Isaiah 28

A Short Bed And Narrow Blankets

For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. Isaiah 28:20.

There was a boy his name was Ronald who lived in a very pretty little cottage at the edge of a pine wood. His father had died when he was only four years old, leaving his mother very poor, and she had other boys and girls to provide for besides “Ronnie.”

In the month of August she always let her little cottage, and went with her children to live in a wooden hut at the end of the garden. It had been fitted up so that they could eat and sleep in it; when the boys were not doing either the one or the other, you may be sure they were running about in the wood.

The mother was quite happy; she was a very good woman, and felt sure that God would help her to win through her difficulties, till the time came when Ronnie and the rest would be grown up. How she planned over the providing of beds for them in the hut! Ronnie's was made out of a box. He did not like it; it was too short even for a little fellow like him, and the one covering that served for a blanket was so small that though his mother wrapped him in it when he lay down, as soon as he turned it was just as if he had no blanket at all; he could never get it wrapped round him again. He begged his mother to allow him to go into the wood to sleep; when she refused, he cried like a baby, and told her that his bed was too short and the covering too narrow for any man.

Now, isn't it strange to have a prophet giving us a text like this: “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it”? People must have known what a short bed and narrow blankets meant long ago; I believe they were more accustomed to that sort of thing than we are, for the words had come to be a proverb.

What does the proverb mean? Isaiah meant to express great discomfort, the discomfort little Bonnie knew something about misery, in fact. Isaiah was more than a prophet. He was a statesman as well, and one who never feared to speak his mind. Statesmen who do this generally succeed in making enemies; but Isaiah did not care; he felt that he was speaking the truth. In this chapter he is accusing both Judah and Israel of acting in a way that would in the end bring their countries to ruin. They thought themselves very clever in having made treaties with both Assyria and Egypt. “Don't you fear,” they answered him, “we will keep ourselves quite safe. We have made a covenant with death, and hell does not make us afraid; when the trouble you prophesy about comes to us, we shall be all right.”

Isaiah saw nothing but misery in front of them. “Give up scheming,” he urged, “do what is right, and trust God for the rest.” Then he used the proverb, “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” He meant that the plans they had made would not do for them what they had hoped. They were wrong plans and insufficient plans, and so they would never bring happiness and prosperity. They would bring only misery and discomfort.

“What has the proverb to do with us?” you boys and girls ask. “We are not like the Israelites, nor are we old enough to have anything to do with the affairs of the country.” That is quite true, but you have to do with your own affairs, and you occasionally manage them rather foolishly.

I knew a girl who decided that when she grew up she would be a fine lady. She pictured herself in grand dresses and pretty hats, and when she went to visit at any house, it was noticeable how long and how often she looked into the mirror. But that girl grew older; years made a difference to her face; it was no longer a young face, and it bore an unhappy and discontented expression. The text is quite a fit criticism of her in her early days. “The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.”

A boy makes up his mind that when he grows to be a man he will make money and become rich. “Then I can do all sorts of things,” he says to himself. “I will build a fine house, and keep a motor to drive home from business; I will take long holidays and travel all over the world.” A teacher had a talk with a big boy like that. “Here is a sovereign,” he said. “Look, now it is very small when I hold it up, not an inch across; yet if I hold it close to my eye, it can blot out for me all the beauty of earth, and all heaven too.” That is a case of a short bed and narrow blankets.

But it may be very different. A poor woman lived in a single room; she had to work very hard for a living, she sewed all day, and often late into the night. That surely meant a short bed. But as she looked out at her little window she said, “There are folks that like a front window, but give me a back one. Mine looks out to the sun and the green grass, and the sky too.”

But I think the best story of the kind I have ever read is given in a poem by William Blake. It is about a little chimney-sweep who lived in the days when boys were made climb up the chimneys to clean them. That must have been an uncomfortable life worse than any short bed with narrow blankets.

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could barely cry, “Weep! weep! weep! weep! ”

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

“ Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot soil your white hair. ”

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they ran,

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

(William Blake, Songs of Innocence, 14.)

The little sweep was unhappy; he turned and turned again in his short bed, until he felt there was somebody in Heaven who cared for him. To live without faith in God means that “the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.”