Isaiah 23:4 Be you ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea has spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children… God, through the wildly wailing winds, and loudly surging waves, has often uttered a voice of warning and of woe to cities filled with corruption and vice. And how, too, through these winds and waves, has the sea spoken in its strength to crushed and broken hearts, when its surface has been thickly strewn with shattered wrecks, and the floating and sinking bodies of its helpless victims. I. But the sea often speaks to us in other language than this, addressing us, as it does, through the eye as well as the ear, and CALLING UPON US TO ADORE AND LOVE GOD for the beauty with which He clothes and overhangs it, and for the blessings which, by means of the sea, He conveys to us, no less than to tremble and bow down before Him in view of the vastness and the majestic grandeur of the ocean in its more excited and terrific moods. II. The sea hath spoken, even the strength of the sea, by ITS VASTNESS AND FORCE AND GRANDEUR OF ITS MOVEMENTS. III. The sea hath spoken, too, and will, we trust, thus ever speak, through THE ELECTRIC WIRE, which here and there lies far down in its lowest depths, and which, in coming years, will be more widely extended abroad. IV. Yet again the sea hath spoken, in that IT APPEALS TO OUR KIND CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY AND INTEREST in behalf of those who, as seamen, go forth upon the deep. V. When the sea in its strength thus speaks to us, with the voice of wailing, lamentation, and woe, HOW OUGHT WE TO PRAY FOR SEAMEN AND THOSE CONNECTED WITH THEM, with all the power of faith which God shall give us, that He would save them from a watery grave, or, if they thus perish, that He would comfort those who mourn their loss, and that in the day in which the earth and the sea shall give up the dead that are in them, they may all together enter the haven of eternal rest. So, too, should we ever pray that the time may soon come when the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto God, and the isles shall wait for His law. (C. Rockwell.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be thou ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea hath spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins. |
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