Chapter IV: Part 4

Here is another picture, of exiled patriots seated by the waters of Babylon. They have hung their harps on the willows. They refuse to sing the Lord's song in that strange land. But HOPE is represented restoring the broken strings; and with their eyes suffused with tears, yet glistening with joyous visions, thus they pour out their plaintive prayer--"_Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south._"[40]

[40] Psalm cxxvi. 4.

Time would fail to traverse these halls and walls of ancient memory. HOPE, in every diversified form and attitude, is portrayed in the history of the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets, the noble army of martyrs,--ay, sustaining too, in the midst of His sufferings and sorrows, the very bosom of the Son of God--for was it not _hope_ ("the joy that was set before Him") that made Him "endure the cross, despising the shame?"[41]

[41] Heb. xii. 2.

And what _Hope_ has proved in the history of the Church collectively, it is in the life of every individual believer. By nature he is a "prisoner," but "a prisoner of hope."[42] The gospel is a "gospel of hope." Its message is called "_the good hope through grace_."[43] The God of the gospel is called "_the God of Hope_."[44] The "helmet of salvation" is the helmet of "_hope_."[45] The "anchor of the soul" is the anchor of "_hope_."[46] The believer "_rejoices in hope_,"[47] and "_abounds in hope_."[48] _Christ is in him_ "_the hope of glory_."[49] HOPE peoples to him the battlements of heaven with sainted ones in the spirit-land. He "sorrows not as others, who have no HOPE."[50] When death comes, _Hope_ smoothes his dying pillow, wipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. "_Now, Lord, what wait I for? my HOPE is in Thee._"[51] _Hope_ stands with her torch over his grave, and in the prospect of the dust returning to its dust, he says, "_My flesh shall rest in hope._"[52] _Hope_ is one of three guardian graces that conduct him to the heavenly gate. Now abideth these three, "Faith, HOPE, and Love," and if it be added, "_the greatest of these is Love_," it is because Hope and her companion finish their mission at the celestial portal! They proceed no further, they go back to the world, to the wrestlers in the earthly conflict. Faith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free. _Hope_ goes to her dungeon vaults, her beds of sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or Hope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to offer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun with a tiny candle; _Faith_ is then changed to sight, and Hope to full fruition. LOVE alone holds on her infinite mission. _Faith_ and _Hope_ are her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of glory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the ocean--the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth. _Hope's_ taper light is unneeded in that world where "the sun shall no more go down, neither for brightness shall the moon withdraw itself, but where the Lord our God shall be an everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended."

[42] Zech. ix. 12.

[43] 2 Thess. ii. 16.

[44] Rom. xv. 13.

[45] 1 Thess. v. 8.

[46] Heb. vi. 19.

[47] Rom xii. 12.

[48] Rom. xv. 13.

[49] Col. i. 27.

[50] 1 Thess. iv. 13.

[51] Ps. xxxix. 7.

[52] Ps. xvi. 9.

VIII.

The Hill Mizar.

"All scenes alike engaging prove
To souls impress'd with sacred love!
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.

"To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.

"While place we seek, or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But, with a God to guide our way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.

"Could I be cast where thou art not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot;
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all."

--_Cowper._

"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of that day and that hour in the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of mercy and help--my great support from heaven, and the great grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I."--_John Bunyan._

"O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."--_Verse 6._

VIII.

THE HILL MIZAR.

In the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the unreasonableness of its depression--calling upon it to exercise hope and trust in God, under the assurance that he would "yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."

But "_what will ye see in the Shulamite_?" Another experience testifies afresh, "_As it were the company of two armies._"[53] HOPE has no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The struggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back. His soul is again "cast down!" But one word--an old monosyllable of comfort--is borne on the refluent billow, "O MY GOD!" This "strong swimmer in his agony" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the opposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very tribulations that are casting him down,--threatening to submerge him,--are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to value more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the darkest wave.

[53] Sol. Song vi. 13.

We have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the winds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung mute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean fretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating hearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous music. We read in the previous verse, of the lighthouse of FAITH, built on the rock of HOPE. God has placed bells there. But it needs the storms of adversity to blow ere they are heard. In the calm of uninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane arises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick darkness, they ring the peal of heavenly confidence, "MY GOD, MY GOD!"

