Bible Commentaries

Divine Action

Isaiah 19:2)

Civil war is the cruellest of all. When men are stretching forth the neck of their expectation that they may behold in the far distance an approaching enemy, God troubles them with home difficulties, and they who were going forth to win new laurels on distant fields have to turn round and slay one another, sons of the same parents, inheritors of the same soil! This is distinctly ascribed to the divine energy and will: "I will set": I will create the war, I will make it of the kind known as internecine; men who have known one another a lifetime I will make enemies; and this shall all be done that good may be wrought out, which under any other circumstances would be impossible. This method of administration, we say, obtains and prevails in all ages. This is the meaning of many a controversy, of many a quarrel, of many a dissension, in cabinets, in families, in nations. Men are surprised that they should turn upon their brothers with disdain, and even with cruel hatred. It is indeed matter of surprise and great sorrow, and if looked at within narrow limits it would seem to be a reflection upon Providence; but when does God ask to be judged within the four corners of human imagination or criticism? He not only does the deed, he does it within a field which he himself has measured, and within the range of declarations which have about them all the mystery and graciousness of evangelical prophecies. We must, therefore, look not only at the incident, but at all its surroundings and to all its issues. When we are puzzled by household difficulties, by commercial perplexities, by unions that only exist for a moment and then dissolve or are turned into sourness and alienation, we must never forget that there is One who rules over all, and who may be the Author of this fratricidal war. The mystery of Providence is infinite. Lord, increase our faith!

Observe, further, the religion of bewilderment. It is graphically set forth in the third verse:—

"And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards." ( Isaiah 19:3)

How often have we seen men seek out their deities in the time of trouble! To know what a man's religion really is we must wait until all heaven is dark with thunderclouds, and until what he believed to be the solid earth feels under his feet like a quaking bog; then we shall know whether he has been playing the little philosopher, adventuring his little intellectual all with the small empiric, or whether there is in him the real seed of God, the true life divine. Imagine the picture: all Egypt is bewildered and dismayed, not knowing which is east, which is west, which is the upper place, which is the underground; all distinctions, boundaries, limits, are blurred and obliterated; and hear the howling and the crying for the deities to whose care the heart and all its issues have been entrusted! What a call for charmers, and for familiar spirits, and for wizards, and for anything that can mutter and offer some religious hope to the shattered fancy of man! Thus God educates the world. There come times in human history when a man revises all his ideas, conceptions, theories, hypotheses, and professions: what a casting out of the ship there is of all these things in the great storm-hour! The ship is heavy laden and the sea is heavy upon her planks, and all hope of being saved is taken away—then out go all the false theories, and prejudices, and philosophies, and mutterings, and impieties, and hypocrisies, if haply even yet the poor ship may be saved. It is well that such times should occur; they are cleansing times, dismantling and disburdening times; and, rightly used, we come out of them with simpler prayers, larger faith, tenderer love. Lord, show us the meaning of all thy shakings of the earth, and all the evermore truly governed but seemingly ungoverned perplexities of the human mind.

Then there is a wonderful action of Providence in the matter of natural blessings:—

"The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall Isaiah 19:7-10).

The natural food of Egypt shall be taken away. What does the country produce? God will one day lay his hand upon it all, and taking it from us will leave nothing but emptiness, that we may learn in hunger the prayer we could not have learned in fulness. God will empty the Nile—God will lay his hand upon the busy mill in the manufacturing districts and order it to be quiet; God will intercept the incoming of the hemp, the flax, the cotton—whatever the product may be—so that it shall be lost on the way, and the men who were expecting its arrival shall be confounded with disappointments. All these things are God's. And all these prophecies show on what a deep rock-basis lies the great word of Christ, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," for the Lord is God of the rivers and the fords and the seas, and the vineyards and the wheatfields and the olive-yards, and God will rain into the wilderness feathered fowl from heaven if such should be his determination and purpose. He is Lord of all. The earth is the Lord"s, and the fulness thereof. Our daily bread is given to us from heaven: blessed are they who recognise the gift, and who eat the bread as sacramental flesh, having in it meanings of life and immortality, not obvious to the merely carnal eye. Let us ask questions about our poverty and about our unprosperous harvests, our withering fields, our rivers choked with dead fish, our sluices and networks that we cannot move or set in successful action. Let the question be religious. No question is worth asking that does not bore its way into the heart of things. Whilst others may be asking flippant questions about the decay of industry, the depression of trade, the clouding of commercial prospects, let those who believe in an over-ruling Providence renounce all trivial inquiries, and begin to ask their questions within the shadow of the altar. It may be that we have sinned, and that God's only way of touching our conscience is through the impoverishment of the body. No man may dogmatise on these things; but holy, noble, large, reverent questions may be asked surely, when the earth trembles and becomes uncertain in her very revolutions.

Then there is an action of the divine energy upon the mind as shown in ver14:—

"The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit." ( Isaiah 19:14)

What is this action? It may be indicated by a familiar word which does not occur in the text. When we read of a "perverse spirit" we may substitute for that expression dizziness. God turns a man dizzy, so that he is drunk, but not with wine. How many powers has the Almighty! We have seen by how many doors he may come in. How many are the actions of God in human history! He makes Egypt dizzy; he does not strike Egypt with a rod of iron, or confound her by some great phenomena that burn all over the face of heaven to affright her,—he simply sends dizziness into the nation, so that the king feels all things going round, and the mean man is sure that he has lost his wit and sense and shrewdness; he fixes his eye upon stable pillars, and, behold, they move, they circulate, and he says, Is it I or is it the pillar moving? so that he cannot reason, he cannot put things together; when he begins to count he forgets his reckoning, when he commences a story he cuts it off at an inferior point, and cannot conduct it to a period; yet he says he is well, he is without a pain, he cannot account for this whirl, this movement, it is taking him on and on, and away and away; he says, What is it? How God can humble men! The strong man shall need a little child to lead him, and the sagacious man may require a child to help his memory, for his recollection is quite withered; and they who once were proud ask to be allowed to take the meanest position; and men whose judgment was once waited for because of its completeness and solidity are now not reckoned with the counsellors of the land. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Now the Lord himself will prophesy. The Lord in going away from a people sometimes suddenly turns round and looks at them, and behold there is a smile where once there was a frown:—

"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it. And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them" ( Isaiah 19:19-22).

Here the Lord says that Egypt is given over to himself in holy obedience and love and homage. The Lord shall be the God of Egypt; Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God; lands that have been filled with idols shall be cleansed of all their folly and wickedness, and in the midst of them shall stand the pillar of God, emblem of righteousness and purity, and the border thereof shall be as a border of gold, set with precious stones. There is always a line of hope even in connection with the darkest judgment. The Lord never gives up the issue of things to the devil. He recognises the devil's existence, and allows him to operate within certain lines upon the life of nations and the life of individuals, but always he sees the latter end, and says, The evening shall be brighter than the morning; when all this tragedy is completed Jesus shall have the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. We see but a little, we know next to nothing; but God who is enthroned in eternity tells us that there shall yet arise upon the earth a morning without a cloud, there shall shine over the whole land a day in which there is no frown of judgment. In these vaticinations the soul lives; and because they are written in the Book of God, souls that otherwise would be cast into dejection toil with hopefulness because their assurance is in God.

From studies of this kind we learn that the scheme of Providence is one. Details vary, but the divine movement never changes as to its moral characteristics and its beneficent purpose. We have seen how prophets and poets are at liberty to decorate great judgment-utterances with all manner of illustration and imagery, trope and metaphor, according to the fertility of the individual genius; but the innermost thing is always the same, namely, Say ye unto the righteous, It shall be well with him; say ye unto the wicked, he is on the way to ruin. We learn that escape from judgment is impossible. God handles all the nations one after another—Moab, and Damascus, and Egypt, and the desert sea, and the Valley of Vision, and the land of Tyre,—all are under his notice, and if any one of them seems to be missed it is only for a moment; the time comes when the smallest of the peoples as well as the greatest shall be judged by the living God. The eternal lesson is that the only security is in being right. Righteousness fears no judgment. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion." The good man cares not who comes up the path, he can bring no danger to him. The honest soul is not frightened by the rustling of a leaf, no footfall shakes down the cowardice of his frail security; he says, I live in God, I am the servant of the living God, I know no will but God's; come, go, who will, who may, my foundation standeth sure, and is inscribed in letters of gold with this legend, "The Lord knoweth them that are his." "Righteousness exalteth a nation." Righteousness is the glory of any man. How calm is the righteous man! Others are hearing noises which affright them; they are sure the hour of crisis has come; an unfamiliar voice means the upsetting of judgment which is already shaken, but the righteous man is calm in the darkness and in the light, he has an abundance of peace in the storm, his vintage is empurpled with richest grapes even in the winter time, and all his mountains are covered with cattle even when other lands are depopulated and ruined; if he have nothing, he yet has all things; if his hands are empty, his heart is overflowing; he says, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." To be at peace with God is to control all things; for it is to be one with God. The immediate burden is passed, the historical reference is fulfilled, but the eternal thing that looks upon us all is this, that God is on the throne, and that he will judge morally. To whom much has been given from him shall much be expected. He that knew his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes; he who did his best, though that best was but little, shall be recognised and honoured. The way of the Lord is equal. Blessed are they who, through the Son of God, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, are at peace with God through the Atonement which was wrought out in Gethsemane and on Calvary. For that blessedness let all men seek!

Prayer

Almighty God, we know thee through thy Isaiah 19:2

It should be understood that in many of these detached texts we avail ourselves of the practice of accommodation. Here is an instance which admits of accommodation of a practical kind. God has various ways of troubling men and bringing about the purposes of his providence. A man may be his own enemy. He may be as a kingdom divided against itself. Passing from the individual man to the social relation, it is possible for a man's foes to be they of his own household. Understand, therefore, that we are not always exposed to attacks from a foreign source, but that mischief of the deadliest kind may arise within our boundaries. The most deadly of all hatred is that between brothers. The most deplorable of all wars is civil war. Unanimity is shattered; natural alliances are rendered impossible; the councils that ought to be united are turned to confusion; and men know not when they hit out in the dark whether they are striking at friends or foes. It is instructive to notice that God claims all these ministries and engines of operation as distinctly under his own providence. God may be the author of civil war. God may employ evil in order to bring about good; not that he tolerates moral evil or looks with any degree of approval upon it, but he permits social evil, civil wars, misunderstandings, unnatural alliances, to concur in bringing about an evolution otherwise humanly impossible. Even the wicked are servants of God unconsciously. The wrath of man is under his control, and he makes it serve him. The great lesson which we have to lay to heart is not to be looking far away upon the horizon for possible foes, but to be looking into our own hearts, and into our own families and churches. When equals meet in contest what can the result be but destruction? Man was not made to be set against man. Families were meant to be united. Churches should be compact and unanimous, having the full use of their total strength for the propagation of good and the abolition of evil. Remember that God can bring up enemies from unexpected places.