Isaiah 31:5

Jehovah suddenly arrests the work of punishment, and the love which the wrath enfolds within itself begins to appear. "Like fluttering birds, so will Jehovah of Hosts screen Jerusalem; screening and delivering, sparing and setting free." The prophet uses the plural, "like fluttering birds," with an object - namely, not so much to represent Jehovah Himself, as the tender care and, as it were, maternal love, into which His leonine fierceness would be changed. This is indicated by the fact, that he attaches the feminine ‛âphōth to the common gender tsippŏrı̄m. The word pâsōăch recals to mind the deliverance from Egypt (as in Isa 30:29) in a very significant manner. The sparing of the Israelites by the destroyer passing over their doors, from which the passover derived its name, would be repeated once more. We may see from this, that in and along with Assyria, Jehovah Himself, whose instrument of punishment Assyria was, would take the filed against Jerusalem (Isa 29:2-3); but His attitude towards Jerusalem is suddenly changed into one resembling the action of birds, as they soar round and above their threatened nests. On the inf. abs. kal (gânōn) after the hiphil, see Ewald, 312, b; and on the continuance of the inf. abs. in the finite verb, 350, a. This generally takes place through the future, but here through the preterite, as in Jer 23:14; Gen 26:13, and Sa1 2:26 (if indeed vegâdēl is the third pers. preterite there).

This chapter is an abridgment of the foregoing chapter; the heads of it are much the same. Here is, I. A woe to those who, when the Assyrian army invaded them, trusted to the Egyptians, and not to God, for succour (Isa 31:1-3). II. Assurance given of the care God would take of Jerusalem in that time of danger and distress (Isa 31:4, Isa 31:5). III. A call to repentance and reformation (Isa 31:6, Isa 31:7). IV. A prediction of the fall of the Assyrian army, and the fright which the Assyrian king should thereby be put into (Isa 31:8, Isa 31:9).