Isaiah 21:1-17
1 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.
2 A grievousa vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.
3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.
4 My heartb panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.
5 Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.
6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
7 And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:
8 And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:
9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
10 O my threshing, and the cornc of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.
11 The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
12 The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.
13 The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim.
14 The inhabitants of the land of Tema broughtd water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.
15 For they fled from the swords,e from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.
16 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:
17 And the residue of the number of archers,f the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel hath spoken it.
EXPOSITION
THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA. This is a short and somewhat vague, but highly poetic, "burden of Babylon" It is probably an earlier prophecy than Isaiah 13:1. and 14; and perhaps the first revelation made to Isaiah with respect to the fall of the great Chaldean capital. It exhibits no consciousness of the fact that Babylon is Judah's predestined destroyer, and is expressive rather of sympathy (verses 3, 4) than of triumph. Among recent critics, some suppose it to refer to Sargon's capture of the city in B.C. 710; but the objection to this view, from the entire absence of all reference to Assyria as the conquering power, and the mention of "Elam" and "Media" in her place, is absolutely fatal to it. There can be no reasonable doubt that the same siege is intended as in Isaiah 13:1; where also Media is mentioned (Isaiah 13:17); and there are no real grounds for questioning that the event of which the prophet is made cognizant is that siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great which destroyed the Babylonian empire.
The desert of the sea. The Isaianic authorship of this title is doubtful, since "the desert of the sea" is an expression elsewhere wholly unknown to biblical writers. Some regard "the sea" as the Euphrates, in which case "the desert of the sea" may be the waste tract west of the Euphrates, extending thence to the eastern borders of Palestine. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; rather, as whirlwinds in the south country, sweeping along. The "south country" is that immediately to the south of Judaea. Its liability to whirlwinds is noticed in Zechariah 9:14 and in Job 37:9. It cometh. What cometh? Dr. Kay says, "God's visitation;" Rosenmüller, "a numerous army." But is it not rather the "grievous vision" of the next verse? From the desert. The great desert bounding Palestine on the east—a truly "terrible land." Across this, as coming from Baby-Ionia to Palestine, seemed to rush the vision which it was given to the prophet to see.
A grievous vision; literally, a hard vision; not, however, "hard of interpretation" (Kay), but rather "hard to be borne," "grievous," "calamitous." The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously; rather, perhaps, the robber robs (Knobel); or, the violent man uses violence (Rosenmüller). The idea of faithlessness passes out of the Hebrew boged occasionally, and is unsuitable here, more especially if it is the army of Cyrus that is intended. Go up, O Elam. The discovery that Cyrus, at the time of his conquest of Babylon, Bore the title of "King of Ansan," not "King of Persia," coupled with the probability that "Ansan" was a part of Elam, lends a peculiar interest to these words. Isaiah could not describe Cyrus as "King of Persia," and at the same time be intelligible to his contemporaries, since Persia was a country utterly unknown to them. In using the term "Elam" instead, he uses that of a country known to the Hebrews (Genesis 14:1), adjoining Persia, and, at the time of his expedition against Babylon, subject to Cyrus. Besiege, O Media. Having given "Elam" the first place, the prophet assigns to Media the second. Eleven years before he attacked Babylon, Cyrus had made war upon Astyages (Istuvegu), King of the Medes, had captured him, and become king of the nation, with scarcely any opposition (see the 'Cylinder of Nabonidus'). Hence the Medes would naturally form an important portion of the force which he led against Babylon. All the sighing thereof have I made to cease. The "sighing" caused by Babylon to the nations, to the captives, and to the kings whose prison-doors were kept closed (Isaiah 14:17), God has in his counsels determined to bring to an end.
Therefore are my loins filled with pain, etc. (comp. above, Isaiah 15:5; Isaiah 16:9). The prophet is horrorstruck at the vision shown him—at the devastation, the ruin, the carnage (Isaiah 13:18). He does not stop to consider how well deserved the punishment is; he does not, perhaps, as yet know how that, in smiting Babylon, God will be specially avenging the sufferings of his own nation (see the introductory paragraph). I was bowed down at the hearing, etc.; rather, I am so agonized that I cannot hear; I am so terrified that I cannot see.
My heart panted; rather, my heart trembleth, or fluttereth. The night of my pleasure; i.e. "the night, wherein, I am wont to enjoy peaceful and pleasant slumbers."
Prepare the table, etc. With lyrical abruptness, the prophet turns from his own feelings to draw a picture of Babylon at the time when she is attacked. tie uses historical infinitives, the most lively form of narrative. Translate, They deck the table, set the watch, eat, drink; i.e. having decked the table, they commit the task of watching to a few, and then give themselves up to feasting and reveling, as if there were no danger. It is impossible not to think of Belshazzar's feast, and the descriptions of the Greek historians (Herod; 1.191; Xen; 'Cyrop.,' 7.23), which mark at any rate the strength of the tradition that, when Babylon was taken, its inhabitants were engaged in revelry. Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield. In the midst of the feast there enters to the revellers one from the outside, with these words, "Rise, quit the banquet; get your shields; anoint them; arm yourselves." That shields were greased with fat or oil before being used in battle appears from Virg; 'AEneid,' 7.625, and other places. It was thought that the enemy's weapons would more readily glance off an oiled surface.
Go, set a watchman. The event is not to be immediate, it is to be watched for; and Isaiah is not to watch himself, but to set the watchman. Moreover, the watchman waits long before he sees anything (verse 8). These unusual features of the narrative seem to mark a remote, not a near, accomplishment of the prophecy.
And he saw … he hearkened; rather, he shall see … he shall hearken (Kay). He is to wait and watch until he sees a certain sight; then he is to listen attentively, and he will hear the crash of the falling city. A chariot with a couple of horsemen; rather, a troop of horsemen riding two and two. This is exactly how a cavalry force was ordinarily represented by the Assyrians. Chariots are not intended either here or in Isaiah 21:9. They were not employed by the Persians until a late period of their history. A chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; rather, men mounted on asses and on camels. It is well known that both animals were employed by the Persians in their expeditions to carry the baggage (Herod; 1.80; 4.129; Xen; 'Cyrop.,' 7.1, etc.). But neither animal was ever attached to a chariot.
And he cried, A lion; rather, he cried as a lion; i.e. with a loud deep voice (comp. Revelation 10:3). The watchman, after long waiting, becomes impatient, and can contain himself no longer. He makes complaint of his long vain watch. My lord; rather, O Lord. The watchman addresses his complaint to Jehovah.
