It is not the watchman only that is meant { 389} here. He might watch keenly for the morning in times of fear, but the reference is to all those who watch for the morning in times of _sûhad_--a state which Orientals readily understand. The Psalmist would have that confidence and cheer in the presence of the Lord which come to the restless watcher of the night with the dawning of the day; that inward calm and peace which only the presence of God in the soul can give.
"Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders."[9]
The reference in these lines is to the custom of carrying the children in the East. The habit of carrying the children on the shoulders is, I believe, unknown to the West, but is universal in the East. In early infancy the little ones are carried in the arms. (The Revised Version { 390} prefers the word "bosom.") As soon, however, as the child is old enough to sit up alone, it is carried on the shoulder. The mother lifts the child and places it astride her right shoulder, and instinctively the little one clings to her head, where there is no dainty hat to hinder. The custom is so familiar to the mothers that often one sees a mother spinning or knitting with the child astride her shoulder.
As is well known, the message in the lofty strains of the later Isaiah is the glad tidings of the restoration of scattered and oppressed Israel. It is a prophecy born of Israel's ever-lasting hope that God will not cast off his own forever. So the prophet assures Israel in the name of the Lord that he will lead the alien peoples, not only to let Israel return to its own home, but to carry the children of the "chosen people" in their arms and on their shoulders, as do the servants of aristocratic parents. The prophet's hope of the restoration of his own people appears in the succeeding verse clothed { 391} in language which Oriental aristocrats love to use. It is the phraseology of earthly glory and a narrow vision of national destiny, which the New Testament liberates and enlarges. Says Isaiah: "And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet." Our world still has many grave faults, but it has certainly progressed since the days of Isaiah.