Ezekiel 39:3 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

Divine interposition.

God would smite the bow out of the left hand and cause the arrows to fall out of the right hand of the impious invader. He would disarm him; he would interpose to break his purpose, to arrest him in his evil course. We have here—

I. GOD 'S RIGHTEOUS INTERPOSITION . God Permits evil—in the form of bad institutions, wicked governments or powers, unprincipled men—to go certain lengths, and when they think they have finally established themselves he lays his hand upon them, takes away their weapons, reduces them to helplessness and humiliation. "A fool doth not understand it," but the very prosperity of the wicked is only a preparation for their utter and irrecoverable downfall; "When the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever" ( Psalms 92:6 , Psalms 92:7 ). God interposes to smite the weapons out of the hand of the disloyal and of the mischievous when:

1. He causes death to overtake the guilty before his time. And he is continually doing this; for under the action of his laws, which are at once severe and beneficent, the vicious man is the victim of his vice and the violent man of his violence. The one can sow no more of his pernicious seed, and the other can do no more of his lawless harm, because God has smitten them, and their weapons fall from their hand.

2. He makes the unprincipled adventurer to suffer an irretrievable disaster; when the man who has climbed to a throne by usurpation and bloodshed, and wielded authority in the exercise of despotic power, suffers some disaster which sends him to the lonely rock or to the quiet country house for the rest of his days.

3. He breaks the schemes of the wily plotter; when some dissatisfied, and consequently malignant and even murderous citizen determines to wreak his vengeance on those whom he takes to be his enemies, and when, in the midst of his machinations, his plans are discovered and overthrown.

II. GOD 'S GRACIOUS RESUMPTION . He who "smites the bow out of the hand" of the enemy is the One who gently and graciously takes the sword out of the hand of his own soldiers, that he may place on their head the "crown of righteousness," the "crown of life." When God sends the feebleness which can do no more active work below, or when he comes to us in death, he resumes the weapon he once put into our hands, and either (in the one case) bids us wait his time and our reward, or (in the other) he takes us where a stronger and a wiser hand will wield a far better weapon in a much nobler sphere.—C.