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It is impossible to doubt that the prophet, now and again, in describing those nearer scenes obtains and reveals glimpses of a higher glory, and refreshes his readers and himself with anticipations of Messiah's times. The closing verses of the chapter are full of the Gospel, penetrated with the very spirit of evangelical peace. "My people" seems to make the promise general, and to hold it out to us sealed with the "yea and amen" which is attached to every promise of God. "Shall dwell" seems to import some settled order of Divine procedure. If Solomon said in his day, "all things are full of labour," what would he say in ours? How fierce and keen are the conflicts of life! Where shall rest be found? Only in some of those quiet resting-places which God makes and keeps for His pilgrim people. They have soul-quietness for city strife.

I. THE EVENING. A sacred time even in Eden was "the cool of the day." Isaac went out into the field to meditate "at eventide." Jesus often left His disciples about sundown, and wandered up among the Syrian hills to find some sequestered spot where He might feel himself alone in the full presence of God. The breeze that fanned the leaves of Paradise will touch our cheek, and make coolness at the close of our day, if we will but cease from care and sin. We read in the Scriptures that day and night are the "ordinances" of God. Can anyone suppose that He has established them for only material ends? Surely a higher end is found in the trial, nurture, and purification of souls. To a devout soul the evening is like "the secret place of the Most High." It is "the shadow of the Almighty." It is a closet of which God builds the walls and shuts to the door. Think, then, as the evening comes round — for thought is the soul's rest — of the day that is gone with gratitude, for every hour of it has been overflowing with the goodness of God; with penitence, for you will easily discover that it has been a day of shortcomings and sins; with wisdom, aiming to understand it better than when you lived it; with tenderness and holy fear, as feeling how good and how grand a thing it is to be permitted to live on, and to hope to live better. Think of to-morrow which will come so soon, with its unknown and yet probable events — of the task that will await you then; of the persons who will be around you, of their words, their looks, their influence; of the peril you will have to brave; of the weakness you will feel; of the strength you will need; of the failure you fear, that by your thought and prayer it may be the less likely to come; and of the goodness which will certainly enrich and crown to-morrow as it has filled and now closes to-day. Think of the evening of life itself. Think any such thoughts with prayer and faith, and your soul must be lifted at least somewhat above the dust and drudgery of this vexing and down-dragging world.

II. THE SABBATH. In the beginning God rested from His work, and blessed and hallowed the day for all time, and never has there been a Sabbath on earth in which men have not been entering into the very rest of God.

III. THE PROVIDENTIAL CHANGE may be of such a character as to lead us at once into a "quiet resting-place." It may be a change of locality, or of occupation, or of condition. Any considerable providential change has something of the same character. An infant is born, and in his first sleep sheds through the house something of the solemnity of being. A child is "recovered of his sickness," in which the little pilgrim seemed to be wandering away from all your care and love. A son has gone out to a foreign land. A daughter has been married. Anything that breaks the continuity, that alters the relationships, that makes a pause in life — an open space in the forest of its toils and cares — anything of that kind is God's voice, saying, "Here is relief for you. Enter this quiet resting-place which My hand has made." Or, let the change, be from health to sickness, then the "quiet resting-place" is made in the retirement of the chamber, or the "stillness" of the bed.

IV. THE GRAVE. "There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master. There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." It is not our mere human fancy that invests the burial-place of the Christian dead with such a sacred charm, that wraps it as in the peace and silence of God. It is Christ who thus hallows the grave. He has been a sleeper there; He has taken the harshness, the disquietude, the terror away.

V. HEAVEN is the quietest resting-place of all.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

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KJV: And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places;

WEB: My people will live in a peaceful habitation, in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting places.