^ F. D. Maurice, Prophets and Kings, p. 221. a J. Parker, The People's Bible, xiv. p, 283.
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There in all shame and agony He hangs stricken and smitten. Surely, " He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed."
iv. The Train.
" And his train filled the temple."
1. It was not only that Isaiah had an unexpected vision of God, it was the unique character of the vision which impressed and empowered him. Where does the wonder of the prophet culminate ? "I saw the Lord, sitting upon a throne ! " That was not the unfamiliar sight, and not there did the prophet's wonder gather. " High and lifted up I " A terrible sublimity, like some towering and awe-inspiring Alpine height ! Yet not there was concentrated the supreme surprise. " And his train filled the temple ! " That was the marvel which made the prophet's heart stand still. He was not a stranger to the conception of the throne, or of the lonely and snow-white exaltation, but this vision of the train that " filled the temple " was altogether foreign to his thought. You will remember that in all these Temple arrange- ments of the olden days there were different grades and varying degrees of sanctity. Even in the time of our Lord there were divisions, separating the holy and the profane, beginning at the outer courts, where the foot of the Gentile might tread, but beyond which he was not permitted to pass, on penalty of death, on to the veiled and silent chamber where the awful Presence dwelt between the cherubim. And there was the same gradient in the thought of the young Isaiah. There were divisions in his temple, separating the different degrees of sanctity, ranging from the much-diluted holiness of the remote circumference to the clear and quenchless flame of the sacred Presence. And now comes this strange and all-convulsing vision : " His train filled the temple," filled it, every section of it, every corner of it, to the furthest and outermost wall. " The posts of the thresholds," not merely the curtains of the inner shrine, " the posts of the thresholds moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke." That is the word which expresses the supreme wonder of this great inaugural vision. " His train filled
§4 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
the temple ! " " The house was filled with smoke." The garments of the Ahnighty swept an unsuspected area, His robe impartially carpeted the entire pile, there was not a single inch that was exempt from the touch of His enveloping Presence. " His train filled the temple." What, then, had the crisis brought to the young hero- worshipper who had been so fearful of the passing of his noble king ? It had brought to him a larger conception of God, a filling-out conception of God, a full-tide conception, filling every nook and creek and bay in the manifold and far-stretching shore of human life.'^
No face : only the sight
Of a sweepy garment, vast and white,
With a hem that I could recognise.^
2. The most important crises in a man's life are related to the growth or impoverishment of his conception of God. It is momentous when some area in the wide circle of his life is unex- pectedly discovered to be the dwelling-place of God. Eobinson Crusoe begins to track his desolate and presumably uninhabited island, and one day, on the sandy shore, comes upon the print of a human foot. That footprint revolutionises his entire conception of the island, and all his plans and expedients are transfigured. And so the soul, moving over some area of its activities which has never been related to God, and over which God has never been assumed to exercise a living and immediate authority, one day unexpectedly discovers His footprints upon this particular tract of the sands of time, and the whole of the spiritual outlook is transformed. " Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."
If If thus His train fills the temple, the great temple in which He ever dwells, then how easy for us to touch the hem of His garment and be made whole of whatever plague of soreness we may suffer from.
God's children cannot wander beyond reach Of the sweep of His white raiment. Touch and hold ! And if you weep, still weep where John was laid While Jesus loved him.
3. There is a division which is made, not merely by the
1 J. H. Jowett, in The Examiner, March 15, 1906. • Browning, Christmas Eve.
ISAIAH 85
thoughtless and flippant, but even by many grave and serious minds. On one side the barrier they move softly and reverently, as '.hough feeling the very breathings of the Almighty Presence : on the clher side they step loudly and thoughtlessly, as though the Almighty were absent. And then one day there comes one of the great crises of life, and on the secular side of the barrier they see the trailing garments of the Lord, and they are filled with a surprise which ends in resurrection. For it ■is a birthday for the soul when we discover that the Lord occupies the whole of this divided house, and that His train fills the temple.