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1. Isaiah's mind is impressed with the fact that if God is "the God of Israel and the Saviour," He does some things scarcely in apparent consistency with that character. How many times did He abandon His people Israel to their enemies! And how was He about to suffer them to be led captive into Babylon for a long threescore years and ten! And even when His ways to them were evidently merciful and kind, God's acts of kindness came at times, under circumstances, in ways, by persons, that could not have been looked for; making His very mercies as surprising on the one hand as His judgments might have been on the other. "Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself" — that hidest Thy counsels, Thy purposes, Thy mercies, Thy methods of operation.

2. A reflection of this sort might, with full as much justice, arise from a contemplation of the ways of God towards His spiritual Israel — a people to whom He is attached by still stronger ties than those which bound Him to Israel of old. Precious is His mercy; and yet how severe some of His dealings appear! And His mercies too! — how strangely they come; as though He would choose the unlikeliest of all circumstances, the darkest of all seasons, the most improbable of all means, for communicating them; as though He would make us have mercies when we expect trials, and find out of the darkest cloud there proceeds the brightest sunshine. And He works strange things — things not apparently congruous or reconcilable with His character of covenant friendship and love.

3. Nor is this any peculiarity at all, attaching itself to this part of the ways and administration of God. The same feature of the Divine conduct may be seen wherever else we look, whether at home or taking a wider circle.

(1) If we look at the works of nature there is the same thing. About one half the animal world prey upon the other half.

(2) Or look at man. Look at the body of man; made in marvellous wisdom, with a thousand adaptations for action; and yet this very body of man is seized upon by several thousand diseases, that inflame and torment, as though it were their domain and home. Look at the mind of man; made to be, adapted to be, a source of innumerable delights; and yet to what a vast extent it is the prey of ignorance, pride, anger, jealousy, rage, and impure and tormenting passions.

(3) Look at human society. You see social affections at play, and the various circumstances in which men are placed adapted and prepared for their most delightful exercise, so that even trying circumstances are fitted for calling into exercise the liveliest and happiest affections; but yet what is human society? You may call it Aceldama — a field of Mood; a sphere in which the weak are trampled upon by the strong; in which violence, fraud, rapine, gain, plunder, the sword, and all instruments of moral and physical mischief are brought to bear upon the destruction of the happiness and the life of men.

(4) And God s providence. God's providence is to be taken to be a system of wise and holy and beneficent administration; and yet what is it, when you look at it? There are many appearances, indeed, of its being so; but many dark things in it that one cannot at all understand.

(5) Or if you contemplate the works of God in the state of this world — in the condition in which it becomes the theatre for the interposition of God in redemption, and affords scope for the great work of redeeming love through His dear Son — what a mystery is here! God made man upright — made a world for holiness, for happiness, for virtue, for religion; but into what a condition the world is come before it affords Him opportunity for redemption! Why, the whole world is contaminated; the world becomes a theatre of rebellion; and God, with all His love, is obliged to come forth with a curse, and reveal wrath from heaven against the universal impiety and injustice of men. Now, views of this sort are painful in two ways.

1. They give occasion to men of sceptical minds to think and to say hard things; they feed and nourish the enmity of their hearts against God.

2. They give occasion to many painful thoughts in the children of God.

(J. H. Hinton, M. A.)

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KJV: Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.

WEB: Most certainly you are a God who hidden yourself, God of Israel, the Savior.'"