Isaiah 61:3 To appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning… To the sorrowful God gives beauty for ashes. Sorrow and suffering play a gracious part in the moral economy of the world. They are all the furnace in which our evil nature is reduced to ashes. We are laid with the great Sufferer of our race upon the altar and sham the fellowship of His sufferings, and like Him are made perfect through suffering. On the most awful battlefields of life grow the greenest pastures of peace; on the fierce lava streams that have desolated the heart, bloom the sweetest virtues and flourish the peaceable fruits of righteousness. (H. Macmillan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. |
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