_My God!_ What a heritage of comfort do these words contain--in all time of our tribulation--in all time of our wealth--in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who fills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portion and heritage of believers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and righteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and guardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious promise--"_I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God._"[54] Moreover, He is the only possession which is theirs _absolutely_. All else they have, is in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time, their talents, their possessions, their friends, are only _leased_ by them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But they _can_ say unreservedly, "_The Lord is my portion._" "_God, even our_ OWN _God, shall bless us._" Ay, and we are told, "_God is not ashamed to be called_ THEIR GOD."[55] "The _name_ of the Lord" is thus "a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."[56] That salvation purchased by Jesus,--the amazing method by which every attribute of the Divine nature has been magnified, and every requirement of the Divine law has been met,--is "for walls and bulwarks." The believer not only can lay hold on higher blessings--"the good hope through grace," "glory, honour, immortality, eternal life,"--but even with regard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and allotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are so regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests; and that "all things" (yes, "ALL things") are "working together for his good." Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's lamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who gave His own Son for thee, must have some wise reason in such discipline. Oh, confide all thy perplexities, and _this_ perplexity, into His hands, saying, "_I am oppressed, undertake_ THOU _for me!_" Who can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that cheered a greater Sufferer at a more awful hour? The two most memorable spots in His midnight of agony,--Gethsemane and Calvary, the Garden and the Cross,--have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking through the darkness, "O MY FATHER!" "MY GOD, MY GOD!"

[54] Zech. xiii. 9.

[55] Heb. xi. 16.

[56] Prov. xviii. 10.

Let us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already noted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its depression by the exercise of HOPE--by looking beyond the shadows of the present to a brighter _future_. But the torch flickered and languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking to the _future_, he resolves to take a _retrospective_ survey; he directs his eye to the _past_. As often at eventide, when the lower valleys are in shadow, the mountain-tops are gilded with the radiance of the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now was, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He "_lifts his eyes unto the_ HILLS, _from whence cometh his help_." "_O my God, I will remember_ THEE!" "This is _my_ infirmity," he seems to say, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness of his frames and feelings: "but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember _Thy_ wonders of old."[57] With this key he proceeds again to open the door of HOPE. And as he treads the valley of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth."[58]

[57] Psalm lxxvii. 10, 11.

[58] Hosea ii. 15.

In connexion with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some well-known places in his Kingdom--"_The land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar._"

What means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold interpretation.

1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond Jordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this peculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of Promise, making him for the time, "an alien from the commonwealth of Israel."

We know from a passage in Joshua (chap. xxii.) how sacredly the division between the covenant people and the neighbouring tribes was preserved. The latter were denominated a "_possession unclean_;" the former, "_the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle is_." How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart like that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief season) from all participation in national and sanctuary blessings,--to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of angels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered the shadowing wings of Jehovah!

But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to lands or to sanctuaries. "_I will remember Thee_," says the banished monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with Thy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though it be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,--they may strip me of my regal glories,--they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their arrows;--but they cannot banish me from the better portion and heritage I have in Thy blessed self!"

If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded of the means of grace--shut out from the public ministrations of the sanctuary,--or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous position for spiritual advancement;--when our situation as regards the world, the family, business, pursuits, companions, society, is such as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,--let us still "_remember God_!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and opportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting, let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct to the fountainhead.

Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "_the Lord was with Joseph_." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the Gentiles, "no _man_ stood with me, but all _men_ forsook me.... Notwithstanding, THE LORD stood by me, and strengthened me." Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones are the shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we are, can turn the place of forlorn exile--our "land of Jordan, the Hermonites, the hill Mizar"--into scenes bright with manifestations of His covenant love.

* * * * *

2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable epochs in his past history--some green spots in the waste of memory, where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.

We spoke in last chapter of _Hope's_ picture-gallery. _Memory_ has one, stranger still--filled with landscapes of imperishable interest! Who has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her folding-doors--and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy may be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye;--scenes of life's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim mountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the murmuring brook by which we wandered, and the umbrageous tree under which we sat;--countenances glowing with smiles are haunting every walk and greeting us at every turn--the ringing laugh of childhood at some--venerable forms bending at others.

But more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and Bethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance--mute and silent memorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of encouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.

David thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and louring, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the chequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the Hermon range in the distance, and some _Mizar_--some "_little hill_" (as the word means)--rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various signal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connexion with these localities--"I will remember Thee" (as it may be rendered) "_regarding the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar_."[59]

[59] "It is said by those who have visited those parts, that one
remarkable effect produced is the changed aspect of the hills of
Judah and Ephraim. Their monotonous character is lost; and the
range, when seen as a whole, is in the highest degree diversified
and impressive. And the wide openings in the western hills, as
they ascend from the Jordan valley, give such extensive glimpses
into the heart of the country, that not merely the general range,
but particular localities can be discovered with ease.... From the
castle of Rubad, north of the Jabbok, are distinctly visible
Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, Esdraelon in its full extent, Carmel,
the Mediterranean, and the whole range of Judah and Ephraim. 'It
is the finest view,' to use the words of another traveller, 'that
I ever saw in any part of the world.'"--_Stanley's Sinai and
Palestine_, p. 318.

We know the other names to which he here adverts, but what is this "HILL MIZAR?" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small mountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the experiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have travelled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted perchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his prowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively interest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero have loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave him the earnest of more momentous triumphs?

Or, to make one other surmise, may it more likely refer to "_the little hill_" he most loved,--the home of his thoughts, the earthly centre of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the whole earth--"_Mount Zion_, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King?"[60] We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as "a _little hill_." In one of the sublimest of all his Psalms, he represents the other loftier mountains of Palestine,--Bashan with its forests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its cedar-clad summits,--as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid the wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary: "_Why look ye with envy, ye high hills? this is the hill where God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever._"[61] Is the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season of sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold experiences of God's faithfulness associated with _Zion_,--its tabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes--his own palace, that crowned its rocky heights, where his harp was oft attuned and his psalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him rising and giving "thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?" In the mind of the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not "glorious things" have been thought as well as "spoken of thee, O city of God?"

[60] Psalm xlviii. 2.

[61] Psalm lxviii. 16.

But, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special locality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken from the sheepfolds till now, was crowded with Mizars--hill-tops gleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the wood of Ziph, the forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag,[62] the caves of Adullam and Engedi,--all would recall some special memorial of God's delivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy vouchsafed in the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had promised to "David His servant," "My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted."[63] "Thou who _hast_ delivered my soul from death, wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?"[64]

[62] 1 Sam. xxx. 6.

[63] Psalm lxxxix. 24.

[64] Psalm lvi. 13.

The saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these memorable spots and experiences in their past pilgrimage. _Abraham_ had _his_ "hill Mizar" between Bethel and Hai. "_There,_" we read, "_he builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord._"[65] On his return from Egypt he retraced his steps to the _same_ locality. Why? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former experiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that "he went on his journeys from the south _even to Bethel_, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; _unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first_: and THERE he called on the name of the Lord."[66]

_Jacob's_ "Mizar" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where the fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the voice of a reconciled God. _Moses_ would think of _his_ "Mizar" either in connexion with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the Mount of Prayer at Rephidim. _Isaiah's_ "Mizar" would be the vision of the Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in God restored. _Jeremiah_ tells us specially of _his_--some memorable spot where he had a peculiar manifestation of God's presence and grace. "_The Lord hath appeared of_ OLD _unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee._"[67]

[65] Gen. xii. 8.

[66] Gen. xiii. 1-4.

[67] Jer. xxxi. 3.

Or shall we look to the New Testament? The _Roman Centurion_ would remember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled Omnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. The _Magdalene_ would remember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the feet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. The _Maniac of Gadara_ would recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the demon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the feet of the Great Restorer. The _Woman of Samaria_ would remember as hers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the earthly to the eternal fountain. _Peter_ would remember as his, the early morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. The _Sisters of Lazarus_, go where they might, would recall as their hallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard of _Bethany_. _Paul of Tarsus_ would ever remember as his, the burning plain near Damascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him helpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness changed the persecutor into a believer--the lion into a lamb. _John_, the beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment, or with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at Ephesus--John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed "_Mizar_" of all, the gentle bosom on which he leant at supper!

And who among us have not their "Mizars" still? It has often been said that, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that volume which all God's people carry about with them--the volume of their own experience.

_That_ is my earliest and fondest "Mizar," says one, the mother's knee where I first lisped my Saviour's name, and heard of His love. Mine, says another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's messenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace brought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed of sickness on which I awoke from the long life-dream of indifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which belong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber--that closet of devotion--(alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and associated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold tokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation, says another, is the "Mizar" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is raised;--when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's hand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That awful bereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections by the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which no creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode nothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent to open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine, says another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope in the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven playing upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, "Come up hither!"

It is well for all of us, and especially in our seasons of depression and sorrow, thus to retraverse life, and let our eyes fall on these Mizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression, when apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question our own personal interest in the covenant;--when tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?"--how encouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on former instances and memorials of Jehovah's favour, when we had the assured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these Mizar-hills on which He "appeared of old to us," disappointing our fears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes,--to remember, for our comfort, that having "loved us at the beginning," He will love us "even to the end!" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His mercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and precious token and pledge, that, "though for a small moment He may have forsaken us," yet that "with great mercy He will gather us," and that "with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us."[68]

[68] Isa. liv. 8.

Why not thus seek, in the noblest sense of the word, to rise above our trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side of things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a dreary prospect,--lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills, pathways overgrown with rank and noxious weeds. The other opens on what is bright and beauteous,--sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious flowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the former--gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows, brooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and Horeb--the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with a truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the breaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat themselves at the bright lattice, saying, "_Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice._" Both look on identically the same landscape. But the one descry only dull heaths and moors draped in sombre hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze on nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold the bow of heaven arching the sky, and the rain-drops glittering like jewels on leaf, and grass, and flower. The one can descry only "Hill Difficulties" and "Doubting Castles." The others love to gaze on Hermons and Mizars, on "the Palace of the Beautiful,"--the land of Beulah;--and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the Celestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may have been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more manifold still;--that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright spots outnumber the dreary.

Are any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and perplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you--are you in darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith to _Him_. Seasons of trial must either bring us nearer _to_ Him, or drive us further _from_ Him. It is an old saying, "Affliction never leaves us as it finds us." It either leads us to "_remember_ God," or to banish and _forget_ Him. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who, when Providence seems to frown,--when their hearts are smitten like grass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered,--are led, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "My soul is cast down within me. _therefore_, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I will rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is greater than I can bear;--all that made life happiness to me has perished;--THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry, even unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die--my only rest will be the quiet of the grave!"

Sorrowing one! be yours a nobler philosophy. Look back from these valleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder distant _Mizar hills_! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of unmistakeable covenant love. "Call to remembrance your song" in former nights. Wounded Hart! on the hills of Gilead, forget not thy former pastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in thine eyes, bathe thy panting sides in the cooling "water-brooks." When the disturbers of thy peace have gone, and when hushed again is thy forest home, return to "_the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense_." Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat thyself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying mountain height on mountain height, in the land of covenant promise,--each associated with some hallowed memory,--take down thy harp, and sing one of thine own songs of Zion. "_Thou who hast shewed me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth!_"[69]

[69] Psalm lxxi. 20.

IX.

The Climax.

"God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"

"There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in the flesh."--_Winslow._

"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."--_Verses 7, 8._

IX.

THE CLIMAX.

The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height. In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse was momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew darkened--rain-clouds sweep the horizon--"_Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts._" Amid the environing floods he exclaims, "_All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!_"

The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of Lebanon and Hermon;--that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at his feet--Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids--the faithful picture of the deep-worn channels in his own spirit--fretted and furrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.

But the word rendered "_deep_," is, in the original Hebrew, more applicable to the floods of the _ocean_ than to the rapids of a river; and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70] Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They lift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to the assault. "Let us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the spirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the fountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect his discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!"

[70] From the uplands where he now was, in the recesses between
the mountains of Gilead, David could catch here and there a
glimpse of the "Great Sea."

