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Introduction to Digital Music
with Python Programming

Introduction to Digital Music with Python Programming provides a foundation

in music and code for the beginner. It shows how coding empowers new
forms of creative expression while simplifying and automating many of
the tedious aspects of production and composition.
With the help of online, interactive examples, this book covers the fun-
damentals of rhythm, chord structure, and melodic composition along-
side the basics of digital production. Each new concept is anchored in a
real-world musical example that will have you making beats in a matter
of minutes.
Music is also a great way to learn core programming concepts such as
loops, variables, lists, and functions, Introduction to Digital Music with Python
Programming is designed for beginners of all backgrounds, including high
school students, undergraduates, and aspiring professionals, and requires
no previous experience with music or code.

Michael S. Horn is Associate Professor of Computer Science and Learn-

ing Sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he
directs the Tangible Interaction Design and Learning (TIDAL) Lab.

Melanie West is a PhD student in Learning Sciences at Northwestern

University and co-founder of Tiz Media Foundation, a nonproft dedi-
cated to empowering underrepresented youth through science, technol-
ogy, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs.

Cameron Roberts is a software developer and musician living in Chicago.

He holds degrees from Northwestern University in Music Performance
and Computer Science.
Introduction to Digital
Music with Python
Programming
Learning Music with Code

Michael S. Horn, Melanie West,

and Cameron Roberts
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Michael S. Horn, Melanie West, and Cameron Roberts
The right of Michael S. Horn, Melanie West, and Cameron
Roberts to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-47083-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-47082-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03324-0 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003033240

Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Melanie dedicates her contribution of the book to the
memory of her friend, Bernie Worrell, who taught her
how to listen.
Mike dedicates his contribution to his wife, Diana Reed,
and his children, Madeleine and Lucas.
Contents

List of fgures ix
Photo and illustration credits xiii
Foreword xiv
Acknowledgments xvi

1 Why music and coding? 1

Interlude 1: Basic pop beat 12
2 Rhythm and tempo 18
Interlude 2: Custom trap beat 49
3 Pitch, harmony, and dissonance 53
Interlude 3: Melodies and lists 68
4 Chords 71
Interlude 4: Playing chords 84
5 Scales, keys, and melody 88
Interlude 5: Lean on me 100
6 Diatonic chords and chord progressions 103
Interlude 6: Random chord progressions 114
7 Frequency, fourier, and flters 117
Interlude 7: Creative efects 136
8 Note-based production efects 140
Interlude 8: How to make a drum fll 153
9 Song composition and EarSketch 158
viii Contents
Interlude 9: How to make a snare drum riser 172
10 Modular synthesis 177
Interlude 10: Drum machine function 191
11 History of music and computing 194

Appendix A: Python reference 207

Appendix B: TunePad programming reference 231
Appendix C: Music reference 240
Index 255
Figures

1.1 A TunePad program to play a simple rock beat 5

1.2 Typical DAW software 6
1.3 TunePad project workspace 13
1.4 Selecting instruments in TunePad 13
1.5 Parts of a TunePad cell 14
1.6 Python syntax error in TunePad 15
1.7 Selecting an instrument’s voice in TunePad 16
2.1 TunePad project information bar. You can click on the
tempo, time signature, or key to change the settings for
your project 19
2.2 Standard notation example 20
2.3 Waveform representation of Figure 2.2 21
2.4 Piano or MIDI roll representation of Figure 2.2 21
2.5 Common note symbols starting with a whole note (four
beats) on the top down to 16th notes on the bottom.
The notes on each new row are half the length of the
row above 23
2.6 Drums in a typical drum kit 26
2.7 Roland 808 drum sequencer 28
2.8 Changing an instrument’s voice in TunePad 28
2.9 Example of a Python syntax error in TunePad. This line
of code was missing a parenthesis symbol 29
2.10 Calling the playNote function in TunePad with two
parameters inside the parentheses 30
2.11 How to show the print output of your code in a TunePad cell 35
2.12 Anatomy of a for loop in Python 36
2.13 Example of a Python syntax error. The command
‘ployNote’ should instead say ‘playNote’ 39
2.14 Example of a Python syntax error. Here the problem is
actually on line 1, not line 2 39
2.15 TunePad composer interface provides drum and
bass sequencers 47
x Figures
2.16 Basic drum pattern 50
2.17 Declaring a for loop for hi-hat runs in Python 51
2.18 Hi-hat stutter patterns 51
3.1 Sound is made up of compression waves of air molecules
that expand outward at a speed of around 343 meters
per second. The frequency of a sound wave refers to
how fast it vibrates; amplitude refers to the intensity of
the sound; and wavelength refers to the length of one
complete cycle of the waveform 54
3.2 Drawing of the cochlea (inner ear) 54
3.3 A waveform with varying amplitude 56
3.4 A half step is the distance between two adjacent piano
keys, measured in semitones 58
3.5 The harmonic series 60
3.6 Two waves at an interval of an octave 63
3.7 The ratio between the note C 262 Hz and the note
G 393 Hz is considered a perfect ffth 65
3.8 Select the 808 Bass voice 70
4.1 C major chord with MIDI note numbers 72
4.2 Creating chords as lists of numbers in Python. Each
major chord follows the same pattern 73
4.3 How to declare a user-defned function in
Python 74
4.4 C major chord 77
4.5 D minor chord 77
4.6 B diminished chord 78
4.7 C major 7th chord 79
4.8 D minor 7th chord 79
4.9 G dominant 7th chord 80
4.10 Csus2 chord 81
4.11 Csus4 chord 81
4.12 C augmented chord 82
5.1 Whole step and half step intervals of the C major scale 89
5.2 C Major Pentatonic Scale (top) and F♯ Major Pentatonic
Scale (bottom) 91
5.3 A representation of a list with values and indices 94
5.4 The Circle of Fifths arranges musical keys 96
6.1 The seven diatonic chords of C major 104
6.2 The dominant V and viio chords share two notes in
common. This is easy to see when you line piano
diagrams up vertically 107
6.3 Flowcharts for generating chord progressions in major
and minor keys 108
6.4 Example of using the fowchart to generate a chord
progression 108
 Figures xi
6.5 C major chord in root position (top), frst inversion
(bottom left), and second inversion (bottom right) 109
6.6 Chord progression I-V-vi-IV without voice leading (top)
and with voice leading (bottom). Chords V, vi, and IV
are inverted to reduce the pitch range and to minimize
the movement of individual voices “singing” the notes
of the chords 110
7.1 Sound energy generated by a fute playing a single
note. The sound contains a series of spikes at regular
“harmonic” frequency intervals 118
7.2 Frequency combinations: fundamentals, partials,
harmonic, and inharmonic 119
7.3 A square wave (or any other audio signal) can be described
as a series of sine waves making up the partial frequencies 121
7.4 ADSR envelope 122
7.5 A spectrogram shows the intensity of frequencies in an
audio signal over time. The heatmap colors correspond
to intensity or energy at diferent frequencies. Time
is represented on the horizontal axis and frequency in
kilohertz on the vertical axis 123
7.6 Mixing console with magnetic tape 124
7.7 The mixing interface in TunePad allows you to adjust
gain, pan, and frequency response for each track
in a mix 126
7.8 Lowpass flter response curve 129
7.9 Highpass flter response curve 130
7.10 Bandpass flter response curve 131
7.11 Notch flter response curve 132
7.12 Peaking flter response curve 132
7.13 Low shelf and high shelf response curves 133
7.14 Graph of two methods for fading audio in 137
8.1 Intermediate pitches between C and C 141
8.2 Code cell in TunePad showing import statement 154
8.3 Drum fll pattern A 154
8.4 Drum fll pattern B 155
9.1 Songs are composed of nested and repeating notes,
phrases, and sections 159
9.2 The main EarSketch interface features a large library
of samples (left), an interactive timeline (middle top), a
code editor (center), and extensive documentation and
curriculum (right) 162
9.3 Close-up screenshot of EarSketch’s DAW 164
9.4 Using the ftMedia function in EarSketch 165
9.5 Snare drum riser pattern 172
9.6 Alternative snare drum riser pattern 173
xii Figures
10.1 Moog System 55 modular synthesizer 178
10.2 Audio signal from a microphone (top) and an audio
signal from an electric circuit 179
10.3 A simple Modular Synthesis patch created in TunePad 179
10.4 A patch with a delay efect 182
10.5 Two variations of an Additive Synthesis patch 184
10.6 A simple Subtractive Synthesis patch 185
10.7 An FM Synthesis patch where one sine wave is fed into
the frequency input socket of another sine wave 185
10.8 A more complex FM Synthesis patch 186
10.9 An example of physical modeling to create complex
string-like sounds 187
10.10 Complete Basic Poly/Lead patch in TunePad 188
10.11 Complete FM Synthesis example 189
11.1 The IBM 7094 computer at NASA. Public domain.
Available at Wikipedia 197
11.2 The Yamaha DX-7 200
11.3 Opcode’s Vision software for Macintosh in 1989 202
11.4 Screenshot of Teropa’s Music Mouse emulator 204
11.5 Jazz trombonist and scholar George Lewis working
on the IRCAM project. Image Credit: Michel Waisvisz
archives, ca. 1985 (used with permission) 205
A3.1 Parts of an audio wave 241
A3.2 ADSR envelope 242
A3.3 Natural notes on a keyboard 246
A3.4 Natural notes for a Treble Clef (top) and natural notes
for a Bass Clef (bottom) 247
A3.5 Circle of Fifths 250
Photo and illustration credits

George Folz (georgefolz.com) created original illustrations for

this book featured in Interludes 2, 4, and 8.
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 3 is by
(unsplash.com/@jonathanvez)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 4 is by
(unsplash.com/@markus_gjengaar)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 5 is by
(unsplash.com/@jasmund)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 6 is by
(unsplash.com/@efrenbarahona3)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 7 is by
(unsplash.com/@pablodelafuente)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 8 is by
(unsplash.com/@makuph)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 10 is by
(unsplash.com/@didierjoomun)
The photograph at the beginning of Interlude 9 is by
(unsplash.com/@halacious)
The photograph at the beginning of Chapter 11 is by deepsonic
(fickr.com/people/73143485@N02). Creative
Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.
Foreword

When I was a kid growing up in Texas, I “learned” how to play viola. I

put learned in quotes because it was really just a process of rote memori-
zation—hours and hours of playing the same songs over and over again.
I learned how to read sheet music, but only to the extent that I knew the
note names and could translate them into the grossest of physical move-
ments. I never learned to read music as literature, to understand its deeper
meaning, structure, or historical context. I never understood anything
about music theory beyond being annoyed that I had to pay attention to
accidentals in diferent keys. I never composed anything, not even infor-
mally scratching out a tune. I never developed habits of deep listening,
of taking songs apart in my head and puzzling over how they were put
together in the frst place. I never played just for fun. And, despite the best
intentions of my parents and teachers, I never fell in love with music.
Learning how to code was the complete opposite experience for me. I
was largely self-taught. The courses I took in school were electives that I
chose for myself. Teachers gave me important scafolding at just the right
times, but it never felt forced. I spent hours working on games or other
projects (probably when I should have been practicing viola). I drew art-
work, planned out algorithms, and even synthesized my own rudimentary
sound efects. I had no idea what I was doing, but that was liberating. No
one was around to point out my mistakes or to show me how to do things
the “right” way (at least, not until college). I learned how to fgure things
out for myself, and the skills I picked up from those experiences are still
relevant today. I fell in love with coding.1
But I know many people whose stories are fipped 180 degrees. For
them, music was so personally, socially, and culturally motivating that
they couldn’t get enough. They’d practice for hours and hours, not just for
fun but for something much deeper. For some it was an instrument like
the guitar that got them started. For others it was an app like GarageBand
that gave them a playful entry point into musical ideas. To the extent that
they had coding experiences, those experiences ranged from uninspiring
to of-putting. It’s not that they necessarily hated coding, but it was some-
thing they saw as not being for them.
 Foreword xv
In the foreword of his book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Pow-
erful Ideas, Seymour Papert wrote that he “fell in love with gears” as a way
of helping us imagine a future in which children (like me) would fall in
love with computer programming, not for its own sake, but for the cre-
ative worlds and powerful ideas that programming could open up. Part of
what he was saying was that love and learning go hand in hand, and that
computers could be an entry point into many creative and artistic domains
such as mathematics and music. Coding can revitalize subjects that have
become painfully rote in schools.
The process of developing TunePad over the past several years has been
a fascinating rediscovery of musical ideas for me. Code has given me a dif-
ferent kind of language for thinking about things like rhythm, chords, and
harmony. I can experiment with composition unencumbered by my mal-
adroit hands. Music has become something creative and alive in a way that
it never was for me before. Music theory is no longer a thicket of confusing
terminology and instead has become a fascinating world of mathematical
beauty that structures the creative process.
Melanie, Cameron, and I hope that this book gives you a similarly joy-
ful learning experience with music and code. We hope that you feel em-
powered to explore the algorithmic and mathematical beauty of music.
We hope that you discover, as we have, that music and code reinforce one
another in surprising and powerful ways that open new creative opportu-
nities for you. We hope that, regardless of your starting point—as a coder,
as a musician, as neither, as both—you will discover something new about
yourself and what you can become.