And, behold, here cometh, etc. Our translators make the words those of the watchman. But they are better taken as the prophet's statement of a fact, "And behold, just then there cometh a troop of men, riding two and two"—the sign for which he was to watch (Isaiah 21:7), or rather the first part of it. We must suppose the rest of the sign to follow, and the watchman then to listen awhile attentively. Suddenly he hears the sound of a sacked town, and he exclaims, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, etc. All the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. Recent documents, belonging to the time of Cyrus, and treating of his capture of Babylon, show that this expression is not to be understood literally. Cyrus was not an iconoclast; he did not break into pieces, or in any way destroy or insult the Babylonian idols. On the contrary, he maintained them in their several shrines, or restored them where they had been displaced; he professed himself a worshipper of the chief Babylonian gods—Bel, Nebo, and Merodach—he repaired the temple of Merodach; he prayed to Bel and Nebo to lengthen his days; he caused his son, Cambyses, to take part in the great religious ceremony wherewith the Babylonians opened the new year. Thus his conquest of Babylon did not bring upon its gods a physical, but only a moral, destruction. The Persian victory discredited and degraded them. It proclaimed to Western Asia that the idolatrous system so long prevalent in the region between Mount Zagros and the Mediterranean was no longer in the ascendant, but lay at the mercy of another quite different religion, which condescended to accord it toleration. Such was the permanent result. No doubt there was also, in the sack of the city, much damage done to many of the idols by a greedy soldiery, who may have carried off many images of gold or silver, and broken up others that were not portable, and stripped off the plates of precious metal from the idols of "brass, and iron, and wood, and stone" (Daniel 5:6).
O my threshing, and the corn of my floor. These are the words of the prophet to Israel. Her chastisements have long been "threshing" Israel, separating the grain from the chaff, and will do so still more as time goes on. The prophet's message is for the comfort of those who shall have gone through the process and become the true "children of the threshing-floor"—pure wheat, fit to be gathered into the garner of God (Matthew 3:12).
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. This short "burden" is probably to be understood as uttered with reference to Edom, which the prophet prefers to call "Dumah," i.e. "silence," in reference to the desolation which he sees to be coming upon the country. Such a play upon words is very usual in the East. Isaiah has already given an instance of it in the name under which he has designated Heliopolis (Isaiah 19:18).
Dumah. There were at least two towns of this name; but neither of them is in the district of Seir. It is best, therefore, to regard "Dumah" here as representing Edom, or Iaumaea (so the LXX; Jarchi, Rosenmüller, Kay, Cheyne, and others). He calleth to me; rather, one calleth to me; i.e. I seem to hear a call from Mount Seir, as of one making inquiry of me. There is no need to suppose that the inquiry was actually made. Mount Self, or the district south-south-east of the Dead Sea, was the heart of the Idumaean country, which thence extended vaguely eastward and westward. What of the night? i.e. what hour, or, rather, perhaps, what watch of the night is it? May we consider that "the night is far spent, and the day at hand? Edom had offended Sargon by joining with Ashdod, and was probably at tiffs time oppressed by Sargon in consequence.
The morning cometh, and also the night. An oracular reply, but probably meaning
(1) that a brighter time would soon dawn upon the Edomite people; and
(2) that this brighter time would be followed by a return of misery and affliction. We may (conjecturally) understand the "morning" of the earlier part of Sennacherib's reign, when Edom was at peace with Assyria, merely paying a moderate tribute, and the "night" of the later period in the same king's reign, when the country suffered from another Assyrian invasion, in which the king's treasures and his gods were carried off to Nineveh. If ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come. Some take this very literally, as meaning, "If ye would inquire further into the meaning of this answer, do so; return to me; come again." But this implies that the Edomites had sent an actual messenger to make the inquiry of Isaiah 21:5, which is improbable. Others understand a reproach to Edom: "If ye will have recourse to God in the time of trouble, do so; but then do more—return to him altogether; come, and be one with Judah."
THE BURDEN OF ARABIA. Edom will have companions in misfortune among the Arab tribes upon her borders, Dedan, Tema, and Kedar. War will enter their territory, derange their commerce (Isaiah 21:13), cause flight and privation (Isaiah 21:14, Isaiah 21:15), and within a year greatly diminish the number of their fighting men (Isaiah 21:16, Isaiah 21:17). The date of the prophecy is uncertain, but can scarcely be earlier than B.C. 715, when Sargon made an expedition into Arabia.
The burden upon Arabia; rather, in Arabia. The phrase is varied from its usual form, probably because it is not Arabia generally, but only certain of the more northern tribes, on whom calamity is about to fall. In the forest … shall ye lodge. The word used is commonly translated "forest;" but Arabia has no forests, and the meaning hero must be "brushwood." Thorny bushes and shrubs are common in all parts of Arabia. The general meaning is that the caravans will have to leave the beaten track, and obtain such shelter and concealment as the scanty brushwood of the desert could afford. Ye traveling companies of Dedanim. The Dedanim, or Dedanites, were among the chief traders of the Arabian peninsula. They had commercial dealings with Tyre, which they supplied with ivory, ebony, and "precious clothes for chariots" (Ezekiel 27:15, Ezekiel 27:20). This trade they carried on by means of large caravans—the "travelling companies" of the present passage. They are thought to have had their chief settlements on the shores of the Persian Gulf, where the island of Dadan may be an echo of their name.
The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water; rather, bring? water, O inhabitants. Tema is reasonably identified with the modern Taima, a village of the Hauran, on the caravan route between Palmyra and Peira. Its inhabitants are exhorted to bring water to the thirsty Dedanites, as they pass along this route with their "travelling companies." (For other mentions of Tome, which must not be confounded with Teman, see Job 6:19 and Jeremiah 25:23.) They prevented with their bread him that fled. Several commentators take this clause as imperative, like the last, and render, "With his bread meet the fugitive;" but the existing Hebrew text seems to require the rendering of the Authorized Version. Dr. Kay understands the prophet to mean that the men of Tema did not need exhortation; already of their own accord had they given of their bread to the fugitive Dedanites.
For they fled; rather, they have fled. The Dedanites have been attacked with sword and bow, and have fled from their assailants. Probably the enemy was Assyria, but no trace of the war has been found on the Assyrian monuments.
Within a year, according to the years of an hireling (see the comment on Isaiah 16:14). All the glory of Kedar shall fail. "Kedar" is a name of greater note than either Dedan or Tome. It seems to be used here as inclusive of Dedan, perhaps as a designation of the northern Arabians generally. The people of Kedar, like those of Dedan, carried on trade with Tyro (Ezekiel 27:21). They dwelt partly in tents (Psalms 120:5; Jeremiah 49:29), partly in villages (Isaiah 42:11), and were rich in flocks and herds and in camels. Though not mentioned in the inscriptions of Sargon, Sennacherib, or Esarhaddon, the contemporaries of Isaiah, they hold a prominent place in those of Esarhaddon's son and successor, Asshurbanipal, with whom they carried on a war of some considerable duration in conjunction with the Nabathaeans.
HOMILETICS
The sadness of a nation's overthrow.
A nation is God's creation, no less than an individual. And it is a far more elaborate work. What forethought, what design, what manifold wisdom, must not have been required for the planning out of each people's national character, for the partitioning out to them of their special gifts and aptitudes, for the apportionment to each of its place in history, for the conduct of each through the many centuries of its existence! It is a sad thing to be witness of a nation's demise. Very deeply does Isaiah feel its sadness. His "loins are filled with pain;" the pangs that take hold of hint are "as the pangs of a woman that travaileth;" he is "so agonized that he cannot hear," "so terrified that he cannot look" (verse 3). "His heart flutters," like a frightened bird; terror overwhelms him; he cannot sleep for thinking of the dread calamity; "the night of his pleasure is turned into fear." The sadness of such a calamity is twofold. It consists
(1) in the fact;
(2) in the circumstances.
