Isaiah li. 12, 13.

I even I, am He that comforteth you. Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched out the Heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth?

The chapter from which these words are taken, is part of a prophecy intended to support and comfort the faithful worshippers of God in the kingdom of Judah, under the weight of those calamities from which, on account of the many sins and provocations wherewith the greater number of their countrymen had offended the Almighty, the nation at large, and even the few righteous among the many wicked, were to suffer. It is this small minority of humble and holy men whom the prophet calls upon in the first verse of the chapter. “Hearken to me ye that follow after righteousness!” whom he exhorts to take example by the unconquerable faith of their great forefather Abraham, from whose loins, as from a quarry in an everlasting rock, their city and their nation had been upbuilded; who, (when the Lord had promised to make him, in his old age, the father of a mighty nation, and to give him for his inheritance a land wherein, while yet living, he only possessed ground enough for a grave) yet, having received these promises, believed against probability, hoped against hope; and disregarding all which man might reckon difficult or impossible, fixed his attention, his faith, and his earnest thankfulness on His power only who had spoken the word, and who both could and would, undoubtedly, bring to pass the thing which He had declared.