A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
Parallel Translations
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A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
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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.
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And a man shall be as in a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as by the watercourses in a dry place, as in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
Cross-references (23)
Passages linked to Isaiah 32:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 25:4 For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the dreaded ones is like a storm against the wall.
- Isaiah 9:6 For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
- Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring:
- Psalms 143:9 Deliver me, Yahweh, from my enemies. I flee to you to hide me.
- Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
- Isaiah 41:18 I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
- Isaiah 43:20 The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen,
- Micah 5:4-5 He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God: and they will live, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth. He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men.
- Zechariah 13:7 “Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,” says Yahweh of Armies. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
- Psalms 31:2-3 Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.
- Psalms 32:7 You are my hiding place. You will preserve me from trouble. You will surround me with songs of deliverance.
- Psalms 63:1 God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
- Psalms 146:3-5 Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God:
- Isaiah 4:5-6 Yahweh will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a pavilion for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a refuge and for a shelter from storm and from rain.
- Isaiah 8:10-14 Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand, for God is with us.” For Yahweh spoke this to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, “Don’t say, ‘A conspiracy!’ concerning all about which this people say, ‘A conspiracy!’ neither fear their threats, nor be terrorized. Yahweh of Armies is who you must respect as holy. He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread. He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a rock that makes them fall. For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare.
- Isaiah 26:20-21 Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past. For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.
- Isaiah 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place.
- Isaiah 32:18-19 My people will live in a peaceful habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting places, though hail flattens the forest, and the city is leveled completely.
- Isaiah 35:6-7 Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.
- Matthew 7:24-27 “Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine, and doesn’t do them will be like a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
- John 7:37 Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!
- 1 Timothy 3:16 Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.
- Revelation 22:1 He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Where men are weary with traveling for lack of…
Where men are weary with traveling for lack of water.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 32:2 And a man shall be as an…
Isa 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.
Ver. 2. And a man shall be,] i.e., Each man of those forementioned princes, or, That man, viz., Hezekiah. How much more "the man Christ Jesus" shall be a comfort to distressed consciences, an absolute and all-sufficient Saviour! such as his people may trust unto for safety here, and salvation hereafter.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain A man; either,
A man; either,
1. The man or king spoken of. Or,
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2. Each or every one, to wit, of his princes. That king shall not patch up an old garment with new cloth, nor mingle good and bad together; but shall take care to purge out all the corrupt magistrates, and, as far as he can, to settle good ones in all places. A man is oft put for every or any man, as Isa 2:20; 3:5,6, and elsewhere.
Shall be as an hiding place unto the people under their government, especially to such as are oppressed or injured by those Who are more potent than they.
From the wind; from the rage and violence of evil men.
As rivers of water in a dry place; no less refreshing and acceptable shall this king and his princes be to their subjects.
In a weary land; in a dry and scorched country, which is called weary here, as also Psa 63:1, metonymically, because it makes travellers weary; as death is called pale in other authors, because it makes men’s faces pale.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And a man shall be as an hiding place…
And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,.... Or, "that man"; the King Messiah before mentioned; who had agreed to become man, was promised and prophesied of as such, had often appeared in a human form, was to be incarnate, and now is; though he is not a mere man; were he, he could not be what is here said of him, "as a hiding place, and covert from the wind and tempest", of his Father's wrath, raised by sin; and which all men are deserving of, and on whom it must fall, unless secured from it by Christ; who has bore it in the room and stead of his people, has turned it away, and delivered them from it, and all the effects of it, so that nothing of it comes upon them; he has endured the whole force of the storm himself; and his righteousness, blood, sacrifice, and intercession, screen his people from it: he also hides and covers them from Satan's temptations, the blast of the terrible ones, which is as a storm against the wall, so as they shall not be destroyed by them; by praying for them, succouring of them, supplying them with his grace, and delivering from them in his own time: likewise he protects them from the rage and fury of their persecuting enemies, when they come like a "whirlwind" to "scatter" them; they have rest in him, when troubled by men; and security by him, when these winds and waves beat upon them; and when they are tossed with the tempests of afflictions of various kinds, he bears them up under them, and carries them through them, and delivers out of them, and brings them at last safe to glory:
as rivers of water in a dry place; which are very delightful, refreshing, and fructifying. This denotes the abundance of grace in Christ, and the freeness of it, which flows from the boundless ocean of divine love, and which greatly comforts and refreshes the souls of the Lord's people in this dry and barren land, and makes them cheerful and fruitful, revives their spirits, makes glad their hearts, and causes them to go on their way rejoicing:
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as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land: to travellers in it, who passing through a desert in hot countries and sultry climates, are glad when they find a rock which casts a shade, under which their can sit a while, sheltered from the scorching sun. Such a weary land is this world to the saints, who are wearied with sins, their own and others, with Satan's temptations, with afflictions and troubles of various sorts; Christ is the "Rock" that is higher than they, to whom they are directed and led when their hearts are overwhelmed within them; on whom not only their souls are built, and their feet are set, and he is a shelter to them; but he casts a shadow, which is very reviving and refreshing, and that is the shadow of his word and ordinances, under which they sit with delight and pleasure, and which makes their travelling through this wilderness comfortable.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain A man - Each of his princes. A hiding…
A man - Each of his princes. A hiding place - Unto the people under their government. The wind - From the rage and violence of evil men. As rivers - No less refreshing. As the shadow - In a dry and scorched country, which is called weary, because it makes travelers weary; as death is called pale in other authors, because it makes mens faces pale.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 2. As the shadow of a great rock]…
Verse 2. As the shadow of a great rock] The shadow of a great projecting rock is the most refreshing that is possible in a hot country, not only as most perfectly excluding the rays of the sun, but also as having in itself a natural coolness, which it reflects and communicates to every thing about it.
Speluncaeque tegant, et saxea procubet umbra.
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VIRG. Georg. iii. 145.
"Let the cool cave and shady rock protect them."
Επει κεφαλην και γουνατα Σειριος αζει,
Αυαλεος δε τε χρως απο καυματος· αλλα τοτ' ηδη
Ειη πετραιη τε σκιν, και Βιβλινος οινος.
HESIOD. ii. 206.
"When Sirius rages, and thine aching head,
Parched skin, and feeble knees refreshment need;
Then to the rock's projected shade retire,
With Biblin wine recruit thy wasted powers."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 32:2-4. And a man — Either the man…
Isa 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.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And a man - That is, evidently, the man…
And a man - That is, evidently, the man referred to in the previous verse, to wit, Hezekiah.
Shall be as an hiding-place from the wind - A place where one may take refuge from a violent wind and tempest (see the note at Isa 25:4).
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A covert - A place of shelter and security. Wind and tempest are emblematic of calamity and oppression; and the sense is, that Hezekiah would be the protector of his people, and would save them from the calamities to which they had been subjected in former reigns.
As rivers of water - This figure is often used in Isaiah (see Isa 35:6-7; and the notes at Isa 41:18). It means that the blessings of such a reign would be as grateful and refreshing as gushing fountains and running streams were to a thirsty traveler. Here it refers to the benefits that would be conferred by the reign of Hezekiah - a reign which, compared with that of his father, would be like a refreshing fountain to a weary pilgrim in a pathless desert.
As the shadow of a great rock - In a burning desert of sand nothing is more grateful than the cooling shade of a far-projecting rock. It not only excludes the rays of the sun, but it has itself a refreshing coolness that is most grateful to a weary traveler. The same figure is often used by the classic writers (see Virgil, “Georg.” iii, 145; Hesiod, ii. 106).
In a weary land - A land where there is fatigue and weariness. Probably here it is used to denote a land destitute of trees, and groves, and pleasant abodes; a land where one expects weariness and fatigue without any refreshment and shelter. The following description from Campbell’s “Travels in Africa” will explain this: ‘Well does the traveler remember a day in the wilds of Africa, where the country was chiefly covered with burning sand; when, scorched with the powerful rays of an almost vertical sun, the thermometer in the shade standing at 100 degrees (Fahrenheit). He remembers long looking hither and thither for something that would afford protection from the almost insupportable heat, and where the least motion of air felt like a flame coming against the face. At length he espied a huge loose rock leaning against the front of a small cliff which faced the sun. At once he fled for refuge underneath its inviting shade. The coolness emitted from this rocky canopy he found exquisitely exhilarating. The wild beasts of the deserts were all fled to their dens, and the feathered songsters were all roosting among the thickest foliage they could find of the evergreen trees. The whole creation around seemed to groan, as if their vigor had been entirely exhausted. A small river was providentially at hand, to the side of which, after a while, he ventured, and sipped a little of its cooling water, which tasted better than the best Burgundy, or the finest old hock in the world. During all this enjoyment, the above apropos text was the interesting subject of the traveler’s meditation; though the allusion as a figure, must fall infinitely short of that which is meant to be prefigured by it.’
(The whole of this passage is capable of beautiful application to the Messiah and his times; while the language of the second verse cannot be supposed descriptive of any “creature;” it is so associated in our minds with the character and functions of the Divine Redeemer, that we cannot easily acquiesce in any meaner application. ‘To interpret the sublime imagery of this verse Isa 32:2 in application to a mere human being, would be quite repugnant to the spirit of the sacred writers, by whom Yahweh alone is represented as the source of protection and refreshment to his people, and all trust in creatures solemnly interdicted’ (Henderson). Doubtless, if Hezekiah be at all intended, it is in a typical or inferior sense only. A greater than Hezekiah is here; the language and figures used are precisely such as are elsewhere by the prophet applied to Yahweh Isa 4:6; Isa 25:4; while the particulars characteristic of the times predicted, are just such as elsewhere he connects with gospel times (compare Isa 29:18; Isa 35:5). The things predicted, according to this view, are a righteous administration under Messiah the prince Isa 32:1; protection and refreshment to his subjects; protection from the wrath of God and the temptations of Satan, and the rage of the world; refreshment by the consolutions and graces of his Spirit, which are as rivers of water in this dry land’ Isa 32:2; a desire for knowledge and such facility in the acquisition of it, that even persons ordinarily supposed disqualified should both clearly understand, and easily and accurately express the truth Isa 32:3-4; a just appreciation of character and estimation of people in accordance therewith Isa 32:5; and, finally, the prevalence of a loving, liberal spirit, setting itself to devise and execute plans of benevolence on a scale hitherto unprecedented Isa 32:8; Psa 110:3; Act 2:44-45; 2Co 8:1, 2Co 8:4; 2Co 9:2)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Land. Ezechias and Josias were both a defence to…
Land. Ezechias and Josias were both a defence to their subjects.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain a man--rather, the man Christ [LOWTH]; it is as…
a man--rather, the man Christ [LOWTH]; it is as "the Son of man" He is to reign, as it was as Son of man He suffered (Mat 26:64; Joh 5:27; Joh 19:5). Not as MAURER explains, "every one of the princes shall be," &c.
rivers--as refreshing as water and the cool shade are to the heated traveller (Isa 35:6-7; Isa 41:18).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 2. A man… hiding place — One greater and…
2. A man… hiding place — One greater and every way more competent as a protector than a merely human person. Jehovah in the person of the Messiah.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. For a man read each one (of the…
2. For a man read each one (of the princes). The meaning of the figure is that every great man, instead of being a tyrant and oppressor of the poor (Isa_29:20 f.), shall be a protection against calamity and a source of beneficent activity.
from the tempest] from the rain storm; cf. ch. Isa_4:6.
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the shadow of a great (lit. “heavy”) rock] cooler than that of a tree. Frequently cited parallels (since Gesenius) are the σκιὴ πετραίη of Hesiod (Works, 589) and the “saxea umbra” of Vergil (Georg. III. 145).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2) A man shall be . . .—The word…
(2) A man shall be . . .—The word is that used in Isa_31:8 for “mighty man,” in Isa_2:9 for “great man,” and probably retains that meaning here. The nobles of Judah, who had been tyrannous and oppressive (Isa_1:23), should become a true aristocracy, beneficent and protecting. Of both the “king” and the “man” it is true that they find their fulfilment in the true servant of the Lord, who is also the ideal king.
As rivers of water . . .—The words paint the picture of the two great blessings of an Eastern landscape: the streams that turn the desert into an oasis, the “rock” throwing its dark shadow as a shelter from the noontide heat. The word for “rock” is the same as that used for Assyria in Isa_31:9, and is obviously chosen to emphasise the contrast.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain A man shall be as a hiding-place from the…
A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, etc. Modem critics mostly render, "each mani.e. the king, and each of his princes. But it is, to say the least, allowable with Vitringa and Kay to regard the word as referring to the king only. (comp. Zec_6:12, where ish, a man, is used in the same vague way of One who is clearly the Messiah) There was never but one man who could be to other men all that is predicated in this verse of the "man" mentioned. (comp. Isa_25:4, where nearly the same epithets are predicated of God) A covert; i.e. a protection against Divine wrath. Such is Messiah in his mediatorial character. Rivers of water; i.e. refreshing and invigorating. (comp. Isa 55:1Jo Isa 4:14 Isa 7:37) The shadow of a great rook. At once refreshing and protecting. (see Isa_25:4)
What Christ is to his people.
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The prophet enumerates (in ver. 2) some of the chief relations in which Messiah, when he came, would stand to his people. All his announcements are fulfilled in Christ.
I CHRIST IS A HIDING-PLACE FROM THE WIND. When the winds of affliction blow, when "the blast of the terrible ones" is upon us, above all, when the breath of the wrath of God seems to sweep down on us and scorch us up, there is one Refuge only to which we can flee one "Hiding-place Christ. In the time of natural grief and trouble, he lets us find a Refuge in him; when our enemies threaten, he "hides us in the secret of his presence from the pride of man," and "keeps us secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues"; (Psa_31:20) when we shrink from the thought of God"s wrath, and the breath which is "like a stream of brimstone", (Isa_30:33) he offers himself to us as our Shelter. How many saints have not found comfort, unspeakable comfort, in the blessed words"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee?
II CHRIST IS A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. Christ not only hides us away from wind and storm, tempest and evil of all kinds, but is himself our Coverture. He is "a Tabernacle for a Covert from storm and from rain". (Isa_4:6) His merits "cover up" our sins, and make atonement for them. His righteousness is the "white raiment" which clothes us, so that "the shame of our nakedness doth not appear". (Rev_3:18)
III CHRIST IS AS RIVERS OF WATER. Rivers give refreshment. They are the great source of life, fertility, delight, in a parched and desert land. In the wilderness of this life, in the dry arid waste which our tired feet have to traverse, any refreshment that we enjoy comes from Christ is Christ. He pours upon us the refreshing dew of his blessing." He gives us to drink out of himself; and then "out of our belly there flow rivers of living water". (Joh_7:37, Joh_7:38) The water that he imparts to us is "a well of water springing up into everlasting life". (Joh_4:14) He is unto us "a place of broad rivers and streams", (Isa_33:21) refreshing, life-giving, exhaustless.
IV CHRIST IS AS THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY LAND. The world is "a weary land." We are travelers across its waste. A hot sun beats down upon our heads; a scorching soil is under our feet. But we have a Rock with us, a Rock which "follows us and "that Rock is Christ". (1Co_10:4) In the shadow of that Rock we may at any time, and at all times, find rest, renovation, refreshment, protection, delight. The traveler in the desert comes, once and again, upon "a great rock," as he plods his weary way over the vast solitude, and rejoices at the sight, and toils for hours to reach the blessed refuge of its shade. Our "Rock" is ready to give us shade whenever we please it is near us constantly; we have but to flee to it, to cling to it, to remain in its shadow.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Ver. 2. The soul"s rest.
"The shadow of a great rock in a weary land." This is an Eastern picture. God is described as our Shade. In the glare of a too-garish day we become endangered; the sun of prosperity smites us. Sunlight has its penalties as well as its pleasures. So has success! The human heart cannot bear too much of brightness. We need shadows for the mind to rest under as well as for the body.
I A MAN IS HERE DESCRIBED. The God-Man. One who, knowing our infirmities and temptations, is able to succor them that are tempted. The true King who is to reign in righteousness is prophesied of. "A man shall be." Christ has been the Refuge and the Rest of hearts wearied of the world and scorched with its radiant beams. We are led to Christ. Not to theological systems; not to human creeds; but to Christ. The shadow! Yes. Shadow of a cross, where we may find forgiveness and. peace. Shadow of brotherhood, where we may find true sympathy in our hours of loneliness and disappointment. Shadow, where we may recline and rest as the patriarch did under the oaks of Beersheba, and Moses did under the mountains of old. And Christ"s Divinity is proclaimed in the words, "a great Rock" High as heaven, having its roots in God"s own eternal years. So great that it offers shelter for all the weary hearts of men.
II A PILGRIMAGE IS HERE IMPLIED. "A weary land" The pilgrims are passing on through the scorching heat, the camel-drivers walking then, as they do now, in the shadow cast by these "ships of the desert." Before them stretch miles on miles of burning sand. The blinding sun is above them. With their white cummerbunds and their light Eastern dress, they ease the heat-burden all they can. And now the great mountains come in sight. Some with gentle acclivities and some with sharp-cut rocks jutting out above the pilgrim-way. What blessed shadows they cast! Such shady places are our sabbaths and sacraments and sanctuaries, our holy moments of Divine fellowship, when God comes near and casts over us the protecting shadow of his gracious presence.
III WEARINESS IS THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE WAY, "A weary land." We are often tired. How many hearts have said, "O God, I am a-weary!" and then, instead of the sad cry, "O God, that I were dead!" we hear the voices of spiritual souls crying, "Oh that I knew where I might find him!" and the blessed answer comes from the lips of the incarnate God himself, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest weary with the load of sin; weary with the care and fret of daily life; weary with inward conflicts; weary with ceaseless watching, for our Arab enemies dash suddenly by, and point their rifle as they fly. Pain makes us weary. The loss of dear, true-hearted friends makes us weary. Doubt, with all our dark mental conflicts doubt, which is sometimes the exquisite action of a sincere mind, makes us weary. So we come to the great Father, and rest in the gracious answer to the cry, "Lord, show us the Father," in the revelation vouchsafed unto us by our Divine Lord, who has taught us when we pray to say, Our Father," and also has declared, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 2. Refuge in Christ and in one another.
In this country we can hardly hope to feel all the three and beauty of this illustration. To do that we must have visited tropical regions. There, with the rays of the sun shining directly down, the heat becomes so intense and intolerable that it cannot be endured, and often "the shadow of a great rock" means, not merely refreshment, but salvation. And as with the heat, so with the storm the whirlwind, the tempest, the simoom: what desolations do not these produce? what terrors do they not excite? How precious in such lands, on such occasions, the hiding-place from the wind, the covert from the storm! But lifting our thoughts from the illustration to the thing itself which is pictured here, to that human heart and life of which all visible nature only supplies the types and hints, we make no abatement for change of scene; for the scorching rays of temptation fall as fiercely and the winds of passion blow as furiously in England as in Judaea, or in Babylon, or in India. Indeed, such are the confusions and complications of our time, so subtle and so seductive are the temptations to err from the straight line of rectitude, that more rather than less is there need for a hiding-place for the heart, a covert from the storm of sorrow and of sin. A man shall be for a hiding-place! One man in particular? or any man at any time in any land? In both senses the words may be taken. We may consider
I CHRIST THE REFUGE OF THE HUMAN SOUL.
1. Such he was in the days of his flesh, For his disciples had to share something of the enmity and opposition he encountered, and they always found an effectual shield in his protection. As evangelists they brought their success and their disappointment to him, that the one might be sanctified and the other be relieved. (Luk_10:17-20) When worsted by the enemy, they felt back on his power and found defeat swallowed up in victory. (Mat_17:14-20) When imminent danger threatened their lives, they made their appeal to his all-con-trolling voice. (Mat_8:23-27)
2. Such he became, in a deeper sense, after his ascension. It was expedient that he should go away. Before his departure he was with them, afterwards he was in them." The death and the resurrection of the Lord enlightened their minds and changed their spirits. Then they went to him as they never could have done during his presence; they trusted in him, gave themselves to him, leaned on him, were lost in him, as they would not have been: he became, in a deeper and fuller sense, the Hiding-place of their hearts.
3. Such is he now to all believing hearts.
(1) As sinners, burdened with a sense of guilt and craving mercy and reconciliation, we want some other refuge than we can find in the best and wisest of mankind; and with what glad eagerness, with what profound thankfulness, with what inexpressible relief, do we resort to him, and cry"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee!
(2) As the children of sorrow, we have need of more than human help! There are depths of disappointment, extremities of loss, intensities of pain and suffering, wastes of loneliness, gulfs of darkness and woe, for which human sympathy is entirely inadequate, in which the only thing we can do is to hasten to that Son of man who is touched most keenly with the feeling of our trials, and say"Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly!
II THE REFUGE WE MAY BE TO ONE ANOTHER. Any man may be, and every man should seek to be, a hiding-place, a covert. Oar domestic life shows us how this may be, and provides the first instance and best picture of human shelter. Our social life should provide us with many opportunities of succoring the needy and the tried. Our Church life should do the same; every Christian Church should be an asylum for the poor, the weak, the sad, the anxious-minded, the troubled of heart. Who would not like so to live, with such quick and ready sympathy of spirit, with such kindliness and hopefulness of word, with such friendliness of uplifting hand and sustaining arm, that his life should be suggestive of the words, "A man shall be a hiding-place? C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain A man shall be as an hiding-place from the…
Isa_32:2
A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind
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A hiding-place from the wind
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
A Saviour who does not seek first to improve mans condition, but to improve man. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
A man
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. Isaiahs words are not only mans ideal: they are Gods 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 Christs 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
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. Pauls 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 Christs 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
There is not a want, not a need, but we find Jesus enough for it.
I. MANS 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 mans 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
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
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 Gods wrath against sin, and the storm of lifes 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 Christs 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 fools 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 souls hiding-place is the souls 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
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 GODS 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
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
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
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 Davids 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 moments 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
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
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
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 parents 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 Christs 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 Gods wrath, roused by mans transgression.
2. Of Satans 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
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 mans 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
I. THE SUFFERING WORLD. The worlds trials are here represented by the imagery of--
1. A tempest. Tempests in nature are often most terrible and devastating. Spiritually, the world is in a tempest. It is beaten by the storm of--
(1) conflicting thoughts,
(2) sinful passions,
(3) guilty memories, and
(4) terrible foreboding.
2. A drought. A dry place. The Oriental traveller under a vertical sun, and on scorching sands without water, is the picture here. He has a burning thirst and is in earnest quest for the cooling stream. Is this not a true picture of man spiritually as a traveller to eternity? He thirsts for a good which he fails to get.
3. Exhaustion. In a weary land. The Oriental traveller has exhausted his strength, and lies down in prostrate hopelessness. Man, spiritually, is weary and heavy laden, without strength. Without strength to discharge his moral obligations, to please his Maker, to serve his race, and reach his destiny.
II. THE RELIEVING MAN. A man shall be, &c. Hezekiah did much to relieve Israel in its political troubles, but Christ does infinitely more. He relieves the moral troubles of humanity.
1. He is a shelter from moral storms. What a secure, accessible, capacious refuge is Christ.
2. He is the river in moral droughts. Christ refreshes and satisfies souls by opening rivers of holy thoughts, &c. (Homilist.)
The humanity of the way of salvation
I. A PICTURE OF THE STATE OF THE WORLD. We may view this picture of the world under four aspects--
1. A picture of the natural world. The four elements of nature are brought into view--earth, air, water, and fire; and each in its turn may become a blessing or a curse to man. Man has lost the dominion of nature, and is no longer at home in it. He fights an unequal battle, and is obliged to succumb.
2. A picture of the moral world. Although war, famine, and pestilence are physical evils, their causes are moral. They fall more directly on man than other natural evils. They are the storms of human society.
3. A picture of the spiritual world. This earth is the platform, not merely of a natural and political moral strife; it is the arena, as well, of a spiritual strife. To realise this, and to know it as the most certain of all facts, the soul must be awakened by the Spirit of God to the true meaning of life. We must feel the battle within ourselves in order to see it around us.
