Isa 31.1-9 denounces those who put their trust in Egypt against the Assyrians. Yehovah gives the victory, not the Egyptians. This scenario will play out in the birth-pains when the False Messiah and Europe will not be able to help Israel according to the alliance that was agreed to in Dan 9.27. Yehovah will tell Israel not to trust in the False Messiah and Europe against the Russians just like he is doing here.
v 1…Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek Yehovah (Isa 19.1-25, 20.1-6, 30.18, 14.29, 52.4. They had to trust and rely on others in their carnal minds because their chariot force had diminished from the time of Elisha-2 Kings 13.7).
v 2…Yet he (Yehovah) also is wise (wiser than the Egyptians) and will bring disaster (upon those who ignore him), and does not retract his words (take back his word against an Egyptian covenant), but will arise against the house of evildoers, and against the help of the workers of iniquity (both from Judah and Egypt).
v 3…Now the Egyptians are men and not God (finite, powerless), and their horses are flesh and not spirit (weak, perishable), so Yehovah will stretch out his hand (his power), and he who helps will stumble (Egypt) and he who is helped (Judah) will fall, and all of them will come to an end together.
v 4…For thus says Yehovah to me, “As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey, against which a band of shepherds is called out (like a posse to go deliver the sheep from a lion), will not be terrified at their voice, nor disturbed at their noise (the lion isn’t moved or impressed), so will the Lord (Yehovah) of hosts (Tzavaot or armies) come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill (Yehovah will visit his people and deliver them, and the prey is the Assyrians and those who reject Yehovah).”
v 5…Like flying birds (over the young) so the Lord of hosts (Yehovah Tzavaot) will protect Jerusalem, he will protect and deliver it, he will pass over and protect it (In 1917, the Turks held Jerusalem, but General Allenby did not bomb the religious sites. The Turks surrendered, and the recon planes flying over did not need to fire a shot. This is also an allusion to Passover when the death angel passed over the marked houses of Israel).
v 6…Return to him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.
v 7…For in that day (again, whenever this is used it is a double-reference. It refers to a historical time, but also prophetically to the day of the Lord when Messiah comes) every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your hands have made as a sin (as part of their repentance, they renounce idolatry).
v 8…And the Assyrian (eschatologically Gog/Magog/Russia-Ezek 38 and 39) will fall by a sword not of man (not by human power), and a sword not of man will devour him (a plague will destroy Assyria-2 Kings 19.35, and it will happen to Gog/Magog/Russia-Ezek 38.22), so he will not escape the sword, and his young men will become as forced laborers.
v 9…”And his rock (the Assyrian army) will pass away because of panic, and his princes will be terrified at his (Yehovah’s) standard (or any banner they saw, thinking it was the enemy; this is also an idiom for the Messiah-Isa 11.10),” declares Yehovah, whose fire is in Zion (his wrath) and whose furnace is in Jerusalem (waiting there for all the enemies who attack Jerusalem).
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