Isaiah 66:13 As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Broadly we may state the contrast of these relations in two well-known and exceeding precious Old Testament sayings . "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust." "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." The father pities, the mother comforts, her children. The father in his strength stoops in gracious kindliness to succour them in their need; the mother holds them in a warm, eager embrace to comfort them in their pain. So we come to speak amongst ourselves of the father's hand, but always of the mother's arms. The father leads by the hand; the mother soothes and carries in her arms. Jesus did both. He was in His own person the perfect revelation at once of the Father-God and the Mother-God. He took God's little ones up into His arms, laid His hands upon them, and blessed them — blessed them with the double blessing of hand and arms. We find it easy to speak of the Almighty Father, but we are conscious of a dissonance of thought in saying the Almighty Mother. Almightiness is not an attribute of motherhood. But "everlastingness is; and the "everlasting arms are the arms of the Mother-God. There is, therefore, the rare insight of truth as well as rich beauty and pathos in Isaiah's imagery, "As one whom his mother comforteth." The glorious prophecies of evangelical blessedness which Isaiah proclaimed had reached their close. The final results to faithful and unfaithful of the revelation of the grace of God mingle in the last two chapters. As we read especially Isaiah 65:17-25 and Isaiah 66:10-13, we feel that this figure of the Motherhood of God touches the climax of the writing. The prophet's swift imagery halts here. It has no farther flight. The evolution of a mother is the vanishing-point in nature and art, where human comfort melts away into the infinite comfort of the Divine. (F. Platt.) Parallel Verses KJV: As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.WEB: As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted in Jerusalem." |
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