Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 66:13
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
13. A still finer image, “the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother” (G. A. Smith).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
As one whom his mother comforteth – See the notes at Isa 49:15, where the same image occurs.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 66:13
As one whom his mother comforteth
Isaiahs figure of motherhood
(verses 7-13):–The prophet reawakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood–children suckled, borne and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother.
(Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The exiles horns in Jerusalem
Israel then will be like a man returned from foreign soft, escaped from captivity, full of sad remembrances, whose echoes, however, completely vanish in the mother-arms of Divine love in Jerusalem, the beloved home that was the home of their thoughts even on foreign soil. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The Motherhood of God
God is Creator, Preserver, Father, but something more.
I. A good mother has a wonderful fund of SYMPATHY; so has God.
II. Motherhood is wonderful in its CONSTANCY; so is God.
III. Motherhood is GRIEVED OVER SIN; So is God.
IV. A mothers love is often REDEMPTIVE; Gods love is redemptive ten thousand times more. (D. J. Rounsefell.)
Divine comfort most endearing and efficient
God will comfort His people–
1. With all the affection and solicitude of a mother. See the mother how she loves, strives, labours, suffers, and sacrifices for her child.
2. With all the long-suffering and forbearance of a mother.
3. With all the forgiveness and consolation of a mother. How ready to forgive her erring, wandering child–and ready to console in trouble.
4. With all the instruction and correction of a mother. God teaches in various ways, and whom He loveth He chasteneth.
5. With all the constancy of a moter. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
Divine consolation
I. THE CONSOLATION PROMISED. I will comfort you. It is the character of Divine promises that they apply to real cases they meet the condition and circumstances of man. Are we ignorant? I will instruct thee. Are we weak? I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee. Are we in danger? I will deliver thee. Are we disconsolate? I will comfort you. The discouragements of life are many, trials are various: the fears to which we are subject, and the sins which easily beset us, who can number? These all impair our comfort, and have a natural tendency to sink us in despondency. But the Gospel provides a cordial.
1. This consolation is Divine in its origin. It springs not from creatures, not from earthly good, or from carnal gratifications. The Most High claims the prerogative as His own.
2. It is rational in its nature; not consolation visionary and enthusiastic, but intelligent, consistent with reason as well as according to faith.
3. Free in its bestowment.
4. It is select in its subjects. All are not partakers of heavenly consolation, for all are not qualified to enjoy it. Penitence of disposition is requisite: Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Earnest desire also is implied; for who can be supposed to possess Divine comfort who are indifferent about it, who are living without prayer, or whose petitions are languid and lifeless? Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. Holy- watchfulness is likewise supposed; for whoever is careless and slothful must be deceived if he imagine himself to be comforted of the Lord. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, but grieve Him not; otherwise He with draws His influence, and all is darkness or delusion.
II. THE MANNER IN WHICH CONSOLATION IS AFFORDED. as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. A stranger may administer comfort, but it is in a distant way; a friend may console us, and this with kindness; a father also, with tenderness still more impressive; but none comforts like a mother.
1. The affection of a mother is warm; she loves her child, loves it as part of herself.
2. The care of a mother is indulgent.
3. The condescension and self-denial of a mother are not small.
4. The assiduity of a mother is unwearied.
III. THE MEANS BY WHICH CONSOLATION IS ENJOYED, Ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. The pious Jews were comforted when in Babylon, and during their dispersion among the nations; but their comfort in such circumstances was attended with much affliction: it was when returned to Jerusalem, when resettled in their own country, and among their own people, that their enjoyment rose the highest, and was most regular. This teaches–
1. The importance of separation from an ensnaring world.
2. The propriety of regular attendance on religious worship. It was a high privilege to dwell in Jerusalem, because of attendance on religious worship.
3. The duty of Church-membership. Jerusalem was not only the scat of Divine worship, but an emblem of the Christian Church, and they who constitute this Church are particularly authorized to plead the promise of the text, You shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
4. It suggests the worth of a right spirit in attending Christian ordinances. The form of godliness is nothing. (Anon.)
The Motherhood of God
Readers of such writers as Theodore Parker, Frances Power Cobbe, and Chunder Sen must often have been struck with the frequency with which these theists address invocations or prayers to God as the Father and Mother of our spirits. Why should they not? There are surely as valid reasons for our thinking and speaking of God as our Perfect Mother as there are for claiming Him as the Perfect Father of us all.
