---

I. This remarkable promise suggests how IN GOD THERE IS THE SUPPLY OF ALL DEFICIENCIES. The city was perched on its barren, hot rock, with scarcely a drop of water, and its inhabitants must often have been tempted to wish that there had been running down the sun-bleached stones of the Kedron a flashing stream, such as laved the rock-cut temples and tombs of Thebes. Isaiah says, in effect, "You cannot see it, but if you will trust yourselves to God, there will be such a river." In like manner every defect in our circumstances, everything lacking in our lives, everything which seems to hamper us in some aspects, and to sadden us in others, may be compensated and made up, if we will hold fast by God.

II. Take another Bide of the same thought. HERE IS A REVELATION OF GOD AND HIS SWEET PRESENCE AS OUR TRUE DEFENCE. The river that lay between some strong city and the advancing enemy was its strongest fortification when the bridge of boats was taken away. One of the ancient cities is described by one of the prophets as being held as within the coils of a serpent, by which he means the various bendings and twistings of the Euphrates which encompassed Babylon, and made it so hard to be conquered. The primitive city of Paris owed its safety, in the wild old times when it was founded, to being upon an island. Venice has lived through all the centuries because it is girded about by its lagoons. England is what it is largely because of the streak of silver sea. So, God's city has a broad moat all round it. If we will only knit ourselves with God by simple trust and continual communion, it is the plainest prose fact that nothing will harm us, and no foe will ever get near enough to shoot his arrows against us. That is a truth for faith, and not for sense. Many a man, truly compassed about by God, has to go through fiery trials of sorrow and affliction. But no real evil befalls us, because, according to the old superstition that money bewitched was cleansed if it was handed across running water, our sorrows only reach us across the river that defends.

III. Take, again, another aspect of this same thought, which suggests to us GOD'S PRESENCE AS OUR TRUE REFRESHMENT AND SATISFACTION. The waterless city depended on cisterns, and they were often broken, and they were always more or less foul, and sometimes the water fell very low in them. The rivers in northern Tartary all lose themselves in the sand. Not one of them has volume or force enough to get to the sea. And the rivers from which we try to drink are sand-choked long before our thirst is slaked. So if we are wise, we shall take Isaiah's hint, and go where the water flows abundantly, and flows for ever.

IV. THE MANIFOLD VARIETY IN THE RESULTS OF GOD'S PRESENCE. It shapes itself into many forms, according to our different needs. "The glorious Lord shall be a place of broad rivers." Yes; but notice the next words — "and streams." Now, the word which is there translated "streams" means the little channels, for irrigation and other purposes, by which the water of some great river is led off into the melon patches, and gardens, and plantations, and houses of the inhabitants. So we have not only the picture of the broad river in its unity, but also that of the thousand little rivulets in their multiplicity and in their direction to each man's plot of ground. It is of no profit that we live on the river's bank if we let its waters go rolling and flashing past our door, or our garden, or our lips. Unless you have a sluice, by which you can take them off into your own territory, and keep the shining blessing to be the source of fertility in your garden, and of coolness and refreshment to your thirst, your garden will be parched, and your lips will crack. We may, and must, make God our very own property; it is useless to say "our God," "the God of Israel," "the God of the Church," the great Creator, the Universal Father, and so on, unless we say "my God and my Saviour"; "my refuge and my strength."

(A. Maclaren D. D.)

---

---

KJV: But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.

WEB: But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will go, neither will any gallant ship pass by there.