The great river appropriately represented the great nation which it enriched; and the picture of the fall of the kingdom includes the desertion of the banks of these "great waters" by man and beast (Ver. 14); and also the sinking of the river itself: "Then will I cause their waters to subside" (Fairbairn's translation). Such a river as the Nile may well illustrate -

I. A NOBLE LIFE. It is a source of beauty and fertility, and therefore of enrichment, to the land through which it runs. Itself an object of delight to the eye, it is the source of verdure all along its banks. By its overflow, or through simple agricultural appliances, it waters the whole district in which it flows, and makes all the difference between barrenness and abundance. Thousands of animals drink of it and bathe in it, while the inhabitants of town and village flock to its banks in their various necessities. A noble human life may be all this in a higher sphere.

1. It may add very considerably to that spiritual worth and beauty on which Christ looks down with Divine satisfaction.

2. It may be the source of all kinds of good - of health, of sustenance, of knowledge, of wisdom, of purity, of piety; of life at its best below, of the beginning of the life eternal.

3. It is a constant source of blessing. As the river runs, not spasmodically, but night and day, continually sending forth its refreshing and nourishing moisture into the land, so a true, Christian life is incessantly and unconsciously communicating good, in many forms, to those around it.

II. A LIFE PITIFULLY REDUCED. A very pitiful sight would be a river in such a state as that here imagined (rather than foreseen). Instead of being what it once was, it is now to the prophet's eye a diminished stream, its waters are low (not deep, but sunk; "the verb is properly to 'sink'"), and lie far beneath its banks; and they am such that no beast cares to drink of them; no man approaches to use them for the purposes of human life, whether of nourishment or of cleansing. The river is useless, worthless, abandoned to itself. How much more pitiable is the life that has been reduced; the life that has sunk, that moves not any longer on the higher plane of heavenly wisdom, but only on the low and muddy levels of selfishness, of covetousness, of a base indulgence; the life that has shriveled up into a poor dirty stream, no longer reflecting the beauty that is about it or the glory that is above it; the life that is unvisited, that no man cares to consult, by which no virtuous man directs his own, from which no man gains any strength, or impetus, or pure refreshment, which does no man any spiritual good; the life that is severely left alone!

III. THE CAUSE OF ITS DECLINE. If any river be thus actually reduced (as in Ezekiel's thought), it is because it is no longer fed as it once was by the rains of heaven. If a noble human life is thus reduced, it is because it is no longer supplied from above. It lacks the truth, the influences, the sustaining power, which should come to it from God. These may be cut off by some serious sin; or they may be withdrawn because we no longer keep open the channels through which they come.

1. Keep the mind open to all Divine wisdom and the heart to all holy influences.

2. Draw down the renewing rains of Heaven by constant communion and earnest prayer.

3. See that no "great transgression" diverts the waters; and the river of our life will flow on to the sea, without loss to its beauty or its power. - C.

Whatever may be the primary meaning of these words, they have a very blessed application to those who have gone forth from so many Christian families into heathen lands. For no choice of their own, and simply in obedience to their King's command, hundreds of our sons and daughters have gone forth to dwell in the midst of the heathen. They have taken up their home amid conditions which they would not have chosen had it not been for the constraining love of Christ, and the imperative need of dying men; and as fond relatives and friends regard their lot from a distance, they are often filled with anxious forebodings. May they not be involved in some sudden riot, and sacrificed to a frenzy of hate? May not the sanitary conditions and methods of life be seriously detrimental to their health or morals? "Oh, if only I could be there," you sigh. Hush! Christ is there; as near them as He is to you, casting over them the shadow of His presence, beckoning them to His secret place. He is the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land; or like the canopy of cloud that hovered over the camp of Israel by day, screening it from the torrid glare. Do not fear to trust your loved ones to the immortal Lover, who fainteth not, neither is weary. The hand that would harm is arrested and paralysed when it attempts to penetrate that safe enclosure.

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.).