Isaiah 31:3 Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand… It is here evidently implied that a spirit is mightier than a horse. The ancients attached the idea of immense force to a well-trained war-horse. I. SPIRIT IS THE ORIGINAL POWER We see power everywhere around us. We see it in the inanimate world, as the effect which one element produces upon another, and in the motion which one body, in a certain relation, produces upon another. We see it, also, in the world of life: in the plant that turns to its use, and transmutes into its own essence, the elements that play about it; in the beast that drags along the farmer's harvest-wain, and in the bird that rises on the wing, and chants its victories over that force that binds the earth and links it to the sun. All these powers are manifestly effects, not ultimate causes — are derived, not primal. All true science suggests this, and the Bible declares it. Spirit is the fontal force. It was spirit that gave to the elements the proclivity to act and re-act on each other; and that so poised the masses of the universe that one should gently press its fellow into lines and ratios of motion, and thus conduce to the harmony and well-being of all. And the forces of life too, whether in the fibres of plants or the muscles of flesh, are but the breathings of that Spirit which "reneweth the face of the earth." "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent." II. SPIRIT IS THE SUBORDINATING POWER. The horses of the Egyptians were "flesh and not spirit." Implying, probably, the fact, that the Egyptian cavalry lacked that intelligence and skill necessary to render the noble animal of service in the field of battle. The value of the steed in the strife is ever in proportion to the skill of the rider. "Wisdom is better than weapons of war." Reason is mightier than brute force. What force is there on earth that man cannot subordinate to his will? Man can press every element into his service as well as every living creature. Let us rise to a sense of the greatness of the nature with which God has endowed us. We are spirit; emanations of the Infinite Mind, and members of that spiritual system for which matter, in all its functions and forms, was made. Let us assert our supremacy over the material — "use the world as not abusing it." In one sense we can never think too highly of ourselves. "what shall it profit a man?" &c. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together. |
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