Isaiah 30:31

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

²⁷Behold, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire. ²⁸His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray. ²⁹You will sing as on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm revealed, striking in angry wrath, with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones. ³¹For Assyria will be shattered at the voice of the LORD. He will strike with a rod.³²And with every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD brings down, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished. ³³For Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it ablaze.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the voice: Isaiah 30:30, Isaiah 37:32-38

which smote: Isaiah 9:4, Isaiah 10:5, Isaiah 10:15, Isaiah 10:24, Psalms 17:13, Psalms 17:14, Psalms 125:5, Micah 5:5, Micah 5:6

Reciprocal: Proverbs 22:8 - the rod of his anger shall fail

Cross-References

Genesis 30:4
So Rachel gave Jacob her servant Bilhah as his wife, and he slept with her,

Genesis 30:6
Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; He has heard my plea and given me a son." So she named him Dan.

Psalms 118:8
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.

Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down,.... As anything is by a storm of thunder, lightning, hail, and rain: or "fear", or be "affrighted", as the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions render it; Sennacherib, the Assyrian monarch, and that part of his army which escaped, though not destroyed by it, were put into the utmost consternation: this shows that the prophecy in the context refers to the overthrow of the Assyrian army by the angel, when besieging Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time; though the Assyrian is sometimes used for any enemy of God's people at other times, particularly antichrist, and especially the eastern antichrist, the Turk:

[which] smote with a rod; other nations, particularly the Jews, whom the Assyrian is expressly said to smite with a rod; and because he was an instrument in God's hand for the chastising of that people, he is called the rod of his anger, Isaiah 10:5 but now he that smote shall be smitten himself; him whom God used as a rod to correct others, he will smite with his rod, for his own correction: for this may be understood of God, and be rendered thus, "with a rod, he", that is, God, "shall smite" the Assyrian, as before; so Aben Ezra and Kimchi. The Targum interprets the "rod" of dominion.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For through the voice of the - Lord By the command of the Lord; that is, his voice going forth in the manner specified in Isaiah 30:30.

Which smote with a rod - Who was accustomed to smite as with a rod; that is, his government was tyrannical and severe. As he had been accustomed to smite in that manner, so he would now meet the proper reward of his oppression of the nations.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 30:31. Which smote with a rod - "He that was ready to smite with his staff"] אשור "Post ashshur, forte excidit אשר asher." - SECKER. After אשור ashshur, probably אשר asher, "which," has been omitted.