It is not necessary to touch upon the difference between the text and
margin of the Revised Version, or to enter on the reason for preferring
the former. And what a deep and wonderful thought that is, of divine
sympathy with human sorrow! We feel that this transcends the prevalent
tone of the Old Testament. It is made the more striking by reason of
the other sides of the divine nature which the Old Testament gives so
strongly; as, for instance, the unapproachable elevation and absolute
sovereignty of God, and the retributive righteousness of God.
Affliction is His chastisement, and is ever righteously inflicted. But
here is something more, tender and strange. Sympathy is a necessary
part of love. There is no true affection which does not put itself in
the place and share the sorrows of its objects. And His sympathy is
none the less because He inflicts the sorrow. These afflictions wherein
He too was afflicted, were sent by Him. Like an earthly father who
suffers more than the child whom he chastises, the Heavenly Father
feels the strokes that He inflicts.
That sympathy is consistent with the blessedness of God. Even in the
pain of our human sympathy there is a kind of joy, and we may be sure
that in His nature there is nothing else.
Contrast with other thoughts about God.
The vague agnosticism of the present day, which knows only a dim
Something of which we can predicate nothing.
The God of the philosophers--whom we are bidden to think of as
passionless and unemotional. No wave of feeling ever ripples that
tideless sea. The attribute of infinitude or sovereign completeness is
dwelt on with such emphasis as to obscure all the rest.
The gods of men's own creation are careless in their happiness, and
cruel in their vengeance. But here is a God for all the weary and the
sorrowful. What a thought for us in our own burdened days!