The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 264

his sight but II day. "The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding am111l." Let us remember that the great cycles of history are repeated in small in the round of each man's life. The grollt world, the macrocosmos, is mirrored in the microcosmos the small world of each conscience. Above every one of us the hand is outstretched-;hall it be to bless or to curse? "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," 2. Its inflezibility. Who can break this counsel, who hinder or turn back that hand? And what people or confederaoy of peoples, knit in closest alliance of arms and girt with all the furniture of war, can resist dissolution, when once his thought is acrainst them his hand upraised? "Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak th~ word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us" (eh. l"iii. 10). So may the lovers of the truth and the right confidently exclaim, "God is with us." What the superstitious man calls his luck or fortune, what the metaphysician obscurely designates as necessity, or the nature of things, or the supremacy of the moral Law, is to the religious man the inflexible will of a personal Being. The duty, the art, the wisdom, the salvation of life is_in obedience to that will It is to know that we are here to be acted upon by that w1l, rather than to act from our own self-centre. We are "God's puppets." He gives to men and to nations a certain space wherein to learn what freedom is, and what its soon-reached limits. Then comes the higher lesson, to know that freedom can only be secured by obedience; that in the choice of the supreme will for our own will, we recover that better freedom in which is strength and peace and stability for ever.-J. Vera. 28-32.-0racle concerning Philistia. I. THE HISTORIOAL OCOASION. It dates from a.bout the time of the death of Ahaz, and was on bis death incorporated with the book. The Edomites and the Philistines, who bad given way before the powers of David, bad taken advantage of the weakness of Ahaz's government to invade Judah They bad taken possession of several towns in the south of the land (2 Chron. xxviii. 17, 18). The Syrians in the front and the Philistines in the rear seemed to threaten and devour the land with open mouth (eh. ix. 12). But the year of the death of Ahaz brought Hezekiah to the throne, who successfully resisted Assyria and smote the Philistines to Gaza (2 Kings xviii. 8), not only recovering the cities, but defeating them in their own land. To this eventful time, then, the oracle belongs. II. W AID."ING TO PBILISTIA.. L The might of the Davidic house. Its symbols are a rod, a staff, a serpent, a cerastes or basilisk, and a flying dragon. The " rod that smote Philistia" was the sceptre of David and of Solomon, later wielded by Aza.riah or Uzziab (2 Kings xv. 1-7; 2 Chron. xxvi. l); who broke down the wall of Gath and of Gabneh and of Ashdod. But the conflict with Syria and Ephraim had brought the power of Judah low; the rod was broken in pieces. But the power of Judah is no mere rod; a root is the fitting symbol of its inexhaustible vigour. The terebinth oak is not perished when its leafy honours have fallen (eh. vi. 13), and from the root of Jesse a young sucker shall yet spring (eh. xi. 1). With this symbol is connected that of the serpent, also widely viewed in antiquity as a chthonic symbol, i.e. as representing the powers supposed to be seated in the heart of the earth. The serpent is a " son of earth," and this significance may be seen illustrated in the story of the appearance of the serpents, which were devoured by horses, to Crcesus. The horses symbolized the invading enemy, under Cyrus (Herod., i. 78). The Greek legends of the slaying of a serpent or dragon by a hero, seem in several cases to denote the taking possession of a land-or of a sanctuary-Apollo, Perseus, Bellerophon. If such be the meaning of the serpent here, then, says the prophet, so far from destroying the serpent of Judah, its power in the land, the Philistine will encounter a more dangerous and deadly form of that power. A cerastes or basilisk ~hall arise in the person of Hezekiah; nay, a ftyiog dragon shall be the ripe fruit frr.m the indestructible root. The flying dragon is explained. by the Targum to be ,he Messiah, so that the reference would be to the Davidic government of the i=ediate future under Hezekiah, and that of the ultimate future under the coming Anointed (Delitzscb). Ewald, however, refers to the Assyrian'. Iii religious Bymboiism the dragon stands for the foul fiend; in historical symbolism he may stand for the avenger, as here. The tribal ensign of Dan was in like manner the serpeut (Gen. xlix. 17), whose deadly hatred to the Philistines app_cared Iµ the deeds of the hero Samson. 2. Effect• of the Davidic rule. 'fhe poor will feed upon Jehovah'& pasture, and the helpless lie domi in peace. Peeply depressed, menace4 QD OH. xiv. 1-?.2.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 257