Michael Horn
Chicago, Illinois ( July 2021)

Note
1 I was also fortunate to have grown up in a time and place where these ac-
tivities were seen as socially acceptable for a person of my background and
identity.
Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the many people who have helped make this book possi-
ble. We especially want to thank Dr. Amartya Banerjee who has anchored
the TunePad development team. The TunePad project grew out of a col-
laboration with the EarSketch team at Georgia Tech that was initiated by
Dr. Brian Magerko and Dr. Jason Freeman. We thank Dr. Nichole Pinkard,
Dr. Amy Pratt, and the Northwestern Ofce of Community Education
Partnerships. We thank the TIDAL Lab team at Northwestern University
including Mmachi Obiorah, Wade Berger, Izaiah Wallace, Brian Andrus,
Jamie Gorrson, Matthew Brucker, Lexie Zhao, Ayse Hunt, Kallayah
Henderson, Cortez Watson Jr., Sachin Srivastava, and many, many oth-
ers. We thank our community partners including the Evanston Public
Library, the NAACP of DuPage County, the James R. Jordan Foun-
dation, the Meta Media program at the McGaw YMCA, the Hip-Hop
FIRM, EvanSTEM, the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship, Studio
2112, the James R. Jordan Boys and Girls Club, Lake View High School
and Marshaun Brooks, Lane Tech High School and Amy Wozniak, Gary
Comer Youth Centers, and Chicago Youth Centers, Project Exploration,
BBF Family Services, and the Museum of Science and Industry. Shout-
outs to Marcus Prince and Sam Carroll who gave us insightful curriculum
ideas, to Tom Knapp who contributed to TunePad’s graphical design, and
to the amazing interns we’ve worried with over the years.
Special thanks go to the people who gave input into the ideas and text
of this manuscript including George Papajohn and Diana Reed. We also
thank Joseph Mahanes, Abbie Reeves, and others who put up with us
while we worked on this book.
TunePad was created by the Tangible Interaction Design and Learn-
ing (TIDAL) Lab at Northwestern University in collaboration with the
EarSketch team at the Georgia Institute of Technology and with fund-
ing from the National Science Foundation (grants DRL-1612619, DRL-
1451762, and DRL-1837661) and the Verizon Foundation. Any opinions,
fndings, and/or recommendations expressed in the material are those of
the authors and do not necessarily refect the views of the funders.
1 Why music and coding?

Welcome to Introduction to Digital Music with Python: Learning Music with

Code. This book is designed for people who love music and are interested in
the intersection of music and coding. Maybe you’re an aspiring musician
or music producer who wants to know more about coding and what it can
do. Or maybe you already know a little about coding, and you want to
expand your creative musical horizon. Or maybe you’re a total beginner
in both. Regardless of your starting point, this book is designed for you to
learn about music and coding as mutually reinforcing skills. Code gives us
an elegant language to think about musical ideas, and music gives us a con-
text within which code makes sense and is immediately useful. Together
they form a powerful new way to create music that will be interconnected
with digital production tools of the future.
More and more code will be used to produce music, to compose music,
and even to perform music for live audiences. Digital production tools
such as Logic, Reason, Pro Tools, FL Studio, and Ableton Live are com-
plex software applications created with millions of lines of code written by
huge teams of software engineers. With all of these tools you can write
code to create custom plugins and efects. Beyond production tools, live
coding is an emerging form of musical performance art in which Infor-
mation Age DJs write computer code to generate music in real time for
live audiences.
In other ways, we’re still on the cusp of a radical transformation in the
way that we use code to create music. The history of innovation in music
has always been entwined with innovation in technology. Whether we’re
DOI: 10.4324/9781003033240-1
2 Why music and coding?
talking about Franz Liszt in the 19th century, who pioneered the persona
of the modern music virtuoso based on technological breakthroughs of
the piano,1 or DJ Kool Herc in the 20th century, who pioneered hip-hop
with two turntables and a crate full of funk records in the Bronx, tech-
nologies have created new opportunities for musical expression that have
challenged the status quo and given birth to new genres. We don’t have
the Franz Liszt or DJ Kool Herc of coding yet, but it’s only a matter of
time before the coding virtuosos of tomorrow expand the boundaries of
what’s possible in musical composition, production, and performance.

1.1 What is Python?

In this book you’ll learn how to create your own digital music using a
computer programming language called Python. If you’re not familiar
with programming languages, Python is a general-purpose language frst
released in the 1990s that is now one of the most widely used languages in
the world. Python is designed to be easy to read and write, which makes it
a popular choice for beginners. It’s also fully featured and powerful, mak-
ing it a good choice for professionals working in felds as diverse as data
science, web development, the arts, and video game development. Because
Python has been around for decades, it runs on every major computer
operating system. The examples in this book even use a version of Python
that runs directly inside of your web browser without the need for any
special software installation.
Unlike many other common beginner programming languages, Python
is “text-based”, which means that you type code into an editor instead of
dragging code blocks on the computer screen. This makes Python a little
harder to learn than other beginner languages, but it also greatly expands
what you can do. By the time you get through this book you should feel
comfortable writing short Python programs and have the conceptual tools
you need to explore more on your own.

1.2 What this book is not

Before we get into a concrete example of what you can do with a little bit
of code, just a quick note about what this book is not. This book is not a
comprehensive guide to Python programming. There are many excellent
books and tutorials designed for beginners, several of which are free.2
This book is also not a comprehensive guide to music theory or Western
music notation. We’ll get into the core ideas behind rhythm, harmony,
melody, and composition, but there are, again, many other resources avail-
able for beginners who want to go deeper. What we’re ofering is a dif-
ferent approach that combines learning music with learning code in equal
measure.
 Why music and coding? 3
1.3 What this book is
What we will do is give you an intuitive understanding of the fundamen-
tal concepts behind both music and coding. Code and music are highly
technical skills, full of arcane symbols and terminology, that seem almost
designed to intimidate beginners. In this book we’ll put core concepts
to use immediately to start making music. You’ll get to play with ideas
at your own pace and get instant feedback as you bring ideas to life. We
skip most of the technical jargon and minutiae for now—that can come
later. Instead, we focus on developing your confdence and understanding.
Importantly, the skills, tools, and ways of thinking that we introduce in
this book will be broadly applicable in many other areas as well. You’ll be
working in Python code, but the core structures of variables, functions,
loops, conditional logical, and classes are the same across many program-
ming languages including JavaScript, Java, C, C++, and C#. After you
learn one programming language, each additional language is that much
easier to pick up.

1.4 TunePad and EarSketch

This book uses two free online platforms that combine music and
Python coding. The frst, called TunePad (https://tunepad.com), was
developed by a team of researchers at Northwestern University in
Chicago. TunePad lets you create short musical loops that you can
layer together using a simple digital audio workstation (DAW) inter-
face. The second platform, called EarSketch (https://earsketch.gatech.
edu), was created by researchers at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. EarSketch
uses Python code to arrange samples and loops into full-length com-
positions. Both platforms are browser-based apps, so all you need to
get started is a computer (tablets or Chromebooks are fne), an inter-
net connection, and a web browser like Chrome or Firefox. External
speakers or headphones are also nice but not required. Both platforms
have been around for years and have been used by many thousands
of students from middle school all the way up to college and beyond.
TunePad and EarSketch are designed primarily as learning platforms,
but there are easy ways to export your work to professional production
software if you want to go further.

1.5 A quick example

Here’s a quick example of what coding in Python looks like. This program
runs in TunePad to create a simple beat pattern, variants of which have
been used in literally thousands of songs such as Blinding Lights by The
Weeknd and Roses by SAINt JHN.
4 Why music and coding?

1 playNote(1) # play a kick drum sound

2 playNote(2) # play a snare drum sound
3 playNote(1)
4 playNote(2)
5 rewind(4) # rewind 4 beats
6 for i in range(4):
7 rest(0.5)
8 playNote(4, beats = 0.5) # play hat for a half beat

These eight lines of Python code tell TunePad to play a pattern of kick
drums, snare drums, and high-hats. Most of the lines are playNote in-
structions, and, as you might have guessed, those instructions tell TunePad
to play musical sounds indicated by the numbers inside of the parentheses.
This example also includes something called a loop on line 6. Don’t worry
too much about the details yet, but the loop is an easy way to repeat a set
of actions over and over again. In this case, the loop tells Python to repeat
lines 7 and 8 four times in a row. The screenshot (Figure 1.1) shows what
this looks like in TunePad. You can try out the example for yourself with
this link: https://tunepad.com/examples/roses.

1.6 Five reasons to learn code

Now that you’ve seen a brief example of what you can do with a few lines
of Python code, here are our top fve reasons to get started with program-
ming and music if you’re still in doubt.

1.6.1 REASON 1: Like it or note, music is already defned by code

Looking across the modern musical landscape, it’s clear that music is al-
ready defned by code. One of the biggest common factors of almost all
modern music from any popular genre is that everything is edited, if not
created entirely, with sophisticated computer software. It’s hard to over-
state how profoundly such software has shaped the sound of music in the
21st century. Relatively inexpensive DAW applications and the myriad
ubiquitous plugins that work across platforms have had a disruptive and
democratizing efect across the music industry. Think about efects plugins
like autotune, reverb, or the ability to change the pitch of a sample with-
out changing the tempo. These efects are all generated with sophisticated
software. Production studios the size of small ofces containing hundreds
of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment now ft on the screen of a
laptop computer available to any aspiring producer with passion, a WiFi
 Why music and coding? 5

Figure 1.1 A TunePad program to play a simple rock beat.

connection, and a small budget. The reasons behind the shift to digital
production tools are obvious. Computers have gotten to a point where
they are cheap enough, fast enough, and capacious enough to do real-time
audio editing. We can convert sound waves into editable digital informa-
tion with microsecond precision and then hear the efects of our changes
in real time. These DAWs didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They were
constructed by huge teams of software engineers writing code—millions
of lines of it. As an example, TunePad was created with over 1.5 million
lines of code written in over a dozen computer languages such as Python,
HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Dart. Regardless of how you feel about the
digital nature of modern music, it’s not going away. Learning to code will
6 Why music and coding?

Figure 1.2 Typical DAW software.

help you understand a little more about how all of this works under the
hood. More to the point, it’s increasingly common for producers to write
their own code to manipulate sound. For example, in Logic, you can write
JavaScript code to process incoming MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) data to do things like create custom arpeggiators. Learning to
code can give you more control and help expand your creative potential
(Figure 1.2).

1.6.2 REASON 2: Code is a powerful way to make music

We don’t always think about it this way, but music is algorithmic in
nature—it’s full of mathematical relationships, logical structure, and
recursive patterns. The beauty of the Baroque fugue is in part a re-
fection of the beauty of the mathematical and computational ideas
behind the music. We call Bach a genius not just because his music is
so compelling, but also because he was able to hold complex algorithms
in his mind and then transcribe them to paper using the representation
system that we call Western music notation. In other words, music
notation is a language for recording the output of the composition
process, but not a language for capturing the algorithmic nature of the
composition process itself.
Code, on the other hand, is a language specifcally designed to capture
mathematical relationships, logical structure, and recursive patterns. For
example, take the stuttered hi-hat patterns that are one of the defning
characteristics of trap music. Here are a few lines of Python code that gen-
erate randomized hi-hat stutters that can bring an otherwise conventional
beat to life with sparkling energy.
 Why music and coding? 7

1 for _ in range(16):
2 if randint(6) > 1: # roll the die for a random number
3 playNote(4, beats=0.5) # play an eighth note
4 else:
5 playNote(4, beats=0.25) # or play 16th notes
6 playNote(4, beats=0.25)

Or, as another example, here’s a two-line Python program that plays a

snare drum riser efect common in house, EDM, or pop music. You’ll of-
ten hear this technique right before the beat drops. This code uses a decay
function so that each successive note is a little shorter resulting in a gradual
acceleration efect. Don’t worry about how all of this works just yet. We’ll
walk you through the details as we go along.

1 for i in range(50): # play 50 snares

2 playNote(2, beats = pow(2, -0.09 * i))

What’s cool about these efects is that they’re parameterized. Because the
code describes the algorithms to generate music, and not the music itself, it
means we can create infnite variation by adjusting the numbers involved.
For example, in the trap hi-hat code, we can easily play around with how
frequently stuttered hats are inserted into the pattern by increasing or de-
creasing one number. You can think of code as something like a power drill;
you can swap out diferent bits to make holes of diferent sizes. The drill bits
are like parameters that change what the tool does in each specifc instance.
In the same way, algorithms are vastly more general-purpose tools that can
accomplish myriad tasks by changing the input parameters.
Creating a snare drum riser with code is obviously a very diferent kind
of thing than picking up two drumsticks and banging out a pattern on
a real drum. And, to be clear, we’re not advocating for code to replace
learning how to perform with live musical instruments. But, code can be
another tool in your musical repertoire for generating repetitive patterns,
exploring mathematical ideas, or playing sequences that are too fast or
intricate to play by hand.

1.6.3 REASON 3: Code lets you build your own musical toolkit
Becoming a professional in any feld is about developing expertise with
tools—acquiring equipment and knowing how to use it. Clearly, this
is true in the music industry, but it’s also true in software. Professional
software engineers acquire specialized equipment and software packages.
They develop expertise in a range of programming languages and techni-
cal frameworks. But, they also build their own specialized tools that they
use across projects. In this book, we’ll show you how to build up your own
8 Why music and coding?
library of Python functions. You can think of functions as specialized tools
that you create to perform diferent musical tasks. In addition to the exam-
ples we described above, you might write a function to generate a chord
progression or play an arpeggio, and you can use functions again and again
across many musical projects.

1.6.4 REASON 4: Code is useful for a thousand and one other things
As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, Python is one of the most power-
ful, multi-purpose languages in the world. It’s used to create web servers
and social media platforms as much as video games, animation, and music.
It’s used for research and data science, politics and journalism. Knowing a
little Python gives you access to powerful machine learning and artifcial
intelligence (AI/ML) techniques that are poised to transform most aspects
of human work, including in creative domains such as music. Python is
both a scripting language and a software engineering platform—equal
parts duct tape and table saw—and it’s capable of everything from quick
fxes to durable software applications. Learning a little Python won’t make
you a software engineer, just like learning a few guitar chords won’t make
you a performance musician. But it’s a start down a path. An open door
that was previously closed, and a new way of using your mind and a new
way of thinking about music.

1.6.5 REASON 5: Coding makes us more human

When we think about learning to code, we tend to think about the eco-
nomic payof. You’ll hear arguments that learning to code is a resume
builder and a path to a high-paying job. It’s not that this perspective is
wrong, but it might be the wrong reason for you to learn how to code.
Just like people who are good at music love music, people who are good
at coding tend to love coding. The craft of building software can be te-
dious and frustrating, but it can also be rewarding. It’s a way to express
oneself creatively and to engage in craftwork. People don’t learn to knit,
cook, or play an instrument for the lucrative career paths that these pur-
suits open up—although by all means those pursuits can lead to remark-
able careers. People learn these things because they have a passion for them.
Because they are personally fulflling. These passions connect us to cen-
turies of tradition; they connect us to communities of teachers, learners,
and practitioners; and, in the end, they make us more human. So when
things get a little frustrating—and things always get a little frustrating
when you’re learning any worthwhile skill—remember that just like po-
etry, literature, or music, code is an art as much as it is a science. And, just
like woodworking, knitting, or cooking, code is a craft as much as it is
an engineering discipline. Be patient and give yourself a chance to fall in
love with coding.
 Why music and coding? 9
1.7 The future of music and code
Before we get on with the book, we wanted to leave you with a brief
thought about the future of technology, music, and code. For as long as
there have been people on this planet there has been music. And, as long
as there has been music, people have created technology to expand and en-
hance their creative potential. A drum is a kind of technology—a piece of
animal hide stretched across a hollow log and tied in place. It’s a polylithic
accomplishment, an assembly of parts that requires skill and craft to make.
One must know how to prepare animal hide, to make rope from plant
fber, and to craft and sharpen tools. More than that, one must know how
to perform with the drum, to connect with an audience, to enchant them
to move their bodies through an emotional and rhythmic connection to
the beat. Technology brings together materials and tools with knowledge.
People must have knowledge both to craft an artifact and to wield it. And,
over time—over generations—that knowledge is refned as it gets passed
down from teacher to student. It becomes stylized and diversifed. Tools,
artifacts, knowledge, and practice all become something greater. Some-
thing we call culture.
Again and again the world of music has been disrupted, democratized,
and redefned by new technologies. Hip-hop was a rebellion against the
musical status quo fueled by low-cost technologies like recordable cas-
sette tapes, turntables, and 808 drum machines. Early innovators shat-
tered norms of artistic expression, redefning music, poetry, visual art,
and dance in the process. Inexpensive access to technology coupled with
a need for new forms of authentic self-expression was a match to the dry
tinder of racial and economic oppression.
It’s hard to overstate how quickly the world is still changing as a re-
sult of technological advancements. Digital artifacts and infrastructures
are so ubiquitous that they have reconfgured social, economic, legal, and
political systems; revolutionized scientifc research; upended the arts and
culture; and even wormed their way into the most intimate aspects of our
personal and romantic lives. We’ve already talked about the transforma-
tive impact that digital tools have had on the world of music in the 21st
century, but the exhilarating (and scary) part is that we’re on the precipice
of another wave of transformation in which human creativity will be re-
defned by Artifcial Intelligence AI and Machine Learning ML. Imagine
AI accompanists that can improvise harmonies or melodies in real time
with human musicians. Or deep learning algorithms that can listen to
millions of songs and innovate music in the same genre. Or silicon poets
that grasp human language well enough to compose intricate rap lyrics.
Or machines with trillions of transistor synapses so complex that they be-
gin to “dream”—inverted machine learning algorithms that ooze imagery
unhinged enough to disturb the absinthe slumber of surrealist painters.
Now, imagine that this is not speculative science fction, but the reality of
10 Why music and coding?
our world today. These things are here now and already challenging what
we mean by human creativity. What are the implications of a society of
digital creative cyborgs?
But here’s the trick: we’ve always been cyborgs. Western music notation
is as much a technology as Python code. Becoming literate in any suf-
ciently advanced representation system profoundly shapes how we think
about and perceive the world around us. Classical music notation, theory,
and practice shaped the mind of Beethoven as much as he shaped music
with it—so much so that he was still able to compose many of his most
famous works while almost totally deaf. Beethoven was a creative cyborg
enhanced by the technology of Western music notation and theory. The
diference is that now we’ve externalized many of the cognitive processes
into machines that think alongside us. And, increasingly, these tools are
available to everyone. How that changes what it means to be a creative
human being is anyone’s guess.

1.8 Book overview

We’re excited to have you with us on this journey through music and
code. Here’s a short guide for where we go from here. Chapters 2 and 3
cover the foundations of rhythm, pitch, and harmony. These chapters are
designed to move quickly and get you coding in Python early on. We’ll
cover Python variables, loops, which both connect directly to musical
concepts. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 cover the foundations of chords, scales,
and keys using Python lists, functions, and data structures. Chapters 7, 8,
and 10 shift from music composition to music production covering topics
such as the frequency domain, modular synthesis, and other production
efects. In Chapter 9, we switch to the EarSketch platform to talk about
how various musical elements are combined to compose full-length songs.
Finally, Chapter 11 provides a short overview of the history of music and
code along with a glimpse of what the future might hold. Between each
chapter, we provide a series of short interludes that are like step-by-step
tutorials to introduce new music and coding concepts.
A few notes about how to read this book. Any time we include Python
code, it will be shown in a programming font like this:
playNote(60)

Sometimes we’ll write code in a table with line numbers so that we can re-
fer to specifc lines. When we introduce new terms, we’ll bold the word.
If you get confused by any of the programming or music terminology,
check out the appendices, which contain quick overviews of all of the
important concepts. We’ll often invite you to follow along with online
examples. The best way to learn is by doing it yourself, so we strongly
 Why music and coding? 11
encourage you to try coding in Python online as you go through the
chapters.

Notes
1 It’s said that fans were so infatuated with Liszt’s piano “rockstar” status that
they fought over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves at his performances.
2 We recommend https://www.w3schools.com/python/.
Interlude 1
BASIC POP BEAT

In this interlude we’re going to get familiar with the TunePad interface by
creating a basic rock beat in the style of songs like Roses by SAINt JHN.
You can follow along online by visiting
https://tunepad.com/interlude/pop-beat

STEP 1: Deep listening

It’s good to get in the habit of deep listening. Deep listening is the prac-
tice of trying every possible way of listening to sounds. Start by loading a
favorite song in a streaming service and listening—really listening—to it.
Take the song apart element by element. What sounds do you hear? How
are they layered together? When do diferent parts come into the track and
how do they change over time? Think about how the producer balances
sounds across the frequency spectrum or opens up space for transitions in
the lyrics. Try focusing on just the drums. Can you start to recognize the
individual percussion sounds and their rhythmic patterns?

STEP 2: Create a new TunePad project

Visit https://tunepad.com on a laptop or Chromebook and set up an account.1
If you already have a gmail address, you can use your existing account. Af-
ter signing in, click on the New Project button to create an empty project
workspace. Your project will look something like this (Figure 1.3):

DOI: 10.4324/9781003033240-2
 Basic pop beat 13

Figure 1.3 TunePad project workspace.

STEP 3: Kick drums

In your project window, click on the ADD CELL button and then select
Drums (Figure 1.4).
In TunePad you can think of a “cell” as an instrument that you can
program to play music. Name the new instrument “Kicks” and then add
this Python code.

1 # play four kick drums

2 playNote(1)
3 playNote(1)
4 playNote(1)
5 playNote(1)

Figure 1.4 Selecting instruments in TunePad.

14 Basic pop beat

Figure 1.5 Parts of a TunePad cell.

When you’re done, your project should look something like Figure 1.5.
Go ahead and press the Play button at the top left to hear how this
sounds. Congratulations! You’ve just written a Python program.

Syntax errors
Occasionally your code won’t work right and you’ll get a red error mes-
sage box that looks something like Figure 1.6. This kind of error message
is called a “syntax” error. In this case, the code was written as playnote
with a lowercase “n” instead of an uppercase “N”. You can fx this error
by changing the code to read playNote (with an uppercase “N”) on line
2 (Figure 1.6).
 Basic pop beat 15

Figure 1.6 Python syntax error in TunePad.

STEP 4: Snare drums

In your project window, click on the ADD CELL button again and select
Drums. Now you should have two drum cells one appearing above the
other in your project. Name the second instrument “Snare Drums” and
then add this Python code.

1 # play two snare drums on the up beats only

2 rest(1) # skip a beat
3 playNote(2) # play a snare drum sound
4 rest(1)
5 playNote(2)

You might start to notice the text that comes after the hashtag symbol (#)
is a special part of your program. This text is called a comment, and it’s for
human coders to help organize and document their code. Anything that
comes after the hashtag on a line is ignored by Python. Try playing this
snare drum cell to hear how it sounds. You can also play the kick drum
cell at the same time to see how they sound together.

STEP 5: Hi-hats
Click on the ADD CELL button again to add a third drum cell. Change
the title of this cell to be “Hats” and add the following code:

1 # play four hats between the kicks and snares

2 rest(0.5) # rest for half a beat
3 playNote(4, beats=0.5) # play a hat for half a beat
4 rest(0.5)
5 playNote(4, beats=0.5)
6 rest(0.5)
7 playNote(4, beats=0.5)
8 rest(0.5)
9 playNote(4, beats=0.5)
16 Basic pop beat
When you play all three of the drum cells together, you should hear a
basic rock beat pattern:

kick - hat - snare - hat - kick - hat - snare - hat

STEP 6: Fix your kicks

You might notice that the kick drums feel a little heavy in this mix. We
can make some space in the pattern by resting on the up beats (beats 2
and 4) when the snare drums are playing. Scroll back up to your Kick
drum cell and change the code to look like this:

1 # play kicks on the down beats only

2 playNote(1)
3 rest(1)
4 playNote(1)
5 rest(1)
6 playNote(1)
7 rest(1)
8 playNote(1)
9 rest(0.5) # rest a half beat
10 playNote(1, beats = 0.5) # half beat pickup kick

STEP 7: Adding a bass line

Add a new cell to your project, but this time select Bass instead of
Drums. Once the cell is loaded up, change the voice to Plucked Bass
(Figure 1.7):

Figure 1.7 Selecting an instrument’s voice in TunePad.

 Basic pop beat 17
Entering this code to create a simplifed bass line in the style of Roses by
SAINt JHN. When you’re done, try playing everything together to get
the full sound.

1 playNote(5, beats=0.5) # start on low F

2 playNote(17, beats=0.5) # up an octave
3 rest(1)
4
5 playNote(10, beats=0.5) # A sharp
6 playNote(22, beats=0.5) # up an octave
7 rest(1)
8
9 playNote(8, beats=0.5) # G sharp
10 playNote(20, beats=0.5) # up an octave
11 rest(0.5)
12
13 playNote(8, beats=0.5) # G sharp - G - G
14 playNote(12, beats=0.5)
15 playNote(24, beats=0.5)
16
17 playNote(10, beats=0.75) # C sharp
19 playNote(22, beats=0.25) # D sharp

Note
1 We recommend using the free Google Chrome browser for the best overall
experience.
2 Rhythm and tempo

This chapter dives into the fundamentals of rhythm in music. We start

with the beat—what it is, how it’s measured, and how we can visualize the
beat to compose, edit, and play music. From there we’ll provide examples
of some common rhythmic motifs from diferent genres of music and
how to code them with Python. The main programming concepts for this
chapter include loops, variables, calling function, and passing parameter
values. This chapter covers a lot of ground, but it will give you a solid start
on making music with code.

2.1 Beat and tempo

The beat is the foundation of rhythm in music. The term beat has a num-
ber of diferent meanings in music,1 but this chapter uses it to mean a unit
of time, or how long an individual note is played—for example, “rest for
two beats” or “play a note for half a beat”. Based on the beat, musical
notes are combined in repeated patterns that move through time to make
rhythmic sense to our ears.
Tempo refers to the speed at which the rhythm moves, or how quickly
one beat follows another in a piece of music. As a listener, you can feel
the tempo by tapping your foot to the rhythmic pulse. The standard way
to measure tempo is in beats per minute (BPM or bpm), meaning the
total number of beats played in one minute’s time. This is almost always a
whole number like 60, 120, or 78. At a tempo of 60 bpm, your foot taps 60
times each minute (or one beat per second). At 120 bpm, you get 2 beats
DOI: 10.4324/9781003033240-3
 Rhythm and tempo 19
every second; and, at 90 bpm, you get 1.5 beats every second. Later in this
chapter when you start working with TunePad, you can set the tempo by
clicking on the bpm indicator in the top bar of a project (see Figure 2.1).
Diferent genres of music have their own typical tempo ranges (al-
though every song and every artist is diferent). For example, hip-hop
usually falls in the 60–110 bpm range, while rock is faster in the 100–140
bpm range. House/techno/trance is faster still, with tempos between 120
and 140 bpm.

Genre Tempo Range (BPM)

Rock 100–140
R&B 60–80
Pop 100–132
Reggae 60–92
Hip-hop 60–110
Dubstep 130–144
Techno 120–140
Salsa 140–250
Bachata 120–140

It takes practice for musicians to perform at a steady tempo, and they

sometimes use a device called a metronome to help keep their playing
constant with the pulse of the music. You can create a simple metronome
in TunePad using four lines of code in a drum cell. This works best if you
switch the instrument to Drums → Percussion Sounds.
playNote(3, velocity = 100) # louder 1st note
playNote(3, velocity = 60)
playNote(3, velocity = 60)
playNote(3, velocity = 60)

You can adjust the tempo of your metronome with the bpm indicator
(Figure 2.1). As this example illustrates, computers excel at keeping a per-
fectly steady tempo. This is great if you want precision, but there’s also a
risk that the resulting music will sound too rigid and machine-like. When
real people play music they often speed up or slow down, either for dra-
matic efect or just as a result of being a human. Depending on the genre,
performers might add slight variations in rhythm called swing or shufe,

Figure 2.1 TunePad project information bar. You can click on the tempo, time
signature, or key to change the settings for your project.
20 Rhythm and tempo
that’s a kind of back and forth rocking of the beat that you can feel almost
more than you can hear. We’ll show you how to add a more human feel to
computer generated music later in the book.

2.2 Rhythmic notations

Over the centuries, musicians and composers have developed many dif-
ferent written systems to record and share music. With the invention of
digital production software, a number of other interactive representations
for mixing and editing have become common as well. Here are four com-
mon visual representations of the same rhythmic pattern. The pattern has
a total duration of four beats and can be counted as “1 and 2, 3 and 4”.
The frst two notes are ½ beats long followed by a note that is 1 beat long.
Then the pattern repeats.

2.2.1 Representation 1: Standard Western music notation

The frst representation (below) shows standard music notation (or Western
notation), a system of recording notes that has been developed over many
hundreds of years. The two thick vertical lines on the left side of the il-
lustration indicate that this is rhythmic notation, meaning that there is no
information about musical pitch, only rhythmic timing. The dots on the
long horizontal lines are notes whose shapes indicate the duration of each
sound to be played. Sometimes diferent percussion instruments will have
their notes drawn on diferent lines. We’ll describe what the various note
symbols mean in more detail in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 Standard notation example.

 Rhythm and tempo 21

Figure 2.3 Waveform representation of Figure 2.2.

2.2.2 Representation 2: Audio waveforms

The second representation shows a visualization of the actual audio wave-
form that gets sent to the speakers when you play music. The waveform
shows the amplitude (or volume) of the audio signal over time. The next
chapter talks more about audio waveforms, but for now you can think of
a waveform as a graph that shows the literal intensity of the vibration of
your speakers over time. When you compose a beat in TunePad, you can
switch to the waveform view by clicking on the small dropdown arrow at
the top-left side of the timeline (Figure 2.3).

2.2.3 Representation 3: Piano (MIDI) roll

The third representation shows a piano roll (or MIDI (Musical Instrument
Digital Interface) roll). This uses solid lines to show individual notes. The
length of the lines represents the length of individual notes, and the verti-
cal position of the lines represents the percussion sound being played (kick
drums and snare drums in this case). This representation is increasingly
common in music production software. Many tools even allow for drag
and drop interaction with the individual notes to compose and edit music
(Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4 Piano or MIDI roll representation of Figure 2.2.

22 Rhythm and tempo
2.2.4 Representation 4: Python code
A fnal representation for now shows Python code in TunePad. In this
representation, the duration of each note is set using the beats parameter
of the playNote function calls.

playNote(2, beats = 0.5)

playNote(2, beats = 0.5)
playNote(6, beats = 1)

playNote(2, beats = 0.5)

playNote(2, beats = 0.5)
playNote(6, beats = 1)

Each of these representations has advantages and disadvantages; they are

good for conveying some kinds of information and less good at convey-
ing others. For example, standard rhythm notation has been refned over
centuries and is accessible to an enormous, worldwide community of mu-
sicians. On the other hand, it can be confusing for people who haven’t
learned how to read sheet music. The timing of individual notes is com-
municated using tails and fags attached to the notes, but there’s no consis-
tent mapping between horizontal space and timing.
The audio waveform is good at showing what the sound actually looks
like—how long each note rings out (“release”) and how sharp its onset is
(“attack”). It’s helpful for music production, mixing, and mastering. On
the other hand, waveforms don’t really tell you much about the pitch of a
note or its intended timing as recorded by the composer.
The Python code is easier for computers to read than humans—it’s
defnitely not something you would hand to a musician to sight read.
On the other hand, it has the advantage that it can be incorporated into
computer algorithms and manipulated and transformed in endless ways.
There are many, many other notation systems designed to transcribe
a musical performance—what we hear at a live performance—onto a
sheet of paper or a computer screen. Each of these representations was
invented for a specifc purpose and/or genre of music. You might pick a
representation based on the context and whether you’re in the role of a
musician (and what kind of instrument you play), a singer, a composer,
a sound engineer, or a producer. Music notation systems are as rich
and varied as the cultures and musical traditions that invented them.
One nice thing about working with software is that it’s easy to switch
between multiple representations of music depending on the task we’re
trying to accomplish.
 Rhythm and tempo 23

Figure 2.5 Common note symbols starting with a whole note (four beats) on the
top down to 16th notes on the bottom. The notes on each new row are
half the length of the row above.

2.3 Standard rhythmic notation

This section will review a standard musical notation system that has roots
in European musical traditions. This system is versatile and has been re-
fned and adapted over a long period of time across many countries and
continents to work with an increasingly diverse range of instruments and
musical genres. We’re starting with percussive rhythmic note values in
this chapter, and we’ll move on to working with pitched instruments in
Chapter 3.
Figure 2.5 shows the most common symbols used in rhythmic music
notation. Notes are represented with oval-shaped dots that are either open
or closed. All notes except for the whole note (top) have tails attached to
them that can point either up or down. It doesn’t matter which direction
(up or down) the tail points. Notes that are faster than a quarter note also
have horizontal fags or beams connected to the tails. Each additional fag
or beam indicates that the note is twice as fast.

Symbol Name Beats TunePad code

Whole Note 4 playNote(1, beats = 4)
Larger open circle with no tail
and no fag.
Half Note 2 playNote(1, beats = 2)
Open circle with a tail and no
fag.
Quarter Note 1 playNote(1, beats = 1)
Solid circle with a tail and no
fag.
Other documents randomly have
different content
was to be corrected by their sovereign. They were to be taught wisdom
by the things they suffered. But, alas! men often harden themselves
against even such instruction (Isa ix. 13; Jer. v. 3; Amos iv. 6–11). Here we
see the depravity of human nature in rendering inefficacious all these
Divine chastisements. When this is the case, there is a danger of one of
two things: either that God in anger will throw down the rod (Hos.
iv. 17), or that He will fulfil His own threatenings (Lev. xxvi. 21, 23, 24,
27, 28; H. E. I., 145–147). God has a merciful design in all your crosses,
trials, and afflictions (H. E. I., 56–74). When this is accepted, and
afflictions thus sanctified, the penitent sufferer will put his trust in God
only. Thus the prodigal was starved back “He began to be in want”—
and it was a blessed want that led him to think of his father’s house,
and resolved him to return. You have no reason to complain when your
earthly props are taken away, if thus you are induced to take fresh hold
of God.
II. What is said of their renewed experience. “But shall stay upon
the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.” Glance at three views of it. 1. It is an
enlightened confidence. Confidence is the offspring both of ignorance
and wisdom; ignorance leads some persons to entrust precious
deposits to strangers or to villains, but the wise man seeks first to know
those in whom he is asked to trust. It is foolish to trust without inquiry,
and to refuse to trust the trustworthy. The Christian stays himself upon
God, because he has ascertained what His character is (Ps. cxix. 107;
2 Tim. i. 12). 2. Their confidence is very extensive. It covers all times (Ps.
lxii. 8; Isa. xxvi. 4); all events that can awaken our anxiety; every
condition in which we can be found; all that appertains to life and
godliness, not only grace, but glory; not only our journey’s end, but also
the way. Thus it should be with us, but it is not always so. Strange to
say, while we readily trust God for eternal life, we often find it difficult
to trust Him for what we need in this life. How foolish is this (Rom.
viii. 32; Ps. lxxxiv. 11)! 3. It is a blessed confidence (Prov. xxix. 25; Ps.
cxxv. 1; Isa. xxvi. 3; Jer. xvii. 7, 8; H. E. I., 1191–1934; P. D., 1157, 1160).
III. The reality of their change. “They shall stay upon the Lord, the
Holy One of Israel, in truth.” This confidence is distinguishable, 1. from
mere pretensions. There are those who profess to know God, but in
works deny Him. It seems strange that persons should act the
hypocrite here, for what do they gain (Job xx. 5, xxvii. 8)? 2. From
imaginary confidence. Persons may not endeavour to deceive others,
yet they may deceive themselves (Prov. xxx. 12). How unreal may be the
confidence that seems most assured. (Comp. Mark xiv. 27–31, with
verse 50.) Therefore—
“Beware of Peter’s word,
Nor confidently say,
I will never deny Thee, Lord,
But grant, I never may.”
William Jay: Sunday Evening Sermons and Thursday Evening Lectures,
pp. 290–296.

The Remnants of Society.

x. 20–23. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the

remnant of Israel, &c.
We can hardly understand such language as this, because in our
national life and personal history we have never been subject to these
strange mutations which befell the kingdom of Israel. We can hardly
understand what it means where a whole nation is torn up by the roots,
and carried away into a foreign land; and where, by and by, in the
capricious mood of some despot, a portion of them are allowed to go
back again,—a mere fragment. For in the carrying away of a million
people, how many perish! And when a few are gathered together, and
they turn to go back, how much is this remnant to be pitied!
Wandering from place to place in the promised land, crossing the
Jordan, finding a heap where once there was a flourishing city, drawing
near to the home of their ancestry and finding it in the hands of
foreigners, themselves regarded as intruders and outcasts, what a
harrowing experience theirs must be!
It was under such circumstances as these that the prophets did their
chief work. It was one of their principal functions to encourage a
nation plunged into profound despondency. In this chapter, the
prophet, with words of cheer, and with an inexpressible richness of
imagery, comforts the poor, despoiled band of people, and makes them
feel that the hand of power shall not for ever be so strong against them.
Looked at in its interior spirit, as God meant that it should be viewed,
is it not calculated to encourage and comfort people who are in
desolateness and distress? Think what is meant by “a remnant.” It does
not mean simply a few; neither does it mean merely the last things;
though it includes both these ideas. There are “remnants” in the
tailor’s shop, in the carpenter’s shop, in the household after a meal, in
the harvest field—the waste and refuse that is left after the main and
best parts have been taken away and used. So, in all the phases of
society there is a remnant constantly coming up; it is the portion which
is left after the better or more favoured have been culled out and used;
the unsuccessful man, and the men who have broken down; and it is in
respect to the remnants of society that I am going to speak this
morning.
Consider God’s great tenderness towards the remnant of His
people. . . . Did you ever think of the remnants of society—how
numerous they are, and how much they are to be pitied? We are
observant of the prosperous and successful, but who cares for the
remnants of society? God does!
Let us look at some of these remnants. I. Those who are broken in
health, and are utterly turned away by that reason from all that they
sought. How many they are! How full of sorrow is their lot! By accident
or disease suddenly rendered useless! Like a ship cast upon the land,
where the sun beats upon it, and the heat shrinks and cracks it, and
opens the seams wider and wider, till by and by it drops to pieces. So it
is their pitiful lot to be able to do nothing but wait for the end.
II. Those who have misapplied their powers, and consequently have
failed. How many give themselves to professions for which they are
utterly unfit! Every day men are ruined because they do not know what
they are, nor what they are set to do, and are not willing to do the
things which they could do, but are aspiring to do the things they are
not fitted for. III. Men who were adapted to their work, but were
overtaxed, and who had not the endurance which their circumstances
required. Hundreds of men, under the intense strain of modern society,
break down; and then all is gone so far as they are concerned. IV. A
great many more break down from a secret mismanagement of
themselves. They live in neglect or violation of the simplest and most
fundamental laws of health, or they indulge in vices that are
destructive. V. They who have violated the laws of society, and have
been detected, convicted, and branded with shame. It is scarcely possible
for such men, however earnestly and honestly they may desire it, to be
anything else than mere “remnants” in society.
1. In regard to all those who are in this great struggling mass—the
remnants of society—I have to say: Take pity on them; have
compassion on them; do something to rescue, to strengthen, to cheer
some of them. 2. To all who are cast down and suffering, I say, There is
a God who is sorry for you. If men disown you, God thinks of you, and
will succour you. Beware, then, of desperation. Do not throw
yourselves away. Though all else should be against you, God is for you.
There is immortality—seek for that. There is bright and blessed
manhood just beyond. If you have failed for this life, do not fail for the
other too. There is very much that may yet be done, even in the
afternoon and twilight of men’s lives, if they are hopeful and active. Do
not give yourselves over to complaining and mourning. Be patient.
However low you may have got, you have not got so low as Christ was
when He died a death of shame and contumely for us. Shall the servant
be greater than his Lord? Be patient. It cannot be long before God’s
angel shall come, and then your troubles shall be over. Pluck up your
courage. Wait. And if need be, suffer, and suffer patiently to the end.
Let everything go but this: “God loves me; heaven waits for me;” and in
that hope stand. Though the world perish around you, stand,
comforted and cheered by the confidence that God cares for you as the
remnants of His Israel (H. E. I., 958–961, 2310, 2311, 4015–4018).—Henry
Ward Beecher: Christian World Pulpit (vol. iii. p. 43).
 Isaiah’s Vision of the King and of His Kingdom.

chapters xi. and xii.

This is one of the visions that Isaiah saw (chap. i. 1, ii. 1, &c.). He was a
dreamer of dreams. With a keen perception, not surpassed, of the men
and things actually surrounding him, much of his life was passed in an
ideal and future world. There he found comfort and strength to endure
the sorrows that otherwise would have crushed him. At the outset of
his ministry, when the great king who had done so much to restore the
prosperity of the nation was about to be removed, there was
vouchsafed to him a vision of the King immortal, eternal, invisible,
throned in the temple, and surrounded by the exalted intelligences
who do His will (chap. vi. 1–4); and now, at the close of the wicked and
disastrous reign of Ahaz, when his hopes concerning his race would
naturally have failed, there was granted him a vision of a King of
righteousness and peace, who on earth would rule over a kingdom such
as the world had never seen. His soul had been stirred and appalled by
a vision of disaster and woe. He was the king of Assyria, then the terror
of the earth, utterly broken, his vast armies hewn down as forests fall
before the axes of the woodmen (chap. x. 33, 34); a vision of blood and
terror which may well have filled him with trembling. But just as
sometimes the sweetest daylight follows a night of storm, this vision of
terror fades away, and he sees—
I. A King (chap. xi. 1–5). 1. Royally descended, “a rod out of the stem of
Jesse.” A simple farmer on the hills of Bethlehem, and yet a father of
kings. Not an accident. We are here confronted with the mystery of
blood, of race. No common man was he from whom sprang David,
Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and a long line of kings. In his ordinary
hours, Isaiah may well have derived assurance that the vision that
gladdened him was given him from above, from the fact that it was in
harmony with God’s promise (2 Sam. vii. 12–16). Without dismay he
could view the royal house lapsing into the obscurity from which it
sprang—becoming merely a house of Jesse once more—assured that in
His own time God would again raise it up to glory.[1] It is always well
when our hopes rest upon the Word of God. 2. Royally endowed; a King
by truest “right divine,” because possessed of royal qualities of heart
and mind (chap. xi. 2, 3). Of the thousands who have sat on thrones,
how few have possessed them! How many have ruled over the
miserable wretches subject to their sway merely by the craft of the
serpent or the cruelty of the tiger! Of those who have been popular,
how many have owed their popularity to mere physical prowess and
politic good-nature (Richard I., Charles II.)! How few have
endeavoured to approach the Biblical conception of what a ruler ought
to be (Deut. xvii. 14–20; 2 Sam. xxiii. 3; Ps. lxxii. 4; Prov. xx. 28)! In the
marvellous superiority of that conception to anything that has
prevailed among men, have we not another proof that the sacred
writers were indeed inspired by the Spirit of God? 3. Ruling in
righteousness; using His marvellous endowments for the welfare of
those subjected to His authority (chap. xi. 3–5); not judging of things
or men by their mere appearance, nor by common report; caring for
the poor, befriending the shrinking and helpless, fearless in His
dispensation of justice; His very words being swords that smote and
overthrew the arrogant oppressor; made strong by the very
righteousness which merely politic men would have feared to display
in view of the might of iniquity in this disordered world; a Hero of the
truest and divinest kind, in actual life setting forth the ideal to which
the noblest knights in the purest days of chivalry strove to conform.
Such was the King whom the prophet “saw” in an age when “ruler” was
merely another word for tyrant and oppressor. Surely the vision so fair
and wondrous was given him from above!
II. He also saw the kingdom. 1. A kingdom of righteousness (chap. xi. 9).
The kingdom necessarily resembles the king. Appalling is the influence
of a court upon a nation. Correspondingly great is the responsibility of
those who sit in high places. 2. A kingdom of peace. Set forth by the
most beautiful symbolism (chap. xi. 6–10, 13). 3. A kingdom of
prosperity. Those included in it are no longer miserable exiles and
bond slaves; rather they rule over those by whom they were spoiled and
oppressed (chap. xi. 14). This is the true interpretation of a symbol that
is in itself harsh and repulsive. The coarseness of the symbol is due to
the coarseness of the minds it was first intended to touch. 4. A
kingdom of gladness and joy. There pervades it the gladness of exiles
who have been restored to their own land (chap. xi. 15, 16); the true and
religious joy of men who recognise that the deliverances which inspire
their songs have been wrought for them by God (chap. xii. 1–5); the joy
of men who are absolutely assured of continual safety (chap. xii. 2, 6).
Was all this merely a bright vision? 1. It has been already fulfilled in
part. 2. In our own day it is being fulfilled more completely than ever
before. 3. It shall yet be fulfilled triumphantly.[2] Let us then,
1. Recognise and rejoice in the fact that we are living under the rule of
this righteous King. This is at least the dawning of the “day” which
Isaiah saw (Matt. xiii. 16). 2. Exult in view of the certain future of our
race. The kingdom of God shall come generation after generation with
mightier power (H. E. I., 3421–3423). 3. Labour as well as pray that
future may be hastened.
 FOOTNOTES:

[1] The image is now transferred to the state and king of Israel,
which is also to be cut down to the stump, like the tree in
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. But out of that stump, and from its living
roots, shall grow up a scion—one of those slender shoots which we
see springing up from, and immediately around, the stock of a
truncated tree. A king of the race of Jesse shall sit on the throne of
his fathers, in accordance with the covenant made with David (Ps.
lxxxix. 3, 4).—Strachey.
When the axe is laid to the imperial power of the world, it falls
without hope (chap. x. 33, 34). But in Israel spring is returning
(chap. xi. 1). The world-power resembles the cedar-forest of
Lebanon; the house of David, on the other hand, because of its
apostasy, is like the stump of a felled tree, like a root without stem,
branches, or crown. The world-kingdom, at the height of its power,
presents the most striking contrast to Israel and the house of David
in the uttermost depth announced in chapter vi., fin., mutilated and
reduced to the lowliness of its Bethlehemitish origin. But whereas
the Lebanon of the imperial power is thrown down, to remain
prostrate, the house of David renews its youth. . . . Out of the stump
of Jesse—i.e., out of the remnant of the chosen royal family, which
has sunk down to the insignificance of the house from which it
sprang—there comes forth a twig (choter), which promises to
supply the place of the trunk and crown; and down below, in the
roots covered with earth, and only rising a little above it there shows
itself a nētzer, i.e., a fresh, green shoot. In the historical account of
the fulfilment, even the ring of the words of the prophecy is noticed:
the nētzer, at first so humble and insignificant, was a poor despised
Nazarene (Matt. ii. 23).—Delitzsch.
[2] For additional suggestions on this part of the subject, see
outlines on pages 71–73 (Isaiah’s Vision of the Last Days, The Latter-
Day Glory, The Future Triumphs of the Gospel), 101 (The Divine
Ideal of Israel Realised), 182 (The Remedy of the World’s Misery),
186 (The Government of Christ), 191–194 (The Prince of Peace, The
Empire of Christ, The Security for the Fulfilment of God’s Promises,
The Outstretched Hand of God).
 The Spirit of the Lord.

xi. 2. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him.

This is declared concerning the Messiah. Short as this declaration is,
some of the profoundest of all truths are involved in it. It is implied
that God is a person, that from Him there goes forth an influence by
which the character of other persons is affected, and that all that
qualified Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah came from God. Let us
think of these things. Do not be deterred from doing so by the idea
that they are transcendental, far away from our daily life. They need
not be so; we shall be very blameworthy if we make them so.
I. God is a person. There are those who would have us put away this
faith. In their view, God is merely the great controlling Force behind all
other forces, the life of the universe, diffused throughout it,
manifesting itself in innumerable forms. As it is the same life in the
tree that manifests itself in root, trunk, branch, spray, twig, leaf,
blossom, fruit, so all things that exist are not the creations of a
personal will, but the manifestations of an impersonal and all-
pervading life; all forces, convertible the one into the other, are but
varying forms of the one underlying force. Every individual life is but a
wave that seems for a moment to be separated from the one universal
ocean of life; it leaps up from it, falls back into it, is absorbed by it.
True, these waves are often strangely diverse—Nero and St. Paul, John
Howard and Napoleon, the Virgin Mary and Lucrezia Borgia; but in
that great Unity of which they are all manifestations, there is an all-
comprehensive reconciliation, though it may elude our grasp. For
Pantheism, many would have us put away the doctrine of a personal
God. But this exchange, if it could be forced upon us by some logical
necessity (which it is not), would not be a gain, but a tremendous loss.
For, 1. There would be a tremendous loss to the heart. A force may be
feared, but not loved. To gravitation we owe much, but no one ever
professed to love it. A force cannot be loved, because it does not love.
Strike out of our life all that comes to us from the confidence that God
loves us, and from the responsive love that springs up in our hearts
towards Him, and how much is lost! Then there is no longer any
assurance amid the mysteries of life, nor consolation in its sorrows. In
a word, we are orphaned: we can no longer say, “Our Father, who art in
heaven.” There is no longer a Father, knowing us, loving us, causing all
good things to work together for our good; there is only a Force, to
which it is useless to appeal, against which it is impossible to contend.
2. We should also lose one of the greatest of all helps to a noble life. Not
to dwell on the fact that to speak of virtue or vice would then be
absurd,—then we should no longer sin, we should merely make
mistakes,—consider how much the world owes to the aspiration to be
like God which has stirred so many noble souls. Through them the
average morality of the world has been marvellously raised; but this
would have been impossible but for the stimulus these inspiring souls
found in the character of God. That is the first fact of which this text
reminds us, that God is a person from whom a spirit—an influence—
can go forth affecting the character of other persons.
II. From God such an influence does go forth. The possibility is a
glorious fact. That from God a “spirit” should go forth, and that it
should do so invisibly, is in accordance with all that we know of the
universe which God has made, and which is in some sort a revelation of
Him. 1. Nothing in the universe is unrelated. From orb to orb
influences go forth by which they are mutually affected. 2. The
mightiest influences are invisible. In all this, the material is a counter-
fact and revelation of the spiritual. It would be altogether abnormal, if
from God there did not go forth an influence operating upon and
affecting other persons. It is invisible, but its effects are recognisable.
One of them is the activity of conscience, rightly understood. Another
is the moral growth and refinement which those in whom it is most
conspicuous, most invariably and distinctly attribute to influences
exerted upon them by God. Even Socrates did so. This also is a doctrine
full of hope and comfort. If we need moral transformation, there
streams from God an influence capable of effecting it: to that influence
let us submit ourselves, and the transformation shall come to pass; the
Spirit of the Lord will rest upon us, and we shall become like Him.
III. To the influence exerted upon Him by the Spirit of the Lord,
Jesus of Nazareth owed all that qualified Him to be the Messiah
(vers. 2–5). That which was born of the Virgin Mary was a true human
child. A sinless child, yet sinless not as the result of the sinlessness of
the mother (as Rome teaches), but of the influence of the Spirit of the
Lord resting upon Him from the beginning of his earthly life. His was a
real humanity—our humanity sanctified. All that was pure, noble,
Godlike in Him was “born not of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God.” How full of comfort and hope is this truth also! To us also is
offered the same Spirit. Nothing can be more express than the
declarations that we may have it if we will, and that, if we have it, the
ultimate result will be that we shall be found partakers of the holiness
of God. Let us not be unwisely cast down by the frailty and pollution of
our nature; if the Spirit of the Lord rest upon us, the purity and the
strength of God will become ours, and at length the Father will say to
each of us, as He did of Jesus of Nazareth, “This is My beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased.”

The Righteous Judge.

xi. 3. And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of His ears.
A glorious difference between our Lord and ourselves. “He knew what
was in man,” and needed not the evidence of external signs, which
often mislead us. He should deal with the motives of the heart (H. E. I.,
3332, 4147). Not by human sight, but by Divine insight, He judged the
conduct and character of men. 1. Our judgment is enfeebled by
ignorance. We do not see and hear all, and from our imperfect
knowledge of facts we draw wrong and often disastrous conclusions
(H. E. I., 2997–3005). But Our Lord could go behind the visible works,
and detect what often deceived men—e.g., His treatment of
pharisaism. 2. Our judgment is enfeebled by prejudice. This is often the
result of ignorance. Seeing only certain sides of men, we dislike them,
and frame our judgments accordingly—e.g., Nathanael (John i. 46).
With no better reason than Nathanael had, we regard many a man as
an enemy, or otherwise place him in a false light. But our Lord dealt
with none in this way. Seeing men as they really were, no preconceived
opinions led Him to unworthy conclusions. 3. Partiality enfeebles and
perverts our judgment. Judging by sight and hearing, we approve of
one man more than another, because he has certain artful or pleasing
methods for winning our favour: flattery, offers of gain, &c. (P. D., 1275,
1281, 1283). But our Lord could not be won in this way (Mark xii. 14;
John vi. 15). He was infinitely compassionate, tender, forgiving, but no
feeble partiality interfered to prevent most righteous judgment. 4. Our
judgment is often perverted by passion. In the pursuit of some
unlawful and all-absorbing aim, we become too disturbed to weigh
calmly even the evidences we can see and hear. We look at everything
in the light of our false affection, and are thereby rendered absolutely
incapable of beholding others in their true light, especially if they
stand in our way and oppose our progress (P. D., 2060). But the one
absorbing and unremittent purpose of Jesus of Nazareth was to do the
will of His Heavenly Father, and to finish the work He had given Him
to do. Hence He dwelt always on a pure altitude, in whose clear
atmosphere He saw men and things as they are. 5. Our natural
depravity is also a serious hindrance to our right judging. Our very
organs of knowledge, our affections, our conscience, have been
perverted. Let a man be ever so disposed to take correct views of men
and things, there will be some flaw in his vision, some defect in his
hearing. Hence there are times when we cannot accept as final the
judgment of the best and holiest of men. But Christ has no secret evil
to lead Him wrong.
In view of all this, how fitting it is that Christ should be our judge! How
well, too, He is qualified to be the merciful High Priest who we need
(Heb. iv. 15, 16). He who tenderly sympathises with us is He who
perfectly knows us (H. E. I., 956; P. D., 462).—William Manning.
The Universal Diffusion and Redemptive Power of
the Knowledge of God.

(Missionary Sermon.)
xi. 9. They shall not hurt nor destroy, &c.
We have here a picture of the golden age. I. The whole earth shall be as
Mount Zion. II. Shall be freed from injustice and violence. III. Shall be
filled with the knowledge of the Lord. 1. Wherein this knowledge
consists. 2. To what extent it shall prevail—universal, deep. 3. By what
means it is to be diffused.—J. Lyth, D.D.: Homiletical Treasury (p. 18).