1. Even if there were no hint or smile to this effect in the Scriptures we should still find it necessary to predicate it of God in order to perfect our conceptions of Him. What these conceptions are will best be understood by a disclosure of their basis. To our thinking, the ultimate source of our knowledge of God is the intuitions of the human heart. The instincts, the qualities, the affections in human nature (though these are at a very great remove from those in God) are the truest indications and interpretations to us of what God is; if the revelation recorded in the Bible be the light (as it undoubtedly is), these things in us are the eye to which that light appeals and by which we see; in fact, if we cannot argue from our own spiritual natures up to Gods, then, all metaphysical reasoning and the Christian Scriptures notwithstanding, we have no reliable knowledge of God, faith is presumptuous, worship delusive, and the ground of personal responsibility crumbles away- from under our feet. Further, a philosophical interpretation of the person of the Christ, as well as the Scriptural declaration that man is made in the image of God, warrants the assertion that in a very true sense one of the worthiest conceptions of the Divine nature is that of a fully-developed, completely perfected, human nature. On this ground we believe we are justified in regarding God as our Father; or, to put conversely what this implies, we do right in assuming the fatherly elements in men to be the best index or guarantee of what God is. But whilst the Fatherhood of God is the perfection of our human nature, so far as man is concerned, it is not the crown of our humanity in its totality, that is to say, so far as human nature includes womanhood as well as manhood. God, in the very nature of the case, must gather up in Himself all the essential qualities of the mother no less than of the father. That this is so, is in a measure evidenced by the facts of our human experience. Take, for example, the evidence deducible from the case of a family where the children have been deprived of either parent, say the mother; in this instance, not only do the boys lose the beneficial effect of the softening and refining atmosphere of their mothers presence, but the girls also, however wise and fond their father may be, become prudish and unnaturally grave. In like manner, if the children are left fatherless, both sons and daughters suffer from the loss of their fathers sobering, restraining influence, while the daughters especially miss the strengthening force derivable from acquaintance with his life and character. Yes, that child only is rightly trained and fully educated who has had the good fortune to know both the gentler sway of a mothers and the severer rule of a fathers nature. We see, then, that in actual life only that parentage is normally complete which is the blending of the two complementing sides, the fatherly and the motherly. And since of necessity the ideal in heaven cannot be less perfect than the actual on earth, and since, moreover, God is the source whence all the phases of our humanity have sprung, we may reverently address God in our prayers as being both the Perfect Father and Mother in whom we confide.
2. Nor is this idea of the Divine Motherhood as unserviceable as at first sight it may seem. It may be urged as affording one practical way of escape from the beautiful but blinding web, so to say, which the thoughts of many are busily weaving. It not unfrequently occurs that men, whose scientific tastes or pursuits change rather than destroy their hold on religion, find their thoughts of nature, life, and God taking a purely pantheistic colouring. To highly imaginative minds, to devout poetic temperaments, this habit of deifying everything is not a little fascinating. If God be thought of as He who is nature itself, then the more sensuous sides of our being will be appealed to and quickened, we grant, as will our intellectual needs in many respects be met and fostered. But the deep hunger and thirst of our more human natures will be unappeased, the more spiritual and practical cravings of our personal life will be slighted and wronged. For how little will such a pantheistic faith, beautiful as it is, and true in part though it be, serve and console the heart when it is beset with agonizing doubt or disheartened by the strength and shame of its sin, or well-nigh crushed by a fatalistic sense of the hard, merciless rule of the inevitable! Nature in some of her moods is anything but pitiful. Besides, what does a religion of this kind avail for those who have not been endowed with a lively imagination, or with poetic insight, or with mental vigour; what will or can it mean to those whose ideas and impressions of life are chiefly toned and tempered by poverty or pain or thankless toil, or misery or crime? With such an abstract God as this, we shall feel ourselves before long like to one wearied, oppressed with all the recherche elegance of a palace, and yearning for the real and simple comfort of a home. See now the remedy the truth under discussion affords. Let it be granted that God is the stun total of all the beauty and order, and music and life of the universe, but then surely He is more than this. He is the source and crown of all the human affections that have scattered themselves like so many suns rays throughout the fatherhoods and motherhoods, and childhoods and friendships of the world. These intensely real elements in our,, experience must have a living background m God from whom all things issue. He that made the ear, shall He not hear; He that made the eye shall He not see J and shall not He who bestowed on us so personal and potent a divinity as our mother, the holiest thing on earth, be Himself equally personal and motherly? (J. T. Stannard.)
Divine comfort
I. A DIRE NECESSITY. Comfort.
II. A DEPLORABLE INCAPACITY.
We are helpless as babes.
III. AN ABSOLUTE IGNORANCE. A babe does not know its griefs. It can only realize a sense of discomfort. Its complaints are often unmeaning, foolish, needless. In this way many of us live and die.
IV. A CONSIDERATE COMFORTER. What a charm there is in the mothers voice! So in the Divine voice of the Holy Spirit He comforts–
1. With the solicitude of a mother. How a mother loves, strives, labours, and sacrifices for her child.
2. With the forgiveness and consolation of a mother.
3. With the instruction and correction of a mother. A good and wise mother will instruct and correct.
4. With the constancy of a mother (Isa 49:14-15). God loves to the end.
V. AN IMPORTANT MEANS. Ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. The promise is not without limitations. This expression means that the consolations of God come to those who are in His Church, who are in Christ Jesus. This is the place for us to rest in.
1. It is the place which He has appointed.
2. The place where He delights to dwell.
3. The place where His spirit is poured out.
4. The place where, by our own acts of devotion and hearing, we derive peace and rest. (Homilist.)
The Divine Motherhood
Is not the highest use of human relationships to reveal God? Are not the genuine king, judge, friend, father, so many mirrors in which the Divine character is, in some degree, reflected? And if this be true of all other human relationships, especially of those most natural and elemental, is it not emphatically thus in the unique, peerless one of mother Indeed, since there is need of all human relationships combined to reveal God, it is most clear that this one cannot be omitted. And if even idolaters have ever fell they must select the best material at their command to adumbrate the deity they worship, we may surely lay our hands on this highest thing we call motherhood, to illustrate something of the attributes and the ways of our own God. His love transcends all motherhood. It is a relationship marked by–
I. CLOSEST INTIMACY. The childs life, especially at its beginning, is a part of its mothers life. Supported by maternal sustenance, watched by maternal wisdom, embosomed in maternal love, the child has more from its mother, and owes, more to her, than science can analyze or poetry,, describe. Thus intimate is Gods relationship to us. We are His offspring.
II. INTENSE INDIVIDUALISM. In two aspects there is an individualizing element and habit in motherhood that is on the very surface of the relationship, and that yet is one of its profoundest realities.
1. The mother individualizes her child. So both the Old and New Testament revelation, and indeed all His dealings with us, discover how individual all men arc to God.
2. Then, the child individualizes its mother. Our own God.
III. UNWEARIEDNESS OF CARE. The devotion of a mother is not that of hours, but of days–not of days only, but of nights also. It is not exhausted when its object has passed through infancy, but is active and anxious over its youth; yearns fondly, even when it can accomplish little, over its manhood or womanhood; lives and reigns in the heart till the mother herself dies; and–who can tell?–perhaps may still watch and guide and bless from the world of spirits. All human history gives emphasis to the question, Can a woman forget her child? Others may degrade and desecrate the meaning of the word love, by saying profanely, I loved once. The mothers of the world are the monuments of the perpetuity–one had almost said, of the eternity–of love. Yet the highest authority says, they may forget, yet will not God.
IV. SACRIFICIALNESS OF LOVE. Probably all true love is sacrificial. Anyway, it is beyond contradiction that a mothers love is. Conclusion:
1. Lessons for parents.
(1) Here is a word of instruction for those who, whether as fathers or mothers, are not fulfilling the highest duty of their relationship, namely, revealing God to their children.
(2) Here is a word of consolation. Motherhood means a life of sacrificial, often unhonoured, often unrequited love. But what if that love is revealing God? What if it is fulfilling some of the functions of the Cross at Calvary? Is any endurance too heavy, any toil too irksome, any anguish too keen, if thereby Gods heart is unveiled as it never otherwise could have been?
2. Remonstrance with sinners. The most heinous sins are sins against love. All transgression against this God of Divine motherliness, is such sin. It is folly to rebel against the God of all wisdom; the rebellion will ultimately he thwarted. It is madness to rebel against the God of all power He must reign till His enemies be made His footstool. But it is darkest sin to rebel against the God of all comfort. (U. R. Thomas, B. A.)
God comforting as a mother
1. God comforts like the ideal mother. The only perfect mother is in the mind and heart of God. And He comforts as that image might be expected to comfort and would be capable of comforting.
2. God comforts as the mothers comforted of whom the prophet spoke. No mother is perfect, but every true and good mother is a great consoler. God comforts.
(1) Naturally.
(2) Personally.
(3) Lovingly.
(4)Practically.
(5)Broadly.
(6)Constantly.
(7) Effectually. (S. Martin.)
God our Mother
The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dew in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hailstorm of half-an-hour; so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection.
1. God has a mother simplicity of instruction. A father does not know how to teach a child the A B C. Men are not skilful in the primary department. But a mother has so much patience that she will tell a child for the hundredth time the difference between F and G and between I and J. She thus teaches the child, and has no awkwardness of condescension in so doing. So God, our Mother, stoops down to our infantile minds. God has been teaching some of us thirty years, and some sixty years, one word of one syllable, and we do not know it yet–f-a-i-t-h, faith. When we come to that word, we stumble, we halt, we lose our place, we pronounce it wrong. Still, Gods patience is not exhausted. God, our Mother, puts us in the school of prosperity, and the letters are in sunshine, and we cannot spell them. God puts us in the school of adversity, and the letters are black, and we cannot spell them. If God were merely a king, He would punish us. If He were simply a father, He would whip us. But God is a mother, and so we are borne with and helped all the way through. A mother teaches her child chiefly by pictures. God, our Mother, teaches us almost everything by pictures. Is the Divine goodness to be set forth? How does God teach us? By an autumnal picture. The barns are full. The wheat-stacks are rounded. The orchards are dropping the ripe pippins into the lap of the farmer. Does God, our Mother, want to set forth what a foolish thing it is to go away from the right, and how glad Divine mercy is to take back the wanderer? How is it to be done? By a picture.
2. God has a mothers favouritism. A father sometimes shows a sort of favouritism. Here is a boy–strong, well, of high forehead and quick intellect. The father says, I will take that boy into my firm yet; or, I will give him the very best possible education. There are instances where, for the culture of the one boy,, all the others have been robbed. A sad favouritism; but that is not the mothers favourite. I will tell you her favourite. There is a child who, at two years of age, had a fall. He has never got over it. The scarlet fever muffled his hearing. He is not what he once was. The children of the family all know that he is the favourite. So he ought to be; for if there is any one in the world who needs sympathy more than another, it is an invalid child. Weary on the first mile of lifes journey; carrying an aching head, a weak side, an irritated lung. So the mother ought to make him a favourite. God loves us all; but there is one weak, and sick, and sore, and wounded, and suffering, and faint. That is the one who lies nearest and more perpetually on the great,, loving heart of God. There is not such a watcher as God.
3. God has a mothers capacity for attending to little hurts. The father is shocked at the broken bone of the child, or at the sickness that sets the cradle on fire with fever, but it takes the mother to sympathize with all the little ailments and little bruises of the child. If the child has a splinter in its hand, it wants the mother to take it out, and not the father. So with God our Mother: all our annoyances are important enough to look at and sympathize with.
4. God has a mothers patience for the erring. If one does wrong, first his associates in life cast him off; if he goes on in the wrong way, his business partner cuts him off; if he goes on, his best friends cast him off. But after all others have cast him off, where does he go? Who holds no grudge, and forgives the last time as well as the first? Who sits by the murderers counsel all through the long trial? Who tarries the longest at the windows of a culprits cell? Who, when all others think ill of a man, keeps on thinking well of him? It is his mother.
5. God has a mothers, way of putting a child to sleep. You know there is no cradle-song like a mother s. The time will come when we will be wanting to be put to sleep. Then we want God to soothe us, to hush us to sleep. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.)
Gods motherly comfort
A mother comforts–
1. By her presence. It is always to her children a benediction–a comfort.
2. By her love. Of a mothers love the child becomes deeply conscious as she strokes gently his fevered brow, or lifts upon him the light of her loving eyes.
3. By her food. She knows their needs and their tastes, and she gives nourishing and satisfying food.
4. By her words. There are three different kinds of experience common to men in this life which seem to require the presence of our mothers, and in each of these God has promised to be near us.
1. When troubles come.
2. When we are sick.
3. When death is nigh. (Christian Age.)
God both Father and Mother
Broadly we may state the contrast of these relations in two well-known and exceeding precious Old Testament sayings Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. The father pities, the mother comforts, her children. The father in his strength stoops in gracious kindliness to succour them in their need; the mother holds them in a warm, eager embrace to comfort them in their pain. So we come to speak amongst ourselves of the fathers hand, but always of the mothers arms. The father leads by the hand; the mother soothes and carries in her arms. Jesus did both. He was in His own person the perfect revelation at once of the Father-God and the Mother-God. He took Gods little ones up into His arms, laid His hands upon them, and blessed them–blessed them with the double blessing of hand and arms. We find it easy to speak of the Almighty Father, but we are conscious of a dissonance of thought in saying the Almighty Mother. Almightiness is not an attribute of motherhood. But everlastingness is; and the everlasting arms are the arms of the Mother-God. There is, therefore, the rare insight of truth as well as rich beauty and pathos in Isaiahs imagery, As one whom his mother comforteth. The glorious prophecies of evangelical blessedness which Isaiah proclaimed had reached their close. The final results to faithful and unfaithful of the revelation of the grace of God mingle in the last two chapters. As we read especially Isa 65:17-25; Isa 66:10-13, we feel that this figure of theMotherhood of God touches the climax of the writing. The prophets swift imagery halts here. It has no farther flight. The evolution of a mother is the vanishing-point in nature and art, where human comfort melts away into the infinite comfort of the Divine. (F. Platt.)
The Mother-God in Scripture
The Mother-God in Scripture several great Oriental scholars believe that in the earliest times the Semitic religions had a goddess, but no god. The matriarchal state of society came before the patriarchal. Whatever historic value this opinion may have, there can be little doubt, to a careful reader, that much of the Old Testament imagery and poetry, which seek to cheer the hearts of men with promises of Divine comfort, can be best realized as we read into them the idea of the Motherhood of God. There is a New Testament reference to those wilderness ways in which the children of God were led in ancient days which at least suggests a lingering recognition of this idea. The margin of Act 13:18 reads–and the reading has considerable support: About the time of forty years He bore or fed them as a nurse beareth or feedeth her child. Much more definite, however, is Deu 32:11 : As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her ,wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him. We scarcely need to remind ourselves that it is the mother-eagle that fluttereth over her young, and beareth them in safety on her broad pinions whither she will. A similar fidelity to nature should always be borne in mind that we may interpret the inner meaning of the well-known psalms of comfort, which tell us of a hiding-place and a refuge beneath the shadow of Gods wings, or under the covering of His feathers (Psa 18:8; Psa 57:1; Psa 61:4; Psa 91:1-4). It is of course the mother-bird that gathers her brood under her wings, and hides them in warmth and safety beneath her fluffy feathers. Nor can we ever forget that when our Lord was leaving the great city of human sorrow He had yearned in vain to comfort, when He strove in His anguish of weeping to leave some picture in the mind of her people of the infinite wealth of the Divine tenderness of comfort to which they had been blind, the passion of the great mother-soul within Him could find no more perfect imagery than that familiar to them and their fathers in the psalmists of Israel: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not! All nature is plaintive with an instinctive mother-cry, from the bleating cry of the lost lamb to the lonely cry of the lost child of the Mother-God. And instinct should count for something in interpreting the God whose children we are. The lad dying of fever in some rude, rough shanty at the gold diggings, or tossing in thirst in the hospital of a far-off foreign port, cries in his delirium for his mother. It is his deepest instinct. It wasalways his mothers touch which brought coolness to his brow, and his mothers voice that had a witchery of comfort in its whisper in the old village home. And in that other sickness of the mind, in the souls day of fever and fret, it is a true spiritual instinct we obey as our lonely or wearied spirits cry aloud for the arms of the Mother-God. (F. Platt.)
Pauls conception of the Motherhood of God
There are glimpses here and there in the writings of St. Paul, revealed by subtle delicacies of speech, which more than suggest that the Motherhood of God was a flitting presence of grace and tenderness in his thought. We recall how when he wrote to the Thessalonian Church, he turned for a time from ministering the needed tonic of rebuke to the sweeter ministry of the comfort of hope. Our version reads: Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. St. Paul wrote: Them also which have been laid to sleep by Jesus will God bring with Him. Laid to sleep by Jesus. There is a picture in the words–a homely and familiar one. The day is done. The tiny feet of children, which all day long have pattered to and fro within the home, are tired. As the darkness falls their prattle grows drowsy. Then they are hushed to sleep in the mothers arms, and laid in their cradle-bed until morning. We see it all. We are Gods children of an older growth. While it is called day we spend our strength in toils and journeyings. As the shadows lengthen we grow aweary. It is time to rest. In the arms of the Mother-God, who stoops over us in the Saviours condescending ways, we arc put to sleep, and laid in stillness to rest until the day break, and the shadows flee away. Perhaps even more literally than we thought, our dead die into the arms of God. (F. Platt.)
The Motherhood of God
There are old lessons of the love of God we may learn in a fresh light as we interpret them through the thought of the Motherhood of God.
1. The intensity of the Divine self-sacrifice grows keener through it. All love gives itself, but its climax of self-renunciation is motherhood.
2. The sense of the inalienableness of the Divine love is deepened also by the thought of the Motherhood of God. Does a mothers love ever die?
When every other love expires, it lives its secret life. Its patience is infinite. A mother may forget. Her motherhood may prove false. But it is not likely. It is the most unnatural thing in nature. It is as if the sun should rise in the west, and set in the east. A lioness will fight to the death for her whelps, and the she-bear for her cubs. It is the first and last instinct creation knows. But let nature have denied herself, let her have given the lie to her primal instincts, let the stars have gone backward in their courses, and all the settled order of the universe have returned to chaos, yet even then, saith the Lord, will I not forget thee
3. Possibly also the Divine yearning over the wayward and prodigal may find a fresh setting in the idea of the Motherhood of God. When a fathers love does not easily forgive, because his sense of justice and order and true discipline in the family, of which he is the responsible governor, are hindrances, the mothers love deviseth prevailing persuasions, and intercedes with tears. And in unknown depths of a common love of the prodigal the justice and the mercy somehow meet and are reconciled. Evangelical theologians arc ever conscious of two elements in the character of God, whose nature and whose name is Love. The law of righteousness and the ministry of mercy are always present. And the problem of their reconciliation is the problem so much profound and noble thought has striven to solve in the doctrine of atonement. They arc both true. The Lord our God is one God; but He is Father-God and Mother-God. We wonder at times whether the prodigal son of our Lords parable had a mother. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why, in an Oriental country, where the position of woman is so different from her place in our own, the fathers love should wisely be Christs type of the Divine. But there is a fragment of further meaning hidden in the story for these who remember that the prodigal may not have been motherless. Certain it is that, if his father climbed to the house-top to gaze expectant in the direction of the far country, his mother crept into her chamber alone to pray. As the father commands, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, the mothers eyes are homes of silent tears. And who shall say that the rejoicing of the home-coming was not tenderer in the mothers heart, and that tender joy the last balm of healing to the prodigal son? (Ibid.)
