All this is too like the actual experience of Israel in Exile not to be the true interpretation of this third, stern Voice. Their political and religious institutions, which had so often proved the initiative of a new movement, or served as a bridge to carry the nation across disaster to a larger future, were not in existence. Nor does any Moses, as in Egypt of old, rise to visibleness from among his obscure people, impose his authority upon them, marshal them, and lead them out behind him to freedom. But what we see is a scattered and a leaderless people, stirred in their shadow, as a ripe cornfield is stirred by the breeze before dawn--stirred in their shadow by the ancient promises of God, and everywhere breaking out at the touch of these into psalms and prophecies of hope. We see them expectant of redemption, we see them resolved to return, we see them carried across the desert to Zion, and from first to last it is the word of God that is their inspiration and assurance. They, who formerly had rallied round the Ark or the Temple, or who had risen to the hope of a glorious Messiah, do not now speak of all these, but their _hope_, they tell us, _is in His word_; it is the instrument of their salvation, and their destiny is to be its evangelists. 4. To this high destiny the fourth Voice now summons them, by a vivid figure. _Up on a high mountain, get thee up,_ _Heraldess of good news, O Zion!_ _Lift up with strength thy voice,_ _Heraldess of good news, Jerusalem!_ _Lift up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah:--_ _Behold, your God._ _Behold, my Lord Jehovah, with power He cometh,_ _And His arm rules for Him._ _Behold, His reward with Him,_ _And His recompense before Him._ _As a shepherd His flock He shepherds;_ _With His right arm gathers the lambs,_ _And in His bosom bears them._ _Ewe-mothers He tenderly leads._ The title which I have somewhat awkwardly translated _heraldess_--but in English there is really no better word for it--is the feminine participle of a verb meaning to _thrill_, or _give joy, by means of good news_. It is used generally to tell such happy news as the birth of a child, but mostly in the special sense of carrying tidings of victory or peace home from the field to the people. The feminine participle would seem from Psalm lxviii., _the women who publish victory to the great host_, to have been the usual term for the members of those female choirs, who, like Miriam and her maidens, celebrated a triumph in face of the army, or came forth from the city to hail the returning conqueror, as the daughters of Jerusalem hailed Saul and David. As such a chorister, Zion is now summoned to proclaim Jehovah's arrival at the gates of the cities of Judah.