「我在迦巴魯河邊被擄的人中，那時諸天開了，我就看見神的異象。...耶和華的手在那裏臨到他（我）身上。」－以西結書1:1, 3
一個親自嘗過苦膽的人，不會輕言捨棄他手中的那本聖經。在人看來，他手裡那本聖經，並無半點特殊之處；然而對他而言，那卻是獨一無二的。
那本為淚眼所浸過，老舊斑駁的聖經，他曾經在其中用他才認得出的筆跡，點滴紀錄著他一路走來的經歷；裡頭有他遇見「伯特利柱子」和「以琳棕樹」的回憶。
對他來說，那是他個人生命史中幾個最值得紀念的里程碑。
一個遭遇大雨躲避在樹下的人，也許不經意的發現樹上結滿了他未曾注意過的美果；我們若在患難時逃到神翅膀的蔭下，我們也必發現許多我們從前沒有看過的事物。
因此，藉著我們的試煉與苦難，神有了啟示祂自己的機會。
經過了雅博渡口，我們來到庇努伊勒；在那裡我們和神摔跤，在那裡我們面對面遇見了神，在那裡我們的生命得了保全。
哦！被擄的人哪，細細的聽神使你「夜間歌唱」，且「使死蔭變為早晨」吧（阿摩司書5:8）！
－威廉.泰勒
"As I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God . . . and the hand of the Lord was there upon me" (Ezek. 1:1,3).There is no commentator of the Scriptures half so valuable as a captivity. The old Psalms have quavered for us with a new pathos as we sat by our "Babel's stream," and have sounded for us with new joy as we found our captivity turned as the streams in the South.
The man who has seen much affliction will not readily part with his copy of the Word of God. Another book may seem to others to be identical with his own; but it is not the same to him, for over his old and tear-stained Bible he has written, in characters which are visible to no eyes but his own, the record of his experiences, and ever and anon he comes on Bethel pillars or Elim palms, which are to him the memorials of some critical chapter in his history.
If we are to receive benefit from our captivity we must accept the situation and turn it to the best possible account. Fretting over that from which we have been removed or which has been taken away from us, will not make things better, but it will prevent us from improving those which remain. The bond is only tightened by our stretching it to the uttermost.
The impatient horse which will not quietly endure his halter only strangles himself in his stall. The high-mettled animal that is restive in the yoke only galls his shoulders; and every one will understand the difference between the restless starling of which Sterne has written, breaking its wings against the bars of the cage, and crying, "I can't get out, I can't get out," and the docile canary that sits upon its perch and sings as if it would outrival the lark soaring to heaven's gate.
No calamity can be to us an unmixed evil if we carry it in direct and fervent prayer to God, for even as one in taking shelter from the rain beneath a tree may find on its branches fruit which he looked not for, so we in fleeing for refuge beneath the shadow of God's wing, will always find more in God than we had seen or known before.
It is thus through our trials and afflictions that God gives us fresh revelations of Himself; and the Jabbok ford leads to Peniel, where, as the result of our wrestling, we "see God face to face," and our lives are preserved. Take this to thyself, O captive, and He will give thee "songs in the night," and turn for thee "the shadow of death into the morning." --William Taylor
