'... Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy
holy habitation.'
EXODUS XV. 13.
What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children of
Israel singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of national
pride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feel
its grandeur. The deliverance has made the singer look forward to the
end, and his confidence in the issue is confirmed.
I. The guiding God: or the picture of the leading. The original is
'lead gently.' _Cf._ Isaiah xl. 11, Psalm xxiii. 2. The emblem of a
flock underlies the word. There is not only guidance, but gentle
guidance. The guidance was gentle, though accompanied with so
tremendous and heart-curdling a judgment. The drowned Egyptians were
strange examples of gentle leading. But God's redemptive acts are like
the guiding pillar of fire, in that they have a side that reveals wrath
and evokes terror, and a side that radiates lambent love and kindles
happy trust.
'In Thy strength.' _Cf._ Isaiah xl. 10, 'with strong hand.' 'He shall
gently lead.' Note the combination with gentleness. That divine
strength is the only power which is able to guide. We are so weak that
it takes all His might to hold us up. It is His strength, not ours. 'My
strength is made perfect in (thy) weakness.'
'To the resting-place of Thy holiness.' The word is used for pasture,
or resting-places for cattle. Here it meant Canaan; for us it means
Heaven--'the green pastures' of real participation in His holiness.
II. The triumphant confidence as to the future based upon the
deliverance of the past. _'Hast,'_ a past tense. It is as good as done.
The believing use of God's great past, and initial mercy, to make us
sure of His future.
_(a)_ In that He will certainly accomplish it.
_(b)_ In that even now there is a foretaste--rest in toil. He guides to
the 'waters of resting.' A rest now (Heb. iv. 3); a rest 'that
remaineth' (Heb. iv. 3, 9).
III. The warning against confidence in self. These people who sang thus
perished in the wilderness! They let go hold of God's hand, so they
'sank like lead.' So He will fulfil begun work (Philippians i. 6). Let
us cleave to Him. In Hebrews iii. and iv. lessons are drawn from the
Israelites not 'entering in.' See also Psalm xcv.