus said the Lord to me: As a lion or a young lion growls over the prey when the shepherds muster in full force against him, and is not dismayed at the sound of their voice nor daunted by their numbers, so shall the Lord of Hosts be when he descends to wage war upon Mount Zion and upon its heights. Alluding to the idea that, when the Assyrian alliance of nations, when those shepherds muster in full force, the shepherds of those nations, those leaders of nations, their military commanders, come against the Lord's people. After they have conquered the world, they lay siege to Zion. In Isaiah's scenario, they do that in Chapters 36 and 37. When they come in full force against the righteous or against the elect, thinking to deal the death blow to God's people, thus, put them out of existence, and rule the world. The Lord is not going to be dismayed. He is like a lion, or a young lion. In that respect, he is valiant. He is the valiant one of Israel. He is the exemplar of his people, who also are a lion, or a young lion. The word Ariel, that word means, the Lion of God. They are not dismayed just like Ahaz should not have been dismayed at the threat of the Assyrian's or the threat of Ephraim and Aram coming against Jerusalem. The Lord's people must not be dismayed at anytime. If they rely upon the Lord, they will not be dismayed, because the Lord is not dismayed. We must emulate him. He is not dismayed at the sound of their voice, meaning the King of Assyria; He is the voice of the wicked. That's a metaphor describing him. He's not afraid of the sound of their voice and all the things he spouts off against God and against God's people. He's not daunted by their numbers even though there are perhaps two hundred million of them coming into the valley of Armageddon as it says in the Book of Revelation. It doesn't matter how many there are. so shall the Lord of Hosts be when he descends to wage war upon Mount Zion and upon its heights. At that very time when they come against the Lord's people, when they come against Mount Zion, to fight against Mount Zion. As you saw in Chapter 29, they are the nations who amass to fight against Mount Zion. That is the very time that the Lord descends upon Mount Zion to wage war, as he descended upon Mount Sinai anciently. He came down upon Mount Sinai in a great display of power. And he will do so again when the Assyrian's lay siege to Zion. It's a new descent of God upon the mount. As we have a new exodus, new Passover, new wandering in the wilderness, new conquest of land, so we have a new descent of God upon the mountain, this is it! He descends upon Mount Zion to destroy the Assyrian armies and to deliver his people in a new Passover. 31:5 As birds hover over [the nest], so will the Lord of Hosts guard Jerusalem; by protecting it he will deliver it, by passing over it, preserve it. Those are the same words as Passover. In that Passover the wicked are destroyed as they were anciently. The firstborn of the Egyptians were destroyed, whereas the people of Israel were preserved. Notice all the word links. He protects. He delivers. He passes over. He preserves it. Those are all word links to other parts of Isaiah that identify the Lord protecting. He's the only protector. He is the only deliverer. He's the one who preserves them, through the fire, the waters, whatever. We saw in chapter 1 for example, the city of Zion comes under siege; The Daughter of Zion has left. That's preserved, or a remnant like a shelter in a vineyard, a hut in a melon field, a city under siege. Then verse 8: Had not the Lord of Hosts left us a few survivors, we should have been as Sodom, or become like Gomorrah. In Chapter 1 verse 9. That happens when: your native soil is devoured by aliens in your presence, Laid waste at its takeover by foreigners. your land is ruined, your cities burned with fire. Chapter 1 verse 7. But the city that is under siege there, in chapter 1 verse 8 is also the city that is preserved. The Assyrians come against that city and siege it but also at the same time that they come unto the cities, they are preserved. The Lord protects them like a bird hovering over the nest. When the enemy comes, what does the bird do? Well, birds outright attack you. 31:6 Return to him from whom you have contrived to go far astray, O children of Israel. 31:7 For in that day every one of you will despise your idolatrous silver and gold by which your hands have incurred guilt. Again, the idolatry of the Lord's people, that's separating them from God, have gone far astray because of the works of their hands. Because of their materialistic lifestyle. Because they set their hearts upon their idols. Things that money can buy or things that your hands have made, through which they have incurred guilt. And with that guilt comes covenant curse, with that guilt comes spiritual blindness and deafness. If you would participate in this deliverance and this protection, if you would be preserved in that day when the city Zion comes under siege, the whole world has been conquered by the Assyrians, if you would be part of that, then get rid of your idols now. Attend to those things now. 31:8 And Assyria shall fall by a sword not of man; a sword not of mortals shall devour them: before that sword they shall waste away and their young men melt; Reminds me of that scenario in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where that guy just melts, and something like that is going to happen. The Lord's sword in this case is the Lord's Servant. And so is the ensign and the Lord's fire in the next verse their captain or their leader, perhaps even the King of Assyria himself 31:9 their captain shall expire in terror and their officers shrink from the ensign, says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, whose furnace is in Jerusalem. The ensign is the Lord's Servant in this case, a friendly ensign, who rallies the people of God to repent, to return home to Zion where there is protection. So this is the second manner in which the Assyrian's fall or the Assyrian army is destroyed, and both through the agency of the Lord's Servant but in two different ways, one in mortal combat. The other in some kind of divine intervention, as in this case. And where do these Assyrians go? Into the fire and into the furnace. Whether in a temporal sense or in a spiritual sense it is not clear. It probably includes both. Because as the Assyrians burnt up whole nations, so they themselves are burnt up. And in another sense, spiritually, because at the end of the Book of Isaiah, it talks about the people going out and looking upon the corpses of the people who transgressed against me, whose worms do not die and whose fire shall not be extinguished. They shall be a horror to all flesh. That is, during the millennium, year after year, that will be visible. Some kind of scenario, spiritual scenario, of eternal burnings for the wicked. As a testimony to the righteous, so what happens when you turn to wickedness.