They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward calamities--inward troubles; his subjects in revolt--his friends treacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection; he himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were now exacting terrible retribution;--and worse than all temporal calamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as if it could go no further--"ALL _thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!_"

We believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people corresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in their natural and spiritual being,--some solemn and critical crisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and peculiar trials;--encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai--the trumpet sounding long and loud:--or, to revert to the simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away, and they have been left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean. Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of trials,--sickness--bereavement--loss of worldly substance--estrangement of friends--blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and worse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around prospering,--vice apparently pampered,--virtue apparently trodden under foot,--many passing through life without an ache or trial--their homes unrifled--their hearts unwounded--their every plan prospering--fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; while _we_ seem to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,--tempted with Jeremiah to say, "_I am_ THE _man who have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath_."[71] And doubting a God of _providence_, the next step is to doubt a God of _grace_. We begin to question our interest in the covenant,--to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been a delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in prayer--no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book;--the heavens have become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merely _external_ trials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the blackest sky;--yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of the preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have the _cloud_ without the _bow_,--when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and trouble,--when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being who _could_ befriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,--when we have neither this world nor the next to comfort us--smitten hopes for time and despairing hopes for eternity!--this is the woe of woes--the "horror of great darkness,"--"_deep calleth unto deep_." We can say, with a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "_I_ AM _bereaved_!"

[71] Lam. iii. 1.

The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point of his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:--either to suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict, and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his spiritual resources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.

It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:--when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "_And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea._" "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"[72]

[72] Psalm xxxiv. 6.

And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost waves? It is _discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his afflictions_! He speaks of "_Thy_ waves and _Thy_ billows." These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "_The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods._"[73] While, in one sense, it aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements--the expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin--yet how unspeakable the consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "_The floods_," he can say, "_have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea._"[74] "_O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them._"[75]

[73] Psalm xxix. 10.

[74] Psalm xciii. 3, 4.

[75] Psalm lxxxix. 8, 9.

But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance of God's returning favour;--that behind these troubled elements there was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the billows--the moaning of the blast--he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "_the loving-kindness_" of his _God_. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:--"_Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!_"

"YET _the Lord_!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season of trouble, has always _this_ alternative word--"YET _the Lord will_!" I am sunk in sore trial--"_Yet_ the Lord" will be faithful to His promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me--"_Yet_ the Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter! I have been laid for long years on this couch of suffering--"_Yet_ the Lord" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of heaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual temptations--"_Yet_ the Lord" will not suffer these temptations to go further than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark valley--"_Yet_" will "I fear no evil, for _Thou_ art with me!"

The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no meagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and affected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and prosperous,--amid a happy home and kind friends,--in the midst of robust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is full of elasticity. The joy _without_, imparts an _inner_ sunshine. A man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is plunged into a vortex of trouble,--if clouds gather and thicken around,--the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it peoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very remaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the predominating sadness! It could as little be expected, on natural principles, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and rejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great fountain of light.

But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles. It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his God had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected them;--"_They looked unto_ HIM _and were lightened_"[76] [literally, "their countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant faithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in the spray of the cataract! "_Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God._"[77]

[76] Psalm xxxiv. 5.

[77] Isaiah l. 10.

This experience we have been considering is that of Christ's people only. But there is an experience sadder still: that of those who are living "without God," and therefore "without hope;"--the billows heaving, and yet they knowing not of them;--"deep calling to deep," yet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,--when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,--than to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;--or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the position with regard to eternity;--living heedless of their danger--the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far, surely, is _their_ case, than all the troubles and trials of God's most afflicted people. _Their_ waves and billows are crested with hope--"songs in the night" come floating along the darkened surges; but the future to the others has _no_ ray of hope, _no_ midnight star, _no_ divine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense, the cry will be heard, "Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me!" But there will be no after-strain--no joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance--"Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

But, blessed be God, that cry may ascend _now_--that Rock may be fled to as a shelter _now_. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of wrath--the deluge of fire--shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "_Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?_"

X.

Lessons.

"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,
And smiling day once more appears,
Then, my Redeemer, then I find,
The folly of my doubts and fears:
Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,
And blush that I should ever be
Thus prone to act so base a part
Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!"

"Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not drowned. You see it lifts its head above water."--_Bishop Hall._

"We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt strong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing strains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread of our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and dangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to enjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise Him for them."--_Archbishop Leighton_, 1649.

"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."--_Verses 7, 8._

X.

LESSONS.

