perseverance, who makes God's work of redemption his own, puts his heart into it, and is upheld by God's hand. God, let us understand, has committed His cause upon earth to a human agent. God's commission of His Servant is hailed by a hymn. Earth answers the proclamation of the _new things_ which the Almighty has declared (ver. 9) by _a new song_ (vv. 10-13). But this song does not sing of the Servant; its subject is Jehovah Himself. _Sing to Jehovah a new song,_ _His praise from the end of the earth;_ _Ye that go down to the sea, and its fulness,_ _Isles, and their dwellers!_ _Let be loud,--the wilderness and its townships,_ _Villages that Kedar inhabits!_ _Let them ring out,--the dwellers of Sela!_ _From the top of the hills let them shout! Let them give to Jehovah the glory,_ _And publish His praise in the Isles!_ _Jehovah as hero goes forth,_ _As a man of war stirs up zeal,_ _Shouts the alarm and battle cry,_ _Against his foes proves Himself hero._ The terms of the last four lines are military. Most of them will be found in the historical books, in descriptions of the onset of Israel's battles with the heathen. But it is no human warrior to whom they are here applied. They who sing have forgotten the Servant. Their hearts are warm only with this, that Jehovah Himself will come down to earth to give the alarm, and to bear the brunt of the battle. And to such a hope He now responds, speaking also of Himself and not of the Servant. His words are very intense, and glow and strain with inward travail. _I have long time kept my peace,_ _Am dumb and hold myself in:_ _Like a woman in travail I gasp,_ _Pant and palpitate together._ Remember it is God who speaks these words of Himself, and then think what they mean of unshareable thought and pain, of solitary yearning and effort. But from the pain comes forth at last the power. _I waste mountains and hills,_ _And all their herb I parch;_ _And I have set rivers for islands,_ _And marshes I parch._ Yet it is not the passion of a mere physical effort that is in God; not mere excitement of war that thrills Him. But the suffering of men is upon Him, and He has taken their redemption to heart. He had said to His Servant (vv. 6, 7): _I give thee ... to open the blind eyes, to bring out from prison the bound, from the house of bondage the dwellers in darkness._ But here He Himself puts on the sympathy and strain of that work. _And I will make the blind to walk in a way they know not, By paths they know not I will guide them; Turn darkness before them to light, And serrated land to level. These are the things that I do, and do not remit them. They fall backwards, with shame are they shamed, That put trust in a Carving, That do say to a Cast, Ye are our Gods._[79]