Isaiah 4:1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel… Take thou away our reproach. This verse has been much misconceived. Its figures are Eastern, and their interpretation depends on our knowledge of the condition and sentiments of Eastern women. It is simply a forcible description of the calamities brought upon a nation by continued war. The men were to fall by the sword; and the slaughter was to be so great that the number of women should far exceed the number of men who should survive. Now, to be unmarried and childless is an occasion of the greatest reproach in the East; from the Jewish standpoint this was not only a great sorrow, but a great shame, implying, as was then thought, some sin of which it was the chastisement. And there was a yet deeper sentiment concerning childlessness which needs to be taken into account. Immortality was, in those older days, thought of as a family rather than a personal privilege. A man lived on, lived again, in his descendants. LaRuge says, "In its most ancient parts the Old Testament knows no other genuine life than that on this earth, and thus no other continuation of living after death than by means of children. To be childless was, then, the same as being deprived of continuance after death. It corresponded to the being damned of the New Testament." In their distress and wretchedness the young women who had minced and flirted through Jerusalem with their gay clothing and fine trinkets, contrary to their natural modesty, would become suitors to the men, and under the hardest conditions seek the name and credit of wedlock, to be free from the reproach that would otherwise be their portion. Kimchi, the Jewish commentator, says this happened in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah, the son of Remaliah, slew in Judaea one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day. The widows which were left were so numerous that the prophet said, "Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas" (Jeremiah 15:8). The idea that man's immortality is the continuance of the race has been revived and set attractively before the people in modern poetry and literature; and though it is only a small piece of the truth concern-inn man's future, a mere beginning in the revelation of man's immortality, we need not hesitate to recognize it as a partial truth, and to set before ourselves those views of the responsibility of our present lives which it suggests. We know that "life and immortality" for the individual have been "brought to light by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ," and in this failer and higher and more satisfying revelation we heartily rejoice; but still we may learn something by occupying for a moment the older standpoint. I. THE IMMORTALITY OF A NATION IS ITS PERMANENCY AS A FREE PEOPLE. This is illustrated by the anxiety of Eastern kings to secure heirs to their thrones and continuance to their dynasties. Divine judgments cut off kingly races, as that of Saul, Omri, etc. Divine promises assured that David's and Solomon's kingdoms should endure forever. Nations, as such, have no immortality in a future state. II. THE IMMORTALITY OF A GENERATION IS ITS REPRODUCTION IN SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS. "One generation passeth, and another cometh," and in a very true sense the next generation is the old one restored, under somewhat varying conditions. The genius of a generation is immortal only in the generations that follow it. III. THE IMMORTALITY OF A MAN IS THE FAMILY HE STARTS. This explains the ambition to "found a family," which is not merely man's monument, but the man himself living again, and living on through the ages. He puts his personal impress upon his children, and the children's children keep alive the idiosyncrasy of the parent. Illustrate from the Abrahamic race, which is, in a sense, the immortality of Abraham. IV. THE PRACTICAL BEARING OF SUCH A VIEW OF IMMORTALITY. It fills with seriousness the position of all parents. "What manner of persons ought they to be," if they are thus to be perpetuated? A nation must be righteous if it is to be worth continuing. A generation must be physically and morally healthy, if its impress on the coming generations is to be a blessing. The father, the mother, must bear pure, true, worthy characters if their family is to be an honor. He who seeks an immortality in his race is bound to see to it that he only perpetuates goodness, integrity, truth, faith, and all things that are noble. From this lower position the preacher may easily advance to argue how much more solemn life has become for us now that nobler views of the future are revealed by him who came forth out of the eternal mysteries, and has passed again within them, that we might henceforth read our earth-lives in the light of that sublime personal immortality which he has disclosed. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. |
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