Visions of the King.
The Targum reads, "Thine eyes shall see the Shechinah of the King of ages." The idea of the prophet probably is, that the good man shall see, with his soul-eyes, God himself delivering and rescuing the city from its threatening foes. The good man never can be content with agencies and instrumentalities and second causes, lie must recognize the living God, working his work of grace by means of them. He cannot be content unless he can "see the King in his beauty"—the beauty of his redemptive workings. Some see a reference to Hezekiah, clothed with an ideal beauty, the evidence of God's extraordinary favor. But however we may begin with that, it is but a step to the much more satisfying thing, the spiritual vision of God. "Can God be seen? and if so, how? What is the true vision of God? Is it possible to men? By what means can we realize it? It is a question as old as humanity. In a thousand ways of formal interrogation, or unconscious yearning, we are ever putting it. In a thousand ways of ignorance, superstition, or intelligence, we are ever trying to answer it." We may dwell on—
I. THE EYES THAT SEE. Strangely imprisoned by their bodily senses, which are their sole mediums of communication with the world of material things, men overvalue the knowledge which the senses can bring them, and under-value those more real and more important worlds which are revealed only to the eyes of the mind and of the soul. No bodily vision of God can ever be given to dependent creatures; meeting our sense-conditions, Jesus Christ, the Man, is, for us, the" Brightness of his glory, and the express Image of his person." But souls can have that near sense of God which can only be represented as a vision. Faith, love, purity, holy desire, patient waiting, are the conditions of soul-eyes to which God is revealed. Each of these suggests illustrations and practical applications.
II. THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN. Three things are indicated.
1. Soul-eyes see the King. They are quick to discern God's presence. They detect him everywhere and in everything. Life is serious, life is glorious, to them, because God is always "walking in the garden," always close by.
2. Soul-eyes are keen to detect his beauty or his graciousness; especially as seen in the tenderness and care of his watchings, defendings, and deliverings. Soul-eyes are long-visioned, and can see the future, which they know is in God's hands, and will surely prove to be the scene of God's triumph. Whatever men may think and say and feel about the present, this is certain—the future is with the good.—R.T.