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Prophets and Kings
state, that He might bring them to a good land, a land which in His
providence He had prepared for them as a refuge from their enemies.
He would bring them to Himself and encircle them in His everlasting
arms; and in return for His goodness and mercy they were to exalt His
name and make it glorious in the earth.
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“The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inher-
itance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling
wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the
apple of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her
wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god
with him.”
Deuteronomy 32:9-12
. Thus He brought the Israelites unto
Himself, that they might dwell as under the shadow of the Most High.
Miraculously preserved from the perils of the wilderness wandering,
they were finally established in the Land of Promise as a favored
nation.
By means of a parable, Isaiah has told with touching pathos the
story of Israel’s call and training to stand in the world as Jehovah’s
representatives, fruitful in every good work:
“Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching
His vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
and He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it
with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also
made a wine press therein: and He looked that it should bring forth
grapes.”
Isaiah 5:1, 2
.
Through the chosen nation, God had purposed to bring blessing to
all mankind. “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts,” the prophet declared,
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“is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant.”
Isaiah
5:7
.
To this people were committed the oracles of God. They were
hedged about by the precepts of His law, the everlasting principles
of truth, justice, and purity. Obedience to these principles was to be
their protection, for it would save them from destroying themselves by
sinful practices. And as the tower in the vineyard, God placed in the
midst of the land His holy temple.
Christ was their instructor. As He had been with them in the wilder-
ness, so He was still to be their teacher and guide. In the tabernacle
and the temple His glory dwelt in the holy Shekinah above the mercy