Isaiah 31:4 - The Biblical Illustrator

Bible Comments

Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey

A Homeric passage

There is no passage in Isaiah which is so Homeric in ring as this; cf.

Iliad, 18.161 f., 12.299 ft. (F. Delitzsch.)

The lion and the shepherds

Is it an unworthy figure of the Divine Claimant for this city, who kept unceasing hold upon her after His own manner, mysterious and lionlike to men, undisturbed by the screams, formulas, and prayers of her mob of politicians and treaty-mongers? For these are the “shepherds” Isaiah means--sham shepherds, the shrieking crew of politicians, with their treaties and military display. God will save and carry Jerusalem His own way, paying no heed to such. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)

The lionlike mercies of God

If it is God who is the lion, then it is for the best. For “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”; and, after all, it is safer to rely on the mercies of God, lionlike though they be, than on the weak benevolenees and officious pities of the best of human advisers. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)

Isaiah 31:4

4 For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noisea of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.