The craving for the feminine in God
The Rev. John Watson (In Maclaren)–he told me the story himself–was once in a Roman Catholic church in Italy. Before the altar to the Virgin knelt a woman, her lips moving devoutly- in prayer, her eyes alight with wondering worship and love. As she was making her way to the door, after ending her devotion, Dr. Watson asked her in Italian some question about the points of interest in the building. The woman seemed pleased to find an English visitor (or perhaps I should say a Scot) who could converse in her own language, and the two fell to chatting about the scenery and show-places of the neighbourhood. By and by the conversation turned upon the differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions, especially in regard to the fact that Protestants do not address prayers to the Virgin. Don t you ever pray to the Mother of God? she asked. No, said Dr. Watson, very gently, for it seems to me that all you find which is holy and helpful and adorable in the character of that most revered and beautiful of women–all that, and infinitely more, I find in her Divine Son. Yes, sir, shesaid,, wistfully. I understand that for you, but you see you are a man, and you don t know how a woman needs a woman to pray to. And although I should be the last man in the world ever to become a Roman Catholic, said Dr. Watson, when telling the story, youll believe me when I assure you that I hadnt the heart to add another word. (Coulson Kernahan.)
As one whom his mother comforteth
At a summer resort a clergyman and a lady sat on the piazza of the hotel. The ladys heart was heavily burdened, and she talked of her sorrows to the aged minister, who tried to lead her in her hour of need to the Great Comforter. His efforts seemed to be in vain; the lady had heard all her life of the promise that if a tired soul casts its burden on the Lord it will be sustained, no matter how heavy that burden may be, but she seemed to lack the faith to thus cast herself upon the Lord. A half-hour afterward a severe thunderstorm came up in the western sky. With the first flash of lightning the mother jumped out Of her chair and ran up and down the piazza, exclaiming: Where is Freddie? Where is Freddie? He is so terribly frightened in a thunderstorm I dont know what he will do without me. In a few moments afterward her boy came running up the walk, almost breathless, and his face plainly showing the great fear that was in his heart. Oh, mother, he exclaimed, I was so frightened, I ran just as fast as ever I could to get to you. The mother sat down and took the frightened child into her arms. She allayed his fear and quieted him, until his head rested calmly on her loving heart. The good clergyman stepped up gently, and, putting his hand on the mothers shoulder, he whispered: As one Whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. I understand it now, she replied, as she looked up with tearful face. I will throw myself into His arms as a little child, and remember His promise. I never felt the depth of Divine love as shown in that promise before. (Susan T. Perry.)
A mothers self-sacrificing love
In the buried city of Pompeii, that was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, I was shown a place where had been found the remains of a lady and her three children. She had tried to gather two of her little ones in her arms, and the babe was hid on her breast in the folds of her robe. And when the scorching dust came down, every one fled; but the mother could not leave her children, and she died with them. A mother would give her own life to save her child. The Lord is as a mother. He did die to save you! And He now lives to comfort you as a mother comforteth her child. (W. Birch.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
That is, in the most tender and compassionating way imaginable; the husband doth not comfort his wife with that tenderness and those bowels that the mother comforteth the child after it hath received some fall or mischief. Jerusalem now mourneth, and you mourn with her; but she shall recover from her affliction and from her sorrows, and shall be comforted; and you that mourn for her shall partake of her joys, as you now share with her in her afflictions; God, in the day that he wipeth tears from her eyes, shall also wipe them from yours; and you shall have as great an occasion of joy from the happy, as now you have of sorrow from the afflicted, state of Jerusalem.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. mother (Isa49:15).
comforteth (Isa 40:1;Isa 40:2).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,…. Though ordinances are means, and ministers are instruments of comfort, God is the sole efficient cause of it; and very wonderful it is that he should condescend to administer it, since he is an immense and infinite Being, the high and lofty One, possessed of all perfections, and yet deigns to revive the spirit of the humble and contrite; since he is the Maker of heaven and earth, and all things, and those he comforts are dust and ashes; and especially since they have sinned against him, and rendered themselves abominable to him; and moreover, seeing he is so strictly just and righteous, and they also continually guilty of backslidings and revoltings from him: and yet there are many things which confirm that he will comfort them, as he here declares; since he has loved them with an everlasting love, insomuch as to give his Son for them, and to quicken them when dead in sin; and seeing he has taken them into covenant with himself, and is their covenant God and Father; and, besides, has promised to do it, who never fails, and who is able, being God all sufficient. The Targum is,
“my Word shall comfort you;”
his essential Word Christ, the consolation of Israel, from whom all true and solid comforts flow; or the written word, read or heard, and especially as applied by the Spirit of God, who is another Comforter, and whose consolations the people of God walk in, nor are they small. Now the manner in which the Lord comforts the saints, especially young converts, is the most kind, tender, and affectionate; as a tender hearted mother comforts her child; when it has fallen and hurt itself, and cries, she takes it up in her arms, hugs it in her bosom, and speaks comfortably to it, to still and quiet it. The children of God often fall into sin, and hurt themselves, their peace and joy, break their bones, and lose the enjoyment of God; when, being sensible of their evils, they roar as David did, and weep bitterly as Peter; then the Lord speaks comfortably unto them, and bids them be of good cheer, for their sins are forgiven them. Or as, when a mother has an afflicted child more so than the rest, her heart yearns most after it, and she does all she can to comfort it. The people of God are an afflicted people, and their afflictions are grievous and painful; and they cry to God in their distress, who pities them, visits them, looks upon their afflictions, grants them his presence, supplies them with his grace, supports with his everlasting arms, makes their bed for them, and comforts them in all their tribulations. Or as, when a child behaves ill, the mother looks shy at it, and carries herself at a distance; which being observed, the child takes it to heart, and then that affects her, and she returns to it, and comforts it: thus, for faults committed, the Lord hides himself from his people, which grieves and troubles them; and then he gathers them to himself with great mercies, and with lovingkindness has mercy on them; and having also chastised them for their sins; and hearing them bemoaning themselves, his heart is moved towards them, and he restores comforts to them, to their mourning souls; see Isa 49:14, it is in the original, “as a man whom his mother comforteth” a; for mothers have a tender regard to their sons when grown up to men’s estate; and all the things above mentioned may befall the people of God, when they are become young men, yea, fathers: and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem; nothing shall hinder comfort when God speaks it, or resolves to give it; not Satan, and all his temptations; the world, and all its afflictions; nor all their sins and transgressions, and the sense they have of them; nor all their unbelief, by reason of which sometimes they refuse to be comforted; but when it is the will of God they should, a tide of comfort flows in, that overpowers all: and this is often done in Jerusalem, in the church, where the Lord grants his presence, and commands his blessings; where his word is preached unto consolation, and the ordinances, those breasts of consolation, are ministered and held forth; though this is said not to the exclusion of other places, where the Lord may meet his people and comfort them, in their own houses, in their closets, in their shops, in rising up and lying down, in going out and coming in.
a “sicut vir quem mater sua consolatur”, Pagninus; “consolabitur eum”, Montanus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The prophet now looks upon the members of the church as having grown up, as it were, from childhood to maturity: they suck like a child, and are comforted like a grown-up son. “Like a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” Hitzig says that ‘sh is not well chosen; but how easily could the prophet have written ben ( son ), as in Isa 49:15! He writes ‘sh , however, not indeed in the unmeaning sense in which the lxx has taken it, viz., , but looking upon the people, whom he had previously thought of as children, as standing before him as one man. Israel is now like a man who has escaped from bondage and returned home from a foreign land, full of mournful recollections, the echoing sounds of which entirely disappear in the maternal arms of divine love there in Jerusalem, the beloved home, which was the home of its thoughts even in the strange land.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
13. As a man (224) whom his mother comforteth. It is wonderful that the Prophet, who appeared to have already spoken enough about this renewal, dwells on it so largely. But, because he can neither express the greatness and warmth of the love which God bears toward us, nor satisfy himself with speaking about it, for that reason he mentions and repeats it frequently.
And you shall have consolation in Jerusalem. There are two ways in which this may be explained. It may be said that believers shall have joyful hearts, when they shall behold the Church restored; or, that the Church, after having been restored, shall discharge her duty by gladdening her children. I prefer the latter interpretation, though either of them is admissible. The former appears to be a richer interpretation; but we must consider what the Prophet meant, and not what we think the most beautiful. In the first place, indeed, he makes God the author of the joy, and justly; but, in the second place, he adds that Jerusalem is his handmaid. But this is not addressed to irreligious scorners, who are not moved by any solicitude about the Church, but to those who, with holy zeal, declare that they are her children.
(224) “The English version, which in multitudes of cases inserts ‘man’ where the original expression is indefinite, (translating οὐδείς, for example, always ‘no man’) here reverses the process, and dilutes ‘a man’ to ‘one.’ The same liberty is taken by many other versions, old and new, occasioned no doubt by a feeling of the incongruity of making a full-grown man the subject of maternal consolations. The difficulty might, if it were necessary, be avoided by explaining איש ( ish) to mean a man-child, as it does in Gen 4:1; 1Sa 1:11; and in many other cases. But the truth is, that the solecism, which has been so carefully expunged by these translators, is an exquisite trait of patriarchal manners, in their primitive simplicity. Compare Gen 24:67; Jud 17:2; 1Kg 2:19, and the affecting scenes between Thetis and Achilles in the Iliad.” — Alexander.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
DIVINE CONSOLATION
Isa. 66:13. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, &c.
