Isaiah 5

3,4. The special points made here are that these blessings from the great Messiah shall come to all the survivors of Israel; that their essential and most vital element shall be real holiness, than which nothing can be better, and that this holiness shall come to Israel as a result of the washing away of her filth and blood by God’s discipline, coupled with the power of the Divine Spirit. H. C.

5. A cloud and smoke by day, etc.** This is a manifest allusion to the pillar of a cloud, and of fire, which attended the Jews in their passage out of Egypt; and to the glory that rested on the tabernacle (Ex. 40 : 38. See Zech. 2 : 5). Both passages mean, the visible presence of God shall protect the Church. Bp. Lowth.

6. And there shall be a tabernacle.** And whereas the Church shall be still subject to the scorching heats and tempestuous storms of persecution, God shall erect a safe tabernacle for her, to shade her from the heat and shelter her from those violent tempests. Bp. H.

Comparing this closing prophecy with that which commences the message (chap. 2 : 2-4), that gives only a general view of the results of His reign upon the nations; this is a more specific view of the origin and person of the Messiah; of the holiness of His people, and of His special relation to them as Redeemer, Protector, and bosom Friend. Both are precious, magnificent predictions. H. C.

5 : 1 Let me sing for my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he made a trench about it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down the fence thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor hoed; but there shall come up briars and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgement, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! In mine ears saith the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them! And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, for lack of knowledge : and their honourable men are famished, and their multi- 14 tude are parched with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged her desire, and opened her mouth without measure : and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that 15 rejoiceth among them, descend into it. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great 16 man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled : but the LORD of hosts is exalted 17 in judgement, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall wanderers eat. 18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart 19 rope : that say, Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it : and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it ! 20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight ! 22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong 23 drink : which justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the 24 righteous from him ! Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust : because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them, and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his 26 hand is stretched out still. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss for them from the end of the earth : and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly : 27 none shall be weary nor stumble among them ; none shall slumber nor sleep ; neither shall 28 the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken : whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent ; their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their 29 wheels like a whirlwind : their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions : yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and carry it away safe, and there shall be none to 30 deliver. And they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea : and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and distress, and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof.

Chap. 5. This chapter contains a description of the prevalent iniquities of Judah, and of the judgments which, in consequence of these, had been or were to be inflicted on the people. The form of the prophecy is peculiar, consisting of a parable and a commentary on it. The prophet first delivers his whole message in a parabolic form (verses 1-7). He then explains and amplifies it at great length (verses 8-30).

The parable sets forth the peculiar privileges, obligations, guilt, and doom of Israel under the figure of a highly favored vineyard, which, instead of good fruit, brings forth only wild grapes, and is therefore given up to desolation (verses 1-6). The application is expressly made by the prophet himself (verse 7). In the remainder of the chapter he enumerates the sins which were included in the general expressions of verse 7, and describes their punishment. In doing this, he first gives a catalogue of sins with their appropriate punishments annexed (verses 8-24). He then describes the means used to inflict them, and the final issue (verses 25-30).

This chapter, like the first, is applicable not to one event exclusively, but to a sequence of events which was repeated more than once, although its terms were never fully realized until the closing period of the Jewish history, after the true Messiah was rejected, when one ray of hope was quenched after another, until all grew dark forever in the skies of Israel. A.

1-7. Elsewhere in the Scriptures the Lord’s people are His vineyard, with reference to the careful culture He had given them, and the failure of the reasonably expected fruits. (See Ps. 80 : 8-16 ; Jer. 2 : 21 ; Ezek. 19 : 10-14, and Matt. 21 : 33-44.) This last, a parable by our Lord, has points of close resemblance to the one before us, especially in the main feature of keeping back the purposed application until the hearers had passed judgment upon the case, and then showing them that they had right-eously condemned themselves. H. C.

