"Just as I am, _without one plea_, _But that Thy blood was shed for me,_ And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come."
"Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?"—Job xxxix. 27.
Jehovah is answering Job out of the whirlwind. He brings before him a grand panorama of external nature—the earth and sea, snow and hail, the Pleiades and the lightning—the wild goat, the wild ass, the ostrich, the hawk, and the eagle; and as the glorious pageant defiles before his eyes, he forces him to face and answer the question: Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? He that reproveth God, let him answer. And Job’s answer is all that could be desired: "Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." The greatness of God in nature has taught man his own utter insignificance.
Doth the eagle mount up at _thy_ command? No. All these pictures point man to God. They combine to illustrate the mind and thought of Him who formed them and cares for them. So that the conclusion of Ruskin is more than justified that the universe is not a mirror that reflects to proud self-love her own intelligence. It is a mirror that reflects to the devout soul the attributes of God.
I.—THE ROCK-DWELLING HABITS OF THE EAGLE.
"She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock and the strong place" (ver. 28). It is to this that Obadiah refers when he takes up his parable against the Edomites. They too were rock-dwellers, who had made for themselves houses and founded cities in the rocky fastnesses of Mount Seir. But they are reminded that the impregnable and inaccessible heights to which they have resorted will be no defence against Jehovah: "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." It is even added that Edom would become utterly desolate: "As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee, ... and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau." And if the testimony of modern travellers may be accepted, the desolation is mournful enough. In 1848 Miss Harriet Martineau visited Petra, the chief of these rock-cities, and describes it as follows: "Nowhere else is there desolation like that of Petra, where these rock doorways stand wide—still fit for the habitation of a multitude, but all empty and silent except for the multiplied echo of the cry of the eagle, or the bleat of the kid. No; these excavations never were all tombs. In the morning the sons of Esau came out in the first sunshine to worship at their doors, before going forth, proud as their neighbour eagles, to the chase; and at night the yellow fires lighted up from within, tier above tier, the face of the precipice" ("Eastern Life," vol. iii. 5).