Bible Commentaries

Leviticus 23:24).]

3. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning [from daylight] until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.

4. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood [lit. a tower of wood. Fourteen persons, however, were on what is afterwards called a platform, or stair, by his side], which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Nehemiah 8:4, we find that Ezra is not alone. Ezra stood upon a pulpit—that Nehemiah 8:6).

That was responsive worship. Some churches have responsive worship now, and I like it; it seems to me to be right, ideally and sympathetically. If there is anything wrong it must be an unresponsive people, a dumb host. Yet true responsiveness can hardly be planned; it is really not a piece of mechanism; it should be spontaneous, enthusiastic, impressive. If a man is told to say Amen, there is nothing in his saying it, necessarily; there is only in it what he may put into it: but if a man here and there should say Amen, in the midst of a prayer or a discourse, it should not be looked upon as an eccentricity. The eccentric thing, viewed upon a large plane, is monotony. Tell it not among the angels that there are people who can sit in thousands and hear the most burning and tender words of the Lord's book, and never answer even with a sigh. We have driven enthusiasm out of the Church. We are never weary of declaring that fact, for it is one of the saddest facts in human history.

Here is the right object of reading—"to understand the law."

"So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading " ( Nehemiah 8:8).

There the expositor came in, or the preacher, or the rhetorician—that ever-condemned and ever-dreaded person, the rhetorician. That man must have committed murder somewhere; he is so universally disliked. And the voice of the people is said—in Latin at least—to be the voice of God. What did they do—"So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense,"—either vocally or expositionally; for a tone may be a comment, a pause may be an annotation—"and caused them to understand the reading." He preaches well who expounds well; who grapples with his text, and unfolds its secret; who makes the text the sermon, who makes the sermon an amplified text, a vivid, impressive paraphrase. That kind of preaching is not popular. An anecdote will beat it out of the field any day. Let us keep to the law, the written book: what scope for learning! what room for genius! what an opportunity for all the gamut of human emotion and attainment! Some day the pulpit will be natural; then it will make the theatre ashamed of itself, and make all persons who love music hasten to it and press to it, and draw all souls that love reality within its magic touch; then in church men shall laugh and cry, and applaud and stand up, and shout and praise the Lord, and fall into silence more eloquent than speech. To-day the pulpit is a prison.

Behold the happy end of the whole service—"The people wept when they heard the words of the law." That is the right issue of true reading. Weep in hearing a law: is there not a contradiction of terms there? When men hear law do they not stand upright and stiffen themselves, and become resentful or critical or self-defensive? That depends upon how the law is read. The ten commandments might be so read as to make people feel the tears welling into their eyes. We are bad readers. We should make the law sound like gospel. Nehemiah would not have this altogether, so the people were told thus:

"Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them" ( Nehemiah 8:10-12).

Great religious services should end in great festivals.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast sent thy prophets unto us to teach us the Eternal Word: we bless thee for their fearlessness, their unselfishness, their unworldiness: may we hear their voice and answer it, not as the voice of man, but as the voice of God. There is music in their tone even when it is a tone of judgment. Yet by them hast thou published gospels to the world, great offers of love, great declarations of mercy; thou hast taught thy prophets to write thy tears, thy heart, thine all-encompassing and ever-enduring mercy. So in this Old Testament we find the New, in the prophecy we find the Gospel, in the ancient time we find the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Thy Book is full of Calvary, the whole revelation is instinct with the spirit of the cross. For this purpose we search the Scriptures that we may find the Lord's only begotten and well-beloved Son , and put our trust in him who is the Wisdom of God, and the Power and the Righteousness of God, and who is the world's eternal Saviour. Thou bringest us through all the years one by one; the little day comes in its cloud and vanishes, and the long summer day withdraws its radiant smile, and the year rises and flourishes, and dies and vanishes: this is the way of time; this is the sign of the Lord's movement. Thou art withdrawing time that thou mayest introduce eternity; thou art teaching us through the little the measure and the value of the great. Oh that men were wise, that they understood these things, that they would consider their latter end; that they would know that God is not taking them from their days but preparing for them their immortality. Regard the pilgrim who when he lays his staff down does not know whether he will live to take it up again, so near is he the other land: the little child, all wonder and surprise and beauty, all ignorance and all trust; feed the little life and nourish it, and if father and mother could forsake it by some miracle of baseness do thou take it up into thine own arms, for it is thine, not theirs; the sick, the ailing, the ill at ease, the weary, the helpless, those who have to encounter the black mysteries of life; not the enigmas of philosophy, but the tragedies of intolerable experience: wanderers that have no home, to whom society would hardly give a foothold, outcasts to whom the day is as the night, and the night as the day, and who are ill and base and villainous because of pressure they cannot resist, who have no chance of being their better selves, and who think that to pray would be to blaspheme. Good Lord, such is thy little world, such is our work in it: to this end have we brought a world built for music, and fashioned for order and knowledge and progress. Great Saviour of the world, teach us from thy cross; thou canst do this, thou wilt do it; that hope may return to our night-world and set some star of shining in its darkness. Bless all thy ministering servants at home and abroad: call them up into the mountain once more, and ordain them again; fill their souls with heavenly music; bring their hearts into sympathy with the passion of the cross; anoint them with the unction from on high, and make them strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And as for merchantmen, enable them to do their business as men would partake of sacrament; may life be holy to them, and righteousness be the light of their day. And as for the housewife whose business lies within the little four walls, the wondrous school, the wondrous sphere of discipline and trial, and sorrow and joy, the Lord's blessing will not be withheld, the Lord's blessing will be doubled even to overflowing. Hear us for all churches, all sections of the Church, the whole redeemed Church throughout the world, the great missionary Church. Hear us for those in trouble and peril on the sea. Hear us for all mankind, O thou whose cross is high as heaven, and whose outstretched arms touch the utmost range and bound of life and time. Amen.