The arm of flesh.
How important is this subject we may gather from the fact that the prophet is inspired to return to it, and to reiterate his condemnation (see Isaiah 30:1). The disposition to lean on the arm of flesh instead of trusting in the living God is not Jewish, but bureau; not peculiar to any age or dispensation, but is an abiding spiritual peril. We learn here—
I. THE FALLACY WHICH IT INVOLVES.
1. The Jews were trusting in numbers. Looking to the horses and chariots of Egypt, "because they were many" (Isaiah 31:1). We are apt to be imposed upon by numbers, to think there is safety and even salvation in them, to indulge the notion that, because we are among a great crowd or are supported by a very large majority, we are all on the side of truth and victory. Yet nothing is more uncertain; often the vast hosts have been overthrown in conflict by the devoted and determined few; often the small section, "everywhere spoken against" and despised, has been proved to be in the right and has ultimately prevailed. If God be on one side and the mightiest multitude on the other, we may be sure that the fact that "the chariots and horses are many" will be of no account at all. Divine providence is not by any means necessarily or constantly "on the side of the strongest battalions."
2. They trusted in apparent human strength. "In horsemen, because they are very strong." Many regiments of cavalry have a very imposing aspect to the eye which looks upon and judges by the surface of things; they seem invincible, overwhelming, an invaluable ally when the enemy is approaching. And not only the well-equipped cavalry in time of war; but, in time of peace and in the ordinary life of men, the sagacious counselor, the wealthy merchant, the influential statesman or courtier, the eloquent and admired speaker or pleader—these men seem to have in them a source of strength on which we may build, or to which in the time of peril we may repair. But "the Egyptians were men, and not God," etc. (Isaiah 31:3); their promised word might be broken, their overtures might turn out to be selfishly made and to be unscrupulously withdrawn; their cavalry might be ridden down by troops still stronger than they. Being but men and but horses, they might prove—as they would prove—nothing better than a broken reed, which would pierce the hand that leaned on it (Isaiah 36:6). And the human strength on which we are all so inclined to lean will very likely prove to be nothing more or better. How often the sagacity of the prudent, the riches of the wealthy, the influence of the great, the eloquence of the orator, fail us at our hour of need, and we "go down to our house" bitterly disappointed, or perhaps stricken, stripped, ruined! "The arm of flesh will fail you."
II. THE FRUIT WHICH BELONGS TO IT. "God will not call back his words" of condemnation (Isaiah 31:2; see Isaiah 30:1-13). He is grieved and offended that his word has been disobeyed, and himself distrusted and deserted. (See homily in loc.)
III. THE PENALTY WHICH WILL FOLLOW IT. God will arise against both those that seek and those that offer help; at the stretching out of his hand they will both fall together (Isaiah 31:2, Isaiah 31:3). They who, distrusting God, put their trust in man will fall under God's high displeasure, and, according to their circumstances and the character of their error, wilt fall into discomfiture, into disrepute, into disappointment, into shame.
IV. THE RESOURCE WHICH IT OVERLOOKS. All the while that Judah was leaning on "that broken reed, Egypt," it had at hand a sure Support, an almighty Deliverer, One that would be as a lion for fearlessness and irresistible strength, One that would be as a mother-bird for swiftness and tenderness (Isaiah 31:4, Isaiah 31:5), to whom it might have looked, and by whom it would have been graciously received and effectually succored. By our side, in our time of trouble and of peril, is an almighty Friend, whose delivering hand no army can resist, who will come at the right time to redeem us, who will treat us with more than parental tenderness and care. Shall we not go unto him, and say, "My soul trusteth in thee, yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast" (Psalms 57:1)?—C.