Joy-song on the way to Zion.
(See Isaiah 35:10.) There may be an allusion to the custom, so common in the East, of singing upon a journey, particularly with a view to quicken the pace of the camels. Bush writes, "We should not have passed this plain so rapidly, but for the common custom of the Arabs of urging on their camels by singing. The effect is very extraordinary; this musical excitement increases their pace at least one-fourth. First one camel-driver sings a verse, then the others answer in chorus. It reminded me somewhat of the Venetian gondoliers. I often asked the camel-drivers to sing, not only to hasten our progress, but also for the pleasure of hearing their simple melodies! Some of their best songs possess a plaintive sweetness that is almost as touching as the most exquisite European airs." And Pitts, in describing the order of the caravans, tells us, "Some of the camels have bells about their necks, and some about their legs, like those which our carders put about their fore-horses' necks, which, together with the servants (who belong to the camels and travel on foot) singing all night, make a pleasant noise, and the journey passes away delightfully." The picture is of the return of Israel from captivity to Jerusalem. ]t is an ideal picture of what might have been, but the actual circumstances of the return came very far short of the pictured ideal. As an earlier homily has dealt with this verse, only a fresh line of thought need be suggested. It is that through all the Christian pilgrim-way there ought to be joy and song; the "joy of the Lord our Strength."
I. THE JOY OF BEGINNING A CHRISTIAN LIFE, This is usually an intense joy, born of the freshness of our experience, the brightness of our newly kindled hope, and our ignorance of the conflict which the Christian life must witness. It is the joy of the ransomed. Illustrate from the freed slave. It is the joy of the delivered. Illustrate by song of Israel on the Red Sea shore. People usually set out on an expedition with much song and hope.
II. JOY ON THE WAY IN CHRISTIAN LIVING. This is a calmer joy; found rather in what God's grace proves able to do for us, than in any circumstances through which we pass; for the way itself is often rough and hard—we can seldom sing about it.
III. JOY AT THE END WHEN HOME IS WON. Illustrate by Moore's 'Paradise and the Peri'—
"Joy, joy for ever! the work is done,
The gate is passed, and heaven is won."
True joy, be it remembered, is not a fitful response to circumstances, but an ever-bubbling and upspringing soul-well—R.T.