Isaiah 33

33:1 Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou hast made an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee. O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble. At the noise of the tumult the peoples are fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations are scattered. And your spoil shall be gathered as the caterpillar gathereth: as locusts leap shall they leap upon it. The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgement and righteousness. And there shall be stability in thy times, abundance of salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the LORD is his treasure. 7, 8 Behold, their valiant ones cry without: the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. The high ways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth not man. The land mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and withereth away: Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. Now will I arise, saith the LORD; now will I lift up myself; now will I be exalted. Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath is a fire that shall devour you. And the peoples shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire. 13 Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge my might. 14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath surprised the godless ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? 15 He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil; he shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: his bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold a far stretching land. 18 Thine heart shall muse on the terror: where is he that counted, where is he that weighed the tribute? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive; of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the LORD will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not strengthen the foot of their mast, they could not spread the sail: then was the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame took the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

Chap. 33. The central historic fact of this chapter is the destruction of the Assyrian army, apparently when near Jerusalem. The woe of verse 1 refers to them; the prayer of verse 2 seeks help from God against them; the scenes that follow cluster about that great event. In the last half of the chapter (verses 13-24) the event is supposed to have taken place, and the prophet gives us some of its various effects and results. H. C.

This chapter contains a general threatening of retribution to the enemies of God’s people, with particular reference to Sennacherib or the Assyrian power. The spoiler shall himself be spoiled in due time, through the Divine interposition, and for the exaltation of Jehovah (verses 1-6). The state of desolation and alarm is followed by sudden deliverance (verses 7-13). The same vicissitudes are again described, but in another form (verses 14-19). The peace and security of Zion are set forth under the figures of a stationary tent, and of a spot surrounded by broad rivers, yet impassable to hostile vessels (verses 20-22). By a beautiful transition, the enemy is described as such a vessel, but dismantled and abandoned to its enemies (verse 23). The chapter closes with a general promise of deliverance from suffering, as a consequence of pardoned sin (verse 24). A.

1. It is due to the great law of Divine retribution that wicked nations, having abused their great power to subdue, spoil and oppress others, should be themselves in turn subdued and spoiled. If they have not had their retribution yet, all the more surely is it still in store, awaiting its time. Hence this woe on the proud and conquering Assyrian. H. C.

2. The truth seems to be, as Barnes well says, that Isaiah here interposes his own feelings, and offers his own prayer that God would be the strength of the nation, and then, with an immediate change of form, presents the prayer of the people. Arm is a common Hebrew metaphor for strength or support. (See chap. 9:19.) A.—In our spiritual warfare our own hands are not sufficient for us, nor can we bring anything to pass unless God not only strengthens our arms, but be Himself our Arm; so entirely do we depend upon Him as our Arm every morning, so constantly do we depend upon His power, as well as His compassions, which are new every morning. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must therefore every morning commit ourselves to Him, and go forth in His strength to do the work of the day in its day. H.

How much care a man hath to please God, so much confidence may he have to cast all his care upon Him. J. Arrowsmith.—Believers have a present faith, which they exercise every day, saying, “Be Thou their arm every morning!” They do not imagine that by having trusted in God years ago they have obtained salvation, and therefore may now live without faith; but they believe to-day as they believed from the beginning of their Christian life, and so prove it true that “the just shall live by his faith.” Every step they are depending, every morning they are looking up to the hills whence cometh their help. These are the true people of God, and the only people of God—trusting, hoping, expecting, relying and resting upon the Lord their God. The fear of the Lord is their treasure, and they cry with exultation in the language of the twenty-second verse, “The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” The description in our actual text is the portrait of their outer life; but a living faith is the secret basis and foundation of it all. Spurgeon.

Guard thyself from sin and temptation, but know that thy own strength is not sufficient for this great work, and therefore do not forget most humbly and earnestly to implore the Divine mercy and protection. For when the door is sealed and kept by Him, all thy faculties will be under His government; no thought can go in or out, or lodge there, but by His permission; the family of heaven and earth will bear thee company; thousands of angels will pitch their tents about thee, and guard the passes of thy outward senses, that no unclean thing enter there. And the great adversary of souls, how mighty and formidable soever in himself, will not be able to break through these bright armies, nor dare to make his attacks, which he foresees will prove unsuccessful. So great an awe will the dread of this Divine Keeper strike; so sure a defence will these heavenly succors be against that otherwise invincible enemy. Bernard.

5. The Lord is (or has been) exalted—i.e., in the overthrow of the Assyrian host—a thing He could easily do, “for He dwelleth on high,” clothed with all power in heaven and earth. He hath thoroughly vindicated His Zion against the contempt of her enemies, revealing Himself as the righteous God so gloriously that He may be said to have filled Zion with these manifestations. H. C.—Safety in Zion belongs to those born in her by regeneration, reared in her by sanctification, enfranchised in her by faith in the Son of God, settled in her by fixed principles, confirmed in her by obedience to her laws, and bound to her by intense love of her king and her citizens. Such “shall dwell on high” secure from danger, and only such. Spurgeon.

6. The sentiment of the verse is that God has now become everything, all in all, to His saved and trusting people—their stability as a nation; their fountain of salvation; their source of wisdom and knowledge. H. C.

The passage is a plain prediction as to the state of affairs in the kingdom the coming Messiah was to establish on earth and in heaven, the kingdom of God. It is a prediction as to principles and their operation; moral energies and their results. It reveals forces and foreshows effects that were little known or acknowledged when it was spoken. Wisdom is the living embodiment, action and direction of the fundamental and vital principles on which God constituted all things and built the worlds. It is the projected energy of the Divine mind, pouring itself, according to the nature, constitution and relation of the infinite reason, power, liberty and love of God, into all moral intelligences, all ranks of created being and all things formed by the hand Divine. Private probity, personal worth, general intelligence and public integrity are the bulwarks of peace, and the sure and only safeguards of the steady ongoing of public affairs; and this is what we mean by “the stability of the times;” not immobility, but steady, healthful progress. Human society avoids sudden revolutions only by healthful advancement. Government is solid and secure only as it deviseth liberal measures, maintains just and honorable dealings, searches out and promotes the general good and cherishes philanthropy and freedom. All the moral forces of the universe, all the energy of the great God, all the constitution and course of nature, all providential movements and provisions, are pledged to the overthrow of any and every people that regard not justice, right and truth. No nation can endure built on violence, pride and wrong. The mightiest empires have been swept away; and so must it continue under the government of God, till men learn righteousness, charity and faith. Only so can they learn war no more. Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of the times when Jesus, the Messiah, reigns, whose right it is. Salvation is of God, originates in His wisdom, love and power, and culminates in the energy Divine to the Divine glory. But as displayed among men, wisdom and knowledge are the staying strength of salvation, imparting its fibre and aggressive strength, filling it with an unconquerable energy. It is wisdom and knowledge, not fanaticism and ignorance; not spasm and vain enthusiasm, but steady wisdom and calm, clear knowledge that are the strength of salvation. A. Carman.

Our age is one of intense earnestness and action both for good and evil. The old truth and the old error which have struggled throughout the past are in the field. But neither is slumbering, both are vigilant, extending their lines, increasing their forces, devising and adopting new modes of defence and attack, as if conscious that a blow was about to be struck which would mark another great era in the conflict between the powers of good and evil. There are giants on the earth in these days both in the one encampment and in the other. A mighty force is on the side of the friends of truth, but it is sadly divided and scattered. What is wanting is the strength of union, the concentration of those energies in defending the citadel and making inroads on the enemy, which are spent on the defence of comparatively unimportant posts, or in one detachment of the same corps guarding against the encroachment of another. The champions of error, though not without their discords and divisions, are yet wiser in their generation than the children of light. As of old they discern the signs of the times, and take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. The press, to which under God we owe so much of our light and liberties, wields a mighty influence on the side of evil. The halls of philosophy, hallowed though they be by many a name illustrious for Christian worth as well as intellectual greatness, are often sending forth doctrines as gross as the earth or as vague as the air, but alike adverse to that truth which coming from above is above all. Our current literature and works on science, with not a few bright and beneficent exceptions, are hostile either by their silence in reference to Divine truth when their subjects afford them occasions to speak out, or by their avowed opposition to much of what constitutes the essence of true religion. And what is peculiar in a great measure to our times, and throws a vast potency into the scale of irreligion, is the unceasing effort of infidels to diffuse their principles among the artisans and laboring classes of the land. The earth is not still and at rest. Men of every class are searching after an unknown good. One dreary theory succeeds another, like storm-cloud chasing storm-cloud over the face of the sky, and yet man is not at peace. The cravings of his mind are agonized, not satisfied. It becomes those then who know the truth and whom the truth has made free, those who having believed do enter into rest, to arouse themselves for the twofold object of meeting infidelity at its various points and combatting its diversified forms, and of presenting in every lawful way that truth which they know only can give rest to a laboring and heavy-laden world. Let the antagonist forces on the one side as well as on the other be pressed into the unfettered conflict, and the lovers of God and the friends of man have nothing to fear, but much to hope. “Christianity may feel assured that, as in so many past instances of premature triumph, on the part of her enemies, the ground they occupy will one day be her own; that the very discoveries, apparently hostile, of science and philosophy will be ultimately found elements of her strength.” Pearson.

7. The next three verses (7-9) fall back to describe the scenes of dismay and agitation which immediately preceded that night of great deliverance. “The ambassadors of peace” are probably those three men whose names, mission, negotiations, failure and bitter grief appear in the passages, 2 K. 18: 18-37 and Isa. 36: 3-22. The history records that they came back to Hezekiah “with their clothes rent,” corresponding to the statement here, “Shall weep bitterly.” H. C.—The prophet describes the disappointment of Hezekiah’s ambassadors, who humbly sued for peace (which indeed had been bought, 2 K. 18: 14, 15, 16, though Sennacherib would not stand to the agreement); the damp that struck upon the spirits of the whole nation; and (verse 10) the immediate interposition of God when matters became desperate. W. Lowth.

9. This group of figures represents all nature as afflicted, depressed and desolate, to give the reader an idea of the state of the kingdom and people on the eve of being (to human view) utterly crushed before the resistless power of Assyria. H. C.

10-12. In this crisis the arm of the Almighty would be made bare, “In the mount the Lord shall be seen.” The word now, three times repeated, sets this truth in fullest relief. That earlier message must now be verified—“And the loftiness of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” That day is now come, the type of one still more solemn, when the world of sinners shall be arraigned before the judgment-seat of Christ.

11. Your breath.** The threats, in which they breathed out destruction against God’s people, would recoil on themselves. As they had sought to do, so God would requite them. The punishment would answer to the sin. The boasts and blasphemics of Rabshakeh made keen and sharp the sword of the destroying angel. Thorns cut up were used as fuel in the lime-kilns of Palestine. Birks.—Those people among the rocks yonder are cutting up thorns with their mattocks and pruning-hooks, and gathering them into bundles to be burned in these burnings of lime. It is a curious fidelity to real life, that, when the thorns are merely to be destroyed, they are never cut up, but set on fire where they grow. They are only cut up for the lime-kiln. Thomson.

12. These various forms of destruction by fire are of course figures to represent that swift, terrible, resistless ruin with which God swept the Assyrian host.

14. The second clause should be read, consternation has seized upon hardened sinners! The questions that follow are put by these wicked Jews of Jerusalem in view of a judgment so appalling before their very eyes. “Who of us,” living so near to such a God, and more guilty than even the Assyrians, “shall dwell with the devouring fire,” of which these fires of God (verses 11, 12) on the Assyrians are a symbol? “Who of us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” For if the burnings of Divine judgment for one night are so fearful, who shall abide them when they burn forever? This is manifestly the spirit of these interrogations. Who can say that their logic is not appropriate and even resistless? They assume (why should they not?) that the judgments of God on guilty nations fairly represent the spirit of Divine retributions for sin in general, and therefore give us the data from which to infer the judgments of God on individual sinners in the world to come, where only we can rationally locate the real and full retributions of justice upon sinners in their individual character and relations. H. C.

15,16. The words are not an answer to the previous questions, but a transition from the deep alarm of one class to the peaceful security of the other. How safe are they whom His favor encompasses like a shield! Their wants, even in this life, will be provided for. But above all they will eat of that bread of life, and drink of that water of life, which satisfy forever. Birks.—The wicked have one doom, the righteous another. The doom of the former is set forth as inconceivably awful; the latter under illustrative images of peace, safety, abundance, blessedness. This description of the good man is strong on the points most distinctive of upright character in those times. H. C.

15. This verse contains a description of the righteous man, not unlike that in the fifteenth and twenty-fourth Psalms. “Walking righteousness"—i.e., leading a righteous life. “Walk” is a common scriptural expression for the course of conduct. The plural form of the other word may either be used to mark it as an abstract term or as an emphatic expression for fulness or completeness of rectitude. A.

True firmness is only the result of a perpetual and persevering honesty of mind. He that always walks by the same rule need not be afraid of inconsistency. Make the love of truth the supreme principle of thought, guard against the influences which are likely to seduce you into error, love truth for itself and not for its dowry, and your path will be as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Thornwell.—All noble, cultured character is reached only through struggle. It is not natural, but is the fruit of toil and conquest. It bears the marks and scars of many a conflict. Contentment, self-control, sweetness of disposition, submissiveness to God’s will or power of sympathy are things that cannot be bought and that cannot be learned in any school. Such qualities can be gotten only through victorious struggle during years of experience. We say that Christ gives His disciples this spiritual loveliness, that He renews their natures and transforms their lives, imprinting His own image upon them. This is true. If it were not, there could never be any hope of saintliness in any human life; yet Christ does not produce this change in us merely by instantaneously printing His likeness upon our souls as the photographer prints one’s picture on the glass in his camera. He works in us, but we must work out the beauty which He puts in germ into our hearts. Thus the noble things of spiritual attainment lie away beyond the hills and the rivers, and we must toil far through strife and pain before we can get them. Every good thing and every noble thing must be won. Heaven is for those who overcome. J. R. M.—The stirring times in which we are privileged to live call for heroic efforts, but the efforts will not be unavailing. They call for faith and truth, but it is on these foundations that all great results must rest. They call for self-denial and discipline, but so it is alone that we can learn what is the peace of perfect freedom. They call for trustful love for man, for loving trust in God, but it is by love that the heart of man is opened, and by trust that the help of God is won. The very dangers which seem imminent rouse us to a sublimer faith. Human weakness is the vantage-ground of Divine strength. Bp. Westcott.

16. Words cannot tell the privilege of the man who lives in God, and lives with God! He need not shiver in the damps of earth—he lives on high; he need not fear the fury of the enemy, for he has a place of defence; he need not dread the lapse of time, his munitions are of rock; he need not tremble at famine and drought, his needs shall all be met by the care of heaven. The man who knows his sins are forgiven, who is covered with the righteousness of Christ, who is in vital union with the Lord Jesus, who is indwelt by the Holy Ghost—that man, I say, need not desire to be any other than he is, but may give himself up to blessing and praising and magnifying the Most High every moment of his life till he is caught up to the highest heaven, to dwell where enemies cannot threaten nor necessities arise. Spurgeon.

17. The pious in Jerusalem rejoice over the ruin of the Assyrian army. Again they shall see their king in his beauty (no longer, as of late, in sackcloth and tears). They shall behold the land to a great distance, as contrasted with being closely shut up within the walls of Jerusalem. Now they go abroad far as they choose in safety. Practically their country is to them greatly enlarged, which is a rich blessing. H. C.—To the believer the King is the same as in verse 22, “The Lord is our King. He will save us.” It is thus “Immanuel, God with us,” the Child whose name shall be called “the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” He is the same of whom the psalmist writes, “Thou art fairer than the children of men.” The faithful will see this King in His heavenly beauty, and seeing Him, be transformed into His image. They will be like Him, for they will see Him as He is. Birks.

The prophet tells us that under the Gospel covenant God’s servants will have the privilege of seeing those heavenly sights which were but shadowed out under the law. As Christ, who is the truth, has come to us, so does He in return require that we should be true and sincere in our dealings with Him. To be true and sincere is really to see with our minds those great wonders which He has wrought in order that we might see them. The promise is expressly made to us (Isa. 30: 20; 32: 3, 5) that “our teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more, but our eyes shall see our teachers;” that “the eyes of them that see shall not be dim;” that “the vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl bountiful;” in a word, as the text speaks, that “our eyes shall see the King in His beauty; we shall behold the land that is very far off.” Our professions, our creeds, our prayers, our dealings, our conversation, our teaching, must henceforth be sincere, or, to use an expressive word, must be real. We must aim at seeing things as God sees them; forming judgments about persons, events, fortunes, changes, objects, such as God forms; looking at this life, at the life to come and the world unseen as God looks at them. We must aim at “seeing the King in His beauty.” All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions unless we enter into what they really mean. Newman.

Every honest searching of the heart to root out of it what God hates; every earnest effort to lay hold upon the forgiveness which is Christ’s Gospel; every sorrowful, tearful prayer for the help and grace and love of God; every intense aspiration after a diviner life than yet has been realized, and a more Christlike spirit than has yet been manifested, is a seeking after “the things above.” Every soul’s hunger and thirst after God’s kingdom and righteousness; every brave blow struck at a sin; every sincere endeavor to make an ignorant, an unhappy life brighter and better, is a seeking of “the things above.” By degrees there shall be in every such seeker a change of places between earth and heaven. Earth shall take a new position in that man, and heaven a new position in his heart and in his affections. From seeking he shall rise into thinking “the things above;” and when at last the door opens and he is called in to see “the King in His beauty,” he shall find himself in no strange scene, in no unfamiliar company. Seeking has become seeing; prayer has become converse, warfare has become victory; he has “come to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus Christ, Lord both of the dead and the living.” C. J. Vaughan.

We too often speak as if the “entrance ministered at last to” a believing soul “into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour,” were our first entrance therein, and forget that we enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of Christ’s love and take service under the king. The change then is greater than at death. When we die, we shall change provinces, and go from an outlying colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the same government, only then we shall be nearer the King and more loyal to Him. That change of king is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of what profound changes death may make, but clearly a physical change cannot effect a spiritual revolution. They who are not Christ’s subjects will not become so by dying. If here we are trying to serve a king who has delivered us from the tyranny of darkness, we may be very sure that He will not lose His subjects in the darkness of the grave. Let us choose our king. If we take Christ for our heart’s Lord, every thought of Him here, every piece of partial obedience and stained service, as well as every sorrow and every joy, our fading possessions and our undying treasures, the feeble new life that wars against our sins, and even the very sins themselves as contradictory of our deepest self, unite to seal to us the assurance, “Thine eyes shall the King in His beauty. They shall behold the land that is very far off.” A. M.

The central charm of Heaven is the King in His beauty. The Lamb is the light thereof. It needs no temple, for He is the temple of it. Every attraction centres in Him. And he to whom Christ is not the altogether lovely is not prepared for heaven. The heavenly land is the home of the saints—a promised land indeed, an abiding place. There is the river of the water of life and the tree of life. There can be no hunger or thirst. There is no night there, and so no gloom or shadow. All tears are wiped away. The tabernacle of God is with men. And nothing enters that defiles. Such a land is very far off—not perhaps in locality, but in experience and in perfection. Sherwood.

For light to walk by, for strength to work, for patience to wait, for steadfastness to watch, may I dwell consciously and continually with the Lord Jesus. For power to resist the devil and to conquer sin; for grace to deny self and to bear the reproach of Christ; to chose, to refuse, to be active, to be patient for His sake; for courage to confess Him, and to be instant in season and out of season in winning souls to Him; for wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent; when to be cheerful and when to be grave; for grace to be meek and lowly in heart, and to be tender, as the Lord was, to sinners, and to be pure even as He is pure; and that I may be made to overflow with unwearying, unquenchable love—love to Himself—love to the brethren and love to all creatures for whom He died; that I may be able to enjoy and feed upon His word, and to find it life and strength to my soul, and to preserve me from being corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ—God over all, blessed forever, so fill me with Thy spirit that I may constantly realize my union with Thy blessed Son—as one spirit with a living, loving Saviour; and by faith see Him who is invisible, until the day when mine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. Miss Marsh’s Shining Light.

18. The general meaning of the verse is plain, as an expression of surprise and joy that the oppressor or besieger had now vanished. The Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 1: 20, has a sentence so much like this, in the threefold repetition of the question where, and in the use of the word scribe, that it cannot be regarded as a mere fortuitous coincidence.

20. Instead of the presence of foreign enemies, see Jerusalem once more the scene of stated solemnities. The peculiar beauty of the imagery lies in ascribing permanence to a tent, which from its very nature must be movable. This may either imply a previous state of agitation and instability, or that the Church, though weak in herself, should be strengthened and established by the power of God. A.—The sacred city is to stand unharmed by her fierce and bloody foes, a living type of the ever-enduring Church of God, against which no weapon forged by wicked hands shall prosper.

21. The figure represents Jehovah as being to Jerusalem what the great Euphrates was to Babylon or the Nile to Thebes—its glory, beauty and wealth; yet with this remarkable exception, that it should open no avenue for an armed foe to approach by water. The war vessels of ancient times are described here—a galley with oars and a gallant ship proudly bearing its implements of death. H. C.—It is the glorious Lord who will be unto us a “place of broad rivers and streams;” and with the infinite “depth of the riches both of His wisdom and knowledge,” we shall feel that “neither height nor depth shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ker.

22. This verse translates the figures of the two verses previous into literal language. The Lord, our King and Lawgiver, holding us while obedient under His perfect protection, is pre-eminently our glory and strength. H. C.

