(31) A noise.--i.e., the tumult of an advancing army (Isaiah 13:4; Isaiah 17:12).

A controversy.--The term properly denotes a legal process, like the "pleading" of Jeremiah 2:9; Jeremiah 2:35, rather than a debate or discussion, and is therefore rightly followed by the technical term "will plead" or "judge." Jehovah appears, so to speak, as the Accuser in the suit in which He is also the supreme Judge.

Verse 31. - A noise. The word is used elsewhere for the tumultuous sound of a marching army (see Isaiah 13:4; Isaiah 17:12). He will plead; rather, he will hold judgment. Jehovah's "contending" sometimes involves the notion of punishing, e.g. Ezekiel 38:22; Isaiah 66:16. In 2 Chronicles 22:8, the same verb in the same conjugation is forcibly rendered in the Authorized Version, "to execute judgment."

25:30-38 The Lord has just ground of controversy with every nation and every person; and he will execute judgment on all the wicked. Who can avoid trembling when God speaks in displeasure? The days are fully come; the time fixed in the Divine counsels, which will make the nations wholly desolate. The tender and delicate shall share the common calamity. Even those who used to live in peace, and did nothing to provoke, shall not escape. Blessed be God, there is a peaceable habitation above, for all the sons of peace. The Lord will preserve his church and all believers in all changes; for nothing can separate them from his love.A noise shall come up even to the ends of the earth,.... Wars, and rumours of wars, everywhere, till the cup has gone round, and all nations have drank of it, and have felt the power of divine wrath for their sins:

for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations; will enter into a judicial process with them; will litigate the point with them, and try it openly; that it may be seen who is in the right, and who in the wrong:

he will plead with all flesh; or enter into judgment with them, as Kimchi; or reprove them in judgment, as Jarchi; he will be too many for them; he will carry his case, overcome them in judgment, and reprove and condemn them. Or the words may be rendered, "he will be judged by all flesh" (s); he will submit it to the judgment of the whole world, if it is not a righteous thing in him to do what he is about to do, and will do; he will make it clear and manifest that he does nothing unjustly, but all according to the strict rules of justice and equity:

he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord; to be destroyed by it, and none but them; and seeing they are such that deserve it, he is not to be charged with unrighteousness in so doing.

(s) "judicium subibit ipse cum omni carne", Tigurine version.