I. THE SADNESS OF THE FACT. We mourn an individual gone from us—how much more a nation! What a blank is created! What arts and industries are not destroyed or checked! What possibilities of future achievement are not cut off! Again, an individual is only removed; he still exists, only in another place. But a nation is annihilated. It has but one life. There is "no healing of its bruise" (Nahum 3:19), no transference of it to another sphere. From existence it has passed into nonexistence, and nothing can recall it into being. It is like a sun extinguished in mid-heaven.
II. THE SADNESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES. The end of a nation comes necessarily by violence, from within or from without—from without most commonly. A fierce host invades its borders, spreads itself over its fertile fields, tramples down its crops, exhausts its granaries, consumes its cattle, burns its towns and villages, carries everywhere ruin and desolation. Wanton injury is added to the injury which war cannot but inflict—fruit-trees are cut down (Isaiah 16:8), works of art are destroyed, good land is purposely "marred with stones" (2 Kings 3:10). And if inanimate things suffer, much more do animate ones. Beasts of burden are impressed and worked to death; horses receive fearful wounds and scream with pain; cattle perish for want of care; beasts of prey increase as population lessens, and become a terror to the scanty remnant (2 Kings 17:25). Not only do armed men fall by thousands in fair fight, but (in barbarous times) the unwarlike mass of the population suffers almost equally. "Every one that is found is thrust through, and every one that is joined to them is slain by the sword" (Isaiah 13:15). Even women and children are not spared. Virgins and matrons are shamefully used (Isaiah 13:16); children are ruthlessly dashed to the ground (Isaiah 13:16; Psalms 137:9); every human passion being allowed free course, the most dreadful excesses are perpetrated. No doubt in modern times civilization and Christianity tend to alleviate in some degree the horrors of war; but in a war of conquest, when the destruction of a nationality is aimed at, frightful scenes are almost sure to occur, sufficient to sadden all but the utterly unfeeling. It should be the earnest determination of every Christian to endeavor in every possible way to keep his own country free from the guilt of such wars.
Half-hearted turning to God of no avail.
There are many who, in the hour of distress, turn to God and his ministers with the question, "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?" They are anxious to be assured that the dark time of their trouble is well-nigh over, and light about to dawn upon their horizon. And they so far believe in God's ministers as to think that they can, better than others, give them an answer to their question. Accordingly, they importune their clergymen with such inquiries as these: "Will this sickness, or the effect of this accident, or this time of slack work, last long? Is there likely to be much more of it? Or may we look to be free from our trouble speedily?" To such the "watchman" had best answer with some reserve, or even with some obscurity, so far as he gives any direct answer at all to their questions. "The trouble will no doubt pass in time—it may be sooner, it may be later; God only knows the times and the seasons which he has put in his own power." But he may take the opportunity of the inquiry to give a very clear lesson. "If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come;" that is to say, "Be not half-hearted, beat not about the bush. If ye throw yourselves upon God for one purpose, do so for every purpose; look to him, not for an answer to one inquiry only, but for everything. Return to him—come." "The Spirit and the Bride" are always saying, "Come" (Revelation 22:17). Christ himself has said, most emphatically, Come (Matthew 11:28). If they return and come, they will be no longer Edom, but Israel; no longer aliens and strangers, but "fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). Let the cry, then, be sounded in their ears unceasingly, "Return, come."
The grievousness of war.
The grievousness of war is especially felt in defeat. Kedar was the most turbulent of the sons of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13). "His hand" like that of his father, "was against every man, and every man's hand against him" (Genesis 16:12). So long as his "mighty men," armed with their formidable bows, could ravage and plunder the inhabitants of more peaceable districts at their pleasure, and carry off plenty of spoil to their fastnesses in the rocky parts of the desert (Isaiah 42:11), the "grievousness of war" was not felt. Rather, "the inhabitants of the rock sang, and shouted from the top of the mountain" (Isaiah 42:11). But at length the tide of battle had turned. Kedar was itself attacked, invaded, plundered. The "drawn sword" and the "bent bow" of the men of Asshur were seen in the recesses of Arabia itself, and the assailants, becoming the assailed, discovered, apparently to their surprise, that war was a "grievous" thing. Does not history "repeat itself?" Have we not heard in our own day aggressive nations, that have carried the flames of war over half Europe or half Asia, complain bitterly, when their turn to be attacked came, of the "grievousness" of invasion? The Greeks said, "To suffer that which one has done, is strictest, straitest right;" but this is not often distinctly perceived by the sufferers. It is only "God's ways" that are "equal;" man's are apt always to be "unequal" (Ezekiel 18:25).
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Fall of Babylon.
It is thought, by some recent commentators, that the description refers to the siege of Babylon in B.C. 710 by Sargon the Assyrian. The King of Babylon at that time was Merodach-Baladan, who sent letters and a present to Hezekiah when he was sick (Isaiah 39:1; 2 Kings 20:12). The prophet may well grieve over the fall of Babylon, as likely to drag down with it weaker kingdoms.
I. THE SOUND OF THE TEMPEST. What sublime poesy have the prophets found in the tempest! We are perhaps impressed more through the perception of the ear than that of the eye, by the sense of vague, vast, overwhelming power working through all the changes of the world. The sweeping up of a tempest from the southern dry country of Judah is like the gathering of a moles belli, and this, again betokens that Jehovah of hosts is stirring up his might in the world unseen. Hence his arrows go forth like lightning, his trumpet blows (Zechariah 9:14). This movement comes from the terrible land, the desert, the haunt of serpents and other horrible creatures.
II. THE VISION OF CALAMITY. The march of the barbarous conqueror is marked by cruelty and devastation. The prophet's heart is overpowered within him. He writhes with anguish as in the visions of the even-tide the picture of Babylon's fall passes before his mind. He beholds a scene of rivalry. There is feasting and mirth. We are reminded of that description which De Quincey adduced as an example of the sublime: "Belshazzar the king made a great feast unto a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand" (Daniel 5:1); and of Byron's description of the eve of the battle of Waterloo at Brussels. Suddenly an alarm is given; the walls have been stormed, the palace is threatened; the banqueters must start from the couch and exchange the garb of luxury for the shield and the armor. The impression of the picture is heightened by the descriptions in Herodotus and Xenophon ('Cyrop.,' 7.5), whether they refer to the same event or no. It is the picture of careless ease and luxury surprised by sudden terror. "Let us go against them," says Cyrus in Xenophon. "Many of them are asleep, many intoxicated, and all of them unfit for battle." The scene, then, may be used parabolically to enforce those lessons of temperance, of watchfulness, of sobriety, and prayerfulness which our religion inculcates.
III. THE WATCHMAN. The word of Jehovah directs that a watchman shall be posted, the prophet "dividing himself into two persons"—his own proper person and that of the speculator or scout upon the height of the watch-tower. So Habakkuk "stands upon his watch, and sets him upon the tower" (Habakkuk 2:1). And what does the prophet see? Cavalry riding two abreast, some on horses, others on asses, others (with the baggage) on camels. This he sees; but he hears no authentic tidings of distant things, though straining his ear in utmost tension. Then he groans with the deep tones of the impatient lion. How long is he to remain at his post? We cannot but think of the fine opening of the 'Agamemnon' of AEschylus, where the weary warder soliloquizes—
"The gods I ask deliverance from these labors,
Watch of a year's length, whereby, slumbering thro' it
On the Atreidai's roof on elbow, dog-like,
I know of mighty star-groups the assemblage,
And those that bring to men winter and summer."
