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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - The Deer and the Water-Brooks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 11 The Hill Mizar
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THE HILL MIZAR
"All scenes alike engaging prove
To souls impressed with sacred love!
Wherever they dwell, they dwell in Thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.
"To me remains no place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
"While place we seek, or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But, with a God to guide our way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.
"Could I be cast where You are not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot;
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all."—Cowper.
"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his Judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of that day and that hour in the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support unto him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears for perishing forever. They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of mercy and help—my great support from heaven, and the great grace that God extends to such a wretch as I."—John Bunyan.
"O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember you from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."—Verse 6.
In the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the unreasonableness of its depression—calling upon it to exercise hope and trust in God, under the assurance that he would "yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."
But "what will you see in the Shulamite?" Another experience testifies afresh, "As it were the company of two armies." (Song 6:13.) HOPE has no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The struggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back. His soul is again "cast down!" But one word—an old monosyllable of comfort—is borne on the ebbing billow, "O MY GOD!" This "strong swimmer in his agony" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the opposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very tribulations that are casting him down—threatening to submerge him—are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to value more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the darkest wave.
We have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the winds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung mute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean fretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating hearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous music. We read, in the previous verse, of the lighthouse of FAITH, built on the rock of HOPE. God has placed bells there. But it needs the storms of adversity to blow before they are heard. In the calm of uninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane arises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick darkness, they ring the note of heavenly confidence, "MY GOD, MY GOD!"
My God! What a heritage of comfort do these words contain—in all time of our tribulation—in all time of our wealth—in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who fills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portion and heritage of believers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and righteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and guardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious promise—"I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God." (Zech. 13:9.)
Moreover, He is the only possession which is theirs absolutely. All else they have, is in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time, their talents, their possessions, their friends, are only leased by them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But they can say unreservedly, "The Lord is my portion." "God, even our OWN God, shall bless us." Yes, and we are told, "God is not ashamed to be called THEIR GOD." (Heb. 11:16.) "The name of the Lord is thus "a strong tower: the righteous runs into it, and is safe." (Prov. 18:10.) That salvation purchased by Jesus—the amazing method by which every attribute of the Divine nature has been magnified, and every requirement of the Divine law has been met—is "for walls and bulwarks."
The believer not only can lay hold on higher blessings—"the good hope through grace," "glory, honor, immortality, eternal life"—but even with regard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and allotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are so regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests; and that "all things" (yes, "ALL things") are "working together for his good."
Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's lamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who gave His own Son for you, must have some wise reason in such discipline. Oh, confide all your perplexities, and this perplexity, into His hands, saying, "I am oppressed, YOU undertake for me!" Who can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that cheered a greater Sufferer at a more dreadful hour? The two most memorable spots in His midnight of agony—Gethsemane and Calvary, the Garden and the Cross—have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking through the darkness, "O MY FATHER!" "MY GOD, MY GOD!"
Let us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already noted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its depression by the exercise of HOPE—by looking beyond the shadows of the present to a brighter future. But the torch flickered and languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking to the future, he resolves to take a retrospective survey; he directs his eye to the past. As often at eventide, when the lower valleys are in shadow, the mountaintops are gilded with the radiance of the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now was, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He "lifts his eyes unto the HILLS, from where comes his help." "O my God, I will remember YOU!" "This is my infirmity," he seems to say, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness of his frames and feelings: "but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old." (Psalm 77:10, 11.) With this key he proceeds again to open the door of HOPE. And as he treads the valley of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth." (Hosea 2:15.)
In connection with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some well-known places in his Kingdom—"The land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar." What means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold interpretation.
1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond Jordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this peculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of Promise, making him for the time, "an alien from the commonwealth of Israel."
We know from a passage in Joshua (chap. 22.) how sacredly the division between the covenant people and the neighboring tribes was preserved. The latter were denominated a "possession unclean;" the former, "the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle is." How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart like that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief season) from all participation in national and sanctuary blessings—to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of angels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered the shadowing wings of Jehovah!
But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to lands or to sanctuaries. "I will remember You," says the banished monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region You have blest with Your favor, I will not cease still to call You and claim You as my God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Your mercy, even though it be from 'the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home—they may strip me of my regal glories—they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their arrows—but they cannot banish me from the better portion and heritage I have in Your blessed self!"
If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are divested of the means of grace—shut out from the public ministrations of the sanctuary—or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous position for spiritual advancement—when our situation as regards the world, the family, business, pursuits, companions, society, is such as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls—let us still "remember God!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and opportunities, and congenial communion, draw us nearer the Source of all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be lacking, let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct to the fountainhead.
Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "the Lord was with Joseph." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the Gentiles, "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. …Notwithstanding, THE LORD stood by me, and strengthened me." Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones are the shadowy type, is ever near: God Himself, the refuge and dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we are, can turn the place of forlorn exile—our "land of Jordan, the Hermonites, the hill Mizar"—into scenes bright with manifestations of His covenant love.
2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable epochs in his past history—some green spots in the wasteland of memory, where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.
We spoke in last chapter of Hope's picture-gallery. Memory has one, stranger still—filled with landscapes of imperishable interest! Who has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her folding-doors—and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy may be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye—scenes of life's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim mountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the murmuring brook by which we wandered, and the spreading tree under which we sat—countenances glowing with smiles are accompanying every walk and greeting us at every turn—the ringing laugh of childhood at some—venerable forms bending at others.
But more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and Bethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance—mute and silent memorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of encouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.
David thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and lowering, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the chequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the Hermon range in the distance, and some Mizar—some "little hill" (as the word means) rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various signal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connection with these localities—"I will remember You" (as it may be rendered) "regarding the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."
We know the other names to which he here adverts, but what is this "HILL MIZAR?" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small mountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the experiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have traveled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted perchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his prowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively interest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero have loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave him the pledge of more momentous triumphs?
Or, to make one other surmise, may it more likely refer to "the little hill" he most loved—the home of his thoughts, the earthly center of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the whole earth—"Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King?" (Psalm 48:2.) We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as "a little hill." In one of the most sublime of all his Psalms, he represents the other loftier mountains of Palestine—Bashan with its forests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its cedar-clad summits—as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid the wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary: "Why look you with envy, you high hills? this is the hill where God desires to dwell in; yes, the Lord will dwell in it forever." (Psalm 68:16.) Is the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season of sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold experiences of God's faithfulness associated with Zion—its tabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes—his own palace, that crowned its rocky heights, where his harp was often attuned and his psalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him rising and giving "thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?" In the mind of the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not "glorious things" have been thought as well as "spoken of you, O city of God?"
But, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special locality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken from the sheepfolds until now, was crowded with Mizars—hill-tops gleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the woods of Ziph, the forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag, the caves of Adullam and Engedi—all would recall some special memorial of God's delivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy given in the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had promised to "David His servant," "My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted." (Psalm 89:24.) "You who have delivered my soul from death, will not you deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" (Psalm 56:13.)
The saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these memorable spots and experiences in their past pilgrimage. Abraham had his "hill Mizar" between Bethel and Hai. "There," we read, "he built an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord." (Gen. 12:8.) On his return from Egypt he retraced his steps to the same locality. Why? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former experiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that "So they left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev—Abram with his wife and Lot and all that they owned, for Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. Then they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where they had camped before. This was the place where Abram had built the altar, and there he again worshiped the Lord." (Gen. 13:1-4.)
Jacob's "Mizar" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where the fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the voice of a reconciled God. Moses would think of his "Mizar" either in connection with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the Mount of Prayer at Rephidim. Isaiah's "Mizar" would be the vision of the Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in God restored. Jeremiah tells us specially of his—some memorable spot where he had a peculiar manifestation of God's presence and grace. "The Lord has appeared of OLD unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." (Jer. 31:3.)
Or shall we look to the New Testament? The Roman Centurion would remember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled Omnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. The Magdalene would remember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the feet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. The Maniac of Gadara would recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the demon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the feet of the Great Restorer. The Woman of Samaria would remember as hers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the earthly to the eternal fountain. Peter would remember as his, the early morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. The Sisters of Lazarus, go where they might, would recall as their hallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard of Bethany. Paul of Tarsus would ever remember as his, the burning plain near Damascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him helpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness changed the persecutor into a believer—the lion into a lamb. John, the beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment, or with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at Ephesus—John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed "Mizar" of all, the gentle bosom on which he leaned at supper!
And who among us have not their "Mizars" still? It has often been said that, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that volume which all God's people carry about with them—the volume of their own experience.
That is my earliest and fondest "Mizar," says one, the mother's knee where I first lisped my Savior's name, and heard of His love. Mine, says another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's messenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace brought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed of sickness on which I awoke from the long life dream of indifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which belong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber—that closet of devotion (alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and associated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold tokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation, says another, is the "Mizar" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is raised—when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's hand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That dreadful bereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections by the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which no creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode nothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent to open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine, says another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope in the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven playing upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, "Come up here!"
It is well for all of us, and especially in our seasons of depression and sorrow, thus to re-traverse life, and let our eyes fall on these Mizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression, when apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question our own personal interest in the covenant—when tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?"—how encouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on former instances and memorials of Jehovah's favor, when we had the assured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these Mizar-hills on which He "appeared of old to us," disappointing our fears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes—to remember, for our comfort, that having "loved us at the beginning," He will love us "even to the end!" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His mercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and precious token and pledge, that, "though for a small moment He may have forsaken us," yet that "with great mercy He will gather us," and that "with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us." (Isa. 54:8.)
Why not thus seek, in the noblest sense of the word, to rise above our trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side of things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a dreary prospect—lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills, pathways overgrown with foul and noxious weeds. The other opens on what is bright and beauteous—sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious flowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the former—gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows, brooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and Horeb—the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with a truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the breaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat themselves at the bright lattice, saying, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice." Both look on identically the same landscape. But the one observe only dull heaths and moors draped in somber hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze on nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold the bow of heaven arching the sky, and the raindrops glittering like jewels on leaf, and grass, and flower. The one can observe only "Hill Difficulties" and "Doubting Castles." The others love to gaze on Hermons and Mizars, on "the Palace Beautiful"—the land of Beulah—and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the Celestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may have been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more manifold still—that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright spots outnumber the dreary ones.
Are any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and perplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you—are you in darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith to Him. Seasons of trial must either bring us nearer to Him, or drive us further from Him. It is an old saying, "Affliction never leaves us as it finds us." It either leads us to "remember God," or to banish and forget Him. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who, when Providence seems to frown—when their hearts are smitten like grass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered—are led, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "My soul is cast down within me, therefore, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I will rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is greater than I can bear—all that made life happiness to me has perished—THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry, even unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die—my only rest will be the quiet of the grave!"
Sorrowing one! May you grasp a nobler philosophy. Look back from these valleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder distant Mizar hills! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of unmistakable covenant love. "Call to remembrance your song" in former nights. Wounded Deer! on the hills of Gilead, do not forget your former pastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in your eyes, bathe your panting sides in the cooling "water-brooks." When the disturbers of your peace have gone, and when hushed again is your forest home, return to "the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense." Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat yourself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying mountain height on mountain height, in the land of covenant promise—each associated with some hallowed memory—take down your harp, and sing one of your own songs of Zion. "You who have showed me great and sore troubles shall quicken me again, and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth!" (Psalm 71:20.)