4. What could have been done more that I have not done?** They had everything requisite for instruction and direction in their duty, for the quickening of them to it, and putting of them in mind of it: no inducements were wanting to persuade them to it, but all arguments were used proper to work either upon hope or fear; and they had all the opportunities they could desire for the performance of their duty, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, and solemn feasts; they had the Scriptures, the lively oracles, a standing ministry in the priests and Levites, besides what was extraordinary in the prophets. No nation had statutes and judgments so righteous. H.—He gave them His will, His ordinances, His prophets, and separated them from all nations by peculiar rites, that they might be to Him for a name, and a praise, and a peculiar treasure, above all nations. He has done much more for us under the Gospel. None can be ignorant of the intention of God in all these provisions. R. Hall.

The untiring and unceasing work of God’s compassion on earth is to bring human hearts out of unconcern to the hearty longing for Christ—for His love, His grace, His life. It is to stir and awaken that desire, which never is despised if it is sincere, and never disappointed if it is persevering. For this the Holy Spirit keeps up His inward and invisible solicitation, speaking through the conscience. For this the providential plan of each individual life is shaped and carried on, with its daily discipline. For this the prophets rebuke, the apostles teach, the martyrs die. For this the Scriptures are written, the Gospel is preached, the Church is planted and extended, the sacraments are ministered, the prayers are offered. For this—all ye whose groans are relieved or smothered—whose tears fall or are forced back upon their fountains in fear or shame—whose springs of joy are dry as summer dust, whose career is a failure, and whose ambition is dead—for this you are “tired and discouraged,” scourged and lonely—that you might “want” some voice to “speak to you about Christ and His love;” nay, that you might want to see Jesus Himself. F. D. H.

5,6. Since all culture seems wasted on this vineyard, the owner resolves to change his course and abandon it to sterility. Its fences shall be removed, and the wild boar of the forest and the beast of the field be let in to waste and devour. The showers of blessing shall be withdrawn. The meaning of the parable and the cause of these threatenings are then explained together. The vineyard is the house of Israel and the men of Judah; and the reason of these judgments is the crime and violence that fill their land. Birks.—God in a way of righteous judgment denies His grace to those that have long received it in vain. The sum of all is that they who would not bring forth good fruit should bring forth none. The curse of barrenness is the punishment of the sin of barrenness (as Mark 11:14). This had its accomplishment, in part, in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, its full accomplishment in the final rejection of the Jews, and has its frequent accomplishment in the departure of God’s Spirit from those persons who have long resisted Him and striven against Him, and the removal of His Gospel from those places that have been long a reproach to it, while it has been an honor to them. H.

It is just as true that God is everywhere about us, always mindful of our wants, though we never think of Him. It is just as true that Christ comes to us by the bright lessons of His example and the melting doctrines of His death, though we turn our backs alike on the manger and the cross. It is just as true that we are pressing onward to eternity, though we grasp after present pleasure, and think not of the future. Truth is perfect and immutable amid all the weakness and changes of man. God is not indifferent when He finds His paternal love slighted and despised. Christ is not unaffected when we turn coldly away from His tender entreaties, though He come repeatedly with the expostulation, “How often would I, but ye would not.” Homer.—Well, then, O child of man, may the God of heaven and earth exclaim, “Judge ye between Me and My vineyard!” Well, then, may we heed the awful menace uttered in the song of the vineyard. A nation, a church, a house, a heart, where the grace of God has been received in vain, cannot fail to be an object of His righteous displeasure. Van O.

7. This incidental and quiet showing that the owner of the vineyard is truly the God of Israel is at once beautiful and striking. He is one who can speak to the clouds in tones of lofty command—and they obey! The secret is now out and the prophet has only to put the moral of the parable before the people in explicit terms. “For” (as you will see from His authority over the clouds) the Lord Jehovah is the owner and the cultivator of this vineyard. His vineyard is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are the plant, the vine, upon which He so much sets His heart. He looked for justice, but behold only injustice; for righteousness, but lo, He hears only the outcries of the wronged and crushed. This indicates what special fruit the Lord expected—viz., moral uprightness and a fraternal bearing toward all fellow-men. Especially He did not expect and could not bear man’s heartless oppression of His brother-man! The points of moral instruction made prominent in this parable are that God’s gifts of truth, light as to duty, moral culture and opportunities for doing good, create peculiar obligations to be morally fruitful, to do justice and to love mercy. Men so blessed with privileges must be held to a stern accountability. Failing to meet this, they must expect that God will take away their privileges and give them to others who will render the fruits in their season. See the doctrine of our Lord on this point (Matt. 21 : 43). H. C.

