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Isaiah 31 · a question people ask

Who is speaking in this chapter?

In the text

The WEB marks it with quotation marks. "For the LORD says to me" (31:4) opens a quotation that runs to the end of 31:5, so 31:4-5 are the LORD's words. A second quotation opens at 31:8 and closes in 31:9, just before "says the LORD" (31:9), so 31:8-9 are his words too. The rest stands outside quotation marks. Verses 1-3 speak of the LORD by name: "they don’t seek the LORD!" (31:1), and "When the LORD stretches out his hand" (31:3). Verse 6 calls people back to him: "Return to him from whom you have deeply revolted, children of Israel" (31:6), and 31:7 speaks to them of "your own hands" (31:7). The chapter doesn't name the one the LORD speaks to in 31:4; the book opens with "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz" (1:1). The same Hebrew words open 18:4, where the WEB has "For the LORD said to me" (18:4), and the chapter on Isaiah 18 sets the verses side by side.

The verses

“The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”
Isaiah 1:1 · World English Bible
“For the LORD said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.””
Isaiah 18:4 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 31

Isaiah 31: Men, and not God

When the LORD promises to protect Jerusalem, the verse says, "He will pass over and preserve it" (31:5), with the verb of "I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13), which the Hebrew Bible has in that sense only in Exodus 12 and here. And the chapter calls the help people trusted, plainly, "men, and not God" (31:3).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions