RIVERS OF WATERS
Isaiah 30:25-26. And there shall be upon every high mountain, &c.
These are symbols of the blessings God will confer upon His people when He returns to them in mercy. These are vivid presentations of two characteristics of these blessings, their copiousness and their universality.
1. To express their COPIOUSNESS the prophet speaks not of streams merely, but of rivers; “rivers and streams of water;” and declares that they shall be poured forth, not merely as the light from the sun, but as if the light of seven days were concentrated in one [1138]
2. To express at once their copiousness and their UNIVERSALITY, He declares that the rivers and streams shall run on the hills and mountains, yea, upon every hill and mountain [1141] The idea of universality is involved also in the figure of sunlight [1144]
[1138] We can conceive of nothing more bright, pervading, and universal than the light of the sun. At its rising the whole face of nature is displayed, every object in brought out to view; the grandest or loveliest features of the scene are presented to us in all their extent and magnificence, while the most delicate tints of the smallest flower are seen in all their softest shades and richest hues. Still this glorious object in its full splendour, the sun itself is too dim, too dull, too feeble to represent the grace and love of our God; it must be multiplied sevenfold. And even then it but indistinctly shadows forth the unspeakable mercy of the everlasting God.—Packer.
[1141] “Rivers and streams of waters.” But where is their current? Upon every high mountain and upon every high hill. Now, there can be no rivers and streams on the summit of the mountain range, nor upon the high hill-top. Rivers and streams are fed from these lofty elevations; they take their rise amid these towering heights, but they do not find a channel there. Thus you see that to typify the effluence of the Holy Spirit, these flowing waters of the text are described as being in unusual localities, to intimate that the blessings will be in such abundance and profusion as to outrun expectation and surpass all experience. And this not in some highly favoured regions only, but the blessing shall be universal, even upon every high mountain and upon every high hill.—Packer.
[1144] This, like the air, cannot be excluded; it penetrates the gloomiest caverns, can enter even through a cranny. So there is no soul out of reach of the all-pervading Spirit. Those that are inaccessible to man can be reached, and enriched, and blessed by the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost.—Packer.
Have these promises been fulfilled? Yes.
1. When the Gospel was given to the world. Its messengers were sent forth into every land, and it is a small thing to say that the light it gave was sevenfold that which the most enlightened of the heathen had possessed.
2. In the experience of every believing soul. The Gospel reaches many who seem utterly beyond any saving influence; and when it does really reach a man, is received into his heart. It gives him a light of more than sevenfold brightness and value as compared with the best of the lights he before possessed—reason and conscience [1147]
3. It is fulfilled in our own day in the wide diffusion of the Gospel and the remarkable increase of religious knowledge. God’s Word is being carried into every land, and the children in our daily and Sabbath schools have a fuller acquaintance with Scripture than many men and women of the last generation. There is to be a yet more complete fulfilment of these promises in that glorious era of which we speak as the Millennium [1150]
[1147] When we attempt to compare the boasted light of natural reason with the light which the Spirit alone can impart, it is not simply that the former is as the light of the moon, and the latter as the light of the sun; but the one is as Egyptian darkness, and the other as the splendour of the meridian sun, without even one small fleecy cloud intervening. Jesus Christ is the light of life (2 Corinthians 4:6). All that we can know of God, of His attributes and perfections, of His plans and purposes, He has revealed unto us by His Son. To those who are in Christ all is light, and harmony, and peace; to those who are without Christ all is gloom, and confusion, and terror. By faith in Him we see that all God’s dealings wear an aspect of mercy, love, and wisdom. Corrections are inflicted for our profit; disappointments are sent to wean us from the unsatisfying, perishing things of time and sense. Surely, in this respect, the promise in the text is made good to the believer; he enjoys sevenfold light in his soul compared to that which he had in the days when he knew not the true God and Jesus Christ, whom He had sent.—Packer.
[1150] But these mercies will be preceded by the convulsions of the moral earthquake. The very terms in which the promise is couched convey the idea of trial and suffering. There is a breach which the Lord binds up, and there is the stroke of a wound to he healed, implying previous violence.—Packer.
It rests with ourselves to determine whether the fulfilment of these promises shall be to us a blessing [1153]John Packer: Warnings and Consolations. pp. 256–271.
[1153] What shall the universality and copiousness of the “rivers and streams of water” profit us, if we will not drink of them? In the natural world a man would be nothing benefited, though the light of the sun was augmented sevenfold, if he studiously closed and sealed every opening by which it entered his dwelling, or if he placed an impervious bandage tightly over his eyes whenever he went abroad (John 12:36).—Packer.
[See also Outlines, RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE, Isaiah 32:2, and ENRICHING RIVERS, Isaiah 33:21.]