"Behold, the days come," says Yahweh, "That the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the one treading grapes him who sows seed; And sweet wine will drip from the mountains, And flow from the hills.
They had not, like the Jews, had teachers from God; yet, as soon as our Lord taught them, they believed. But, as seed time and harvest should be one, so should the vintage be continuous with the following seed-time. “The treader of grapes,” the last crowning act of the year of cultivation, should join on to “him that soweth” (literally, “draweth” forth, soweth broadcast, scattereth far and wide the) “seed.” All this is beyond nature, and so, the more in harmony with what went before, the establishment of a kingdom of grace, in which “the pagan” should have “the Name of God called upon” them. He had foretold to them, how God would “send famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” Amos 8:11. Now, under the same image, he declares the repeal of that sentence. He foretells, not the fullness only of God’s gifts, but their unbroken continuance.