Job 13:22

Then call Thou, and! will answer.

The echo

There are places where, if you speak with a loud voice, your words will come back to you after a short interval with the utmost distinctness. This repetition is called an echo. The ancients thought this mysterious being was an Oread, or mountain nymph, born of the air and earth, who loved a beautiful youth, and because her affection was not returned, she pined away until nothing was heard but her voice, and even then she could not speak until she was spoken to. In the text are two kinds of echo. God calling to man, and man answering; and then man speaking to God, and God answering.

I. God calling and man answering. It is God who always begins first in every good thing. Our religion tells us distinctly that it was not man who first called upon God, but God who first called upon man. God sought man to do him good, even when he had sinned and deserved to be punished. And that is what He has always done since. God has not been silent. He has spoken out, not by the dull, unchanging signals of nature that do the telegraph work of the world, but in human language, in human thoughts and words. God addresses you personally in the Holy Scriptures. Will you be silent to Him? Will no response, no echo come from your heart to His voice?

II. Man calling and God answering. David once said, “Be not silent unto me, O Lord.” He had prayed, but he had got no answer. But God was all the time preparing to give him the answer that he needed. In the natural world you cannot have an echo everywhere. Sometimes in nature an echo is made more or less indistinct according to the state of the weather. An echo in nature repeats your very words exactly. Some echoes refuse to send back a whole sentence, and only repeat the last word of it. God’s response is an answer to your whole prayer. He often does for you exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think. Is not it wonderful that by a breath you can call up such marvellous responses? “He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble.” (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)