In the previous chapter we spoke of the two verses which form the turning-point in the Psalm,--the climax of the conflict therein so strikingly described between belief and unbelief. We referred to the boldness and expressiveness of the figure: the troubles of the believer, like the billows of the ocean calling on one another to unite their strength that they might effect his overthrow, but faith rising triumphant above them all. At times, when all human comfort gives way, God himself appears. "_The voice of the Lord is upon the waters._"[78] _He_ not only "commands His loving-kindness in the day-time," but "_in_ THE NIGHT _His song is with us_." Our heavenly Parent comes in earth's darkest, most tempestuous hours, sits by our side, sings His night-song--His own lullaby--"PEACE, BE STILL!" "_So giveth He His beloved sleep!_"[79] God's "songs" sound always sweetest "_by night_"--the deep, dark night of affliction. The nightingale's notes are nothing by day--they would be lost in the chorus of other birds; but when these have retired to their nests, she prolongs her tuneful descant, and serenades, with her warblings, the silent earth. The world can only give _its_ song _by day_. It can speak only in the sunshine of prosperity. But "God our Maker giveth _songs in the night_!"[80] His promises, like the nightingale, sound most joyously, and, like the glow-worm, shine most brightly, in _the dark_!

[78] Psalm xxix. 3.

[79] Psalm cxxvii. 2.

[80] Job xxxv. 10.

Let us pause ere proceeding with the sequel of the Psalm, and ponder the great lesson to be derived from this experience of David.

It is, _to_ TRUST GOD _in the darkest, gloomiest night of earthly trial_! To wait His own time, and to say, when the billows are highest, "_Yet the Lord will_"--

This is one great end and design of trial, to exercise the grace of _patience_. There is nothing God loves better than _a waiting soul_. "_The Lord is good to them that wait for Him._"[81] "_I waited_ _patiently_," says David, in another Psalm, (or, as it is literally, "I waited, waited,") "_for the Lord_, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry."[82] "_I know thy works_," says Jesus, speaking of old, in the language of commendation, to His church at Ephesus: "_how thou hast_ BORNE, _and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not_ FAINTED."[83] How often has our way _appeared_ to be hedged up with thorns,--as if there were no possibility of egress! In sailing among some of our own Highland lakes and inland seas, where the mountains, in a thousand fantastic forms, rise abrupt from the shore, we frequently seem to be landlocked, and able to get no farther. Yet the vessel pursues its serpentine course; and as we double the first jutting promontory, the lake again expands; the same waters appear beyond, gleaming like a mirror of molten gold. We find what we imagined to be an impassable barrier, is only a strait, opening into new combinations of mountain majesty and beauty. So is it in the Voyage of life. Often, in its fitful turnings and windings, do we seem to be arrested in our way;--"Hill Difficulties" rising before us, and appearing to impede our vessel's course;--but as faith steers onwards, impediments vanish, new vistas and experiences of loving-kindness open up. Where we expected to be stopped by walls of frowning rock and barren mountains, lo! limpid waves are seen laving the shore, and joyful cascades are heard singing their way to the silver strand!

[81] Lam iii. 45.

[82] Psalm xl. 1.

[83] Rev. ii. 3.

And not only does God thus "command His loving-kindness" in disappointing our fears, but "in the night His song shall be with us." He will turn the very midnights of our sorrow into occasions of grateful praise! Yes! if not now, we shall come yet to see the "needs be" of every trial. We have only a partial view here of God's dealings--His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity!

Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest King, to the heights of the forest of Lebanon. See that noble Cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with the northern blasts of Palestine! Summer loves to smile upon it--night spangles its feathery foliage with dew-drops--the birds nestle on its branches--the wild deer slumber under its shadow--the weary pilgrim, or wandering shepherd, repose under its curtaining boughs from the mid-day heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall,--the old denizen of that primeval forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke! As we see the unsparing axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk--then the noble limbs stripped of their branches--and at last the proud "Tree of God" coming with a crash to the ground; we exclaim against the wanton destruction--the demolition of this noblest of pillars in the temple of nature,--and we are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem--invoking inanimate things to resent the affront--"_Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar has fallen!_" But wait a little!--follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side,--thence conveyed in monster rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean,--and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God;--and then, as you see its destination,--gazing down on the very Holy of Holies, set in the diadem of the Great King;--say, can you grudge that the crown of Lebanon was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately beam and pillar in _nature's_ temple, but the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls are like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and bared them,--we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but He has a noble end and object in view--to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God!"

Or take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where the weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's hands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed, the temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her gay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and equipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the sluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a helpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the buoyant waves rush to clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done! But at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling waters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite basin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife ceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been awoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm--the waters gradually calm and subside;--higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till, amid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with every sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her ocean-home.