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” It seems clear that in these
words the prophet intended to be understood of speaking of the whole
earth. He would scarcely, in the same sentence, have used the
expressions in question—the holy mountain in the first clause, and the
earth in the other—if by these expressions he had not meant the same
thing, namely, the whole globe of the earth, when the dwellers thereon
should come to be true worshippers, like those who first worshipped at
Mount Zion, and who were a type of the greater assembly of
worshippers, the holy and universal Church, which in the fulness of
time would be established.
I. The prophet grounds the hope of that reformed and purified state of
the moral world, described in the beautiful words of the text, upon the
increase of religious knowledge which he saw to be coming. “They shall
not hurt . . . for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”
II. These words may be taken as descriptive of the legitimate effect of
Christian knowledge. The general scope, aim, and tendency of Gospel
principles is such as would produce the change described, were it not
counteracted by the tendency within us to what is wrong. III. They are
more than this: they are prophetic of the actual results of Christian
knowledge. The Gospel will render war impossible. True, so-called
“Christian” nations have not yet ceased to wage war with one another,
nor so-called “Christian” men to rob and circumvent and ruin each
other. Nevertheless, this prophecy shall yet be fulfilled. We see it in the
process of fulfilment. The condition of the moral world has been
meliorated by Christianity. Wars have not ceased, but their conduct
has been mitigated. In their private dealings with each other, men have
become more just and trustworthy. Already there are millions of men
who would shrink from doing harm of any kind to their fellow-men.
Compare Christendom with heathendom, and you will see what
mighty changes the Gospel has already wrought. The practice even of
Christian men falls short of their knowledge. Nevertheless, the practice
and the morals of men are, generally speaking, the best where their
knowledge is the most. The prophet’s words are justified by fact, and
men forbear one another most, and hurt and destroy least, where
knowledge is the greatest. It is a fact that life and property are more
safe and secure in the Christian portion of the earth, than in any other
portions. And the knowledge of the Lord grows year by year; partly
through the labours of missionaries in many places; still more by the
rapid growth of the nations that are Christian. The violent and lawless
races of the earth are dwindling away. The only races that are
increasing are those that fear God, and are willing to respect the rights,
the properties, and the lives of their neighbours. Through the medium
of this natural increase of peace-loving races, and through the
conversion of many among the benighted nations, this prophecy is
receiving a gradual, but very appreciable, fulfilment. The world is
advancing, with ever-accelerating speed towards knowledge and peace,
and this declaration shall yet be literally fulfilled (H. E. I., 979, 1161–
1168; P. D., 2465, 2466).
Application.—1. We are permitted to rejoice in the hope of a period
when justice and benevolence shall prevail in the world. 2. We are
required to contribute towards the realisation of this hope. This we are
to do (1) by the purification of our own hearts; by the conquest of every
passion and desire that would make us hurtful to our neighbours.
(2) By prayer (Matt. vi. 9, 10). (3) By helping to diffuse that “knowledge
of the Lord” which is the great peace-maker in the earth.—A. Gibson,
M.A.: Sermons on Various Subjects; Second Series (pp. 246–265).
In this and the preceding verses we have a beautiful picture of a state of
human society entirely different from anything that has been
witnessed since the Fall. The prophet beholds changes in human
character so great that he feels he can only symbolise them by
transformations in the members of the animal kingdom of the most
astonishing kind. Verses 6–8 are symbolical, and are intended to excite
within us the liveliest anticipations of the glorious effects that would
follow the universal proclamation and acceptation of the gospel. Thus
we are led to speak of the nature, the diffusion, and the effect of the
knowledge of the Lord.
I. Its exalted nature. By “the knowledge of the Lord” may be meant that
of which He is the revealer (2 Chron. xxx. 22), or that of which He is
the theme (2 Pet. ii. 20). God can only be revealed by Himself; and He
has given us a threefold revelation of Himself—in nature, in
providence, and in Holy Scripture. In the latter we have the record of
the fullest revelation which He has vouchsafed, that given us in His
Son. God is never truly known by man until He is known in Christ.
“The knowledge of the Lord” and “the Gospel” are terms of the same
meaning.
II. Its destined diffusion. The figure employed by the prophet brings
before us impressively the universality of its diffusion. The imagination
is called in to instruct our faith.[1] The world-wide diffusion of the
gospel is a matter—1. Of prophetic certainty. Nothing could be more
plain than the prophetic declarations concerning this matter. But if any
man asks when the promise will be fulfilled, only one answer can be
given him (Acts i. 7). 2. Involving Divine agency. Utterly false is the
notion that, after creating the universe, God withdrew from it, and left
it to go on by its own momentum (John v. 17); and utterly false is the
notion that, after giving the gospel to the world, God has left it to make
its own way therein. By Divine agency men are raised up to proclaim it
(Eph. iv. 11). While they are so engaged Christ Himself is with them
(Matt. xxviii. 20); and while they preach, the Holy Spirit strives in the
hearts of men to prepare and dispose them to receive the glad tidings
(1 Thess. i. 5). When, therefore, we look at the glorious promise of our
text, we must not forget that God Himself is working for its
accomplishment. This will save us from unbelief and despair
concerning it. 3. Involving human instrumentality. Not that this is
absolutely necessary. Without human husbandry God could have
caused the earth to bring forth food for man and beast, and without
human instrumentality He could have saved the world. But it has
pleased Him to commit to us the Word of reconciliation. The
consequent duty of preaching it must be taken in connection with, and
regarded as the condition of, the promise; just as the promise that
there shall be a harvest till the end of the world is conditioned by man’s
sowing the seed in the appointed season. The promise must not be
used as an excuse for indolence, but as a stimulus to industry.
III. Its blessed effect. The Gospel is a harmonising power. It has a
transforming efficacy equal to any that would be needed to bring about
a literal fulfilment of verses 6–8. Wherever it comes in its saving power
it new creates human hearts, and thus dries up the causes of hatred
and discord at their fountain. For it is a principle, 1. of righteousness,
and 2. of love. Hence it brings peace. For all discord is due to injustice
that is prompted by selfishness (James iv. 1). Where righteousness and
love combine and rule, there must be peace and security; for the very
desire to injure is taken away. The universal prevalence of the gospel
necessarily means universal peace (H. E. I., 1120, 1127, 1129).
1. This suggests the answer to the questions, Why Christian nations
make war against each other, and why even in Christian churches there
are fierce contentions? The answer is, either that those nations or
churches are Christian only in name, or that they have only very
partially attained to “the knowledge of the Lord.” They are only in
infant-class in Christ’s great school; as they learn of Him, their rivalries
and hatreds will pass away. 2. The Gospel being so blessed in its effects,
it is plain that it is the duty of all good men to extend the knowledge of
it.—John Rawlinson.

A remarkable declaration this, especially if the Hebrew prophets were,

as some learned sceptics tell us, men of narrow mind, worshipping a
merely local god, and hating all men not descended from Jacob. By the
noble simile employed by Isaiah two ideas are suggested—
1. Universality. mankind is the area to be covered. 2. Ease. All the
creeks, bays, channels, and broad highways of the vast ocean are filled
in their appointed time. The mighty tide rises, sweeps onward, and the
work is done. There was one great flood-tide of gospel-truth in the days
of the apostles, and there is a greater still to come. Meanwhile, many
difficulties attend the efforts of God’s people to extend the knowledge
of His truth; but, in the world’s fulness, great ease will characterise the
progress and triumphs of the gospel (Ps. cx. 3; Heb. viii. 11). This
declaration suggests two great subjects:—
1. The hope of the world. Shut the Bible, and our outlook on the world
and its future is dark and sad. Open it, and let its light shine into our
minds, and with the light will come encouragement and hope. 1. If it is
true that “the earth . . . the sea,” then God takes an interest in the
affairs of the world, and takes an interest in them now. This mighty
world is not left to drift into an unknown and perilous future without a
steersman to guide it. 2. If God makes such abundant provision for the
instruction of men in the knowledge of Himself, then He will be
accessible to them when, by that knowledge, they are led to approach
Him; and He is accessible to us. 3. Himself opening for men a way of
access to Him, we may be sure that when they avail themselves of it He
will deal with them in the way of mercy and love; and so He will deal
with us. Who can doubt this who looks on the fact of Christ, through
whom God has given us the truest knowledge of Himself (2 Cor. iv. 6)?
4. He means to be known to the world, and therefore His gracious
offers extend to all, to us.
II. The duty of the church. In view of this declaration, 1. Take enlarged
views of your work. Think how much remains to be done. Even if you
could suppose that your family, your street, your town, your country
were filled with the blessed tide of the knowledge of the Lord, yet think
of the earth, and all its myriad claims resting upon the servants of God.
2. Spare no efforts in promoting the cause of Christian missions. In
advancing these, you are working in harmony with the great purposes
of God, and for an object which is dear to Him—that object for which
He has already given His Son! Will you withhold from it the money
with which He has entrusted you, and for which you will have to give
account at the last day? 3. There are many present difficulties in the
prosecution of mission-work, but meanwhile take comfort from the
large purposes of God. “Have faith in God.” His plans are vast, but His
glorious promises are great as His counsels, and His resources as
glorious as His promises. The process of filling the earth with “the
knowledge of the Lord” may seem to us to be tedious, the obstacles
may be many, the time may be long; if the work were left to us, it would
be hopeless; but God will hasten it all in His time.—William Manning.