(R. Browning's translation.)
As he waits for "the torch's token and the glow of fire," so does Isaiah wait for certain news about Babylon. And, no sooner is the plaint uttered, than the wish is realized. The watchman sees a squadron of cavalry, riding two abreast, and the truth flashes on him—Babylon is fallen! The images, symbols of the might of the city, protected by the gods they represented, are dashed to the ground and broken. What was felt under such circumstances may be gathered by the student of Greek history from the awful impression made, on the eve of the expedition to Sicily, by the discovery of the mutilation of the statues of the Hermai. It is all over with Babylon.
IV. THE ANGUISH OF THE PATRIOT. "O my threshed and winnowed one!" Poor Israel, who has already suffered so much from the Assyrian, how gladly would the prophet have announced better tidings! The threshing-floor is an image of suffering, and not confined to the Hebrews. It may be found in old Greek lore, and in modern Greek folk-poesy. No image, indeed, can be more expressive (comp. Isaiah 41:15; Micah 4:12, Micah 4:13; Jeremiah 51:33). "But love also takes part in the threshing, and restrains the wrath."
V. GENERAL LESSONS. The Christian minister is, too, a watcher. He must listen and he must look. There are oracles to be heard by the attentive ear, breaking out of the heart of things—hints in the distance to be caught by the wakeful and searching eye. "They whom God has appointed to watch are neither drowsy nor dim-sighted. The prophet also, by this example, exhorts and stimulates believers to the same kind of attention, that by the help of the lamp of the Word they may obtain a distant view of the power of God."—J.
The watchman.
I. THE CALL FROM SEIR. The Edomites are asking, "Will the light soon dawn? What hour is it?" Like the sick man tossing on his bed, they long for the first tidings that the night of tribulation is past.
II. THE ENIGMATIC ANSWER. "Morning cometh, and also night." There were "wise men" in Edom, and probably the answer is couched in the style they loved. What does it mean? We can but conjecture. It may mean that the coming light of prosperity and joy is soon to be quenched in the night of calamity again. Or, the dawn of joy to some will be the night of despair to others. "When the morning comes, it will still be night" (Luther). Even if morning dawns, it will be swallowed up again immediately by night. And in what follows, also obscure, seems to be a hint that only in case of Edom's conversion can there be an answer of consolation and of hope. The design may be—
(1) "to reprove them for the manner in which they had asked the question;
(2) to assure them that God was willing to direct humble and serious inquiries;
(3) to show in what way a favorable answer could be obtained, viz. by repentance."
III. APPLICATION.
1. Historical. "History was quite in accord with such an answer. The Assyrian period of judgment was followed by the Chaldean, the Chaldean by the Persian, the Persian by the Grecian, and the Grecian by the Roman. Again and again there was a glimmer of morning dawn for Edom (and what a glimmer in the Herodian age!); but it was swallowed up directly by another night, until Edom became an utter Dumah, and disappeared from the history of nations." Herod the Great, "King of the Jews," was son of Autipater of Edom, who became procurator of Judaea. Under the Mussulman rule in the seventh century A.D; the cities of Edom fell into ruin, and the laud became a desolation (comp. Ezekiel 35:3, Ezekiel 35:4, Ezekiel 35:7, Ezekiel 35:9, Ezekiel 35:14). The famed rock-built city of Petra was brought to light in our own time by Burckhardt, 1812.
2. General. The prophetic outlook upon the world at any epoch is of the same general character. Night struggles with morning in the conflicts and changes of nations, in the controversies of truth with error. In the closing chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel we do not find a prospect of unmingled brightness, very far from it. Christianity will call into existence vast organized hypocrisies; the shadow attends closely upon the light. At the conversion of the empire under Constantine, at the Reformation, etc; "the morning came, and also night." History pursues a spiral line; old errors return, decayed superstitions revive; then again the day breaks. And so with the individual; the light we gain at happy epochs must yield to fresh doubts or fears, again to be dispelled by redawning faith. Such is the condition of our life; we dwell in the chiaroscuro, the twilight of intuition; we "see as in a glass, enigmatically." But hope and endeavor remain to us; and the looking forward to the everlasting light of Jehovah, the glory of God, the rising of the sun that shall no more go down; the end of mourning; the "one day" that shall be neither day nor night; the evening time when it shall be light (Isaiah 60:19, Isaiah 60:20; Zechariah 14:7).—J.
The tribes of Arabia.
I. THE FATE OF THE DEDANITES. Their caravans must hide in the thorn-bushes away from the beaten track. These Dedanites belong to Edom (Jeremiah 49:8; Ezekiel 25:13). They were merchants, and among others traded with wealthy Tyre (Ezekiel 27:15). And probably the meaning is that when on their way from Tyre they would be compelled to camp in the desert, because of the wide spreading war from north to south.
II. THE SYMPATHY OF THE PROPHET. He calls the people of Tema to supply the thirsty and hungry fugitives with water and with bread. Tema lay on the route between Palmyra and Petra. The tribe was among the descendants of Ishmael. In these sad scenes the light of human kindness in the heart of the prophet, reflected in the picture of Temanite hospitality, shines forth.
"These are the precious balsam-drops
That woeful wars distil."
Hospitality is still found in generous flow among the Arabs of these regions, and reminds the wayfarer how near God is to man in the most desolate places. Wherever there is a loving human heart, there indeed is a fount and an oasis in life's desert. And this scene reminds us how good comes out of evil, even the bitterest; the sight of the flying warriors, showing the bent bow and the wave of war, touches the spring of sympathy and mercy in yonder wild hearts.
III. THE PROPHECY OF DOOM. In a year, "as the years of a hireling," i.e. swiftly, certainly, without delay, and without time of grace, Kedar's glory shall be at an end, the powerful tribes of nomad archers will be reduced to a remnant. Those tents, "black but comely," of which the bard of the Canticles sang (Song of Solomon 1:5), those splendid flocks, and the famed "rams of Nebaioth," shall disappear, or melt down to a fraction of the former numbers. So again the night sets on Edom, after a brief dawn.
IV. THE WORD OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL.
1. These events were to happen by Divine appointment.
2. The God of Israel is the true God.
Let us take the saying to heart, amidst all that is most saddening in the fates of nations and institutions, "God hath done it, God hath said it." The true God who revealed himself to the fathers, and manifested himself to men in Christ, is the Being whose will is made known in the course of history. And amidst his heaviest punishments we have this consolation, that he chastises gently, and does not "give men over to death" (Psalms 118:18). ― J
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
A momentous question.
"Watchman, what of the night?" This is the question which ever occupies earnest minds. That the darkness of sin is here wise men note, without wasting metaphysical thought upon the how or why. Here is sin. On that all are agreed. Is there salvation too?
I. PROPHETIC VISION. Isaiah sees. Far away on the world's horizon he beholds a rising light; and, in anticipation of that, he himself is permitted to reveal truths which shall brighten the darkness of Israel. All deliverance is a prophecy of the great Deliverer; all returnings of Israel are foreshadowings of that day when to Christ shall the gathering of the people be.
