Isaiah 8:5-8 The LORD spoke also to me again, saying,… Not only because of their usefulness had the waters of Shiloah endeared themselves to the heart of Israel. There were other and more hallowed associations which they suggested. I. The waters of Shiloah represented to the Jew the idea of FATHERLAND. Both Israel and Judah were in danger of forgetting the true ideal of patriotism which David had fostered, and were fast degenerating into a spurious imitation of it, a mere feverish militarism. How are we to translate this message into the English of the twentieth century? Does it not mean that the springs of our national greatness are not the matters which bulk most largely in our newspapers, are not the doings of courts and kings, of diplomatists and statesmen, of generals and armies, though these have an influence on a nation's destiny, and often one not to be despised? But far more important are the more unobtrusive factors of a nation's greatness; its care for the moral nurture and intellectual equipment of its children, its fostering of the arts and sciences and industrial training, the quality of its manufactures and the honesty of its commerce, its care for the moral and material condition of the workmen who produce its wealth, the freedom of its subjects, the equity of its laws, the purity and loftiness of its literature, the respect for religion, for home, for marriage bonds, — these are the things that make a nation great, though they are as "the waters of Shiloah that go softly" little seen and regarded The penalty for refusing these softly flowing waters of Shiloah is obvious to Isaiah's mind. The instinct of the statesman in him, apart from any predictive faculty, would be quite sufficient to show him the inevitable end of such fatuity. The king of Assyria, at first invited to interfere in Judah's interest, would be sure finally to interfere in his own, and both Israel and Judah, weakened by mutual jealousy and strife, and by internal dissensions, would fall an easy prey. So do God's retributive providences ever fall on the nation which forgets the true sources of its greatness, relies on the arm of flesh while inward corruption is working unheeded at its vitals, forsakes an enlightened patriotism which strives to be great for a spurious one which labours to appear so. II. These waters of Shiloah suggested to the Jew, not only his Fatherland, but his RELIGION. It was a sacred stream, for it rose in a spur of Mount Zion, near the temple. And at the Feast of Tabernacles, on "the last great day of the feast," a priest brought water from the Pool of Siloam in a golden vessel, and poured it on the altar amid the rejoicings of the people. It was on this annual occasion that the Immanuel prophesied by Isaiah stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." Judah, in Isaiah's time, was fast deserting the religion so closely associated with this stream. Such apostasy from God brings its own retribution before long, whether on the nation or the individual that practises it. Some such loosening of moral fibre is often seen, not only in the man who loses his hold on religion itself, but who loses his loyalty to the Church which nurtured him. III. The waters of Shiloah also represented to the Jew the sanctities of HOME, and the prophet here reproves him because he had rejected these sanctities and beauties of religious family life for polygamy and foul idolatry, which broke up the family, and embittered and destroyed its hallowed relationships. The word "home" is one in which we English have a special heritage. Be careful where you go outside the home for your enjoyments. Do not cast aside the healthful restraints of home, and reject those quiet waters, lest there rise upon you "the waters of the river, strong and many," remorse and unavailing repentance, self-contempt, lost character, and a hopeless future. (C. A. Healing, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD spake also unto me again, saying, |
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