Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness. Isaiah 32:1-8 Asayria and Judah Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. Such ( Isaiah 31:8, 9 ) will be the ignominious end of the proud battalions of Assyria. For Judah a happier future immediately begins. There should be no break between the two chapters. The representation which follows (vers. 1-8) is the positive complement to Isaiah 31:6 f., and is parallel to Isaiah 30:23-26 , completing under its ethical and spiritual aspects the picture of which the external material features were there delineated. Society, when the crisis is past, will be regenerated. Kings and nobles will be the devoted guardians of justice, and great men will be what their position demands that they should be — the willing and powerful protectors of the poor. All classes, in other words, will be pervaded by an increased sense of public duty. The spiritual and intellectual blindness ( Isaiah 29:10 ) will have passed away (ver. 3); superficial and precipitate judgments will be replaced by discrimination (ver. 4 a ); hesitancy and vacillation will give way before the prompt and clear assertion of principle (ver. 4 b ). The present confusion of moral distinctions will cease; men and actions will be called by their right names. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) A new era F. Delitzsch. For Judah — sifted, rescued, cleansed — a new era opens. I. JUST GOVERNMENT IN BLESSING TO THE PEOPLE is the first good fruit (vers. 1, 2). II. The second is AN OPEN UNDERSTANDING AFTER THE CURSE OF HARDNESS (vers. 3, 4). III. A third good fruit is CALLING AND TREATING EVERYONE ACCORDING TO HIS TRUE CHARACTER (vers. 5-8). Nobility of birth and riches will give place to nobility of disposition, so that the former will not be found, nor find recognition without the latter. ( F. Delitzsch. ) A flourishing kingdom It may be taken as a directory both to magistrates and subjects, what both ought to do. It is here promised and prescribed — I. THAT MAGISTRATES SHOULD DO THEIR DUTY IN THEIR PLACES, and the powers answer the great ends for which they were ordained of God (vers. 1, 2). 1. There shall be a king and princes that shall reign and rule; for it cannot go well when there is no king in Israel. 2. They shall use their power according to law, and not against it. 3. Thus they shall be great blessings to the people (ver. 2). "A man" — that man, that king that reigns in righteousness — "shall be as a hiding-place." II. THAT SUBJECTS SHALL DO THEIR DUTY IN THEIR PLACES. 1. They shall be willing to be taught, and to understand things aright (ver. 3). When this blessed work of reformation is set on foot, and men do their part towards it, God will not be wanting to do His. Then "the eyes of them that see" — of the prophets, the seers — "shall not be dim," &c. 2. There shall be a wonderful change wrought in them by that which is taught them (ver. 4).(1) They shall have a clear head, and be able to discern things that differ, and distinguish concerning them.(2) They shall have a ready utterance. 3. The differences between good and evil, virtue and vice, shall be kept up and no more confounded by those who put darkness for light, and light, for darkness (ver. 5). ( Matthew Henry . ) Reformed society E. A. Lawrence. Though Isaiah s words are only perfectly ful-filled in Jesus Christ, it was not concerning Christ that they were spoken. The prophet is speaking of the religious future and social progress of his people. He is presenting a picture of regenerated Judah. He points to the essential elements of all national stability and greatness. He speaks first of the righteousness that shall be exalted, and exemplified in the government of king and rulers; and then he goes on to speak of the moral conditions of real blessedness and progress, as they shall appear among the people. Great characters are the outstanding feature in the reformed society that he anticipates. Through them the progress of the nation is secured; in them the greatness of the nation will consist. But great characters can only exercise their full and proper influence when they move among those who are able to discern their greatness. Hence Isaiah declares that in that glorious time for which he confidently looks the moral blindness of the people, over which he had so often and so deeply mourned, the moral insensibility dulness, with all the confusion and false judgment it occasioned, shall have ceased (ver. 3). Men shall know true manhood when they see it, and honour the manhood that they see. They shall no longer debase the moral currency, and make false use of terms denoting moral qualities. The great men shall be seen in all their greatness, and shall raise others to a moral elevation like their own. They shall protect the weak, and encourage the faint-hearted; they shall foster the growth of all goodness, and be an unfailing source of noblest inspiration. As they stand there in all their moral grandeur, rooted and grounded in the eternal righteoushess, they are indeed — and they are known to be — "as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rook in a weary land." ( E. A. Lawrence. ) Isaiah's Utopia W. B. Dalby. The first eight verses of this chapter are like the sudden opening of a window. The hall behind you resounds with the clamour of fierce contentions; the window before you frames in the prospect of a fair country, all bathed in rosy light, a land of corn and wine and oil, a land of plenty and peace. Isaiah is not the only politician who has found relief from the anxieties of a stormy time in a Utopia of his own imagining. The air was full of the noise of change, the Reformation was in full career on the Continent, and the ground-swell of the great movement already trembling on the shores of England, when Sir Thomas More wrote his description of the ideal state. When, as they think, everything is going wrong, men often have brightest visions of what the world would be if everything were going right. Isaiah's Utopia has three grand characteristics: 1. The triumph of righteousness in government. His programme for the ruling power is this: "A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment." 2. The new state shall be broad-based, not upon the people's will, but upon the people's character. Men shall not be, as they have been, weak and unstable, and ungenerous; but, rock-like and river-like, they shall be strong and bountiful. 3. The ideal Israel, themselves judged justly, shall be just judges of others. They shall be able to discriminate character, and to recognise and honour the truly good. "The quack and the dupe," says Carlyle, "are upper and under side of the same substance." So, in the kingdom of the future, "the vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." There will be no quacks, because there will be no dupes. Those who are liberal themselves are not likely to err in what constitutes liberality in others. ( W. B. Dalby. ) A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind. Isaiah 32:2 A hiding-place from the wind Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. In the East, the following phenomenon is often observed. Where the desert touches a river, valley, or oasis, the sand is in a continual state of drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the barrenness of such portions of the desert, at least, as abut upon the fertile land. For under the rain, or by the infiltration of the river, plants often spring up through the sand, and there is sometimes promise of considerable fertility. It never lasts. Down comes the periodic drift, and life is stunted or choked out. But set down a rock on the sand, and see the difference its presence makes. After a few showers, to the leeward side of this some blades will spring up; if you have patience, you will see in time a garden. How has the boulder produced this? Simply by arresting the drift. Now that is exactly how great men benefit human life. ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) The true shelter/or the world W. C. E. Newbolt. A Saviour who does not seek first to improve man's condition, but to improve man. ( W. C. E. Newbolt. ) A man Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. The prophet here has no individual specially in his view, but is rather laying down a general description of the influence of individual character, of which Christ Jesus was the highest instance. Taken in this sense, his famous words present us — I. WITH A PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. Great men are not the whole of life, but they are the condition of all the rest; if it were not for the big men, the little ones could scarcely live. The first requisites of religion and civilisation are outstanding characters. II. But in this philosophy of history there is A GOSPEL. Isaiah's words are not only man's ideal: they are God's promise, and that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most conspicuous example — none others are near Him — of this personal influence in which Isaiah places all the shelter and revival of society. This figure of a rock, a rock resisting drift, gives us some idea, not only of the commanding influence of Christ's person, but of that special office from which all the glory of His person and of His name arises: that "He saves His people from their sins." For what is sin? Sin is simply the longest, heaviest drift in human history. "The oldest custom of the race," it is the most powerful habit of the individual. Men have reared against it government, education, philosophy, system after system of religion. But sin overwhelmed them all. Only Christ resisted, and His resistance saves the world. III. In this promise of a man there is A GREAT DUTY AND IDEAL for every one. If this prophecy distinctly reaches forward to Jesus Christ as its only perfect fulfilment, the vagueness of its expression permits of its application to all, and through Him its fulfilment by all becomes a possibility. 