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HOPE OF A TREE

“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.”—Job 14:7-9.

¹ Jehovah is the source of life. That eternal truth all creation who live must learn. All, therefore, must know that Jehovah is the Almighty God, besides whom there is none. It is Jehovah who has placed his own great name upon his beloved Son and made him his Vindicator; and now he says to the peoples of the earth: "In his name shall the nations hope." Those who come to an appreciation of God's gracious provision for man are delighted to know that there is no other name given under heaven whereby life can come to the members of the human race save that of his beloved Son, which provision God has made.

² Jehovah has caused his prophecies to be written that men of honest desires may see at this time and discern the purpose of the Most High to give everlasting life to those of the human race who love and serve him. The words recorded in the book of Job above quoted are prophetic and refer to the fall of mankind, and his overlord, and Jehovah's gracious provision for the recovery of fallen man that he may again live.

³ Job was a man of wide experience, and doubtless had walked through the forest where the trees grew by the water's edge. The cedar tree is symbolic of a living creation and, being evergreen, it symbolized that God's creature, man, may have everlasting life; and this would be true with reference to all creation that live and obey Jehovah. Doubtless Job had observed the peculiarities of the cedar tree, which under certain conditions will produce a new tree out of a dead stump. If so, he saw where the cedar tree once stood and lifted its evergreen arms heavenward, and later its foliage had fallen to the earth, the trunk was cut down and decayed, and only stump remained, and even it appeared to be entirely dead. The roots of the tree had grown old in the soil of the earth, and there appeared to e nothing remaining that indicated life about the tree. Again when he visited that old stump he saw a tender root had stretched its little arms our to the waters and had drunk deeply o that life-giving and life-sustaining substance, and now a new tree was growing up in the place of the one that lay dead. Year after year he saw that new tree continuing to grow, its branches reaching out and it ever lifting its green arms heavenward in an expression of its gratitude to him who had provided water and had given it life. When the new tree had grown large, probably Job sat under that tree while listening to the song birds in its boughs singing the praises of the Giver or every good and perfect gift. Then the Lord God moved the mind of Job to write, and prophetically he wrote: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof was old in the earth , and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." (Job 14:7-9) That prophecy is an expression of Jehovah's purpose to again give life to the obedient ones of the human race, even as he caused the new tree to grow up out of the roots of the old stump. God works in a plain and simple though mysterious way his wondrous acts to perform and to reveal them to those who love him.

THE GREAT TREE

⁴ On another occasion more than 2500 years prior to his present day Jehovah caused a man to have a dream which now we are enabled to see related to the same thing about which Job prophetically wrote concerning the tree. Nebuchadnezzar was then the head of the third world power, hence the king over all the peoples, nations and languages that dwelt upon the earth. God had punished the unfaithful nation of Israel by permitting the king of Babylon to defeat the Israelites at war and to carry away the survivors as captives. Among those captives carried to Babylonn was faithful Daniel. This occurred eleven years previous to the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonish king. Daniel, who now was in the king's service by the king's command, was honored by the king, and, doubtless by the Lord's provision, he was there to perform his divinely appointed part in the prophetic picture which God had him record and which relates to the fall and restoration of the human race.