heir king: "Hear, O
My people, and I will speak"; "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people" (Ps. l.
7; Isa. xl. 1).

It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the
covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since
it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which might be
received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who
are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and
would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. "I have surely
seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard
their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and
I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to
bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land
flowing with milk and honey." Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of
men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become
their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a
successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home
was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and
soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded
labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on
the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by
a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all
the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a
land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been
reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was
never far away.

Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is
announced. He is to act, because God is already active: "_I_ am come
down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send _thee_
unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people." And let this
truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that
He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do
so, that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He
does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee.
So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose
of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to
bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by
Jehovah, sa