23. Interpreters are agreed that there is at the beginning of this verse a sudden apostrophe to the enemy considered as a ship. This figure would be naturally suggested by those of verse 21. It was there said that no vessel should approach the holy city. But now the prophet seems to remember that one had done so, the proud ship of Assyria. He sees it dismantled and abandoned to its enemies. A.

24. All is well in the holy city. The allusion to the “lame” may have suggested that now and onward, in these better days of Zion, none shall say, “I am sick.” None are disabled, none are suffering. Blessedness is the common lot—rich, deep and pure, for this figure can mean nothing less. The people who dwell there are forgiven; their sins and iniquities are remembered no more. H. C.—The words may be taken in a wide sense—viz., that suffering shall cease with sin which is its cause. Thus understood, the words are strictly applicable only to a state of things still future, either upon earth or in heaven. A.

The truth of the promise remains, though we have no means of knowing more than the fact, that we shall receive a body, fashioned like His who dieth no more. There shall be no weariness nor consequent need for repose—“they rest not day nor night.” There shall be no faintness nor consequent craving for sustenance—“they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” There shall be no disease—“the inhabitant thereof shall no more say, I am sick,” “neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels.” And if all this be true, that glorious and undecaying body shall then be the equal and fit instrument of the perfected spirit, not, as it is now, the adequate instrument only of the natural life. A. M.

The essence of eternal life consists in its entire freedom from sin. It is the presence of sin in our nature which is at the root of every other evil, and deliverance from suffering in heaven is connected with perfect deliverance from sin. “The inhabitants shall not say, I am sick, for the people of the land are forgiven their iniquity.” Doubt about God and distrust of Him are the most painful of all things to any one who feels what the soul’s life ought to be—a perfect repose in God’s love that there may be freedom and happiness in His service. This world to most Christians is a fitful struggle to attain a portion of this. When Moses said, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory,” he was answered that he could not see God’s face, but that His name would be made to pass before him, as “the Lord God merciful and gracious.” It is still the utmost we can hope for here, and we do not always enjoy it. But of the resurrection state it is said, “They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.” That must be a happy condition when all of them shall feel the blessedness of the man whose iniquity is forgiven, and the subject which often causes anxious thought, “can I look to God as my friend and Father?” shall be settled for perpetuity—no doubt, nor shadow of a doubt upon it, but quietness and assurance forever. And when there shall be not only no guilt on the conscience, no sin in the heart, no lurking sympathy with it, but every fibre of the root of poison extracted, and the tree of life shall find its counterpart in the perfect fruit of every redeemed soul! How blessed must that state be when there shall be no envy nor uncharitableness to any one, nothing of humiliation or shame for having done or cherished what is impure and base, nothing of the feeling of lurking evil within, which makes us wishful, if it were possible, to hide our hearts from the sight of God! This is an ideal which it never entered into man’s heart to conceive, which the Gospel alone has taught us, and which we feel to be worthy of God and of our spiritual nature. Ker.

Soon, soon, the saints of the earth shall be

saints in light; their hairs of snowy age shall be crowned with perpetual joy and everlasting youth; their eyes suffused with tears shall be made bright as stars, never to be clouded again by sorrow; their hearts that tremble now are to be made joyous and fast, and set forever like pillars in the temple of God. Their follies, their burdens, their griefs, their woes, are soon to be over; sin is to be slain, corruption is to be removed, and a heaven of spotless purity and of unmingled peace is to be theirs forever. But it must still be by grace. As was the foundation such must the top-stone be; that which laid on earth the first beginning must lay in heaven the topmost stone. Spurgeon.—Then we shall be enabled to look back at ourselves and to see all the way that the Lord hath led us through the wilderness; how untiring has been His patience, how immeasur-

able His grace, how inexhaustible the resources of His wisdom, how unwearied the watchfulness of His love, how unremitting the exercise of His power, how unchangeable the constancy of His faithfulness; or in one summary expression of the apostle, how unsearchable the riches of Christ, as they have been expended, lavished on such sinners, in calling and keeping us and bringing us to Zion! What a thought, that we may be in a moment in the midst of all this; that we must be so very soon; that all this world shall be like clouds that have flown along the face of the sky—gone, passed; and where are they? So shall all the things of time be to us then; we shall carry nothing with us but the remembrance of ourselves, our sins, and the unsearchable riches of our Lord’s grace, goodness and glory—all He has been to us and done for us. McGhee.