---

Sympathy between the moral and physical worlds pervades the whole of Scripture and especially this seventy-second psalm. The beauty of the redeemed soul will be reflected, as it was at the first, in the beauty of a regenerated earth. Man will be then like another Adam in another Eden. Through the righteous rule of the new King of Israel, the physical features of the land of promise are pictured as contributing to the tranquillity and happiness of its people. Mountains in olden times were associated with gloom and terror. Imagination saw in them shapes of evil, and they seemed to belong to an alien, accursed land. Scenes of grandeur which the traveller will traverse half the globe to gaze upon with rapture were of old avoided altogether, or passed quickly through with shuddering dread. But we do not feel so now. The causes of this are varied. Increase of population, facility for travel, the pressure of crowded city life making us long for the quiet and grandeur of nature, increase of knowledge, etc. Now, in our text the security which mountains give is mainly referred to. Hence we learn —

I. THE PEACE WHICH THEY GIVE IS THE PEACE OF SAFETY. In the plains man is exposed to attack on all sides, but amongst the mountains nature is his defence. See the Waldenses, Covenanters, Jews. For Palestine is an alpine land; hence in Babylon the exiles thought of their mountains as they sang, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

II. AND OF ELEVATION. It is in the heights of the soul that we can get true and lasting peace. On the low levels of sense life we are as was he who went down to Jericho — stripped and wounded by the evils of life. Man's moral career has run parallel with his physical. He descended from the mountain ranges of Asia to her level plains, and to Egypt; and so has it been spiritually. But we cannot be satisfied there. We must ascend again, cost what it will. Then we regain peace to our souls. If the strain of the ascent be great, so is the peace likewise. For on the height we are above the changes of this world. The soul that dwells ever on high has perpetual sunshine.

III. AND IT IS THE PEACE OF COMPENSATION. The heavens come near and expand as the earth recedes and lessens. The men who saw most of heaven were they who possessed the least of earth. See Moses.

IV. UNIFICATION. From the mountain top we see the whole landscape, not merely isolated portions. And so to ascend into the hill of the Lord is to see our life as a whole, and how parts of it that have distressed us belong to the goodly whole.

V. ISOLATION. Mountains are as retreats from the fevered conventional life of cities. We can be alone with God, as in the secret chamber. So has it been wit, h all God's great saints, they ascended often where the noisy echoes of the world did not penetrate, and where only the still small voices of the sanctuary were heard. As we rise in spiritual life, the more lonely do we become. Our citizenship is in heaven.

(Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.

WEB: The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. The hills bring the fruit of righteousness.