Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

astonishment, and the land of Israel was speedily cleared of the diminished armies of its enemy. Thus was the promise of deliverance amply made good: that of continuance, in its very nature, could only be verified by a long lapse of time: but in the mean while, for the more abundant confirmation of their faith, God was pleased to afford his people a sign, which, while it ministered to their present need, was in some sort an image of their future condition. "The remnant," he had said, "of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward ;' ;"* and this renewed state of prosperity would be signified to them by what was actually at that time to take place in the land. The Assyrians, during their stay within its borders, had, after the too common custom of invaders, wantonly laid it waste and, as the following year was that seventh or sabbatical year, in which the Israelites were forbidden by their law to sow or reap, they were in danger of suffering on that account the extremity of famine. But God, who never forsakes his people in the hour of their distress, was mercifully pleased to promise them deliverance from this evil also. He gave them an assurance, that, although the corn which they had sown was trodden down or consumed by the Assyrian army, a spontaneous crop should nevertheless spring up, sufficient not only for the supply of their present wants, but for seed also, which might produce abundant sustenance for them, during the sabbath of the ensuing year. "Ye shall eat this year," he said, "such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof." But although this return of plenty was promised to the land, it

* 2 Kings xix. 30.

+ Ver. 29.

seemed as though their pious king would not be permitted to live long enough to see it. "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death :" yea, even the prophet Isaiah came to him with a message from the Lord, saying, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live."*

66

An ordinary faith might have remained contented with this assurance, and confined itself to a patient submission to the will of Heaven, and a humble preparation for the close of life. But Hezekiah had enjoyed the benefit of a more intimate communion with his God; he had experienced in what desperate circumstances the fervent prayer of a righteous man is effectual and availeth: he knew that the threatenings of the Merciful were always conditional; that in the death of him that dieth he hath no pleasure; and therefore, with many tears and supplications, he prayed, and not in vain, for life. Before Isaiah, who had departed, had passed through the court of the palace, he was sent back again to Hezekiah to tell him that his petition was granted; that low as he was then brought upon the bed of sickness, in three days he should again be in attendance in the house of the Lord and as a further sign that this should come to pass, the shadow upon the sun-dial of Ahaz was sent back at his request no less than ten degrees. The day and night, the shadow and the sunshine, the works and movements (as they are called) of nature, are all under the superintending government of the great "Father of lights," from whom " good gift and every perfect gift" proceedeth, who smiteth with sickness, and who healeth, who bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up," and with whom, in the secret counsels of his eternal wisdom, however otherwise it may appear to man,

* 2 Kings xx. 1.

66

every

[blocks in formation]

"there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The sickness of Hezekiah, and his miraculous recovery, perhaps also the remarkable sign which attended it, became known in other lands; and the king of Babylon, a city which until now appears to have had no communication with the Israelites, sent ambassadors to congratulate him on the event. We have already seen Hezekiah under circumstances of difficulty, and distress, and danger; and have been enabled to judge of his character as of a religious and faithful and right-minded man, though not without some unavoidable alloy of human infirmity and failing. We have now to see him tried by prosperity : and in that contempt of the world which God's true servants, however prosperous, should entertain, we shall find him wanting. He had much to excuse him; the buoyancy of restored health, of triumph over his enemies, the court paid him by the king of Babylon, all strongly tended to lift up his heart, and to make him glory in his riches and his might; to indulge in the pride of life, to feast his eyes, and the eyes of those who came to visit him, on the magnitude and beauty of the things in his possession. But, though it might escape his own observation, that he was doing wrong in thus making a display of his treasures to the stranger, it did not escape the scrutiny of God, who sent him accordingly the rebuke which he needed, by the mouth of Isaiah. To that very Babylon from which the men came who had betrayed him to this exhibition of vain glory, should all his treasures, his people, the inheritors of his royal throne, be carried away in sad captivity : through his inordinate love for them he had transgressed, and through his knowledge of their fate he was most fitly punished. The punishment he felt to be due, and bore it with resignation, expressing his gratitude for its delay till his own eyes were closed in

death, and looking forward with tranquil satisfaction to the interval which still remained during which peace and truth would flourish in his kingdom. Fifteen years he knew were still his allotted portion on the earth, and during those it was thenceforth his resolution to walk humbly with his God. He was perhaps the only mere man to whom it ever was revealed particularly how long he had to live; the Lord, doubtless, had wise reasons for so informing him, and we may rest assured that he has reasons as wise for not so informing us: it is an uncertainty which, while it keeps us always hopeful, never releases us from a godly fear; which animates us to lawful enterprise, and hinders us from sinking into needless despondency; which teaches us to be always ready, and to watch like faithful servants for the coming of our Lord. For "blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing."*

HE

CHAP. XXXV.

DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH.

EZEKIAH having been committed to his grave with singular honour, as one of the best princes who had ever reigned in Jerusalem, the people of Judah, no doubt, expected to find in his son Manasseh a worthy successor of so exemplary a father, Their expectations, however, were grievously disappointed; the young prince displayed, in all points, the most opposite disposition to that of his father, taking a perverse delight in undoing all that he had wisely done, and in practising all that he had dis

* Matt. xxiv. 46.

BB

countenanced and forbidden: the idolatrous abominations which had polluted not only the country and the city, but the very temple of God, were again renewed, and carried to a worse extreme of presumptuous wickedness: "He seduced them," says the holy record," to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel."* Among his unrighteous actions it is noted, that "he shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other."† No particular instances of this are mentioned in the Bible; but there existed among the Jews an old -tradition, that the prophet Isaiah was put to death by him in a most cruel manner, being sawn asunder; and the circumstance is supposed by some to be referred to in that passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where its author, speaking of those who before the coming of Christ into the world had obtained a good report through faith, describes the various persecutions which they suffered: "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword." However this may be, it is certain that some of God's prophets endeavoured, though in vain, by speaking to him in the name of the Lord of Israel, to persuade him to a better course; his heart was hardened, and his ears closed against their zealous admonitions, and he seemed resolutely bent on following no guidance but his own proud will, and treading to the last that beaten way which leads only to destruction. God knew, however, that there was a method by which his heart might be touched, and adopted it out of his great mercy. The method was affliction: the captains of the Assyrians came up against him, seized on his person, and imprisoned him in Babylon: there, in

2 Kings xxi. 9.

+ Ver. 16.

Heb. xi. 37.

« VorigeDoorgaan »