8. Here begins a detailed specification of the sins included in the general expressions of verse 7. We have first two woes pronounced against as many sins, each followed by a threatening of appropriate punishment, and a general threatening which applies to both (verses 8-17). The first sin thus denounced is that of ambitious and avaricious grasping after property, not merely in opposition to the peculiar institutions of the law, but to the fundamental principles of morals, connected as it always is with a neglect of charitable duties and a willingness to sacrifice the good of others. The verse before us may be understood, however, as descriptive rather of the tendency and aim of this ambitious grasping than of its actual effects. Woe to the joiners of house with house, or those making house touch house, field to field they bring together.

9,10. The inordinate desire of lands and houses shall be punished with the loss of them. And first He threatens that the valuable houses which they coveted and gained by fraud or violence shall one day be left empty, an event implying the death, captivity, or degradation of their owners. A.

Who can deny that this covetousness which is idolatry, this selfish and grasping spirit, is of all sins that which always has been and is most common and prevalent in the Church, and even among sincerely religious men? It clothes itself with respectability as with a garment, and walks often unrebuked, often flattered even and admired, in almost every assembly of the saints. How many of us are there who, if we love righteousness, also hanker after the wages of unrighteousness, after the opulence, the gratifications, the success which can only come to us through a selfish and worldly—i.e., a sinful life. No transgression is more common than this among spiritual men, though none is more fatal to the spiritual life, since none renders a man more impervious to the rebukes of conscience or the warnings of the Word and Spirit of God. Cox.

Thousands of people might be enjoying reasonable lives, with opportunities for self-culture, for social enjoyment, and for charitable effort, whose whole energy is absorbed in the desperate struggle to add superfluities to comforts. Saturday Review.—The spirit of enterprise is the mainspring of all material progress and prosperity. The Christian farmer need not be covetous. He cultivates the land that God has prepared for him. He trusts in God for rain and sunshine. And if he raises more than he needs, the surplus feeds the hungry at home and abroad. He cannot be utterly selfish even if he wants to. If he prospers, others must be benefited. And so with the inventor and manufacturer. He may get rich, but he enriches every farmer or artisan who is helped by his labor-saving machine. So in all departments of legitimate business. A man may prosper without covetousness, especially if he regards himself as God’s steward, and holds his wealth subject to the calls of religion and humanity. But the man who goes to church on the Sabbath, who professes to believe in God, and then goes home, and in the little shrine of his narrow, selfish soul worships mammon—studies day and night how he can get rich by impoverishing others, he is the heathen in the midst of Christendom. Babb.

11-14. The second woe is uttered against drunkenness and heartless dissipation, with its usual accompaniment of inattention to God’s providential dealings, and is connected with captivity, hunger, thirst, general mortality, as its appropriate punishment. The description of the sin is contained in verses 11, 12, and first that of drunkenness, considered not as an occasional excess, but as a daily business, diligently prosecuted with a devotion such as would ensure success in any laudable or lawful occupation. A.

The next woe falls on those who abandon themselves to sensuality in the line of strong drink, and luxurious feasting and music, to the utter oblivion of God and of all His claims upon His intelligent and moral offspring. This form of sin and its threatened judgment leads the course of thought through verses 11-17. The description of their sin is strongly drawn. They rise early in the morning to follow strong drink, and are up late in the night inflamed with wine as men who make it their life-work to fire their blood and madden their brain under the perpetual stimulus of intoxicating drink. It is but a thing of course that such sensualists should give themselves to feasting, and should also superadd the charms of music. And yet more is it a thing of course that they should forget God! Ah, there can be no right thought or sense of God amid such revelry! One of the main purposes of such indulgence is to banish all thought of God. H. C.

13,14. Here again the sin is directly followed by its condign punishment, drunkenness and disregard of providential warnings by captivity, hunger, thirst, and general mortality. But instead of the language of direct prediction (as in verses 9, 10) the prophet here employs that of description. A.

Alcoholic poisoning is responsible for more disease than any other single cause, and its action, being chemical, is more easily investigated than the complicated biologic influences of parasitic micro-organisms. Alcoholic intoxication exhibits in its action phenomena of the same class as present themselves in the case of other chronic poisons. The daily administration of small doses may be continued for an indefinite period without any apparent noxious effect, but its action is cumulative, and may at any moment announce itself as chronic disease. All the indications point to the conclusion that it is the nervous tissue which is especially exposed to the cumulative action of the alcoholic poison. The alcohol sets up a chemical action in the nervous tissue, which at first inaugurates only imperceptible change; but once inaugurated, the process goes on until the tissue passes into a permanently diseased condition. Hence, medical opinion is becoming more and more strengthened in the conviction that it is by no means only the free drinkers and notorious drunkards who are victims of this insidious habit, but also innumerable persons who would repel the appellation “drinker” with indignation. The influence of alcohol on the nerves, and especially on the motor nerves, is seen in the acute stage of intoxication, and in its chronic form is exhibited in delirium tremens, and various forms of neurotic disease. But, fearful as are these diseases, they are of comparatively rare occurrence, while diseases springing from the action of alcohol on the physical organs are of such far more frequent occurrence as to render their consideration of greater practical importance. Alcohol exerts its essential and most significant influence on the vital organs by being taken up in the circulation, and thus brought into direct contact with the cellular tissues of the vital organs. Cirrhose liver, diseases of the heart, of the arteries, of the kidneys, and of the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, along with gout, diabetes, and fatty degeneration, are all ascribable to it. This is a formidable list when we take into consideration their frequent occurrence. The prevention of the evils of alcoholism, when once realized, should appeal to us as physicians to enlist all our forces in an earnest effort to grapple with them. Prevention is, in principle, so easy. Nothing is needed but insight and good will, and a firm conviction that we are toiling for a good cause in the service of humanity. Dr. Adolf Strümpell, Berlin.

14. The ancient Orientals manifestly thought of the souls of men, good or bad, as going to the under world, though not each to the same apartment in it. The grave, just beneath earth’s surface, might receive and retain the body; a lower and quite other one received all human souls, where the wicked wandered in darkness, while the righteous in their apartments had rest. Here this subterranean receptacle opens its mouth even beyond all precedent or limit; and “down into it go their glory” (that of God’s guilty people); “their multitude and pomp, with every one who exults in it”—i.e., all those who profanely, impiously exult over the threatened horrors of the grave. Making themselves prominent in their foolhardiness. God makes them specially prominent in this enumeration of what goes down into that world of the dead. H. C.

16. God shall be glorified (verse 16). He that is the Lord of hosts and the holy God shall be exalted and sanctified in the judgment and righteousness of these dispensations. His justice must be owned, in bringing those low that exalted themselves; and herein He is glorified; He will herein be exalted as the Lord of hosts, that is able to break the strongest, humble the proudest, and tame the most unruly. Power is not exalted but in judgment. It is the honor of God that, though He has a mighty arm, yet judgment and justice are always the habitation of His throne (Ps. 89: 13, 14). H.

18. This verse contains the third woe, having reference to presumptuous sinners who defy God’s judgments. They are here represented not as drawn away by sin, but as laboriously drawing it to them by soliciting temptation, drawing it out by obstinate persistency in evil and contempt of Divine threatenings. A.—The cause is here put for the effect; “iniquity” and “sin” for the punishment which they provoke. The meaning then is, “Woe unto them who foolishly draw upon themselves the reward of iniquity; nay, set their shoulders to pull it forward, as a beast of burden does a cart rope!” Rosenmüller.

