Fervid Devotion to a Cause
H. P. Liddon, D. D. Isaiah 62:5 For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you: and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride… It is difficult to see how any real parallel can exist between an intellectual interest or reasoned sense of duty to a public cause or institution, although prescribing exertion and even sacrifice, and the spontaneous, glowing, fervid devotion of a young man to his chosen bride. Say you so? Then let me say that as yet you know not some salient features of human nature. As a matter of fact abstractions, as we call them, do provoke passion; the passion of love and the passion of hate, no less truly than do concrete and visible objects. Millions of human beings have worked, suffered, fought and died for these very abstractions; for a political or social doctrine, for the fame of a fallen dynasty, for the credit of some secret club or association, for a country that has been crushed out of existence, for some wild undemonstrable theory, for some baseless or grotesque superstition, no less than for a true and soul-inspiring faith or principle. (H. P. Liddon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. WEB: For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.