1. We can be like Christ the Rock in shutting out from our neighbours the knowledge and infection of sin, in keeping our conversation so unsuggestive and unprovocative of evil, that, though sin drift upon us, it shall never drift through us. 2. We may be like Christ the Rock in shutting out blame from other men; in sheltering them from the east wind of pitiless prejudice, quarrel, or controversy; in stopping the unclean and bitter drifts of scandal and gossip. How many lives have lost their fertility for the want of a little silence and a little shadow! 3. As there are a number of men and women who fall in struggling for virtue simply because they never see it successful in others, and the spectacle of one pure, heroic character would be their salvation, here is a way in which each servant of God may be a rock. ( Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D. ) Humanity greater than all distinctions of class F. Ferguson. In the first and second verses of this chapter we have suggested to us the three great forms of government or social power, in accordance with which society has been constructed, and under which men have lived; namely, the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the democracy. A king shall reign, princes shall rule, and a man shall be as a hiding-place. First, there is a throne, then a palace, and then the common earth. It seems to be a descent from a king to princes, and from princes to a man; but it is also an ascent, for the man is the climax rather than the king. The king and the princes disappear in the man. Humanity or the common nature is greater than all distinctions of class. A king exists for men, rather than men for a king; and the salvation of society consists in the elevation of the common substratum of the race. In this elevation all the three powers may play a part — the power of the throne, the power of the nobles, and the power of the people themselves. All these three forms of government may exist in the same constitution. In the heavenly, or eternal government, there is a King with different orders of subjects. But since, in this heavenly kingdom, He who is King of kings and Lord of lords became a man, and a poor man, that He might serve all, and lift up all to citizenship in His kingdom, and to sit even on His throne, the great moral and spiritual law has been laid down, that every one, from the ruler on the throne to the humblest subject, rises in moral character and dignity just as he stoops to the help of others. If it is by the gentleness of God that we are made great; if He who is over all became servant to all, we cannot hope to become great on a different principle; that is, by seeking to be ministered unto rather than to minister. ( F. Ferguson. ) Christ the shield of the believer It is probable that the prophecy had some reference to Hezekiah, who, as the successor of the iniquitous Ahaz, restored the worship of God, and re-established the kingdom of Judah. The very striking deliverance vouchsafed by God to His people, in the reign of this monarch, when the swarming hosts of the Assyrians fell in one night before the destroying angel, may justly be considered as having been alluded to by the prophet in strains which breathe high of the triumphs of redemption. And when "a king" is spoken of as "reigning in righteousness," and there is associated with his dominion all the imagery of prosperity and peace, we may, undoubtedly, find, in the holy and beneficent rule of Hezekiah, much that answers to the glowing predictions. But the destruction of the army of the Assyrians may itself be regarded as a figurative occurrence; and Hezekiah, like his forefather David, as but a type of the Lord our Redeemer. There are to be great and fearful judgments ere Christ shall finally set up His kingdom on earth. We shall consider the text as containing a description — metaphorical, undoubtedly, but not the less comforting and instructive — of what the Redeemer is to the Church. I. The first thing which may justly strike you as remarkable in this description of Christ, is THE EMPHASIS WHICH SEEMS LAID ON THE WORD "MAN." A man" shall be this or that; and Bishop Lowth renders it "the man," as if he were man by distinction from every other — which is undoubtedly St. Paul's statement when he writes to the Corinthians: "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." It is the human nature of Christ to which our text gives the prominence; it is this human nature to which seems ascribed the suitableness of Christ's office prophetically assigned. What our blessed Saviour undertook was the reconciliation of our offending nature to God; and of this it is perhaps hardly too much to say that it could not have been effected by any nature but itself. II. Let us now proceed to consider WITH WHAT JUSTICE OR PROPRIETY THE SEVERAL ASSERTIONS HERE MADE MAY BE APPLIED TO OUR SAVIOUR. There are four assertions in the text, four similes used to represent to us the office of our Redeemer, or the benefits secured to us through His gracious mediation. These assertions or similes are not, indeed, all different; on the contrary, there is great similarity, or even something like repetition. Thus, "a hiding-place from the wind" does not materially differ from "a covert from the tempest." The idea is the same; there is only that variety in the mode of expression which accords with poetic composition. Neither is "the shadow of a great rock in a weary desert" altogether a different image; the idea is still that which shields — shelter from the heat, if not from the tempest. It may, perhaps, be more correct to say that there are two great ideas embodied in the text, and there are two figures for the illustration of each. The first idea is that of a refuge in circumstances of danger; and this is illustrated by "a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." The second idea is that of refreshment under circumstances of fatigue; and this is illustrated by "rivers of water in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." There is one thing, according to the three illustrations, which should be separately and carefully considered. The "hiding-place," the "covert," and the "rock," give shelter and relief, through receiving on themselves that against which they defend us. It were a dull imagination, nay, it were a cold heart, which does not instantly recognise the appropriateness of the figure, as taken in illustration of the Lord our Redeemer. These Scriptural figures while under one point of view they represent Christ, under another they represent ourselves. And it is simply because there is so little feeling of our own actual condition that there is so little appreciation of the character under which Christ is described. ( H . Melvill, B.D. ) Jesus, the hiding-place J. H. Evans, M. A. There is not a want, not a need, but we find Jesus enough for it. I. MAN'S NEED OF A HIDING-PLACE. 1. What a tempest will sharp afflictions sometimes raise, particularly if one follows another in quick succession. 2. There are other storms — national judgments. 3. What a storm can the Eternal Spirit raise in a man's own conscience when the poor Christless sinner catches his first glimpse of God! 4. What a burning wind has oft withered the mere professor when the Eternal Spirit has in a dying hour forced him to the fearful review of the past. II. THE GLORIOUS HIDING-PLACE WHICH THE GOSPEL POINTS OUT. As God-man, who can describe the hiding-place? What a hiding-place is His Person! What a hiding-place is His intercession! What a hiding-place is His deep sympathy! What a hiding-place is His fulness of grace! What a hiding-place, that has all the power, strength, and merit of Deity in it, and all the tenderness, love, and sympathy of humanity in it! The great question is, Have we really entered in? ( J. H. Evans, M. A. ) A covert the tempest J. Wells, M. A. We cannot easily imagine the fury of whirlwinds in the East. Granite and iron columns are snapped in two; the largest trees are torn up by the roots; houses are tossed about like straws, and at sea whole fleets are cast away. But Eastern storms are most terrible in the desert. There mountains of sand are lifted up and dashed down, sometimes burying whole caravans, and even whole armies. Picture a traveller in such a case. After a strange stillness, he sees a cloud of sand arising in front of him. At once the sky is darkened, and earth and heaven seem confounded. The angel of destruction rides on every blast, and claims the whole desert as his own. The poor man stands appalled, as if the clay of doom had come. Oh, for a shelter: it is his one chance for life! Lo! a gigantic rock rears its head; he runs under it. The storm spends its fury upon the sheltering rock, not upon the sheltered pilgrim. ( J. Wells, M. A. ) Our hiding-place J. Wells, M. A. I. IN THE SAVIOUR THERE IS SHELTER FOR OUR SOULS. What are the storms from which the Saviour shields us? The Bible speaks most about two: the storm of God's wrath against sin, and the storm of life's trials. II. IN THE SAVIOUR WE HAVE SAFETY. Shelter and safety are different things, though we may not see the difference at once. About eighteen hundred years ago there was a town in the south of Italy, called Pompeii, which owes its fame to its destruction. It was buried under streams of boiling mud from Vesuvius, and showers of dust and ashes. Most of the people escaped by flight. The priests, having no faith in their idols, seized their treasures and fled. But some poor folks ran to the temples, hoping that their gods would save them. They found shelter, and — a grave. Since many are more anxious about shelter than real safety, Christ is at great pains to warn us against a mistake as common as it is dangerous. You remember Christ's story about the two builders; the one building upon the sand, and the other upon the rock. Very likely the two houses were equally fair to look upon, and both