God's Motherhood: Divine Comfort in Exile and Return

Isaiah 63:13 employs the figure of motherhood to express God's tender care: "As one whom his mother comforteth." The prophet Isaiah reawakens this image—children suckled, cradled in their mother's lap—but extends it to the wounded adult returning home with exhaustion and sorrow seeking maternal solace.

The exiles' return to Jerusalem embodies this metaphor. Israel, escaped from captivity and bearing sad remembrances, finds those echoes vanish completely in the mother-arms of Divine love in Jerusalem—the beloved home that occupied their thoughts even in foreign soil.

God's motherhood transcends ordinary creation and preservation. A good mother possesses wonderful sympathy; so does God. Motherhood displays constancy; God's constancy is eternal. A mother grieves over sin; God grieves infinitely more. Most profoundly, a mother's love becomes redemptive; God's love redeems ten thousand times over.

Divine comfort operates with the affection and solicitude of a mother who loves, strives, labours, and sacrifices. It manifests the long-suffering forbearance of a mother ready to forgive her erring child and console in trouble. God teaches variously; "whom He loveth He chasteneth." This consolation springs not from creatures or earthly goods, but from the Most High Himself, who claims comfort as His own prerogative. The Gospel provides the cordial for life's discouragements, trials, and fears.