1. Because of the relationship He sustains to them. "My people."

(1)It indicates ownership.

(2)Endearment.

(3)Astonishment.The choicest of God's saints in circumstances of great trial. A problem the next world will better solve.

2. Because tits omniscient eye is upon them. He sees their trials.

3. Because they are in the habit of making known their sorrows to Him by prayer.

II. THAT AT THE PROPER TIME GOD WILL DELIVER HIS PEOPLE FROM SORROW (ver. 8).

1. Sometimes after it has been long continued.

2. Sometimes when least expected.

3. Sometimes by agencies once despised.

III. GOD USES HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITIES IN THE DELIVERANCE OF HIS PEOPLE FROM SORROWS.

1. Prepared by life's discipline.

2. Encouraged by heaven's vision.

3. Called by God's voice.

(J. S. Exell, M. A.)

2. Therefore we must serve Him.

3. Therefore we must aid His Church.

(J. S. Exell, M. A.)

(J. Cumming, D. D.)

2. He had heard their cry. The Israelites had begun to entreat for mercy; and, notwithstanding their ignorance, wickedness, and idolatry, the Lord was pleased to hear them.

3. He knew their sorrows; not only He saw and heard, but He knew all, much better than men did, and He pitied their misery. Yes, God sees the affliction and hears the cry of His creatures who are suffering. Do not forget this when you are in sorrow.

(Prof. Gaussen.)

I. No one can say that "I" as He says it, — not father, or mother, or dearest friend. It is "I" — alone in the universe — "know your sorrows." I who made the "sorrows"; I who made you; I who can balance the burden and the strength; I to whom all ears are open and all secrets disclosed. But there are sorrows and sorrows. There are selfish "sorrows," which cannot bear to be seen in happiness, and rather like to make others sad. There are "sorrows" of sheer formality, which come and go with the seasons. There are "sorrows" of mere vexations and mortified pride, which come for any little thing. There are morbid "sorrows," which mope about in solitude. There are defiant "sorrows," which put away all sympathy, and refuse to be comforted. There are idle "sorrows," which lead to no action; barren because there is no root. And there are sorrows which have an actual sin, and sin lives in that "sorrow." And there are "sorrows" which call themselves contrite, but have no penitence; they are merely nature's fears. And there are hardened "sorrows," putting away God, grieving the Holy Ghost, and working death! And God "knows" these sorrows, and His eye detects them in a moment — all their hollowness and all their hypocrisy.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

I. HOW CHEERING IS THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE TEXT.

1. It is not a mere man who says this, but God — the Creator, the Lord of life and death, the Redeemer, the Comforter.

2. When we remember that the Speaker is the Omnipresent and Omniscient God, we remember also that His knowledge is something more than man's mere knowledge of the fact. He sees the beginning and the end of an event at once; He knows all about our sorrows — whence they came, how, when, why.

3. It greatly raises our thoughts of God's condescension if we consider who these people were, and what their sorrows.(1) They were God's people; but in men's eyes they were but a poor band of slaves, toiling day and night under hard taskmasters.(2) Their sorrows were those which poverty and hard labour bring.

4. As God knew His people's sorrows then, so He knows ours now, however infinitely various they may be — however great, however small-whether of body, mind, or soul. The Lord Jesus knows by experience, toil, fatigue, pain, weeping, anxiety, desolation.

II. LESSONS OF COMFORT.

1. If our Lord knows our sorrows thus intimately, we may go and lay the whole before Him, assured of sympathy (Matthew 14:12).

2. If our Lord knows our sorrows, we may be sure that these sorrows are well ordered.

3. If our Lord knows our sorrows, we may be sure that He will help us in due time, and that although He seem to tarry long, He only tarries for our good.

III. LESSONS OF INSTRUCTION.

1. If God, who is love and power, knows our sorrows and permits them, though He does not willingly afflict, He must mean something by them; there is a voice in them which we should listen to. Let us ask, what does my heavenly Father mean by this affliction? What sins most beset me? What graces are most lacking in me?