the wise man and the fool found shelter enough in sunny weather. But the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the fool's house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof. The poor man found shelter-and death. Many "refuges of lies" — man-made refuges all — would lure us away from our true safety. III. IN THE SAVIOUR THERE IS SYMPATHY. Shelter and safety are often found without sympathy. The fortress that gave the besieged safety from their foes has often been a hateful prison, in which famine and pestilence slew more than the sword. The dens and caves which were the hiding-places of our martyrs were equally wretched and safe. The Alpine traveller, overtaken by snowstorms, hurries to the nearest shelter, and finds only four bare walls. No cheerful fire, no kind host welcomes and revives him; and often he faints on the threshold, and dies within. But the soul's hiding-place is the soul's banqueting-house. You must lay the stress on the word "man." To the Jews before Christ it was no news to be told that God was a hiding-place. But that a man should be their hiding-place and covert, their overshadowing rock and water of life — that was a very surprising and glorious prophecy. And what a man! The Man of men, the alone perfect Man, of all men the most gracious and tender-hearted the God-man. And He is a man by His own choice. More, He is a man from love to us. Had He been only God, we sinful, trembling creatures might not have dared to draw near; had He been only man, we should have doubted His power; but being both God and man, we can approach Him with equal confidence and affection. Your safety is not a hard, cold, empty thing. No, it is like the safety of the young eagle, covered with the feathers, and drawn close to the warm, ,beating side of the parent bird. IV. IN THE SAVIOUR THERE IS SATISFACTION. Tis thorough satisfaction, as when the desert-traveller, perishing with thirst, finds "rivers of water in a dry place." Among men, Beasts, and birds, how boundless is the delight the thirsty find in fresh water! Every one has a craving for happiness, that never can The conquered, but lives while the soul lives. The Bible is ever declaring these" two truths — 1. Your soul cannot get true satisfaction away from Christ. 2. You may find it in Him. ( J. Wells, M. A. ) The hiding-place J. H. Evans, M. A. I. THE HOLY GHOST DECLARES IT IS "A MAN THAT SHALL BE THE HIDING-PLACE FROM THE WIND." II. IN WHAT RESPECT OUR BLESSED LORD IS THAT "HIDING-PLACE." III. THE MANY ENCOURAGEMENTS THAT ARE GIVEN IN GOD'S SACRED WORD TO THE POOR AND WEARY TEMPEST-BEATEN TRAVELLER TO ENTER INTO THAT "HIDING-PLACE." 1. The commandment of God, on the one side. 2. The freeness of invitation, on the other. 3. The open door. 4. The testimony of all those who are in heaven, and all those who are on earth, under the teaching of the Eternal Spirit, that never did any go thither and have a negative, but that as many as went were freely welcomed by the Lord of life and glory. ( J. H. Evans, M. A. ) The value of true man-hood J. H. Jowett, M. A. Change the emphasis of your policy. You have been busy making alliances; now make a man. That was the teaching of this statesman-prophet. ( J. H. Jowett, M. A. ) The variety and urgency of human need F. B. Meyer, B. A. What a revelation is here of the wants of men! The very supply indicates the depths and urgency of the need which craves for satisfaction. "Hiding-place!" "Covert!" "Fountains of water!" "The shadow of a great rock!" Each of these beautiful images serves to accentuate the impression of urgent and pitiful need. Lighthouses and harbours are always terribly suggestive. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) Human need met in Christ F. B. Meyer, B. A. I. WIND. How apt a symbol of our lives is here! Often when all seems fair, suddenly a wild storm envelops us in a furious melee. A calumnious story is circulated, which is absolutely without foundation; a well-meant act is misconstrued; a love suddenly cools; a dam which had warded off the wild North Sea breaks; a life which had been dearer than our own fails; our whole nature is plunged into a bath of agonising pain; the mind is cast into a tumult of perplexity; the heart is rent. Then we know bitterly the spiritual side of the words, No small tempest lay upon us. II. STORM. We are exposed not only to great and crushing sorrows, which threaten to suddenly engulf us, as it is said the old seats of human life were engulfed in the midst of the Indian Ocean; but we have to suffer from the accumulations of little stinging irritations, which are like the grit or sand grains of the desert. The rasping temper of some one with whom we have to live; the annoyances and slights which are daily heaped on us; petty innuendoes and insinuations that sting; trifles which we could not put into words, but which hurt us like acid dropped into a sore. III. A DRY PLACE. Our lot is sometimes cast, as David's was, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. There are few helps in our religious life; we are cast into a worldly family; we are obliged to attend an uncongenial ministry; we are too driven with occupation to have quiet times for fellowship with God, and communion with His saints; or we are so lonely that we long unutterably for some kindred soul, some one to love, or to be loved. The eye ranges day after day over the same monotonous landscape. IV. A WEARY LAND. Weary people — there are plenty of them! Weary of life, with its poverty from which there is never a moment's respite; with the love of the life unrequited; with the light of life hidden beneath a bushel; with common-place duties and monotonous routine! The demands are so incessant, the pressure so constant, the heartache so wearing, the pain so cruel! The eyes weary of looking for one who never comes; the ears weary of listening for a step that never greets them; the hearts weary of waiting for a love that never comes forth from the grave, though they call never so loudly. But all these many-sided needs may be met and satisfied in The Man Christ Jesus." No one man could perfectly meet even one of them; but Jesus perfectly meets them all. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) Christ the perfect Man F. B. Meyer, B. A. Have you not often wished to take the characteristic qualities from the men in whom they are strongest, and put them all together into one nature, making one complete man out of the many broken bits, one chord of the many single notes, one ray of the many colours? But this that you would wish to do is done in Him-in whom the faith of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, the strength of Daniel, the love of the apostle John, blend in one complete symmetrical whole. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) Christ our hiding-place W. Jackson. I. THE STORMS. 1. The storm of adversity. 2. Of conviction. 3. Of temptation. 4. There is an eternal storm. II. THE HIDING-PLACE. "A man," &c. 1. What man? The Man Christ Jesus. 2. A suitable refuge. While He feels for you as a man, He helps you as a God. A refuge from — (1) A broken law. (2) A raging devil. (3) A persecuting world. III. DELIGHTFUL REFRESHMENT. As rivers of water," &c. 1. Refreshing. 2. Purifying. 3. Free. 4. Free to all. IV. NEEDFUL SHELTER. "As the shadow," &c. ( W. Jackson. ) Offices of Christ Carus Wilson. I. Christ came to be A HIDING-PLACE PROM THE WIND. This part of our text may be regarded as referring to the lesser evils of human life; to those which chiefly affect our temporal condition. Who does not feel, in his measure, the winds of adversity, which never fail to blow upon this lower world? The widow mourns over her bereavement, and sits alone, as a sparrow upon the housetop. The orphans look in vain for a parent's sympathy and protection. The poor man stands aghast at the prospect of penury. The sick languish under the appointment of painful days and wearisome nights. The mourners go about the streets, telling the sad tale of their desolation, and refusing to be comforted, under the loss of some endeared object. But let us not imagine that even our most trivial sufferings are beneath the notice of Jehovah. He became a man that He might make Himself acquainted with the afflictions of humanity, and thus be able to afford His sympathy. 1. There is the shelter of His gracious declarations. 2. Of the promises. 3. Of Christ's example.See Him weeping with those that wept. See Him providing for the hungry multitude. See Him ever ready to alleviate human misery, and, during the whole period of His life, going about doing good. Is it possible to study the life of Jesus, and not derive succour from the view of His sympathy and compassion? II. The second clause of our text leads us to the consideration of those greater evils, from which Christ protects His followers. He is spoken of as A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 1. There is the tempest of God's wrath, roused by man's transgression. 2. Of Satan's buffetings. 