Isaiah 40:8

PERISHABLE AND IMPERISHABLE

‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.’

Isaiah 40:8

I. By the word of our God—of Jehovah, the God of His people.—Isaiah means, beyond doubt, in the first instance, the word of promise uttered in the desert by the inspired voice. The promise of the return from Babylon, the promise of the after-presence of Israel’s great Redeemer, would be verified. St. Peter detaches this text for us Christians from its immediate historical setting. He widens it; he gives it a strictly universal application.

II. Isaiah refers to the grass as an emblem of the perishable and the perishing.—In looking at it, we look at that which is at best a vanishing form, ready almost ere it is matured to be resolved into its elements, to sink back into the earth from which it sprang. As soon as we are born, says the wise man, we begin to draw to our end. That is true of the highest and of the lowest forms of natural life. Whatever else human life is, whatever else it may imply, it is soon over. It fades away suddenly like the grass. The frontiers of life do not change with the generations of men, as do its attendant circumstances.

III. The word of the Lord endureth for ever.—How do we know that? Certainly not in the same way as we know and are sure of the universality of death. We know it to be true if we believe two things: first, that God the perfect moral being exists; secondly, that He has spoken to man. While men differ from each other about His Word, it remains what it was, hidden, it may be, like our December sun—hidden behind the clouds of speculation, or behind the clouds of controversy, but in itself unchanged, unchangeable. ‘Thy word, O Lord! endureth for ever in heaven.’

Canon Liddon.

Illustration

‘These three verses contain a contrast between our transient human life and the permanence of God’s Word. The fairest things it all nature are pointed to, the graceful grass, the starry flowers, which make the Oriental fields so beautiful. They are images of the best and brightest human life. What splendour there was in the days of Solomon, what luxury under Jehoiakim! And now it was all withered and faded. Meanwhile, the word of our God shall stand for ever. Religion endures when business and pleasure fall into decay. Ten years, they say, is about the average length of the feverish speculator’s business life, as he rushes and pushes and shouts on ’Change. The Temple foundations remain in Jerusalem to-day, but Solomon and all his glory have left not a wrack behind.’