The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 325

longer be their Foo, but their Friend; and when they cry to him, in the midst of distress and oppression, ho will hearken, and send a Helper and Deliverer. The people will sacrifice to him, and he will mako himself known; whether in the land or at Jerusalem (comp. Zech. xiv. 16-19) is not stated. 2, This wnnot be without previous suffering. Never does conversion from evil, from obstinate persistence in it, occur without suffering. But the suffering is beneficent, inflicted by love. God smites to heal. It is a thought echoed back from many a page : "I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; " '' He has torn, and he will heal us; bath smitten, and will bind us up;" " He wounds, and his hands make whole" (Deut. xxxii. 39; Hos. vi. 1; Job v. 18). The fire of his wrath consumes, but j.iurifies, " Then will I tum t.o the people a pure language, that they may call upon the Name of Jehovah, to serve him with one consent" (Zeph. iii. 8, 9). There lives a fund of pity in the heart and constitution of nature-compassion in Jehovah, the Hebrew prophet said (Jer. xii. 14, 15). "God does not punish that he may punish, but that he may humble ; wherefore, when humility is produced, his punishments proceed no further. God is of too great mercy to triumph over a prostrate soul" (South). III. THE HAPPY RESULT. Peace replacing war, trust substituted for mutual hate. There is to be intercourse between Egypt and Assyria, a free highway between the two lands. Nay, there shall be a triple alliance, Israel being the third, and bleesing is thus to be diffused over all the earth. Where J ehovah's blessing is, there is and must be prosperity. Thus have the clouds dispersed, and the golden year seems to have begun, " peace lying like a lane of beams a.cross the sea, like a sha~ of light athwart the land." PERSONAL APPLICATION.· To avoid national judgment, to secure the Divine favour, let each inquire into his own sins. Personal sins bring down national judgments. If there were no personal, there could be no national siu. In punishing the many, God does not overlook the individual. There is no suffering of a nation without the suffering of its members, no repentance which is not that of men one by one, no prosperity and favour which is not reflected from a million faces and hearts. There is infinite ground of hope from the promises of God, and from their actual fulfilment.-J. Ver. 1.-God's presence a trouble. "Behold the Lord ... shall come into Egypt ... and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it." The presence of God would pro- duce consternation among the people. This is significant enough. It need excite no wonder, indeed, that the coming of the holy and righteous One into the midst of those who had provoked him by their idolatries would result in quaking of spirit, in liveliest agitation. What could await such guilty ones bnt the most serious rebuke, the most distressing judgments? But the presence of God is not only troublous to idolatrous Egyptians, but to his own servants. So the prophet himself found (eh. vi. 5). The psalmist" remembered God, and wae troubled" (Ps. lxxvii. 3). Why is this? Concerning the trouble which the presence of God brings to the human spirit, we remark- I. 'l'HAT ms KNOWN NEARNESS TO us AND POWER OVER us MIGHT BJ: EXPECTED TO PRECLUDE sucH ALARM. Why should we be concerned to find God appearing unto us? Do we not know well that he is " not far from any one of us; " that "in him we live and move and have our being"? Do we not know that he is judging our actions and our attitude toward himself every moment, and is, moreover, expressing his judgment by Divine bestowals and inflictions day by day? Why should terror or alarm, or even apprehension, seize us because he manifests himself to us, and constrains us to feel conscious that we are standing in his near presence ? But, however we may reason thus, it is the fact- II. THAT OBSERVATION AND EXPERIENCE UNITE TO PROVE THAT BIS FELT PRESENCE DOES TROUBLE us. Both Old Testament and New Testament history show that any visitant from the unseen world ea.uses "the heart to melt;" and if any mere messenger (angel), how mnch more he who reigns over all that realm-the Divine and eternal Spirit himself? And wo find now that when men, in the full possession of their spiritual faculties, have believed themselves to be in, or to be about to pass into, the near presence of the Eternal, their spirit has shrunk and trembled at the thought. We ask- IBAIAB. y 822 TH-'E B◊OK OF TBi PROl'>HET' ISAIAH. [dH. x1x. 1-25,