The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 89

(fruit of the earth), the worth which springs up from the restored nation, shall be excel• lency and ornamentation. The Holy One of Israel will not only accept the new national life thus presented to him; be will regard it with distinct, Divine satisfaction. And that which is pleasing in hie eight will be attractive and excellent in the esteen of men. National and individual renovation is not only a thing which God accepts and acknow• ledges, worthy of our sanction; it is much more than that. It is beautiful, comely, even glorious. Here is: 1. Encouragement to the fallen. Let the nation, or the Church, or the individual soul which has fallen, which has felt the blow of the Divine hand, and which is understanding the Divine 11Ummons, rise and be renewed; there is a future before it of acceptable service, of beautiful and admirable excellency. 2. Inspiration for the devout worker. Let communities or let souls be reduced by sin and brought very low ; let the judgment of God be heavy upon them; it is far from hopeless that they may rise again; from the fallen trunk may spring a living branch, beautiful to the sight and fruitful in every good word and work.-C. Vera. 6, 6.-Divine protection. In strong, poetic terms the prophet intimat.ea- 1. 'l'BAT GoD TAKES A DIVINE PLEASURE m HIS PEOPLE. We know from other Scriptures that the Lord's portion is his people (Exod. xix. 5; Dent. xxxii. 9; Ps. xlvii. 4). Here the people of God are spoken of as "the glory" of the Lord ( ver. 5). There are aspects in which it must appear to us the extreme point of Divine condescension to use such terms of his redeemed ones. But there are other aspects in which we can see that they are not altogether inappropriate. God's ancient people were, and his regenerated children are, the witnesses and instances of his glorious redemption. Redeemed from political or spiritual bondage, they rejoice in a blessed freedom ; raised from dark depths of misery and despair, they sing the psalms of joy and hope; purged from vanity and folly, they walk in the ascending path of heavenly wisdom. II. 'fHAT GoD PROMISES HIS PEOPLE HIS DIVINE PROTECTION. "upon all the glory shall be a defence." As in the old desert days the tribes of Israel were led by the pillar of cloud by day and all the night by a pillar of fire, so shall the Divine Leader guide his people in the path which is still before them (ver. 5). From the burning heat and from the pelting storm there shall be found a covert for those who put their trust in him. God's promised defence extends : 1. To his people in their various relationships; whether gathered in the family "dwelling-place," or met in their sacred "assemblies," or, we may add, whether journeying in that solitariness of spirit with which we must all be familiar (Gal. vi. 6) along the path of life ;-that is, in their domestic, ecclesiastical, and individual relations. 2. To his people in the checkered experience8 of their career. God will be their defence from (1) the perils peculiar to prosperity (pride, selfishness, contemptuousness, worldliness, etc.)-there shall he "a shadow in the daytime from the heat;" and (2) the dangers incident to adversity (sullenness, rebelliousness, moroseness, despair, etc.)-there shall he " a covert from storm and from rain." Ill. THAT THESE DIVINE PROMISES ARE CONDITIONAL ON OUR C0NTlNUED OBEDIENCE AND BELIEVING PRAYER, God speaks peace unto his people," but let them not tum again to folly" (Ps. lxx..xv. 8; see Ezek. xxxiii. 13). The Divine promise proved good in this particular instance just so long and so far as the conditions which were implied were faithfully observed. God'H promises are "exceeding great and precious," and we may "live thereby," if we will. But we must not foil (l) to walk in the way of his commandments, nor (2) to plead his Word in expectant prayer; if we do, we shall fail to enjoy in its fulness the defence of the" almighty arros."-C. Ver. 1, -Immortality in a continued race. " Take thou away our reproach." This verse has been much misconceived. Its figures are Eastern, and their interpretation depends on our knowledge of the condition nnd sentiments of Eastern women. It is simply a forcible description of the calamities brought upon a nation by continued war. '1 he meu were to fall by the sword; and the slaughter was to be so great that the number of women should far exceed the number of men who should survive. Now, to be unmnrried and childless iH an occasion of the greatest reproach in the East ; from the Jewish standpoint this was not only a great sorrow, but a great shame, implyin!, a, was then thought, some sin of which it was thP chastisement. And thert, was o. ~d  'l'HE D00K. ,OF 'l'HI!:. 