4. Something that reminds us of a condition of existence in the eternal world. All the storms of which we have spoken are but the foreshadowings of the wrath of God.
II. A PROPHECY OF THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. This is represented under the figure of a hiding-place, a covert, rivers of water, and the shadow of a great rock.
1. The blessedness of the prophecy. In proportion as we have realised the world to be what the word here describes it as being, Will the announcement of the text appear most acceptable and blessed.
2. The wonderfulness and apparent contradictoriness of the prophecy. It says that a man shall be a hiding-place. Man is the creature who is in want of salvation.
3. The prophecy itself, more directly and particularly. We accept the statement as at once referring primarily to Christ Jesus, the Saviour of the world. Only in Him is the prophecy fully realised, and delivered from its apparently contradictory character. Believers look upon Him as the only one who can save from physical, moral, spiritual, and eternal evil.
4. How the man Christ Jesus is such a hiding-place. (F. Ferguson.)
The hiding-place
I. There underlies this prophecy A VERY SAD, A VERY TRUE CONCEPTION OF HUMAN LIFE.
1. We live a life defenceless and exposed to many a storm and tempest.
2. Rivers of water in a dry place! And what is the prose fact of that? That you and I live in the midst of a world which has no correspondence with nor capacity of satisfying our truest and deepest selves--that we bear about with us a whole set of longings and needs and weaknesses and strengths and capacities, all of which, like the climbing tendrils of some creeping plant, go feeling and putting out their green fingers to lay hold of some prop and stay--that man is so made that for his rest and blessedness he needs an external object round which his spirit may cling, on which his desires may fall and rest, by which his heart may be clasped, which shall be authority for his will, peace for his fears, sprinkling and cleansing for his conscience, light for his understanding, shall be in complete correspondence with his inward nature--the water for his thirst, and the bread for his hunger.
3. And then there is the other idea underlying these words also, yet another phase of this sad life of ours--not only danger and drought, but also weariness and languor.
II. But another thought suggested by these words is, THE MYSTERIOUS HOPE WHICH SHINES THROUGH THEM--that one of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. A man, &c.
III. THE SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Christ a refuge
I. In the day of earthly DISAPPOINTMENT.
II. In times of AFFLICTION.
III. In the day of TRIAL. God tries our faith, our hope, our patience, our principles.
IV. In the day of FEAR.
V. From the torments of an accusing CONSCIENCE.
VI. In the day of FINAL WRATH. (J. M. Sherwood.)
The covert of Divine love
There are two very distinct methods and aims in the Bible. A very large portion of the Scriptures are in the form of appeals to duty, to service. But there is another part of the Bible that appeals to exactly the opposite sentiment, and is a call to rest, to quiet, to ease, to everything but action--to contemplation, to silence. And there are times in our experience when we need the call to rest as absolutely as at others we need the call to duty. I desire, then, to call your thought to the rest side of religion.
I. PRAYER, as revealed to us in Scripture, is beautifully illustrated by the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
II. THE WORDS THAT ARE GIVEN US IN THE SCRIPTURE are offered to us like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land--the Scripture is full of these delightful surprises. Come unto Me, &c. Let not your heart be troubled, &c. Lo! I am with you alway, &c. Such doctrines as Divine Providence; the idea of God giving you work to do; the idea that trouble comes to us as a dispensation from our Fathers hand, &c.
III. CHRISTIAN HOPE is also like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Rest, in the Word of God, is like rest in nature. The night is very blessed for the weary one, but the morning follows the night, and rest is given that we may be strong to labour. (A. D. Vail, D. D.)
The wayworn pilgrims hiding-place
(with Isa_32:3):--
I. Who THE TRAVELLERS are, on their homeward march, and the dangers and difficulties which beset their path. The way to heaven is often spoken of in Scripture as a journey, and this by no flowery meadow or purling brook, through no over-arching bowers or verdant shade, but through a wilderness.
1. The first peril mentioned is the wind. By the wind here, I understand the pestilential wind, sometimes called the simmom, or samiel, which at certain seasons passes over the desert, blasting and withering all it touches, and carrying death in its train. But what is there in the spiritual desert corresponding to this pestilential wind? Sin.
2. The second peril in the wilderness is the tempest. This we may characterise as the thunderstorm, which differs from the pestilential wind in being from above, not from beneath; violent, not subtle; destroying by lightning, not by poison. And what so aptly corresponds to this as the manifested anger of God against sin?
3. But there is a third peril in the wilderness--one in a measure peculiar to it, and rarely absent from it, the want of water, for the wondrous man here spoken of is promised to be as rivers of water in a dry place. The wilderness is especially dry. What an expressive emblem, then, is thirst of the desire of the soul after Christ!
4. The last peril of the wilderness here mentioned is the wearisomeness of the way. What poetry and beauty there are in the expression, a weary land! As if the land itself were weary, weary of its own wearisomeness, weary of being such an uncultivated waste, and of wearing out the lives of so many travellers. One main, perhaps the chief, element of the weariness of the desert is the unclouded sun, ever darting his beams down upon it. What does the sun here, then, represent? Temptation.
II. THE HIDING-PLACE AND COVERT--the refreshment and shade which the Lord has provided for these travellers in the Son of His love.
1. A hiding-place from the wind. This wind we have explained as the pestilential breath of sin. A hiding-place is wanted, lest it should destroy body and soul in hell. Where shall we find it? In the Law? That is going out of the wind into the storm. In self? That is the very thing we most want shelter from. Jesus is the hiding-place, the only hiding-place from sin and self. But three things we must know and experionce before we can enter into the beauty and blessedness of Jesus as a hiding place from the wind.
(1) We must feel our need of such a shelter.
(2) We must be brought to see the hiding-place which God has provided in the Son of His love.
(3) Then follows the third step--the entering into the hiding-place.
2. But the same wondrous man is also a covert from the storm. This we explained as referring to the law. How a shelter is needed from its condemnation and curse! Where is this refuge to be found? In Jesus. He has redeemed us from its curse.
3. From this springs the third character which Jesus sustains to the pilgrim in the wilderness. As rivers of water in a dry place. How graciously does the blessed Spirit, by this figure, set forth the suitability of the Lord Jesus Christ to travellers in the wilderness. The Lord Jesus is spoken of as rivers of water. The very thing in the desert which we need. In the wilder ness we do not want strong drink; that would only inflame the thirst, make the blood boil in the veins, and smite the frame with fever. As it toils through the desolate wastes of sand it is water that the fainting spirit wants. It is water--the well of water springing up into everlasting life--that is provided. The fulness of the Lord Jesus is not a rill, but a river; not only a river, but rivers.
4. But the Lord Jesus is spoken of also as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. He has been tempted in all points like as we are; but as the rock bears uninjured the beams of the hottest sun, and yet, by bearing them, shields in its recesses the wayworn pilgrim, so did Jesus, as man, bear the whole fury of Satanic temptations, and yet was as uninjured by them as the rock in the desert. And having borne them, He shields from their destructive power the tempted child of God who lies at His feet under the shadow of His embrace.
III. THE OPENING OF THE EYES TO SEE AND THE UNSTOPPING OF THE EARS TO HEARKEN to the blessings thus promised.
1. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim. Our text speaks rather of dimness than blindness. There is a difference between the two. The dead in sin are blind; the newly-quickened into life are dim. How true is this of the wilderness pilgrim! The breath of the pestilential wind, the thick clouds of the tempest, the hot and burning sand, and the glare of the mid-day sun, all blear and dim the eye. But the hidingplace from the wind, the covert from the tempest, the rivers of water, and the shady rock heal the dimness.
2. And the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The persons spoken of in the text are not totally deaf, for they hear. Yet there is a difference between hearing and hearkening--a difference almost analogous to that between the eyes being dim and seeing. To hearken implies faith and obedience. When the pilgrim in the wilderness reaches the hiding-place from the wind, and the covert from the tempest; when he drinks of the rivers of water, and lies under the shadow of the great rock, he not only hears but hearkens--believes, loves, and obeys. (J. C. Philpot.)
Men as hiding-places from the wind
The sandstorms of the desert margin have their counterparts in human history and society. Here also the victories of faith and effort are won painfully, and often, after a little time of security, are overswept by some blighting evil influence. Isaiah himself, St. Paul, Luther, Wesley, are examples of the rock-like men of history, who have withstood the storm, and made the good things of life--faith, hope, and charity--possible to others. Isaiahs bold stand against a disposition and a policy which would have made Israel the plaything of the greater nations around, preserved the national existence and made possible the great revival of religion which took place in the reign of Josiah. St. Pauls protest against the Judaisers saved the infant Church of Christ to be a worldwide faith instead of a feeble sect. Luthers great work of reformation broke one of the strongest currents of history--the dead set of things towards superstition and lifeless formalism. And when in England religious indifference and a cold, heartless scepticism lay on the land like a nightmare, it was the work of Wesley and his helpers which gave a new opportunity to Christian enterprise and fervour. The great value of these lives is not only in their own intrinsic nobleness and beauty; they make space for others. Thousands of hearts pining in secret for the opportunities of service, for the inspirations of faith and courage, gather to them, take shelter in their greatness, and are vitalised and transformed by their personal power. (W. B. Dalby.)
The rock-like man
Who is the rock-like man?
1. He is always a man of great strength of will. A purely natural quality? Yes; but one which is nourished on prayer and striving.
2. Another virtue of the rock-man is moral courage. He dares to do right when right-doing is dangerous, when it carries with it probabilities of loss and suffering.
3. But that which adds the crowning value to the true moral hero is that he is always a man of faith, i.e the unseen is real to him. He has many ways of realising the unseen, differing according to the age in which he lives, the influences which have moulded him, the manner and form in which the Divine revelation has come to him; but this one thing is of the essence of his life, whether he be a Socrates, a Marcus Aurelius, a St. Bernard, a Dante, or a Martin Luther-that he shall have felt and known that mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth, that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (W. B. Dalby.)
Rock-men
It was said of one who even as a boy showed the promise of his later years, it was easy to be good when he came to the school. A man may be a rock to his fellows at school, in the office, in the home life, in the world, wherever his influence falls, a fertilising shelter, a healing shade, an opposing barrier--the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. (W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Christs human sympathy
Once when addressing children upon this text, I asked what word in it proved the sympathy of the Saviour. A boy, in his eagerness forgetting where he was, started to his feet, and, waving his right hand, made the whole church ring with, A man, a man. (J. Wells, M. A.)
Brotherhood in adversity
I was one of five or six who, the other day, under a tree sought shelter from a passing shower. I noticed that, though strangers to one another, we seemed then more friendly than friends usually are. The storm gave us a sense of fellowship as well as of danger. The common deliverance from the common peril, trifling though it was, had power somehow, I thought, to awaken friendly feeling. The least easily suggests the greatest. There is a sad want of love in the world, but brotherly love would reign everywhere, if we only remembered that we are all fellow-travellers through the desert, that the same storms may any moment sweep down upon us, and that we have the same hidingplace in the man Christ Jesus. (J. Wells, M. A.)
As rivers of water in a dry place
Religion a river
This chapter is a prophetic photogram of a bright age that awaits this world. The dry places are unregenerated souls--souls scorched with the drought of sin, dusty and leafless, without any vestige of spiritual life or verdure. Without figure--a soul unrenewed by heavenly influence, is, in a moral sense, a dry place, barren and unfruitful. What is the river that is to run through it, irrigate its barren districts, clothe it with living beauty, and enrich it with fruit? It is Christs religion. Let the river then stand, not for objective Christianity, but for Christianity in the soul, for experimental godliness; and we have four ideas suggested concerning it.
I. VITALITY. So necessarily do we associate life with a river, that the ancients traced the universe to water as the first principle of all things. Life, in all its forms, follows in profusion the meandering course of rivers. Even all the races of men crowd to their banks and settle on their shores. The Euphrates made Babylon; the Tiber made Rome; and the Thames makes London. Water is life. Everything shall live whither the river cometh. Religion, which, in one word, is supreme love to God in the soul, is life; it quickens, develops, and brings to fruition all the powers of our spiritual nature.
