'Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the
Saviour.... I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth;
I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me in vain: I the Lord speak
righteousness, I declare things that are right.'--ISAIAH xlv, 15,19.
The former of these verses expresses the thoughts of the prophet in
contemplating the close of a great work of God's power which issues in
the heathen's coming to Israel and acknowledging God. He adores the
depth of the divine counsels which, by devious ways and after long
ages, have led to this bright result. And as he thinks of all the
long-stretching preparations, all the apparently hostile forces which
have been truly subsidiary, all the generations during which these
Egyptian and Ethiopian tribes have been the enemies and oppressors of
that Israel whom they at last acknowledge for the dwelling-place of
God, and enemies of that Jehovah before whom they finally bow down, he
feels that he has no measuring-line to fathom the divine purposes, and
bows his face to the ground in reverent contemplation with that word
upon his lips: 'Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of
Israel, the Saviour.' It is a parallel to the apostolic words, 'O the
depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.'
But such thoughts are but a half truth, and may very easily become in
men's minds a whole error, and therefore they are followed by a
marvellous section in which the Lord Himself speaks, and of which the
whole burden is--the clearness and fulness with which God makes Himself
known to men. True it is that there are depths inaccessible in the
divine nature. True it is that there are mysteries unrevealed in the
method of the divine procedure, and especially in that of the relation
of heathen tribes to His gospel and His love. True it is that there are
mysteries opened in the very word of His grace. But notwithstanding all
this--it is also true that He makes Himself known to us all, that He
declares righteousness, that He calls us to seek Him, and that He wills
to be found and known by us.
The collocation of these two passages may be taken, then, as
representing the two phases of the Divine Manifestation, the obscurity
which must ever be associated with all our finite knowledge of God, and
the clear sunlight in which blazes all that we need to know of Him.