shape, when it is wrapped in the long-drawn-out miseries of years of
bondage. The warning is as needful for us as for these drunken priests
and scornful rulers. The principle embodied is true in this day as it
was then, and we too have to choose between serving God in gladness,
hearkening to the voice of His word, and so finding rest to our souls,
and serving the world, the flesh, and the devil, and so experiencing the
perpetual dropping of the fiery rain of His judgments.




A CROWN OP PRIDE OR A CROWN OF GLORY

'The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under
feet; 4. And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat
valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the
summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his
hand he eateth it up. 5. In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a
crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his
people.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 3-5.


The reference is probably to Samaria as a chief city of Israel. The
image is suggested by the situation of Samaria, high on a hill-side,
crowning the valley, and by the rich vegetation and bright flowers which
makes it even now one of the few lovely scenes in Palestine; and by the
luxurious riot and sensual excess that were always characteristic of the
northern kingdom.

The destruction of Samaria and of the kingdom, then, is here