II. MOTION. The river is not like the torpid pool or the stagnant lake, resting in the quiet of death. It is active, essentially and perpetually active. So with real godliness in the soul. It is in perpetual flow; it keeps all the powers of the soul in action. Thought is ever at work, gathering elements to feed the fire of devotion, and brighten the lamp of duty. The spirit is always abounding in the work of the Lord.
III. EMANANCY. A river is an outflow--it has a fountain-head somewhere. It has no independent existence; there is a force that started it at first and feeds it every hour. A river is an emanation; so is true godliness in the soul.
1. There is a Divine fountain from which it emanates. What is its primal font? The love of God. This fountain lies far back in the awful depths of eternity.
2. There is a Divine channel through which it flows- Christ.
3. There is a Divine agent to let it into the heart. The Spirit of God does this in connection with means.
IV. PROGRESS. In a river there is twofold progress.
1. Progress in its volume. As the river meanders on its way, it grows in bulk by the contributory streams that flow into it. At length it gets force enough to sweep everything before it and to give a character to the district. So with godliness in the soul. Holy currents of thought, sympathy, and purpose, deepen their channels and rise in the strength and majesty of their flow, as years and ages pass on.
2. Progress towards its destination. So with the godly soul. Godward it ever moves. (Homilist.)
Christ the source of refreshment
1. Christ relieves His people from their feelings of dissatisfaction, inspired by the vanity of earthly things.
2. Christ may be described as the source of refreshment to His people, in consequence of the comforts He vouchsafes to them amidst the toils and sorrows of their Christian pilgrimage. (J. B. Patterson, M. A.)
Rivers of water in a dry place
I. As setting forth the benedictions which come to us through the incarnate God, LET US STUDY THE METAPHOR of rivers of water in a dry place. This means--
1. Great excellence of blessing. A river is the fit emblem of very great benefits, for it is of the utmost value to the land through which it flows.
2. Abundance. Jesus is full of grace and truth.
3. Freshness. A pool is the same thing over again, and gradually it becomes a stagnant pond, breeding corrupt life and pestilential gases. A river is always the same, yet never the same; it is ever in its place, yet always moving on. We call our own beautiful river, Father Thames, yet he wears no furrows on his brows, but leaps in all the freshness of youth.
4. Freeness. We cannot say this of all the rivers on earth, for men generally manage to claim the banks and shores, and the fisheries and water-powers. Yet rivers can scarcely be parcelled out, they refuse to become private property. See how freely the creatures approach the banks.
5. Constancy. Pools and cisterns dry up, but the rivers song is--
Men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
So is it with Jesus. The grace to pardon and the power to heal are not a spasmodic force in Him; they abide in Him evermore.
6. The text speaks of rivers, which implies both variety and unity.
7. Force. Nothing is stronger than a river; it cuts its own way, and will not be hindered in its course.
II. A SPECIAL EXCELLENCE which the text mentions. Rivers of water in a dry place. In this country we do not value rivers so much because we have springs and wells in all our villages and hamlets; but in the country where Isaiah lived the land is parched and burnt up without rivers. When the man Christ Jesus came hither with blessings from God, He brought rivers into the dry place of our humanity. What a dry place your heart was by nature! Do not many of you find your outward circumstances very dry- places?
III. THE PRACTICAL LESSON from it all.
1. See the goings out of God s heart to man, and mans way of communing with God. Other rivers rise in small springs, and many tributaries combine to swell them, but the river I have been preaching about rises in full force from the throne of God. It is as great a river at its source as in its aftercourse. Whenever you stoop down to drink of the mercy which comes to you by Jesus Christ you are having fellowship with God, for what you drink comes direct from God Himself.
2. See what a misery it is that men should be perishing and dying of soul-thirst when there is this river so near. Millions of men know all about this river, and yet do not drink.
3. Let us learn, if we have any straitness, where it must lie. Our cup is small, but the river is not.
4. Is Christ a river? Then drink of Him, all of you. To be carried along on the surface of Christianity, like a man in a boat, is not enough, you must drink or die.
5. And if you have drunk of this stream, live near it. We read of Isaac, that he dwelt by the well. It is good to live hard by an inexhaustible spring. Commune with Christ, and get nearer to Him each day.
6. If Christ be like a river, let us, like the fishes, live in it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Infinite fulness in Christ
I always feel very fidgety when theologians begin making calculations about the Lord Jesus. There used to be a very strong contention about particular redemption and general redemption, and though I confess myself to be to the very backbone a believer in Calvinistic doctrine, I never felt at home in such discussions. I can have nothing to do with calculating the value of the atonement of Christ. Appraisers and valuers are out of place here. Sirs, I would like to see you with your slates and pencils calculating the cubical contents of the Amazon: I would be pleased to see you sitting down and estimating the quantity of fluid in the Ganges, the Indus, and the Orinoco; but when you have done so, and summed up all the rivers of this earth, I will tell you that your task was only fit for schoolboys, and that you are not at the beginning of that arithmetic which can sum up the fulness of Christ, for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. His merit, His power, His love, His grace, surpass all knowledge, and consequently all estimate. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Freeness of grace in Christ
I took pleasure the other gay in seeing the cattle come to the river to drink. The cows sought out a sloping place, and then stood knee deep in the stream and drank and drank again t I thought of Behemoth, who trusted he could snuff up Jordan at a draught, they drank so heartily, and no one said them nay, or measured out the draught. The dog, as he ran along, lapped eagerly, and no tax was demanded of him. The swan was free to plunge her long neck into the flood, and the swallow to touch the surface with its wing. To ox, and fly, and bird, and fish, and man, the river was alike free. So thou ox of a sinner, with thy great thirst, come and drink; and thou dog of a sinner, who thinkest thyself unworthy even of a drop of grace, yet come and drink. I read near one of our public ponds a notice, Nobody is allowed to wash dogs here. That is right enough for a pond, but it would be quite needless for a river. In a river the foulest may bathe to his hearts content. The fact of its fulness creates s freeness which none may restrict. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Rivers of water in a dry place
Isaiahs moral ideal is not exhausted in a single picture. The scene is changed, The desert is indeed a dry place; but so also is every place in Palestine when the hot season is reaching its close. The whole land is thirsting for the coming rain. The harsh, dry air shimmers over the rocks and dusty roads. The heavens are as brass. Every evening when the red sun sinks below the western horizon one can imagine him sullen and weary. The grass is no longer green, hut of a dull dead brown. In the vineyard the vine leaves hang sapless and limp, or drift wearily to the ground. The figs, the oranges, and the pomegranates have all been gathered; the last flower has withered upon its stem. The reservoirs are rapidly becoming exhausted; the diminished Jordan wanders sluggishly along its southward course; its tributary streams have long since ceased to run. The land is a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. But by-and-by the watchers on Carmel see the light clouds rising out of the Great Sea. Soon the heavens are overspread, and the first heavy drops begin to fall. The rain comes at length in sheets, in torrents. The water-courses fill as by magic. Kedron, Cherith, Kishon, and Jabbok are now no longer mere names, but rivers of water in a dry place. The change wrought in a few days is wonderful. The hot earth drinks in the living stream, and gives it out again in life, abundant, exuberant. Everywhere the grass grows green, the fields are carpeted with flowers. Soon the orange trees mingle the silver of their blossoms with the golden glow of their fruitage, and the dark leaves of the oleanders are relieved by the rich red or snowy white of their flowers. The air is clear and the horizon luminous. It is a land of rejoicing now; the song of the birds is heard around, on high, fitting accompaniment to the sounds of happy labour--labour which will soon result in the abundance of vintage and harvest, when Palestine shall literally be a land flowing with milk and honey. (W. B. Dalby.)
The fertilising power of a gracious character
Where is the life that answers to the comparison, as rivers of water in a dry place? Any life which is rich in the softer virtues--unselfishness, gentleness, purity, patience, charity. There are some people whose natures overflow in blessing. To have known them is an education m morals and religion. They are strong: they have will, courage--especially the courage which endures; they have a lofty faith. But these are not the things which most impress you in them. Their sphere, it may be, is a narrow one; their gifts of the quiet, homely order. It is not so much what they say or do, it is what they are, that so penetrates you with a sense of sweetness, graciousness, and charm. They are women with no particular idea that they have a mission. Or they are men of quiet, self-contained nature, very high-principled, though they never tell you so; of sensitive honour, though they never call attention to the fact. When trouble comes, they meet it calmly; loss and sorrow are to them merely experiences which profit to the increase of their hopefulness. If you make demands upon their patience, upon their self-sacrifice, they are ready to endure hardness, to go all lengths to succour any brother human being broken by the world. Their lives are lovely and pleasant in themselves, fruitful in blessing to others. It is said of the late Clerk Maxwell, the great natural philosopher, that he made faith in goodness easy to other men. You never heard of him as a public advocate of religion or philanthropy. His life was absorbed in what are called secular studies, yet the character rang the true note of Christian purity and graciousness. Rivers of water in a dry place: that is a very affluent description of these quiet lives; but not any too much so, for without them the work of the great moral reformer would be in vain. Each type has its place and power; each is needed for the work of God in the world. (W. B. Dalby.)
Shelter and refreshment in Christ
During the Crimean War a bombshell was fired from the fortifications of Sebastopol by the Russians, which buried itself in the earth, and burst on the side of the hill on which the British troops were encamped. Strange to say, immediately from the ragged hole which it made in the ground came out a copious stream of clear, cold water. The shell had tapped a hidden fountain in the dry and thirsty land, and broken the rocky cover which hid it. And thus, in a most extraordinary fashion, the British soldiers, who were complaining of thirst, and had great difficulty in getting water, had their want supplied; and the enemys shot that was meant for their destruction, proved their salvation. And so the wounds inflicted by your sins upon the Rock of Ages, not only produced a place of safety for you, but also opened up a fountain of refreshment in it. And a Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is your hiding-place from the wind, and your covert from the tempest--the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, and rivers of water in a dry place. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land
Comfort in Christ
This is the agreeable truth to be illustrated: that saints may always find comfort in Christ in this wearisome world.
I. THIS WORLD IS WEARISOME TO SAINTS. Their treasure is in heaven, and they are only passing through the world to take possession of it.
1. This is a laborious world. All things are full of labour. Employment was originally enjoined upon man. But since the apostasy servile labour has become a burden.
2. This is a troublesome world. Trouble attends every stage and condition of life.
3. This is a dark world. What is past, what is present, as well as what is to come, lies involved in darkness. Good men are often weary of conjectures, and despond under the darkness of Divine dispensations.
4. This is a sinful world.
II. WHEN SAINTS ARE WEARY OF THE WORLD THEY MAY FIND COMFORT IN CHRIST. They are then prepared to receive comfort; and Christ is always ready to bestow comfort upon those who are prepared for it. In particular--
1. They may always find compassion in Christ, which is a source of comfort. Christ has gone through the heat and cold, the storms and tempests, the labours and troubles of this world. He knows what it is to be faint and weary. He knows the heart of a pilgrim and stranger. And He has the tenderest compassion for His friends in distress or want.
2. Weary saints may find comfort in the intercession of Christ.
3. When saints are weary of the world, they may always find comfort in the strength of Christ.
4. They may find comfort in the government of Christ. Since Christ has the government of all things in His hands, His people may safely confide in His wisdom, power, and compassion to defend His own cause and repel every weapon formed against it.
5. They may find comfort in the promises of Christ.
Improvement
1. May the friends of Christ always find comfort in Him when they are weary of the world? Hence we may see the reason why He forbids them to be conformed to it, or seek to derive their supreme happiness from it.
2. If those who are weary of the world may find comfort in Christ, then the more they become weary of the world, the better they are prepared to enjoy His promised peace and comfort.
3. If Christians who are weary of the world may always find rest and comfort in Christ, then they may enjoy more happiness than sinners do, even in this life.
4. If saints, when weary of the world, find comfort in Christ, then we may readily believe that those who have lived in the darkest times, met with the greatest troubles, and experienced the severest trials, have often arrived at the greatest degrees of holiness and happiness in the present life.
5. Since all real saints who are weary of the world may always find rest in Christ, they have no reason to murmur and complain under any of the troubles and afflictions in which they are involved.
6. Since all true believers may always find rest in Christ, when they are weary of the world, they have no more reason to be anxious about future, than to be impatient under present, troubles and trials.
7. Since saints may find rest in Christ when they are weary of the world, we may easily account for their being sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker than other men in adversity.
8. Since weak and weary saints may always find rest in Christ, they have a much brighter prospect before them than sinners. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Beneficent interposition
A traveller, recently returned from Africa, relates that one day, overcome by intense heat, he fell asleep on the baked earth, but on awaking had the sensation of freshness, and found it was caused by the thoughtfulness of his attendants, who were standing around him, receiving upon themselves the fierce glare, and sheltering his recumbent body from the ardent rays of a vertical sun. In truth, the whole world rests in the shadow of Him who stands between us and the consuming fire of outraged law, and in virtue of His interposition a thousand blessings are ours. A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, &c. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Jesus the Rock
Of Jesus, the believer can truly say that life on this side of Him is very different from life on that. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
An emblem of our gracious God
The rock and its shadow. Look at it! It is the mingling of all that is most massive and immovable with all that is gentlest and tenderest. The rock going down to the very depths of the solid world, rooted and grounded, it is the very figure of all that is enduring and abiding. Yet its shadow is a thing almost spiritual; noiseless in its fall, it creeps as if it feared to disturb those whom it has lulled to rest, like a mother who fears to stir lest she awaken the little one that she has hushed to sleep. The shadow--is it not the perfection of gentleness?. The breeze whispers of its coming and grows boisterously playful sometimes; but the shadow will not add a burden to the flower bell. The rock and its shadow--it is power and pity. It is the fit emblem of our God and Father. Thegreat Creator of heaven and earth, from everlasting to everlasting He is God--yet how gracious and pitiful is He, how gentle! (M. G. Pearse.)
Weariness in life
O! the weariness felt by us all, of plod, plod, plodding across the sand! That fatal monotony into which every mans life stiffens, as far as outward circumstances, outward joys and pleasures go! the depressing influence of custom which takes the edge off all gladness and adds a burden to every duty! the weariness of all that tugging up the hill, of all that collar-work which we have to do! (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
A many-sided Christ
Applying the language of the whole verse to the Lord Jesus Christ, the King in Zion, we are struck with the number of the metaphors. He is not merely a hiding-place, and a covert, and a river, but He is a shadow of a great rock. Yes, if we attempt to set forth our Lords glories by earthly analogies, we shall need a host of them, for no one can set Him forth to perfection, each one has some deficiency, and even altogether they are insufficient to display all His loveliness. It is very pleasant to see that our Beloved is such a manysided Christ, that from all points of view He is so admirable, and that He is supremely precious in so many different ways, for we have so many and so varied needs, and our circumstances are so continually changing, and the incessant cravings of our spirit are so constantly taking fresh turns. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_32:2. “A man shall be as an hiding-place,” &c.
THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CHRIST
Isa_32:2. “A man shall be as an hiding-place,” &c.
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These figures all coincide in setting forth one great and blessed truth—the truth that in Christ there is suitable and complete relief under every circumstance of distress: in distress arising—
1. from temporal sufferings;
2. from conviction of sin;
3. from strong temptation;
4. from the near approach of death.—John Watt, B.D.: Sermons, pp. 92–108.
Jesus Christ—I. The refuge from all dangers; II. The fruition of all desires; III. The rest and refreshment in all trials.—A. Maclaren, B.A.: Sermons, Third Series, p. 135.
This prediction, uttered in the days of Ahaz, had a primary reference to Hezekiah, and to the relief from wicked magistrates which would be experienced in his reign. But its ultimate reference was to the Lord Jesus Christ. Here are three separate figures, very striking to an Eastern ear, which admit of distinct illustration:—
I. “A hiding—place from the wind and a covert from the tempest.” [1165] This is but one figure, for the latter clause, as is common in Eastern poetry, is only the echo of the former. Jesus is found to be the best hiding-place and covert:—
1. From the winds and tempests of affliction.
2. From the tempest of an agitated conscience.
3. He is the only hiding-place from the tempest of divine wrath.
[1165] We arose with the sun, and went out to saddle our dromedaries, when we found to our great surprise that their heads were buried in the sand; and it was not possible for us to draw them out. We called the Bedouins of the tribe to our aid, who informed us that the instinct of the camels led them to conceal their heads thus, in order to escape the simoom; that their doing so was an infallible presage of that terrible tempest of the desert, which would not be long in breaking loose; and that we could not proceed on the journey without meeting a certain death. The camels, who perceive the approach of this fearful storm two or three hours before it bursts, turn themselves to the side opposed to the wind, and dig into the sand. It is impossible to make them stir from that position either to eat or drink during the whole tempest, were it to last for several days. Providence has endowed them with this instinct of preservation, which never deceives them. When we learned with what we were threatened, we partook the general consternation, and hastened to take all the precautions which they pointed out to us. It is not sufficient to put the horses under shelter; it is requisite also to cover their heads and stop up their ears, otherwise they will be suffocated by the whirlwinds of fine impalpable sand, which the storm sweeps furiously before it. The men collect under their tents, block up the crevices with the greatest care, and provide a supply of water, which they keep within reach; they then lie down on the ground, their heads covered with the mashlas, and thus remain all the time that the tornado continues.
The camp was thrown into the greatest hustle, each bent on providing safety for his cattle, and afterwards withdrawing precipitately under his tent. We had scarcely got our beautiful Negde mares under cover ere the tempest burst. Impetuous blasts of wind hurled clouds of red and burning sand in eddies, and overthrew all upon whom their fury fell; or, heaping up hills, they buried all that had strength to resist being carried away. If, at this period, any part of the body be exposed, the flesh is scorched as if a hot iron had touched it. The water, which was intended to cool us, began to boil, and the temperature of the tent exceeded that of a Turkish bath. The hurricane blew in all its fury for six hours, and gradually subsided during six more; an hour longer, and I believe we had all been stifled. When we ventured to leave the tents, a frightful spectacle presented itself; five children, two women, and a man were lying dead on the still burning sand, and several Bedouins had their faces blackened and entirely calcined, as if by a blast from a fiery furnace. When the wind of the simoom strikes an unfortunate wretch on the head, the blood gushes in streams from his mouth and nostrils, his face swells, becomes black, and he shortly dies of suffocation.—Lamartine: Travels in the East, p. 213.
“A hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest.” Soon Red Sea and all were lost in a sand-storm, which lasted the whole day. Imagine all distant objects entirely lost to view,—the sheets of sand fleeting along the surface of the desert like streams of water; the whole air filled, though invisibly, with a tempest of sand, driving in your face like sleet. Imagine the caravan toiling against. this—the Bedouins each with his shawl thrown completely over his head, half of the riders sitting backwards,—the camels, meantime, thus virtually left without guidance, though, from time to time, throwing their long necks sideways to avoid the blast, yet moving straight onwards with a painful sense of duty truly edifying to behold.… Through the tempest, this roaring and driving tempest, which sometimes made me think that this must be the real meaning of ‘a howling wilderness,’ we rode on the whole day.—Dean Stanley: Sinai and Palestine, pp. 68, 69.
II. “As rivers of water in a dry place,”—that is, Jesus conveys satisfaction and refreshment to those who can find them nowhere else. He alone satisfies the heart’s thirst—
1. for happiness;
2. for consolation;
3. for reconciliation with God.
III. “As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” [1168] Such a retreat does our Redeemer afford to those who are fainting under the labours and discouragements of this wearisome life (Isaiah 1-4, Jer_31:25).
1. Let us thank God for such a Saviour—the very Saviour we need.
2. Let us abide in Him—we always need Him.—E. Griffin, D.D.: Fifty-nine Plain Practical Sermons, pp. 261–270.
[1168] I was reading, a day or two ago, one of our last books of travels in the wilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling for hours under a scorching sun, over the hot white marly flat, seeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter anywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the three travellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide at least their heads from those ‘sunbeams like swords,’ even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.—A. Madaren.
I. There underlies this prophecy a very sad, a very true conception of human life. The three promises imply three diverse aspects of man’s need and misery. The “covert” and the “hiding-place” imply tempest and storm and danger; the “rivers of water” imply drought and thirst; “the shadow of a great rock” implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. Sad this is, but how true! Do we not need a “covert” from the tempests of adverse circumstances, of temptations, of God’s anger kindled by our sins!
II. There shines through these words a mysterious hope—the hope that one of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. “A man,” &c. Such an expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience, and far too high pitched even to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring as the succession of the ages. All experience seems to teach that no human arm or heart can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need.
III. This mysterious hope is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That which seemed impossible is real. The forebodings of experience have not fathomed the powers of Divine Love. There is a man, our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, who can be to all human souls the adequate object of their perfect trust, the abiding home of their deepest love, the unfailing supply for their profoundest wants. Behind His protection they are safe, by His grace they are satisfied, beneath His shelter they have rest.—A. Maclaren, B.A.: Sermons, Third Series, pp. 136–147.
I. We have here AN INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION [1171]
1. It was an instrument of consolation to those who first heard it. The prophecy in which it occurs was given in the time of Ahaz, when justice was perverted, and the government, which should have been for the protection of the people, was organised for their oppression. Terrible are the sufferings of men at such a time, and precious was the hope which this prophecy held out of “a man”—a ruler—who should be a defence and blessing to the poor of the nation.
2. It was an instrument of consolation to devout men in all the centuries which intervened between its utterance and the coming of Christ. In due time Hezekiah ascended the throne, and in him this prophecy had a partial fulfilment. But he passed away, and Israel needed such “a man” as much as ever. Devout men learned to look for him in the Messiah for whom they and their fathers had waited. In the midst of national and personal humiliation and sufferings, they were sustained and cheered by the hope of His advent.
3. In due time He appeared. Whether in Him this prophecy was completely or only partially fulfilled, let any reader of the Gospels testify. And since the days when Christ went about Judæa, solacing human woes, and ministering to human necessities, this declaration has been still more full of consolation to generation after generation down to our own day. It has taught men to whom to flee in their distresses, and fleeing to Him they have found that it was with no vain hope that it had cheered them. When you think what it has been to men ever since it was uttered, can you help looking upon it with love?
[1171] When I was at Nuremberg, among the scenes of interest, I visited the tower where are preserved some of the instruments of torture which were used both by the Inquisition and the Municipality in the Middle Ages. As one looked at them, the heart grew sick at the thought of the pain which by means of them had been inflicted upon countless victims; and as instruments by which human beings had been tortured, they were hateful. On the other hand, when one thinks what this verse has been to countless human souls, what consolation and courage it has ministered to those who were sick at heart in many generations, it is impossible not to look upon it with love.
II. OF THIS INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION ALL MEN HAVE NEED. There are some portions of Scripture which have only a limited interest, because they are for special classes (e.g., kings, subjects, parents, children, &c.;) but this is a portion for every one. The needs of which it speaks will be felt by all men; and all men, at some time or other, will long for the blessings which it promises. Hence—
1. It should be stored up in the memory of the young. [1174]
2. The aged should count it one of their chief treasures. [1177]
[1174] It is one of a large number of passages which I like to think of as Scripture lamps. Starting at mid-day from a railway terminus, you wonder to see that the lamps in the carriages are lighted; but very soon the train plunges into a tunnel, and you perceive that they were not lighted a moment too soon. So with these lamps of Scripture: get them hung up in your soul at the outset of your journey in life. Sooner than you think you will find yourself in some dark tunnel of trial. It will be too late then to think of furnishing yourself with them. Blessed are those then in whom they are brightly shining!
[1177] It is not to be expected that the young will fully appreciate it. They have not had the experience necessary to enable them to do so. At the outset of a voyage, passengers are apt to think most about those things in a ship which are comparatively unimportant—the size of their berths, the elegant decorations of the cabin, &c.; but before it is ended, especially if the voyage is a stormy one, they come to think more about the staunchness of the vessel, the strength of the rigging, the seamanship of the captain, rather than of his fitness or unfitness for a drawing-room. So in dealing with the Bible: at the outset of life, we are apt to give our whole attention to things comparatively unimportant, such as the possibility of reconciling the first chapter of Genesis with the teaching of modern science, &c.; but, by and by, trouble teaches us to value the Scriptures as our only sure guide amidst life’s moral perplexities, as our only true comforter amidst life’s sorrows. It is trouble that teaches us that the promises are “precious promises;” and therefore I may fairly expect that the promise of our text will be prized by the aged.
III. TO THE PRESENT AND PERMANENT VALUE OF THIS INSTRUMENT OF CONSOLATION THERE ARE MILLIONS OF LIVING WITNESSES. The declarations of our text are very beautiful, but the important question is, Are they true? Is Christ to His people all that He is here said to be?
1. Our text says that Christ is a refuge for His people. “As a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.” Remember what kind of storms sometimes sweep across the Eastern deserts. [See outline: The Christian’s Refuge, section I.] As you have pursued the pilgrimage of human life, have any such storms burst upon you?—the storm of adversity? of persecution? of an awakened conscience? of temptations? The worst storms are those which rage within a man! In such storms where did you find shelter? what did you find Christ to be to you?
2. Our text says that Christ will satisfy the thirst of His people. Picture the scene at Rephidim. To the multitudes who had almost died of thirst, how welcome were the streams that burst from the smitten rock! All men thirst for happiness; the distressed for consolation, the penitent for reconciliation with God. In these respects, has Christ been to you “as rivers of water in a dry place?”
3. Our text says that Christ will give rest to His people. [1180]
[1180] One day—one of the most beautiful and happy days I have ever known—I and some friends visited the Valley of Rocks, at Lynton, in North Devon. We had selected for our dining-place the shaded side of one of the largest of the rocks which have made that valley famous. Just as we were finishing our repast, an aged gentleman approached us, and asked to be permitted to share our resting-place. “I should not have intruded upon you,” he said, “but I am very weary.” Instantly my text recurred to my memory, and I saw somewhat of its power and beauty: “As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” In such a land, on such a day, how welcome is the sight of a great rock! How sweet and refreshing to rest in its cooling shade! Amid the toils and troubles of life we often need rest and refreshment. Have you found them in Christ? Are the declarations of our text true?
IV. Every truth is a call to duty. TO WHAT DUTIES DOES OUR TEXT CALL US? If we have had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, it says—
1. PRAISE GOD. Would not a storm-driven traveller give thanks for “a covert,” the thirst-consumed for “rivers of water,” the faint and weary for “the shadow of a great rock?” Let us remember what Christ has been to us, and give “thanks unto God for His unspeakable gift!”
2. TAKE COURAGE, Usually as years increase troubles multiply: but what Christ has been to you in the past, He will be in the future—an all-sufficient Saviour!
3. To those who have not yet had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, my text says, COME TO JESUS. Its promises are invitations. Is not a well of water in itself an invitation to a thirsty man? You need all that the text promises; and in the experience of millions of men living now, you have abundant evidence that its promises are worthy of your trust. Familiarise yourself with the “hiding-place” before the tempests of life burst upon you, that in the day of storm you may know whither to flee. Blessed are they who have made the Man of whom our text speaks their friend. According to His word (Matthew 28), He is with them “always,” “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.”
THE CHRISTIAN’S REFUGE
(For Christmas Day.)
Isa_32:2. A man shall be as an hiding place, &c.
This is a very remarkable prophecy and promise, and at first sight most strikingly at variance with almost every other declaration of the Word of God, e.g., Isa_2:22; Psa_146:3; Psa_62:8-9; Jer_17:5. “A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind!” A poor, weak, helpless mortal, unable to protect himself from the wind and tempest, shall he be our refuge? Shall God’s own Word command us to leave the living Fountain, and betake ourselves in our necessities to the broken cisterns of earth? Strange inconsistency, astonishing contradiction to every other portion of God’s word? But who is this Man? He of whom it is also written (Zec_13:7; Php_2:6); and who is thus spoken of by the Spirit of God Himself, when predicting the event of this day (Isa_9:6). It is the Lord Jesus Christ, then, who reveals Himself in the words before us under two striking similitudes; the first of which regards His people’s safety, and the second their consolations.
I. As regards their safety: “hiding place from the wind, covert from the tempest.” Picture to yourself one of those scenes which Eastern travellers paint, when they describe the passage of a caravan across some dreary desert, where, throughout the long day’s journey, there is no house, no rock, no tree to afford a moment’s shade or shelter. The wind suddenly rises, the lightning glares, and in the distance are beheld gigantic columns of sand, raised and kept together in such vast masses by the whirlwind that drives them towards the poor bewildered travellers, who behold in them at once their destruction and their grave. In vain do they attempt to fly; as vain were all thoughts of resistance. Before the shortest prayer is finished, that multitude that was just now full of life and animation, is hushed in silence; every heart has ceased to beat; the simoom of the desert has passed over them, and the place they occupied is scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding plain. This is no flight of the imagination, but a simple statement of a fact of not unfrequent occurrence. Now imagine in such a scene with what feelings these alarmed and flying travellers would greet “a hiding-place” and “a covert.” If a rock of adamant, a barrier which neither sand, nor wind, nor tempest could beat down or overleap, should suddenly spring up between them and those swiftly advancing columns of death, what would be their feelings of joy, their thoughts of gratitude, their language of praise! Who can imagine the heartfelt cry of thanksgiving to God which would arise from that vast multitude at so complete, so merciful, so unhoped-for a deliverance? With such feelings should we “behold the Man” of whom I speak to-day. We stood in as great a danger. Our sins had raised a tempest of the wrath of God, against which the whole created host of heaven would in vain have attempted to erect a barrier. But our Lord has wrought a deliverance for us as much needed, as unexpected, as complete. He has interposed between us and the mighty “wind,” the appalling “tempest,” which justly threatened our destruction.
1. Let us who have found shelter in Christ rejoice in Him, and be glad this day because of the quietness we enjoy. Let those who are still outside the great “Hiding-Place,” the wondrous “Covert” which God’s mercy has provided, remember that an unapplied Saviour is no Saviour. Their peril has been in no sense lessened by His advent. In the gladness of this day they can have no share.
II. His people’s consolation. “As rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Before we had symbols of safety; here we have symbols of consolation.
1. God’s people often feel that this world is “a dry and barren place, and thirst for consolation and succour.” That which they thirst for, they may find in Christ. He is not merely a river, but (so abundant are His consolations) “rivers of water” to them that are fainting under the trials, anxieties, or distresses of the world. But it is not enough that the river is running at your feet; you must know it is there, you must drink of its waters, or they will not assuage their thirst. In Hagar sitting down in utter hopelessness and helplessness, when near her there was an abundant supply of water for herself and her child (Gen_21:15-19), we have an emblem of too many distressed and sorrowful Christians. “Rivers of water” are flowing past you: arise, and drink! (Rev_22:17).
2. God’s people are often faint and weary as they pursue their earthly pilgrimage. But during every stage of it they may “renew their strength,” and so be enabled to persevere until at length “they stand in Zion before God,” for Christ is “as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Don’t be satisfied with just coming within the range of the shadow of the Rock; there are in the Rock recesses where you may find a complete shelter and a sweeter rest. Enter into them. Cultivate a closer fellowship with Christ. So in every stage of your journey you shall have not only strength, but joy (Isa_35:10).—H. Blunt, A.M.: Posthumous Sermons, pp. 23–42.
The “Man” here referred to is the Divine Redeemer—the one theme of the Bible. “Hiding-place” and “covert” express substantially the same idea—shelter, defence, safety, deliverance both from actual and impending evil. Jesus Christ in this broad and comprehensive sense is the Refuge of His people. Fleeing to Him, men find protection, &c.
I. Christ is a refuge in the day of earthly disappointment. Human life full of disappointments. Few of our anticipations of good realised. Our fondest and most sacredly cherished hopes blighted. The world deceives men: it is not what it seems to be, it does not satisfy the desires it awakens. The god of this world is the master spirit of lying and deception, and he so manages the shifting scenes as to keep up the deception until the last. So with (a) the man of business, (b) those who aspire to earthly honour, fame, power, (c) the student, (d) the pleasure-seeker. To these children of disappointment, Christ is a refuge; He has Himself felt the ills of life (Heb_4:15-16). There is a “hiding-place” where the fury of life’s storms never comes; the God of mercy offers eternal life in the Gospel. Forsaken, disheartened, disappointed men may still be accepted of Christ, and find peace and rest in Him.
II. Christ is a Refuge in time of affliction. This is a world of sorrow and suffering; men turn from it in disgust and anguish to seek relief elsewhere, or to weep life away in sadness and darkness. Now Christ alone is available in just such an hour. When the world turns its back upon us, there is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother—one born for adversity—a shield and a deliverer in the day of affliction. We may not be able to explain the philosophy of the thing, but the soul that looks to Christ is so sustained as to rejoice in tribulation, and the heaviest burden is lightened and made a blessing.
III. Christ is a Refuge in the day of trial It pleases the Lord to make full proof of His people. He puts their love, fidelity, and integrity to the test. God tries (a) our faith, (b) hope, (c) patience, (d) principles. And in His day of fiery trial our only safety is in the “hiding-place” of Divine mercy—we need the “covert” of the Almighty wings. None but Christ is able to give the soul confidence in such days and hours.
IV. Christ is a Refuge in the day of fear. Sin is darkness, and hence wherever there is sin there is gloom and fear. The wicked man is a slave to fear, and even the Christian at times suffers greatly because of it. The remedy for this gloomy experience is in Christ; and there is a power in the Gospel to lift the soul into a region of perpetual sunshine. In Christian experience, peace, joy, and hope are the ministering angels (Hab_3:17-18).
V. Christ is a Refuge from the torments of an accusing conscience. The day of self-convicted guilt always a day of memorable experiences. Conscience upbraids, justice demands satisfaction; the soul is ready to sink into hell. Whose arm can save in such an hour? where shall he seek refuge? In that hour none but Christ can save.
VI. Christ is a Refuge in the day of final wrath. The wrath to come—the just, final, and eternal wrath of God—a reality, a fixed fact in thought and experience. Jesus Christ is a refuge from this impending evil. The Cross lifted up on Calvary has received the thunder; God and the believer in Jesus Christ are reconciled. What, then, have they to fear whose life is hid in Christ? Death cannot harm, the judgment-day need not terrify.
Glorious Refuge! it never fails—is never shut against the penitent soul—has never been shaken—and will yet resist the fire and deluge of the great day of wrath. This is the Ark, and they are eternally safe who are therein.—J. M. Sherwood: National Preacher, 1859, p. 217.
RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE
Isa_32:2. As rivers of water in a dry place.
The surface sense of this passage may refer to Hezekiah and to other good kings who were a means of great blessing to the declining kingdom of Judah; but its declarations are too full of meaning to be applied solely or primarily to any mere man. They are never fully understood until they are applied to Christ, the true King of righteousness, who confers the highest blessings upon His people. In Him there is a fulness and variety of blessing such as the varied metaphors of this passage fail to set forth. He is the true Man of whom Isaiah speaks; the man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and who therefore can be, and is, “as rivers of water in a dry place.”
I. THE METAPHOR. This implies,
1. Great excellence of blessing. How valuable is a river to the land through which it flows! So Christ is the source and the sustenance of the fertility, fruitfulness, and beauty of His people.
2. Abundance of blessing. Think of the vast floods that flow through the Amazon, the Ganges, the Indus, the Orinoco. So in Christ there is grace sufficient for all mankind.
3. Freshness of blessing [1183]
4. Freeness of blessing. Though individuals may claim peculiar rights in rivers, all creatures drink of them freely, the dog as well as the swan. So may all, however vile, partake of the grace that is in Christ.
5. Constancy of blessing. Pools and cisterns dry up, but the river goes on for ever. So it is with Jesus; the grace to pardon and the power to heal are not spasmodic powers in Him, they abide in Him unabated for evermore.
