Isaiah 31:4-6 - Homilies By E. Johnson

Similes of the nature and power of Jehovah.

I. THE LION . He is pictured watching over the holy city, the "peculiar treasure," the invisible Sanctuary of the religion and the people, as a lion over its prey, in the presence of threatening shepherds.

"As from a carcase herdsmen strive in vain

To scare a tawny lion, hunger-pinch'd;

Ev'n so th' Ajaces, mail-clad warriors, faird

The son of Priam from the corse to scare."

('Iliad,' 18.161.)

It is a fine image—found twice in Homer—of the undaunted prowess of the bold and steadfast warrior. Invincible towards his foes, what is Jehovah towards his friends, the people of his choice and love?

II. THE BIRD . Infinite tenderness mingles with irresistible might in the nature of God. It is no narrow view of the Divine attributes which the Bible gives. All that we see of nobility in living creatures, all traits of courage and of love, may be borrowed to enrich our representations of that nature which includes all other nature within its scope and grasp. Thus the magnificent queen of birds, no less than the magnificent king of beasts, supplies in its actions and habits a parable of eternal providence. The eagle fluttering over her young, spreading her wide wings and bearing them thereon, was a type of Jehovah's conduct to his people in the desert ( Deuteronomy 32:10 ). So does he now hover over the city, protecting, rescuing. Nor was it otherwise in the days of the Savior, who employs also the simile of the maternal bird. Every ideal of lionhearted hero, of father, strong yet tender, of all-brooding mother, of living creatures inspired by mysterious and mighty instincts of love, helps to bring into momentary clearness some feature of the nature of him whose being is only "dark from excess of light." His voice , pleading with youth and innocence, with the unsophisticated conscience, says, "Come!" and with the sinner and the sophist, "Return!"—J.