The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 280

tu the end of bis course he thought and spoke of himself as of One that "was sent," tbe.t we.a charged to do an appointed work. The spiritual greatness he manifested was in giving himself up to the service of mankind. "I am among you as he that serveth." We should count it not our dishonour but our honour that we live to serve. We act worthily of him from whom we came, and of that Ooe who was the very Son of man, when we spend our faculties in humble, holy service. We miss the end of our being and take the lowest rank that can be taken when we fail to serve God and our kin<l, We commit the greatest wrong and we make the snpreme mistake. II. As SERVANTS WE MUST BE WILLING TO SUFFER. A good soldier endures hardship and runs great risks. A good servant of God will be prepared to do the same. Jesus Christ went on to the work before him by surrendering himself to the blows and buffetings that awaited him. He endured enough sorrow to change his couotenance; he went through trials enough to lea,·e a deep mark upon his outer manhood. He did not stop to inquire how many or how grievous were the afflictions in etore for him. The only thing he asked about was the Father's will and the world's necessity. If we are true servants of our Saviour and of mankind, this will be our spirit too. III. SUFFERING SERVICE WILL BE FOLLOWED BY BLESSED EXALTATION. According to the severity of the sufJ'ering was the greatness of the exaltation with the holy Servant of Jehovah (vers. 14, 15). To the depth of his humiliation answered the height of his uplifting, to the gloom of the darkened path on earth the glory of the heavenly home. So shall it be with us: if we suffer with our Lor<l we shall reign with him; and as we suffer so shall we reign. The deeper we go beneath the waves of sacrificial suffering the higher shall we rise in the celestial kingdom. Herein is heavenly wisdom. Had Jesus Christ elected to take the crown which was offered him at the outset (see Matt. iv. 8), he might have gained some glories without the shame through which he passed. But he would have forfeited the "many crowns" he now wears and will for ever wear. But God's Servant "dealt prudently," i.e. chose wisely and not with superficial, short-sighted policy; and now he is "exalted and extolled and made very high." Let it be our wisdom, after him, to choose suffering service, looking for the large and the long, though it be the fa.r, reward of reigning in glory by the side and in the service of our Saviour.-C. Vers. 1, 2.-The restored castaway. "Arise, and sit down . . . 0 captive daughter of Zion." "The verses are a poetical description of the liberation of a female captive from degrading slavery, and it is designed to represent the complete emancipation of the Church from tyranny and persecution." The call is peculiar as judged by W estem associations, but quite natural in view of Eastern habits. The female is pictured as crouching on the ground, huddled in the dust, in the depressed and miserable attitude of the slave. She is called to "arise," shake off the dust of her degradation, put on beautiful garmeots, and sit down like a lady. Jerusalem, or Zion, as it is called, is regarded as a "cast- away," given over for a time, by God, into the power of the Babylonians. Now her restoring-time has come. She is to put on again the garments of beauty, which belonged to her as the priestly queen of cities. Jowett puts the point of these verses in tho following sentences : "The captive daughter of Zion, brought <lowu to the dust of suffering and oppression, is commanded to arise and shake herself from that dust; e.nd then, with grace, and dignity, and composure, and security, to sit down; to take, as it were, a~ain her seat and rank amid the compfmy of the nations of the earth, which had before affiicted her and trampled her to the earth." Dealing with the truths suggested in their applications to us, we consider- I. GoD IN THE STERN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE. we lose much by not carefully discriminating the kinds of things that are gathered up into the word "affliction." Disasters and failures-the various forms of trouble that come in our outward sphere of relations-give us, and are intended to give us, quite other ideas of God than we get from bodily pains or bereavements. To see God in a captivity, e. slavery, a business ruin, is e.n altogether harder thing than to see God in a disease or a family anxiety. The danger of Israel while in Babylon was that it might wrongly regard God's stern dealing, and, helplessly, hopelessly grovel in the dust of despair. .And still there is the grave danger of our responding by hardness, stubbornness, self-willedness, when God's ways with us seem stern. But the stem may be the precise expression of perfect love JBAIAH-U. / U  290 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [olI, LII, 1-18.