JOB.  ISAIAH.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE WICKED. THE OVERTHROW OF ZION’S ENEMIES.

He shall flee from the iron weapon, For he bringeth down them that and the bow of steel shall strike dwell on high; the lofty city, he him through.  It is drawn, and layeth it low; he layeth it low, cometh out of the body; yea, the even to the ground; he bringeth it glittering sword cometh out of his:  even to the dust.  The foot shall gall:  terrors are upon him.  All tread it down, even the feet of the darkness shall be hid in his secret poor, and the steps of the needy. places:  a fire not blown shall Ch. 26:5, 6.  For I will contend consume him; it shall go ill with with him that contendeth with thee, him that is left in his tabernacle. and I will save thy children.  And The heaven shall reveal his I will feed them that oppress thee iniquity; and the earth shall rise with their own flesh; and they up against him.  The increase of shall be drunken with their own his house shall depart, and his blood, as with sweet wine:  and all goods shall flow away in the day of flesh shall know that I the Lord his wrath.  Ch. 20:24-28. am thy Savious and thy Redeemer,
                                     the mighty one of Jacob.  Ch. 49:25,
                                     26

If now we open the book of Psalms, we find ourselves in a new world of poetry, as different from that of Isaiah as it is from that of the book of Job.  David was anointed by God to be the head and leader of Israel.  As such he had a perpetual outward conflict with powerful, crafty, and malicious foes, who sought his life and his kingdom.  This brought to him a perpetual inward conflict with doubts and fears.  Under the pressure of this double conflict he penned those wonderful psalms, which are the embodiment of his whole religious life.  And since heart answers to heart, as face to face in water, they are the embodiment of religious life in all ages.  The songs of David and his illustrious collaborators, Asaph and the sons of Korah, are emphatically the poetry of religious experience.  As such they can never grow old.  They are as fresh to-day as when they were written.  God has given them to his church as a rich treasury for “the service of song in the house of the Lord,” in the family, and in the closet.  If we turn from the book of Psalms to the book of Proverbs, we have still another type of poetry, unlike any one of the forms hitherto considered.  It is the poetry of reflection on the course of human life, as seen in the light of God’s law and God’s providence.  It is, therefore, didactic in the highest sense of the word—­the poetry of practical life.  The maxims of heavenly wisdom embodied in the book of Proverbs will make all who study them, believe them, and obey them, prosperous in this life and happy in the life to come.  This contrast between the great Hebrew poets might be carried through the whole galaxy, but the above hints must suffice.