The prophet was not only consoling prostrate and decrepit souls ; there were some among them who not only had awakened, but had received a new-born strength, and were eager to attempt the heroic task of national restoration. His one desire was to save them from the disastrous, but not uncommon, mistake of supposing that this feeling of strength and power and fitness is a sufficient indication that they carry in themselves an adequate and permanent reserved strength, without replenishment from outside. He proclaims to them the imiversal law of creature life. Man at his best estate rapidly expends his energy of body and mind and soul, and must utterly fail unless replenished ; and so, he says, even the youths — using a term which, to Hebrew ears, would designate the period, say, from about fourteen to twenty — even the youths, still growing lads, the almost men, those who are in the freshest time of life, when the step is full of spring and all activity is joy, even these, he says, will faint and grow weary before this great enterprise has been accomplished. The chosen men, picked men, young men — because young men are the picked men for such enterprises — the chosen, picked men of their generation, the elect of all those who have reached that period when activity and staying power are best combined with acquired skill and discipline, even these shall utterly fall. But are they, therefore, to sit down supinely ? Having fallen shall they lie still, and groan that all is over ? No ! cries the clarion voice of the prophet, for God is not weary, God is not faint, and they that wait on Him, though not exempted from the law of decline, shall experience the law of revival ; " they that wait on Him shall renew their strength." Let them lift up their voices to God, let them make their prayer unto Him., and then wealth and want, strength and weakness,
ISAIAH 235
God and man, shall meet together and find a common blessedness in giving and receiving might.
IT A ship is stuck on a mud-bank ; and, the tide going out, it careens over, and there it lies, like many discouraged Christians. They do not need to anchor. The anchor is out, though. By and by the tide begins to come in, little by little. The captain calls up the crew, and orders them to hoist in the anchor. It is hoisted in and stowed away. " Trim the sails," is the next com- mand ; and that is obeyed. The tide is still coming in, coming in, coming in ; and by and by the vessel floats off, and the crew look up with admiration and say, " What a captain we have ! It was the hauling in of the anchor and the trimming of the sails that saved us. The captain gave his orders, they were obeyed, and then she floated." No, it was not the captain's doings. The Lord God who swings the stars through the heavens, and exerts His power upon the ocean, did it. The captain merely foresaw the coming of the tide, and adapted the circumstances of the vessel to influences which existed before.^
T.
They that wait upon the Lord.
To wait for Jehovah, or to wait on Jehovah, has in the mouth of the pious Israelite a very definite, specific meaning, very different from the general sense of our expressions " to have faith in God," " to trust in the Lord," at least as generally used. The typical passage is Gen. xlix. 18, "I have waited, or I wait for thy salvation, 0 Jehovah." On this the Jerusalem Targum says : " But not upon the salvation of Gideon, the son of Joas, does my soul gaze, because that is temporal ; not to the salva- tion wrought by Samson, the son of Manoah, is my longing directed, because that is transitory ; but upon the salvation which Thou in Thy Word hast promised to bring to Thy people, the seed of Israel. Unto Thy salvation, Jehovah, unto the salvation of Messiah, the son of David, who at some future time will deliver Israel, and restore them from their exile, unto that salvation my looking and my longing are directed, because Thy salvation is an eternal salvation." In other words, the thought is connected with the promise of redemption, that redemption, that salvation, which was to be brought about by
1 H. W. Beecher.
236 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
the coining and presence and manifestation of Jehovah as the Deliverer, the Eedeemer, the Saviour of His peopled
But waiting upon the Lord may now be taken in a more comprehensive way, and as covering three great acts of life.
1. It means Prayer. It means much more than an occa- sional supplication, however real ; it means persistent, persever- ing, continual prayer ; it means an abiding attitude of trustful dependence upon God ; it means all that is wrapped up in those beautiful words we love to hear sung, " 0 rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him " ; it means trust in the Lord and do good ; it means trust in the Lord at all times, for with Him is everlasting strength, and have no confidence in self. But the prophet has a deeper thought than this. There are many things for which we can only ask and then wait in quiet stillness, things which we cannot help God to give us, things which God Himself bestows without our aid, if we are ever to possess them. There are times when the soul is so utterly spent that God bends over our voiceless misery as the Good Samaritan bent over the speechless Jew, and not waiting for those trembling pallid lips to ask, poured oil and wine into his wounds, and lifted up his almost passive frame, and set him on his own beast.