[1183] In a river we see not only excellence and abundance, but freshness. A pool is the same thing over again, and gradually it becomes a stagnant pond, breeding corrupt life and pestilential gases. A river is always the same, yet never the same; it is ever in its place, yet always moving on. Filled to the brim with living water, even as in ages long gone by, and yet flowing fresh from the spring, it is an ancient novelty. We call our own beautiful river, “Father Thames,” yet he wears no furrows on his brows, but leaps in all the freshness of youth. You shall live by the banks of a river for years, and yet each morning its stream shall be as fresh as though its fountain had been unsealed but an hour ago when the birds began to awake the morning and the sun to sip the dews. Is it not so with our Lord Jesus Christ! Is He not evermore as bright and fresh as when first you met with Him?—Spurgeon.
II. A SPECIAL EXCELLENCE which the text mentions. “Rivers of water in a dry place.” Only the residents in a tropical country can fully appreciate that phrase. But Christ came to such a place when He came to our race. So He does when with His salvation He visits the individual soul. Were it not for Him, the souls, even of His people, under the influence of wealth or of poverty, of the cares or of the pleasures of life, would be always dry. But He refreshes, sustains, and fertilises those who otherwise would utterly faint and fail.
III. PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. See the goings out of God’s heart to man, and man’s way of communing with God. God’s heart is an infinite ocean of goodness, and it flows forth to us through Jesus Christ, not in streams and driblets, but in rivers of grace and mercy. These streams we cannot purchase or merit, we have only to receive them; when we drink of the stream, we partake of God.
2. See what a misery it is that men should be perishing and dying of soul thirst when there are these rivers so near. Some have never heard of them; therefore help to the utmost the Missionary Society. Others who have heard of them are smitten with a strange insanity that leads them to turn away from them.
3. Let us learn where, if we are suffering from spiritual drought and barrenness, the blame lies. It cannot lie in Christ.
4. If Christ is ready to be to us as rivers, drink of Him, all of you [1186] Live near Him. Live in Him [1189]C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1243.
[1186] Is Christ a river? then drink of Him, all of you. To be carried along on the surface of Christianity, like a man in a boat, is not enough, you must drink or die. Many are influenced by the externals of religion, but Christ is not in them; they are on the water, but the water is not in them; and if they continue as they are they will be lost. A man may be in a boat on a river and yet die of thirst if he refuses to drink; and so you may be carried along and excited by a revival, but unless you receive the Lord Jesus into your soul by faith, you will perish after all.—Spurgeon.
[1189] If Christ be like a river, let us be like the fishes, live in it. The fish is an ancient Christian emblem for Jesus and His people. I sat under a beech-tree some months ago in the New Forest; I gazed op into it, measured it, and marked the architecture of its branches, but suddenly I saw a little squirrel leap from bough to bough, and I thought, “After all, this beech-tree is far more to you than to me, for you live in it. It delights me, it instructs me, and it affords me shade, but you live in it and upon it.” So we know something about rivers, and they are very useful to us, but to the fish the river is its element, its life, its all. So, my brethren, let us not merely read about Christ, and think of Him, and speak of Him, but let us live on Him, and in Him, as the squirrel in the tree and the fish in the river. Live by Him, and live for Him: you will do both if you live in Him.—Spurgeon.
[See also Outlines, RIVERS OF WATERS, Isa_30:25-26, and ENRICHING RIVERS, Isa_33:21.]
COMFORT IN CHRIST
Isa_32:2. As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
This chapter begins with a prophecy of the Messiah, and of the happiness which the godly should enjoy under His reign (Isa_32:1). True as well as beautiful are its descriptions of Christ.
I. To the children of God this world is often “a weary land.”
1. Because of the labours they have to undergo. This is a laborious world (Ecc_1:8). Employment is in itself a blessing; it was provided for man in Eden; but every day the sun sets upon millions who are faint and weary, who are overwrought, and for whom there will be no sufficient rest until they lie down in the grave. To God’s children it is a special cause of weariness that they are compelled to devote so much time in labouring for “the meat which perisheth,” and that they have so little time for meditation and for communion with God.
2. Because of the troubles to which they are exposed (Job_5:7). Troubles attend every stage and condition of life. They are national, domestic, personal. The pains and evils of life commonly increase as its length is protracted. And there, is nothing more wearisome than troubles. Many who can endure labour cannot endure trouble. This makes the heart stoop, and weakens the mind as well as the body. A troublesome world must be a wearisome world.
3. Because of the perplexities by which they are harassed. This is a dark world. What is past, what is present, as well as what is to come, lies involved in darkness. Life is full of mystery. Strange and unexpected events are continually happening, which disappoint the hopes and frustrate the designs of the wisest. Providence often baffles the interpretation and tries the faith even of the most devout. Wickedness is often triumphant, and virtue trampled under foot. Good men are often tired of living in a world which subjects them to continual anxiety and suspense.
4. Because of the sin by which they are surrounded. The moral atmosphere in which they live is uncongenial The practices and principles with which they are daily brought into contact fill them with disgust, with indignation, and with grief (2Pe_2:7-8; Psa_119:139; Psa_119:156; Psa_119:158; Act_17:16; Eze_9:4).
II. Whensoever God’s children are weary of the world, they may find comfort in Christ. They may always find comfort.
1. In the compassion of Christ. He knows what it is to be faint and weary. He knows the heart of a pilgrim and stranger. And He has the tenderest compassion for His friends in distress or want. He is as pitiful to-day as He was when He tabernacled on earth. He feels all that His followers feel (Act_9:2; Heb_4:14-16).
2. In the intercession of Christ. As He prayed for Peter (Luk_12:32) and for all His disciples before His crucifixion (John 17), so He still makes intercession for His followers according to their necessities. And His intercession is always prevalent (Joh_11:42).
3. In the strength of Christ. Weakness is the cause of weariness, and the weary may always find the strength they want in Christ (Php_4:13; 2Co_12:7-10).
4. In the government of Christ. He sits as King in Zion. He has absolute control over the darkness, tumults, and confusions of the world. He governs all things for the benefit of His Church. Nothing can hurt it (Zec_2:8; Isa_27:3; Psa_2:1-5; Psa_2:9).
5. In the promises of Christ. He has promised to give them peace even in this world (Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33; Joh_14:2-3). These are great and precious promises, because they are sure promises.
APPLICATION.—Since the friends of Christ, when they are weary of the world, may always find comfort in Him—
1. They should not regard the things which make them weary of it as curses but as blessings. It is a good thing to have our hold of the world loosened. It is a good thing to be driven to Christ. All their trials and sufferings are suited to prepare them to enjoy more peace and rest in Christ, than they could otherwise enjoy. When a man finds a covert in a great storm, he finds more pleasure in it than he does on a fine fair day. So Christians enjoy more real satisfaction and happiness in adversity than in prosperity, because while prosperity leads them to the enjoyment of the world, adversity leads to the enjoyment of Christ.
2. They enjoy more happiness even in this life than sinners do. Sinners often seem happier than saints, but theirs is a loud and transient mirth, whereas God’s people have a deep and lasting joy. Autumn is oftener a pleasanter season than spring, but it deepens into the gloom and vigour of winter; whereas after the storms of March and the rain of April come the bright joyous days of summer. The life of the sinner is at best an autumn life, with autumn prospects, but the life of God’s children is a spring life. And even here and now they (and they only) are filled with that peace of God which passeth all understanding, affords joy in sorrow, and gives rest to the weary.
3. They ought never to be heard murmuring or complaining under any troubles or afflictions in which they may be involved. This world is full of murmuring; and when God’s people complain, it is highly offensive to God (Psa_106:25-26). But why should they complain? (Heb_12:11). And they have a present refuge, even Christ, in whom they may find “strong consolation.”
4. They ought never to be found depressed with anxiety as to the future (Php_4:6-7).—Dr. Emmons: Works, vol. iii. 352–365.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Isaiah
THE HIDING-PLACE
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Isa 32:2.
We may well say, Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Here are distinctly attributed to one of ourselves, if we take the words in their simplicity and fulness, functions and powers which universal experience has taught us not to look for in humanity. And there have been a great many attempts-as it seems to me, altogether futile and baseless ones-to break the force of these words as a distinct prophecy of Jesus Christ. Surely the language is far too wide to have application to any real or ideal Jewish monarch, except one whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom? Surely the experience of a hundred centuries might teach men that there is one man, and one alone, who is the refuge from all dangers, the fruition of all desires, the rest and refreshment in all toils.
And I, for my part, have no hesitation in saying that the only reference of these words which gives full value to their wealth of blessing, is to regard them as a prophecy of the man-Christ Jesus; hiding in whom we are safe, ‘coming’ to whom we ‘never thirst,’ guarded and blest by whom no weariness can befall us, and dwelling in whom this weary world shall be full of refreshment and peace!
I do not need to point out the exquisite beauty of the imagery or the pathos and peace that breathe in the majestic rhythm of the words. There is something more than poetical beauty or rhetorical amplification of a single thought in those three clauses. The ‘hiding-place’ and ‘covert’ refer to one class of wants; the ‘rivers of water in a dry place’ to yet another; and ‘the shadow of a great rock in a weary land’ to yet a third. And, though they are tinged and dyed in Eastern imagery, the realities of life in Western lands, and in all ages, give them a deeper beauty than that of lovely imagery, and are the true keys to understanding their meaning. We shall, perhaps, best grasp the whole depth of that meaning according to the Messianic reference which we give to the text, if we consider the sad and solemn conception of man’s life that underlies it; the enigmatical and obstinate hope which it holds out in the teeth of all experience-’A man shall be a refuge’; and the solution of the riddle in the man Christ Jesus.
I. First, there underlies this prophecy a very sad but a very true conception of human life.
The three classes of promises have correlative with them three phases of man’s condition, three diverse aspects of his need and misery. The ‘covert’ and the ‘hiding-place’ imply tempest, storm, and danger; the ‘river of water’ implies drought and thirst; ‘the shadow of a great rock’ implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. The view of life that arises from the combination of these three bears upon its front the signature of truth in the very fact that it is a sad view.
For, I suppose, notwithstanding all that we may say concerning the beauty and the blessedness scattered broadcast round about us; notwithstanding that we believe, and hold as for our lives the happy ‘faith that all which we behold is full of blessing,’ it needs but a very short experience of this life, and but a superficial examination of our own histories and our own hearts, in order to come to the conclusion that the world is full of strange and terrible sadness, that every life has dark tracts and long stretches of sombre tint, and that no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light and flings no shadows on the canvas. There is no depth in a Chinese picture, because there is no shade. It is the wrinkles and marks of tear and wear that make the expression in a man’s portrait. ‘Life’s sternest painter “is” its best.’ The gloomy thoughts which are charged against Scripture are the true thoughts about man and the world as man has made it. Not, indeed, that life needs to be so, but that by reason of our own evil and departure from God there have come in as a disturbing element the retributive consequences of our own godlessness, and these have made danger where else were safety, thirst where else were rivers of water, and weariness and lassitude where else were strength and bounding hope.
So then, look for a moment at these three points that come out of my text, in order to lay the foundation for subsequent considerations.
We live a life defenceless and exposed to many a storm and tempest. I need but remind you of the adverse circumstances-the wild winds that go sweeping across the flat level, the biting blasts that come down from the snow-clad mountains of destiny that lie round the low plain upon which we live. I need but remind you of the dangers that are lodged for our spiritual life in the temptations to evil that are round us. I need but remind you of that creeping and clinging consciousness of being exposed to a divinely commissioned retribution and punishment, which perverts the Name that ought to be the basis of all our blessedness into a Name unwelcome and terrible, because threatening judgment. I need but remind you how men’s sins have made it needful that when the mighty God, even the Lord, appears before them, ‘it shall be very tempestuous round about him.’ Men fear and ought to fear ‘the blast of the breath of His nostrils,’ which must burn up all that is evil. And I need but remind you of that last wild wind of Death that whirls the sin-faded leaves into dark corners where they lie and rot.