3. Of indwelling sin. But, amidst all these tempests, Christ is a covert for His people. Consider how it is that He shelters them. It is by bearing Himself the stormy wind and tempest. III. Christ is spoken of as RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE. To the renewed mind, what is the whole world but a dry place? IV. Christ is spoken of as THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY LAND. What are we but pilgrims toiling over the sandy desert of this weary world? We have various burdens to carry, and labours allotted to us; and now are we straitened in our work! With one hand we have to fight continually against our enemies, as we hasten onward to our home: with the other, we have to labour diligently, both for ourselves and others. We have to bear the burden and heat of the day. But shall we faint because of the way? No, we have a grand support. We have the shadow of a great rock in this weary land. ( Carus Wilson. ) Christ a refuge C. Bradley, M. A. I. We are reminded here of our DANGERS. These are set forth by images which we in our climate can only half understand. Except at sea, we have little to fear from winds and tempests. At the worst, they are inconveniences to us, seldom dangers. But in other countries they are at times the causes of great havoc. Besides these, there are gentler winds sometimes blowing in them, that are almost as fearful. Hot and debilitating, they cannot be breathed without much suffering, and instances, it is said, have been known in which they have been so noxious as to occasion death. Is not this a true picture of our situation? There are storms of outward affliction for us in the world. And there are inward storms also — storms of conscience, storms of temptation; and still worse storms than any of these — the ragings of our own corrupt affections. And yet what are all these? They are all nothing compared with one storm yet to come. There is the wrath of God awaiting us. II. The text tells us of A PROTECTOR FROM OUR DANGERS. And who is He? If we understand what our dangers are, we shall all say He must be the great God. But the text does not say this. It tells us that He is a man. But how, we may ask, can this be? We have tried often enough to get help from men. This man is such as never before was seen or heard of, the everlasting Jehovah manifest in our mortal flesh, God and man united in one Christ. But why is the Lord Jesus called so emphatically a man in this passage? Perhaps for three reasons. 1. To lead the ancient Church to expect His incarnation. 2. To encourage us to approach Him. We naturally are afraid of God. But here, says this text, is .God appearing before you in a new character and form. His mere appearance in our world as a man, proclaims Him at once man's Friend and Saviour. 3. To show us the importance of His human nature to our safety. III. THE EXCELLENCE OF THAT PROTECTION WHICH THE LORD JESUS AFFORDS US. Imagine yourselves in such a desert as the prophet has here in his mind. Suppose yourselves asked, what kind of shelter you wished for. 1. You would naturally say, in the first place, it must be a secure one. And Christ is a secure hiding-place. 2. Then you would say, the refuge I want must be a near one. And who so near at hand as the Lord Jesus. 3. But, you may ask, Can I gain admittance into this refuge if I flee to it? The answer is, You can. It is an open refuge, a refuge ever open, and open to all who choose to enter it. 4. He is a well-furnished hiding-place. There is provision and plentiful provision in this stronghold for all who enter it. Conclusion — 1. What think ye of this hiding-place? What use have you made of it? Have you fled to it? 2. But there are those who are out of this hiding-place. Oh, brethren, have mercy on yourselves! ( C. Bradley, M. A. ) The suffering world and the relieving Man Homilist. I. THE SUFFERING WORLD. The world's trials are he

Benson Commentary Isaiah 32:1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. Isaiah 32:1 . Behold, a king — Hezekiah, a type of Christ, and Christ typified by him, shall reign in righteousness — Therefore Hezekiah was not king when this prophecy was delivered. And whereas some say that he speaks of the good government of Hezekiah, after the destruction of Sennacherib, it is easy to observe, that his government was as good before that time as afterward; and that in the very beginning of his reign he ruled with righteousness and the fear of God. And princes — The ministers of state, judges, and magistrates under the king, shall rule in judgment — Shall execute their offices with integrity and faithfulness. “Ahaz and his princes had ruled very wickedly, but a king was about to mount the throne who would reign in righteousness, employ upright magistrates, and protect the people, both from internal oppression, by his equitable administration, and from external invaders, by his faith and prayers.” — Scott. But although these expressions are, in some sort, applicable to Hezekiah and his good reign, they are much more true of Christ and his reign, as are also several other expressions here used, especially those in the third and fourth verses, which evidently relate to happier times than Hezekiah lived to see. And therefore we may justly say, “That the reformation which Hezekiah made was but a shadow of those greater improvements in grace and holiness, which properly belong to the times of the gospel. — Lowth. Isaiah 32:2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Isaiah 32:2-4 . And a man — Either the man or king spoken of, or each of his princes, shall be a hiding-place — A protection to the people under their government, especially to such as are oppressed or injured by those that are more powerful than they; from the wind — From the rage and violence of evil men. As rivers of water in a dry place — Not less refreshing and acceptable shall this king and his princes be to their subjects. And as the shadow of a great rock — In a dry and scorched country, which is called weary, because it makes travellers weary; as death is called pale in other authors, because it makes men’s faces pale. And the eyes of them that see — Of the people, who shall not shut their eyes and ears against the good counsels and examples of their religious king and rulers, as they have done formerly; both princes and people shall be reformed. The heart also of the rash — Who were hasty in judging of things; which is an argument of ignorance and folly; shall understand knowledge — Shall become more knowing and considerate in their judgments and actions. And the tongue of the stammerers — Who used to speak of the things of God darkly, doubtfully, and unwillingly; shall be ready to speak plainly — As men’s understandings shall be enlightened, so their speech shall be reformed: which, though it was in part fulfilled in Hezekiah, yet was truly and fully accomplished only by Christ, who wrought this wonderful change in an innumerable company, both of Jews and Gentiles. Isaiah 32:3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. Isaiah 32:4 The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. Isaiah 32:5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. Isaiah 32:5-6 . The vile person — Base and worthless men; shall be no more called liberal — Shall no longer be reputed honourable, because of their high and honourable places, but wickedness shall be discovered wherever it is, and virtue manifested and rewarded. Nor the churl said to be bountiful — The sordid and covetous man; but under this one vice all vices are understood, as under the opposite virtue of bountifulness all virtues are comprehended. For the vile person will speak villany — Men shall no longer be miscalled; for every one will discover what he is by his words and actions. And will work iniquity — He will, from time to time, be devising wickedness, that he may execute it when he hath opportunity. To practise hypocrisy — To do bad things, though with a pretence of religion and justice. To utter error — To pass unjust sentences, directly contrary to the command of God. To cause the drink, &c. — Whereby they take away the bread and drink of the poor. Isaiah 32:6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. Isaiah 32:7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. Isaiah 32:7-8 . The instruments also of the churl are evil — Hebrew, ??? , the vessels. It is a word of a very general signification among the Hebrews, and signifies any person or thing which is employed in a man’s service. The sense is, that such covetous or wicked princes most willingly choose and employ wicked men in their affairs, because such men will, without any regard to conscience or justice: serve all their exorbitant desires. It includes, however, his counsels, practices, and arts, which are here declared to be generally evil. He deviseth wicked devices — He uses all his understanding and art to do injuries to others; to destroy the poor with lying words — With false and unrighteous decrees. When the needy speaketh right — When their cause is just and good. But the liberal deviseth liberal things — He who is truly liberal and virtuous, will show it by designing and practising liberal or virtuous actions. And by liberal things shall he stand — He who does so will not destroy himself thereby, as wicked men falsely suppose, but establish and advance himself. “The Christian reader need not be told how exactly the particulars, expressed in these verses, belong to Christ’s kingdom, who is a hiding-place from the storm of sin and the world, John 16:33 ; whose kingdom is a kingdom of light, of faith, of love; all whose subjects are enlightened by the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ; who gave eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, tongues to the dumb, and, by his divine grace, changed the most churlish and illiberal dispositions into generosity and love.” Vitringa. Isaiah 32:8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand. Isaiah 32:9 Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Isaiah 32:9-12 . Rise up, &c. — The prophet, to show the sinners and hypocrites in Zion, ( Isaiah 33:14 ,) that they must not expect to receive blessings from God, such as he had just now predicted, while they remained in a state of impenitence, denounces against them the calamities which should come upon them; 1st, By the Assyrian, and then by the Babylonish destruction. Ye women that are at ease — That indulge yourselves in idleness and luxury; shake off your carelessness and sloth, and prepare yourselves to hear the sentence pronounced by God concerning you. Hear my voice, ye careless daughters — Hebrew, ?????? , ye confident and secure, who are insensible of your sin and danger. Many days and years — Hebrew, ???? ?? ???? , days above a year; that is, a year and some days: which, it seems, expresses the time of the continuance of the judgment by the Assyrians; that it should last some days above one year, as indeed it did, and no longer; for Hezekiah reigned in all but twenty-nine years, 2 Kings 18:2 . And Sennacherib invaded the country in his fourteenth year; and, after his defeat and departure, God promised and added to him fifteen years more, 2 Kings 20:6 . For the vintage shall fail — During the time of the Assyrian invasion. The gathering shall not come — Namely, of the other fruits of the earth; as that feast which was observed after the gathering of all the fruits was called the feast of ingathering, Exodus 23:16 . Tremble, ye women, &c. — It seems probable, from these repeated addresses to the women, that those of Jerusalem especially, and, perhaps, also of many of the other towns in Judea, were, at that time, peculiarly vain, luxurious, dissipated, and wanton, and regardless of all religion. The prophet, therefore, especially addresses them, and warns them that a time of trouble awaited them. Strip ye and make ye bare — Put off your ornaments, as God commanded upon a like occasion, ( Exodus 33:5 ,) that you may put on sackcloth instead of them, as mourners and penitents used to do. They shall lament for the teats — For the pleasant and fruitful fields which, like teats, yielded you plentiful and excellent nourishment. Isaiah 32:10 Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. Isaiah 32:11 Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. Isaiah 32:12 They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Isaiah 32:13 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: Isaiah 32:13-14 . Upon the land, &c., shall come up thorns and briers — If any of you think there is no great cause for such trembling and lamentation, on account of a calamity which shall last but for a year and some days, know that this affliction by the Assyrians is but an earnest of further and sorer judgments. For the time is coming when this land shall be laid desolate; and, instead of vines and other fruits, it shall yield nothing but briers and thorns. Yea, upon all the houses of joy — Upon that ground where now your houses stand, in which you take your fill of mirth and pleasure. Because the palaces — Hebrew, ????? , the palace, the king’s house, and other magnificent buildings in the city, shall be forsaken — Shall be destitute of inhabitants. The multitude of the city shall be left — Shall be forsaken of God and given up into their enemies’ hands. The forts, &c ., shall be for dens for ever — For a long time; a joy of wild asses — Desolate places, in which wild asses delight to be. “This description,” says Bishop Lowth, “of impending distresses belongs to other times than that of Sennacherib’s invasion, from which they were so soon delivered. It must, at least, extend to the ruin of the country and city by the Chaldeans. And the promise of blessings which follows was not fulfilled under the Mosaic dispensation; they belong to the kingdom of Messiah.” Isaiah 32:14 Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; Isaiah 32:15 Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Isaiah 32:15 . Until the Spirit be poured upon us, &c. — And this calamity shall, in a manner, continue until the time come in which God will pour, or, as ???? , properly signifies, reveal, that is, evidently and plentifully confer his Spirit upon his people. Which was done, in some sort, upon their return from Babylon, when God, by his Spirit, moved Cyrus to give them liberty of returning to Jerusalem, and the people to return and build the city and temple. But it was far more clearly and fully accomplished in the days of the Messiah, when God’s Spirit was in a most evident and glorious manner poured forth upon the apostles and other believing Jews, to the astonishment of their very adversaries; and when the following promises were, in a good measure, fulfilled, and are more fully to be accomplished in God’s due time. And the wilderness be a fruitful field — Which expressions are to be understood allegorically of the conversion of the Gentile nations, which had been long barren, and of the rejection of the Jews in the time of the Messiah. See on Isaiah 29:17 . Isaiah 32:16 Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. Isaiah 32:16-18 . Then judgment — Just judgment, as the next clause explains it, shall dwell in the wilderness — In what had formerly been a wilderness, namely, among the Gentiles, now supposed to be converted to Christianity; by whom righteousness also shall be practised, and among whom it shall remain. And the work of righteousness shall be peace — The effect of this righteousness shall be peace of conscience, possessed by all that practise it, and tranquillity, of mind, as well as peace with God. Or, perhaps, outward prosperity may be chiefly intended. And the effect — Hebrew, ???? , the service, of righteousness, quietness, and assurance for ever — ?????? ????? , rest and confidence. The being truly righteous before God, and walking in his ordinances and commandments blameless, ( Luke 1:6 ,) shall be attended with an assurance of God’s favour, and a dependance on him for the fulfilment of his promises; from whence will arise a holy serenity and security of mind, with a lively and joyful expectation of eternal felicity, of which no external circumstances of prosperity or adversity can deprive the possessors. And my people — The converted Gentiles, who shall then be my people; or the Jews upon their conversion to Christianity in the latter days; shall dwell in a peaceable habitation — Shall be safe and happy under the peculiar protection and care of God. Isaiah 32:17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. Isaiah 32:18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; Isaiah 32:19 When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place. Isaiah 32:19 . When — Or, rather, And it shall hail — As my blessings shall be poured down upon my people, who, from a wilderness, are turned into a fruitful field, so my judgments (which are signified by hail, Isaiah 28:2 ; Isaiah 28:17 , and elsewhere) shall fall upon them who were a fruitful field, but are turned into a forest, as was said Isaiah 32:15 ; that is, upon the unbelieving and rebellious Jews. And the city — Jerusalem, which, though now it was the seat of God’s worship and people, yet he foresaw would be the great enemy of the Messiah; shall be low in a low place — Hebrew, ????? ?????? , shall be humbled with humiliation; that is, shall be greatly humbled, or brought very low. Isaiah 32:20 Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass. Isaiah 32:20 . Blessed are ye that sow, &c. — As the barren forest shall be destroyed, so the fruitful field shall be improved and bring forth much fruit, which is signified by a declaration of the blessedness of them that sow in it; beside all waters — In all moist and flat grounds which are likely to yield good fruit; or, in every well-watered place, as Bishop Lowth renders it, who quotes Sir John Chardin as observing, that the place exactly answers the manner of planting rice in the East; concerning which, see the note on Ecclesiastes 11:1 . But this passage, as well as that in the foregoing verses, is to be understood mystically of the times of the gospel, and of the great and happy success of the ministers of it, whose spiritual sowing of the word, accompanied with the influences of the Holy Ghost, produced much fruit in the Gentile nations, to the glory of God and their own comfort. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 32:1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. 4 BOOK 3 ORATIONS ON THE EGYPTIAN INTRIGUES AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS 705-702 B.C. Isaiah: 29 About 703 30 A little later 31 A little later 32:1-8 Later 32:9-20 Date uncertain ----------------- 14:28-21 736-702 23 About 703 WE now enter the prophecies of Isaiah’s old age, those which he published after 705, when his ministry had lasted for at least thirty-five years. They cover the years between 705, the date of Sennacherib’s accession to the Assyrian throne, and 701, when his army suddenly disappeared from before Jerusalem. They fall into three groups:- 1. Chapters 29-32., dealing with Jewish politics while Sennacherib is still far from Palestine, 704-702, and having Egypt for their chief interest, Assyria lowering in the background. 2. Chapters 14:28-21 and 23, a group of oracles on foreign nations, threatened, like Judah, by Assyria. 