HOMILIES BY· VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 8.-The help of Egypt. A party in Judah is negotiating with Egypt; and the prophet points out the falseness of this policy. L IT IS A RELIANOE UPON BRUTE FOROE. "Horses" a.re symbolic of martial strength. And Judah, being peculiarly deficient in cavalry, was "tempted to trust in Egypt for cha.riots and horsemen" (eh. xxxvi. 8, 9). Fa.med in Homer was Egyptian Thebes, with the hundred gates, and the two hundred men who issued forth from each with horses and chariots (' Iliad,' ix. 382). The memory of the pursuit of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus contained the picture of those chariots and horsemen (Exod. xiv. 6, 9). They were in request in Solomon's time (1 Kings xix. 26). Egyptian cavalry, the very nerve ,and sinew of war; Egypt who possesses them, the most coveted ally. "On horses will we fly, •.. on the swift will we ride," was the word of the party. Such was their" creaturely confidence." These horses were but" flesh," and "all flesh is as grass," and withers when the breath of the Eternal blows upon it. The strength of the creature is but the strength of the dependent nature; folly, then, to lean on that which is itself a leaning thing. II. IT IS A RELIANOE UPON MAN, AND NOT UPON Goo. Here man, as usual in the Hebrew prophets, is sharply opposed to God; the dependent, the frail, the mortal, to the Self-dependent, the Strong, the Immortal and Eternal; the tool to the hand that holds it, the might that alone can render it effective. The axe, the saw, the staff: they are dead and helpless things, until they are brought into connection with spiritual force. So horses and chariots can avail naught, unless they he the instruments of the Lord of hosts, the engines of a spiritual and enduring policy in the earth. Man himself, .without tools and weapons, is the most defenceless of animals; with them, yet still without God, he is in no better plight. III. IT IS TYPICAL OF IRRELIGIOUSNESS IN GENERAL. The folly is not so much in looking to material resources and defences as in "not looking to the Holy One of Israel " -in" not consulting Jehovah." All wO!'ldliness is negative, and there lies its weakness. lt is a strategy of life which defeats itself; moving far from the true base of operations, and finding itself presently cut off, without the cha.nee of return. Again, it is a departure from the Source of true wisdom. The " wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the undershanding ones "-this is policy, prudence. In Jehovah is a higher wisdom than that of Jewish politicians; his is wisdom united with perfect rectitude. And without reverence for him, the "fear of Jehovah,'' men do not partake of this higher wisdom. IV. THE END OF EGYPTIAN HELP. In the first place, the hollowness of the Jewish policy will be exposed. The word of Jehovah bas gone forth, and will not oome back to him void. For it is itself spiritual/orce, troth, mightier than any material force that ls known. Put into the mouth of a prophet (Jer. i. 9), those words become mighty as ISAIAH, 2 L 614 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [aH. :un, 1-9,
fire, to devour all that stays their course as wood (Jer. v. 14). "All tha.t the Loni spea.keth mu.st be done" (Numb. niii. 26). The wall of a worldly wisdom will bulgo and ~uddenly fa.II, nnd the "wisdom of the wise ones" be brought to naught. 'l'he words of the Eternal are backed up by the hand of the Eternal ; and, when stretched out, the " helper" who has been so much looked up to will be seen to totter, and the "helped" one be buried beneath the ruine.--J.