The help of Egypt.
A party in Judah is negotiating with Egypt; and the prophet points out the falseness of this policy.
I. IT IS A RELIANCE UPON BRUTE FORCE. "Horses" are symbolic of martial strength. And Judah, being peculiarly deficient in cavalry, was "tempted to trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen" (Isaiah 36:8, Isaiah 36:9). Famed in Homer was Egyptian Thebes, with the hundred gates, and the two hundred men who issued forth from each with horses and chariots ('Iliad,' 9:382). The memory of the pursuit of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus contained the picture of those chariots and horsemen (Exodus 14:6, Exodus 14:9). They were in request in Solomon's time (1 Kings 19:1-21:26). Egyptian cavalry, the very nerve and sinew of war; Egypt who possesses them, the most coveted ally. "On horses will we fly …on the swift will we ride," was the word of the party. Such was their "creaturely confidence." These horses were but "flesh," and "all flesh is as grass," and withers when the breath of the Eternal blows upon it. The strength of the creature is but the strength of the dependent nature; folly, then, to lean on that which is itself a leaning thing.
II. IT IS A RELIANCE UPON MAN, AND NOT UPON GOD. Here man, as usual in the Hebrew prophets, is sharply opposed to God; the dependent, the frail, the mortal, to the self-dependent, the Strong, the Immortal and Eternal; the tool to the hand that holds it, the might that alone can render it effective. The axe, the saw, the staff: they are dead and helpless things, until they are brought into connection with spiritual force. So horses and chariots can avail naught, unless they be the instruments of the Lord of hosts, the engines of a spiritual and enduring policy in the earth. Man himself, without tools and weapons, is the most defenseless of animals; with them, yet still without God, he is in no better plight.
III. IT IS TYPICAL OF IRRELIGIOUSNESS IN GENERAL. The folly is not so much in looking to material resources and defenses as in "not looking to the Holy One of Israel"—in "not consulting Jehovah." All worldliness is negative, and there lies its weakness. It is a strategy of life which defeats itself; moving far from the true base of operations, and finding itself presently cut off, without the chance of return. Again, it is a departure from the Source of true wisdom. The "wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the understanding ones"—this is policy, prudence. In Jehovah is a higher wisdom than that of Jewish politicians; his is wisdom united with perfect rectitude. And without reverence for him, the "fear of Jehovah," men do not partake of this higher wisdom.
IV. THE END OF EGYPTIAN HELP. In the first place, the hollowness of the Jewish policy will be exposed. The word of Jehovah has gone forth, and will not come back to him void. For it is itself spiritual force, truth, mightier than any material force that is known. Put into the mouth of a prophet (Jeremiah 1:9), those words become mighty as fire, to devour all that stays their course as wood (Jeremiah 5:14). "All that the Lord speaketh must be done" (Numbers 23:26). The wall of a worldly wisdom will bulge and suddenly fall, and the "wisdom of the wise ones" be brought to naught. The words of the Eternal are backed up by the hand of the Eternal; and, when stretched out, the "helper" who has been so much looked up to will be seen to totter, and the "helped" one be buried beneath the ruins.—J.