2. By afflicting us, our Father means not only to correct our shortcomings, but to purify our faith.

3. God tries our patience by sorrow, for the example of others. How does the sight of a Christian sufferer cheer and strengthen his fellow-travellers on the Christian course I Let us take care that, in our time of suffering, we glorify God by our —

(1)Calmness,

(2)Confidence,

(3)Patience,

(4)Thankfulness.

4. Not only may our suffering affliction be a blessing to others as an example, but as calling forth their sympathy and love.

(S. P. C. K. Sermons.)

II. SEASONABLE INTERVENTION. Often God waits to teach us our own helplessness before interposing; but "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." "When the fulness of time was come," etc.

III. ABUNDANT BENEFACTION. Christ is a greater Moses, through whom we are not only delivered from the punishment of sin, but sanctified also aa "a peculiar people," and made "meet for the inheritance," etc. Our conversion is merely the turning-point. Heaven is the goal, and God is with us all the way.

(J. C. McLachlan, M. A.)

1. He can help. Fulness of resource.

2. He will help. Whole scheme of salvation based on this.

3. He delights to help. Sympathy, the natural outcome of God's heart.

II. THE KNOWLEDGE.

1. It is certain. He cannot be deceived, or mistaken. What a consolation for afflicted!

2. It is unlimited. God knows all sorrows.

3. It is compassionate. Touched with feeling of our infirmity.

III. THE SORROW.

1. It may be long continued. Delay disciplines.

2. It may be deeply oppressive.

3. It may be widely experienced. "I know their sorrows."

(1)Therefore do not complain.

(2)Therefore wait His time for deliverance.

(3)Therefore seek His grace.

(J. S. Exell, M. A.)

     1135   God, suffering of
     5159   hearing
     5946   sensitivity
     6183   ignorance, of God
     8330   receptiveness
     8791   oppression, nature of

Exodus 3:1-10

     4269   Sinai, Mount

Exodus 3:7-8

     4207   land, divine gift
     4404   food
     6634   deliverance
     7240   Jerusalem, history

Exodus 3:7-9

     5825   cruelty, God's attitude
     8614   prayer, answers
     8792   oppression, God's attitude

Exodus 3:7-10

     7135   Israel, people of God
     7222   exodus, events of

Exodus 3:7-11

     5102   Moses, life of

The Bush that Burned, and did not Burn Out
'And, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.' EXODUS iii. 1 It was a very sharp descent from Pharaoh's palace to the wilderness, and forty years of a shepherd's life were a strange contrast to the brilliant future that once seemed likely for Moses. But God tests His weapons before He uses them, and great men are generally prepared for great deeds by great sorrows. Solitude is 'the mother- country of the strong,' and the wilderness, with its savage crags, its awful silence, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Call of Moses
'Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel, out of Egypt. 11. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? 12. And He said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. 13. And Moses said unto God, Behold, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Fourth Day. Holiness and Revelation.
And when the Lord saw that Moses turned aside to see, He called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. And Moses hid his face, for He was afraid to look upon God.'--Ex. iii. 4-6. And why was it holy ground? Because God had come there and occupied it. Where God is, there is holiness; it is the presence of God makes holy. This is the …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

May the Tenth God's Use of Men
"I have surely seen the affliction of My people ... come now, therefore, I will send thee." --EXODUS iii. 1-14. Does that seem a weak ending to a powerful beginning? The Lord God looks upon terrible affliction and He sends a weak man to deal with it. Could He not have sent fire from heaven? Could He not have rent the heavens and sent His ministers of calamity and disasters? Why choose a man when the arch-angel Gabriel stands ready at obedience? This is the way of the Lord. He uses human means …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Moses
(Fifth Sunday in Lent.) EXODUS iii. 14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And now, my friends, we are come, on this Sunday, to the most beautiful, and the most important story of the whole Bible-- excepting of course, the story of our Lord Jesus Christ--the story of how a family grew to be a great nation. You remember that I told you that the history of the Jews, had been only, as yet, the history of a family. Now that family is grown to be a great tribe, a great herd of people, but not …
Charles Kingsley—The Gospel of the Pentateuch

Jehovah. The "I Am. "
WHEN Moses in the desert beheld the burning bush God answered his question by the revelation of His name as the "I Am." "And God said unto Moses, I am, that I am: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" (Exod. iii:14). He who spake thus out of the bush to Moses was the same who in the fullness of time appeared upon the earth in the form of man. Our Lord Jesus Christ is no less person, than the I AM. If we turn to the fourth Gospel in which the Holy …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

Introduction to Ad Afros Epistola Synodica.
(Written About 369.) The synodical letter which follows was written after the accession of Damasus to the Roman see (366). Whether it was written before any Western synod had formally condemned Auxentius of Milan (see Letter 59. 1) may be doubted: the complaint (§10) is rather that he still retains possession of his see, which in fact he did until 374, the year after the death of Athanasius. At any rate, Damasus had had time to hold a large synod, the letter of which had reached Athanasius. …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Letter xxv. To Marcella.
An explanation of the ten names given to God in the Hebrew Scriptures. The ten names are El, Elohim, Sabaôth, Eliôn, Asher yeheyeh (Ex. iii. 14), Adonai, Jah, the tetragram JHVH, and Shaddai. Written at Rome 384 a.d. …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

The Training of a Statesman.
MOSES IN EGYPT AND THE WILDERNESS.--EX. 1:1; 7:5. Parallel Readings. Goodnow, F. J., Comparative Administrative Law. Hist. Bible I, 151-69. And he went out on the following day and saw two men of the Hebrews striving together; and he said to the one who was doing the wrong, Why do you smite your fellow-workman? But he replied, Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and said, Surely the thing is known. When, therefore, …
Charles Foster Kent—The Making of a Nation

Christian Worship,
PART I In the early days of the Gospel, while the Christians were generally poor, and when they were obliged to meet in fear of the heathen, their worship was held in private houses and sometimes in burial-places under-ground. But after a time buildings were expressly set apart for worship. It has been mentioned that in the years of quiet, between the death of Valerian and the last persecution (A D. 261-303) these churches were built much more handsomely than before, and were furnished with gold …
J. C. Roberston—Sketches of Church History, from AD 33 to the Reformation

The Incarnation.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. He was …
Marcus Dods—The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St. John, Vol. I

Philo of Alexandria, the Rabbis, and the Gospels - the Final Development of Hellenism in Its Relation to Rabbinism and the Gospel According to St. John.
It is strange how little we know of the personal history of the greatest of uninspired Jewish writers of old, though he occupied so prominent a position in his time. [173] Philo was born in Alexandria, about the year 20 before Christ. He was a descendant of Aaron, and belonged to one of the wealthiest and most influential families among the Jewish merchant-princes of Egypt. His brother was the political head of that community in Alexandria, and he himself on one occasion represented his co-religionists, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

On the Symbols of the Essence' and Coessential. '
We must look at the sense not the wording. The offence excited is at the sense; meaning of the Symbols; the question of their not being in Scripture. Those who hesitate only at coessential,' not to be considered Arians. Reasons why coessential' is better than like-in-essence,' yet the latter may be interpreted in a good sense. Explanation of the rejection of coessential' by the Council which condemned the Samosatene; use of the word by Dionysius of Alexandria; parallel variation in the use of Unoriginate; …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Question of the Division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative
I. May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and the Contemplative? S. Augustine, De Consensu Evangelistarum, I., iv. 8 " Tractatus, cxxiv. 5, in Joannem II. Is this division of Life into the Active and the Contemplative a sufficient one? S. Augustine, Of the Trinity, I., viii. 17 I May Life be fittingly divided into the Active and the Contemplative? S. Gregory the Great says[291]: "There are two kinds of lives in which Almighty God instructs us by His Sacred Word--namely, the active and …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

