The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 194

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-13.-71,e reUgion of Jehovah contr~ted with idolatry. I. THE HUMILIA• TION OF BEL AND NEBO. 'l'hese were the tutelar gods of Babylon and its suburb, Borsippa. Merodach, or Marduk (Jer. l. 2), is another name of a being closely related to or identical with Bel. The idols of the Chaldeans are given up to the beasts, and the images once carried in solemn procession by the priests and nobles are put upon the backs of beasts of burden. Herodotus and Diodorus tell. us of the golden statue of the great god_a.t Babylon_(the Greeks called him after their own, Zeus), and the great golden table rn front of i t - a "table of demons "-and the golden altar. The imacre was said to have been carried away by Xerxes (Herod., i. 183). These gods, the~, once held as mighty, tutelar, delivering saviours in one of the greatest cities in the world, have themselves gone into captivity. Themselves they could not save. Had these gods been really Divine, they would surely have rescued their own images. Conceived as persons by the heathen, they are, in the prophet's arguments, convicted of being without any of the proper ability of personality. "It is difficult not to think of the last strange journey of these desecrated images," remarks a commentator (cf. Layard's picture of the' Procession of the Bull beneath the Mound of Nimrod'). The power of the heathen god depended on the faith, i.e. the imagination, of his worshippers. The overthrow of Babylonian power was a great shock to the heathen imagination. It showed that the power in which they had believed was an illusion and a lie from the Hebrew point of view. And so ever; the powers of this present world and its princes and its illusions a.re seen passing a.way before the prevalence of true religion. II. THE PROVIDENCE OF JEHOVAH OVER HIS PEOPLE, He is what the gods counter- feited-a wise superintending Being, a faithful supporting Being, to his people, alike in war and in peace; the gods of conquered peoples had failed to be this, according to the prophet, and according to ancient thought generally. Jehovah is this. Note the extreme tenderness of the representations of him in this attitude to his folk. Not a. timid and trembling captive but may appropriate the truth to his own consola- tion. He is a.s the Nurse, they as the little helpless infant (cf. eh. lxiii. 9; Deut. i. 31; Exod. xix. 4; Ps. xxviii. 9; Hos. xi. 3). But the thought of the human pa.rent and nurse reminds ns of mortality and of transiency belonging to human;conditions. "The devoted watchfulness of the parent dies away when his child has come to maturity; and he is commonly removed by death when his ofl',pring has attained to old age." Not so with Israel and Jehovah. Israel is always the object of the motherly ea.re and affection of God (eh. xiii. H; xlix. 15; lxvi. 9, 13). "Even to old age I am the same" (see Ps. lx::xi. 18, where the people speak as one person). "Even to grey hairs I will bear; I have made, and I will carry, and I will bear and will rescue." IIL Hrs APPEAL TO THE REASON OF THE PEOPLE. Ever we seem to hear him saying, "Come now, and let us reason together." '!'here are "rebellious ones" (ver. 8), yet Jehovah still reasons with them. Once more the piece of manufactured helplessness called an idol is placed before their thought. What can it do for men? They "cry •mto it, but it cannot answer, nor save them ont of trouble." Is Jehovah to be com- pared with that thi11g 1 And then the positive argument is again brought forward . .Jehovah alone has the power of prediction. "From the very beginning of a period of ;:iistory he can announce the far-off issue, utterly incalculable to human eyes." If, then, now he has announced his purpose, it will stand. If the bird of prey, the eagle Cyrus, has been called from the east, it will be to the certain execution of a. mission from Jehovah. To trust in him is to have all difficulties solved, all confidence restored. To believe in Providence; to be assured that the world's history at any moment, at tliis moment, is not a mere play of passion, caprice, and chance, but that things are working together to a.n end furese,~n ;-this is strength, because this is reason. And God would have his people understand what true reason brings to religion; that religion is reason and sense, while idolatry is weakness, folly, and unreason. lV. THE NEARNESS OF Goo's SALVATION, This, too, is an emphatic thought (cf. eh. lvi. 1). Righteousness and salvation are but two aspects of the same blessing. Yet men may be" far off." How? It is not space, it is not time, that separates from OB. XLVI. 1-18.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 199