1PH0PHE'l' ISA.LAH. IOD, IV. l-6. deeper sentiment oonoerning childlessness which needs to be taken .. into acco.unt. Immort.-,lity was, in those older day.s, thought of as afamily mther than .a. personal 11rivilege. A man lived on, lived again, in his descendants, Lau:ge snys, "Jn its mosl ancient parts the Old Testament knows no other genuine life t.h1m that on this earth, and thus no other contio1111tion of living after death than by menus of children. 'l'o be childless was, then, the same as being deprived of cont.iuuanoe after .death. It corre- sponded to the being damned or tbe New 'l'estarueut." In their distress and wretched- ness the young women who had minced and flirted through Jerusalem with their gay clothing and fine trinkets, oontrary to their natural modesty, would become suitors to the men, and under the har<iest conditions seek the name a.nd credit of.wedlock, to be free from the reproach that would otherwise be their portion. Kimchi, the Jewish commentator, says this happened in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah, the son of Remaliah, slew in JudEa one hundred.and twenty thousand men \none day, The widows.which were left were so numerous that the prQphet said, "Their widows are incte11-s.ed.. to me above the sand of the seas" (Jer. :x:v. 8). The idea that man's immortality is the continuance or the race has, ~een revived and sat attractively before tb,e people, in modern poetry and literature.; and though it is only a smal! piece of \he truth,_conccrn- ing mao's future, a mere brginnip.g in the revelation of man's irnm9;rtality, we need .not hesitate to recognize it as a p1rrtial truth, and to set before ourselves those views of the responsibility of our present lives which it suggests. We know thit, •",life and:immor-, tality" for the individual have been" brought to light.by the gospel of the Lord .Jesus Christ," and in this fuller and higher and more: satisfying revelation. we heartily rejoice; but still we may lea.rn something by . occupying for a moment, the older standpoint. .. L THE IlilllORTALITY OF A NATION 1B ITS PERMANENCY AS A FREE PEOPLE. This is illustrateJ. by the anxiety of Eastern kings to secure heirs to their thrones .and continu- ance to their dynasties. Divine judgments cut off kingly races, as that of S.aul, 0mri, etc. Divine promises assured that David's and Solomon's kingdoms should endure for ever. Nations, as such, have no immortality in a future state, II. THE IlllMORTALITY OF A Gllli'ERATION IS ITS REPRODUCTION IN SUCCESSIVE GENERA· TIONS. •• One gen€ration passeth; and another cometh," and in a very true sense .the ne:x:t generation is the old one restored,, under somewhat va.ryiog conditions. .The genius -0f a. generation is immortal only in the genera,tions that follow it. . III. THE IlllMORTALlTY OF A M.AN IS THE FAMILY _HE ,STARTS. This.explains the ambition to "found a family," which is not merely man's monument, but the man himself livin11: agaio, and living on through the ages.. He puts his; p.er&onalimprese upon his children, and the children's children keep a.live the idiosyncrasy of the parent. Illustrate from the Abrahamic race, which is, in a: senl!e, the immortality of Abraham. . IV. THE PRACTICAL ,BEARING OF SUCH A VIEW ,OF IMM.ORTALI'lJY,· ,Its fills with serio~ness the position of all parents. "What manner of persons ought th(ly to be," if they are thus to be perpetuated? A nation must.be,ri9hteous if it is,to.be .worth continuiug. A generation must be phy'.sic~lly and morally,healthy, if its im.presa 011 the coming generations is to 'be a ble~sing. 'rhe father, the mother, must bear pure, true, worthy characters if their family is to be an honour. He .who seeks a.n immor- tality in hi,; race is bound to see to it· that he only perpetuates .goodness, integrity, truth, faith, and all thin:rs that are noble. From this lower position the preacher may easily advance to argue how much more solemn lire bas become for us nQW that no~ler "iews or the future are revealed by him who ea.me forth out of the eternal _mys~enes, and has passed again within them, that we might henceforth read our earth-lives m the light of tha.t sublime versonal immortality which he has dfoclosed.-R. T. Ver. 2.-The Divine and human Messiah. 'l'his. verse has been explained as a promise merely of the renewed fertility of the earth in God's day of restorings. That explanation is not, however, deep enough. It does ~ot ~-ecog~ize how charact?ristic !t was of the anci<-nt prophets to refer to local and his to, JCa.l circumstances while their minds soared away to those Messianic pictures, which local incidents only sugges~ed. 'l'he constant thought of the prophets was the idea.I age and ideal parson of ~ess1ah, 11.nd we a.re right in detecting the expression of that thought everywhere, ThlS verso Oil. tv, 1-6,) THE BOOK OF 1'HE PROPHET ISAIAH, 75