The mighty laid low.
I. ENCOURAGEMENT AGAINST FEAR. Let not Judah fear the Assyrian, who, like the Egyptian in the days of yore, wields over her the rod of the slave-driver. In a short time, the hot tide of Divine wrath will pass from Israel, and the Assyrians will in turn feel it. The scourge that was laid in the ancient time on the back of the Egyptian oppressor will be brandished over the heads of the Assyrians. Their burden will fall from Judah's shoulder, from Judah's neck the yoke. The proverb says, "A youth is ruined by fat," and so will the swollen bulk of the Assyrian body melt away. There is a play in the Hebrew on the words "yoke" and "youth." The prophet in a word-picture paints the onward march of the great host. Swiftly he comes on, spreading trembling and causing flight before him. Panic-struck clamors sound through the vales, and from hill to hill the alarum is given. Fugitives pour in through the gates of the city. Already the invader is at Nob, near Jerusalem, and has his hand lifted on high, as it were, to smite the sacred hill with a fatal blow. Then suddenly his own crown is cleft by the hand of Jehovah; the lofty crested warriors fall as the trees in the forest before the woodman's axe. This Lebanon of warlike spears, this moles lelli, is prostrate before the "majestical One" whose seat is on Zion.
II. GENERAL LESSONS. There was an anointed king in Zion, the representation of Jehovah's majesty, then; there are spiritual forces, representative of Divine might and will, ruling in the world now. There were moments of prophetic insight in which the hollowness of worldly might, the doom of kingdoms that were not kingdoms of righteousness, were clearly seen. Them are such moments now. What is force without justice, numbers without principle? One breath from the lips of eternal Truth shall suffice to drive them away. All that has fixed the eye of the people in fascinated terror, filled their ears with tumult, their hearts with commotion, dismayed, not the prophet. He seems to look above, his feet securely planted upon a cliff, on the boiling surge below. There is a hand that can stay these waves, a voice that can command, "Thus far and no further; here shall thy proud billows be stayed." Then shall these hosts become such "stuff as dreams are made of," these onward-rolling columns melt into wreaths of cloud, become thin air, and "leave not a wrack behind."
"The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"
Our cares and troubles may be to us personally as the invasion of an Assyrian host. If we would know the prophetic confidence, we must live the prophetic life; the ear attent, the heart obedient—"fixed, trusting in the Lord." Nothing can bring us peace, lift us out of the degradation of fears that unman, but faith in our principles. They must triumph in the end; in them alone is strength, freedom, victory.—J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON