The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 281

lees; snd therefore he ha$ made no improvement" (Bushnell). Mohb is thus & type of those nations that hsve loug periods of peace and profpcrity, and of those families and individuals who have for years few experiences of trouble, From Moab, as a type, we may learn such lessons as these. I. Gon IS IN OUR lrIMES ·OF RESTFULNESS AND EASE. It is' a fact of common human experience that our relations wit.h God are recognized in our times of trouble but lost sight of i.n our times of prosperity. lt is woe to us when all men speak well of us, and it is woe to us when all things go well with us. Nothing so easily hides God from our ,·iew ~~ success attending our own self-endeavours. And yet God is in our 1.imes of prosperity, aa truly sending them, presiding over them, and workin<> hie purpose through them, llS he is sending and using times of snffering. No truth -~eede tnore constant and varied reassertion than this-God is in prosperity and success, II. Suoa TIMES OF RESTFULNESS .A.ND EASE ABE SEARCHING TESTS OF CHARACTER. The common sentiment is that troubles alone test us. The truth is, that removal of trouble tests; that holding off of trouble tests; and that bestowrnen,ts and benedictions tellt. These, indeed, become most searching tests, under which many of us utterly fail afler coming well thro1;1gh our times of trib1;1lation. What is thought of as· the inequality of life-the d1sproport10nate allotment of JOY and sorrow, success and failure-finds a partial explanation, if we apprehend that a man's success and ea8e are his moral testings, and that, before God, thousands more fail under life's prosperities than fa.ii under life's adversities. Man, looking at Israel and at :Moab, would at once say that Moa.b, in his quietness, was the best off. 'l'he issue plainly shows that the lot of Israel was the-more desirable. lIL SUCH TllllES 01" RESTFULNESS .AND EASE DEVELOP PARTICULAR FORMS OF EVIL. Not the same forms that are developed by adversities, but more subtle and more -vital e-vils. All those which come out of centering thought. on self-involving heart-separation from God; self-conceit; contempt of others; . •over-estimate of the material and temporal; luxury of self-indulgence; .and those aggmvated and degrading forms of immorality which attend unchecked civilization and ,over-swift development of wealth. We know the moral evils of war-times; we·fail to. estimate the more per- vading moral evils of peace-times. IV. Suen EVILS, SOONER OR LATER, BRING ;ON .SPECIAL DIVINE· .JUDGMENTB. As with M.oah. When the judgment comes, it needs to be so severe as to seem a gathering up of all the testing sufferings of years. And tl;i.ough it is still only chastisement, it takes a form that looks like overwhelming judgment. , In •this ·chapter the prophet seems to be amazed at the terrible character of the Divine judgment on Moab when it did falL-R. T. • Ver. 3.-National distress. The particular trouble causing such extreme grief was the destruction of the two chief cities of.:Moab, Ar and Kir. To destroy the capi~al of a kingdom is to strike the nation at its very heart.. Conquerors can dictate peace when the chief city lies at their mercy. Illustrate from the recent German si_ego of Paris. This chapter vigorow;Jy pictures the distress throughout the laud when Ar was tnken, the rush of people to the border districts, the alarm of those whose property wail imperilled, the wail of those who had lost their friends in the strife. Howling, weeping, plucking off the hair, covering with sackcloth, and other signs of despairing glief,'wero found everywhere; and the cries were all the more bitter because for so many genera- tions :M.oab had dwelt secure. Here one kind of national distress brings before U8 that general subject, and sets upon considering- • II. ITS DEARING ON THE POOR. 'l'hey are always the first to suffer ·from political or international couditions which affect manufacture, trade, or agriculture. Living upon daily wage, and, when thrifty, only able to provide in limited degrees for depressed times, the poor are most dependent on the preservation of peace, eecurity, order, and mutual confidence. Demagogues urge the poor to a disturbance of social relations, with the promise of material advantage, In the interests of the'·poor them- selves we plead that war, disturbance, revolutionar_y change, never eve~·temporarily serve their faterest. So grievous is the effect of political convulsions on the·poor, that no class of the community should more intensely demand the knitting of land to land by commerce and brotherhood, and the correctbn of social and political evils by  THE IlOOK OF Tll~ PROPllJ<~T ISAIAH. 215