[8] “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;
and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
This chapter is brimming with references to heaven and earth, yet again.
Egypt is always “down” from Israel, toward the earthly or under-earthly, the netherworld.
Horses and chariots are “flesh, and not spirit.”
The LORD is “like birds hovering” to protect them from above.
This is essential to our understanding of the sword.
What kind of sword is this? What is the blade made of? How does it work?
These are the wrong questions, if we are using a materialistic framework.
But we can learn a lot if we consider that it is a real sword, but a spiritual sword, and then look at the purpose and function of this sword.
It’s the sword of the Spirit.
(See where we are going and how this is more than a mere metaphor, but a sign?)
Isaiah 49:2 refers to “the sword of my [Israel’s] mouth.”
Paul calls the written word of God “the sword of the Spirit.”
What does a sword do? It cuts. It kills by cutting.
What does it kill?
Most obviously, it kills people, just as a physical weapon does.
In the verse above, it kills the Assyrian invader.
How does it do that?
A physical sword kills by damaging the body so severely that it can no longer host the spirit, and the person dies.
A spiritual sword kills by invisibly cutting the spirit from the life of the person. (See Hebrews 4:12.)
The angel barring Adam and Eve from the Garden wielded a sword, specifically to separate them from the Tree of Life.
When God sends angelic beings to fight against humans, we are never pointed to any visible physical manifestation in those striken. Rather, they are just dead.
But the word of God also separates thoughts and intentions.
It cuts away in us what is “of the flesh” in order to purify and leave what is “of the Spirit.”
There is much, much more, if you care to meditate on angels and swords and the Word of God.