3. Chapters 1, 22, and 33, and the historical narrative in 36, and 37., dealing with Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem in 701; Egypt and every foreign nation now fallen out of sight, and the storm about the Holy City too thick for the prophet to see beyond his immediate neighbourhood. The first and second of these groups-orations on the intrigues with Egypt and oracles on the foreign nations-delivered while Sennacherib was still far from Syria, form the subject of this Third Book of our exposition. The prophecies on the siege of Jerusalem are sufficiently numerous and distinctive to be put by themselves, along with their appendix (38, 39), in our Fourth Book. CHAPTER XV A MAN: CHARACTER AND THE CAPACITY TO DISCRIMINATE CHARACTER ABOUT 720 B.C. Isaiah 32:1-8 THE Assyrians being thus disposed of, Isaiah turns to a prospect, on which we have scarcely heard him speak these twenty years, since Assyria appeared on the frontier of Judah-the religious future and social progress of his own people. This he paints in a small prophecy of eight verses, the first eight of chapter 32- Isaiah 32:9-20 of that chapter apparently springing from somewhat different conditions. The first eight verses of chapter 32 ( Isaiah 32:1-8 ) belong to a class of prophecies which we may call Isaiah’s "escapes." Like St. Paul, Isaiah, when he has finished some exposition of God’s dealings with His people or argument with the sinners among them, bursts upon an unencumbered vision of the future, and with roused conscience, and voice resonant from long debate, takes his loftiest flights of eloquence. In Isaiah’s book we have several of these visions, and each bears a character of its own, according to the sort of sinners from whom the prophet shook himself loose to describe it and the kind of indignation that filled his heart at the time. We have already seen how in some of Isaiah’s visions the Messiah has the chief place, while from others He is altogether absent. But here we come upon another inconsistency. Sometimes, as in chapter 11, Isaiah is content with nothing but a new dispensation-the entire transformation of nature, when there shall be no more desert or storm, but to the wild animals docility shall come, and among men an end to sorrow, fraud, and war. But again he limits his prophetic soul and promises less. As if, overcome by the spectacle of the more clamant needs and horrible vices of society, he had said, we must first get rid of these, we must supply those, before we can begin to dream of heaven. Such is Isaiah’s feeling here. This prophecy is not a vision of society glorified, but of society established and reformed, with its foundation firmly settled ( Isaiah 32:1 ), with its fountain forces in full operation ( Isaiah 32:2 ), and with an absolute check laid upon its worst habits, as, for instance, the moral grossness, lying, and pretence which the prophet has been denouncing for several chapters ( Isaiah 32:3-8 ). This moderation of the prophecy brings it within the range of practical morals; while the humanity of it, its freedom from Jewish or Oriental peculiarities, renders it thoroughly modern. If every unfulfilled prophecy ought to be an accusing conscience in the breast of the Christian Church, there will be none more clamant and practical than this one. Its demands are essential to the social interests of today. In Isaiah 32:1 we have the presupposition of the whole prophecy: "Behold, in righteousness shall a king reign, and princes-according to justice shall they rule." A just government is always the basis of Isaiah’s vision of the future. Here he defines it with greater abstractness than he has been wont to do. It is remarkable, that a writer, whose pen has already described the figure of the coming King so concretely and with so much detail, should here content himself with a general promise of a righteous government, regarding, as he seems to do, rather the office of kinghood, than any single eminent occupier of it. That the prophet of Immanuel, and still more the prophet of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names, { Isaiah 9:7 } and of the Son of Jesse, { Isaiah 11:1 } should be able to paint the ideal future, and speak of the just government that was to prevail in it, without at the same time referring to his previous very explicit promises of a royal Individual, is a fact which we cannot overlook in support of the opinion we have expressed in Isaiah 10:1 concerning the object of Isaiah’s Messianic hopes. Nor is the vagueness of the first verse corrected by the terms of the second: "And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind," etc . We have already spoken of this verse as an ethical advance upon Isaiah’s previous picture of the Messiah. But while, of course, the Messiah was to Isaiah the ideal of human character, and therefore shared whatsoever features he might foresee in its perfect development, it is evident that in this verse Isaiah is not thinking of the Messiah alone or particularly. When he says with such simplicity a man, he means any man, he means the ideal for every man. Having in Isaiah 32:1 laid down the foundation for social life, he tells us in Isaiah 32:2 what the shelter and fountain force of society are to be: not science nor material wealth, but personal influence, the strength and freshness of the human personality. "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." After just government ( Isaiah 32:1 ) great characters are the prophet’s first demand ( Isaiah 32:2 ), and then ( Isaiah 32:3-8 ) he will ask for the capacity to discriminate character. "Character and the capacity to discriminate character" indeed summarises this prophecy. I. A MAN ( Isaiah 32:2 ) Isaiah has described personal influence on so grand a scale that it is not surprising that the Church has leapt to his words as a direct prophecy of Jesus Christ. They are indeed a description of Him, out of whose shadow advancing time has not been able to carry the children of men, who has been the shelter and fertility of every generation since He was lifted up, and to whom the affections of individual hearts never rise higher than when they sing- "Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." Such a rock was Christ indeed; but, in accordance with what we have said above, the prophet here has no individual specially in his view, but is rather laying down a general description of the influence of individual character, of which Christ Jesus was the highest instance. Taken in this sense, his famous words present us, first, with a philosophy of history, at the heart of which there is, secondly, a great gospel, and in the application of which there is, thirdly, a great ideal and duty for ourselves. 1. Isaiah gives us in this verse a philosophy of history. Great men are not the whole of life, but they are the condition of all the rest; if it were not for the big men, the little ones could scarcely live. The first requisites of religion and civilisation are outstanding characters. In the East the following phenomenon is often observed. Where the desert touches a river-valley or oasis, the sand is in a continual state of drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the barrenness of such portions of the desert at least as abut upon the fertile land. For under the rain, or by infiltration of the river, plants often spring up through the sand, and there is sometimes promise of considerable fertility. It never lasts. Down comes the periodic drift, and life is stunted or choked out. But set down a rock on the sand, and see the difference its presence makes. After a few showers, to the leeward side of this some blades will spring up; if you have patience, you will see in time a garden. How has the boulder produced this? Simply by arresting the drift. Now that is exactly how great men benefit human life. A great man serves his generation, serves the whole race, by arresting the drift. Deadly forces, blind and fatal as the desert wind, sweep down human history. In the beginning it was the dread of Nature, the cold blast which blows from every quarter on the barbarian, and might have stunted men to animals. But into some soul God breathed a great breath of freedom, and the man defied Nature. Nature has had her revenge by burying the rebel in oblivion. On the distant horizon of history we can see, merely in some old legend, the evidence of his audacity. But the drift was arrested; behind the event men took shelter, in the shelter grew free, and learned to think out what the first great resister felt. When history had left this rock behind, and the drift had again space to grow, the same thing happened; and the hero this time was Abraham. He laid his back to the practice of his forefathers, and lifting his brow to heaven, was the first to worship the One Unseen God. Abraham believed; and in the shadow of his faith, and sheltered by his example, his descendants learned to believe too. Today from within the three great spiritual religions men look back to him as the father of the faithful. When Isaiah, while all his countrymen were rushing down the mad, steep ways of politics, carried off by the only powers that were as yet known in these ways, fear of death and greed to be on the side of the strongest-when Isaiah stood still amid that panic rush, and uttered the memorable words, "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be saved," he stopped one of the most dangerous drifts in history, and created in its despite a shelter for those spiritual graces, which have always been the beauty of the state, and are now coming to be recognised as its strength. When in the early critical days of the Church, that dark drift of Jewish custom, which had overflown the barriers set to the old dispensation, threatened to spread its barrenness upon the fields of the Gentile world, already white to the harvest of Christ, and Peter and Barnabas and all the Apostles were carried away by it, what was it that saved Christianity? Under God, it was this: that Paul got up and, as he tells us, withstood Peter to the face. And, again, when the powers of the Roman Church and the Roman Empire, checked for a little by the efforts which began the Reformation, gathered themselves together and rose in one awful front of emperor, cardinals, and princes at the Diet of Worms, what was it that stood fast against that drift of centuries, and proved the rock, under whose shelter men dared to read God’s pure word again, and preach His Gospel? It was the word of a lonely monk: "Here stand I. I cannot otherwise. So help me, God." So that Isaiah is right. A single man has been as "a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest." History is swept by drifts: superstition, error, poisonous custom, dust-laden controversy. What has saved humanity has been the upraising of some great man to resist those drifts, to set his will, strong through faith, against the prevailing tendency, and be the shelter of the weaker, but not less desirous, souls of his brethren. "The history of what man has accomplished in the world is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked there." Under God, personal human power is the highest force, and God has ever used it as His chief instrument. 