bring them home to himself and, however discouraging
their circumstances, will work effectually for them. View them when they came out of Egypt : nothing could exceed their weakness : yet he brought them out safely, with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm. So now, though they be blind, and lame, and in a state either of pregnancy or actual travail, he will crown their efforts with success ; yea, and as in that day, so at the time appointed, a great company shall return thither." Whatever " mountains be in the way, before Ze- rubbabel they shall become a plain d" ]
2. The manner in which it shall be effected —
[" With weeping and supplication shall they come ; " as says the Prophet Zechariah also, ' • God will pour out upon them a spirit of grace and of supplication : and they shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn, and be in bitter- ness, as one is in bitterness for his first-born e." In the whole of their progress they shall be carried forward with an abun- dance of peace, and joy, and holiness : for God will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble." The wonders transacted in the wil- derness shall, in a sj>iritual way at least, be realized again : for God will guide them by his counsel, and strengthen them by his grace, and comfort them with the consolations of his Spirit, till he bring them in safety to his glory ]
3. The pledge that it shall surely be accomplished —
[When Moses urged Pharaoh to liberate that people, he particularly enforced his request with this consideration, that they were " God's first-born f." And in that light he still re- gards them, though he has cast them off for a season. To them, therefore, will he again reveal himself as a father ; and for them will he again interpose as " his first-born," whom nothing shall induce him finally to disinherit. As he has sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth, so has he sworn that he will not be wrath with them, nor re- buke them ; and that, though the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, his kindness shall not depart from them, nor the covenant of his peace be removed from themg."]
Application —
1. Look well to it that you are yourselves restored to God—
[You have the same need of it as the Jews and
must return in the same way Inquire, I pray you,
d See Isai. xlix. 9 — 11. e Zech. xii. 10.
f Exod. iv. 12. 8 ver. 37. with Isai. liv. 9, 10.