Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 18:4

I. Consider the characteristics of the Divine dwelling-place. God's works are not enough for Him. He dwells with His people. He takes delight in His people. God's chosen residence is a renewed nature; the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, but the humble heart can. God dwells more really in the renewed soul than He could possibly in the curtained tabernacle or the shechinahed temple in days of old; and the music of the stringed instruments is poor compared with the melody the heart makes to God. To that celestial shrine neither man nor angel indeed can come; but Jesus can enter, and then, "The Lord said unto me, I will take my rest."

II. "I will consider." Exceeding sublime are all those passages in which the calm of the Divine mind is contrasted with the passion and the agitation of human affairs. We see here the perfect knowledge God has of the ways of His enemies.

III. See here the illustrations of Divine consideration, the loving and beautiful result. "Like a clear heat." There shall be impulse, not passion; growth, not force; light and life, not fury and blast. Happy they on whom the Lord thus rests, freshening and brightening; and if the Lord rests on us, if His hand is on us, we shall know it, for we shall be able to rest on Him.

E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 438.

References: Isaiah 21:1-10.—S. Cox, An Expositor's Note-book, p. 183. Isaiah 21:11.—W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 193; H. J. Robjohns, Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 152; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 219.