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Judgments are coming upon the world. And the sacred seed shall be scattered abroad through all nations. There shall be deliverance of Israel from all those calamities and much more; the heathen nations shall be brought into the light of Jehovah.

I. ADDRESS OF JEHOVAH TO THE PEOPLE. There are three names for the people - Jacob, Israel, Jesurun - and each represents a separate phase of moral progress.

1. Jacob, my servant. This itself is a title of honour. To be the minister of the will of an earthly sovereign is a proud distinction: how much more to wear the badge of the King of kings! Moreover, in ancient times servitude often meant confidence and friendship of the happiest kind between two souls. The name of Jacob, too, calls up memorable associations: a life of vicissitude and adventure, cheered by the constant presence of God; of notorious faults and weaknesses united with victorious faith; of a struggle to realize the Divine reality of love richly rewarded. The history of Jacob is beloved because it typifies the union of the human with the Divine - in the people, in all believing men.

2. Israel the chosen. One foreknown, selected, predestinated from the first to fulfil the ends of God. From the beginning of their history, the Divine hand had formed and moulded all Israel's restitutions. As the organism lies implicit in the cell of protoplasm, as the oak may be seen in miniature in the acorn, so Israel sprang from a thought of God.

3. Jesurun the upright one. An imputed righteousness, we are told, is meant. Others say it is a word of flattery and endearment - a diminutive form of "Israel." If the two ideas may be combined, then the chosen and beloved of God will be upright in the thought of God. To say that God "imputes" righteousness to those who have it not in themselves, what is it but to ascribe to him the most beautiful effect and operation of love? It is to say that Israel is by him idealized. And to feel this about ourselves means deliverance from despair in those moments when in the mirror of conscience we behold a hideous self-reflection, or when we perceive how cheaply we are held by the world -

"All I can never be,
All men ignore in me,
This I am worth to God.
Whose wheel the pitcher shared." There are secrets of the heart unknown to any system of theology. He who can hear God's voice saying to him, "Fear not," may be deaf to all detraction and indifferent to all applause.

II. PROMISE OF JEHOVAH.

1. The outpouring of the Spirit. Let us transport ourselves in fancy from these moist atmospheres and dripping skies of Britain to yonder burning Orient clime. Then and there let us bathe ourselves in the generous bounty of those refreshing words, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground." But we need not go to the Orient to experience drought of soul. We may find reading "dry," and preaching drier, our own minds driest of all; nothing growing within us, nor promising to grow. And for the future the prospect seems equally cheerless. Nothing is left us but this Word of God; but all is left us in that Word. Thinking of snow will not cool us; the imagination of water will not refresh us in our thirst; but faith in God, the realization of what he is in this relation to us, remains the one resource which Scripture offers to us.

2. The spiritual posterity. Biblical promises respect the "solidarity" of life. That which we moderns call "individualism" appears to be unknown. As the curse, so also the blessing, goes on working to the "third and fourth generation," nay, to "a thousand generations," under the dispensation of a covenant-keeping God. Nay, it is conceived as abiding through time into eternity - "a seed established for ever, a throne built up to all generations" (Psalm 89:4). Here the abundance of Israel's spiritual posterity is imaged as grass by the waters, or as the tall and graceful poplars by the artificial water-courses. "A tree planted by the rivers of water;... Thy years shall be as the years of a tree:" what more beautiful and touching image? The tree is typical of life in its strength, its gracefulness, its fruitfulness. These shall be its characteristics in the Messianic age. The Church will finally embrace the world. Proselytes will come thronging to her threshold. They will join in one confession. It will be recorded that this and that man was born anew in Zion (Psalm 87.). Each Jew will be as it were the centre of a little synagogue; ten men will seize his skirts and say, "We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you" (Zechariah 8:23). The frequent confession will be heard, "I belong to Jehovah;" or be found taking upon his person the stigmata, or sacred marks, which denote him as vowed to Jehovah's service (cf. Herod., 2:113). We may learn:

(1) The blessedness of pious parents, and their corresponding responsibilities.

(2) The gift of God's Spirit is the source of true happiness and prosperity. Piety alone can be the root of the Church's and the nation's weal.

(3) God will never permit true religion to be extinct. It may appear to wither; but so long as he lives it will certainly know its recurring times of revival. - J.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen:

WEB: Yet listen now, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen.