Part 8

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!_"