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Viewed in its immediate relations to the context, the "flesh," which is grass, is the vast population of the Babylonian empire. The "goodliness thereof," which is the flower of the grass, is the pomp and pride of the Babylonian civilisation. The "Word of the Lord" is that prophetic word of the future glory of Israel and her Messiah-King which seems to have found a grave of oblivion beneath the overshadowing growth of Babylonian splendour.

I. THE NECESSARY DECADENCE OF ALL THAT IS SIMPLY MATERIAL AND EARTHLY.

1. The world had never looked upon a more splendid civilisation than that which greeted the eye of the prophet as he looked down in vision upon the great empire of Nebuchadnezzar. For a thousand years Babylon had been the seat of empire, but under her present sovereign she had risen to a glory of which her founders had never dreamed. Nebuchadnezzar, following in the footsteps of Nabopolassar, his illustrious father, had extended his empire by conquest until he was in fact as well as in name, "King of men." Northward, he held all Assyria in subjection, and reigned to the limits of the frozen zone. Southward, he had subjugated Egypt with its vast empire, and reigned to the limits of the equatorial belt. Tyre, with all her world-wide commerce, was his vassal, and so his fame had been carried to the remotest borders of the great west. This vast empire it was now the ambition of Nebuchadnezzar to consolidate and unify. For this purpose he had opened long lines of communication between its remotest parts. Canals, one of which was five hundred miles in length; highways across the great deserts connecting with the hills of Arabia and the Mediterranean Sea, with caravansaries, fortified garrisons, wells of water, etc., at all needed points; walled cities along the great thoroughfares as storehouses and resting-places for man and beast — these were amongst the wise provisions for bringing the people of various nationalities and races into the cordial relations of mutual interchange and commerce. But the purposes of the great conqueror went further than this. To give stability to his empire he sought to bring about an amalgamation of all the races and a unification of all the religions within his realm. This was the significance of the image of gold which was set up in the plain of Dura, and which all were required to worship on penalty of being thrown into the furnace of fire. And when, in obedience to the Divine voice, the prophet declared all this might and glory to be but as the evanescent and fading flower, you and I, if we had been present, would have looked upon him as some misanthropic churl. And yet, what were the real facts in the case? Within less than forty years from the time to which the prophet alludes, the city was captured and pillaged, the seat of government removed, and the empire distributed among the conquering allies.

2. We find ourselves to-day in the midst of a civilisation as much more splendid than that of Rome as the latter was superior to that of Chaldea. In all that constitutes true greatness; in all that is at once beneficent and beautiful; in liberty, in philanthropy, in literary and aesthetic culture, in adventure of science and perfection of art, there seems scarcely anything more to be desired. Humanity seems at last to have attained its goal. Culture is in its richest and most perfect flower. We are ready to say, "Surely this consummate civilisation of our race shall not wither like that of Babylon or Rome!" Has it any elements of durability that its forerunners had not? The answer to these questions will be found in the answer to another, namely, whether this civilisation shall root itself simply in that which is material, or shall be permeated by that which is spiritual and Divine? For amidst all the decadence of the past, there has been ever that which could not perish, which was not subject to change, and which had the power of communicating its own stability to all that came under its influence.

II. THE STABILITY OF THAT WHICH IS SPIRITUAL AND DIVINE. "The Word of the Lord." Other things undergo mutations, but it abides ever the same. It has also this marvellous property, that it communicates the elements of its own permanence to all that comes under its influence. It is thus like a seed cast into the soil, which takes up inert matter, incorporating it with itself, and thus imparting to it the life which is immanent in itself. Of this life-containing, life-imparting power of the Word of God we may find beautiful illustration in the history of the decline and fall of the empires to which we have referred. Look first at Babylon. Is there anything that shall survive the wreck of the imperial city? Yes, there is a captive people, despised, toiling as slaves in the erection of the splendid architectural monuments of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Few and feeble apparently they are, overshadowed by the countless hosts of Chaldea. But they are believers in the Word of the Lord. That Word has, as an incorruptible seed, found a lodgment in their hearts. It has imparted to them its own immortality. Babylon, that rejects this Word, shall perish; but Israel that believes it and lives upon it shall survive. That which we have seen to be true in this respect of Babylon was equally true of Rome. The eternal city was "laid on heaps," but from the ruins came Christianity in all the beauty of undying youth. The Vandals that destroyed everything else had no power over it. Nay, in the breasts of the very slaves whom they bore to their northern homes, they carried this incorruptible seed. The religion of the slave conquered the master; and hence came that hardy type of Celtic and Saxon Christianity which made the north of Europe the seed-bed of the Reformation. There are preserving salts which, taken up into the pores of the frailest grass and the most delicate flower, do, as it were, transfigure them in their beauty and so preserve them for ever from decay. And thus the religion of Christ has power to give immortality to that which is most fleeting and evanescent. It lays its wand upon that frail flower of physical beauty which lasts but for a day, and it transforms it into the undecaying beauty of the resurrection. It enters into the pulses of youthful ardour and enthusiasm, and makes them beat high and warm in pursuits that can never be interrupted and from motives that never pall. It lifts ambition to a higher plane. It gives to all the activities of the soul their normal and healthful development. It brings the favour of God which is life, and His loving-kindness which is better than life. And what it does for individuals it does in a certain sense for nations also. Let the atheistic materialism, which is seeking to supplant Christianity, become the dominant influence in this country, and Ichabod is written upon all our institutions. The fate of Babylon and of Rome will be ours. The nation and kingdom that will not serve God shall perish.

(T. D. Witherspoon, D. D.)

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KJV: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

WEB: The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever."