Isaiah 21:1-10 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.… There is a burden in all vast things; they oppress the soul. The firmament gives it; the mountain gives it; the prairie gives it. But I think nothing gives it like looking on the sea. The sea suggests something which the others do not — a sense of desertness. In the other cases the vastness is broken to the eye. The firmament has its stars; the mountain has its peaks; the prairie has its flowers; but the sea, where it is open sea, has nothing. It seems a strange thing that the prophet, in making the sea a symbol of life's burden, should have selected its aspect of loneliness. Why not take its storms? Because the heaviest burden of life is not its storms but its solitude. There are no moments so painful as our island moments. One half of our search for pleasure is to avoid self-reflection. The pain of solitary responsibility is too much for us. It drives the middle-aged man into fast living, and the middle-aged woman into gay living. I cannot bear to hear the discord of my own past. It appalls me; it overwhelms me; I fly to the crowd to escape my unaccompanied shadow. (G. Matheson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land. |
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