Isa 1:18: What of the Night?
The burden of Dumah. One calleth unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said: The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: turn ye, come.'97Isa_21:11-12.
I
The Oracle of Dumah
1. The Situation
1. '93Abrupt in form, enigmatical in meaning, this oracle has nevertheless a certain grandeur and sublimity even for those to whom its sense is obscure.'94 So says Samuel Cox, introducing one of the best sermons ever preached upon it. And he proceeds to recall Mendelssohn's use of the oracle: '93He who has heard Mendelssohn's '91Hymn of Praise' has at least one proof of its power to excite the imagination and rouse emotion. In that fine work of art, the tenor soloist demands, in sharp, ascending minors, '91Watchman, will the night soon pass?' and replies, '91Though the morning come, the night will come also.' The demand is thrice repeated in the same sequence of notes, but each time it is raised a whole tone in the scale, to denote the growing intensity and urgency of the inquirer; thrice the answer is given in the same sequence, but for the sake of added emphasis it also is raised a tone the second time; while in reply to the third repetition of the inquirer, the soprano breaks in with the joyful proclamation, '91The night is departing,' and the chorus take up and swell and prolong the glad news. As we listen, we feel that the music, splendid as it is in itself, owes no little of its sublimity to the splendid dramatic force of the words to which it is set.'941 [Note: S. Cox, An Expositor's Note Book, p. 201.]
2. The key to the passage is to be found in its historical circumstances. The period was that of the Assyrian oppression, an oppression which not only harassed and depeopled Judah, but affected the nations around. Sharing in their neighbour's sin, these nations shared in their neighbour's punishment, and, like the primary sufferer, were downcast and desponding, asking wearily and anxiously, '93How long?'94 One by one they present themselves to the prophet's vision'97Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Ethiopia, Egypt, Arabia; and now he is speaking of Edom, or, as it is here called, '93Dumah,'94 Judah's nearest neighbour as well as its oldest and most inveterate foe. '93The burden of Dumah,'94 he says, '93What I have to say concerning its present state, what I have to say concerning its future destiny.'94
3. The prophet is standing in vision on the border. He has planted himself on the ridge between Judah and Edom'97night to right of him, night to left of him; night on the dwellings of Judah, night on the dwellings of Edom, Judah's ancient foe; the same pall of darkness hangs low over both. And as he waits, the stillness is broken by a solitary cry. It is the voice of some unseen inquirer'97not, you observe, in Judah, but in Edom. '93Watchman, what of the night?'94 he says. '93Is it nearly over? Are there any streaks of light yet? Do you see the morning star?'94 And the watchman answers cautiously. He does not commit himself. '93I will tell you this much,'94 he says, '93The morning cometh, and also the night.'94
Among the many offices that have become obsolete, during the advance of modern civilisation, may be counted that of the watchman. In ancient times, however, the office was considered absolutely necessary for the maintenance of order and safety in towns and cities. It was the watchman's duty to patrol the streets during the night, to prevent thieves and vagabonds prowling about in the dark. It was his duty to sound the alarm in case of imminent danger. It was his duty to announce the hour, and state the various changes in the weather. Those who listened to his firm, steady, regular step, as he passed their doors, felt a sense of security, and cast themselves with confidence into the arms of sleep. At the entrance of the cities, towers were not infrequently erected, and these were called '93watch-towers,'94 in which watchmen were regularly posted, whose eyes ever swept the distant horizon, to see if anybody was coming, of whom it was necessary to give information.1 [Note: D. Rowlands, in The Cross and the Dice-Box, p. 217.]
2. The Question
1. The question to the watchman, '93What of the night?'94 means, What part of the night is it now? Is it the first, the second, or the third watch? Will the light soon dawn? The A.V. translation, says Dr. G. A. Smith,1 [Note: The Book of Isaiah, p. 276.] though picturesque, is misleading. The voice does not inquire, '93What of the night?'94 i.e. whether it be fair or foul weather, but '93How much of the night is passed?'94 literally '93What from off the night?'94 This brings out a pathos that our English version has disguised. Edom feels that her night is lasting terribly long.
2. It is worth while to point out'97for the quality of poetry depends on such minute touches of art'97that the sentinel not only repeats his question, but repeats it in an abbreviated form. '93Watchman, how far is it in the night? Watchman, how far in the night?'94 expresses in English the Hebrew abbreviation, though in the Hebrew it is much more telling. And both the repetition of the question and the more brief and winged form of the question on the second utterance of it indicate the extreme urgency of the inquiry, the extreme haste and impatience of the inquirer.
3. The word Dumah means '93silence,'94 '93the land of silent desolation.'94 It is a very suggestive thought. Sin is the great silencer. The end of sin is silence. Assuredly that was true in the case of Edom. It was true of it at the time when the prophet spoke, it was to be true of it still more completely in the ages to follow. Travellers tell us that if we want to know how Providence can turn a fruitful land into barrenness, and make a defenced city a heap, for the iniquity of the inhabitants thereof, we have only to look at Edom, with its hills and plains picked clean of every vestige of vegetation, and its ruined palaces, once the home of busy men, now the haunt of vultures and toe lair of scorpions, all human sound gone'97the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride!
4. Of course we are not to take Isaiah's words literally. No voice, no sound, could reach from Mount Seir to Mount Zion. Nor are we to suppose that the Edomites dispatched an embassy to the prophet at Jerusalem to inquire of him concerning the future fate of Edom. Isaiah was a poet, and describes in a dramatic form the thoughts and questions which rose in his soul as he looked through the ages, and the shadows of coming events passed before him. He had already seen that the Babylonians would conquer Jerusalem; and that they, in their turn, would be conquered by the Persians. But when the Babylonians came against Jerusalem, the Edomites would join them in despoiling the city and slaying its inhabitants. If the Babylonians were to be judged for their sin against Israel and the God of Israel, were the Edomites, who had shared their sin, to escape their judgment?
3. The Answer
The answer is not clear to us now. Perhaps we do not know all the circumstances quite intimately enough. Perhaps it is purposely made enigmatical, as was often the case with an oracle. Perhaps the answer was not clear to the prophet himself. Cox thinks that the prophet, dismissing the Edomite inquirer with a prediction so gloomy, felt some compunction. He cannot see beyond the night; yet the night may have a morning beyond it. Let the inquirer return, therefore, and repeat his inquiries. The prophet hopes he will. He reiterates the invitation. He makes it more warm and urgent. '93If ye will inquire, ye may,'94 turns into the entreaty '93return, come again.'94 Davies understands that the Edomite was answered with the promise of alternations of dawning day and darkening night. The Assyrians, Persians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Romans, Muhammadans would in turn oppress them, and between each oppression there would be but a ray of hope. Perhaps the brightest dawn to them would be the ascendancy of the Herods; but even that would so soon culminate in a darker night.
II
Its Modern Use
i. The Heart's Cry to God
It is the cry of the human heart to God. How often do the heavens seem pitiless, and send no answer to our impassioned appeal, but '93Morning cometh, and also night.'94 However sad we are, however racked with suspense, though we have lost the friends we most loved, or apprehend the ill we most fear, the sun shines on, the birds sing, our friends eat and drink and are merry, we have to do our work, to take our food, to talk and smile, to listen to condolences, to endure remonstrance, to go through the whole daily round as though nothing had happened to us. And when the day is over, the night comes, and we have to lie down on a couch which has no rest for us, to drag through the slow weary hours, and long for the morning. At such times, in such moods, our life grows very dark to us. Nature seems to have no sympathy with us; friends and neighbours cannot even understand what our grief is like; our duties are burdensome to us, pleasure even more burdensome than duty. The strain is heavier than we can endure; it seems impossible that we should struggle on long under a burden so heavy. And yet the future holds out no hope to us but death. A few faint, watery gleams of brightness, and then the great darkness will rush down upon us, the night that has no end.
Apart from such special eclipses, times when the darkness thickens, there is the universal and permanent shadow that broods over all, the shadow of this enigmatic and mysterious life. I mean the shadow to which the poet refers when he writes'97
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
I mean the shadow of which a great Christian thinker spoke when, after a conversation with a friend on the deepest problems of life and death, he wound up the interview with the words: '93Ah! think now of the great God looking down on our babblings in the dark!'94 We are compassed with mystery. The sky is heavy with it, the heart is oppressed with it. Life has its mysteries. Truth has its mysteries.1 [Note: W. A. Gray.]
ii. The World's Cry to the Church
It is the cry of the world to the Church. The voice comes from Seir. It comes from the men and women of the world. It is addressed to God's watchman on Mount Zion. It is the cry of the world to the Church of God. Notice first the great variety there is in the manner of the cry, and then the fact of it.
