Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before you… There are two sides to a religious life. One is the active side. We are urged to faithfulness in all duty, to activity in all service, to victoriousness in all struggle, to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But there is another side. We are to trust, to have quietness and confidence, to repose on God. The picture suggested is that of a little child, lying in the strong arms of a father who is able to withstand all storms and dangers. God comes to us first in our infancy, in our mothers, who bear us in their arms. Yet they are only dim revealings of God for a time. They leave us after teaching us a little of God's tenderness, but God Himself remains when they are gone, and His arms never unclasp. The thought of the embracing arms is very suggestive. The figure is to be interpreted by what it would mean in human friendship. 1. One meaning is protection. A father puts his arm about his child when it is in danger. God protects His children. "Thou hast with Thine arm redeemed Thy people." "Be Thou their arm every morning." "His arm brought salvation." 2. Another meaning is affection. The father's arm drawn about a child is a token of love. The child is held in the father's bosom, near his heart. The shepherd carries the lambs in his bosom. John lay on Jesus' breast. The mother holds the child in her bosom because she loves it. This picture of God embracing His children in His arms tells of His love for them. His love is tender, close, intimate. He holds them in the place of affection. 3. Another thought suggested by an arm is strength. A mother's arm may be frail physically, but love makes it strong. When it is folded about a feeble child, all the power of the universe cannot tear the child away. We know what it is in human friendship to have one upon whose arm we can lean with confidence. There are some people whose mere presence seems to give us a sense of security. We believe in them. In their quiet peace there is a strength which imparts itself to all who lean upon them. Every true human friend is more or less a strength to us. Yet the surest, strongest human strength is but a fragment of the Divine strength. This is Omnipotence. "In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." 4. Another suggestion is endurance. The arms of God are "everlasting." Human arms grow weary even in love's embrace; they cannot long press the child to the bosom. Soon they lie folded in death. So pathetic is human life with its broken affections, its little moments of love, its embraces that are tom away in one hour. But these are everlasting arms — these arms of God. They shall never unclasp. 5. There is another important suggestion in the word "underneath." Not only do the arms of God embrace the child, but they are underneath — ever underneath. That means that we can never sink, for these arms will ever be beneath us, wherever we may be east. We cannot sink below them or out of their clasp. And when death comes, and every earthly thing is gone from beneath us, and we sink away into what seems darkness and the shadow of death — out of all human love, out of warmth and gladness and sweet life, into the gloom and strange mystery of death, still it will be only into the everlasting arms. (J. R. Miller, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. |
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