The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 229

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-6.-A hymn of paise. Some critics say that the l&ngu&ge and the tone of thought &re so different here from that of Isai&h, that the hymn cannot be from his pen. The theory seems probable enough that "a copyist or reader, who beheld with joy a fulfilment of the words in eh. xi. 15, 16, on the deliverance from the Bahyloni&n exile, supplemented the oracle with these jubilant words." I. THE FULL HEART BEEKS RELIEF IN RELIGIOUS SONG. If burdened with the sense of guilt, it must have its litany of grief and deprecation. Pa.in in the mind, the sense of lonely suffering, readily translates itself into the im&ge of the anger of God. As :Madame de Staci justly remarks, " When we suffer, we easily persuade ourselves that we are guilty, and violent griefs carry trouble even into the conscience." And when the suffering ceases, it seems as if a cloud had passed from the sky, and the anger of God were all&yed. He who had been the Judge now appears as the Saviour; the heart that had been trembling as the bruised reed is now strong as if the feet were based on eternal rock. Awhile dejected in the extreme, "writing bitter things against itself," presently it is filled with boBSting and triumph in the sense of possessing· God, :nay, of being possessed by God. There is a long gamut of religious feeling; in critical moments the heart may run through every tone in the scale. In the simple .life of feeling the religious spirit expatiates. The habit of flower, of bird, of child, opening to the eun, singing in the spring-time, is the reflection of that of the soul. We do not 11nffer our memories of a Ion~ and dreary winter to mar our enjoyment of the genial breath, the odours, sights, and sounds of spring-time. Nor should the sense of the :ong struggles, doubly wintry sea.sons of the hiding of God's face from the soul, linger in those moments when the Sun of righteonsness returns with he&ling in his wings, and salvation is for the present a fa.et, no longer a hope. II. THE FITNESS AND BEAUTY OF THANKSGIVING. To withhold thanksfromanea.rthly benefactor, whose hand has extracted us from a state of peril or need, is to show a. deformed soul. To seal the fount of joyous religious expression, is the way to have presently nothing to express. For if expression follows naturally on feeling, so the cnltivation of religious expression tends to form and to enrich the feeling itself. Nothing artificial is recommended ; but it is well to recognize that sentiment, no less thau thought, remains poorer than it need be without training and tillage. This psalm probably belongs to the period to whlch the last section of the psalter belongs; they are songs of deliverance, songs of return from exile, as those whlch immediately precede them refer to the dispersion. If the latter soothe us by the profound insight into suffering aud sympathy with the soul in its seeming loneliness and exile from God, no less, maybe, the psalms of the return educate us in hope, reminding us that we are on our way to God, that our spiritual exile draws to its close, and " every winter yields to spring."-J. Ver. 3.-A riligion of blessedness. "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Religion is not only safety, it is blessedness-the very highest blessedness. We are not to be ever in fear and trembling about "our state," but to remember that" perfect love casteth out fear." A really religious m&n finds that he cannot do without the gospel as satisfying his entire being. He is not religious bece.UBe he "ought to be," or mllllt be, to be saved ; he ls religious because also it is trueBt joy. OH, XII, 1-6.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 221