Depart Ye, Depart Ye!
“Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far
Thro’ all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride — a glittering star
In raiment white and clean!”
TENNYSON.
ISAIAH li. 7-12.)
T last the climax of the long prophetic stairway is gained. The prophet had anticipated it in a previous passage (xlix. 20), but had been diverted by the objections urged against the possibility of such an
ps issue of the long captivity. It could not be, Israel = argued. It was unheard of, that a strong nation like
Babylon should let one of its captive peoples go free without
fee or reward. The archives of all nations might be searched
in vain for a precedent. One by one, the servant of God had met and answered these objections; had declared his own unalterable resolve; had startled their lethargy with the thrice “Hearken!” and the thrice “Awake!” And now again he puts the trumpet to his lips, and announces the Exodus —
“Depart ye, depart ye! go ye out from thence, touch no
unclean thing.”
From the glowing periods of this paragraph we can reconstruct the picture of the return from exile, as it presented itself to the seer. It was notably the return of the Lord to Zion (8, R.V.). The stately procession moves slowly and fearlessly. It is not the escape of a band of fugitive slaves, dreading pursuit and recapture: “Ye shall not go out in haste, neither shall ye go by flight.” Before it speed the messengers, appearing on the sky-line of the mountains of Zion, with good tidings of good, publishing peace, and publishing salvation (7).
The main body is composed of white-robed priests, bearing with reverent care the holy vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar carried from the temple, which Belshazzar introduced with mockery into his feast, but which Cyrus restored. -Their number and weight are carefully specified, 5,400 in all (Ezra i. 7-11).
As the procession emerges from its four months of wilderness march on the mountains which were about Jerusalem, her watchmen, who had long waited for the happy moment, lift up their voice; with the voice together do they sing. They see eye to eye. And the waste places of Jerusalem, with their charred wood and scorched stones, break forth into joy and sing together. The valleys and hills become vocal, constituting an orchestra of praise; and the nations of the world are depicted as coming to behold, and acknowledge that the Lord had made bare his holy arm. But they do not see — what is hidden from all but anointed eyes — that the Lord goes before his people, and comes behind as their rearward; so that their difficulties are surmounted by Him before they reach them, and no foe can attack them from behind.
The literal fulfilment of this splendid prevision is described in the Book of Ezra. There we find the story of the return of a little band of Jews, 1,700 only in number. They halted at the River Ahava, the last station before they entered the desert, for three days, to put themselves with fasting and prayer into God’s hand. They had no experience of desert marching. Their caravan was rendered unwieldy by the number of women and children in it. They had to thread a district infested by wild bands of robbers. But they scorned to ask for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect them, so sure were they that their God went before them to open up the way, and came behind to defend against attack. In the midst of the march were priests and Levites, with their sacred charge of which Ezra had said, “* Watch and keep them, until ye weigh them in the chambers of the house of the Lord.”
We do not read of the songs of the pilgrim-host, as here foreshadowed. But they may have risen morning and evening on the desert air, enlivening the monotony of the march. There are many psalms which date from this period; and these may have been favourites with the pilgrim-host, as they passed over the dunes of the desert or sat around the camp-fires. In several respects there seems a falling short between the radiant expectation of the prophet, and the actual accomplishment in the story of Ezra: but we must remember that it is the business of the historian to record the facts, rather than the emotions that coloured them, as the warm colours of the sun colour the hard gray rocks. And is it not always so, that through our want of faith and obedience we come short of the fulness of blessing which our God has prepared for us?
We may learn some of those qualities which should characterize us in our march through this desert world to the city of God.
I, THERE SHOULD BE PERPETUAL Exopus. — The Jews had become habituated to Babylon. Custom makes most things endurable. In the days of Ezra, few were left who remembered the anguish of the captivity. The people, born in the land of their conquerors, had conformed their methods of life to the conditions of that great civilization, which was destined to exert an influence upon them in all after-days. Some of them probably longed for the expiry of the allotted years of captivity. But the majority were settled in comfortable, and in some cases opulent, circumstances, and not at all anxious to exchange Babylon for the ruins of Zion. The result was, that they became dispersed throughout the Orient, building synagogues, enjoying material prosperity; but becoming lost as a river in the sand.
In all lives there are Babylons, which have no claim on the redeemed of Jehovah. We may have entered them, not without qualms of conscience; but, as time has passed, our reluctance has been overcome. A comradeship has grown up between us and one from whose language and ways we once shrank in horror. An amusement now fascinates us, which we regarded “He shall not go ont in Baste.” 133
with suspicion and conscientious scruple. A habit of life dominates us from which we once shrank as from infection. A method of winning money now engrosses us; but we can well remember how difficult it was to coax conscience to engage in it. These are Babylons, which cast their fatal spell over the soul, and against which the voice of God urgently protests: “Depart ye, depart ye! go ye out from thence.”
When stepping out from Babylon to an unwonted freedom, we naturally shrink back before the desert march, the sandy wastes, the ruined remnants of happier days. Those who remembered the first temple, wept when the foundations of the second were laid; and Nehemiah could not restrain his tears at the sight of the heaps of rubbish. But we shall receive more than we renounce. Forsaking the outward and temporal, we shall find ourselves possessed of the inner and eternal. In the desert we see the eternal constellations burning above us; we feel the breath of God upon our faces; we have a reward which would compensate for a hundred such renunciations: “I will receive you, and be a Father unto you.”
II. IT SHOULD BE WITHOUT HASTE. — “Ye shall not go out in haste.” There are many English proverbs which sum up the observation of former days and tell how foolish it is to be in a hurry. But, outside of God, there is small chance of obeying these wise maxims. The age is so feverish. Men haste to be rich; they rush from pleasure to pleasure; they make the tour of the world in six months; they do Rome in a week. Wecram children’s minds with undigested knowledge. And this feverish, unresting spirit has invaded our religious life, our closets, our musings, our worship. It is impossible to give ourselves thoroughly to anything, because our watch is always in our hand lest we miss our train.
No great picture was ever painted in a hurry. No great book was ever written against time. No great discovery was ever granted to the student who could not watch in Nature’s antechamber for the gentle opening of her door. The greatest naturalist of our time devoted eight whole years almost entirely to barnacles. Well might John Foster long for the power of touching mankind with the spell of “Be gucet, be quiet.”
In this our Lord is our best exemplar. He moved slowly and deliberately through his crowded years. He had leisure for every appeal, for the touch of each wan hand. There was no trace of feverishness or unrest. Men were always urging Him onward; but He answered, “Your time is always ready; mine is not yet.” His secret, using our human phrase, lay in his simple faith. He believed, and therefore did not make haste. Every incident in his life had been arranged by his Fathers unfailing care. There was time for everything, and everything must be fitted to its time. If there were work to be done, He was secure against arrest till it was finished. Herod could not kill Him till He was perfected.
This hastelessness was possible to Israel so long as the people believed that God was ordering, preceding, and following their march. Why should they go by flight, as though the foe were about to fall on the hindmost, when God was their rearward! Why rush forward to gain some advantage, if God went in front to seek out their resting place! When we really believe in God, his providence, and his arrangement of our lives, to us too there will come this blessed calm; and whenever we are tempted to get feverish and fretful, we shall compel ourselves to go out beneath the arch of God’s eternal years, saying, “Return, my soul, unto thy rest. God is behind, intercepting pursuit from past failure and sin.”
III. WE MUST BE AT PEACE ABOUT THE WAY. — In early life our path seems clearly defined. We must follow the steps of others, depend on their maxims, act on their advice; till suddenly we find ourselves at the head of the march; no footprints before us on the expanse of moorland, or of sand. It is only when the years grow upon us that this sense of way/essness, aS it has been termed, oppresses us. So the exiles must have felt when they left Ahava and started on the desert march.
