'That He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act,
His strange act.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 21.


How the great events of one generation fall dead to another! There is
something very pathetic in the oblivion that swallows up world-
resounding deeds. Here the prophet selects two instances which to him
are solemn and singular examples of divine judgment, and we have
difficulty in finding out to what he refers. To him they seemed the most
luminous illustrations he could find of the principle which he is
proclaiming, and to us all the light is burned out of them. They are the
darkest portion of the verse. Several different events have been
suggested. But most probably the historical references here are to
David's slaughter of the Philistines (2 Sam. v., and I Chron. xiv.).
This is probable, but by no means certain. If so, the words are made
still more threatening by asserting that He will treat the Israelites as
if they were Philistines. But the point on which we should concentrate
attention is this remarkable expression, according to which judgment is
God's strange work. And that is made more emphatic by the use of a word
translated 'act,' which means service, and is almost always used for
work that is hard and heavy--a toil or a task.

I. The work in which God delights.

It is here implied that the opposite kind of activity is congenial to
Him. The text declares judgment to be an anomaly, out of His ordinary
course of action and foreign to His nature.

We may pause for a moment on that great thought that God has a usual
course of action, which is usual because it is the spontaneous