1. The manner of it.
(1) Sometimes it is no more than a question of utter carelessness. There are those who haunt our churches from the indolence of habit, who smilingly confess themselves '93sinners'94 without once remembering the tremendous import of the words they employ; who echo the thrilling penitence of our liturgy in the same tone that inquires the news of the day; who are Christians because their fathers were, and would, without a murmur, be heathens for the same reason.
(2) Sometimes it is the question of the merely curious. Most Christian teachers are familiar with a class of inquirers who, without much sympathy with evangelical verities, sometimes without much attention to moral demands, are greatly taken up with speculative difficulties. They want the mist cleared away from this point, they want the uncertainty banished from that. The consistency of God's sovereignty with man's responsibility, the nature and occupation of the unseen world, the destiny of the heathen, the fulfilment of prophecy, the order of the last things'97that whole class of interesting but not always practical subjects on which a veil of uncertainty hangs, attracts them much. And they turn in curiosity to the Church, with their appeals to the Church's wisdom, their demands for the Church's opinion.
(3) Sometimes the question is ironical, or even contemptuous. '93How goes the task with you?'94 says the world. '93With all your money and with all your machinery, what have you to show? How many converted heathens? How many converted Jews? What reduction is there in the statistics of immorality? What increase in church attendance among the working classes? Watchman, what of the night?'94
(4) But sometimes it is earnest. Not in any light or trifling spirit, but with a deep sense of perplexity, and an honest desire for help, men turn inquiringly to the Church'97at times even in anguish of heart. The agonies of remorse have seized their spirit. The night has come down upon them in exceeding great darkness. Conscience suggests retribution; they ask if revelation confirms it.
(5) And sometimes it is undefined and inarticulate, and then it is the saddest cry of all. This is the cry from Seir. The true translation is '93one calleth unto me out of Seir.'94 It is the utterance of a poor heartbroken weary community; one voice attempting to utter the need, the yearning, the longing of many hearts.
Mr. C. T. Studd once told me a cry of anguish which he heard in China, and which has haunted him ever since. He was negotiating in a Chinese dwelling for the tenancy of a building for an opium refuge. While the negotiations were in progress, he and Mrs. Studd were horrified at a series of piercing shrieks which fell upon their ears. They evidently came from a little girl, and knowing how dangerous it was to interfere in anyone else's business, they at first disregarded the cries, which were agonising in their character. At last they could bear it no longer, and determined, whatever the consequences, to find out whence the cries proceeded; they followed the sound until they found themselves in a room, where, forcibly held on a rude bed, was a little girl, from whose feet the cruel bandages used in the process of foot-binding were being stripped. One woman held her down by her little arms; another was tearing the bandages from the poor feet; while a third was beating the child with a heavy stick, to divert the pain to other parts of the body, and to punish the little one for her cries. Those cries were heard by a sympathetic man, but there are thousands which are heard only by a sympathetic God. How can we, who have children of our own, be indifferent to the wail of these little ones, into whose cries we may read the agonising question, '93Will the night never pass away?'941 [Note: J. Gregory Mantle.]
'93He who has seen the misery of man only,'94 Victor Hugo tells us, '93has seen nothing, he must see the misery of a woman; he who has seen the misery of a woman only, has seen nothing, he must see the misery of childhood.'94
2. The fact of it. Three things are to be observed here.
(1) When night hangs heavily on the Church, it hangs still more heavily on the world. The Assyrian oppression lay like a cloud on Judah, but in lying on Judah it projected a still heavier cloud upon Edom. We take Judah (as we are bound to do) as a type of the Kingdom of God, and we take Edom (as we are also bound to do) as a type of the kingdoms of sense and sin; and the lesson to be first noted is this, that whatsoever casts a gloom on the one casts the same gloom or a deeper gloom on the other. There never was a greater mistake than to suppose that, because Christianity is bound up with problems, the abandonment of belief is the abandonment of mystery, mystery will meet you still. Do you get rid of the mystery of human sin, or of human pain, or of human inequalities, or of human death, or of any one of those great and pressing perplexities that make existence a puzzle, our belief in the kindness and righteousness of Providence hard? No, you do not. But you get rid of the one fund of hope that can soften these mysteries, the one source of light that can brighten them.
