The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 42

And the like diRappointment of expectations occurs in spiritual things. .All combine to remind us of the cheering saying," While there is life, them is hope I" Bo long as we entrust ourselves in the hands of a gracious God, we need never despair.-J. Vere. 9-22.-The song of Hezelciah. It is a song of peculiar sweetness-from a literary point of view, characterized by great elegance; from a spiritual point of view, unfolding some deepest elements of Hebrew and of human pathos. I. THE CONTEMPLATION OF DEATH. It was in middle life, in the "noon-tide of his days,'' that he had to face the dark gates of Sheol. "Mid way in life, as to Dante, came his peril of death." It has been said that there is a peculiar melancholy in middle life. Perhaps so; every age has its peculiar melancholy. It is the contra,t between the "noon-tide of consciousness," and the sudden sunRet which seems at hand, that shocks the imagination. It is the very acme of the lifelong struggle of will and necessity. Here, the glow of intellectual vigour, the full fruit of ripened knowledge, the educated and matured taste for life; yonder, pale nothingness, decay, disappointment. A sense of in;'mtice seems here to shock the mind. '£he man feels as if he were being robbed of his property, "mulcted of the residue of his days." That life which nature has kindly nourished, which manifold experience has enriched and adorned, around which law has thrown its protection, for which all else has been willingly foregone, must now itself become a sacrifice to stern, unreasoning, unpitying destiny. Death appears to the natural man in the light of a bondage, an imprisonment. He is going down to the gates of Sheol (Ps. ix. 13; cviii. 18; Job xxxviii. 19). In the lore of ancient nations similar ideas appear: the place of the departed is a strong fortress, a Tartaros, an Acheron, su1Tounded by strong walls and a moat; or an inaccessible island. In the house and folk lore-·of the peoples abundance of such ideas are to be found. Every- where the like pathos and the like ideas meet us; and death remains the "standing dire discouragement of human nature." II. LIFE INSEPARABLE FROM THE GOODNESS OF GoD. To see Jehovah is to see Jehovah's goodness-it is, in the best and richest sense, to enfoy life (Ps. xxvii. 13). And with this is connected the joy of society-the beholc\ing of the face of one's felluw- man-communion with the inhabitants of the world. 'l'o die is to be uprooted from all these sweet associations, to have one's habitation plucked up, like the tent of the nomad shepherd (Job iv. 21; Ps. Iii. 6; 2 Cor. v. 1, 4; 2 Pet. i. 13, 14). It is to depart into exile. It is to have the life-web cut and left unfinished. It is to be cut off and made an end of. These melancholy strains depict one side of hnman feeling. They are paralleled in the Psalms (vi. 5; xxx. 9; lxxxviii. 10-12; xciv. 1i; cxv. 1 ,) and Job (xiv.). Nevertheless, the representation of the effect of death, hopeless a~ it seems, does not exclude those vague hopes, those implicit beliefs, which mingle with such lamentations, in a better side to the future, which found not distinct expression in words. The connection is strong in Hebrew thought between life on the earth and tLe goodness of Jehovah. Dut the goodness of God, however lenient, is learned once for all; and it is impossible to believe in it as manifested in the gift of life without the rise of hope in the continuance of life. The belief in the continuance of life is here expressed; only the sensuous imaginations overpower the mind with sadnes~. Hope cannot conquer it upon its own ground; but hope nevertheless remains what it is-an anchor of the soul, and it enters, though gropingly, into that within the veil. III. P11AYER AND HOPE. "The sick man appeals against the fate which threntens him to God-to God against himself; to the essential mercy against the apparent cruelty of Jehovah." It is" the characteristic irony of faith." He is in hourly expectation of death. His cries are like the plaintive notes of birds. He looks up with languid and half-despairing expression to the height where Jehovah dwells. He is like a debtor being carried to prison, and prays Jehovah to become Surety for him. But Jehovah is at the same time the Creditor. It is the "irony of the believer" (Cheyne). "The apparent doubt only expresses the more strongly the real faith-the protest against injustice and harshness, the sense of absolute goodness nnd ineffable mercy" (Mozley). Prayer may be, in moments of the sorest agony, nothing but a child's cry-which has "no language but a cry." Yet that cry must " knock against the heart" of the Father of nil. It is God himself who wrings the cry from the distressed heart; God himf!elf who loves to Le called upon, and to make his children feel their need of him,  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISA.IA.H. [oa. :xx.xvm.1-22.