The style of sinning here contemplated is fully given in verse 19, where their spirit stands out in their supposed words: “Let Him” (God) “make speed and hasten His work” (of threatened judgment) “that we may see it—and let the Holy One of Israel” (said contemptuously, in bitter scorn) “draw nigh and come that we may know” (Him). “You threaten His coming: let Him come! Let us know Him. Who fears?” This strain of impious blasphemy implies an utter incredulity, or the very extreme of foolhardiness. No human line ever yet fathomed the mysteries of sin madness; the depths of moral infatuation to which depravity in sinning creatures, human and satanic, can sink. In any rational point of light, it seems in the last degree amazing that men should dare the Almighty to vengeance, and heap insults on His name and throne after this manner; but who shall say what the folly and guilt of sin cannot do? Men of this spirit draw all sorts of sin into their souls as if they were eager to be filled with sin to their utmost capacity! H. C.

20. Woe unto them that call evil good, etc.** The prophet compares the difference of moral “good and evil,” presented to the human understanding, with that of “light and darkness” discerned by the eye, of “bitter and sweet,” tasted by the palate; that is, as a plain and undeniable truth which forceth its evidence upon a rational mind: to transgress God’s commandments, His laws and statutes, delivered by His prophets and confirmed by a series of miracles, was a heinous crime; but to “call evil good, and good evil,” was to advance a step farther in impiety, to lay the profane axe to the root of righteousness, to destroy all religion, and to sink into mere atheism. Jortin.—Virtue and piety are good, for they are light and sweet, they are pleasant and right; but sin and wickedness are evil, they are darkness, all the fruit of ignorance and mistake, and will be bitterness in the latter end. Those do a great deal of wrong to God and religion and conscience, to their own souls and to the souls of others, who misrepresent these and put false colors upon them, who call drunkenness good fellowship and covetousness good husbandry, and when they persecute the people of God think they do Him good service; and on the other hand, who call seriousness ill nature and sober singularity ill breeding, who say all manner of evil falsely concerning the ways of godliness, and do what they can to form in men’s minds prejudices against them; and this in defiance of evidence as plain and convincing as that of sense, by which we distinguish beyond contradiction between light and darkness, and that which to the taste is sweet and bitter. H.

This reversal of moral terms and this consequent breaking down of moral distinctions, this calling evil good and good evil, is one of the most common devices of respectable sinning. It is really the testimony which wicked men unconsciously bear to the intrinsic merit and the consequent respectability of goodness. Taxing their sophistry to the utmost, constraining the public sentiment of society to their own purposes, and often, alas! with fearful success, they manage to lessen materially the discomforts of sinning, and to smooth the matter over to their own consciences. H. C.—Whoever does anything to throw the shield of respectability upon a wrong, or cloak it with a smooth name, or to disguise the hateful expression of its face, does something to undermine the very foundations of the moral structure on which all our safety rests. There is a cowardice, a tameness, a complaisance, often, in our judgments of one another which is only second in mischief to the positive wrong it palliates. It is tampering with the foundation principles of good and evil. J. H. Allen.

How much wholesome on all accounts is it that there should be an ugly word for an ugly thing, one involving moral condemnation and disgust, even at the expense of a little coarseness, rather than one which plays fast and loose with the eternal principles of morality, which makes sin plausible and shifts the divinely reared landmarks of right and wrong, thus bringing the user under the woe of them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; a text on which South has written four of his grandest sermons, with reference to this very matter, and bearing this striking title: “On the Fatal Imposture and Force of Words!” How awful, yea, how fearful is this force and imposture of theirs, leading men captive at will. There is an atmosphere about them which they are evermore diffusing, an atmosphere of life or death which we insensibly inhale at each moral breath we draw. Trench.

There is hope of reformation as long as the principles remain uncorrupted; but when the light which is in us is converted into darkness, when lies are greedily embraced and errors deliberately justified, the climax of guilt has been reached, the ruin of the character is complete, and the perdition of the soul, without a stupendous miracle of grace, seems to be inevitable. Thornwell.—We hold to no belief in Divine mercy which detracts from the unrelaxed severity of that rule which denounces woe on all those who take pleasure in and who persist in unrighteousness. We can more easily conceive of light without a shadow than believe in sin unaccompanied by penalty. Mercy never lifts her hand to pluck down this high ordinance of God; but she herself, when she has promised hope and relief, repeats with a new emphasis the retributions which are sure to overtake such as obey not her suggestions. W. Adams.

It is nothing but the present torpor of the moral sentiments that allows to material ideas so much power to occupy and overwhelm the mind; but when the soul shall be quickened from its lethargy, then good and evil will take that seat of influence which has been usurped by unsubstantial images of greatness, beauty, or terror. What are the thunderings of a thousand storms, what the clangor of the trumpet, or the crash of earth, or the universal blaze, what the dazzling front of the celestial array, or even the appalling apparatus of punishment, to the spirit that has become alive to the consciousness of its own moral condition, and is standing naked in the manifested presence of the High and Holy One? That time of judgment, which is to dispel all disguises and to drag sin from its coverts into the full light of heaven, will assuredly find no moment of leisure for the discursive eye; one perception, one emotion will doubtless rule exclusive in the soul. I. Taylor.—Woe to the soul that fights against God with His own mercies; that will be sinful because He is merciful. Abused mercy will at last turn into a lion, and then woe to the despisers and abusers of it! T. Brooks.

24. To the series of sins enumerated in the six preceding verses there is now added a general description of their punishment. In the first clause the prophet represents the Divine visitation, with its sudden, rapid, irresistible effect, by the familiar figure of chaff and dry grass sinking in the flames. In the second clause he passes from simile to metaphor, and speaks of the people as a tree whose root is rotten and its growth above ground pulverized.

In the third, he drops both figures for literal expressions.

25. Having declared in the foregoing verse what should be, he recalls to mind what has already been. As if he had said, “God will visit you for these things; nay, He has done so already, but without reclaiming you or satisfying His own justice, for which purpose further strokes are still required.” The previous inflictions here referred to are described as a stroke from Jehovah’s outstretched hand, so violent as to shake the mountains, and so destructive as to fill the streets with dead bodies. A.

26. Here a foreign foe of fearful power appears as the scourge of the nation. How God calls them to this work is indicated by two figures—the lifting up of a banner around which they are to rally and which they follow; and the hiss or whistle used to call swarming bees home to their hives. With grand sublimity of description, this whistle call is heard from afar across the broad earth, and lo! they come, very swiftly, to fulfil their mission. Such is the power of Almighty God over even heathen nations who neither know nor fear His name. H. C.

30. The roaring of the lion (verse 29) suggests the roaring of the sea, and thus a beautiful transition is effected from the one figure to the other in describing the catastrophe of all these judgments. Israel is threatened by a raging sea, and looking landward sees it growing dark there, until, after a brief fluctuation, the darkness becomes total. And he (the enemy) shall roar against him (Israel) in that day like the roaring of a sea. And he shall look to the land, and behold darkness! Anguish and light! It is dark in the clouds thereof (i.e., of the land, the skies above it). A.—The last touch is graphic. If one looks toward that land, behold! only darkness and sorrow: dense clouds hang deeply over it: all the great lights are darkened in its heavens! The pall of death has fallen and enshrouded the land! So ends this vivid portrayal of the nation’s sins and judgments. As to its fulfilment, many points correspond to the captivity by the Chaldeans; some better to the final destruction by the Romans. Like De. 28, this chapter portrays the fearful judgments held in reserve against the hour when the nation’s sins should imperatively demand their infliction, forbearance and further discipline being in vain. H. C.