2. But in this philosophy of history there is a Gospel. Isaiah’s words are not only man’s ideal; they are God’s promise, and that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most conspicuous example-none others are near Him-of this personal influence in which Isaiah places all the shelter and revival of society. God has set His seal to the truth, that the greatest power in shaping human destiny is man himself, by becoming one with man, by using a human soul to be the Saviour of the race. "A man," says Isaiah, "shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land"; and the Rock of Ages was a Man. The world indeed knew that personal character could go higher than all else in the world, but they never knew how high till they saw Jesus Christ, or how often till they numbered His followers. This figure of a rock, a rock resisting drift, gives us some idea, not only of the commanding influence of Christ’s person, but of that special office from which all the glory of His person and of His name arises: that "He saves His people from their sins." For what is sin? Sin is simply the longest, heaviest drift in human history. It arose in the beginning, and has carried everything before it since. "The oldest custom of the race," it is the most powerful habit of the individual. Men have reared against it government, education, philosophy, system after system of religion. But sin overwhelmed them all. Only Christ resisted, and His resistance saves the world: Alone among human lives presented to our view, that of Christ is sinless. What is so prevalent in human nature that we cannot think of a human individual without it never stained Christ’s life. Sin was about Him; it was not that He belonged to another sphere of things which lay above it. Sin was about Him. He rose from its midst with the same frailty as other men, encompassed by the same temptations; but where they rose to fall, He rose to stand, and standing he became the world’s Saviour. The great tradition was broken; the drift was arrested. Sin never could be the same again after the sinless manhood of Christ. The old world’s sins and cruel customs were shut out from the world that came after. Some of them ceased so absolutely as scarcely to be afterwards named; and the rest were so curbed that no civilised society suffered them to pass from its constraint, and no public conscience tolerated them as natural or necessary evils. What the surface of the world’s life bears so deeply, that does every individual, who puts his trust in Jesus, feel to the core. Of Jesus the believer can truly say that life on this side of Him is very different from life on that. Temptations keep far away from the heart that keeps near to Christ. Under the shadow of our Rock, for us the evil of the present loses all its suggestiveness, the evil of the past its awful surge of habit and guilty fear. 3. But there is not only a philosophy of history and a gospel in this promise of a man. There is a great duty and ideal for every one. If this prophecy distinctly reaches forward to Jesus Christ as its only perfect fulfilment, the vagueness of its expression permits of its application to all, and through Him its fulfilment by all becomes a possibility. Now each of us may be a rock, a shelter, and a source of fertility to the life around him in three modes of constant influence. We can be like Christ, the Rock, in shutting out from our neighbours the knowledge and infection of sin, in keeping our conversation so unsuggestive and unprovocative of evil, that, though sin drift upon us, it shall never drift through us. And we may be like Christ, the Rock, in shutting out blame from other men; in sheltering them from the east wind of pitiless prejudice, quarrel, or controversy; in stopping the unclean and bitter drifts of scandal and gossip. How many lives have lost their fertility for the want of a little silence and a little shadow! Some righteous people have a terribly northeastern exposure; children do not play about their doors, nor the prodigal stop there. And again, as there are a number of men and women who fall in struggling for virtue simply because they never see it successful in others, and the spectacle of one pure, heroic character would be their salvation, here is another way in which each servant of God may be a rock. Of the late Clerk Maxwell it was said, "He made faith in goodness easy to other men." "A man shall be as streams of water in a desert place." II. CAPACITY TO DISTINGUISH CHARACTER ( Isaiah 32:3-8 ) But after the coming of this ideal, it is not paradise that is regained. Paradise is farther off. We must have truth to begin with: truth and the capacity to distinguish character The sternness with which Isaiah thus postpones his earlier vision shows us how sore his heart was about the "lying" temper of his people. We have heard him deploring the fascination of their false minds by the Egyptian Pretence. Their falseness, however, had not only shown itself in their foreign politics, but in their treatment of one another, in their social fashions, judgments, and worships. In society there prevailed a want of moral insight and of moral courage. At home also the Jews had failed to call things by their right names. Therefore next in their future Isaiah desires the cure of moral blindness, haste, and cowardice ( Isaiah 32:3-4 ), with the explosion of all social lies ( Isaiah 32:5 ). Men shall stand out for what they are, whether they be bad-for the bad shall not be wanting ( Isaiah 32:6-7 )-or good ( Isaiah 32:8 ). On righteous government ( Isaiah 32:1 ) and influence of strong men ( Isaiah 32:2 ) must follow social truthfulness ( Isaiah 32:3-8 ). Such is the line of the prophet’s demands. The details of Isaiah 32:3-8 are exceedingly interesting. "And not closed shall be the eyes of them that see, and the ears of them that hear shall be pricked up." The context makes it clear that this is spoken, not of intellectual, but of moral, insight and alertness. "And the heart of the hasty shall learn how to know, and the tongue of the stammerer be quick" (the verb is the same as the "hasty" of the previous clause) "to speak plain things. Startlingly plain things"-for the word literally means "blinding-white" and is so used of the sun-"startlingly plain," like that scorching epigram upon Egypt. The morally rash and the morally timid are equal fathers of lies. In illustration Isaiah takes the conventional abuse of certain moral terms, exposes it and declares it shall cease: "The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the Churl said to be bountiful." "Liberal" and "bountiful" were conventional names. The Hebrew word for "liberal" originally meant exactly that-"openhearted, generous, magnanimous." In the East it is the character which above all they call princely. So like our words "noble" and "nobility," it became a term of rank, lord or prince, and was often applied to men who were not at all great-hearted, but the very opposite-even to the "vile person." "Vile person" is literally the "faded" or the "exhausted," whether mentally or morally-the last kind of character that could be princely. The other conventional terms used by Isaiah refers to wealth rather than rank. The Hebrew for "bountiful" literally means "abundant," a man blessed with plenty, and is used in the Old Testament both for the rich and the fortunate. Its nearest English equivalent is perhaps "the successful man." To this Isaiah fitly opposes a name, wrongly rendered in our version "churl," but corrected in the margin to "crafty"-the "fraudulent," "the knave." When moral discrimination comes, says Isaiah, men will not apply the term "princely" to "worn-out" characters, nor grant them the social respect implied by the term. They will not call the "fraudulent" the "fortunate," nor canonise him as successful, who has gotten his wealth by underhand means. "The worthless character shall no more be called princely, nor the knave hailed as the successful." But men’s characters shall stand out true in their actions, and by their fruits ye shall know them. In those magic days the heart shall come to the lips, and its effects be unmistakable. "For the worthless person, worthlessness shall he speak"-what else can he?-"and his heart shall do iniquity, to practise profaneness and to utter against the Lord rank error, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The tools, too, of the knave" (a play upon words here-" Keli Kelav "-the knave his knives) "are evil; low tricks he deviseth to destroy the poor with words of falsehood, even when the poor speaks justice "(that is, has justice as well as poverty to plead for him). "But the princely things deviseth, and he upon princely things shall stand"-not upon conventional titles or rank, or the respect of insincere hearts, but upon actual deeds of generosity and sacrifice. After great characters, then, what society needs is capacity to discern character, and the chief obstacle in the way of this discernment is the substitution of a conventional morality for a true morality, and of some distinction of man’s making for the eternal difference which God has set between right and wrong. Human progress consists, according to Isaiah, of getting rid of these conventions; and in this history bears him out. The abolition of slavery, the recognition of the essential nobility of labour, the abolition of infanticide, the emancipation of woman-all these are due to the release of men’s minds from purely conventional notions, and the courageous application in their place of the fundamental laws of righteousness and love. If progress is still to continue, it must be by the same method. In many directions it is still a false conventionalism, -sometimes the relic of barbarism, sometimes the fruit of civilisation, -that blocks the way. The savage notions which obstruct the enforcement of masculine purity have to be exposed. Nor shall we ever get true commercial prosperity, or the sense of security which is indispensable to that, till men begin to cease calling transactions all right merely because they are the customs of the trade and the means to which its. members look for