Nevertheless, the life of the men who were said to receive these communications was eminently practical and manly. They did not pore over their own thoughts; they went forth and did the work which was given them to do, feeding flocks, bringing up children, fighting enemies. It is evident that their belief in the invisible did not in the least interfere with their business in this visible world. That they were to till and subdue by the same charter which assured them that they were God's servants, and that His word was directing them. While they kept their faith in the unseen Teacher, the firmament over their heads became a clear daily and nightly witness respecting Him and themselves. The stars told them what their seed should be; the sun, going forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, carried the message of _their_ God into all lands. It was when the faith in the invisible grew weak, that they bowed their heads and worshipped the forms which once testified to them of their greater nobleness and sublimer origin. And with this came another idolatry, in its essence grander, in its results baser. The man felt that beings of his own kind had more power over him than all the hosts of heaven. He did homage to their goodness, their wisdom, their beneficence, their strength. He confessed the king, and was raised to a higher sense of his own freedom and kingship. The king became a giant and a tyrant; _he_ became a dwarf and a slave. What should raise men out of either oppression? What should set them free from the yoke which creatures below their own kind and of their own kind had imposed upon them? The Jew was taught that the Lord God was his King; that He broke the yoke of the Pharaoh and of the Pharaoh's gods; that He claimed the most abject slaves as His servants. The Israelite was brought under an order which had this foundation. In the strength of it, kings were to reign and decree judgment; they were to preserve the people from lapsing into the idolatry which would destroy their obedience and their freedom. They were to reign by the word of the Lord.
But what was this word of God which held men back who had fierce inclinations in their hearts, and who had swords to execute them in their hands? It could not be a statute; that had no such power. It could not be a set of moral maxims; they had no such power. It could not be a promise, or a threat, about the world that is, or the world to come; neither had such power. The Prophet, living amidst the signs of decay and ruin in his own polity, amidst the earthquakes which were shaking all nations, under the overwhelming power of empires that sought to put out the life of nations, began to attach another and deeper sense to the word of God, not incompatible with the older use, but involved in it; not a metaphor or allegory deduced from it, but a higher truth lying behind it. The Word of God came to him, spoke to him in the very depths of his heart. He spoke to it, sympathised with it. But dared he say _it_ any longer? No; in some wonderful manner this Word must be a Friend, a Person; One who could work with him, reprove him, illuminate him. This Word must be the Teacher, the Friend, the King of Israel. This Word must one day prove Himself to be the Lord of the whole earth. Awful discovery! which makes him tremble, and yet which makes him bold; which sometimes draws forth from him the cry, '_Woe is me! for I am an unclean man, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts_;' which again gives him all his hope both for himself and for his people. At every step of his own experience and of his nation's experience, new visions unfolded themselves out of this vision. It must be that all those various objects in nature which men were worshipping, that all the living order of nature in which those things were comprehended, proceeded from this living Word. It must be that all the races of men, all their politics, were under His guidance and government. It must be that all the light that had entered into any man's heart had come from Him. It must be that the darkness which was in any man's heart had come from rebellion against Him.