(2) In the midst of this common night there is the significant fact that the world does turn to the Church. It is very suggestive that in the general pressure of the general gloom the Edomite is represented as appealing to the Jew'97a votary of the Jewish worship, a representative of the Jewish God. Was there none to consult nearer home? Where were the seers of Idum'e6a? No doubt there were seers in abundance, necromancers, astrologers, wizards that peeped and muttered. But it is not to these that the questioner turns. He looks away from them all to yonder lonely man on the serrated ridge, clad in camel-skin, now standing still, now pacing backwards and forwards, as he swept the cloud-hung horizon with his eye. It is from him the Edomite expects the oracle. It is on him he depends for the truth. '93Watchman,'94 he says, '93prophet of Israel's race, servant of Israel's God, what of the night?'94 Through all ages the principle is the same. Ever, in the midst of the cloud that surrounds us all, the world puts its questions to the Church. It puts them to the Church's representatives, puts them to the Church's ministers. We have no more significant testimony to the place which God gives to the witnesses of religion than the way, friendly or unfriendly as the case may be, in which those most removed from their habits and thoughts continually ask their opinion. They are the mark of perpetual notice. They are the subjects of unceasing examination. The question, '93Watchman, what of the night?'94 is raised in a variety of forms, comes through a variety of channels. But there it is, and those applied to must take account of it and face it.
(3) The Church must be ready with some answer. Has the Church an answer to give? It has. The Church is the watchman standing on the tower to look into and ascertain the nature of the world's night. That, when you come to examine it, gives us a very wide range, perhaps wider than we sometimes think. For what would we include in the night'97the world's night? First of all, unquestionably and fundamentally, the world's sin, the world's alienation from God, the world's wandering from holiness and purity and truth, the world's rejection of the Divine Spirit in its beneficent and soul-healing power. But that is the starting-point. By the world's night you must understand all its need, all its heart-breaking, all the problems that weary, harass, and perplex the brain of man, all the tears it is shedding, all the burdens it is bearing, all the sorrows it is enduring, all its chaos, all its discomfort, all its failure, all its darkness. That is the world's night; and the Christian Church has to do with all of it. And more than that, I say this, that it is the Christian Church, as I have defined it, and that alone, that is competent to understand the meaning of it, to look into the nature of it. And if a remedy is to be found for it at all, it must be found in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ; it must be found by the watchman that has been set upon the tower to note the progress of the night, and to declare the passing away of the darkness. It is only the spirit that rules the Church, or should rule it, that can see clearly into the night.
The Church has an answer, but it is not always ready to give it. The Church is sometimes taken aback by the world's moral or religious questions, because it does not appreciate the world's moral or religious difficulties.
Sad, were the question to go up from Edom, '93Watchman, what of the night?'94 and the answer to come back from Judah, '93 '91Night,' did you say? we are scarcely aware that there is a night!'94 With one class, that, then, is the reason of the absence of reply'97want of perception of the difficulty. And for another class, the reason may be that, while feeling the pressure of the difficulty, they have not obtained a solution for themselves. That is just as sad. Sad, were outsiders to appeal to us, doubting and looking to us for faith, ignorant and looking to us for knowledge, to find that the faith and knowledge they look for are absent'97never truly possessed, or if once in a fashion possessed, now well-nigh vanished. Sad, we say, were the question to arise from Edom, '93Watchman, what of the night?'94 and the answer from Judah to be this, '93The truth is, we are brothers in blindness; in spite of position, in spite of profession, we know as little as yourselves.'94
iii. The Answer of the Church
The answer of the Church is twofold
1. Throughout her history there have been both night and morning. There is a rhythm everywhere here on earth. Things vary and alternate. We have day and night, summer and winter; we sleep and we wake, we have youth and age, we live and die. Tides ebb and flow; moons wax and wane; the flowers have yearly their resurrection and their death. '93The morning cometh and also the night.'94
Nations rise and fall. Greece cultivates the garden, and Rome breaks down all her hedges; Rome builds walls, and the Goth scales them; patriots purchase liberty, and by and by the people throw their liberty away. And thus, in human history, the continual variation and alternation go on. '93The morning cometh and also the night.'94
The Church goes down into Egypt, and she is ransomed; again, she is bound with fetters and borne to Babylon. She has palmy days, and then days of adversity. She knows revival, and soon reaction and depression follow. Her Reformation grows to rationalism, her noblest Puritanism to prudishness and politics. The church of the parish falls cold and dead, and the chapels become the centres of spiritual light and life; anon the chapel is made the club-house of petty interests in the village, and life and work revive in the church. The dawn of civilisation seems to break on heathen Africa when the pioneer missionary touches its shore, and ere long civilisation casts darker shadows there than those of heathendom's midnight. So true it is that '93The morning cometh and also the night'94!
2. Yet the night is far spent and the day is at hand. Many forms of wrong, cruelty, and vice are impossible now which were possible and even common before the Son of God and Son of Man dwelt among us; nay, even before the Reformation carried through Europe a light by which such deeds of darkness were reproved. The individual man may stand little higher, whether in wisdom or in goodness, than of old; but the number of men capable of high thoughts, noble aims, and lives devoted to the service of truth and righteousness, is incomparably larger. The world took long to make, and may take still longer to remake; but its re-creation in the image of God is just as certain as its creation.
(1) We see the approach of the day in matters of faith. There never was a time in human history when men were so loyal to the landmarks of truth. There never was a time when the blessed Bible was entrenched in so many faithful hearts. True, there are controversies. God be praised! The worst that can ever befall the Christian Church is stagnation. The Kingdom of God is not likely to suffer from any investigation of its truth. To be sure, there are heretics and schismatics. They perish by the way and their work serves to strengthen the battlements of truth, as coral insects toiling in unknown depths leave their bones as a contribution to the continents of coming ages. The truth had never so many stalwart friends as it has this day.
(2) We see it in social and ethical life. Ideals are higher than ever. Character means more. The character of Jesus stands out more distinctly as the Exemplar of morals. His incomparable portrait is the touchstone of character. More is expected of men than ever before in human history. More is expected of kings, of politicians, of merchants, of the average man. Compare the dignitaries of our time with those of a few centuries ago: Queen Victoria with Elizabeth, the President of the French Republic with Louis the Grand, Gladstone with Machiavelli, President Harrison with our continental governors, the citizen, the country gentleman, the ordinary church-goer or the non-church-goer, with those of a hundred years ago. I say ideals are higher and men more eager in striving after them. There is more respect for common honesty, for chastity and temperance, for benevolence. Many of the vices that were common have disappeared from public view.
(3) And we see it in the coming of the Kingdom. It was but a hundred years ago that William Carey sat in his cobbler shop in Northamptonshire, his attention divided between the lapstone on his knee and a map of the world hanging on the wall. He said, '93There is gold to be mined in India. I will go down after it if you will hold the ropes.'94 He sailed for that pagan land a hundred years ago, went down into the mine, and souls have been responding to that deed of consecration, born out of Carey's travail, in countless multitudes'97gold minted in the heavenly treasury and stamped with the image and superscription of our King! Oh, friends, everything is going right. The nations of the earth are coming unto our God. '93Watchman, what of the night?'94 There is no night. The darkness is past and gone, the Sun of Righteousness hath risen with healing in His beams! Be glad and rejoice, O people of God; the sun shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day!1 [Note: D. J. Burrell.]
What of the Night?
Literature
Burrell (D. J.), Morning Cometh, 1.
Burrell (D. J.), Wayfarers of the Bible, 207.
Butler (A.), Sermons, ii. 339.
Campbell (J. M.), Bible Questions, 204.
Cox (S.), Expositions, iv. 336.
Cox (S.), Expositor's Notebook, 201.
Crosthwait (E. G. S.), Heavenward Steps, 7.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, 3rd Ser., 263.
Gray (W. A.), Laws and Landmarks of the Spiritual Life, 185.
Hunt (W. H.), Preachers from the Pew, 174.
Hutton (R. E.), The Crown of Christ, i. 19.
M'91Kim (R. H.), The Gospel in the Christian Year, 72.
Magee (W. C), Growth in Grace, 25.
Mantle (J. G.), God's To-morrow, 185.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, i. 385.
Robinson (S.), Discourses of Redemption, 380.
Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iv. 67.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xxiv. No. 1266; xxvi. No. 1308.
Wilmot Buxton (H. J.), Mission Sermons for a Year, 14.
The Cross and the Dice Box, 217 (D. Rowlands).
Sermons by American Rabbis, i. (D. Philipson).
Christian Age, xxxi. 356 (Talmage).
Christian World Pulpit, iii. 193 (Statham); vi. 213 (Currie); xiv. 152 (Robjohns); xxxv. 85 (Pearson); xlvii. 17 (Farrar); 133 (Landels); lxiv. 409 (Milne); lxvi. 40 (Campbell Morgan).
Church of England Pulpit, xxxi. 157 (Henrey); xxxix. 205 (Farrar).
Autor: JAMES HASTINGS