profits. But, above all, as Isaiah tells us, we need to look to our use of language. It is one of the standing necessities of pure science to revise the terminology, to reserve for each object a special name, and see that all men understand the same object by the same name. Otherwise confusion comes m, and science is impossible. The necessity, though not so faithfully recognised, is as imperative in morals. If we consider the disgraceful mistakes in popular morals which have been produced by the transference and degradation of names, we shall feel it to be a religious duty to preserve for these their proper meaning. In the interests of morality, we must not be careless in our use of moral terms. As Socrates says in the Phaedo : "To use words wrongly and indefinitely is not merely an error in itself; it also creates evil in the soul" What noxious misconceptions, what mistaken ideals of life, are due to the abuse of these four words alone: "noble," "gentleman," "honour" and "Christian"! By applying these, in flattery or deceit, to persons unworthy of them, men have not only deprived them of the virtue which originally the mere utterance of them was enough to instil into the heart, but have sent forth to the world under their attractiveness second-rate types of character and ideals. The word "gentleman"! How the heart sickens as it thinks what a number of people have been satisfied to aim at a shoddy and superficial life because it was labelled with this gracious name. Conventionalism has deprived the English language of some of its most powerful sermons by devoting terms of singular moral expressiveness to do duty as mere labels upon characters that are dead, or on ranks and offices, for the designation of which mere cyphers might have sufficed. We must not forget, however, Isaiah’s chief means for the abolition of this conventionalism and the substitution of a true moral vision and terminology. These results are to follow from the presence of the great character, "A Man," whom he has already lifted up. Conventionalism is another of the drifts which that Rock has to arrest. Setting ourselves to revise our dictionaries or to restore to our words their original meanings out of our memories is never enough. The rising of a conspicuous character alone can dissipate the moral haze; the sense of his influence will alone fill emptied forms with meaning. So Christ Jesus judged and judges the world by His simple presence; men fall to His right hand and to His left. He calls things by their right names, and restores to each term of religion and morals its original ideal, which the vulgar use of the world has worn away. Isaiah 32:9 Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. -24 BOOK 3 ORATIONS ON THE EGYPTIAN INTRIGUES AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS 705-702 B.C. Isaiah: 29 About 703 30 A little later 31 A little later 32:1-8 Later 32:9-20 Date uncertain ----------------- 14:28-21 736-702 23 About 703 WE now enter the prophecies of Isaiah’s old age, those which he published after 705, when his ministry had lasted for at least thirty-five years. They cover the years between 705, the date of Sennacherib’s accession to the Assyrian throne, and 701, when his army suddenly disappeared from before Jerusalem. They fall into three groups:- 1. Chapters 29-32., dealing with Jewish politics while Sennacherib is still far from Palestine, 704-702, and having Egypt for their chief interest, Assyria lowering in the background. 2. Chapters 14:28-21 and 23, a group of oracles on foreign nations, threatened, like Judah, by Assyria. 3. Chapters 1, 22, and 33, and the historical narrative in 36, and 37., dealing with Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem in 701; Egypt and every foreign nation now fallen out of sight, and the storm about the Holy City too thick for the prophet to see beyond his immediate neighbourhood. The first and second of these groups-orations on the intrigues with Egypt and oracles on the foreign nations-delivered while Sennacherib was still far from Syria, form the subject of this Third Book of our exposition. The prophecies on the siege of Jerusalem are sufficiently numerous and distinctive to be put by themselves, along with their appendix (38, 39), in our Fourth Book. CHAPTER XVI ISAIAH TO WOMEN DATE UNCERTAIN Isaiah 32:9-20 THE date of this prophecy, which has been appended to those spoken by Isaiah during the Egyptian intrigues (704-702), is not certain. It is addressed to women, and there is no reason why the prophet, when he was upbraiding the men of Judah for their false optimism, should not also have sought to awaken the conscience of their wives and daughters on what is the besetting sin rather of women than of men. The chief evidence for dissociating the prophecy from its immediate predecessors is that it predicts, or apparently predicts ( Isaiah 32:13-14 ), the ruin of Jerusalem, whereas in these years Isaiah was careful to exempt the Holy City from the fate which he saw falling on the rest of the land. But otherwise the argument of the prophecy is almost exactly that of chapters 29-30. By using the same words when he blames the women for "ease" and "carelessness" in Isaiah 32:9-11 as he does when he promises "confidence" and "quiet resting-places" in Isaiah 32:17-18 , Isaiah makes clear that his purpose is to contrast the false optimism of society during the postponement of the Assyrian invasion with that confidence and stability upon righteousness which the Spirit of God can alone create. The prophecy, too, has the usual three stages: sin in the present, judgment in the immediate future, and a state of blessedness in the latter days. The near date at which judgment is threatened-"days beyond a year"-ought to be compared with Isaiah 29:1 : "Add ye a year to a year; let the feasts come round." The new points are that it is the women who are threatened, that Jerusalem itself is pictured in ruin, and that the pouring out of the Spirit is promised as the cause of the blessed future. I. THE CHARGE TO THE WOMEN ( Isaiah 32:9-12 ) The charge to the women is especially interesting, not merely for its own terms, but because it is only part of a treatment of women which runs through the whole of Scripture. Isaiah had already delivered against the women of Jerusalem a severe diatribe (chapter 3), the burden of which was their vanity and haughtiness. With the satiric temper, which distinguishes his earlier prophecies, he had mimicked their ogling and mincing gait, and described pin by pin their fashions and ornaments, promising them instead of these things "rottenness" and "baldness," and "a girdle of sackcloth and branding for beauty." But he has grown older, and penetrating below their outward fashion and gait, he charges them with thoughtlessness as the besetting sin of their sex. "Ye women that are at ease, rise up, and hear my voice; ye careless daughters, give ear to my speech. For days beyond a year shall ye be troubled, O careless women, for the vintage shall fail; the ingathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones." By a pair of epithets he describes their fault; and almost thrice does he repeat the pair, as if he would emphasise it past all doubt. The besetting sin of women, as he dins into them, is ease; an ignorant and unthinking contentment with things as they are; thoughtlessness with regard to the deeper mysteries of life; disbelief in the possibility of change. But Isaiah more than hints that these besetting sins of women are but the defects of their virtues. The literal meaning of the two adjectives he uses, "at ease" and "careless," is "restful" and "trustful." Scripture throughout employs these words both in a good and a bad sense. Isaiah does so himself in this very chapter (compare these verses with Isaiah 32:17-18 ). In the next chapter he describes the state of Jerusalem after redemption as a state of "ease" or "restfulness," and we know that he never ceased urging the people to "trustfulness." For such truly religious conditions he uses exactly the same names as for the shallow optimism with which he now charges his countrywomen. And so doing, he reminds us of an important law of character. The besetting sins of either sex are its virtues prostituted. A man’s greatest temptations proceed from his strength; but the glory of the feminine nature is repose, and trust is the strength of the feminine character, in which very things, however, lies all the possibility of woman’s degradation. Woman’s faith amounts at times to real intuition; but what risks are attached to this prophetic power-of impatience, of contentment with the first glance at things, "the inclination," as a great moralist has put it, "to take too easily the knowledge of the problems of life, and to rest content with what lies nearest her, instead of penetrating to a deeper foundation." Women are full of indulgence and hope; but what possibilities lie there of deception, false optimism, and want of that anxiety which alone makes progress possible. Women are more inclined than men to believe all things; but how certain is such a temper to sacrifice the claims of truth and honour. Women are full of tact, the just favourites of success, with infinite power to plead and please; but if they are aware of this, how certain is such a self-consciousness to produce negligence and the fatal sleep of the foolish virgins. Scripture insists repeatedly on this truth of Isaiah’s about the besetting sin of women. The prophet Amos has engraved it in one of his sharpest epigrams, declaring that thoughtlessness is capable of turning women into very brutes, and their homes into desolate ruins: "Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say unto their lords, Bring and let us drink. The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by His holiness that, lo, the days shall come upon you that they shall take you away with hooks, and your residue with fish-hooks, and ye shall go out