Jesus Calls Four Fishermen to Follow Him.
(Sea of Galilee, Near Capernaum.) ^A Matt. IV. 18-22; ^B Mark I. 16-20; ^C Luke V. 1-11. ^a 18 And walking ^b 16 And passing along by the sea of Galilee [This lake is a pear-shaped body of water, about twelve and a half miles long and about seven miles across at its widest place. It is 682 feet below sea level; its waters are fresh, clear and abounding in fish, and it is surrounded by hills and mountains, which rise from 600 to 1,000 feet above it. Its greatest depth is about 165 feet], he [Jesus] …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby.
(Galilee.) ^A Matt. XI. 2-30; ^C Luke VII. 18-35. ^c 18 And the disciples of John told him of all these things. ^a 2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent by his disciples ^c 19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them unto the Lord [John had been cast into prison about December, a.d. 27, and it was now after the Passover, possibly in May or June, a.d. 28. Herod Antipas had cast John into prison because John had reproved him for taking his brother's wife. …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Wonderful.
Isaiah ix:6. HIS name shall be called "Wonderful" (Isaiah ix:6). And long before Isaiah had uttered this divine prediction the angel of the Lord had announced his name to be Wonderful. As such He appeared to Manoah. And Manoah said unto the angel of Jehovah, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor. And the angel of Jehovah said unto Him "why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is Wonderful" (margin, Judges xiii:17-18). This angel of Jehovah, the Person who …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

Of Preparation.
That a Christian ought necessarily to prepare himself before he presume to be a partaker of the holy communion, may evidently appear by five reasons:-- First, Because it is God's commandment; for if he commanded, under the pain of death, that none uncircumcised should eat the paschal lamb (Exod. xii. 48), nor any circumcised under four days preparation, how much greater preparation does he require of him that comes to receive the sacrament of his body and blood? which, as it succeeds, so doth it …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

A Sabbath in Capernaum
It was the Holy Sabbath - the first after He had called around Him His first permanent disciples; the first, also, after His return from the Feast at Jerusalem. Of both we can trace indications in the account of that morning, noon, and evening which the Evangelists furnish. The greater detail with which St. Mark, who wrote under the influence of St. Peter, tells these events, shows the freshness and vividness of impression on the mind of Peter of those early days of his new life. As indicating that …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Eternity of God
The next attribute is, God is eternal.' Psa 90:0. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' The schoolmen distinguish between aevun et aeternum, to explain the notion of eternity. There is a threefold being. I. Such as had a beginning; and shall have an end; as all sensitive creatures, the beasts, fowls, fishes, which at death are destroyed and return to dust; their being ends with their life. 2. Such as had a beginning, but shall have no end, as angels and the souls of men, which are eternal …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Meditations for the Sick.
Whilst thy sickness remains, use often, for thy comfort, these few meditations, taken from the ends wherefore God sendeth afflictions to his children. Those are ten. 1. That by afflictions God may not only correct our sins past, but also work in us a deeper loathing of our natural corruptions, and so prevent us from falling into many other sins, which otherwise we would commit; like a good father, who suffers his tender babe to scorch his finger in a candle, that he may the rather learn to beware …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Christian's God
Scripture References: Genesis 1:1; 17:1; Exodus 34:6,7; 20:3-7; Deuteronomy 32:4; 33:27; Isaiah 40:28; 45:21; Psalm 90:2; 145:17; 139:1-12; John 1:1-5; 1:18; 4:23,24; 14:6-11; Matthew 28:19,20; Revelation 4:11; 22:13. WHO IS GOD? How Shall We Think of God?--"Upon the conception that is entertained of God will depend the nature and quality of the religion of any soul or race; and in accordance with the view that is held of God, His nature, His character and His relation to other beings, the spirit …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Mary, Future Mother of Jesus, visits Elisabeth, Future Mother of John the Baptist.
(in the Hill Country of Judæa, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke I. 39-56. ^c 39 And Mary arose in these days [within a week or two after the angel appeared to her] and went into the hill country [the district of Judah lying south of Jerusalem, of which the city of Hebron was the center] with haste [she fled to those whom God had inspired, so that they could understand her condition and know her innocence--to those who were as Joseph needed to be inspired, that he might understand--Matt. i. 18-25], into a city …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel