Beautiful Imagery (Exibit B)

Isaiah 40:29-31

Here now is the second in the Beautiful Imagery Series. I love to scour the Scriptures for artistic beauty as well as for practical instruction. It is also enjoyable to draw parallels between holy writ and the masters of prose and poetry. Today's selection is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's fragment of a poem entitled “The Eagle.”

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Hear now the words of Isaiah the prophet:

He gives power to the weak, 

And to those who have no 

might He increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

And the young men shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the LORD

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Beautiful Imagery (Exibit A)

Psalm 36:8-9
Powerful imagery is found within the best books. Take this passage from Tolkin for example:

Day came pale from the East. As the light grew it filtered through the yellow leaves of the mallorn, and it seemed to the hobbits that the early sun of a cool summer's morning was shining. Pale-blue sky peeped among the moving branches. Looking through an opening on the south side of the flet Frodo saw all the valley of the Silverlode lying like a sea of fallow gold tossing gently in the breeze.*

Sometimes there's nothing to say after reading a powerful text. This one in particular struck me this morning:

How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you  is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. (Psalm 36:8-9 NIV)

Dwell on these words for a while. Do you hear the flapping of powerful wings or perhaps the water of the fountain? How good it is that God has not left us his word in some industrial sterilized form. There is great artistry and imagery in Scripture--both wonderful and powerful. Yes, we can certainly come to the Scripture to receive all the advice we need, but those who stop running through pages long enough to smell a rose will find exquisite beauty. How satisfying!



*Tolkin, J.R.R., The Fellowship of the Ring, p337 This scene is rendered powerful by contrasting what the fellowship had just experienced: the darkness of Khazad-Dum.