continuance of mental power, etc.,-do not all these daily mercies make each returning portion of our time e. "day of the Lord" ? But there is a peculiar sense in which the time of special visitation is to be so regarded. For that is the day on which- I. GoD REVEALS RIB NEARNESS TO UB AND ms INTEREST IN UB. we are in danger of imagining that God has withdrawn into a remote solitude, in which he takes no heed of the passing events of his outlying creation; that he is too great and high to concern himself with our "poor e.ffairs." It is a conception unworthy of him and most injurious to UB, When God "alises to judgment," so that it is as if all visible nature were disturbed and disordered (vers. 10, 13), and the hearts of men are filled with consternation (vers. 7, 8), "in the day of his fierce anger" (ver. 13), these false imagin- ings a.re scattered, and God is found and is felt to be a God at hand and not afar off- a God who has much to do with us, and with whom we have everything to do (Heb. iv. 13). II. Goo REVEALS ms RIGHTEOUSNESS TO ue. Such events as these (vers. 9-11) are "terrible thini:i:s in righteousness." The anger or "wrath" of the Lord (vers. 9, 13) is thus revealed "against all unrighteousnei;s n (Rom. i. 18). God is "destroying the sinners" (ver. 9) in order that he may set his seal against the sin which they have committed; he is humbling the proud that their" arrogancy may cease" (ver. 11), and that humau haughtiness may receive his powerful condemnation. In such a "day" as this, the Lord is making his thought concerning iniquity very clear to the children of men. III. GoD MANIFESTS HIS POWER TO us. Sin is apt to think itself triumphant ; it is arrogant, haughty (ver. 11); it says, "Who is the Lord?" etc. (Exod. v. 2); it says, "How does God know?" (Ps. lxxiii. 11); it say 8, "Let us br1>ak asunder the bands of the Lord " (Ps. ii. 3). In " the day of the Lord," the nation, the confederacy, the individual man, sees that human bands are nothing but thinnest thread in the hands of almighty power. Then man knows his nothingness in the presence of his Maker; his spirit is subdued (ver. 8), and he acknowledges that God is greater than he (Dan. vi. 26). IV. Goo ATTESTS ms FAITHFULNESS AND HIS GOODNESS. God has given many promises to his people that he will appear some day on their behalf. Often his coming seems to be long delayed (Rev. vi. 10). But "in the day of the Lord" this bis Divine word is redeemed ; then the enslaved nation is freed from its bondage; then the per- secuted Church is delivered from its oppressor; then the wronged family or the injured man is saved from the wrong-doer, and walks in peace and in prosperity. Hence the many utterances of thanksgiving for the "judgments" of the Lord. The outpouring of his wrath, which seems "cruel" (ver. 9) to the guilty, shows itself to his suffering people as the long-awaited proof of his fidelity to his word and pity for his people. 1. Let the afflicted wait in hope ; their cause will be espoused, their prayers heard and answered. 2. Let the guilty tremble; the day of the Lord will come, a day of dark- ness and confusion, a day of terror and overthrow for them; even when they may be most confident of continuance in power and sin, the coming of God in judgment may be" at haud."-C.
Ver. 12.-The price of a man. The aim of the prophet is to show the extent of the disaster which, in the indignation of God (ver. 5), should overtake the guilty city. One feature of the ruin should be wholesale slaughter (ver. 15). And the result of this would be e. terrible reduction of the male population. Men, usually so prevalent, so "cheap" in Babylon, should become scarce and precious; so precious should they be that it might be said, speaking figuratively, that a man would be more precious than gold, even than "the golden wedge of Ophir." What might thus be affirmed of man, in figurative language, in the day of God's wrath, shall become true of man, in simple fact and truth, in the day of Divine grace. Under Christ the day will come when the worth of e. me.n shall be felt to be wholly irreducible to terms of gold and silver; that "no mention she.II be made of pearls" when it is attempted to form an estimate of the value of a human spirit. J. UNDER THE INFLUENCE AND DOMINION OF SIN WE RAVE BADLY LOWERED OUR ESTIMATE OF OURSELVES. 1. Men have treated their fellows as nothing worth. They have either treated their sufferings with callous indifference, or they have looked on 238 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [on. xm. 1-22,
Uieir neighbours M rel&ted in no other way than through the wages mnrltet; or thoy have actually bought and sold them-their sinews, their intelligeuce, thoir honour- for ~o much gold. 2. Men have pitifmly t1,11dei·valued them.~elves. 'l'hey have acted 39 if they were nothing better than intelligent machines for making money, or thnn creatures capable of so mnch •enjoyment, or than office-holders who mirrht 0 alto.in ~o certain dignities for a few passing years. . ,