"HILL MIZAR?" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small
mountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the
experiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have
travelled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted
perchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his
prowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively
interest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero
have loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave
him the earnest of more momentous triumphs?
Or, to make one other surmise, may it more likely refer to "_the
little hill_" he most loved,--the home of his thoughts, the earthly
centre of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the
whole earth--"_Mount Zion_, on the sides of the north, the city of the
great King?"[60] We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as "a
_little hill_." In one of the sublimest of all his Psalms, he
represents the other loftier mountains of Palestine,--Bashan with its
forests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its
cedar-clad summits,--as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid
the wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary:
"_Why look ye with envy, ye high hills? this is the hill where God
desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever._"[61]
Is the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season
of sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold
experiences of God's faithfulness associated with _Zion_,--its
tabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes--his own palace, that
crowned its rocky heights, where his harp was oft attuned and his
psalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him rising and
giving "thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?" In the mind
of the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not "glorious things" have been
thought as well as "spoken of thee, O city of God?"
[60] Psalm xlviii. 2.
[61] Psalm lxviii. 16.
But, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special
locality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken
from the sheepfolds till now, was crowded with Mizars--hill-tops
gleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the wood of Ziph,
the forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag,[62] the caves of Adullam
and Engedi,--all would recall some special memorial of God's
delivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy vouchsafed
in the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had
promised to "David His servant," "My faithfulness and my mercy shall
be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted."[63] "Thou who
_hast_ delivered my soul from death, wilt not thou deliver my feet
from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the
living?"[64]
[62] 1 Sam. xxx. 6.
[63] Psalm lxxxix. 24.
[64] Psalm lvi. 13.
The saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these
memorable spots and experiences in their past pilgrimage. _Abraham_
had _his_ "hill Mizar" between Bethel and Hai. "_There,_" we read,
"_he builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord._"[65] On
his return from Egypt he retraced his steps to the _same_ locality.
Why? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former
experiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that "he
went on his journeys from the south _even to Bethel_, unto the place
where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;
_unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first_:
and THERE he called on the name of the Lord."[66]
_Jacob's_ "Mizar" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where
the fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the
voice of a reconciled God. _Moses_ would think of _his_ "Mizar" either
in connexion with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the
Mount of Prayer at Rephidim. _Isaiah's_ "Mizar" would be the vision of
the Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in
God restored. _Jeremiah_ tells us specially of _his_--some memorable
spot where he had a peculiar manifestation of God's presence and
grace. "_The Lord hath appeared of_ OLD _unto me, saying, Yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness
have I drawn thee._"[67]
[65] Gen. xii. 8.
[66] Gen. xiii. 1-4.
[67] Jer. xxxi. 3.
Or shall we look to the New Testament? The _Roman Centurion_ would
remember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled
Omnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. The _Magdalene_ would
remember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the
feet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. The _Maniac of
Gadara_ would recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the
demon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the
feet of the Great Restorer. The _Woman of Samaria_ would remember as
hers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the
earthly to the eternal fountain. _Peter_ would remember as his, the
early morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. The
_Sisters of Lazarus_, go where they might, would recall as their
hallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard of _Bethany_. _Paul
of Tarsus_ would ever remember as his, the burning plain near
Damascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him
helpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness
changed the persecutor into a believer--the lion into a lamb. _John_,
the beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment,
or with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at
Ephesus--John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed "_Mizar_"
of all, the gentle bosom on which he leant at supper!
And who among us have not their "Mizars" still? It has often been said
that, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that
volume which all God's people carry about with them--the volume of
their own experience.
_That_ is my earliest and fondest "Mizar," says one, the mother's knee
where I first lisped my Saviour's name, and heard of His love. Mine,
says another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's
messenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to
come; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace
brought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed
of sickness on which I awoke from the long life-dream of
indifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which
belong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber--that closet
of devotion--(alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and
associated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold
tokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation,
says another, is the "Mizar" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is
raised;--when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's
hand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That awful
bereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections
by the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which
no creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode
nothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent
to open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine,
says another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope
in the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven
playing upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, "Come
up hither!"
