Isaiah 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious to you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy on you… We are all familiar with the waiting hours of life, when the stream hardly seems to move, or the air to stir; when the heart grows sick with deferred hope. There are hours on languid summer days when all nature seems to have become stagnant — the aspen leaf does not quiver; the fish does not rise in the pool; the hum of the bee becomes less frequent and more drowsy; and the shadow hardly moves on the dial — and these hours in nature find their counterpart in the monotony of life's common round, the commonplace routine of its daily task. Such waiting times were wearily passing over the godly at Jerusalem while the invader was drawing his coils ever nearer to the doomed city, and the ambassadors were being cajoled in Egypt by false hopes; and ceaseless prayers to God were apparently bringing no response. To such the prophet addressed these words, encouraging them to believe that God was not unmindful of their case, but was waiting that He might act more graciously towards them than He could by answering them at once. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. |
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