With this introduction we may now take up the four herald voices of the Prologue. Whatever may have been their original relation to one another, whether or not they came to Israel by different messengers, they are arranged (as we saw at the close of the previous chapter) in manifest order and progress of thought, and they meet in due succession the experiences of Israel at the close of the Exile. For the first of them (vv. 1 and 2) gives the _subjective assurance_ of the coming redemption: it is the Voice of Grace. The second (vv. 3-5) proclaims the _objective reality_ of that redemption: it may be called the Voice of Providence, or--to use the name by which our prophecy loves to entitle the just and victorious providence of God--the Voice of Righteousness. The third (vv. 6-8) uncovers the pledge and earnest of the redemption: in the weakness of men this shall be the Word of God. While the fourth (vv. 9-11) is the Proclamation of Jehovah's restored kingdom, when He cometh as a shepherd to shepherd His people. To this progress and climax the music of the passage forms a perfect accompaniment. It would be difficult to find in any language lips that first more softly woo the heart, and then take to themselves so brave a trumpet of challenge and assurance. The opening is upon a few short pulses of music, which steal from heaven as gently as the first ripples of light in a cloudless dawn--
Năhămu, năhămu ammi: _Comfort ye, comfort ye my people_: Dabbĕru `al-lev Yerushālaîm. _Speak upon the heart of Jerusalem._[38]
But then the trumpet-tone breaks forth, _Call unto her_; and on that high key the music stays, sweeping with the second voice across hill and dale like a company of swift horsemen, stooping with the third for a while to the elegy upon the withered grass, but then recovering itself, braced by all the strength of the Word of God, to peal from tower to tower with the fourth, upon the cry, _Behold, the Lord cometh_, till it sinks almost from sound to sight, and yields us, as from the surface of still waters, that sweet reflection of the twenty-third Psalm with which the Prologue concludes.
1. _Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her,_ _That accomplished is her warfare, that absolved is her iniquity; That she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins._