Isaiah 32:2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place… Isaiah's moral ideal is not exhausted in a single picture. The scene is changed, The desert is indeed a "dry place"; but so also is every place in Palestine when the hot season is reaching its close. The whole land is thirsting for the coming rain. The harsh, dry air shimmers over the rocks and dusty roads. The heavens are as brass. Every evening when the red sun sinks below the western horizon one can imagine him sullen and weary. The grass is no longer green, hut of a dull dead brown. In the vineyard the vine leaves hang sapless and limp, or drift wearily to the ground. The figs, the oranges, and the pomegranates have all been gathered; the last flower has withered upon its stem. The reservoirs are rapidly becoming exhausted; the diminished Jordan wanders sluggishly along its southward course; its tributary streams have long since ceased to run. The land is a "dry and thirsty land, where no water is." But by-and-by the watchers on Carmel see the light clouds rising out of the Great Sea. Soon the heavens are overspread, and the first heavy drops begin to fall. The rain comes at length in sheets, in torrents. The water-courses fill as by magic. Kedron, Cherith, Kishon, and Jabbok are now no longer mere names, but "rivers of water in a dry place." The change wrought in a few days is wonderful. The hot earth drinks in the living stream, and gives it out again in life, abundant, exuberant. Everywhere the grass grows green, the fields are carpeted with flowers. Soon the orange trees mingle the silver of their blossoms with the golden glow of their fruitage, and the dark leaves of the oleanders are relieved by the rich red or snowy white of their flowers. The air is clear and the horizon luminous. It is a land of rejoicing now; the song of the birds is heard around, on high, fitting accompaniment to the sounds of happy labour — labour which will soon result in the abundance of vintage and harvest, when Palestine shall literally be "a land flowing with milk and honey." (W. B. Dalby.) Parallel Verses KJV: And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. |
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