I. THE CONSOLATION PROMISED.
1. Divine in its origin.
2. Rational in its natureintelligent, consistent with reason, as well as according to faith.
3. Free in its bestowment.
4. Select in its subjects.
II. THE MANNER IN WHICH CONSOLATION IS AFFORDED. Not as a stranger, friend, &c. None comforts as a mother
1. The affection of a mother is warm.
2. The care of a mother is indulgent.
3. The attention of a mother is prompt.
4. The condescension and self-denial of a mother is great.
5. The assiduity of a mother is unwearied. All this instructs us in the Lords tenderness and patience towards His children.
III. THE MEANS BY WHICH CONSOLATION IS ENJOYED. In Jerusalem. This teaches
1. The importance of separation from an ensnaring world.
2. The propriety of regular attendance on religious worship.
3. The duty of church membership.
4. The worth of a right spirit in attending Christian ordinances.
But the language of comfort must not be addressed to all (Isa. 48:22; Isa. 57:12).J. Kidd, Fifty-three Sermons, pp. 296302.
Isa. 66:13-14. Divine Comfort. I. The people of God often stand in urgent need of comfort (pp. 14, 406). II. The source of the most endearing and efficient comfort is God Himself (see other outline on this passage; also pp. 14, 407). III The Divine comfort is especially imparted in the sanctuary.
1. Appointed for His people to wait for and receive comfort.
2. The faithful discharge of sanctuary duties yield comfort.
3. The sanctuary is the place where Gods comforting presence is specially manifested. The Holy Ghost the Comforter. IV. The bestowment of Divine comfort inspires them with grateful and exultant joy (pp. 407). Conclusion.
1. Do you belong to the privileged community God Himself shall comfort? Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.
2. The duty and privilege of Gods people to seek Divine comfort amid all their trials.
3. Those who are Divinely comforted should seek to lead others to the same source of consolation (p. 407).Alfred Tucker.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(13) One whom his mother comforteth . . .The image of maternal love, with which the prophets mind is full, is presented in yet another aspect. The love which Zion gives, the love which her children receive from the nations, are both but shadows of the infinite tenderness of Jehovah. In this instance the object of the mothers love that comforts is not the child at the breast, but the full-grown man, returning, like the prodigal, to his home after long years of exile. The words are characteristic at once of the special tie which unites the son to the mother, almost more than to the father, in most Eastern nations, and, perhaps also, of the prophets personal memories of his own mothers love.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13, 14. As one whom his mother comforteth See note on chapter Isa 49:15, where a similar image occurs.
In Jerusalem As the spiritual nourisher, consolation shall come to you.
When ye see this This great accession from among Gentiles.
Your heart shall rejoice Not Gentiles, but the ever-faithful, true Israelite is addressed. In all of Zion’s troubles hitherto he had mourned with much sorrow for her. Now that God favours Zion again, and comforts her, he rejoices, he exults.
Your bones shall flourish This singular image is one indicating that the whole bodily frame becomes invigorated. Strength is infused into it. This physical effect arises from the spirit being exultant over God’s power in exercise for good to Zion’s children, for evil to Zion’s enemies.
The hand of the Lord The Lord’s power: this shall protect them, and shall punish their enemies.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 66:13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Ver. 13. And as one whom his mother comforteth. ] Her darling and dandling, especially when she perceiveth it to make a lip and to be displeased: mothers also are very kind to, and careful of, their children when they are grown to be men: a as Monica was to Augustine, and as Matres Hollandicae, the mothers in Holland, of whom it is reported, Quod prae aliis matribus mire filios suos etiam grandaevos ament, ideoque eos vocant et tractant ut pueros. See Isa 46:4 . See Trapp on “ Isa 46:6 “
a A. Lapide in Isa 54:13 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
one = a man. Hebrew. ‘ish. App-14.
in Jerusalem. Not in the Church. Compare Isa 1:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
one: Isa 51:3, 1Th 2:7
ye shall: Isa 66:10, Isa 65:18, Isa 65:19, Psa 137:6
Reciprocal: 1Ki 8:66 – joyful 2Ki 4:20 – his mother 2Ki 6:29 – she hath hid Psa 86:4 – Rejoice Isa 12:1 – though Isa 49:13 – the Lord Isa 49:18 – all these Isa 51:12 – am he Zec 1:17 – the Lord shall Act 8:39 – and he 2Co 1:4 – comforteth 2Th 2:17 – Comfort
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
God would comfort Israel-as a mother comforts her child-by tenderly showering Jerusalem with blessing.
"Isaiah changes the figure. Not only as children sucking the mother’s breast does God comfort His people, but also as a mother comforts her grown son." [Note: Ibid., 3:527.]