II. PROPHETIC DECLARATION. "The morning cometh." Always a musical note that. To the sufferer in the chamber of affliction, longing for the first beams of day; to the dismantled ship out far away on the melancholy sea; to the oppressed people waiting for deliverance; to the idolatrous Israel in returning to the true and living God. "The morning cometh." A thought to be meditated on in all long and weary nights of disappointment, disaffection, doubt, and trial. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Patience, poor heart! The morning cometh to the penitent Peter and the doubtful Thomas. "The morning cometh." Not for Israel only, bat for the world. The nations that sat in darkness have seen a great light. Isaiah was right.
III. PROPHETIC COUNSEL. "If ye will inquire, inquire ye." But do more than that. "Return, come." This is the condition on which the morning glory rests. "Return." Give up your love of darkness, and "come." God waits to forgive and bless. "Come." The curiosity of inquiry may belong to mere intellectual states of being. The return of the soul means a great moral change. We must feel the truth of these words, "The morning cometh, and also the night." For the morning will be no morning unless the veil of night is taken away from our hearts.—W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
The effect of God's judgments on the good and on the guilty.
We gather, preliminarily:
1. That God uses not only elemental forces but human agents for the accomplishment of his righteous purposes. The winds and the waves are his ministers; but sometimes, as here, the whirlwinds he invokes are not the airs of heaven but the passions and agitations of human minds.
2. That the greatest human power is nothing in his mighty hand. Babylon was a "great power" indeed in human estimation at that time, but it needed only the whirlwind of God's holy indignation to sweep it away. Concerning the judgments of the Lord, we mark—
I. THEIR EFFECT ON THE GUILTY.
1. The suddenness and surprise of their overthrow. "Prepare the table … eat, drink," say they in the palace. But even while they are feasting comes the cry from the watchman on the walls, "Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield" (Isaiah 21:5). How often, when the ungodly are in the midst of their unjust exactions or their unlawful pleasures, comes the blow which strikes the weapon from their hand, the cup from their lips (see Daniel 5:30; Acts 12:22, Acts 12:23; Luke 12:20)!
2. The completeness of their downfall. "Babylon is fallen, is fallen" (Isaiah 21:9)—fallen utterly, never more to rise; her tyranny broken to pieces, her fires of persecution put out. When God arises to judgment his enemies are not merely defeated, they are scattered.
3. The abasement of their pride. "Babylon is fallen." The word is suggestive of an inglorious descent from a high seat of assumption and is certainly descriptive of the destruction of the Babylonian power. We know that God wills to humble the haughty, and that nothing is more certain to ensure humiliation than the spirit of pride (Proverbs 16:18; Proverbs 17:17; Isaiah 10:33; Luke 14:11).
4. The rebuke of their impiety. "The graven images he hath broken," etc. As idolatry was visited with the signs of God's wrath, so impiety, covetousness, absorbing worldliness—which are idolatry in modern form—must expect to receive the proofs of his displeasure.
II. THEIR EFFECT ON THE GOOD.
1. Merciful relief from oppression. "All the sighing thereof have I made to cease." The downfall of the tyrant is the deliverance of the oppressed; hence the close connection between Divine judgments and human praise. As God, in his providence, brings cruelty, injustice, inconsiderateness, to its doom, he makes sighing and sorrow to flee away. There is much tyranny still to be struck down before all burdens will have been taken from the heavy-laden, and before all sighs shall cease from the heavy-hearted.
2. Conversion frown resentment to compassion. The vision which the prophet saw, albeit it was one of triumph over his enemies, excited his compassion; it was "a grievous vision" (Isaiah 21:2). He was even "bowed down at the hearing of it," "dismayed at the seeing of it" (Isaiah 21:3). The night which he loved (the night of his pleasure), instead of bringing him the sacred joy of communion with God and prophetic inspiration, brought to him sympathetic pain and distress. Thus was burning patriotic indignation turned into humane compassion. It may be taken, indeed, as an anticipation of that Christian magnanimity which "loves its enemies, and prays for them that despitefully use and persecute" it. When God's judgments on our enemies thus soften our spirits and call forth the kindlier and more generous sentiments, then do they serve an even higher end than when they make our sighs to cease and our songs to sound.—C.
Tribulation.
There is no little tenderness in this Divine address or invocation; it reminds us that God's love may be set upon us when there seems least reason to think so if we judge of his feeling by our outward circumstances. We think naturally of—
I. TRIBULATION. The instrument by which corn was threshed (tribula) has given us the word with which we are so familiar. To some it speaks of long-continued sickness, or weakness, or pain; to others of depressing disappointment; to others of bereavement and consequent desolation; to others of loss and the inevitable struggle with poverty; to others of human frailty or even treachery and of the wounded spirit which suffers from that piercing stroke. The heart knows its own bitterness, and every human soul has its own peculiar story to tell, its own especial troubles to endure. But this human suffering is only appropriately called tribulation when it is recognized that the evil which has come is sent (or allowed) of God as Divine chastening, when it is understood that the Divine Father takes a parental interest in the well-being of his children, that he is seeking their highest good, and that he is passing his threshing-instrument over "his floor" in the exercise of a benign and holy discipline.
II. SEPARATION. When the "tribula" passed over the reaped corn it separated the valuable grain from the worthless chaff; one was then easily distinguishable from the other. Sorrow, persecution, trial, tribulation, is a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Before it comes, the genuine and the pretentious may be mingled indistinguishably; after it has come, it is apparent who are the loyal and true disciples, and who are they that have nothing but "the name to live." We cannot be sure of "the spirit of our mind" or the real character of others until we, or they, have been upon the threshing-floor, and the Divine instrument of threshing has done its decisive and discriminating work. It comes, like Christ himself, "for judgment;" and then many who were supposed not to see are found to have a true vision of God and of his truth, while many who have imagined that they saw have been found to be blind indeed (see John 9:39).
III. SYMPATHY. Israel in Egypt may have thought itself unpitied and even forgotten of God; but it would have been wrong in so thinking (Exodus 3:7). The Jews in Babylon may have imagined themselves disregarded of Jehovah; but they were mistaken if they so thought. "O my threshing," etc; exclaims the sympathetic voice of the Lord. When we are tempted to bewail our unpitied and forgotten condition, we must check ourselves as the psalmist had to do (Psalms 73:1.), or we shall be unjust and even ungrateful; "for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." The mark of tribulation is the sign of parental love and care.
IV. PREPARATION. The process of threshing prepared the corn for the granary, and so for the table, and thus for the fulfillment of its true function. When God stretches us on his floor and makes us undergo the process of tribulation, it is that we may be refined and purified; that we may be made "meet for his use" both on earth and in heaven; that we may be prepared for such higher work and such nobler spheres as we should have remained unfitted for, had he not subjected us to the treatment which is "not joyous but grievous" at the time.—C.
Taunt, retort, and overture.
1. We take this to be a bitter taunt on the part of the Idumaean. "Watchman," he says, "what of this long night of national calamity through which you are passing? Where is the God of David, of Josiah, and of Hezekiah? What about those promises of Divine deliverance which have been your trust," etc.?
2. Then we have the calm retort of the prophet. He says, "'The morning cometh.' You may see nothing but darkness; but to me, on my watch-tower, there are apparent the grey streaks of dawn. I see afar off, but approaching, a glorious deliverance and return—a repopulated city, rebuilt walls, a reopened temple, a rehonored sabbath, a regenerate and a rejoicing people. 'The morning cometh, and also the night: 'to us the morning, to you the night. The sun that shines on you is a setting sun; it is sloping to the west. The dark pall of defeat, captivity, destruction, will soon veil your skies; you have little reason to triumph. We are down, but we are moving up; you are up, but you are moving down."
3. And then comes the prophet's overture. "I do not want," he says, "to gain a barren victory of words. If you will approach me in the spirit, not of mockery, but of inquiry, really wishing to know the mind of God, I will reply to your question. 'If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come.'" As the scoffing Idumaean thus assailed the Jewish Church, so the skeptical European assails the Christian Church, and we have—
I. THE TRIUMPHANT TAUNT OF THE SCOFFER. "What," says the scoffer, "of this long night through which the Church is passing? Eighteen centuries have gone since Jesus Christ declared that his cross would attract all men unto him; but barbarism is still found on island and continent, idolatry still prevails among the millions of Asia, corrupt Christianity still deludes the peoples of Europe, and infidelity, immorality, crime, and ungodliness still hang, like angry clouds, over 'Christian England.' What about this long night of Christendom?" Similarly the hostile critic speaks concerning the individual Christian life. "What of this long night of protracted sickness, of unsuccessful contest with financial difficulties, of undeserved dishonor, of repeated losses in the family circle by death, etc.?"
II. THE CALM RETORT OF THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. He says, "'The morning cometh.' Barbarism is steadily disappearing before Christian civilization; superstition is being honeycombed by doubt; unbelief is finding itself unsatisfied with its hollow husks; earnest, practical religion is making its attack, by a hundred agencies, on immorality and irreligion; the Churches of Christ are putting on strength, and there is a sound of victory in the air, there are streaks of morning light in the sky. On the other hand, there are signs that overthrow and utter discomfiture will overtake and overwhelm the unholy doubts of the scoffer. To the oppressed Christian man, even though weeping should endure for the whole night of this mortal life, 'joy cometh in the morning' of the everlasting day."
III. THE OVERTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. He does not content himself with an effective retort. His mission is not to silence, but to convince and to help. He knows that beneath the sneer is doubt or disbelief, and this is too serious and too sad a thing to be left unanswered. So he says, "If you will 'inquire,' do inquire. Come into the court of inquiry with a candid, honest spirit; do not delude yourself by holding up one or two modern objections before your eyes and declaring that there is nothing to be seen. Take into account all the evidence—of prophecy; of miracle; of the life, character, truth, works, of Jesus Christ; of the effects of his gospel on the world, on human hearts, homes, lives; on man, on woman, on the slave, the poor, the prisoner, etc. Set against this what has to he considered on the other side, and then decide whether this redemption in Jesus Christ is not from heaven. Or, again, if you have any serious doubts as to the efficacy of true piety and its actual worth to a man as he goes through life, inquire; but take heed of whom you inquire. Ask of one who has had large and varied experience of life; ask of one who has seen much of men, in whom men have trusted and who knows the thoughts of their hearts; take the testimony of men to whom religion has been not a mere name, or a mere ceremony, but a solid conviction and a living power; and you will find, on such fair inquiry, that it is not only a stay and succor, but is the mainstay and the strength of the human soul in the labors and conflicts of life."—C.
Our ills and their remedies.
In this "burden" upon Arabia we may detect a picture or, at least, find a suggestion of—
I. THE ILLS TO WHICH FLESH IS HEIR.
1. Being turned out of our course. The caravans of Dedan are obliged to forsake their track and find refuge in the forests or stony retreats of the desert (Isaiah 21:13). Continually are we compelled to change our route as travelers along the road of life. We mark out our course and set out on our way, but the irresistible obstacle is confronted and we are obliged to deviate into some other track, or wait in hope until the hindrance be removed.
2. Being straitened for the necessities of life. The refugees are reduced to such straits that they are glad to receive the bread and water which "the inhabitants of the land of Tema" bring (Isaiah 21:14). Though God has made this earth to be large and bountiful enough for a vastly greater population thou even now exists upon it, yet, chiefly owing to human folly or iniquity, though sometimes to misfortune, men are reduced to such extreme hardship that the common necessaries are beyond their reach. Between this exigency and the condition of competence, how many degrees of want, and how many thousands of the children of want, are there to be found!
3. Being assailed and pursued by the enemies of our spirit. (Isaiah 21:15.) There are adverse powers from beneath—the "principalities and powers" of the kingdom of darkness; there are hostile powers that are around us—unprincipled and ungodly men, evil practices and harmful institutions in society; but our worst foes are those which are "of our own household," those that are within the chambers of our own souls—bad habits, evil propensities, those inclinations toward folly and sin which pursue us even when the main battle has been fought and won.
4. Finding our life oppressive and burdensome to us. "According to the years of a hireling" (Isaiah 21:16). The time thus counted is reckoned with extreme carefulness; there is no danger that a single day will be left untold. The hireling is impatient for the time to be past that he may lay down the yoke and receive his wage. How many are there to whom life is so much of a burden, who are so oppressed by toil, or weighed down with care, or overwhelmed by sorrow, that they look gladly, if not eagerly, forward to its evening hour, when the night of death will release them from their struggle!
5. Being distinctly and at length fatally enfeebled. "The glory of Kedar shall fail," the bowmen and the mighty men "be diminished" (Isaiah 21:16, Isaiah 21:17). Up to a certain point human life means, not only enjoyment, but increase; from that point it means diminution—at first unconscious, but afterwards sensible and painful; at length fatal diminution—in the capacity for enjoyment, in intellectual grasp, in physical endurance, in force of character. The glory of life goes; the faculties of soul and of body are palpably diminished; death draws near. Bat we may take into our view—
II. DIVINELY PROVIDED REMEDIES.
1. Pursuing the straight path to the goal which is set before us, from which no enemy need make us turn aside.
2. Trusting in the faithful Promiser.
3. Hiding in the pavilion of Divine power, and securing the mighty aid of the Divine Spirit.
4. Seeking and finding the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
5. Awaiting the immortal youth of the heavenly land.—C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Nations working out God's providences.
The reference of this "burden" is to Babylon, which was the successor to Assyria in executing the Divine judgments on the Jews. Babylonia is called "the desert of the sea," as a poetical figure, suggested by the fact that its surging masses of people were like a sea-desert; or because it was a flat country, and full of lakes, like little seas. It was abundantly watered by the many streams of the river Euphrates. The prophet, writing when Babylon was the rising and triumphing nation, sees in vision her terrible fall and humiliation. Which siege of Babylon he refers to cannot be assured, but much can be said for Cheyne's suggestion, that the depression under which Isaiah writes is best explained by referring the vision to the first siege of Babylon, when Merodach-Baladan was king, whose interests were in harmony with those of Hezekiah, and whose humiliation Isaiah would regard as injurious to Judah. Watching the movements of these several nations, Assyria, Babylonia, Elam, Media, Judah, we meditate on—
I. RIGHT IDEAS OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE. We do not speak of providence so freely as our fathers did, because we have less impressive views of the Divine rule and control. As Dr. Bushnell expresses it, "our age is at the point of apogee from all the robuster notions of the Divine Being." We are more interested in the ordinary workings of Law, than in the continuous adjustments and qualifications of Law by the ever-pre-siding Lawgiver. Yet, if our eyes were opened, we might see manifest signs of what our fathers called "providence" in the personal, the family, and the national spheres of today. The proper idea of providence may be thus expressed—it is God using for moral purposes commonplace events, and therefore adjusting, arranging, and fitting together those events. Providence ordering or controlling the nations is "God in history." And the illustrations of Divine overruling which we see in the large spheres of the world-kingdoms, are designed to convince us of the reality of that overruling in the small details of our personal life.
