Isaiah 33:21-22 But there the glorious LORD will be to us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars… The meaning of this promise. 1. Fertility. 2. Abundance to the inhabitants. Places near broad rivers produce a great variety of plants. The children of Israel regretted that they had left the leeks, and garlic, and onions, and cucumbers, and melons of Egypt — plants that grew by the rivers. Besides, where there are rivers there is an abundance of fish of all kinds, and in the fat pastures, such as Goshen, which was well watered by the Nile, abundance of cattle are reared, while the abundant harvests which are there produced through the admirable irrigation make the lands blessed with broad rivers and streams the sunniest of climes. Well, now, our God is all this to His Church. 3. Broad rivers and streams in like manner point to commerce. In Holland especially the broad rivers and streams make that nation what it is; the harbours are so safe, the rivers so broad, and the canals so innumerable, that in every place commerce is easy, and the ends of the earth are linked to the nation by its broad rivers and streams. In that country we find curious importations hardly known to any other people, because they have gathered up the treasures of the far-off lands. and there was a time when their broad rivers and streams enabled them to engross the mercantile power of the whole universe. Well, beloved, our glorious Lord — keep the adjective as well as the noun — is to be to us a place of commerce. Through God we have commerce with the past; the riches of Calvary, the riches of the covenant, the riches of eternity, all come to us down the broad stream of our gracious Lord. We have commerce, too, with the future. What galleys, laden to the water's edge, come to us from the millennium! What visions we have of the days of heaven upon earth. Through our glorious Lord we have commerce with angels; commerce with the bright spirits washed in blood that sing before the throne; nay, better still, we have commerce with the Infinite One, with eternity, with self-existence, with immutability, with omnipotence, with omniscience; for our glorious Lord is to us a place of broad rivers and streams. 4. Broad rivers and streams are specially intended to set forth security. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. |
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