W. Trotter

The next chapter gives us another of their anticipative songs. They have not emerged from the tribulation, but they count unwaveringly on the Lord's faithfulness to bring them through, and in this confidence they can say beforehand what their songs of deliverance will be. "In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." This is the key-note of the song. All that follows is in harmony therewith. They call upon the gates to open "that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in." They can look all the intervening trouble in the face, extreme and unutterable though it be; for they are now by faith in their strong city, and can say, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusts in thee." Afflicted saint! what a lesson of strong consolation is here. Not only does Scripture comfort us by recording the experience of God's saints in bygone days — it draws back the veil which hides the future from our view, and disclosing to us the scenes of unequalled tribulation of which our Lord says, "Except these days should be shortened no flesh should be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened," — unfolding to us those scenes, we say, a voice comes back to us from "the elect" of those yet future, awful days — and what is the message it conveys? "Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength." As the fruit of their experience amid those scenes which no mortal pencil can portray, this exhortation is addressed to us. Kept in perfect peace, they disclose to us the secret of their strength, and call upon us to trust in the Lord for ever.