Isaiah — Chapter 31
Synopsis Capitis
Synopsis: A brief oracle (nine verses) against reliance on Egyptian horses and chariots, and for trust in God alone. The image of God as a lion over His prey (v.4) — He will not be driven away from protecting Jerusalem by any army. The key verse: v.5, 'As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem; protecting and delivering it, passing over and preserving it' — Lapide reads the birds as a type of the Holy Spirit hovering protectively over the Church.
Verse 1
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses, and putting their confidence in chariots, because they are many: and in horsemen, because they are very strong; and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord. The perennial folly of relying on human military power rather than God. 'Egypt is man, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit' (v.3): the creature's power is perishable flesh; God's power is eternal Spirit. Applied to all who trust wealth, armies, and diplomacy over divine Providence.
Verse 4
For thus saith the Lord to me: Like as the lion roareth, and the young lion upon his prey, and when a multitude of shepherds shall come against him, he will not fear at their voice. God as the roaring lion protecting His prey (Jerusalem) — the Assyrian coalition of shepherds cannot frighten Him. Applied to the indefectibility of the Church: however many heretics and enemies attack it, God guards it with the ferocity of a lion.
Verse 5
Quomodo aves volantes, sic proteget Dominus exercituum Hierusalem
As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem — the image of a parent bird spreading wings over her chicks (Mt 23:37: 'as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings'). Christ's lament over Jerusalem echoes this exactly. Lapide: God's protection of Jerusalem is simultaneously historical (Sennacherib's destruction), typological (Christ's protective love for the Church), and eschatological (divine protection at the end of time). The specific verbs — 'proteget, liberabit, transiens salvabit' — describe three modes of divine protection: shielding, freeing, passing over (like the Paschal passing-over).
Verse 8
And the Assyrian shall fall by the sword not of a man, and the sword not of a man shall devour him. Sennacherib will be struck down by no human sword — fulfilled by the Angel's single-night destruction of 185,000 Assyrians. Lapide: 'not the sword of a man' = the miraculous intervention that confounds all human explanations.