At such times the lips of Christ answer, “I am the Way.” Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, we find that the almost “J am the Wap.” - 135
invariable term by which the Gospel was known was “the Way”; as if those first believers were intoxicated with the rapture of feeling that at last they had discovered the track of the blessed life, the pathway which would thread the perplexities of earth, and bring them to the city of God. And if we had asked any one of them to give an equivalent for the term they so constantly employed, they would have answered, without a moment’s hesitation, JESUS. Probably there is no better way of ascertaining the true method of life, than by asking ourselves how Jesus would have acted under similar circumstances. His temper, his way of looking at things, his will, resolve all perplexities. All this was set forth in the figure before us. “The Lord will go before you.” When the people came out of Egypt, Jehovah preceded the march in the Shekinah cloud that moved softly above the ark. When it advanced, they struck their tents and followed; when it brooded, they halted and fixed the camp. It was the one visible and unerring guide through those trackless wastes. There was nothing of this sort when Ezra led the first detachment of exiles to Zion; but, though unseen, the Divine Leader was equally in the forefront of the march. Thus is it also in daily experience. When the way forks, when the track dies in the grass, when the expanse of desert lies in front without a beaten pathway — stand still; take an observation; hush all voices in the presence of Christ; ask what He would have done; ask what He would wish you to do. Remember that the Good Shepherd, when He puts forth his sheep, goes before them, and they follow Him. Jesus is ever going before us in every call to duty, every prompting to self-sacrifice, every summons to comfort, help, and save. With God behind as Rearguard, and God in front as Leader, and God encompassing us with songs of deliverance, there can be no doubt that we shall at last reach that Zion in which there are no waste places, and whose walls have never reeled before the shock of armed men.
IV. WE MUST BE PURE. — “Touch no unclean thing. Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Those vessels, as
136 “Depart pe, Depart pe!”
we have seen, were very precious. The enumeration is made with minute accuracy (Ezra viii. 26). But they were above all things holy unto the Lord. For generations they had been employed in temple service. Those that bore them were no common men; but Levites specially summoned to the work, and possessed at least of a ceremonial cleanliness. Thus they passed across the desert, holy men bearing the holy vessels.
Through this world, unseen by mortal eye, a procession is passing, threading its way across continents of time. It bears holy vessels. The forms of expression in which Divine truth is enshrined may be compared to the vessels of the old dispensation, set apart to serve the purposes pf the sanctuary. Testimony to God’s truth, the affirmation of things unseen and eternal, the announcement of the facts of redemption — such are our sacred charge. We must contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Take heed to thyself, and ¢o the doctrine. The greatest service the Church can give to the world is its perpetual witness to the truth of God’s being; to the facts of redemption, of judgment, and of the world to come. Concerning all these, the olden charge is given us, “Watch ye and keep them, until ye weigh them before the chiefs of the priests and of the Levites, in the chambers of the house of the Lord.”
What manner of persons ought we not to be, to whom so high a ministry is entrusted! How careful that our holy trust should not be forfeited because of our unholy life! How eager lest the glistening glory of our charge be blurred or dimmed by our thumb-marks! How watchful that the testimony of a doctrine be not traversed by the life of those that profess it! Men estimate the worth of the truths to which we bear witness by the worth of our personal character. Let us commend the Gospel by the holiness and elevation of our lives.
Before that procession we are told that waste places would break forth into song. It is a fair conception, as though their feet changed the aspect of the territories through which they passed. What was desert when they came to it, was paradise as they left it! What were ruins, became walls! Where there had been hostility, suspicion, and misunderstanding, there came concord and peace, the watchmen seeing eye to eye, This is a true portraiture of the influence of the religion of Jesus over the hearts and lives of men. Creation herself, which now groans and travails, shall presently burst into hallelujahs like those with which the Psalter closes. God give us grace to join in that procession, and with beautiful array pass onward without haste, under Divine convoy, till the glowing predictions of prophecy and psalm be realized in an emancipated universe!
But let us never forget the importance of prayer, as a necessary link in the achieving of these marvels. In the former chapter, there had been one eager and intense petition, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the ancient days!” That prayer had entered into the ear of the Lord God of Sabaoth, and here we are told that “the Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations.” Pray on, O child of God! thy breath is not misspent; thy tears are not wasted; “Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, and his arm shall rule for Him.”