Isaiah 31

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¹Woe 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 the Lord! ✦ ²Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster, And does not retract His words, But will arise against the house of evildoers, And against the help of the workers of injustice. ✦ ³Now the Egyptians are human and not God, And their horses are flesh and not spirit; So the Lord will stretch out His hand, And any helper will stumble, And one who is helped will fall. And all of them will come to an end together. ✦ ⁴¶For this is what the Lord says to me: “As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey, Against which a band of shepherds is called out, And he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise, So will the Lord of armies come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.” ✦ ⁵Like flying birds so the Lord of armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and save it; He will pass over and rescue it. ✦ ⁶Return to Him against whom you have been profoundly obstinate, you sons of Israel. ✦ ⁷For on that day every person will reject his silver idols and his gold idols, which your hands have made for you as a sin. ✦ ⁸And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not wielded by a man, And a sword not of man will devour him. So he will not escape the sword, And his young men will become forced laborers. ✦ ⁹“His rock will pass away because of panic, And his officers will be terrified by the flag,” Declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Isa 30 ·9 Isa 10 ·6 Deut 32 ·4 Isa 37 ·4 Isa 36 ·4 Isa 29 ·3 Jer 3 ·3 Hos 14 ·3

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 31 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 31YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 31David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 31Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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