The Gentleness of God
N. D. Hillis. 2 Samuel 22:36 You have also given me the shield of your salvation: and your gentleness has made me great. Life holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thought of the gentleness of God. Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man to associate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength. It was the misfortune of Greek philosophers, and is, indeed, that of nearly all the modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer. Both schools of thought conceive of God as sitting upon a marble throne, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quiet, indifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferings, and tears, makes his way forward. Yet He who holds the sun in the hollow of His hand, who takes up the isles, as a very little thing, who counts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentle One. Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek, and blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heart, throbs and pulsates into the uttermost parts of the universe, having a parent's sympathy for His children who suffer. Indeed, the seer ranges through all nature, searching out images for interpreting His all-comprehending gentleness. "Even the bruised reed He will not break." Lifting itself high in the air, a mere lead-pencil for size, weighted with a heavy top, a very little injury shatters a reed. Some rude beast, in wild pursuit of prey, plunges through the swamp, shatters the reed, leaves it lying upon the ground, all bruised and bleeding, and ready to die. Such is God's gentleness that, though man make himself as worthless as a bruised reed, though by his ignorance, frailty, and sin he expel all the manhood from his heart and life, and make himself of no more value than one of the myriad reeds in the world's swamps, still doth God say, "My gentleness is such that I will direct upon this wounded life thoughts that shall recuperate and heal, until at last the bruised reed shall rise up in strength, and judgment shall issue in victory." (N. D. Hillis.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy gentleness hath made me great. WEB: You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your gentleness has made me great.