of Israel furnishes for the prophets who lived in later ages a
rich treasury of images which it would be absurd to interpret in a
literal way.

Thus Isaiah, speaking of the future gathering together of the
outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah from the four
corners of the earth (chap. 11:11, 12), says: "And the Lord
shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with
his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river [the
Euphrates], and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make
men go over dry shod" (ver. 15). To suppose that the prophet
foretells a literal repetition of the miracles wrought upon the
Red sea and the Jordan is unnecessary and most improbable. The
meaning is, that God shall remove all obstacles which hinder the
return of his people to their own land, as he originally removed
all obstacles which opposed their entrance into it. This is,
indeed, the very idea of the following verse: "And there shall
be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left,
from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came
up out of the land of Egypt."

Again, the prophet foretells that in the latter day glory "the
Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and
upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining
of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a
defence." Isa. 4:5. Here "the figurative reference is to the
pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire in which the Lord went
before the Israelites in the wilderness, and to the glory which
rested upon the tabernacle." Henderson. God will give to his
church in the latter day that which the pillar of cloud and of
fire signified, his glorious presence and protection. A literal
repetition of the miracle is not to be thought of.

Once more, God promises to his weary people, on their pilgrimage
to Zion, that "in the wilderness shall waters break out, and
streams in the desert" (Isa. 35:6, and often elsewhere), with
obvious allusion to the miraculous supplies of water furnished
to the Israelites in their journey through the Arabian desert to
the land of Canaan. The water here promised is the water of
life, and not literal fountains in the desert. Upon the same
principle are we to interpret the river that flows out from
under the threshold of the te