For this is what the LORD has said to me: "Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey--and though a band of shepherds is called out against it, it is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their clamor--so the LORD of Hosts will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and its heights. Sermons
I. THE LION. He is pictured watching over the holy city, the "peculiar treasure," the invisible Sanctuary of the religion and the people, as a lion over its prey, in the presence of threatening shepherds. "As from a carcase herdsmen strive in vain
To scare a tawny lion, hunger-pinch'd;
Ev'n so th' Ajaces, mail-clad warriors, faird
The son of Priam from the corse to scare."
(Iliad,' 18:161.) It is a fine image - found twice in Homer - of the undaunted prowess of the bold and steadfast warrior. Invincible towards his foes, what is Jehovah towards his friends, the people of his choice and love? II. THE BIRD. Infinite tenderness mingles with irresistible might in the nature of God. It is no narrow view of the Divine attributes which the Bible gives. All that we see of nobility in living creatures, all traits of courage and of love, may be borrowed to enrich our representations of that nature which includes all other nature within its scope and grasp. Thus the magnificent queen of birds, no less than the magnificent king of beasts, supplies in its actions and habits a parable of eternal providence. The eagle fluttering over her young, spreading her wide wings and bearing them thereon, was a type of Jehovah's conduct to his people in the desert (Deuteronomy 32:10). So does he now hover over the city, protecting, rescuing. Nor was it otherwise in the days of the Savior, who employs also the simile of the maternal bird. Every ideal of lionhearted hero, of father, strong yet tender, of all-brooding mother, of living creatures inspired by mysterious and mighty instincts of love, helps to bring into momentary clearness some feature of the nature of him whose being is only "dark from excess of light." His voice, pleading with youth and innocence, with the unsophisticated conscience, says, "Come!" and with the sinner and the sophist, "Return!" - J. Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey. There is no passage in Isaiah which is so Homeric in ring as this; cf. Iliad, 18:161 f., 12:299 ft.() 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. () ()
People Egyptians, Isaiah, Israelites, JeremiahPlaces Egypt, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, ZionTopics Abase, Affrighted, Afraid, Almighty, Angry, Armies, Band, Battle, Clamor, Daunted, Dismayed, Disturbed, Fear, Fight, Forth, Frightened, Giveth, Growl, Growling, Growls, Height, Heights, Herdsmen, Hill, Hosts, Humbled, Jeremiah, Lion, Makes, Mount, Multitude, Noise, Prey, Roaring, Says, Shepherds, Shouting, Shouts, Spoken, Terrified, Thereof, Though, Thus, Voice, Voices, Wage, War, ZionOutline 1. The prophet shows the folly and danger of trusting Egypt, and forsaking God
6. He exhorts to conversion
8. He shows the fall of Assyria
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 31:4 7786 shepherd, king and leader 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 ScriptureThe Lord's Furnace
'The Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.'-- ISAIAH xxxi. 9. This very remarkable characterisation of God stands here as a kind of seal, set upon the preceding prophecy. It is the reason why that will 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. It is put in very graphic and remarkable metaphors: 'Like as a lion roareth on his prey when a multitude of shepherds is called forth …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture What God Is
John iv. 24.--"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." We have here something of the nature of God pointed out to us, and something of our duty towards him. "God is a Spirit," that is his nature, and "man must worship him," that is his duty, and that "in spirit and in truth," that is the right manner of the duty. If these three were well pondered till they did sink into the bottom of our spirits, they would make us indeed Christians, not in the letter, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Of Conversion
Of Conversion "Be ye truly converted unto that God from whom ye have so deeply revolted" (Isa. xxxi. 6). To be truly converted is to avert wholly from the creature, and turn wholly unto God. For the attainment of salvation it is absolutely necessary that we should forsake outward sin and turn unto righteousness: but this alone is not perfect conversion, which consists in a total change of the whole man from an outward to an inward life. When the soul is once turned to God a wonderful facility is …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer 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
"Turn ye unto Him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted" (Isa. xxxi. 6). Conversion is nothing else but a turning from the creature to God. Conversion is not perfect, though it is necessary for salvation, when it is merely a turning from sin to grace. To be complete, it must be a turning from without to within. The soul, being turned in the direction of God, has a great facility for remaining converted to Him. The longer it is converted, the nearer it approaches to God, and attaches …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party.
That It Is Not Lawful For The Well Affected Subjects To Concur In Such An Engagement In War, And Associate With The Malignant Party. Some convinced of the unlawfulness of the public resolutions and proceedings, in reference to the employing of the malignant party, yet do not find such clearness and satisfaction in their own consciences as to forbid the subjects to concur in this war, and associate with the army so constituted. Therefore it is needful to speak something to this point, That it is …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications...
But though prayer is properly confined to vows and supplications, yet so strong is the affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that both may be conveniently comprehended under one name. For the forms which Paul enumerates (1 Tim. 2:1) fall under the first member of this division. By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. )
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway. * The two principal …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8 Exposition of Chap. Iii. (ii. 28-32. )
Ver. 1. "And it shall come to pass, afterwards, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." The communication of the Spirit of God was the constant prerogative of the Covenant-people. Indeed, the very idea of such a people necessarily requires it. For the Spirit of God is the only inward bond betwixt Him and that which is created; a Covenant-people, therefore, without such an inward …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament The Upbringing of Jewish Children
The tenderness of the bond which united Jewish parents to their children appears even in the multiplicity and pictorialness of the expressions by which the various stages of child-life are designated in the Hebrew. Besides such general words as "ben" and "bath"--"son" and "daughter"--we find no fewer than nine different terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life. The first of these simply designates the babe as the newly--"born"--the "jeled," or, in the feminine, "jaldah"--as in Exodus 2:3, 6, 8. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Isaiah 31:4 NIV
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