Note 1 — ISAIAH. (continued 10)

“He that buildeth shall not make haste.” The apostles Paul and Peter, in citing this passage, quote from the Septuagint, and accordingly they render it “he that believeth shall not be ashamed” (Rom. ix. 33), or “confounded” (1 Pet. ii. 6). The Hebrew word properly signified “to make haste,” and hence, according to one lexicographer, “to hurry hither and thither as persons in confusion.” The apparent discrepancy between the text as given by Isaiah in the Old Testament and as quoted by the apostles in the New vanishes at once when we consider the nature of the future employed. Conceive the situation of a man who has “built his house upon the sand.” The rains descend, the floods beat upon that house, the foundations begin to give way, the house totters to its fall, and the frightened inmate, terrified and bewildered, “makes haste” to escape to a place of safety. Another has built his house upon the rock. Upon this also the rains descend and the floods beat, but its firm foundations remain unmoved because it is founded upon a rock, and its happy inmate, so far from being obliged to “make haste” to escape, in conscious security may smile at the storm. “He that believeth shall not make haste”—“shall not be confounded”—“shall not be ashamed” of his hope.—John Dowling, D.D.