round about them," that shall devour their assailants f. He may indeed suffer the enemies of his people to prevail for a season ; and they may vaunt, as the Assyrians did, of all their conquests : but they are only as a rod in Jehovah's hands ; and all which they effect is only as the axe or saw that accomplishes the will of him who uses it : but when they have effected his purpose, they themselves, who sought nothing but to gratify their own ambition, shall be made monuments of his righteous indignation : " The light of Israel will be to them for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame : and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one days." Yes, verily, " God's counsel shall stand, and he will do all his will11 :" and " when He works, who shall let it1?" "The Lion of the tribe of Judahk" shall assuredly prevail, though all the powers of earth and hell were combined against him.]
2. With the tenderness of a parent bird —
[A bird, though utterly unable to cope with a bird of prey which it sees hovering over its nest, will fly to protect its young; and, insensible to its own danger, will intercept its potent adversary, and rather perish itself than give up its offspring to the devourer. And, " for our miseries is Jehovah grieved1;" yea, in all our afflictions, too, our God himself is afflicted™:" and whosoever "toucheth us, toucheth the apple of his eyen." "When Pharaoh had overtaken the Hebrews at the Red Sea, " the pillar of fire, which had hitherto led the fugitives, went and stood between the Egyptian camp and them ; so that they came not near to his people all the night," during which period an opening was made for their escape °. And in ten thousand instances has God interposed for his people in every age ; nor is there any one, who, if he could review all the dealings of God towards him, might not find, in his own experience, some interpositions fully answerable to the image that is before us.]
3. With the success of the attendant angel —
[At the destruction of the Egyptian first-born, Jehovah, the Angel of the Covenant, accompanied the destroying angel ; and, wherever he saw the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled on the door-posts, immediately interposed, and constrained the destroyer to pass over that house : in remembrance of which marvellous deliverance, a feast was instituted, and was called " The Feast of the Lord's Passoverp." To that the prophet, in my text, refers; saying, that " Jehovah, passing over Jeru- salem, will preserve it." Now, so effectual was the Lord's
f Zech. ii. 5. s Isai. x. 5—7, 12—17. h lsai. xlvi. 10.
1 Isai. xliii. 13. k Rev. v. 5. I Judg. x. 16.
ni Isai. lxiii. 9. n Zech. ii. 8.
° Exod. xiv. 19—21. p Exod. xii. 23, 27.