Isaiah 31:8

8 And the ¹Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man, And a ²sword not of man will devour him. So he will ³not escape the sword, And his young men will become ⁴forced laborers.

Isaiah 31:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 31:8

Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a
mighty man
That is, the Assyrian army under Sennacherib their king, which besieged Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time; which, as soon as the people were brought to a sense of their sin, and repentance for it, and cast away their idols as a proof of it, were utterly destroyed; but not in battle, not by the sword of Hezekiah, or any of his valiant generals:

and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him;
neither the sword of a general, nor of a private soldier, nor indeed of any man, but of an angel; see ( 2 Kings 19:35 ) :

but he shall flee from the sword;
from the drawn sword of the angel, who very probably appeared in such a form as in ( 1 Chronicles 21:16 ) which Sennacherib king of Assyria seeing, as well as the slaughter made in his army by him, fled from it; in the Hebrew text it is added, "for himself" ^F25; he fled for his life, for his own personal security; see ( 2 Kings 19:36 ) :

and his young men shall be discomfited;
his choice ones, the flower of his army: or "melt away" ^F26, through fear; or die by the stroke of the angel upon them: the sense of becoming "tributary" seems to have no foundation.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 (wl) "fugiet sibi", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius; "fuga consulet sibi", Junius & Tremellius.
F26 (wyhy oml) "in liquefactionem, erunt", Vatablus; "colliquescent", Piscator.

Isaiah 31:8 In-Context

6 Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.

7 For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin.

8 And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of 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 princes will be terrified at the standard," Declares the LORD , whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

Cross References

• 1. Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 14:25; Isaiah 30:31-33; Isaiah 37:7, 36-38
• 2. Isaiah 66:16
• 3. Isaiah 21:15
• 4. Genesis 49:15; Isaiah 14:2

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "flee"