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I. THAT THEY MAY SPEAK AND NOT BE DUMB.

1. Speech is a chief gift of God and prerogative of man. Where there is a living spring it finds a channel, and where a living soul an avenue of egress. Neither can be imprisoned. On the other hand, where there is no spring, no channel is needed, and none is found. Among living creatures accordingly, where there is not a soul there is not speech; but in that one creature into whom God breathed a living soul, there is speech. Reverence human speech. It is the mark of a being who was made, and may be remade, a child of God; it is a Divinely formed capacity for a Divinely prescribed use. Dread false speech, proud, impure, profane speech, for these are the King's weapons used against Himself.

2. Why should they be silent who have tasted that the Lord is gracious? Let them tell to all what God hath done for their souls. Let the compressed love which glows in renewed hearts find expression in spoken praise.

3. Silence is a sin, if your cry might save a neighbour from stumbling over a precipice; if your neighbours are on the broad path and your word might lead them into the narrow one; if a brother is sliding back and your reproof might urge him on; if a believer is oppressed with doubts and fears, while your lips might pour the consolations of God into his weary heart.

4. The prayer points mainly to a public ministry, and yet nothing is said about sermons, or even preaching. "That they may speak." Whether the address be long or short, whether the audience be few or many, whether the style be eloquent or stammering, the pith and marrow of the whole matter is, that one man hoping in Christ and loving his neighbour, speaks to that neighbour about Christ's redeeming love. Out of this, as the germ, all true preaching springs. If its whole mass were by some chemical process reduced to its elements, this would be the essential residuum remaining indestructible after all ornaments and accessories had been melted away.

II. That they may speak THY WORD. This supplies alike the authority and material of preaching. The seed is the Word; the sower need not scatter any other in his field. This alone is vital; this alone will grow.

III. WITH BOLDNESS. Yet none assume too readily that he has attained this qualification. Here all is not gold that glitters. Beware of counterfeits. To rasp like a file on other people's tender points, because you have none of your own, is not the boldness here prayed for, but that of some of the inferior creatures. An essential constituent of courage is tenderness. In feudal times battle courage was only one half of knightly bearing; the other half consisted of a tenderness almost feminine. The boldness of speech Which costs the speaker nothing is neither beautiful nor successful. Paul was a bold man, accusing people of being enemies of the Cross, but he wept as he did so; and the tears did more than the reproving word.

IV. WITH ALL BOLDNESS. Even courage may be one-sided. That is not true courage which is severe to the poor but quails before the rich. As the water of a reservoir will be lost unless the circle of its lip be kept whole on all sides, all the dignity and power of boldness vanishes when it fails on one point. Perhaps the weakest point of all the circle for every man is himself. A surgeon needs a stout heart when he has to operate on others, he needs a stouter to operate on himself.

(W. Arnot, D. D.)

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KJV: And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,

WEB: Now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness,