But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together. Sermons
I. IT IS A RELIANCE UPON BRUTE FORCE. "Horses" are symbolic of martial strength. And Judah, being peculiarly deficient in cavalry, was "tempted to trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen" (Isaiah 36:8, 9). Famed in Homer was Egyptian Thebes, with the hundred gates, and the two hundred men who issued forth from each with horses and chariots ('Iliad,' 9:382). The memory of the pursuit of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus contained the picture of those chariots and horsemen (Exodus 14:6, 9). They were in request in Solomon's time (1 Kings 19:26). Egyptian cavalry, the very nerve and sinew of war; Egypt who possesses them, the most coveted ally. "On horses will we fly...on the swift will we ride," was the word of the party. Such was their "creaturely confidence." These horses were but "flesh," and "all flesh is as grass," and withers when the breath of the Eternal blows upon it. The strength of the creature is but the strength of the dependent nature; folly, then, to lean on that which is itself a leaning thing. II. IT IS A RELIANCE UPON MAN, AND NOT UPON GOD. Here man, as usual in the Hebrew prophets, is sharply opposed to God; the dependent, the frail, the mortal, to the self-dependent, the Strong, the Immortal and Eternal; the tool to the hand that holds it, the might that alone can render it effective. The axe, the saw, the staff: they are dead and helpless things, until they are brought into connection with spiritual force. So horses and chariots can avail naught, unless they be the instruments of the Lord of hosts, the engines of a spiritual and enduring policy in the earth. Man himself, without tools and weapons, is the most defenseless of animals; with them, yet still without God, he is in no better plight. III. IT IS TYPICAL OF IRRELIGIOUSNESS IN GENERAL. The folly is not so much in looking to material resources and defenses as in "not looking to the Holy One of Israel" - in "not consulting Jehovah." All worldliness is negative, and there lies its weakness. It is a strategy of life which defeats itself; moving far from the true base of operations, and finding itself presently cut off, without the chance of return. Again, it is a departure from the Source of true wisdom. The "wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the understanding ones" - this is policy, prudence. In Jehovah is a higher wisdom than that of Jewish politicians; his is wisdom united with perfect rectitude. And without reverence for him, the "fear of Jehovah," men do not partake of this higher wisdom. IV. THE END OF EGYPTIAN HELP. In the first place, the hollowness of the Jewish policy will be exposed. The word of Jehovah has gone forth, and will not come back to him void. For it is itself spiritual force, truth, mightier than any material force that is known. Put into the mouth of a prophet (Jeremiah 1:9), those words become mighty as fire, to devour all that stays their course as wood (Jeremiah 5:14). "All that the Lord speaketh must be done (Numbers 23:26). The wall of a worldly wisdom will bulge and suddenly fall, and the wisdom of the wise ones" be brought to naught. The words of the Eternal are backed up by the hand of the Eternal; and, when stretched out, the "helper" who has been so much looked up to will be seen to totter, and the "helped" one be buried beneath the ruins. - J.
Men, and not God... flesh, and not spirit. 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.) 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.) People Egyptians, Isaiah, Israelites, JeremiahPlaces Egypt, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, ZionTopics Consumed, Egyptians, Fail, Fall, Fallen, Flesh, Forth, Helped, Helper, Helpeth, Helps, Holpen, Horses, Lord's, Perish, Spirit, Stretch, Stretched, Stretches, Stretcheth, Stumble, StumbledOutline 1. The prophet shows the folly and danger of trusting Egypt, and forsaking God6. He exhorts to conversion 8. He shows the fall of Assyria Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 31:3 1225 God, as Spirit 5003 human race, and God Library Three Pictures of one Reality'As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it'--ISAIAH xxxi. 5. The immediate occasion of this very remarkable promise is, of course, the peril in which Jerusalem was placed by Sennacherib's invasion; and the fulfilment of the promise was the destruction of his army before its gates. But the promise here, like all God's promises, is eternal in substance, and applies to a community only because it applies to each … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Lord's Furnace What God Is Of Conversion Of Perfect Conversion, which is an Effect of this Method of Prayer --Two of Its Aids, the Attraction of God, and the Central Inclination of The That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party. But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications... Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men. Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. ) Exposition of Chap. Iii. 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