Here is a prophetic vision of flight, which may suggest other kinds and instances of "fleeing away." Sennacherib comes up vain-gloriously against Jerusalem, confidently reckoning on complete success, thinking to swallow up Judah as a pleasant morsel; and, behold! he is found hurrying homewards as one that is pursued by overtaking legions, not staying at his first fortification, but, in his terror and humiliation, "passing on beyond his stronghold" for fear, his princes "frightened away by the flags" of the enemy that was to have been so easily and so utterly subdued. Our thoughts may be directed to -

I. THE VANQUISHED FLEEING FROM THE VICTORIOUS. The annals of human history, which have hitherto been principally the record of human strife, are only too full of heart-rending illustrations (see, among others, Erckmann-Chatrian's 'Waterloo').

II. CRIME FLEEING FROM THE FEET OF JUSTICE. Both fact and fiction will supply abundant illustrations of the intolerable wretchedness of those who, pursued by the officers of law, are dogged by apprehension and alarm at every step they take. "Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep: there were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear."

III. WRONG FLEEING FROM REVENGE. See the vivid picture of Carker fleeing from Dombey (Dickens): "Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawing at his heart, a constant apprehension of being overtaken: the same intolerable awe and dread that had come upon him in the night returned unweakened in the day... rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with thinking... pressing on ... change upon change... long roads and dread of night... and still the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet, and no rest."

IV. GUILT FLEEING FROM THE FACE OF GOD. Guilt fleeing:

1. Weakly and vainly. Long before Jonah, in the hour of self-reproach that followed his act of disobedience, "fled from the presence of the Lord," men had tried to put a distance between their sin and its rightful Judge. And long since then have they tried to escape his eye and his hand. Saddest of all vain endeavors is the thrice-guilty deed of the suicide, who acts as if, by entering another world, he could flee from the face of the Omnipresent One.

2. But there is a sense in which guilt flies away from the face of God really and most blessedly. When God's conditions of penitence and faith have been fulfilled, then is our guilt "purged away," our transgressions are "removed from us as far as the east is from the west," our sins are "hidden from his face," they are "cast into the depths of the sea" (Psalm 65:3; Psalm 103:12; Psalm 51:9; Micah 7:19). Moreover, we look forward to the time when there shall be a glorious fulfillment of the Divine promises, and we shall have -

V. EVIL DISAPPEARING FROM THE FACE OF MAN; when "sorrow and sighing shall flee away," when "death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire," when "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying... for the former things are passed away" (Isaiah 35:10; Revelation 20:14; Revelation 21:4). - C.

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I. THE VERY STRIKING AND BEAUTIFUL PICTURES. There are three of them.

1. "As birds flying," &c. The original shows that it is the mother-bird that is thought about. And the picture rises at once of her fluttering over the nest, where the callow chickens are unable to fly and to help themselves. It is a kind of echo of the grand old metaphor in the song that is attributed to Moses, which speaks of the eagle fluttering over her nest, and taking care of her young. Jerusalem was as a nest on which, for long centuries, that infinite Divine love had brooded. It was but a poor brood that had been hatched out, but yet "as birds flying" He had watched over the city. Can you not almost see the mother-bird, made bold by maternal love, swooping down upon the intruder that sought to rob the nest, and spreading her broad pinion over the callow fledglings that lie below? That is what God does with us. It is a poor brood that is hatched out. That does not matter; still the Love bends down and helps. Nobody but a prophet could have ventured on such a metaphor as that, and nobody but Jesus Christ would have ventured to mend it and say, "As a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings," when there are hawks in the sky. So He, in all the past ages, was the One that "as birds flying... defended" His people, and would have gathered them under His wings, only they would not. Now, beautiful as this metaphor is, as it stands, it seems to me, like some brilliant piece of colouring, to derive additional beauty from its connection with the background upon which it stands out. For just a verse before the prophet has given another emblem of what God is and does. "Like as a lion," &c. Look at these two pictures side by side; on the one hand the lion, with his paw on his prey, and the angry growl that answers when the shepherds vainly try to drag it away from him. That is God. Ay! but that is only one aspect of God. "As birds flying, so the Lord will defend Jerusalem." We have to take that into account, too. This generation is very fond of talking about God's love; does it believe in God's wrath? Has it pondered that tremendous phrase, "the wrath of the Lamb"? The lion that growls, and the mother-bird that hovers — God is like them both.

2. The second picture is not so obvious to English readers, but it is equally striking. The word that is translated in our text twice "defend" and "defending," means literally "shielding." Thus we have the same general idea as that in the previous metaphor of the mother-bird hovering above the nest. God is like a shield held over us, and so flinging off from the broad and burnished surface of the almighty buckler, all the darts that any foe can launch against us.

3. "Passing over, He will deliver." The word that is there rendered "passing over" is almost a technical word in the Old Testament, because it is that employed in reference to the Passover. And so you see the swiftness of genius with which the prophet changes his whole scene. We are swept back to that night when the Destroying Angel stalked through the land, and "passed over" the doors on which the blood had been sprinkled.

II. THE REALITY MEANT BY THESE PICTURES. They mean the absolute promise from God of protection for His people from every evil.

III. THE WAY BY WHICH WE CAN MAKE THE REALITY OF THESE PICTURES OURS. All the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament are conditional, and there are many of them that were never fulfilled, and were spoken in order that they might not be fulfilled, because the people took warning.

1. Put thou thy trust in God, and God is to thee the hovering bird, the broad shield, the angel that "passes over."

2. But having thus fled thither, we must continue there, if we would continue under His protection. Such continuance of safety because of continuous faith is possible only by continued communion.

3. Another condition of Divine protection is obedience.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)