The blessings of obedience.
"O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." What might have been! How often we reproach ourselves with thinking over the "might have beens"! How searching it is to find God helping us regretfully to realize what might have been (comp. Psalms 81:13-16)! "Peace" and "righteousness" here both stand as terms to express "prosperity," that best of prosperities which comes as the manifestation of Jehovah's righteousness or fidelity to his promises. The figures used may be thus explained: if they had been faithful to their covenants their national prosperity would have followed on, age after age, like the ceaseless current, day and night, of a noble river. If they had been obedient, they would have mastered all forms of difficulty and opposition with a resistless power like that which belongs to the waves of the sea. The time of exile in Babylon was a sad break in the national prosperity. There would have been no occasion for it if Israel had been faithful and obedient J.A. Alexander says, "Nothing could well be more appropriate at the close of this division of the prophecies than such an affecting statement of the truth, so frequently propounded in didactic form already, that Israel, although the chosen people of Jehovah, and as such secure from total ruin, was and was to be a sufferer, not from any want of faithfulness or care on God's part, but as the necessary fruit of its own imperfections and corruptions." Two of the blessings that always follow on obedience are indicated here—they are permanence and power.
I. PERMANENCE AS A RESULT OF OBEDIENCE. This is one of the most marked impressions made on sensitive minds by the sight of the full-flowing river, especially in Eastern lands, where it is, in such a marked way, contrasted with the mountain wadies that are sometimes dry and at other times roaring with flood. The river flows on for ever. Men come and go. Cities rise and fall into decay on its banks. Commerce now uses and now neglects it. Dynasties last their little while. The river flowed on ages ago just as it flows now; it will flow still, when we have "had our little day and cease to be." So nothing can occur to stop the current of true prosperity in the obedient. "Patient continuance in well-doing" involves continued conditions of well-being. "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
II. POWER AS A RESULT OF OBEDIENCE. The steady advance of the tide is an impressive illustration of quiet, persistent power. The rush of the wind-driven wave is the illustration of majestic masterful power. He that does the will of God overcomes himself; and he who overcomes himself need never fear that he will meet a mightier foe.—R.T.