II. THE PROVIDENTIAL DISTINGUISHED FROM THE MIRACULOUS. The distinction is in our apprehension; we cannot conceive of the distinction as recognized by God. As by the "providential" we mean God intervening to readjust the usual order of material events, it is plain that sometimes he may use forces with which we are familiar, and then we call his working "providential;" but at other times he may use forces with which we are unfamiliar, and then we call his working "miraculous." There need be no difficulty in recognizing resources in God beyond what he has been pleased to explain to man. God has not exhausted himself in making revelations to man. If we could see clearly we should see that "providential" and "miraculous" are convertible terms.
III. THE RELATION OF PROVIDENCE TO MORAL LAW. This may be put into a sentence. It is the executor of its sanctions. The rewards of obedience and the penalties of disobedience are not things deferred until some yet far-distant day. They are continually operating in all spheres, private and public. Ann what we call "providence" is the agency in their distribution. But our "providence" differs from "fate," or the pagan conception of the "furies," because it is the working of an infinitely wise and good Being, who acts upon comprehensive knowledge and sound judgment.
IV. THE RELATION OF PROVIDENCE TO NATIONS. Here we take one single point. Nations have a corporate life, so they are, as it were, individuals, with a distinct individual character and action. Just as God uses the individual man for his purposes, so he uses the individual nation. For the characteristics of nations, see Greece, Rome, Germany, France, etc. The natural expression of a nation's character or genius becomes the providential agency for carrying out God's purposes. Illustrate the conquering genius of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar doing God's work in the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. The fact that a nation employed as an executor is still in God's control, is shown in God's judging that nation for evils that become manifest in its doing of that executive work. Efficient illustrations may be found in the movements and enterprises of the European nations during the last century.—R.T.
Sympathy of bodies with distress of mind.
The prophet is only seeing in a vision something that is going to happen by-and-by. But the scene presented to him is so terrible that he cannot exult in it, though it is the overthrow of an enemy's city. He is deeply distressed, and the mental anguish finds its response in acutest bodily pains. The "loins" are referred to in Scripture as the seat of the sharpest pains (Ezekiel 21:6; Nahum 2:10). The most familiar illustration of the sympathy between body and mind is the expression of mental emotion by tears. Ministers and public speakers know, from bitter experience, how nervous excitement stands related to sharp bodily pain and serious bodily depression. The connection may be seen in Job, in Hezekiah, in the Apostle Paul, and in David, who, with vigorous poetical figures describes the bodily distress which accompanied his months of restraining himself, in his hardness and impenitence: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day tong."
I. SOUL AND BODY ARE KIN. Our normal condition is the perfect harmony of the two, so that the soul only uses the body for good and right purposes; and the body responds perfectly to all the demands which the soul makes upon it. Combat the idea that the body is evil, or that evil lies in matter, and so our great effort should be to get free of our bodies. The true triumph is to win the use of our body, or, as the Apostle Paul puts it, to get "the body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body."
II. BODY MAY MASTER SOUL. This is the abnormal condition into which men have passed. They are practically ruled by "sensations" which dominate the will, and so the mass of men are merely animated bodies, in whom the soul is silenced and crushed. Illustrate by the demoniacs in our Lord's time, in whom the man was crashed by the vice.
III. SOUL SHOULD CONTROL BODY. This is the recovered normal condition and relation; and to energize the soul unto a full and efficient mastery and use of the body is precisely the work of the Divine redemption. The indwelling Spirit of God is a new life for the soul, in the power of which it may overcome the body and the world.—R.T.
The work of the iconoclast.
"Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of its gods he hath broken unto the ground." Recent researches have disclosed the fact that there were three sieges of Babylon during the time of Isaiah—in B.C. 709 by Sargon, and in 703 and 691 by Sennacherib. Mr. George Smith, writing of the last of these three sieges, says, "Babylon was now wholly given up to an infuriated soldiery; its walls were thrown down, its temples demolished, its people given up to violence and slavery, the temples rifled, and the images of the gods brought out and broken in pieces." Herodotus is our authority for the supposed aversion of the Medes and Persians to all images. "They not only thought it unlawful to use images, but imputed folly to those who did so." But modern researches do not confirm the statement of Herodotus, and we need see in the destruction of the Babylonian idols no more than the signs of a humiliating and overwhelming conquest. Cyrus has been hitherto regarded as a Persian and monotheist; it is now argued that he was an Elamite and a polytheist. Illustrating the subject, we note—
I. SOME MEN'S LIFE-WORK IS BUILDING UP. They make businesses; they found families; they start theories; they commence organizations; they build churches; they initiate societies. Such men are full of schemes. Moses founds a nation. David organizes a kingdom. Paul establishes a Christian society in the Gentile world. Wesley begins a sect.
II. SOME MEN'S LIFE-WORK IS KEEPING UP. They cannot begin. They are not fertile in resources. Initial difficulties crush them. But quiet perseverance, good faithful work, enables them well to sustain what others have begun.
III. SOME MEN'S LIFE-WORK IS BREAKING DOWN. As was Carlyle's. He broke down society shams, and conceits and hypocrisies of modern thought. So Mahomet broke down corrupt Christianity. The skeptic is an iconoclast; but he breaks down for the pleasure of breaking down. The critic is an iconoclast; but he only attacks the evil. The reformer must often be an iconoclast; but he breaks down only that he may rebuild. Sometimes things reach such a pass that they cannot be reformed, and then "destruction cometh from the Lord," whatever agents he may use; as in the old world, Sodom, captivity of Israel, destruction of Babylon, etc.—R.T.
God's people threshed and winnowed.
Isaiah was familiar with the threshing and winnowing processes, and what was in his mind may be presented to ours. In the East, the threshing-floor is prepared upon some level spot, on high ground. The soil is beaten hard, clay is laid over it and rolled; this soon dries in the heat of the sun, and makes a firm clean floor. Sometimes horses or oxen, tied together and led round in a circle, tread out the corn-grains; but the more general plan is to use a sort of sled made of thick boards, four or five feet in length, with many pieces of flint or iron set firmly in the wood of the under surface. This is drawn over the sheaves, as they are laid on the threshing-floor, by a pail' of oxen. The winnowing is done by throwing up the heap with a largo shovel, so that the wind may separate the lighter chaff from the heavier grain. The familiar word "tribulation," it will be remembered, is taken from the Latin word tribulum, a heavy threshing-roller. The comparison of severe oppression or affliction to threshing is a common one. We may work the figure out by saying—Life is God's floor; his people are the corn laid upon it; dispensations of providence are the sharp threshing-instruments; but their Working only proves how anxious God is for the final good of his people; and over their separating and refining he anxiously and lovingly presides. The reference of the text is to Judah, suffering under Babylonian oppression. Isaiah sees the fall of Babylon, and he would gladly have reported that the success of its enemies would prove a permanent relief to Judah; but alas! he only sees more trouble, and heavier trouble still, in store for his country.
I. THRESHING AND WINNOWING ARE ALWAYS TRYING PROCESSES. They crush and cut and bruise; they seem to fling away as we fling away worthless things. And the answering providential dealings of God try faith, try patience, try endurance, try submission. They are trying only because they must be. No man would bruise his corn, if it could be separated from its husk in some simpler and easier way. When we think of the work God would do in us—get the corn of goodness quite free from the husk of evil—then the wonder is that, even with such threshing-instruments of trouble, suffering, humiliation, disappointment, as he uses, he yet can accomplish so great a result. Only Divine grace can make such means adequate to such an end. On this dwell further.
II. THRESHING AND WINNOWING ARE PROCESSES HAVING A GRACIOUS END IN VIEW. That end is variously stated. It is "holiness;" it is our "sanctification;" it is knowing how rightly to use these "vessels of our bodies;" it is "likeness to Christ;" it is "meetness for the inheritance of the saints in the light;" it is the "liberty of righteousness." God would have the grain clean, free from all chaff, or dust, or straw; it must be "meet for the Master's use." The ends of Divine threshing are the further ends sought by the Divine redemption. God forms a people for himself; by providential threshings and winnowings, he beautifies them for himself.
III. THE TRYING PROCESS MAY BE BORNE IF WE KEEP THE GRACIOUS END IN VIEW. "No affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous." Yet does the child of God yield submissively, singing his restful refrain, and saying, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Even in view of further threshing-times, Judah may be quiet; they would but be God's threshings, with a view to final good.—R.T.
The watchman's response.
"Dumah," meaning "silence," is probably a mystical prophetic name for Edom. It seems that Edom was at this time in a condition of humiliation and depression that is well represented by the nighttime. As the night passes, Edom calls to Isaiah, as the prophet-watchman, asking how much longer the darkness is to last. Isaiah cannot return a comfortable and satisfying answer; he can only say, "If this night of trouble passes, it will but give place to another." The prophet foresees a short day of prosperity followed by a new night of trouble. "The words sum up the whole future of Edom, subject as it was to one conqueror after another, rising now and then, as under Herod and the Romans, and then sinking to its present desolation."
I. NIGHT-TIMES OF LIFE HAVE THEIR MISSION. They stand, in private life, for the times in which we are put aside from active work, compelled to rest. In national life they stand for the times in which national enterprise is checked by calamities, invasions, plagues, famines, etc. It is found that night has an important and necessary place in the economy of nature. Isaac Taylor has, in a very interesting way, proved that one or two absolutely dark nights in a year are essential to the well being of vegetation. Resting-times are important for individual growth, and national calamities are found to bear directly on the conquest of national evils and the culture of national virtues. We may thank God that in our moral life he never gives continuous day, but relieves the overstrain by recurring nights.
II. NIGHT-TIMES OF LIFE HAVE THEIR BELIEFS, There are the moon and stars to shine in them; and they presently give place to the "garish day." Pain is never intense for more than a little while. The light of love and friendship and sympathy relieves the darkness of suffering. National calamities develop national unity and energy, that presently issue in national triumph and stability; as is well illustrated in Prussia's night-time when she was humiliated by Napoleon I. Out of that night-lime came German unity, and the recovery of German territory. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment."
III. NIGHT-TIMES OF LIFE HAVE THEIR RETURNS. They are like the tunnels on some of our railways. We are scarcely out of one, and enjoying the open sky, the free air, and the sunshine, before we rush screaming into another. "If there be a morning of youth and health, there will conic a night of sickness and old age; if a morning of prosperity in the family, in the public, yet we must look for changes." And such returns of trying experiences are so essential for our moral training, that it is the most serious calamity to an individual, or to a nation, that they should be spared then, "Because they have no changes, therefore they forget God." "Moab hath been at case from his youth, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent hath not changed." Only of the heavenly and the sinless world may it be said, "There is no night there." These two thoughts may suggest an effective conclusion. No explanations can avail for more than just the piece of life now over us. We cannot know God's meaning for us until the whole of life is before us, and we can fit together the missions of the darkness and the light. Well did our Lord quiet our restless desire to read the mystery of life by saying, "Ye shall know hereafter." And David turned away from the mystery, saying, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." And nobody can ever know the meanings of a life if he fixes attention only on its nighttimes. They are the shades in the picture, necessary to bring out the picture, but they are not the picture. We must rise to the outlook of God, of whom it is said, "The darkness and the light are both alike to thee."—R.T.
The grievousness of war.
"For before the swords have they fled, before the drawn sword, and before the bent bow, and before the pressure of war." The figures imply that the people are conquered, their camp or city taken, and they pursued and cut down by a relentless, blood-thirsty enemy. As this subject is a familiar one, and illustrations lie ready to hand, only divisions need be given. The grievousness of war may be shown.
I. IN THE SACRIFICES IT DEMANDS.
II. IN THE LIVES IT DESTROYS.
III. IN THE TREASURE IT WASTES. The Franco-German War of 1870 cost France £371, 000, 000, and Germany at least £47, 000, 000. The American Civil War cost £330, 000, 000. The Crimean War cost England £167, 000, 000.
IV. IN THE PASSIONS IT ENGENDERS,
V. IN THE NATIONAL ALIENATIONS IT LEAVES BEHIND,
VI. IN THE SUFFERINGS IT ENTAILS. In the Franco-German War, one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers died on the battle-fields or in the hospitals, and thousands more lost limbs and health. What a wail of sorrow from thousands of homes and hearts such facts bring to our ears!
VII. IN THE RESULTS IT SECURES. Which are usually most insignificant when compared with the expenditure and loss. Talk of the glory of war! The Bible reminds us how much wiser and how much truer it is to talk of its grievousness.—R.T.
The security of the Divine Word.
"They shall, for the Lord God of Israel hath spoken it." This sentence intimates that God, as the God of Israel, has a quarrel with Kedar, and at; the same time that his power and omniscience will secure the fulfillment of the threatening.
I. THE DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do;" "He knoweth the end from the beginning." God may be pleased to leave man his freedom, and yet he may so know man, and each man, as to see beforehand how each wilt act in given circumstances; and the Divine plans can be based on such foreknowings and fore-estimatings.
II. THE DIVINE UTTERANCES ARE RASED ON SUCH FOREKNOWLEDGE. God may not be pleased to tell us all he knows, but we may have perfect confidence in what he tells. Revelation is limited, but it is absolutely true within its limitation, because based on complete, adequate knowledge.
III. TIME PROVES THE HARMONY OF THE UTTERANCE AND THE EVENTS. Because the utterance was made in full view of the event. To God the unexpected never happens, and his Word never fails. Men do, in their freedom, just exactly what God, surveying their work, anticipated that they would do. "He will let none of his words fall to the ground."
IV. THE CONFIDENCE IN GOD'S UTTERANCES INVOLVES THE PRACTICAL ORDERING OF OUR CONDUCT. This applies to prophetic anticipations; but how much more to announcements of ever-working principles! There are no exceptions to the great laws of righteousness, which are Jehovah's Word to men. "God has said," is enough for us, and it may shape out lives. It will come to pass, if the "Lord God of Israel hath spoken it."—R.T.