Isaiah 32:1-8 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

Bible Comments

a Nobler Future for the Nation

Isaiah 31:1-9; Isaiah 32:1-8

Isaiah continues to denounce the contemplated alliance with Egypt. His compatriots put their trust in horses and chariots, and refused the help of their fathers' God. Yet was He not so wise as the Egyptians, and equally as strong! And were they not running a fearful risk in rejecting One who would not recall His words of threatened punishment to those who refused His help? At best, the Egyptians were men, and not God, and their cavalry, flesh. If only they would trust Him, God would defy their foes, as a lion defies a company of unarmed shepherds, Isaiah 31:4. The mother-bird hovers over her brood to protect it from the kestrel; so would He spread His covering wing over Jerusalem, Isaiah 31:5. We may have deeply revolted, yet we may turn back to God with the certainty that He will receive and rescue us, Isaiah 31:6.

Sennacherib fell by the sword of his sons. Compare Isaiah 32:8 with 2 Kings 19:36-37. How different is our glorious King, whose many-sided nature meets all our needs! Isaiah 32:2. Before Him all men are unveiled in their true characters. Only those who are royal in heart shall stand before Him, Isaiah 31:8.

Isaiah 32:1-8

1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.

2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a greata rock in a weary land.

3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.

4 The heart also of the rashb shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.

5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.

6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needyc speaketh right.

8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.d