The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 418

arguments of hope for the future. A work has been accomplished by the Church, but this ie Jehov11h's work in it and by it. The deliverance from a foreign yoke was bis work alsn. 'l'hey had been enslaved to other lords (cf. ch. lxiii. 18), and they had done as they pleased with Israel. But they have been swept away into the kingdom of the shades, and are forgotten. "l!'rom past events and benefits received, we should reason to God's future kindness, and infer that he will care for us for the future. God is not like man, to be capable of weariness in doing good, or exhausted in giving largely; therefore the more numerous the benents with which be has loaded us, so much the more ought our faith to be strengthened and increased" (Calvin); cf. P~. cxxxviii. 8; Gen. xxxii. 10, 12; Phil. i. 6. "Thee only." Under the dominion of Jehovah alone is peaoo, blessedness, liberty, to be found. "Ho is a freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside.' l. Vers. 15--21.-The resurrection of Israel. The population of Judah has been increase,d, and its. borders extended. (For this cause of rejoicing cf. eh. ix. 2; xlix. 19, 20; liv. 1, etc.; Micah ii. 1, 2; iv. 7; Obad. 19, 20.) Probably be is thinking of the population and strength of the land in the clays of David and Solomon, as typical of what is again to be in the happier times. But actually a. period of gloom and suffering must precede the glorious restoration. I. THE PERIOD OF TROUBLE AND EXPECTATION. It is a pathetic picture of the soul in its attitude of anxious suspense. Jehovah was missed and longed for as the Light which seems to tarry in the dark days of winter. Prayer was poured forth; and there was a period of acute suffering like that of the mother preceding the birth of a child. Hope was deceived and disappointed again and again (cf. eh. xiii. 18; xxi. 3). Still the land was not blessed, still the population was not restored. The prophet is thinking of th_e days after the return from exile. II. THE RESURRECTION OF THE PEOPLE. "Thy dead shall live.• ''. Sublimely recovering himself, the prophet cries that God's saints, though they are dead, shall live," and !!hall share the duties and privileges of regenerate Israel. The prophet sees, as it were, his countrymen returning from the under-world. So speaks Hosea : "After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight" (vi. 2); cf. the vision of Ezekiel-the valley of the dry bones (xxxvii. 1-10). With lively faith anticipat.ing the event, he calls upon the new population to awake and cry. It is as if a dew had fallen on the ba1Ten land. This " dew of lights" is thought of as something supernatural, existing before the sun. In Ps. ex. 3 the ordinary dew is born out of the, morning shower. "The dew from the glory of God falls like a heavenly seed into the bosom of the earth; and in consequence of this, the earth gives out from itself the shades which have hitherto been held fast beneath the ground, so that they appear alive again on the face of the earth" (Delitzsch). There is thus a. connection between light and life, so often found in, conjunction in religioua thought (Ps. xxxvi. 9; Job iii. 16-20; John i. 4). For as the return of the morning light is coincident with the refreshment of the strength, and the awakening to new effort, so in all spiritual parables of the revival of the nation or the individual, light brings life. The renaissance of knowledge precedes or coincides with the reformation of manners, the stir of new activities, the beginning of a new era. And this connection should never be forgotten, " And God said, Let there be light." Even so; and the darkness of superstition, of prejudice, of obscurantism, must be symptomatic of moral death. As the light arouses the sleeper, so the sleeper must bestir himself to greet it aµ,d rejoice in it. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." III. RETURN TO SELF-COMMUNION. From this enrapturing v1s10n the prophet returns to the present, with all its sobering and in part depressing circumstances. "He has gained on behalf of his people the comforting certitude that a great exhibition of the Divine justice is on the point of ta.king place; and his counsel is to withdraw from the doomed into the privacy of communion with God" (Cheyne). While the storm of Divine judgment is sweeving by, let the people of God betake themselves to solitude and prayer (cf. Ps. xxvii. 5; xxxi. 21; Matt. vi. 6). The opening of the door  422 THE BOOK OF THE -PROPHE'r ISA.lA-R. [oa xxvr.1-21.