It is here declared that there is yet to dawn upon the world an era of
perfect light, and that that shall be also and therefore an era of perfect
love. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”
It is a mystery, but it is a fact, that knowledge is not necessarily a
blessing. The devils believe—and therefore know—yet remain devils
still (Jas. ii. 19). Many men of unholy life have been men of eminent
knowledge (Rom. i. 21). But this is a moral monstrosity, a result of the
unnatural condition into which we have been brought by sin; just as in
certain forms of disease food becomes poison. Knowledge is one of
those forces which naturally tend to elevate and sanctify (H. E. I.,
3106); to know God truly is eternal life (John xvii. 3); and the
declaration is, that knowledge shall be world-wide, and that by it the
world shall be morally revolutionised. Remembrance of two facts will
give intelligence and strength to our faith in these glorious predictions.
1. As man’s knowledge of God has grown, the human race has risen.
Except in those abnormal cases already referred to, it may be declared
that man cannot learn to know God and remain as they were—e.g.,
wherever the knowledge of the unity of God is restored to man,
idolatry becomes impossible; as soon as the knowledge of the
spirituality of God really enters the mind, formalism in worship
becomes an impossibility. So every truth concerning God, as soon as it
is really known, becomes a correcting and converting force. The
tendency of this knowledge, as of light, is to quicken and beautify. The
way to grow in grace is to grow in the knowledge of Christ (2 Pet.
iii. 18). 2. The knowledge of God is a thing that grows, and grows slowly,
in the human soul. This is true of all knowledge.[2] But in proportion as
it grows, sanctification takes place in the individual life, reformation in
the national life.[3] It is the most radical and successful of all
revolutionists. It is impossible for us to dream of the changes it will
accomplish upon the earth. But this we know, that by it war and every
form of violence shall be abolished (text; Isa. ii. 4, &c.)
In this subject there is, 1. A complete justification of all missionary
enterprises. They are not visionary schemes foredoomed to failure; they
are intensely practical, and shall be triumphantly successful. The time
may be far off, but it is advancing, when every man shall know God.[4]
The effect of that knowledge will be the destruction of the desire to
destroy or injure. 2. An argument for patience. In view of the wrongs
that prevail upon the earth, many noble souls find it difficult to
exercise it. Of finer taste, of clearer vision, of truer sympathy with God
than is common amongst men, the wickedness that triumphs in the
world fills them with continual agony. It drives them almost into
atheism. They ask, “Can God see these things, and not use His power to
bring them to an end? If there were a God, would He not instantly
smite the oppressors with destruction?” Let them be patient. God does
see; God does feel; God is hastening on the better day by the only
means by which it can really be brought in. Another deluge would not
cleanse the world from crime; if but eight souls were spared, sin would
once more begin to prevail. The era of purity and peace can be ushered
in only by the revelation of God to man, and thus it is advancing
towards us; thus it is already begun; between Christian and heathen
lands there is a real contrast; and ere long there shall be as great a
contrast between Christian lands uplifted by a fuller knowledge of God
and these lands as they now are. The millennium is not merely a
prophetic dream, it shall be a glorious fact. Patience! (H. E. I., 1134, 1135,
1166–1168, 3421–3423; P. D., 2465, 2466). 3. An argument for hopeful
Christian effort. We must not merely dream of the millennium, we
must labour to hasten its dawn. Work is needful: Sunday-school work,
&c. Every one who prays, “Thy kingdom come,” thereby unless he
means to mock God, pledges himself to work to hasten its coming, and
thus to be a “fellow-labourer with God.” There is need for individual
effort, and for united effort. Such effort should always be hopeful. We
are not attempting what is impossible; we are working in the line of
God’s promises, and with God! Remembering that the sense of our own
weakness will not unduly depress us. It does not require a giant’s
strength to row with the tide; and a mightier force than that of ocean is
bearing us on to a victory that shall fill earth with blessing and heaven
with gladness.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea.” The expression is remarkable for its force. In
looking over the face of the ocean, no differences are to be
perceived: one part is not fuller than the other; one part is not
covered, and another left dry; but all is one unbroken stream, filling
and covering the whole. So shall it be with the Word of God among
men. It shall not be known to some, and hidden from others. It shall
not be fully declared in one place, and only partially set forth in
another. Whatever knowledge it pleased Him to give at all, shall be
given to all men equally and without distinction. Such is clearly the
purpose of God in His own appointed time.—W. H. Sulivan.
“As the waters cover the sea.” The idea of universality could scarcely
have been better expressed than by this magnificent simile. You
have looked forth on the illimitable expanse of waters with wonder
and awe. Your imagination has followed the depths far beyond the
lowest tide-line to the unfathomed valleys and caverns that form the
ocean bed; and you have endeavoured to take fully into your mind
the thought that the lowest depths and the most distant shores were
filled and covered by the all-diffusive and all-searching element.—
Rawlinson.
[2] The knowledge of God comes into the soul as a king is born into
a country over which he is ultimately to rule; at the beginning it is
but a babe; for a long time it is weak, and needs to be defended and
 nurtured; many years elapse before it rules; rarely in this life does it
exercise full power and undisputed sway.
[3] Many evils continue to exist and flourish even in Christian lands,
because their contrariety to the character of God has not yet been
apprehended and felt. Many godly men were slave-holders and
slave-dealers, because they did not fully know God. But now the
knowledge of God has so grown among men, that it is no longer
possible in a Christian land for a godly man to be a slave-holder. So
with polygamy, which was once practised without scruple by some
of the noblest and most devout men who ever lived. This practice
has been killed, not by any express prohibition, but by growth
among men of the knowledge of God. That knowledge is
predestined still further to grow, and to kill many things more.
[4] The text for this footnote was omitted. Transcriber.

The Ensign of the Nations.

xi. 10. And in that day there shall be, &c.

I. In the two parts of this verse we have a twofold metaphorical
representation of the Redeemer: one expressed, one implied. 1. An
ensign of the people = banner or standard, such as is set up as a
rallying-point around which, (1) the subjects of a king assemble to do
him homage; and (2) the soldiers of an army gather to receive the
commands and exhortations of their general. 2. This second use of a
standard leads to the second metaphorical representation of the
Redeemer, that of a victorious general: “His rest shall be glorious.”
We are thus directed to the final result of the uplifting of Christ as an
ensign: the great campaign brought to a successful conclusion, the
Victor in it rests gloriously, surrounded by the soldiers whom He has
led on to triumph, and the people to whom He has given liberty and
peace.
II. Consider how these predictions have been fulfilled. 1. By the
preaching of the gospel Christ has been lifted up, and as the result men
of all nations have sought unto Him, and will seek Him more and
more. 2. Having done and suffered all that was necessary ultimately to
secure the final victory, He has taken His place at the right hand of the
Majesty on high, and rests there gloriously; the glory of His rest arising
from the number of the subjects who do Him homage, and of the
soldiers who delight to fight His battles, from the triumphs which He
has already enabled them to achieve, and from the prosperity and
peace of all His people.
We shall make a great mistake if we end by thus admiringly noting how
the ancient prophecy has been, and is being, fulfilled in the history of
the world. We are among the Gentiles of whom our text speaks: Have
we sought unto the glorious Person of whom it speaks? You desire to
do so. Do so, then, 1. For right purposes; not merely that you may be
delivered from suffering, but that you may be delivered from sin; not
merely that you may ultimately gain admission to heaven, but that you
may have and now render to Him the homage and the service to which
He is entitled. 2. In a right spirit; not vainly dreaming that you have, or
can win, any claim upon His regard, but recognising that you can
appeal only to His mercy, and that without it you are lost; and making
this appeal penitently and believingly. So coming to Him, He will be
found of you. He will cause you to share in His rest, by causing you to
share in His triumphs; inspired and upheld by Him, you shall trample
under foot the world, the flesh, the devil, and the fear of death. Your
whole being will be at rest; your understanding no longer harassed by
perplexing doubts; your conscience stilled and gladdened by a
righteous peace; your affections centred at last around Him who alone
is worthy of their supreme love; and this threefold rest, so sweet and
blessed now, shall be perfected and perpetuated in heaven.—George
Smith, D.D.

The prophet here foresees that the Saviour’s mission and work will so
exalt Him in the eyes of the nations, that they will turn to Him as the
one object and desire of their souls. (Compare John xii. 32.) This
prediction declares that Christ would be a banner to attract men, that
He would be the object of universal search, and that men in finding
Him would attain to true rest and glory.
I. The banner. 1. A banner is naturally “lifted up;” only thus can its
purpose be accomplished (chap. xiii. 2; xviii. 3). Apt image this of
Christ. Not merely in His death on Calvary. That exaltation was
followed by His being lifted higher still by the preaching of the gospel,
by the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John xvi. 14), by the devout lives of
all His true followers. 2. A banner has usually some emblem or device
representative of some great cause, or expressive of some great truth.
(Give instances.) So when “Christ and Him crucified” are uplifted
clearly in the view of men, they see God’s hatred of sin, His love of
man, and His provision for man’s future happiness and glory.
II. The object of universal search. “To it shall the Gentiles seek.” Search
for Christ characterises all races of men (Hag. ii. 7) and all periods of
time (Luke x. 24). The search is often prosecuted in ignorance. Men
know not for what and for whom their souls yearn; but it is Christ of
whom unconsciously they are in quest; and it is towards Him, that by
the else insatiable desires of their spiritual nature, they are being led.
III. The finding of true rest. “His rest shall be glorious.” 1. The rest we
find in Christ is connected with a vital change effected in the heart and
life. He does not simply do something for us; He also does a work
within us. Every intelligent seeker knows that there can be no rest until
the evil that is lodged within us is resisted and cast out (H. E. I., 1324).
It is as we enter into the spirit of Christ and share His life, that we enter
into rest (Matt. xi. 28–30). 2. Our new relations to God, entered into by
faith in Christ Jesus, makes our rest very glorious. God is then known
to us by the most precious and endearing names; He is our rock, our
shield, &c. Each of these names represents to us some tender aspects of
His love, some sweet ministry of His grace.
Are you in search of the highest peace, joy, holiness, rest? Here you
may end your quest (1 Cor. i. 30; P. D., 481).—William Manning.
 The Reconciler of Men.

xi. 10–16. And in that day there shall be, &c.

Several eminent commentators are of opinion that this prophecy will
not be fulfilled until the Jews are restored as a nation to their own land.
Others believe that the prophet used (it may be unconsciously)
transient geographical phrases as symbols of eternal truths. Without
entering upon this controversy, which can be settled only by the actual
unfolding and accomplishment of God’s plans as to the history of this
world, let us think of the fundamental fact of the vision, that in it “the
Root of David” was revealed to the prophet as the reconciler of men. His
appearing in the world would be the setting up of a standard unto
which all men, Gentiles (ver. 10) and Jews (vers. 11, 12), would seek; and
before the influence then exerted upon them by Him rivalries and
enmities, even though they were as inveterate and malignant as those
of Judah and Ephraim (ver. 13), would disappear. No obstacles, even
though they should be as immense as the geographical ones which are
specified, would hinder their coming together and forming one united
and triumphant people under His benignant sway. This is only saying
what the prophet has said already (chap. ii. 4; ix. 7), that the kingdom
of Christ would be a kingdom of peace. Consider—
I. How marvellously and gloriously this prediction has been
fulfilled. To appreciate this, we must recall the condition of the world
at the time when “the day” of which our text speaks dawned upon it.
Nations were everywhere divided from each other by jealousies and
hatreds as virulent as those that divided Ephraim from Judah; there
was peace only because they were restrained from active hostility by
the strong hand of Roman power. Hatred of other nations was
regarded not as a crime, but as a duty.[1] But Christ inaugurated the
empire of universal brotherhood and love. Wars have not yet ceased
even among nations professing Christianity, but they are no longer
openly gloried in by those who wage them; they are apologised for as
sad necessities. The apology is often insincere, but the fact that it is
made at all is a marvellous tribute to the influence and authority of
Christ. Wherever His true followers meet, national distinctions are
forgotten, and they feel drawn to each other by a mightier and sweeter
bond. As the centuries pass away, the love of Christ becomes more and
more the uniting power of the world.
II. How sadly imperfect the fulfilment of this prediction still is!
The era of universal peace has not yet dawned. The world is still cursed
by wars and rumours of wars. Millions of men are maintained in
constant readiness for war. There are bitter contentions among the
sections of the Christian Church, these tribes of the modern Israel.
Class is divided from class. So-called Christian families are saddened
by bitter feuds.
III. The blessedness of the era that shall yet dawn upon the
world. The Christian often dreams of it; his dreams are sweet as those
which hungry men have of banquets, and shipwrecked sailors drifting
helplessly on rafts in the wide ocean have of their native village and of
meeting with their loved ones there; and in their waking hours they,
too, are apt to be saddened by the fear that their dreams too are as
utterly incapable of realisation. But it is not so. They shall all be
realised, for the authority of Christ shall yet be universal, real, absolute;
and all the listening angels shall not be able to detect one sound of
discord rising from the round world, for the whole world shall be full of
the peace of Christ (P. D., 2465, 2466, 2676).
IV. Our duty in regard to this prediction. We are not merely to
dream dreams of the blessedness of the era that shall yet be ushered in.
We are to do something to hasten its dawning. 1. We are to pray for it
with yearning hearts. 2. We are to do our utmost, in every possible way,
to extend the knowledge of the Gospel throughout the world. The
Gospel, not commerce, is the true civiliser and uniter of nations:
commerce will prosper on the Gospel triumphs. True, many converts
are only nominally Christians, but in many cases that is the first step
towards their becoming real Christians, i.e., men who will pray and
labour for universal peace. 3. Minor and contributory duties. (1.) The
diffusion of knowledge that will tend to bring home to the
understandings and hearts of men the hurtfulness of war, and the