My brother, you have not lived thus long without learning how defenceless you are against the storm of adverse circumstances. You have not lived thus long without learning that though, blessed be God! there do come in all our lives long periods of halcyon rest, when ‘birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,’ and the heavens above are clear as sapphire, and the sea around is transparent as opal-yet the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, may rise on the horizon, and may thicken and blacken and grow greater and nearer till all the sky is dark, and burst in lightning and rain and fierceness of wind, till ‘through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming,’ and the white crests of the waves are like the mane of Death’s pale horse leaping upon the broken ship. We have all learnt in how profound a sense, by reason of outward adverse circumstances and inward temptations, by reason of the fears of a Justice which we know is throned at the centre of the creation, by reason of a death which to us is a terror, and by reason of that universal fear of ‘after death the judgment,’ storm and tempest swoop upon our paths. God made the sunshine, and we have made it a storm. God made life blessed and full of safety and peace, and we have wrenched ourselves from Him and stand defenceless amidst its dangers.
Then, there is another aspect and conception of life which underlies these words of my text. The image of the desert was before the prophet’s rapt vision. He saw the sand whirled into mad dancing columns before the blast which swept across the unsheltered flat, with nothing, for a day’s march, to check its force. But the wilderness is not only shelterless, it is waterless too-a place in which wild and ravening thirst finds no refreshing draughts, and the tongue cleaves to the blackening gums.
‘Rivers of water in a dry place’; and what is the prose fact of that? That you and I live in the midst of a world which has no correspondence with, nor power of satisfying, our truest and deepest selves-that we bear about with us a whole set of longings and needs and weaknesses and strengths and capacities, all of which, like the climbing tendrils of some creeping plant, go feeling and putting out their green fingers to lay hold of some prop and stay-that man is so made that for his rest and blessedness he must have an external object round which his spirit may cling, on which his desires may fasten and rest, by which his heart may be blessed, which shall be authority for his will, peace for his fears, sprinkling and cleansing for his conscience, light for his understanding, shall be in complete correspondence with his inward nature-be water for his thirst, and bread for his hunger.
And as thus, on the very nature which each of us carries, there is stamped the signature of dependence, and the necessity of finding an external object on which to rest; and as, further, men will not be tutored even by their own miseries or by the voice of their own wants, and ever confound their wishes with their wants and their whims with their needs, therefore it comes to pass that the appetite which was only meant to direct us to God, and to be as a wholesome hunger in order to secure our partaking with relish and delight of the divine food that is provided for it, becomes unsatisfied, a torture, and unslaked, a ravening madness; and men’s needs become men’s misery; and men’s hunger becomes men’s famine; and men’s thirst becomes men’s death. We do dwell in a dry land where no water is.
All about us there are these creatures of God, bright and blessed and beautiful, fit for their functions and meant to minister to our gladness. They are meant to be held in subordination. It is not meant that we should find in them the food for our souls. Wealth and honour and wisdom and love and gratified ambition and successful purpose, and whatsoever other good things a man may gather about him and achieve-he may have them all, and yet in spite of them all there will be a great aching, longing vacuity in his soul. His true and inmost being will be groping through the darkness, like a plant growing in a cellar, for the light which alone can tinge its pale petals and swell its shrivelling blossoms to ripeness and fruit.
A dry place, as well as a dangerous place-have not you found it so? I believe that every soul of man has, if he will be honest with himself, and that there is not one among us who would not, if he were to look into the deepest facts and real governing experience of his life, confess-I thirst: ‘my soul thirsteth.’ And oh, brethren, why not go on with the quotation, and make that which is else a pain, a condition of blessedness? Why not recognise the meaning of all this restless disquiet, and say ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God’?
And then there is the other idea also underlying these words, yet another phase of this sad life of ours-not only danger and drought, but also weariness and languor. The desert stretches before us again, where there is no shelter from the blast and no trickling stream amid the yellowing sand; where the fierce ball above beats down cruelly, and its hot rays are flung up cruelly into our faces, and the glare blinds us, and the stifling heat wearies us, and work is a torture and motion is misery, and we long for nothing so much as to be quiet and to hide our heads in some shade.
I was reading recently one of our last books of travel in the wilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling for hours under a scorching sun, over the hot, white, marly flat, seeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter anywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the weary travellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide, at least, their heads, from those ‘sunbeams like swords,’ even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest, and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.
Oh! the weariness felt by us all, of plod, plod, plodding across the sand! That fatal monotony into which every man’s life stiffens, as far as outward circumstances, outward joys and pleasures go! the depressing influence of custom which takes the edge off all gladness and adds a burden to every duty! the weariness of all that tugging up the hill, of all that collar-work which we have to do! Who is there that has not his mood, and that by no means the least worthy and man-like of his moods, wherein he feels not, perhaps, that all is vanity, but-’how infinitely wearisome it all is.’
And so every race of man that ever has lived has managed out of two miseries to make a kind of shadowy gladness; and, knowing the weariness of life and the blackness of death, has somewhat lightened the latter by throwing upon it the thought of the former, and has said, ‘Well, at any rate, if the grave be narrow and dark, and if outside “the warm precincts of the cheerful day” there be that ambiguous night, at least it is the place for sleep; and, if we cannot be sure of anything more, we shall rest then, at any rate.’ So the hope of ‘long disquiet merged in rest’ becomes almost bright, and man’s weariness finds most pathetic expression in his thinking of the grave as a bed where he can stretch himself and be still. Life is hard, life is dry, life is dangerous.
II. But another thought suggested by these words is-The Mysterious Hope which shines through them.
One of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. ‘A man shall be a refuge, rivers of water, the shadow of a great rock.’ Such an expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience and far too high-pitched ever to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring as the succession of the ages.
It is worth while to realise to ourselves these two points which seem to make such words as these of our text a blank impossibility. Experience contradicts them, and common-sense demands for their fulfilment an apparently impossible human character.
All experience seems to teach-does it not?-that no human arm or heart can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need. And yet the men who have been disappointed and disenchanted a thousand times do still look among their fellows for what their fellows, too, are looking for, and none have ever found. Have we found what we seek among men? Have we ever known amongst the dearest that we have clung to, one arm that was strong enough to keep us in all danger? Has there ever been a human love to which we can run with the security that there is a strong tower where no evil can touch us? There have been many delights in all our lives mediated and ministered to us by those that we loved. They have taught us, and helped us, and strengthened us in a thousand ways. We have received from them draughts of wisdom, of love, of joy, of guidance, of impulse, of comfort, which have been, as water in the desert is, more precious than gold. Our fellow-travellers have shared their store with us, ‘letting down their pitchers upon their hand,’ and giving us drink; but has the draught ever slaked the thirst? They carry but a pitcher, and a pitcher is not a fountain. Have there been any in all the round of those that we have loved and trusted, to whom we have trusted absolutely, without having been disappointed? They, like us, are hemmed in by human limitations. They each bear a burdened and thirsty spirit, itself needing such supplies. And to the truest, happiest, most soul-sufficing companionship, there comes at last that dread hour which ends all sweet commerce of giving and receiving, and makes the rest of life, for some of us, one monotonous ashen-grey wilderness where no water is. These things make it impossible for us to find anywhere amongst men our refuge and our fruition.
And yet how strange, how pathetic, is the fact that after all disappointments, men still obstinately continue to look among their fellows for guidance and for light, for consolation, for defence, and for strength! After a thousand failures they still hope. Does not the search at once confess that hitherto they have not found, else why be seeking still?-and that they yet believe they will yet find, else why not cease the vain quest? And surely He who made us, made us not in vain, nor cursed us with immortal hopes which are only persistent lies. Surely there is some living Person who will vindicate these unquenchable hopes of humanity, and receive and requite our love and trust, and satisfy our longings, and explain the riddle of our lives. If there be not, nor ever has been, nor ever can be a man who shall satisfy us with his love, and defend us with his power, and be our all-sufficient satisfaction and our rest in weariness, then much of man’s noblest nature is a mistake, and many of his purest and profoundest hopes are an illusion, a mockery, and a snare. The obstinate hope that, within the limits of humanity, we shall find what we need is a mystery, except on one hypothesis, that it, too, belongs to ‘the unconscious prophecies’ that God has lodged in all men’s hearts.
Nor need I remind you, I suppose, how such functions as those of which my text speaks not only seem to be contradicted by all experience, but manifestly and obviously to transcend the possibilities of human nature. A man to defend me; and he himself-does he need no defence? A man to supply my wants; and is his spirit, then, other than mine, that it can become the all-sufficient fulness for my emptiness? He that can do this for one spirit must be greater than the spirit for which he doeth it. He that can do it for the whole race of man, through all ages, in all circumstances, down to the end of time, in every latitude, under every condition of civilisation-who must he be who, for the whole world, evermore and always, is their defence, their gladness, their shelter, and their rest?
The function requires a divine power, and the application of the power requires a human hand. It is not enough that I should be pointed to a far-off heaven, where there dwells an infinite loving God-I believe that we need more than that. We need both of the truths: ‘God is my refuge and my strength,’ and ‘A man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.’
III. That brings me to the last point to be noticed, namely:-The solution of the mystery in the person of Jesus Christ.
That which seemed impossible is real. The forebodings of humanity have not fathomed the powers of Divine Love. There is a man, our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, who can be to single souls the adequate object of their perfect trust, the abiding home of their deepest love, the unfailing supply for their profoundest wants. There is one man to whom it is wise and blessed to look as the exclusive source of all our peace, the absolute ruler of all our lives. There is a man in whom we find all that we have vainly sought in men. There is a man, who can be to all ages and to the whole race their refuge, their satisfaction, their rest. ‘It behoved Him to be made in all points like unto His brethren,’ that His succour might be ever near, and His sympathy sure. The man Christ Jesus who, being man, is God manifest in the flesh, exercises in one and the same act the offices of divine pity and human compassion, of divine and human guardianship, of divine and human love.
‘And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought.’
The dreams of weary hearts that have longed for an impossible perfection are all below the reality. The fact surpasses all expectation. It is more than all prophecies, it is more than all hopes, it is more than all praise. It is God’s unspeakable gift. Well might an angel voice proclaim the mystery of love, ‘Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ The ancient promise of our text is history now. A man has been and is all these things for us.
A refuge and a hiding-place from every storm-adverse circumstances sweep upon us, and His mighty hand is put down there as a buckler, behind which we may hide and be safe. Temptations to evil storm upon us, but if we are enclosed within Him they never touch us. The fears of our own hearts swirl like a river in flood against the walls of our fortress home, and we can laugh at them, for it is founded upon a rock! The day of judgment rises before us solemn and certain, and we can await it without fear, and approach it with calm joy. I call upon no mountains and hills to cover me.
‘Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.’
‘Rivers of water in a dry place,’-hungry and thirsty, my soul fainted within me. I longed for light, and behold darkness. I longed for help, and there was none that could come close to my spirit to succour and to give me drink in the desert. My conscience cried in all its wounds for cleansing and stanching, and no comforter nor any balm was there. My heart, weary of limited loves and mortal affections, howsoever sweet and precious, yearned and bled for one to rest upon all-sufficient and eternal. I thirsted with a thirst that was more than desire, that was pain, and was coming to be death, and I heard a voice which said, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.’
‘The shadow of a great rock in a weary land,’-and my heart was weary by reason of the greatness of the way, and duties and tasks seemed toils and burdens, and I was ready to say, ‘Wherefore has Thou made me and all men in vain? Surely all this is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ and I heard One that laid His hand upon me and said, ‘Come unto Me, and I will give thee rest.’ I come to Thee, O Christ, faint and perishing, defenceless and needy, with many a sin and many a fear; to Thee I turn for Thou hast died for me, and for me thou dost live. Be Thou my shelter and strong tower. Give me to drink of living water. Let me rest in Thee while in this weary land, and let Thy sweet love, my Brother and my Lord, be mine all on earth and the heaven of my heaven!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 32:2 like a shelter . . . a refuge:…
32:2 like a shelter . . . a refuge: The same words were also used to describe God’s protection (25:4) and his provision of life-giving water (41:18; 43:19-20). The leaders would serve as God’s agents in blessing his people.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.