

SECTION II. 



REEDS. 



ON the banks and in the streams of the Nile reeds grow in im- 

 mense quantities, and hence it is, probably, that in 2 Kings xviii.- 

 21, the country of Egypt is called a reed: 'Now, behold, thoa 

 trusted) upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on 

 which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is- 

 Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.' The prophet 

 Ezekiel attests the fidelity of the Assyrian general's representation : 

 * And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, 

 because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When 

 they all took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break and rend 

 their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou breakest 

 and madest all their loins to be at a stand,' ch. ix. 6, 7. Hence we 

 see what is meant by a bruised reed, in Isa. xlii. 3, and from its- 

 reference to the church, we must understand it of a weak believer,, 

 or perhaps, more particularly, of one whose heart is broken and 

 contrite, for past offences. 



In 1 Kings xiv. 15, the transgressions of Israel call forth the fol- 

 lowing denunciation of punishment : ' The Lord shall smite Israel 

 as a reed shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of the 

 good land which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them be- 

 yond the river, because they have made their idol groves, provok- 

 ing him to anger.' There is the same allusion in Matt. xi. 7, where 

 our Saviour says of John the Baptist, that he was not a reed shaken 

 with the wind. There was nothing vacillating or unstable in his 

 character : his mind was constant, and fixed on the truth ; and his 

 testimony to the character of the Saviour was always the same. 



From Ezek. xl. 3, and Rev. xi. 1, we learn that the long stalk of 

 the reed was used as a measuring-rod ; and from Isaiah xlvi. 6, it 

 seems to have been employed as a balance, perhaps after the same, 

 manner as the Roman steel-yard. 



In the neighborhood of Suez some of these reeds grow to the? 

 height of twelve yards ; hence we see how easily, by means of one- 

 of them, the soldier who stood at the foot of our Saviour's cross,, 

 ould raise to his mouth a sponge filled with vinegar, Matt, xxvii. 48.. 



We must not omit to notice the appropriation of reeds to the 

 purposes of writing, before the invention of our common pens> as 

 there are several allusions to them in the sacred writings, although 

 not discernible in the English Bible. 



