The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 270

whioh t.be people, even the faitbful a.mong the pe6l~lli, ltllght think God' hatl '"fufgottert to be gmoious," or "delayed his ~oming;" so assutattces a~e given that, ho,ve\'eft' it may please Gc1d to tarry, holding back the fulfilment of his' promises, they are always" yea :rn<l Rmen," and at the last it will be found that "not one word liath' failed of nil that the Lord hath spoken." . The historical connection of the pa-ssage is' thpt t);l,e fa! l (lf Babylon, to which previous referenca has been made, was t-0 be desi~ned,·overrulcd, by Jehovah for the fulfilment of his promise and the restoration of his people. God is said t-0 "yet choose Isrnel," becanse permitting them to go into captivity was nil appearance of having temporarily cast them off. In illustration of the topic suggested Ly the passage, we note- • I. MERCY CAN PROMISE. Judgment is always blended with mercy. }4:ercy must get in its gracious and comforting word. J udgment without mercy .is bnly •crushing. Mercy holds before us the hope that enables 'us to endure the jud<1ment1 lind learn the lessons of it. Show what the Captlvity wonld have been to Israel ;ithout the prolliise~, and the hope of return when tbe judgruent had wrought its wo'rk; ·, '• • II. MERCY C~N ~OLD BACK FULFILMENT OF PROMI~E. Ill~strated. _in, the forty years of wanderrng m the desert: an Unexpected holdmg back, necess1ta:ted •J,y ·the wilfulness and murmuring of the people. Or by David, promised the kingdom,- but required to wait for it, even after the death of Saul. .,, ·' . • • III. MERCY CAN KEEP FIRM To CONDITIONS OF PROMISE. This is the real reason of the de1ay. All promises are conditional; and it could be neither wisdom n'o~ kindness on God~s part to show indifference to the conditions. Our not n;ieeting conditions is the real reason for prolonged and. renewed delays. God n'ever really tarries. His deliverances and benedictions always come at the first possible moment. This may be shown in relation to the Captivity; and the 'promised Messiah only appeared. " wheri the fulness of time was come." . ' • , . . ' .. . . . . 1 • IV. Mimcv cANNOT BE SATISFIED WITHOUT troLFILLINo" 'P1t0MIBEB. AT 'LAST, We are to think of God's mercy as a most active attribute.· l~ is wat~hitig for its oppoi:'7 tunity; determined not to be frnstrated; working. to secure· its· ends;. and, sooner or later, accomplishing ·its gracioWI purpose. Mercy -will be' finally triuniphaut.~~; T., Ver. 8.-The Lord's 'f'est. "The Lord shall give thee rest." The word. "'rest" 1t1mmarizes God's deliverances, and God's protections, and God's provisions, for hiJ captive people. Assurbanipal boasts that he made his Arabian prisoners carry hea:vy burdens and build brickwork. At!.d the wearied Hebrews in Egypt wete':promised the Lord's rest in Canaan. Treating the topic in a comprehensive maimer; we m'ay say that the rest which God provides for his creatures must be like himself; ·and it must be adapted to the deepest and best in tb. .. • .. L WHAT GoD's BEST IB. It must stand related to cha'f'acter, not to mere attributes, nor to mere conditions. God must, indeed, be thought of as feeling 'tHii differences of outward condition~_; the varied st~tcs o_f !31s cre~tures_ do· ·move hiiJ?.. to pity1 sympathy, anger, or gnef. u In all their affl1chon he 1s afflicted." But he 1s ·always at rest, because the changes in circumstances n·ever imperil the basis-princi'ples of his character. "Justice11.od ju<lgment are always theha:bitation of.his throne." We are "restless unquiet sprites," as Keble calls us, not bcca,use we are in the midst. of variable i:onditions and circumstances,' or because these affect our feeling, but .because the varying circumstances put in peril the principles of our character. God· has eternal rest because if "the elements mdted with fervent heat/ the earth and all therein were budied up," God would never que~tion the perfect fairness and righteousness of his rule. Or we may put it in this way. Rest comes from the dominion. of one faculty in us; under that dominion all the variouij powers of our nature fall into order; take thcH place, keep the peace, and secure for us rest. War may be a thing of the soul as well aH of the circumstances, and the inward war consists in the conflict of motives. Mind, and will, and judgment, and affectionij are out of ha1mony, and make the war ~n th_e soul. But we can conceive of nothing like this in God. He is at rest because m his Divine nature, which is the true after which we arc imaged, there 'is tbi! order ancl harmony that follow upon the rule of the highest faculty. And what, f.;ir G.o<l, may we think is the highest faculty? Thie surely is the fullest revelation of'Gotl-" Goil is love." Ruling love secures rest. And if, for God, the highest is " love," what is orr. xiv. 1-32.J THE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHET ISAIAH. 263 ----------------------------- --- - the highest for tnan? Surely it must be" trust." Then th& rest of God is the rest 6': chttracter and' of love; and the re$t for man is the rest of chaA'ade't' and of t'l"W~f that chat!lcter whieh grows up out of the root" trust," But, treatino- the subject in 0 another· way, we may see what is involved in saying that God's rest, as provided for man, must be adapted to man, to the deepest and best in him. Rest is the great longing of every heart. All men everywhere have this for their snpreme quest. 1. Man, as mau, ia ever seeking rest. It is his "good time coming." 2. Man, as a sinner, is ever seeking rest. 3. Man, as redeemed·, is ever seeking rest. God's rest for man ill a glorious whole, beginning within us, in the faith we set on God, spreading through a.II the forces of our being its hallowing influence, and bringing the quietness and peace of settled, centred character;. reaching even to the eircumstances in which we arc placed; modifying them, bringing them into its obedience, and so growing from the rest of the·soul to the sublime; etetnal, all-embracing rest of heaven. II. Wno MAY WIN THE Lono's BEST? It is very easy to say that, since it is the rest of faith, only believers win it. But we have come to talk about " faith" and " believing "in such a way that· they are· rather magical words to conjure with, than deep, full, rich expressions whose divinest meanings we grasp- and ~se. Are believers only those who accept a particular cr~d, and have a common intellectual conception of the "plan of salvation"? Or is the· true believer the man• who possesses the spirit of. trust; whose ·heart Jeans on ·God; whose loving reliances a.re on the heavenly Father? Surely the faith that'-saves is the yiel<ling of.the self to God; it is the heart's grasp of the righteousness and ·metcrwhich are revealed in Jesus Christ. This we can all win, and this is the Lord's rest. • III. How FAR lil:AY THIS BEST BE 1 'A PRESENT CONSCIOUS POSSESSION? It is a mistaken notion that all the facts ao'd 11rocesses of the religious life must come into conscious recognition; Our Lord taught us that the growth of souls was like that Qf the plants. It goes on secretly, no· man knoweth bow; no man can trace all the processes of change from seed to blade,- from blade to ear, from ear to full corn in ihe •ear. Rest may be ours, and we· may not think a.bout it. It will never be won nierely by seeking for it; . It will be.',von· by doing our duty, by simple obedience, by living iu the grace of Christ, bf perseverance in well-doing, by "holding fast the pro- fession: of our faith without· wavering." Be "steadfast, unmovable, always a.bounding in.'the work of·the· Lord/' and it will ·be plain to others that you have reached the Lord's rest ; lind it may be that sometimes the joy of that rest will come into your own consciousness, and you will feel that " peace· passing understanding u which is the foretaste of the "sweet rest of hea.ven."-R. T. Ver. 4.-God'sfudgments on other nations than our own. The "burdens" are given as a· series of prophetic visions ; events pnss before the prophet's mind as in a. moving panoraine, and jic notes down just the things that more particularly arrested his attention. A prophetical description of an event will differ from an historical account of ·the same event, by being a bare outline, or else a. vigorous word-painting of certain salient features, rather than a circumstantial detail. Prophetical work is akin to poetical work, and its due apprehension depends on spiritual sympathy rather than on logical precisibn. The· passage commencing with ver. 4 is perhaps the most striking pas~age in this series of burdens. It is an ode of triumph on the fall of the Babylonian monarch. Bishop Lowth says of it that he "knows not a siugle instance, in the whole comrass of Greek and Roman poetry, which in every excellence of composition can be said 'w equal or even approach it. It may with truth be affirmed tba.t there is no poem of· its kind extant in any language, in which the subject is so well laid out, and BO happilr conducted, with such variety of images, persons, and <listinct actions, with such' 1·ap1dity and case of transition, in so small a compass, as in this ode of Isaiah. For beauty· df disposition, strength of colouring, greatness of sentiment, brevity, perspicuity, and force of expression, it stands among all the monuments of antiquity unrivalled." Babylon may bo treated as o. representative of all the nations surrounding and 1·elated to Israel. They are the great nations of the ancient world, but they fringed round the land of Canaan on the north, the east, and the south. The prophet denounces Babylon, and Moa.b, and Syria, and Egypt, and Tyre, aud solemnly wam;i E<l.om. 264 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [oe:. nv. 1-82.