Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 33

Verse 21

THE RIVERS OF GOD

‘But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.’

Isaiah 33:21

I. To see the force and beauty of this passage it is necessary to place it in its historic setting.—Jerusalem was exposed to the greatest possible peril. The king of Assyria was carrying out a plan of campaign which involved crumpling up Jerusalem and effacing it. As he had with him an army of 185,000 men, and the Jews were feeble folk, his purpose was apparently likely soon to become an accomplished fact. The military situation of the city was desperate.

The point of the text is that Jerusalem had not the advantage of the natural protection of a river. We read of the mountains that were round about Jerusalem, but there were no ‘broad rivers’ to protect it from its enemies. The prophet Nahum, speaking of populous No, that was ‘situate among the rivers,’ declares that her ‘rampart was the sea.’ If for more than eight centuries no invader has touched our shores, it is due under God to ‘our protecting seas.’ Hence Tennyson has voiced the sentiments of the nation in his familiar lines:—

God bless those narrow seas;

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.

But Jerusalem had not this advantage, and with an invincible enemy at the gates the want of such protection was painfully felt. The city was in truth in the deepest distress. The surrounding country was all under the heel of this powerful conqueror, and an enormous army was waiting for permission to loot the city. But if there was no river or moat round the city there was a prophet within it, and the hour of peril gave the seer his opportunity. Isaiah had often scathed the Jews for their national sins, but now he came to their relief. He heartened the dejected king and rallied the people as he rang in their ears the inspiriting words of the text: ‘But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.’

II. What our narrow seas which Tennyson blessed are to us, that would God be to the Jews in their time of need, and therefore they might boldly say in the presence of the enemy: ‘We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.’ The event proved that this was no idle boast on the part of Isaiah. It was neither pulpit rhetoric nor political bluff. ‘Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast a bank against it; by the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, and for My servant David’s sake.’

No sooner was it said than it was done. ‘That night the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and four score and five thousand; and when the Jews arose in the morning, behold, the Assyrians were all dead corpses.’

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved and for ever grew still.

It is a marvellous story, calculated to take one’s breath away. When King Philip lost his Invincible Armada on our shores, he explained his defeat not unreasonably by saying that he sent his ships to fight with men, and not to combat with the winds. King Sennacherib might have said with still more reason that he sent his forces to fight with the Jews, and not to combat with angels.