Ver. 5. The image is here taken from the journey of Israel through the wilderness. During that journey, they were guided and protected by a symbol of God's presence, which by day presented itself as smoke, and by night assumed the form of flaming fire. By this symbol the God of Israel was designated as the jealous God, as the living, personal energy, energetic in His love for His people, energetic in wrath against His and their enemies. Comp. especially Exod. xiii. 21: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light;" and xl. 38: "For a cloud was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night;" comp. Numb. ix. 15, 16. The same phenomenon is to be repeated in future, although in a different form. In a manner the most real, the Lord will manifest himself as the living energy of His Church, dwelling in the midst of her, and ruling over her as a protector, so that the world's power can no longer injure her. That such will be done in and by His _Sprout_, in Christ, appears from the relation of the verse under consideration to ver. 2; for the verse before us still belongs to the expansion of the proposition placed at the head of the whole: "The _Sprout_ of the Lord becomes for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the land for exaltation and ornament to the escaped of Israel." Christ in His person and Spirit is the true Shechinah, the true indwelling of God in His Church. This indwelling is, even in the Law, designated as the highest privilege of the covenant-people; its being raised to a higher power is therefore to the Prophet the highest blessing of the future, the source from which all other blessings flow. That which the heathen in vain longed [Pg 24] for and imagined; that which Israel hitherto possessed only very imperfectly, a _praesens numen_, whereby the antithesis of heaven and earth is done away with, and earth is glorified into a heaven;--that, the purified Church of the Lord possesses in the most perfect and real manner, and in it, absolute security against the world, a decided victory over it. The words: "_Over her assemblies_," show that the whole life of the people shall then bear a religious character, and shall be a continual service of God, comp. Acts ii. 42, where, as a type of the completion of the Church, it is said: "And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." מקרא is only the name for that which is called, "the assembly," and stands in Levit. xxiii. and Is. i. 13 of the religious assemblies which were held on the holy days, comp. my pamphlet: _Ueber den Tag des Herrn S_. 32. The same phenomenon is, according to its appearance by day, designated, at the same time, as _clouds_ and _smoke_. Smoke is never "vapour, vapoury clouds" (_Knobel_); and here the smoke by day corresponds with the _flaming fire_ by night. If then the smoke can be considered as a product of the fire only (comp. my remarks on Rev. xv. 8), the cloud cannot come into consideration according to its matter, but according to its form only. The smoke assumes the form of a cloud which affords protection from the burning sun of tribulations, as once, in the burning desert, from the scorching heat of the natural sun, comp. Num. x. 34: "And the cloud of the Lord was upon them;" Ps. cv. 39: "He spread a cloud for a covering;" Is. xxv. 5. The cloud which thus affords protection to the Church turns a threatening face towards her enemies. Rev. xv. 8.--The words: "_For above all glory is a covering_," point to the ground of the protecting, gracious presence of God in the Church. Several interpreters explain the sense thus: "As we cover and preserve precious things more carefully, in order that they may not be injured, so does God in His grace surround His Church, which has been adorned with glorious virtues, and raised to the high dignity of the saints of God, and protects her from every danger." Others understand by כל־כבוד the whole glory mentioned in the preceding context; but in that case we should expect the article. One may also supply the limitation: For, _in the Kingdom of God_, there is a covering over all glory.