It is well for all of us, and especially in our seasons of depression
and sorrow, thus to retraverse life, and let our eyes fall on these
Mizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression,
when apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question
our own personal interest in the covenant;--when tempted to say with
Gideon, "If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?"--how
encouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on
former instances and memorials of Jehovah's favour, when we had the
assured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these
Mizar-hills on which He "appeared of old to us," disappointing our
fears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes,--to remember, for
our comfort, that having "loved us at the beginning," He will love us
"even to the end!" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His
mercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and
precious token and pledge, that, "though for a small moment He may
have forsaken us," yet that "with great mercy He will gather us," and
that "with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us."[68]
[68] Isa. liv. 8.
Why not thus seek, in the noblest sense of the word, to rise above
our trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side
of things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a
dreary prospect,--lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills,
pathways overgrown with rank and noxious weeds. The other opens on
what is bright and beauteous,--sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious
flowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the
former--gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows,
brooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and
Horeb--the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with
a truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the
breaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat
themselves at the bright lattice, saying, "_Rejoice in the Lord alway,
and again I say, rejoice._" Both look on identically the same
landscape. But the one descry only dull heaths and moors draped in
sombre hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze
on nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold
the bow of heaven arching the sky, and the rain-drops glittering like
jewels on leaf, and grass, and flower. The one can descry only "Hill
Difficulties" and "Doubting Castles." The others love to gaze on
Hermons and Mizars, on "the Palace of the Beautiful,"--the land of
Beulah;--and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the
Celestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may
have been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more
manifold still;--that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright
spots outnumber the dreary.
Are any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and
perplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you--are you
in darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith to _Him_.
Seasons of trial must either bring us nearer _to_ Him, or drive us
further _from_ Him. It is an old saying, "Affliction never leaves us
as it finds us." It either leads us to "_remember_ God," or to banish
and _forget_ Him. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who,
when Providence seems to frown,--when their hearts are smitten like
grass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered,--are
led, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "My soul is cast down
within me. _therefore_, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I
will rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is
greater than I can bear;--all that made life happiness to me has
perished;--THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry,
even unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die--my only
rest will be the quiet of the grave!"
Sorrowing one! be yours a nobler philosophy. Look back from these
valleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder
distant _Mizar hills_! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of
unmistakeable covenant love. "Call to remembrance your song" in former
nights. Wounded Hart! on the hills of Gilead, forget not thy former
pastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in thine eyes,
bathe thy panting sides in the cooling "water-brooks." When the
disturbers of thy peace have gone, and when hushed again is thy forest
home, return to "_the mountain of myrrh and the hill of
frankincense_." Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat
thyself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying
mountain height on mountain height, in the land of covenant
promise,--each associated with some hallowed memory,--take down thy
harp, and sing one of thine own songs of Zion. "_Thou who hast shewed
me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me
up again from the depths of the earth!_"[69]
[69] Psalm lxxi. 20.
IX.
The Climax.
"God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"
"There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in the
flesh."--_Winslow._
"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his
loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be
with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."--_Verses 7, 8._
IX.
THE CLIMAX.
The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height.
In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief
that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of
the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse
was momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew
darkened--rain-clouds sweep the horizon--"_Deep calleth unto deep at
the noise of thy water-spouts._" Amid the environing floods he
exclaims, "_All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!_"
The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has
reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of
Lebanon and Hermon;--that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at
his feet--Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids--the faithful
picture of the deep-worn channels in his own spirit--fretted and
furrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.
But the word rendered "_deep_," is, in the original Hebrew, more
applicable to the floods of the _ocean_ than to the rapids of a river;
and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70]
Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They
lift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to
the assault. "Let us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the
spirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the
fountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's
confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye
angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye
forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy
scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every
wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect
his discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!"
[70] From the uplands where he now was, in the recesses between
the mountains of Gilead, David could catch here and there a
glimpse of the "Great Sea."
They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with
fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on
temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward
calamities--inward troubles; his subjects in revolt--his friends
treacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection;
he himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were
now exacting terrible retribution;--and worse than all temporal
calamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as
if it could go no further--"ALL _thy waves and thy billows have gone
over me!_"
We believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people
corresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few
there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in
their natural and spiritual being,--some solemn and critical
crisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and
peculiar trials;--encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of
Sinai--the trumpet sounding long and loud:--or, to revert to the
simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away,
and they have been left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean.
Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of
trials,--sickness--bereavement--loss of worldly substance--estrangement
of friends--blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and
worse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around
prospering,--vice apparently pampered,--virtue apparently trodden
under foot,--many passing through life without an ache or trial--their
homes unrifled--their hearts unwounded--their every plan
prospering--fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; while _we_ seem
to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,--tempted with
Jeremiah to say, "_I am_ THE _man who have seen affliction by the rod
of His wrath_."[71] And doubting a God of _providence_, the next step
is to doubt a God of _grace_. We begin to question our interest in the
covenant,--to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been
a delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He
seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in
prayer--no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed
book;--the heavens have become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so
long as we had merely _external_ trials, we could brave and buffet the
surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow
in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the
blackest sky;--yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of
the preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have the _cloud_ without
the _bow_,--when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and
trouble,--when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being who
_could_ befriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,--when we
have neither this world nor the next to comfort us--smitten hopes for
time and despairing hopes for eternity!--this is the woe of woes--the
"horror of great darkness,"--"_deep calleth unto deep_." We can say,
with a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "_I_ AM
_bereaved_!"
[71] Lam. iii. 1.
The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point
of his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:--either
to suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict,
and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his
spiritual resources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.
It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:--when
the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and
footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "_And about the fourth
watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea._"
"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all
his troubles!"[72]
[72] Psalm xxxiv. 6.
And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost
waves? It is _discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his
afflictions_! He speaks of "_Thy_ waves and _Thy_ billows." These
floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "_The Lord
sitteth upon the water-floods._"[73] While, in one sense, it
aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements--the
expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin--yet how unspeakable the
consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence.
"_The floods_," he can say, "_have lifted up, the floods have lifted
up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is
mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves
of the sea._"[74] "_O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto
thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise,
thou stillest them._"[75]
[73] Psalm xxix. 10.
[74] Psalm xciii. 3, 4.
[75] Psalm lxxxix. 8, 9.
But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance
of God's returning favour;--that behind these troubled elements there
was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the
lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of
faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows.
Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The
sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse,
or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these
being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the
murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or
clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the
sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its
head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It
keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the
clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed
in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the
countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining
flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of
unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He
knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll
of the billows--the moaning of the blast--he listens to celestial
music. Its key-note is "_the loving-kindness_" of his _God_. While the
heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of
faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:--"_Yet the Lord will
command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song
shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!_"
"YET _the Lord_!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season
of trouble, has always _this_ alternative word--"YET _the Lord will_!"
I am sunk in sore trial--"_Yet_ the Lord" will be faithful to His
promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me--"_Yet_
the Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter! I
have been laid for long years on this couch of suffering--"_Yet_ the
Lord" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of
heaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual
temptations--"_Yet_ the Lord" will not suffer these temptations to go
further than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark
valley--"_Yet_" will "I fear no evil, for _Thou_ art with me!"
The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no
meagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and
affected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and
prosperous,--amid a happy home and kind friends,--in the midst of
robust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is
full of elasticity. The joy _without_, imparts an _inner_ sunshine. A
man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is
plunged into a vortex of trouble,--if clouds gather and thicken
around,--the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it
peoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very
remaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the
predominating sadness! It could as little be expected, on natural
principles, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and
rejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow
and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great
fountain of light.
But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles.
It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his
God had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected
them;--"_They looked unto_ HIM _and were lightened_"[76] [literally,
"their countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same
loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant
faithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in
the spray of the cataract! "_Who is among you that feareth the Lord,
that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and
hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon
his God._"[77]
[76] Psalm xxxiv. 5.
[77] Isaiah l. 10.