{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43672/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43672","id":"gutenberg_43672","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43672","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Isaiah -- Commentaries","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.\n\n\n EDITED BY THE REV.\n W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.,\n _Editor of \"The Expositor,\" etc._\n\n\n\n\n\n THE BOOK OF ISAIAH.\n VOL. II.\n\n\n BY THE REV.\n GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A.,\n\n\n\n\n =London:=\n HODDER AND STOUGHTON,\n 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n MDCCCXC.\n\n\n\n\n THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.\n\n EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.\n\n _Crown 8vo, cloth, price_ 7s. 6d. _each vol._\n\n FIRST SERIES, 1887-88.\n\n\nColossians.\n By A. MACLAREN, D.D.\n\nSt. Mark.\n By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.\n\nGenesis.\n By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.\n\nSamuel, I.\n By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.\n\nSamuel, II.\n By the same Author.\n\nHebrews.\n By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.\n\n\n SECOND SERIES, 1888-89.\n\nGalatians.\n By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.\n\nThe Pastoral Epistles.\n By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.\n\nIsaiah I.-XXXIX.\n By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. I.\n\nThe Book of Revelation.\n By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.\n\n1 Corinthians.\n By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.\n\nThe Epistles of St. John.\n By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.\n\n\n THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.\n\nJudges and Ruth.\n By Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A.\n\nJeremiah.\n By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.\n\nIsaiah XL.-LXVI.\n By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. II.\n\nSt. Matthew.\n By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.\n\nExodus.\n By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.\n\nSt. Luke.\n By Rev. H. BURTON, B.A.\n\n\n FOURTH SERIES, 1890-91.\n\nEcclesiastes.\n By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.\n\nSt. James and St. Jude.\n By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.\n\nProverbs.\n By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A.\n\nLeviticus.\n By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.\n\nSt. John.\n By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. Vol. I.\n\nThe Acts of the Apostles.\n By Rev. Prof. G. T. STOKES, D.D.\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\n THE\n BOOK OF ISAIAH\n\n\n\n\n BY THE REV.\n GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A.,\n _Minister of Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen_\n\n\n\n\n _IN TWO VOLUMES._\n VOL. II.--ISAIAH XL.-LXVI.\n _WITH A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL FROM ISAIAH\n TO THE EXILE._\n\n\n\n\n =LONDON:=\n HODDER AND STOUGHTON,\n 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n MDCCCXC.\n\n\n\n\n _Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n TABLE OF DATES viii\n\n INTRODUCTION ix\n\n\n BOOK I.\n\n _THE EXILE._\n\n CHAP.\n\n I. THE DATE OF ISAIAH XL.-LXVI. 3\n\n II. FROM ISAIAH TO THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 26\n 701-587 B.C.\n\n III. WHAT ISRAEL TOOK INTO EXILE 36\n\n IV. ISRAEL IN EXILE 48\n FROM 597 TILL ABOUT 550 B.C.\n\n\n BOOK II.\n\n _THE LORD'S DELIVERANCE._\n\n V. THE PROLOGUE: THE FOUR HERALD VOICES 71\n ISAIAH xl. 1-11.\n\n VI. GOD: A SACRAMENT 87\n ISAIAH xl. 12-31.\n\n VII. GOD: AN ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY 106\n ISAIAH xli.\n\n VIII. THE PASSION OF GOD 132\n ISAIAH xlii. 13-17.\n\n IX. FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION 143\n ISAIAH xliii.-xlviii.\n\n X. CYRUS 162\n ISAIAH xli. 2, 25; xliv. 28-xlv. 13;\n xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.\n\n XI. BEARING OR BORNE 177\n ISAIAH xlvi.\n\n XII. BABYLON 189\n ISAIAH xlvii.\n\n XIII. THE CALL TO GO FORTH 205\n ISAIAH xlviii.\n\n XIV. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ISRAEL AND THE\n RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 214\n ISAIAH xl.-lxvi.\n\n\n BOOK III.\n\n _THE SERVANT OF THE LORD._\n\n XV. ONE GOD, ONE PEOPLE 236\n ISAIAH xli. 8-20, xlii.-xliii.\n\n XVI. THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 252\n ISAIAH xli. 8-20; xlii. 1-7, 18 ff.;\n xliii. 5-10; xlix. 1-9; l. 4-11;\n lii. 13-liii.\n\n XVII. THE SERVANT OF THE LORD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 278\n\n XVIII. THE SERVICE OF GOD AND MAN 290\n ISAIAH xlii. 1-7.\n\n XIX. PROPHET AND MARTYR 313\n ISAIAH xlix. 1-9; l, 4-11.\n\n XX. THE SUFFERING SERVANT 336\n ISAIAH lii. 13-liii.\n\n\n BOOK IV.\n\n _THE RESTORATION._\n\n XXI. DOUBTS IN THE WAY 381\n ISAIAH xlix.-lii. 12.\n\n XXII. ON THE EVE OF RETURN 397\n ISAIAH liv.-lvi. 8.\n\n XXIII. THE REKINDLING OF THE CIVIC CONSCIENCE 408\n ISAIAH lvi. 9-lix.\n\n XXIV. SALVATION IN SIGHT 428\n ISAIAH lx.-lxiii. 7.\n\n XXV. A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGEMENT 445\n ISAIAH lxiii. 7-lxvi.\n\n INDEX OF CHAPTERS 469\n\n INDEX OF SUBJECTS 471\n\n\n\n\n TABLE OF DATES.\n\n B.C.\n\n 721. Fall of Samaria. Captivity of Northern Israel.\n\n 701. Deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib.\n\n 696?-641. Reign of Manasseh. Supposed time of Isaiah's death.\n\n 630. Josiah's Reformation begun.\n\n 629 or 628. Jeremiah called to be a prophet.\n\n 621. The Book of Deuteronomy discovered.\n\n 607. Fall of Nineveh and Assyria. Babylon supreme.\n\n\n THE EXILE.\n\n 599-598. Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar. First Captivity of\n the Jews.\n\n 594. Ezekiel begins to prophesy in Chaldea.\n\n 587. Destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar. Second Captivity\n of the Jews. Flight of many Jews with Jeremiah to Egypt.\n\n 585. Battle of the Eclipse. Triple League: Babylon, Media, Lydia.\n\n 561. Nebuchadrezzar dies. Evil-Merodach succeeds.\n\n 559. Neriglissar succeeds Evil-Merodach.\n\n 554. Nabunahid or Nabonidos usurps the throne of Babylon. Harder\n times for the Jews.\n\n 549. Fall of Median monarchy before Cyrus.\n\n 545. Cyrus attacks Babylonia from the north, and is repulsed.\n Invades Lydia, and takes Sardis and King Cr\u0153sus.\n\n 538. Cyrus captures Babylon.\n\n Permission to the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Zerubbabel,\n Joshua.\n\n * * * * *\n\n 529. Cyrus dies. Cambyses sole king.\n\n 522. Cambyses dies.\n\n 521. Babylon revolts. Retaken by Darius.\n\n 486. Xerxes succeeds Darius.\n\n 466. Artaxerxes Longimanus.\n\n 458. Second great return of Jews. Ezra.\n\n 401. Revolt and defeat of Cyrus. The Anabasis. #/\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThis volume upon Isaiah xl.-lxvi. carries on the exposition of the\nBook of Isaiah from the point reached by the author's previous volume\nin the same series. But as it accepts these twenty-seven chapters,\nupon their own testimony, as a separate prophecy from a century and\na half later than Isaiah himself, in a style and on subjects not\naltogether the same as his, and as it accordingly pursues a somewhat\ndifferent method of exposition from the previous volume, a few words\nof introduction are again necessary.\n\nThe greater part of Isaiah i.-xxxix. was addressed to a nation upon\ntheir own soil,--with their temple, their king, their statesmen,\ntheir tribunals and their markets,--responsible for the discharge of\njustice and social reform, for the conduct of foreign policies and the\ndefence of the fatherland. But chs. xl.-lxvi. came to a people wholly\nin exile, and partly in servitude, with no civic life and few social\nresponsibilities: a people in the passive state, with occasion for the\nexercise of almost no qualities save those of penitence and patience,\nof memory and hope. This difference between the two parts of the Book\nis summed up in their respective uses of the word _Righteousness_. In\nIsaiah i.-xxxix., or at least in such of these chapters as refer to\nIsaiah's own day, righteousness is man's moral and religious duty, in\nits contents of piety, purity, justice and social service. In Isaiah\nxl.-lxvi. righteousness (except in a very few cases) is something\nwhich the people expect from God--their historical vindication by His\nrestoral and reinstatement of them as His people.\n\nIt is, therefore, evident that what rendered Isaiah's own\nprophecies of so much charm and of so much meaning to the modern\nconscience--their treatment of those political and social questions\nwhich we have always with us--cannot form the chief interest of\nchapters xl.-lxvi. But the empty place is taken by a series of\nhistorical and religious questions of supreme importance. Into the\nvacuum created in Israel's life by the Exile, there comes rushing\nthe meaning of the nation's whole history--all the conscience of\ntheir past, all the destiny with which their future is charged. It\nis not with the fortunes and duties of a single generation that\nthis great prophecy has to do: it is with a people in their entire\nsignificance and promise. The standpoint of the prophet may be the\nExile, but his vision ranges from Abraham to Christ. Besides the\nbusiness of the hour,--the deliverance of Israel from Babylon,--the\nprophet addresses himself to these questions: What is Israel? What\nis Israel's God? How is Jehovah different from other gods? How is\nIsrael different from other peoples? He recalls the making of the\nnation, God's treatment of them from the beginning, all that they and\nJehovah have been to each other and to the world, and especially the\nmeaning of this latest judgement of Exile. But the instruction and\nthe impetus of that marvellous past he uses in order to interpret and\nproclaim the still more glorious future,--the ideal, which God has\nset before His people, and in the realisation of which their history\nshall culminate. It is here that the Spirit of God lifts the prophet\nto the highest station in prophecy--to the richest consciousness of\nspiritual religion--to the clearest vision of Christ.\n\nAccordingly, to expound Isaiah xl.-lxvi. is really to write the\nreligious history of Israel. A prophet whose vision includes both\nAbraham and Christ, whose subject is the whole meaning and promise of\nIsrael, cannot be adequately interpreted within the limits of his own\ntext or of his own time. Excursions are necessary both to the history\nthat is behind him, and to the history that is still in front of\nhim. This is the reason of the appearance in this volume of chapters\nwhose titles seem at first beyond its scope--such as From Isaiah to\nthe Fall of Jerusalem: What Israel took into Exile: One God, One\nPeople: The Servant of the Lord in the New Testament. Moreover, much\nof this historical matter has an interest that is only historical.\nIf in Isaiah's own prophecies it is his generation's likeness to\nourselves, which appeals to our conscience, in chs. xl.-lxvi. of the\nBook called by his name it is Israel's unique meaning and office for\nGod in the world, which we have to study. We are called to follow an\nexperience and a discipline unshared by any other generation of men;\nand to interest ourselves in matters that then happened once for all,\nsuch as the victory of the One God over the idols, or His choice of\na single people through whom to reveal Himself to the world. We are\ncalled to watch work, which that representative and priestly people\ndid for humanity, rather than, as in Isaiah's own prophecies, work\nwhich has to be repeated by each new generation in its turn, and\nto-day also by ourselves. This is the reason why in an exposition of\nIsaiah xl.-lxvi., like the present volume, there should be a good\ndeal more of historical recital, and a good deal less of practical\napplication, than in the exposition of Isaiah i.-xxxix.\n\nAt the same time we must not suppose that there is not very much in\nIsaiah xl.-lxvi. with which to stir our own consciences and instruct\nour own lives. For, to mention no more, there is that sense of sin\nwith which Israel entered exile, and which has made the literature\nof Israel's Exile the confessional of the world; there is that great\nunexhausted programme of the Service of God and Man, which our\nprophet lays down as Israel's duty and example to humanity; and there\nis that prophecy of the virtue and glory of vicarious suffering for\nsin, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Cross.\n\nI have found it necessary to devote more space to critical questions\nthan in the previous volume. Chs. xl.-lxvi. approach more nearly\nto a unity than chs. i.-xxxix.: with very few exceptions they lie\nin chronological order. But they are not nearly so clearly divided\nand grouped: their connection cannot be so briefly or so lucidly\nexplained. The form of the prophecy is dramatic, but the scenes\nand the speakers are not definitely marked off. In spite of the\nchronological advance, which we shall be able to trace, there are no\nclear stages--not even, as we shall see, at those points at which\nmost expositors divide the prophecy, the end of ch. xlix. and of ch.\nlviii. The prophet pursues simultaneously several lines of thought;\nand though the close of some of these and the rise of others may be\nmarked to a verse, his frequent passages from one to another are\noften almost imperceptible. He everywhere requires a more continuous\ntranslation, a closer and more elaborate exegesis, than were\nnecessary for Isaiah i.-xxxix.\n\nIn order to effect some general arrangement and division of Isa.\nxl.-lxvi. it is necessary to keep in view that the immediate problem\nwhich the prophet had before him was twofold. It was political,\nand it was spiritual. There was, first of all, the deliverance of\nIsrael from Babylon, according to the ancient promises of Jehovah:\nto this were attached such questions as Jehovah's omnipotence,\nfaithfulness and grace; the meaning of Cyrus; the condition of the\nBabylonian Empire. But after their political deliverance from Babylon\nwas assured, there remained the really larger problem of Israel's\nspiritual readiness for the freedom and the destiny to which God was\nto lead them through the opened gates of their prison-house: to this\nwere attached such questions as the original calling and mission of\nIsrael; the mixed and paradoxical character of the people; their need\nof a Servant from the Lord, since they themselves had failed to be\nHis Servant; the coming of this Servant, his methods and results.\n\nThis twofold division of the prophet's problem will not, it is true,\nstrike his prophecy into separate and distinct groups of chapters.\nHe who attempts such a division simply does not understand \"Second\nIsaiah.\" But it will make clear to us the different currents of\nthe sacred argument, which flow sometimes through and through one\nanother, and sometimes singly and in succession; and it will give us\na plan for grouping the twenty-seven chapters very nearly, if not\nquite, in the order in which they lie.\n\nOn these principles, the following exposition is divided into Four\nBooks. The First is called THE EXILE: it contains an argument for\nplacing the date of the prophecy about 550 B.C., and brings the\nhistory of Israel down to that date from the time of Isaiah; it\nstates the political and spiritual sides of the double problem to\nwhich the prophecy is God's answer; it describes what Israel took\nwith them into exile, and what they learned and suffered there,\ntill, after half a century, the herald voices of our prophecy broke\nupon their waiting ears. The Second Book, THE LORD'S DELIVERANCE,\ndiscusses the political redemption from Babylon, with the questions\nattached to it about God's nature and character, about Cyrus and\nBabylon, or all of chs. xl.-xlviii., except the passages about\nthe Servant, which are easily detached from the rest, and refer\nrather to the spiritual side of Israel's great problem. The Third\nBook, THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, expounds all the passages on that\nsubject, both in chs. xl.-xlviii. and in chs. xlix.-liii., with the\ndevelopment of the subject in the New Testament, and its application\nto our life to-day. The Servant and his work are the solution of all\nthe spiritual difficulties in the way of the people's Return and\nRestoration. To these latter and their practical details the rest of\nthe prophecy is devoted; that is, all chs. xlix.-lxvi., except the\npassages on the Servant, and these chapters are treated in the Fourth\nBook of this volume, THE RESTORATION.\n\nAs much as possible of the merely critical discussion has been put\nin Chapter I., or in the opening paragraphs of the other chapters,\nor in foot-notes. A new translation from the original (except where\na few verses have been taken from the Revised English Version) has\nbeen provided for nearly the whole prophecy. Where the rhythm of the\noriginal is at all discernible, the translation has been made in it.\nBut it must be kept in mind that this reproduction of the original\nrhythm is only approximate, and that in it no attempt has been made\nto elegance; its chief aim being to make clear the order and the\nemphases of the original. The translation is almost quite literal.\n\nHaving felt the want of a clear account of the prophet's use of his\ngreat key-word Righteousness, I have inserted for students, at the end\nof Book II., a chapter on this term. Summaries of our prophet's use of\nsuch cardinal terms as Mishpat, R'ishonoth, The Isles, etc., will be\nfound in notes. For want of space I have had to exclude some sections\non the Style of Isaiah, xl.-lxvi., on the Influence of Monotheism on\nthe Imagination, and on What Isaiah xl.-lxvi. owes to Jeremiah. This\ndebt, as we shall be able to trace, is so great that \"Second Jeremiah\"\nwould be a title no less proper for the prophecy than \"Second Isaiah.\"\n\nI had also wished to append a chapter on Commentaries on the Book of\nIsaiah. No Scripture has been so nobly served by its commentaries. To\nbegin with there was Calvin, and there is Calvin,--still as valuable\nas ever for his strong spiritual power, his sanity, his moderation,\nhis sensitiveness to the changes and shades of the prophet's meaning.\nAfter him Vitringa, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Delitzsch, all the great\nnames of the past in Old Testament criticism, are connected with\nIsaiah. In recent years (besides N\u00e4gelsbach in Lange's _Bibelwerk_)\nwe have had Cheyne's two volumes, too well known both here and in\nGermany to need more than mention; Bredenkamp's clear and concise\nexposition, the characteristic of which is an attempt--not, however,\nsuccessful--to distinguish authentic prophecies of Isaiah in the\ndisputed chapters; Orelli's handy volume (in Strack and Z\u00f6ckler's\ncompendious Commentary, and translated into English by Professor\nBanks in Messrs. Clarks' Foreign Theological Library), from the\nconservative side, but accepting, as Delitzsch does in his last\nedition, the dual authorship; and this year Dillmann's great work,\nreplacing Knobel's in the \"Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch\"\nseries. I regret that I did not receive Dillmann's work till more\nthan half of this volume was written. English students will have all\nthey can possibly need if they can add Dillmann to Delitzsch and\nCheyne, though Calvin and Ewald must never be forgotten. Professor\nDriver's _Isaiah: His Life and Times_ is a complete handbook to the\nprophet. On the theology, besides the relevant portions of Schultz's\n_Alt-Testamentliche Theologie_ (4th ed., 1889), and Duhm's _Theologie\nder Propheten_, the student will find invaluable Professor Robertson\nSmith's _Prophets of Israel_ for Isaiah i.-xxxix., and Professor A.\nB. Davidson's papers in the _Expositor_ for 1884 on the theology\nof Isaiah xl.-lxvi. There are also Kr\u00fcger's able and lucid _Essai\nsur la Th\u00e9ologie d'Isa\u00efe xl.-lxvi._ (Paris, 1882), and Guthe's _Das\nZukunftsbild Jesaias_, and Barth's and Giesebrecht's respective\n_Beitr\u00e4ge zur Jesaiakritik_, the latter published this year.\n\nIn conclusion, I have to express my thanks for the very great\nassistance which I have derived in the composition of both volumes from\nmy friend the Rev. Charles Anderson Scott, B.A., who has sought out\nfacts, read nearly all the proofs and helped to prepare the Index.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK I.\n\n _THE EXILE._\n\n\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n _THE DATE OF ISAIAH XL.-LXVI._\n\n\nThe problem of the date of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. is this: In a book called\nby the name of the prophet Isaiah, who flourished between 740 and 700\nB.C., the last twenty-seven chapters deal with the captivity suffered\nby the Jews in Babylonia from 598 to 538, and more particularly with\nthe advent, about 550, of Cyrus, whom they name. Are we to take for\ngranted that Isaiah himself prophetically wrote these chapters, or\nmust we assign them to a nameless author or authors of the period of\nwhich they treat?\n\nTill the end of last century it was the almost universally accepted\ntradition, and even still is an opinion retained by many, that Isaiah\nwas carried forward by the Spirit, out of his own age to the standpoint\nof one hundred and fifty years later; that he was inspired to utter\nthe warning and comfort required by a generation so very different\nfrom his own, and was even enabled to hail by name their redeemer,\nCyrus. This theory, involving as it does a phenomenon without parallel\nin the history of Holy Scripture, is based on these two grounds:\n_first_, that the chapters in question form a considerable part--nearly\nnine-twentieths--of the \"Book of Isaiah;\" and _second_, that portions\nof them are quoted in the New Testament by the prophet's name. The\ntheory is also supported by arguments drawn from resemblances of style\nand vocabulary between these twenty-seven chapters and the undisputed\noracles of Isaiah; but, as the opponents of the Isaian authorship also\nappeal to vocabulary and style, it will be better to leave this kind of\nevidence aside for the present, and to discuss the problem upon other\nand less ambiguous grounds.\n\nThe first argument, then, for the Isaian authorship of chapters\nxl.-lxvi. is that they form part of a book called by Isaiah's name.\nBut, to be worth anything, this argument must rest on the following\nfacts: that everything in a book called by a prophet's name is\nnecessarily by that prophet, and that the compilers of the book\nintended to hand it down as altogether from his pen. Now there is no\nevidence for either of these conclusions. On the contrary, there is\nconsiderable testimony in the opposite direction. The Book of Isaiah\nis not one continuous prophecy. It consists of a number of separate\norations, with a few intervening pieces of narrative. Some of these\norations claim to be Isaiah's own: they possess such titles as _The\nvision of Isaiah the son of Amoz_.[1] But such titles describe only\nthe individual prophecies they head, and other portions of the book,\nupon other subjects and in very different styles, do not possess\ntitles at all. It seems to me, that those, who maintain the Isaian\nauthorship of the whole book, have the responsibility cast upon them\nof explaining why some chapters in it should be distinctly said to\nbe by Isaiah, while others should not be so entitled. Surely this\ndifference affords us sufficient ground for understanding, that the\nwhole book is not necessarily by Isaiah, nor intentionally handed\ndown by its compilers as the work of that prophet.[2]\n\nNow, when we come to chs. xl.-lxvi., we find that, occurring in a\nbook which we have just seen no reason for supposing to be in every\npart of it by Isaiah, these chapters nowhere claim to be his. They\nare separated from that portion of the book, in which his undisputed\noracles are placed, by a historical narrative of considerable length.\nAnd there is not anywhere upon them nor in them a title nor other\nstatement that they are by the prophet, nor any allusion which could\ngive the faintest support to the opinion, that they offer themselves\nto posterity as dating from his time. It is safe to say, that, if\nthey had come to us by themselves, no one would have dreamt for an\ninstant of ascribing them to Isaiah; for the alleged resemblances,\nwhich their language and style bear to his language and style, are\nfar more than overborne by the undoubted differences, and have never\nbeen employed, even by the defenders of the Isaian authorship, except\nin additional and confessedly slight support of their main argument,\nviz. that the chapters must be Isaiah's because they are included in\na book called by his name.\n\nLet us understand, therefore, at this very outset, that in discussing\nthe question of the authorship of \"Second Isaiah,\" we are not\ndiscussing a question, upon which the text itself makes any statement,\nor into which the credibility of the text enters. No claim is made by\nthe Book of Isaiah itself for the Isaian authorship of chs. xl.-lxvi.\n\nA second fact in Scripture, which seems at first sight to make\nstrongly for the unity of the Book of Isaiah, is that in the New\nTestament, portions of the disputed chapters are quoted by Isaiah's\nname, just as are portions of his admitted prophecies. These\ncitations are nine in number.[3] None is by our Lord Himself. They\noccur in the Gospels, Acts and Paul. Now if any of these quotations\nwere given in answer to the question, Did Isaiah write chs. xl.-lxvi.\nof the book called by his name? or if the use of his name along\nwith them were involved in the arguments which they are borrowed to\nillustrate (as, for instance, is the case with David's name in the\nquotation made by our Lord from Psalm cx.), then those who deny the\nunity of the Book of Isaiah would be face to face with a very serious\nproblem indeed. But in none of the nine cases is the authorship of\nthe Book of Isaiah in question. In none of the nine cases is there\nanything in the argument, for the purpose of which the quotation has\nbeen made, that depends on the quoted words being by Isaiah. For\nthe purposes, for which the Evangelists and Paul borrow the texts,\nthese might as well be unnamed, or attributed to any other canonical\nwriter. Nothing in them requires us to suppose that Isaiah's name is\nmentioned with them for any other end than that of reference, viz.,\nto point out that they lie in the part of prophecy usually known\nby his name. But, if there is nothing in these citations to prove\nthat Isaiah's name is being used for any other purpose than that of\nreference, then it is plain--and this is all that we ask assent to at\nthe present time--that they do not offer the authority of Scripture\nas a bar to our examining the evidence of the chapters in question.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to add that neither is there any other\nquestion of doctrine in our way. There is none about the nature of\nprophecy, for, to take an example, ch. liii., as a prophecy of Jesus\nChrist, is surely as great a marvel if you date it from the Exile\nas if you date it from the age of Isaiah. And, in particular, let\nus understand that no question need be started about the ability\nof God's Spirit to inspire a prophet to mention Cyrus by name one\nhundred and fifty years before Cyrus appeared. The question is not,\n_Could_ a prophet have been so inspired?--to which question, were it\nput, our answer might only be, God is great!--but the question is,\n_Was_ our prophet so inspired? does he himself offer evidence of the\nfact? Or, on the contrary, in naming Cyrus does he give himself out\nas a contemporary of Cyrus, who already saw the great Persian above\nthe horizon? To this question only the writings under discussion can\ngive us an answer. Let us see what they have to say.\n\nApart from the question of the date, no chapters in the Bible are\ninterpreted with such complete unanimity as Isa. xl.-xlviii. They\nplainly set forth certain things as having already taken place--the\nExile and Captivity, the ruin of Jerusalem, and the devastation of\nthe Holy Land. Israel is addressed as having exhausted the time of\nher penalty, and is proclaimed to be ready for deliverance. Some of\nthe people are comforted as being in despair because redemption\ndoes not draw near; others are exhorted to leave the city of their\nbondage, as if they were growing too familiar with its idolatrous\nlife. Cyrus is named as their deliverer, and is pointed out as\nalready called upon his career, and as blessed with success by\nJehovah. It is also promised that he will immediately add Babylon to\nhis conquests, and so set God's people free.\n\nNow all this is not predicted, as if from the standpoint of a previous\ncentury. It is nowhere said--as we should expect it to be said, if\nthe prophecy had been uttered by Isaiah--that Assyria, the dominant\nworld-power of Isaiah's day, was to disappear and Babylon to take her\nplace; that then the Babylonians should lead the Jews into an exile\nwhich they had escaped at the hands of Assyria; and that after nearly\nseventy years of suffering God would raise up Cyrus as a deliverer.\nThere is none of this prediction, which we might fairly have expected\nhad the prophecy been Isaiah's; because, however far Isaiah carries\nus into the future, he never fails to start from the circumstances of\nhis own day. Still more significant, however--there is not even the\nkind of prediction that we find in Jeremiah's prophecies of the Exile,\nwith which indeed it is most instructive to compare Isa. xl.-lxvi.\nJeremiah also spoke of exile and deliverance, but it was always with\nthe grammar of the future. He fairly and openly predicted both; and,\nlet us especially remember, he did so with a meagreness of description,\na reserve and reticence about details, which are simply unintelligible\nif Isa. xl.-lxvi. was written before his day, and by so well-known\na prophet as Isaiah. No: in the statements, which our chapters make\nconcerning the Exile and the condition of Israel under it, there is\nno prediction, not the slightest trace of that grammar of the future\nin which Jeremiah's prophecies are constantly uttered. But there is\na direct appeal to the conscience of a people already long under the\ndiscipline of God; their circumstance of exile is taken for granted;\nthere is a most vivid and delicate appreciation of their present fears\nand doubts, and to these the deliverer Cyrus is not only named, but\nintroduced as an actual and notorious personage already upon the midway\nof his irresistible career.\n\nThese facts are more broadly based than just at first sight appears.\nYou cannot turn their flank by the argument that Hebrew prophets were\nin the habit of employing in their predictions what is called \"the\nprophetic perfect\"--that is, that in the ardour of their conviction\nthat certain things would take place they talked of these, as the\nflexibility of the Hebrew tenses allowed them to do, in the past or\nperfect as if the things had actually taken place. No such argument\nis possible in the case of the introduction of Cyrus. For it is not\nonly that the prophecy, with what might be the mere ardour of vision,\nrepresents the Persian as already above the horizon and upon the\nflowing tide of victory; but that, in the course of a sober argument\nfor the unique divinity of the God of Israel, which takes place\nthroughout chs. xli.-xlviii., Cyrus, alive and irresistible, already\naccredited by success, and with Babylonia at his feet, is pointed out\nas the unmistakable proof that _former_ prophecies of a deliverance for\nIsrael are at last coming to pass. Cyrus, in short, is not presented as\na prediction, but as the proof that a prediction is being fulfilled.\nUnless he had already appeared in flesh and blood, and was on the point\nof striking at Babylon, with all the prestige of unbroken victory, a\ngreat part of Isa. xli.-xlviii. would be utterly unintelligible.\n\nThis argument is so conclusive for the date of Second Isaiah, that it\nmay be well to state it a little more in detail, even at the risk of\nanticipating some of the exposition of the text.\n\nAmong the Jews at the close of the Exile there appear to have been\ntwo classes. One class was hopeless of deliverance, and to their\nhearts is addressed such a prophecy as ch. xl.: _Comfort ye, comfort\nye My people_. But there was another class, of opposite temperament,\nwho had only too strong opinions on the subject of deliverance. In\nbondage to the letter of Scripture and to the great precedents of\ntheir history, these Jews appear to have insisted that the Deliverer\nto come must be a Jew, and a descendant of David. And the bent of\nmuch of the prophet's urgency in ch. xlv. is to persuade those\npedants, that the Gentile Cyrus, who had appeared to be not only\nthe biggest man of his age, but the very likely means of Israel's\nredemption, was of Jehovah's own creation and calling. Does not such\nan argument necessarily imply that Cyrus was already present, an\nobject of doubt and debate to earnest minds in Israel? Or are we to\nsuppose that all this doubt and debate were foreseen, rehearsed and\nanswered one hundred and fifty years before the time by so famous a\nprophet as Isaiah, and that, in spite of his prediction and answer,\nthe doubt and debate nevertheless took place in the minds of the very\nIsraelites, who were most earnest students of ancient prophecy? The\nthing has only to be stated to be felt to be impossible.\n\nBut besides the pedants in Israel, there is apparent through these\nprophecies another body of men, against whom also Jehovah claims the\nactual Cyrus for His own. They are the priests and worshippers of the\nheathen idols. It is well known that the advent of Cyrus cast the\nGentile religions of the time and their counsellors into confusion. The\nwisest priests were perplexed; the oracles of Greece and Asia Minor\neither were dumb when consulted about the Persian, or gave more than\nusually ambiguous answers. Over against this perplexity and despair\nof the heathen religions, our prophet confidently claims Cyrus for\nJehovah's own. In a debate in ch. xli., in which he seeks to establish\nJehovah's righteousness--that is, Jehovah's faithfulness to His word,\nand power to carry out His predictions--the prophet speaks of ancient\nprophecies which have come from Jehovah, and points to Cyrus as their\nfulfilment. It does not matter to us in the meantime what those\nprophecies were. They may have been certain of Jeremiah's predictions;\nwe may be sure that they cannot have contained anything so definite\nas Cyrus' name, or such a proof of Divine foresight must certainly\nhave formed part of the prophet's plea. It is enough that they could\nbe quoted; our business is rather with the evidence which the prophet\noffers of their fulfilment. That evidence is Cyrus. Would it have been\npossible to refer the heathen to Cyrus as proof that those ancient\nprophecies were being fulfilled, unless Cyrus had been visible to the\nheathen,--unless the heathen had been beginning already to feel this\nPersian \"from the sunrise\" in all his weight of war? It is no esoteric\ndoctrine which the prophet is unfolding to initiated Israelites about\nCyrus. He is making an appeal to men of the world to face facts. Could\nhe possibly have made such an appeal unless the facts had been _there_,\nunless Cyrus had been within the ken of \"the natural man\"? Unless\nCyrus and his conquests were already historically present, the argument\nin xli.-xlviii. is unintelligible.\n\nIf this evidence for the exilic date of Isa. xl.-xlviii.--for all these\nchapters hang together--required any additional support, it would\nfind it in the fact that the prophet does not wholly treat of what is\npast and over, but makes some predictions as well. Cyrus is on the\nway of triumph, but Babylon has still to fall by his hand. Babylon\nhas still to fall, before the exiles can go free. Now, if our prophet\nwere predicting from the standpoint of one hundred and forty years\nbefore, why did he make this sharp distinction between two events which\nappeared so closely together? If he had both the advent of Cyrus and\nthe fall of Babylon in his long perspective, why did he not use \"the\nprophetic perfect\" for both? That he speaks of the first as past and\nof the second as still to come, would most surely, if there had been\nno tradition the other way, have been accepted by all as sufficient\nevidence, that the advent of Cyrus was behind him and the fall of\nBabylon still in front of him, when he wrote these chapters.\n\nThus the earlier part, at least, of Isa. xl.-lxvi.--that is, chs.\nxl.-xlviii.--compels us to date it between 555, Cyrus' advent, and\n538, Babylon's fall. But some think that we may still further narrow\nthe limits. In ch. xli. 25, Cyrus, whose own kingdom lay east of\nBabylonia, is described as invading Babylonia from the north. This,\nit has been thought, must refer to his union with the Medes in 549,\nand his threatened descent upon Mesopotamia from their quarter of\nthe prophet's horizon.[4] If it be so, the possible years of our\nprophecy are reduced to eleven, 549-538. But even if we take the\nwider and more certain limit, 555 to 538, we may well say that there\nare very few chapters in the whole of the Old Testament whose date\ncan be fixed so precisely as the date of chs. xl.-xlviii.\n\nIf what has been unfolded in the preceding paragraphs is recognised\nas the statement of the chapters themselves, it will be felt that\nfurther evidence of an exilic date is scarcely needed. And those, who\nare acquainted with the controversy upon the evidence furnished by\nthe style and language of the prophecies, will admit how far short\nin decisiveness it falls of the arguments offered above. But we\nmay fairly ask whether there is anything opposed to the conclusion\nwe have reached, either, _first_, in the local colour of the\nprophecies; or, _second_, in their language; or, _third_, in their\nthought--anything which shows that they are more likely to have been\nIsaiah's than of exilic origin.\n\n1. It has often been urged against the exilic date of these\nprophecies, that they wear so very little local colour, and one\nof the greatest of critics, Ewald, has felt himself, therefore,\npermitted to place their home, not in Babylonia, but in Egypt, while\nhe maintains the exilic date. But, as we shall see in surveying the\ncondition of the exiles, it was natural for the best among them,\ntheir psalmists and prophets, to have no eyes for the colours of\nBabylon. They lived inwardly; they were much more the inhabitants\nof their own broken hearts than of that gorgeous foreign land; when\ntheir thoughts rose out of themselves it was to seek immediately the\nfar-away Zion. How little local colour is there in the writings of\nEzekiel! Isa. xl.-lxvi. has even more to show; for indeed the absence\nof local colour from our prophecy has been greatly exaggerated.\nWe shall find as we follow the exposition, break after break of\nBabylonian light and shadow falling across our path,--the temples,\nthe idol-manufactories, the processions of images, the diviners\nand astrologers, the gods and altars especially cultivated by the\ncharacteristic mercantile spirit of the place; the shipping of that\nmart of nations, the crowds of her merchants; the glitter of many\nwaters, and even that intolerable glare, which so frequently curses\nthe skies of Mesopotamia (xlix. 10). The prophet speaks of the\nhills of his native land with just the same longing, that Ezekiel\nand a probable psalmist of the Exile[5] betray,--the homesickness\nof a highland-born man whose prison is on a flat, monotonous plain.\nThe beasts he mentions have for the most part been recognised as\nfamiliar in Babylonia; and while the same cannot be said of the\ntrees and plants he names, it has been observed that the passages,\ninto which he brings them, are passages where his thoughts are\nfixed on the restoration to Palestine.[6] Besides these, there are\nmany delicate symptoms of the presence, before the prophet, of a\npeople in a foreign land, engaged in commerce, but without political\nresponsibilities, each of which, taken by itself, may be insufficient\nto convince, but the reiterated expression of which has even betrayed\ncommentators, who lived too early for the theory of a second Isaiah,\ninto the involuntary admission of an exilic authorship. It will\nperhaps startle some to hear John Calvin quoted on behalf of the\nexilic date of these prophecies. But let us read and consider this\nstatement of his: \"Some regard must be had to the time when this\nprophecy was uttered; for since the rank of the kingdom had been\nobliterated, and the name of the royal family had become mean and\ncontemptible, during the captivity in Babylon, it might seem as if\nthrough the ruin of that family the truth of God had fallen into\ndecay; and therefore he bids them contemplate by faith the throne of\nDavid, which had been cast down.\"[7]\n\n2. What we have seen to be true of the local colour of our prophecy,\nholds good also of its style and language. There is nothing in\neither of these to commit us to an Isaian authorship, or to make an\nexilic date improbable; on the contrary, the language and style,\nwhile containing no stronger nor more frequent resemblances to the\nlanguage and style of Isaiah than may be accounted for by the natural\ninfluence of so great a prophet upon his successors, are signalised by\ndifferences from his undisputed oracles, too constant, too subtle, and\nsometimes too sharp, to make it at all probable that the whole book\ncame from the same man. On this point it is enough to refer our readers\nto the recent exhaustive and very able reviews of the evidence by Canon\nCheyne in the second volume of his Commentary, and by Canon Driver in\nthe last chapter of _Isaiah: His Life and Times_, and to quote the\nfollowing words of so great an authority as Professor A. B. Davidson.\nAfter remarking on the difference in vocabulary of the two parts of\nthe Book of Isaiah, he adds that it is not so much words in themselves\nas the peculiar uses and combinations of them, and especially \"the\npeculiar articulation of sentences and the movement of the whole\ndiscourse, by which an impression is produced so unlike the impression\nproduced by the earlier parts of the book.\"[8]\n\n3. It is the same with the thought and doctrine of our prophecy.\nIn this there is nothing to make the Isaian authorship probable,\nor an exilic date impossible. But, on the contrary, whether we\nregard the needs of the people or the analogies of the development\nof their religion, we find that, while everything suits the Exile,\nnearly everything is foreign both to the subjects and to the methods\nof Isaiah. We shall observe the items of this as we go along, but\none of them may be mentioned here (it will afterwards require a\nchapter to itself), our prophet's use of the terms _righteous_ and\n_righteousness_. No one, who has carefully studied the meaning which\nthese terms bear in the authentic oracles of Isaiah, and the use to\nwhich they are put in the prophecies under discussion, can fail to\nfind in the difference a striking corroboration of our argument--that\nthe latter were composed by a different mind than Isaiah's, speaking\nto a different generation.[9]\n\n * * * * *\n\nTo sum up this whole argument. We have seen that there is no evidence\nin the Book of Isaiah to prove that it was all by himself, but much\ntestimony which points to a plurality of authors; that chs. xl.-lxvi.\nnowhere assert themselves to be by Isaiah; and that there is no\nother well-grounded claim of Scripture or of doctrine on behalf of\nhis authorship. We have then shown that chs. xl.-xlviii. do not only\npresent the Exile as if nearly finished and Cyrus as if already come,\nwhile the fall of Babylon is still future; but that it is essential to\none of their main arguments that Cyrus should be standing before Israel\nand the world, as a successful warrior, on his way to attack Babylon.\nThat led us to date these chapters between 555 and 538. Turning then to\nother evidence,--the local colour they show, their language and style,\nand their theology,--we have found nothing which conflicts with that\ndate, but, on the contrary, a very great deal, which much more agrees\nwith it than with the date, or with the authorship, of Isaiah.\n\nIt will be observed, however, that the question has been limited to\nthe earlier chapters of the twenty-seven under discussion, viz., to\nxl.-xlviii. Does the same conclusion hold good of xlix. to lxvi.? This\ncan be properly discovered only as we closely follow their exposition;\nit is enough in the meantime to have got firm footing on the Exile. We\ncan feel our way bit by bit from this standpoint onwards. Let us now\nmerely anticipate the main features of the rest of the prophecy.\n\nA new section has been marked by many as beginning with ch. xlix.\nThis is because ch. xlviii. concludes with a refrain: _There is no\npeace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked_, which occurs again at the end\nof ch. lvii., and because with ch. xlviii. Babylon and Cyrus drop\nout of sight. But the circumstances are still those of exile, and,\nas Professor Davidson remarks, ch. xlix. is parallel in thought to\nch. xlii., and also takes for granted the restoration of Israel\nin ch. xlviii., proceeding naturally from that to the statement\nof Israel's world-mission. Apart from the alternation of passages\ndealing with the Servant of the Lord, and passages whose subject\nis Zion--an alternation which begins pretty early in the prophecy,\nand has suggested to some its composition out of two different\nwritings[10]--the first real break in the sequence occurs at ch. lii.\n13, where the prophecy of the sin-bearing Servant is introduced. By\nmost critics this is held to be an insertion, for ch. liv. 1 follows\nnaturally upon ch. lii. 12, though it is undeniable that there is\nalso some association between chs. lii. 13-liii., and ch. liv.[11] In\nchs. liv.-lv. we are evidently still in exile. It is in commenting on\na verse of these chapters that Calvin makes the admission of exilic\norigin which has been quoted above.\n\nA number of short prophecies now follow, till the end of ch. lix.\nis reached. These, as we shall see, make it extremely difficult to\nbelieve in the original unity of \"Second Isaiah.\" Some of them,\nit is true, lie in evident circumstance of exile; but others are\nundoubtedly of earlier date, reflecting the scenery of Palestine,\nand the habits of the people in their political independence, with\nJehovah's judgement-cloud still unburst, but lowering. Such is ch.\nlvi. 9-lvii., which regards the Exile as still to come, quotes the\nnatural features of Palestine, and charges the Jews with unbelieving\ndiplomacy--a charge not possible against them when they were in\ncaptivity. But others of these short prophecies are, in the opinion\nof some critics, post-exilic. Cheyne assigns ch. lvi. to after the\nReturn, when the temple was standing, and the duty of holding fasts\nand sabbaths could be enforced, as it was enforced by Nehemiah. I\nshall give, when we reach the passage, my reasons for doubting his\nconclusion. The chapter seems to me as likely to have been written\nupon the eve of the Return as after the Return had taken place.\n\nCh. lvii., the eighteenth of our twenty-seven chapters, closes with\nthe same refrain as ch. xlviii., the ninth of the series: _There is no\npeace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked._ Ch. lviii. has, therefore, been\nregarded as beginning the third great division of the prophecy. But\nhere again, while there is certainly an advance in the treatment of the\nsubject, and the prophet talks less of the redemption of the Jews and\nmore of the glory of the restoration of Zion, the point of transition\nis very difficult to mark. Some critics[12] regard ch. lviii. as\npost-exilic; but when we come to it we shall find a number of reasons\nfor supposing it to belong, just as much as Ezekiel, to the Exile. Ch.\nlix. is perhaps the most difficult portion of all, because it makes\nthe Jews responsible for civic justice in a way they could hardly be\nconceived to be in exile, and yet speaks, in the language of other\nportions of \"Second Isaiah,\" of a deliverance that cannot well be other\nthan the deliverance from exile. We shall find in this chapter likely\nmarks of the fusion of two distinct addresses, making the conclusion\nprobable that it is Israel's earlier conscience which we catch here,\nfollowing her into the days of exile, and reciting her former guilt\njust before pardon is assured. Chs. lx., lxi., and lxii. are certainly\nexilic. The inimitable prophecy, ch. lxiii. 1-6, complete within\nitself, and unique in its beauty, is either a promise given just before\nthe deliverance from a long captivity of Israel under heathen nations\n(ver. 4), or an exultant song of triumph immediately after such a\ndeliverance has taken place. Ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv. implies a ruined temple\n(ver. 10), but bears no traces of the writer being in exile. It has\nbeen assigned to the period of the first attempts to rebuild Jerusalem\nafter the Return. Ch. lxv. has been assigned to the same date, and its\nlocal colour interpreted as that of Palestine. But we shall find the\ncolour to be just as probably that of Babylon, and again I do not see\nany certain proofs of a post-exilic date. Ch. lxvi., however, betrays\nmore evidence of being written after the Return. It divides into two\nparts. In verses 1 to 4 the temple is still unbuilt, but the building\nwould seem to be already begun. In verses 5 to 24, the arrival of the\nJews in Palestine, the resumption of the life of the sacred community,\nand the disappointments of the returned at the first meagre results,\nseem to be implied. And the music of the book dies out in tones of\nwarning, that sin still hinders the Lord's work with His people.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThis rapid survey has made two things sufficiently clear. _First_,\nthat while the bulk of chs. xl.-lxvi. was composed in Babylonia during\nthe Exile of the Jews, there are considerable portions which date from\nbefore the Exile, and betray a Palestinian origin; and one or two\nsmaller pieces that seem--rather less evidently, however--to take for\ngranted the Return from the Exile. But, _secondly_, all these pieces,\nwhich it seems necessary to assign to different epochs and authors,\nhave been arranged so as to exhibit a certain order and progress--an\norder, more or less observed, of date, and a progress very apparent (as\nwe shall see in the course of exposition) of thought and of clearness\nin definition. The largest portion, of whose unity we are assured and\nwhose date we can fix, is found at the beginning. Chs. xl.-xlviii.\nare certainly by one hand, and may be dated, as we have seen, between\n555 and 538--the period of Cyrus' approach to take Babylon. There\nthe interest in Cyrus ceases, and the thought of the redemption from\nBabylon is mainly replaced by that of the subsequent Return. Along\nwith these lines, we shall discover a development in the prophecy's\ngreat doctrine of the Servant of Jehovah. But even this dies away, as\nif the experience of suffering and discipline were being replaced by\nthat of return and restoration; and it is Zion in her glory, and the\nspiritual mission of the people, and the vengeance of the Lord, and the\nbuilding of the temple, and a number of practical details in the life\nand worship of the restored community, which fill up the remainder of\nthe book, along with a few echoes from pre-exilic times. Can we escape\nfeeling in all this a definite design and arrangement, which fails to\nbe absolutely perfect, probably, from the nature of the materials at\nthe arranger's disposal?\n\nWe are, therefore, justified in coming to the provisional conclusion,\nthat Second Isaiah is not a unity, in so far as it consists of a\nnumber of pieces by different men, whom God raised up at various\ntimes before, during, and after the Exile, to comfort and exhort\namid the shifting circumstance and tempers of His people; but that\nit is a unity, in so far as these pieces have been gathered together\nby an editor very soon after the Return from the Exile, in an order\nas regular both in point of time and subject as the somewhat mixed\nmaterial would permit. It is in this sense that throughout this\nvolume we shall talk of \"our prophet,\" or \"the prophet;\" up to ch.\nxlix., at least, we shall feel that the expression is literally true;\nafter that it is rather an editorial than an original unity which\nis apparent. In this question of unity the dramatic style of the\nprophecy forms, no doubt, the greatest difficulty. Who shall dare to\ndetermine of the many soliloquies, apostrophes, lyrics and other\npieces that are here gathered, often in want of any connection save\nthat of dramatic grouping and a certain sympathy of temper, whether\nthey are by the same author or have been collected from several\norigins? We must be content to leave the matter uncertain. One great\nreason, which we have not yet quoted, for supposing that the whole\nprophecy is not by one man, is that if it had been his name would\ncertainly have come down with it.\n\nDo not let it be thought that such a conclusion, as we have been led\nto, is merely a dogma of modern criticism. Here, if anywhere, the\ncritic is but the patient student of Scripture, searching for the\ntestimony of the sacred text about itself, and formulating that.\nIf it be found that such a testimony conflicts with ecclesiastical\ntradition, however ancient and universal, so much the worse for\ntradition. In Protestant circles, at least, we have no choice. _Litera\nScripta manet_. When we know that the only evidence for the Isaian\nauthorship of chs. xl.-lxvi. is tradition, supported by an unthinking\ninterpretation of New Testament citations, while the whole testimony\nof these Scriptures themselves denies them to be Isaiah's, we cannot\nhelp making our choice, and accepting the testimony of Scripture. Do\nwe find them any the less wonderful or Divine? Do they comfort less?\nDo they speak with less power to the conscience? Do they testify with\nmore uncertain voice to our Lord and Saviour? It will be the task of\nthe following pages to show that, interpreted in connection with the\nhistory out of which they themselves say that God's Spirit drew them,\nthese twenty-seven chapters become only more prophetic of Christ, and\nmore comforting and instructive to men, than they were before.\n\nBut the remarkable fact is, that anciently tradition itself appears\nto have agreed with the results of modern scholarship. The original\nplace of the Book of Isaiah in the Jewish canon seems to have been\nafter both Jeremiah and Ezekiel,[13] a fact which goes to prove that\nit did not reach completion till a later date than the works of these\ntwo prophets of the Exile.\n\nIf now it be asked, Why should a series of prophecies written in\nthe Exile be attached to the authentic works of Isaiah? that is a\nfair question, and one which the supporters of the exilic authorship\nhave the duty laid upon them of endeavouring to answer. Fortunately\nthey are not under the necessity of falling back, for want of other\nreasons, on the supposition that this attachment was due to the error\nof some scribe, or to the custom which ancient writers practised\nof filling up any part of a volume, that remained blank when one\nbook was finished, with the writing of any other that would fit the\nplace.[14] The first of these reasons is too accidental, the second\ntoo artificial, in face of the undoubted sympathy which exists among\nall parts of the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah himself plainly prophesied of\nan exile longer than his own generation experienced, and prophesied\nof a return from it (ch. xi.). We saw no reason to dispute his claims\nto the predictions about Babylon in chs. xxi. and xxxix. Isaiah's,\ntoo, more than any other prophet's, were those great and final hopes\nof the Old Testament--the survival of Israel and the gathering of\nthe Gentiles to the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem. But it is for\nthe express purpose of emphasizing the immediate fulfilment of such\nancient predictions, that Isa. xl.-lxvi. were published. Although our\nprophet has _new things to publish_, his first business is to show\nthat the _former things have come to pass_, especially the Exile,\nthe survival of a Remnant, the sending of a Deliverer, the doom of\nBabylon. What more natural than to attach to his utterances those\nprophecies, of which the events he pointed to were the vindication\nand fulfilment? The attachment was the more easy to arrange that the\nauthentic prophecies had not passed from Isaiah's hand in a fixed\nform. They do not bear those marks of their author's own editing,\nwhich are borne by the prophecies both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It\nis impossible to be dogmatic on the point. But these facts--that\nour chapters are concerned, as no other Scriptures are, with the\nfulfilment of previous prophecies; that it is the prophecies of\nIsaiah which are the original and fullest prediction of the events\nthey are busy with; and that the form, in which Isaiah's prophecies\nare handed down, did not preclude additions of this kind to\nthem--contribute very evident reasons why Isa. xl.-lxvi., though\nwritten in the Exile, should be attached to Isa. i.-xxxix.[15]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThus we present a theory of the exilic authorship of Isa. xl.-lxvi.\nwithin itself complete and consistent, suited to all parts of the\nevidence, and not opposed by the authority of any part of Scripture.\nIn consequence of its conclusion, our duty, before proceeding to the\nexposition of the chapters, is twofold: first, to connect the time\nof Isaiah with the period of the Captivity, and then to sketch the\ncondition of Israel in Exile. This we shall undertake in the next\nthree chapters.\n\n\n NOTE TO CHAPTER I.\n\n Readers may wish to have a reference to other passages of this\n volume, in which the questions of the date, authorship and\n structure of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. are discussed. See pp. 65-68, 112,\n 146 f., 212, 223; Introduction to Book III.; opening paragraphs\n of ch. xviii. and of ch. xix., etc.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Chs. i., ii., etc. The only title that could be offered as\ncovering the whole book is that in ch. i., ver. 1: _The vision of\nIsaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem,\nin the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah._\nBut this manifestly cannot apply to any but the earlier chapters, of\nwhich Judah and Jerusalem are indeed the subjects.\n\n[2] There are, it will be remembered, certain narratives in the Book\nof Isaiah, which are not by the prophet. They speak of him in the\nthird person (chs. vii., xxxvi.-xxxix.), while in other narratives\n(chs. vi. and viii.) he speaks of himself in the first person. Their\npresence is sufficient proof that the Book of Isaiah, in its extant\nshape, did not come from Isaiah's hands, but was compiled by others.\n\n[3] Matt. iii. 3, viii. 17, xii. 17; Luke iii. 4, iv. 17; John i. 23,\nxii. 38; Acts viii. 28; Rom. x. 16-20.\n\n[4] Driver's _Isaiah_, pp. 137, 139.\n\n[5] Psalm cxxi.\n\n[6] Driver's _Isaiah: His Life and Times_, p. 191.\n\n[7] Calvin on Isa. lv. 3.\n\n[8] So quoted by Driver (_Isaiah_, etc., p. 200), from the _British\nand Foreign Evangelical Review_, 1879, p. 339.\n\n[9] See p. 223.\n\n[10] Professor Briggs' _Messianic Prophecy_, 339 ff.\n\n[11] Ewald is very strong on this.\n\n[12] Including Professor Cheyne, _Encyc. Britann._, article \"Isaiah.\"\n\n[13] According to the arrangement given in the Talmud (Baba bathra,\nf. 14, col. 2): \"Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, the Twelve.\" Cf. Bleek,\n_Introduction to Old Testament_, on Isaiah; Orelli's _Isaiah_, Eng.\ned., p. 214.\n\n[14] Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament in Jewish Church_, 109.\n\n[15] It is the theory of some, that although Isa. xl.-lxvi. dates\nas a whole from the Exile, there are passages in it by Isaiah\nhimself, or in his style by pupils of his (Klostermann in Herzog's\n_Encyclop\u00e6dia_ and Bredenkamp in his _Commentary_). But this, while\npossible, is beyond proof.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n _FROM ISAIAH TO THE FALL OF JERUSALEM._\n\n 701-587 B.C.\n\n\nAt first sight, the circumstances of Judah in the last ten years of\nthe seventh century present a strong resemblance to her fortunes\nin the last ten years of the eighth. The empire of the world, to\nwhich she belongs, is again divided between Egypt and a Mesopotamian\npower. Syria is again the field of their doubtful battle, and the\nquestion, to which of the two shall homage be paid, still forms the\npolitics of all her states. Judah still vacillates, intrigues and\ndraws down on herself the wrath of the North by her treaties with\nEgypt. Again there is a great prophet and statesman, whose concern is\nrighteousness, who exposes both the immorality of his people and the\nfolly of their politics, and who summons the _evil from the North_\nas God's scourge upon Israel: Isaiah has been succeeded by Jeremiah.\nAnd, as if to complete the analogy, the nation has once more passed\nthrough a puritan reformation. Josiah has, even more thoroughly than\nHezekiah, effected the disestablishment of idols.\n\nBeneath this circumstantial resemblance, however, there is one\nfundamental difference. The strength of Isaiah's preaching was bent,\nespecially during the closing years of the century, to establish the\ninviolableness of Jerusalem. Against the threats of the Assyrian\nsiege, and in spite of his own more formidable conscience of his\npeople's corruption, Isaiah persisted that Zion should not be taken,\nand that the people, though cut down to their roots, should remain\nplanted in the land,--the stock of an imperial nation in the latter\ndays. This prophecy was vindicated by the marvellous relief of\nJerusalem on the apparent eve of her capture in 701. But its echoes\nhad not yet died away, when Jeremiah to his generation delivered the\nvery opposite message. Round him the popular prophets babbled by\nrote Isaiah's ancient assurances about Zion. Their soft, monotonous\nrepetitions lapped pleasantly upon the immovable self-confidence of\nthe people. But Jeremiah called down the storm. Even while prosperity\nseemed to give him the lie, he predicted the speedy ruin of Temple\nand City, and summoned Judah's enemies against her in the name of\nthe God, on whose former word she relied for peace. The contrast\nbetween the two great prophets grows most dramatic in their conduct\nduring the respective sieges, of which each was the central figure.\nIsaiah, alone steadfast in a city of despair, defying the taunts of\nthe heathen, rekindling within the dispirited defenders, whom the\nenemy sought to bribe to desertion, the passions of patriotism and\nreligion, proclaiming always, as with the voice of a trumpet, that\nZion must stand inviolate; Jeremiah, on the contrary, declaring the\nfutility of resistance, counselling each citizen to save his own\nlife from the ruin of the state, in treaty with the enemy, and even\narrested as a deserter,--these two contrasting figures and attitudes\ngather up the difference which the century had wrought in the\nfortunes of the City of God. And so, while in 701 Jerusalem triumphed\nin the Lord by the sudden raising of the Assyrian siege, three years\nafter the next century was out she twice succumbed to the Assyrian's\nsuccessor, and nine years later was totally destroyed.\n\nWhat is the reason of this difference, which a century sufficed\nto work? Why was the sacredness of Judah's shrine not as much an\narticle of Jeremiah's as of Isaiah's creed,--as much an element of\nDivine providence in 600 as in 700 B.C.? This is not a very hard\nquestion to answer, if we keep in our regard two things--firstly,\nthe moral condition of the people, and, secondly, the necessities of\nthe spiritual religion, which was identified for the time with their\nfortunes.\n\nThe Israel, which was delivered into captivity at the word of\nJeremiah, was a people at once more hardened and more exhausted\nthan the Israel, which, in spite of its sin, Isaiah's efforts had\nsucceeded in preserving upon its own land. A century had come and\ngone of further grace and opportunity, but the grace had been\nresisted, the opportunity abused, and the people stood more guilty\nand more wilful than ever before God. Even clearer, however, than the\ndeserts of the people was the need of their religion. That local and\ntemporary victory--after all, only the relief of a mountain fortress\nand a tribal shrine--with which Isaiah had identified the will and\nhonour of Almighty God, could not be the climax of the history of\na spiritual religion. It was impossible for Monotheism to rest on\nso narrow and material a security as that. The faith, which was to\novercome the world, could not be satisfied with a merely national\ntriumph. The time must arrive--were it only by the ordinary progress\nof the years and unhastened by human guilt--for faith and piety\nto be weaned from the forms of an earthly temple, however sacred;\nfor the individual--after all, the real unit of religion--to be\nrendered independent of the community and cast upon his God alone;\nand for this people, to whom the oracles of the living God had been\nentrusted, to be led out from the selfish pride of guarding these\nfor their own honour--to be led out, were it through the breaches\nof their hitherto inviolate walls, and amid the smoke of all that\nwas most sacred to them, so that in level contact with mankind they\nmight learn to communicate their glorious trust. Therefore, while the\nExile was undoubtedly the penance, which an often-spared but ever\nmore obdurate people had to pay for their accumulated sins, it was\nalso for the meek and the pure-hearted in Israel a step upwards even\nfrom the faith and the results of Isaiah--perhaps the most effectual\nstep which Israel's religion ever took. Schultz has finely said: \"The\nproper Tragedy of History--doom required by long-gathering guilt,\nand launched upon a generation which for itself is really turning\ntowards good--is most strikingly consummated in the Exile.\" Yes: but\nthis is only half the truth. The accomplishment of the moral tragedy\nis really but one incident in a religious epic--the development of a\nspiritual faith. Long-delaying Nemesis overtakes at last the sinners,\nbut the shock of the blows, which beat the guilty nation into\ncaptivity, releases their religion from its material bonds. Israel on\nthe way to Exile is on the way to become Israel after the Spirit.\n\nWith these principles to guide us, let us now, for a little, thread\nour way through the crowded details of the decline and fall of the\nJewish state.\n\nIsaiah's own age had foreboded the necessity of exile for Judah.\nThere was the great precedent of Samaria, and Judah's sin was not\nless than her sister's. When the authorities at Jerusalem wished\nto put Jeremiah to death for the heresy of predicting the ruin of\nthe sacred city, it was pointed out in his defence that a similar\nprediction had been made by Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah. And\nhow much had happened since then! The triumph of Jehovah in 701,\nthe stronger faith and purer practice, which had followed as long\nas Hezekiah reigned, gave way to an idolatrous reaction under his\nsuccessor Manasseh. This reaction, while it increased the guilt of\nthe people, by no means diminished their religious fear. They carried\ninto it the conscience of their former puritanism--diseased, we might\nsay delirious, but not dead. Men felt their sin and feared Heaven's\nwrath, and rushed headlong into the gross and fanatic exercises\nof idolatry, in order to wipe away the one and avert the other.\nIt availed nothing. After an absence of thirty years the Assyrian\narms returned in full strength, and Manasseh himself was carried\ncaptive across the Euphrates. But penitence revived, and for a time\nit appeared as if it were to be at last valid for salvation. Israel\nmade huge strides towards their ideal life of a good conscience\nand outward prosperity. Josiah, the pious, came to the throne. The\nBook of the Law was discovered in 621, and king and people rallied\nto its summons with the utmost loyalty. All the nation _stood to\nthe covenant_. The single sanctuary was vindicated, the high places\ndestroyed, the land purged of idols. There were no great military\ntriumphs, but Assyria, so long the accepted scourge of God, gave\nsigns of breaking up; and we can feel the vigour and self-confidence,\ninduced by years of prosperity, in Josiah's ambition to extend his\nborders, and especially in his daring assault upon Necho of Egypt\nat Megiddo, when Necho passed north to the invasion of Assyria.\nAltogether, it was a people that imagined itself righteous, and\ncounted upon a righteous God. In such days who could dream of exile?\n\nBut in 608 the ideal was shivered. Israel was threshed at Megiddo,\nand Josiah, the king after God's own heart, was slain on the field.\nAnd then happened, what happened at other times in Israel's history\nwhen disillusion of this kind came down. The nation fell asunder\ninto the elements of which it was ever so strange a composition. The\nmasses, whose conscience did not rise beyond the mere performance\nof the Law, nor their view of God higher than that of a Patron of\nthe state, bound by His covenant to reward with material success the\nloyalty of His clients, were disappointed with the results of their\nservice and of His providence. Being a new generation from Manasseh's\ntime, they thought to give the strange gods another turn. The idols\nwere brought back, and after the discredit which righteousness\nreceived at Megiddo, it would appear that social injustice and crime\nof many kinds dared to be very bold. Jehoahaz, who reigned for\nthree months after Josiah, and Jehoiakim, who succeeded him, were\nidolaters. The loftier few, like Jeremiah, had never been deceived\nby the people's outward allegiance to the Temple or the Law, nor\nconsidered it valid either to atone for the past or now to fulfil\nthe holy demands of Jehovah; and were confirmed by the disaster at\nMegiddo, and the consequent reaction to idolatry, in the stern and\nhopeless views of the people which they had always entertained. They\nkept reiterating a speedy captivity. Between these parties stood\nthe formal successors of earlier prophets, so much the slaves of\ntradition that they had neither conscience for their people's sins\nnor understanding of the world around them, but could only affirm in\nthe strength of ancient oracles that Zion should not be destroyed.\nStrange is it to see how this party, building upon the promises of\nJehovah through a prophet like Isaiah, should be taken advantage of\nby the idolaters, but scouted by Jehovah's own servants. Thus they\nmingle and conflict. Who indeed can distinguish all the elements of\nso ancient and so rich a life, as they chase, overtake and wrestle\nwith each other, hurrying down the rapids to the final cataract? Let\nus leave them for a moment, while we mark the catastrophe itself.\nThey will be more easily distinguished in the calm below.\n\nIt was from the North that Jeremiah summoned the vengeance of God\nupon Judah. In his earlier threats he might have meant the Scythians;\nbut by 605, when Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar of Babylon's son, the\nrising general of the age, defeated Pharaoh at Carchemish, all men\naccepted Jeremiah's nomination for this successor of Assyria in the\nlordship of Western Asia. From Carchemish Nebuchadrezzar overran\nSyria. Jehoiakim paid tribute to him, and Judah at last felt the grip\nof the hand that was to drag her into exile. Jehoiakim attempted\nto throw it off in 602; but, after harassing him for four years by\nmeans of some allies, Nebuchadrezzar took his capital, executed him,\nsuffered Jehoiachin, his successor, to reign only three months, took\nJerusalem a second time, and carried off to Babylon the first great\nportion of the people. This was in 598, only ten years from the death\nof Josiah, and twenty-one from the discovery of the Book of the Law.\n\nThe exact numbers of this first captivity of the Jews it is\nimpossible to determine. The annalist sets the soldiers at seven\nthousand, the smiths and craftsmen at one thousand; so that, making\nallowance for other classes whom he mentions, the grown men must\nalone have been over ten thousand;[16] but how many women went, and\nhow many children--the most important factor for the period of the\nExile with which we have to deal--it is impossible to estimate. The\ntotal number of persons can scarcely have been less than twenty-five\nthousand. More important, however, than their number was the quality\nof these exiles, and this we can easily appreciate. The royal family\nand the court were taken, a large number of influential persons,\n_the mighty men of the land_, or what must have been nearly all the\nfighting men, with the necessary artificers; priests also went,\nEzekiel among them, and probably representatives of other classes not\nmentioned by the annalist. That this was the virtue and flower of the\nnation is proved by a double witness. Not only did the citizens, for\nthe remaining ten years of Jerusalem's life, look to these exiles for\nher deliverance, but Jeremiah himself counted them the sound half of\nIsrael--_a basket of good figs_, as he expressed it, beside _a basket\nof bad ones_. They were at least under discipline, but the remnant of\nJerusalem persisted in the wilfulness of the past.\n\nFor although Jeremiah remained in the city, and the house of David\nand a considerable population, and although Jeremiah himself held a\nhigher position in public esteem since the vindication of his word\nby the events of 598, yet he could not be blind to the unchanged\ncharacter of the people, and the thorough doom which their last\nrespite had only more evidently proved to be inevitable. Gangs of\nfalse prophets, both at home and among the exiles, might predict a\nspeedy return. All the Jewish ability of intrigue, with the lavish\npromises of Egypt and frequent embassies from other nations, might\nwork for the overthrow of Babylon. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel knew\nbetter. Across the distance which now separated them they chanted,\nas it were in antiphon, the alternate strophes of Judah's dirge.\nJeremiah bade the exiles not to remember Zion, but \"let them settle\ndown,\" he said, \"into the life of the land they are in, building\nhouses, planting gardens, and begetting children, and _seek the peace\nof the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives,\nand pray unto Jehovah for it, for in the peace thereof ye shall have\npeace_--the Exile shall last seventy years.\" And as Jeremiah in Zion\nblessed Babylon, so Ezekiel in Babylon cursed Zion, thundering back\nthat Jerusalem must be utterly wasted through siege and famine,\npestilence and captivity. There is no rush of hope through Ezekiel.\nHis expectations are all distant. He lives either in memory or in\ncold fancy. His pictures of restoration are too elaborate to mean\nspeedy fulfilment. They are the work of a man with time on his hands;\none does not build so colossally for to-morrow. Thus reinforced\nfrom abroad, Jeremiah proclaimed Nebuchadrezzar as _the servant of\nJehovah_, and summoned him to work Jehovah's doom upon the city. The\npredicted blockade came in the ninth year of Zedekiah. The false\nhopes which still sustained the people, their trust in Egypt, the\narrival of an Egyptian army in result of their intrigue, as well as\nall their piteous bravery, only afforded time for the fulfilment of\nthe terrible details of their penalty. For nearly eighteen months the\nsiege closed in--months of famine and pestilence, of faction and\nquarrel and falling away to the enemy. Then Jerusalem broke up. The\nbesiegers gained the northern suburb and stormed the middle gate.\nZedekiah and the army burst their lines only to be captured on an\naimless flight at Jericho. A few weeks more, and a forlorn defence by\ncivilians of the interior parts of the city was at last overwhelmed.\nThe exasperated besiegers gave her up to fire--_the house of\nJehovah, the king's house, and every great house_--and tore to the\nstones the stout walls that resisted the conflagration. As the city\nwas levelled, so the citizens were dispersed. A great number--and\namong them the king's family--were put to death. The king himself\nwas blinded, and, along with a host of his subjects, impossible\nfor us to estimate, and with all the temple furniture, was carried\nto Babylon. A few peasants were left to cultivate the land; a few\nsuperior personages--perhaps such as, with Jeremiah, had favoured the\nBabylonians, and Jeremiah was among them--were left at Mizpah under a\nJewish viceroy. It was a poor apparition of a state; but, as if the\nvery ghost of Israel must be chased from the land, even this small\ncommunity was broken up, and almost every one of its members fled to\nEgypt. The Exile was complete.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[16] The figure actually mentioned in 2 Kings xxiv. 14, but, as\nStade points out (_Geschichte_, p. 680), vv. 14, 15 interrupt the\nnarrative, and may have been intruded here from the account of the\nlater captivity.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n _WHAT ISRAEL TOOK INTO EXILE._\n\n\nBefore we follow the captives along the roads that lead to exile, we\nmay take account of the spiritual goods which they carried with them,\nand were to realise in their retirement. Never in all history did\npaupers of this world go forth more richly laden with the treasures\nof heaven.\n\n1. First of all, we must emphasize and define their MONOTHEISM. We must\nemphasize it as against those who would fain persuade us that Israel's\nmonotheism was for the most part the product of the Exile; we must\nanalyse its contents and define its limits among the people, if we\nwould appreciate the extent to which it spread and the peculiar temper\nwhich it assumed, as set forth in the prophecy we are about to study.\n\nIdolatry was by no means dead in Israel at the fall of Jerusalem.\nOn the contrary, during the last years which the nation spent\nwithin those sacred walls, that had been so miraculously preserved\nin the sight of the world by Jehovah, idolatry increased, and\nto the end remained as determined and fanatic as the people's\ndefence of Jehovah's own temple. The Jews who fled to Egypt applied\nthemselves to the worship of the Queen of Heaven, in spite of all\nthe remonstrances of Jeremiah and him they carried with them, not\nbecause they listened to him as the prophet of the One True God,\nbut superstitiously, as if he were a pledge of the favour of one\nof the many gods, whom they were anxious to propitiate. And the\nearliest effort, upon which we shall have to follow our own prophet,\nis the effort to crush the worship of images among the Babylonian\nexiles. Yet when Israel returned from Babylon the people were wholly\nmonotheist; when Jerusalem was rebuilt no idol came back to her.\n\nThat this great change was mainly the result of the residence in\nBabylon and of truths learned there, must be denied by all who\nremember the creed and doctrine about God, which in their literature\nthe people carried with them into exile. The law was already written,\nand the whole nation had sworn to it: _Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our\nGod; Jehovah is One, and thou shalt worship Jehovah thy God with\nall thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength._\nThese words, it is true, may be so strictly interpreted as to mean\nno more than that there was one God for Israel: other gods might\nexist, but Jehovah was Sole Deity for His people. It is maintained\nthat such a view receives some support from the custom of prophets,\nwho, while they affirmed Jehovah's supremacy, talked of other gods\nas if they were real existences. But argument from this habit of\nthe prophets is precarious: such a mode of speech may have been\na mere accommodation to a popular point of view. And, surely, we\nhave only to recall what Isaiah and Jeremiah had uttered concerning\nJehovah's Godhead, to be persuaded that Israel's monotheism, before\nthe beginning of the Exile, was a far more broad and spiritual faith\nthan the mere belief that Jehovah was the Sovereign Deity of the\nnation, or the satisfaction of the desires of Jewish hearts alone.\nRighteousness was not coincident with Israel's life and interest;\nrighteousness was universally supreme, and it was in righteousness\nthat Isaiah saw Jehovah exalted.[17] There is no more prevailing\nwitness to the unity of God than the conscience, which in this matter\ntakes far precedence of the intellect; and it was on the testimony of\nconscience that the prophets based Israel's monotheism. Yet they did\nnot omit to enlist the reason as well. Isaiah and Jeremiah delight\nto draw deductions from the reasonableness of Jehovah's working in\nnature to the reasonableness of His processes in history,--analogies\nwhich could not fail to impress both intellect and imagination with\nthe fact that men inhabit a universe, that One is the will and mind\nwhich works in all things. But to this training of conscience and\nreason, the Jews, at the beginning of the Exile, felt the addition of\nanother considerable influence. Their history lay at last complete,\nand their conscience was at leisure from the making of its details\nto survey it as a whole. That long past, seen now by undazzled eyes\nfrom under the shadow of exile, presented through all its changing\nfortunes a single and a definite course. One was the intention of it,\none its judgement from first to last. The Jew saw in it nothing but\nrighteousness, the quality of a God, who spake the same word from the\nbeginning, who never broke His word, and who at last had summoned to\nits fulfilment the greatest of the world-powers. In those historical\nbooks, which were collected and edited during the Exile, we observe\neach of the kings and generations of Israel, in their turn,\nconfronted with the same high standard of fidelity to the One True\nGod and His holy Law. The regularity and rigour, with which they are\nthus judged, have been condemned by some critics as an arbitrary and\nunfair application of the standard of a later faith to the conduct\nof ruder and less responsible ages. But, apart from the question of\nhistorical accuracy, we cannot fail to remark that this method of\nwriting history is at least instinct with the Oneness of God, and the\nunvarying validity of His Law from generation to generation. Israel's\nGod was the same, their conscience told them, down all their history;\nbut now as He summoned one after another of the great world-powers\nto do His bidding,--Assyria, Babylon, Persia,--how universal did He\nprove His dominion to be! Unchanging through all time, He was surely\nomnipotent through all space.\n\nThis short review--in which, for the sake of getting a complete view\nof our subject, we have anticipated a little--has shown that Israel\nhad enough within themselves, in the teaching of their prophets and\nin the lessons of their own history, to account for that consummate\nexpression of Jehovah's Godhead, which is contained in our prophet,\nand to which every one allows the character of an absolute monotheism.\nWe shall find this, it is true, to be higher and more comprehensive\nthan anything which is said about God in pre-exilic Scriptures. The\nprophet argues the claims of Jehovah, not only with the ardour that is\nborn of faith, but often with the scorn which indicates the intellect\nat work. It is monotheism, treated not only as a practical belief or\na religious duty, but as a necessary truth of reason; not only as the\nsecret of faith and the special experience of Israel, but also as an\nessential conviction of human nature, so that not to believe in One\nGod is a thing irrational and absurd for Gentiles as well as Jews.\nGod's infinitude in the works of creation, His universal providence in\nhistory, are preached with greater power than ever before; and the gods\nof the nations are treated as things, in whose existence no reasonable\nperson can possibly believe. In short, our great prophet of the Exile\nhas already learned to obey the law of Deuteronomy as it was expounded\nby Christ. Deuteronomy says, _Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all\nthine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength_. Christ\nadded, _and with all thy mind_. This was what our prophet did. He held\nhis monotheism _with all his mind_. We shall find him conscious of it,\nnot only as a religious affection, but as a necessary intellectual\nconviction; which if a man has not, he is less than a man. Hence the\nscorn, which he pours upon the idols and mythologies of his conquerors.\nBeside his tyrants, though in physical strength he was but a worm to\nthem, the Jew felt that he walked, by virtue of his faith in One God,\ntheir intellectual master.\n\nWe shall see all this illustrated later on. Meantime, what we are\nconcerned to show is, that there is enough to account for this high\nfaith within Israel themselves--in their prophecy and in the lessons\nof their history. And where indeed are we to be expected to go in\nsearch of the sources of Israel's monotheism, if not to themselves?\nTo the Babylonians? The Babylonians had nothing spiritual to teach\nto Israel; our prophet regards them with scorn. To the Persians, who\nbroke across Israel's horizon with Cyrus? Our prophet's high statement\nof monotheism is of earlier date than the advent of Cyrus to Babylon.\nNor did Cyrus, when he came, give any help to the faith, for in his\npublic edicts he owned the gods of Babylon and the God of Israel with\nequal care and equal policy. It was not because Cyrus and his Persians\nwere monotheists, that our prophet saw the sovereignty of Jehovah\nvindicated, but it was because Jehovah was sovereign that the prophet\nknew the Persians would serve His holy purposes.\n\n2. But if in Deuteronomy the exiles carried with them the Law of the\nOne God, they preserved in Jeremiah's writings what may be called the\ncharter of the INDIVIDUAL MAN. Jeremiah had found religion in Judah\na public and a national affair. The individual derived his spiritual\nvalue only from being a member of the nation, and through the public\nexercises of the national faith. But, partly by his own religious\nexperience, and partly by the course of events, Jeremiah was enabled\nto accomplish what may be justly described as the vindication of the\nindividual. Of his own separate value before God, and of his right\nof access to his Maker apart from the nation, Jeremiah himself was\nconscious, having belonged to God before he belonged to his mother,\nhis family, or his nation. _Before I found thee in the belly I knew\nthee, and before thou camest out of the womb I consecrated thee._ His\nwhole life was but the lesson of how _one_ man can be for God and\nall the nation on the other side. And it was in the strength of this\nsolitary experience, that he insisted, in his famous thirty-first\nchapter, on the individual responsibility of man and on every man's\nimmediate communication with God's Spirit; and that, when the ruin of\nthe state was imminent, he advised each of his friends to _take his\nown life_ out of it _for a prey_.[18] But Jeremiah's doctrine of the\nreligious value and independence of the individual had a complement.\nThough the prophet felt so keenly his separate responsibility and\nright of access to God, and his religious independence of the\npeople, he nevertheless clave to the people with all his heart. He\nwas not, like some other prophets, outside the doom he preached.\nHe might have saved himself, for he had many offers from the\nBabylonians. But he chose to suffer with his people--he, the saint of\nGod, with the idolaters. More than that, it may be said that Jeremiah\nsuffered for the people. It was not they, with their dead conscience\nand careless mind, but he, with his tender conscience and breaking\nheart, who bore the reproach of their sins, the anger of the Lord,\nand all the agonizing knowledge of his country's inevitable doom. In\nJeremiah one man did suffer for the people.\n\nIn our prophecy, which is absorbed with the deliverance of the nation\nas a whole, there was, of course, no occasion to develop Jeremiah's\nremarkable suggestions about each individual soul of man. In fact,\nthese suggestions were germs, which remained uncultivated in Israel\ntill Christ's time. Jeremiah himself uttered them, not as demands for\nthe moment, but as ideals that would only be realised when the New\nCovenant was made.[19] Our prophecy has nothing to say about them. But\nthat figure, which Jeremiah's life presented, of One Individual--of\nOne Individual standing in moral solitude over against the whole\nnation, and in a sense suffering for the nation, can hardly have been\nabsent from the influences, which moulded the marvellous confession of\nthe people in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, where they see the\nsolitary servant of God on one side and themselves on the other, _and\nJehovah made to light on him the iniquities of us all_. It is true that\nthe exiles themselves had some consciousness of suffering for others.\n_Our fathers_, cried a voice in their midst, when Jerusalem broke\nup, _Our fathers have sinned, and we have borne their iniquities_.\nBut Jeremiah had been a willing sufferer for his people; and the\nfifty-third chapter is, as we shall see, more like his way of bearing\nhis generation's guilt for love's sake than their way of bearing their\nfathers' guilt in the inevitable entail of sin.[20]\n\n3. To these beliefs in the unity of God, the religious worth of the\nindividual and the virtue of his self-sacrifice, we must add some\nexperiences of scarcely less value rising out of the DESTRUCTION\nOF THE MATERIAL AND POLITICAL FORMS--the temple, the city, the\nmonarchy--with which the faith of Israel had been so long identified.\n\nWithout this destruction, it is safe to say, those beliefs could not\nhave assumed their purest form. Take, for instance, the belief in the\nunity of God. There is no doubt that this belief was immensely helped\nin Israel by the abolition of all the provincial sanctuaries under\nJosiah, by the limitation of Divine worship to one temple and of valid\nsacrifice to one altar. But yet it was well that this temple should\nenjoy its singular rights for only thirty years and then be destroyed.\nFor a monotheism, however lofty, which depended upon the existence\nof any shrine, however gloriously vindicated by Divine providence,\nwas not a purely spiritual faith. Or, again, take the individual. The\nindividual could not realise how truly he himself was the highest\ntemple of God, and God's most pleasing sacrifice a broken and a\ncontrite heart, till the routine of legal sacrifice was interrupted and\nthe ancient altar torn down. Or, once more, take that high, ultimate\ndoctrine of sacrifice, that the most inspiring thing for men, the most\neffectual propitiation before God, is the self-devotion and offering up\nof a free and reasonable soul, the righteous for the unrighteous--how\ncould common Jews have adequately learned that truth, in days when,\naccording to immemorial practice, the bodies of bulls and goats bled\ndaily on the one valid altar? The city and temple, therefore, went up\nin flames that Israel might learn that God is a Spirit, and dwelleth\nnot in a house made with hands; that men are His temple, and their\nhearts the sacrifices well-pleasing in His sight; and that beyond\nthe bodies and blood of beasts, with their daily necessity of being\noffered, He was preparing for them another Sacrifice, of perpetual and\nuniversal power, in the voluntary sufferings of His own holy Servant.\nIt was for this Servant, too, that the monarchy, as it were, abdicated,\nyielding up to Him all its title to represent Jehovah and to save and\nrule Jehovah's people.\n\n4. Again, as we have already hinted, the fall of the state and city of\nJerusalem gave scope to ISRAEL'S MISSIONARY CAREER. The conviction,\nthat had inspired many of Isaiah's assertions of the inviolableness\nof Zion, was the conviction that, if Zion were overthrown and the\nlast remnant of Israel uprooted from the land, there must necessarily\nfollow the extinction of the only true testimony to the living God\nwhich the world contained. But by a century later that testimony was\nfirmly secured in the hearts and consciences of the people, wheresoever\nthey might be scattered; and what was now needed was exactly such a\ndispersion,--in order that Israel might become aware of the world\nfor whom the testimony was meant, and grow expert in the methods by\nwhich it was to be proclaimed. Priesthood has its human as well as its\nGodward side. The latter was already sufficiently secured for Israel\nby Jehovah's age-long seclusion of them in their remote highlands--a\npeople peculiar to Himself. But now the same Providence completed its\npurpose by casting them upon the world. They mixed with men face to\nface, or, still more valuably to themselves, on a level with the most\ndowntrodden and despised of the peoples. With no advantage but the\ntruth, they met the other religions of the world in argument, debating\nwith them upon the principles of a common reason and the facts of a\ncommon history. They learned sympathy with the weak things of earth.\nThey discovered that their religion could be taught. But, above all,\nthey became conscious of martyrdom, the indispensable experience of a\nreligion that is to prevail; and they realised the supreme influence\nupon men of a love which sacrifices itself. In a word, Israel, in\ngoing into exile, put on humanity with all its consequences. How real\nand thorough the process was, how successful in perfecting their\npriesthood, may be seen not only from the hopes and obligations towards\nall mankind, which burst in our prophecy to an urgency and splendour\nunmatched elsewhere in their history, but still more from the fact that\nwhen the Son of God Himself took flesh and became man, there were no\nwords oftener upon His lips to describe His experience and commission,\nthere are no passages which more clearly mirror His work for the world,\nthan the words and the passages in which these Jews of the Exile,\nstripped to their bare humanity, relate their sufferings or exult in\ntheir destiny that should follow.\n\n5. But with their temple in ruins, and all the world before them for\nthe service of God, the Jews go forth to exile upon the distinct\nPROMISE OF RETURN. The material form of their religion is suspended,\nnot abolished. Let them feel religion in purely spiritual aspects,\nunassisted by sanctuary or ritual; let them look upon the world and\nthe oneness of men; let them learn all God's scope for the truth\nHe has entrusted to them,--and then let them gather back again and\ncherish their new experience and ideas for yet awhile in the old\nseclusion. Jehovah's discipline of them as a nation is not yet\nexhausted. They are no mere band of pilgrims or missionaries, with\nthe world for their home; they are still a people, with their own\nbit of the earth. If we keep this in mind, it will explain certain\napparent anomalies in our prophecy. In all the writings of the Exile\nthe reader is confused by a strange mingling of the spiritual and the\nmaterial, the universal and the local. The moral restoration of the\npeople to pardon and righteousness is identified with their political\nrestoration to Judah and Jerusalem. They have been separated from\nritual in order to cultivate a more spiritual religion, but it is to\nthis that a restoration to ritual is promised for a reward. While\nJeremiah insists upon the free and immediate communication of every\nbeliever with Jehovah, Ezekiel builds a more exclusive priesthood,\na more elaborate system of worship. Within our prophecy, while one\nvoice deprecates a house for God built with hands, affirming that\nJehovah dwells with every one who is of a poor and contrite spirit,\nother voices dwell fondly on the prospect of the new temple and\nexult in its material glory. This double line of feeling is not\nmerely due to the presence in Israel of those two opposite tempers\nof mind, which so naturally appear in every national literature.\nBut a special purpose of God is in it. Dispersed to obtain more\nspiritual ideas of God and man and the world, Israel must be gathered\nback again to get these by heart, to enshrine them in literature,\nand to transmit them to posterity, as they could alone be securely\ntransmitted, in the memories of a nation, in the liturgies and canons\nof a living Church.\n\nTherefore the Jews, though torn for their discipline from Jerusalem,\ncontinued to identify themselves more passionately than ever with\ntheir desecrated city. A prayer of the period exclaims: _Thy saints\ntake pleasure in her stones, and her dust is dear to them._[21] The\nexiles proved this by taking her name. Their prophets addressed\nthem as _Zion_ and _Jerusalem_. Scattered and leaderless groups of\ncaptives in a far-off land, they were still that City of God. She had\nnot ceased to be; ruined and forsaken as she lay, she was yet _graven\non the palms of Jehovah's hands; and her walls were continually\nbefore Him_.[22] The exiles kept up the register of her families;\nthey prayed towards her; they looked to return to build her bulwarks;\nthey spent long hours of their captivity in tracing upon the dust of\nthat foreign land the groundplan of her restored temple.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith such beliefs in God and man and sacrifice, with such hopes and\nopportunities for their world-mission, but also with such a bias back\nto the material Jerusalem, did Israel pass into exile.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[17] See vol. i., p. 100 f.\n\n[18] Jer. xlv.\n\n[19] This is especially clear from ch. xxxi.\n\n[20] Having read through the Book of Jeremiah once again since I\nwrote the above paragraph, I am more than ever impressed with the\ninfluence of his life upon Isa. xl.-lxvi.\n\n[21] Psalm cii. 14.\n\n[22] Isa. xlix. 16.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n _ISRAEL IN EXILE._\n\n FROM 589 TILL ABOUT 550 B.C.\n\n\nIt is remarkable how completely the sound of the march from Jerusalem\nto Babylon has died out of Jewish history. It was an enormous\nmovement: twice over within ten years, ten thousand Jews, at the\nvery least, must have trodden the highway to the Euphrates; and\nyet, except for a doubtful verse or two in the Psalter, they have\nleft no echo of their passage. The sufferings of the siege before,\nthe remorse and lamentation of the Exile after, still pierce our\nears through the Book of Lamentations and the Psalms by the rivers\nof Babylon. We know exactly how the end was fulfilled. We see most\nvividly the shifting panorama of the siege,--the city in famine,\nunder the assault, and in smoke; upon the streets the pining\nchildren, the stricken princes, the groups of men with sullen,\nfamine-black faces, the heaps of slain, mothers feeding on the bodies\nof the infants whom their sapless breasts could not keep alive; by\nthe walls the hanging and crucifixion of multitudes, with all the\nfashion of Chaldean cruelty, the delicate and the children stumbling\nunder heavy loads, no survivor free from the pollution of blood.\nUpon the hills around, the neighbouring tribes are gathered to jeer\nat _the day of Jerusalem_, and to cut off her fugitives, we even\nsee the departing captives turn, as the worm turns, to curse _those\nchildren of Edom_. But there the vision closes. Was it this hot hate\nwhich blinded them to the sights of the way, or that weariness and\ndepression among strange scenes, that falls upon all unaccustomed\ncaravans, and has stifled the memory of nearly every other great\nhistorical march? The roads which the exiles traversed were of\nimmemorial use in the history of their fathers; almost every day they\nmust have passed names which, for at least two centuries, had rung\nin the market-place of Jerusalem--the Way of the Sea, across Jordan,\nGalilee of the Gentiles, round Hermon, and past Damascus; between\nthe two Lebanons, past Hamath, and past Arpad; or less probably by\nTadmor-in-the-Wilderness and Rezeph,--till they reached the river\non which the national ambition had lighted as the frontier of the\nMessianic Empire, and whose rolling greatness had so often proved\nthe fascination and despair of a people of uncertain brooks and\ntrickling aqueducts. Crossing the Euphrates by one of its numerous\npassages--either at Carchemish, if they struck the river so high, or\nat the more usual Thapsacus, Tiphsah, _the passage_, where Xenophon\ncrossed with his Greeks, or at some other place--the caravans\nmust have turned south across the Habor, on whose upper banks the\ncaptives of Northern Israel had been scattered, and then have\ntraversed the picturesque country of Aram-Naharaim, past Circesium\nand Rehoboth-of-the-River, and many another ancient place mentioned\nin the story of the Patriarchs, till through dwindling hills they\nreached His--that marvellous site which travellers praise as one\nof the great view-points of the world--and looked out at last upon\nthe land of their captivity, the boundless, almost level tracts of\nChaldea, the first home of the race, the traditional Garden of Eden.\nBut of all that we are told nothing. Every eye in the huge caravans\nseems to have been as the eyes of the blinded king whom they carried\nwith them,--able to weep, but not to see.\n\nOne fact, however, was too large to be missed by these sad, wayworn\nmen; and it has left traces on their literature. In passing from home\nto exile, the Jews passed from the hills to the plain. They were\nhighlanders. Jerusalem lies four thousand feet above the sea. From\nits roofs the skyline is mostly a line of hills. To leave the city\non almost any side you have to descend. The last monuments of their\nfatherland, on which the emigrants' eyes could have lingered, were\nthe high crests of Lebanon; the first prospect of their captivity\nwas a monotonous level. The change was the more impressive, that to\nthe hearts of Hebrews it could not fail to be sacramental. From the\nmountains came the dew to their native crofts--the dew which, of\nall earthly blessings, was likest God's grace. For their prophets,\nthe ancient hills had been the symbols of Jehovah's faithfulness.\nIn leaving their highlands, therefore, the Jews not only left the\nkind of country to which their habits were most adapted and all\ntheir natural affections clung; they left the chosen abode of God,\nthe most evident types of His grace, the perpetual witnesses to His\ncovenant. Ezekiel constantly employs _the mountains_ to describe his\nfatherland. But it is far more with a sacramental longing than a mere\nhomesickness that a psalmist of the Exile cries out, _I will lift up\nmine eyes to the hills: from whence cometh mine help?_ or that our\nprophet exclaims: _How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of\nhim that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that saith\nunto Zion, Thy God reigneth_.\n\nBy the route sketched above, it is at least seven hundred miles from\nJerusalem to Babylon--a distance which, when we take into account\nthat many of the captives walked in fetters, cannot have occupied\nthem less than three months. We may form some conception of the\naspect of the caravans from the transportations of captives which\nare figured on the Assyrian monuments, as in the Assyrian basement\nin the British Museum. From these it appears as if families were not\nseparated, but marched together. Mules, asses, camels, ox-waggons,\nand the captives themselves carried goods. Children and women\nsuckling infants were allowed to ride on the waggons. At intervals\nfully-armed soldiers walked in pairs.[23]\n\n\n I.\n\nMesopotamia, the land \"in the middle of the rivers,\" Euphrates and\nTigris, consists of two divisions, an upper and a lower. The dividing\nline crosses from near Hit or His on the Euphrates to below Samarah\non the Tigris. Above this line the country is a gently undulating\nplain of secondary formation at some elevation above the sea. But\nLower Mesopotamia is absolutely flat land, an unbroken stretch of\nalluvial soil, scarcely higher than the Persian Gulf, upon which it\nsteadily encroaches. Chaldea was confined to this Lower Mesopotamia,\nand was not larger, Rawlinson estimates, than the kingdom of\nDenmark.[24] It is the monotonous level which first impresses the\ntraveller; but if the season be favourable, he sees this only as the\ntheatre of vast and varied displays of colour, which all visitors vie\nwith one another in describing: \"It is like a rich carpet;\" \"emerald\ngreen, enamelled with flowers of every hue;\" \"tall wild grasses and\nbroad extents of waving reeds;\" \"acres of water-lilies;\" \"acres of\npansies.\" There was no such country in ancient times for wheat,\nbarley, millet, and sesame;[25] tamarisks, poplars, and palms; here\nand there heavy jungle; with flashing streams and canals thickly\nathwart the whole, and all shining the more brilliantly for the\ninterrupting patches of scurvy, nitrous soil, and the grey sandy\nsetting of the desert with its dry scrub. The possible fertility\nof Chaldea is incalculable. But there are drawbacks. Bounded to\nthe north by so high a tableland, to the south and south-west by\na superheated gulf and broad desert, Mesopotamia is the scene of\nviolent changes of atmosphere. The languor of the flat country, the\nstagnancy and sultriness of the air, of which not only foreigners but\nthe natives themselves complain, is suddenly invaded by southerly\nwinds, of tremendous force and laden with clouds of fine sand, which\nrender the air so dense as to be suffocating, and \"produce a lurid\nred haze intolerable to the eyes.\" Thunderstorms are frequent, and\nthere are very heavy rains. But the winds are the most tremendous.\nIn such an atmosphere we may perhaps discover the original shapes\nand sounds of Ezekiel's turbulent visions--_the fiery wheels; the\ngreat cloud with a fire infolding itself; the colour of amber_, with\n_sapphire_, or lapis lazuli, breaking through; _the sound of a great\nrushing_. Also the Mesopotamian floods are colossal. The increase of\nboth Tigris and Euphrates is naturally more violent and irregular\nthan that of the Nile.[26] Frequent risings of these rivers spread\ndesolation with inconceivable rapidity, and they ebb only to leave\npestilence behind them. If civilisation is to continue, there is need\nof vast and incessant operations on the part of man.\n\nThus, both by its fertility and by its violence, this climate--before\nthe curse of God fell on those parts of the world--tended to develop\na numerous and industrious race of men, whose numbers were swollen\nfrom time to time both by forced and by voluntary immigration. The\npopulation must have been very dense. The triumphal lists of Assyrian\nconquerors of the land, as well as the rubbish mounds which to-day\ncover its surface, testify to innumerable villages and towns; while\nthe connecting canals and fortifications, by the making of them and\nthe watching of them, must have filled even the rural districts with\nthe hum and activity of men. Chaldea, however, did not draw all her\ngreatness from herself. There was immense traffic with East and West,\nbetween which Babylon lay, for the greater part of antiquity, the\nworld's central market and exchange. The city was practically a port\non the Persian Gulf, by canals from which vessels reached her wharves\ndirect from Arabia, India and Africa. Down the Tigris and Euphrates\nrafts brought the produce of Armenia and the Caucasus; but of greater\nimportance than even these rivers were the roads, which ran from Sardis\nto Shushan, traversed Media, penetrated Bactria and India, and may be\nsaid to have connected the Jaxartes and the Ganges with the Nile and\nthe harbours of the \u00c6gean Sea. These roads all crossed Chaldea and met\nat Babylon. Together with the rivers and ocean highways, they poured\nupon her markets the traffic of the whole ancient world.\n\nIt was, in short, the very centre of the world--the most populous\nand busy region of His earth--to which God sent His people for\ntheir exile. The monarch, who transplanted them, was the genius\nof Babylonia incarnate. The chief soldier of his generation,\nNebuchadrezzar will live in history as one of the greatest builders\nof all time. But he fought as he built--that he might traffic. His\nambition was to turn the trade with India from the Red Sea to the\nPersian Gulf, and he thought to effect this by the destruction of\nTyre, by the transportation of Arab and Nabathean merchants to\nBabylon, and by the deepening and regulation of the river between\nBabylon and the sea.\n\nThere is no doubt that Nebuchadrezzar carried the Jews to Babylon not\nonly for political reasons, but in order to employ them upon those\nlarge works of irrigation and the building of cities, for which his\nambition required hosts of labourers. Thus the exiles were planted,\nneither in military prisons nor in the comparative isolation of\nagricultural colonies, but just where Babylonian life was most busy,\nwhere they were forced to share and contribute to it, and could not\nhelp feeling the daily infection of their captors' habits. Do not let\nus forget this. It will explain much in what we have to study. It\nwill explain how the captivity, which God inflicted upon the Jews as\na punishment, might become in time a new sin to them, and why, when\nthe day of redemption arrived, so many forgot that their citizenship\nwas in Zion, and clung to the traffic and the offices of Babylon.\n\nThe majority of the exiles appear to have been settled within the city,\nor, as it has been more correctly called, \"the fortified district,\"\nof Babylon itself. Their mistress was thus constantly before them, at\nonce their despair and their temptation. _Lady of Kingdoms_ she lifted\nherself to heaven from broad wharves and ramparts, by wide flights\nof stairs and terraces, high walls and hanging gardens, pyramids and\ntowers--so colossal in her buildings, so imperially lavish of space\nbetween! No wonder that upon that vast, far-spreading architecture,\nupon its great squares and between its high portals guarded by giant\nbulls, the Jew felt himself, as he expressed it, but a poor _worm_. If,\neven as they stand in our museums, captured and catalogued, one feels\nas if one crawled in the presence of the fragments of these striding\nmonsters, with how much more of the feeling of the worm must the abject\nmembers of that captive nation have writhed before the face of the\ncity, which carried these monsters as the mere ornaments of her skirts,\nand rose above all kingdoms with her strong feet upon the poor and the\nmeek of the earth?\n\nAh, the despair of it! To see _her_ every day so glorious, to be\nforced to help _her_ ceaseless growth,--and to think how Jerusalem,\nthe daughter of Zion, lay forsaken in ruins! Yet the despair\nsometimes gave way to temptation. There was not an outline or horizon\nvisible to the captive Jew, not a figure in the motley crowds in\nwhich he moved, but must have fascinated him with the genius of his\nconquerors. In that level land no mountain, with its witness of God,\nbroke the skyline; but the work of man was everywhere: curbed and\nscattered rivers, artificial mounds, buildings of brick, gardens torn\nfrom their natural beds and hung high in air by cunning hands to\nplease the taste of a queen; lavish wealth and force and cleverness,\nall at the command of one human will. The signature ran across the\nwhole, \"_I_ have done this, and with mine own hand have I gotten me\nmy wealth;\" and all the nations of the earth came and acknowledged\nthe signature, and worshipped the great city. It was fascinating\nmerely to look on such cleverness, success and self-confidence; and\nwho was the poor Jew that he, too, should not be drawn with the\nintoxicated nations to the worship of this glory that filled his\nhorizon? If his eyes rose higher, and from these enchantments of\nmen sought refuge in the heavens above, were not even they also a\nBabylonian realm? Did not the Chaldean claim the great lights there\nfor his patron gods? were not the movements of sun, moon, and planets\nthe secret of his science? did not the tyrant believe that the very\nstars in their courses fought for him? And he was vindicated; he was\nsuccessful; he did actually rule the world. There seemed to be no\nescape from the enchantments of this sorceress city, as the prophets\ncalled her, and it is not wonderful that so many Jews fell victims to\nher worldliness and idolatry.\n\n\n II.\n\nThe social condition of the Jews in Exile is somewhat obscure, and\nyet, both in connection with the date and with the exposition of\nsome portions of \"Second Isaiah,\" it is an element of the greatest\nimportance, of which we ought to have as definite an idea as possible.\n\nWhat are the facts? By far the most significant is that which faces us\nat the end of the Exile. There, some sixty years after the earlier, and\nsome fifty years after the later, of Nebuchadrezzar's two deportations,\nwe find the Jews a largely multiplied and still regularly organised\nnation, with considerable property and decided political influence.\nNot more than forty thousand can have gone into exile, but forty-two\nthousand returned, and yet left a large portion of the nation behind\nthem. The old families and clans survived; the social ranks were\nrespected; the rich still held slaves; and the former menials of the\ntemple could again be gathered together. Large subscriptions were\nraised for the pilgrimage, and for the restoration of the temple; a\ngreat host of cattle was taken. To such a state of affairs do we see\nany traces leading up through the Exile itself? We do.\n\nThe first host of exiles, the captives of 598, comprised, as we\nhave seen, the better classes of the nation, and appear to have\nenjoyed considerable independence. They were not scattered, like\nthe slaves in North America, as domestic bondsmen over the surface\nof the land. Their condition must have much more closely resembled\nthat of the better-treated exiles in Siberia; though of course, as\nwe have seen, it was not a Siberia, but the centre of civilisation,\nto which they were banished. They remained in communities, with\ntheir own official heads, and at liberty to consult their prophets.\nThey were sufficiently in touch with one another, and sufficiently\nnumerous, for the enemies of Babylon to regard them as a considerable\npolitical influence, and to treat with them for a revolution against\ntheir captors. But Ezekiel's strong condemnation of this intrigue\nexhibits their leaders on good terms with the government. Jeremiah\nbade them throw themselves into the life of the land; buy and sell,\nand increase their families and property. At the same time, we cannot\nbut observe that it is only religious sins, with which Ezekiel\nupbraids them. When he speaks of civic duty or social charity, he\neither refers to their past or to the life of the remnant still in\nJerusalem. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that this\ncaptivity was an honourable and an easy one. The captives may have\nbrought some property with them; they had leisure for the pursuit\nof business and for the study and practice of their religion. Some\nof them suffered, of course, from the usual barbarity of Oriental\nconquerors, and were made eunuchs; some, by their learning and\nabstinence, rose to high positions in the court.[27] Probably to\nthe end of the Exile they remained _the good figs_, as Jeremiah had\ncalled them. Theirs was, perhaps, the literary work of the Exile; and\ntheirs, too, may have been the wealth which rebuilt Jerusalem.\n\nBut it was different with the second captivity, of 589. After the\nfamine, the burning of the city, and the prolonged march, this\nsecond host of exiles must have reached Babylonia in an impoverished\ncondition. They were a lower class of men. They had exasperated\ntheir conquerors, who, before the march began, subjected many of\nthem to mutilation and cruel death; and it is, doubtless, echoes of\ntheir experience which we find in the more bitter complaints of our\nprophet. _This is a people robbed and spoiled; all of them snared\nin holes, and hid in prison-houses: they are for a prey, and for a\nspoil._ _Thou_, that is, Babylon, _didst show them no mercy; upon the\naged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke_.[28] Nebuchadrezzar used\nthem for his building, as Pharaoh had used their forefathers. Some of\nthem, or of their countrymen who had reached Babylonia before them,\nbecame the domestic slaves and chattels of their conquerors. Among\nthe contracts and bills of sale of this period we find the cases of\nslaves with apparently Jewish names.[29]\n\nIn short, the state of the Jews in Babylonia resembled what seems to\nhave been their fortune wherever they have settled in a foreign land.\nPart of them despised and abused, forced to labour or overtaxed;\npart left alone to cultivate literature or to gather wealth. Some\ntreated with unusual rigour--and perhaps a few of these with reason,\nas dangerous to the government of the land--but some also, by the\nversatile genius of their race, advancing to a high place in the\npolitical confidence of their captors.\n\nTheir application to literature, to their religion, and to commerce\nmust be specially noted.\n\n1. Nothing is more striking in the writings of Ezekiel than the\nair of large leisure which invests them. Ezekiel lies passive; he\nbroods, gazes and builds his visions up, in a fashion like none\nof his terser predecessors; for he had time on his hands, not\navailable to them in days when the history of the nation was still\nrunning. Ezekiel's style swells to a greater fulness of rhetoric;\nhis pictures of the future are elaborated with the most minute\ndetail. Prophets before him were speakers, but he is a writer. Many\nin Israel besides Ezekiel took advantage of the leisure of the Exile\nto the great increase and arrangement of the national literature.\nSome Assyriologists have lately written, as if the schools of Jewish\nscribes owed their origin entirely to the Exile.[30] But there were\nscribes in Israel before this. What the Exile did for these, was to\nprovide them not only with the leisure from national business which\nwe have noted, but with a powerful example of their craft as well.\nBabylonia at this time was a land full of scribes and makers of\nlibraries. They wrote a language not very different from the Jewish,\nand cannot but have powerfully infected their Jewish fellows with the\nspirit of their toil and of their methods. To the Exile we certainly\nowe a large part of the historical books of the Old Testament, the\narrangement of some of the prophetic writings, as well as--though the\namount of this is very uncertain--part of the codification of the Law.\n\n2. If the Exile was opportunity to the scribes, it can only have\nbeen despair to the priests. In this foreign land the nation was\nunclean; none of the old sacrifice or ritual was valid, and the\npeople were reduced to the simplest elements of religion--prayer,\nfasting and the reading of religious books. We shall find our\nprophecy noting the clamour of the exiles to God for _ordinances\nof righteousness_--that is, for the institution of legal and valid\nrites.[31] But the great lesson, which prophecy brings to the people\nof the Exile, is that pardon and restoration to God's favour are\nwon only by waiting upon Him with all the heart. It was possible,\nof course, to observe some forms; to gather at intervals to inquire\nof the Lord, to keep the Sabbath, and to keep fasts. The first\nof these practices, out of which the synagogue probably took its\nrise, is noted by our prophet,[32] and he enforces Sabbath-keeping\nwith words, that add the blessing of prophecy to the law's ancient\nsanction of that institution. Four annual fasts were instituted in\nmemory of the dark days of Jerusalem--the day of the beginning of\nNebuchadrezzar's siege in the tenth month, the day of the capture in\nthe fourth month, the day of the destruction in the fifth month, and\nthe day of Gedaliah's murder in the tenth month. It might have been\nthought, that solemn anniversaries of a disaster so recent and still\nunrepaired would be kept with sincerity; but our prophet illustrates\nhow soon even the most outraged feelings may grow formal, and how on\ntheir days of special humiliation, while their captivity was still\nreal, the exiles could oppress their own bondsmen and debtors. But\nthere is no religious practice of this epoch more apparent through\nour prophecies than the reading of Scripture. Israel's hope was\nneither in sacrifice, nor in temple, nor in vision nor in lot, but\nin God's written Word; and when a new prophet arose like the one\nwe are about to study, he did not appeal for his authorisation, as\nprevious prophets had done, to the fact of his call or inspiration,\nbut it was enough for him to point to some former word of God, and\ncry, \"See! at last the day has dawned for the fulfilment of that.\"\nThroughout Second Isaiah this is what the anonymous prophet cares to\nestablish--that the facts of to-day fit the promise of yesterday. We\nshall not understand our great prophecy unless we realise a people\nrising from fifty years' close study of Scripture, in strained\nexpectation of its immediate fulfilment.\n\n3. The third special feature of the people in exile is their\napplication to commerce. At home the Jews had not been a commercial\npeople.[33] But the opportunities of their Babylonian residence seem\nto have started them upon those habits, for which, through their\nlonger exile in our era, the name of Jew has become a synonym. If\nthat be so, Jeremiah's advice _to build and plant_[34] is historic,\nfor it means no less than that the Jews should throw themselves into\nthe life of the most trafficking nation of the time. Their increasing\nwealth proves how they followed this advice,--as well as perhaps such\npassages as Isa. lv. 2, in which the commercial spirit is reproached\nfor overwhelming the nobler desires of religion. The chief danger,\nincurred by the Jews from an intimate connection with the commerce\nof Babylonia, lay in the close relations of Babylonian commerce with\nBabylonian idolatry. The merchants of Mesopotamia had their own\npatron gods. In completing business contracts, a man had to swear\nby the idols,[35] and might have to enter their temples. In Isa.\nlxv. 11, Jews are blamed _for forsaking Jehovah, and forgetting My\nholy mountain; preparing a table for Luck, and filling up mixed wine\nto Fortune_. Here it is more probable that mercantile speculation,\nrather than any other form of gambling, is intended.\n\n\n III.\n\nBut while all this is certain and needing to be noted about the\nhabits of the mass of the people, what little trace it has left\nin the best literature of the period! We have already noticed in\nthat the great absence of local colour. The truth is that what we\nhave been trying to describe as Jewish life in Babylon was only\na surface over deeps in which the true life of the nation was at\nwork--was volcanically at work. Throughout the Exile the true Jew\nlived inwardly. _Out of the depths do I cry to Thee, O Lord._ He was\nthe inhabitant not so much of a foreign prison as of his own broken\nheart. _He sat by the rivers of Babylon_; but _he thought upon Zion_.\nIs it not a proof of what depths in human nature were being stirred,\nthat so little comes to the surface to tell us of the external\nconditions of those days? There are no fossils in the strata of the\nearth, which have been cast forth from her inner fires; and if we\nfind few traces of contemporary life in these deposits of Israel's\nhistory now before us, it is because they date from an age in which\nthe nation was shaken and boiling to its centre.\n\nFor if we take the writings of this period--the Book of Lamentations,\nthe Psalms of the Exile, and parts of other books--and put them\ntogether, the result is the impression of one of the strangest\ndecompositions of human nature into its elements which the world has\never seen. Suffering and sin, recollection, remorse and revenge,\nfear and shame and hate--over the confusion of these the Spirit of\nGod broods as over a second chaos, and draws each of them forth in\nturn upon some articulate prayer. Now it is the crimson flush of\nshame: _our soul is exceedingly filled with contempt_. Now it is the\nblack rush of hate; for if we would see how hate can rage, we must\ngo to the Psalms of the Exile, which call on the God of vengeance\nand curse the enemy and dash the little ones against the stones. But\nthe deepest surge of all in that whirlpool of misery was the surge\nof sin. To change the figure, we see Israel's spirit writhing upward\nfrom some pain it but partly understands, crying out, \"What is this\nthat keeps God from hearing and saving me?\" turning like a wounded\nbeast from the face of its master to its sore again, understanding\nas no brute could the reason of its plague, till confession after\nconfession breaks away and the penalty is accepted, and acknowledged\nguilt seems almost to act as an anodyne to the penalty it explains.\n_Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment\nof his sins? If thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquity, who shall\nstand?_ No wonder, that with such a conscience the Jews occupied\nthe Exile in writing the moral of their delinquent history, or that\nthe rest of their literature which dates from that time should have\nremained ever since the world's confessional.\n\nBut in this awful experience, there is still another strain, as\npainful as the rest, but pure and very eloquent of hope--the sense\nof innocent suffering. We cannot tell the sources, from which this\nconsiderable feeling may have gathered during the Exile, any more\nthan we can trace from how many of the upper folds of a valley the\ntiny rivulets start, which form the stream that issues from its\nlower end. One of these sources may have been, as we have already\nsuggested, the experience of Jeremiah; another very probably sprang\nwith every individual conscience in the new generation. Children\ncome even to exiles, and although they bear the same pain with\nthe same nerves as their fathers, they do so with a different\nconscience. The writings of the time dwell much on the sufferings\nof the children. The consciousness is apparent in them, that souls\nare born into the wrath of God, as well as banished there. _Our\nfathers have sinned and are not, and we bear their iniquities._ This\nexperience developed with great force, till Israel felt that she\nsuffered not under God's wrath, but for His sake; and so passed from\nthe conscience of the felon to that of the martyr. But if we are to\nunderstand the prophecy we are about to study, we must remember how\nnear akin these two consciences must have been in exiled Israel,\nand how easy it was for a prophet to speak--as our prophet does,\nsometimes with confusing rapidity of exchange--now in the voice of\nthe older and more guilty generation, and now in the voice of the\nyounger and less deservedly punished.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOur survey of the external as well as the internal conditions of Israel\nin Exile is now finished. It has, I think, included every known feature\nof their experience in Babylonia, which could possibly illustrate our\nprophecy--dated, as we have felt ourselves compelled to date this, from\nthe close of the Exile. Thus, as we have striven to trace, did Israel\nsuffer, learn, grow and hope for fifty years--under Nebuchadrezzar till\n561, under his successor Evil-merodach till 559, under Neriglassar till\n554, and then under the usurper Nabunahid. The last named probably\noppressed the Jews more grievously than their previous tyrants, but\nwith the aggravation of their yoke there grew evident, at the same\ntime, the certainty of their deliverance. In 549, Cyrus overthrew the\nMedes, and became lord of Asia from the Indus to the Halys. From that\nevent his conquest of Babylonia, however much delayed, could only be a\nmatter of time.\n\nIt is at this juncture that our prophecy breaks in. Taking for\ngranted Cyrus' sovereignty of the Medes, it still looks forward to\nhis capture of Babylon. Let us, before advancing to its exposition,\nonce more cast a rapid glance over the people, to whom it is\naddressed, and whom in their half century of waiting for it we have\nbeen endeavouring to describe.\n\n_First_ and most manifest, they are a People with a Conscience--a\npeople with the most awful and most articulate conscience that ever\nbefore or since exposed a nation's history or tormented a generation\nwith the curse of their own sin and the sin of their fathers. Behind\nthem, ages of delinquent life, from the perusal of the record of\nwhich, with its regularly recurring moral, they have just risen:\nthe Books of Kings appear to have been finished after the accession\nof Evil-merodach in 561. Behind them also nearly fifty years of\nsore punishment for their sins--punishment, which, as their Psalms\nconfess, they at last understand and accept as deserved.\n\nBut, _secondly_, they are a People with a Great Hope. With their\nawful consciousness of guilt, they have the assurance that their\npunishment has its limits; that, to quote ch. xl., ver. 2, it is a\n_set period of service_: a former word of God having fixed it at not\nmore than seventy years, and having promised the return of the nation\nthereafter to their own land.\n\nAnd, _thirdly_, they are a People with a Great Opportunity. History\nis at last beginning to set towards the vindication of their hope:\nCyrus, the master of the age, is moving rapidly, irresistibly, down\nupon their tyrants.\n\nBut, _fourthly_, in face of all their hope and opportunity, they are\na People Disorganised, Distracted, and very Impotent--_worms and not\nmen_, as they describe themselves. The generation of the tried and\nresponsible leaders of the days of their independence are all dead,\nfor _flesh is like grass_; no public institutions remain in their\nmidst such as ever in the most hopeless periods of the past proved a\nrallying-point of their scattered forces. There is no king, temple,\nnor city; nor is there any great personality visible to draw their\nlittle groups together, marshal them, and lead them forth behind\nhim. Their one hope is in the Word of God, for which they _wait more\nthan they that watch for the morning_; and the one duty of their\nnameless prophets is to persuade them, that this Word has at last\ncome to pass, and, in the absence of king, Messiah, priest, and great\nprophet, is able to lift them to the opportunity that God's hand has\nopened before them, and to the accomplishment of their redemption.\n\nUpon Israel, with such a Conscience, such a Hope, such an\nOpportunity, and such an unaided Reliance on God's bare Word, that\nWord at last broke in a chorus of voices.\n\nOf these the first, as was most meet, spoke pardon to the people's\nconscience and the proclamation that their set period of warfare was\naccomplished; the second announced that circumstances and the politics\nof the world, hitherto adverse, would be made easy to their return; the\nthird bade them, in their bereavement of earthly leaders, and their\nown impotence, find their eternal confidence in God's Word; while the\nfourth lifted them, as with one heart and voice, to herald the certain\nreturn of Jehovah, at the head of His people, to His own City, and His\nquiet, shepherdly rule of them on their own land.\n\nThese herald voices form the prologue to our prophecy, ch. xl. 1-11,\nto which we will now turn.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[23] If we would construct for ourselves some more definite idea\nof that long march from Judah to Babylon, we might assist our\nimagination by the details of the only other instance on so great a\nscale of \"exile by administrative process\"--the transportation to\nSiberia which the Russian Government effects (it is said, on good\nauthority) to the extent of eighteen thousand persons a year. Every\nweek throughout the year marching parties, three to four hundred\nstrong, leave Tomsk for Irkutsk, doing twelve to twenty miles daily\nin fetters, with twenty-four hours' rest every third day, or three\nhundred and thirty miles in a month (_Century Magazine_, Nov. 1888).\n\n[24] For the above details, see Rawlinson's _Five Great Monarchies of\nthe Ancient Eastern World_, vol. i.\n\n[25] _Herodotus_, Bk. I.; \"Memoirs by Commander James Felix Jones, I.\nN.,\" in _Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government_, No.\nXLIII., New Series, 1857; Ainsworth's _Euphrates Valley Expedition_;\nLayard's _Nineveh_.\n\n[26] Perrot and Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art d'Antiquit\u00e9_, vol. ii.;\nAssyrie p. 9.\n\n[27] The Book of Daniel.\n\n[28] Isa. xlii. 22, xlvii. 6.\n\n[29] _Records of the Past_, second series, vol. i., M. Oppert's\nTranslations.\n\n[30] Mr. St. Chad Boscawen's recent lectures, of which I have been\nable to see only the reports in the _Manchester Guardian_.\n\n[31] Ch. lviii. 2.\n\n[32] Ch. lviii. 13, 14.\n\n[33] See vol. i., p. 292 ff.\n\n[34] Jer. xxix.\n\n[35] _Records of the Past_, first series, ix., 95 _seq._\n\n\n\n\n BOOK II.\n\n _THE LORD'S DELIVERANCE._\n\n\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n _THE PROLOGUE: THE FOUR HERALD VOICES._\n\n ISAIAH xl. 1-11.\n\n\nIt is only Voices which we hear in this Prologue. No forms can be\ndiscerned, whether of men or angels, and it is even difficult to\nmake out the direction from which the Voices come. Only one thing is\ncertain--that they break the night, that they proclaim the end of a\nlong but fixed period, during which God has punished and forsaken\nHis people. At first, the persons addressed are the prophets, that\nthey may speak to the people (vv. 1, 2); but afterwards Jerusalem\nas a whole is summoned to publish the good tidings (ver. 9). This\ninterchange between a part of the people and the whole--this\ncommission to prophesy, made with one breath to some of the nation\nfor the sake of the rest, and with the next breath to the entire\nnation--is a habit of our prophet to which we shall soon get\naccustomed. How natural and characteristic it is, is proved by its\nappearance in these very first verses.\n\nThe beginning of the good tidings is Israel's pardon; yet it seems\nnot to be the people's return to Palestine which is announced in\nconsequence of this, so much as their God's return to them. _Prepare\nye the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway for our God. Behold the\nLord Jehovah will come._ We may, however, take _the way of Jehovah in\nthe wilderness_ to mean what it means in the sixty-eighth Psalm,--His\ngoing forth before His people and leading of them back; while the\npromise that He will come to _shepherd His flock_ (ver. 11) is, of\ncourse, the promise that He will resume the government of Israel upon\ntheir own land. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this chapter\nwas meant for the people at the close of their captivity in Babylon.\nBut do not let us miss the pathetic fact, that Israel is addressed not\nin her actual shape of a captive people in a foreign land, but under\nthe name and aspect of her far-away, desolate country. In these verses\nIsrael is _Jerusalem_, _Zion_, _the cities of Judah_. Such designations\ndo not prove, as a few critics have rather pedantically supposed, that\nthe writer of the verses lived in Judah and addressed himself to what\nwas under his eyes. It is not the vision of a Jew at home that has\ndetermined the choice of these names, but the desire and the dream of\na Jew abroad: that extraordinary passion, which, however distant might\nbe the land of his exile, ever filled the Jew's eyes with Zion, caused\nhim to feel the ruin and forsakenness of his Mother more than his own\nservitude, and swept his patriotic hopes, across his own deliverance\nand return, to the greater glory of her restoration.[36] There is\nnothing, therefore, to prevent us taking for granted, as we did in the\nprevious chapter, that the speaker or speakers of these verses stood\namong the exiles themselves; but who they were--men or angels, prophets\nor scribes--is lost in the darkness out of which their music breaks.[37]\n\nNevertheless the prophecy is not anonymous. By these impersonal\nvoices a personal revelation is made. The prophets may be nameless,\nbut the Deity who speaks through them speaks as already known and\nacknowledged: _My people, saith your God._\n\nThis is a point, which, though it takes for its expression no more\nthan these two little pronouns, we must not hurriedly pass over.\nAll the prophecy we are about to study may be said to hang from\nthese pronouns. They are the hinges, on which the door of this new\ntemple of revelation swings open before the long-expectant people.\nAnd, in fact, such a conscience and sympathy as these little words\nexpress form the necessary premise of all revelation. Revelation\nimplies a previous knowledge of God, and cannot work upon men, except\nthere already exist in them the sense that they and God somehow\nbelong to each other. This sense need be neither pure, nor strong,\nnor articulate. It may be the most selfish and cowardly of guilty\nfears,--Jacob's dread as he drew near Esau, whom he had treacherously\nsupplanted,--the vaguest of ignorant desires, the Athenians' worship\nof the Unknown God. But, whatever it is, the angel comes to wrestle\nwith it, the apostle is sent to declare it; revelation in some form\ntakes it as its premise and starting-point. This previous sense of\nGod may also be fuller than in the cases just cited. Take our Lord's\nown illustration. Upon the prodigal in the strange country there\nsurged again the far-ebbed memory of his home and childhood, of\nhis years of familiarity with a Father; and it was this tide which\ncarried back his penitent heart within the hearing of his Father's\nvoice, and the revelation of the love that became his new life. Now\nIsrael, also in a far-off land, were borne upon the recollection of\nhome and of life in the favour of their God. We have seen with what\nknowledge of Him and from what relations with Him they were banished.\nTo the men of the Exile God was already a Name and an Experience, and\nbecause that Name was _The Righteous_, and that Experience was all\ngrace and promise, these men waited for His Word more than they that\nwait for the morning; and when at length the Word broke from the long\ndarkness and silence, they received it, though its bearers might be\nunseen and unaccredited, because they recognised and acknowledged in\nit Himself. He who spoke was _their God_, and they were _His people_.\nThis conscience and sympathy was all the title or credential which\nthe revelation required. It is, therefore, not too much to say, as\nwe have said, that the two pronouns in ch. xl., ver. 1, are the\nnecessary premise of the whole prophecy which that verse introduces.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith this introduction we may now take up the four herald voices of\nthe Prologue. Whatever may have been their original relation to one\nanother, whether or not they came to Israel by different messengers,\nthey are arranged (as we saw at the close of the previous chapter) in\nmanifest order and progress of thought, and they meet in due succession\nthe experiences of Israel at the close of the Exile. For the first\nof them (vv. 1 and 2) gives the _subjective assurance_ of the coming\nredemption: it is the Voice of Grace. The second (vv. 3-5) proclaims\nthe _objective reality_ of that redemption: it may be called the\nVoice of Providence, or--to use the name by which our prophecy loves\nto entitle the just and victorious providence of God--the Voice of\nRighteousness. The third (vv. 6-8) uncovers the pledge and earnest\nof the redemption: in the weakness of men this shall be the Word of\nGod. While the fourth (vv. 9-11) is the Proclamation of Jehovah's\nrestored kingdom, when He cometh as a shepherd to shepherd His people.\nTo this progress and climax the music of the passage forms a perfect\naccompaniment. It would be difficult to find in any language lips that\nfirst more softly woo the heart, and then take to themselves so brave\na trumpet of challenge and assurance. The opening is upon a few short\npulses of music, which steal from heaven as gently as the first ripples\nof light in a cloudless dawn--\n\n N\u0103h\u0103mu, n\u0103h\u0103mu ammi:\n _Comfort ye, comfort ye my people_:\n Dabb\u0115ru `al-lev Yerush\u0101la\u00eem.\n _Speak upon the heart of Jerusalem._[38]\n\nBut then the trumpet-tone breaks forth, _Call unto her_; and on that\nhigh key the music stays, sweeping with the second voice across hill\nand dale like a company of swift horsemen, stooping with the third\nfor a while to the elegy upon the withered grass, but then recovering\nitself, braced by all the strength of the Word of God, to peal from\ntower to tower with the fourth, upon the cry, _Behold, the Lord\ncometh_, till it sinks almost from sound to sight, and yields us,\nas from the surface of still waters, that sweet reflection of the\ntwenty-third Psalm with which the Prologue concludes.\n\n 1. _Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.\n Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her,_\n _That accomplished is her warfare, that absolved is her iniquity;\n That she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins._\n\nThis first voice, with the music of which our hearts have been\nthrilled ever since we can remember, speaks twice: first in a\nwhisper, then in a call--the whisper of the Lover and the call of the\nLord. _Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her._\n\nNow Jerusalem lay in ruins, a city through whose breached walls all\nthe winds of heaven blew mournfully across her forsaken floors. And\nthe _heart of Jerusalem_, which was with her people in exile, was\nlike the city--broken and defenceless. In that far-off, unsympathetic\nland it lay open to the alien; tyrants forced their idols upon it,\nthe peoples tortured it with their jests.\n\n _For they that led us captive required of us songs,_\n _And they that wasted us required of us mirth._\n\nBut observe how gently the Divine Beleaguerer approaches, how softly\nHe bids His heralds plead by the gaps, through which the oppressor\nhas forced his idols and his insults. Of all human language they\nmight use, God bids His messengers take and plead with the words\nwith which a man will plead at a maiden's heart, knowing that he\nhas nothing but love to offer as right of entrance, and waiting\nuntil love and trust come out to welcome him. _Speak ye_, says the\noriginal literally, _on to_, or _up against_, or _up round the heart\nof Jerusalem_,--a forcible expression, like the German \"An das Herz,\"\nor the sweet Scottish, \"It cam' up roond my heart,\" and perhaps best\nrendered into English by the phrase, _Speak home to the heart_.\nIt is the ordinary Hebrew expression for wooing. As from man to\nwoman when he wins her, the Old Testament uses it several times. To\n_speak home to the heart_ is to use language in which authority and\nargument are both ignored, and love works her own inspiration. While\nthe haughty Babylonian planted by force his idols, while the folly\nand temptations of heathendom surged recklessly in, God Himself, the\nCreator of this broken heart, its Husband and Inhabitant of old,[39]\nstood lowly by its breaches, pleading in love the right to enter. But\nwhen entrance has been granted, see how He bids His heralds change\ntheir voice and disposition. The suppliant lover, being received,\nassumes possession and defence, and they, who were first bid whisper\nas beggars by each unguarded breach, now leap upon the walls to\ncall from the accepted Lord of the city: _Fulfilled is thy time of\nservice, absolved thine iniquity, received hast thou of Jehovah's\nhand double for all thy sins._\n\nNow this is no mere rhetorical figure. This is the abiding attitude\nand aim of the Almighty towards men. God's target is our heart. His\nrevelation, whatever of law or threat it send before, is, in its own\nsuperlative clearness and urgency, Grace. It comes to man by way of\nthe heart; not at first by argument addressed to the intellect, nor by\nappeal to experience, but by the sheer strength of a love laid _on to\nthe heart_. It is, to begin with, a subjective thing. Is revelation,\nthen, entirely a subjective assurance? Do the pardon and peace which\nit proclaims remain only feelings of the heart, without anything to\ncorrespond to them in real fact? By no means; for these Jews the\nrevelation now whispered to their heart will actually take shape in\nprovidences of the most concrete kind. A voice will immediately call,\n_Prepare ye the way of the Lord_, and the way will be prepared. Babylon\nwill fall; Cyrus will let Israel go; their release will appear--most\nconcrete of things!--in \"black and white\" on a Persian state-parchment.\nYet, before these events happen and become part of His people's\nexperience, God desires first to convince His people by the sheer\nurgency of His love. Before He displays His Providence, He will speak\nin the power and evidence of His Grace. Afterwards, His prophets shall\nappeal to outward facts; we shall find them in succeeding chapters\narguing both with Israel and the heathen on grounds of reason and the\nfacts of history. But, in the meantime, let them only feel that in His\nGrace they have something for the heart of men, which, striking home,\nshall be its own evidence and force.\n\nThus God adventures His Word forth by nameless and unaccredited men\nupon no other authority than the Grace, with which it is fraught for\nthe heart of His people. The illustration, which this affords of\nthe method and evidence of Divine revelation, is obvious. Let us,\nwith all the strength of which we are capable, emphasize the fact\nthat our prophecy--which is full of the materials for an elaborate\ntheology, which contains the most detailed apologetic in the whole\nBible, and displays the most glorious prospect of man's service and\ndestiny--takes its source and origin from a simple revelation of\nGrace and the subjective assurance of this in the heart of those to\nwhom it is addressed. This proclamation of Grace is as characteristic\nand dominant in Second Isaiah, as we saw the proclamation of\nconscience in ch. i. to be characteristic of the First Isaiah.\n\nBefore we pass on, let us look for a moment at the contents of this\nGrace, in the three clauses of the prophet's cry: _Fulfilled is her\nwarfare, absolved her guilt, received hath she of Jehovah's hand\ndouble for all her sins._ The very grammar here is eloquent of grace.\nThe emphasis lies on the three predicates, which ought to stand in\ntranslation, as they do in the original, at the beginning of each\nclause. Prominence is given, not to the warfare, nor to the guilt,\nnor to the sins, but to this, that _accomplished_ is the warfare,\n_absolved_ the guilt, _sufficiently expiated_ the sins. It is a great\nAT LAST which these clauses peal forth; but an At Last whose tone is\nnot so much inevitableness as undeserved grace. The term translated\nwarfare means _period of military service_, _appointed term of\nconscription_; and the application is apparent when we remember that\nthe Exile had been fixed, by the Word of God through Jeremiah, to a\ndefinite number of years. _Absolved_ is the passive of a verb meaning\nto _pay off what is due_.[40] But the third clause is especially\ngracious. It declares that Israel has suffered of punishment more\nthan double enough to atone for her sins. This is not a way of\nregarding either sin or atonement, which, theologically speaking, is\naccurate. What of its relation to our Articles, that man cannot give\nsatisfaction for his sins by the work of his hands or the pains of\nhis flesh? No: it would scarcely pass some of our creeds to-day. But\nall the more, that it thus bursts forth from strict terms of dealing,\ndoes it reveal the generosity of Him who utters it. How full of\npity God is, to take so much account of the sufferings sinners have\nbrought upon themselves! How full of grace to reckon those sufferings\n_double the sins_ that had earned them! It is, as when we have seen\ngracious men make us a free gift, and in their courtesy insist that\nwe have worked for it. It is grace masked by grace. As the height of\nart is to conceal art, so the height of grace is to conceal grace,\nwhich it does in this verse.\n\nSuch is the Voice of Grace. But,\n\n 2. _Hark, One calling!\n In the wilderness prepare the way of Jehovah!\n Make straight in the desert an highway for our God!\n Every valley shall be exalted,\n And every mountain and hill be made low:\n And the crooked grow straight,\n And rough places a plain:\n And the glory of Jehovah be revealed,\n And see it shall all flesh together;\n For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken._\n\nThe relation of this Voice to the previous one has already been\nindicated. This is the witness of Providence following upon the\nwitness of Grace. Religion is a matter in the first place between\nGod and the heart; but religion does not, as many mock, remain an\ninward feeling. The secret relation between God and His people issues\ninto substantial fact, visible to all men. History vindicates faith;\nProvidence executes Promise; Righteousness follows Grace. So, as\nthe first Voice was spoken _to the heart_, this second is for the\nhands and feet and active will. _Prepare ye the way of the Lord._ If\nyou, poor captives as you are, begin to act upon the grace whispered\nin your trembling hearts, the world will show the result. All\nthings will come round to your side. A levelled empire, an altered\nworld--across those your way shall lie clear to Jerusalem. You shall\ngo forth in the sight of all men, and future generations looking back\nshall praise this manifest wonder of your God. _The glory of Jehovah\nshall be revealed, and see it shall all flesh together._\n\nOn which word, how can our hearts help rising from the comfort of\ngrace to the sense of mastery over this world, to the assurance of\nheaven itself? History must come round to the side of faith--as it\nhas come round not in the case of Jewish exiles only, but wheresoever\nsuch a faith as theirs has been repeated. History must come round\nto the side of faith, if men will only obey the second as well as\nthe first of these herald voices. But we are too ready to listen to\nthe Word of the Lord, without seeking to prepare His way. We are\nsatisfied with the personal comfort of our God; we are contented to\nbe forgiven and--oh mockery!--left alone. But the word of God will\nnot leave us alone, and not for comfort only is it spoken. On the\nback of the voice, which sets our heart right with God, comes the\nvoice to set the world right, and no man is godly who has not heard\nboth. Are we timid and afraid that facts will not correspond to\nour faith? Nay, but as God reigneth they shall, if only we put to\nour hands and make them; _all flesh shall see it_, if we will but\n_prepare the way of the Lord_.\n\nHave we only ancient proofs of this? On the contrary, God has done like\nwonders within the lives of those of us who are yet young. During our\ngeneration, a people has appealed from the convictions of her heart to\nthe arbitrament of history, and appealed not in vain. When the citizens\nof the Northern States of the American Republic, not content as they\nmight have been with their protests against slavery, rose to vindicate\nthese by the sword, they faced, humanly speaking, a risk as great\nas that to which Jew was ever called by the word of God. Their own\nbrethren were against them; the world stood aloof. But even so, unaided\nby united patriotism and as much dismayed as encouraged by the opinions\nof civilisation, they rose to the issue on the strength of conscience\nand their hearts. They rose and they conquered. Slavery was abolished.\nWhat had been but the conviction of a few men, became the surprise, the\nadmiration, the consent of the whole world. _The glory of the Lord was\nrevealed, and all flesh saw it together._\n\n3. But the shadow of death falls on everything, even on the way of the\nLord. By 550 B.C.--that is, after thirty-eight years of exile--nearly\nall the strong men of Israel's days of independence must have been\ntaken away. Death had been busy with the exiles for more than a\ngeneration. There was no longer any human representative of Jehovah\nto rally the people's trust; the monarchy, each possible Messiah who\nin turn held it, the priesthood, and the prophethood--whose great\npersonalities so often took the place of Israel's official leaders--had\nall alike disappeared. It was little wonder, then, that a nation\naccustomed to be led, not by ideas like us Westerns, but by personages,\nwho were to it the embodiment of Jehovah's will and guidance, should\nhave been cast into despair by the call, _Prepare ye the way of the\nLord_. What sort of a call was this for a people, whose strong men were\nlike things uprooted and withered! How could one be, with any heart, a\nherald of the Lord to such a people!\n\n _Hark one saying \"Call.\"_[41]\n _And I said:_\n \"_What can I call?_\n _All flesh is grass,_\n _And all its beauty like a wild-flower!_\n _Withers grass, fades flower,_\n _When the breath of Jehovah blows on it._\n _Surely grass is the people._\"\n\nBack comes a voice like the east wind's for pitilessness to the\nflowers, but of the east wind's own strength and clearness, to\nproclaim Israel's everlasting hope.\n\n _Withers grass, fades flower,_\n _But the word of our God endureth for ever._\n\nEverything human may perish; the day may be past of the great\nprophets, of the priests--of the King in his beauty, who was\nvicegerent of God. But the people have God's word; when all their\nleaders have fallen, and every visible authority for God is taken\naway, this shall be their rally and their confidence.\n\nAll this is too like the actual experience of Israel in Exile not\nto be the true interpretation of this third, stern Voice. Their\npolitical and religious institutions, which had so often proved the\ninitiative of a new movement, or served as a bridge to carry the\nnation across disaster to a larger future, were not in existence. Nor\ndoes any Moses, as in Egypt of old, rise to visibleness from among\nhis obscure people, impose his authority upon them, marshal them, and\nlead them out behind him to freedom. But what we see is a scattered\nand a leaderless people, stirred in their shadow, as a ripe cornfield\nis stirred by the breeze before dawn--stirred in their shadow by the\nancient promises of God, and everywhere breaking out at the touch\nof these into psalms and prophecies of hope. We see them expectant\nof redemption, we see them resolved to return, we see them carried\nacross the desert to Zion, and from first to last it is the word of\nGod that is their inspiration and assurance.\n\nThey, who formerly had rallied round the Ark or the Temple, or who had\nrisen to the hope of a glorious Messiah, do not now speak of all these,\nbut their _hope_, they tell us, _is in His word_; it is the instrument\nof their salvation, and their destiny is to be its evangelists.\n\n4. To this high destiny the fourth Voice now summons them, by a vivid\nfigure.\n\n _Up on a high mountain, get thee up,_\n _Heraldess of good news, O Zion!_\n _Lift up with strength thy voice,_\n _Heraldess of good news, Jerusalem!_\n _Lift up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah:--_\n _Behold, your God._\n _Behold, my Lord Jehovah, with power He cometh,_\n _And His arm rules for Him._\n _Behold, His reward with Him,_\n _And His recompense before Him._\n _As a shepherd His flock He shepherds;_\n _With His right arm gathers the lambs,_\n _And in His bosom bears them._\n _Ewe-mothers He tenderly leads._\n\nThe title which I have somewhat awkwardly translated _heraldess_--but\nin English there is really no better word for it--is the feminine\nparticiple of a verb meaning to _thrill_, or _give joy, by means of\ngood news_. It is used generally to tell such happy news as the birth\nof a child, but mostly in the special sense of carrying tidings of\nvictory or peace home from the field to the people. The feminine\nparticiple would seem from Psalm lxviii., _the women who publish\nvictory to the great host_, to have been the usual term for the\nmembers of those female choirs, who, like Miriam and her maidens,\ncelebrated a triumph in face of the army, or came forth from the city\nto hail the returning conqueror, as the daughters of Jerusalem hailed\nSaul and David. As such a chorister, Zion is now summoned to proclaim\nJehovah's arrival at the gates of the cities of Judah.\n\nThe verses from _Behold, your God_, to the end of the Prologue\nare the song of the heraldess. Do not their mingled martial and\npastoral strains exactly suit the case of the Return? For this is\nan expedition, on which the nation's champion has gone forth, not\nto lead His enemies captive to His gates, but that He may gather\nHis people home. Not mailed men, in the pride of a victory they\nhave helped to win, march in behind Him,--_armour and tumult and\nthe garment rolled in blood_,--but a herd of mixed and feeble folk,\nwith babes and women, in need of carriage and gentle leading,\nwander wearily back. And, therefore, in the mouth of the heraldess\nthe figure changes from a warrior-king to the Good Shepherd. _With\nHis right arm He gathers the lambs, and in His bosom bears them.\nEwe-mothers He gently leads._ How true a picture, and how much it\nrecalls! Fifty years before, the exiles left their home (as we\ncan see to this day upon Assyrian sculptures) in closely-driven\ncompanies, fettered, and with the urgency upon them of grim soldiers,\nwho marched at intervals in their ranks to keep up the pace, and who\ntossed the weaklings impatiently aside. But now, see the slow and\nloosely-gathered bands wander back, just as quickly as the weakest\nfeel strength to travel, and without any force or any guidance save\nthat of their Almighty, Unseen Shepherd.\n\nWe are now able to appreciate the dramatic unity of this Prologue.\nHow perfectly it gathers into its four Voices the whole course of\nIsrael's redemption: the first assurance of Grace whispered to the\nheart, co-operation with Providence, confidence in God's bare Word,\nthe full Return and the Restoration of the City.\n\nBut its climax is undoubtedly the honour it lays upon the whole\npeople to be publishers of the good news of God. Of this it speaks\nwith trumpet tones. All Jerusalem must be a herald-people. And how\ncould Israel help owning the constraint and inspiration to so high\nan office, after so heartfelt an experience of grace, so evident a\nredemption, so glorious a proof of the power of the Word of God? To\nhave the heart thus filled with grace, to have the will enlisted in\nso Divine a work, to have known the almightiness of the Divine Word\nwhen everything else failed--after such an experience, who would not\nbe able to preach the good news of God, to foretell, as our prophet\nbids Israel foretell, the coming of the Kingdom and Presence of\nGod--the day when the Lord's flock shall be perfect and none wanting,\nwhen society, though still weary and weak and mortal, shall have no\nstragglers nor outcasts nor reprobates.\n\nO God, so fill us with Thy grace and enlist us in Thy work, so manifest\nthe might of Thy word to us, that the ideal of Thy perfect kingdom may\nshine as bright and near to us as to Thy prophet of old, and that we\nmay become its inspired preachers and ever labour in its hope. Amen.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[36] See p. 47.\n\n[37] From the sequence of the voices, it would seem that we had in\nch. xl. not a mere collection of anonymous prophecies arranged by\nan editor, but one complete prophecy by the author of most of Isa.\nxl.-lxvi., set in the dramatic form which obtains through the other\nchapters.\n\n[38] Every one who appreciates the music of the original will agree\nhow incomparably Handel has interpreted it in those pulses of music\nwith which his _Messiah_ opens.\n\n[39] See ch. liv., where this figure is developed with great beauty.\n\n[40] Lev. xxvii.\n\n[41] The technical word to preach or proclaim.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n _GOD: A SACRAMENT._\n\n ISAIAH xl. 12-31.\n\n\nSuch are the Four Voices which herald the day of Israel's redemption.\nThey are scarcely silent, before the Sun Himself uprises, and horizon\nafter horizon of His empire is displayed to the eyes of His starved\nand waiting people. From the prologue of the prophecy, in ch. xl.\n1-11, we advance to the presentation, in chs. xl. 12-xli., of its\nprimary and governing truth--the sovereignty and omnipotence of God,\nthe God of Israel.\n\nWe may well call this truth the sun of the new day which Israel is\nabout to enter. For as it is the sun which makes the day, and not the\nday which reveals the sun; so it is God, supreme and almighty, who\ninterprets, predicts and controls His people's history, and not their\nhistory, which, in its gradual evolution, is to make God's sovereignty\nand omnipotence manifest to their experience. Let us clearly understand\nthis. The prophecy, which we are about to follow, is an argument not\nso much from history to God as from God to history. Israel already\nhave their God; and it is because He is what He is, and what they\nought to know Him to be,[42] that they are bidden believe that their\nfuture shall take a certain course. The prophet begins with God,\nand everything follows from God. All that in these chapters lends\nlight or force, all that interprets the history of to-day and fills\nto-morrow with hope, fact and promise alike, the captivity of Israel,\nthe appearance of Cyrus, the fall of Babylon, Israel's redemption, the\nextension of their mission to the ends of the earth, the conversion\nof the Gentiles, the equipment, discipline and triumph of the Servant\nHimself,--we may even say the expanded geography of our prophet, the\ncountries which for the first time emerge from the distant west within\nthe vision of a Hebrew seer,--all are due to that primary truth about\nGod with which we are now presented. It is God's sovereignty which\nbrings such far-off things into the interest of Israel; it is God's\nomnipotence which renders such impossible things practical. And as\nwith the subjects, so with the style of the following chapters. The\nprophet's style is throughout the effect of his perfect and brilliant\nmonotheism. It is the thought of God which everywhere kindles his\nimagination. His most splendid passages are those, in which he soars\nto some lofty vision of the Divine glory in creation or history; while\nhis frequent sarcasm and ridicule owe their effectiveness to the sudden\nscorn, with which, from such a view, scattering epigrams the while,\nhe sweeps down upon the heathen's poor images, or Israel's grudging\nthoughts of his God. The breadth and the force of his imagination, the\nsweep of his rhetoric, the intensity of his scorn, may all be traced\nto his sense of God's sovereignty, and are the signs to us of how\nabsolutely he was possessed by this as his main and governing truth.\n\nThis, then, being the sun of Israel's coming day, we may call what\nwe find in ch. xl. 11-xli. the sunrise--the full revelation and\nuprising on our sight of this original gospel of the prophet. It is\naddressed to two classes of men; in ch. xl. 12-31 to Israel, but\nin ch. xli. (for the greater part, at least) to the Gentiles. In\ndealing with these two classes the prophet makes a great difference.\nTo Israel he presents their God, as it were, in sacrament; but to\nthe Gentiles he urges God's claims in challenge and argument. It is\nto the past that he summons Israel, and to what they ought to know\nalready about their God; it is to the future, to history yet unmade,\nthat he proposes to the Gentiles they should together appeal, in\norder to see whether his God or their gods are the true Deity. In\nthis chapter we shall deal with the first of these--God in sacrament.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe fact is familiar to all, that the Old Testament nowhere feels the\nnecessity of proving the existence of God. That would have been a proof\nunintelligible to those to whom its prophets addressed themselves. In\nthe time when the Old Testament came to him, man as little doubted the\nexistence of God as he doubted his own life. But as life sometimes\nburned low, needing replenishment, so faith would grow despondent and\nmorbid, needing to be led away from objects which only starved it, or\nproduced, as idolatry did, the veriest delirium of a religion. A man\nhad to get his faith lifted from the thoughts of his own mind and the\nworks of his own hand, to be borne upon and nourished by the works of\nGod,--to kindle with the sunrise, to broaden out by the sight of the\nfirmament, to deepen as he faced the spaces of night,--and win calmness\nand strength to think life into order as he looked forth upon the\nmarshalled hosts of heaven, having all the time no doubt that the God\nwho created and guided these was his God. Therefore, when psalmist or\nprophet calls Israel to lift their eyes to the hills, or to behold how\nthe heavens declare the glory of God, or to listen to that unbroken\ntradition, which day passes to day and night to night, of the knowledge\nof the Creator, it is not proofs to doubting minds which he offers: it\nis spiritual nourishment to hungry souls. These are not arguments--they\nare sacraments. When we Christians go to the Lord's Supper, we go not\nto have the Lord proved to us, but to feed upon a life and a love\nof whose existence we are past all doubt. Our sacrament fills all\nthe mouths by which needy faith is fed--such as outward sight, and\nimagination, and memory, and wonder, and love. Now very much what the\nLord's Supper is to us for fellowship with God and feeding upon Him,\nthat were the glory of the heavens, and the everlasting hills, and the\ndepth of the sea, and the vision of the stars to the Hebrews. They were\nthe sacraments of God. By them faith was fed, and the spirit of man\nentered into the enjoyment of God, whose existence indeed he had never\ndoubted, but whom he had lost, forgotten, or misunderstood.\n\nNow it is as such a minister of sacrament to God's starved and\ndisheartened people that our prophet appears in ch. xl. 12-31.\n\nThere were three elements in Israel's starvation. Firstly, for nearly\nfifty years they had been deprived of the accustomed ordinances\nof religion. Temple and altar had perished; the common praise and\nthe national religious fellowship were impossible; the traditional\nsymbols of the faith lay far out of sight; there was at best only\na precarious ministry of the Word. But, in the second place, this\nfamine of the Word and of Sacraments was aggravated by the fact that\nhistory had gone against the people. To the baser minds among them,\nalways ready to grant their allegiance to success, this could only\nmean that the gods of the heathen had triumphed over Jehovah. It is\nlittle wonder that such experience, assisted by the presentation,\nat every turn in their ways, of idols and a splendid idol-worship,\nthe fashion and delight of the populations through whom they were\nmixed, should have tempted many Jews to feed their starved hearts at\nthe shrines of their conquerors' gods. But the result could only be\nthe further atrophy of their religious nature. It has been held as a\nreason for the worship of idols that they excite the affection and\nimagination of the worshipper. They do no such thing: they starve\nand they stunt these. The image reacts upon the imagination, infects\nit with its own narrowness and poverty, till man's noblest creative\nfaculty becomes the slave of its own poor toy. But, thirdly, if the\nloftier spirits in Israel refused to believe that Jehovah, exalted\nin righteousness, could be less than the brutal deities whom Babylon\nvaunted over Him, they were flung back upon the sorrowful conviction\nthat their God had cast them off; that He had retreated from the\npatronage of so unworthy a people into the veiled depths of His own\nnature. Then upon that heaven, from which no answer came to those\nwho were once its favourites, they cast we can scarcely tell what\nreflection of their own weary and spiritless estate. As, standing\nover a city by night, you will see the majestic darkness above\nstained and distorted into shapes of pain or wrath by the upcast\nof the city's broken, murky lights, so many of the nobler exiles\nsaw upon the blank, unanswering heaven a horrible mirage of their\nown trouble and fear. Their weariness said, He is weary; the ruin\nof their national life reflected itself as the frustration of His\npurposes; their accusing conscience saw the darkness of His counsel\nrelieved only by streaks of wrath.\n\nBut none of these tendencies in Israel went so far as to deny that\nthere was a God, or even to doubt His existence. This, as we have\nsaid, was nowhere yet the temptation of mankind. When the Jew lapsed\nfrom that true faith, which we have seen his nation carry into\nexile, he fell into one of the two tempers just described--devotion\nto false gods in the shape of idols, or despondency consequent upon\nfalse notions of the true God. It is against these tempers, one after\nanother, that ch. xl. 12-31 is directed. And so we understand why,\nthough the prophet is here declaring the basis and spring of all\nhis subsequent prophecy, he does not adopt the method of abstract\nargument. He is not treating with men, who have had no true knowledge\nof God in the past, or whose intellect questions God's reality. He\nis treating with men, who have a national heritage of truth about\nGod, but they have forgotten it; who have hearts full of religious\naffection, but it has been betrayed; who have a devout imagination,\nbut it has been starved; who have hopes, but they are faint unto\ndeath. He will recall to them their heritage, rally their shrinking\nconvictions by the courage of his own faith, feed their hunger after\nrighteousness[43] by a new hope set to noble music, and display to\nthe imagination that has been stunted by so long looking upon the\nface of idols the wide horizons of Divine glory in earth and heaven.\n\nHis style corresponds to his purpose. He does not syllogize; he\nexhorts, recalls and convicts by assertion. The passage is a series\nof questions, rallies and promises. _Have ye not known? have ye not\nheard?_ is his chief note. Instead of arranging facts in history or\nnature as in themselves a proof for God, he mentions them only by way\nof provoking inward recollections. His sharp questions are as hooks\nto draw from his hearers' hearts their timid and starved convictions,\nthat he may nourish these upon the sacramental glories of nature and\nof history.\n\nSuch a purpose and style trust little to method, and it would\nbe useless to search for any strict division of strophes in the\npassage.[44] The following, however, is a manifest division of subject,\naccording to the two tempers to which the prophet had to appeal. Verses\n12 to 25, and perhaps 26, are addressed to the idolatrous Jews. But in\n26 there is a transition to the despair of the nobler hearts in Israel,\nwho, though they continued to believe in the One True God, imagined\nthat He had abandoned them; and to such vv. 27 to 31 are undoubtedly\naddressed. The different treatment accorded to the two classes is\nstriking. The former of these the prophet does not call by any title of\nthe people of God; with the latter he pleads by a dear double name that\nhe may win them through every recollection of their gracious past,\n_Jacob_ and _Israel_ (ver. 27). Challenge and sarcasm are his style\nwith the idolaters, his language clashing out in bursts too loud and\nrapid sometimes for the grammar, as in ver. 24; but with the despondent\nhis way is gentle persuasiveness, with music that swells and brightens\nsteadily, passing without a break from the minor key of pleading to the\nmajor of glorious promise.\n\n1. AGAINST THE IDOLATERS. A couple of sarcastic sentences upon\nidols and their manufacture (vv. 19, 20) stand between two majestic\ndeclarations of God's glory in nature and in history (vv. 12-17\nand 21-24). It is an appeal from the worshippers' images to their\nimagination. _Who hath measured in his hollow hand the waters, and\nheaven ruled off with a span? Or caught in a tierce the dust of the\nearth, and weighed in scales mountains, and hills in a balance?\nWho hath directed the spirit of Jehovah, and as man of His counsel\nhath helped Him to know? With whom took He counsel, that such an\none informed Him and taught Him in the orthodox path, and taught\nHim knowledge and helped Him to know the way of intelligence?_ The\nterm translated _orthodox path_ is literally _path of ordinance or\njudgement, the regular path_, and is doubtless to be taken along\nwith its parallel, _way of intelligence_, as a conventional phrase\nof education, which the prophet employed to make his sarcasm the\nstronger. _Lo nations! as a drop from a bucket, and like dust in\na balance, are they reckoned. Lo the Isles!_[45] _as a trifle He\nlifteth. And Lebanon is by no means enough for burning, nor its\nbrute-life enough for an offering. All the nations are as nothing\nbefore Him, as spent and as waste are they reckoned for Him._\n\nWhen he has thus soared enough, as on an archangel's wings, he swoops\nwith one rapid question down from the height of his imagination upon\nthe images.\n\n_To whom then will ye liken God, and what likeness will ye range by\nHim?_\n\n_The image! A smith cast it, and a smelter plates it with gold, and\nsmelts silver chains. He that is straitened for an offering--he\nchooseth a tree that does not rot, seeks to him a cunning carver to\nset up an image that will not totter._[46]\n\nThe image shrivels up in face of that imagination; the idol is\nabolished by laughter. There is here, and for almost the first time\nin history, the same intellectual intolerance of images, the same\nburning sense of the unreasonableness of their worship, which has\nmarked all monotheists, and turned even the meekest of their kind\ninto fierce scorners and satirists--Elijah, Mohammed, Luther, and\nKnox.[47] We hear this laughter from them all. Sometimes it may sound\ntruculent or even brutal, but let us remember what is behind it. When\nwe hear it condemned--as, in the interests of art and imagination,\nits puritan outbursts have often been condemned--as a barbarian\nincapacity to sympathise with the \u00e6sthetic instincts of man, or to\nappreciate the influence of a beautiful and elevating cult, we can\nreply that it was the imagination itself which often inspired both\nthe laughter at, and the breaking of, images, and that, because the\niconoclast had a loftier vision of God than the image-maker, he has,\non the whole, more really furthered the progress of art than the\nartist whose works he has destroyed. It is certain, for instance,\nthat no one would exchange the beauties of the prophecy now before\nus, with its sublime imaginations of God, for all the beauty of all\nthe idols of Babylonia which it consigned to destruction. And we dare\nto say the same of two other epochs, when the uncompromising zeal of\nmonotheists crushed to the dust the fruits of centuries of Christian\nart. The Koran is not often appealed to as a model of poetry, but\nit contains passages whose imagination of God, broad as the horizon\nof the desert of its birth, and swift and clear as the desert dawn,\nmay be regarded as infinitely more than compensation--from a purely\nartistic point of view--for the countless works of Christian ritual\nand imagery which it inspired the rude cavalry of the desert to\ntrample beneath the hoofs of their horses. And again, if we are to\nblame the Reformers of Western Christendom for the cruelty with which\nthey lifted their hammers against the carved work of the sanctuary,\ndo not let us forget how much of the spirit of the best modern art\nis to be traced to their more spiritual and lofty conceptions of\nGod. No one will question how much Milton's imagination owed to his\nProtestantism, or how much Carlyle's dramatic genius was the result\nof his Puritan faith. But it is to the spirit of the Reformation,\nas it liberated the worshipper's soul from bondage to artificial\nand ecclesiastical symbols of the Deity, that we may also ascribe\na large part of the force of that movement towards Nature and the\nimagination of God in His creation which inspired, for example,\nWordsworth's poetry, and those visual sacraments of rainbow, storm,\nand dawn to which Browning so often lifts our souls from their\ndissatisfaction with ritual or with argument.\n\nFrom his sarcasm on the idols our prophet returns to his task of\ndrawing forth Israel's memory and imagination. _Have ye not known?\nHave ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning?\nHave ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? He that is\nenthroned above the circle of the earth, and its dwellers are before\nHim as grasshoppers; who stretcheth as a fine veil the heavens, and\nspreadeth them like a dwelling tent_--that is, as easily as if they\nwere not even a pavilion or marquee, but only a humble dwelling\ntent. _He who bringeth great men to nothing, the judges of the earth\nHe maketh as waste. Yea, they were not planted; yea, they were not\nsown; yea, their root had not struck in the earth, but_ immediately\n_He blew upon them and they withered, and a whirlwind like stubble\ncarried them away. To whom, then, will ye liken Me, that I may match\nwith him? saith the Holy One._ But this time it is not necessary to\nsuggest the idols; they were dissolved by that previous burst of\nlaughter. Therefore, the prophet turns to the other class in Israel\nwith whom he has to deal.\n\n2. TO THE DESPAIRERS OF THE LORD. From history we pass back to nature\nin ver. 26, which forms a transition, the language growing steadier\nfrom the impetuosity of the address to the idolaters to the serene\nmusic of the second part. Enough rebuke has the prophet made. As he\nnow lifts his people's vision to the stars, it is not to shame their\nidols, but to feed their hearts. _Lift up on high your eyes and see!\nWho hath created these? Who leads forth by number their host, and all\nof them calleth by name, by abundance of might, for He is powerful in\nstrength, not one is amissing._ Under such a night, that veils the\nconfusion of earth only to bring forth all the majesty and order of\nheaven, we feel a moment's pause. Then as the expanding eyes of the\nexiles gaze upon the infinite power above, the prophet goes on. _Why\nthen sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel? Hidden is my way\nfrom Jehovah, and from my God my right hath passed._\n\nWhy does the prophet point his people to the stars? Because he is\namong Israel on that vast Babylonian plain, from whose crowded and\nconfused populations, struggling upon one monotonous level, there\nis no escape for the heart but to the stars. Think of that plain\nwhen Nebuchadrezzar was its tyrant; of the countless families of\nmen torn from their far homes and crushed through one another upon\nits surface; of the ancient liberties that were trampled in that\nservitude, of the languages that were stifled in that Babel, of the\nmany patriotisms set to sigh themselves out into the tyrant's mud and\nmortar. Ah heaven! was there a God in thee, that one man could thus\ncrush nations in his vat, as men crushed shell-fish in those days,\nto dye his imperial purple? Was there any Providence above, that\nhe could tear peoples from the lands and seas, where their various\ngifts and offices for humanity had been developed, and press them\nto his selfish and monotonous servitude? In that medley of nations,\nall upon one level of captivity, Israel was just as lost as the most\ninsignificant tribe; her history severed, her worship impossible,\nher very language threatened with decay. No wonder, that from the\nstifling crowd and desperate flatness of it all she cried, _Hidden is\nmy way from Jehovah, and from my God my right hath passed._\n\nBut from the flatness and the crowd the stars are visible; and it was\nupon the stars that the prophet bade his people feed their hearts.\nThere were order and unfailing guidance; _for the greatness of His\nmight not one is missing_. And He is your God. Just as visible as those\ncountless stars are, one by one, in the dark heavens, to your eyes\nlooking up, so your lives and fortunes are to His eyes looking down\non this Babel of peoples. _He gathereth the outcasts of Israel....\nHe telleth the number of the stars._[48] And so the prophet goes on\nearnestly to plead: _Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? that\nan everlasting God is Jehovah, Creator of the ends of the earth.\nHe fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His\nunderstanding. Giver to the weary of strength! And upon him that is\nof no might, He lavisheth power. Even youths may faint and be weary,\nand young men utterly fall; but they who hope in Jehovah shall renew\nstrength, put forth pinions like eagles, run and not weary, walk and\nnot faint._ Listen, ears, not for the sake of yourselves only, though\nthe music is incomparably sweet! Listen for the sake of the starved\nhearts below, to whom you carry the sacraments of hope, whom you lift\nto feed upon the clear symbols of God's omnipotence and unfailing grace.\n\nThis chapter began with the assurance to the heart of Israel of their\nGod's will to redeem and restore them. It closes with bidding the\npeople take hope in God. Let us again emphasize--for we cannot do so\ntoo often, if we are to keep ourselves from certain errors of to-day\non the subject of Revelation--the nature of this prophecy. It is not\na reading-off of history; it is a call from God. No deed has yet been\ndone pointing towards the certainty of Israel's redemption; it is not\nfrom facts writ large on the life of their day, that the prophet bids\nthe captives read their Divine discharge. That discharge he brings from\nGod; he bids them find the promise and the warrant of it in their God's\ncharacter, in their own convictions of what that character is. In order\nto revive those convictions, he does, it is true, appeal to certain\nfacts, but these facts are not the facts of contemporary history which\nmight reveal to any clear eye, that the current and the drift of\npolitics was setting towards the redemption of Israel. They are facts\nof nature and facts of general providence, which, as we have said, like\nsacraments evidence God's power to the pious heart, feed it with the\nassurance of His grace, and bid it hope in His word, though history\nshould seem to be working quite the other way.\n\nThis instance of the method of revelation does not justify two\nopinions, which prevail at the present day regarding prophecy. In\nthe first place, it proves to us, that those are wrong who, too\nmuch infected by the modern temper to judge accurately writers so\nunsophisticated, describe prophecy as if it were merely a philosophy\nof history, by which the prophets deduced from their observation of\nthe course of events their idea of God and their forecast of His\npurposes. The prophets had indeed to do with history; they argued\nfrom it, and they appealed to it. The history that was past was full\nof God's condescension to men, and shone like Nature's self with\nsacramental signs of His power and will: the history that was future\nwas to be His supreme tribunal, and to afford the vindication of the\nword they claimed to have brought from Him. But still all this--their\ntrust in history and their use of it--was something secondary in\nthe prophetic method. With them God Himself was first; they came\nforth from His presence, as they describe it, with the knowledge\nof His will gained through the communion of their spirits with His\nSpirit. If they then appealed to past history, it was to illustrate\ntheir message; or to future, it was for vindication of this. But God\nHimself was the Source and Author of it; and therefore, before they\nhad facts beneath their eyes to corroborate their promises, they\nappealed to the people, like our prophet in ch. xl., to _wait on\nJehovah_. The day might not yet have dawned so as to let them read\nthe signs of the times. But in the darkness they _hoped in Jehovah_,\nand borrowed for their starved hearts from the stars above, or other\nsacrament, some assurance of His unfailing power.\n\nJehovah, then, was the source of the prophets' word: His character\nwas its pledge. The prophets were not mere readers from history, but\nspeakers from God.\n\nBut the testimony of our chapter to all this enables us also to\narrest an opinion about Revelation, which has too hurriedly run off\nwith some Christians, and to qualify it. In the inevitable recoil\nfrom the scholastic view of revelation as wholly a series of laws and\ndogmas and predictions, a number of writers on the subject have of\nlate defined Revelation as a chain of historical acts, through which\nGod uttered His character and will to men. According to this view,\nRevelation is God manifesting Himself in history, and the Bible is\nthe record of this historical process. Now, while it is true that\nthe Bible is, to a large extent, the annals and interpretation of\nthe great and small events of a nation's history--of its separation\nfrom the rest of mankind, its miraculous deliverances, its growth,\nits defeats and humiliations, its reforms and its institutions; in\nall of which God manifested His character and will--yet the Bible\nalso records a revelation, which preceded these historical deeds;\na revelation the theatre of which was not the national experience,\nbut the consciousness of the individual; which was recognised and\nwelcomed by choice souls in the secret of their own spiritual life,\nbefore it was realised and observed in outward fact; which was\nuttered by the prophet's voice and accepted by the people's trust in\nthe dark and the stillness, before the day of the Lord had dawned\nor there was light to see His purposes at work. In a word, God's\nrevelation to men was very often made clear in their subjective\nconsciousness, before it became manifest in the history about them.\n\nAnd, for ourselves, let us remember that to this day true religion is\nas independent of facts as it was with the prophet. True religion is a\nconviction of the character of God, and a resting upon that alone for\nsalvation. We need nothing more to begin with; and everything else, in\nour experience and fortune, helps us only in so far as it makes that\nprimary conviction more clear and certain. Darkness may be over us, and\nwe lonely and starved beneath it. We may be destitute of experience to\nsupport our faith; we may be able to discover nothing in life about us\nmaking in the direction of our hopes. Still, let _us wait on the Lord_.\nIt is by bare trust in Him, that we _renew our strength, put forth\nwings like eagles, run and not weary, walk and not faint_.\n\n_Put forth wings--run--walk!_ Is the order correct? Hope swerves from\nthe edge of so descending a promise, which seems only to repeat\nthe falling course of nature--that droop, we all know, from short\nambitions, through temporary impulsiveness, to the old commonplace\nand routine. Soaring, running, walking--and is not the next stage, a\ncynic might ask, standing still?\n\nOn the contrary, it is a natural and a true climax, rising from the\neasier to the more difficult, from the ideal to the real, from dream to\nduty, from what can only be the rare occasions of life to what must be\nlife's usual and abiding experience. History followed this course. Did\nthe prophet, as he promised, think of what should really prove to be\nthe fortune of his people during the next few years?--the great flight\nof hope, on which we see them rising in their psalms of redemption as\non the wings of an eagle; the zeal and liberality of preparation for\ndeparture from Babylon; the first rush at the Return; and then the long\ntramp, day after day, with the slow caravan, at the pace of its most\nheavily-laden beasts of burden, when _they shall walk and not faint_\nshould indeed seem to them the sweetest part of their God's promise.\n\nOr was it the far longer perspective of Israel's history that bade\nthe prophet follow this descending scale? The spirit of prophecy\nwas with himself to soar higher than ever before, reaching by truly\neagle-flight to a vision of the immediate consummation of Israel's\nglory: the Isles waiting for Jehovah, the Holy City radiant in His\nrising, and open with all her gates to the thronging nations; the\ntrue religion flashing from Zion across the world, and the wealth\nof the world pouring back upon Zion. And some have wondered, and\nsome scoff, that after this vision there should follow centuries of\nimperceptible progress--five-and-a-half centuries of preparation\nfor the coming of the Promised Servant; and then--Israel, indeed\ngone forth over the world, but only in small groups, living upon\nthe grudged and fitful tolerance of the great centres of Gentile\ncivilisation. The prophet surely anticipates all this, when he\nplaces the _walking_ after the _soaring_ and the _running_. When he\nsays last, and most impressively, of his people's fortunes, that\nthey _shall walk and not faint_, he has perhaps just those long\ncenturies in view, when, instead of a nation of enthusiasts taking\nhumanity by storm, we see small bands of pioneers pushing their way\nfrom city to city by the slow methods of ancient travel,--Damascus,\nAntioch, Tarsus, Iconium, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth and\nRome,--everywhere that Paul and the missionaries of the Cross found\na pulpit and a congregation ready for the Gospel; toiling from day\nto day at their own trades, serving the alien for wages, here and\nthere founding a synagogue, now and then completing a version of\ntheir Scriptures, oftentimes achieving martyrdom, but ever living a\npure and a testifying life in face of the heathen, with the passion\nof these prophecies at their hearts. It was certainly for such\ncenturies and such men that the word was written, _they shall walk\nand not faint_. This persistence under persecution, this monotonous\ndrilling of themselves in school and synagogue, this slow progress\nwithout prize or praise along the common highways of the world and\nby the world's ordinary means of livelihood, was a greater proof of\nindomitableness than even the rapture which filled their hearts on\nthe golden eve of the Return, under the full diapason of prophecy.\n\nAnd so must it ever be. First the ideal, and then the rush at it with\npassionate eyes, and then the daily trudge onward, when its splendour\nhas faded from the view, but is all the more closely wrapped round\nthe heart. For glorious as it is to rise to some great consummation\non wings of dream and song, glorious as it is, also, to bend that\nimpetus a little lower and take some practical crisis of life by\nstorm, an even greater proof of our religion and of the help our God\ncan give us is the lifelong tramp of earth's common surface, without\nfresh wings of dream, or the excitement of rivalry, or the attraction\nof reward, but with the head cool, and the face forward, and every\nfootfall upon firm ground. Let hope rejoice in a promise, which does\nnot go off into the air, but leaves us upon solid earth; and let\nus hold to a religion, which, while it exults in being the secret\nof enthusiasm and the inspiration of heroism, is daring and Divine\nenough to find its climax in the commonplace.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[42] See xl. 21, _Have ye not known?_\n\n[43] That is in the sense, in which our prophet uses the word, of\nsalvation. See Ch. XIV. of this volume.\n\n[44] Some intention of division undoubtedly appears. Notice the\ndouble refrain, _To whom will ye liken_, etc., of vv. 18 and 25;\nand then at equal distance from either occurrence of this challenge\nthe appeal, _Dost thou not know_, etc., vv. 21 and 28. But though\nthese signs of a strict division appear, the rest is submerged by\nthe strong flood of feeling which rushes too deep and rapid for any\nhard-and-fast embankments.\n\n[45] See p. 109.\n\n[46] If an idol leant over or fell that was the very worst of omens;\n_cf._ the case of Dagon.\n\n[47] When John Knox was a prisoner in France, \"the officers brought\nto him a painted board, which they called Our Lady, and commanded\nhim to kiss it. They violently thrust it into his face, and put it\nbetwixt his hands, who, seeing the extremity, took the idol, and\nadvisedly looking about, he cast it into the river, and said, 'Let\nOur Lady now save herself; she is light enough; let her learn to\nswim!' After that was no Scotsman urged with that idolatry.\"--Knox,\n_History of the Reformation_.\n\n[48] Psalm cxlvii.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n _GOD: AN ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY._\n\n ISAIAH xli.\n\n\nHaving revealed Himself to His own people in ch. xl., Jehovah now\nturns in ch. xli. to the heathen, but, naturally, with a very\ndifferent kind of address. Displaying His power to His people in\ncertain sacraments, both of nature and history, He had urged them to\n_wait upon Him_ alone for the salvation, of which there were as yet\nno signs in the times. But with the heathen it is evidently to these\nsigns of the times, that He can best appeal. Contemporary history,\nfacts open to every man's memory and reason, is the common ground on\nwhich Jehovah and the other gods can meet. Ch. xli. is, therefore,\nthe natural complement to ch. xl. In ch. xl. we have the element in\nrevelation that precedes history: in ch. xli. we have history itself\nexplained as a part of revelation.\n\nCh. xli. is loosely cast in the same form of a Trial-at-Law, which\nwe found in ch. i. To use a Scotticism, which exactly translates\nthe Hebrew of ver. 1, Jehovah goes _to the law_ with the idols. His\nsummons to the Trial is given in ver. 1; the ground of the Trial is\nadvanced in vv. 2-7. Then comes a digression, vv. 8-20, in which the\nLord turns from controversy with the heathen to comfort His people.\nIn vv. 21-29 Jehovah's plea is resumed, and in the silence of the\ndefendants--a silence, which, as we shall presently see by calling in\nthe witness of a Greek historian, was actual fact--the argument is\nsummed up and the verdict given for the sole divinity of Israel's God.\n\nThe main interest of the Trial lies, of course, in its appeal to\ncontemporary history, and to the central figure Cyrus, although it is\nto be noted that the prophet as yet refrains from mentioning the hero\nby name. This appeal to contemporary history lays upon us the duty\nof briefly indicating, how the course of that history was tending\noutside Babylon,--outside Babylon, as yet, but fraught with fate both\nto Babylon and to her captives.\n\n * * * * *\n\nNebuchadrezzar, although he had virtually succeeded to the throne of\nthe Assyrian, had not been able to repeat from Babylon that almost\nuniversal empire, which his predecessors had swayed from Nineveh.\nEgypt, it is true, was again as thoroughly driven from Asia as\nin the time of Sargon: to the south the Babylonian supremacy was\nas unquestioned as ever the Assyrian had been. But to the north\nNebuchadrezzar met with an almost equal rival, who had helped him\nin the overthrow of Nineveh, and had fallen heir to the Assyrian\nsupremacy in that quarter. This was Kastarit or Kyaxares, an Aryan,\none of the pioneers of that Aryan invasion from the East, which,\nthough still tardy and sparse, was to be the leading force in\nWestern Asia for the next century. This Kyaxares had united under\nhis control a number of Median tribes,[49] a people of Turanian\nstock. With these, when Nineveh fell, he established to the north of\nNebuchadrezzar's power the empire of Media, with its western boundary\nat the river Halys, in Asia Minor, and its capital at Ecbatana under\nMount Elwand. It is said that the river Indus formed his frontier\nto the east. West of the Halys, the Mede's progress was stopped by\nthe Lydian Empire, under King Alyattis, whose capital was Sardis,\nand whose other border was practically the coast of the \u00c6gean. In\n585, or two years after the destruction of Jerusalem, Alyattis and\nKyaxares met in battle on the Halys. But the terrors of an eclipse\ntook the heart to fight out of both their armies, and, Nebuchadrezzar\nintervening, the three monarchs struck a treaty among themselves,\nand strengthened it by intermarriage. Western Asia now virtually\nconsisted of the confederate powers, Babylonia, Media and Lydia.[50]\n\nLet us realise how far this has brought us. When we stood with Isaiah\nin Jerusalem, our western horizon lay across the middle of Asia Minor\nin the longitude of Cyprus.[51] It now rests upon the \u00c6gean; we are\nalmost within sight of Europe. Straight from Babylon to Sardis runs a\nroad, with a regular service of couriers. The court of Sardis holds\ndomestic and political intercourse with the courts of Babylon and\nEcbatana; but the court of Sardis also lords it over the Asiatic\nGreeks, worships at Greek shrines, will shortly be visited by Solon\nand strike an alliance with Sparta. In the time of the Jewish exile\nthere were without doubt many Greeks in Babylon; men may have spoken\nthere with Daniel, who had spoken at Sardis with Solon.\n\nThis extended horizon makes clear to us what our prophet has in\nhis view, when in this forty-first chapter he summons _Isles_ to\nthe bar of Jehovah: _Be silent before me, O Isles, and let Peoples\nrenew their strength_,--a vision and appeal which frequently recur\nin our prophecy. _Listen, O Isles, and hearken, O Peoples from afar_\n(xlix. 1); _Isles shall wait for His law_ (xlii. 4); _Let them give\nglory to Jehovah, and publish His praise in the Isles_ (xlii. 12);\n_Unto me Isles shall hope_ (li. 5); _Surely Isles shall wait for\nme, ships of Tarshish first_.[52] The name is generally taken by\nscholars--according to the derivation in the note below--to have\noriginally meant _habitable land_, and so _land_ as opposed to water.\nIn some passages of the Old Testament it is undoubtedly used to\ndescribe a land either washed, or surrounded, by the sea.[53]\n\nBut by our prophet's use of the word it is not necessarily\n_maritime provinces_ that are meant. He makes _isles_ parallel\nto the well-known terms _nations_, _peoples_, _Gentiles_, and in\none passage he opposes it, as dry soil, to water.[54] Hence many\ntranslators take it in its original sense of _countries_ or _lands_.\nThis bare rendering, however, does not do justice to the sense of\n_remoteness_, which the prophet generally attaches to the word,\nnor to his occasional association of it with visions of the sea.\nIndeed, as one reads most of his uses of it, one is quite sure that\nthe island-meaning of the word lingers on in his imagination; and\nthat the feeling possesses him, which has haunted the poetry of all\nages, to describe as _coasts_ or _isles_ any land or lighting-place\nof thought which is far and dim and vague; which floats across the\nhorizon, or emerges from the distance, as strips and promontories\nof land rise from the sea to him who has reached some new point of\nview. I have therefore decided to keep the rendering familiar to the\nEnglish reader, _isles_, though, perhaps, _coasts_ would be better.\nIf, as is probable, our prophet's thoughts are always towards the new\nlands of the west as he uses the word, it is doubly suitable; those\ncountries were both maritime and remote; they rose both from the\ndistance and from the sea.\n\n \"The sprinkled isles,\n Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea\n And laugh their pride, where the light wave lisps, 'Greece.'\"\n\nBut if Babylonia lay thus open to Lydia, and through Lydia to\nthe _isles_ and _coasts_ of Greece, it was different with her\nnorthern frontier. What strikes us here is the immense series of\nfortifications, which Nebuchadrezzar, in spite of his alliance with\nAstyages, cast up between his country and Media. Where the Tigris and\nEuphrates most nearly approach one another, about seventy miles to\nthe north of Babylon, Nebuchadrezzar connected their waters by four\ncanals, above which he built a strong bulwark, called by the Greeks\nthe Median wall. This may have been over sixty miles long; Xenophon\ntells us it was twenty feet broad by one hundred high.[55] At Sippara\nthis line of defence was completed by the creation of a great bason\nof water to flood the rivers and canals on the approach of an enemy,\nand of a large fortress to protect the bason. Alas for the vanity of\nhuman purposes! It is said to have been this very bason which caused\nthe easy fall of Babylon. By turning the Euphrates into it, the enemy\nentered the capital through the emptied river-bed.\n\nThe triple alliance--Lydia, Media, Babylonia--stood firm after its\nfounders passed away. In 555, Cr\u0153sus and Astyages, who had succeeded\ntheir fathers at Sardis and Ecbatana respectively, and Nabunahid, who\nhad usurped the throne at Babylon, were still at peace, and contented\nwith the partition of 585. But outside them and to the east, in a\nnarrow nook of land at the head of the Persian Gulf, the man was\nalready crowned, who was destined to bring Western Asia again under\none sceptre. This was Kurush or Cyrus II. of Anzan, but known to\nhistory as Cyrus the Great or Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus was a prince\nof the Akh\u00e6menian house of Persia, and therefore, like the Mede, an\nAryan, but independent of his Persian cousins, and ruling in his own\nright the little kingdom of Anzan or Anshan, which, with its capital\nof Susan, lay on the rivers Choaspes and Eul\u00e6us, between the head of\nthe Persian Gulf and the Zagros Mountains.[56]\n\nCyrus the Great is one of those mortals whom the muse of history,\nas if despairing to do justice to him by herself, has called in her\nsisters to aid her in describing to posterity. Early legend and later\nand more elaborate romance; the schoolmaster, the historian, the\ntragedian and the prophet, all vie in presenting to us this hero \"le\nplus sympathique de l'antiquit\u00e9\"[57]--this king on whom we see so\ndeeply stamped the double signature of God, character and success. We\nshall afterwards have a better opportunity to speak of his character.\nHere we are only concerned to trace his rapid path of conquest.\n\nHe sprang, then, from Anshan, the immediate neighbour of Babylonia to\nthe east. This is the direction indicated in the second verse of this\nforty-first chapter: _Who hath raised up one from the east?_ But the\ntwenty-fifth verse veers round with him to the north: _I have raised\nup one from the north, and he is come._ This was actually the curve,\nfrom east to north, which his career almost immediately took.\n\nFor in 549 Astyages, king of Media, attacked Cyrus,[58] king of\nAnshan; which means that Cyrus was already a considerable and an\naggressive prince. Probably he had united by this time the two\ndomains of his house, Persia and Anshan, under his own sceptre, and\nsecured as his lieutenant Hystaspes, his cousin, the lineal king of\nPersia. The Mede, looking south and east from Ecbatana, saw a solid\nfront opposed to him, and resolved to crush it before it grew more\nformidable. But the Aryans among the Medes, dissatisfied with so\nindolent a leader as Astyages, revolted to Cyrus, and so the latter,\nwith characteristic good fortune, easily became lord of Media. A\nlenient lord he made. He spared Astyages, and ranked the Aryan Medes\nsecond only to the Persians. But it took him till 546 to complete his\nconquest. When he had done so he stood master of Asia from the Halys\nto perhaps as far east as the Indus. He replaced the Medes in the\nthreefold power of Western Asia, and thus looked down on Babylon, as\nv. 25 says, _from the north_ (xli. 25).\n\nIn 545, Cyrus advanced upon Babylonia, and struck at the northern\nline of fortifications at Sippara. He was opposed by an army under\nBelshazzar, Bel-shar-uzzur, the son of Nabunahid, and probably by\nhis mother's side grandson of Nebuchadrezzar. Army or fortifications\nseem to have been too much for Cyrus, and there is no further mention\nof his name in the Babylonian annals till the year 538. It has been\nsuggested that Cyrus was aware of the discontent of the people with\ntheir ruler Nabunahid, and, with that genius which distinguished\nhis whole career for availing himself of the internal politics of\nhis foes, he may have been content to wait till the Babylonian\ndissatisfaction had grown riper, perhaps in the meantime fostering it\nby his own emissaries.\n\nIn any case, the attention of Cyrus was now urgently demanded on the\nwestern boundary of his empire, where Lydia was preparing to invade\nhim. Cr\u0153sus, king of Lydia, fresh from the subjection of the Ionian\nGreeks, and possessing an army and a treasure second to none in\nthe world, had lately asked of Solon, whether he was not the most\nfortunate of men; and Solon had answered, to count no man happy till\nhis death. The applicability of this advice to himself Cr\u0153sus must\nhave felt with a start, when, almost immediately after it, the news\ncame that his brother-in-law Astyages had fallen before an unknown\npower, which was moving up rapidly from the east, and already touched\nthe Lydian frontier at the Halys. Cr\u0153sus was thrown into alarm. He\neagerly desired to know Heaven's will about this Persian and himself,\nwho now stood face to face. But, in that heathen world, with its\nthousand shrines to different gods, who knew the will of Heaven?\nIn a fashion only possible to the richest man in the world, Cr\u0153sus\nresolved to discover, by sending a test-question, on a matter of fact\nwithin his own knowledge, to every oracle of repute: to the oracles\nof the Greeks at Miletus, Delphi, Ab\u00e6; to that of Trophonius; to the\nsanctuary of Amphiaraus at Thebes; to Dodona; and even to the far-off\ntemple of Ammon in Libya. The oracles of Delphi and Amphiaraus\nalone sent an answer, which in the least suggested the truth. \"To\nthe gods of Delphi and Amphiaraus, Cr\u0153sus, therefore, offered great\nsacrifices,--three thousand victims of every kind; and on a great\npile of wood he burned couches plated with gold and silver, golden\ngoblets, purple robes and garments, in the hope that he would thereby\ngain the favour of the god yet more.... And as the sacrifice left\nbehind an enormous mass of molten gold, Cr\u0153sus caused bricks to be\nmade, six palms in length, three in breadth and one in depth; in\nall there were 117 bricks.... In addition there was a golden lion\nwhich weighed ten talents. When these were finished, Cr\u0153sus sent\nthem to Delphi; and he added two very large mixing bowls, one of\ngold, weighing eight talents and a half and twelve min\u00e6, and one of\nsilver (the work of Theodorus of Samos, as the Delphians say, and\nI believe it, for it is the work of no ordinary artificer), four\nsilver jars, and two vessels for holy water, one of gold, the other\nof silver, circular casts of silver, a golden statue of a woman three\ncubits high, and the necklace and girdles of his queen.\"[59] We can\nunderstand, that for all this Cr\u0153sus got the best advice consistent\nwith the ignorance and caution of the priests whom he consulted. The\noracles told him that if he went against Cyrus he would destroy a\ngreat empire; but he forgot to ask, whether it was his own or his\nrival's. When he inquired a second time, if his reign should be long,\nthey replied: \"When a mule became king of the Medes,\" then he might\nfly from his throne; but again he forgot to consider that there might\nbe mules among men as among beasts.[60] At the same time, the oracles\ntempered their ambiguous prophecies with some advice of undoubted\nsense, for when he asked them who were the most powerful among the\nGreeks, they replied the Spartans, and to Sparta he sent messengers\nwith presents to conclude an alliance. \"The Laced\u00e6monians were\nfilled with joy; they knew the oracle which had been given Cr\u0153sus,\nand made him a friend and ally, as they had previously received many\nkindnesses at his hands.\"[61]\n\nThis glimpse into the preparations of Cr\u0153sus, whose embassies compassed\nthe whole civilised world, and whose wealth got him all that politics\nor religion could, enables us to realise the political and religious\nexcitement into which Cyrus' advent threw that generation. The oracles\nin doubt and ambiguous; the priests, the idol-manufacturers, and\nthe crowd of artisans, who worked in every city at the furniture of\nthe temple, in a state of unexampled activity, with bustle perhaps\nmost like the bustle of our government dockyards on the eve of war;\nhammering new idols together, preparing costly oblations, overhauling\nthe whole religious \"ordnance,\" that the gods might be propitiated and\nthe stars secured to fight in their courses against the Persian; rival\npoliticians practising conciliation, and bolstering up one another with\ncostly presents to stand against this strange and fatal force, which\nindifferently threatened them all. What a commentary Herodotus' story\nfurnishes upon the verses of this chapter, in which Jehovah contrasts\nthe idols with Himself. It may actually have been Cr\u0153sus and the Greeks\nwhom the prophet had in his mind when he wrote vv. 5-7: _The isles have\nseen, and they fear; the ends of the earth tremble: they draw near\nand they come. They help every man his neighbour, and to his brother\neach sayeth, Be strong. So carver encourageth smelter, smoother with\nhammer, smiter on anvil; one saith of the soldering, It is good: and\nhe fasteneth it with nails lest it totter._ The irony is severe, but\ntrue to the facts as Herodotus relates them. The statesmen hoped to\nkeep back Cyrus by sending sobbing messages to one another, Be of good\ncourage; the priests \"by making a particularly good and strong set of\ngods.\"[62]\n\nWhile the imbecility of the idolatries was thus manifest, and the\ngreat religious centres of heathendom were reduced to utter doubt\nthat veiled itself in ambiguity and waited to see how things would\nissue, there was one religion in the world, whose oracles gave no\nuncertain sound, whose God stepped boldly forth to claim Cyrus for\nHis own. In the dust of Babylonia lay the scattered members of a\nnation captive and exiled, a people civilly dead and religiously\ndegraded; yet it was the faith of this worm of a people, which\nwelcomed and understood Cyrus, it was the God of this people who\nclaimed to be his author. The forty-first chapter looks dreary and\nancient to the uninstructed eye, but let our imagination realise all\nthese things: the ambiguous priests, oracles that would not speak\nout, religions that had no articulate counsel nor comfort in face\nof the conqueror who was crushing up the world before him, but only\nsobs, solder and nails; and our heart will leap as we hear how God\nforces them all into judgement before Him, and makes His plea as loud\nand clear as mortal ear may hear. Clatter of idols, and murmur of\nmuffled oracles, filling all the world; and then, hark how the voice\nof JEHOVAH crashes His oracle across it all!\n\n_Keep silence towards Me, O Isles, and let the peoples renew their\nstrength: let them approach; then let them speak: to the Law let us\ncome._\n\n_Who hath stirred up from the sunrise Righteousness, calleth it to\nhis foot? He giveth to his face peoples, and kings He makes him to\ntrample; giveth_ them _as dust to his sword, as driven stubble to\nhis bow. He pursues them, and passes to peace a road that he comes\nnot with his feet. Who has wrought_ it _and done_ it? _Summoner of\ngenerations from the source,_[63] _I Jehovah the First, and with the\nLast; I am He._\n\nCr\u0153sus would have got a clear answer here, but it is probable that he\nhad never heard of the Hebrews or of their God.\n\nAfter this follows the satiric picture of the heathen world, which has\nalready been quoted. And then, after an interval during which Jehovah\nturns to His own people (vv. 8-20),--for whatever be His business or\nHis controversy, the Lord is mindful of His own,--He directs His speech\nspecially against the third class of the leaders of heathendom. He has\nlaughed the foolish statesmen and imagemakers out of court (vv. 5-7);\nHe now challenges, in ver. 21, the oracles and their priests.\n\nWe have seen what these were, which this vast heathen world--heathen\nbut human, convinced as we are that at the back of the world's life\nthere is a secret, a counsel and a governor, and anxious as we are\nto find them--had to resort to. Timid waiters upon time, whom not\neven the lavish wealth of a Cr\u0153sus could tempt from their ambiguity;\nprophets speechless in face of history; oracles of meaning as dark\nand shifty as their steamy caves at Delphi, of tune as variable\nas the whispering oak of Dodona; wily-tongued Greeks, masters of\nambiguous phrase, at Miletus, Ab\u00e6, and Thebes; Egyptian mystics in\nthe far off temple of \"Lybic Hammon,\"--these are what the prophet\nsees standing at the bar of history, where God is Challenger.\n\n_Bring here your case, saith Jehovah; apply your strong grounds, saith\nthe King of Jacob. Let them bring out and declare unto us what things\nare going to happen; the first things_[64] _announce what they are,\nthat we may set our heart on them, and know the issue of them; or the\nthings that are coming, let us hear them. Announce the things that are\nto come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. Yea, do good or\ndo evil, that we may stare and see it together. Lo! ye are nothing, and\nyour work is of nought; an abomination is he who chooseth you._\n\nWhich great challenge just means, Come and be tested by facts. Here\nis history needing an explanation, and running no one knows whither.\nProve your divinity by interpreting or guiding it. Cease your\nambiguities, and give us something we can set our minds to work upon.\nOr do something, effect something in history, be it good or be it\nevil,--only let it be patent to our senses. For the test of godhead\nis not ingenuity or mysteriousness, but plain deeds, which the senses\ncan perceive, and plain words, which the reason and conscience can\njudge. The insistance upon the senses and mental faculties of man\nis remarkable: _Make us hear them, that we may know, stare, see all\ntogether, set our mind to them._\n\nBut as we have learned from Herodotus, there was nobody in the world\nto answer such a challenge. Therefore Jehovah Himself answers it. He\ngives His explanation of history, and claims its events for His doing.\n\n_I have stirred up from the north, and he hath come; from the rising\nof the sun one who calleth upon My Name: and he shall trample satraps\nlike mortar, and as the potter treadeth out clay._\n\n_Who hath announced on-ahead_[65] _that we may know, and beforehand\nthat we may say, \"Right!\" Yea, there is none that announced, yea,\nthere is none that published, yea, there is none that heareth your\nwords._ But _a prediction_--or _predicter_, literally a _thing_ or\n_man on-ahead_ (r'ish\u00f4n corresponding to the me-r'osh of ver. 26)--_a\nprediction to Zion, \"Behold, behold them,\" and to Jerusalem a herald\nof good news--I am giving_. The language here comes forth in jerks,\nand is very difficult to render. _But I look and there is no man even\namong these, and no counsellor, that I might ask them and they return\nword. Lo, all of them vanity! and nothingness their works; wind and\nwaste their molten images._\n\n * * * * *\n\nLet us look a little more closely at the power of PREDICTION, on which\nJehovah maintains His unique and sovereign Deity against the idols.\n\nJehovah challenges the idols to face present events, and to give\na clear, unambiguous forecast of their issue. It is a debatable\nquestion, whether He does not also ask them to produce previous\npredictions of events happening at the time at which He speaks.\nThis latter demand is one that He makes in subsequent chapters; it\nis part of His prophet's argument in chs. xlv.-xlvi., that Jehovah\nintimated the advent of Cyrus by His servants in Israel long before\nthe present time. Whether He makes this same demand for previous\npredictions in ch. xli. depends on how we render a clause of ver. 22,\n_declare ye the former things_. Some scholars take _former things_\nin the sense, in which it is used later on in this prophecy, of\n_previous predictions_. This is very doubtful. I have explained in\na note, why I think them wrong; but even if they are right, and\nJehovah be really asking the idols to produce former predictions of\nCyrus' career, the demand is so cursory, it proves so small an item\nin His plea, and we shall afterwards find so many clearer statements\nof it, that we do better to ignore it now and confine ourselves to\nemphasizing the other challenge, about which there is no doubt,--the\nchallenge to take present events and predict their issue.[66] Cr\u0153sus\nhad asked the oracles for a forecast of the future. This is exactly\nwhat Jehovah demands in ver. 22, _declare unto us what things are\ngoing to happen_; in ver. 23, _declare the things that are to come\nhereafter, that we may know that ye are gods_; in ver. 26 (spoken\nfrom the standpoint of the subsequent fulfilment of the prediction),\n_who declared it on-ahead that we may know, and beforehand that we\nmay now say, \"Right!\" Yea, there is none that declared, yea, there\nis none that published, yea, there is none that heareth your words_.\nBut _a prediction unto Zion, \"Behold, behold them,\" and to Jerusalem\na herald of good news--I give. I give_ is emphatically placed at the\nend,--\"I Jehovah alone, through my prophets in Israel, give such a\nprediction and publisher of good news.\"\n\nWe scarcely require to remind ourselves, that this great challenge and\nplea are not mere rhetoric or idle boasting. Every word in them we\nhave seen to be true to fact. The heathen religions were, as they are\nhere represented, helpless before Cyrus, and dumb about the issue of\nthe great movements which the Persian had started. On the other hand,\nJehovah had uttered to His people all the meaning of the new stir and\nturmoil in history. We have heard Him do so in ch. xl. There He _gives\na herald of good news to Jerusalem_,--tells them of their approaching\ndeliverance, explains His redemptive purposes, proclaims a gospel. In\naddition, He has in this chapter accepted Cyrus for His own creation\nand as part of His purpose, and has promised him victory.\n\nThe God of Israel, then, is God, because He alone by His prophets\nclaims facts as they stand for His own deeds, and announces what\nshall become of them.\n\nDo not let us, however, fall into the easy but vulgar error of\nsupposing, that Jehovah claims to be God simply because He can\npredict. It is indeed prediction, which He demands from the\nheathen; for prediction is a minimum of godhead, and in asking it\nHe condescends to the heathen's own ideas of what a god should be\nable to do. When Cr\u0153sus, the heathen who of all that time spent most\nupon religion, sought to decide which of the gods was worthiest to\nbe consulted about the future and propitiated in face of Cyrus, what\ntest did he apply to them? As we have seen, he tested them by their\nability to predict a matter of fact: the god who told him what he,\nCr\u0153sus, should be doing on a certain day was to be his god. It is\nevident, that, to Cr\u0153sus, divinity meant to be able to divine. But\nthe God, who reveals Himself to Israel, is infinitely greater than\nthis. He is not merely a Being with a far sight into the future;\nHe is not only Omniscience. In the chapter preceding this one His\npower of prediction is not once expressed; it is lost in the two\nglories by which alone the prophet seeks to commend His Godhead to\nIsrael,--the glory of His power and the glory of His faithfulness.\nJehovah is Omnipotence, Creator of heaven and earth; He leads forth\nthe stars _by the greatness of His might_; Supreme Director of\nhistory, it is He _who bringeth princes to nothing_. But Jehovah is\nalso unfailing character: _the word of the Lord standeth for ever_;\nit is foolishness to say of Him that He has forgotten His people,\nor that _their right has passed_ from Him; He disappoints none who\nwait upon Him. Such is the God, who steps down from ch. xl. into the\ncontroversy with the heathen in ch. xli. If in the latter He chiefly\nmakes His claim to godhead to rest upon specimens of prediction,\nit is simply, as we have said, that He may meet the gods of the\nheathen before a bar and upon a principle, which their worshippers\nrecognise as practical and decisive. What were single predictions,\nhere and there, upon the infinite volume of His working, who by\nHis power could gather all things to serve His own purpose, and in\nHis faithfulness remained true to that purpose from everlasting to\neverlasting! The unity of history under One Will--this is a far more\nadequate idea of godhead than the mere power to foretell single\nevents of history. And it is even to this truth that Jehovah seeks\nto raise the unaccustomed thoughts of the heathen. Past the rude\nwonder, which is all that fulfilled predictions of fact can excite,\nHe lifts their religious sense to Himself and His purpose, as the one\nsecret and motive of all history. He not only claims Cyrus and Cyrus'\ncareer as His own work, but He speaks of Himself as _summoner of the\ngenerations from aforehand; I Jehovah, the First, and with the Last;\nI am He_. It is a consummate expression of godhead, which lifts us\nfar above the thought of Him as a mere divining power.\n\nNow, it is well for us--were it only for the great historic interest\nof the thing, though it will also further our argument--to take\nrecord here that, although this conception of the unity of life under\nOne Purpose and Will was still utterly foreign, and perhaps even\nunintelligible, to the heathen world, which the prophecy has in view,\nthe first serious attempt in that world to reach such a conception\nwas contemporary with the forty-first chapter of Isaiah. It is as\nminers feel, when, tunnelling from opposite sides of a mountain, they\nbegin to hear the noise of each other's picks through the dwindling\nrock. We, who have come down the history of Israel towards the great\nconsummation of religion in Christianity, may here cease for a moment\nour labours, to listen to the faint sound from the other side of the\nwall, still separating Israel from Greece, of a witness to God and an\nargument against idolatry similar to those with which we have been\nworking. Who is not moved by learning, that, in the very years when\nJewish prophecy reached its most perfect statement of monotheism,\npouring its scorn upon the idols and their worshippers, and in the\nvery _Isles_ on which its hopes and influence were set, the first\nGreek should be already singing, who used his song to satirize\nthe mythologies of his people, and to celebrate the unity of God?\nAmong the Ionians, whom Cyrus' invasion of Lydia and of the \u00c6gean\ncoast in 544 drove across the seas, was Xenophanes of Colophon.[67]\nAfter some wanderings he settled at Elea in South Italy, and became\nthe founder of the Eleatic school, the first philosophic attempt\nof the Greek mind to grasp the unity of Being. How far Xenophanes\nhimself succeeded in this attempt is a matter of controversy. The\nfew fragments of his poetry which are extant do not reveal him as a\nphilosophical monotheist, so much as a prophet of \"One greatest God.\"\nHis language (like that of the earlier Hebrew prophets in praising\nJehovah) apparently implies the real existence of lesser divinities:--\n\n \"One God, 'mongst both gods and men He is greatest,\n Neither in shape is He like unto mortals, nor thought.\"[68]\n\nXenophanes scorns the anthropomorphism of his countrymen, and the\nlawless deeds which their poets had attributed to the gods:--\n\n\"Mortals think the gods can be born, have their feelings, voice and\nform; but, could horses or oxen draw like men, they too would make\ntheir gods after their own image.\"[69]\n\n \"All things did Homer and Hesiod lay on the gods,\n Such as with mortals are full of blame and disgrace,\n To steal and debauch and outwit one another.\"[70]\n\nOur prophet, to whose eyes Gentile religiousness was wholly of the\ngross Cr\u0153sus kind, little suspected that he had an ally, with such\nkindred tempers of faith and scorn, among the very peoples to whom he\nyearns to convey his truth. But ages after, when Israel and Greece\nhad both issued into Christianity, the service of Xenophanes to the\ncommon truth was recounted by two Church writers--by Clement of\nAlexandria in his _Stromata_, and by Eusebius the historian in his\n_Pr\u00e6paratio Evangelica_.\n\nWe find, then, that monotheism had reached its most absolute expression\nin Israel in the same decade, in which the first efforts towards\nthe conception of the unity of Being were just starting in Greece.\nBut there is something more to be stated. In spite of the splendid\nprogress, which it pursued from such beginnings, Greek philosophy\nnever reached the height on which, with Second Isaiah, Hebrew prophecy\nalready rests; and the reason has to do with two points on which we\nare now engaged,--the omnipotence and the righteousness of God.\n\nProfessor Pfleiderer remarks: \"Even in the idealistic philosophy of\nthe Greeks ... matter remains, however sublimated, an irrational\nsomething, with which the Divine power can never come to terms.\nIt was only in the consciousness, which the prophets of Israel\nhad of God, that the thought of the Divine omnipotence fully\nprevailed.\"[71] We cannot overvalue such high and impartial testimony\nto the uniqueness of the Hebrew doctrine of God, but it needs to be\nsupplemented. To the prophets' sense of the Divine omnipotence, we\nmust add their unrivalled consciousness of the Divine character. To\nthem Jehovah is not only the _Holy_, the incomparable God, almighty\nand sublime; He is also the true, consistent God. He has a great\npurpose, which He has revealed of old to His people, and to which\nHe remains for ever faithful. To express this the Hebrews had one\nword,--the word we translate _righteous_. We should often miss our\nprophet's meaning, if by _righteousness_ we understood some of\nthe qualities to which the term is often applied by us: if, for\ninstance, we used it in the general sense of morality, or if we gave\nit the technical meaning, which it bears in Christian theology, of\njustification from guilt. We shall afterwards devote a chapter to\nthe exposition of its meaning in Second Isaiah, but let us here look\nat its use in ch. xli. In ver. 26, it is applied to the person whose\nprediction turns out to be correct: men are to say of him \"_right_\"\nor \"_righteous_.\" Here it is evident that the Hebrew--ssadd\u00eeq--is\nused in its simplest meaning, like the Latin rectus, and our \"right,\"\nof what has been shown to be in accordance with truth or fact. In\nver. 2, again, though the syntax is obscure, it seems to have the\ngeneral sense of _good faith with the ability to ensure success_.\nRighteousness is here associated with Cyrus, because he has not been\ncalled for nothing, but in good faith for a purpose which will be\ncarried through. Jehovah's righteousness, then, will be His trueness,\nHis good faith, His consistency; and indeed this is the sense which\nit must evidently bear in ver. 10. Take it with the context: _But\nthou, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham\nwho loved Me, whom I took hold of from the ends of the earth and\nits corners, I called thee and said unto thee, Thou art My servant.\nI have chosen thee, and will not cast thee away. Fear not, for I\nam with thee. Look not round in despair, for I am thy God. I will\nstrengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with\nthe right hand of My righteousness_. Here _righteousness_ evidently\nmeans that Jehovah will act _in good faith_ to the people He has\ncalled, that He will act _consistently_ with His anciently revealed\npurpose towards them. Hitherto Israel has had nothing but the memory\nthat God called them, and the conscience that He chose them. Now\nJehovah will vindicate this conscience in outward fact. He will carry\nthrough His calling of His people, and perform His promise. How He\nwill do this, He proceeds to relate. Israel's enemies shall become as\nnothing (vv. 11, 12). Israel himself, though a poor worm of a people,\nshall be changed to the utmost conceivable opposite of a worm--even\n_a sharp threshing instrument having teeth_--a people who shall leave\ntheir mark on the world. They shall overcome all difficulties and\n_rejoice in Jehovah_. Their redemption shall be accomplished in a\nseries of evident facts. _The poor and the needy are seeking water,\nand there is none, their tongue faileth for thirst; I, Jehovah, will\nanswer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them._ And this\nshall be done on such a scale, that all the world will wonder and\nbe convinced, vv. 18-19: _I will open on the bare heights rivers,\nand in the midst of the plains fountains. I will make the desert a\npool of water, and the dry ground water-springs. I will plant in the\nwilderness cedars and acacias and myrtles and oil-trees; I will plant\nin the desert pines, planes and sherbins together._ Do not let us\nspoil the meaning of this passage by taking these verses literally,\nor even as illustrative of the kind of restoration which Israel was\nto enjoy. This vast figure of a well-watered and planted desert the\nprophet uses rather to illustrate the scale on which the Restoration\nwill take place: its evident extent and splendour. _That they may\nsee and know and consider and understand together, that Jehovah hath\ndone this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it._ The whole\npassage, then, tells us what God means by His righteousness. It is\nHis fidelity to His calling of Israel, and to His purpose with His\npeople. It is the quality by which He cannot forsake His own, but\ncarries through and completes His promises to them; by which He\nvindicates and justifies, in facts so large that they are evident to\nall mankind, His ancient word by His prophets.[72]\n\nThis lengthened exposition will not have been in vain, if it has made\nclear to us, that Hebrew monotheism owed its unique quality to the\nemphasis, which the prophets laid upon the two truths of the Power\nand the Character of God. There was One Supreme Being, infinite\nin might, and with one purpose running down the ages, which He had\nplainly revealed, and to which He remained constant. The people,\nwho knew this, did not need to wait for the fulfilment of certain\ntest-predictions before trusting Him as the One God. Test-predictions\nand their fulfilment might be needful for the heathen, from whose\nminds the idea of One Supreme Being with such a character had\nvanished; the heathen might need to be convinced by instances of\nJehovah's omniscience, for omniscience was the most Divine attribute\nof which they had conceived. But Israel's faith rested upon glories\nin the Divine nature of which omniscience was the mere consequence.\nIsrael knew God was Almighty and All-true, and that was enough.\n\n\n NOTE UPON JEHOVAH'S CLAIM TO CYRUS.\n\n In ver. 25 a phrase is used of Cyrus which is very obscure, and\n to which, considering its vagueness even upon the most definite\n construction, far too much importance has been attached. The\n meaning of the words, the tenses, the syntax--perhaps even the\n original text itself--of this verse are uncertain. The English\n revisers give, _I have raised up one from the north, and he\n is come; from the rising of the sun one that calleth upon My\n Name_. This is probably the true syntax.[73] But in what tense\n is the verb _to call_, and what does _calling upon My name_\n mean? In the Old Testament the phrase is used in two senses,--to\n _invoke or adore_, and to _proclaim_ or _celebrate the name_\n of a person.[74] As long as scholars understood that Cyrus was\n a monotheist, there was a temptation to choose the former of\n these meanings, and to find in the verse Jehovah's claim upon\n the Persian, as a worshipper of Himself, the One True God. But\n this interpretation received a shock from the discovery of a\n proclamation of Cyrus after his entry into Babylon, in which\n he invokes the names of Babylonian deities, and calls himself\n their \"servant.\"[75] Of course his doing so in the year 538 does\n not necessarily discredit a description of him as a monotheist\n eight years before. Between 548 and 546--the probable date of\n ch. xli.--a prophet might in all good faith have hailed as a\n worshipper of Jehovah a Persian who still stood in the _rising\n of the sun_,--who had not yet issued from the east and its\n radiant repute of a religion purer than the Babylonian; although\n eight years afterwards, from motives of policy, the same king\n acknowledged the gods of his new subjects. This may be; but\n there is a more natural way out of the difficulty. Is it fair\n to lay upon the expression, _calleth on My name_, so precise a\n meaning as that of a strict monotheism? Some have turned to the\n other use of the verb, and, taking it in the future tense, have\n translated, _who shall proclaim_ or _celebrate My name_,--which\n Cyrus surely did, when, in the name of Jehovah, he drew up\n the edict for the return of the Jews to Palestine.[76] But do\n we need to put even this amount of meaning upon the phrase?\n In itself it is vague, but it also stands parallel to another\n vague phrase: _I have raised up one from the north, and he is\n come; from the sunrising one who calleth on My name._ Taken\n in apposition to the phrase _he is come, calleth on My name_\n may mean no more than that, answering to the instigation of\n Jehovah, and owning His impulse, Cyrus by his career proclaimed\n or celebrated Jehovah's name. In any case, we have said enough\n to show that, in our comparative ignorance of what Cyrus' faith\n was, and in face of the elastic use of the phrase _to call on\n the name of_, it is quite unwarrantable to maintain that the\n prophet must have meant a strict monotheist, and therefore\n absurd to draw the inference that the prophet was incorrect.\n A way has been attempted out of the difficulty by slightly\n altering the text, and so obtaining the version, _I have raised\n up one from the north, and he is come; from the sunrise I call\n him by name_.[77] This is a change which is in harmony with ch.\n xlv. 3, 4, but has otherwise no evidence in its favour.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[49] Media simply means \"the country.\" It is supposed, that of the\nsix Median tribes only one was Aryan, holding the rest, which were\nTuranian, under its influence.\n\n[50] There were, besides, a few small independent powers in Asia\nMinor, such as Cilicia, whose prince also intervened at the Battle of\nthe Eclipse; and the Ionian cities in the west. But all these, with\nperhaps the exception of Lycia, were brought into subjection to Lydia\nby Cr\u0153sus, son of Alyattis.\n\n[51] Vol. i., p. 92.\n\n[52] Other passages are: xli. 5, _Isles saw and feared, the ends of\nthe earth trembled_; xlii. 10, _The sea and its fulness, Isles and\ntheir dwellers_; lix. 18, _He will repay, fury to His adversaries,\nrecompence to His enemies: to the Isles He will repay recompence_;\nlxvi. 19, _The nations, Tarshish, Pul, Lud, drawers of the bow,\nTubal, Javan, the Isles afar off that have not heard my fame_. The\nHebrew is \u05d9\u05d0 '\u00ee, and is supposed to be from a root \u05d0\u05d5\u05d4 awah, _to\ninhabit_, which sense, however, never attaches to the verb in Hebrew,\nbut is borrowed from the cognate Arabic word.\n\n[53] Of the Philistine coast, Isa. xx. 6; of the Tyrian coast, Isa.\nxxiii. 2, 6; of Greece, Ezek. xxvii. 7; of Crete, Jer. xlvii. 4; of\nthe islands of the sea, Isa. xi. 11 and Esther x. 1.\n\n[54] xlii. 15: Eng. version, _I will turn rivers into islands_.\n\n[55] _Anabasis_ 2, 4.\n\n[56] There were two branches of the Persian royal family after\nTeispes, the son of Akh\u00e6menes, the founder. Teispes annexed Anshan\non the level land between the north-east corner of the Persian Gulf\nand the mountains of Persia. Teispes' eldest son, Cyrus I., became\nking of Anshan; his other, Ariaramnes, king of Persia. These were\nsucceeded by their sons, Kambyses I. and Arsames. Kambyses I. was the\nfather of Cyrus II., the great Cyrus, who rejoined Persia to Anshan,\nto the exclusion of his second cousin, Hystaspes. Cyrus the Great was\nsucceeded by his son, Kambyses II., with whom the Anshan line closed,\nand the power was transferred to Darius, son of Hystaspes. _Cf._\nRagozin's _Media_, in the \"Story of the Nations\" series.\n\n[57] Hal\u00e9vy, \"Cyrus et le Retour de l'Exil,\" _\u00c9tudes Juives_, I.\n\n[58] Inscription of Nabunahid.\n\n[59] Herodotus, Book I.\n\n[60] Herodotus explains this by his legend of Cyrus' birth, according\nto which Cyrus was a hybrid--half Persian, half Mede.\n\n[61] Herodotus, Book I.\n\n[62] Sir Edward Strachey.\n\n[63] Lit. _from the head_, \"da capo.\" I am not sure, however, that it\ndoes not rather mean _beforehand_, like our on ahead.\n\n[64] See p. 121.\n\n[65] This seems to me to be more likely to be the meaning of the\nprophet, than the absolute _from the beginning_. It suits its\nparallel _beforehand_, and it is more in line with the general demand\nof the chapter for anticipation of events. It is literally from the\nhead, \"da capo,\" _cf._ p. 117.\n\n[66] \u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea r'ishon\u00f4th is a relative term, meaning _head things_,\n_things ahead_, _first things_, _prior things_, whether in rank\nor time. Here of course the time meaning is undoubted. But _ahead\nof_ what? _prior_ to what?--this is the difficulty. Ewald, Hitzig,\nA. B. Davidson, Driver, etc., take it as prior to the standpoint\nof the speaker; things that happened or were uttered previous to\nhim,--a sense in which the word is used in subsequent chapters. But\nDelitzsch, Hahn, Cheyne, etc., take it to be things prior to other\nthings that will happen in the later future, early events, as opposed\nto \u05d4\u05d1\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea of the next clause, which they take to mean subsequent\nthings, _things that are to come_ afterwards. I think Dr. Davidson's\nreasons (see _Expositor_, second series, vol. vii., p. 256) are quite\nconclusive against this view of Delitzsch, that in this clause the\nidols are being asked to predict events in the near future. It is\ndifficult, as he says, to see why the idols should be given a choice\nbetween the earlier and the later future: nor does the \u05d4\u05d1\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea of the\ncontrasted clause at all suggest a later future; it simply means\n_things coming_, a term which is as applicable to the near as to the\nfar future. Nevertheless, I am not persuaded that Dr. Davidson's own\nview of _r'ishon\u00f4th_ is the correct one. The rest of the context\n(see above) is occupied with predictions of the future only. And\n_r'ishon\u00f4th_ does not necessarily mean previous predictions, although\nused in this sense in the subsequent chapters. It simply means, as\nwe have seen, _head things_, _things ahead_, _things beforehand_, or\n_fountain-things_, _origins_, _causes_. That we are to understand it\nhere in some such general and absolute sense is suggested, I think,\nby the word \u05d0\u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea\u05df which follows it, _their result_ or _issue_, and\nis confirmed by \u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05d5\u05df, r'ish\u00f4n (masc. singular) of ver. 27, which is\nundoubtedly used in a general sense, meaning _something_ or _somebody\non ahead_, an anticipator, predicter, _forerunner_ (as Cheyne\ngives it), or as I have rendered it above, neuter, a _prediction_.\nIf _r'ish\u00f4n_ in ver. 27 means a thing or a man given beforehand,\nthen r'ishon\u00f4th in ver. 22 may also mean things given beforehand,\npredictions made now, or at least things selected and announced as\ncauses now, whose issue, \u05d0\u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea\u05df, may be recognised in the future. In\na word, r'ishon\u00f4th would mean things not necessarily _previous_ to\nthe speech in which they were allowed, but simply things _previous_\nto certain results, or anticipating certain events, either as their\nprediction or as their cause.\n\n[67] Ueberweg, _History of Philosophy_, English translation, i., 51.\n\n[68] Quoted by Clement of Alexandria, _Stromata_, Bk. V., ch. iv.,\nand by Eusebius, _Pr\u00e6p. Evang._ xiii., 13.\n\n[69] Ibid.\n\n[70] Quoted by Ueberweg, as above.\n\n[71] Pfleiderer, _Philosophy of Religion: Contents of the Religious\nConsciousness_, ch. i. (Eng. trans., vol. iii., p. 291).\n\n[72] See further on the subject the chapter on the Righteousness of\nIsrael and of God, Chapter XIV. of this volume.\n\n[73] And that which runs: _... he is come, from the rising of the sun\nhe calleth upon My name_ (Bredenkamp) is wrong.\n\n[74] The former of these in ch. lxiv. 7; the latter in xliv. 5.\n\n[75] Translation of the Cyrus-cylinder in \"Cyrus et le Retour de\nl'Exil,\" by Hal\u00e9vy, _Revue des \u00c9tudes Juives_, No. 1, 1880.\n\n[76] Ezra i. 2; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23.\n\n[77] \u05d1\u05e9\u05de\u05d5 \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0\u05d0 for \u05d1\u05e9\u05de\u05d9 \u05d9\u05e7\u05b9\u05e8\u05d0.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n _THE PASSION OF GOD._\n\n ISAIAH xlii. 13-17.\n\n\nAt the beginning of ch. xlii. we reach one of those distinct stages,\nthe frequent appearance of which in our prophecy assures us, that,\nfor all its mingling and recurrent style, the prophecy is a unity\nwith a distinct, if somewhat involved, progress of thought. For\nwhile chs. xl. and xli. establish the sovereignty and declare the\ncharacter of the One True God before His people and the heathen, ch.\nxlii. takes what is naturally the next step, of publishing to both\nthese classes His Divine will. This purpose of God is set forth in\nthe first seven verses of the chapter. It is identified with a human\nFigure, who is to be God's agent upon earth, and who is styled _the\nServant of Jehovah_. Next to Jehovah Himself, the Servant of Jehovah\nis by far the most important personage within our prophet's gaze.\nHe is named, described, commissioned and encouraged over and over\nagain throughout the prophecy; his character and indispensable work\nare hung upon with a frequency and a fondness almost equal to the\nsteadfast faith, which the prophet reposes in Jehovah Himself. Were\nwe following our prophecy chapter by chapter, now would be the time\nto put the question, Who is this Servant, who is suddenly introduced\nto us? and to look ahead for the various and even conflicting\nanswers, which rise from the subsequent chapters. But we agreed, for\nclearness' sake,[78] to take all the passages about the Servant,\nwhich are easily detached from the rest of the prophecy, and treat\nby themselves, and to continue in the meantime our prophet's main\ntheme of the Power and Righteousness of God as shown forth in the\ndeliverance of His people from Babylon. Accordingly, at present we\npass over xlii. 1-9, keeping this firmly in mind, however, that\nGod has appointed for His work upon earth, including, as it does,\nthe ingathering of His people and the conversion of the Gentiles,\na Servant,--a human figure of lofty character and unfailing\nperseverance, who makes God's work of redemption his own, puts his\nheart into it, and is upheld by God's hand. God, let us understand,\nhas committed His cause upon earth to a human agent.\n\nGod's commission of His Servant is hailed by a hymn. Earth answers\nthe proclamation of the _new things_ which the Almighty has declared\n(ver. 9) by _a new song_ (vv. 10-13). But this song does not sing of\nthe Servant; its subject is Jehovah Himself.\n\n _Sing to Jehovah a new song,_\n _His praise from the end of the earth;_\n _Ye that go down to the sea, and its fulness,_\n _Isles, and their dwellers!_\n _Let be loud,--the wilderness and its townships,_\n _Villages that Kedar inhabits!_\n _Let them ring out,--the dwellers of Sela!_\n _From the top of the hills let them shout!\n Let them give to Jehovah the glory,_\n _And publish His praise in the Isles!_\n _Jehovah as hero goes forth,_\n _As a man of war stirs up zeal,_\n _Shouts the alarm and battle cry,_\n _Against his foes proves Himself hero._\n\nThe terms of the last four lines are military. Most of them will be\nfound in the historical books, in descriptions of the onset of Israel's\nbattles with the heathen. But it is no human warrior to whom they are\nhere applied. They who sing have forgotten the Servant. Their hearts\nare warm only with this, that Jehovah Himself will come down to earth\nto give the alarm, and to bear the brunt of the battle. And to such a\nhope He now responds, speaking also of Himself and not of the Servant.\nHis words are very intense, and glow and strain with inward travail.\n\n _I have long time kept my peace,_\n _Am dumb and hold myself in:_\n _Like a woman in travail I gasp,_\n _Pant and palpitate together._\n\nRemember it is God who speaks these words of Himself, and then think\nwhat they mean of unshareable thought and pain, of solitary yearning\nand effort. But from the pain comes forth at last the power.\n\n _I waste mountains and hills,_\n _And all their herb I parch;_\n _And I have set rivers for islands,_\n _And marshes I parch._\n\nYet it is not the passion of a mere physical effort that is in God;\nnot mere excitement of war that thrills Him. But the suffering of men\nis upon Him, and He has taken their redemption to heart. He had said\nto His Servant (vv. 6, 7): _I give thee ... to open the blind eyes,\nto bring out from prison the bound, from the house of bondage the\ndwellers in darkness._ But here He Himself puts on the sympathy and\nstrain of that work.\n\n _And I will make the blind to walk in a way they know not,\n By paths they know not I will guide them;\n Turn darkness before them to light,\n And serrated land to level.\n These are the things that I do, and do not remit them.\n They fall backwards, with shame are they shamed,\n That put trust in a Carving,\n That do say to a Cast, Ye are our Gods._[79]\n\nNow this pair of passages, in one of which God lays the work of\nredemption upon His human agent, and in another Himself puts on its\npassion and travail, are only one instance of a duality that runs\nthrough the whole of the Old Testament. As we repeatedly saw in the\nprophecies of Isaiah himself,[80] there is a double promise of the\nfuture through the Old Testament:--_first_, that God will achieve\nthe salvation of Israel by an extraordinary human personality, who\nis figured now as a King, now as a Prophet and now as a Priest; but,\n_second_ also, that God Himself, in undeputed, unshared power, will\ncome visibly to deliver His people and to reign over them. These two\nlines of prophecy run parallel, and even entangled, through the Old\nTestament, but within its bounds no attempt is made to reconcile\nthem. They pass from it still separate, to find their synthesis, as\nwe all know, in One of whom each is the incomplete prophecy. While\nconsidering the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, which run upon the\nfirst of these two lines, we pointed out, that, though standing in\nhistorical connection with Christ, they were not prophecies of His\ndivinity. Lofty and expansive as were the titles they attributed to\nthe Messiah, these titles did not imply more than an earthly ruler of\nextraordinary power and dignity. But we added that in the other and\nconcurrent line of prophecy, and especially in those well-developed\nstages of it which appear in Isa. xl.-lxvi., we should find the true\nOld Testament promise of the Deity in human form and tabernacling\namong men. We urged that, if the divinity of Christ was to be seen\nin the Old Testament, we should more naturally find it in the line\nof promise, which speaks of God Himself descending to battle and to\nsuffer by the side of men, than in the line that lifts a human ruler\nalmost to the right hand of God. We have now come to a passage, which\ngives us the opportunity of testing this connection, which we have\nalleged between the so-called anthropomorphism of the Old Testament,\nand the Incarnation, which is the glory of the New.\n\nWhen God presents Himself in the Old Testament as His people's\nSaviour, it is not always as Isaiah mostly saw Him, in awful power\nand majesty--a _King high and lifted up_, or _as coming from far,\nburning and thick-rising smoke, and overflowing streams; causing the\npeal of His voice to be heard, and the lighting down of His arm to be\nseen, in the fury of anger and devouring fire--bursting and torrent\nand hailstones_.[81] But in a large number of passages, of which\nthe one before us and the famous first six verses of ch. lxiii.\nare perhaps the most forcible, the Almighty is clothed with human\npassion and agony. He is described as loving, hating, showing zeal\nor jealousy, fear, repentance and scorn. He bides His time, suddenly\nawakes to effort, and makes that effort in weakness, pain and\nstruggle, so extreme that He likens Himself not only to a solitary\nman in the ardour of battle, but to a woman in her unshareable\nhour of travail. To use a technical word, the prophets in their\ndescriptions of God do not hesitate to be anthropopathic--imparting\nto Deity the passions of men.\n\nIn order to appreciate the full effect of this habit of the Jewish\nreligion, we must contrast it with some principles of that religion,\nwith which at first it seems impossible to reconcile it.\n\nNo religion more necessarily implies the spirituality of God than\ndoes the Jewish. It is true that in the pages of the Old Testament,\nyou will nowhere find this formally expressed. No Jewish prophet\never said in so many words what Jesus said to the woman of Samaria,\n_God is spirit_. In our own prophecy, _spirit_ is frequently used,\nnot to define the nature of God, but to express His power and\nthe effectiveness of His will. But the Jewish Scriptures insist\nthroughout upon the sublimity of God, or, to use their own term, His\nholiness. He is the Most High, Creator, Lord,--the Force and Wisdom\nthat are behind nature and history. It is a sin to make any image of\nHim; it is an error to liken Him to man. _I am God and not man, the\nHoly One._[82] We have seen how absolutely the Divine omnipotence and\nsublimity are expressed by our own prophet, and we shall find Him\nagain speaking thus: _My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are\nyour ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than\nthe earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than\nyour thoughts._[83] But perhaps the doctrine of our prophet which\nmost effectively sets forth God's loftiness and spirituality is his\ndoctrine of God's word. God has but to speak and a thing is created\nor a deed done. He calls and the agent He needs is there; He sets\nHis word upon him and the work is as good as finished. _My word that\ngoeth forth out of My mouth, it shall not return unto Me void, but\nit shall accomplish that which I please, and shall prosper in the\nthing whereto I sent it._[84] Omnipotence could not farther go. It\nwould seem that all man needed from God was a word,--the giving of a\ncommand, that a thing must be.\n\nYet it is precisely in our prophecy, that we find the most extreme\nascriptions to the Deity of personal effort, weakness and pain. The\nsame chapters which celebrate God's sublimity and holiness, which\nreveal the eternal counsels of God working to their inevitable ends\nin time, which also insist, as this very chapter does, that for the\nperformance of works of mercy and morality God brings to bear the\nslow creative forces that are in nature, or which again (as in other\nchapters) attribute all to the power of His simple word,--these same\nScriptures suddenly change their style and, after the most human\nmanner, clothe the Deity in the travail and passion of flesh. Why\nis it, that instead of aspiring still higher from those sublime\nconceptions of God to some consummate expression of His unity, as\nfor instance in Islam, or of His spirituality, as in certain modern\nphilosophies, prophecy dashes thus thunderously down upon our hearts\nwith the message, scattered in countless, broken words, that all this\nomnipotence and all this sublimity are expended and realised for men\nonly in passion and in pain?\n\nIt is no answer, which is given by many in our day, that after all the\nprophets were but frail men, unable to stay upon the high flight to\nwhich they sometimes soared, and obliged to sacrifice their logic to\nthe fondness of their hearts and the general habit of man to make his\ngod after his own image. No easy sneer like that can solve so profound\na moral paradox. We must seek the solution otherwise, and earnest minds\nwill probably find it along one or other of the two following paths.\n\n1. The highest moral ideal is not, and never can be, the\nrighteousness that is regnant, but that which is militant and\nagonizing. It is the deficiency of many religions, that while\nrepresenting God as the Judge and almighty executor of righteousness,\nthey have not revealed Him as its advocate and champion as well.\nChrist gave us a very plain lesson upon this. As He clearly\nshowed, when He refused the offer of all the kingdoms of the\nworld, the highest perfection is not to be omnipotence upon the\nside of virtue, but to be there as patience, sympathy and love.\nTo will righteousness, and to rule life from above in favour of\nrighteousness, is indeed Divine; but if these were the highest\nattributes of divinity, and if they exhausted the Divine interest in\nour race, then man himself, with his conscience to sacrifice himself\non behalf of justice or of truth,--man himself, with his instinct to\nmake the sins of others his burden, and their purity his agonizing\nendeavour, would indeed be higher than his God. Had Jehovah been\nnothing but the righteous Judge of all the earth, then His witnesses\nand martyrs, and His prophets who took to themselves the conscience\nand reproach of their people's sins, would have been as much more\nadmirable than Himself, as the soldier who serves his country on the\nbattle-field or lays down his life for his people is more deserving\nof their gratitude and more certain of their devotion, than the king\nwho equips him, sends him forth--and himself stays at home.\n\nThe God of the Old Testament is not such a God. In the moral warfare\nto which He has predestined His creatures, He Himself descends to\nparticipate. He is not abstract--that is, withdrawn--Holiness, nor\nmere sovereign Justice enthroned in heaven. He is One who _arises and\ncomes down_ for the salvation of men, who makes virtue His Cause and\nrighteousness His Passion. He is no whit behind the chiefest of His\nservants. No seraph burns as God burns with ardour for justice; no\nangel of the presence flies more swiftly than Himself to the front\nrank of the failing battle. The human Servant, who is pictured in our\nprophecy, is more absolutely identified with suffering and agonizing\nmen than any angel could be; but even he does not stand more closely\nby their side, nor suffer more on their behalf, than the God who sends\nhim forth. _For the Lord stirreth up jealousy like a man of war; in all\nHis people's affliction He is afflicted; against His enemies He beareth\nHimself as a hero._ So much from the side of righteousness.\n\n2. But take the equally Divine attribute of love. When a religion\naffirms that God is love, it gives immense hostages. What is love\nwithout pity and compassion and sympathy? and what are these but\nself-imposed weakness and pain? Christ has told us of the greatest\nlove. _Greater love than this hath no man, that a man lay down his\nlife for his friends_; and the cost and sacrifice in which He thus\noutmatched man is one that the prophets before He came did not\nhesitate to impute to God. As far as human language is adequate for\nsuch a task, they picture God's love for men as costing Him so much.\nHe painfully pleads for His people's loyalty; He travails in pain\nfor their new birth and growth in holiness; in all their affliction\nHe is afflicted; and He meets their stubbornness, not with the swift\nsentence of outraged holiness, but with longsuffering and patience, if\nso in the end He may win them. But the pain, that is thus essentially\ninseparable from love, reaches its acme, when the beloved are not only\nin danger but in sin, when not only the future of their holiness is\nuncertain, but their guilty past bars the way to any future at all.\nWe saw how Jeremiah's love thus took upon itself the conscience and\nreproach of Israel's sin; how much distress and anguish, how much\nsympathy and self-sacrificing labour, and at last how much hopeless\nendurance of the common calamity, that sin cost the noble prophet,\nthough he might so easily have escaped it all. Now even thus does God\ndeal with His people's sins; not only setting them in the light of His\nawful countenance, but taking them upon His heart; making them not only\nthe object of His hate, but the anguish and the effort of His love.\nJeremiah was a weak mortal, and God is the Omnipotent. Therefore, the\nissue of His agony shall be what His servant's never could effect,\nthe redemption of Israel from sin; but in sympathy and in travail the\nDeity, though omnipotent, is no whit behind the man.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe have said enough to prove our case, that the true Old Testament\nprophecy of the nature and work of Jesus Christ is found not so much\nin the long promise of the exalted human ruler, for whom Israel's\neyes looked, as in the assurance of God's own descent to battle with\nHis people's foes and to bear their sins. In this God, omnipotent,\nyet in His zeal and love capable of passion, who before the\nIncarnation was afflicted in all His people's affliction, and before\nthe Cross made their sin His burden and their salvation His agony, we\nsee the love that was in Jesus Christ. For Jesus, too, is absolute\nholiness, yet not far off. He, too, is righteousness militant at\nour side, militant and victorious. He, too, has made our greatest\nsuffering and shame His own problem and endeavour. He is anxious for\nus just where conscience bids us be most anxious about ourselves. He\nhelps us, because He feels when we feel our helplessness the most.\nNever before or since in humanity has righteousness been perfectly\nvictorious as in Him. Never before or since, in the whole range of\nbeing, has any one felt as He did all the sin of man with all the\nconscience of God. He claims to forgive, as God forgives; to be\nable to save, as we know only God can save. And the proof of these\nclaims, apart from the experience of their fulfilment in our own\nlives, is that the same infinite love was in Him, the same agony and\nwillingness to sacrifice Himself for men, which we have seen made\nevident in the Passion of God.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[78] See Introduction.\n\n[79] So the grammar of the original.\n\n[80] Vol. i., pp. 144, 334.\n\n[81] Isa. xxxi.\n\n[82] Hosea xi. 9.\n\n[83] Ch. lv. 8, 9.\n\n[84] _Ibid._ ver. 11.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n _FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION._\n\n ISAIAH xliii.-xlviii.\n\n\nWe have now surveyed the governing truths of Isa. xl.-xlviii.: the\nOne God, omnipotent and righteous; the One People, His servants and\nwitnesses to the world; the nothingness of all other gods and idols\nbefore Him; the vanity and ignorance of their diviners, compared with\nHis power, who, because He has a purpose working through all history,\nand is both faithful to it and almighty to bring it to pass, can\ninspire His prophets to declare beforehand the facts that shall be.\nHe has brought His people into captivity for a set time, the end of\nwhich is now near. Cyrus the Persian, already upon the horizon, and\nthreatening Babylon, is to be their deliverer. But whomever He raises\nup on Israel's behalf, God is always Himself their foremost champion.\nNot only is His word upon them, but His heart is among them. He bears\nthe brunt of their battle, and their deliverance, political and\nspiritual, is His own travail and agony. Whomever else He summons on\nthe stage, He remains the true hero of the drama.\n\nNow, chs. xliii.-xlviii. are simply the elaboration and more urgent\noffer of all these truths, under the sense of the rapid approach of\nCyrus upon Babylon. They declare again God's unity, omnipotence\nand righteousness, they confirm His forgiveness of His people, they\nrepeat the laughter at the idols, they give us nearer views of Cyrus,\nthey answer the doubts that many orthodox Israelites felt about this\nGentile Messiah; chs. xlvi. and xlvii. describe Babylon as if on\nthe eve of her fall, and ch. xlviii., after Jehovah more urgently\nthan ever presses upon reluctant Israel to show the results of her\ndiscipline in Babylon, closes with a call to leave the accursed city,\nas if the way were at last open. This call has been taken as the mark\nof a definite division of our prophecy. But too much must not be put\nupon it. It is indeed the first call to depart from Babylon; but it\nis not the last. And although ch. xlix., and the chapters following,\nspeak more of Zion's Restoration and less of the Captivity, yet ch.\nxlix. is closely connected with ch. xlviii., and we do not finally\nleave Babylon behind till ch. lii. 12. Nevertheless, in the meantime\nch. xlviii. will form a convenient point on which to keep our eyes.\n\nCyrus, when we last saw him, was upon the banks of the Halys, 546 B.C.,\nstartling Cr\u0153sus and the Lydian Empire into extraordinary efforts,\nboth of a religious and political kind, to avert his attack. He had\njust come from an unsuccessful attempt upon the northern frontier of\nBabylon, and at first it appeared as if he were to find no better\nfortune on the western border of Lydia. In spite of his superior\nnumbers, the Lydian army kept the ground on which he met them in\nbattle. But Cr\u0153sus, thinking that the war was over for the season, fell\nback soon afterwards on Sardis, and Cyrus, following him up by forced\nmarches, surprised him under the walls of the city, routed the famous\nLydian cavalry by the novel terror of his camels, and after a siege\nof fourteen days sent a few soldiers to scale a side of the citadel\ntoo steep to be guarded by the defenders; and so Sardis, its king and\nits empire, lay at his feet. This Lydian campaign of Cyrus, which is\nrelated by Herodotus, is worth noting here for the light it throws on\nthe character of the man, whom according to our prophecy, God chose to\nbe His chief instrument in that generation. If his turning back from\nBabylonia, eight years before he was granted an easy entrance to her\ncapital, shows how patiently Cyrus could wait upon fortune, his quick\nmarch upon Sardis is the brilliant evidence that when fortune showed\nthe way, she found this Persian an obedient and punctual follower. The\nLydian campaign forms as good an illustration as we shall find of these\ntexts of our prophet: _He pursueth them, he passeth in safety; by a\nway he_ almost _treads not with his feet. He cometh upon satraps as on\nmortar, and as the potter treadeth upon clay_ (xli. 3, 25). _I have\nholden his right hand to bring down before him nations, and the loins\nof kings will I loosen_,--poor ungirt Cr\u0153sus, for instance, relaxing\nso foolishly after his victory!--_to open before him doors, and gates\nshall not be shut_,--so was Sardis unready for him,--_I go before thee,\nand will level the ridges; doors of brass I will shiver, and bolts of\niron cut in sunder. And I will give to thee treasures of darkness,\nhidden riches of secret places_ (xlv. 1-3). Some have found in this\nan allusion to the immense hoards of Cr\u0153sus, which fell to Cyrus with\nSardis.\n\nWith Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks,\nwho held the coast of the \u00c6gean, was bound to come into the Persian's\nhands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a long one. The\nGreeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a\nthreat, but the Persian laughed at it and it came to nothing. Indeed,\nSparta's message was only a temptation to this irresistible warrior to\ncarry his fortunate arms into Europe. His own presence, however, was\nrequired in the East, and his lieutenants found the thorough subjection\nof Asia Minor a task requiring several years. It cannot have well been\nconcluded before 540, and while it was in progress we understand why\nCyrus did not again attack Babylonia. Meantime, he was occupied with\nlesser tribes to the north of Media.\n\nCyrus' second campaign against Babylonia opened in 539. This time\nhe avoided the northern wall from which he had been repulsed in\n546. Attacking Babylonia from the east, he crossed the Tigris, beat\nthe Babylonian king into Borsippa, laid siege to that fortress and\nmarched on Babylon, which was held by the king's son, Belshazzar,\nBil-sar-ussur. All the world knows the supreme generalship by which\nCyrus is said to have captured Babylon without assaulting the walls\nfrom whose impregnable height their defenders showered ridicule upon\nhim; how he made himself master of Nebuchadrezzar's great bason at\nSepharvaim, and turned the Euphrates into it; and how, before the\nBabylonians had time to notice the dwindling of the waters in their\nmidst, his soldiers waded down the river bed, and by the river gates\nsurprised the careless citizens upon a night of festival. But recent\nresearch makes it more probable that her inhabitants themselves\nsurrendered Babylon to Cyrus.\n\nNow it was during the course of the events just sketched, but before\ntheir culmination in the fall of Babylon, that chs. xliii.-xlviii.\nwere composed. That, at least, is what they themselves suggest. In\nthree passages, which deal with Cyrus or with Babylon, some of the\nverbs are in the past, some in the future. Those in the past tense\ndescribe the calling and full career of Cyrus or the beginning of\npreparations against Babylon. Those in the future tense promise\nBabylon's fall or Cyrus' completion of the liberation of the Jews.\nThus, in ch. xliii. 14 it is written: _For your sakes I have sent\nto Babylon, and I will bring down as fugitives all of them, and\nthe Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing_. Surely these words\nannounce that Babylon's fate was already on the way to her, but not\nyet arrived. Again, in the verses which deal with Cyrus himself, xlv.\n1-6, which we have partly quoted, the Persian is already _grasped\nby his right hand by God, and called_; but his career is not over,\nfor God promises to do various things for him. The third passage is\nver. 13 of the same chapter, where Jehovah says, _I have stirred him\nup in righteousness, and_, changing to the future tense, _all his\nways will I level; he shall build My city, and My captivity shall he\nsend away_. What could be more precise than the tenor of all these\npassages? If people would only take our prophet at his word; if with\nall their belief in the inspiration of the text of Scripture, they\nwould only pay attention to its grammar, which surely, on their own\ntheory, is also thoroughly sacred, then there would be to-day no\nquestion about the date of Isa. xl.-xlviii. As plainly as grammar\ncan enable it to do, this prophecy speaks of Cyrus' campaign against\nBabylon as already begun, but of its completion as still future. Ch.\nxlviii., it is true, assumes events as still farther developed, but\nwe will come to it afterwards.\n\nDuring Cyrus' preparations, then, for invading Babylonia, and in\nprospect of her certain fall, chs. xliii.-xlviii. repeat with greater\ndetail and impetuosity the truths, which we have already gathered\nfrom chs. xl.-xlii.\n\n1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness\nand personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured\nby His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative.\nTo illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the\nchapters under consideration. _I, I Jehovah, and there is none beside\nMe a Saviour. I am God_--El. _Also from to-day on I am He._[85]\n_I will work, and who shall let it? I am Jehovah. I, I am He that\nblotteth out thy transgressions. I First, and I Last; and beside Me\nthere is no God_--Elohim. _Is there a God,_ Eloah, _beside Me? yea,\nthere is no Rock; I know not any. I Jehovah, Maker of all things.\nI am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside Me there is no God. I\nam Jehovah, and there is none else. Former of light and Creator of\ndarkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil, I am Jehovah, Maker\nof all these. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, God,_ Elohim,\n_beside Me, God-Righteous,_ El Ssadd\u00eeq, _and a Saviour: there is none\nexcept Me. Face Me, and be saved all ends of the earth; for I am\nGod,_ El, _and there is none else. Only in Jehovah--of Me shall they\nsay--are righteousnesses and strength. I am God,_ El, _and there is\nnone else; God,_ Elohim, _and there is none like Me. I am He; I am\nFirst, yea, I am Last. I, I have spoken. I have declared it._\n\nIt is of advantage to gather together so many passages--and they\nmight have been increased--from chs. xliii.-xlviii. They let us\nsee at a glance what a part the first personal pronoun plays in\nthe Divine revelation. Beneath every religious truth is the unity\nof God. Behind every great movement is the personal initiative\nand urgency of God. And revelation is, in its essence, not the\nmere publication of truths about God, but the personal presence\nand communication to men of God Himself. Three words are used for\nDeity--El, Eloah, Elohim--exhausting the Divine terminology. But\nbesides these, there is a formula which puts the point even more\nsharply: _I am He_. It was the habit of the Hebrew nation, and indeed\nof all Semitic peoples, who shared their reverent unwillingness\nto name the Deity, to speak of Him simply by the third personal\npronoun. The Book of Job is full of instances of the habit, and it\nalso appears in many proper names, as Eli-hu, \"My God-is-He,\" Abi-hu,\n\"My-Father-is-He.\" Renan adduces the practice as evidence that the\nSemites were \"naturally monotheistic,\"[86]--as evidence for what was\nnever the case! But if there was no original Semitic monotheism for\nthis practice to prove, we may yet take the practice as evidence\nfor the personality of the Hebrew God. The God of the prophets is\nnot the _it_, which Mr. Matthew Arnold so strangely thought he had\nidentified in their writings, and which, in philosophic language,\nthat unsophisticated Orientals would never have understood, he\nso cumbrously named \"a tendency not ourselves that makes for\nrighteousness.\" Not anything like this is the God, who here urges\nHis self-consciousness upon men. He says, _I am He_,--the unseen\nPower, who was too awful and too dark to be named, but about whom,\nwhen in their terror and ignorance His worshippers sought to describe\nHim, they assumed that He was a Person, and called Him, as they would\nhave called one of themselves, by a personal pronoun. By the mouth\nof His prophet this vague and awful _He_ declares Himself as _I, I,\nI_,--no mere tendency, but a living Heart and urgent Will, personal\ncharacter and force of initiative, from which all tendencies move and\ntake their direction and strength. _I am He._\n\nHistory is strewn with the errors of those, who have sought from\nGod something else than Himself. All the degradation, even of the\nhighest religions, has sprung from this, that their votaries forgot\nthat religion was a communion with God Himself, a life in the power\nof His character and will, and employed it as the mere communication\neither of material benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been\nthe mistake of millions to see in revelation nothing but the telling\nof fortunes, the recovery of lost things, decision in quarrels,\ndirection in war, or the bestowal of some personal favour. Such are\nlike the person, of whom St. Luke tells us, who saw nothing in Christ\nbut the recoverer of a bad debt: _Master, speak unto my brother that\nhe divide the inheritance with me_; and their superstition is as far\nfrom true faith as the prodigal's old heart, when he said, _Give\nme the portion of goods that falleth unto me_, was from the other\nheart, when, in his poverty and woe, he cast himself utterly upon his\nFather: _I will arise and go to my Father_. But no less a mistake do\nthose make, who seek from God not Himself, but only intellectual\ninformation. The first Reformers did well, who brought the common\nsoul to the personal grace of God; but many of their successors, in a\ncontroversy, whose dust obscured the sun and allowed them to see but\nthe length of their own weapons, used Scripture chiefly as a store\nof proofs for separate doctrines of the faith, and forgot that God\nHimself was there at all. And though in these days we seek from the\nBible many desirable things, such as history, philosophy, morals,\nformulas of assurance of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, maxims\nfor conduct, yet all these will avail us little, until we have found\nbehind them the living Character, the Will, the Grace, the Urgency,\nthe Almighty Power, by trust in whom and communion with whom alone\nthey are added unto us.\n\nNow the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign\nGod, was the deity of a little tribe. _I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am\nGod, I Jehovah am He._ We cannot too much impress ourselves with the\nhistorical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and\nEgypt with their large empires, Lydia with all her wealth, and the\nMedes with all their force; which was already feeling the possibilities\nof the great Greek life, and had the Persians, the masters of the\nfuture, upon its threshold,--it was the god of none of these, but\nof the obscurest tribe of their bondsmen, who claimed the Divine\nSovereignty for Himself; it was the pride of none of these, but the\nfaith of the most despised and, at its heart, most mournful religion of\nthe time, which offered an explanation of history, claimed the future\nand was assured that the biggest forces of the world were working for\nits ends. _Thus saith Jehovah, King of Israel, and his Redeemer Jehovah\nof Hosts, I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God. Is there\na God beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any._\n\nBy itself this were a cheap claim, and might have been made by any\nidol among them, were it not for the additional proofs by which it\nis supported. We may summarise these additional proofs as threefold:\nLaughter, Gospel and Control of History,--three marvels in the\nexperience of exiles. People, mournfullest and most despised, their\nmouths were to be filled with the laughter of Truth's scorn upon the\nidols of their conquerors. Men, most tormented by conscience and filled\nwith the sense of sin, they were to hear the gospel of forgiveness.\nNation, against whom all fact seemed to be working, their God told\nthem, alone of all nations of the world, that He controlled for their\nsake the facts of to-day and the issues of to-morrow.\n\n2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But\nwe have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these\ncrushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were\nimage worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men\nintellectually,--it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed,\ndegrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater\nand him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and\nsoul, One God, Maker of heaven and earth: it is a difference that is\nabsolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore,\nalthough the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world\nwith the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud\nfaces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of\nthe One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage.\nIts text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices\nthat utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its\ntone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in\nimpetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity\nof our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised.\n\n 1.\n\n _Formers of an idol are all of them waste,_\n _And their darlings are utterly worthless!_\n _And their confessors_[87]--_they! they see not and know not_\n Enough _to feel shame._\n _Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast?_\n _'Tis to be utterly worthless._\n _Lo! all that depend on't are shamed,_\n _And the gravers are less than men:_\n _Let all of them gather_ and _stand._\n _They quake and are shamed in the lump._\n\n 2.\n\n _Iron-graver_--he takes[88] _a chisel,_\n _And works with hot coals,_\n _And with hammers he moulds;_\n _And has done it with the arm of his strength._\n _--Anon hungers, and strength goes;_\n _Drinks no water, and wearies!_\n\n 3.\n\n _Wood-graver--he draws a line,_\n _Marks it with pencil,_\n _Makes it with planes,_\n _And with compasses marks it._\n _So has made it the build of a man,_\n _To a grace that is human--_\n _To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars._[89]\n\n 4.\n\n _Or one takes an ilex or oak,_\n _And picks for himself from the trees of the wood;_\n _One has planted a pine, and the rain makes it big,_\n _And 'tis there for a man to burn._\n _And one has taken of it, and been warmed;_\n _Yea, kindles and bakes bread,--_\n _Yea, works out a god, and has worshipped it!_\n _Has made it an idol, and bows down before it!_\n _Part of it burns he with fire,_\n _Upon part eats flesh,_\n _Roasts roast and is full;_\n _Yea, warms him and saith,_\n _\"Aha, I am warm, have seen fire!\"_\n _And the rest of it--to a god he has made--to his image!_\n _He bows to it, worships it, prays to it,_\n _And says, \"Save me, for my god art thou!\"_\n\n 5.\n\n _They know not and deem not!_\n _For He hath bedaubed, past seeing, their eyes,_\n _Past thinking, their hearts._\n _And none takes to heart,\n Neither has knowledge nor sense to say,_\n _\"Part of it burned I in fire--_\n _Yea, have baked bread on its coals,_\n _Do roast flesh that I eat,--_\n _And the rest o't, to a Disgust should I make it?_\n _The trunk of a tree should I worship?\"_\n _Herder of ashes,_[90] _a duped heart has sent him astray,_\n _That he cannot deliver his soul, neither say,_\n _\"Is there not a lie in my right hand?\"_\n\nIs not the prevailing note in these verses surprise at the mental\ncondition of an idol-worshipper? _They see not and know not_ enough\n_to feel shame. None takes it to heart, neither has knowledge nor\nsense to say, Part of it I have burned in fire ... and the rest,\nshould I make it a god?_ This intellectual confidence, breaking out\ninto scorn, is the second great token of truth, which distinguishes\nthe religion of this poor slave of a people.\n\n3. The third token is its moral character. The intellectual truth of\na religion would go for little, had the religion nothing to say to\nman's moral sense--did it not concern itself with his sins, had it\nno redemption for his guilt. Now, the chapters before us are full\nof judgement and mercy. If they have scorn for the idols, they have\ndoom for sin, and grace for the sinner. They are no mere political\nmanifesto for the occasion, declaring how Israel shall be liberated\nfrom Babylon. They are a gospel for sinners in all time. By this they\nfarther accredit themselves as a universal religion.\n\nGod is omnipotent, yet He can do nothing for Israel till Israel put\naway their sins. Those sins, and not the people's captivity, are the\nDeity's chief concern. Sin has been at the bottom of their whole\nadversity. This is brought out with all the versatility of conscience\nitself. Israel and their God have been at variance; their sin has\nbeen, what conscience feels the most, a sin against love. _Yet not\nupon Me hast thou called, O Jacob; how hast thou been wearied with\nMe, O Israel.... I have not made thee to slave with offerings, nor\nwearied thee with incense ... but thou hast made Me to slave with thy\nsins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities_ (xliii. 22-24). So\nGod sets their sins, where men most see the blackness of their guilt,\nin the face of His love. And now He challenges conscience. _Put Me\nin remembrance; let us come to judgement together; indict, that thou\nmayest be justified_ (ver. 26). But it had been agelong and original\nsin. _Thy father, the first had sinned; yea, thy representative\nmen_--literally _interpreters, mediators--had transgressed against\nMe. Therefore did I profane consecrated princes, and gave Jacob to\nthe ban, and Israel to reviling_ (vv. 27, 28). The Exile itself was\nbut an episode in a tragedy, which began far back with Israel's\nhistory. And so ch. xlviii. repeats: _I knew that thou dost deal very\ntreacherously, and Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee_\n(ver. 8). And then there comes the sad note of what might have been.\n_O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace\nbeen as the river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea_\n(ver. 18). As broad Euphrates thou shouldst have lavishly rolled, and\nflashed to the sun like a summer sea. But now, hear what is left.\n_There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked_ (ver. 22).\n\nAh, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no long-extinct\nvolcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by\nthe writings of the Exile. But they treat of man's perennial trouble;\nand conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned\nletters and figures with words we feel like swords. And therefore,\nstill, whether they be psalms or prophecies, they stand like some\nancient minster in the modern world,--where, on each new soiled day,\ntill time ends, the heavy heart of man may be helped to read itself,\nand lift up its guilt for mercy.\n\nThey are the confessional of the world, but they are also its gospel,\nand the altar where forgiveness is sealed. _I_, even _I, am He that\nblotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not\nremember thy sins. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I\nhave blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud\nthy sins; turn unto Me, for I have redeemed thee. Israel shall be\nsaved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be\nashamed nor confounded world without end._[91] Now, when we remember\nwho the God is, who thus speaks,--not merely One who flings the word\nof pardon from the sublime height of His holiness, but, as we saw,\nspeaks it from the midst of all His own passion and struggle under\nHis people's sins,--then with what assurance does His word come home\nto the heart. What honour and obligation to righteousness does the\npardon of such a God put upon our hearts. One understands why Ambrose\nsent Augustine, after his conversion, first to these prophecies.\n\n4. The fourth token, which these chapters offer for the religion\nof Jehovah, is the claim they make for it to interpret and to\ncontrol history. There are two verbs, which are frequently repeated\nthroughout the chapters, and which are given together in ch. xliii.\n12: _I have published and I have saved._ These are the two acts by\nwhich Jehovah proves His solitary divinity over against the idols.\n\nThe _publishing_, of course, is the same prediction, of which ch.\nxli. spoke. It is _publishing_ in former times things happening now;\nit is _publishing_ now things that are still to happen. _And who,\nlike Me, calls out and publishes it, and sets it in order for Me,\nsince I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming,\nand that shall come, let them publish. Tremble not, nor fear: did\nI not long ago cause thee to hear? and I published, and ye are My\nwitnesses. Is there a God beside Me? nay, there is no Rock; I know\nnone_ (xliv. 7, 8).\n\nThe two go together, the doing of wonderful and saving acts for His\npeople and the publishing of them before they come to pass. Israel's\npast is full of such acts. Ch. xliii. instances the delivery from\nEgypt (vv. 16, 17), but immediately proceeds (vv. 18, 19): _Remember\nye not the former things_--here our old friend ri'shon\u00f4th occurs\nagain, but this time means simply _previous events_--_neither\nconsider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; even\nnow it springs forth. Shall ye not know it? Yea, I will set in the\nwilderness a way, in the desert rivers._ And of this new event of the\nReturn, and of others which will follow from it, like the building\nof Jerusalem, the chapters insist over and over again, that they are\nthe work of Jehovah, who is therefore a Saviour God. But what better\nproof can be given, that these saving facts are indeed His own and\npart of His counsel, than that He foretold them by His messengers\nand prophets to Israel,--of which previous _publication_ His people\nare the witnesses. _Who among the peoples can publish thus, and let\nus hear predictions?_--again ri'shon\u00f4th, _things ahead_--_let them\nbring their witnesses, that they may be justified, and let them hear\nand say, Truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah_, to Israel\n(xliii. 9, 10). _I have published, and I have saved, and I have\nshewed, and there was no strange god among you; therefore_--because\nJehovah was notoriously the only God who had to do with them during\nall this prediction and fulfilment of prediction--_ye are witnesses\nfor Me, saith Jehovah, that I am God_ (_id._ ver. 12). The meaning\nof all this is plain. Jehovah is God alone, because He is directly\neffective in history for the salvation of His people, and because\nHe has published beforehand what He will do. The great instance of\nthis, which the prophecy adduces, is the present movement towards\nthe liberation of the people, of which movement Cyrus is the most\nconspicuous factor. Of this xlv. 19 ff. says: _Not in secret have\nI spoken, in a place of the land of darkness. I have not said to\nthe seed of Jacob, In vanity seek ye Me. I Jehovah am a speaker of\nrighteousness,_[92] _a publisher of things that are straight. Be\ngathered and come in; draw together, ye survivors of the nations:\nthey have no knowledge that carry about the log of their image, and\nare suppliants to a god that cannot save. Publish, and bring it here;\nnay, let them advise together; who made this to be heard_,--that is,\n_who published this_,--_of ancient time?_ Who _published this of old?\nI Jehovah, and there is none God beside Me: a God righteous_,--that\nis, consistent, true to His published word,--_and a Saviour, there is\nnone beside Me_. Here we have joined together the same ideas as in\nxliii. 12. There _I have declared and saved_ is equivalent to _a God\nrighteous and a Saviour_ here. _Only in Jehovah are righteousnesses_,\nthat is, fidelity to His anciently published purposes; _and\nstrength_, that is, capacity to carry these purposes out in history.\nGod is righteous because, according to another verse in the same\nprophecy (xliv. 26), _He confirmeth the word of His servant, and the\nadvice of His messengers He fulfilleth._\n\nNow the question has been asked, To what predictions does the\nprophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so\nevidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering\nthis question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the\nprophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify that\nunfounded belief, to which so many think it necessary to cling, that\nCyrus was actually named by a prophet of Jehovah years before he\nappeared. Had such a prediction existed, we can have no doubt that\nour prophet would now have appealed to it. No: he evidently refers\nonly to those numerous and notorious predictions by Isaiah, and by\nJeremiah, of the return of Israel from exile after a certain and\nfixed period. Those were now coming to pass.\n\nBut from this new day Jehovah also predicts for the days to come,\nand He does this very particularly, xliv. 26, _Who is saying of\nJerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They\nshall be built; and of her waste places, I will raise them up. Who\nsaith to the deep, Be dry, and thy rivers I will dry up. Who saith of\nKoresh, My Shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall fulfil: even saying\nof Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the Temple shall be founded._\n\nThus, backward and forward, yesterday, to-day and for ever, Jehovah's\nhand is upon history. He controls it: it is the fulfilment of His\nancient purpose. By predictions made long ago and fulfilled to-day,\nby the readiness to predict to-day what will happen to-morrow, He is\nsurely God and God alone. Singular fact, that in that day of great\nempires, confident in their resources, and with the future so near\ntheir grasp, it should be the God of a little people, cut off from\ntheir history, servile and seemingly spent, who should take the big\nthings of earth--Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba--and speak of them as counters\nto be given in exchange for His people; who should speak of such a\npeople as the chief heirs of the future, the indispensable ministers\nof mankind. The claim has two Divine features. It is unique, and\nhistory has vindicated it. It is unique: no other religion, in that\nor in any other time, has so rationally explained past history or\nlaid out the ages to come upon the lines of a purpose so definite,\nso rational, so beneficent--a purpose so worthy of the One God and\nCreator of all. And it has been vindicated: Israel returned to their\nown land, resumed the development of their calling, and, after the\ncenturies came and went, fulfilled the promise that they should be\nthe religious teachers of mankind. The long delay of this fulfilment\nsurely but testifies the more to the Divine foresight of the promise;\nto the patience, which nature, as well as history, reveals to be, as\nmuch as omnipotence, a mark of Deity.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThese, then, are the four points, upon which the religion of Israel\noffers itself. _First_, it is the force of the character and grace\nof a personal God; _second_, it speaks with a high intellectual\nconfidence, whereof its scorn is here the chief mark; _third_, it is\nintensely moral, making man's sin its chief concern; and _fourth_, it\nclaims the control of history, and history has justified the claim.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[85] _From to-day on_, Ez. xlviii. 35; but others take it _Also\nto-day I am He_.\n\n[86] Renan's theory of the \"natural monotheism\" of the Semites was\nfirst published in his _Histoire des Langues Semitiques_ some forty\nyears ago. Nearly every Semitic scholar of repute found some occasion\nor other to refute it. But with Renan's charming genius for neglecting\nall facts that disturb an artistic arrangement of his subject, the\noverwhelming evidence against the natural monotheism of the Semite\nhas been ignored by him, and he repeats his theory unmodified in his\n_Histoire du Peuple d'Israel_, i., 31, published 1888.\n\n[87] Literally _witnesses_--_i.e._, of the idols.\n\n[88] This word is wanting in the text, which is corrupt here. Some\nsupply the word sharpeneth, imagining that \u05d7\u05d3\u05d3 has fallen away from\nthe beginning of the verse, through confusion with the \u05d9\u05d7\u05d3 which ends\nthe previous verse; or they bring \u05d9\u05d7\u05d3 itself, changing it to \u05d7\u05d3\u05d3. But\nevidently \u05d1\u05e8\u05d6\u05dc \u05d7\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1 begins the verse; _cf._ the parallel \u05e2\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd \u05e8\u05e9\u05c1\u05d7\nwhich begins ver. 13.\n\n[89] Here, again, the text is uncertain. With some critics I have\nborrowed for this verse the first three words of the following verse.\n\n[90] Perhaps _feeder on ashes_.\n\n[91] Chs. xliii. 25; xliv. 21, 22; xlv. 17.\n\n[92] See ch. xiv. of this volume.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n\n _CYRUS._\n\n ISAIAH xli. 2, 25; xliv. 28-xlv. 13; xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.\n\n\nCyrus, the Persian, is the only man outside the covenant and people\nof Israel, who is yet entitled the LORD'S Shepherd, and the LORD'S\nMessiah or Christ. He is, besides, the only great personality, of\nwhom both the Bible and Greek literature treat at length and with\nsympathy. Did we know nothing more of him than this, the heathen who\nreceived the most sacred titles of Revelation, the one man in history\nwho was the cynosure of both Greece and Judah, could not fail to be\nof the greatest interest to us. But apart from the way, in which he\nimpressed the Greek imagination and was interpreted by the Hebrew\nconscience, we have an amount of historical evidence about Cyrus,\nwhich, if it dissipates the beautiful legends told of his origin\nand his end, confirms most of what is written of his character by\nHerodotus and Xenophon, and all of what is described as his career\nby the prophet whom we are studying. Whether of his own virtue, or\nas being the leader of a new race of men at the fortunate moment of\ntheir call, Cyrus lifted himself, from the lowest of royal stations,\nto a conquest and an empire achieved by only two or three others in\nthe history of the world. Originally but the prince of Anshan, or\nAnzan,[93]--a territory of uncertain size at the head of the Persian\nGulf,--he brought under his sway, by policy or war, the large and\nvigorous nations of the Medes and Persians; he overthrew the Lydian\nkingdom, and subjugated Asia Minor; he so impressed the beginnings\nof Greek life, that, with all their own great men, the Greeks never\nceased to regard this Persian as the ideal king; he captured Babylon,\nthe throne of the ancient East, and thus effected the transfer of\nempire from the Semitic to the Aryan stock. He also satisfied the\npeoples, whom he had beaten, with his rule, and organised his realms\nwith a thoroughness unequalled over so vast an extent till the rise\nof the Roman Empire.\n\nWe have scarcely any contemporary or nearly contemporary evidence\nabout his personality. But his achievements testify to extraordinary\ngenius, and his character was the admiration of all antiquity. To\nGreek literature Cyrus was the Prince pre-eminent,--set forth as\nthe model for education in childhood, self-restraint in youth, just\nand powerful government in manhood. Most of what we read of him in\nXenophon's _Cyrop\u00e6dia_ is, of course, romance; but the very fact,\nthat, like our own King Arthur, Cyrus was used as a mirror to flash\ngreat ideals down the ages, proves that there was with him native\nbrilliance and width of surface as well as fortunate eminence of\nposition. He owed much to the virtue of his race. Rotten as the\nlater Persians have become, the nation in those days impressed its\nenemies with its truthfulness, purity and vigour. But the man, who\nnot only led such a nation, and was their darling, but combined\nunder his sceptre, in equal discipline and contentment, so many\nother and diverse peoples, so many powerful and ambitious rulers,\ncannot have been merely the best specimen of his own nation's\nvirtue, but must have added to this, at least much of the original\nqualities--humanity, breadth of mind, sweetness, patience and genius\nfor managing men--which his sympathetic biographer imputes to him in\nso heroic a degree. It is evident that the _Cyrop\u00e6dia_ is ignorant of\nmany facts about Cyrus, and must have taken conscious liberties with\nmany more, but nobody--who, on the one hand, is aware of what Cyrus\neffected upon the world, and who, on the other, can appreciate that\nit was possible for a foreigner (who, nevertheless, had travelled\nthrough most of the scenes of Cyrus' career) to form this rich\nconception of him more than a century after his death--can doubt that\nthe Persian's character (due allowance being made for hero-worship)\nmust have been in the main as Xenophon describes it.\n\nYet it is very remarkable, that our Scripture states not one\nmoral or religious virtue as the qualification of this Gentile to\nthe title of _Jehovah's Messiah_. We search here in vain for any\ngleam of appreciation of that character, which drew the admiring\neyes of Greece. In the whole range of our prophecy there is not a\nsingle adjective, expressing a moral virtue, applied to Cyrus. The\n_righteousness_, which so many passages associate with his name, is\nattributed, not to him, but to God's calling of him, and does not\nimply justice or any similar quality, but is, as we shall afterwards\nsee when we examine the remarkable use of this word in Second Isaiah,\na mixture of good faith and thoroughness,--all-rightness.[94] The\none passage of our prophet, in which it has been supposed by some\nthat Jehovah makes a religious claim to Cyrus, as if the Persian were\na monotheist--_he calleth on My name_--is, as we have seen,[95] too\nuncertain, both in text and rendering, to have anything built upon\nit. Indeed, no Hebrew could have justly praised this Persian's faith,\nwho called himself the \"servant of Merodach,\" and in his public\nproclamations to Babylonia ascribed to the Babylonian gods his power\nto enter their city.[96] Cyrus was very probably the pious ruler,\ndescribed by Xenophon, but he was no monotheist. And our prophet\ndenies all religious sympathy between him and Jehovah, in words too\nstrong to be misunderstood: _I woo thee, though thou hast not known\nMe.... I gird thee, though thou hast not known Me_ (ch. xlv. 4, 5).\n\nOn what, then, is the Divine election of CYRUS grounded by our\nprophet, if not upon his character and his faith? Simply and barely\nupon God's sovereignty and will. That is the impressive lesson of\nthe passage: _I am Jehovah, Maker of everything; that stretch forth\nthe heavens alone, and spread the earth by Myself ... that say of\nKoresh, My shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall accomplish_ (xliv.\n24, 28). Cyrus is Jehovah's, because all things are Jehovah's; of\nwhatsoever character or faith they be, they are His and for His uses.\n_I am Jehovah, and there is none else: Former of light and Creator\nof darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil; I, Jehovah, Maker\nof all these._ God's sovereignty could not be more broadly stated.\nAll things, irrespective of their character, are from Him and for\nHis ends. But what end is dearer to the Almighty, what has He more\nplainly declared, than that His people[97] shall be settled again in\ntheir own land? For this He will use the fittest force. The return of\nIsrael to Palestine is a political event, requiring political power;\nand the greatest political power of the day is Cyrus. Therefore,\nby His prophet, the Almighty declares Cyrus to be His people's\ndeliverer, His own anointed. _Thus saith Jehovah to His Messiah, to\nKoresh: ... That thou mayest know that I am Jehovah, Caller of thee\nby thy name, God of Israel, for the sake of My servant Jacob and\nIsrael My chosen. And I have called thee by thy name. I have wooed\nthee, though thou hast not known Me_ (xlv. 1, 3, 4).\n\nNow to this designation of Cyrus, as the Messiah, great objections\nrose from Israel. We can understand them. People, who have fallen\nfrom a glorious past, cling passionately to its precedents. All\nthe ancient promises of a deliverer for Israel represented him as\nspringing from the house of David. The deliverance, too, was to have\ncome by miracle, or by the impression of the people's own holiness\nupon their oppressors. The LORD Himself was to have made bare His arm\nand Israel to go forth in the pride of His favour, as in the days of\nEgypt and the Red Sea. But this deliverer, who was announced, was\nalien to the commonwealth of Israel; and not by some miracle was the\npeople's exodus promised, but as the effect of his imperial word--a\nminor incident in his policy! The precedents and the pride of Israel\ncalled out against such a scheme of salvation, and the murmurs of the\npeople rose against the word of God.\n\nSternly replies the Almighty: _Woe to him that striveth with his\nMoulder, a potsherd among the potsherds of the ground! Saith clay to\nits moulder, What doest thou? or thy work_ of thee, _No hands hath he?\nWoe to him that saith to a father, What begettest thou? or to a woman,\nWith what travailest thou? Thus saith Jehovah, Holy of Israel and his\nMoulder: The things that are coming ask of Me; concerning My sons, and\nconcerning the work of My hands, command ye Me! I have made Earth,_[98]\n_and created man upon her: I, My hands, have stretched Heaven, and all\nits host have I ordered._ In that universal providence, this Cyrus is\nbut an incident. _I have stirred him up in righteousness, and all his\nways shall I make level. He_--emphatic--_shall build My City, and My\nCaptivity he shall send off--not for price and not for reward, saith\nJehovah of Hosts_ (xlv. 9-13).\n\nTo this bare fiat, the passages referring to Cyrus in ch. xlvi. and ch.\nxlviii. add scarcely anything. _I am God, and there is none like Me....\nWho say, My counsel shall stand, and all My pleasure will I perform.\nWho call from the sunrise a Bird-of-prey, from a land far-off the Man\nof My counsel. Yea, I have spoken, yea, I will bring it to pass. I have\nformed, yea, will do it_ (xlvi. 9, 10, 11). _Bird-of-prey_ here has\nbeen thought to have reference to the eagle, which was the standard of\nCyrus. But it refers to Cyrus himself. What God sees in this man to\nfulfil His purpose is swift, resistless force. Not his character, but\nhis swoop is useful for the Almighty's end. Again: _Be gathered, all of\nyou, and hearken; who among them hath published these things? Jehovah\nhath loved him: he will do His pleasure on Babel, and his arm_ shall\nbe on _the Chaldeans. I, I have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have\nbrought him, and will cause his way to prosper,_ or, _I will pioneer\nhis way_ (xlviii. 14, 15). This verb _to cause to prosper_ is one often\nused by our prophet, but nowhere more appropriately to its original\nmeaning, than here, where it is used of _a way_. The word signifies _to\ncut through_; then _to ford a river_--there is no word for bridge in\nHebrew; then _to go on well, prosper_.[99]\n\nIn all these passages, then, there is no word about character. Cyrus\nis neither chosen for his character nor said to be endowed with one.\nBut that he is there, and that he does so much, is due simply to\nthis, that God has chosen him. And what he is endowed with is force,\npush, swiftness, irresistibleness. He is, in short, not a character,\nbut a tool; and God makes no apology for using him but this, that he\nhas the qualities of a tool.\n\nNow we cannot help being struck with the contrast of all this, the\nHebrew view of Cyrus, with the well-known Greek views of him. To the\nGreeks he is first and foremost a character. Xenophon, and Herodotus\nalmost as much as Xenophon, are less concerned with what Cyrus did\nthan with what he was. He is the King, the ideal ruler. It is his\nsimplicity, his purity, his health, his wisdom, his generosity, his\nmoral influence upon men, that attract the Greeks, and they conceive\nthat he cannot be too brightly painted in his virtues, if so he may\nserve for an example to following generations. But bring Cyrus out\nof the light of the eyes of this hero-worshipping people, that light\nthat has so gilded his native virtues, into the shadow of the austere\nHebrew faith, and the brilliance is quenched. He still moves forcibly,\nbut his character is neutral. Scripture emphasizes only his strength,\nhis serviceableness, his success: _Whose right hand I have holden, to\nsubdue nations before him, and I will loosen the loins of kings; to\nopen doors before him, and gates shall not be shut. I will go before\nthee, and make the rugged places plain. I will shiver doors of brass,\nand bars of iron will I sunder_ (xlv. 1, 2). That Cyrus is doing a work\nin God's hand and for God's end, and therefore forcibly, and sure of\nsuccess--that is all the interest Scripture takes in Cyrus.\n\nObserve the difference. It is characteristic of the two nations. The\nGreek views Cyrus as an example; therefore cannot too abundantly\nmultiply his morality. The Hebrew views him as a tool; but with\na tool you are not anxious about its moral character, you only\ndesire to be convinced of its force and its fitness. The Greek mind\nis careful to unfold the noble humanity of the man,--a humanity\nuniversally and eternally noble. By the side of that imperishable\npicture of him, how meagre to Greek eyes would have seemed the\ntemporary occasion, for which the Hebrew claimed that Cyrus had been\nraised up--to lead the petty Jewish tribe back to their own obscure\ncorner of the earth. Herodotus and Xenophon, had you told them that\nthis was the chief commission of Cyrus from God, to restore the Jews\nto Palestine, would have laughed. \"Identify him, forsooth, with those\nprovincial interests!\" they would have said. \"He was meant, we lift\nhim up, for mankind!\"\n\nWhat judgement are we to pass on these two characteristic pictures of\nCyrus? What lessons are we to draw from their contrast?\n\nThey do not contradict, but in many particulars they corroborate\none another. Cyrus would not have been the efficient weapon in\nthe Almighty's hand, which our prophet panegyrises, but for that\nthoughtfulness in preparation and swift readiness to seize the\noccasion, which Xenophon extols. And nothing is more striking to one\nfamiliar with our Scriptures, when reading the _Cyrop\u00e6dia_, than\nthe frequency with which the writer insists on the success that\nfollowed the Persian. If to the Hebrew Cyrus was the called of God,\nupheld in righteousness, to the Greek he was equally conspicuous as\nthe favourite of fortune. \"I have always,\" Xenophon makes the dying\nking say, \"seemed to feel my strength increase with the advance of\ntime, so that I have not found myself weaker in my old age than in\nmy youth, nor do I know that I have attempted or desired anything in\nwhich I have not been successful.\"[100] And this was said piously,\nfor Xenophon's Cyrus was a devout servant of the gods.\n\nThe two views, then, are not hostile, nor are we compelled to choose\nbetween them. Still, they make a very suggestive contrast, if we put\nthese two questions about them: Which is the more true to historical\nfact? Which is the more inspiring example?\n\nWhich is the more true to historical fact? There is no difficulty\nin answering this: undoubtedly, the Hebrew. It has been of far\nmore importance to the world that Cyrus freed the Jews than that\nhe inspired the _Cyrop\u00e6dia_. That single enactment of his, perhaps\nonly one of a hundred consequences of his capture of Babylon, has\nhad infinitely greater results than his character, or than its\nmagnificent exaggeration by Greek hero-worship. No one who has read\nthe _Cyrop\u00e6dia_--out of his school-days--would desire to place it\nin any contrast, in which its peculiar charm would be shadowed,\nor its own modest and strictly-limited claims would not receive\njustice. The charm, the truth of the _Cyrop\u00e6dia_, are eternal; but\nthe significance they borrow from Cyrus--though they are as much\ndue, perhaps, to Xenophon's own pure soul as to Cyrus--is not to be\ncompared for one instant to the significance of that single deed\nof his, into which the Bible absorbs the meaning of his whole\ncareer,--the liberation of the Jews. The _Cyrop\u00e6dia_ has been the\ninstruction and delight of many,--of as many in modern times,\nperhaps, as in ancient. But the liberation of the Jews meant the\nassurance of the world's religious education. Cyrus sent this people\nback to their land solely as a spiritual people. He did not allow\nthem to set up again the house of David, but by his decree the Temple\nwas rebuilt. Israel entered upon their purely religious career, set\nin order their vast stores of spiritual experience, wrote their\nhistories of grace and providence, developed their worship, handed\ndown their law, and kept themselves holy unto the Lord. Till, in\nthe fulness of the times, from this petty and exclusive tribe, and\nby the fire, which they kept burning on the altar that Cyrus had\nempowered them to raise, there was kindled the glory of an universal\nreligion. To change the figure, Christianity sprang from Judaism as\nthe flower from the seed; but it was the hand of Cyrus, which planted\nthe seed in the only soil, in which it could have fructified. Of\nsuch an universal destiny for the Faith, Cyrus was not conscious,\nbut the Jews themselves were. Our prophet represents him, indeed, as\nacting for _Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel's My chosen_, but the\nchapter does not close without proclamation to _the ends of the earth\nto look unto Jehovah and be saved_, and the promise of a time _when\nevery knee shall bow and every tongue swear unto the God of Israel_.\n\nNow put all these results, which the Jews, regardless of the\ncharacter of Cyrus, saw flowing from his policy, as the servant of\nGod on their behalf, side by side with the influence which the Greeks\nborrowed from Cyrus, and say whether Greek or Jew had the more true\nand historical conscience of this great power,--whether Greek or Jew\nhad his hand on the pulse of the world's main artery. Surely we see\nthat the main artery of human life runs down the Bible, that here we\nhave a sense of the control of history, which is higher than even the\nhighest hero-worship. Some may say, \"True, but what a very unequal\ncontest, into which to thrust the poor _Cyrop\u00e6dia_!\" Precisely; it\nis from the inequality of the contrast, that we learn the uniqueness\nof Israel's inspiration. Let us do all justice to the Greek and his\nappreciation of Cyrus. In that, he seems the perfection of humanity;\nbut with the Jew we rise to the Divine, touching the right hand of\nthe providence of God.\n\nThere is a moral lesson for ourselves in these two views about Cyrus.\nThe Greeks regard him as a hero, the Jews as an instrument. The Greeks\nare interested in him that he is so attractive a figure, so effective\nan example to rouse men and restrain them. But the Jews stand in wonder\nof his subjection to the will of God; their Scriptures extol, not his\nvirtues, but his predestination to certain Divine ends.\n\nNow let us say no word against hero-worship. We have need of all\nthe heroes, which the Greek, and every other, literature can raise\nup for us. We need the communion of the saints. To make us humble\nin our pride, to make us hopeful in our despair, we need our big\nbrothers, the heroes of humanity. We need them in history, we need\nthem in fiction; we cannot do without them for shame, for courage,\nfor fellowship, for truth. But let us remember that still more\nindispensable--for strength, as well as for peace, of mind--is the\nother temper. Neither self nor the world is conquered by admiration\nof men, but only by the fear and obligation of God. I speak now\nof applying this temper to ourselves. We shall live fruitful and\nconsistent lives only in so far as we hear God saying to us, _I gird\nthee_, and give ourselves into His guidance. Admire heroes if thou\nwilt, but only admire them and thou remainest a slave. Learn their\nsecret, to commit themselves to God and to obey Him, and thou shalt\nbecome a hero too.\n\nGod's anointing of Cyrus, the heathen, has yet another lesson to\nteach us, which religious people especially need to learn.\n\nThis passage about Cyrus lifts us to a very absolute and awful faith.\n_I am Jehovah, and none else: Former of light and Creator of darkness,\nMaker of peace and Creator of mischief; I Jehovah, Maker of all these\nthings._ The objection at once rises, \"Is it possible to believe this?\nAre we to lay upon providence everything that happens? Surely we\nWesterns, with our native scepticism and strong conscience, cannot be\nexpected to hold a faith so Oriental and fatalistic as that.\"\n\nBut notice to whom the passage is addressed. To religious people, who\nprofessedly accept God's sovereignty, but wish to make an exception\nin the one case against which they have a prejudice--that a Gentile\nshould be the deliverer of the holy people. Such narrow and imperfect\nbelievers are reminded that they must not substitute for faith in God\ntheir own ideas of how God ought to work; that they must not limit\nHis operations to their own conception of His past revelations; that\nGod does not always work even by His own precedents; and that many\nother forces than conventional and religious ones--yea, even forces as\ndestitute of moral or religious character as Cyrus himself seemed to\nbe--are also in God's hands, and may be used by Him as means of grace.\nThere is frequent charge made in our day against what are called the\nmore advanced schools of theology, of scepticism and irreverence. But\nthis passage reminds us that the most sceptical and irreverent are\nthose old-fashioned believers, who, clinging to precedent and their own\nstereotyped notions of things, deny that God's hands are in a movement,\nbecause it is novel and not orthodox. _Woe unto him that striveth with\nhis Moulder; shall the clay say to its moulder, What makest thou?_ God\ndid not cease _moulding_ when He gave us the canon and our creeds, when\nHe founded the Church and the Sacraments. His hand is still among the\nclay, and upon time, that great \"potter's wheel,\" which still moves\nobedient to His impulse. All the large forward movements, the big\nthings of to-day--commerce, science, criticism--however neutral, like\nCyrus, their character may be, are, like Cyrus, grasped and anointed\nby God. Therefore let us show reverence and courage before the great\nthings of to-day. Do not let us scoff at their novelty or grow fearful\nbecause they show no orthodox, or even no religious, character. God\nreigns, and He will use them, for what has been the dearest purpose\nof His heart, the emancipation of true religion, the confirmation of\nthe faithful, the victory of righteousness. When Cyrus rose and the\nprophet named him as Israel's deliverer, and the severely orthodox in\nIsrael objected, did God attempt to soothe them by pointing out how\nadmirable a character he was, and how near in religion to the Jews\nthemselves? God did no such thing, but spoke only of the military and\npolitical fitness of this great engine, by which He was to batter\nBabylon. That Cyrus was a quick marcher, a far shooter, an inspirer of\nfear, a follower up of victory, one who swooped like a _bird-of-prey_,\none whose weight of war burst through every obstruction,--this is what\nthe astonished pedants are told about the Gentile, to whose Gentileness\nthey had objected. No soft words to calm their bristling orthodoxy,\nbut heavy facts,--an appeal to their common-sense, if they had any,\nthat this was the most practical means for the practical end God had\nin view. For again we learn the old lesson the prophets are ever so\nanxious to teach us, _God is wise_. He is concerned, not to be orthodox\nor true to His own precedent, but to be practical, and effective for\nsalvation.\n\nAnd so, too, in our own day, though we may not see any religious\ncharacter whatsoever about certain successful movements--say in\nscience, for instance--which are sure to affect the future of the\nChurch and of Faith, do not let us despair, neither deny that they,\ntoo, are in the counsels of God. Let us only be sure that they\nare permitted for some end--some practical end; and watch, with\nmeekness but with vigilance, to see what that end shall be. Perhaps\nthe endowment of the Church with new weapons of truth; perhaps her\nemancipation from associations which, however ancient, are unhealthy;\nperhaps her opportunity to go forth upon new heights of vision, new\nfields of conquest.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[93] Identified by Delitzsch as East, Hal\u00e9vy as West, and Winckler\nas North, Elam. Cyrus, though reigning here, was a pure Persian, an\nAkh\u00e6menid or son of the royal house of Persia.\n\n[94] The parallel which Professor Sayce (_Fresh Light from the\nAncient Monuments_, p. 147) draws between the statement of the\nCyrus-cylinder, that Cyrus \"governed in justice and righteousness,\nand was righteous in hand and heart,\" and Isa. xlv. 13, \"Jehovah\nraised him up in righteousness,\" is therefore utterly unreal. It\nis very difficult to see how the Deputy-Professor of Comparative\nPhilology at Oxford could have been reminded of the one passage by\nthe other, for in Isa. xlv. 13 _righteousness_ neither is used of\nCyrus, nor signifies the moral virtue which it does on the cylinder.\n\n[95] See note to ch. vii.\n\n[96] The following are extracts from the Cylinder of Cyrus\n(see Sayce's _Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments_, pp.\n138-140):--\"Cyrus, king of Elam, he (Merodach) proclaimed by name for\nthe sovereignty.... Whom he had conquered with his hand, he governed\nin justice and righteousness. Merodach, the great lord, the restorer\nof his people, beheld with joy the deeds of his vicegerent, who was\nrighteous in hand and heart. To Babylon he summoned his march, and\nhe bade him take the road to Babylon; like a friend and a comrade he\nwent at his side. Without fighting or battle he caused him to enter\ninto Babylon, his city of Babylon feared. The god ... has in goodness\ndrawn nigh to him, has made strong his name. I Cyrus ... I entered\nBabylon in peace.... Merodach the great lord (cheered) the heart\nof his servant.... My vast armies he marshalled peacefully in the\nmidst of Babylon; throughout Sumer and Accad I had no revilers....\nAccad, Marad, etc., I restored the gods who dwelt within them to\ntheir places ... all their peoples I assembled and I restored their\nlands. And the gods of Sumer and Accad whom Nabonidos, to the anger\nof the lord of gods (Merodach), had brought into Babylon, I settled\nin peace in their sanctuaries by command of Merodach, the great lord.\nIn the goodness of their hearts may all the gods whom I have brought\ninto their strong places daily intercede before Bel and Nebo, that\nthey should grant me length of days; may they bless my projects with\nprosperity, and may they say to Merodach my lord, that Cyrus the\nking, thy worshipper, and Kambyses his son (deserve his favour).\"\n\n[97] Why so sovereign a God should be in such peculiar relations with\none people, we will try to see in ch. xv. of this volume.\n\n[98] Earth here without the article, but plainly _the earth_, and not\n_the land_ of Judah.\n\n[99] _Cf._ with this Hebrew word \u05e6\u05dc\u05d7 the Greek \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, to beat\nor cut a way through like pioneers; then to forward a work, advance,\nprosper (Luke ii. 52; Gal. i. 14; 2 Tim. ii. 16).\n\n[100] _Cyrop\u00e6dia_, Book VIII., ch. vii., 6.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI.\n\n _BEARING OR BORNE._\n\n ISAIAH xlvi.\n\n\nChapter xlvi. is a definite prophecy, complete in itself. It repeats\nmany of the truths which we have found in previous chapters, and we\nhave already seen what it says about Cyrus. But it also strikes out a\nnew truth, very relevant then, when men made idols and worshipped the\nworks of their hands, and relevant still, when so many, with equal\nstupidity, are more concerned about keeping up the forms of their\nreligion than allowing God to sustain themselves.\n\nThe great contrast, which previous chapters have been elaborating, is\nthe contrast between the idols and the living God. On the one side\nwe have had pictures of the busy idol-factories, cast into agitation\nby the advent of Cyrus, turning out with much toil and noise their\ntawdry, unstable images. Foolish men, instead of letting God undertake\nfor them, go to and try what their own hands and hammers can effect.\nOver against them, and their cunning and toil, the prophet sees the\nGod of Israel rise alone, taking all responsibility of salvation to\nHimself--_I, I am He: look unto Me, all the ends of the earth, and be\nye saved_. This contrast comes to a head in ch. xlvi.\n\nIt is still the eve of the capture of Babylon; but the prophet\npictures to himself what will happen on the morrow of the capture.\nHe sees the conqueror following the old fashion of triumph--rifling\nthe temples of his enemies and carrying away the defeated and\ndiscredited gods as trophies to his own. The haughty idols are\ntorn from their pedestals and brought head foremost through the\ntemple doors. _Bel crouches_--as men have crouched to Bel; _Nebo\ncowers_--a stronger verb than _crouches_, but assonant to it, like\n_cower_ to _crouch_.[101] _Their idols have fallen to the beast and\nto the cattle._ _Beast_, \"that is, tamed beast, perhaps elephants\nin contrast to _cattle_, or domestic animals.\"[102] The _things\nwith which ye burdened yourselves_, carrying them shoulder high in\nreligious processions, _are things laden_, mere baggage-bales, _a\nburden for a hack_, or _jade_. The nouns are mostly feminine--the\nHebrew neuter--in order to heighten the dead-weight impression of the\nidols. So many baggage-bales for beasts' backs--such are your gods,\nO Babylonians! _They cower, they crouch together_ (fall limp is the\nidea, like corpses); _neither are they able to recover the burden_,\nand _themselves_!--literally _their soul_, any real soul of deity\nthat ever was in them--_into captivity are they gone_.\n\nThis never happened. Cyrus entered Babylon not in spite of the native\ngods, but under their patronage, and was careful to do homage to them.\nNabunahid, the king of Babylon, whom he supplanted, had vexed the\npriests of Bel or Merodach; and these priests had been among the many\nconspirators in favour of the Persian. So far, then, from banishing\nthe idols, upon his entry into the city, Cyrus had himself proclaimed\nas \"the servant of Merodach,\" restored to their own cities the idols\nthat Nabunahid had brought to Babylon, and prayed, \"In the goodness of\ntheir hearts may all the gods whom I have brought into their strong\nplaces daily intercede before Bel and Nebo, that they should grant me\nlength of days. May they bless my projects with prosperity, and may\nthey say to Merodach, my lord, that Cyrus the king, thy worshipper, and\nKambyses, his son (deserve thy favour).\"[103]\n\nAre we, then, because the idols were not taken into captivity, as\nour prophet pictures, to begin to believe in him less? We shall be\nguilty of that error, only when we cease to disallow to a prophet\nof God what we do allow to any other writer, and praise him when he\nemploys it to bring home a moral truth--the use of his imagination.\nWhat if these idols never were packed off by Cyrus, as our prophet\nhere paints for us? It still remains true that, standing where they\ndid, or carried away, as they may have been later on, by conquerors,\nwho were monotheists indeed, they were still mere ballast, so much\ndead-weight for weary beasts.\n\nNow, over against this kind of religion, which may be reduced to so\nmany pounds avoirdupois, the prophet sees in contrast the God of\nIsrael. And it is but natural, when contrasted with the dead-weight\nof the idols, that God should reveal Himself as a living and a\nlifting God: a strong, unfailing God, who carries and who saves.\n_Hearken unto Me, O House of Jacob, and all the remnant of the House\nof Israel; burdens from the womb, things carried from the belly.\nBurdens, things carried_, are the exact words used of the idols in\nver. 1. _Even unto old age I am He, and unto grey hairs I will\nbear_--a grievous word, used only of great burdens. _I have made, and\nI will carry; yea, I will bear, and will recover._ Then follow some\nverses in the familiar style. _To whom will ye liken Me, and match\nMe, and compare Me, that we may be like? They who pour gold from a\nbag, and silver they measure off with an ellwand_--gorgeous, vulgar\nBabylonians!--_they hire a smelter, and he maketh it a god_--out of\nso many ells of silver!--_they bow down to it, yea, they worship\nit! They carry him upon the shoulder, they bear him,_--again the\ngrievous word,--_to bring him to his station; and he stands; from\nhis place he never moves. Yea, one cries unto him, and he answers\nnot; from his trouble he doth not save him. Remember this, and show\nyourselves men_--the playing with these gilded toys is so unmanly\nto the monotheist (it will be remembered what we said in ch. iii.\nabout the exiles feeling that to worship idols was to be less than\na man[104])--_lay it again to heart, ye transgressors. Remember the\nformer things of old: for I am God_, El, _and there is none else;\nGod_, Elohim, _and there is none like Me. Publishing from the origin\nthe issue, and from ancient times things not yet done; saying, My\ncounsel shall stand, and all My pleasure shall I perform; calling\nout of the sunrise a Bird-of-prey, from the land that is far off the\nMan of My counsel. Yea, I have spoken; yea, I will bring it in. I\nhave purposed; yea, I will do it. Hearken unto Me, ye obdurate of\nheart_--that is, _brave, strong, sound_, but too sound to adapt their\npreconceived notions to God's new revelation;--_ye that are far from\nrighteousness_, in spite of your _sound_ opinions as to how it ought\nto come. _I have brought near My righteousness_, in distinction to\nyours. _It shall not be far off_, like your impossible ideas, _and\nMy salvation shall not tarry, and I will set in Zion salvation, for\nIsrael My glory_. It is evident that from the idolaters Jehovah has\nturned again, in these last verses, to the pedants in Israel, who\nwere opposed to Cyrus because he was a Gentile, and who cherished\ntheir own obdurate notions of how salvation and righteousness should\ncome. Ah, their kind of righteousness would never come, they would\nalways be far from it! Let them rather trust to Jehovah's, which He\nwas rapidly bringing near in His own way.\n\nSuch is the prophecy. It starts a truth, which bursts free from local\nand temporal associations, and rushes in strength upon our own day\nand our own customs. The truth is this: it makes all the difference\nto a man how he conceives his religion--whether as something that he\nhas to carry, or as something that will carry him. We have too many\nidolatries and idol manufactories among us to linger longer on those\nancient ones. This cleavage is permanent in humanity--between the\nmen that are trying to carry their religion, and the men that are\nallowing God to carry them.\n\nNow let us see how God does carry. God's carriage of man is no mystery.\nIt may be explained without using one theological term; the Bible gives\nus the best expression of it. But it may be explained without a word\nfrom the Bible. It is broad and varied as man's moral experience.\n\n1. The first requisite for stable and buoyant life is ground, and\nthe faithfulness of law. What sends us about with erect bodies and\nquick, firm step is the sense that the surface of the earth is sure,\nthat gravitation will not fail, that our eyes and the touch of our\nfeet and our judgement of distance do not deceive us. Now, what the\nbody needs for its world, the soul needs for hers. For her carriage\nand bearing in life the soul requires the assurance, that the moral\nlaws of the universe are as conscience has interpreted them to her,\nand will continue to be as in experience she has found them. To\nthis requisite of the soul--this indispensable condition of moral\nbehaviour--God gives His assurance. _I have made_, He says, _and I\nwill bear_.[105] These words were in answer to an instinct, that\nmust have often sprung up in our hearts when we have been struggling\nfor at least moral hope--the instinct which will be all that is\nsometimes left to a man's soul when unbelief lowers, and under its\nblackness a flood of temptations rushes in, and character and conduct\nfeel impossible to his strength--the instinct that springs from\nthe thought, \"Well, here I am, not responsible for being here, but\nso set by some One else, and the responsibility of the life, which\nis too great for me, is His.\" Some such simple faith, which a man\ncan hardly separate from his existence, has been the first rally\nand turning-point in many a life. In the moral drift and sweep he\nfinds bottom there, and steadies on it, and gets his face round, and\ngathers strength. And God's Word comes to him to tell him that his\ninstinct is sure. _Yea, I have made, and I will bear._\n\n2. The most terrible anguish of the heart, however, is that it\ncarries something, which can shake a man off even that ground. The\nfirmest rock is of no use to the paralytic, or to a man with a broken\nleg. And the most steadfast moral universe, and most righteous moral\ngovernor, is no comfort--but rather the reverse--to the man with a\nbad conscience, whether that conscience be due to the guilt, or to\nthe habit, of sin. Conscience whispers, \"God indeed made thee, but\nwhat if thou hast unmade thyself? God reigns; the laws of life are\nrighteousness; creation is guided to peace. But thou art outlaw of\nthis universe, fallen from God of thine own will. Thou must bear\nthine own guilt, endure thy voluntarily contracted habits. How canst\nthou believe that God, in this fair world, would bear thee up, so\nuseless, soiled, and infected a thing?\" Yet here, according to His\nblessed Word, God does come down to bear up men. Because man's\nsunkenness and helplessness are so apparent beneath no other burden\nor billows, God insists that just here He is most anxious, and just\nhere it is His glory, to lift men and bear them upward. Some may\nwonder what guilt is or the conviction of sin, because they are\nselfishly or dishonestly tracing the bitterness and unrest of their\nlives to some other source than their own wicked wills; but the\nthing is man's realest burden, and man's realest burden is what God\nstoops lowest to bear. The grievous word for _bear_, \"sabal,\" which\nwe emphasized in the above passage, is elsewhere in the writings of\nthe Exile used of the bearing of sins, or of the result of sins. _Our\nfathers have sinned, and are not, and we bear their iniquities_,[106]\nsays one of the Lamentations. And in the fifty-third of Isaiah it is\nused twice of the Servant, _that He bore our sorrows_, and _that He\nbare their iniquities_.[107] Here its application to God--to such a\nGod as we have seen bearing the passion of His people's woes--cannot\nfail to carry with it the associations of these passages. When it is\nsaid, God _bears_, and this grievous verb is used, we remember at\nonce that He is a God, who does not only set His people's sins in the\nawful light of His countenance, but takes them upon His heart. Let us\nlearn, then, that God has made this sin and guilt of ours His special\ncare and anguish. We cannot feel it more than He does. It is enough:\nwe may not be able to understand what the sacrifice of Christ meant\nto the Divine justice, but who can help comprehending from it that in\nsome Divine way the Divine love has made our sin its own business and\nburden, so that that might be done which we could not do, and that\nlifted which we could not bear?\n\n3. But this gospel of God's love bearing our sins is of no use to a\nman unless it goes with another--that God bears him up for victory\nover temptation and for attainment in holiness. It is said to be a\nthoroughly Mohammedan fashion, that when a believer is tempted past\nthe common he gives way, and slides into sin with the cry, \"God is\nmerciful;\" meaning that the Almighty will not be too hard on this\npoor creature, who has held out so long. If this be Mohammedanism,\nthere is a great deal of Mohammedanism in modern Christianity. It is\na most perfidious distortion of God's will. _For this is the will\nof God, even our sanctification_; and God never gives a man pardon\nbut to set him free for effort, and to constrain him for duty. And\nhere we come to what is the most essential part of God's bearing of\nman. God, as we have seen, bears us by giving us ground to walk on.\nHe bears us by lifting those burdens from our hearts that make the\nfirmest ground slippery and impossible to our feet. But He bears us\nbest and longest by being the spirit and the soul and the life of our\nlife. Every metaphor here falls short of the reality. By inspired\nmen the bearing of God has been likened to a father carrying his\nchild, to an eagle taking her young upon her wings, to the shepherd\nwith the lamb in his bosom. But no shepherd, nor mother-bird, nor\nhuman father ever bore as the Lord bears. For He bears from within,\nas the soul lifts and bears the body. The Lord and His own are one.\n_To me_, says he who knew it best, _To me to live is Christ_. It is,\nindeed, difficult to describe to others what this inward sustainment\nreally is, seating itself at the centre of a man's life, and thence\naffecting vitally every organ of his nature. The strongest human\nillustration is not sufficient for it. If in the thick of the battle\na leader is able to infuse himself into his followers, so is Christ.\nIf one man's word has lifted thousands of defeated soldiers to an\nassault and to a victory, even so have Christ's lifted millions:\nlifted them above the habit and depression of sin, above the weakness\nof the flesh, above the fear of man, above danger and death and\ntemptation more dangerous and fatal still. And yet it is not the\nsight of a visible leader, though the Gospels have made that sight\nimperishable; it is not the sound of Another's Voice, though that\nVoice shall peal to the end of time, that Christians only feel.\nIt is something within themselves; another self--purer, happier,\nvictorious. Not as a voice or example, futile enough to the dying,\nbut as a new soul, is Christ in men; and whether their exhaustion\nneeds creative forces, or their vices require conquering forces, He\ngives both, for He is the fountain of life.\n\n4. But God does not carry dead men. His carrying is not mechanical, but\nnatural; not from below, but from within. You dare not be passive in\nGod's carriage; for as in the natural, so in the moral world, whatever\ndies is thrown aside by the upward pressure of life, to rot and\nperish. Christ showed this over and over again in His ministry. Those\nwho make no effort--or, if effort be past, feel no pain--God will not\nstoop to bear. But all in whom there is still a lift and a spring after\nlife: the quick conscience, the pain of their poverty, the hunger and\nthirst after righteousness, the sacredness of those in their charge,\nthe obligation and honour of their daily duty, some desire for eternal\nlife--these, however weak, He carries forward to perfection.\n\nAgain, in His bearing God bears, and does not overbear, using a man,\nnot as a man uses a stick, but as a soul uses a body,--informing,\ninspiring, recreating his natural faculties. So many distrust\nreligion, as if it were to be an overbearing of their originality,\nas if it were bound to destroy the individual's peculiar freshness\nand joy. But God is not by grace going to undo His work by nature.\n_I have made, and I will bear--will bear_ what I have made. Religion\nintensifies the natural man.\n\nAnd now, if that be God's bearing--the gift of the ground, and the\nlifting of the fallen, and the being a soul and an inspiration of\nevery organ--how wrong those are who, instead of asking God to carry\nthem, are more anxious about how He and His religion are to be\nsustained by their consistency or efforts!\n\nTo young men, who have not got a religion, and are brought face to\nface with the conventional religion of the day, the question often\npresents itself in this way: \"Is this a thing I can carry?\" or\n\"How much of it can I afford to carry? How much of the tradition\nof the elders can I take upon myself, and feel that it is not mere\ndead weight?\" That is an entirely false attitude. Here you are,\nweak, by no means master of yourself; with a heart wonderfully full\nof suggestions to evil; a world before you, hardest where it is\nclearest, seeming most impossible where duty most loudly calls; yet\nmainly dark and silent, needing from us patience oftener than effort,\nand trust as much as the exercise of our own cleverness; with death\nat last ahead. Look at life whole, and the question you will ask will\nnot be, Can I carry this faith? but, Can this faith carry me? Not,\nCan I afford to take up such and such and such opinions? but, Can I\nafford to travel at all without such a God? It is not a creed, but a\nliving and a lifting God, who awaits your decision.\n\nAt the opposite end of life, there is another class of men, who are\nreally doing what young men too often suppose that they must do if\nthey take up a religion,--carrying it, instead of allowing it to carry\nthem; men who are in danger of losing their faith in God, through\nover-anxiety about traditional doctrines concerning Him. A great deal\nis being said just now in our country of upholding the great articles\nof the faith. Certainly let us uphold them. But do not let us have\nin our churches that saddest of all sights, a mere ecclesiastical\nprocession,--men flourishing doctrines, but themselves with their\nmanhood remaining unseen. We know the pity of a show, sometimes seen\nin countries on the Continent, where they have not given over carrying\nimages about. Idols and banners and texts will fill a street with their\ntawdry, tottering progress, and you will see nothing human below, but\nnow and then jostling shoulders and a sweaty face. Even so are many\nof the loud parades of doctrines in our day by men, who, in the words\nof this chapter, show themselves _stout of heart_ by holding up their\nreligion, but give us no signs in their character or conduct that their\nreligion is holding up them. Let us prize our faith, not by holding it\nhigh, but by showing how high it can hold us.\n\nWhich is the more inspiring sight,--a banner carried by hands, that\nmust sooner or later weary; or the soldier's face, mantling with the\ninexhaustible strength of the God who lives at his heart and bears\nhim up?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[101] _Crouches_, Kara`; _cowers_, Kores.\n\n[102] Bredenkamp.\n\n[103] Sayce, _Fresh Light_, etc., p. 140.\n\n[104] See p. 39 f.\n\n[105] There is a play on the words 'an\u00ee `as\u00eeth\u00ee, wa'an\u00ee, 'ess\u0101'--_I\nhave made, and I will aid_.\n\n[106] Lam. v. 7.\n\n[107] Ver. 4, second clause, and vii.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n\n _BABYLON._\n\n ISAIAH xlvii.\n\n\nThroughout the extent of Bible history, from Genesis to Revelation,\nOne City remains, which in fact and symbol is execrated as the enemy\nof God and the stronghold of evil. In Genesis we are called to see\nits foundation, as of the first city that wandering men established,\nand the quick ruin, which fell upon its impious builders. By the\nprophets we hear it cursed as the oppressor of God's people, the\ntemptress of the nations, full of cruelty and wantonness. And in the\nBook of Revelation its character and curse are transferred to Rome,\nand the New Babylon stands over against the New Jerusalem.\n\nThe tradition and infection, which have made the name of Babylon\nas abhorred in Scripture as Satan's own, are represented as the\ntradition and infection of pride,--the pride, which, in the audacity\nof youth, proposes to attempt to be equal with God: _Go to, let us\nbuild us a city and a tower, whose top_ may touch _heaven, and let\nus make us a name_; the pride, which, amid the success and wealth\nof later years, forgets that there is a God at all: _Thou sayest\nin thine heart, I am, and there is none beside me_. Babylon is the\nAtheist of the Old Testament, as she is the Antichrist of the New.\n\nThat a city should have been originally conceived by Israel as the\narch-enemy of God is due to historical causes, as intelligible\nas those which led, in later days, to the reverse conception of\na city as God's stronghold, and the refuge of the weak and the\nwandering. God's earliest people were shepherds, plain men dwelling\nin tents,--desert nomads, who were never tempted to rear permanent\nstructures of their own except as altars and shrines, but marched\nand rested, waked and slept, between God's bare earth and God's high\nheaven; whose spirits were chastened and refined by the hunger and\nclear air of the desert, and who walked their wide world without\njostling or stunting one another. With the dear habits of those early\ntimes, the truths of the Bible are therefore, even after Israel has\nsettled in towns, spelt to the end in the images of shepherd life.\nThe Lord is the Shepherd, and men are the sheep of His pasture. He\nis a Rock and a Strong Tower, such as rise here and there in the\ndesert's wildness for guidance or defence.[108] He is rivers of water\nin a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And\nman's peace is to lie beside still waters, and his glory is, not\nto have built cities, but to have all these things put under his\nfeet--sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the\nair and the fish of the sea.\n\nOver against that lowly shepherd life, the first cities rose, as we\ncan imagine, high, terrible and impious. They were the production of\nan alien race,[109] a people with no true religion, as it must have\nappeared to the Semites, arrogant and coarse. But Babylon had a special\ncurse. Babylon was not the earliest city,--Akkad and Erekh were famous\nlong before,--but it is Babylon that the Book of Genesis represents\nas overthrown and scattered by the judgement of God. What a contrast\nthis picture in Genesis,--and let it be remembered that the only other\ncities to which that book leads us are Sodom and Gomorrah,--what a\ncontrast it forms to the passages in which classic poets celebrate the\nbeginnings of their great cities! There, the favourable omens, the\npatronage of the gods, the prophecies of the glories of civil life; the\ntracing of the temple and the forum; visions of the city as the school\nof industry, the treasury of wealth, the home of freedom. Here, but a\nfew rapid notes of scorn and doom: man's miserable manufacture, without\nDivine impulse or omen; his attempt to rise to heaven upon that alone,\nhis motive only to make a name for himself; and the result--not, as in\nGreek legend, the foundation of a polity, the rise of commerce, the\ngrowth of a great language, by which through the lips of one man the\nwhole city may be swayed together to high purposes, but only scattering\nand confusion of speech. To history, a great city is a multitude of men\nwithin reach of one man's voice. Athens is Demosthenes; Rome is Cicero\npersuading the Senate; Florence is Savonarola putting by his word one\nconscience within a thousand hearts. But Babylon, from the beginning,\ngave its name to Babel, confusion of speech, incapacity for union and\nfor progress. And all this came, because the builders of the city, the\nmen who set the temper of its civilisation, did not begin with God,\nbut in their pride deemed everything possible to unaided and unblessed\nhuman ambition, and had only the desire to make a name upon earth.\n\nThe sin and the curse never left the generations, who in turn\nsucceeded those impious builders. Pride and godlessness infested the\ncity, and prepared it for doom, as soon as it again gathered strength\nto rise to heaven. The early nomads had watched Babylon's fall from\nafar; but when their descendants were carried as captives within her\nin the time of her second glory,[110] they found that the besetting\nsin, which had once reared its head so fatally high, infected the city\nto her very heart. We need not again go over the extent and glory of\nNebuchadrezzar's architecture, or the greatness of the traffic, from\nthe Levant to India, which his policy had concentrated upon his own\nwharves and markets.[111] It was stupendous. But neither walls nor\nwealth make a city, and no observant man, with the Hebrew's faith\nand conscience, could have lived those fifty years in the centre\nof Babylon, and especially after Nebuchadrezzar had passed away,\nwithout perceiving, that her life was destitute of every principle\nwhich ensured union or promised progress. Babylon was but a medley\nof peoples, without common traditions or a public conscience, and\nincapable of acting together. Many of her inhabitants had been brought\nto her, like the Jews, against their own will, and were ever turning\nfrom those glorious battlements they were forced to build in their\ndisgust, to scan the horizon for the advent of a deliverer. And many\nothers, who moved in freedom through her busy streets, and shared her\nriches and her joys, were also foreigners, and bound to her only so\nlong as she ministered to their pleasure or their profit. Her king\nwas an usurper, who had insulted her native gods; her priesthood was\nagainst him. And although his army, sheltered by the fortifications of\nNebuchadrezzar, had repulsed Cyrus upon the Persian's first invasion\nfrom the north, conspiracies were now so rife among his oppressed and\ninsulted subjects, that, on Cyrus' second invasion, Babylon opened\nher impregnable gates and suffered herself to be taken without a\nblow. Nor, even if the city's religion had been better served by\nthe king, could it in the long run have availed for her salvation.\nFor, in spite of the science with which it was connected,--and this\n\"wisdom of the Chaldeans\" was contemptible in neither its methods nor\nits results,--the Babylonian religion was not one to inspire either\nthe common people with those moral principles, which form the true\nstability of states, or their rulers with a reasonable and consistent\npolicy. Babylon's religion was broken up into a multitude of wearisome\nand distracting details, whose absurd solemnities, especially when\nadministered by a priesthood hostile to the executive, must have\nhampered every adventure of war, and rendered futile many opportunities\nof victory. In fact, Babylon, for all her glory, could not but be\nshort-lived. There was no moral reason why she should endure. The\nmasses, who contributed to her building, were slaves who hated her;\nthe crowds, who fed her business, would stay with her only so long\nas she was profitable to themselves; her rulers and her priests had\nquarrelled; her religion was a burden, not an inspiration. Yet she sat\nproud, and felt herself secure.\n\nIt is just these features, which our prophet describes in ch. xlvii.,\nin verses more notable for their moral insight and indignation, than\nfor their beauty as a work of literature. He is certain of Babylon's\nimmediate fall from power and luxury into slavery and dishonour (vv.\n1-3). He speaks of her cruelty to her captives (ver. 6), of her\nhaughtiness and her secure pride (vv. 7, 8). He touches twice upon her\natheistic self-sufficiency, her \"autotheism,\"--\"_I am, and there is\nnone beside me_,\" words which only God can truly use, but words which\nman's ignorant, proud self is ever ready to repeat (vv. 8-10). He\nspeaks of the wearisomeness and futility of her religious magic (vv.\n10-14). And he closes with a vivid touch, that dissolves the reality of\nthat merely commercial grandeur on which she prides herself. Like every\nassociation that arises only from the pecuniary profit of its members,\nBabylon shall surely break up, and none of those, who sought her for\ntheir selfish ends, shall wait to help her one moment after she has\nceased to be profitable to them.\n\nHere now are his own words, rendered literally except in the case of\none or two conjunctions and articles,--rendered, too, in the original\norder of the words, and, as far as it can be determined, in the\nrhythm of the original. The rhythm is largely uncertain, but some\nverses--1, 5, 14, 15--are complete in that measure which we found in\nthe Taunt-song against the king of Babylon in ch. xiii.,[112] and\nnearly every line or clause has the same metrical swing upon it.\n\n _Down! and sit in the dust, O virgin,_\n _Daughter of Babel!_\n _Sit on the ground, with no throne,_\n _Daughter of Khasd\u00eem!\n For not again shall they call thee_\n _Tender and Dainty._\n _Take to thee millstones, and grind out the meal,_\n _Put back thy veil, strip off the garment,_\n _Make bare the leg, wade through the rivers;_\n _Bare be thy nakedness, yea, be beholden thy shame!_\n _Vengeance I take, and strike treaty with none._\n\n _Our Redeemer! Jehovah of Hosts is His Name,_\n _Holy of Israel!_\n\n _Sit thou dumb, and get into darkness,_\n _Daughter of Khasd\u00eem!_\n _For not again shall they call thee_\n _Mistress of Kingdoms._\n _I was wroth with My people, profaned Mine inheritance,_\n _Gave them to thy hand:_\n _Thou didst show them no mercy, on old men thou madest_\n _Thy yoke very sore._\n _And thou saidst, For ever I shall be mistress,_\n _Till thou hast set not these things to thy heart,_\n _Nor thought of their issue._\n\n _Therefore now hear this, Voluptuous,_\n _Sitting self-confident:_\n _Thou, who saith in her heart, \"I am: there is none else._\n _I shall not sit a widow, nor know want of children.\"_\n _Surely shall come to thee both of these, sudden, the same\n day,_\n _Childlessness, widowhood!\n To their full come upon thee, spite of the mass of thy\n spells,_\n _Spite of the wealth of thy charms--to the full!_\n\n _And thou wast bold in thine evil; thou saidst,_\n _\"None doth see me.\"_\n _Thy wisdom and knowledge--they have led thee astray,_\n _Till thou hast said in thine heart, \"I am: there is none\n else.\"_\n _Yet there shall come on thee Evil,_\n _Thou know'st not to charm it._\n _And there shall fall on thee Havoc,_\n _Thou canst not avert it._\n _And there shall come on thee suddenly,_\n _Unawares, Ruin._\n _Stand forth, I pray, with thy charms, with the wealth of thy\n spells--_\n _With which thou hast wearied thyself from thy youth up--_\n _If so thou be able to profit,_\n _If so to strike terror!_\n _Thou art sick with the mass of thy counsels:_\n _Let them stand up and save thee--_\n _Mappers of heaven, Planet-observers, Tellers at new moons--_\n _From what must befall thee!_\n\n _Behold, they are grown like the straw!_\n _Fire hath consumed them;_\n _Nay, they save not their life_\n _From the hand of the flame!_\n _--'Tis no fuel for warmth,_\n _Fire to sit down at!--_\n _Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee,_\n _Traders of thine from thy youth up;_\n _Each as he could pass have they fled;_\n _None is thy saviour!_\n\nWe, who remember Isaiah's elegies on Egypt and Tyre,[113] shall be\nmost struck here by the absence of all appreciation of greatness or\nof beauty about Babylon. Even while prophesying for Tyre as certain a\njudgement as our prophet here predicts for Babylon, Isaiah spoke as\nif the ruin of so much enterprise and wealth were a desecration, and\nhe promised that the native strength of Tyre, humbled and purified,\nwould rise again to become the handmaid of religion. But our prophet\nsees no saving virtue whatever in Babylon, and gives her not the\nslightest promise of a future. There is pity through his scorn: the\nway in which he speaks of the futility of the mass of Babylonian\nscience; the way in which he speaks of her ignorance, though served\nby hosts of counsellors; the way in which, after recalling her\ncountless partners in traffic, he describes their headlong flight,\nand closes with the words, _None is thy saviour_,--all this is most\npathetic. But upon none of his lines is there one touch of awe or\nadmiration or regret for the fall of what is great. To him Babylon is\nwholly false, vain, destitute--as Tyre was not destitute--of native\nvigour and saving virtue. Babylon is sheer pretence and futility.\nTherefore his scorn and condemnation are thorough; and mocking\nlaughter breaks from him, now with an almost savage coarseness, as\nhe pictures the dishonour of the virgin who was no virgin--_Bare thy\nnakedness, yea, be beholden thy shame_; and now in roguish glee,\nas he interjects about the fire which shall destroy the mass of\nBabylon's magicians, astrologers and haruspices: _No coal this to\nwarm oneself at, fire to sit down before._ But withal we are not\nallowed to forget, that it is one of the Tyrant's poor captives, who\nthus judges and scorns her. How vividly from the midst of his satire\ndoes the prisoner's sigh break forth to God:--\n\n \"_Our Redeemer! Jehovah of Hosts is His Name,_\n _Holy of Israel!_\"\n\nNot the least interesting feature of this taunt-song is the expression\nwhich it gives to the characteristic Hebrew sense of the wearisomeness\nand immorality of that system of divination, which formed the mass of\nthe Babylonian and many other Gentile religions. The worship of Jehovah\nhad very much in common with the rest of the Semitic cults. Its ritual,\nits temple-furniture, the division of its sacred year, its terminology,\nand even many of its titles for the Deity and His relations to men, may\nbe matched in the worship of Ph\u0153nician, Syrian and Babylonian gods,\nor in the ruder Arabian cults. But in one thing the \"law of Jehovah\"\nstands by itself, and that is in its intolerance of all augury and\ndivination. It owed this distinction to the unique moral and practical\nsense which inspired it. Augury and divination, such as the Chaldeans\nwere most proficient in, exerted two most evil influences. They\nhampered, sometimes paralysed, the industry and politics of a nation,\nand they more or less confounded the moral sense of a people. They\nwere, therefore, utterly out of harmony with the practical sanity and\nDivine morality of the Jewish law, which strenuously forbade them;\nwhile the prophets, who were practical men as well as preachers of\nrighteousness, constantly exposed the fatigue they laid upon public\nlife, and the way they distracted attention from the simple moral\nissues of conduct. Augury and divination wearied a people's intellect,\nstunted their enterprise, distorted their conscience. _Thy spells,--the\nmass of thy charms, with which thou hast wearied thyself from thy\nyouth. Thou art sick with the mass of thy counsels. Thy wisdom and thy\nknowledge! they have led thee astray._ When \"the Chaldean astrology\"\nfound its way to the New Babylon, Juvenal's strong conscience expressed\nthe same sense of its wearisomeness and waste of time.[114]\n\nAshes and ruins, a servile and squalid life, a desolate site\nabandoned by commerce,--what the prophet predicted, that did imperial\nBabylon become. Not, indeed, at the hand of Cyrus, or of any other\nsingle invader; but gradually by the rivalry of healthier peoples, by\nthe inevitable working of the poison at her heart, Babylon, though\nsituated in the most fertile and central part of God's earth, fell\ninto irredeemable decay. Do not let us, however, choke our interest\nin this prophecy, as so many students of prophecy do, in the ruins\nand dust, which were its primary fulfilment. The shell of Babylon,\nthe gorgeous city which rose by Euphrates, has indeed sunk into\nheaps; but Babylon herself is not dead. Babylon never dies. To the\nconscience of Christ's seer, this _mother of harlots_, though dead\nand desert in the East, came to life again in the West. To the city\nof Rome, in his day, John transferred word by word the phrases of\nour prophet and of the prophet who wrote the fifty-first chapter\nof the Book of Jeremiah. Rome was Babylon, in so far as Romans were\nfilled with cruelty, with arrogance, with trust in riches, with\ncredulity in divination, with that waste of mental and moral power\nwhich Juvenal exposed in her. _I sit a queen_, John heard Rome say\nin her heart, _and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning.\nTherefore in one day shall her plagues come, death and mourning and\nfamine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is\nthe Lord God which judged her._[115] But we are not to leave the\nmatter even here: we are to use that freedom with John, which John\nuses with our prophet. We are to pass by the particular fulfilment\nof his words, in which he and his day were interested, because it\ncan only have a historical and secondary interest to us in face of\nother Babylons in our own day, with which our consciences, if they\nare quick, ought to be busy. Why do some honest people continue to\nconfine the reference of those chapters in the Book of Revelation\nto the city and church of Rome? It is quite true, that John meant\nthe Rome of his day; it is quite true, that many features of his\nBabylon may be traced upon the successor of the Roman Empire, the\nRoman Church. But what is that to us, with incarnations of the\nBabylonian spirit so much nearer ourselves for infection and danger,\nthan the Church of Rome can ever be. John's description, based upon\nour prophet's, suits better a commercial, than an ecclesiastical\nstate,--though self-worship has been as rife in ecclesiasticism,\nRoman or Reformed, as among the votaries of Mammon. For every phrase\nof John's, that may be true of the Church of Rome in certain ages,\nthere are six apt descriptions of the centres of our own British\ncivilisation, and of the selfish, atheistic tempers that prevail in\nthem. Let us ask what are the Babylonian tempers and let us touch our\nown consciences with them.\n\nForgetfulness of God, cruelty, vanity of knowledge (which so easily\nbreeds credulity) and vanity of wealth,--but the parent of them\nall is idolatry of self. Isaiah told us about this in the Assyrian\nwith his war; we see it here in Babylon with her commerce and her\nscience; it was exposed even in the orthodox Jews,[116] for they\nput their own prejudices before their God's revelation; and it is\nperhaps as evident in the Christian Church as anywhere else. For\nselfishness follows a man like his shadow; and religion, like the\nsun, the stronger it shines, only makes the shadow more apparent. But\nto worship your shadow is to turn your back on the sun; selfishness\nis atheism, says our prophet. Man's self takes God's word about\nHimself and says, _I am, and there is none beside me_. And he, who\nforgets God, is sure also to forget his brother; thus self-worship\nleads to cruelty. A heavy part of the charge against Babylon is her\ntreatment of the Lord's own people. These were God's convicts, and\nshe, for the time, God's minister of justice. But she unnecessarily\nand cruelly oppressed them. _On the aged thou hast very heavily laid\nthy yoke._ God's people were given to her to be reformed, but she\nsought to crush the life out of them. God's purpose was upon them,\nbut she used them for her aggrandisement. She did not feel that she\nwas responsible to God for her treatment even of the most guilty and\ncontemptible of her subjects.\n\nIn all this Babylon acted in accordance with what was the prevailing\nspirit of antiquity; and here we may safely affirm that our Christian\ncivilisation has at least a superior conscience. The modern world\ndoes recognise, in some measure, its responsibility to God for the\ncare even of its vilest and most forfeit lives. No Christian state\nat the present day would, for instance, allow its felons to be\ntortured or outraged against their will in the interests either of\nscience or of public amusement. We do not vivisect our murderers nor\nkill them off by gladiatorial combats. Our statutes do not get rid\nof worthless or forfeit lives by condemning them to be used up in\ndangerous labours of public necessity. On the contrary, in prisons we\ntreat our criminals with decency and even with comfort, and outside\nprisons we protect and cherish even the most tainted and guilty\nlives. In all our discharge of God's justice, we take care that the\ninevitable errors of our human fallibility may fall on mercy's side.\nNow it is true that in the practice of all this we often fail, and\nare inconsistent. The point at present is that we have at least a\nconscience about the matter. We do not say, like Babylon, \"_I am, and\nthere is none beside me_. There is no law higher than my own will\nand desire. I can, therefore, use whatever through its crime or its\nuselessness falls into my power, for the increase of my wealth or\nthe satisfaction of my passions.\" We remember God, and that even the\ncriminal and the useless are His. In wielding the power which His Law\nand Providence put into our hands towards many of His creatures, we\nremember that we are administering His justice, and not satisfying\nour own revenge, or feeding our own desire for sensation, or\nexperimenting for the sake of our science. They are His convicts, not\nour spoil. In our treatment of them we are subject to His laws,--one\nof which, that fences even His justice, is the law against cruelty;\nand another, for which His justice leaves room, is that to every man\nthere be granted, with his due penalty, the opportunity of penitence\nand reform. There are among us Positivists, who deny that these\nopinions and practices of modern civilisation are correct. Carrying\nout the essential atheism of their school--_I am_ man, _and there\nis none else_: that in the discharge of justice and the discharge\nof charity men are responsible only to themselves--they dare to\nrecommend that the victims of justice should be made the experiments,\nhowever painful, of science, and that charity should be refused to\nthe corrupt and the useless. But all this is simply reversion to the\nBabylonian type, and the Babylonian type is doomed to decay. For\nhistory has writ no surer law upon itself than this--that cruelty is\nthe infallible precursor of ruin.\n\nBut while speaking of the state, we should remember individual\nresponsibilities as well. Success, even where it is the righteous\nsuccess of character, is a most subtle breeder of cruelty. The best of\nus need most strongly to guard ourselves against censoriousness. If\nGod does put the characters of sinful men and women into our keeping,\nlet us remember that our right of judging them, our right of punishing\nthem, our right even of talking about them, is strictly limited.\nReligious people too easily forget this, and their cruel censoriousness\nor selfish gossip warns us that to be a member of the Church of Christ\ndoes not always mean that a man's citizenship is in heaven; he may well\nbe a Babylonian and carry the freedom of that city upon his face. To\n\"be hard on those who are down\" is Babylonian; to make material out of\nour neighbours' faults, for our pride, or for love of gossip, or for\nprurience, is Babylonian. There is one very good practical rule to\nkeep us safe. We may allow ourselves to speak about our erring brothers\nto men, just as much as we pray for them to God. But if we pray much\nfor a man, he will surely become too sacred to be made the amusement of\nsociety or the food of our curiosity or of our pride.\n\nThe last curse on Babylon reminds us of the fatal looseness of a\nsociety that is built only upon the interests of trade; of the\nloneliness and uselessness that await, in the end, all lives, which\nkeep themselves alive simply by trafficking with men. If we feed life\nonly by the news of the markets, by the interest of traffic, by the\nexcitement of competition, by the fever of speculation, by the passions\nof cupidity and pride, we may feel healthy and powerful for a time. But\nsuch a life, which is merely a being kept brisk by the sense of gaining\nsomething or overreaching some one, is the mere semblance of living;\nand when the inevitable end comes, when they that have trafficked with\nus from our youth depart, then each particle of strength with which\nthey fed us shall be withdrawn, and we shall fall into decay. There\nnever was a truer picture of the quick ruin of a merely commercial\ncommunity, or of the ultimate loneliness of a mercenary and selfish\nlife, than the headlong rush of traders, _each as he could find\npassage_, from the city that never had other attractions even for her\nown citizens than those of gain or of pleasure.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[108] _Cf._ Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_.\n\n[109] The Turanians, who occupied Mesopotamia before the Semitic\ninvasion, were the first builders of cities.\n\n[110] Babylon, as far as we can learn, first rose to power about the\ntime of that Amraphel who fought in the Mesopotamian league against\nthe neighbours and friends of Abraham. Amraphel is supposed to have\nbeen the father of Hammurabis, who first made Babylon the capital\nof Chaldea. It scarcely ever again ceased to be such; but it was\nnot till the fall of Assyria, about 625 B.C., and the rebuilding\nof Babylon by Nebuchadrezzar (604-561), that the city's second and\ngreatest glory began.\n\n[111] See ch. iv., pp. 53-56.\n\n[112] Vol. i., pp. 409-315.\n\n[113] Vol. i., pp. 275, 286, 294.\n\n[114] See especially _Satires III._ and _VI._, and _cf._ Bagehot's\n_Physics and Politics_.\n\n[115] Rev. xvii., xviii.\n\n[116] Ch. xlv.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIII.\n\n _THE CALL TO GO FORTH._\n\n ISAIAH xlviii.\n\n\nOn the substance of ch. xlviii. we have already encroached, and now it\nis necessary only to summarise its argument, and to give some attention\nto the call to go forth from Babylon, with which it concludes.\n\nChapter xlviii. is addressed, as its first verse declares, to the\nexiles from Judah[117]: _Hear this, Oh House of Jacob, that call\nyourselves by the name of Israel, and from the waters of Judah have\ncome forth_: that is, you so-called Israelites, who spring from\nJudah. But their worship of Jehovah is only nominal and unreal: _They\nwho swear by the name of Jehovah, and celebrate the God of Israel,\nnot in truth and not in righteousness; although by the Holy City they\nname themselves, and upon the God of Israel they lean--Jehovah of\nHosts is His Name!_\n\n_The former things I published long ago;_[118] _from My mouth they\nwent forth, and I let them be heard--suddenly I did them, and they\ncame to pass. Because I knew how hard thou wert, and a sinew of\niron thy neck, and thy brow brass. And I published to thee long\nago; before it came to pass I let thee hear it, lest thou shouldest\nsay: Mine idol hath wrought them, and my Image and my Casting hath\ncommanded them. Thou didst hear it: look at it whole_,--now that it\nis fulfilled,--_and you! should ye not publish it?_ All the past lies\nas a unity, prediction and fulfilment together complete; all of it\nthe doing of Jehovah, and surely enough of it to provide the text of\nconfession of Him by His people. But now,--\n\n_I let thee hear new things_--in contrast with the former things--_from\nnow, and hidden things, and thou knewest them not. Now are they\ncreated, and not long ago; and before to-day thou hadst not heard them,\nlest thou shouldest say, Behold I knew them. Verily,_[119] _thou hadst\nnot heard, verily, thou hadst not known, verily, long since thine ear\nwas not open; because I knew thou art thoroughly treacherous, and\nTransgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee._\n\nThe meaning of all this is sufficiently clear. It is a reproach\naddressed to the formal Israelites. It divides into two parts,\neach containing an explanation _Because I knew that_, etc.: vv.\n3-6_a_, and vv. 6_b_-9. In the first part Jehovah treats of history\nalready finished, both in its prediction and fulfilment. Many of\nthe wonderful things of old Jehovah predicted long before they\nhappened, and so left His stubborn people no excuse for an idolatry\nto which otherwise they would have given themselves (ver. 5). Now\nthat they see that wonderful past complete, and all the predictions\nfulfilled, they may well publish Jehovah's renown to the world. In\nthe first part of His reproach, then, Jehovah is dealing with stages\nof Israel's history that were closed before the Exile. The _former\nthings_ are wonderful events, foretold and come to pass before the\npresent generation. But in the second part of His reproach (vv.\n6_b_-9) Jehovah mentions _new things_. These new things are being\ncreated while His prophet speaks, and they have not been foretold (in\ncontradistinction to the former things of ver. 3). What events fulfil\nthese two conditions? Well, Cyrus was on his way, the destruction of\nBabylon was imminent, Israel's new destiny was beginning to shape\nitself under God's hands: these are evidently the things that are\nin process of creation while the prophet speaks. But could it also\nbe said of them, that they had not been foretold? This could be\nsaid, at least, of Cyrus, the Gentile Messiah. A Gentile Messiah was\nsomething so new to Israel, that many, clinging to the letter of the\nold prophecies, denied, as we have seen, that Cyrus could possibly\nbe God's instrument for the redemption of Israel. Cyrus, then, as a\nGentile, and at the same time the Anointed of Jehovah, is the new\nthing which is being created while the prophet speaks, and which has\nnot been announced beforehand.\n\nHow is it possible, some may now ask, that Cyrus should be one of\nthe unpredicted _new things_ that are happening while the prophet\nspeaks, when the prophet has already pointed to Cyrus and his\nadvance on Babylon as a fulfilment of ancient predictions? The answer\nto this question is very simple. There were ancient predictions of\na deliverance and a deliverer from Babylon. To name no more, there\nwere Jeremiah's[120] and Habakkuk's; and Cyrus, in so far as he\naccomplished the deliverance, was the fulfilment of these ancient\nr'ishon\u00f4th. But in so far as Cyrus sprang from a quarter of the\nworld, not hinted at in former prophecies of Jehovah--in so far as\nhe was a Gentile and yet the Anointed of the Lord, a combination\nnot provided for by any tradition in Israel--Cyrus and his career\nwere the _new things not predicted beforehand, the new things_ which\ncaused such offence to certain tradition-bound parties in Israel.\n\nWe cannot overestimate the importance of this passage. It supplies\nus with the solution of the problem, how the presently-happening\ndeliverance of Israel from Babylon could be both a thing foretold\nfrom long ago, and yet so new as to surprise those Israelites who\nwere most devoted to the ancient prophecies. And at the same time\nsuch of us as are content to follow our prophet's own evidence, and\nto place him in the Exile, have an answer put into our mouths, to\nrender to those, who say that we destroy a proof of the Divinity of\nprophecy by denying to Isaiah or to any other prophet, so long before\nCyrus was born, the mention of Cyrus by name. Let such objectors, who\nimagine that they are more careful of the honour of God and of the\nDivinity of Scripture, because they maintain that Cyrus was named two\nhundred years before he was born, look at verse 7. There God Himself\nsays, that there are some things, which, for a very good reason,\nHe does not foretell before they come to pass. We believe, and have\nshown strong grounds for believing, that the selection of Cyrus, the\nmention of his name, and the furtherance of his arms against Babylon,\nwere among those _new things_, which God says He purposely did not\nreveal till the day of their happening, and which, by their novel and\nunpredicted character, offended so many of the traditional and stupid\nparty in Israel. Must there always be among God's people, to-day as\nin the day of our prophet, some who cannot conceive a thing to be\nDivine unless it has been predicted long before?\n\nIn vv. 3-8, then, God claims to have changed His treatment of His\npeople, in order to meet and to prevent the various faults of their\ncharacter. Some things He told to them, long before, so that they\nmight not attribute the occurrence of these to their idols. But other\nthings He sprang upon them, without predictions, and in an altogether\nnovel shape, so that they might not say of these things, in their\nfamiliarity with them, We knew of them ourselves. A people who were\nat one time so stubborn, and at another so slippery, were evidently\na people who deserved nothing at God's hand. Yet He goes on to say,\nvv. 9-11, that He will treat them with forbearance, if not for their\nsake, yet for His own: _For the sake of My Name I defer Mine anger,\nand for My praise_--or _renown_, or _reputation_, as we would say\nof a man--_I will refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold\nI have smelted thee, but not as silver: I have tested thee in the\nfurnace of affliction. For Mine own sake, for Mine own sake, I am\nworking;--for how was My Name being profaned!_[121]--_and My glory to\nanother I will not give._\n\nThen he gathers up the sum of what He has been saying in a final\nappeal.\n\n_Hearken unto Me, O Jacob, and Israel My Called: I am He; I am First,\nyea, I am Last. Yea, My hand hath founded Earth,_[122] _and My right\nhand hath spread Heaven; when I call unto them they stand together._\n\n_Be gathered, all of you, and hearken, Who among them_--that is,\nthe Gentiles--_hath published these things_?--that is, such things\nas the following, the prophecy given in the next clause of the\nverse: _Whom Jehovah loveth shall perform His pleasure on Babylon,\nand his arm_ shall be on _the Chaldeans_. This was the sum of\nwhat Jehovah promised long ago;[123] not Cyrus' name, not that a\nGentile, a Persian, should deliver God's people, for these are among\nthe new things which were not published beforehand, at which the\ntraditional Israelites were offended,--but this general fiat of God's\nsovereignty, _that whomever Jehovah loves_, or _likes, he shall\nperform His pleasure on Babylon. I, even I, have spoken_--this, in\nver. 14_b_, was My speaking. _Yea, I have called him; I have brought\nhim, and he will make his way to prosper._ Again emphasize the change\nof tense. Cyrus is already called, but, while the prophet speaks, he\nhas not yet reached his goal in the capture of Babylon.\n\nSome ambassador from the Lord, whether the prophet or the Servant of\nJehovah, now takes up the parable, and, after presenting himself,\naddresses a final exhortation to Israel, summing up the moral meaning\nof the Exile. _Draw near to me, hear this; not from aforetime in\nsecret have I spoken; from the time that it was, there am I: and now\nmy Lord, Jehovah, hath sent me with His Spirit._[124]\n\n_Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, Holy of Israel, I am Jehovah thy\nGod, thy Teacher to profit, thy Guide in the way thou shouldest go:\nWould that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments, then were like\nthe River thy peace, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea!\nThen were like the sand thy seed, and the offspring of thy bowels\nlike its grains!_[125] _He shall not be cut off, nor shall perish his\nname from before Me._\n\nAnd now at last it is time to be up. Our salvation is nearer than\nwhen first we believed. Day has dawned, the gates are opening, the\nWord has been sufficiently spoken.\n\n _Go forth from Babel, fly from the Chaldeans;\n With a ringing voice publish and let this be heard,\n Send ye it out to the end of the earth,\n Say, Redeemed hath Jehovah His Servant Jacob.\n And they thirsted not in the deserts He caused them to walk;\n Waters from a rock He let drop for them,\n Clave a rock and there flowed forth waters!\n No peace, saith Jehovah, for the wicked._\n\nWe have arrived at the most distinct stage of which our prophecy\ngives trace. Not that a new start is made with the next passage.\nCh. xlix. is the answer of the Servant himself to the appeal made\nto him in xlviii. 20; and ch. xlix. does not introduce the Servant\nfor the first time, but simply carries further the substance of the\nopening verses of ch. xlii. Nor is this urgent appeal to _Go forth\nfrom Babylon_, which has come to Israel, the only one, or the last,\nof its kind. It is renewed in ch. lii. 11-12. So that we cannot\nthink that our prophet has even yet got the Fall of Babylon behind\nhim. Nevertheless, the end of ch. xlviii. is the end of the first\nand chief stage of the prophecy. The fundamental truths about God\nand salvation have been laid down; the idols have been thoroughly\nexposed; Cyrus has been explained; Babylon is practically done with.\nNeither Babylon, nor Cyrus, nor, except for a moment, the idols, are\nmentioned in the rest of the prophecy. The Deliverance of Israel is\ncertain. And what now interests the prophet is first, how the Holy\nNation will accomplish the destiny for which it has been set free,\nand next, how the Holy City shall be prepared for the Nation to\ninhabit. These are the two themes of chs. xlix. to lxvi. The latter\nof them, the Restoration of Jerusalem, has scarcely been touched by\nour prophet as yet. But he has already spoken much of the Nation's\nDestiny as the Servant of the Lord; and now that we have exhausted\nthe subject of the deliverance from Babylon, we will take up his\nprophecies on the Servant, both those which we have passed over in\nchs. xl.-xlviii. and those which still lie ahead of us.\n\nBefore we do this, however, let us devote a chapter to a study of our\nprophet's use of the word righteousness, for which this seems to be\nas convenient a place as any other.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[117] Bredenkamp will have it, that the prophet here mentions first\nNorthern Israel and then Judah: _O House of Jacob_, the general term,\nboth _those that are called by the name of Israel, and that have\ncome forth from the waters of Judah_. But this is entirely opposed\nto the syntax, and I note the opinion simply to show how precarious\nthe arguments are for the existence of pre-exilic elements in Isa.\nxl.-xlviii. The point, which Bredenkamp makes by his rendering of\nthis verse, is that it could only be a pre-exilic prophet, who would\ndistinguish between Judah and Northern Israel; and that, therefore,\nit might be Isaiah himself who wrote the verse!\n\n[118] _Former things_ (ri'shon\u00f4th). It is impossible to determine\nwhether these mean _predictions_ which Jehovah published long ago,\nand which have already come to pass, or _former events_ which He\nforetold long ago, and which have happened as He said they would. The\ndistinction, however, is immaterial.\n\n[119] Literally, _also_. But \u05e0\u05dd, a cumulative conjunction, when it\nis introduced to repeat the same thought as preceded it, means _yea,\ntruly_, profecto, imo.\n\n[120] Ch. xxv., which is undoubtedly an authentic prophecy of Jeremiah.\n\n[121] The Hebrew has not the words _My Name_. The LXX. has them.\n\n[122] A second time without article though applied to the whole world.\n\n[123] Giesebrecht takes this as an actual quotation from some former\nprophet: a specimen of the ancient prophecies which Jehovah sent to\nIsrael, and which were now being fulfilled. At least it is the sum of\nwhat Jehovah's prophets had often predicted.\n\n[124] This very difficult verse has been attributed either to\nJehovah in the first three clauses and to the Servant in the fourth\n(Delitzsch); or in the same proportion to Jehovah and the prophet\n(Cheyne and Bredenkamp); or to the Servant all through (Orelli); or\nto the prophet all through (Hitzig, Knobel, Giesebrecht. See the\nlatter's _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kritik Jesaia's_, p. 136). It is a subtle\nmatter. The present expositor thinks it clear that all four clauses\nmust be understood as the voice of one speaker, but sees nothing\nin them to decide finally whether that speaker is the Servant, the\npeople Israel, in which case _I am there_ would have reference to\nIsrael's consciousness of every deed done by God since the beginning\nof their history (_cf._ ver. 6_a_); or whether the speaker is the\nprophet, in which case _I am there_ would mean that he had watched\nthe rise of Cyrus from the first. But _cf._ Zech. ii. 10-11, Eng.\nVer., and iv. 9.\n\n[125] Or _like its bowels_, referring to the sea.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIV.\n\n _THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ISRAEL AND THE\n RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD._\n\n ISAIAH xl.-lxvi.\n\n\nIn the chapters which we have been studying we have found some\ndifficulty with one of our prophet's keynotes--_right_ or\n_righteousness_. In the chapters to come we shall find this difficulty\nincrease, unless we take some trouble now to define how much the word\ndenotes in Isa. xl.-lxvi. There is no part of Scripture, in which\nthe term _righteousness_ suffers so many developments of meaning. To\nleave these vague, as readers usually do, or to fasten upon one and\nall the technical meaning of righteousness in Christian theology, is\nnot only to obscure the historical reference and moral force of single\npassages,--it is to miss one of the main arguments of the prophecy. We\nhave read enough to see that _righteousness_ was the great question\nof the Exile. But what was brought into question was not only the\nrighteousness of the people, but the righteousness of their God.\nIn Isa. xl.-lxvi. righteousness is more often claimed as a Divine\nattribute, than enforced as a human duty or ideal.[126]\n\n\n I. RIGHTEOUSNESS.\n\nSsedheq, the Hebrew root for righteousness, had, like the Latin\n\"rectus,\" in its earliest and now almost forgotten uses, a physical\nmeaning. This may have been either _straightness_, or more probably\n_soundness_,--the state in which a thing is _all right_.[127] _Paths\nof righteousness_, in Psalm xxiii., ver. 4, are not necessarily\nstraight paths, but rather sure, genuine, safe paths.[128] Like all\nphysical metaphors, like our own words \"straight\" and \"right,\" the\napplicability of the term to moral conduct was exceedingly elastic.\nIt has been attempted to gather most of its meaning under the\ndefinition of _conformity to norm_;[129] and so many are the instances\nin which the word has a forensic force,[130] as of _vindication_ or\n_justification_, that some have claimed this for its original, or,\nat least, its governing sense. But it is improbable that either of\nthese definitions conveys the simplest or most general sense of the\nword. Even if _conformity_ or _justification_ were ever the prevailing\nsense of ssedheq, there are a number of instances in which its\nmeaning far overflows the limits of such definitions. Every one can\nsee how a word, which may generally be used to express an abstract\nidea, like _conformity_, or a formal relation towards a law or person,\nlike _justification_, might come to be applied to the actual virtues,\nwhich realise that idea or lift a character into that relation. Thus\nrighteousness might mean justice, or truth, or almsgiving, or religious\nobedience,--to each of which, in fact, the Hebrew word was at various\ntimes specially applied. Or righteousness might mean virtue in general,\nvirtue apart from all consideration of law or duty whatsoever. In the\nprophet Amos, for instance, _righteousness_ is applied to a goodness so\nnatural and spontaneous that no one could think of it for a moment as\nconformity to norm or fulfilment of law.[131]\n\nIn short, it is impossible to give a definition of the Hebrew\nword, which our version renders as _righteousness_, less wide than\nour English word _right_. _Righteousness_ is _right_ in all its\nsenses,--natural, legal, personal, religious. It is to be all right,\nto be right-hearted, to be consistent, to be thorough; but also to be\nin the right, to be justified, to be vindicated; and, in particular,\nit may mean to be humane (as with Amos), to be just (as with Isaiah),\nto be correct or true to fact (as sometimes with our own prophet), to\nfulfil the ordinances of religion, and especially the command about\nalmsgiving (as with the later Jews).\n\nLet us now keep in mind that righteousness could express a relation,\nor a general quality of character, or some particular virtue. For we\nshall find traces of all these meanings in our prophet's application\nof the term to Israel and to God.\n\n\n II. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ISRAEL.\n\nOne of the simplest forms of the use of _righteousness_ in the Old\nTestament is when it is employed in the case of ordinary quarrels\nbetween two persons; in which for one of them _to be righteous_ means\n_to be right_ or _in the right_.[132] Now to the Hebrew all life and\nreligion was based upon covenants between two,--between man and man\nand between man and God. Righteousness meant fidelity to the terms\nof those covenants. The positive contents of the word in any single\ninstance of its use would, therefore, depend on the faithfulness and\ndelicacy of conscience by which those terms were interpreted. In\nearly Israel this conscience was not so keen as it afterwards came\nto be, and accordingly Israel's sense of their righteousness towards\nGod was, to begin with, a comparatively shallow one. When a Psalmist\nasseverates his righteousness and pleads it as the ground for God\nrewarding him, it is plain that he is able with sincerity to make a\nclaim, so repellent to a Christian's feeling, just because he has not\nanything like a Christian's conscience of what God demands from man.\nAs Calvin says on Psalm xviii., ver. 20, \"David here represents God\nas the President of an athletic contest, who had chosen him as one of\nHis champions, and David knows that so long as he keeps to the rules\nof the contest, so long will God defend him.\" It is evident that in\nsuch an assertion righteousness cannot mean perfect innocence, but\nsimply the good conscience of a man, who, with simple ideas of what\nis demanded from him, feels that on the whole \"he has\" (slightly to\nparaphrase Calvin) \"played fair.\"\n\nTwo things, almost simultaneously, shook Israel out of this primitive\nand na\u00efve self-righteousness. History went against them, and the\nprophets quickened their conscience.[133] The effect of the former of\nthese two causes will be clear to us, if we recollect the judicial\nelement in the Hebrew righteousness,--that it often meant not so\nmuch to be right, as to be vindicated or declared right. History, to\nIsrael, was God's supreme tribunal. It was the faith of the people,\nexpressed over and over again in the Old Testament, that the godly\nman is vindicated or justified by his prosperity: _the way of the\nungodly shall perish_. And Israel felt themselves to be in the\nright, just as David, in Psalm xviii., felt himself, because God\nhad accredited them with success and victory. But when the decision\nof history went against the nation, when they were threatened with\nexpulsion from their land and with extinction as a people, that just\nmeant that the Supreme Judge of men was giving His sentence against\nthem. Israel had broken the terms of the Covenant. They had lost\ntheir right; they were no longer _righteous_. The keener conscience,\ndeveloped by prophecy, swiftly explained this sentence of history.\nThis declaration, that the people were unrighteous, was due, the\nprophet said, to the people's sins. Isaiah not only exclaimed, _Your\ncountry is desolate, your cities are burned with fire_; he added, in\nequal indictment, _How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was\nfull of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers: thy\nprinces are rebellious, they judge not the fatherless, neither doth\nthe cause of the widow come before them_. To Isaiah and the earlier\nprophets Israel was unrighteous because it was so immoral. With their\nstrong social conscience, righteousness meant to these prophets the\npractice of civic virtues,--truth-telling, honesty between citizens,\ntenderness to the poor, inflexible justice in high places.\n\nHere then we have two possible meanings for Israel's righteousness\nin the prophetic writings, allied and necessary to one another,\nyet logically distinct,--the one a becoming righteous through the\nexercise of virtue, the other a being shown to be righteous by the\nvoice of history. In the one case righteousness is the practical\nresult of the working of the Spirit of God; in the other it is\nvindication, or justification, by the Providence of God. Isaiah and\nthe earlier prophets, while the sentence of history was still not\nexecuted and might through the mercy of God be revoked, incline to\nemploy righteousness predominantly in the former sense. But it will\nbe understood how, after the Exile, it was the latter, which became\nthe prevailing determination of the word. By that great disaster God\nfinally uttered the clear sentence, of which previous history had\nbeen but the foreboding. Israel in exile was fully declared to be in\nthe wrong--to be unrighteous. As a church, she lay under the ban; as\na nation, she was discredited before the nations of the world. And\nher one longing, hope and effort during the weary years of Captivity\nwas to have her right vindicated again, was to be restored to right\nrelations to God and to the world, under the Covenant.\n\nThis is the predominant meaning of the term, as applied to Israel, in\nIsa. xl.-lxvi. Israel's unrighteousness is her state of discredit and\ndisgrace under the hands of God; her righteousness, which she hopes\nfor, is her restoral to her station and destiny as the elect people.\nTo our Christian habit of thinking, it is very natural to read the\nfrequent and splendid phrases, in which _righteousness_ is attributed\nor promised to the people of God in this evangelical prophecy, as\nif righteousness were that inward assurance and justification from\nan evil conscience, which, as we are taught by the New Testament,\nis provided for us through the death of Christ, and inwardly sealed\nto us by the Holy Ghost, irrespective of the course of our outward\nfortune. But if we read that meaning into _righteousness_ in Isa.\nxl.-lxvi., we shall simply not understand some of the grandest\npassages of the prophecy. We must clearly keep in view, that while\nthe prophet ceaselessly emphasizes the pardon of God _spoken home\nto the heart_ of the people, as the first step towards their\nrestoral, he does not apply the term righteousness to this inward\njustification,[134] but to the outward vindication and accrediting\nof Israel by God before the whole world, in their redemption from\nCaptivity, and their reinstatement as His people. This is very clear\nfrom the way in which _righteousness_ is coupled with _salvation_ by\nthe prophet, as (lxii. 1): _I will not rest till her righteousness\ngo forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth_.\nOr again from the way in which righteousness and glory are put in\nparallel (lxii. 2): _And the nations shall see thy righteousness,\nand all kings thy glory_. Or again in the way that _righteousness_\nand _renown_ are identified (lxi. 11): _The Lord Jehovah will cause\nrighteousness and renown to spring forth before all the nations_.\nIn each of these promises the idea of an external and manifest\nsplendour is evident; not the inward peace of justification felt\nonly by the conscience to which it has been granted, but the outward\nhistorical victory appreciable by the gross sense of the heathen.\nOf course the outward implies the inward,--this historical triumph\nis the crown of a religious process, the result of forgiveness and\na long purification,--but while in the New Testament it is these\nwhich would be most readily called a people's righteousness, it is\nthe former (what the New Testament would rather call _the crown of\nlife_), which has appropriated the name in Isa. xl.-lxvi. The same is\nmanifest from another text (xlviii. 18): _O that thou hadst hearkened\nto My commandments; then had thy peace been as the River, and thy\nrighteousness like the waves of the sea_. Here _righteousness_ is not\nonly not applied to inward morality, but set over against this as its\nexternal reward,--the health and splendour which a good conscience\nproduces. It is in the same external sense that the prophet talks of\nthe _robe of righteousness_ with its bridal splendour, and compares\nit to the appearance of _Spring_ (lxi. 10-11).\n\nFor this kind of righteousness, this vindication by God before the\nworld, Israel waited throughout the Exile. God addresses them as\n_they that pursue righteousness, that seek Jehovah_ (li. 1). And\nit is a closely allied meaning, though perhaps with a more inward\napplication, when the people are represented as praying God to give\nthem _ordinances of righteousness_ (lviii. 2),--that is, to prescribe\nsuch a ritual as will expiate their guilt and bring them into a right\nrelation with Him. They sought in vain. The great lesson of the Exile\nwas that not by works and performances, but through simply waiting\nupon the Lord, their righteousness should shine forth. Even this\noutward kind of justification was to be by faith.\n\nThe other meaning of righteousness, however,--the sense of social\nand civic morality, which was its usual sense with the earlier\nprophets,--is not altogether excluded from the use of the word in\nIsa. xl.-lxvi. Here are some commands and reproaches which seem to\nimply it. _Keep judgement, and do righteousness_,--where, from what\nfollows, righteousness evidently means observing the Sabbath and\ndoing no evil (lvi. 1 ff). _And justice is fallen away backward, and\nrighteousness standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street,\nand steadfastness cannot enter_ (lix. 14). These must be terms for\nhuman virtues, for shortly afterwards it is said: _Jehovah was\ndispleased because there was no justice_. Again, _They seek Me as\na nation that did righteousness_ (lviii. 2); _Hearken unto Me, ye\nthat know righteousness, a people--My law is in their hearts_ (li.\n7); _Thou meetest him that worketh righteousness_ (lxiv. 5); _No\none sues in righteousness, and none goeth to law in truth_ (lix.\n4). In all these passages _righteousness_ means something that man\ncan know and do, his conscience and his duty, and is rightly to\nbe distinguished from those others, in which _righteousness_ is\nequivalent to the salvation, the glory, the peace, which only God's\npower can bring. If the passages, that employ _righteousness_ in the\nsense of moral or religious observance, really date from the Exile,\nthen the interesting fact is assured to us that the Jews enjoyed\nsome degree of social independence and responsibility during their\nCaptivity. But it is a very striking fact that these passages all\nbelong to chapters, the exilic origin of which is questioned even by\ncritics, who assign the rest of Isa. xl.-lxvi. to the Exile. Yet,\neven if these passages have all to be assigned to the Exile, how\nfew they are in number! How they contrast with the frequency, with\nwhich, in the earlier part of this book,--in the orations addressed\nby Isaiah to his own times, when Israel was still an independent\nstate,--_righteousness_ is reiterated as the daily, practical duty\nof men, as justice, truthfulness and charity between man and man!\nThe extreme rarity of such inculcations in Isa. xl.-lxvi. warns us\nthat we must not expect to find here the same practical and political\ninterest, which formed so much of the charm and the force of Isa.\ni.-xxxix. The nation has now no politics, almost no social morals.\nIsrael are not citizens working out their own salvation in the\nmarket, the camp and the senate; but captives waiting a deliverance\nin God's time, which no act of theirs can hasten. It is not in the\nstreet that the interest of Second Isaiah lies: it is on the horizon.\nHence the vague feeling of a distant splendour, which, as the reader\npasses from ch. xxxix. to ch. xl., replaces in his mind the stir of\nliving in a busy crowd, the close and throbbing sense of the civic\nconscience, the voice of statesmen, the clash of the weapons of war.\nThere is no opportunity for individuals to reveal themselves. It is\na nation waiting, indistinguishable in shadow, whose outlines only\nwe see. It is no longer the thrilling practical cry, which sends\nmen into the arenas of social life with every sinew in them strung:\n_Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the\nfatherless, plead for the widow_. It is rather the cry of one who\nstill waits for his working day to dawn: _I will lift up mine eyes to\nthe hills, from whence cometh my help?_ Righteousness is not the near\nand daily duty, it is the far-off peace and splendour of skies, that\nhave scarce begun to redden to the day.\n\n\n III. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD.\n\nBut there was another Person, whose righteousness was in question\nduring the Exile, and who Himself argues for it throughout our\nprophecy. Perhaps the most peculiar feature of the theology of Isa.\nxl.-lxvi. is its argument for _the righteousness of Jehovah_.\n\nSome critics maintain that righteousness, when applied to Jehovah,\nbears always a technical reference to His covenant with Israel.\nThis is scarcely correct. Jehovah's dealings with Israel were no\ndoubt the chief of His dealings, and it is these, which He mainly\nquotes to illustrate His righteousness; but we have already studied\npassages, which prove to us that Jehovah's righteousness was an\nabsolute quality of His Godhead, shown to others besides Israel, and\nin loyalty to obligations different from the terms of His covenant\nwith Israel. In ch. xli. Jehovah calls upon the heathen to match\ntheir righteousness with His; righteousness was therefore a quality\nthat might have been attributed to them as well as to Himself. Again,\nin xlv. 19,--_I, Jehovah, speak righteousness, I declare things that\nare right_,--righteousness evidently bears a general sense, and not\none of exclusive application to God's dealing with Israel. It is the\nsame in the passage about Cyrus (xlv. 13): _I have raised him up in\nrighteousness, I will make straight all his ways_. Though Cyrus was\ncalled in connection with God's purpose towards Israel, it is not\nthat purpose which makes his calling righteous, but the fact that God\nmeans to carry him through, or, as the parallel verse says, _to make\nstraight all his ways_. These instances are sufficient to prove that\nthe righteousness, which God attributes to His words, to His actions\nand to Himself, is a general quality not confined to His dealings\nwith Israel under the covenant,--though, of course, most clearly\nillustrated by these.\n\nIf now we enquire, what this absolute quality of Jehovah's Deity\nreally means, we may conveniently begin with His application of\nit to His Word. In ch. xli. He summons the other religions to\nexhibit predictions that are true to fact. _Who hath declared it\non-ahead that we may know, or from aforetime that we may say, He is\nssadd\u00eeq._[135] Here ssadd\u00eeq simply means _right_, _correct_, true\nto fact. It is much the same meaning in xliii. 9, where the verb is\nused of heathen predicters, _that they may be shown to be right_, or\n_correct_ (English version, _justified_). But when, in ch. xlvi.,\nthe word is applied by Jehovah to His own speech, it has a meaning,\nof far richer contents, than mere correctness, and proves to us that\nafter all the Hebrew ssedheq was almost as versatile as the English\n\"right.\" The following passage shows us that the righteousness of\nJehovah's speech is its clearness, straightforwardness and practical\neffectiveness: _Not in secret have I spoken, in a place of the\nland of darkness_,--this has been supposed to refer to the remote\nor subterranean localities in which heathen oracles mysteriously\nentrenched themselves,--_I have not said to the seed of Jacob, In\nChaos seek Me. I am Jehovah, a Speaker of righteousness, a Publisher\nof straight things. Be gathered and come, draw near together, O\nremnants of the nations. They know not that carry the log of their\nimage, and pray to a god who does not save. Publish and bring near,\nyea, let them take counsel together. Who caused this to be heard of\nold? long since hath published it? Is it not I, Jehovah, and there\nis none else God beside Me; a God righteous and a Saviour, there is\nnone except Me. Turn unto Me and be saved, all ends of Earth,_[136]\n_for I am God, and there is none else. By Myself have I sworn, gone\nforth from My mouth hath righteousness: a word and it shall not turn;\nfor to Me shall bow every knee, shall swear every tongue. Truly in\nJehovah, shall they say of Me, are righteousnesses and strength. To\nHim shall it come,_[137] _and shamed shall be all that are incensed\nagainst Him. In Jehovah shall be righteous and renowned all the seed\nof Israel_ (xlv. 19-25).\n\nIn this very suggestive passage _righteousness_ means far more\nthan simple correctness of prediction. Indeed, it is difficult to\ndistinguish how much it means, so quickly do its varying echoes\nthrong upon our ear, from the new associations in which it is\nspoken. A word such as _righteousness_ is like the sensitive tones\nof the human voice. Spoken in a desert, the voice is itself and\nnothing more; but utter it where the landscape is crowded with novel\nobstacles, and the original note is almost lost amid the echoes\nit startles. So with the _righteousness of Jehovah_; among the\nnew associations in which the prophet affirms it, it starts novel\nrepetitions of itself. Against the ambiguity of the oracles, it is\nechoed back as _clearness_, _straightforwardness_, _good faith_ (ver.\n19); against their opportunism and want of foresight, it is described\nas equivalent to the capacity for arranging things beforehand and\npredicting what must come to pass, therefore as _purposefulness_;\nwhile against their futility, it is plainly _effectiveness and power\nto prevail_ (ver. 23). It is the quality in God, which divides His\nGodhead with His power, something intellectual as well as moral, the\npossession of a reasonable purpose as well as fidelity towards it.\n\nThis intellectual sense of righteousness, as reasonableness or\npurposefulness, is clearly illustrated by the way in which the\nprophet appeals, in order to enforce it, to Jehovah's creation of\nthe world. _Thus saith Jehovah, Creator of the heavens--He is the\nGod--Former of the Earth and her Maker, He founded her; not Chaos did\nHe create her, to be dwelt in did He form her_ (xlv. 18). The word\n_Chaos_ here is the same as is used in opposition to _righteousness_\nin the following verse. The sentence plainly illustrates the truth,\nthat whatever God does, He does not so as to issue in confusion,\nbut with a reasonable purpose and for a practical end. We have here\nthe repetition of that deep, strong note, which Isaiah himself so\noften sounded to the comfort of men in perplexity or despair, that\nGod is at least reasonable, not working for nothing, nor beginning\nonly to leave off, nor creating in order to destroy. The same God,\nsays our prophet, who formed the earth in order to see it inhabited,\nmust surely be believed to be consistent enough to carry to the\nend also His spiritual work among men. Our prophet's idea of God's\nrighteousness, therefore, includes the idea of reasonableness;\nimplies rational as well as moral consistency, practical sense as\nwell as good faith; the conscience of a reasonable plan, and, perhaps\nalso, the power to carry it through.\n\nTo know that this great and varied meaning belongs to _righteousness_\ngives us new insight into those passages, which find in it all the\nmotive and efficiency of the Divine action: _It pleased Jehovah for His\nrighteousness' sake_ (xlii. 21); _His righteousness, it upheld Him; and\nHe put on righteousness as a breastplate_ (lix. 16, 17).\n\nWith such a righteousness did Jehovah deal with Israel. To her\ndespair that He has forgotten her He recounts the historical events\nby which He has made her His own, and affirms that He will carry\nthem on; and you feel the expression both of fidelity and of the\nconsciousness of ability to fulfil, in the words, _I will uphold thee\nwith the right hand of My righteousness. Right hand_--there is more\nthan the touch of fidelity in this; there is the grasp of power.\nAgain, to the Israel who was conscious of being His Servant, God\nsays, _I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness_; and, taken\nwith the context, the word plainly means good faith and intention to\nsustain and carry to success.\n\nIt was easy to transfer the name _righteousness_ from the character of\nGod's action to its results, but always, of course, in the vindication\nof His purpose and word. Therefore, just as the salvation of Israel,\nwhich was the chief result of the Divine purpose, is called Israel's\nrighteousness, so it is also called _Jehovah's righteousness_.\nThus, in xlvi. 13, _I bring near My righteousness_; and in li. 5,\n_My righteousness is near, My salvation is gone forth_; ver. 6,\n_My salvation shall be for ever, and My righteousness shall not be\nabolished._ It seems to be in the same sense, of finished and visible\nresults, that the skies are called upon _to pour down righteousness,\nand the earth to open that they may be fruitful in salvation, and let\nher cause righteousness to spring up together_ (xlv. 8; _cf._ lxi. 10,\n_My Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness to spring forth_).\n\nOne passage is of great interest, because in it _righteousness_ is\nused to play upon itself, in its two meanings of human duty and\nDivine effect--lvi. 1, _Observe judgement_--probably religious\nordinances--_and do righteousness; for My salvation is near to come,\nand My righteousness to be revealed_.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTo complete our study of _righteousness_ it is necessary to touch\nstill upon one point. In Isa. xl.-lxvi. both the masculine and\nfeminine forms of the Hebrew word for righteousness are used, and it\nhas been averred that they are used with a difference. This opinion\nis entirely dispelled by a collation of the passages. I give the\nparticulars in a note, from which it will be seen that both forms are\nindifferently employed for each of the many shades of meaning which\n_righteousness_ bears in our prophecies.[138]\n\nThat the masculine and feminine forms sometimes occur, with the same\nor with different meanings, in the same verse, or in the next verse\nto one another, proves that the selection of them respectively cannot\nbe due to any difference in the authorship of our prophecy. So that\nwe are reduced to say that nothing accounts for their use, except, it\nmight be, the exigencies of the metre. But who is able to prove this?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[126] It is only by confining his review of the word to its\napplications to God, and overlooking the passages which attribute it to\nthe people, that Kr\u00fcger, _Essai sur la Th\u00e9ologie d'Isa\u00efe xl.-lxvi._,\ncan affirm that the prophet holds throughout to a single idea of\nrighteousness (p. 36). On this, as on many other points, it is Calvin's\ntreatment, that is most sympathetic to the variations of the original.\n\n[127] In Arabic the cognate word is applied to a lance, but this\nmay mean a sound or fit lance as well as a straight one. \"Originem\nSchult. de defect. hodiernis \u00a7 214-224 ponit in _rigore_, _duritia_,\ncoll. [Arabic: **] lancea dura, al. aequabilis\" (Gesenii _Thesaurus_,\nart. \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7).\n\n[128] It is not certain whether righteousness is here used in a\nphysical sense; and in all other cases in which the root is applied\nin the Old Testament to material objects, it is plainly employed in\nsome reflection of its moral sense, _e.g._, _just_ weights, _just_\nbalance, Lev. xix. 36.\n\n[129] \"Der Zustand welcher der Norm entspricht.\" Schultz, _Alt. Test.\nTheologie_, 4th ed., p. 540, n. 1.\n\n[130] _Cf._ Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 388, and\nKautzsch's paper, which is there quoted.\n\n[131] \"Die Begriffe \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4 und \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7 ... bedeuten nun wirklich bei\nAmos mehr als die juristische Gerechtigkeit. Indirect gehen die\nForderungen des Amos \u00fcber die blos rechtliche Sph\u00e4re hinaus\" (Duhm,\n_Theologie der Propheten_, p. 115).\n\n[132] Gen. xxxviii. 26. _Cf._ 2 Sam. xv. 4.\n\n[133] The first chapter of Isaiah is a perfect summary of these two.\n\n[134] But the verb to _make righteous_ or _justify_ is used in a\nsense akin to the New Testament sense in liii. 11. See our chapter on\nthat prophecy.\n\n[135] At first sight this is remarkably like the cognate Arabic root,\nwhich is continually used for truthful. But the Hebrew word never meant\ntruthful in the moral sense of truth, and here is _right_ or _correct_.\n\n[136] _Earth_ again without article, though obviously referring to\nthe world.\n\n[137] Sense doubtful here. Bredenkamp translates by a slight change\nof reading: _Only speaking by Jehovah: Fulness of righteousness and\nmight come to Him, and ashamed, etc._\n\n[138] \u05d3\u05e7\u05e6, the masculine, is used sixteen times; \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4, twenty-four.\nBoth are used of Jehovah: xlii. 21 \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d5, and lix. 16 \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05ea\u05d5. Both of His\nspeech: masc. in xlv. 19, fem. in xlv. 23 and lxiii. 1. Perhaps the\npassage in which their identity is most plain is li. 5, 6, where they\nare both parallel to salvation: ver. 5, My righteousness (m.) is near;\nver. 6, My righteousness (f.) shall not be abolished. Both are used of\nthe people's duty: lix. 4, None sueth in righteousness (m.); xlviii. 1,\nBut not in truth nor in righteousness (f.); lvi. 1, Keep justice and do\nrighteousness (f.) And both are used of the people's saved and glorious\ncondition: lviii. 8, Thy righteousness (m.) shall go before thee;\nlxii. 1, Until her righteousness (m.) go forth as brightness; xlviii.\n18, Thy righteousness (f.) as the waves of the sea; liv. 17, Their\nrighteousness (f.) which is of Me. Both are used with prepositions\n(_cf._ xlii. 6 with xlviii. 1), and both with possessive pronouns. In\nfact, there is absolutely no difference made between the two.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK III.\n\n _THE SERVANT OF THE LORD._\n\n\n\n\n\n\n BOOK III.\n\n\nHaving completed our survey of the fundamental truths of our prophecy,\nand studied the subject which forms its immediate and most urgent\ninterest, the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, we are now at liberty\nto turn to consider the great duty and destiny which lie before the\ndelivered people--the Service of Jehovah. The passages of our prophecy\nwhich describe this are scattered both among those chapters we have\nalready studied and among those which lie before us. But, as was\nexplained in the Introduction, they are all easily detached from their\nsurroundings; and the continuity and progress, of which their series,\nthough so much interrupted, gives evidence, demand that they should be\ntreated by us together. They will, therefore, form the Third of the\nBooks, into which this volume is divided.\n\nThe passages on the Servant of Jehovah, or, as the English reader is\nmore accustomed to hear him called, the Servant of the Lord, are as\nfollows: xli. 8 ff; xlii. 1-7, 18-25; xliii. _passim_, especially 8-10;\nxliv. 1, 21; xlviii. 20; xlix. 1-9; l. 4-11; lii. 13-liii. The main\npassages are those in xli., xlii., xliii., xlix., l., and lii.-liii.\nThe others are incidental allusions to Israel as the Servant of the\nLord, and do not develop the character of the Servant or the Service.\n\nUpon the questions relevant to the structure of these prophecies--why\nthey have been so scattered, and whether they were originally\nfrom the main author of Isa. xl.-lxvi., or from any other single\nwriter,--questions on which critics have either preserved a discreet\nsilence, or have spoken to convince nobody but themselves,--I have no\nfinal opinions to offer. It may be that these passages formed a poem\nby themselves before their incorporation with our prophecy; but the\nevidence, which has been offered for this, is very far from adequate.\nIt may be that one or more of them are insertions from other authors,\nto which our prophet consciously works up with ideas of his own about\nthe Servant; but neither for this is there any evidence worth serious\nconsideration. I think that all we can do is to remember that they\noccur in a dramatic work, which may, partly at least, account for the\ninterruptions which separate them; that the subject of which they treat\nis woven through and through other portions of Isa. xl.-liii., and\nthat even those of them which, like ch. xlix., look as if they could\nstand by themselves, are led up to by the verses before them; and that,\nfinally, the series of them exhibits a continuity and furnishes a\ndistinct development of their subject. See pp. 313, 314, and 336 ff.\n\nIt is this development which the following exposition seeks to\ntrace. As the prophet starts from the idea of the Servant as being\nthe whole, historical nation Israel, it will be necessary to devote,\nfirst of all, a chapter to Israel's peculiar relation to God. This\nwill be ch. xv., \"One God, One People.\" In ch. xvi. we shall trace\nthe development of the idea through the whole series of the passages;\nand in ch. xvii. we shall give the New Testament interpretation and\nfulfilment of the Servant. Then will follow an exposition of the\ncontents of the Service and of the ideal it presents to ourselves,\n_first_, as it is given in Isa. xlii. 1-9, as the service of God and\nman, ch. xviii. of this volume; then as it is realised and owned by\nthe Servant himself, as prophet and martyr, Isa. xlix.-l., ch. xix.\nof this volume; and finally as it culminates in Isa. lii. 13-liii.,\nch. xx. of this volume.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XV.\n\n _ONE GOD, ONE PEOPLE._\n\n ISAIAH xli. 8-20, xlii.-xliii.\n\n\nWe have been listening to the proclamation of a Monotheism so\nabsolute, that, as we have seen, modern critical philosophy, in\nsurveying the history of religion, can find for it no rival among the\nfaiths of the world. God has been exalted before us, in character so\nperfect, in dominion so universal, that neither the conscience nor\nthe imagination of man can add to the general scope of the vision.\nJesus and His Cross shall lead the world's heart farther into the\nsecrets of God's love; God's Spirit in science shall more richly\ninstruct us in the secrets of His laws. But these shall thereby only\nincrease the contents and illustrate the details of this revelation\nof our prophet. They shall in no way enlarge its sweep and outline,\nfor it is already as lofty an idea of the unity and sovereignty of\nGod, as the thoughts of man can follow.\n\nAcross this pure light of God, however, a phenomenon thrusts itself,\nwhich seems for the moment to affect the absoluteness of the\nvision and to detract from its sublimity. This is the prominence\ngiven before God to a single people, Israel. In these chapters the\nuniqueness of Israel is as much urged upon us as the unity of God.\nIs He the One God in heaven? they are His only people on earth,\n_His elect, His own, His witnesses to the end of the earth_. His\nguidance of them is matched with His guidance of the stars, as if,\nlike the stars shining against the night, their tribes alone moved to\nHis hand through an otherwise dark and empty space. His revelation\nto humanity is given through their little language; the restoration\nof their petty capital, that hill fort in the barren land of Judah,\nis exhibited as the end of His processes, which sweep down through\nhistory and affect the surface of the whole inhabited world. And His\nvery righteousness turns out to be for the most part His faithfulness\nto His covenant with Israel.\n\nNow to many in our day it has been a great offence to have \"the\ncurved nose of the Jew\" thus thrust in between their eyes and the\npure light of God. They ask, Can the Judge of all the earth have been\nthus partial to one people? Did God confine His revelation to men to\nthe literature of a small, unpolished tribe? Even most uncritical\nsouls have trouble to understand why _salvation is of the Jews_.\n\nThe chief point to know is that the election of Israel was an election,\nnot to salvation, but to service. To understand this is to get rid of\nby far the greater part of the difficulty that attaches to the subject.\nIsrael was a means, and not an end; God chose in him a minister, not\na favourite. No prophet in Israel failed to say this; but our prophet\nmakes it the burden of his message to the exiles. _Ye are My witnesses,\nMy Servant whom I have chosen. Ye are My witnesses, and I am God. I\nwill also give thee for a light to the nations, to be My salvation to\nthe end of the earth_ (xliii. 10). Numbers of other verses might be\nquoted to the same effect, that \"there is no God but God, and Israel\nis His prophet.\"[139] But if the election of Israel is thus an election\nto service, it is surely in harmony with God's usual method, whether\nin nature or history. So far from such a specialisation as Israel's\nbeing derogatory to the Divine unity, it is but part of that order and\ndivision of labour which the Divine unity demands as its consequence\nthroughout the whole range of Being. The universe is diverse. _To\nevery man his own work_ is the proper corollary of _God over all_, and\nIsrael's prerogative was but the specialisation of Israel's function\nfor God in the world. In choosing Israel to be His mediator with\nmankind, God did but do for religion what in the exercise of the same\npractical discipline He did for philosophy, when He dowered Greece with\nher gifts of subtle thought and speech, or with Rome when He trained\nher people to become the legislators of mankind. And how else should\nwork succeed but by specialisation,--the secret as it is of fidelity\nand expertness? Of fidelity--for the constraint of my duty surely lies\nin this, that it is due from me and no other; of expertness--for he\ndrives best and deepest who drives along one line. In lighting a fire\nyou begin with a kindled faggot; and in lighting a world it was in\nharmony with all His law, physical and moral, for God to begin with a\nparticular portion of mankind.\n\nThe next question is, Why should this particular portion of mankind\nbe a nation, and not a single prophet, or a school of philosophers,\nor a church universal? The answer is found in the condition of\nthe ancient world. Amid its diversities of language and of racial\nfeeling, a missionary prophet travelling like Paul from people to\npeople is inconceivable; and almost as inconceivable is the kind\nof Church which Paul founded among various nations, in no other\nbonds than the consciousness of a common faith. Of all possible\ncombinations of men the nation was the only form, which in the\nancient world stood a chance of surviving in the struggle for\nexistence. The nation furnished the necessary shelter and fellowship\nfor personal religion; it gave to the spiritual a habitation upon\nearth, enlisted in its behalf the force of heredity, and secured\nthe continuity of its traditions. But the service of the nation to\nreligion was not only conservative, it was missionary as well. It\nwas only through a people that a God became visible and accredited\nto the world. Their history supplied the drama in which He played\nthe hero's part. At a time when it was impossible to spread a\nreligion, by means of literature, or by the example of personal\nholiness, the achievements of a considerable nation, their progress\nand prestige, furnished a universally understood language, through\nwhich the God could publish to mankind His power and will; and in\nchoosing, therefore, a single nation to reveal Himself by, God was\nbut employing the means best adapted for His purpose. The nation was\nthe unit of religious progress in the ancient world. In the nation\nGod chose as His witness, not only the most solid and permanent, but\nthe most widely intelligible and impressive.[140]\n\nThe next question is, Why Israel should have been this singular and\nindispensable nation? When God selected Israel to serve His purpose,\nHe did so, we are told, of His sovereign grace. But this strong\nthought, which forms the foundation of our prophet's assurance about\nhis people, does not prevent him from dwelling also on Israel's\nnatural capacity for religious service. This, too, was of God. Over\nand over again Israel hears Jehovah say: _I have created thee, I\nhave formed thee, I have prepared thee_. One passage describes\nthe nation's equipment for the office of a prophet; another their\ndiscipline for the life of a saint; and every now and then our\nprophet shows how far back he feels this preparation to have begun,\neven when the nation, as he puts it, was _still in the womb_. How\neasily these well-worn phrases slip over our lips! Yet they are not\nmere formulas. Modern research has put a new meaning into them,\nand taught us that Israel's _creation_, _forming_, _election_,\n_polishing_, _carriage_, and _defence_ were processes as real and\nmeasurable as any in natural or political history. For instance, when\nour prophet says that Israel's preparation began _from the womb,--I\nam thy moulder, saith Jehovah, from the womb_,--history takes us\nback to the pre-natal circumstance of the nation, and there exhibits\nit to us as already being tempered to a religious disposition and\npropensity. The Hebrews were of the Semitic stock. The _womb_ from\nwhich Israel sprang was a race of wandering shepherds, upon the\nhungry deserts of Arabia, where man's home is the flitting tent,\nhunger is his discipline for many months of the year, his only arts\nare those of speech and war, and in the long irremediable starvation\nthere is nothing to do but to be patient and dream. Born in these\ndeserts, the youth of the Semitic race, like the probation of their\ngreatest prophets, was spent in a long fast, which lent their spirit\na wonderful ease of detachment from the world and of religious\nimagination, and tempered their will to long suffering--though it\ntouched their blood, too, with a rancorous heat that breaks out\nthrough the prevailing calm of every Semitic literature.[141] They\nwere trained also in the desert's august style of eloquence. _He hath\nmade my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath\nHe hid me._[142] A \"natural prophecy,\" as it has been called, is\nfound in all the branches of the Semitic stock. No wonder that from\nthis race there came forth the three great universal religions of\nmankind--that Moses and the prophets, John, Jesus Himself and Paul,\nand Mohammed were all of the seed of Shem.\n\nThis racial disposition the Hebrew carried with him into his calling\nas a nation. The ancestor, who gave the people the double name by\nwhich they are addressed throughout our prophecy, _Jacob-Israel_,\ninherited with all his defects the two great marks of the religious\ntemper. Jacob could dream and he could wait. Remember him by the side\nof the brother, who could so little think of the future, that he was\nwilling to sell its promise for a mess of pottage; who, though God\nwas as near to him as to Jacob, never saw visions or wrestled with\nangels; who seemed to have no power of growth about him, but carrying\nthe same character, unchanged through the discipline of life, finally\ntransmitted it in stereotype to his posterity;--remember Jacob by the\nside of such a brother, and you have a great part of the secret of the\nemergence of his descendants from the life of wandering cattle-breeders\nto be God's chief ministers of religion in the world. Their habits,\nlike their father's, might be bad, but they had the tough and malleable\nconstitution, which it was possible to mould to something better.\nLike their father, they were false, unchivalrous, selfish, \"with the\nherdsman's grossness in their blood,\" and much of the rancour and\ncruelty of their ancestors, the desert-warriors, but with it all they\nhad the two most potential of habits--they could dream and they could\nwait. In his love and hope for promised Rachel, that were not quenched\nor soured by the substitution, after seven years' service for her, of\nher ill-favoured sister, but began another seven years' effort for\nherself, Jacob was a type of his strange, tenacious people, who, when\nthey were brought face to face with some Leah of a fulfilment of their\nfondest ideals, as they frequently were in their history, took up again\nwith undiminished ardour the pursuit of their first unforgettable\nlove. It is the wonder of history, how this people passed through the\ncountless disappointments of the prophecies to which they had given\ntheir hearts, yet with only a strengthening expectation of the arrival\nof the promised King and His kingdom. If other peoples have felt a gain\nin character from such miscarriages of belief, it has generally been at\nthe expense of their faith. But Israel's experience did not take faith\naway or even impair faith's elasticity. We see their appreciation of\nGod's promises growing only more spiritual with each postponement,\nand patience performing her perfect work upon their character; yet\nthis never happens at the cost of the original buoyancy and ardour.\nThe glory of it we ascribe, as is most due, to the power of the Word\nof God; but the people who could stand the strain of the discipline\nof such a word, its alternate glow and frost, must have been a people\nof extraordinary fibre and frame. When we think of how they wore for\nthose two thousand years of postponed promise, and how they wear\nstill, after two thousand years more of disillusion and suffering, we\ncease to wonder why God chose this small tribe to be His instrument on\nearth. Where we see their bad habits, their Creator knew their sound\nconstitution, and the constitution of Israel is a thing unique among\nmankind.\n\nFrom the racial temper of the elect nation we pass to their history,\non the singularity of which our prophet dwells with emphasis.\nIsrael's political origin had no other reason than a call to God's\nservice. Other peoples grew, as it were, from the soil; they were the\nproduct of a fatherland, a climate, certain physical environments:\nroot them out of these, and, as nations, they ceased to be. But\nIsrael had not been so nursed into nationality on the lap of nature.\nThe captive children of Jacob had sprung into unity and independence\nas a nation at the special call of God, and to serve His will in\nthe world,--His will that so lay athwart the natural tendencies of\nthe peoples. All down their history it is wonderful to see how it\nwas the conscience of this service, which in periods of progress\nwas the real national genius in Israel, and in times of decay or of\npolitical dissolution upheld the assurance of the nation's survival.\nWhenever a ruler like Ahaz forgot that Israel's imperishableness\nwas bound up with their faithfulness to God's service, and sought to\npreserve his throne by alliances with the world-powers, then it was\nthat Israel were most in danger of absorption into the world. And,\nconversely, when disaster came down, and there was no hope in the\nsky, it was upon the inward sense of their election to the service\nof God that the prophets rallied the people's faith and assured them\nof their survival as a nation. They brought to Israel that sovereign\nmessage, which renders all who hear it immortal: \"God has a service\nfor you to serve upon earth.\" In the Exile especially, the wonderful\nsurvival of the nation, with the subservience of all history to that\nend, is made to turn on this,--that Israel has a unique purpose to\nserve. When Jeremiah and Ezekiel seek to assure the captives of their\nreturn to the land and of the restoration of the people, they commend\nso unlikely a promise by reminding them that the nation is the\nServant of God. This name, applied by them for the first time to the\nnation as a whole, they bind up with the national existence. _Fear\nthou not, O My Servant Jacob, saith Jehovah; neither be dismayed,\nO Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from\nthe land of their captivity._[143] These words plainly say, that\nIsrael as a nation cannot die, for God has a use for them to serve.\nThe singularity of Israel's redemption from Babylon is due to the\nsingularity of the service that God has for the nation to perform.\nOur prophet speaks in the same strain: _Thou, Israel, My Servant,\nJacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My lover, whom I took hold\nof from the ends of the earth and its corners_. _I have called thee\nand said unto thee, My Servant art thou, I have chosen thee and have\nnot cast thee away_ (ch. xli. 8 ff). No one can miss the force of\nthese words. They are the assurance of Israel's miraculous survival,\nnot because he is God's favourite, but because he is God's servant,\nwith a unique work in the world. Many other verses repeat the same\ntruth.[144] They call _Israel the Servant_, and _Jacob the chosen_,\nof God, in order to persuade the people that they are not forgotten\nof Him, and that their seed shall live and be blessed. Israel\nsurvives because he serves--_Servus servatur._\n\nNow for this service,--which had been the purpose of the nation's\nelection at first, the mainstay of its unique preservation since,\nand the reason of all its singular pre-eminence before God,--Israel\nwas equipped by two great experiences. These were Redemption and\nRevelation.\n\nOn the former redemptions of Israel from the power of other nations\nour prophet does not dwell much. You feel, that they are present\nto his mind, for he sometimes describes the coming redemption\nfrom Babylon in terms of them. And once, in an appeal to the _Arm\nof Jehovah_, he calls out: _Awake like the days of old, ancient\ngenerations! Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced\nthe Dragon? Art thou not it which dried up the sea, the waters of\nthe great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for\nthe redeemed?_[145] There is, too, that beautiful passage in ch.\nlxiii., which _makes mention of the lovingkindnesses of Jehovah,\naccording to all that He hath bestowed upon us_; which describes the\n_carriage of the people all the days of old_, how _He brought them\nout of the sea, caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of\nMoses, divided the water before them, led them through the deeps as a\nhorse on the meadow, that they stumbled not_. But, on the whole, our\nprophet is too much engrossed with the immediate prospect of release\nfrom Babylon, to remember that past, of which it has been truly said,\n_He hath not dealt so with any people_. It is the new glory that is\nupon him. He counts the deliverance from Babylon as already come; to\nhis rapt eye it is its marvellous power and costliness, which already\nclothes the people in their unique brilliance and honour. _Thus saith\nJehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake have\nI sent to Babylon, and I will bring down their nobles, all of them,\nand the Chaldeans, in the ships of their exulting._[146] But it is\nmore than Babylon that is balanced against them. _I am Jehovah, thy\nGod, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. I am giving as thy ransom,\nEgypt, Cush and Seba in exchange for thee, because thou art precious\nin mine eyes, and hast made thyself valuable_ (lit., _of weight_);\n_and I have loved thee, therefore do I give mankind for thee, and\npeoples for thy life._[147] _Mankind for thee, and peoples for thy\nlife_,--all the world for this little people? It is intelligible\nonly because this little people are to be for all the world. _Ye are\nMy witnesses that I am God. I will also give thee for a light to\nnations, to be My salvation to the end of the earth._\n\nBut more than on the Redemption, which Israel experienced, our\nprophet dwells on the Revelation, that has equipped them for their\ndestiny. In a passage, in ch. xliii., to which we shall return,\nthe present stupid and unready character of the mass of the people\nis contrasted with the _instruction_ which God has lavished upon\nthem. _Thou hast seen many things, and wilt not observe; there is\nopening of the ears, but he heareth not. Jehovah was pleased for\nHis righteousness' sake to magnify the Instruction and make it\nglorious_,--_but that_--the result and the precipitate of it all--_is\na people robbed and spoiled_. The word _Instruction_ or _Revelation_\nis that same technical term, which we have met with before, for\nJehovah's special training and illumination of Israel. How special\nthese were, how distinct from the highest doctrine and practice\nof any other nation in that world to which Israel belonged, is an\nhistorical fact that the results of recent research enable us to\nstate in a few sentences.\n\nRecent exploration in the East, and the progress of Semitic philology,\nhave proved that the system of religion, which prevailed among the\nHebrews, had a very great deal in common with the systems of the\nneighbouring and related heathen nations. This common element included\nnot only such things as ritual and temple-furniture, or the details of\npriestly organization, but even the titles and many of the attributes\nof God, and especially the forms of the covenant in which He drew near\nto men. But the discovery of this common element has only thrown into\nmore striking relief the presence at work in the Hebrew religion of an\nindependent and original principle. In the Hebrew religion historians\nobserve a principle of selection operating upon the common Semitic\nmaterials for worship,--ignoring some of them, giving prominence to\nothers, and with others again changing the reference and application.\nGrossly immoral practices are forbidden; forbidden, too, are those\nsuperstitions, which, like augury and divination, draw men away\nfrom single-minded attention to the moral issues of life; and even\nreligious customs are omitted, such as the employment of women in\nthe sanctuary, which, however innocent in themselves, might lead men\ninto temptations, not desirable in connection with the professional\npursuit of religion.[148] In short, a stern and inexorable conscience\nwas at work in the Hebrew religion, which was not at work in any of\nthe religions most akin to it. In our previous volume we saw the same\nconscience inspiring the prophets. Prophecy was not confined to the\nHebrews; it was a general Semitic institution; but no one doubts the\nabsolutely distinct character of the prophecy, which was conscious of\nhaving the Spirit of Jehovah. Its religious ideas were original, and\nin it we have, as all admit, a moral phenomenon unique in history.\nWhen we turn to ask the secret of this distinction, we find the answer\nin the character of the God, whom Israel served. The God explains the\npeople; Israel is the response to Jehovah. Each of the laws of the\nnation is enforced by the reason, _For I am holy_. Each of the prophets\nbrings his message from a God, _exalted in righteousness_. In short,\nlook where you will in the Old Testament,--come to it as a critic or\nas a worshipper,--you discover the revealed character of Jehovah to be\nthe effective principle at work. It is this Divine character, which\ndraws Israel from among the nations to their destiny, which selects and\nbuilds the law to be a wall around them, and which by each revelation\nof itself discovers to the people both the measure of their delinquency\nand the new ideals of their service to humanity. Like the pillar of\ncloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, we see it in front of\nIsrael at every stage of their marvellous progress down the ages.\n\nSo that when Jehovah says that _He has magnified the Revelation and\nmade it glorious_, He speaks of a magnitude of a real, historical\nkind, that can be tested by exact methods of observation. Israel's\n_election_ by Jehovah, their _formation_, their unique _preparation_\nfor service, are not the mere boasts of an overweening patriotism,\nbut sober names for historical processes as real and evident as any\nthat history contains.\n\nTo sum up, then. If Jehovah's sovereignty be absolute, so also is the\nuniqueness of Israel's calling and equipment for His Service. For, to\nbegin with, Israel had the essential religious temper; they enjoyed a\nunique moral instruction and discipline; and by the side of this they\nwere conscious of a series of miraculous deliverances from servitude\nand from dissolution. So singular an experience and career were not,\nas we have seen, bestowed from any arbitrary motive, which exhausted\nitself upon Israel, but in accordance with God's universal method\nof specialisation of function, were granted to fit the nation as an\ninstrument for a practical end. The sovereign unity of God does not\nmean equality in His creation. The universe is diverse. There is one\nglory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of\nthe stars; and even so in the moral kingdom of Him, who is Lord of\nthe Hosts of both earth and heaven, each nation has its own destiny\nand function. Israel's was religion; Israel was God's specialist in\nreligion.\n\nFor confirmation of this we turn to the supreme witness. Jesus was\nborn a Jew, He confined His ministry to Jud\u00e6a, and He has told\nus why. By various passing allusions, as well as by deliberate\nstatements, He revealed His sense of a great religious difference\nbetween Jew and Gentile. _Use not vain repetitions as the Gentiles\ndo.... For after all these things do the nations of the world seek;\nbut your Father knoweth that you have need of these things._ He\nrefused to work except upon Jewish hearts: _I am not sent but to the\nlost sheep of the house of Israel. And He charged His disciples,\nsaying, Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any\ncity of the Samaritans; but go rather to the lost sheep of the House\nof Israel._ And again He said to the woman of Samaria: _Ye worship ye\nknow not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews_.\n\nThese sayings of our Lord have created as much question as the\npre-eminence given in the Old Testament to a single people by a God,\nwho is described as the one God of Heaven and earth. Was He narrower of\nheart than Paul, His servant, who was debtor to Greek and Barbarian?\nOr was He ignorant of the universal character of His mission till it\nwas forced upon His reluctant sympathies by the importunity of such\nheathen as the Syrophenician woman? A little common-sense dispels\nthe perplexity, and leaves the problem, over which volumes have been\nwritten, no problem at all. Our Lord limited Himself to Israel,\nnot because He was narrow, but because He was practical; not from\nignorance, but from wisdom. He came from heaven to sow the seed of\nDivine truth; and where in all humanity should He find the soil so\nready as within the long-chosen people? He knew of that discipline of\nthe centuries. In the words of His own parable, the Son when He came\nto earth directed His attention not to a piece of desert, but to _the\nvineyard_ which His Father's servants had so long cultivated, and where\nthe soil was open. Jesus came to Israel because He expected _faith in\nIsrael_. That this practical end was the deliberate intention of His\nwill, is proved by the fact that when He found faith elsewhere, either\nin Syrian or Greek or Roman hearts, He did not hesitate to let His love\nand power go forth to them.\n\nIn short, we shall have no difficulty about these Divine methods\nwith a single, elect people, if we only remember that to be Divine\nis to be practical. _Yet God also is wise_, said Isaiah to the Jews\nwhen they preferred their own clever policies to Jehovah's guidance.\nAnd we need to be told the same, who murmur that to confine Himself\nto a single nation was not the ideal thing for the One God to do;\nor who imagine that it was left to one of our Lord's own creatures\nto suggest to Him the policy of His mission upon earth. We are\nshortsighted: and the Almighty is past finding out. But this at least\nit is possible for us to see, that, in choosing one nation to be His\nagent among men, God chose the type of instrument best fitted at the\ntime for the work for which He designed it, and that in choosing\nIsrael to be that nation, He chose a people of temper singularly\nsuitable to His end.\n\nIsrael's election as a nation, therefore, was to Service. To be a\nnation and to be God's Servant was pretty much one and the same thing\nfor Israel. Israel were to survive the Exile, because they were to\nserve the world. Let us carry this over to the study of our next\nchapter--The Servant of Jehovah.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[139] Wellhausen.\n\n[140] \"Revelation is never revolutionary.... As a rule, revelation\naccepts the fragments of truth and adopts the methods of religion\nalready existing, uniting the former into a whole, and purifying\nthe latter for its own purposes.\"... For instance, \"in the East\neach people had its particular god. The god and the people were\ncorrelative ideas, that which gave the individuals of a nation unity\nand made them a people was the unity of its god; as, on the other\nhand, that which gave a god prestige was the strength and victorious\ncareer of his people. The self-consciousness of the nation and its\nreligion re-acted on one another, and rose and fell simultaneously.\nThis conception was not repudiated, but adopted by revelation; and,\nas occasion demanded, purified from its natural abuses.\"--Professor\nA. B. Davidson, _Expositor_, Second Series, vol. viii., pp. 257-8.\n\n[141] Mr. Doughty, in his most interesting account of the nomads of\nCentral Arabia, the unsophisticated Semites on their native soil,\nfurnishes ample material for accounting for the strange mixture of\npassion and resignation in these prophet-peoples of the world.\n\n[142] Ch. xlix. 2.\n\n[143] Jer. xxx. 10, cf. xlvi. 27; also Ezek. xxxvii. 25: _And they\nshall dwell in the land that I have given My servant Jacob_. Cf.\nxxviii. 25.\n\n[144] xliv. 1, 21; xlviii. 20, etc.\n\n[145] Ch. li. 9, 10.\n\n[146] Ch. xliii. 14.\n\n[147] _Ib._ 3, 4.\n\n[148] Robertson Smith, Burnett Lectures in Aberdeen, 1889-90.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVI.\n\n _THE SERVANT OF THE LORD._\n\n ISAIAH xli. 8-20; xlii. 1-7, 18 ff; xliii. 5-10; xlix. 1-9; l. 4-10;\n lii. 13-liii.\n\n\nWith chapter xlii. we reach a distinct stage in our prophecy. The\npreceding chapters have been occupied with the declaration of the\ngreat, basal truth, that Jehovah is the One Sovereign God. This has\nbeen declared to two classes of hearers in succession--to God's own\npeople, Israel, in ch. xl., and to the heathen in ch. xli. Having\nestablished His sovereignty, God now publishes His will, again\naddressing these two classes according to the purpose which He has for\neach. Has He vindicated Himself to Israel, the Almighty and Righteous\nGod, Who will give His people freedom and strength: He will now define\nto them the mission for which that strength and freedom are required.\nHas He proved to the Gentiles that He is the one true God: He will\ndeclare to them now what truth He has for them to learn. In short, to\nuse modern terms, the apologetic of chs. xl.-xli. is succeeded by the\nmissionary programme of ch. xlii. And although, from the necessities\nof the case, we are frequently brought back, in the course of the\nprophecy, to its fundamental claims for the Godhead of Jehovah, we are\nnevertheless sensible that with ver. 1 of ch. xlii. we make a distinct\nadvance. It is one of those logical steps which, along with a certain\nchronological progress that we have already felt, assures us that\nIsaiah, whether originally by one or more authors, is in its present\nform a unity, with a distinct order and principle of development.\n\nThe Purpose of God is identified with a Minister or Servant, whom He\ncommissions to carry it out in the world. This Servant is brought\nbefore us with all the urgency with which Jehovah has presented\nHimself, and next to Jehovah he turns out to be the most important\nfigure of the prophecy. Does the prophet insist that God is the only\nsource and sufficiency of His people's salvation: it is with equal\nemphasis that He introduces the Servant as God's indispensable agent\nin the work. Cyrus is also acknowledged as an elect instrument. But\nneither in closeness to God, nor in effect upon the world, is Cyrus\nto be compared for an instant to the Servant. Cyrus is subservient\nand incidental: with the overthrow of Babylon, for which he was\nraised up, he will disappear from the stage of our prophecy. But\nGod's purpose, which uses the gates opened by Cyrus, only to pass\nthrough them with the redeemed people to the regeneration of the\nwhole world, is to be carried to this Divine consummation by the\nServant: its universal and glorious progress is identified with his\ncareer. Cyrus flashes through these pages a well-polished sword: it\nis only his swift and brilliant usefulness that is allowed to catch\nour eye. But the Servant is a Character, to delineate whose immortal\nbeauty and example the prophet devotes as much space as he does\nto Jehovah Himself. As he turns again and again to speak of God's\nomnipotence and faithfulness and agonising love for His own, so\nwith equal frequency and fondness does he linger on every feature of\nthe Servant's conduct and aspect: His gentleness, His patience, His\ncourage, His purity, His meekness; His daily wakefulness to God's\nvoice, the swiftness and brilliance of His speech for others, His\nsilence under His own torments; His resorts--among the bruised, the\nprisoners, the forwandered of Israel, the weary, and them that sit\nin darkness, the far-off heathen; His warfare with the world, His\nface set like a flint; His unworldly beauty, which men call ugliness;\nHis unnoticed presence in His own generation, yet the effect of His\nface upon kings; His habit of woe, a man of sorrows and acquainted\nwith sickness; His sore stripes and bruises, His judicial murder,\nHis felon's grave; His exaltation and eternal glory--till we may\nreverently say that these pictures, by their vividness and charm,\nhave drawn our eyes away from our prophet's visions of God, and have\ncaused the chapters in which they occur to be oftener read among\nus, and learned by heart, than the chapters in which God Himself is\nlifted up and adored. Jehovah and Jehovah's Servant--these are the\ntwo heroes of the drama.\n\nNow we might naturally expect that so indispensable and fondly\nimagined a figure would also be defined past all ambiguity, whether\nas to His time or person or name. But the opposite is the case.\nAbout Scripture there are few more intricate questions than those\non the Servant of the Lord. Is He a Person or Personification? If\nthe latter, is He a Personification of all Israel? Or of a part of\nIsrael? Or of the ideal Israel? Or of the Order of the Prophets? Or\nif a Person--is he the prophet himself? Or a martyr who has already\nlived and suffered, like Jeremiah? Or One still to come, like the\npromised Messiah? Each of these suggestions has not only been made\nabout the Servant, but derives considerable support from one or\nanother of our prophet's dissolving views of his person and work.\nA final answer to them can be given only after a comparative study\nof all the relevant passages; but as these are scattered over the\nprophecy, and our detailed exposition of them must necessarily be\ninterrupted, it will be of advantage to take here a prospect of them\nall, and see to what they combine to develop this sublime character\nand mission. And after we have seen what the prophecies themselves\nteach concerning the Servant, we shall inquire how they were\nunderstood and fulfilled by the New Testament; and that will show us\nhow to expound and apply them with regard to ourselves.\n\n\n I.\n\nThe Hebrew word for _Servant_ means a person at the disposal of\nanother--to carry out his will, do his work, represent his interests.\nIt was thus applied to the representatives of a king or the\nworshippers of a god.[149] All Israelites were thus in a sense the\n_servants of Jehovah_; though in the singular the title was reserved\nfor persons of extraordinary character or usefulness.\n\nBut we have seen, as clearly as possible, that God set apart for\nHis chief service upon earth, not an individual nor a group of\nindividuals, but a whole nation in its national capacity. We have\nseen Israel's political origin and preservation bound up with that\nservice; we have heard the whole nation plainly called, by Jeremiah\nand Ezekiel, the Servant of Jehovah.[150] Nothing could be more clear\nthan this, that in the earlier years of the Exile the Servant of\nJehovah was Israel as a whole, Israel as a body politic.\n\nIt is also in this sense that our prophet first uses the title in a\npassage we have already quoted (xli. 8); _Thou Israel, My Servant,\nJacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My lover, whom I took\nhold of from the ends of the earth and its corners! I called thee\nand said unto thee, My Servant art thou. I have chosen thee, and\nnot cast thee away._ Here the _Servant_ is plainly the historical\nnation, descended from Abraham, and the subject of those national\nexperiences which are traced in the previous chapter. It is the\nsame in the following verses:--xliv. 1 ff: _Yet now hear, O Jacob\nMy servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: thus saith Jehovah thy\nMaker, and thy Moulder from the womb, He will help thee. Fear not, My\nservant Jacob; and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.... I will pour My\nspirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring._ xliv.\n21: _Remember these things, O Jacob; and Israel, for My servant art\nthou: I have formed thee; a servant for Myself art thou; O Israel,\nthou shalt not be forgotten of Me._ xlviii. 20: _Go ye forth from\nBabylon; say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His servant Jacob._ In all\nthese verses, which bind up the nation's restoration from exile with\nthe fact that God called it to be His Servant, the title _Servant_\nis plainly equivalent to the national name _Israel_ or _Jacob_. But\n_Israel_ or _Jacob_ is not a label for the mere national idea, or the\nbare political framework, without regard to the living individuals\nincluded in it. To the eye and heart of Him, _Who counts the number\nof the stars_, Israel means no mere outline, but all the individuals\nof the living generation of the people--_thy seed_, that is, every\nborn Israelite, however fallen or forwandered. This is made clear\nin a very beautiful passage in ch. xliii. (vv. 1-7): _Thus saith\nJehovah, thy Creator, O Jacob; thy Moulder, O Israel.... Fear not,\nfor I am with thee; from the sunrise I will bring thy seed, and from\nthe sunset will I gather thee; ... My sons from far, and My daughters\nfrom the end of the earth; every one who is called by My name, and\nwhom for My glory I have created, formed, yea, I have made him._ To\nthis Israel--Israel as a whole, yet no mere abstraction or outline\nof the nation, but the people in mass and bulk--every individual of\nwhom is dear to Jehovah, and in some sense shares His calling and\nequipment--to this Israel the title _Servant of Jehovah_ is at first\napplied by our prophet.\n\n2. We say \"at first,\" for very soon the prophet has to make a\ndistinction, and to sketch the Servant as something less than the\nactual nation. The distinction is obscure; it has given rise to a\nvery great deal of controversy. But it is so natural, where a nation\nis the subject, and of such frequent occurrence in other literatures,\nthat we may almost state it as a general law.\n\nIn all the passages quoted above, Israel has been spoken of in the\npassive mood, as the object of some affection or action on the part\nof God: _loved_, _formed_, _chosen_, _called_, and _about to be\nredeemed by Him_. Now, so long as a people thus lie passive, their\nprophet will naturally think of them as a whole. In their shadow\nhis eye can see them only in the outline of their mass; in their\ncommon suffering and servitude his heart will go out to all their\nindividuals, as equally dear and equally in need of redemption. But\nwhen the hour comes for the people to work out their own salvation,\nand they emerge into action, it must needs be different. When they\nare no more the object of their prophet's affection only, but pass\nunder the test of his experience and judgement, then distinctions\nnaturally appear upon them. Lifted to the light of their destiny,\ntheir inequality becomes apparent; tried by its strain, part of them\nbreak away. And so, though the prophet continues still to call on\nthe nation by its name to fulfil its calling, what he means by that\nname is no longer the bulk and the body of the citizenship. A certain\nideal of the people fills his mind's eye--an ideal, however, which is\nno mere spectre floating above his own generation, but is realised in\ntheir noble and aspiring portion--although his ignorance as to the\nexact size of this portion, must always leave his image of them more\nor less ideal to his eyes. It will be their quality rather than their\nquantity that is clear to him. In modern history we have two familiar\nillustrations of this process of winnowing and idealising a people in\nthe light of their destiny, which may prepare us for the more obscure\ninstance of it in our prophecy.\n\nIn a well-known passage in the _Areopagitica_, Milton exclaims,\n\"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself\nand shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing\nher mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday\nbeam, ... while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with\nthose also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she\nmeans.\" In this passage the \"nation\" is no longer what Milton meant by\nthe term in the earlier part of his treatise, where \"England\" stands\nsimply for the outline of the whole English people; but the \"nation\"\nis the true genius of England realised in her enlightened and aspiring\nsons, and breaking away from the hindering and debasing members of the\nbody politic--\"the timorous and flocking birds with those also that\nlove the twilight\"--who are indeed Englishmen after the flesh, but form\nno part of the nation's better self.\n\nOr, recall Mazzini's bitter experience. To no man was his Italy more\nreally one than to this ardent son of hers, who loved every born\nItalian because he was an Italian, and counted none of the fragments\nof his unhappy country too petty or too corrupt to be included in\nthe hope of her restoration. To Mazzini's earliest imagination,\nit was the whole Italian seed, who were ready for redemption, and\nwould rise to achieve it at his summons. But when his summons came,\nhow few responded, and after the first struggles how fewer still\nremained,--Mazzini himself has told us with breaking heart. The\nreal Italy was but a handful of born Italians; at times it seemed\nto shrink to the prophet alone. From such a core the conscience\nindeed spread again, till the entire people was delivered from\ntyranny and from schism, and now every peasant and burgher from the\nAlps to Sicily understands what Italy means, and is proud to be an\nItalian. But for a time Mazzini and his few comrades stood alone.\nOthers of their blood and speech were Piedmontese, Pope's men,\nNeapolitans,--merchants, lawyers, scholars,--or merely selfish and\nsensual. They alone were Italians; they alone were Italy.\n\nIt is a similar winnowing process, through which we see our prophet's\nthoughts pass with regard to Israel. Him, too, experience teaches\nthat _the many are called, but the few chosen_. So long as his people\nlie in the shadow of captivity, so long as he has to speak of them\nin the passive mood, the object of God's call and preparation, it\nis _their seed_, the born people in bulk and mass, whom he names\nIsrael, and entitles _the Servant of Jehovah_. But the moment that he\nlifts them to their mission in the world, and to the light of their\ndestiny, a difference becomes apparent upon them, and the Servant of\nJehovah, though still called Israel, shrinks to something less than\nthe living generation, draws off to something finer than the mass\nof the people. How, indeed, could it be otherwise with this strange\npeople, than which no nation on earth had a loftier ideal identified\nwith its history, or more frequently turned upon its better self,\nwith a sword in its hand. Israel, though created a nation by God\nfor His service, was always what Paul found it, divided into an\n_Israel after the flesh_, and an _Israel after the spirit_. But it\nwas in the Exile that this distinction gaped most broad. With the\nfall of Jerusalem, the political framework, which kept the different\nelements of the nation together, was shattered, and these were left\nloose to the action of moral forces. The baser elements were quickly\nabsorbed by heathendom; the nobler, that remained loyal to the divine\ncall, were free to assume a new and ideal form. Every year spent in\nBabylonia made it more apparent that the true and effective Israel\nof the future would not coincide with all the _seed of Jacob_, who\nwent into exile. Numbers of the latter were as contented with\ntheir Babylonian circumstance as numbers of Mazzini's \"Italians\"\nwere satisfied to live on as Austrian and Papal subjects. Many, as\nwe have seen, became idolaters; many more settled down into the\nprosperous habits of Babylonian commerce, while a large multitude\nbesides were scattered far out of sight across the world. It required\nlittle insight to perceive that the true, effective Israel--the\nreal _Servant of Jehovah_--must needs be a much smaller body than\nthe sum of all these: a loyal kernel within Israel, who were still\nconscious of the national calling, and capable of carrying it out;\nwho stood sensible of their duty to the whole world, but whose first\nconscience was for their lapsed and lost countrymen. This Israel\nwithin Israel was the real _Servant of the Lord_; to personify it in\nthat character--however vague might be the actual proportion it would\nassume in his own or in any other generation--would be as natural to\nour dramatic prophet as to personify the nation as a whole.\n\nAll this very natural process--this passing from the historical\nIsrael, the nation originally designed by God to be His Servant, to\nthe conscious and effective Israel, that uncertain quantity within\nthe present and every future generation--takes place in the chapters\nbefore us; and it will be sufficiently easy for us to follow if we\nonly remember that our prophet is not a dogmatic theologian, careful\nto make clear each logical distinction, but a dramatic poet, who\ndelivers his ideas in groups, tableaux, dialogues, interrupted by\nchoruses; and who writes in a language incapable of expressing such\ndelicate differences, except by dramatic contrasts, and by the one\nother figure of which he is so fond--paradox.\n\nPerhaps the first traces of distinction between the real Servant\nand the whole nation are to be found in the Programme of his Mission\nin ch. xlii. 1-7. There it is said that the Servant is to be for a\n_covenant of the people_ (ver. 6). I have explained below why we are\nto understand _people_ as here meaning Israel.[151] And in ver. 7 it\nis said of the Servant that he is _to open blind eyes_, _bring forth\nfrom prison the captive_, _from the house of bondage dwellers in\ndarkness_: phrases that are descriptive, of course, of the captive\nIsrael. Already, then, in ch. xlii. the Servant is something distinct\nfrom the whole nation, whose Covenant and Redeemer he is to be.\n\nThe next references to the Servant are a couple of paradoxes, which\nare evidently the prophet's attempt to show _why_ it was necessary\nto draw in the Servant of Jehovah from the whole to a part of the\npeople. The first of these paradoxes is in ch. xlii. ver. 18.\n\n _Ye deaf, hearken! and ye blind, look ye to see!\n Who is blind but My Servant, and deaf as My Messenger_ whom _I send?\n Who is blind as Meshullam, and blind as the Servant of Jehovah?\n Vision of many things--and thou dost not observe,\n Opening of ears and he hears not!_\n\nThe context shows that the Servant here--or Meshullam, as he is\ncalled, the _devoted_ or _submissive one_, from the same root, and of\nmuch the same form as the Arabic Muslim[152]--is the whole people;\nbut they are entitled _Servant_ only in order to show how unfit\nthey are for the task to which they have been designated, and what\na paradox their title is beside their real character. God had given\nthem every opportunity by _making great His instruction_ (ver. 21,\ncf. p. 247), and, when that failed, by His sore discipline in exile\n(vers. 24, 25). _For who gave Jacob for spoil and Israel to the\nrobbers? Did not Jehovah? He against whom we sinned, and they would\nnot walk in His ways, neither were obedient to His instruction. So\nHe poured upon him the fury of His anger and the force of war._ But\neven this did not awake the dull nation. _Though it set him on fire\nround about, yet he knew not; and it kindled upon him, yet he laid\nit not to heart._ The nation as a whole had been favoured with God's\nrevelation; as a whole they had been brought into His purifying\nfurnace of the Exile. But as they have benefited by neither the one\nnor the other, the natural conclusion is that as a whole they are no\nmore fit to be God's Servant. Such is the hint which this paradox is\nintended to give us.\n\nBut a little further on there is an obverse paradox, which plainly\nsays, that although the people are blind and deaf as a whole, still\nthe capacity for service is found among them alone (xliii. 8, 10).\n\n _Bring forth the blind people--yet eyes are there!\n And the deaf, yet ears have they!...\n Ye are My witnesses, saith Jehovah, and My Servant whom I have\n chosen._\n\nThe preceding verses (vv. 1-7) show us that it is again the whole\npeople, in their bulk and scattered fragments, who are referred to.\nBlind though they be, _yet are there eyes_ among them; deaf though\nthey be, yet _they have ears_. And so Jehovah addresses them all, in\ncontradistinction to the heathen peoples (ver. 9), as His Servant.\n\nThese two complementary paradoxes together show this: that while\nIsrael as a whole is unfit to be the Servant, it is nevertheless\nwithin Israel, alone of all the world's nations, that the true\ncapacities for service are found--_eyes are there, ears have they_.\nThey prepare us for the Servant's testimony about himself, in which,\nwhile he owns himself to be distinct from Israel as a whole, he is\nnevertheless still called Israel. This is given in ch. xlix. _And He\nsaid unto me, My Servant art thou; Israel, in whom I will glorify\nMyself. And now saith Jehovah, my moulder from the womb to be a\nServant unto Him, to turn again Jacob to Him, and that Israel might\nnot be destroyed; and I am of value in the eyes of Jehovah, and my\nGod is my strength. And He said, It is too light for thy being My\nServant,_ merely _to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the\npreserved of Israel; I will also set thee for a light of nations,\nto be My salvation to the end of the earth_ (xlix. 3-6). Here the\nServant, though still called Israel, is clearly distinct from the\nnation as a whole, for part of his work is to raise the nation up\nagain. And, moreover, he tells us this as his own testimony about\nhimself. He is no longer spoken of in the third person, he speaks\nfor himself in the first. This is significant. It is more than a\nmere artistic figure, the effect of our prophet's dramatic style--as\nif the Servant now stood opposite him, so vivid and near that he\nheard him speak, and quoted him in the direct form of speech. It is\nmore probably the result of moral sympathy: the prophet speaks out\nof the heart of the Servant, in the name of that better portion of\nIsrael which was already conscious of the Divine call, and of its\ndistinction in this respect from the mass of the people.\n\nIt is futile to inquire what this better portion of Israel actually\nwas, for whom the prophet speaks in the first person. Some have\nargued, from the stress which the speaker lays upon his gifts of\nspeech and office of preaching, that what is now signified by the\nServant is the order of the prophets; but such forget that in these\nchapters the proclamation of the Kingdom of God is the ideal, not\nof prophets only, but of the whole people. Zion as a whole is to be\n_heraldess of good news_ (xl. 9). It is, therefore, not the official\nfunction of the prophet-order which the Servant here owns, but the\nideal of the prophet-nation. Others have argued from the direct form\nof speech, that the prophet puts himself forward as the Servant. But\nno individual would call himself Israel. And as Professor Cheyne\nremarks, the passage is altogether too self-assertive to be spoken\nby any man of himself as an individual; although, of course, our\nprophet could not have spoken of the true Israel with such sympathy,\nunless he had himself been part of it. The writer of these verses may\nhave been, for the time, as virtually the real Israel as Mazzini was\nthe real Italy. But still he does not speak as an individual. The\npassage is manifestly a piece of personification. The Servant is\n_Israel_--not now the nation as a whole, not the body and bulk of the\nIsraelites, for they are to be the object of his first efforts, but\nthe loyal, conscious and effective Israel, realised in some of her\nmembers, and here personified by our prophet, who himself speaks for\nher out of his heart, in the first person.\n\nBy ch. xlix., then, the Servant of Jehovah is a personification of\nthe true, effective Israel as distinguished from the mass of the\nnation--a Personification, but not yet a Person. Something within\nIsrael has wakened up to find itself conscious of being the Servant\nof Jehovah, and distinct from the mass of the nation--something that\nis not yet a Person. And this definition of the Servant may stand\n(with some modifications) for his next appearance in ch. l. 4-9.\nIn this passage the Servant, still speaking in the first person,\ncontinues to illustrate his experience as a prophet, and carries\nit to its consequence in martyrdom. But let us notice that he now\nno longer calls himself _Israel_, and that if it were not for the\nprevious passages it would be natural to suppose that an individual\nwas speaking. This supposition is confirmed by a verse that follows\nthe Servant's speech, and is spoken, as chorus, by the Prophet\nhimself. _Who among you is a fearer of Jehovah, obedient to the voice\nof His Servant, who walketh in darkness, and hath no light. Let him\ntrust in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God._ In\nthis too much neglected verse, which forms a real transition to ch.\nlii. 13-liii., the prophet is addressing any individual Israelite,\non behalf of a personal God. It is very difficult to refrain from\nconcluding that therefore the Servant also is a Person. Let us,\nhowever, not go beyond what we have evidence for; and note only that\nin ch. l. the Servant is no more called Israel, and is represented\nnot as if he were one part of the nation, over against the mass of\nit, but as if he were one individual over against other individuals;\nthat in fine the Personification of ch. xlix. has become much more\ndifficult to distinguish from an actual Person.\n\n3. This brings us to the culminating passage--ch. lii. 13-liii. Is\nthe Servant still a Personification here, or at last and unmistakably\na Person?\n\nIt may relieve the air of that electricity, which is apt to charge\nit at the discussion of so classic a passage as this, and secure us\ncalm weather in which to examine exegetical details, if we at once\nassert, what none but prejudiced Jews have ever denied, that this\ngreat prophecy, known as the fifty-third of Isaiah, was fulfilled in\nOne Person, Jesus of Nazareth, and achieved in all its details by\nHim alone. But, on the other hand, it requires also to be pointed\nout that Christ's personal fulfilment of it does not necessarily\nimply that our prophet wrote it of a Person. The present expositor\nhopes, indeed, to be able to give strong reasons for the theory\nusual among us, that the Personification of previous passages is at\nlast in ch. liii. presented as a Person. But he fails to understand,\nwhy critics should be regarded as unorthodox or at variance with\nNew Testament teaching on the subject, who, while they acknowledge\nthat only Christ fulfilled ch. liii., are yet unable to believe\nthat the prophet looked upon the Servant as an individual, and who\nregard ch. liii. as simply a sublimer form of the prophet's previous\npictures of the ideal people of God. Surely Christ could and did\nfulfil prophecies other than personal ones. The types of Him, which\nthe New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, are not exclusively\nindividuals. Christ is sometimes represented as realising in His\nPerson and work statements, which, as they were first spoken, could\nonly refer to Israel, the nation. Matthew, for instance, applies to\nJesus a text which Hosea wrote primarily of the whole Jewish people:\n_Out of Egypt have I called My Son_.[153] Or, to take an instance\nfrom our own prophet--who but Jesus fulfilled ch. xlix., in which,\nas we have seen, it is not an individual, but the ideal of the\nprophet people, that is figured? So that, even if it were proved\npast all doubt--proved from grammar, context, and every prophetic\nanalogy--that in writing ch. liii. our prophet had still in view that\naspect of the nation which he has personified in ch. xlix., such a\nconclusion would not weaken the connection between the prophecy and\nits unquestioned fulfilment by Jesus Christ, nor render the two less\nevidently part of one Divine design.\n\nBut we are by no means compelled to adopt the impersonal view of\nch. liii. On the contrary, while the question is one, to which all\nexperts know the difficulty of finding an absolutely conclusive\nanswer one way or the other, it seems to me that reasons prevail,\nwhich make for the personal interpretation. . Let us see what exactly\nare the objections to taking ch. lii. 13-liii. in a personal sense.\nFirst, it is very important to observe, that they do not rise out\nof the grammar or language of the passage. The reference of both of\nthese is consistently individual. Throughout, the Servant is spoken\nof in the singular.[154] The name Israel is not once applied to him:\nnothing--except that the nation has also suffered--suggests that he\nis playing a national _r\u00f4le_; there is no reflection in his fate\nof the features of the Exile. The antithesis, which was evident in\nprevious passages, between a better Israel and the mass of the people\nhas disappeared. The Servant is contrasted, not with the nation as a\nwhole, but with His people as individuals. _All we like sheep have\ngone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord\nhath laid on him the iniquity of us all._ As far as grammar can,\nthis surely distinguishes a single person. It is true, that one or\ntwo phrases suggest so colossal a figure--_he shall startle many\nnations, and kings shall shut their mouths at him_--that for a moment\nwe think of the spectacle of a people rather than of a solitary\nhuman presence. But even such descriptions are not incompatible with\na single person.[155] On the other hand, there are phrases which\nwe can scarcely think are used of any but a historical individual;\nsuch as that he was taken from _oppression and judgement_, that is\nfrom a process of law which was tyranny, from a judicial murder, and\nthat he belonged to a particular generation--_As for his generation,\nwho considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living_.\nSurely a historical individual is the natural meaning of these words.\nAnd, in fact, critics like Ewald and Wellhausen, who interpret the\npassage, in its present context, of the ideal Israel, find themselves\nforced to argue, that it has been borrowed for this use from the\nolder story of some actual martyr--so individual do its references\nseem to them throughout.\n\nIf, then, the grammar and language of the passage thus conspire to\nconvey the impression of an individual, what are the objections to\nsupposing that an individual is meant? Critics have felt, in the\nmain, three objections to the discovery of a historical individual in\nIsa. lii. 13-liii.\n\nThe _first_ of these that we take is chronological, and arises from the\nlate date to which we have found it necessary to assign the prophecy.\nOur prophet, it is averred, associates the work of the Servant with\nthe restoration of the people; but he sees that restoration too close\nto him to be able to think of the appearance, ministry and martyrdom\nof a real historic life happening before it. (Our prophet, it will be\nremembered, wrote about 546, and the Restoration came in 538.) \"There\nis no room for a history like that of the suffering Servant between the\nprophet's place and the Restoration.\"[156]\n\nNow, this objection might be turned, even if it were true that the\nprophet identified the suffering Servant's career with so immediate\nand so short a process as the political deliverance from Babylon.\nFor, in that case, the prophet would not be leaving less room for the\nServant, than, in ch. ix., Isaiah himself leaves for the birth, the\ngrowth to manhood, and the victories of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names,\nbefore that immediate relief from the Assyrian, which he expects\nthe Prince to effect. But does our prophet identify the suffering\nServant's career with the redemption from Babylon and the Return?\nIt is plain that he does not--at least in those portraits of the\nServant, which are most personal. Our prophet has really two\nprospects for Israel--one, the actual deliverance from Babylon;\nthe other, a spiritual redemption and restoration. If, like his\nfellow prophets, he sometimes runs these two together, and talks\nof the latter in the terms of the former, he keeps them on the\nwhole distinct, and assigns them to different agents. The burden\nof the first he lays on Cyrus, though he also connects it with\nthe Servant, while the Servant is still to him an aspect of the\nnation (see xlix. 8_a_, 9_b_). It is temporary, and soon passes\nfrom his thoughts, Cyrus being dropped with it. But the other, the\nspiritual redemption, is confined to no limits of time; and it is\nwith its process--indefinite in date and in length of period--that\nhe associates the most personal portraits of the Servant (ch. l. and\nlii. 13-liii.). In these the Servant, now spoken of as an individual,\nhas nothing to do with that temporary work of freeing the people\nfrom Babylon, which was over in a year or two, and which seems to be\nnow behind the prophet's standpoint. His is the enduring office of\nprophecy, sympathy, and expiation--an office in which there is all\npossible \"room\" for such a historical career as is sketched for him.\nHis relation to Cyrus, before whose departure from connection with\nIsrael's fate the Servant does not appear as a person, is thus most\ninteresting. Perhaps we may best convey it in a homely figure. On the\nship of Israel's fortunes--as on every ship and on every voyage--the\nprophet sees two personages. One is the Pilot through the shallows,\nCyrus, who is dropped as soon as the shallows are past; and the\nother is the Captain of the ship, who remains always identified with\nit--the Servant. The Captain does not come to the front till the\nPilot has gone; but, both alongside the Pilot, and after the Pilot\nhas been dropped, there is every room for his office.\n\nThe _second_ main objection to identifying an individual in ch. lii.\n13-liii. is, that an individual with such features has no analogy in\nHebrew prophecy. It is said that, neither in his humiliation, nor\nin the kind of exaltation, which is ascribed to him, is there his\nlike in any other individual in the Old Testament, and certainly not\nin the Messiah. Elsewhere in Scripture (it is averred) the Messiah\nreigns, and is glorious; it is the people who suffer, and come\nthrough suffering to power. Nor is the Messiah's royal splendour at\nall the same as the very vague influence, evidently of a spiritual\nkind, which is attributed to the Servant in the end of ch. liii.\nThe Messiah is endowed with the military and political virtues. He\nis a warrior, a king, a judge. He _sits on the throne of David, He\nestablishes David's kingdom. He smites the land with the rod of His\nmouth, and with the breath of His lips He slays the wicked._ But very\ndifferent phrases are used of the Servant. He is not called king,\nthough kings shut their mouths at him,--he is a prophet and a martyr,\nand an expiation; and the phrases, _I will divide him a portion with\nthe great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong_, are simply\nmetaphors of the immense spiritual success and influence with which\nHis self-sacrifice shall be rewarded; as a spiritual power He shall\ntake His place among the dominions and forces of the world. This is\na true prophecy of what Israel, that _worm of a people_, should be\nlifted to; but it is quite different from the political throne, from\nwhich Isaiah had promised that the Messiah should sway the destinies\nof Israel and mankind.\n\nBut, in answer to this objection to finding the Messiah, or any other\ninfluential individual, in ch. liii., we may remember that there\nwere already traces in Hebrew prophecy of a suffering Messiah:\nwe come across them in ch. vii. There Isaiah presents Immanuel,\nwhom we identified with the Prince-of-the-Four-Names in ch. ix.,\nas at first nothing but a sufferer--a sufferer from the sins of\nHis predecessors.[157] And, even though we are wrong in taking the\nsuffering Immanuel for the Messiah, and though Isaiah meant him only\nas a personification of Israel suffering for the error of Ahaz, had\nnot the two hundred years, which elapsed between Isaiah's prophecy of\nIsrael's glorious Deliverer, been full of room enough, and, what is\nmore, of experience enough, for the ideal champion of the people to\nbe changed to something more spiritual in character and in work? Had\nthe nation been baptized, for most of those two centuries, in vain,\nin the meaning of suffering, and in vain had they seen exemplified in\ntheir noblest spirits the fruits and glory of self-sacrifice?[158]\nThe type of Hero had changed in Israel since Isaiah wrote of his\nPrince-of-the-Four-Names. The king had been replaced by the prophet;\nthe conqueror by the martyr; the judge who smote the land by the rod\nof his mouth, and slew the wicked by the breath of his lips,--by\nthe patriot who took his country's sins upon his own conscience.\nThe monarchy had perished; men knew that, even if Israel were set\nupon their own land again, it would not be under an independent king\nof their own; nor was a Jewish champion of the martial kind, such\nas Isaiah had promised for deliverance from the Assyrian, any more\nrequired. Cyrus, the Gentile, should do all the campaigning required\nagainst Israel's enemies, and Israel's native Saviour be relieved for\ngentler methods and more spiritual aims. It is all this experience,\nof nearly two centuries, which explains the omission of the features\nof warrior and judge from ch. liii., and their replacement by those\nof a suffering patriot, prophet and priest. The reason of the change\nis, not because the prophet who wrote the chapter had not, as much\nas Isaiah, an individual in his view, but because, in the historical\ncircumstance of the Exile, such an individual as Isaiah had promised,\nseemed no longer probable or required.\n\nSo far, then, from the difference between ch. liii. and previous\nprophecies of the Messiah affording evidence that in ch. liii. it\nis not the Messiah who is presented, this very change, that has\ntaken place, explicable as it is from the history of the intervening\ncenturies, goes powerfully to prove that it is the Messiah, and\ntherefore an individual, whom the prophet so vividly describes.\n\nThe _third_ main objection to our recognising an individual in\nch. liii. is concerned only with our prophet himself. Is it not\nimpossible, say some--or at least improbably inconsistent--for the\nsame prophet first to have identified the Servant with the nation,\nand then to present him to us as an individual? We can understand the\ntransference by the same writer of the name from the whole people to\na part of the people; it is a natural transference, and the prophet\nsufficiently explains it. But how does he get from a part of the\nnation to a single individual? If in ch. xlix. he personifies, under\nthe name Servant, some aspect of the nation, we are surely bound\nto understand the same personification when the Servant is again\nintroduced--unless we have an explanation to the contrary. But we\nhave none. The prophet gives no hint, except by dropping the name\nIsrael, that the focus of his vision is altered,--no more paradoxes\nsuch as marked his passage from the people as a whole to a portion of\nthem,---no consciousness that any explanation whatever is required.\nTherefore, however much finer the personification is drawn in ch.\nliii. than in ch. xlix., it is surely a personification still.\n\nTo which objection an obvious answer is, that our prophet is not a\nsystematic theologian, but a dramatic poet, who allows his characters\nto disclose themselves and their relation without himself intervening\nto define or relate them. And any one who is familiar with the\nliterature of Israel knows, that no less than the habit of drawing\nin from the whole people upon a portion of them, was the habit of\ndrawing in from a portion of the people upon one individual. The\nroyal Messiah Himself is a case in point. The original promise to\nDavid was of a seed; but soon prophecy concentrated the seed in\none glorious Prince. The promise of Israel had always culminated\nin an individual. Then, again, in the nation's awful sufferings,\nit had been one man--the prophet Jeremiah--who had stood forth\nsingly and alone, at once the incarnation of Jehovah's word, and the\nillustration in his own person of all the penalty that Jehovah laid\nupon the sinful people. With this tendency of his school to focus\nIsrael's hope on a single individual, and especially with the example\nof Jeremiah before him, it is almost inconceivable that our prophet\ncould have thought of any but an individual when he drew his portrait\nof the suffering Servant. No doubt the national sufferings were in\nhis heart as he wrote; it was probably a personal share in them\nthat taught him to write so sympathetically about the Man of pains,\nwho was familiar with ailing. But to gather and concentrate all\nthese sufferings upon one noble figure, to describe this figure as\nthoroughly conscious of their moral meaning, and capable of turning\nthem to his people's salvation, was a process absolutely in harmony\nwith the genius of Israel's prophecy, as well as with the trend of\ntheir recent experience; and there is, besides, no word in that\ngreat chapter, in which the process culminates, but is in thorough\naccordance with it. So far, therefore, from its being an impossible\nor an unlikely thing for our prophet to have at last reached his\nconception of an individual, it is almost impossible to conceive of\nhim executing so personal a portrait as ch. lii. 13-liii., without\nthinking of a definite historical personage, such as Hebrew prophecy\nhad ever associated with the redemption of his people.\n\n4. We have now exhausted the passages in Isa. xl.-lxvi. which\ndeal with the Servant of the Lord. We have found that our prophet\nidentifies him at first with the whole nation, and then with some\nindefinite portion of the nation--indefinite in quantity, but most\nmarked in character; that this personification grows more and\nmore difficult to distinguish from a person; and that in ch. lii.\n13-liii. there are very strong reasons, both in the text itself and\nin the analogy of other prophecy, to suppose that the portrait of an\nindividual is intended. To complete our study of this development of\nthe substance of the Servant, it is necessary to notice that it runs\nalmost stage for stage with a development of his office. Up to ch.\nxlix., that is to say, while he is still some aspect of the people,\nthe Servant is a prophet. In ch. l., where he is no longer called\nIsrael, and approaches more nearly to an individual, his prophecy\npasses into martyrdom. And in ch. liii., where at last we recognise\nhim as intended for an actual personage, his martyrdom becomes an\nexpiation for the sins of the people. Is there a natural connection\nbetween these two developments? We have seen that it was by a very\ncommon process that our prophet transferred the national calling from\nthe mass of the nation to a select few of the people. Is it by any\nequally natural tendency that he shrinks from the many to the few, as\nhe passes from prophecy to martyrdom, or from the few to the one, as\nhe passes from martyrdom to expiation? It is a possibility for all\nGod's people to be prophets: few are needed as martyrs. Is it by any\nmoral law equally clear, that only one man should die for the people?\nThese are questions worth thinking about. In Israel's history we have\nalready found the following facts with which to answer them. The\nwhole living generation of Israel felt themselves to be sinbearers:\n_Our fathers have sinned, and we bear their iniquities_. This\nconscience and penalty were more painfully felt by the righteous in\nIsrael. But the keenest and heaviest sense of them was conspicuously\nthat experienced by one man--the prophet Jeremiah.[159] And yet all\nthese cases from the past of Israel's history do not furnish more\nthan an approximation to the figure presented to us in ch. liii. Let\nus turn, therefore, to the future to see if we can find in it motive\nor fulfilment for this marvellous prophecy.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[149] A king's courtiers, soldiers, or subjects are called _his\nservants_. In this sense Israel was often styled the _servants of\nJehovah_, as in Deut. xxxii. 36; Neh. i. 10, where the phrase is\nparallel to _His people_. But _Jehovah's servants_ is a phrase also\nparallel to His worshippers (Psalm cxxxiv. 1, etc.); to those who trust\nHim (Psalm xxxiv. 22); and to those who love His name (Psalm lxix. 36).\nThe term is also applied in the plural to the prophets (Amos iii. 7);\nand in the singular, to eminent individuals--such as Abraham, Joshua,\nDavid and Job; also by Jeremiah to the alien Nebuchadrezzar, while\nengaged on his mission from God against Jerusalem.\n\n[150] See p. 244.\n\n[151] The definite article is not used here with the word people, and\nhence the phrase has been taken by some in the vaguer sense of _a\npeople's covenant_, as a general expression, along with its parallel\nclause, of the kind of influence the Servant was to exert, not on\nIsrael, but on _any_ people in the world; he was to be _a people's\ncovenant_, and _a light for nations_. So practically Schultz, _A. T.\nTheologie_, 4th ed., p. 284. But the Hebrew word for people \u05e2\u05dd is\noften used without the article to express _the_ people Israel, just\nas the Hebrew word for land \u05e8\u05e5\u05d0 is often used without the article\nto express _the_ land of Judah. (\u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 with the article, is in Isa.\nxl.-lxvi. _the Earth_.) And in ch. xlix. the phrase a _covenant of\nthe people_ again occurs, and in a context in which it can only mean\n_a covenant_ of _the_ people, Israel. Some render \u05e2\u05dd \u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea a _covenant\npeople_. But in xlix. 8 this is plainly an impossible rendering.\n\n[152] Meshullam is found as a proper name in the historical books of\nthe Old Testament, especially Nehemiah, _e.g._, iii. 4, 6, 30.\n\n[153] Hosea xi. 1; Matt. ii. 15\n\n[154] Of all the expressions used of him the only one which shows\na real tendency to a plural reference is _in his deaths_ (ver. 9),\nand even it (if it is the correct reading) is quite capable of\napplication to an individual who suffered such manifold martyrdom as\nis set forth in the passage.\n\n[155] Not one word in them betrays any sense of a body of men or an\nideal people standing behind them, which sense surely some expression\nwould have betrayed, if it had been in the prophet's mind.\n\n[156] A. B. D., in a review of the last edition of Delitzsch's\n_Isaiah_, in the _Theol. Review_, iv., p. 276.\n\n[157] _Isaiah I._ i.-xxxix., pp. 134, 135.\n\n[158] See p. 42.\n\n[159] See ch. ii. of this volume.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVII.\n\n _THE SERVANT OF THE LORD IN THE NEW\n TESTAMENT._\n\n\nIn last chapter we confined our study of the Servant of Jehovah to\nthe text of Isa. xl.-lxvi., and to the previous and contemporary\nhistory of Israel. Into our interpretation of the remarkable Figure,\nwhom our prophet has drawn for us, we have put nothing which cannot\nbe gathered from those fields and by the light of the prophet's own\nday. But now we must travel further, and from days far future to\nour prophet borrow a fuller light to throw back upon his mysterious\nprojections. We take this journey into the future for reasons he\nhimself has taught us. We have learned that his pictures of the\nServant are not the creation of his own mind; a work of art complete\n\"through fancy's or through logic's aid.\" They are the scattered\nreflections and suggestions of experience. The prophet's eyes have\nbeen opened to read them out of the still growing and incomplete\nhistory of his people. With that history they are indissolubly bound\nup. Their plainest forms are but a transcript of its clearest facts;\ntheir paradoxes are its paradoxes (reflections now of the confused\nand changing consciousness of this strange people, or again of the\ncontrast between God's design for them and their real character):\ntheir ideals are the suggestion and promise which its course reveals\nto an inspired eye. Thus, in picturing the Servant, our prophet\nsometimes confines himself to history that has already happened to\nIsrael; but sometimes, also, upon the purpose and promise of this,\nhe outruns what has happened, and plainly lifts his voice from the\nfuture. Now we must remember that he does so, not merely because\nthe history itself has native possibilities of fulfilment in it,\nbut because he believes that it is in the hands of an Almighty and\nEternal God, who shall surely guide it to the end of His purpose\nrevealed in it. It is an article of our prophet's creed, that the God\nwho speaks through him controls all history, and by His prophets _can\npublish beforehand_ what course it will take; so that, when we find\nin our prophet anything we do not see fully justified or illustrated\nby the time he wrote, it is only in observance of the conditions he\nhas laid down, that we seek for its explanation in the future.\n\nLet us, then, take our prophet upon his own terms, and follow the\nhistory, with which he has so closely bound up the prophecy of the\nServant, both in suggestion and fulfilment, in order that we may\nsee whether it will yield to us the secret of what, if we have read\nhis language aright, his eyes perceived in it--the promise of an\nIndividual Servant. And let us do so in his faith, that history is\none progressive and harmonious movement under the hand of the God in\nwhose name he speaks. Our exploration will be rewarded, and our faith\nconfirmed. We shall find the nation, as promised, restored to its\nown land, and pursuing through the centuries its own life. We shall\nfind within the nation what the prophet looked for,--an elect and\neffective portion, with the conscience of a national service to the\nworld, but looking for the achievement of this to such an Individual\nServant, as the prophet seemed ultimately to foreshadow. The world\nitself we shall find growing more and more open to this service.\nAnd at last, from Israel's national conscience of the service we\nshall see emerge One with the sense that He alone is responsible and\nable for it. And this One Israelite will not only in His own person\nexhibit a character and achieve a work, that illustrate and far excel\nour prophet's highest imaginations, but will also become, to a new\nIsrael infinitely more numerous than the old, the conscience and\ninspiration of their collective fulfilment of the ideal.\n\n * * * * *\n\n1. In the Old Testament we cannot be sure of any further appearance\nof our prophet's Servant of the Lord. It might be thought, that in a\npost-exilic promise, Zech. iii. 8, _I will bring forth My Servant_\nthe _Branch_, we had an identification of the hero of the first part\nof the Book of Isaiah, _the Branch out of Jesse's roots_ (xi. 1),\nwith the hero of the second part; but _servant_ here may so easily\nbe meant in the more general sense in which it occurs in the Old\nTestament, that we are not justified in finding any more particular\nconnection. In Judaism beyond the Old Testament the national and\npersonal interpretations of the Servant were both current. The Targum\nof Jonathan, and both the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Talmud of\nBabylon, recognise the personal Messiah in ch. liii.; the Targum also\nidentifies him as early as in ch. xlii. This personal interpretation\nthe Jews abandoned only after they had entered on their controversy\nwith Christian theologians; and in the cruel persecutions, which\nChristians inflicted upon them throughout the middle ages, they were\nsupplied with only too many reasons for insisting that ch. liii. was\nprophetic of suffering Israel--the martyr-people--as a whole.[160]\nIt is a strange history--the history of our race, where the first\nthrough their pride and error so frequently become the last, and the\nlast through their sufferings are set in God's regard with the first.\nBut of all its strange reversals none surely was ever more complete\nthan when the followers of Him, who is set forth in this passage, the\nunresisting and crucified Saviour of men, behaved in His Name with\nso great a cruelty as to be righteously taken by His enemies for the\nvery tyrants and persecutors whom the passage condemns.\n\n2. But it is in the New Testament that we see the most perfect\nreflection of the Servant of the Lord, both as People and Person.\n\nIn the generation, from which Jesus sprang, there was, amid national\ncircumstances closely resembling those in which the Second Isaiah\nwas written, a counterpart of that Israel within Israel, which our\nprophet has personified in ch. xlix. The holy nation lay again in\nbondage to the heathen, partly in its own land, partly scattered\nacross the world; and Israel's righteousness, redemption and\ningathering were once more the questions of the day. The thoughts\nof the masses, as of old in Babylonian days, did not rise beyond\na political restoration; and although their popular leaders\ninsisted upon national righteousness as necessary to this, it was\na righteousness mainly of a ceremonial kind--hard, legal, and often\nmore unlovely in its want of enthusiasm and hope than even the\npolitical fanaticism of the vulgar. But around the temple, and in\nquiet recesses of the land, a number of pious and ardent Israelites\nlived on the true milk of the word, and cherished for the nation\nhopes of a far more spiritual character. If the Pharisees laid their\nemphasis on the law, this chosen Israel drew their inspiration rather\nfrom prophecy; and of all prophecy it was the Book of Isaiah, and\nchiefly the latter part of it, on which they lived.\n\nAs we enter the Gospel history from the Old Testament, we feel at once\nthat Isaiah is in the air. In this fair opening of the new year of the\nLord, the harbinger notes of the book awaken about us on all sides\nlike the voices of birds come back with the spring. In Mary's song,\nthe phrase _He hath holpen His Servant Israel_; in the description\nof Simeon, that he waited for the _consolation of Israel_, a phrase\ntaken from the _Comfort ye, comfort ye My people_ in Isa. xl. 1; such\nfrequent phrases, too, as _the redemption of Jerusalem_, _a light\nof the Gentiles and the glory of Israel_, _light to them that sit\nin darkness_, and other echoed promises of light and peace and the\nremission of sins, are all repeated from our evangelical prophecy.\nIn the fragments of the Baptist's preaching, which are extant, it is\nremarkable that almost every metaphor and motive may be referred to\nthe Book of Isaiah, and mostly to its exilic half: _the generation\nof vipers_,[161] the _trees and axe laid to the root_,[162] _the\nthreshing floor and fan_,[163] _the fire_,[164] _the bread and clothes\nto the poor_,[165] and especially the proclamation of Jesus, _Behold\nthe Lamb of God that beareth the sin of the world_.[166] To John\nhimself were applied the words of Isa. xl.: _The voice of one crying\nin the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, make His paths\nstraight_; and when Christ sought to rouse again the Baptist's failing\nfaith it was of Isa. lxi. that He reminded him.\n\nOur Lord, then, sprang from a generation of Israel, which had a\nstrong conscience of the national aspect of the Service of God,--a\ngeneration with Isa. xl.-lxvi. at its heart. We have seen how He\nHimself insisted upon the uniqueness of Israel's place among the\nnations--_salvation is of the Jews_--and how closely He identified\nHimself with His people--_I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the\nhouse of Israel_. But all Christ's strong expression of Israel's\ndistinction from the rest of mankind, is weak and dim compared with\nHis expression of His own distinction from the rest of Israel. If\nthey were the one people with whom God worked in the world, He\nwas the one Man, whom God sent to work upon them, and to use them\nto work upon others. We cannot tell how early the sense of this\ndistinction came to the Son of Mary. Luke reveals it in Him, before\nHe had taken His place as a citizen and was still within the family:\n_Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?_ At His\nfirst public appearance He had it fully, and others acknowledged\nit. In the opening year of His ministry it threatened to be only a\nDistinction of the First--_they took Him by force, and would have\nmade Him King_. But as time went on it grew evident that it was to\nbe, not the Distinction of the First, but the Distinction of the\nOnly. The enthusiastic crowds melted away: the small band, whom He\nhad most imbued with His spirit, proved that they could follow Him\nbut a certain length in His consciousness of His Mission. Recognising\nin Him the supreme prophet--_Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast\nthe words of eternal life_--they immediately failed to understand,\nthat suffering also must be endured by Him for the people: _Be it\nfar from Thee, Lord_. This suffering was His conscience and His\nburden alone. Now, we cannot overlook the fact, that the point at\nwhich Christ's way became so solitary was the same point at which\nwe felt our prophet's language cease to oblige us to understand\nby it a portion of the people, and begin to be applicable to a\nsingle individual,--the point, namely, where prophecy passes into\nmartyrdom. But whether our prophet's pictures of the suffering and\natoning Servant of the Lord are meant for some aspect of the national\nexperience, or as the portrait of a real individual, it is certain\nthat in His martyrdom and service of ransom Jesus felt Himself to be\nabsolutely alone. He who had begun His Service of God with all the\npeople on His side, consummated the same with the leaders and the\nmasses of the nation against Him, and without a single partner from\namong His own friends, either in the fate which overtook Him, or in\nthe conscience with which He bore it.\n\nNow all this parallel between Jesus of Nazareth and the Servant of\nthe Lord is unmistakable enough, even in this mere outline; but the\ndetails of the Gospel narrative and the language of the Evangelists\nstill more emphasize it. Christ's herald hailed Him with words which\ngather up the essence of Isa. liii.: _Behold the Lamb of God_. He read\nHis own commission from ch. lxi.: _The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me_.\nTo describe His first labours among the people, His disciples again\nused words from ch. liii.: _Himself bare our sicknesses_. To paint His\nmanner of working in face of opposition they quoted the whole passage\nfrom ch. xlii.: _Behold My Servant ... He shall not strive._ The name\nServant was often upon His own lips in presenting Himself: _Behold,\nI am among you as one that serveth_. When His office of prophecy\npassed into martyrdom, He predicted for Himself the treatment which\nis detailed in ch. l.,--the _smiting_, _plucking_ and _spitting_: and\nin time, by Jew and Gentile, this treatment was inflicted on Him to\nthe very letter.[167] As to His consciousness in fulfilling something\nmore than a martyrdom, and alone among the martyrs of Israel offering\nby His death an expiation for His people's sins, His own words are\nfrequent and clear enough to form a counterpart to ch. liii. With them\nbefore us, we cannot doubt that He felt Himself to be the One of whom\nthe people in that chapter speak, as standing over against them all,\nsinless, and yet bearing their sins. But on the night on which He was\nbetrayed, while just upon the threshold of this extreme and unique\nform of service, into which it has been given to no soul of man, that\never lived, to be conscious of following Him--as if anxious that His\ndisciples should not be so overwhelmed by the awful part in which\nthey could not imitate Him as to forget the countless other ways in\nwhich they were called to fulfil His serving spirit--_He took a towel\nand girded Himself, and when He had washed their feet, He said unto\nthem, If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you\nalso ought to wash one another's feet_--thereby illustrating what is\nso plainly set forth in our prophecy, that short of the expiation, of\nwhich only One in His sinlessness has felt the obligation, and short\nof the martyrdom, which it has been given to but few of His people to\nshare with Him, there are a thousand humble forms rising out of the\nneeds of everyday life, in which men are called to employ towards one\nanother the gentle and self-forgetful methods of the true Servant of\nGod.\n\nWith the four Gospels in existence, no one doubts or can doubt that\nJesus of Nazareth fulfilled the cry, _Behold My Servant_. With Him\nit ceased to be a mere ideal, and took its place as the greatest\nachievement in history.\n\n3. In the earliest discourses of the Apostles, therefore, it is not\nwonderful that Jesus should be expressly designated by them as the\nServant of God,--the Greek word used being that by which the Septuagint\nspecially translates the Hebrew term in Isa. xl.-lxvi.[168]: _God hath\nglorified His Servant Jesus. Unto you first, God, having raised up His\nServant, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from\nyour iniquities.... In this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom\nThou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and\nthe peoples of Israel, were gathered together to do whatsoever Thy hand\nand Thy counsel foreordained to pass. Grant that signs and wonders may\nbe done through the name of Thy Holy Servant Jesus._[169] It must also\nbe noticed, that in one of the same addresses, and again by Stephen\nin his argument before the Sanhedrim, Jesus is called _The Righteous\nOne_,[170] doubtless an allusion to the same title for the Servant\nin Isa. liii. 11. Need we recall the interpretation of Isa. liii. by\nPhilip?[171]\n\nIt is known to all how Peter develops this parallel in his First\nEpistle, borrowing the figures but oftener the very words of Isa.\nliii. to apply to Christ. Like the Servant of the Lord, Jesus\nis _as a lamb_: He is a patient sufferer in silence; He _is the\nRighteous_--again the classic title--_for the unrighteous_; in exact\nquotation from the Greek of Isa. liii.: _He did no sin, neither\nwas found guile in His mouth, ye were as sheep gone astray, but He\nHimself hath borne our sins, with whose stripes ye are healed_.[172]\n\nPaul applies two quotations from Isa. lii. 13-liii. to Christ: _I\nhave striven to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named; as it\nis written, To whom He was not spoken of they shall see: and they\nthat have not heard shall understand_; and _He hath made Him to be\nsin for us who knew no sin._[173] And none will doubt that when he so\noften disputed that the _Messiah must suffer_, or wrote _Messiah died\nfor our sins according to the Scriptures_, he had Isa. liii. in mind,\nexactly as we have seen it applied to the Messiah by Jewish scholars\na hundred years later than Paul.\n\n4. Paul, however, by no means confines the prophecy of the Servant\nof the Lord to Jesus the Messiah. In a way which has been too much\noverlooked by students of the subject, Paul revives and reinforces\nthe collective interpretation of the Servant. He claims the Servant's\nduties and experience for himself, his fellow-labourers in the\ngospel, and all believers.\n\nIn Antioch of Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas said of themselves to the\nJews: _For so hath the Lord_ commanded us saying, _I have set thee to\nbe a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation to the\nends of the earth._[174] Again, in the eighth of Romans, Paul takes the\nServant's confident words, and speaks them of all God's true people.\n_He is near that justifieth me, who is he that condemneth me?_ cried\nthe Servant in our prophecy, and Paul echoes for all believers: _It is\nGod that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?_[175] And again, in his\nsecond letter to Timothy, he says, speaking of that pastor's work, _For\nthe servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards all_;\nwords which were borrowed from, or suggested by, Isa. xlii. 1-3.[176]\nIn these instances, as well as in his constant use of the terms\n_slave_, _servant_, _minister_, with their cognates, Paul fulfils the\nintention of Jesus, who so continually, by example, parable, and direct\ncommission, enforced the life of His people as a Service to the Lord.\n\n5. Such, then, is the New Testament reflection of the Prophecy of the\nServant of the Lord, both as People and Person. Like all physical\nreflections, this moral one may be said, on the whole, to stand\nreverse to its original. In Isa. xl.-lxvi. the Servant is People\nfirst, Person second. But in the New Testament--except for a faint\nand scarcely articulate application to Israel in the beginning of\nthe gospels--the Servant is Person first and People afterwards. The\nDivine Ideal which our prophet saw narrowing down from the Nation\nto an Individual, was owned and realised by Christ. But in Him it\nwas not exhausted. With added warmth and light, with a new power of\nexpansion, it passed through Him to fire the hearts and enlist the\nwills of an infinitely greater people than the Israel for whom it\nwas originally designed. With this witness, then, of history to the\nprophecies of the Servant, our way in expounding and applying them is\nclear. Jesus Christ is their perfect fulfilment and illustration. But\nwe who are His Church are to find in them our ideal and duty,--our\nduty to God and to the world. In this, as in so many other matters,\nthe unfulfilled prophecy of Israel is the conscience of Christianity.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[160] _Cf._ _The Jewish Interpreters on Isa. liii._, Driver and\nNeubauer, Oxford, 1877. Abravanel, who himself takes ch. liii. in a\nnational sense, admits, after giving the Christian interpretation,\nthat \"in fact Jonathan ben Uziel, 'the Targumist,' applied it to the\nMessiah, who was still to come, and this is likewise the opinion of\nthe wise in many of their Midrashim.\" And R. Moscheh al Shech, of\nthe sixteenth century, says: \"See, our masters have with one voice\nheld as established and handed down, that here it is King Messiah\nwho is spoken of.\" (Both these passages quoted by Bredenkamp in his\ncommentary, p. 307.)\n\n[161] Isa. lix. 5.\n\n[162] _Id._ vi. 13; ix. 18; x. 17, 34; xlvii. 14.\n\n[163] _Id._ xxi. 10; xxviii. 27; xl. 24; xli. 15 ff.\n\n[164] _Id._ i. 31; xlvii. 14.\n\n[165] Isa. lviii. 7.\n\n[166] Undoubtedly taken from Isa. liii.\n\n[167] _Cf._ with the Greek version of Isa. l. 4-7, Luke xviii. 31,\n32; Matt. xxvi. 67.\n\n[168] In Isa. xl.-lxvi. the Septuagint translates the Hebrew for\nServant by one or other of two words--\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 and \u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2. \u03a0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 is used in\nxli. 8; xlii. 1; xliv. 1 ff.; xliv. 21; xlv. 4; xlix. 6; l. 10; lii.\n13. But \u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 is used in xlviii. 20; xlix. 3 and 5. In the Acts it is\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 that is used of Christ: \"An apostle is never called \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 (but only\n\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2) \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03c5\" (Meyer). But David is called \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 (Acts iv. 25).\n\n[169] Acts iii. 13, 26; iv. 27-30.\n\n[170] Acts iii. 14; vii. 52.\n\n[171] Acts viii. 30 ff.\n\n[172] 1 Peter i. 19; ii. 22, 23; iii. 18.\n\n[173] Rom. xv. 20 f.; 2 Cor. v. 21.\n\n[174] Acts xiii. 47, after Isa. xlix. 6.\n\n[175] Isa. l. 8, and Rom. viii. 33, 34.\n\n[176] 2 Tim. ii. 24. We may note, also, how Paul in Eph. vi. takes\nthe armour with which God is clothed in Isa. lix. 17, breastplate\nand helmet, and equips the individual Christian with them; and how,\nin the same passage, he takes for the Christian from Isa. xl. the\nMessiah's girdle of truth and the _sword of the Spirit,--he shall\nsmite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his\nlips shall he slay the wicked_.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVIII.\n\n _THE SERVICE OF GOD AND MAN._\n\n ISAIAH xlii. 1-7.\n\n\nWe now understand, whom to regard as the Servant of the Lord. The\nService of God was a commission to witness and prophesy for God upon\nearth, made out at first in the name of the entire nation Israel.\nWhen their unfitness as a whole became apparent, it was delegated to\na portion of them. But as there were added to its duties of prophecy,\nthose of martyrdom and atonement for the sins of the people, our\nprophet, it would seem, saw it focussed in the person of an individual.\n\nIn history Jesus Christ has fulfilled this commission both in its\nnational and in its personal aspects. He realised the ideal of\nthe prophet-people. He sacrificed Himself and made atonement for\nthe sins of men. But having illustrated the service of God in the\nworld, Christ did not exhaust it. He returned it to His people, a\nmore clamant conscience than ever, and He also gave them grace to\nfulfil its demands. Through Christ the original destination of these\nprophecies becomes, as Paul saw, their ultimate destination as well.\nThat Israel refused this Service or failed in it only leaves it more\nclearly to us as duty; that Jesus fulfilled it not only confirms that\nduty, but adds hope and courage to discharge it.\n\nAlthough the terms of this Service were published nearly two thousand\nfive hundred years ago, in a petty dialect that is now dead, to a\nhelpless tribe of captives in a world, whose civilisation has long\nsunk to ruin, yet these terms are so free of all that is provincial\nor antique, they are so adapted to the lasting needs of humanity,\nthey are so universal in their scope, they are so instinct with\nthat love which never faileth, though prophecies fail and tongues\ncease, that they come home to heart and conscience to-day with as\nmuch tenderness and authority as ever. The first programme of these\nterms is given in ch. xlii. 1-7. The authorised English version is\none of unapproachable beauty, but its emphasis and rhythm are not\nthe emphasis and rhythm of the original, and it has missed one at\nleast of the striking points of the Hebrew. The following version,\nwhich makes no attempt at elegance, is almost literal, follows the\nsame order as the original that it may reproduce the same emphasis,\nand, as far as English can, repeats the original rhythm. The point,\nwhich it rescues from the neglect of the Authorised Version, is this,\nthat the verbs used of the Servant in ver. 4, _He shall not fade nor\nbreak_, are the same as are used of the wick and the reed in ver. 3.\n\n _Lo, My Servant! I hold by him;_\n _My Chosen! Well-pleased is My soul!_\n _I have set My Spirit upon him;_\n _Law to the Nations he brings forth._\n\n _He cries not, nor lifts up,_[177]\n _Nor lets his voice be heard in the street.\n Reed_ that is _broken he breaks not off,_\n _Wick_ that is _fading he does not quench:_\n _Faithfully brings he forth Law._\n _He shall not fade neither break,_\n _Till he have set in the Earth_[178] _Law;_\n _And for his teaching the Isles are waiting._\n\n _Thus saith the God, Jehovah,_\n _Creator of the heavens that stretched them forth,_\n _Spreader of Earth and her produce,_\n _Giver of breath to the people upon her,_\n _And of spirit to them that walk therein:_\n _I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness,_\n _To grasp thee fast by thy hand, and to keep thee,_\n _And to set thee for a covenant of the People,_\n _For a light of the Nations:_\n _To open blind eyes,_\n _To bring forth from durance the captive,_\n _From prison the dwellers in darkness._\n\n\n I. THE CONSCIENCE OF SERVICE.\n\nAs several of these lines indicate, this is a Service to Man, but what\nwe must first fasten upon is that before being a Service to Man it is\na Service for God. _Behold, My Servant_, says God's commission very\nemphatically. And throughout the prophecy the Servant is presented as\nchosen of God, inspired of God, equipped of God, God's creature, God's\ninstrument; useful only because he is used, influential because he is\ninfluenced, victorious because he is obedient; learning the methods\nof his work by daily wakefulness to God's voice, a good speaker only\nbecause he is first a good listener; with no strength or courage but\nwhat God lends, and achieving all for God's glory. Notice how strongly\nit is said that God _holds by him, grasps him by the hand_. We shall\nsee that his Service is as sympathetic and comprehensive a purpose\nfor humanity as was ever dreamed in any thought or dared in any life.\nWhether we consider its tenderness for individuals, or the universalism\nof its hope for the world, or its gentle appreciation of all human\neffort and aspiration, or its conscience of mankind's chief evil,\nor the utterness of its self-sacrifice in order to redeem men,--we\nshall own it to be a programme of human duty, and a prophecy of human\ndestiny, to which the growing experience of our race has been able to\nadd nothing that is essential. But the Service becomes all that to man,\nbecause it first takes all that from God. Not only is the Servant's\nsense of duty to all humanity just the conscience of God's universal\nsovereignty,--for it is a remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten fact,\nthat Israel recognised their God's right to the whole world, before\nthey felt their own duty to mankind,--but the Servant's character\nand methods are the reflection of the Divine. Feature by feature\nthe Servant corresponds to His Lord. His patience is but sympathy\nwith Jehovah's righteousness,--_I will uphold thee with the right\nhand of My righteousness_. His gentleness with the unprofitable and\nthe unlovely--_He breaks not off the broken reed nor quenches the\nflickering wick_--is but the temper of _the everlasting God, who giveth\npower to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth\nstrength_. His labour and passion and agony, even they have been\nanticipated in the Divine nature, for _the LORD stirreth up seal like\na man of war; He saith, I will cry out like a travailing woman_. In no\ndetail is the Servant above his Master. His character is not original,\nbut is the impress of his God's: _I have put My spirit upon him_.\n\nThere are many in our day, who deny this indebtedness of the human\ncharacter to the Divine, and in the Service of Man would have us turn\nour backs upon God. Positivists, while admitting that the earliest\nenthusiasm of the individual for his race did originate in the love\nof a Divine Being, assert nevertheless that we have grown away from\nthis illusory motive; and that in the example of humanity itself we\nmay find all the requisite impulse to serve it. The philosophy of\nhistory, which the extreme Socialists have put forward, is even more\nexplicit. According to them, mankind was disturbed in a primitive,\ntribal socialism--or service of each other--by the rise of spiritual\nreligion, which drew the individual away from his kind and absorbed\nhim in selfish relations to God. Such a stage, represented by the\nHebrew and Christian faiths, and by the individualist political\neconomy which has run concurrent with the later developments of\nChristianity, was (so these Socialists admit) perhaps necessary for\ntemporary discipline and culture, like the land of Egypt to starved\nJacob's children; but like Egypt, when it turned out to be the house\nof bondage, the individualist economy and religion are now to be\nabandoned for the original land of promise,--Socialism once more, but\nuniversal instead of tribal as of old. Out of this analogy, which is\nsuch Socialists' own, Sinai and the Ten Commandments are, of course,\nomitted. We are to march back to freedom without a God, and settle\ndown to love and serve each other by administration.\n\nBut can we turn our backs on God, without hurting man? The natural\nhistory of philanthropy would seem to say that we cannot. This\nprophecy is one of its witnesses. Earliest ideal as it is, of a\nuniversal service of mankind, it starts in its obligation from\nthe universal Sovereignty of God; it starts in every one of its\naffections from some affection of the Divine character. And we have\nnot grown away from the need of its everlasting sources. Cut off\nGod from the Service of man, and the long habit and inherent beauty\nof that Service may perpetuate its customs for a few generations;\nbut the inevitable call must come to subject conduct to the altered\nintellectual conditions, and in the absence of God every man's ideal\nshall surely turn from, How can I serve my neighbour? to, How can I\nmake my neighbour serve me? As our prophet reminds us in his vivid\ncontrast between Israel, the Servant of the Lord, and Babylon, _who\nsaith in her heart: I am, and there is none beside me_, there are\nultimately but two alternative lords of the human will, God and\nSelf. If we revolt from the Authority and Example of the One, we\nshall surely become subject, in the long run, to the ignorance, the\nshort-sightedness, the pedantry, the cruelty of the other. These\nwords are used advisedly. With no sense of the sacredness of every\nhuman life as created in the image of God, and with no example of an\nInfinite Mercy before them, men would leave to perish all that was\nweak, or, from the limited point of view of a single community or\ngeneration, unprofitable. Some Positivists and those Socialists, who\ndo not include God in the society they seek to establish, admit that\nthey expect something like that to follow from their denial of God.\nIn certain Positivist proposals for the reform of charity, we are\ntold that the ideal scheme of social relief would be the one which\nlimited itself to persons judged to be of use to the community as a\nwhole; that is, that in their succour of the weak, their bounty to\nthe poor, and their care of the young, society should be guided, not\nby the eternal laws of justice and of mercy, but by the opinions of\nthe representatives of the public for the time being and by their\nstandard of utility to the commonwealth. Your atheist-Socialist is\nstill more frank. In the state, which he sees rising after he has got\nrid of Christianity, he would suppress, he tells us, all who preached\nsuch a thing as the fear of the future life, and he would not repeat\nthe present exceptional legislation for the protection of women and\nchildren, for whom, he whines, far too much has been recently done in\ncomparison with what has been enacted for the protection of men.[179]\nThese are, of course, but vain things which the heathen imagine\n(and some of us have an ideal of socialism very different from the\ngodlessness which has usurped the noble name), but they serve to\nillustrate what clever men, who have thrown off all belief in God,\nwill bring themselves to hope for: a society utterly Babylonian,\nwithout pity or patience,--if it were possible for these eternal\ngraces to die out of any human community,--subject to the opinion of\npedants, whose tender mercies would be far more fatal to the weak and\npoor than the present indifference of the rich; seriously fettering\nliberty of conscience and destitute of chivalry. It may be that our\nPositivist critics are right, and that the interests of humanity\nhave suffered in Christian times from the prevalence of too selfish\nand introspective a religion; but whether our religion has looked\ntoo intensely inward or not, we cannot, it is certain, do without a\nreligion that looks steadily up, owning the discipline of Divine Law\nand the Example of an Infinite Mercy and Longsuffering.\n\nBut, though we had never heard of Positivism or of the Socialism\nthat denies God, our age, with its popular and public habits, would\nstill require this example of Service, which our prophecy enforces:\nit is an age so charged with the instincts of work, with the ambition\nto be useful, with the fashion of altruism; but so empty of the\nsense of God, of reverence, discipline and prayer. We do not need\nto learn philanthropy,--the thing is in the air; but we do need to\nbe taught that philanthropy demands a theology both for its purity\nand its effectiveness. When philanthropy has become, what it is\nso much to-day, the contest of rival politicians, the ambition of\nevery demagogue, who can get his head above the crowd, the fitful\nself-indulgence of weak hearts, the opportunity of vain theorists,\nand for all a temptation to work with lawless means for selfish\nends,--it is time to remember that the Service of Man is first of\nall a great Service for God. This faith alone can keep us from the\nwilfulness, the crotchets and the insubordination, which spoil so\nmany well-intentioned to their kind, and so wofully break up the\nranks of progress. Humility is the first need of the philanthropist\nof to-day: humility, discipline and the sense of proportion; and\nthese are qualities, which only faith in God and the conscience of\nlaw are known to bestow upon the human heart. It is the fear of God\nthat will best preserve us from making our philanthropy the mere\nflattery of the popular appetite. To keep us utterly patient with\nmen we need to think of God's patience with ourselves. While to us\nall there come calls to sacrifice, which our fellow-men may so\nlittle deserve from us, and against which our self-culture can plead\nso many reasons, that unless God's will and example were before us,\nthe calls would never be obeyed. In short, to be most useful in this\nlife it is necessary to feel that we are used. Look at Christ. To Him\nphilanthropy was no mere habit and spontaneous affection; even for\nthat great heart the love of man had to be enforced by the compulsion\nof the will of God. The busy days of healing and teaching had between\nthem long nights of lonely prayer; and the Son of God did not pass to\nHis supreme self-sacrifice for men till after the struggle with, and\nthe submission to, His Father's will in Gethsemane.\n\n\n II. THE SUBSTANCE OF SERVICE.\n\nThe substance of the Servant's work is stated in one word, uttered\nthrice in emphatic positions. _Judgement for the nations shall he bring\nforth.... According to truth shall he bring forth judgement.... He\nshall not flag nor break, till he set in the earth_[180] _judgement._\n\nThe English word _judgement_ is a natural but misleading translation\nof the original, and we must dismiss at once the idea of judicial\nsentence, which it suggests. The Hebrew is \"mishpat,\" which means,\namong other things, either a single statute, or the complete body of\nlaw which God gave Israel by Moses, at once their creed and their\ncode; or, perhaps, also the abstract quality of justice or right.\nWe rendered it as the latter in Isa. i.-xxxix. But, as will be seen\nfrom the note below,[181] when used in Isa. xl.-lxvi. without the\narticle, as here, it is the \"mishpat\" of Jehovah,--not so much\nthe actual body of statutes given to Israel, as the principles\nof _right_ or _justice_ which they enforce. In one passage it is\ngiven in parallel to the civic virtues _righteousness_, _truth_,\n_uprightness_, but--as its etymology compared with theirs shows\nus--it is these viewed not in their character as virtues, but in\ntheir obligation as ordained by God. Hence, _duty_ to Jehovah as\ninseparable from His religion (Ewald), _religion_ as the law of\nlife (Delitzsch), _the law_ (Cheyne, who admirably compares the\nArabic ed-D\u00een) are all good renderings. Professor Davidson gives\nthe fullest exposition. \"It can scarcely,\" he says, \"be rendered\n'religion' in the modern sense, it is the equity and civil right\nwhich is the result of the true religion of Jehovah; and though\ncomprehended under religion in the Old Testament sense, is rather,\naccording to our conceptions, religion applied in civil life. Of\nold the religious unit was the state, and the life of the state was\nthe expression of its religion. Morality was law or custom, and\nboth reposed upon God. A condition of thought such as now prevails,\nwhere morality is based on independent grounds, whether natural law\nor the principles inherent in the mind apart from religion, did not\nthen exist. What the prophet means by 'bringing forth right' is\nexplained in another passage, where it is said that Jehovah's 'arms\nshall judge the peoples,' and that the 'isles shall wait for His arm'\n(ch. li. 5). 'Judgment' is that pervading of life by the principles\nof equity and humanity which is the immediate effect of the true\nreligion of Jehovah.\"[182] In short, \"mishpat\" is not only the civic\nrighteousness and justice, to which it is made parallel in our\nprophecy, but it is these with God behind them. On the one hand it is\nconterminous with national virtue, on the other it is the ordinance\nand will of God.\n\nThis, then, is the burden of the Servant's work, to pervade and\ninstruct every nation's life on earth with the righteousness and\npiety that are ordained of God. _He shall not flag nor break, till he\nhave set in the earth Law_,--till in every nation justice, humanity\nand worship are established as the law of God. We have seen that\nthe Servant is in this passage still some aspect or shape of the\npeople,--the people who are not a people, but scattered among the\nbrickfields of Babylonia, a horde of captives. When we keep that in\nmind, two or three things come home to us about this task of theirs.\nFirst, it is no mere effort at proselytism. It is not an ambition\nto Judaise the world. The national consciousness and provincial\nhabits, which cling about so many of the prophecies of Israel's\nrelation to the world, have dropped from this one, and the nation's\nmission is identified with the establishment of law, the diffusion\nof light, the relief of suffering. _I will give thee for a light\nto the nations: to open blind eyes, to bring out from durance the\nbound, from the prison the dwellers in darkness._[183] Again, it is\nno mere office of preaching, to which the Servant's commission is\nlimited, no mere inculcation of articles of belief. But we have here\nthe same rich, broad idea of religion, identifying it with the whole\nnational life, which we found so often illustrated by Isaiah, and\nwhich is one of the beneficial results to religion of God's choice\nfor Himself of a nation as a whole.[184] What such a Service has to\ngive the world, is not merely testimony to the truth, nor fresh views\nof it, nor artistic methods of teaching it; but social life under\nits obligation, the public conscience of it, the long tradition and\nhabit of it, the breed--what the prophets call the _seed_--of it. To\nestablish true religion as the constitution, national duty, and regular\npractice of every people under the sun, in all the details of order,\ncleanliness, justice, purity and mercy, in which it had been applied\nto themselves,--such was the Service and the Destiny of Israel. And\nthe marvel of so universal and political an ideal was, that it came\nnot to a people in the front ranks of civilisation or of empire,\nbut to a people that at the time had not even a political shape for\nthemselves,--a mere herd of captives, despised and rejected of men.\nWhen we realise this, we understand that they never would have dared to\nthink of it, or to speak of it to one another, unless they had believed\nit to be the purpose and will of Almighty God for them; unless they had\nrecognised it, not only as a service desirable and true in itself, and,\nneeded also by humanity, but withal as His \"mishpat,\" His _judgement_\nor _law_, who by His bare word can bring all things to pass. But before\nwe see how strongly He impressed them with this, that His creative\nforce was in their mission, let us turn to the methods by which He\ncommanded them to achieve it,--methods corresponding to its purely\nspiritual and universal character.\n\n\n III. THE TEMPER OF SERVICE.\n\n 1. _He shall not cry, nor lift up,\n Nor make his voice to be heard in the street._\n\nThere is nothing more characteristic of our prophecy than its belief\nin the power of speech, its exultation in the music and spell of\nthe human voice. It opens with a chorus of high calls: none are so\nlovely to it as heralds, or so musical as watchmen when they lift up\nthe voice; it sets the preaching of glad tidings before the people\nas their national ideal; eloquence it describes as a sharp sword\nleaping from God's scabbard. The Servant of the Lord is trained in\nstyle of speech; his words are as pointed arrows; he has the mouth of\nthe learned, a voice to command obedience. The prophet's own tones\nare superb: nowhere else does the short sententiousness of Hebrew\nroll out into such long, sonorous periods. He uses speech in every\nstyle: for comfort, for bitter controversy, in clear proclamation,\nin deep-throated denunciation: _Call with the throat_, _spare not_,\n_lift up the voice like a trumpet_. His constant key-notes are,\n_speak a word_, _lift up the voice with strength_, _sing_, _publish_,\n_declare_. In fact, there is no use to which the human voice has ever\nbeen put in the Service of Man, for comfort's sake, or for justice,\nor for liberty, for the diffusion of knowledge or for the scattering\nof music, which our prophet does not enlist and urge upon his people.\n\nWhen, then, he says of the Servant that _he shall not cry, nor lift\nup, nor make his voice to be heard in the street_, he cannot be\nreferring to the means and art of the Service, but rather to the\ntone and character of the Servant. Each of the triplet of verbs he\nuses shows us this. The first one, translated _cry_, is not the cry\nor call of the herald voice in ch. xl., the high, clear K\u0101r\u0101; it\nis ssa`a\u1e33, a sharper word with a choke in the centre of it meaning\n_to scream_, especially under excitement. Then _to lift up_ is the\nexact equivalent of our \"to be loud.\" And if we were seeking to\ntranslate into Hebrew our phrase \"to advertise oneself,\" we could\nnot find a closer expression for it than to _make his voice be\nheard in the street_. To be \"screamy,\" to be \"loud,\" to \"advertise\noneself,\"--these modern expressions for vices that were ancient as\nwell as modern render the exact force of the verse. Such the Servant\nof God will not be nor do. He is at once too strong, too meek and\ntoo practical. That God is with him, _holding him fast_, keeps him\ncalm and unhysterical; that he is but God's instrument keeps him\nhumble and quiet; and that his heart is in his work keeps him from\nadvertising himself at its expense. It is perhaps especially for the\nlast of these reasons that Matthew (in his twelfth chapter) quotes\nthis passage of our Lord. Jesus had been disturbed in His labours\nof healing by the disputatious Pharisees. He had answered them,\nand then withdrawn from their neighbourhood. Many sick were brought\nafter Him to His privacy, and He healed them all. But _He charged\nthem that they should not make Him known; that it might be fulfilled\nwhich was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Behold, My Servant\n... he shall not strive, nor cry aloud, neither shall any one hear\nhis voice in the streets._ Now this cannot be, what some carelessly\ntake it for, an example against controversy or debate of all kinds,\nfor Jesus had Himself just been debating; nor can it be meant as\nan absolute forbidding of all publishing of good works, for Christ\nhas shown us, on other occasions, that such advertisement is good.\nThe difficulty is explained, by what we have seen to explain other\nperplexing actions of our Lord, His intensely practical spirit.\nThe work to be done determined everything. When it made argument\nnecessary, as that same day it had done in the synagogue, then our\nLord entered on argument: He did not only heal the man with the\nwithered hand, but He made him the text of a sermon. But when talking\nabout His work hindered it, provoked the Pharisees to come near with\ntheir questions, and took up His time and strength in disputes with\nthem, then for the work's sake He forbade talk about it. We have\nno trace of evidence that Christ forbade this advertisement also\nfor His own sake,--as a temptation to Himself and fraught with evil\neffects upon His feelings. We know that it is for this reason we\nhave to shun it. Even though we are quite guiltless of contributing\nto such publication ourselves, and it is the work of generous and\nwell-meaning friends, it still becomes a very great danger to us.\nFor it is apt to fever us and exhaust our nervous force, even when\nit does not turn our heads with its praise,--to distract us and to\ndraw us more and more into the enervating habit of paying attention\nto popular opinion. Therefore, as a man values his efficiency in the\nService of Man, he will not _make himself to be heard in the street_.\nThere is an amount of _making to be heard_ which is absolutely\nnecessary for the work's sake; but there is also an amount which can\nbe indulged in only at the work's expense. Present-day philanthropy,\neven with the best intentions, suffers from this over-publicity, and\nits besetting sins are \"loudness\" and hysteria.\n\nWhat, then, shall tell us how far we can go? What shall teach us\nhow to be eloquent without screaming, clear without being loud,\nimpressive without wasting our strength in seeking to make an\nimpression? These questions bring us back to what we started with, as\nthe indispensable requisite for Service--some guiding and religious\nprinciples behind even the kindliest and steadiest tempers. For many\nthings in the Service of Man no exact rules will avail; neither\nlogic nor bye-laws of administration can teach us to observe the\nuncertain and constantly varying degree of duty, which they demand.\nTact for that is bestowed only by the influence of lofty principles\nworking from above. This is a case in point. What rules of logic\nor \"directions of the superior authority\" can, in the Service of\nMan, distinguish for us between excitement and earnestness, bluster\nand eloquence, energy and mere self-advertisement; on whose subtle\ndifferences the whole success of the service must turn. Only the\ndiscipline of faith, only the sense of God, can help us here. The\npractical temper by itself will not help us. To be busy but gives\nus too great self-importance; and hard work often serves only to\nbring out the combative instincts. To know that we are His Servants\nshall keep us meek; that we are held fast by His hand shall keep us\ncalm; that His great laws are not abrogated shall keep us sane. When\nfor our lowliest and most commonplace kinds of service we think no\nreligion is required, let us remember the solemn introduction of the\nevangelist to his story of the foot-washing. _Jesus knowing that the\nFather had given all things into His hands, and that He came forth\nfrom God and goeth unto God, riseth from supper, and layeth aside His\ngarments; and He took a towel, and girded Himself; then He poureth\nwater into the bason, and began to wash His disciples' feet._\n\n2. But to meekness and discipline the Servant adds gentleness.\n\n _Reed that is broken he breaks not off,_\n _Wick that is fading he does not quench;_\n _Faithfully brings he forth law._\n\nThe force of the last of these three lines is, of course,\nqualificative and conditional. It is set as a guard against the abuse\nof the first two, and means that though the Servant in dealing with\nmen is to be solicitous about their weakness, yet the interests of\nreligion shall in no way suffer. Mercy shall be practised, but so\nthat truth is not compromised.\n\nThe original application of the verse is thus finely stated by\nProfessor Davidson: \"This is the singularly humane and compassionate\nview the Prophet takes of the Gentiles,--they are bruised reeds\nand expiring flames.... What the prophet may refer to is the human\nvirtues, expiring among the nations, but not yet dead; the sense of\nGod, debased by idolatries, but not extinct; the consciousness in\nthe individual soul of its own worth and its capacities, and the\nglimmering ideal of a true life and a worthy activity almost crushed\nout by the grinding tyranny of rulers and the miseries entailed by\ntheir ambitions--this flickering light the Servant shall feed and\nblow into a flame.[185]... It is the future relation of the 'people'\nIsrael to other peoples that he describes. The thought which has now\ntaken possession of statesmen of the higher class, that the point\nof contact between nation and nation need not be the sword, that\nthe advantage of one people is not the loss of another but the gain\nof mankind, that the land where freedom has grown to maturity and\nis worshipped in her virgin serenity and loveliness should nurse\nthe new-born babe in other homes, and that the strange powers of\nthe mind of man and the subtle activities of his hand should not be\nrepressed but fostered in every people, in order that the product may\nbe poured into the general lap of the race--this idea is supposed to\nbe due to Christianity. And, immediately, it is; but it is older than\nChristianity. It is found in this Prophet. And it is not new in him,\nfor a Prophet, presumably a century and a half his senior, had said:\n_The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as a dew\nfrom the Lord, as showers upon the grass_ (Micah v. 7).\"[186]\n\nBut while this national reference may be the one originally meant,\nthe splendid vagueness of the metaphor forbids us to be content\nwith it, or with any solitary application. For the two clauses are\nas the eyes of the All-Pitiful Father, that rest wherever on this\nbroad earth there is any life, though it be so low as to be conscious\nonly through pain or doubt; they are as the healing palms of Jesus\nstretched over the multitudes to bless and gather to Himself the\nweary and the poor in spirit. We contrast our miserable ruin of\ncharacter, our feeble sparks of desire after holiness, with the\nlife, which Christ demands and has promised, and in despair we tell\nourselves, this can never become that. But it is precisely this that\nChrist has come to lift to that. The first chapter of the Sermon on\nthe Mount closes with the awful command, _Be ye perfect, as your\nFather in Heaven is perfect_; but we work our way back through\nthe chapter, and we come to this, _Blessed are they that hunger\nand thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled_; and to\nthis, _Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom\nof heaven._ Such is Christ's treatment of the bruised reed and the\nsmoking flax. Let us not despair. There is only one kind of men,\nfor whom it has no gospel,--the dead and they who are steeped in\nworldliness, who have forgotten what the pain of a sore conscience\nis, and are strangers to humility and aspiration. But for all who\nknow their life, were it only through their pain or their doubt, were\nit only in the despair of what they feel to be a last struggle with\ntemptation, were it only in contrition for their sin or in shame\nfor their uselessness, this text has hope. _Reed that is broken he\nbreaketh not off, wick that is fading he doth not quench._\n\nThis objective sense of the Servant's temper must always be the first\nfor us to understand. For more than he was, we are, mortal, ready\nourselves to _break and to fade_. But having experienced the grace,\nlet us show the same in our service to others. Let us understand\nthat we are sent forth like the great Servant of God, that man _may\nhave life, and have it more abundantly_. We need resolutely and\nwith pious obstinacy to set this temper before us, for it is not\nnatural to our hearts. Even the best of us, in the excitement of\nour work, forget to think of anything except of making our mark, or\nof getting the better of what we are at work upon. When work grows\nhard, the combative instincts waken within us, till we look upon the\ncharacters God has given us to mould as enemies to be fought. We are\npassionate to convince men, to overcome them with an argument, to\nwring the confession from them that we are right and they wrong. Now\nChrist our Master must have seen in every man He met a very great\ndeal more to be fought and extirpated than we can possibly see in\none another. Yet He largely left that alone, and addressed Himself\nrather to the sparks of nobility He found, and fostered these to a\nstrong life, which from within overcame the badness of the man,--the\nbadness which opposition from the outside would but have beaten into\nharder obduracy. We must ever remember that we are not warriors but\nartists,--artists after the fashion of Jesus Christ, who came not\nto condemn life because it was imperfect, but to build life up to\nthe image of God. So He sends us to be artists; as it is written,\n_He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some pastors and\nteachers_. For what end? For convincing men, for telling them what\nfools they mostly are, for crushing them in the inquisition of their\nown conscience, for getting the better of them in argument?--no, not\nfor these combative purposes at all, but for fostering and artistic\nones: _for the perfecting of the saints, for the building up of the\nbody of Christ; till we all come unto a full grown man, unto the\nmeasure of the stature of the fulness of Christ_.\n\nHe who, in his Service of Man, practises such a temper towards the\nbreaking and the fading, shall never himself break or fade, as this\nprophecy implies when it uses the same verbs in verses _three_ and\n_four_. For he who is loyal to life shall find life generous to him;\nhe who is careful of weakness shall never want for strength.\n\n\n IV. THE POWER BEHIND SERVICE.\n\nThere only remains now to emphasize the power that is behind Service.\nIt is, say verses _five_ and _six_, the Creative Power of God.\n\n _Thus saith The God, Jehovah,_\n _Creator of the heavens, that stretched them forth,_\n _Spreader of the earth and her produce,_\n _Giver of breath to the people upon her,_\n _And of spirit to them that walk thereon,_\n _I Jehovah have called thee in righteousness,_\n _That I may grasp thee by thy hand, and keep thee._\n\nMajestic confirmation of the call to Service! based upon the\nfundamental granite of this whole prophecy, which here crops out into\na noble peak, firm station for the Servant, and point for prospect\nof all the future. It is our easy fault to read these words of the\nCreator as the utterance of mere ceremonial commonplace, blast of\ntrumpets at the going forth of a hero, scenery for his stage, the\npomp of nature summoned to assist at the presentation of God's\nelect before the world. Yet not for splendour were they spoken, but\nfor bare faith's sake. God's Servant has been sent forth, weak and\ngentle, with quiet methods and to very slow effects. _He shall not\ncry, nor lift up, nor make his voice to be heard in the streets._\nWhat chance has such, our service, in the ways of the world, where\nto be forceful and selfish, to bluster and battle, is to survive\nand overcome! So we speak, and the panic ambition rises to fight\nthe world with its own weapons, and to employ the kinds of debate,\nadvertisement and competition by which the world goes forward. For\nthis, the Creator calls to us, and marshals His powers before our\neyes. We thought there were but two things,--our own silence and the\nworld's noise. There are three, and the world's noise is only an\ninterruption between the other two. Across it deep calleth unto deep;\nthe immeasurable processes of creation cry to the feeble convictions\nof truth in our hearts, We are one. Creation is the certificate that\nno moral effort is a forlorn hope. When God, after repeating His\nresults in creation, adds, I have called thee in _righteousness_,\nHe means that there is some consistency between His processes in\ncreation, rational and immense as they are, and those poor efforts\nHe calls on our weakness to make, which look so foolish in face of\nthe world. Behind every moral effort there is, He says, Creative\nforce. Right and Might are ultimately one. Paul sums up the force of\nthe passage, when, after speaking of the success of his ministry, he\ngives as its reason that the God of Creation and of Grace are the\nsame. _Therefore seeing we have received this ministry we faint not.\nFor God, who hath commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath\nshined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of God in\nthe face of Jesus Christ._\n\nThe spiritual Service of Man, then, has creative forces behind it; work\nfor God upon the hearts and characters of others has creative force\nbehind it. And nature is the seal and the sacrament of this. Let our\nsouls, therefore, dilate with her prospects. Let our impatience study\nher reasonableness and her laws. Let our weak wills feel the rush of\nher tides. For the power that is in her, and the faithful pursuance\nof purposes to their ends, are the power and the character that work\nbehind each witness of our conscience, each effort of our heart for\nothers. Not less strong than she, not less calm, not less certain of\nsuccess, shall prove the moral Service of Man.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[177] The English equivalent is, _nor is loud_.\n\n[178] This time with the article, so not _the land_ of Judah only,\nbut _the Earth_.\n\n[179] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_.\n\n[180] This time \"arets\" with the article. So not the _land_ of Judah\nonly but the world.\n\n[181] The following are the four main meanings of \"mishpat\" in Isa.\nxl.-lxvi.: 1. In a general sense, a legal process, xli. 1, _let us\ncome together to the judgement_, or _the law_ (with the article),\n_cf._ l. 8, _man of my judgement_, _i.e._, my fellow-at-law, my\nadversary; liii. 8, oppression and _judgement_, _i.e._, a judgement\nwhich was oppressive, a legal injustice. 2. A person's _cause_ or\n_right_, xl. 27, xlix. 4. 3. _Ordinance_ instituted by Jehovah\nfor the life and worship of His people, lviii. 2, _ordinances_ of\nrighteousness, _i.e._, either canonical _laws_, or ordinances by\nobserving which the people would make themselves righteous. 4. In\ngeneral, the sum of the laws given by Jehovah to Israel, _the Law_,\nlviii. 2, _Law_ of their God; li. 4, Jehovah says _My Law_ (Rev. Ver.\n_judgement_), parallel to \"Torah\" or Revelation (Rev. Ver. _law_).\nThen absolutely, without the article or Jehovah's name attached,\nxlii. 1, 3, 4. In lvi. 1 parallel to righteousness; lix. 14 parallel\nto righteousness, truth and uprightness. In fact, in this last use,\nwhile represented as equivalent to civic morality, it is this, not as\nviewed in its character, _right_, _upright_, but in its obligation as\nordained by God: _morality_ as _His Law_. The absence of the article\nmay either mean what it means in the case of _people_ and _land_,\n_i.e._, the _Law_, too much of a proper name to need the article, or\nit may be an attempt to abstract the quality of the Law; and if so\nmishpat is equal to _justice_.\n\n[182] _Expositor_, second series, vol. viii., p. 364.\n\n[183] This might, of course, only mean what the Servant had to do for\nhis captive countrymen. But coming as it does after the _light of\nnations_, it seems natural to take it in its wider and more spiritual\nsense.\n\n[184] See ch. xv. of this volume.\n\n[185] _Expositor_, second series, viii., pp. 364, 365, 366.\n\n[186] _Ibid._, p. 366.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIX.\n\n _PROPHET AND MARTYR._\n\n ISAIAH xlix. 1-9; l. 4-11.\n\n\nThe second great passage upon the Servant of the Lord is ch. xlix.\n1-9, and the third is ch. l. 4-11. In both of these the servant\nhimself speaks; in both he speaks as prophet; while in the second\nhe tells us that his prophecy leads him on to martyrdom. The two\npassages may, therefore, be taken together.\n\nBefore we examine their contents, let us look for a moment at the\nway in which they are woven into the rest of the text. As we have\nseen, ch. xlix. begins a new section of the prophecy, in so far\nthat with it the prophet leaves Babylon and Cyrus behind him, and\nceases to speak of the contrast between God and the idols. But,\nstill, ch. xlix. is linked to ch. xlviii. In leading up to its\nclimax,--the summons to Israel to depart from Babylon,--ch. xlviii.\ndoes not forget that Israel is delivered from Babylon in order to be\nthe Servant of Jehovah: _say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His Servant\nJacob_. It is this service, which ch. xlix. carries forward from the\nopportunity, and the call, to go forth from Babylon, with which ch.\nxlviii. closes. That opportunity, though real, does not at all mean\nthat Israel's redemption is complete. There were many moral reasons\nwhich prevented the whole nation from taking full advantage of the\npolitical freedom offered them by Cyrus. Although the true Israel,\nthat part of the nation which has the conscience of service, has\nshaken itself free from the temptation as well as from the tyranny\nof Babel, and now sees the world before it as the theatre of its\noperations,--ver. 1, _Hearken, ye isles, unto Me; and listen, ye\npeoples, from far_,--it has still, before it can address itself to\nthat universal mission, to exhort, rouse and extricate the rest of\nits nation, _saying to the bounden, Go forth; and to them that are\nin darkness, Show yourselves_ (ver. 9). Ch. xlix., therefore, is\nthe natural development of ch. xlviii. There is certainly a little\ninterval of time implied between the two--the time during which it\nbecame apparent that the opportunity to leave Babylon would not be\ntaken advantage of by all Israel, and that the nation's redemption\nmust be a moral as well as a political one. But ch. xlix. 1-9 comes\nout of chs. xl.-xlviii., and it is impossible to believe that in it\nwe are not still under the influence of the same author.\n\nA similar coherence is apparent if we look to the other end of ch.\nxlix. 1-9. Here it is evident that Jehovah's commission to the Servant\nconcludes with ver. 9_a_; but then its closing words, _Say to the\nbound, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves_, start\nfresh thoughts about the redeemed on their way back (vv. 9_b_-13); and\nthese thoughts naturally lead on to a picture of Jerusalem imagining\nherself forsaken, and amazed by the appearance of so many of her\nchildren before her (vv. 14-21). Promises to her and to them follow in\ndue sequence down to ch. l. 3, when the Servant resumes his soliloquy\nabout himself, but abruptly, and in no apparent connection with what\nimmediately precedes. His soliloquy ceases in ver. 9, and another\nvoice, probably that of God Himself, urges obedience to the Servant\n(ver. 10), and judgement to the sinners in Israel (ver. 11); and ch.\nli. is an address to the spiritual Israel, and to Jerusalem, with\nthoughts much the same as those uttered in xlix. 14-l. 3.\n\nIn face of these facts, and taking into consideration the dramatic\nform in which the whole prophecy is cast, we find ourselves unable\nto say that there is anything which is incompatible with a single\nauthorship, or which makes it impossible for the two passages on the\nServant to have originally sprung, each at the place at which it now\nstands, from the progress of the prophet's thoughts.[187]\n\n * * * * *\n\nBabylon is left behind, and the way of the Lord is prepared in the\ndesert. Israel have once more the title-deeds to their own land, and\nZion looms in sight. Yet with their face to home, and their heart\nupon freedom, the voice of this people, or at least of the better\nhalf of this people, rises first upon the conscience of their duty to\nthe rest of mankind.\n\n _Hearken, O Isles, unto Me;_\n _And listen, O Peoples, from far!_\n _From the womb Jehovah hath called me,_\n _From my mother's midst mentioned my name._[188]\n _And He set my mouth like a sharp sword,_\n _In the shadow of His hand did He hide me;_\n _Yea, He made me a pointed arrow,_\n _In His quiver He laid me in store,_\n _And said to me, My Servant art thou,_\n _Israel, in whom I shall break into glory.\n And I--I said, In vain have I laboured,_\n _For waste and for wind my strength have I spent!_\n _Surely my right's with Jehovah,_\n _And the meed of my work with my God!_\n\n _But now, saith Jehovah--_\n _Moulding me from the womb to be His own Servant,_\n _To turn again Jacob towards Him,_\n _And that Israel be not destroyed._[189]\n _And I am of honour in the eyes of Jehovah,_\n _And my God is my strength!_\n _And He saith,_\n _'Tis too light for thy being My Servant,_\n _To raise up the tribes of Jacob,_\n _Or gather the survivors of Israel._\n _So I will set thee a light of the Nations,_\n _To be My salvation to the end of the earth._\n\n _Thus saith Jehovah,_\n _Israel's Redeemer, his Holy,_\n _To_ this _mockery of a life, abhorrence of a nation, servant\n of tyrants,_[190]\n _Kings shall behold and shall stand up,_\n _Princes shall also do homage,_\n _For the sake of Jehovah, who shows Himself faithful,_\n _Holy of Israel, and thou art His chosen.\n Thus saith Jehovah,_\n _In a favourable time I have given thee answer,_\n _In the day of salvation have helped thee,_\n _To keep thee, to give thee for covenant of the people,_\n _To raise up the land,_\n _To give back the heirs to the desolate heirdoms,_\n _Saying to the bounden, Go forth!_\n _To them that are in darkness, Appear!_\n\n\"Who is so blind as not to perceive that the consciousness of the\nServant here is only a mirror in which the history of Israel is\nreflected--first, in its original call and design that Jehovah\nshould be glorified in it; second, in the long delay and apparent\nfailure of the design; and, thirdly, as the design is now in the\npresent juncture of circumstances and concurrence of events about\nto be realized?\"[191] Yes: but it is Israel's calling, native\ninsufficiency, and present duty, as owned by only a part of the\npeople, which, though named by the national name (ver. 3), feels\nitself standing over against the bulk of the nation, whose redemption\nit is called to work out (vv. 8 and 9) before it takes up its\nworld-wide service. We have already sufficiently discussed this\ndistinction of the Servant from the whole nation, as well as the\ndistinction of the moral work he has to effect in Israel's redemption\nfrom Babylon, from the political enfranchisement of the nation, which\nis the work of Cyrus. Let us, then, at once address ourselves to the\nmain features of his consciousness of his mission to mankind. We\nshall find these features to be three. The Servant owns for his chief\nend the glory of God; and he feels that he has to glorify God in two\nways--by Speech, and by Suffering.\n\n\n I. THE SERVANT GLORIFIES GOD.\n\n _He did say to me, My servant art thou,\n Israel, in whom I shall break into glory._\n\nThe Hebrew verb, which the Authorised Version translates _will be\nglorified_, means to _burst forth_, _become visible_, break like the\ndawn into splendour. This is the scriptural sense of Glory. Glory\nis God become visible. As we put it in Volume I.,[192] glory is the\nexpression of holiness, as beauty is the expression of health. But,\nin order to become visible, the Absolute and Holy God needs mortal\nman. We have felt something like a paradox in these prophecies.\nNowhere else is God lifted up so absolute, and so able to effect\nall by His mere will and word; yet nowhere else is a human agency\nand service so strongly asserted as indispensable to the Divine\npurpose. But this is no more a paradox, than the fact that physical\nlight needs some material in which to become visible. Light is\nnever revealed of itself, but always when shining from, or burning\nin, something else. To be seen, light requires a surface that will\nreflect, or a substance that will consume. And so, to _break into\nglory_, God requires something outside Himself. A responsive portion\nof humanity is indispensable to Him,--a people who will reflect Him\nand spend itself for Him. Man is the mirror and the wick of the\nDivine. God is glorified in man's character and witness,--these are\nHis mirror; and in man's sacrifice,--that is His wick.\n\nAnd so we meet again the central truth of our prophecy, that in order\nto serve men it is necessary first to be used of God. We must place\nourselves at the disposal of the Divine, we must let God shine on\nus and kindle us, and break into glory through us, before we can\nhope either to comfort mankind or to set them on fire. It is true\nthat ideas very different from this prevail among the ranks of the\nservants of humanity in our day. A large part of our most serious\nliterature professes for \"its main bearing this conclusion, that\nthe fellowship between man and man, which has been the principle of\ndevelopment, social and moral, is not dependent upon conceptions of\nwhat is not man, and that the idea of God, so far as it has been\na high spiritual influence, is the ideal of a goodness entirely\nhuman.\"[193] But such theories are possible only so long as the\nstill unexhausted influence of religion upon society continues to\nsupply human nature, directly or indirectly, with a virtue which\nmay be plausibly claimed for human nature's own original product.\nLet religion be entirely withdrawn, and the question, Whence comes\nvirtue? will be answered by virtue ceasing to come at all. The savage\nimagines that it is the burning-glass which sets the bush on fire,\nand as long as the sun is shining it may be impossible to convince\nhim that he is wrong; but a dull day will teach even his mind that\nthe glass can do nothing without the sun upon it. And so, though men\nmay talk glibly against God, while society still shines in the light\nof His countenance, yet, if they and society resolutely withdraw\nthemselves from that light, they shall certainly lose every heat and\nlustre of the spirit which is indispensable for social service.[194]\nOn this the ancient Greek was at one with the ancient Hebrew.\n_Enthusiasm_ is just _God breaking into glory_ through a human life.\nHere lies the secret of the buoyancy and \"freshness of the earlier\nworld,\" whether pagan or Hebrew, and by this may be understood the\ndepression and pessimism which infects modern society. They had God\nin their blood, and we are an\u00e6mic. _But I, I said, I have laboured in\nvain; for waste and for wind have I spent my strength._ We must all\nsay that, if our last word is _our strength_. But let this not be our\nlast word. Let us remember the sufficient answer: _Surely my right is\nwith the Lord, and the meed of my work with my God_. We are set, not\nin our own strength or for our own advantage, but with the hand of\nGod upon us, and that the Divine life may _break into glory_ through\nour life. Carlyle said, and it was almost his last testimony, \"The\nolder I grow, and I am now on the brink of eternity, the more comes\nback to me the first sentence of the catechism, which I learned when\na child, and the fuller does its meaning grow--'What is the chief end\nof man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.'\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was said above, that, as light breaks to visibleness either from a\nmirror or a wick, so God _breaks to glory_ either from the witness of\nmen,--that is His mirror,--or from their sacrifice--that is His wick.\nOf both of these ways of glorifying God is the Servant conscious. His\nservice is Speech and Sacrifice, Prophecy and Martyrdom.\n\n\n II. THE SERVANT AS PROPHET.\n\nConcerning his service of Speech, the Servant speaks in these two\npassages--ch. xlix. 2 and l. 4-5:\n\n _He set my mouth like a sharp sword,_\n _In the shadow of His hand did He hide me,_\n _And made me a pointed arrow;_\n _In His quiver He laid me in store._\n\n _My Lord Jehovah hath given me_\n _The tongue of the learners,_\n _To know how to succour the weary with words._\n _He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear_\n _To hear as the learners._\n _My Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear._\n _I was not rebellious,_\n _Nor turned away backward._\n\nAt the bidding of our latest prophet we have become suspicious of\nthe power of speech, and the goddess of eloquence walks, as it\nwere, under surveillance among us. Carlyle reiterated, \"All speech\nand rumour is short-lived, foolish, untrue. Genuine work alone is\neternal. The talent of silence is our fundamental one. The dumb\nnations are the builders of the world.\" Under such doctrine some have\ngrown intolerant of words, and the ideal of to-day tends to become\nthe practical man rather than the prophet. Yet, as somebody has\nsaid, Carlyle makes us dissatisfied with preaching only by preaching\nhimself; and you have but to read him with attention to discover that\nhis disgust with human speech is consistent with an immense reverence\nfor the voice as an instrument of service to humanity. \"The tongue\nof man,\" he says, \"is a sacred organ. Man himself is definable in\nphilosophy as an 'Incarnate Word;' the Word not there, you have no\nman there either, but a Phantasm instead.\"\n\nLet us examine our own experience upon the merits of this debate\nbetween Silence and Speech in the service of man. Though beginning\nlow, it will help us quickly to the height of the experience of the\nProphet Nation, who, with nought else for the world but the voice\nthat was in them, accomplished the greatest service that the world\nhas ever received from her children.\n\nOne thing is certain,--that Speech has not the monopoly of falsehood\nor of any other presumptuous sin. Silence does not only mean\nignorance,--by some supposed to be the heaviest sin of which Silence\ncan be guilty,--but many things far worse than ignorance, like\nunreadiness, and cowardice, and falsehood, and treason, and base\nconsent to what is evil. No man can look back on his past life, however\nlowly or limited his sphere may have been, and fail to see that not\nonce or twice his supreme duty was a word, and his guilt was not to\nhave spoken it. We all have known the shame of being straitened in\nprayer or praise; the shame of being, through our cowardice to bear\nwitness, traitors to the truth; the shame of being too timid to say No\nto the tempter, and speak out the brave reasons of which the heart was\nfull; the shame of finding ourselves incapable of uttering the word\nthat would have kept a soul from taking the wrong turning in life; the\nshame, when truth, clearness and authority were required from us, of\nbeing able only to stammer or to mince or to rant. To have been dumb\nbefore the ignorant or the dying, before a questioning child or before\nthe tempter,--this, the frequent experience of our common life, is\nenough to justify Carlyle when he said, \"If the Word is not there, you\nhave no man there either, but a Phantasm instead.\"\n\nNow, when we look within ourselves we see the reason of this. We\nperceive that the one fact, which amid the mystery and chaos of our\ninner life gives certainty and light, is a fact which is a Voice.\nOur nature may be wrecked and dissipated, but conscience is always\nleft; or in ignorance and gloom, but conscience is always audible; or\nwith all the faculties strong and assertive, yet conscience is still\nunquestionably queen,--and conscience is a Voice. It is a still, small\nvoice, which is the surest thing in man, and the noblest; which makes\nall the difference in his life; which lies at the back and beginning\nof all his character and conduct. And the most indispensable, and the\ngrandest service, therefore, which a man can do his fellow-men, is\nto get back to this voice, and make himself its mouthpiece and its\nprophet. What work is possible till the word be spoken? Did ever order\ncome to social life before there was first uttered the command, in\nwhich men felt the articulation and enforcement of the ultimate voice\nwithin themselves? Discipline and instruction and energy have not\nappeared without speech going before them. Knowledge and faith and hope\ndo not dawn of themselves; they travel, as light issued forth in the\nbeginning, upon the pulses of the speaking breath.\n\nIt was the greatness of Israel to be conscious of their call as a\nnation to this fundamental service of humanity. Believing in the\nWord of God as the original source of all things,--_In the beginning\nGod said, Let there be light; and there was light_,--they had the\nconscience, that, as it had been in the physical world, so must it\nalways be in the moral. Men were to be served and their lives to be\nmoulded by the Word. God was to be glorified by letting His Word break\nthrough the life and the lips of men. There was in the Old Testament,\nit is true, a triple ideal of manhood: _prophet_, _priest and king_.\nBut the greatest of these was the prophet, for king and priest had to\nbe prophets too. Eloquence was a royal virtue,--with persuasion, the\npower of command and swift judgement. Among the seven spirits of the\nLord which Isaiah sees descending in the King-to-Come is the spirit\nof counsel, and he afterwards adds of the King: _He shall smite the\nearth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall\nhe slay the wicked_. Similarly, the priests had originally been the\nministers, not so much of sacrifice, as of the revealed Word of God.\nAnd now the new and high ideal of priesthood, the laying down of one's\nlife a sacrifice for God and for the people, was not the mere imitation\nof the animal victim required by the priestly law, but was the natural\ndevelopment of the prophetic experience. It was (as we shall presently\nsee) the prophet, who, in his inevitable sufferings on behalf of the\ntruth he uttered, developed that consciousness of sacrifice for others,\nin which the loftiest priesthood consists. Prophecy, therefore, the\nService of Men by the Word of God, was for Israel the highest and\nmost essential of all service. It was the individual's and it was\nthe nation's ideal. As there was no true king and no true priest, so\nthere was no true man, without the Word. _Would to God_, said Moses,\n_that all the Lord's people were prophets_. And in our prophecy Israel\nexclaims: _Listen, O Isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from far.\nHe hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand\nhath He hid me._\n\nAt first it seems a forlorn hope thus to challenge the attention of\nthe world in the dialect of one of its most obscure provinces,--a\ndialect, too, that was already ceasing to be spoken even there. But\nthe fact only serves more forcibly to emphasize the belief of these\nprophets, that the word committed to what they must have known to\nbe a dying language was the Word of God Himself,--bound to render\nimmortal the tongue in which it was spoken, bound to re-echo to the\nends of the earth, bound to touch the conscience and commend itself\nto the reason of universal humanity. We have already seen, and will\nagain see, how our prophet insists upon the creative and omnipotent\npower of God's Word; so we need not dwell longer on this instance\nof his faith. Let us look rather at what he expresses as Israel's\npreparation for the teaching of it.\n\nTo him the discipline and qualification of the prophet nation--and\nthat means, of every Servant of God--in the high office of the Word,\nare threefold.\n\n1. First, he lays down the supreme condition of Prophecy, that\nbehind the Voice there must be the Life. Before he speaks of his\ngifts of Speech, the Servant emphasizes his peculiar and consecrated\nlife. _From the womb Jehovah called me, from my mother's midst\nmentioned my name._ Now, as we all know, Israel's message to the\nworld was largely Israel's life. The Old Testament is not a set of\ndogmas, nor a philosophy, nor a vision; but a history, the record\nof a providence, the testimony of experience, the utterances called\nforth by historical occasions from a life conscious of the purpose\nfor which God has called it and set it apart through the ages. But\nthese words, which the prophet nation uses, were first used of an\nindividual prophet. Like so much else in \"Second Isaiah,\" we find a\nsuggestion of them in the call of Jeremiah. _Before I formed thee\nin the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from the\nwomb I consecrated thee: I have appointed thee a prophet unto the\nnations._[195] A prophet is not a voice only. A prophet is a life\nbehind a voice. He who would speak for God must have lived for God.\nAccording to the profound insight of the Old Testament, speech is\nnot the expression of a few thoughts of a man, but the utterance of\nhis whole life. A man blossoms through his lips;[196] and no man is\na prophet, whose word is not the virtue and the flower of a gracious\nand a consecrated life.\n\n2. The second discipline of the prophet is the Art of Speech. _He hath\nmade my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand hath He\nhid me: He hath made me a polished shaft, in His quiver hath He laid\nme in store._ It is very evident, that in these words the Servant does\nnot only recount technical qualifications, but a moral discipline as\nwell. The edge and brilliance of his speech are stated as the effect\nof solitude, but of a solitude that was at the same time a nearness\nto God. Now solitude is a great school of eloquence. In speaking of\nthe Semitic race, of which Israel was part, we pointed out that,\nprophet-race of the world as it has proved, it sprang from the desert,\nand nearly all its branches have inherited the desert's clear and\naugust style of speech; for, in the leisure and serene air of the\ndesert, men speak as they speak nowhere else. But Israel speaks of a\nsolitude, that was the shadow of God's hand, and the fastness of God's\nquiver; a seclusion, which, to the desert's art of eloquence, added a\nspecial inspiration by God, and a special concentration upon His main\npurpose in the world. The desert sword felt the grasp of God; He laid\nthe Semitic shaft in store for a unique end.[197]\n\n3. But in ch. l., vv. 4-5, the Servant unfolds the most beautiful and\ntrue understanding of the Secret of Prophecy, that ever was unfolded\nin any literature,--worth quoting again by us, if so we may get it by\nheart.\n\n _My Lord Jehovah hath given me_\n _The tongue of the learners,_\n _To know how to succour the weary with words._\n _He wakeneth, morning by morning He wakeneth mine ear_\n _To hear as the learners._\n _My Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear,_\n _I was not rebellious,_\n _Nor turned away backward._\n\nThe prophet, say these beautiful lines, learns his speech, as the\nlittle child does, by listening. Grace is poured upon the lips\nthrough the open ear. It is the lesson of our Lord's Ephphatha. When\nHe took the deaf man with the impediment in his speech aside from\nthe multitude privately, He said unto him, not, Be loosed, but, _Be\nopened; and_ first _his ears were opened, and_ then the _bond of his\ntongue was loosed, and he spake plain_. To speak, then, the prophet\nmust listen; but mark to what he must listen! The secret of his\neloquence lies not in the hearing of thunder, nor in the knowledge of\nmysteries, but in a daily wakefulness to the lessons and experience\nof common life. _Morning by morning He openeth mine ear._ This is\nvery characteristic of Hebrew prophecy and Hebrew wisdom, which\nlistened for the truth of God in the voices of each day, drew their\nparables from things the rising sun lights up to every wakeful eye,\nand were, in the bulk of their doctrine, the virtues, needed day\nby day, of justice, temperance and mercy, and in the bulk of their\njudgements the results of everyday observation and experience. The\nstrength of the Old Testament lies in this its realism, its daily\nvigilance and experience of life. It is its contact with life--the\nlife, not of the yesterday of its speakers, but of their to-day--that\nmakes its voice so fresh and helpful to the weary. He whose ear is\ndaily open to the music of his current life will always find himself\nin possession of words that refresh and stimulate.\n\nBut serviceable speech needs more than attentiveness and experience.\nHaving gained the truth, the prophet must be obedient and loyal to\nit. Yet obedience and loyalty to the truth are the beginnings of\nmartyrdom, of which the Servant now goes on to speak as the natural\nand immediate consequence of his prophecy.\n\n\n III. THE SERVANT AS MARTYR.\n\nThe classes of men, who suffer physical ill-usage at the hands of\ntheir fellow-men, may roughly be described as three,--the Military\nEnemy, the Criminal, and the Prophet; and of these three we have\nonly to read history to know that the Prophet fares by far the\nworst. However fatal men's treatment of their enemies in war or of\ntheir criminals may be, it is, nevertheless, subject to a certain\norder, code of honour or principle of justice. But in all ages\nthe Prophet has been the target for the most licentious spite and\ncruelty; for torture, indecency and filth past belief. Although our\nown civilisation has outlived the system of physical punishment\nfor speech, we even yet see philosophers and statesmen, who have\nused no weapons but exposition and persuasion, treated by their\nopponents--who would speak of a foreign enemy with respect--with\nexecration, gross epithets, vile abuse and insults, that the\noffenders would not pour upon a criminal. If we have this under\nour own eyes, let us think how the Prophet must have fared before\nhumanity learned to meet speech by speech. Because men attacked it,\nnot with the sword of the invader or with the knife of the assassin,\nbut with words, therefore (till not very long ago) society let\nloose upon them the foulest indignities and most horrible torments.\nSocrates' valour as a soldier did not save him from the malicious\nslander, the false witness, the unjust trial and the poison,\nwith which the Athenians answered his speech against themselves.\nEven Hypatia's womanhood did not awe the mob from tearing her to\npieces for her teaching. This unique and invariable experience of\nthe Prophet is summed up and clenched in the name Martyr. Martyr\noriginally meant a _witness or witness-bearer_, but now it is the\nsynonym for every shame and suffering which the cruel ingenuity of\nmen's black hearts can devise for those they hate. A Book of Battles\nis horrible enough, but at least valour and honour have kept down\nin it the baser passions. A Newgate Chronicle is ugly enough, but\nthere at least is discipline and an hospital. You have got to go to\na Book of Martyrs to see to what sourness, wickedness, malignity,\npitilessness and ferocity men's hearts can lend themselves. There is\nsomething in the mere utterance of truth, that rouses the very devil\nin the hearts of many men.\n\nThus it had always been in Israel, nation not only of prophets, but\nof the slayers of prophets. According to Christ, prophet-slaying\nwas the ineradicable habit of Israel. _Ye are the sons of them that\nslew the prophets.... O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets\nand stoner of them that are sent unto her!_ To them who bare it the\nword of Jehovah had always been _a reproach_: cause of estrangement,\nindignities, torments, and sometimes of death. Up to the time of our\nprophet there had been the following notable sufferers for the Word:\nElijah; Micaiah the son of Imlah; Isaiah, if the story be true that\nhe was slain by Manasseh; but nearer, more lonely and more heroic\nthan all, Jeremiah, a _laughing-stock_ and _mockery_, _reviled_,\n_smitten_, fettered, and condemned to death. In words which recall\nthe experience of so many individual Israelites, and most of which\nwere used by Jeremiah of himself, the Servant of Jehovah describes\nhis martyrdom in immediate consequence from his prophecy.\n\n _And I--I was not rebellious,_\n _Nor turned away backward._\n _My back I have given to the smiters,_\n _And my cheek to tormenters;_\n _My face I hid not from insults and spitting._\n\nThese are not national sufferings. They are no reflection of the hard\nusage which the captive Israel suffered from Babylon. They are the\nreflection of the reproach and pains, which, for the sake of God's\nword, individual Israelites more than once experienced from their own\nnation. But if individual experience, and not national, formed the\noriginal of this picture of the Servant as Martyr, then surely we\nhave in this another strong reason against the objection to recognise\nin the Servant at last an individual. It may be, of course, that\nfor the moment our prophet feels that this frequent experience of\nindividuals in Israel is to be realised by the faithful Israel, as a\nwhole, in their treatment by the rest of their cruel and unspiritual\ncountrymen. But the very fact that individuals have previously\nfulfilled this martyrdom in the history of Israel, surely makes it\npossible for our prophet to foresee, that the Servant, who is to\nfulfil it again, shall also be an individual.\n\nBut, returning from this slight digression on the person of the Servant\nto his fate, let us emphasize again, that his sufferings came to him as\nthe result of his prophesying. The Servant's sufferings are not penal,\nthey are not yet felt to be vicarious. They are simply the reward with\nwhich obdurate Israel met all her prophets, the inevitable martyrdom\nwhich followed on the uttering of God's Word. And in this the Servant's\nexperience forms an exact counterpart to that of our Lord. For to\nChrist also reproach and agony and death--whatever higher meaning they\nevolved--came as the result of His Word. The fact that Jesus suffered\nas our great High Priest must not make us forget, that His sufferings\nfell upon Him because He was a Prophet. He argued explicitly He must\nsuffer, because so suffered the prophets before Him. He put Himself\nin the line of the martyrs: as they had killed the servants, He said,\nso would they kill the Son. Thus it happened. His enemies sought _to\nentangle Him in His talk_: it was for His talk they brought Him to\ntrial. Each torment and indignity which the Prophet-Servant relates,\nJesus suffered to the letter. They put Him to shame and insulted\nHim;[198] His helpless hands were bound; they spat in His face and\nsmote Him with their palms; they mocked and they reviled Him; scourged\nHim again; teased and tormented Him; hung Him between thieves; and\nto the last the ribald jests went up, not only from the soldiers and\nthe rabble, but from the learned and the religious authorities as\nwell, to whom His fault had been that He preached another word than\ntheir own. The literal fulfilments of our prophecy are striking, but\nthe main fulfilment, of which they are only incidents, is, that like\nthe Servant, our Lord suffered directly as a Prophet. He enforced and\nHe submitted to the essential obligation, which lies upon the true\nProphet, of suffering for the Word's sake. Let us remember to carry\nthis over with us to our final study of the Suffering Servant as the\nexpiation for sin.\n\nIn the meantime, we have to conclude the Servant's appearance as\nMartyr in ch. l. He has accepted his martyrdom; but he feels it is\nnot the end with him. God will bring him through, and vindicate him\nin the eyes of the world. For the world, in their usual way, will say\nthat because he gives them a new truth he must be wrong, and because\nhe suffers he is surely guilty and cursed before God. But he will not\nlet himself be confounded, for God is his help and advocate.\n\n _But my Lord Jehovah shall help me;_\n _Therefore, I let not myself be rebuffed:\n Therefore, I set my face like a flint,_\n _And know that I shall not be shamed._\n _Near is my Justifier; who will dispute with me?_\n _Let us stand up together!_\n _Who is mine adversary?_[199]\n _Let him draw near me._\n _Lo! my Lord Jehovah shall help me;_\n _Who is he that condemns me?_\n _Lo! like a garment all of them rot;_\n _The moth doth devour them._\n\nThese lines, in which the Holy Servant, the Martyr of the Word,\ndefies the world and asserts that God shall vindicate his innocence,\nare taken by Paul and used to assert the justification, which every\nbeliever enjoys through faith in the sufferings of Him, who was\nindeed the Holy Servant of God.[200]\n\nThe last two verses of ch. l. are somewhat difficult. The first of them\nstill speaks of the Servant,[201] and distinguishes him--a distinction\nwe must note and emphasize--from the God-fearing in Israel.\n\n _Who is among you that feareth Jehovah,_\n _That hearkens the voice of His Servant,_\n _That walks in dark places,_\n _And light he has none?_\n _Let him trust in the name of Jehovah,_\n _And lean on his God._\n\nThat is, every pious believer in Israel is to take the Servant for an\nexample; for the Servant in distress _leans upon his God_. And so\nPaul's application of the Servant's words to the individual believer is\na correct one. But if our prophet is able to think of the Servant as an\nexample to the individual Israelite, that surely is a thought not very\nfar from the conception of the Servant himself as an individual.\n\nIf ver. 10 is addressed to the pious in Israel, ver. 11 would seem to\nturn with a last word--as the last words of the discourses in Second\nIsaiah so often turn--to the wicked in Israel.\n\n _Lo! all you, players with fire,_[202]\n _That gird you with firebrands!_\n _Walk in the light of your fire,_\n _In the firebrands ye kindled._\n _This from my hand shall be yours;_\n _Ye shall lie down in sorrow._\n\nIt is very difficult to know, who are meant by this warning. An old\nand almost forgotten interpretation is, that the prophet meant those\nexiles who played with the fires of political revolution, instead of\nabiding the deliverance of the Lord. But there is now current among\nexegetes the more general interpretation that these incendiaries are\nthe revilers and abusers of the Servant within Israel: for so the\nPsalms speak of the slingers of burning words at the righteous. We\nmust notice, however, that the metaphor stands over against those in\nIsrael who _walk in dark places and have no light_. In contrast to\nthat kind of life, this may be the kind that coruscates with vanity,\nflashes with pride, or burns and scorches with its evil passions.\nWe have a similar name for such a life. We call it a display of\nfireworks. The prophet tells them, who depend on nothing but their\nown false fires, how transient these are, how quickly quenched.\n\nBut is it not weird, that on our prophet's stage, however brilliantly\nits centre shines with figures of heroes and deeds of salvation, there\nshould always be this dark, lurid background of evil and accursed men?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[187] This, of course, goes against Prof. Briggs's theory of the\ncomposition of Isa. xl.-lxvi. out of two poems (see p. 18).\n\n[188] This line is full of the letter m.\n\n[189] This is as the text is written; but the Massoretic reading\ngives, _that Israel to Him may be gathered_.\n\n[190] So it seems best to give the sense of this difficult line, but\nmost translators render _despised of soul_, or _thoroughly despised_,\n_abhorred by peoples_, or _by a people_, etc. The word for _despised_\nis used elsewhere only in ch. liii. 3.\n\n[191] Prof. A. B. Davidson, _Expositor_, Second Series, viii., 441.\n\n[192] Page 68.\n\n[193] So George Eliot wrote of her own writings shortly before her\ndeath. See _Life_, iii., 245.\n\n[194] Lady Ponsonby, to whom George Eliot wrote the letter quoted\nabove, confessed that, with the disappearance of religious faith from\nher soul, there vanished also the power of interest in, and of pity\nfor, her kind.\n\n[195] Jer. i. 5.\n\n[196] See vol. i., p. 70.\n\n[197] See p. 240 f.\n\n[198] How all their meanness, how all the sense of shame from which\nHe suffered, breaks forth in these words: _Are ye come out as against\na robber?_\n\n[199] Literally, _lord of my cause_; my adversary or opponent at law.\n\n[200] Epistle to the Romans, viii., 31 ff.\n\n[201] Though Cheyne takes _His Servant_ in ver. 10 to be, not the\nServant, but the prophet.\n\n[202] _Kindlers of fire_ is the literal rendering. But the word is\nnot the common word to kindle, and is here used of wanton fireraising.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XX.\n\n _THE SUFFERING SERVANT._\n\n ISAIAH lii. 13-liii.\n\n\nWe are now arrived at the last of the passages on the Servant of the\nLord. It is known to Christendom as the Fifty-third of Isaiah, but\nits verses have, unfortunately, been divided between two chapters,\nlii. 13-15 and liii. Before we attempt the interpretation of this\nhigh and solemn passage of Revelation, let us look at its position in\nour prophecy, and examine its structure.\n\nThe peculiarities of the style and of the vocabulary of ch. lii.\n13-liii., along with the fact, that, if it be omitted, the prophecies\non either side readily flow together, have led some critics to\nsuppose it to be an insertion, borrowed from an earlier writer.[203]\nThe style--broken, sobbing and recurrent--is certainly a change from\nthe forward, flowing sentences, on which we have been carried up till\nnow, and there are a number of words that we find quite new to us.\nYet surely both style and words are fully accounted for by the novel\nand tragic nature of the subject, to which the prophet has brought\nus: regret and remorse, though they speak through the same lips as\nhope and the assurance of salvation, must necessarily do so with a\nvery different accent and set of terms. Criticism surely overreaches\nitself, when it suggests that a writer, so versatile and dramatic as\nour prophet, could not have written ch. lii. 13-liii. along with,\nsay, ch. xl. or ch. lii. 1-12 or ch. liv. We might as well be asked\nto assign to different authors Hamlet's soliloquy, and the King's\nconversation, in the same play, with the ambassadors from Norway. To\naver that if ch. lii. 13-liii. were left out, no one who had not seen\nit would miss it, so closely does ch. liv. follow on to ch. lii. 12,\nis to aver what means nothing. In any dramatic work you may leave\nout the finest passage,--from a Greek tragedy its grandest chorus,\nor from a play of Shakespeare's the hero's soliloquy,--without\nseeming, to eyes that have not seen what you have done, to have\ndisturbed the connection of the whole. Observe the juncture in our\nprophecy at which this last passage on the Servant appears. It is\none exactly the same as that at which another great passage on the\nServant was inserted (ch. xlix. 1-9), viz., just after a call to\nthe people to seize the redemption achieved for them and to come\nforth from Babylon. It is the kind of climax or pause in their tale,\nwhich dramatic writers of all kinds employ for the solemn utterance\nof principles lying at the back, or transcending the scope, of the\nevents of which they treat. To say the least, it is surely more\nprobable that our prophet himself employed so natural an opportunity\nto give expression to his highest truths about the Servant, than\nthat some one else took his work, broke up another already extant\nwork on the Servant and thrust the pieces of the latter into the\nformer. Moreover, we shall find many of the ideas, as well as of the\nphrases, of ch. lii. 13-liii. to be essentially the same as some we\nhave already encountered in our prophecy.[204]\n\nThere is then no evidence that this singular prophecy ever stood apart\nfrom its present context, or that it was written by another writer than\nthe prophet, by whom we have hitherto found ourselves conducted. On\nthe contrary, while it has links with what goes before it, we see good\nreasons, why the prophet should choose just this moment for uttering\nits unique and transcendent contents, as well as why he should employ\nin it a style and a vocabulary, so different from his usual.\n\nTurning now to the structure of ch. lii. 13-liii., we observe that,\nas arranged in the Canon, there are fifteen verses in the prophecy.\nThese fifteen verses fall into five strophes of three verses each,\nas printed by the Revised English Version. When set in their own\noriginal lines, however, the strophes appear, not of equal, but of\nincreasing length. As will be seen from the version given below, the\nfirst (ch. lii. 13-15) has nine lines, the second (ch. liii. 1-3) has\nten lines, the third (vv. 4-6) has eleven lines, the fourth (vv. 7-9)\nthirteen lines, the fifth (vv. 10-12) fourteen lines. This increase\nwould be absolutely regular, if, in the fourth strophe, we made\neither the first two lines one, or the last two one, and if in the\nfifth again we ran the first two lines together,--changes which the\nmetre allows and some translators have adopted. But, in either case,\nwe perceive a regular increase from strophe to strophe, that is not\nonly one of the many marks with which this most artistic of poems has\nbeen elaborated, but gives the reader the very solemn impression of\na truth that is ever gathering more of human life into itself, and\nsweeping forward with fuller and more resistless volume.\n\nEach strophe, it is well to notice, begins with one word or two\nwords which summarise the meaning of the whole strophe and form a\ntitle for it. Thus, after the opening exclamation _Behold_, the\nwords _My Servant shall prosper_ form, as we shall see, not only a\nsummary of the first strophe, in which his ultimate exaltation is\ndescribed, but the theme of the whole prophecy. Strophe ii. begins\n_Who hath believed_, and accordingly in this strophe the unbelief\nand thoughtlessness of them who saw the Servant without feeling\nthe meaning of his suffering is confessed. _Surely our sicknesses_\nfitly entitles strophe iii., in which the people describe how the\nServant in his suffering was their substitute. _Oppressed yet he\nhumbled himself_ is the headline of strophe iv., and that strophe\ndeals with the humility and innocence of the Servant in contrast to\nthe injustice accorded him. While the headline of strophe v., _But\nJehovah had purposed_, brings us back to the main theme of the poem,\nthat behind men's treatment of the Servant is God's holy will; which\ntheme is elaborated and brought to its conclusion in strophe v. These\nopening and entitling words of each strophe are printed, in the\nfollowing translation, in larger type than the rest.\n\nAs in the rest of Hebrew poetry, so here, the measure is neither\nregular nor smooth, and does not depend on rhyme. Yet there is an\namount of assonance, which at times approaches to rhyme. Much of the\nmeaning of the poem depends on the use of the personal pronouns--_we_\nand _he_ stand contrasted to each other--and it is these coming in a\nlengthened form at the end of many of the lines that suggest to the\near something like rhyme. For instance, in liii. 5, 6, the second\nand third verses of the third strophe, two of the lines run out on\nthe bisyllable -\u00ean\u016b, two on \u00eenu, and two on the word l\u0101n\u016b, while the\nthird has \u00eanu, not at the end, but in the middle; in each case, the\npronominal suffix of the first person plural. We transcribe these\nlines to show the effect of this.\n\n W^ehu' m^eholal mipp^esha'\u00ean\u016b\n M^edhukka' me`\u0103w\u014dn\u014dth\u00ean\u016b\n M\u016b\u1e63ar sh^el\u014dm\u0113n\u016b `alaw\n Ubhah\u0103bhur\u0101tho nirpa'-l\u0101n\u016b\n Kull\u0101n\u016b kass-ss'on ta`\u00een\u016b\n '\u00eesh l^edharko pan\u00een\u016b\n Wa Jahweh hiphg\u00ee`a b\u00f4 'eth-`awon kull\u0101n\u016b.\n\nThis is the strophe in which the assonance comes oftenest to rhyme;\nbut in strophe i. \u00eah\u016b ends two lines, and in strophe ii. it ends\nthree. These and other assonants occur also at the beginning and in\nthe middle of lines. We must remember that in all the cases quoted\nit is the personal pronouns, which give the assonance,--the personal\npronouns on which so much of the meaning of the poem turns; and\nthat, therefore, the parallelism primarily intended by the writer is\none rather of meaning than of sound. The pair of lines, parallel in\nmeaning, though not in sound, which forms so large a part of Hebrew\npoetry, is used throughout this poem; but the use of it is varied\nand elaborated to a unique degree. The very same words and phrases\nare repeated, and placed on points, from which they seem to call to\neach other; as, for instance, the double _many_ in strophe i., the\n_of us all_ in strophe iii., and _nor opened he his mouth_ in strophe\niv. The ideas are very few and very simple; the words _he_, _we_,\n_his_, _ours_, _see_, _hear_, _know_, _bear_, _sickness_, _strike_,\n_stroke_, and _many_ form, with prepositions and particles, the\nbulk of the prophecy. It will be evident how singularly suitable\nthis recurrence is for the expression of reproach, and of sorrowful\nrecollection. It is the nature of grief and remorse to harp upon the\none dear form, the one most vivid pain. The finest instance of this\nrepetition is verse 6, with its opening keynote \"kullanu\"--_of us all\nlike sheep went astray_, with its close on that keynote _guilt of us\nall_, \"kullanu.\" But throughout notes are repeated, and bars recur,\nexpressive of what was done to the Servant, or what the Servant did\nfor man, which seem in their recurrence to say, You cannot hear too\nmuch of me: I am the very Gospel. A peculiar sadness is lent to the\nmusic by the letters h and l in \"holie\" and \"hehelie,\" the word for\nsickness or ailing (ailing is the English equivalent in sense and\nsound), which happens so often in the poem. The new words, which\nhave been brought to vary this recurrence of a few simple features,\nare mostly of a sombre type. The heavier letters throng the lines:\ngrievous _bs_ and _ms_ are multiplied, and syllables with long vowels\nbefore _m_ and _w_. But the words sob as well as tramp; and here and\nthere one has a wrench and one a cry in it.\n\nMost wonderful and mysterious of all is the spectral fashion in which\nthe prophecy presents its Hero. He is named only in the first line\nand once again: elsewhere He is spoken of as He. We never hear or\nsee Himself. But all the more solemnly is He there: a shadow upon\ncountless faces, a grievous memory on the hearts of the speakers. He\nso haunts all we see and all we hear, that we feel it is not Art, but\nConscience, that speaks of Him.\n\nHere is now the prophecy itself, rendered into English quite\nliterally, except for a conjunction here and there, and, as far as\npossible, in the rhythm of the original. A few necessary notes on\ndifficult words and phrases are given.\n\n\n I.\n\n lii. 13: _Behold, my Servant shall prosper,_[205]\n _Shall rise, be lift up, be exceedingly high._[206]\n\n _Like as they that were astonied before thee were many,_\n _--So marred from a man's was his visage,_\n _And his form from the children of men!--_\n _So shall the nations he startles_[207] _be many,_\n _Before him shall kings shut their mouths._\n _For that which had never been told them they see,_\n _And what they had heard not, they have to consider._\n\n\n\n II.\n\n _Who gave believing to that which we heard,_[208]\n _And the arm of Jehovah to whom was it bared?_\n _For he sprang like a sapling before Him,_[209]\n _As a root from the ground that is parched;_\n _He had no form nor beauty that we should regard him,_\n _Nor aspect that we should desire him._\n _Despised and rejected of men,_\n _Man of pains and familiar with ailing,_\n _And as one we do cover the face from,_\n _Despised, and we did not esteem him._\n\n\n III.\n\n _Surely our ailments he bore,_\n _And our pains he did take for his burden._[210]\n _But we--we accounted him stricken,_\n _Smitten of God and degraded._[211]\n _Yet he--he was pierced for crimes that were ours,_[212]\n _He was crushed for guilt that was ours,_[212]\n _The chastisement of our peace was upon him,_\n _By his stripes healing is ours._[212]\n _Of us all_[213] _like to sheep went astray,_\n _Every man to his way we did turn,_\n _And Jehovah made light upon him_\n _The guilt of us all._\n\n\n IV.\n\n _Oppressed, he did humble himself,_\n _Nor opened his mouth--_\n _As a lamb to the slaughter is led,_\n _As a sheep 'fore her shearers is dumb--_\n _Nor opened his mouth._\n _By tyranny and law was he taken;_[214]\n _And of his age who reflected,_\n _That he was wrenched_[215] _from the land of the living,_\n _For My people's transgressions the stroke was on him?_\n _So they made with the wicked his grave,_\n _Yea, with the felon_[216] _his tomb._\n _Though never harm had he done,_\n _Neither was guile in his mouth._\n\n\n V.\n\n _But Jehovah had purposed to bruise him,_\n _Had laid on him sickness;\n So_[217] _if his life should offer guilt offering,_\n _A seed he should see, he should lengthen his days._\n _And the purpose of Jehovah by his hand should prosper,_\n _From the travail of his soul shall he see,_[218]\n _By his knowledge be satisfied._\n _My Servant, the Righteous, righteousness wins he for many,_\n _And their guilt he takes for his load._\n _Therefore I set him a share with the great,_[219]\n _Yea, with the strong shall he share the spoil:_\n _Because that he poured out his life unto death,_\n _Let himself with transgressors be reckoned;_\n _Yea, he the sin of the many hath borne,_\n _And for the transgressors he interposes._\n\nLet us now take up the interpretation strophe by strophe.\n\nI. Ch. lii. 13-15. When last our eyes were directed to the Servant,\nhe was in suffering unexplained and unvindicated (ch. l. 4-6).\nHis sufferings seemed to have fallen upon him as the consequence\nof his fidelity to the Word committed to him; the Prophet had\ninevitably become the Martyr. Further than this his sufferings were\nnot explained, and the Servant was left in them, calling upon God\nindeed, and sure that God would hear and vindicate him, but as yet\nunanswered by word of God or word of man.\n\nIt is these words, words both of God and of man, which are given in\nIsaiah ch. lii. 13-liii. The Sufferer is explained and vindicated,\nfirst by God in the first strophe, ch. lii. 13-15, and then by the\nConscience of Men, His own people, in the second and third (liii.\n1-6); and then, as it appears, the Divine Voice, or the Prophet\nspeaking for it, resumes in strophes iv. and v., and concludes in a\nstrain similar to strophe i.\n\nGod's explanation and vindication of the Sufferer is, then, given in\nthe first strophe. It is summed up in the first line, and in one very\npregnant word. Jeremiah had said of the Messiah, _He shall reign as\na King and deal wisely_ or _prosper_;[220] and so God says here of\nthe Servant, _Behold he shall deal wisely_ or _prosper_. The Hebrew\nverb does not get full expression in any English one. In rendering\nit _shall deal wisely_ or _prudently_ our translators undoubtedly\ntouch the quick of it. For it is originally a mental process or\nquality: _has insight_, _understands_, _is farseeing_. But then it\nalso includes the effect of this--_understands so as to get on_,\n_deals wisely so as to succeed_, _is practical_ both in his way of\nworking and in being sure of his end. Ewald has found an almost exact\nequivalent in German, \"hat Geschick;\" for Geschick means both _skill_\nor _address_ and _fate_ or _destiny_. The Hebrew verb is the most\npractical in the whole language, for this is precisely the point\nwhich the prophecy seeks to bring out about the Servant's sufferings.\nThey are practical. He is practical in them. He endures them, not for\ntheir own sake, but for some practical end of which he is aware and\nto which they must assuredly bring him. His failure to convince men\nby his word, the pain and spite which seem to be his only wage, are\nnot the last of him, but the beginning and the way to what is higher.\nSo _shall he rise and be lift up and be very high_. The suffering,\nwhich in ch. l. seemed to be the Servant's misfortune, is here seen\nas his wisdom which shall issue in his glory.\n\nBut of themselves men do not see this, and they need to be convinced.\nPain, the blessed means of God, is man's abhorrence and perplexity.\nAll along the history of the world the Sufferer has been the\nastonishment and stumbling-block of humanity. The barbarian gets rid\nof him; he is the first difficulty with which every young literature\nwrestles; to the end he remains the problem of philosophy and the\nsore test of faith. It is not native to men to see meaning or profit\nin the Sufferer; they are staggered by him, they see no reason or\npromise in him. So did men receive this unique Sufferer, this Servant\nof Jehovah. _The many were astonied at him; his visage was so marred\nmore than men, and his form than the children of men._ But his life\nis to teach them the opposite of their impressions, and to bring them\nout of their perplexity into reverence before the revealed purpose of\nGod in the Sufferer. _As they that were astonied at thee were many,\nso shall the nations he startles be many; kings shall shut their\nmouths at him, for that which was not told them they see, and that\nwhich they have heard not they have to consider_,--viz., the triumph\nand influence to which the Servant was consciously led through\nsuffering. There may be some reflection here of the way in which the\nGentiles regarded the Suffering Israel, but the reference is vague,\nand perhaps purposely so.\n\nThe first strophe, then, gives us just the general theme. In contrast\nto human experience God reveals in His Servant that suffering is\nfruitful, that sacrifice is practical. Pain, in God's service, shall\nlead to glory.\n\nII. Ch. liii. 1-3. God never speaks but in man He wakens conscience,\nand the second strophe of the prophecy (along with the third)\nis the answer of conscience to God. Penitent men, looking back\nfrom the light of the Servant's exaltation to the time when his\nhumiliation was before their eyes, say, \"Yes: what God has said\nis true of us. We were the deaf and the indifferent. We heard,\nbut _who_ of us _believed what we heard, and to whom was the\narm of the Lord_--His purpose, the hand He had in the Servant's\nsufferings--_revealed_?\"[221]\n\nWho are these penitent speakers? Some critics have held them to be\nthe heathen, more have said that they are Israel. But none have\npointed out that the writer gives himself no trouble to define them,\nbut seems more anxious to impress us with their consciousness of\ntheir moral relation to the Servant. On the whole, it would appear\nthat it is Israel, whom the prophet has in mind as the speakers of\nvv. 1-6. For, besides the fact that the Old Testament knows nothing\nof a bearing by Israel of the sins of the Gentiles, it is expressly\nsaid in ver. 8, that the sins for which the Servant was stricken\nwere the sins of _my people_; which people must be the same as the\nspeakers, for they own in vv. 4-6 that the Servant bore their sins.\nFor these and other reasons the mass of Christian critics at the\npresent day are probably right when they assume that Israel are the\nspeakers in vv. 1-6;[222] but the reader must beware of allowing\nhis attention to be lost in questions of that kind. The art of the\npoem seems intentionally to leave vague the national relation of the\nspeakers to the Servant, in order the more impressively to bring out\ntheir moral attitude towards him. There is an utter disappearance of\nall lines of separation between Jew and Gentile,--both in the first\nstrophe, where, although Gentile names are used, Jews may yet be\nmeant to be included, and in the rest of the poem,--as if the writer\nwished us to feel that all men stood over against that solitary\nServant in a common indifference to his suffering and a common\nconscience of the guilt he bears. In short, it is no historical\nsituation, such as some critics seem anxious to fasten him down upon,\nthat the prophet reflects; but a certain moral situation, ideal in\nso far as it was not yet realised,--the state of the quickened human\nconscience over against a certain Human Suffering, in which, having\nignored it at the time, that conscience now realises that the purpose\nof God was at work.\n\nIn vv. 2 and 3 the penitent speakers give us the reasons of their\ndisregard of the Servant in the days of his suffering. In these\nreasons there is nothing peculiar to Israel, and no special\nexperience of Jewish history is reflected by the terms in which\nthey are conveyed. They are the confession, in general language, of\nan universal human habit,--the habit of letting the eye cheat the\nheart and conscience, of allowing the aspect of suffering to blind\nus to its meaning; of forgetting in our sense of the ugliness and\nhelplessness of pain, that it has a motive, a future and a God. It\ntook ages to wean mankind from those native feelings of aversion\nand resentment, which caused them at first to abandon or destroy\ntheir sick. And, even now, scorn for the weak and incredulity in the\nheroism or in the profitableness of suffering are strong in the best\nof us. We judge by looks; we are hurried by the physical impression,\nwhich the sufferer makes on us, or by our pride that we are not as\nhe is, into peremptory and harsh judgements upon him. Every day\nwe allow the dulness of poverty, the ugliness of disease, the\nunprofitableness of misfortune, the ludicrousness of failure, to keep\nback conscience from discovering to us our share of responsibility\nfor them, and to repel our hearts from that sympathy and patience\nwith them, which along with conscience would assuredly discover to us\ntheir place in God's Providence and their special significance for\nourselves. It is this original sin of man, of which these penitent\nspeakers own themselves guilty.\n\nBut no one is ever permitted to rest with a physical or intellectual\nimpression of suffering. The race, the individual, has always been\nforced by conscience to the task of finding a moral reason for pain;\nand nothing so marks man's progress as the successive solutions he\nhas attempted to this problem. The speakers, therefore, proceed in\nthe next part of their confession, strophe iii., to tell us what they\nfirst falsely accounted the moral reason of the Servant's suffering\nand what they afterwards found to be the truth.\n\nIII. liii. 4-6. The earliest and most common moral judgement, which\nmen pass upon pain, is that which is implied in its name--that it is\npenal. A man suffers because God is angry with him and has stricken\nhim. So Job's friends judged him, and so these speakers tell us they\nhad at first judged the Servant. _We had accounted him stricken,\nsmitten of God and afflicted_,--_stricken_, that is, with a plague\nof sickness, as Job was, for the simile of the sick man is still\nkept up; _smitten of God and degraded_ or _humbled_, for it seemed\nto them that God's hand was in the Servant's sickness, to punish and\ndisgrace him for his own sins. But now they know they were wrong. The\nhand of God was indeed upon the Servant, and the reason was sin; yet\nthe sin was not his, but theirs. _Surely our sicknesses he bore,\nand our pains he took as his burden. He was pierced for iniquities\nthat were ours. He was crushed for crimes that were ours._ Strictly\ninterpreted, these verses mean no more than that the Servant was\ninvolved in the consequences of his people's sins. The verbs _bore_\nand _made his burden_ are indeed taken by some to mean necessarily,\nremoval or expiation; but in themselves, as is clear from their\napplication to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the whole of the generation\nof Exile, they mean no more than implication in the reproach and\nthe punishment of the people's sins.[223] Nevertheless, as we have\nexplained in a note below, it is really impossible to separate the\nsuffering of a Servant, who has been announced as practical and\nprosperous in his suffering, from the end for which it is endured. We\ncannot separate the Servant's bearing of the people's guilt from his\nremoval of it. And, indeed, this practical end of his passion springs\nforth, past all doubt, from the rest of the strophe, which declares\nthat the Servant's sufferings are not only vicarious but redemptive.\n_The discipline of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we\nare healed._ Translators agree that _discipline of our peace_ must\nmean discipline which procures our peace. The peace, the healing,\nis ours, in consequence of the chastisement and the scourging that\nwas his. The next verse gives us the obverse and complement of the\nsame thought. The pain was his in consequence of the sin that was\nours. _All we like sheep had gone astray, and the Lord laid on him\nthe iniquity of us all_,--literally _iniquity_, but inclusive of its\nguilt and consequences. Nothing could be plainer than these words.\nThe speakers confess, that they know that the Servant's suffering was\nboth vicarious and redemptive.[224]\n\nBut how did they get this knowledge? They do not describe any special\nmeans by which it came to them. They state this high and novel truth\nsimply as the last step in a process of their consciousness. At first\nthey were bewildered by the Servant's suffering; then they thought\nit contemptible, thus passing upon it an intellectual judgement;\nthen, forced to seek a moral reason for it, they accounted it as\npenal and due to the Servant for his own sins; then they recognised\nthat its penalty was vicarious, that the Servant was suffering for\nthem; and finally, they knew that it was redemptive, the means of\ntheir own healing and peace. This is a natural climax, a logical\nand moral progress of thought. The last two steps are stated simply\nas facts of experience following on other facts. Now our prophet\nusually publishes the truths, with which he is charged, as the very\nwords of God, introducing them with a solemn and authoritative\n_Thus saith Jehovah._ But this novel and supreme truth of vicarious\nand redemptive suffering, this passion and virtue which crowns the\nServant's office, is introduced to us, not by the mouth of God, but\nby the lips of penitent men; not as an oracle, but as a confession;\nnot as the commission of Divine authority laid beforehand upon the\nServant like his other duties, but as the conviction of the human\nconscience after the Servant has been lifted up before it. In short,\nby this unusual turn of his art, the prophet seeks to teach us, that\nvicarious suffering is not a dogmatic, but an experimental truth. The\nsubstitution of the Servant for the guilty people, and the redemptive\nforce of that substitution, are no arbitrary doctrine, for which God\nrequires from man a mere intellectual assent; they are no such formal\ninstitution of religion as mental indolence and superstition delight\nto have prepared for their mechanical adherence: but substitutive\nsuffering is a great living fact of human experience, whose outward\nfeatures are not more evident to men's eyes than its inner meaning\nis appreciable by their conscience, and of irresistible effect upon\ntheir whole moral nature.\n\nIs this lesson of our prophet's art not needed? Men have always been\napt to think of vicarious suffering, and of its function in their\nsalvation, as something above and apart from their moral nature, with a\nvalue known only to God and not calculable in the terms of conscience\nor of man's moral experience; nay, rather as something that conflicts\nwith man's ideas of morality and justice. Whereas both the fact and\nthe virtue of vicarious suffering come upon us all, as these speakers\ndescribe the vicarious sufferings of the Servant to have come upon\nthem, as a part of inevitable experience. If it be natural, as we saw,\nfor men to be bewildered by the first sight of suffering, to scorn it\nas futile and to count it the fault of the sufferer himself, it is\nequally natural and inevitable that these first and hasty theories\nshould be dispelled by the longer experience of life and the more\nthorough working of conscience. The stricken are not always bearing\ntheir own sin. \"Suffering is the minister of justice. This is true in\npart, yet it also is inadequate to explain the facts. Of all the sorrow\nwhich befalls humanity, how small a part falls upon the specially\nguilty; how much seems rather to seek out the good! We might almost\nask whether it is not weakness rather than wrong that is punished in\nthis world.\"[225] In every nation, in every family, the innocent suffer\nfor the guilty. Vicarious suffering is not arbitrary or accidental;\nit comes with our growth; it is of the very nature of things. It is\nthat part of the Service of Man, to which we are all born, and of the\nreality of which we daily grow more aware.\n\nBut even more than its necessity life teaches us its virtue.\nVicarious suffering is not a curse. It is Service--Service for God.\nIt proves a power where every other moral force has failed. By it men\nare redeemed, on whom justice and their proper punishment have been\nable to effect nothing. Why this should be is very intelligible. We\nare not so capable of measuring the physical or moral results of our\nactions upon our own characters or in our own fortunes as we are upon\nthe lives of others; nor do we so awaken to the guilt and heinousness\nof our sin as when it reaches and implicates lives, which were not\npartners with us in it. Moreover, while a man's punishment is apt to\ngive him an excuse for saying, I have expiated my sin myself, and so\nto leave him self-satisfied and with nothing for which to be grateful\nor obliged to a higher will; or while it may make him reckless or\nplunge him into despair; so, on the contrary, when he recognises that\nothers feel the pain of his sin and have come under its weight, then\nshame is quickly born within him, and pity and every other passion\nthat can melt a hard heart. If, moreover, the others who bear his\nsin do so voluntarily and for love's sake, then how quickly on the\nback of shame and pity does gratitude rise, and the sense of debt\nand of constraint to their will! For all these very intelligible\nreasons, vicarious suffering has been a powerful redemptive force in\nthe experience of the race. Both the fact of its beneficence and the\nmoral reasons for this are clear enough to lift us above a question,\nwhich sometimes gives trouble regarding it,--the question of its\njustice. Such a question is futile about any service for man, which\nsucceeds as this does where all others have failed, and which proves\nitself so much in harmony with man's moral nature. But the last shred\nof objection to the justice of vicarious suffering is surely removed\nwhen the sufferer is voluntary as well as vicarious. And, in truth,\nhuman experience feels that it has found its highest and its holiest\nfact in the love that, being innocent itself, stoops to bear its\nfellows' sins,--not only the anxiety and reproach of them, but even\nthe cost and the curse of them. _Greater love hath no man than this,\nthat a man lay down his life for his friends_; and greater Service\ncan no man do to man, than to serve them in this way.\n\nNow in this universal human experience of the inevitableness and\nthe virtue of vicarious suffering, Israel had been deeply baptized.\nThe nation had been _served_ by suffering in all the ways we have\njust described. Beginning with the belief that all righteousness\nprospered, Israel had come to see the righteous afflicted in her\nmidst; the best Israelites had set their minds to the problem, and\nlearned to believe, at least, that such affliction was of God's\nwill,--part of His Providence, and not an interruption to it. Israel,\ntoo, knew the moral solidarity of a people: that citizens share each\nother's sorrows, and that one generation rolls over its guilt upon\nthe next. Frequently had the whole nation been spared for a pious\nremnant's sake; and in the Exile, while all the people were formally\nafflicted by God, it was but a portion of them whose conscience was\nquick to the meaning of the chastisement, and of them alone, in their\nsubmissive and intelligent sufferance of the Lord's wrath, could the\nopening gospel of the prophecy be spoken, that they _had accomplished\ntheir warfare, and had received of the Lord's hand double for all\ntheir sins_. But still more vivid than these collective substitutes\nfor the people were the individuals, who, at different points in\nIsrael's history, had stood forth and taken up as their own the\nnation's conscience and stooped to bear the nation's curse. Far away\nback, a Moses had offered himself for destruction, if for his sake\nGod would spare his sinful and thoughtless countrymen. In a psalm of\nthe Exile it is remembered that,\n\n _He said, that He would destroy them,\n Had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach,\n To turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy._[226]\n\nAnd Jeremiah, not by a single heroic resolve, but by the slow agony\nand martyrdom of a long life, had taken Jerusalem's sin upon his own\nheart, had felt himself forsaken of God, and had voluntarily shared\nhis city's doom, while his generation, unconscious of their guilt and\nblind to their fate, despised him and esteemed him not. And Ezekiel,\nwho is Jeremiah's far-off reflection, who could only do in symbol\nwhat Jeremiah did in reality, was commanded to lie on his side for\ndays, and so _bear the guilt_ of his people.[227]\n\nBut in Israel's experience it was not only the human Servant who\nserved the nation by suffering, for God Himself had come down to\n_carry_ His distressed and accursed people, and _to load Himself with\nthem_. Our prophet uses the same two verbs of Jehovah as are used of\nthe Servant.[228] Like the Servant, too, God _was afflicted in all\ntheir affliction_; and His love towards them was expended in passion\nand agony for their sins. Vicarious suffering was not only human, it\nwas Divine.\n\nWas it very wonderful that a people with such an experience, and\nwith such examples, both human and Divine, should at last be led\nto the thought of One Sufferer, who would exhibit in Himself all\nthe meaning, and procure for His people all the virtue, of that\nvicarious reproach and sorrow, which a long line of their martyrs\nhad illustrated, and which God had revealed as the passion of His\nown love? If they had had every example that could fit them to\nunderstand the power of such a sufferer, they had also every reason\nto feel their need of Him. For the Exile had not healed the nation;\nit had been for the most of them an illustration of that evil effect\nof punishment to which we alluded above. Penal servitude in Babylon\nhad but hardened Israel. _God poured on him the fury of anger, and\nthe strength of battle: it set him on fire round about, yet he knew\nnot; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart._[229] What the\nExile, then, had failed to do, when it brought upon the people their\nown sins, the Servant, taking these sins upon himself, would surely\neffect. The people, whom the Exile had only hardened, his vicarious\nsuffering should strike into penitence and lift to peace.\n\nIV. Ch. liii. 7-9. It is probable that with ver. 6 the penitent\npeople have ceased speaking, and that the parable is now taken up\nby the prophet himself. The voice of God, which uttered the first\nstrophe, does not seem to resume till ver. 11.\n\nIf strophe iii. confessed that it was for the people's sins the\nServant suffered, strophe iv. declares that he himself was sinless,\nand yet silently submitted to all which injustice laid upon him.\n\nNow Silence under Suffering is a strange thing in the Old\nTestament--a thing absolutely new. No other Old Testament personage\ncould stay dumb under pain, but immediately broke into one of two\nvoices,--voice of guilt or voice of doubt. In the Old Testament the\nsufferer is always either confessing his guilt to God, or, when\nhe feels no guilt, challenging God in argument. David, Hezekiah,\nJeremiah, Job, and the nameless martyred and moribund of the Psalms,\nall strive and are loud under pain. Why was this Servant the unique\nand solitary instance of silence under suffering? Because he had a\nsecret which they had not. It had been said of him: _My Servant shall\ndeal wisely_ or _intelligently_, shall know what he is about. He had\nno guilt of his own, no doubts of his God. But he was conscious of\nthe end God had in his pain, an end not to be served in any other\nway, and with all his heart he had given himself to it. It was not\npunishment he was enduring; it was not the throes of the birth\ninto higher experience, which he was feeling: it was a Service he\nwas performing,--a service laid on him by God, a service for man's\nredemption, a service sure of results and of glory. Therefore _as a\nlamb to the slaughter is led, and as a sheep before her shearers is\ndumb, he opened not his mouth_.\n\nThe next two verses (8, 9) describe how the Servant's Passion was\nfulfilled. The figure of a sick man was changed in ver. 5 to that of\na punished one, and the punishment we now see carried on to death.\nThe two verses are difficult, the readings and renderings of most of\nthe words being very various. But the sense is clear. The Servant's\ndeath was accomplished, not on some far hill top by a stroke out of\nheaven, but in the forms of human law and by men's hands. It was\na judicial murder. _By tyranny and by judgement_,--that is, by a\nforced and tyrannous judgement,--_he was taken_. To this abuse of\nlaw the next verse adds the indifference of public opinion: _and\nas for his contemporaries, who of them reflected that he was cut\noff from_, or _cut down in, the land of the living_,--that in spite\nof the form of law that condemned him he was a murdered man,--that\n_for the transgression of my people the stroke was his_? So, having\nconceived him to have been lawfully put to death, they consistently\ngave him a convict's grave: _they made his grave with the wicked, and\nhe was with the felon in his death_, though--and on this the strophe\nemphatically ends--he was an innocent man, _he had done no harm,\nneither was guile in his mouth_.\n\nPremature sickness and the miscarriage of justice,--these to\nOrientals are the two outstanding misfortunes of the individual's\nlife. Take the Psalter, set aside its complaints of the horrors of\nwar and of invasion, and you will find almost all the rest of its\nsighs rising either from sickness or from the sense of injustice.\nThese were the classic forms of individual suffering in the age and\ncivilisation to which our prophet belonged, and it was natural,\ntherefore, that when he was describing an Ideal or Representative\nSufferer, he should fill in his picture with both of them. If we\nremember this,[230] we shall feel no incongruity in the sudden change\nof the hero from a sick man to a convict, and back again in ver. 10\nfrom a convict to a sick man. Nor, if we remember this, shall we feel\ndisposed to listen to those interpreters, who hold that the basis of\nthis prophecy was the account of an actual historical martyrdom. Had\nsuch been the case the prophet would surely have held throughout to\none or the other of the two forms of suffering. His sufferer would\nhave been either a leper or a convict, but hardly both. No doubt the\ndetails in vv. 8 and 9 are so realistic that they might well be the\nfeatures of an actual miscarriage of justice; but the like happened\ntoo frequently in the Ancient East for such verses to be necessarily\nany one man's portrait. Perverted justice was the curse of the\nindividual's life,--perverted justice and that stolid, fatalistic\napathy of Oriental public opinion, which would probably regard such\na sufferer as suffering for his sins the just vengeance of heaven,\nthough the minister of this vengeance was a tyrant and its means were\nperjury and murder. _Who of his generation reflected that for the\ntransgression of my people the stroke was on him!_\n\nV. Ch. liii. 10-12. We have heard the awful tragedy. The innocent\nServant was put to a violent and premature death. Public apathy closed\nover him and the unmarked earth of a felon's grave. It is so utter a\nperversion of justice, so signal a triumph of wrong over right, so\nfinal a disappearance into oblivion of the fairest life that ever\nlived, that men might be tempted to say, God has forsaken His own. On\nthe contrary--so strophe v. begins--God's own will and pleasure have\nbeen in this tragedy: _Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him_. The line\nas it thus stands in our English version has a grim, repulsive sound.\nBut the Hebrew word has no necessary meaning of pleasure or enjoyment.\nAll it says is, God so willed it. His purpose was in this tragedy.\nDeus vult! It is the one message which can render any pain tolerable or\nlight up with meaning a mystery so cruel as this: _The LORD_ Himself\n_had purposed to bruise_ His Servant, _the LORD Himself had laid on him\nsickness_ (the figure of disease is resumed).\n\nGod's purpose in putting the Servant to death is explained in the\nrest of the verse. It was in order that _through his soul making a\nguilt-offering, he might see a seed, prolong his days, and that the\npleasure of the Lord might prosper by his hand_.\n\nWhat is a guilt-offering? The term originally meant guilt, and is so\nused by a prophet contemporary to our own.[231] In the legislation,\nhowever, both in the Pentateuch and in Ezekiel, it is applied to\nlegal and sacrificial forms of restitution or reparation for guilt.\nIt is only named in Ezekiel along with other sacrifices.[232] Both\nNumbers and Leviticus define it, but define it differently. In\nNumbers (v. 7, 8) it is the payment, which a transgressor has to\nmake to the human person offended, of the amount to which he has\nharmed that person's property: it is what we call damages. But in\nLeviticus it is the ram, exacted over and above damages to the\ninjured party (v. 14-16; vi. 1-7), or in cases where no damages were\nasked for (v. 17-19), by the priest, the representative of God, for\nsatisfaction to His law; and it was required even where the offender\nhad been an unwitting one. By this guilt-offering _the priest made\natonement_ for the sinner and _he was forgiven_. It was for this\npurpose of reparation to the Deity that the plagued Philistines\nsent a guilt-offering back with the ark of Jehovah, which they had\nstolen.[233] But there is another historical passage, which though\nthe term _guilt-offering_ is not used in it, admirably illustrates\nthe idea.[234] A famine in David's time was revealed to be due to\nthe murder of certain Gibeonites by the house of Saul. David asked\nthe Gibeonites what reparation he could make. They said it was not\na matter of damages. But both parties felt that before the law of\nGod could be satisfied and the land relieved of its curse, some\natonement, some guilt-offering, must be made to the Divine Law. It\nwas a wild kind of satisfaction that was paid. Seven men of Saul's\nhouse were hung up before the Lord in Gibeon. But the instinct,\nthough satisfied in so murderous a fashion, was a true and a grand\ninstinct,--the conscience of a law above all human laws and rights,\nto which homage must be paid before the sinner could come into true\nrelations with God, or the Divine curse be lifted off.\n\nIt is in this sense that the word is used of the Servant of Jehovah,\nthe Ideal, Representative Sufferer. Innocent as he is, he gives his\nlife as satisfaction to the Divine law for the guilt of his people.\nHis death was no mere martyrdom or miscarriage of human justice: in\nGod's intent and purpose, but also by its own voluntary offering, it\nwas an expiatory sacrifice.[235] By his death the Servant did homage\nto the law of God. By dying for it He made men feel that the supreme\nend of man was to own that law and be in a right relation to it, and\nthat the supreme service was to help others to a right relation. As\nit is said a little farther down, _My Servant, righteous himself,\nwins righteousness for many, and makes their iniquities his load_.\n\nIt surely cannot be difficult for any one, who knows what sin is, and\nwhat a part vicarious suffering plays both in the bearing of the sin\nand in the redemption of the sinner, to perceive that at this point the\nServant's service for God and man reaches its crown. Compare his death\nand its sad meaning, with the brilliant energies of his earlier career.\nIt is a heavy and an honourable thing to come from God to men, laden\nwith God's truth for your charge and responsibility; but it is a far\nheavier to stoop and take upon your heart as your business and burden\nmen's suffering and sin. It is a needful and a lovely thing to assist\nthe feeble aspirations of men, to put yourself on the side of whatever\nin them is upward and living,--to be the shelter, as the Servant was,\nof the bruised reed and the fading wick; but it is more indispensable,\nand it is infinitely heavier, to seek to lift the deadness of men, to\ntake their guilt upon your heart, to attempt to rouse them to it, to\nattempt to deliver them from it. It is a useful and a glorious thing to\nestablish order and justice among men, to create a social conscience,\nto inspire the exercise of love and the habits of service, and this the\nServant did when _he set Law on the Earth, and the Isles waited for his\nteaching_; but after all man's supreme and controlling relation is his\nrelation to God, and to this their _righteousness_ the Servant restored\nguilty men by his death.\n\nAnd so it was at this point, according to our prophecy, that the\nServant, though brought so low, was nearest his exaltation; though\nin death, yet nearest life, nearest the highest kind of life, _the\nseeing of a seed_, the finding of himself in others; though despised,\nrejected and forgotten of men, most certain of finding a place among\nthe great and notable forces of life,--_therefore do I divide him a\nshare with the great, and the spoil he shall share with the strong_.\nNot because as a prophet he was a sharp sword in the hand of the\nLord, or a light flashing to the ends of the earth, but in that--as\nthe prophecy concludes, and it is the prophet's last and highest word\nconcerning him--in that _he bare the sin of the many, and interposed\nfor the transgressors_.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe have seen that the most striking thing about this prophecy is the\nspectral appearance of the Servant. He haunts, rather than is present\nin, the chapter. We hear of him, but he himself does not speak. We\nsee faces that he startles, lips that the sight of him shuts, lips\nthat the memory of him, after he has passed in silence, opens to\nbitter confession of neglect and misunderstanding; but himself we see\nnot. His aspect and his bearing, his work for God and his influence\non men, are shown to us, through the recollection and conscience of\nthe speakers, with a vividness and a truth that draw the consciences\nof us who hear into the current of the confession, and take our\nhearts captive. But when we ask, Who was he then? What was his name\namong men? Where shall we find himself? Has he come, or do you still\nlook for him?--neither the speakers, whose conscience he so smote,\nnor God, whose chief purpose he was, give us here any answer. In some\nverses he and his work seem already to have happened upon earth, but\nagain we are made to feel that he is still future to the prophet,\nand that the voices, which the prophet quotes as speaking of having\nseen him and found him to be the Saviour, are voices of a day not yet\nborn, while the prophet writes.\n\nBut about five hundred and fifty years after this prophecy was written,\na Man came forward among the sons of men,--among this very nation from\nwhom the prophecy had arisen; and in every essential of consciousness\nand of experience He was the counterpart, embodiment and fulfilment\nof this Suffering Servant and his Service. Jesus Christ answers the\nquestions, which the prophecy raises and leaves unanswered. In the\nprophecy we see one, who is only a spectre, a dream, a conscience\nwithout a voice, without a name, without a place in history. But in\nJesus Christ of Nazareth the dream becomes a reality; He, whom we have\nseen in this chapter only as the purpose of God, only through the eyes\nand consciences of a generation yet unborn,--He comes forward in flesh\nand blood; He speaks, He explains Himself, He accomplishes almost to\nthe last detail the work, the patience and the death that are here\ndescribed as Ideal and Representative.\n\nThe correspondence of details between Christ's life and this\nprophecy, published five hundred and fifty years before He came, is\nstriking; if we encountered it for the first time, it would be more\nthan striking, it would be staggering. But do not let us do what so\nmany have done--so fondly exaggerate it as to lose in the details of\nexternal resemblance the moral and spiritual identity.\n\nFor the external correspondence between this prophecy and the life\nof Jesus Christ is by no means perfect. Every wound that is set\ndown in the fifty-third of Isaiah was not reproduced or fulfilled\nin the sufferings of Jesus. For instance, Christ was not the sick,\nplague-stricken man, whom the Servant is at first represented to be.\nThe English translators have masked the leprous figure, that stands\nout so clearly in the original Hebrew,--for _acquainted with grief,\nbearing our griefs, put him to grief_, we should in each case read\n_sickness_. Now Christ was no Job. As Matthew points out, the only\nway He could be said _to bear our sicknesses and to carry our pains_\nwas by healing them, not by sharing them.\n\nAnd again, exactly as the judicial murder of the Servant, and the\nentire absence from his contemporaries of any idea that he suffered\na vicarious death, suit the case of Christ, the next stage in\nthe Servant's fate was not true of the Victim of Pilate and the\nPharisees. Christ's grave was not with the wicked. He suffered as\na felon without the walls on the common place of execution, but\nfriends received the body and gave it an honourable burial in a\nfriend's grave. Or take the clause, _with the rich in his death_.\nIt is doubtful whether the word is really _rich_, and ought not\nto be a closer synonym of _wicked_ in the previous clause; but if\nit be _rich_, it is simply another name for _the wicked_, who in\nthe East, in cases of miscarried justice, are so often coupled\nwith the evildoers. It cannot possibly denote such a man as Joseph\nof Arimathea; nor, is it to be observed, do the Evangelists in\ndescribing Christ's burial in that rich and pious man's tomb take any\nnotice of this line about the Suffering Servant.\n\nBut the absence of a complete incidental correspondence only renders\nmore striking the moral and spiritual correspondence, the essential\nlikeness between the Service set forth in ch. liii. and the work of\nour Lord.\n\nThe speakers of ch. liii. set the Servant over against themselves,\nand in solitariness of character and office. They count him alone\nsinless where all they have sinned, and him alone the agent of\nsalvation and healing where their whole duty is to look on and\nbelieve. But this is precisely the relation which Christ assumed\nbetween Himself and the nation. He was on one side, all they on the\nother. Against their strong effort to make Him the First among them,\nit was, as we have said before, the constant aim of our Lord to\nassert and to explain Himself as The Only.\n\nAnd this Onlyness was to be realised in suffering. He said, _I must\nsuffer_; or again, _It behoves the Christ to suffer_. Suffering is\nthe experience in which men feel their oneness with their kind.\nChrist, too, by suffering felt His oneness with men; but largely in\norder to assert a singularity beyond. Through suffering He became\nlike unto men, but only that He might effect through suffering a\nlonely and a singular service for them. For though He suffered in all\npoints as men did, yet He shared none of their universal feelings\nabout suffering. Pain never drew from Him either of those two voices\nof guilt or of doubt. Pain never reminded Christ of His own past, nor\nmade Him question God.\n\nNor did He seek pain for any end in itself. There have been men who\nhave done so; fanatics who have gloried in pain; superstitious minds\nthat have fancied it to be meritorious; men whose wounds have been\nas mouths to feed their pride, or to publish their fidelity to their\ncause. But our Lord shrank from pain; if it had been possible He\nwould have willed not to bear it: _Father, save Me from this hour;\nFather, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me_. And when He\nsubmitted and was under the agony, it was not in the feeling of it,\nnor in the impression it made on others, nor in the manner in which\nit drew men's hearts to Him, nor in the seal it set on the truth,\nbut in something beyond it, that He found His end and satisfaction.\nJesus _looked out of the travail of His soul and was satisfied_.\n\nFor, _firstly_, He knew His pain to be God's will for an end\noutside Himself,--_I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how\nam I straitened till it be accomplished: Father, save Me from this\nhour, yet for this cause came I to this hour: Father, Thy will be\ndone_,--and all opportunities to escape as temptations.\n\nAnd, _secondly_, like the Servant, Jesus _dealt prudently, had\ninsight_. The will of God in His suffering was no mystery to Him. He\nunderstood from the first why He was to suffer.[236]\n\nThe reasons He gave were the same two and in the same order as are\ngiven by our prophet for the sufferings of the Servant,--first,\nthat fidelity to God's truth could bring with it no other fate in\nIsrael;[237] then that His death was necessary for the sins of men, and\nas men's ransom from sin. In giving the first of these reasons for His\ndeath, Christ likened Himself to the prophets who had gone before Him\nin Jerusalem; but in the second He matched Himself with no other, and\nno other has ever been known in this to match himself with Jesus.\n\nWhen men, then, stand up and tell us that Christ suffered only for\nthe sake of sympathy with His kind, or only for loyalty to the truth,\nwe have to tell them that this was not the whole of Christ's own\nconsciousness, this was not the whole of Christ's own explanation.\nSuffering, which leads men into the sense of oneness with their\nkind, only made Him, as it grew the nearer and weighed the heavier,\nmore emphatic upon His difference from other men. If He Himself, by\nHis pity, by His labours of healing (as Matthew points out), and by\nall His intercourse with His people, penetrated more deeply into the\nparticipation of human suffering, the very days which marked with\nincreasing force His sympathy with men, only laid more bare their\nwant of sympathy with Him, their incapacity to follow into that\nunique conscience and understanding of a Passion, which He bore not\nonly _with_, but, as He said, _for_ His brethren. _Who believed that\nwhich we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? As to\nHis generation, who reflected ... that for the transgression of my\npeople He was stricken?_ Again, while Christ indeed brought truth\nto earth from heaven, and was for truth's sake condemned by men to\ndie, the burden which He found waiting Him on earth, man's sin, was\never felt by Him to be a heavier burden and responsibility than the\ndelivery of the truth; and was in fact the thing, which, apart from\nthe things for which men might put Him to death, remained the reason\nof His death in His own sight and in that of His Father. And He told\nmen why He felt their sin to be so heavy, because it kept them so\nfar from God, and this was His purpose, He said, in bearing it--that\nHe might bring us back to God; not primarily that He might relieve\nus of the suffering which followed sin, though He did so relieve\nsome when He pardoned them, but that He might restore us to right\nrelations with God,--might, like the Servant, _make many righteous_.\nNow it was Christ's confidence to be able to do this, which\ndistinguished Him from all others, upon whom has most heavily fallen\nthe conscience of their people's sins, and who have most keenly felt\nthe duty and commission from God of vicarious suffering. If, like\nMoses, one sometimes dared for love's sake to offer his life for the\nlife of his people, none, under the conscience and pain of their\npeople's sins, ever expressed any consciousness of thereby making\ntheir brethren righteous. On the contrary, even a Jeremiah, whose\nexperience, as we have seen, comes so wonderfully near the picture\nof the Representative Sufferer in ch. liii.,--even a Jeremiah feels,\nwith the increase of his vicarious pain and conscience of guilt,\nonly the more perplexed, only the deeper in despair, only the less\nable to understand God and the less hopeful to prevail with Him. But\nChrist was sure of His power to remove men's sins, and was never more\nemphatic about that power than when He most felt those sins' weight.\n\nAnd _He has seen His seed_; He _has made many righteous_. We found it\nto be uncertain whether the penitent speakers in ch. liii. understood\nthat the Servant by coming under the physical sufferings, which were\nthe consequences of their sins, relieved them of these consequences;\nother passages in the prophecy would seem to imply, that, while the\nServant's sufferings were alone valid for righteousness, they did\nnot relieve the rest of the nation from suffering too. And so it\nwould be going beyond what God has given us to know, if we said that\nGod counts the sufferings on the Cross, which were endured for our\nsins, as an equivalent for, or as sufficient to do away with, the\nsufferings which these sins bring upon our minds, our bodies and\nour social relations. Substitution of this kind is neither affirmed\nby the penitents who speak in the fifty-third of Isaiah, nor is\nit an invariable or essential part of the experience of those who\nhave found forgiveness through Christ. Every day penitents turn to\nGod through Christ, and are assured of forgiveness, who feel no\nabatement in the rigour of the retribution of those laws of God,\nwhich they have offended; like David after his forgiveness, they\nhave to continue to bear the consequences of their sins. But dark as\nthis side of experience undoubtedly is, only the more conspicuously\nagainst the darkness does the other side of experience shine. By\n_believing what they have heard_, reaching this belief through a\nquicker conscience and a closer study of Christ's words about His\ndeath, men, upon whom conscience by itself and sore punishment have\nworked in vain, have been struck into penitence, have been assured of\npardon, have been brought into right relations with God, have felt\nall the melting and the bracing effects of the knowledge that another\nhas suffered in their stead. Nay, let us consider this--the physical\nconsequences of their sins may have been left to be endured by such\nmen, for no other reason than in order to make their new relation\nto God more sensible to them, while they feel those consequences no\nlonger with the feeling of penalty, but with that of chastisement\nand discipline. Surely nothing could serve more strongly than this\nto reveal the new conscience towards God that has been worked\nwithin them. This inward _righteousness_ is made more plain by the\ncontinuance of the physical and social consequences of their sins\nthan it would have been had these consequences been removed.\n\nThus Christ, like the Servant, became a force in the world,\ninheriting in the course of Providence a _portion with the great_ and\n_dividing the spoils_ of history _with the strong_. As has often been\nsaid, His Cross is His Throne, and it is by His death that He has\nruled the ages. Yet we must not understand this as if His Power was\nonly or mostly shown in binding men, by gratitude for the salvation\nHe won them, to own Him for their King. His power has been even\nmore conspicuously proved in making His fashion of service the most\nfruitful and the most honoured among men. If men have ceased to turn\nfrom sickness with aversion or from weakness with contempt; if they\nhave learned to see in all pain some law of God, and in vicarious\nsuffering God's most holy service; if patience and self-sacrifice\nhave come in any way to be a habit of human life,--the power in this\nchange has been Christ. But because these two--to say, _Thy will be\ndone_, and to sacrifice self--are for us men the hardest and the most\nunnatural of things to do, Jesus Christ, in making these a conscience\nand a habit upon earth, has indeed shown Himself able to divide the\nspoil with the strong, has indeed performed the very highest Service\nfor Man of which man can conceive.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[203] Thus Ewald supposed ch. lii. 13-liii. to be an elegy upon some\nmartyr in the persecutions under Manasseh. Professor Briggs, as we\nhave noticed before, claims to have discovered that all the passages\nin the Servant are parts of a trimeter poem, older than the rest of\nthe prophecy, which he finds to be in hexameters. See p. 315.\n\n[204] I may quote Dillmann's opinion on this last point:\n\"Andererseits sind nicht blos die Grundgedanken und auch einzelne\nWendungen wie 52, 13-15. 53, 7. 11. 12 durch 42, 1 ff. 49, 1 ff.\n50, 3 ff. so wohl vorbereitet und so sehr in \u00dcbereinstimmung damit,\ndass an eine fast unver\u00e4nderte Her\u00fcbernahme des Abschnitts aus\neiner verlornen Schrift (_Ew._) nicht gedacht werden kann, sondern\nderselbe doch wesentlich als Werk des Vrf. angesehen werden muss\"\n(_Commentary_ 4th ed., 1890, p. 453).\n\n[205] This verb best gives the force of the Hebrew, which means both\n_to deal prudently_ and to _prosper_ or succeed. See p. 346.\n\n[206] Vulgate finely: \"extolletur, sublimis erit et valde elatus.\"\n\n[207] \"The term rendered 'startle' has created unnecessary difficulty\nto some writers. The word means to 'cause to spring or leap;' when\napplied to fluids, to spirt or sprinkle them. The fluid spirted\nis put in the _accusative_, and it is spirted _upon_ the person.\nIn the present passage the person, 'many nations,' _is_ in the\n_accusative_, and it is simply treason against the Hebrew language\nto render 'sprinkle.' The interpreter who will so translate will 'do\nanything.'\"--A. B. Davidson, _Expositor_, 2nd series, viii., 443. The\nLXX. has \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b8\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1. The Peschitto and Vulgate render\n_sprinkle_.\n\n[208] And not _our report_, or _something we caused to be heard_, as\nin the English Version,--\u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d4\u05e9 is the passive participle of \u05de\u05e2\u05e9, to\nhear, and not of \u05d4\u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05e2, to cause to hear. The speakers are now the\npenitent people of God who had been preached to, and not the prophets\nwho had preached.\n\n[209] _Tender shoot._ Masculine participle, meaning _sucker_, or\n_suckling_. Dr. John Hunter (_Christian Treasury_) suggests succulent\nplant, such as grow in the desert. But in Job viii. 16; xiv. 7; xv.\n30, the feminine form is used of any tender shoot of a tree, and the\nfeminine plural in Ezek. xvii. 22 of the same. The LXX. read \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd,\n_infant_. _Before Him_, i.e. Jehovah. Cheyne, following Ewald, reads\n_before us_. So Giesebrecht.\n\n[210] _Took for his burden._ _Loaded_ himself with them. The same\ngrievous word which God uses of Himself in ch. xlvi. See p. 180.\n\n[211] There is more than _afflicted_ (Authorised Version) in this\nword. There is the sense of being _humbled_, punished for his own\nsake.\n\n[212] The possessive pronoun has been put to the end of the lines,\nwhere it stands in the original, producing a greater emphasis and\neven a sense of rhyme.\n\n[213] \u05dc\u05e0\u05d5\u05db K\u016bllan\u016b so rendered instead of \"all of us,\" in order to\nbe assonant with the close of the verse, as the original is, which\ncloses with kullam.\n\n[214] That is, by a form of law that was tyranny, a judicial crime.\n\n[215] Cut off violently, prematurely, unnaturally.\n\n[216] See p. 368.\n\n[217] The verbs, hitherto in the perfect in this verse, now change\nto the imperfect; a sign that they express the purpose of God. _Cf._\nDillmann, _in loco_.\n\n[218] _From the travail of his soul shall he see, and by his\nknowledge be satisfied._ Taking \u05d3\u05e2\u05ea\u05d5\u05d1 with \u05e9\u05d1\u05e2\u05d9 instead of with\n\u05d9\u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7. This reading suggested itself to me some years ago. Since\nthen I have found it only in Prof. Briggs's translation, _Messianic\nProphecy_, p. 359. It is supported by the frequent parallel in which\nwe find _seeing_ and _knowing_ in Hebrew.\n\n[219] Some translate _many_, _i.e._, the many to whom he brings\nrighteousness, as if he were a victor with a great host behind him.\n\n[220] Jer. xxiii. 5.\n\n[221] Hitzig (among others) held that it is the prophets who are the\nspeakers of ver. 1, and that the voices of the penitent people come in\nonly with ver. 2 or ver. 3. In that case \u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05ea\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05e9 would mean _what we\nheard from God_ (\u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d4\u05e9 is elsewhere used for the prophetic message) and\ndelivered to the people. This interpretation multiplies the dramatis\nperson\u00e6, but does not materially alter the meaning, of the prophecy.\nIt merely changes part of the penitent people's self-reproach into a\nreproach cast on them by their prophets. But there is no real reason\nfor introducing the prophets as the speakers of ver. 1.\n\n[222] For the argument that it is Israel who speaks here, see\nHoffmann (_Schriftbeweis_), who was converted from the other view,\nand Dillmann, 4th ed., _in loco_. A very ingenious attempt has been\nmade by Giesebrecht (_Beitr\u00e4ge zur Jesaia Kritik_, 1890, p. 146 ff.),\nin favour of the interpretation that the heathen are the speakers.\nHis reasons are these: 1. It is the heathen who are spoken of in\nlii. 13-15, and a change to Israel would be too sudden. Answer: The\nheathen are not exclusively spoken of in lii. 13-15; but if they\nwere a change in the next verse to Israel would not be more rapid\nthan some already made by the prophet. 2. The words in liii. 1 suit\nthe heathen. They have already received the news of the exaltation\nof the Servant, which in lii. 15 was promised them. This is the\n\u05e9\u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05ea\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5, that is _news we have just heard_. \u05d4\u05d0\u05de\u05d9\u05df is a pluperfect\nof the subjunctive mood: _Who could_ or who _would have believed_\nthis news of the exaltation _we have_ just _heard, and the arm of\nJehovah to whom was it revealed_! _i.e._, it was revealed to nobody.\nAnswer: besides the precariousness of taking \u05d4\u05d0\u05de\u05d9\u05df as a pluperfect\nsubjunctive, this interpretation is opposed to the general effort of\nthe prophecy, which is to expose unbelief before the exaltation, not\nafter it. 3. To get rid of the argument--that, while the speakers\nown that the Servant bears their sins, it is said the Servant was\nstricken for the sins of _my people_, and that therefore the speakers\nmust be the same as \"my people\":--Giesebrecht would utterly alter the\nreading of ver. 8 from \u05dc\u05de\u05d5 \u05e0\u05e0\u05e2 \u05e2\u05de\u05d5 \u05de\u05e4\u05e9\u05e2, _for the transgression of\nmy people was the stroke to him_ to \u05d9\u05b0\u05e0\u05bb\u05e0\u05b7\u05bc\u05e2 \u05de\u05b4\u05e4\u05b4\u05bc\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05e2\u05b8\u05dd, _for their\nstroke was he smitten_.\n\n[223] \u05e0\u05e9\u05c2\u05d0 and \u05e1\u05d1\u05dc. In speaking of his country's woes, Jeremiah (x. 19)\nsays: _This is sickness_, or _my sickness, and I must bear it_, \u05d7\u05dc\u05d9 \u05d6\u05d4\n\u05d5\u05d0\u05e9\u05c2\u05d0\u05e0\u05d9. Ezekiel (iv. 4) is commanded to lie on his side, and in that\nsymbolic position to _bear the iniquity of His people_, \u05e2\u05d5\u05e0\u05dd \u05ea\u05e9\u05d0. One\nof the Lamentations (v. 7) complains: _Our fathers have sinned and are\nnot, and we bear_ (\u05e1\u05d1\u05dc) _their iniquities._ In these cases the meaning\nof both \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 and \u05e1\u05d1\u05dc is simply to feel the weight of, be involved in.\nThe verbs do not convey the sense of _carrying off_ or _expiating_.\nBut still it had been said of the Servant that in his suffering he\nwould be practical and prosper; so that when we now hear that he bears\nhis people's sins, we are ready to understand that he does not do\nthis for the mere sake of sharing them, but for a practical purpose,\nwhich, of course, can only be their removal. There is, therefore, no\nneed to quarrel with the interpretation of ver. 4, that the Servant\n_carries away_ the suffering with which he is laden. Matthew makes\nthis interpretation (viii. 17) in speaking of Christ's healing. But\nit is a very interesting fact, and not without light upon the free\nand plastic way in which the New Testament quotes from the Old, that\nMatthew has ignored the original and literal meaning of the quotation,\nwhich is that the Servant shared the sicknesses of the people: a sense\nimpossible in the case for which the Evangelist uses the words.\n\n[224] But they do not tell us, whether they were totally exempted\nfrom suffering by the Servant's pains, or whether they also suffered\nwith him the consequence of their misdeeds. For that question is not\nnow present to their minds. Whether they also suffer or not (and\nother chapters in the prophecy emphasize the people's bearing of the\nconsequences of their misdeeds), they know that it was not their own,\nbut the Servant's suffering, which was alone the factor in their\nredemption.\n\n[225] _Mystery of Pain_, by James Hinton, p. 27.\n\n[226] Psalm cvi. 23; _cf._ also ver. 32, where the other side of the\nsolidarity between Moses and the people comes out. _They angered Him\nalso at the waters of Strife, so that it went ill with Moses for\ntheir sakes ... he spake unadvisedly with his lips._\n\n[227] See p. 352.\n\n[228] Isa. xlvi. 3, 4. See pp. 179, 180 of this volume.\n\n[229] Ch. xlii. 25.\n\n[230] If we remember this we shall also feel more reason than ever\nagainst perceiving the Nation, or any aspect of the Nation, in the\nSufferer of ch. liii. For he suffers, as the individual suffers,\nsickness and legal wrong. Tyrants do not put whole nations through a\nform of law and judgement. Of course, it is open to those, who hold\nthat the Servant is still an aspect of the Nation, to reply, that\nall this is simply evidence of how far the prophet has pushed his\npersonification. A whole nation has been called \"The Sick Man\" even\nin our prosaic days. But see pp. 268-76.\n\n[231] Jer. li. 4.\n\n[232] xl. 39; xlii. 13; xliv. 29; xlvi. 20.\n\n[233] 1 Sam. vi. 13.\n\n[234] _Cf._ Wellhausen's _Prolegomena_, ch. ii., 2.\n\n[235] There is no exegete but agrees to this. There may be\ndifferences of opinion about the syntax,--whether the verse should\nrun, _though Thou makest his soul guilt_, or _a guilt-offering_;\nor, _though his soul make a guilt-offering_; or (reading \u05d9\u05e9\u05d9\u05dd for\n\u05ea\u05e9\u05d9\u05dd), _while he makes his soul a guilt-offering_,--but all agree to\nthe fact that by himself or by God the Servant's life is offered an\nexpiation for sin, a satisfaction to the law of God.\n\n[236] _Cf._ Baldensperger (_Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu_, p. 119 ff.)\non the genuineness of Christ's predictions and explanations of His\nsufferings.\n\n[237] _Cf._ p. 330.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK IV.\n\n _THE RESTORATION._\n\n\n\n\n\n\n BOOK IV.\n\n\nWe have now reached the summit of our prophecy. It has been a long,\nsteep ascent, and we have had very much to seek out on the way, and\nto extricate and solve and load ourselves with. But although a long\nextent of the prophecy, if we measure it by chapters, still lies\nbefore us, the end is in sight; every difficulty has been surmounted\nwhich kept us from seeing how we were to get to it, and the rest of\nthe way may be said to be down-hill.\n\nTo drop the figure--the Servant, his vicarious suffering and\natonement for the sins of the people, form for our prophet the\nsolution of the spiritual problem of the nation's restoration, and\nwhat he has now to do is but to fill in the details of this.\n\nWe saw that the problem of Israel's deliverance from Exile, their\nReturn, and their Restoration to their position in their own land\nas the Chief Servant of God to humanity, was really a double\nproblem--political and spiritual. The solution of the political side\nof it was Cyrus. As soon as the prophet had been able to make it\ncertain that Cyrus was moving down upon Babylon, with a commission\nfrom God to take the city, and irresistible in the power with which\nJehovah had invested him, the political difficulties in the way of\nIsrael's Return were as good as removed; and so the prophet gave,\nin the end of ch. xlviii., his great call to his countrymen to\ndepart. But all through chs. xl.-xlviii., while addressing himself\nto the solution of the political problems of Israel's deliverance,\nthe prophet had given hints that there were moral and spiritual\ndifficulties as well. In spite of their punishment for more than\nhalf a century, the mass of the people were not worthy of a return.\nMany were idolaters; many were worldly; the orthodox had their own\nwrong views of how salvation should come (xlv. 9 ff.); the pious\nwere without either light or faith (l. 10). The nation, in short,\nhad not that inward _righteousness_, which could alone justify God\nin vindicating them before the world, in establishing their outward\nrighteousness, their salvation and reinstatement in their lofty\nplace and calling as His people. These moral difficulties come upon\nthe prophet with greater force after he has, with the close of ch.\nxlviii., finished his solution of the political ones. To these moral\ndifficulties he addresses himself in xlix.-liii., and the Servant and\nhis Service are his solution of them:--the Servant as a Prophet and a\nCovenant of the People in ch. xlix. and in ch. l. 4 ff.; the Servant\nas an example to the people, ch. l. ff.; and finally the Servant as a\nfull expiation for the people's sins in ch. lii. 13-liii. It is the\nServant who is to _raise up the land, and to bring back the heirs to\nthe desolate heritages_, and rouse the Israel who are not willing\nto leave Babylon, _saying to the bound, Go forth; and to them that\nsit in darkness, Show yourselves_ (xlix. 8, 9). It is he who is _to\nsustain the weary_ and to comfort the pious in Israel, who, though\npious, have no light as they walk on their way back (l. 4, 10). It\nis the Servant finally who is to achieve the main problem of all\nand _make many righteous_ (liii. 11). The hope of restoration, the\ncertainty of the people's redemption, the certainty of the rebuilding\nof Jerusalem, the certainty of the growth of the people to a great\nmultitude, are, therefore, all woven by the prophet through and\nthrough with his studies of the Servant's work in xlix., l., and\nlii. 13-liii.,--woven so closely and so naturally that, as we have\nalready seen (pp. 313 f., 336 ff.), we cannot take any part of chs.\nxlix.-liii. and say that it is of different authorship from the\nrest. Thus in ch. xlix. we have the road to Jerusalem pictured in\nvv. 9_b_-13, immediately upon the back of the Servant's call to go\nforth in ver. 9_a_. We have then the assurance of Zion being rebuilt\nand thronged by her children in vv. 14-23, and another affirmation\nof the certainty of redemption in vv. 24-26; In l. 1-3 this is\nrepeated. In li.-lii. 12 the petty people is assured that it shall\ngrow innumerable again; new affirmations are made of its ransom and\nreturn, ending with the beautiful prospect of the feet of the heralds\nof deliverance on the mountains of Judah (lii. 7_b_) and a renewed\ncall to leave Babylon (vv. 11, 12). We shall treat all these passages\nin our Twenty-First Chapter.\n\nAnd as they started naturally from the Servant's work in xlix. 1-9_a_\nand his example in l. 4-11, so upon his final and crowning work in\nch. liii. there follow as naturally ch. liv. (the prospect of _the\nseed_ that liii. 10 promised he should see), and ch. lv. (a new call\nto come forth). These two, with the little pre-exilic prophecy, ch.\nlvi. 1-8, we shall treat in our Twenty-Second Chapter.\n\nThen come the series of difficult small prophecies with pre-exilic\ntraces in them, from lvi. 9-lix. They will occupy our Twenty-Third\nChapter. In ch. lx. Zion is at last not only in sight, but radiant\nin the rising of her new day of glory. In chs. lxi. and lxii. the\nprophet, having reached Zion, \"looks back,\" as Dillmann well remarks,\n\"upon what has become his task, and in connection with that makes\nclear once more the high goal of all his working and striving.\" In\nlxiii. 1-6 the Divine Deliverer is hailed. We shall take lx.-lxiii. 6\ntogether in our Twenty-Fourth Chapter.\n\nCh. lxiii. 7-lxiv. is an Intercessory Prayer for the restoration of\n_all_ Israel. It is answered in ch. lxv., and the lesson of this\nanswer, that Israel must be judged, and that all cannot be saved, is\nenforced in ch. lxvi. Chs. lxiii. 7-lxvi. will therefore form our\nTwenty-Fifth and closing Chapter.\n\nThus our course is clear, and we can overtake it rapidly. It is, to\na large extent, a series of spectacles, interrupted by exhortations\nupon duty; things, in fact, to see and to hear, not to argue about.\nThere are few great doctrinal questions, except what we have already\nsufficiently discussed; our study, for instance, of the term\nrighteousness, we shall find has covered for us a large part of the\nground in advance. And the only difficult literary question is that\nof the pre-exilic and post-exilic pieces, which are alleged to form\nso large a part of chs. lvi.-lix. and lxiii.-lxvi.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXI.\n\n _DOUBTS IN THE WAY._\n\n ISAIAH xlix.-lii. 12.\n\n\nChapters xlix.-liii. are, as we have seen, a series of more or less\nclosely joined passages, in which the prophet, having already made\nthe political redemption of Israel certain through Cyrus, and having\ndismissed Cyrus from his thoughts, addresses himself to various\ndifficulties in the way of restoration, chiefly moral and spiritual,\nand rising from Israel's own feelings and character; exhorts the people\nin face of them by Jehovah's faithfulness and power; but finds the\nchief solution of them in the Servant and his prophetic and expiatory\nwork. We have already studied such of these passages as present\nthe Servant to us, and we now take up those others, which meet the\ndoubts and difficulties in the way of restoration by means of general\nconsiderations drawn from God's character and power. Let it be noticed\nthat, with one exception (ch. l. 11),[238] these passages are meant for\nearnest and pious minds in Israel,--for those Israelites, whose desires\nare towards Zion, but chill and heavy with doubts.\n\nThe form and the terms of these passages are in harmony with their\npurpose. They are a series of short, high-pitched exhortations,\napostrophes and lyrics. One, ch. lii. 9-12, calls upon the arm\nof Jehovah, but all the rest address Zion,--that is, the ideal\npeople in the person of their mother, with whom they ever so fondly\nidentified themselves; or _Zion's children_; or _them that follow\nrighteousness_, or ye _that know righteousness_; or _my people_, _my\nnation_; or again Zion herself. This personification of the people\nunder the name of their city, and under the aspect of a woman, whose\nchildren are the individual members of the people, will be before us\ntill the end of our prophecy. It is, of course, a personification\nof Israel, which is complementary to Israel's other personification\nunder the name of the Servant. The Servant is Israel active,\ncomforting, serving his own members and the nations; Zion, the\nMother-City, is Israel passive, to be comforted, to be served by her\nown sons and by the kings of the peoples.\n\nWe may divide the passages into two groups. _First_, the songs\nof return, which rise out of the picture of the Servant and his\nredemption of the people in ch. xlix. 9_b_, with the long promise\nand exhortation to Zion and her children, that lasts till the second\npicture of the Servant in ch. lii. 4; and _second_, the short pieces\nwhich lie between the second picture of the Servant and the third, or\nfrom the beginning of ch. li. to ch. lii. 12.\n\n\n I.\n\nIn ch. xlix. 9_b_ God's promise of the return of the redeemed\nproceeds naturally from that of their ransom by the Servant. It is\nhailed by a song in ver. 13, and the rest of the section is the\nanswer to three doubts, which, like sobs, interrupt the music. But\nthe prophecy, stooping, as it were, to kiss the trembling lips\nthrough which these doubts break, immediately resumes its high flight\nof comfort and promise. Two of these doubts are: ver. 14, _But Zion\nhath said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me_;\nand ver. 24, _Shall the prey be taken from the mighty or the captives\nof the terrible be delivered_? The third is implied in ch. l. 1.\n\nThe promise of return is as follows: _On roads shall they feed, and\non all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger\nnor thirst, nor shall the mirage nor the sun smite them: for He that\nyearneth over them shall lead them, even by springs of water shall\nHe guide them. And I will set all My mountains for a way, and My\nhigh ways shall be exalted. Lo, these shall come from far: and, lo,\nthese from the North and from the West, and these from the land of\nSinim._[239] _Sing forth, O heavens; and be glad, O earth; let the\nmountains break forth into singing: for Jehovah hath comforted His\npeople, and over His afflicted He yearneth._\n\nNow, do not let us imagine that this is the promise of a merely\nmaterial miracle. It is the greater glory of a purely spiritual one, as\nthe prophet indicates in describing its cause in the words, _because\nHe that yearneth over them shall lead them_. The desert is not to\nabate its immemorial rigours; in itself the way shall still be as\nhard as when the discredited and heart-broken exiles were driven down\nit from home to servitude. But their hearts are now changed, and that\nshall change the road. The new faith, which has made the difference,\nis a very simple one, that God is Power and that God is Love. Notice\nthe possessive pronouns used by God, and mark what they put into His\npossession: two kinds of things,--powerful things, _I will make all My\nmountains a way_; and sorrowful things, _Jehovah hath comforted His\npeople, and will have compassion on His afflicted_.[240] If we will\nsteadfastly believe that everything in the world which is in pain, and\neverything which has power, is God's, and shall be used by Him, the\none for the sake of the other, this shall surely change the way to our\nfeet, and all the world around to our eyes.\n\n1. Only it is so impossible to believe it when one looks at real\nfact; and however far and swiftly faith and hope may carry us for a\ntime, we always come to ground again and face to face with fact. The\nprophet's imagination speeding along that green and lifted highway of\nthe Lord lights suddenly upon the end of it,--the still dismantled\nand desolate city. Fifty years Zion's altar fires have been cold and\nher walls in ruin. Fifty years she has been bereaved of her children\nand left alone. The prophet hears the winds blow mournfully through\nher fact's chill answer to faith. _But Zion said, Forsaken me hath\nJehovah, and my Lord hath forgotten me!_ Now let us remember, that\nour prophet has Zion before him in the figure of a mother, and we\nshall feel the force of God's reply. It is to a mother's heart God\nappeals. _Doth a woman forget her sucking child so as not to yearn\nover the son of her womb? yea, such may forget, but I will not forget\nthee_, desolate mother that thou art![241] Thy life is not what thou\nart in outward show and feeling, but what thou art in My love and\nin My sight. _Lo, upon both palms have I graven thee; thy walls are\nbefore Me continually._ The custom, which to some extent prevails in\nall nations, of puncturing or tattooing upon the skin a dear name one\nwishes to keep in mind, is followed in the East chiefly for religious\npurposes, and men engrave the name of God or some holy text upon the\nhand or arm for a memorial or as a mark of consecration. It is this\nfashion which God attributes to Himself. Having measured His love\nby the love of a mother, He gives this second human pledge for His\nmemory and devotion. But again He exceeds the human habit; for it is\nnot only the name of Zion which is engraved on His hands, but her\npicture. And it is not her picture, as she lies in her present ruin\nand solitariness, but her restored and perfect state: _thy walls are\ncontinually before Me_. For this is faith's answer to all the ruin\nand haggard contradiction of outward fact. Reality is not what we\nsee: reality is what God sees. What a thing is in His sight and to\nHis purpose, that it really is, and that it shall ultimately appear\nto men's eyes. To make us believe this is the greatest service the\nDivine can do for the human. It was the service Christ was always\ndoing, and nothing showed His divinity more. He took us men and He\ncalled us, unworthy as we were, His brethren, the sons of God. He\ntook such an one as Simon, shifting and unstable, a quicksand of a\nman, and He said, _On this rock I will build My Church_. A man's\nreality is not what he is in his own feelings, or what he is to the\nworld's eyes; but what he is to God's love, to God's yearning, and in\nGod's plan. If he believe that, so in the end shall he feel it, so in\nthe end shall he show it to the eyes of the world.\n\nUpon those great thoughts, that God's are all strong things and all\nweak things, and that the real and the certain in life is His will,\nthe prophecy breaks into a vision of multitudes in motion. There is\na great stirring and hastening, crowds gather up through the verses,\nthe land is lifted and thronged. _Lift up thine eyes round about,\nand behold: all of them gather together, they come unto thee. As I\nlive, saith Jehovah, thou shalt surely clothe thyself with them all\nas with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, like a bride. For\nas for thy waste places and thy desolate ones and thy devastated\nland--yea, thou wilt now be too strait for the inhabitants, and far\noff shall be they that devoured thee. Again shall they speak in thine\nears,--the children of thy bereavement_ (that is, those children\nwho have been born away from Zion during her solitude), _Too strait\nfor me is the place, make me room that I may dwell. And thou shalt\nsay in thine heart, Who hath borne me these_,--not begotten, as our\nEnglish version renders, because the question with Zion was not who\nwas the father of the children, but who, in her own barrenness, could\npossibly be the mother,--_Who hath borne me these, seeing I was_\nfirst _bereft of my children, and_ since then have been _barren, an\nexile and a castaway! And these, who hath brought them up! Lo, I was\nleft by myself. These,--whence are they!_ Our English version, which\nhas blundered in the preceding verses, requires no correction in the\nfollowing; and the first great Doubt in the Way being now answered,\nfor _they that wait on the Lord shall not be ashamed_, we pass to\nthe second, in ver. 24.\n\n2. _Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the\ntyrant_[242] _be delivered?_ Even though God be full of love and\nthought for Zion, will these tyrants give up her children? _Yea, thus\nsaith Jehovah, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and\nthe prey of the tyrant be delivered; and with him that quarreleth\nwith thee will I quarrel, and thy children will I save. And I will\nmake thine oppressors to eat their own flesh, and as with new wine\nwith their blood shall they be drunken, that all flesh may know that\nI am Jehovah thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob._\n\n3. But now a third Doubt in the Way seems to have risen. Unlike the two\nothers, it is not directly stated, but we may gather its substance from\nthe reply which Jehovah makes to it (l. 1). _Thus saith Jehovah, What\nis this bill of divorce of your mother whom I have sent away, or which\nof My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?_ The form, in which\nthis challenge is put, assumes that the Israelites themselves had been\nthinking of Jehovah's dismissal of Israel as an irrevocable divorce and\na bankrupt sale into slavery.[243]\n\n\"What now is this letter of divorce,--this that you are saying I have\ngiven your mother? You say that I have sold you as a bankrupt father\nsells his children,--to which then of my creditors is it that I have\nsold you?\"\n\nThe most characteristic effect of sin is that it is always reminding\nmen of law. Whether the moral habit of it be upon them or they\nare entangled in its material consequences, sin breeds in men the\nconscience of inexorable, irrevocable law. Its effect is not only\npractical, but intellectual. Sin not only robs a man of the freedom\nof his own will, but it takes from him the power to think of freedom\nin others, and it does not stop till it paralyses his belief in the\nfreedom of God. He, who knows himself as the creature of unchangeable\nhabits or as the victim of pitiless laws, cannot help imputing his\nown experience to what is beyond him, till all life seems strictly\nlawbound, the idea of a free agent anywhere an impossibility, and God\nbut a part of the necessity which rules the universe.\n\nTwo kinds of generations of men have most tended to be necessitarian\nin their philosophy,--the generations which have given themselves\nover to do evil, and the generations whose political experience\nor whose science has impressed them with the inevitable physical\nresults of sin. If belief in a Divine Redeemer, able to deliver man's\nnature from the guilt and the curse of sin, is growing weak among\nus to-day, this is largely due to the fact that our moral and our\nphysical sciences have been proving to us what creatures of law we\nare, and disclosing, especially in the study of disease and insanity,\nhow inevitably suffering follows sin. God Himself has been so much\nrevealed to us as law, that as a generation we find it hard to\nbelieve that He ever acts in any fashion that resembles the reversal\nof a law, or ever works any swift, sudden deed of salvation.\n\nNow the generation of the Exile was a generation, to whom God\nhad revealed Himself as law. They were a generation of convicts.\nThey had owned the justice of the sentence which had banished and\nenslaved them; they had experienced how inexorably God's processes\nof judgement sweep down the ages; for fifty years they had been\nfeeling the inevitable consequences of sin. The conscience of Law,\nwhich this experience was bound to create in them, grew ever more\nstrong, till at last it absorbed even the hope of redemption, and\nthe God, who enforced the Law, Himself seemed to be forced by it.\nTo express this sense of law these earnest Israelites--for though\nin error they were in earnest--went to the only kind of law, with\nwhich they were familiar, and borrowed from it two of its forms,\nwhich were not only suggested to them by the relations in which the\nnation and the nation's sons respectively stood to Jehovah, as wife\nand as children, but admirably illustrated the ideas they wished to\nexpress. There was, first, the form of divorce, so expressive of the\nideas of absoluteness, deliberateness and finality;--of absoluteness,\nfor throughout the East power of divorce rests entirely with the\nhusband; of deliberateness, for in order to prevent hasty divorce\nthe Hebrew law insisted that the husband must make a bill or writing\nof divorce instead of only speaking dismissal; and of finality, for\nsuch a writing, in contrast to the spoken dismissal, set the divorce\nbeyond recall. The other form, which the doubters borrowed from their\nlaw, was one, which, while it also illustrated the irrevocableness of\nthe act, emphasized the helplessness of the agent,--the act of the\nfather, who put his children away, not as the husband put his wife in\nhis anger, but in his necessity, selling them to pay his debts and\nbecause he was bankrupt.\n\nOn such doubts God turns with their own language. \"I have indeed put\nyour mother away, but _where is the bill_ that makes her divorce\nfinal, beyond recall? You indeed were sold, but was it because I was\nbankrupt? _To which_, then, of _My creditors_ (note the scorn of the\nplural) _was it that I sold you? Nay, by means of your iniquities\ndid you sell yourselves, and by means of your transgressions were\nyou put away._ But I stand here ready as ever to save, I alone. If\nthere is any difficulty about your restoration it lies in this, that\nI am alone, with no response or assistance from men. _Why when I came\nwas there no man? when I called was there none to answer? Is My hand\nshortened at all that it cannot redeem? or is there in it no power\nto deliver?_\" And so we come back to the truth, which this prophecy\nso often presents to us, that behind all things there is a personal\ninitiative and urgency of infinite power, which moves freely of its\nown compassion and force, which is hindered by no laws from its own\nends, and needs no man's co-operation to effect its purposes. The\nrest of the Lord's answer to His people's fear, that He is bound\nby an inexorable law, is simply an appeal to His wealth of force.\nThis omnipotence of God is our prophet's constant solution for the\nproblems which arise, and he expresses it here in his favourite\nfigures of physical changes and convulsions of nature. _Lo, with\nMy rebuke I dry up the sea, I make rivers a wilderness: their fish\nstinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe\nthe heavens with blackness, and sackcloth I set for their covering._\nThe argument seems to be: if God can work those sudden revolutions\nin the physical world, those apparent interruptions of law in that\nsphere, surely you can believe Him capable of creating sudden\nrevolutions also in the sphere of history, and reversing those laws\nand processes, which you feel to be unalterable. It is an argument\nfrom the physical to the moral world, in our prophet's own analogical\nstyle, and like those we found in ch. xl.\n\n\n II. li.-lii. 12.\n\nPassing over the passage on the Servant, ch. l. 4-11, we reach a\nsecond series of exhortations in face of Doubts in the Way of the\nReturn. The first of this new series is li. 1-3.\n\nTheir doubts having been answered with regard to God's mindfulness of\nthem and His power to save them, the loyal Israelites fall back to\ndoubt themselves. They see with dismay how few are ready to achieve\nthe freedom that God has assured, and upon how small and insignificant\na group of individuals the future of the nation depends. But their\ndisappointment is not made by them an excuse to desert the purpose\nof Jehovah: their fewness makes them the more faithful, and the\ndefection of their countrymen drives them the closer to their God.\nTherefore, God speaks to them kindly, and answers their last sad doubt.\n_Hearken unto Me, ye that follow righteousness, that seek Jehovah._\n_Righteousness_ here might be taken in its inward sense of conformity\nto law, personal rightness of character; and so taken it would well\nfall in with the rest of the passage. Those addressed would then be\nsuch in Israel, as in face of hopeless prospects applied themselves\nto virtue and religion. But _righteousness_ here is more probably\nused in the outward sense, which we have found prevalent in \"Second\nIsaiah,\" of vindication and victory; the \"coming right\" of God's people\nand God's cause in the world, their justification and triumph in\nhistory.[244] They who are addressed will then be they who, in spite\nof their fewness, believe in this triumph, _follow it_, make it their\ngoal and their aim, and _seek Jehovah_, knowing that He can bring it to\npass. And because, in spite of their doubts, they are still earnest,\nand though faint are yet pursuing, God speaks to comfort them about\ntheir fewness. Their present state may be very small and unpromising,\nbut let them look back upon the much more unpromising character of\ntheir origin: _look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and the hole\nof the pit whence ye were digged_. To-day you may be a mere handful,\nridiculous in the light of the destiny you are called to achieve, but\nremember you were once but one man: _look unto Abraham your father, and\nto Sarah who bare you: for as one I called him and blessed him, that I\nmight make of him many_.\n\nWhen we are weary and hopeless it is best to sit down and remember.\nIs the future dark: let us look back and see the gathering and\nimpetus of the past! We can follow the luminous track, the\nunmistakable increase and progress, but the most inspiring sight of\nall is what God makes of the individual heart; how a man's heart\nis always His beginning, the fountain of the future, the origin of\nnations. Lift up your hearts, ye few and feeble; your father was but\none when I called him, and I made him many!\n\nHaving thus assured His loyal remnant of the restoration of Zion, in\nspite of their fewness, Jehovah in the next few verses (4-8) extends\nthe prospect of His glory to the world: _Revelation shall go forth from\nMe, and I will make My Law to light on the nations._ Revelation and Law\nbetween them summarise His will. As He identified them both with the\nServant's work (ch. xl. 11), so here He tells the loyal in Israel, who\nwere in one aspect His Servant, that they shall surely come to pass;\nand in the next little oracle, vv. 7, 8, He exhorts them to do that in\nwhich the Servant has been set forth as an example: _fear ye not the\nreproach of men, neither be dismayed at their revilings. For like a\ngarment the moth shall eat them up, and like wool shall the worm devour\nthem._ It is a response in almost the same words to the Servant's\nprofession of confidence in God in ch. l. 7-9. By some it is used as\nan argument to show that the Servant and the godly remnant are to our\nprophet still virtually one and the same; but we have already seen (ch.\nl. 10) the godfearing addressed as distinct from the Servant, and can\nonly understand here that they are once more exhorted to take him as\ntheir example. But if the likeness of the passage on the Servant to\nthis passage on the suffering Remnant does not prove that Remnant and\nServant are the same, it is certainly an indication that both passages,\nso far from being pieced together out of different poems, are most\nprobably due to the same author and were produced originally in the\nsame current of thought.\n\nWhen all Doubts in the Way have now been removed, what can remain but\na great impatience to achieve at once the near salvation? To this\nimpatience the loosened hearts give voice in vv. 9-11: _Awake, awake,\nput on strength, Arm of Jehovah; awake as in the days of old, ages far\npast!_ Not in vain have Israel been called to look back to the rock\nwhence they were hewn and the hole of the pit whence they were digged.\nLooking back, they see the ancient deliverance manifest: _Art thou not\nit that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced_ the _Dragon! Art thou\nnot it that dried up the sea, waters of the great flood; that did set\nthe hollows of the sea a way for the passage of the redeemed._ Then\nthere breaks forth the March of the Return, which we heard already\nin the end of ch. xxxv.,[245] and to His people's impatience Jehovah\nresponds in vv. 9-16 in strains similar to those of ch. xl. The last\nverse of this reply is notable for the enormous extension which it\ngives to the purpose of Jehovah in endowing Israel as His prophet,--an\nextension to no less than the renewal of the universe,--_in order to\nplant the heavens and found the earth_; though the reply emphatically\nconcludes with the restoration of Israel, as if this were the cardinal\nmoment in the universal regeneration,--_and to say to Zion, My people\nart thou_. The close conjunction, into which this verse brings words\nalready applied to Israel as the Servant and words which describe\nIsrael as Zion, is another of the many proofs we are discovering of the\nimpossibility of breaking up \"Second Isaiah\" into poems, the respective\nsubjects of which are one or other of these two personifications of the\nnation.[246]\n\nBut the desire of the prophet speeds on before the returning exiles to\nthe still prostrate and desolate city. He sees her as she fell, the\nday the Lord made her drunken with the cup of His wrath. With urgent\npassion he bids her awake, seeking to rouse her now by the horrid tale\nof her ruin, and now by his exultation in the vengeance the Lord is\npreparing for His enemies (li. 17-23). In a second strophe he addresses\nher in conscious contrast to his taunt-song against Babel. Babel was to\nsit throneless and stripped of her splendour in the dust; but Zion is\nto shake off the dust, rise, sit on her throne and assume her majesty.\nFor God hath redeemed His people. He could not tolerate longer _the\nexulting of their tyrants_, the _blasphemy of His name_ (lii. 1-6). All\nthrough these two strophes the strength of the passion, the intolerance\nof further captivity, the fierceness of the exultation of vengeance,\nare very remarkable.\n\nBut from the ruin of his city, which has so stirred and made\nturbulent his passion, the prophet lifts his hot eyes to the dear\nhills that encircle her; and peace takes the music from vengeance.\nOften has Jerusalem seen rising across that high margin the spears\nand banners of her destroyers. But now the lofty skyline is the\nlighting place of hope. Fit threshold for so Divine an arrival, it\nlifts against heaven, dilated and beautiful, the herald of the Lord's\npeace, the publisher of salvation.\n\n_How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth\ngood tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of\ngood, that publisheth salvation! Hark thy watchmen! they lift up the\nvoice, together they break into singing; yea, eye to eye do they see\nwhen Jehovah returneth to Zion._\n\nThe last verse is a picture of the thronging of the city of the\nprophets by the prophets again--so close, that they shall look each\nother in the face. For this is the sense of the Hebrew _to see eye\nin eye_, and not that meaning of reconciliation and agreement which\nthe phrase has come to have in colloquial English. The Exile had\nscattered the prophets and driven them into hiding. They had been\nonly voices to one another, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel with the desert\nbetween the two of them, or like our own prophet, anonymous and\nunseen. But upon the old gathering-ground, the narrow but the free\nand open platform of Jerusalem's public life, they should see each\nother face to face, they should again be named and known. _Break out,\nsing together, ye wastes of Jerusalem: for Jehovah has comforted His\npeople, has redeemed Jerusalem. Bared has Jehovah His holy arm to\nthe eyes of all the nations, and see shall all ends of the earth the\nsalvation of our God._\n\nThus the prophet, after finishing his long argument and dispelling\nthe doubts that still lingered at its close, returns to the first\nhigh notes and the first dear subject with which he opened in ch. xl.\nIn face of so open a way, so unclouded a prospect, nothing remains\nbut to repeat, and this time with greater strength than before, the\ncall to leave Babylon:\n\n _Draw off, draw off, come forth from there, touch not the unclean;\n Come forth from her midst; be ye clean that do bear the vessels of\n Jehovah.\n Nay, neither with haste shall ye forth, nor in flight shall ye go,\n For Jehovah goeth before thee, and Israel's God is thy rearward._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[238] See p. 334.\n\n[239] The question whether this is the land of China is still an\nopen one. The possibility of intercourse between China and Babylon\nis more than proved. But that there were Jews in China by this time\n(though they seem to have found their way there by the beginning of\nthe Christian era) is extremely unlikely. Moreover, the possibility\nof such a name as Sinim for the inhabitants of China at that date has\nnot been proved. No other claimants for the name, however, have made\ngood their case. But we need not enter further into the question. The\nwhole matter is fully discussed in Canon Cheyne's excursus, and by\nhim and Terrien de Lacouperie in the _Babylonian and Oriental Record_\nfor 1886-87. See especially the number for September 1887.\n\n[240] His _humbled_, _His poor_ in the exilic sense of the word. See\n_Isaiah i.-xxxix._, pp. 432 ff.\n\n[241] On the \"Motherhood of God\" cf. _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, p. 245 ff.\n\n[242] For \u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7, the _righteous_ or _just_, which is in the text, the\nSyr., Vulg., Ewald, and others read \u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05e5, as in the following verse,\n_terrible_ or _terribly strong_. Dillmann, however (5th ed., 1890,\np. 438), retains \u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7 takes the terms _mighty_ and _just_ as used of\nGod, and reads the question, not as a question of despair uttered by\nthe people, but as a triumphant challenge of the prophet or of God\nHimself. He would then make the next verse run thus: _Nay, for the\ncaptives of the mighty may be taken, and the prey of the delivered,\nbut with him who strives with thee I will strive._\n\n[243] The English version, _Where is the bill_, is incorrect. The\nphrase is the same as in lxvi. ver. 1, _What is this house that ye\nbuild for Me? what is this place for My rest?_ It implies a house\nalready built; and so in the text above _What is this bill of\ndivorce_ implies one already thought of by the minds of the persons\naddressed by the question.\n\n[244] _Cf._ p. 221. Dillmann's view that _righteousness_ means here\npersonal character is contradicted by the whole context, which\nmakes it plain that it is something external, the realisation of\nwhich those addressed are doubting. What troubles them is not that\nthey are personally unrighteous, but that they are so few and\ninsignificant. And what God promises them in answer is something\nexternal, the establishment of Zion. _Cf._ also the external meaning\nof _righteousness_ in vv. 5, 6.\n\n[245] _Isaiah. i.-xxxix._, p. 441.\n\n[246] _Cf._ p. 315.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXII.\n\n _ON THE EVE OF RETURN._\n\n ISAIAH liv.-lvi. 8.\n\n\nOne of the difficult problems of our prophecy is the relation and\ngrouping of chs. liv.-lix. It is among them that the unity of \"Second\nIsaiah,\" which up to this point we have seen no reason to doubt,\ngives way. Ch. lvi. 9-lvii. is evidently pre-exilic, and so is ch.\nlix. But in chs. liv., lv., and lvi. 1-8 we have three addresses,\nevidently dating from the Eve of the Return. We shall, therefore,\ntreat them together.\n\n\n I. THE BRIDE THE CITY (ch. liv.).\n\nWe have already seen why there is no reason for the theory that ch.\nliv. may have followed immediately on ch. lii. 12.[247] And from Calvin\nto Ewald and Dillmann, critics have all felt a close connection between\nch. lii. 13-liii. and ch. liv. \"After having spoken of the death of\nChrist,\" says Calvin, \"the prophet passes on with good reason to the\nChurch: that we may feel more deeply in ourselves what is the value and\nefficacy of His death.\" Similar in substance, if not in language, is\nthe opinion of the latest critics, who understand that in ch. liv. the\nprophet intends to picture that full redemption which the Servant's\nwork, culminating in ch. liii., could alone effect. Two keywords of\nch. liii. had been _a seed_ and _many_. It is _the seed_ and the\n_many_ whom ch. liv. reveals. Again, there may be, in ver. 17 of ch.\nliv., a reference to the earlier picture of the Servant in ch. l.,\nespecially ver. 8. But this last is uncertain; and, as a point on the\nother side, there are the two different meanings, as well as the two\ndifferent agents, of _righteousness_ in ch. liii. 11, _My Servant shall\nmake many righteous_, and in ch. liv. 17, _their righteousness which\nis of Me, saith Jehovah_. In the former, righteousness is the inward\njustification; in the latter, it is the external historical vindication.\n\nIn ch. liv. the people of God are represented under the double\nfigure, with which the Book of Revelation has made us familiar,\nof Bride and City. To imagine a Nation or a Land as the spouse of\nher God is a habit natural to the religious instinct at all times;\nthe land deriving her fruitfulness, the nation her standing and\nprestige, from her connection with the Deity. But in ancient times\nthis figure of wedlock was more natural than it is among us, in so\nfar as the human man and wife did not then occupy that relation\nof equality, to which it has been the progress of civilisation to\napproximate; but the husband was the lord of his wife,--as much her\nBaal as the god was the Baal of the people,--her law-giver, in part\nher owner, and with full authority over the origin and subsistence\nof the bond between them. Marriage thus conceived was a figure for\nreligion almost universal among the Semites. But as in the case of so\nmany other religious ideas common to the Hebrews and their heathen\nkin, this one, when adopted by the prophets of Jehovah, underwent a\nthorough moral reformation. Indeed, if one were asked to point out\na supreme instance of the operation of that unique conscience of the\nreligion of Jehovah, which was spoken of before,[248] one would have\nlittle difficulty in selecting its treatment of the idea of religious\nmarriage. By the neighbours of Israel, the marriage of a god to his\npeople was conceived with a grossness of feeling and illustrated\nby a foulness of ritual, which thoroughly demoralised the people,\naffording, as they did, to licentiousness the example and sanction of\nreligion. So debased had the idea become, and so full of temptation\nto the Hebrews were the forms in which it was illustrated among\ntheir neighbours, that the religion of Israel might justly have been\npraised for achieving a great moral victory in excluding the figure\naltogether from its system. But the prophets of Jehovah dared the\nheavier task of retaining the idea of religious marriage, and won the\ndiviner triumph of purifying and elevating it. It was, indeed, a new\ncreation. Every physical suggestion was banished, and the relation\nwas conceived as purely moral. Yet it was never refined to a mere\nform or abstraction. The prophets fearlessly expressed it in the\nwarmest and most familiar terms of the love of man and woman. With a\nstern and absolute interpretation before them in the Divine law, of\nthe relations of a husband to his wife, they borrowed from that only\nso far as to do justice to the Almighty's initiative and authority\nin His relation with mortals; and they laid far more emphasis on the\ninstinctive and spontaneous affections, by which Jehovah and Israel\nhad been drawn together. Thus, among a people naturally averse to\nthink or to speak of God as _loving_[249] men, this close relation\nto Him of marriage was expressed with a warmth, a tenderness and a\ndelicacy, that exceeded even the two other fond forms in which the\nDivine grace was conveyed,--of a father's and of a mother's love.\n\nIn this new creation of the marriage bond between God and His church,\nthree prophets had a large share,--Hosea, Ezekiel and the author of\n\"Second Isaiah.\" To Hosea and Ezekiel it fell to speak chiefly of\nunpleasant aspects of the question,--the unfaithfulness of the wife and\nher divorce; but even then, the moral strength and purity of the Hebrew\nreligion, its Divine vehemence and glow, were only the more evident\nfor the unpromising character of the materials with which it dealt. To\nour prophet, on the contrary, it fell to speak of the winning back of\nthe wife, and he has done so with wonderful delicacy and tenderness.\nOur prophet, it is true, has not one, but two, deep feelings about the\nlove of God: it passes through him as the love of a mother, as well as\nthe love of a husband. But while he lets us see the former only twice\nor thrice, the latter may be felt as the almost continual undercurrent\nof his prophecy, and often breaks to hearing, now in a sudden, single\nripple of a phrase, and now in a long tide of marriage music. His\nlips open for Jehovah on the language of wooing,--_speak ye to the\nheart of Jerusalem_; and though his masculine figure for Israel as\nthe Servant keeps his affection hidden for a time, this emerges again\nwhen the subject of Service is exhausted, till Israel, where she is\nnot Jehovah's Servant, is Jehovah's Bride. In the series of passages\non Zion, from ch. xlix. to ch. lii., the City is the Mother of His\nchildren, the Wife who though put away has never been divorced. In ch.\nlxii. she is called Hephzi-Bah, _My-delight-is-in-her_, and Beulah,\nor _Married,--for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be\nmarried. For as a youth marrieth a maiden, thy sons shall marry thee;\nand with the joy of a bridegroom over a bride, thy God shall joy over\nthee._[250] But it is in the chapter now before us that the relation\nis expressed with greatest tenderness and wealth of affection. _Be not\nafraid, for thou shalt not be shamed; and be not confounded, for thou\nshalt not be put to the blush: for the shame of thy youth thou shalt\nforget, and the reproach of thy widowhood thou shalt not remember\nagain. For thy Maker is thy Husband, Jehovah of Hosts is His name;\nand thy Redeemer the Holy of Israel, God of the whole earth is He\ncalled. For as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit thou art called\nof Jehovah, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off, saith thy God.\nFor a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will\nI gather thee. In an egre of anger_[251] _I hid My face a moment from\nthee, but with grace everlasting will I have mercy upon thee, saith thy\nRedeemer Jehovah._\n\nIn this eighth verse we pass from the figure of the Bride to that of\nthe City, which emerges clear through flood and storm in ver. 11.\n_Afflicted, Storm-beaten, Uncomforted, Lo, I am setting in dark metal_\n(_antimony_, used by women for painting round the eyes, so as to set\nforth their brilliance more) _thy stones_,--that they may shine from\nthis setting like women's eyes,--_and I will found thee in sapphires_:\nas heaven's own foundation vault is blue, so shall the ground-stones\nbe of the New Jerusalem. _And I will set rubies for thy pinnacles, and\nthy gates shall be sparkling stones,_[252] _and all thy borders stones\nof delight,--stones of joy, jewels._ The rest of the chapter paints the\n_righteousness_ of Zion as her external security and splendour.\n\n\n II. A LAST CALL TO THE BUSY (ch. lv.).\n\nThe second address upon the Eve of Return is ch. lv. Its pure gospel\nand clear music render detailed exposition, except on a single point,\nsuperfluous. One can but stand and listen to those great calls to\nrepentance and obedience, which issue from it. What can be added\nto them or said about them? Let one take heed rather to let them\nspeak to one's own heart! A little exploration, however, will be of\nadvantage among the circumstances from which they shoot.\n\nThe commercial character of the opening figures of ch. lv. arrests the\nattention. We saw that Babylon was the centre of the world's trade,\nand that it was in Babylon that the Jews first formed those mercantile\nhabits, which have become, next to religion, or in place of religion,\ntheir national character. Born to be priests, the Jews drew down their\nsplendid powers of attention, pertinacity and imagination from God upon\nthe world, till they equally appear to have been born traders. They\nlaboured and prospered exceedingly, gathering property and settling in\ncomfort. They drank of the streams of Babylon, no longer made bitter\nby their tears, and ceased to think upon Zion.\n\nBut, of all men, exiles can least forget that there is that which\nmoney can never buy. Money and his work can do much for the banished\nman,--feed him, clothe him, even make for him a kind of second home,\nand in time, by the payment of taxes, a kind of second citizenship;\nbut they can never bring him to the true climate of his heart, nor\nwin for him his real life. And of all exiles the Jew, however free\nand prosperous in his banishment he might be, was least able to find\nhis life among the good things--the water, the wine and the milk--of\na strange country. For home to Israel meant not only home, but duty,\nrighteousness and God.[253] God had created the heart of this people\nto hunger for His word, and in His word they could alone find the\n_fatness of their soul_. Success and comfort shall never satisfy\nthe soul which God has created for obedience. The simplicity of the\nobedience that is here asked from Israel, the emphasis that is laid\nupon mere obedience as ringing in full satisfaction, is impressive:\n_hearken diligently, and eat that which is good; incline your ear\nand come unto Me, hear and your soul shall live_. It suggests the\nnumber of plausible reasons, which may be offered for every worldly\nand material life, and to which there is no answer save the call of\nGod's own voice to obedience and surrender. To obedience God then\npromises influence. In place of being a mere trafficker with the\nnations, or, at best, their purveyor and money-lender, the Jew, if\nhe obeys God, shall be the priest and prophet of the peoples. This\nis illustrated in vv. 4_b_-6, the only hard passage in the chapter.\nGod will make His people like David; whether the historical David or\nthe ideal David described by Jeremiah and Ezekiel is uncertain.[254]\nGod will conclude an _everlasting covenant_ with them, equivalent to\nthe _sure favours_ showered on him. As God set him for a _witness_\n(that is, a prophet) to _the peoples_, a _prince and a leader to\nthe peoples_, so (in phrases that recall some used by David of\nhimself in the eighteenth Psalm) shall they as prophets and kings\ninfluence strange nations--_calling a nation thou knowest not, and\nnations that have not known thee shall run unto thee_. The effect\nof the unconscious influence, which obedience to God, and surrender\nto Him as His instrument, are sure to work, could not be more\ngrandly stated. But we ought not to let another point escape our\nattention, for it has its contribution to make to the main question\nof the Servant. As explained in the note to a sentence above, it is\nuncertain whether _David_ is the historical king of that name, or the\nMessiah still to come. In either case, he is an individual, whose\nfunctions and qualities are transferred to the people, and that is\nthe point demanding attention. If our prophecy can thus so easily\nspeak of God's purpose of service to the Gentiles passing from the\nindividual to the nation, why should it not also be able to speak of\nthe opposite process, the transference of the service from the nation\nto the single Servant? When the nation were unworthy and unredeemed,\ncould not the prophet as easily think of the relegation of their\noffice to an individual, as he now promises to their obedience that\nthat office shall be restored to them?\n\nThe next verses urgently repeat calls to repentance. And then comes\na passage which is grandly meant to make us feel the contrast of its\nscenery with the toil, the money-getting and the money-spending from\nwhich the chapter started. From all that sordid, barren, human strife\nin the markets of Babylon, we are led out to look at the boundless\nheavens, and are told that _as they are higher than the earth, so\nare God's ways higher than our ways, and God's reckonings than our\nreckonings_; we are led out to see the gentle fall of rain and snow\nthat so easily _maketh the earth to bring forth and bud, and give\nseed to the sower and bread to the eater_, and are told that it is\na symbol of God's word, which we were called from our vain labours\nto obey; we are led out _to the mountains and to the hills breaking\nbefore you into singing_, and to the free, wild natural trees[255]\ntossing their unlopped branches; we are led to see even the desert\nchange, for _instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and\ninstead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to\nJehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut\noff_. Thus does the prophet, in his own fashion, lead the starved\nworldly heart, that has sought in vain its fulness from its toil,\nthrough scenes of Nature, to that free omnipotent Grace, of which\nNature's processes are the splendid sacraments.\n\n\n III. PROSELYTES AND EUNUCHS (ch. lvi. 1-8).\n\nThe opening verse of this small prophecy, _My salvation is near\nto come, and My righteousness to be revealed_, attaches it very\nclosely to the preceding prophecy. If ch. lv. expounds the grace\nand faithfulness of God in the Return of His people, and asks from\nthem only faith as the price of such benefits, ch. lvi. 1-8 adds the\ndemand that those who are to return shall keep the law, and extends\ntheir blessings to foreigners and others, who though technically\ndisqualified from the privileges of the born and legitimate\nIsraelite, had attached themselves to Jehovah and His Law.\n\nSuch a prophecy was very necessary. The dispersion of Israel had\nalready begun to accomplish its missionary purpose; pious souls in\nmany lands had felt the spiritual power of this disfigured people,\nand had chosen for Jehovah's sake to follow its uncertain fortunes.\nIt was indispensable that these Gentile converts should be comforted\nagainst the withdrawal of Israel from Babylon, for they said, _Jehovah\nwill surely separate me from His people_, as well as against the time\nwhen it might become necessary to purge the restored community from\nheathen constituents.[256] Again, all the male Jews could hardly\nhave escaped the disqualification, which the cruel custom of the East\ninflicted on some, at least, of every body of captives. It is almost\ncertain that Daniel and his companions were eunuchs, and if they, then\nperhaps many more. But the Book of Deuteronomy had declared mutilation\nof this kind to be a bar against entrance to the assembly of the Lord.\nIt is not one of the least interesting of the spiritual results of the\nExile, that its necessities compelled the abrogation of the letter of\nsuch a law. With a freedom that foreshadows Christ's own expansion of\nthe ancient strictness, and in words that would not be out of place\nin the Sermon on the Mount, this prophecy ensures to pious men, whom\ncruelty had deprived of the two things dearest to the heart of an\nIsraelite,--a present place, and a perpetuation through his posterity,\nin the community of God,--that in the new temple a _monument_[257]\n_and a name_ should be given, _better_ and more enduring _than sons or\ndaughters_. This prophecy is further noteworthy as the first instance\nof the strong emphasis which \"Second Isaiah\" lays upon the keeping of\nthe Sabbath, and as first calling the temple the _House of Prayer_.\nBoth of these characteristics are due, of course, to the Exile, the\nnecessities of which prevented almost every religious act save that of\nkeeping fasts and Sabbaths and serving God in prayer. On our prophet's\nteaching about the Sabbath there will be more to say in the next\nchapter.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[247] _Cf._ pp. 336 ff.\n\n[248] See pp. 247 ff.\n\n[249] \"Das eigentliche Wort 'Liebe' kommt im A. T. von Gott fast gar\nnicht vor,--und wo es, bei einem sp\u00e4ten Schriftsteller, vorkommt,\nist es Bezeichnung seiner besondren Bundes-liebe zu Israel,\nderen nat\u00fcrliche Kehrseite der Hass gegen die feindlichen V\u00f6lker\nist.\"--Schultz, _A. T. Theologie_, 4th ed., p. 548.\n\n[250] The reserve of this--the limitation of the relation to one of\nfeeling--is remarkable in contrast to the more physical use of the\nsame figure in other religions.\n\n[251] _Egre_, or sudden rush of the tide, or spate, or freshet. The\noriginal is assonant: B^eshesseph qesseph.\n\n[252] So literally; LXX. crystals, carbuncles or diamonds.\n\n[253] Cf. _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, pp. 440 ff.\n\n[254] The structure of this difficult passage is this. Ver. 3 states\nthe equation: the everlasting covenant with the people Israel=the\nsure, unfailing favours bestowed upon the individual David. Vv. 4 and\n5 unfold the contents of the equation. Each side of it is introduced\nby a _Lo_. Lo, on the one side, what I have done to David; Lo, on the\nother, what I will do to you. As David was a _witness of peoples_,\na _prince_ and _commander of peoples_, so shalt thou call to them\nand make them obey thee. This is clear enough. But who is David? The\nphrase the _favours_ of _David_ suggests 2 Chron. vi. 42, _remember\nthe mercies of David thy servant_; and those in ver. 5 recall Psalm\nxviii. 43 f.: _Thou hast made me the head of nations; A people I\nknow not shall serve me; As soon as they hear of me they shall obey\nme; Strangers shall submit themselves to me._ Yet both Jeremiah and\nEzekiel call the coming Messiah David. Jer. xxx. 9: _They shall serve\nJehovah their God and David their King._ Ezek. xxxiv. 23: _And I will\nset up a shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, and he shall be\ntheir shepherd. And I Jehovah will be their God, and My servant David\nprince among them._ After these writers, our prophet could hardly\nhelp using the name David in its Messianic sense, even though he also\nquoted (in ver. 5) a few phrases recalling the historical David. But\nthe question does not matter much. The real point is the transference\nof the favours bestowed upon an individual to the whole people.\n\n[255] English version, _trees of the field_, but the field is the\ncountry beyond the bounds of cultivation; and as beasts of the field\nmeans _wild beasts_, so this means _wild trees_,--unforced, unaided\nby man's labour.\n\n[256] Neh. xiii.\n\n[257] The original is _a hand_; a term applied (perhaps because\nit consisted of tapering stones) to an _index_, or _monument_ of\nvictory, 1 Sam. xv. 12; or to a sepulchral monument, 2 Sam. xviii. 18.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIII.\n\n _THE REKINDLING OF THE CIVIC CONSCIENCE._\n\n ISAIAH lvi. 9-lix.\n\n\nIt was inevitable, as soon as their city was again fairly in sight,\nthat there should re-awaken in the exiles the civic conscience;\nthat recollections of those besetting sins of their public life,\nfor which their city and their independence were destroyed, should\nthrong back upon them; that in prospect of their again becoming\nresponsible for the discharge of justice and other political duties,\nthey should be reminded by the prophet of their national faults in\nthese respects, and of God's eternal laws concerning them. If we keep\nthis in mind, we shall understand the presence in \"Second Isaiah\" of\nthe group of prophecies at which we have now arrived, ch. lvi. 9-lix.\nHitherto our prophet, in marked contrast to Isaiah himself, has said\nalmost nothing of the social righteousness of his people. Israel's\nrighteousness, as we saw in our fourteenth chapter, has had the very\ndifferent meaning for our prophet of her pardon and restoration to\nher rights. But in ch. lvi. 9-lix. we shall find the blame of civic\nwrong, and of other kinds of sin of which Israel could only have been\nguilty in her own land; we shall listen to exhortations to social\njustice and mercy like those we heard from Isaiah to his generation.\nYet these are mingled with voices, and concluded with promises,\nwhich speak of the Return as imminent. Undoubtedly exilic elements\nreveal themselves. And the total impression is that some prophet of\nthe late Exile, and probably the one, whom we have been following,\ncollected these reminiscences of his people's sin in the days of\ntheir freedom, in order to remind them, before they went back again\nto political responsibility, why it was they were punished and how\napt they were to go astray. Believing this to be the true solution of\na somewhat difficult problem, we have ventured to gather this mixed\ngroup of prophecies under the title of the Rekindling of the Civic\nConscience. They fall into three groups: first, ch. lvi. 9-lvii.;\nsecond, ch. lviii.; third, ch. lix. We shall see that, while there\nis no reason to doubt the exilic origin of the whole of the second,\nthe first and third of these are mainly occupied with the description\nof a state of things that prevailed only before the Exile, but they\ncontain also exilic observations and conclusions.\n\n\n I. A CONSCIENCE BUT NO GOD (ch. lvi. 9-lvii.).\n\nThis is one of the sections which almost decisively place the literary\nunity of \"Second Isaiah\" past possibility of belief. If ch. lvi. 1-8\nflushes with the dawn of restoration, ch. lvi. 9-lvii. is very dark\nwith the coming of the night, which preceded that dawn. Almost none\ndispute, that the greater part of this prophecy must have been composed\nbefore the people left Palestine for exile. The state of Israel, which\nit pictures, recalls the descriptions of Hosea, and of the eleventh\nchapter of Zechariah. God's flock are still in charge of their own\nshepherds (lvi. 9-12),--a description inapplicable to Israel in exile.\nThe shepherds are sleepy, greedy, sensual, drunkards,--victims to\nthe curse, against which Amos and Isaiah hurled their strongest woes.\nThat sots like them should be spared while the righteous die unnoticed\ndeaths (lvii. 1) can only be explained by the approaching judgement.\n_No man considereth that the righteous is taken away from the Evil. The\nEvil_ cannot mean, as some have thought, persecution,--for while the\nrighteous are to escape it and enter into peace, the wicked are spared\nfor it. It must be a Divine judgement,--the Exile. But _he entereth\npeace, they rest in their beds, each one that hath walked straight\nbefore him_,--for the righteous there is the peace of death and the\nundisturbed tomb of his fathers. What an enviable fate when emigration,\nand dispersion through foreign lands, are the prospect of the nation!\nIsrael shall find her pious dead when she returns! The verse recalls\nthat summons in Isa. xxvi., in which we heard the Mother Nation calling\nupon the dead she had left in Palestine to rise and increase her\nreturned numbers.\n\nThen the prophet indicts the nation for a religious and political\nunfaithfulness, which we know was their besetting sin in the days\nbefore they left the Holy Land. The scenery, in whose natural objects\nhe describes them seeking their worship, is the scenery of Palestine,\nnot of Mesopotamia,--_terebinths_ and _w\u00e2dies_, and _clefts of the\nrocks_, and _smooth stones of the w\u00e2dies_. The unchaste and bloody\nsacrifices with which he charges them bear the appearance more of\nCanaanite than of Babylonian idolatry. The humiliating political\nsuits which they paid--_thou wentest to the king with ointment, and\ndidst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thine ambassadors afar\noff, and didst debase thyself even unto Sheol_ (ver. 9)--could not\nbe attributed to a captive people, but were the sort of degrading\ndiplomacy that Israel learned from Ahaz. While the painful pursuit\nof strength (ver. 10), the shabby political cowardice (ver. 11),\nthe fanatic sacrifice of manhood's purity and childhood's life\n(ver. 5), and especially the evil conscience which drove their\nblind hearts through such pain and passion in a sincere quest for\nrighteousness (ver. 12), betray the age of idolatrous reaction from\nthe great Puritan victory of 701,--a generation exaggerating all the\nold falsehood and fear, against which Isaiah had inveighed, with\nthe new conscience of sin which his preaching had created.[258]\nThe dark streak of blood and lust that runs through the condemned\nidolatry, and the stern conscience which only deepens its darkness,\nare sufficient reasons for dating the prophecy after 700. The very\nphrases of Isaiah, which it contains, have tempted some to attribute\nit to himself. But it certainly does not date from such troubles as\nbrought his old age to the grave. The evil, which it portends, is, as\nwe have seen, no persecution of the righteous, but a Divine judgement\nupon the whole nation,--presumably the Exile. We may date it,\ntherefore, some time after Isaiah's death, but certainly--and this is\nthe important point--before the Exile. This, then, is an unmistakably\npre-exilic constituent of \"Second Isaiah.\"\n\nAnother feature corroborates this prophecy's original independence\nof its context. Its style is immediately and extremely rugged. The\nreader of the original feels the difference at once. It is the\ndifference between travel on the level roads of Mesopotamia, with\ntheir unchanging horizons, and the jolting carriage of the stony\npaths of Higher Palestine, with their glimpses rapidly shifting from\ngorge to peak. But the remarkable thing is that the usual style of\n\"Second Isaiah\" is resumed before the end of the prophecy. One cannot\nalways be sure of the exact verse at which such a literary change\ntakes place. In this case some feel it as soon as the middle of ver.\n11, with the words, _Have not I held My peace even of long time,\nand thou fearest Me not?_[259] It is surely more sensible, however,\nafter ver. 14, in which we are arrested in any case by an alteration\nof standpoint. In ver. 14 we are on in the Exile again--before ver.\n14 I cannot recognise any exilic symptom--and the way of return is\nbefore us. _And one said_,--it is the repetition to the letter of the\nstrange anonymous voice of ch. xl. 6,--_and one said, Cast ye up,\nCast ye up, open up, or sweep open, a way, lift the stumbling block\nfrom the way of My people_. And now the rhythm has certainly returned\nto the prevailing style of \"Second Isaiah,\" and the temper is again\nthat of promise and comfort.\n\nThese sudden shiftings of circumstance and of prospect are enough\nto show the thoughtful reader of Scripture how hard is the problem\nof the unity of \"Second Isaiah.\" On which we make here no further\nremark, but pass at once to the more congenial task of studying the\ngreat prophecy, vv. 14-21, which rises one and simple from these\nfragments as does some homogeneous rock from the confusing _d\u00e9bris_\nof several geological epochs.\n\nFor let the date and original purpose of the fragments we have\nconsidered be what they may, this prophecy has been placed as their\nconclusion with at least some rational, not to say spiritual,\nintention. As it suddenly issues here, it gathers up, in the usual\nhabit of Scripture, God's moral indictment of an evil generation, by\na great manifesto of the Divine nature, and a sharp distinction of\nthe characters and fate of men. Now, of what kind is the generation,\nto whose indictment this prophecy comes as a conclusion? It is a\ngeneration which has lost its God, but kept its conscience. This\nsums up the national character which is sketched in vv. 3-13. These\nIsraelites had lost Jehovah and His pure law. But the religion\ninto which they fell back was not, therefore, easy or cold. On the\ncontrary, it was very intense and very stern. The people put energy\nin it, and passion, and sacrifice that went to cruel lengths. Belief,\ntoo, in its practical results kept the people from fainting under\nthe weariness in which its fanaticism reacted. _In the length of\nthy way thou wast wearied, yet thou didst not say, It is hopeless;\nlife for thy hand_--that is, real, practical strength--_didst thou\nfind: wherefore thou didst not break down_. And they practised their\npainful and passionate idolatry with a real conscience. They were\nseeking to work out righteousness for themselves (ver. 12 should\nbe rendered: _I will expose your righteousness_, the caricature of\nrighteousness which you attempt). The most worldly statesman among\nthem had his sincere ideal for Israel, and intended to enable her, in\nthe possession of her land and holy mountain, to fulfil her destiny\n(ver. 13). The most gross idolater had a hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness, and burnt his children or sacrificed his purity to\nsatisfy the vague promptings of his unenlightened conscience.\n\nIt was indeed a generation which had kept its conscience, but lost\nits God; and what we have in vv. 15 to 21 is just the lost and\nforgotten God speaking of His Nature and His Will. They have been\nworshipping idols, creatures of their own fears and cruel passions.\nBut He is the _high and lofty one_--two of the simplest adjectives\nin the language, yet sufficient to lift Him they describe above the\ndistorting mists of human imagination. They thought of the Deity as\nsheer wrath and force, scarcely to be appeased by men even through\nthe most bloody rites and passionate self-sacrifice. But He says,\n_The high and the holy I dwell in, yet with him also that is contrite\nand humble of spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to\nrevive the heart of the contrite ones_. The rest of the chapter is\nto the darkened consciences a plain statement of the moral character\nof God's working. God always punishes sin, and yet the sinner is\nnot abandoned. Though he go in his own way, God _watches his ways\nin order to heal him. I create the fruit of the lips_, that is,\n_thanksgivings: Peace, peace, to him that is far off and him that is\nnear, saith Jehovah, and I will heal him_. But, as in ch. xlviii. and\nch. l., a warning comes last, and behind the clear, forward picture\nof the comforted and restored of Jehovah we see the weird background\nof gloomy, restless wickedness.\n\n\n II. SOCIAL SERVICE AND THE SABBATH (ch. lviii.).\n\nSeveral critics (including Professor Cheyne) regard ch. lviii. as\npost-exilic, because of its declarations against formal fasting\nand the neglect of social charity, which are akin to those of\npost-exilic prophets like Zechariah and Joel, and seem to imply\nthat the people addressed are again independent and responsible for\nthe conduct of their social duties. The question largely turns on\nthe amount of social responsibility we conceive the Jews to have\nhad during the Exile. Now we have seen that many of them enjoyed\nconsiderable freedom: they had their houses and households; they had\ntheir slaves; they traded and were possessed of wealth. They were,\ntherefore, in a position to be chargeable with the duties to which\nch. lviii. calls them. The addresses of Ezekiel to his fellow-exiles\nhave many features in common with ch. lviii., although they do not\nmention fasting; and fasting itself was a characteristic habit of the\nexiles, in regard to which it is quite likely they should err just as\nis described in ch. lviii. Moreover, there is a resemblance between\nthis chapter's comments upon the people's enquiries of God (ver. 2)\nand Ezekiel's reply when certain of the elders of Israel came to\nenquire of Jehovah.[260] And again vv. 11 and 12 of ch. lviii. are\nevidently addressed to people in prospect of return to their own\nland and restoration of their city. We accordingly date ch. lviii.\nfrom the Exile. But we see no reason to put it as early as Ewald\ndoes, who assigns it to a younger contemporary of Ezekiel. There is\nno linguistic evidence that it is an insertion, or from another hand\nthan that of our prophet. Surely there were room and occasion for\nit in those years which followed the actual deliverance of the Jews\nby Cyrus, but preceded the restoration of Jerusalem,--those years\nin which there were no longer political problems in the way of the\npeople's return for our prophet to discuss, and therefore their moral\ndefects were all the more thrust upon his attention; and especially,\nwhen in the near prospect of their political independence, their\nsocial sins roused his apprehensions.\n\nThose, who have never heard an angry Oriental speak, have no idea of\nwhat power of denunciation lies in the human throat. In the East, where\na dry climate and large leisure bestow upon the voice a depth and\nsuppleness prevented by our vulgar haste of life and teasing weather,\nmen have elaborated their throat-letters to a number unknown in any\nWestern alphabet; and upon the lowest notes they have put an edge,\nthat comes up shrill and keen through the roar of the upper gutturals,\ntill you feel their wrath cut as well as sweep you before it. In the\nOriental throat, speech goes down deep enough to echo all the breadth\nof the inner man; while the possibility of expressing within so supple\nan organ nearly every tone of scorn or surprise preserves anger from\nthat suspicion of spite or of exhaustion, which is conveyed by too\nliberal a use of the nasal or palatal letters. Hence in the Hebrew\nlanguage _to call with the throat_ means to call with vehemence, but\nwith self-command; with passion, yet as a man; using every figure of\nsatire, but earnestly; neither forgetting wrath for mere art's sake,\nnor allowing wrath to escape the grip of the stronger muscles of the\nvoice. It is _to lift the voice like a trumpet_,--an instrument, which,\nwith whatever variety of music its upper notes may indulge our ears,\nnever suffers its main tone of authority to drop, never slacks its\nimperative appeal to the wills of the hearers.\n\nThis is the style of the chapter before us, which opens with the words,\n_Call with the throat, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet_.\nPerhaps no subject more readily provokes to satire and sneers than the\nsubject of the chapter,--the union of formal religion and unlovely\nlife. And yet in the chapter there is not a sneer from first to last.\nThe speaker suppresses the temptation to use his nasal tones, and\nutters, not as the satirist, but as the prophet. For his purpose is\nnot to sport with his people's hypocrisy, but to sweep them out of it.\nBefore he has done, his urgent speech, that has not lingered to sneer\nnor exhausted itself in screaming, passes forth to spend its unchecked\nimpetus upon final promise and gospel. It is a wise lesson from a\nmaster preacher, and half of the fruitlessness of modern preaching is\ndue to the neglect of it. The pulpit tempts men to be either too bold\nor too timid about sin; either to whisper or to scold; to euphemise or\nto exaggerate; to be conventional or hysterical. But two things are\nnecessary,--the facts must be stated, and the whole manhood of the\npreacher, and not only his scorn or only his anger or only an official\ntemper, brought to bear upon them. _Call with the throat, spare not,\nlike a trumpet lift up thy voice, and publish to My people their\ntransgression, and to the house of Jacob their sin._\n\nThe subject of the chapter is the habits of a religious people,--the\nearnestness and regularity of their religious performance contrasted\nwith the neglect of their social relations. The second verse, \"the\ndescriptions in which are evidently drawn from life,\"[261] tells\nus that _the people sought God daily, and had a zeal to know His\nways, as a nation that had done righteousness_,--fulfilled the legal\nworship,--_and had not forsaken the law_[262] _of their God: they\nask of Me laws[262] of righteousness_,--that is, a legal worship,\nthe performance of which might make them righteous,--_and in drawing\nnear to God they take delight_. They had, in fact, a great greed for\nordinances and functions,[263]--for the revival of such forms as\nthey had been accustomed to of old. Like some poor prostrate rose,\nwhose tendrils miss the props by which they were wont to rise to the\nsun, the religious conscience and affections of Israel, violently\ntorn from their immemorial supports, lay limp and windswept on a\nbare land, and longed for God to raise some substitute for those\naltars of Zion by which, in the dear days of old, they had lifted\nthemselves to the light of His face. In the absence of anything\nbetter, they turned to the chill and shadowed forms of the fasts\nthey had instituted.[264] But they did not thereby reach the face\nof God. _Wherefore have we fasted_, say they, _and Thou hast not\nseen? we have humbled our souls, and Thou takest no notice?_ The\nanswer comes swiftly: Because your fasting is a mere form! _Lo, in\nthe very day of your fast ye find a business to do, and all your\nworkmen you overtask._ So formal is your fasting that your ordinary\neager, selfish, cruel life goes on beside it just the same. Nay, it\nis worse than usual, for your worthless, wearisome fast but puts a\nsharper edge upon your temper: _Lo, for strife and contention ye\nfast, to smile with the fist of tyranny_. And it has no religious\nvalue: _Ye fast not_ like _as_ you are fasting _to-day so as to make\nyour voice heard on high_. _Is such the fast that I choose,--a day\nfor a man to afflict himself? Is it to droop his head like a rush,\nand grovel on sackcloth and ashes? Is it this thou wilt call a fast\nand a day acceptable to Jehovah?_ One of the great surprises of the\nhuman heart is, that self-denial does not win merit or peace. But\nassuredly it does not, if love be not with it. Though I give my body\nto be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Self-denial\nwithout love is self-indulgence. _Is not this the fast that I\nchoose? to loosen the bonds of tyranny, to shatter the joints of the\nyoke, to let the crushed go free, and that ye burst every yoke. Is\nit not to break to the hungry thy bread, and that thou bring home\nwandering poor?_[265] _when thou seest one naked that thou cover\nhim, and that from thine own flesh thou hide not thyself? Then shall\nbreak forth like the morning thy light, and thy health_[266] _shall\nimmediately spring. Yea, go before thee shall thy righteousness,\nthe glory of Jehovah shall sweep thee on_, literally, _gather thee\nup. Then thou shalt call, and Jehovah shall answer; thou shalt\ncry, and He shall say, Here am I. If thou shalt put from thy midst\nthe yoke, and the putting forth of the finger, and the speaking of\nnaughtiness_--three degrees of the subtlety of selfishness, which\nwhen forced back from violent oppression will retreat to scorn\nand from open scorn to backbiting,--_and if thou draw out to the\nhungry thy soul_,--tear out what is dear to thee in order to fill\nhis need, the strongest expression for self-denial which the Old\nTestament contains,--_and satisfy the soul that is afflicted, then\nshall uprise in the darkness thy light, and thy gloom shall be as\nthe noonday. And guide thee shall Jehovah continually, and satisfy\nthy soul in droughts, and thy limbs make lissom; and thou shalt be\nlike a garden well-watered,_[267] _and like a spring of water whose\nwaters fail not. And they that are of thee shall build the ancient\nruins; the foundations of generation upon generation thou shalt\nraise up, and they shall be calling thee Repairer-of-the-Breach,\nRestorer-of-Paths-for-habitation._[268] Thus their _righteousness_ in\nthe sense of external vindication and stability, which so prevails\nwith our prophet, shall be due to their _righteousness_ in that\ninward moral sense in which Amos and Isaiah use the word. And so\nconcludes a passage, which fills the earliest, if not the highest,\nplace in the glorious succession of Scriptures of Practical Love, to\nwhich belong the Sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, the Twenty-fifth of\nMatthew and the Thirteenth of First Corinthians. Its lesson is,--to\ngo back to the figure of the draggled rose,--that no mere forms of\nreligion, however divinely prescribed or conscientiously observed,\ncan of themselves lift the distraught and trailing affections of man\nto the light and peace of Heaven; but that our fellow-men, if we\ncling to them with love and with arms of help, are ever the strongest\nprops by which we may rise to God; that character grows rich and life\njoyful, not by the performance of ordinances with the cold conscience\nof duty, but by acts of service with the warm heart of love.\n\nAnd yet such a prophecy concludes with an exhortation to the\nobservance of one religious form, and places the keeping of the\nSabbath on a level with the practice of love. _If thou turn from\nthe Sabbath thy foot_, from _doing thine own business on My holy\nday;_[269] _and callest the Sabbath Pleasure_,--the word is a strong\none, _Delight, Delicacy, Luxury,--Holy of Jehovah, Honourable; and\ndost honour it so as not to do thine own ways, or find thine own\nbusiness, or keep making talk: then thou shalt find thy pleasure_,\nor _thy delight, in Jehovah_,--note the parallel of pleasure in the\nSabbath and pleasure in Jehovah,--_and He shall cause thee to ride on\nthe high places of the land, and make thee to feed upon the portion\nof Jacob thy father: yea, the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken_.\n\nOur prophet, then, while exalting the practical Service of Man at the\nexpense of certain religious forms, equally exalts the observance of\nSabbath; his scorn for their formalism changes when he comes to it\ninto a strenuous enthusiasm of defence. This remarkable fact, which is\nstrictly analogous to the appearance of the Fourth Commandment in a\ncode otherwise consisting of purely moral and religious laws, is easily\nexplained. Observe that our prophet bases his plea for Sabbath-keeping,\nand his assurance that it must lead to prosperity, not on its physical,\nmoral or social benefits, but simply upon its acknowledgment of God.\nNot only is the Sabbath to be honoured because it is the _Holy of\nJehovah_ and _Honourable_, but _making it one's pleasure_ is equivalent\nto _finding one's pleasure in Him_. The parallel between these two\nphrases in ver. 13 and ver. 14 is evident, and means really this:\nInasmuch as ye do it unto the Sabbath, ye do it unto Me. The prophet,\nthen, enforces the Sabbath simply on account of its religious and\nGodward aspect. Now, let us remember the truth, which he so often\nenforces, that the Service of Man, however ardently and widely pursued,\ncan never lead or sum up our duty; that the Service of God has,\nlogically and practically, a prior claim, for without it the Service\nof Man must suffer both in obligation and in resource. God must be\nour first resort--must have our first homage, affection and obedience.\nBut this cannot well take place without some amount of definite and\nregular and frequent devotion to Him. In the most spiritual religion\nthere is an irreducible minimum of formal observance. Now, in that\nwholesale destruction of religious forms, which took place at the\noverthrow of Jerusalem,[270] there was only one institution, which was\nnot necessarily involved. The Sabbath did not fall with the Temple and\nthe Altar: the Sabbath was independent of all locality; the Sabbath was\npossible even in exile. It was the one solemn, public and frequently\nregular form in which the nation could turn to God, glorify Him and\nenjoy Him. Perhaps, too, through the Babylonian fashion of solemnising\nthe seventh day, our prophet realised again the primitive institution\nof the Sabbath, and was reminded that, since seven days is a regular\npart of the natural year, the Sabbath is, so to speak, sanctioned by\nthe statutes of Creation.\n\nAn institution, which is so primitive, which is so independent of\nlocality, which forms so natural a part of the course of time, but\nwhich, above all, has twice--in the Jewish Exile and in the passage\nof Judaism to Christianity--survived the abrogation and disappearance\nof all other forms of the religion with which it was connected, and\nhas twice been affirmed by prophecy or practice to be an essential\npart of spiritual religion and the equal of social morality,--has\namply proved its Divine origin and its indispensableness to man.\n\n\n III. SOCIAL CRIMES (ch. lix.).\n\nCh. lix. is, at first sight, the most difficult of all of \"Second\nIsaiah\" to assign to a date.[271] For it evidently contains both\npre-exilic and exilic elements. On the one hand, its charges of guilt\nimply that the people addressed by it are responsible for civic justice\nto a degree, which could hardly be imputed to the Jews in Babylon. We\nsaw that the Jews in the Exile had an amount of social freedom and\ndomestic responsibility which amply accounts for the kind of sins they\nare charged with in ch. lviii. But ver. 14 of ch. lix. reproaches\nthem with the collapse of justice in the very seat and public office\nof justice, of which it was not possible they could have been guilty\nexcept in their own land and in the days of their independence. On the\nother hand, the promises of deliverance in ch. lix. read very much as\nif they were exilic. _Judgement_ and _righteousness_ are employed in\nver. 9 in their exilic sense,[272] and God is pictured exactly as we\nhave seen Him in other chapters of our prophet.\n\nAre we then left with a mystery? On the contrary, the solution is\nclear. Israel is followed into exile by her old conscience. The\ncharges of Isaiah and Ezekiel against Jerusalem, while Jerusalem was\nstill a \"civitas,\" ring in her memory. She repeats the very words.\nWith truth she says that her present state, so vividly described in\nvv. 9-11, is due to sins of old, of which, though perhaps she can\nno longer commit them, she still feels the guilt. Conscience always\ncrowds the years together; there is no difference of time in the eyes\nof God the Judge. And it was natural, as we have said already, that\nthe nation should remember her besetting sins at this time; that her\ncivic conscience should awake again, just as she was again about to\nbecome a civitas.[273][274]\n\nThe whole of this chapter is simply the expansion and enforcement\nof the first two verses, that keep clanging like the clangour of a\ngreat, high bell: _Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened that it\ncannot save, neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear; but your\niniquities have been separators between you and your God, and your\nsins have hidden_ His _face from you, that He will not hear._ There\nis but one thing that comes between the human heart and the Real\nPresence and Infinite Power of God; and that one thing is Sin. The\nchapter labours to show how real God is. Its opening verses talk of\n_His Hand_, _His Ear_, _His Face_. And the closing verses paint Him\nwith the passions and the armour of a man,--a Hero in such solitude\nand with such forward force, that no imagination can fail to see\nthe Vivid, Lonely Figure. _And He saw that there was no man, and He\nwondered that there was none to interpose; therefore His own right\narm brought salvation unto Him, and His righteousness it upheld Him.\nAnd He put on righteousness like a breastplate and salvation for\nan helmet upon His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for\nclothing, and wrapped Himself in zeal like a robe._ Do not let us\nsuppose this is mere poetry. Conceive what inspires it,--the great\ntruth that in the Infinite there is a heart to throb for men and a\nwill to strike for them. This is what the writer desires to proclaim,\nand what we believe the Spirit of God moved his poor human lips\nto give their own shape to,--the simple truth that there is One,\nhowever hidden He may be to men's eyes, who feels for men, who feels\nhotly for men, and whose will is quick and urgent to save them. Such\nan One tells His people, that the only thing which prevents them\nfrom knowing how real His heart and will are--the only thing which\nprevents them from seeing His work in their midst--is their sin.\n\nThe roll of sins to which the prophet attributes the delay of the\npeople's deliverance is an awful one; and the man who reads it with\nconscience asleep might conclude that it was meant only for a period\nof extraordinary violence and bloodshed. Yet the chapter implies that\nsociety exists, and that at least the forms of civilisation are in\nforce. Men sue one another before the usual courts. But none _sueth\nin righteousness or goeth to the law in truth. They trust in vanity\nand speak lies._ All these charges might be true of a society as\noutwardly respectable as our own. Nor is the charge of bloodshed to\nbe taken literally. The Old Testament has so great a regard for the\nspiritual nature of man, that to deny the individual his rights or to\ntake away the peace of God from his heart, it calls the shedding of\ninnocent blood. Isaiah reminds us of many kinds of this moral murder\nwhen he says, _your hands are full of blood: seek justice, relieve the\noppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow_. Ezekiel reminds\nus of others when he tells how God spake to him, that if he _warn not\nthe wicked, and the same wicked shall die in his iniquity, his blood\nwill I require at thy hand_. And again a Psalm reminds us of the time\n_when the Lord maketh inquisition for blood, He forgetteth not the cry\nof the poor_.[275] This is what the Bible calls murder and lays its\nburning words upon,--not such acts of bloody violence as now and then\nmake all humanity thrill to discover that in the heart of civilisation\nthere exist men with the passions of the ape and the tiger, but such\noppression of the poor, such cowardice to rebuke evil, such negligence\nto restore the falling, such abuse of the characters of the young\nand innocent, such fraud and oppression of the weak, as often exist\nunder the most respectable life, and employ the weapons of a Christian\ncivilisation in order to fulfil themselves. We have need to take\nthe bold, violent standards of the prophets and lay them to our own\nlives,--the prophets that call the man who sells his honesty for gain,\n_a harlot_, and hold him _blood-guilty_ who has wronged, tempted or\nneglected his brother. Do not let us suppose that these crimson verses\nof the Bible may be passed over by us as not applicable to ourselves.\nThey do not refer to murderers or maniacs: they refer to social crimes,\nto which we all are in perpetual temptation, and of which we all are\nmore or less guilty,--the neglect of the weak, the exploitation of\nthe poor for our own profit, the soiling of children's minds, the\nmultiplying of temptation in the way of God's little ones, the malice\nthat leads us to blast another's character, or to impute to his action\nevil motives for which we have absolutely no grounds save the envy\nand sordidness of our own hearts. Do not let us fail to read all such\nverses in the clear light which John the Apostle throws on them when\nhe says: _He that loveth not abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his\nbrother is a murderer._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[258] See vol. i., pp. 363, 364.\n\n[259] So Ewald, Cheyne and Briggs. Ewald takes lvi. 9-lvii. 11_a_\nas an interruption, borrowed from an earlier prophet in a time of\npersecution, of the exilic prophecy, which goes on smoothly from lvi.\n8 to lvii. 11_b_. We have seen that it is an error to suppose that\nlvi. 9-lvii. rose from a time of persecution.\n\n[260] Ezek. xxi.; _cf._ xxxiii. 30 f.\n\n[261] Delitzsch.\n\n[262] Mishpat and mishpatim, _cf._ p. 299.\n\n[263] Such as is also expressed by exiles in Psalms xlii., xliii. and\nlxiii., but there with what spiritual temper, here with what a hard\nlegal conception of righteousness.\n\n[264] For these see p. 61.\n\n[265] Literally, _the poor, the wandering_. It was a frequent\nphrase in the Exile: Lam. iii. 19, _Remember mine affliction and my\nhomelessness_; i. 7, Jerusalem in the day _of her affliction and her\nhomelessness_. LXX. \u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9, roofless.\n\n[266] Probably the fresh flesh which appears through a healing wound.\nMade classical by Jeremiah, who uses it thrice of Israel,--in the\nfamous text, _Is there no balm_, etc., x. 22; and in xxx. 17; xxxiii. 6.\n\n[267] Jer. xxxi. 12.\n\n[268] _Cf._ Job xxiv. 13.\n\n[269] _Cf._ Amos viii. 5.\n\n[270] See pp. 43 f.\n\n[271] Ewald conceives chs. lviii., lix. to be the work of a younger\ncontemporary of Ezekiel, to which the chief author of \"Second Isaiah\"\nhas added words of his own: lviii. 12, lix. 21. The latter is\nevidently an insertion; _cf._ change of person and of number, etc.\nDelitzsch puts the passage down to the last decade of the Captivity,\nwhen for a little time Cyrus had turned away from Babylon, and the\nJews despaired of his coming to save them.\n\n[272] See pp. 219 ff.\n\n[273] Another slight trace reveals the conglomerate nature of the\nchapter. If, as the earlier verses indicate, it was Israel that\nsinned, then it is the rebellious in Israel who should be punished.\nIn ver. 18_a_, therefore, the _adversaries_ or _enemies_ ought to be\nIsraelites. But in 18_b_ the foreign _islands_ are included. The LXX.\nhas not this addition. Bredenkamp takes the words for an insertion.\nYet the consequences of Israel's sin, according to the chapter, are\nnot so much the punishment of the rebellious among the people as\nthe delay of the deliverance for the whole nation,--a deliverance\nwhich Jehovah is represented as rising to accomplish, the moment the\npeople express the sense of their rebellion and are penitent. The\n_adversaries_ and _enemies_ of ver. 18, therefore, are the oppressors\nof Israel, the foreigners and heathen; and 18_b_ with its _islands_\ncomes in quite naturally.\n\n[274] _Note on mishpat and Ssedhaqah in ch. lix._ This chapter is a\ngood one for studying the various meanings of mishpat. In ver. 4 the\nverb shaphat is used in its simplest sense of going to law. In vv.\n8 and 14 mishpat is a quality or duty of man. But in ver. 9 it is\nrather what man expects from God, and what is far from man because of\nhis sins; it is _judgement_ on God's side, or God's saving ordinance.\nIn this sense it is probably to be taken in ver. 15,--Ssedhaqah\nfollows the same parallel. This goes to prove that we have two\ndistinct prophecies amalgamated, unless we believe that a play upon\nthe words is intended.\n\n[275] Isa. i. 17; Ezek. ii. 18; Psalm ix. 12.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIV.\n\n _SALVATION IN SIGHT._\n\n ISAIAH lx.-lxiii. 7.\n\n\nThe deliverance from Babylon has long been certain, since ch.\nxlviii.; all doubts in the way of Return have been removed, ch.\nxlix.-lii. 12; the means for the spiritual Restoration of the people\nhave been sufficiently found, ch. liii. and preceding chapters on\nthe Servant; Zion has been hailed from afar, ch. liv.; last calls to\nleave Babylon have been uttered, ch. lv.; last councils and comforts,\nlvi. 1-8; and the civic conscience has been rekindled, ch. lvi.\n9-lix. There remains now only to take possession of the City herself;\nto rehearse the vocation of the restored people; and to realise all\nthe hopes, fears, hindrances and practical problems of the future.\nThese duties occupy the rest of our prophecy, chs. lx.-lxvi.\n\nCh. lx. is a prophecy as complete in itself as ch. liv. The\nCity, which in liv. was hailed and comforted from afar, is in\nch. lx. bidden rise and enjoy the glory that has at last reached\nher. Her splendours, hinted at in ch. liv., are seen in full and\nevident display. In chs. lxi.-lxii. her prophet, her genius and\nrepresentative, rehearses to her his duties, and sets forth her\nplace among the peoples. And in ch. lxiii. 1-7 we have another of\nthose theophanies or appearances of the--Sole Divine Author of His\npeople's salvation, which, abrupt and separate as if to heighten\nthe sense of the solitariness of their subject--occur at intervals\nthroughout our prophecy,--for instance, in ch. xlii., vv. 10-17, and\nin ch. lix. 16-19. These three sections, ch. lx., chs. lxi.-lxii. and\nch. lxiii. 1-7, we will take together in this chapter of our volume.\n\n\n I. ARISE, SHINE (ch. lx.)\n\nThe Sixtieth chapter of Isaiah is the spiritual counterpart of a\ntypical Eastern day, with the dust laid and the darts taken out of\nthe sunbeams,--a typical Eastern day in the sudden splendour of its\ndawn, the completeness and apparent permanence of its noon, the\nspaciousness it reveals on sea and land, and the barbaric profusion\nof life, which its strong light is sufficient to flood with glory.\n\nUnder such a day we see Jerusalem. In the first five verses of the\nchapter, she is addressed, as in ch. liv., as a crushed and desolate\nwoman. But her lonely night is over, and from some prophet at the\nhead of her returning children the cry peals, _Arise, shine, for\ncome hath thy light, and the glory of Jehovah hath risen upon thee_.\nIn the East the sun does not rise; the word is weak for an arrival\nalmost too sudden for twilight. In the East the sun leaps above the\nhorizon. You do not feel that he is coming, but that he is come. This\nfirst verse is suggested by the swiftness with which he bursts upon\nan Eastern city, and the shrouded form does not, as in our twilight,\nslowly unwrap itself, but _shines_ at once, all plates and points\nof glory. Then the figure yields: for Jerusalem is not merely one\nradiant point in a world equally lighted by the sun, but is herself\nJehovah's unique luminary. _For behold the darkness shall cover the\nearth, and gross darkness the peoples, but upon thee shall Jehovah\narise, and His glory upon thee shall be seen. And nations shall come\nto thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising._ In the next\ntwo verses it is again a woman who is addressed. _Lift up_ thine\neyes _round about and see, all of them have gathered, have come to\nthee: thy sons from afar are coming, and thy daughters are carried\nin the arms._[276] Then follows the fairest verse in the chapter.\n_Then thou shalt see and be radiant, and thy heart shall throb and\ngrow large; for there shall be turned upon thee the sea's flood-tide,\nand the wealth of the nations shall come to thee._ The word which\nthe Authorised English version translated _shall flow together_, and\nour Revised Version _lightened_, means both of these. It is liquid\nlight,--light that ripples and sparkles and runs across the face;\nas it best appears in that beautiful passage of the thirty-fourth\nPsalm, _they looked to Him and their faces were lightened_. Here it\nsuggests the light which a face catches from sparkling water. The\nprophet's figure has changed. The stately mother of her people stands\nnot among the ruins of her city, but upon some great beach, with the\nsea in front,--the sea that casts up all heaven's light upon her face\nand drifts all earth's wealth to her feet, and her eyes are upon the\nhorizon with the hope of her who watches for the return of children.\n\nThe next verses are simply the expansion of these two clauses,--about\nthe sea's flood and the wealth of the Nations. Vv. 6-9 look first\nlandward and then seaward, as from Jerusalem's own wonderful\nposition on the high ridge between Asia and the sea: between the\ngates of the East and the gates of the West. On the one side, the\ncity's horizon is the range of Moab and Edom, that barrier, in\nJewish imagination, of the hidden and golden East across which pour\nthe caravans here pictured. _Profusion of camels shall cover thee,\nyoung camels of Midian and Ephah; all of them from Sheba shall come:\ngold and frankincense shall they bring, and the praises of Jehovah\nshall they publish. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to\nthee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to thee: they shall come\nup with acceptance on Mine altar, and the house of My glory will\nI glorify._ These were just what surged over Jordan from the far\ncountries beyond, of which the Jews knew little more than the names\nhere given,--tawny droves of camels upon the greenness of Palestine\nlike a spate of the desert from which they poured; rivers of sheep\nbrimming up the narrow drove-roads to Jerusalem:--conceive it all\nunder that blazing Eastern sun. But then turning to Judah's other\nhorizon, marked by the yellow fringe of sand and the blue haze of\nthe sea beyond, the prophet cries for Jehovah: _Who are these like a\ncloud that fly, and like doves to their windows? Surely towards Me\nthe Isles_[277] _are stretching, and ships of Tarshish in the van,\nto bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them,\nto the Name of Jehovah of Hosts and to the Holy of Israel, for He\nhath glorified thee._ The poetry of the Old Testament has been said\nto be deficient in its treatment of the sea; and certainly it dwells\nmore frequently, as was natural for the imagination of an inland and\na highland people to do, upon the hills. But in what literature will\nyou find passages of equal length more suggestive of the sea than\nthose short pieces in which the Hebrew prophet sought to render the\nfutile rage of the world, as it dashed on the steadfast will of God,\nby the roar and crash of the ocean on the beach;[278] or painted a\nnation's prosperity as the waves of a summer sea;[279] or described\nthe long coastlands as stretching out to God, and the white-sailed\nships coming up the horizon like doves to their windows!\n\nThe rest of the chapter, from ver. 10 onwards, is occupied with the\nrebuilding and adornment of Jerusalem, and with the establishment of\nthe people in righteousness and peace. There is a very obvious mingling\nof the material and the moral. The Gentiles are to become subject to\nthe Jew, but it is to be a voluntary submission before the evidence\nof Jerusalem's spiritual superiority. Nothing is said of a Messiah or\na King. Jerusalem is to be a commonwealth; and, while her _magistracy\nshall be Peace and her overseers Righteousness_, God Himself, in\nevident presence, is to be her light and glory. Thus the chapter ends\nwith God and the People, and nothing else. God for an everlasting light\naround, and the people in their land, righteous, secure and growing\nvery large. _The least shall become a thousand, and the smallest a\nstrong nation: I Jehovah will hasten it in its time._\n\nThis chapter has been put through many interpretations to many\npractical uses:--to describe the ingathering of the Gentiles to the\nChurch (in the Christian year it is the Lesson for Epiphany), to\nprove the doctrine that the Church should live by the endowment of\nthe kingdoms of this world, and to enforce the duty of costliness\nand magnificence in the public worship of God. _The glory of the\nLebanon shall come unto thee, fir-tree, plane-tree and sherbin\ntogether, to beautify the place of My sanctuary, and I will make the\nplace of My feet glorious._\n\nThe last of these duties we may extend and qualify. If the coming in\nof the Gentiles is here represented as bringing wealth to the Church,\nwe cannot help remembering that the going out to the Gentiles, in\norder to bring them in, means for us the spending of our wealth on\nthings other than the adornment of temples; and that, besides the\nheathen, there are poor and suffering ones for whom God asks men's\ngold, as He asked it in olden days for the temple, that He may be\nglorified. Take that last phrase:--_And_--with all that material\nwealth which has flowed in from Lebanon, from Midian, from Sheba--_I\nwill make the place of My feet glorious_. When this singular name\nwas first uttered it was limited to the dwelling-place of the Ark\nand Presence of God, visible only on Mount Zion. But when God became\nman, and did indeed tread with human feet this world of ours, what\nwere then the _places of His feet_? Sometimes, it is true, the\nTemple, but only sometimes; far more often where the sick lay, and\nthe bereaved were weeping,--the pool of Bethesda, the death-room of\nJairus' daughter, the way to the centurion's sick servant, the city\ngateways where the beggars stood, the lanes where the village folk\nhad gathered, against His coming, their deaf and dumb, their palsied\nand lunatic. These were _the places of His feet, who Himself bare\nour sicknesses and carried our infirmities_; and these are what He\nwould seek our wealth to make glorious. They say that the reverence\nof men builds now no cathedrals as of old; nay, but the love of man,\nthat Christ taught, builds far more of those refuges and houses of\nhealing, scatters far more widely those medicines for the body, those\ninstruments of teaching, those means of grace, in which God is as\nmuch glorified as in Jewish Temple or Christian Cathedral.\n\nNevertheless He, who set _the place of His feet_, which He would have\nus to glorify, among the poor and the sick, was He, who also did not\nfor Himself refuse that alabaster box and that precious ointment,\nwhich might have been sold for much and given to the poor. The\nworship of God, if we read Scripture aright, ought to be more than\nmerely grave and comely. There should be heartiness and lavishness\nabout it,--profusion and brilliance. Not of material gifts alone or\nchiefly, gold incense or rare wood, but of human faculties, graces\nand feeling; of joy and music and the sense of beauty. Take this\nchapter. It is wonderful, not so much for the material wealth which\nit devotes to the service of God's house, and which is all that many\neyes ever see in it, as for the glorious imagination and heart for\nthe beautiful, the joy in light and space and splendour, the poetry\nand the music, which use those material things simply as the light\nuses the wick, or as music uses the lyre, to express and reveal\nitself. What a call this chapter is to let out the natural wonder\nand poetry of the heart, its feeling and music and exultation,--_all\nthat is within us_, as the Psalmist says,--in the Service of God.\nWhy do we not do so? The answer is very simple. Because, unlike this\nprophet, we do not realise how present and full our salvation is;\nbecause, unlike him, we do not realise that _our light has come_, and\nso we will not _arise and shine_.\n\n\n II. THE GOSPEL (chs. lxi.-lxii.)\n\nThe speaker in ch. lxi. is not introduced by name. Therefore he\nmay be the Prophet himself, or he may be the Servant. The present\nexpositor, while feeling that the evidence is not conclusive against\neither of these, and that the uncertainty is as great as in ch.\nxlviii. 16,[280] inclines to think that there is, on the whole, less\nobjection to its being the prophet who speaks than to its being\nthe Servant. See the appended note. But it is not a very important\nquestion, which is intended, for the Servant was representative of\nprophecy; and if it be the prophet who speaks here, he also speaks\nwith the conscience of the whole function and aim of the prophetic\norder. That Jesus Christ fulfilled this programme does not decide\nthe question one way or the other; for a prophet so representative\nwas as much the antetype and foreshadowing of Christ as the Servant\nhimself was. On the whole, then, we must be content to feel about\nthis passage, what we must have already felt about many others in\nour prophecy, that the writer is more anxious to place before us the\nwhole range and ideal of the prophetic gift than to make clear in\nwhom this ideal is realised; and for the rest Jesus of Nazareth so\nplainly fulfilled it, that it becomes, indeed, a very minor question\nto ask whom the writer may have intended as its first application.\n\nIf ch. lx. showed us the external glory of God's people, ch. lxi. opens\nwith the programme of their inner mission. There we had the building\nand adornment of the Temple, that _Jehovah might glorify His people_:\nhere we have the binding of broken hearts and the beautifying of soiled\nlives, that _Jehovah may be glorified_. But this inner mission also\nissues in external splendour, in a righteousness, which is like the\nadornment of a bride and like the beauty of spring.\n\nThe commission of the prophet is mainly to duties we have already\nstudied in preceding passages, both on himself and on the Servant.\nIt will be enough to point out its special characteristics. _The\nSpirit of my Lord Jehovah is upon me, for that Jehovah hath anointed\nme to bring good tidings to the afflicted; He hath sent me to bind\nup the broken-hearted, to proclaim to the captive liberty, and to\nthe prisoners open ways;_[281] _to proclaim an acceptable year for\nJehovah, and a day of vengeance for our God; to comfort all that mourn;\nto offer to the mourners of Zion, to give unto them a crest_[282] _for\nashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the mantle of praise for the spirit\nof dimness;_[283] _so that men may call them Oaks-of-Righteousness, the\nplanting of Jehovah, that He may break into glory._\n\nThere are heard here all the keynotes of our prophet, and clear,\ntoo, is that usual and favourite direction of his thoughts from the\ninner and spiritual influences to the outward splendour and evidence,\nthe passage from the comfort and healing of the heart to the rich\ngarment, the renown, and his own dearest vision of great forest\ntrees,--in short, Jehovah Himself breaking into glory. But one point\nneeds special attention.\n\nThe prophet begins his commission by these words, _to bring good\ntidings to the afflicted_, and again says, _to proclaim to the\ncaptive_. _The afflicted_, or _the poor_, as it is mostly rendered,\nis the classical name for God's people in Exile. We have sufficiently\nmoved among this people to know for what reason the _bringing\nof good tidings_ should here be reckoned as the first and most\nindispensable service that prophecy could render them. Why, in the\nlife of every nation, there are hours, when the factors of destiny,\nthat loom largest at other times, are dwarfed and dwindle before\nthe momentousness of a piece of news,--hours, when the nation's\nattitude in a great moral issue, or her whole freedom and destiny,\nare determined by telegrams from the seat of war. The simultaneous\nnews of Grant's capture of Vicksburg and Meade's defeat of Lee, news\nthat finally turned English opinion, so long shamefully debating and\nwavering, to the side of God and the slave; the telegrams from the\narmy, for which silent crowds waited in the Berlin squares through\nthe autumn nights of 1870, conscious that the unity and birthright\nof Germany hung upon the tidings,--are instances of the vital and\nparamount influence in a nation's history of a piece of news. The\nforce of a great debate in Parliament, the expression of public\nopinion through all its organs, the voice of a people in a general\nelection, things in their time as ominous as the Fates, all yield\nat certain supreme moments to the meaning of a simple message from\nProvidence. Now it was for _news_ from God that Israel waited in\nExile; for good tidings and the proclamation of fact. They had with\nthem a Divine Law, but no mere exposition of it could satisfy men who\nwere captives and waited for the command of their freedom. They had\nwith them Psalms, but no beauty of music could console them: _How\nshould we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_ They had Prophecy,\nwith its assurance of the love and the power of their God; and much\nas there was in it to help them to patience and to hope, general\nstatements were not enough for them. They needed the testimony of a\nfact. Freedom and Restoration had been promised them: they waited\nfor the proclamation that it was coming, for the good news that it\nhad arrived. Now our prophecy is mainly this proclamation and good\nnews of fact. The prophet uses before all other words two,--to call\nor proclaim, kara, and to tell good tidings, bisser. We found them\nin his opening chapter: we find them again here when he sums up his\nmission. A third goes along with them, _to comfort_, naham, but it is\nthe accompaniment, and they are the burden, of his prophecy.\n\nBut _good tidings_ and the _proclamation_ meant so much more than\nthe mere political deliverance of Israel--meant the fact of their\npardon, the tale of their God's love, of His provision for them,\nand of His wonderful passion and triumph of salvation on their\nbehalf--that it is no wonder that these two words came to be ever\nafterwards the classical terms for all speech and prophecy from God\nto man. We actually owe the Greek words of the New Testament for\n_gospel_ and _preaching_ to this time of Israel's history. The Greek\nterm, from which we have _evangel_, _evangelist_ and _evangelise_,\noriginally meant good news, but was first employed in a religious\nsense in the Greek translation of our prophecy. And our word \"preach\"\nis the heir, though not the lineal descendant, through the Latin\n_pr\u00e6dicare_ and the Greek \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, of the word, which is translated\nin ch. lx. of our prophet to _proclaim_, but in ch. xl. to _call_\nor _cry_. It is to the Exile that we trace the establishment among\nGod's people of regular preaching side by side with sacramental and\nliturgical worship; for it was in the Exile that the Synagogue arose,\nwhose pulpit was to become as much the centre of Israel's life as was\nthe altar of the Temple. And it was from the pulpit of a synagogue\ncenturies after, when the preaching had become dry exposition or hard\nlawgiving, that Jesus re-read our prophecy and affirmed again the\n_good news_ of God.\n\nWhat is true of nations is true of individuals. We indeed support\nour life by principles; we develop it by argument;--we cannot lay\ntoo heavy stress upon philosophy and law. But there is something of\nfar greater concern than either argument or the abstract principles\nfrom which it is developed; something that our reason cannot find of\nitself, that our conscience but increases our longing for. It is,\nwhether certain things are facts or not; whether, for instance,\nthe Supreme Power of the Universe is on the side of the individual\ncombatant for righteousness; whether God is love; whether Sin has\nbeen forgiven; whether Sin and Death have ever been conquered;\nwhether the summer has come in which humanity may put forth their\nshoots conscious that all the influence of heaven is on their\nside, or whether, there being no heavenly favours, man must train\nhis virtue and coax his happiness to ripen behind shelters and in\nconservatories of his own construction. Now Christ comes to us with\nthe good news of God that it is so. The supreme force in the Universe\nis on man's side, and for man has won victory and achieved freedom.\nGod has proclaimed pardon. A Saviour has overcome sin and death. We\nare free to break from evil. The struggle after holiness is not the\nstruggle of a weakly plant in an alien soil and beneath a wintry\nsky, counting only upon the precarious aids of human cultivation;\nbut summer has come, the acceptable year of the Lord has begun, and\nall the favour of the Almighty is on His people's side. These are\nthe _good tidings_ and _proclamation_ of God, and to every man who\nbelieves them they must make an incalculable difference in life.\n\nAs we have said, the prophet passes in the rest of this prophecy from\nthe spiritual influences of his mission to its outward effects. The\npeople's righteousness is described in the external fashion, which we\nhave already studied in Chapter Fourteen; Zion's espousals to Jehovah\nare celebrated, but into that we have also gone thoroughly (pp. 398\nff.); the restoration of prophecy in Jerusalem is described (lxii.\n6-9), as in ch. lii. 8; and another call is given to depart from\nBabylon and every foreign city and come to Zion. This call coming\nnow, so long after the last, and when we might think that the prophet\nhad wholly left Babylon behind, need not surprise us. For even though\nsome Jews had actually arrived at Zion, which is not certain, others\nwere hanging back in Babylon; and, indeed, such a call as this might\nfitly be renewed for the next century or two: so many of God's people\ncontinued to forget that their citizenship was in Zion.\n\n\n III. THE DIVINE SAVIOUR (ch. lxiii. 1-7).\n\nOnce again the prophet turns to hail, in his periodic transport, the\nSolitary Divine Hero and Saviour of His people.\n\nThat the writer of this piece is the main author of \"Second Isaiah\"\nis probable, both because it is the custom of the latter to describe\nat intervals the passion and effort of Israel's Mighty One, and\nbecause several of his well-known phrases meet us in this piece. The\n_speaker in righteousness mighty to save_ recalls ch. xlv. 19-24;\nand _the day of vengeance and year of my redeemed_ recalls ch. lxi.\n2; and _I looked, and there was no helper, and I gazed, and there\nwas none to uphold_, recalls lix. 16. The prophet is looking out\nfrom Jerusalem towards Edom,--a direction in which the watchmen upon\nZion had often in her history looked for the return of her armies\nfrom the punishment of Israel's congenital and perpetual foe. The\nprophet, however, sees the prospect filled up, not by the flashing\nvan of a great army, but by a solitary figure, without ally, without\nchariot, without weapons, _swaying on in the wealth of his strength_.\nThe keynote of the piece is the loneliness of this Hero. A figure\nis used, which, where battle would only have suggested complexity,\nenthrals us with the spectacle of solitary effort,--the figure of\ntrampling through some vast winefat alone. The Avenging Saviour of\nIsrael has a fierce joy in being alone: it is his new nerve to effort\nand victory,--_therefore mine own right arm, it brought salvation to\nme_. We see One great form in the strength of one great emotion. _My\nfury, it upheld me._\n\nThe interpretation of this chapter by Christians has been very\nvaried, and often very perverse. To use the words of Calvin,\n\"Violenter torserunt hoc caput Christiani.\" But, as he sees very\nrightly, it is not the Messiah nor the Servant of Jehovah, who is\nhere pictured, but Jehovah Himself. This Solitary is the Divine\nSaviour of Israel, as in ch. xlii. 7 f. and in ch. lix. 16 f. In\nChapter Eight of this volume we spoke so fully of the Passion of God,\nthat we may now refer to that chapter for the essential truth which\nunderlies our prophet's anthropomorphism, and claims our worship\nwhere a short sight might only turn the heart away in scorn at the\nsavage and blood-stained surface. One or two other points, however,\ndemand our attention before we give the translation.\n\nWhy does the prophet look in the direction of Edom for the return of\nhis God? Partly, it is to be presumed, because Edom was as good a\nrepresentative as he could choose of the enemies of Israel other than\nBabylon.[284] But also partly, perhaps, because of the names which\nmatch the red colours of his piece,--the wine and the blood. Edom\nmeans _red_, and Bossrah is assonant to B\u00f4sser, a _vinedresser_.[285]\nFitter background and scenery the prophet, therefore, could not have\nfor his drama of Divine Vengeance. But we must take care, as Dillmann\nproperly remarks, not to imagine that any definite, historical invasion\nof Edom by Israel, or other chastening instrument of Jehovah, is here\nintended. It is a vision which the prophet sees of Jehovah Himself: it\nillustrates the passion, the agony, the unshared and unaided effort\nwhich the Divine Saviour passes through for His people.\n\nFurther, it is only necessary to point out, that the term in ver. 1\ngiven as _splendid_ by the Authorised Version, which I have rendered\n_sweeping_, is literally _swelling_, and is, perhaps, best rendered\nby _sailing on_ or _swinging on_. The other verb which the Revised\nVersion renders _marching_ means _swaying_, or moving the head or\nbody from one side to another, in the pride and fulness of strength.\nIn ver. 2 _like a wine-treader_ is literally _like him that treadeth\nin the pressing-house_--Geth (the first syllable of Gethsemane, the\noil-press). But \u05d4 \u05d5\u05e8 in ver. 3 is the _pressing-trough_.\n\n _Who is this coming from Edom,_\n _Raw-red_ his _garments from Bossrah!_\n _This sweeping on in his raiment,_\n _Swaying in the wealth of his strength?_\n\n _I that do speak in righteousness,_\n _Mighty to save!_\n\n _Wherefore is red on thy raiment,_\n _And thy garments like to a wine-treader's?_\n\n _A trough I have trodden alone,_\n _Of the peoples no man was with me.\n So I trod them down in my wrath,_\n _And trampled them down in my fury;_\n _Their life-blood sprinkled my garments,_\n _And all my raiment I stained._\n _For the day of revenge in my heart,_\n _And the year of my redeemed has come._\n _And I looked, and no helper;_\n _I gazed, and none to uphold!_\n _So my righteousness won me salvation;_\n _And my fury, it hath upheld me._\n _So I stamp on the peoples in my wrath,_\n _And make them drunk with my fury,_\n _And bring down to earth their life-blood._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[276] Literally, _on the side_ or _hip_, the Eastern method of\ncarrying children.\n\n[277] Or _coasts_. See pp. 109 ff.\n\n[278] Isa. xiv.; _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, pp. 281 ff.\n\n[279] Isa. xlviii. 18.\n\n[280] See p. 210, note. Some points of the speaker's description of\nhimself--for example, the gift of the Spirit and the anointing--suit\nequally well any prophet, or the unique Servant. The lofty mission\nand its great results are not too lofty or great for our prophet, for\nJeremiah received his office in terms as large. That the prophet has\nnot yet spoken at such length in his own person is no reason why he\nshould not do so now, especially as this is an occasion on which he\nsums up and enforces the whole range of prophecy. It can, therefore,\nvery well be the prophet who speaks. On the other hand, to say with\nDiestel that it cannot be the Servant because the personification of\nthe Servant ceases with ch. liii. is to beg the question. A stronger\nargument against the case for the Servant is that the speaker does\nnot call himself by that name, as he does in other passages when he\nis introduced; but this is not conclusive, for in l. 4-9 the Servant,\nthough he speaks, does not name himself. To these may be added this\n(from Kr\u00fcger), that the Servant's discourse never passes without\ntransition into that of God, as this speaker's in ver. 8, but the\nprophet's discourse often so passes; and this, that \u05d1\u05e9\u05c2\u05e8, \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 and\n\u05e0\u05d7\u05dd are often used of the prophet, and not at all of the Servant.\nThese are all the points in the question, and it will be seen how\ninconclusive they are. If any further proof of this were required,\nit would be found in the fact that authorities are equally divided.\nThere hold for the Servant Calvin, Delitzsch, Cheyne (who previously\ntook the other view), Driver, Briggs, N\u00e4gelsbach and Orelli. But the\nTargums, Ewald, Hitzig, Diestel, Dillmann, Bredenkamp and Kr\u00fcger hold\nby the prophet. Kr\u00fcger's reasons, _Essai sur la Th\u00e9ologie d'Isa\u00efe\nxl.-lxvi._, p. 76, are specially worthy of attention.\n\n[281] Literally, _opening_; but the word is always used of opening of\nthe eyes. Ewald renders _open air_, Dillmann _hellen Blick_.\n\n[282] Any insignia or ornament for the head.\n\n[283] The same word as in xlii. 3, _fading wick_.\n\n[284] See _Isaiah i.-xxxix._, pp. 438-40.\n\n[285] _Cf._ Kr\u00fcger, _Essai sur la Th\u00e9ologie d'Isa\u00efe xl.-lxvi._, pp.\n154-55. Lagarde has proposed to read \u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05dd\u05de\u05b0, past participle, for\n\u05de\u05b5\u05d0\u05b1\u05d3\u05b9\u05dd and \u05de\u05b4\u05d1\u05bc\u05e6\u05b5\u05e8 for \u05de\u05b4\u05d1\u05b8\u05bc\u05e6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b8\u05d4. _Who is this that cometh dyed\nred, redder in his garments than a vinedresser?_\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXV.\n\n _A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGEMENT._\n\n ISAIAH lxiii. 7-lxvi.\n\n\nWe might well have thought, that with the section we have been\nconsidering the prophecy of Israel's Redemption had reached its\nsummit and its end. The glory of Zion in sight, the full programme\nof prophecy owned, the arrival of the Divine Saviour hailed in the\nurgency of His feeling for His people, in the sufficiency of His\nmight to save them,--what more, we ask, can the prophecy have to give\nus? Why does it not end upon these high notes? The answer is, the\nsalvation is indeed consummate, but the people are not ready for it.\nOn an earlier occasion, let us remember, when our prophet called the\nnation to their Service of God, he called at first the whole nation,\nbut had then immediately to make a distinction. Seen in the light of\ntheir destiny, the mass of Israel proved to be unworthy; tried by\nits strain, part immediately fell away. But what happened upon that\ncall to Service happens again upon this disclosure of Salvation. The\nprophet realises that it is only a part of Israel who are worthy of\nit. He feels again the weight, which has been the hindrance of his\nhope all through,--the weight of the mass of the nation, sunk in\nidolatry and wickedness, incapable of appreciating the promises. He\nwill make one more effort to save them--to save them all. He does\nthis in an intercessory prayer, ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv., in which he\nstates the most hopeless aspects of his people's case, identifies\nhimself with their sin, and yet pleads by the ancient power of God\nthat _we all_ may be saved. He gets his answer in ch. lxv., in which\nGod sharply divides Israel into two classes, the faithful and the\nidolaters, and affirms that, while the nation shall be saved for the\nsake of the faithful remnant, Jehovah's faithful servants and the\nunfaithful can never share the same experience or the same fate.\nAnd then the book closes with a discourse in ch. lxvi., in which\nthis division between the two classes in Israel is pursued to a last\nterrible emphasis and contrast upon the narrow stage of Jerusalem\nitself. We are left, not with the realisation of the prophet's prayer\nfor the salvation of all the nations, but with a last judgement\nseparating its godly and ungodly portions.\n\nThus there are three connected divisions in lxiii. 7-lxvi. _First_,\nthe prophet's Intercessory Prayer, ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv.; _second_, the\nAnswer of Jehovah, ch. lxv.; and _third_, the Final Discourse and\nJudgement, ch. lxvi.\n\n\n I. THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE (ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv.).\n\nThere is a good deal of discussion as to both the date and the\nauthorship of this piece,--as to whether it comes from the early\nor the late Exile, and as to whether it comes from our prophet or\nfrom another. It must have been written after the destruction and\nbefore the rebuilding of the Temple; this is put past all doubt by\nthese verses: _Thy holy people possessed it but a little while:\nour adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary. Thy holy cities\nare become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a\ndesolation. The house of our holiness and of our ornament, wherein\nour fathers praised Thee, is become for a burning of fire, and all\nour delights are for ruin._[286]\n\nThis language has been held to imply that the disaster to Jerusalem\nwas recent, as if the city's conflagration still flared on the\nnational imagination, which in later years of the Exile was impressed\nrather by the long, cold ruins of the Holy Place, the haunt of wild\nbeasts. But not only is this point inconclusive, but the impression\nthat it leaves is entirely dispelled by other verses, which speak of\nthe Divine anger as having been of long continuance, and as if it\nhad only hardened the people in sin; compare ch. lxiii. 17 and lxiv.\n6, 7. There is nothing in the prayer to show that the author lived\nin exile, and accordingly the proposal has been made to date the\npiece from among the first attempts at rebuilding after the Return.\nTo the present expositor this seems to be certainly wrong. The man\nwho wrote vv. 11-15 of ch. lxiii. had surely the Return still before\nhim; he would not have written in the way he has done of the Exodus\nfrom Egypt unless he had been feeling the need of another exhibition\nof Divine Power of the same kind. The prayer, therefore, must come\nfrom pretty much the same date as the rest of our prophecy,--after\nthe Exile had long continued, but while the Return had not yet taken\nplace. Nor is there any reason against attributing it to the same\nwriter. It is true the style differs from the rest of his work, but\nthis may be accounted for, as in the case of ch. liii., by the\nchange of subject. Most critics, who hold that we still follow the\nsame author, take for granted that some time has elapsed since the\nprophet's triumphant strains in chs. lx.-lxii. This is probable; but\nthere is nothing to make it certain. What is certain is the change of\nmood and conscience. The prophet, who in ch. lx. had been caught away\ninto the glorious future of the people, is here as utterly absorbed\nin their barren and doubtful present. Although the salvation is\ncertain, as he has seen it, the people are not ready. The fact he has\nalready felt so keenly about them,--see ch. xlii., vv. 24, 25,--that\ntheir long discipline in exile has done the mass of them no good,\nbut evil, comes forcibly back upon him (ch. lxiv. 5_b_ ff.). _Thou\nwast angry, and we sinned_ only the more: _in such a state we have\nbeen long, and shall we be saved_! The banished people are thoroughly\nunclean and rotten, fading as a leaf, the sport of the wind. But\nthe prophet identifies himself with them. He speaks of their sin as\n_ours_, of their misery as _ours_. He takes of them the very saddest\nview possible, he feels them all as sheer dead weight: _there is\nnone that calleth on Thy name, that stirreth himself up to take hold\non Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and delivered us into\nthe power of our iniquities_. But the prophet thus loads himself\nwith the people in order to secure, if he can, their redemption as\na whole. Twice he says in the name of them all, _Doubtless Thou art\nour Father_. His great heart will not have one of them left out; _we\nall_, he says, _are the work of Thy hand, we all are Thy people_.\n\nBut this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change\nof style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it\nis quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward\ninto the glorious vision of his people's future salvation, and\nagain to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their\npresent distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will\ncertainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these\ndifferent feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the\nrecurrence of some of our prophecy's most characteristic thoughts. We\nfeel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another\nhand than that which has mainly written \"Second Isaiah.\" It may be\nat once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases,\nreminiscences and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in\nuse when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing\nfor him to do in a prayer, in which he represented the whole people\nand took upon himself the full burden of their woes.\n\nIf such be the intention of chs. lxiii. 7-lxiv., then in them we have\none of the noblest passages of our prophet's great work. How like he\nis to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the\nloftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge\nof his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and\nsorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said\nof the Servant, he himself _bears the sin of many, and interposes for\nthe transgressors_. Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear\nsome obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer.\n\nIt opens with a recital of Jehovah's ancient lovingkindness and\nmercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with\nthe previous section. In ch. lxii. the prophet, though sure of the\ncoming glory, wrote before it had come, and _urged_ upon _the Lord's\nremembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He\nestablish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth_. This\nwork of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in lxiii. 7:\n_The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record_, literally, _cause\nto be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that\nJehovah hath bestowed upon us_. And then he beautifully puts all\nthe beginnings of God's dealings with His people in His trusting of\nthem: _For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not\ndeal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction\nHe was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them._ This must be\nunderstood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the\nPresence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, God's\nown Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into\nline with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid\nexpressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God.[287]\n_In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them,\nand carried them all the days of old._ Then he tells us how they\ndisappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days\nof old. _But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness:\ntherefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against\nthem._ This refers to their history down to, and especially during,\nthe Exile: compare ch. xlii., vv. 24, 25. Then in their affliction\nthey _remembered the days of old_--the English version obscures the\nsequence here by translating _he remembered_--and then follows the\nglorious account of the Exodus. In ver. 13 the _wilderness_ is, of\ncourse, _prairie_, flat _pasture-land_; they were led as smoothly\nas _a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that\ncome down into the valley_--cattle coming down from the hill sides\nto pasture and rest on the green, watered plains--_the Spirit of\nJehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make\nThyself a glorious name_. And then having offered such precedents,\nthe prophet's prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people feel no\nlonger at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: _Look down from\nheaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory:\nwhere is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and\nthy compassions are restrained towards me._ Then he pleads God's\nfatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates\nbetween the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and,\nnotwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of\nold; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and\nremember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over\nthem, as the power of the potter over the clay.\n\nTwo points stand out from the rest. The Divine Trust, from which all\nGod's dealing with His people is said to have started, and the Divine\nFatherhood, which the prophet pleads.\n\n_He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal\nfalsely: so He was their Saviour._ The \"surely\" is not the fiat of\nsovereignty or foreknowledge: it is the hope and confidence of love.\nIt did not prevail; it was disappointed.\n\nThis is, of course, a profound acknowledgment of man's free will.\nIt is implied that men's conduct must remain an uncertain thing,\nand that in calling men God cannot adventure upon greater certainty\nthan is implied in the trust of affection. If one asks, What, then,\nabout God's foreknowledge, who alone knoweth the end of a thing from\nthe beginning, and His sovereign grace, who chooseth whom He will?\nare you not logically bound to these?--then it can only be asked in\nreturn, Is it not better to be without logic for a little, if at\nthe expense of it we obtain so true, so deep a glimpse into God's\nheart as this simple verse affords us? Which is better for us to\nknow--that God is Wisdom which knows all, or Love that dares and\nventures all? Surely, that God is Love which dares and ventures all\nwith the worst, with the most hopeless of us. This is what makes this\nsingle verse of Scripture more powerful to move the heart than all\ncreeds and catechisms. For where these speak of sovereign will, and\noften mock our affections with the bare and heavy (if legitimate)\nsceptre they sway, this calls forth our love, honour and obedience\nby the heart it betrays in God. Of what unsuspicious trust, of what\nchivalrous adventure of love, of what fatherly confidence, does it\nspeak! What a religion is this of ours in the power of which a man\nmay every morning rise and feel himself thrilled by the thought that\nGod trusts him enough to work with His will for the day; in the power\nof which a man may look round and see the sordid, hopeless human life\nabout him glorified by the truth, that for the salvation of such\nGod did adventure Himself in a love that laid itself down in death.\nThe attraction and power of such a religion can never die. Requiring\nno painful thought to argue it into reality, it leaps to light\nbefore the natural affection of man's heart; it takes his instincts\nimmediately captive; it gives him a conscience, an honour and an\nobligation. No wonder that our prophet, having such a belief, should\nonce more identify himself with the people, and adventure himself\nwith the weight of their sin before God.\n\nThe other point of the prayer is the Fatherhood of God, concerning\nwhich all that is needful to say here is that the prophet, true to\nthe rest of Old Testament teaching on the subject, applies it only to\nGod's relation to the nation as a whole. In the Old Testament no one\nis called the son of God except Israel as a people, or some individual\nrepresentative and head of Israel. And even of such the term was seldom\nemployed. This was not because the Hebrew was without temptation to\nimagine his physical descent from the gods, for neighbouring nations\nindulged in such dreams for themselves and their heroes; nor because\nhe was without appreciation of the intellectual kinship between the\nhuman and the Divine, for he knew that in the beginning God had said,\n_Let us make man in our own image._ But the same feeling prevailed with\nhim in regard to this idea, as we have seen prevailed in regard to the\nkindred idea of God as the husband of His people.[288] The prophets\nwere anxious to emphasize that it was a moral relation,--a moral\nrelation, and one initiated from God's side by certain historical acts\nof His free, selecting, redeeming and adopting love. Israel was not\nGod's son till God had evidently called and redeemed him. Look at how\nour prophet uses the word Father, and to what he makes it equivalent.\nThe first time it is equivalent to Redeemer: _Thou, O Lord, art our\nFather; our Redeemer from old is Thy name_ (lxiii. 16_b_). The second\ntime it is illustrated by the work of the potter: _But now, O Lord,\nThou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are\nall the work of Thy hand_ (lxiv. 8). Could it be made plainer in what\nsense the Bible defines this relation between God and man? It is not\na physical, nor is it an intellectual relation. The assurance and the\nvirtue of it do not come to men with their blood or with the birth of\ntheir intellect, but in the course of moral experience, with the sense\nthat God claims them from sin and from the world for Himself; with the\ngift of a calling and a destiny; with the formation of character, the\nperfecting of obedience, the growth in His knowledge and His grace. And\nbecause it is a moral relation time is needed to realise it, and only\nafter long patience and effort may it be unhesitatingly claimed. And\nthat is why Israel was so long in claiming it, and why the clearest,\nmost undoubting cries to God the Father, which rise from the Greek in\nthe earliest period of his history, reach our ears from Jewish lips\nonly near the end of their long progress, only (as we see from our\nprayer) in a time of trial and affliction.\n\nWe have a New Testament echo of this Old Testament belief in the\nFatherhood of God, as a moral and not a national relation, in Paul's\nwritings, who in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (vi. 17, 18)\nurges thus: _Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,\nsaith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive\nyou, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and\ndaughters, saith the Lord Almighty_.\n\nOn these grounds, then,--that God in His great love had already\nadventured Himself with this whole people, and already by historical\nacts of election and redemption proved Himself the Father of the\nnation as a whole,--does our prophet plead with Him to save them all\nagain. The answer to this pleading he gets in ch. lxv.\n\n\n II. GOD'S ANSWER TO THE PROPHET'S INTERCESSION (ch. lxv.).\n\nGod's answer to his prophet's intercession is twofold. _First_, He\nsays that He has already all this time been trying them with love,\nmeeting them with salvation; but they have not turned to Him. The\nprophet has asked, _Where is Thy zeal? the yearning of Thy bowels and\nThy compassions are restrained towards me. Thou hast hid Thy face\nfar from us. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Jehovah?\nwilt Thou hold Thy peace and afflict us very sore._ And now, in the\nbeginning of ch. lxv., Jehovah answers, not with that confusion of\ntenses and irrelevancy of words with which the English version makes\nHim speak; but suitably, relevantly and convincingly. _I have been to\nbe inquired of those who asked not_ for _Me. I have been to be found\nof them that sought Me not. I have been saying, I am here, I am here,\nto a nation that did not call on My name. I have stretched out My\nhands all the day to a people turning away, who walk in a way that is\nnot good, after their own thoughts; a people that have been provoking\nMe to My face continually_,--and then He details their idolatry.\nThis, then, is the answer of the Lord to the prophet's appeal. \"In\nthis I have not all power. It is wrong to talk of Me as the potter\nand of man as the clay, as if all the active share in salvation\nlay with Me. Man is free,--free to withhold himself from My urgent\naffection; free to turn from My outstretched hands; free to choose\nbefore Me the abomination of idolatry. And this the mass of Israel\nhave done, clinging, fanatical and self-satisfied, to their unclean\nand morbid imaginations of the Divine, all the time that My great\nprophecy by you has been appealing to them.\" This is a sufficient\nanswer to the prophet's prayer. Love is not omnipotent; if men\ndisregard so open an appeal of the Love of God, they are hopeless;\nnothing else can save them. The sin against such love is like the sin\nagainst the Holy Ghost, of which our Lord speaks so hopelessly. Even\nGod cannot help the despisers and abusers of Grace.\n\nThe rest of God's answer to His prophet's intercession emphasizes\nthat the nation shall be saved for the sake of a faithful remnant\nin it (vv. 8-10). But the idolaters shall perish (vv. 11, 12). They\ncannot possibly expect the same fare, the same experience, the same\nfate, as God's faithful servants (vv. 13-15). But those who are true\nand faithful Israelites, surviving and experiencing the promised\nsalvation, shall find that God is true, and shall acknowledge Him as\n_the God of Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten_--those\nfelt so keenly in the prophet's prayer in ch. lxiv.--_and because\nthey are hid from Mine eyes_. The rest of the answer describes a\nstate of serenity and happiness wherein there shall be no premature\ndeath, nor loss of property, nor vain labour, nor miscarriage, nor\ndisappointment of prayer nor delay in its answer, nor strife between\nman and the beasts, nor any hurt or harm in Jehovah's Holy Mountain.\nTruly a prospect worthy of being named as the prophet names it, _a\nnew heaven and a new earth_!\n\nCh. lxv. is thus closely connected, both by circumstance and logic,\nwith the long prayer which precedes it. The tendency of recent\ncriticism has been to deny this connection, especially on the line of\ncircumstance. Ch. lxv. does not, it is argued, reflect the Babylonish\ncaptivity as ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv. so clearly does; but, on the\ncontrary, \"while some passages presuppose the Exile as past, others\nrefer to circumstances characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan.\"[289]\nBut this view is only possible through straining some features of the\nchapter adaptable either to Palestine or Babylon, and overlooking\nothers which are obviously Babylonian. _Sacrificing in gardens and\nburning incense on tiles_ were practices pursued in Jerusalem before\nthe Exile, but the latter was introduced there from Babylon, and\nthe former was universal in heathendom. The practices in ver. 5 are\nnever attributed to the people before the Exile, were all possible in\nBabylonia, and some we know to have been actual there.[290] The other\ncharge of idolatry in ver. 11 \"suits Babylonia,\" Cheyne admits, \"as\nwell as (probably) Palestine.\"[291] But what seems decisive for the\nexilic origin of ch. lxv. is that the possession of Judah and Zion\nby the seed of Jacob is still implied as future (ver. 9). Moreover\nthe holy land is alluded to by the name common among the exiles in\nflat Mesopotamia, _My mountains_, and in contrast with the idolatry\nof which the present generation is guilty the idolatry of their\nfathers is characterised as having been _upon the mountains and upon\nthe hills_, and again the people is charged with _forgetting My holy\nmountain_, a phrase reminiscent of Psalm cxxxvii., ver. 4, and more\nappropriate to a time of exile, than when the people were gathered\nabout Zion. All these resemblances in circumstance corroborate the\nstrong logical connection which we have found between ch. lxiv. and\nch. lxv., and leave us no reason for taking the latter away from the\nmain author of \"Second Isaiah,\" though he may have worked up into it\nrecollections and remains of an older time.\n\n\n III. THE LAST JUDGEMENT (ch. lxvi.).\n\nWhether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get\nfooting in the Holy Land is doubtful.[292] It was said on p. 20\nthat, \"in vv. 1 to 4 of this chapter the Temple is still unbuilt,\nbut the building would seem to be already begun.\" This latter clause\nshould be modified to, \"the building would seem to be in immediate\nprospect.\" The rest of the chapter, vv. 6-24, has features that speak\nmore definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are\nnot conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other\nverses. Ver. 6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and ver. 20 that\nthe sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may\nbe, like parts of ch. lx., statements of the prophet's vivid vision\nof the future.[293] Vv. 7 and 8 seem to describe a repeopling of\nJerusalem that has already taken place; but ver. 9 says, that while\nthe _bringing to the birth_ has already happened, which is, as we\nmust suppose, the deliverance from Babylon,--or is it the actual\narrival at Jerusalem?--the _bringing forth from the womb_, that is,\nthe complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Ver.\n13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem.\n\nThese few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to\ndecide the question of date, as between the days immediately before\nthe Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor\nthe balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the\ndifference is very small. We are at least sure--and it is really\nall that we require to know--that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is\nvery near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The\nTemple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk\nof the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if\nthey had been resumed.\n\nTo the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or\nimmediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet\naddresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division,\nthat ch. lxv. had emphasized, between the two parties in Israel.\nThese oracles are so intricate, that we are compelled to take up\nthe chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting\ncertain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the\nrebuilding and the glory of the Temple. _Thus saith Jehovah, The\nheavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a\nhouse that ye will build_--or, _are building--Me, and what is this\nfor a place for My rest? Yea, all these things_--that is, all the\nvisible works of God in heaven and earth--_My hand hath made_, and\nso _came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will\nI look, unto the humble and contrite in spirit, and that trembleth\nat My word._ These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond,\nanything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the\nbuilding of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which\ncontains ch. lx. They condemn only the kind of temple which those\nwhom they address had in view,--a shrine to which the presence of\nJehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which\nthe religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While\nthe former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus\nmisconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion\nto have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And\nnow, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the\nsame formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes\nthem, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them\nof a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised,\naccording to God's own promise and direction, it will not be to its\nstructure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but\nto the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety.\nThe Temple is to be raised: _the place of His feet God will make\nglorious_, and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for\ninstruction, for comfort and for rejoicing. But let them not think\nit to be indispensable either to God or to man,--not to God, who\nhas heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man,\nfor God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent and\nsensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old\nTestament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much\nabout God's other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple\nshall be past, His servant Stephen[294] shall be able to employ these\nwords to prove why it should disappear.\n\nThe next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: _A\nslaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a\nbreaker of a dog's neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swine's blood;\nthe maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an\nidol_, or _vanity_. Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled\nwith four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the\neye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when\nperformed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful\nsacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice\nassociated with it,--the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a\nhuman sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there\nare persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by\nPaul,[295] both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of\nthe Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether\nwe take the four parallels with ver. 2, which precedes them, or with\nthe rest of ver. 3, to which they belong, and ver. 4. If we take them\nwith ver. 2, then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning;\nif with ver. 4, then the second of these meanings is the right one.\nNow there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical\none, between vv. 2 and 3, but there is a grammatical connection\nwith the rest of ver. 3. Immediately after the pairs of lawful and\nunlawful sacrificial acts, ver. 3 continues, _yea, they have chosen\ntheir own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations_.\nThat surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in ver. 3 are\nthings already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of\nputting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovah's\nreligion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of\nthe lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, vv. 3, 4\nform a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the\nequally distinct oracle in vv. 1 and 2. The subject of vv. 3 to 4\nis, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto\nSatan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation.\nIn ver. 5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed God's word by the\nprophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall\ncertainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation\nof the judgement against them (ver. 6). It comes forth from the city\nwhere they had mockingly cried for God's glory to appear. The mocked\ncity avenges itself on them. _Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from\nthe Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!_\n\nA new section begins with ver. 7, and celebrates to ver. 9 the\nsudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already\na fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call\nto the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate\ntheir mother and to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure,\nthat is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood,--children suckled,\nborne and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay,\nfiner still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness\nupon him to be comforted of his mother. _As a man whom his mother\ncomforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in\nJerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your\nbones shall flourish like the tender grass._ But this great light\nshines not to flood all Israel in one, but to cleave the nation\nin two, like a sword of judgement. _The hand of Jehovah shall be\nknown towards His servants, but He will have indignation against\nHis enemies,_--enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the\nfiery judgement, _For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword\nwith all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many_. Why there\nshould be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within\nIsrael there are idolaters: _they that consecrate themselves and\npractise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle;_[296]\n_eaters of swine's flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They\nshall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I_ know, or will\npunish,[297] _their works and their thoughts_. In this eighteenth\nverse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt.\nThe first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with ver.\n17. Then begins a new subject.\n\n_It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they\nshall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a\nsign_,--a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgement, for he\nimmediately speaks of their survivors,--_and I will send the escaped\nof them to the nations Tarshish, Put_[298] _and Lud, drawers of the\nbow, to Tubal and Javan_,--that is, to far Spain, and the distances\nof Africa, towards the Black Sea and to Greece, a full round of\nthe compass,--_the isles far off that have not heard report of Me,\nnor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the\nnations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the\nnations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in\nlitters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My\nHoliness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of\nIsrael bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah.\nAnd also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith\nJehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am\nmaking shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand\nyour seed and your name._ But again the prophecy swerves from\nthe universal hope into which we expect it to break, and gives us\ninstead a division and a judgement: the servants of Jehovah on\none side occupied in what the prophet regards as the ideal life,\nregular worship--so little did he mean ver. 1 to be a condemnation\nof the Temple and its ritual!--and on the other the rebels' unburied\ncarcases gnawed by the worm and by fire, an abomination to all. _And\nit shall come to pass from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to\nsabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith Jehovah:\nand they shall go out and look on the carcases of the men who have\nrebelled against Me; for their worm dieth not, and their fire is not\nquenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh._\n\nWe have thus gone step by step through the chapter, because its\nintricacies and sudden changes were not otherwise to be mastered.\nWhat exactly it is composed of must, we fear, still remain a problem.\nWho can tell whether its short, broken pieces are all originally from\nour prophet's hand, or were gathered by him from others, or were the\nfragments of his teaching which the reverent hands of disciples picked\ncarefully up that nothing might be lost? Sometimes we think it must\nbe this last alternative that happened; for it seems impossible that\npieces so strange to each other, so loosely connected, could have\nflowed from one mind at one time. But then again we think otherwise,\nwhen we see how the chapter as a whole continues the separation made\nevident in ch. lxv., and runs it on to a last emphatic contrast.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSo we are left by the prophecy,--not with the new heavens and the new\nearth which it promised: not with the holy mountain on which none\nshall hurt nor destroy, saith the Lord; not with a Jerusalem full of\nglory and a people all holy, the centre of a gathered humanity,--but\nwith the city like to a judgement floor, and upon its narrow surface\na people divided between worship and a horrible woe.\n\nO Jerusalem, City of the Lord, Mother eagerly desired of her\nchildren, radiant light to them that sit in darkness and are far off,\nhome after exile, haven after storm,--expected as the Lord's garner,\nthou art still to be only His threshing-floor, and heaven and hell\nas of old shall, from new moon to new moon, through the revolving\nyears, lie side by side within thy narrow walls! For from the day\nthat Araunah the Jebusite threshed out his sheaves upon thy high\nwindswept rock, to the day when the Son of Man standing over against\nthee divided in His last discourse the sheep from the goats, the wise\nfrom the foolish, and the loving from the selfish, thou hast been\nappointed of God for trial and separation and judgement.\n\nIt is a terrible ending to such a prophecy as ours. But is any\nother possible? We ask how can this contiguity of heaven and hell\nbe within the Lord's own city, after all His yearning and jealousy\nfor her, after His fierce agony and strife with her enemies, after\nso clear a revelation of Himself, so long a providence, so glorious\na deliverance? Yet, it is plain that nothing else can result, if\nthe men on whose ears the great prophecy had fallen, with all its\nmusic and all its gospel, and who had been partakers of the Lord's\nDeliverance, did yet continue to prefer their idols, their swine's\nflesh, their mouse, their broth of abominable things, their sitting\nin graves, to so evident a God and to so great a grace.\n\nIt is a terrible ending, but it is the same as upon the same floor\nChrist set to His teaching,--the gospel net cast wide, but only to\ndraw in both good and bad upon a beach of judgement; the wedding\nfeast thrown open and men compelled to come in, but among them a\nheart whom grace so great could not awe even to decency; Christ's\nGospel preached, His Example evident, and Himself owned as Lord, and\nnevertheless some whom neither the hearing nor the seeing nor the\nowning with their lips did lift to unselfishness or stir to pity.\nTherefore He who had cried, _Come all unto Me_, was compelled to\nclose by saying to many, _Depart_.\n\nIt is a terrible ending, but one only too conceivable. For though\nGod is love, man is free,--free to turn from that love; free to be\nas though he had never felt it; free to put away from himself the\nhighest, clearest, most urgent grace that God can show. But to do\nthis is the judgement.\n\n_Lord, are there few that be saved?_ The Lord did not answer the\nquestion but by bidding the questioner take heed to himself: _Strive\nto enter in at the strait gate_.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAlmighty and most merciful God, who hast sent this book to be the\nrevelation of Thy great love to man, and of Thy power and will to\nsave him, grant that our study of it may not have been in vain by the\ncallousness or carelessness of our hearts, but that by it we may be\nconfirmed in penitence, lifted to hope, made strong for service, and\nabove all filled with the true knowledge of Thee and of Thy Son Jesus\nChrist. Amen.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[286] Ch. lxiii. 18 and lxiv. 10, 11. In the Hebrew ch. lxiv. begins\na verse later than it does in the English version.\n\n[287] Semites had a horror of painting the Deity in any form. But\nwhen God had to be imagined or described, they chose the form of a\nman and attributed to Him human features. Chiefly they thought of His\nface. To see His face, to come into the light of His countenance,\nwas the way their hearts expressed longing for the living God. Exod.\nxxiii. 14; Psalm xxxi. 16, xxxiv. 16, lxxx. 7. But among the heathen\nSemites God's face was separated from God Himself, and worshipped as\na separate god. In _heathen_ Semitic religions there are a number of\ndeities who are the faces of others. But the Hebrew writers, with\nevery temptation to do the same, maintained their monotheism, and\nwent no farther than to speak of the _angel of God's Face_. And in\nall the beautiful narratives of Genesis, Exodus and Judges about the\nglorious Presence that led Israel against their enemies, the angel\nof God's face is an equivalent of God Himself. Jacob said, the _God\nwhich hath fed me, and the angel which hath redeemed me, bless the\nlads_. In Judges this angel's word is God's Word.\n\n[288] See pp. 398 ff.\n\n[289] Cheyne. Similarly Bredenkamp, who contends that the prophecy is\nIsaianic, and to be dated from the time of Manasseh.\n\n[290] _Cf._ Dillmann, _in loco_.\n\n[291] Among Orientals the planets Jupiter and Venus were worshipped\nas the Larger and the Lesser Luck. They were worshipped as Merodach\nand Istar among the Babylonians. Merodach was worshipped for\nprosperity (_cf._ Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 460, 476, 488). It\nmay be Merodach and Istar, to whom are here given the name Gad, or\nLuck (_cf._ Genesis xxii. 11, and the name Baal Gad in the Lebanon\nvalley) and Meni, or Fate, Fortune (_cf._ Arabic al-manijjat,\nfate; Wellhausen, _Skizzen_, iii., 22 ff., 189). There was in the\nBabylonian Pantheon a \"Manu the Great who presided over fate\"\n(Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, etc., p. 120). Instances of idolatrous\nfeasts will be found in Sayce, _op. cit._, p. 539; _cf._ 1 Cor. x.\n21, _Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table\nof devils_. See what is said in p. 62 of this volume about the\nconnection of idolatry and commerce.\n\n[292] Bleek (5th ed., pp. 287, 288) holds ch. lxvi. to be by a prophet\nwho lived in Palestine after the resumption of sacrificial worship (vv.\n3, 6, 30), that is, upon the altar of burnt-offering which the Returned\nhad erected there, and at a time when the temple-building had begun.\nVatke also holds to a post-exilic date, _Einleitung in das A.T._, pp.\n625, 630. Kuenen, too, makes the chapter post-exilic. Bredenkamp takes\nvv. 1-6 for Palestinian, but pre-exilic, and ascribes them to Isaiah.\nWith ver. 1 he compares 1 Kings viii. 27; and as to ver. 6 he asks, How\ncould the unbelieving exiles be in the neighbourhood of the Temple and\nhear Jehovah's voice in thunder from it? Vv. 7-14 he takes as exilic,\nbased on an Isaianic model.\n\n[293] So Dillmann and Driver; Cheyne is doubtful.\n\n[294] Acts vii. 49.\n\n[295] 1 Cor. x.\n\n[296] So, in literal translation of the text, _the One_ being a\nmaster of ceremonies, who, standing in the middle, was imitated\nby the worshippers (_cf._ Baudissin, _Studien zur Semitischen\nReligions-geschichte_, i., p. 315, who combats Lagarde's and Selden's\nview, that \u05d0\u05d4\u05d3, _one_, stands for the God Hadad). The Massoretes read\nthe feminine form of one, which might mean some goddess.\n\n[297] _Know_, Pesh. and some editions of the LXX.; _punish_,\nDelitzsch and Cheyne.\n\n[298] The Hebrew text has Pul, the LXX. Put. Put and Lud occur\ntogether, Ezek. xxvii. 10-xxx. 5. Put is Punt, the Egyptian name for\nEast Africa. Lud is not Lydia, but a North African nation. Jeremiah,\nxlvi. 9, mentions, along with Cush, Put and the Ludim in the service\nof Egypt, and the Ludim as famous with the bow.\n\n\n\n INDEX TO CHAPS. XL.-LXVI.\n\n _The Arabic numerals on the right-hand column refer to the pages, the\n Roman to the chapters of the volume._\n\n\n xl. 1-11 67, V.\n\n xl. 12-31 VI.\n\n xli.-xlv. 9\n\n xli. VII.\n\n xli. 2 164 f.\n\n xli. 8-20 244 f., 256\n\n xli. 25 12, 113, 130 f., 145\n\n xli. 26 225\n\n xlii. 1-7 261 f., XVIII.\n\n xlii. 8-17 VIII.\n\n xlii. 18 ff. 262 f.\n\n xlii. 22 59\n\n xlii.-xliii. XV.\n\n xliii.-xlviii. IX.\n\n xliii. 1-7 257\n\n xliii. 3, 4 246\n\n xliii. 8, 10 158 f., 263 f.\n\n xliii. 14 147, 246\n\n xliii. 16-19 158\n\n xliii. 22-24 156\n\n xliii. 25 157\n\n xliv. 1 ff. 256\n\n xliv. 7, 8 158\n\n xliv. 9-20 153 f.\n\n xliv. 21 256\n\n xliv. 21, 22 157\n\n xliv. 24-28 160, X.\n\n xlv. 1-13 X.\n\n xlv. 8 228\n\n xlv. 13 224\n\n xlv. 18 227\n\n xlv. 19 159, 224\n\n xlv. 19-25 225 f.\n\n xlvi. XI.\n\n xlvi. 11 168\n\n xlvi. 13 228\n\n xlvii. XII.\n\n xlvii. 6 59\n\n xlviii. XIII.\n\n xlviii. 18 221\n\n xlviii. 22 17\n\n xlix. 1-9 240 f., 264 f., XIX., 381.\n\n xlix. 9-26 XXI.\n\n l. 1-3 XXI.\n\n l. 4-11 XIX.\n\n li.-lii. 12 XXI.\n\n li. 5 228\n\n lii. 7 50\n\n lii. 13-liii. 18, 267, XX.\n\n liv.-lvi. 8 XXII.\n\n liv. 397\n\n lv. 402\n\n lvi. 1-8 406\n\n lvi. 1 222, 229\n\n lvi. 9-lix. 18 f., XXIII.\n\n lvi. 9-lvii. 409\n\n lviii. 61, 414\n\n lviii. 2 222\n\n lix. 423\n\n lix. 4 222\n\n lx.-lxiii. 7 19, XXIV.\n\n lx. 429\n\n lxi., lxii. 435\n\n lxi. 10, 228\n\n lxi. 11 220\n\n lxiii. 2 220\n\n lxiii. 1-6 441\n\n lxiii. 7-lxvi. 19 f., XXV.\n\n lxiii. 7-lxiv. 446\n\n lxiv. 5 222\n\n lxv. 455\n\n lxvi. 458\n\n\n\n\n INDEX OF SUBJECTS\n\n (_The Arabic numerals refer to pages, the Roman to chapters._)\n\n\n Anshan or Anzan, 112 f.\n\n\n Babylon, 55 ff.;\n capture of, 146 f., xii.;\n compared with Rome,189, 199 f.;\n meaning of its name, 191;\n its pride, 191;\n early history, 192 n.;\n cruelty, 201;\n yielding to Cyrus, 193;\n religion, 193;\n in the modern world, 200 ff.;\n ruin, 199, 204;\n call to leave, 211, 396.\n\n Babylonia, described, 53;\n history of, 107 ff., 146 f.\n\n Baudissin, 463.\n\n Belshazzar, 113.\n\n Bredenkamp argues for \"Isaianic\" elements in Isa. xl.-lxvi., 24, 205,\n 211.\n\n Briggs, Prof., theory of two different writings in Isa. xl.-lxvi., 18,\n 315, 336, cf. 234.\n\n\n Calvin, testimony to exilic authorship of Isa. xl.-lxvi., 14 f.;\n fair exegesis, 215;\n Commentary, _Introduction_.\n\n Captivity. _See_ Exile.\n\n Chaldea. _See_ Babylon.\n Astrology, 193, 198.\n\n Cheyne, Prof., 19, 121, 211, 435.\n\n Cr\u0153sus, 113;\n and the oracles, 114;\n defeated by Cyrus, 144 f.\n\n Cyrop\u00e6dia, 164, 170.\n\n Cyrus, alleged mention of his name by Isaiah, 7;\n not monotheist, 40, 165, 179;\n not a prediction but a fulfilment, 9, 11, 66, 111 ff.;\n Jehovah's claim on, 130, 166, 144, 162 ff.;\n capture of Babylon, 146, 178;\n Greek presentation of, compared with Hebrew, 164 f., 169 ff.;\n As Messiah: Hebrew objection to, 167 f., 175;\n a fulfilment of prediction, 207 f.;\n an elect instrument, not the Servant, 253.\n\n\n Davidson, Prof. A. B., quoted, 15, 17, 306, 317.\n _See also_ Introduction, 121.\n\n Delitzsch, 121, 211, etc.\n\n Dillmann, 435, etc.\n\n Driver, Prof., _Isaiah: His Life and Times_, 14, 18, 121, 435, etc.\n\n\n Ewald, 121, 269, 336, etc.\n\n Exile, the Babylonian, reason of, 28 ff.;\n What Israel took into Exile, iii.;\n Israel in Exile, iv.;\n the first deportation, number, and quality of exiles, 32 ff.;\n second deportation, 35;\n march to Babylon, 48 f.;\n condition of the exiles, 55 ff.;\n social condition of exiles, 57 ff.;\n literary efforts, 59 f.;\n religious life, 61;\n commerce, 62;\n spiritual experience, 63;\n traces of exile in Jewish literature, 63;\n condition of Israel at end of exile, 66.\n\n Ezekiel, compared with Jeremiah, 34, 46;\n picture of captivity, 59;\n sin-bearer, 352;\n and the Messiah, 404.\n\n\n Face of God, 450 n.\n\n Fasts in the exile, 61, 415.\n\n Fatherhood of God, 453 ff.\n\n\n Giesebrecht, 210.\n\n God and history, 87 f., 100, 106 ff., 157 ff.\n\n God and the idols, vi., ix. (especially 153).\n\n God, His Omnipotence and Faithfulness, 121 ff., 390.\n\n God the Saviour, 136;\n Personality of, 148 f.;\n Passion of God, viii.;\n spirituality of Jewish conception, 137.\n\n Gospel, or Good News. Meaning in the Exile, 437 f.;\n development from then, 439 f.\n\n Grace, proclamation of, characteristic of \"Second Isaiah,\" 78 f.;\n to fulfil service, 290.\n\n\n Herodotus, quotation from, 114 f.\n\n Hahn, 121.\n\n\n Idolatry, 91, 94 ff., 116, 152 ff., 177 ff.\n\n Incarnation, true O. T. prophecies of, 135 ff., 141.\n\n Individualism, 41 ff.\n\n Isaiah, the Prophet: his prophecies of exile, 23, 29 f.;\n his connection with chs. xl.-lxvi., 23, 24;\n are there fragments by him in ch. xl.-lxvi.? 24;\n his use of the word Righteousness, 216, 218.\n\n Isaiah, Book of: plurality of authors in, 4;\n on its own testimony composite book, 4 f.\n\n Isaiah xl.-lxvi.: their date, i.;\n do not claim to be by Isaiah, 5;\n New Testament quotations from, 6;\n speak of exile and Cyrus as actual facts, 8, 9;\n use Cyrus as a fulfilment of previous prophecies, 11, 12;\n local colour, 13;\n language and style, 15;\n characteristic doctrine, 16;\n unity, 18 f., 21,212, 222, 234, 314 f., 336 ff., 409, 441, 446;\n Palestinian and pre-exilic elements, 18-20, 409 ff.;\n post-exilic elements, 18, 414, 458, 465.\n\n Isaiah xl.-lxvi.: the double problem of the prophecy, _Introduction_,\n 377, 378.\n\n \"Isles,\" or coast-lands, 109 ff.\n\n Israel: sketch of history from Isaiah to exile, ii., iii., iv.;\n uniqueness; reason of election by God, xv.;\n missionary career, 44 f.;\n prominence given to, 236;\n elected for service, 237;\n qualities of nation, 240 ff.;\n Jesus a Jew, 249 f.\n\n\n Jeremiah, his prediction of exile, 8, 27, 66, 79;\n teaching on this contrasted with Isaiah's, 27;\n Jeremiah's significance for \"Second Isaiah,\" and foreshadowing of\n the Servant of the Lord, as suffering for the people, 42, 275,\n 277;\n and for God's Word, 330;\n and as sin-bearer, 352, 358;\n cf. also 326, 435 n.\n\n Jerusalem or Zion, fall of, 30 ff.;\n religious significance of its destruction, 43 ff.;\n the exiles take the city's name to themselves, 47, 72;\n personification of Israel under name of Zion, 382 ff.;\n her restoration, 395, xxiv.;\n the Bride of God, 397 ff.;\n City of Judgement, 466.\n\n Jesus Christ, and the Passion of God, viii.;\n a Jew, 249;\n His testimony as to His uniqueness, 283, 369 f.;\n His example of service, 284, 285, 305 ff.;\n called the Servant of the Lord in the _Acts_, 286;\n so recognised by Peter and Paul, 287;\n God's will first with Him, 298;\n martyrs for the Word of God, 285, 331;\n and the Fifty-third of Isaiah, 366 ff.;\n as bringer of good news, 439.\n\n John the Baptist and the Book of Isaiah, 282 f.\n\n Josiah, King, 30.\n\n\n Kr\u00fcger, 435, 442.\n\n\n Love of God, 76 f., viii., 399 f., 451 f.;\n sin against it, 467.\n\n\n Marriage, figure of religious marriage use among the Semites, 398 ff.;\n purified and exalted in the Old Testament, 400;\n a test of the uniqueness of Hebrew prophecy, 398 f., cf. 76 f.\n\n Media, 107.\n\n Mesopotamia, 51 ff.\n\n Monotheism, 88;\n and the imagination, 95 ff.;\n of Israel defined, 36 ff., 129, 149 ff.\n\n\n Nabunahid or Nabonidos, King of Babylon, 65, 113, 193.\n\n Nebuchadrezzar, 32, 34, 54, 107.\n\n New Testament quotations from Isaiah xl.-lxvi., p. 6 and references,\n 282, 284 f., xvii.\n\n\n Persia, 111.\n\n Pfleiderer, quoted, 127.\n\n Positivism and the service of man, 294.\n\n Prediction, Jehovah's claim to, 120 ff., 208;\n the ri'shonoth, 206;\n new things, 206.\n\n Prophecy, in the Exile, its anonymousness, 61;\n and appeal to former scriptures, 62;\n precedes history as well as interprets it, 100;\n uniqueness of Hebrew prophecy, 248, ff., xix., 321 ff.;\n and martyrdom, 328.\n\n\n Redemption of Israel. _Political_, fulfilled by Cyrus, 271;\n _spiritual_, fulfilled by Servant, 271, 273.\n\n Renan, \"Natural Monotheism of the Semites,\" 149.\n\n Return from exile, promise of, 46;\n facts of, 57;\n call to 211 ff., 396, 405, etc.\n\n Revelation, conditions of, 73;\n method of, 100 f., 148 f.\n _See_ Prophecy.\n\n Righteousness, 127 f., xiv.;\n root and growth of word, 215 f.;\n of Israel, 217;\n of Jehovah, 224, cf. 365, 392, 410, 436 f.\n\n\n Sabbath, 61, 422.\n\n Sacramental character of prophecy, 89 f.\n\n Sayce, 163, 165, 179, 457.\n\n Sin, its effects, 387;\n its punishment, 29, 465 ff.;\n grounds of forgiveness, 79;\n borne by God, viii., 183;\n by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 352;\n by the Servant, xx.\n\n Sinim, land of, 383.\n\n Socialism and the service of man, xviii.\n\n Suffering, vicarious, Jeremiah 422, 64;\n of the Servant, 272 f., 331.\n\n\n The Servant of Jehovah, God's commission of, 132 f.;\n Christ's relation to, 142;\n possibly speaker summing moral meaning of Exile, 210;\n passages on, 233;\n his character, 254;\n as a nation, 236 ff., 256 f.;\n as part of a nation, 257 ff.;\n as realised by one man--prophet and martyr, 276;\n a person, 276, etc.;\n a personification, 266;\n fulfilled by Christ, 267, 281 ff., 367;\n an individual, objections answered to recognising this--\n 1st, 270,\n 2nd, 272,\n 3rd, 274;\n cf. xx., 405.\n\n The Servant's office, extended by Paul, 287 f.;\n by Peter, 286 f.\n\n The Servant's chief end, 317;\n as prophet and martyr, 313 ff.;\n as sin-bearer, xx.\n\n\n Voice, the human, in Isaiah xl.-lxvi., 302, 416.\n\n\n Wellhausen, 238, 269, 457 n.\n\n\n Xenophanes, the Eleatic, contemporary of \"Second Isaiah,\" 125.\n\n Xenophon, portrait of Cyrus, 163 f.\n\n\n HEBREW AND GREEK WORDS SPECIALLY TREATED.\n\n \u05d0\u05f2\u05dd, 109\n\n \u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 and \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5, 262, 292, 298.\n\n \u05e2\u05dd \u05e8\u05d9\u05ea\u05d1, 262.\n\n \u05d1\u05e9\u05e8, 84, 85, 437 ff.\n\n \u05e0\u05dd, 206.\n\n \u05e2\u05dc\u05be\u05dc\u05d1 \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8, 76.\n\n \u05de\u05e9\u05dc\u05dd, 263.\n\n \u05de\u05e9\u05e4\u05d8, 299.\n\n \u05e2\u05e0\u05d5, 384.\n\n \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 and \u05de\u05d1\u05dc, 179 ff., 343, 352.\n\n \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05e2\u05d1\u05d3, 255, xvi.\n\n \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7 and \u05e6\u05d3\u05e7\u05d4, xiv., 392.\n\n \u05e6\u05dc\u05d7, 168.\n\n \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0, 82.\n\n \u05d1\u05e9\u05dd \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0, 130 f., 437 ff.\n\n \u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea and \u05d0\u05d7\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea, 121, 206.\n\n \u05d8\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9, 117, 119.\n\n \u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 and \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, 286 n.\n\n\n\n\n _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Vol. I.\n\n CHAPS. I.--XXXIX.\n\n\n=Spectator.=--\"This is a very attractive book. Mr. George Adam Smith\nhas evidently such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it\nwould be a sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable\nHebraists, to criticise his translations; and certainly it is not the\nintention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of the kind, to\ndo which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to let English\nreaders know how very lucid, impressive, and, indeed, how vivid a study\nof Isaiah is within their reach--the fault of the book, if it has a\nfault, being rather that it finds too many points of connection between\nIsaiah and our modern world, than that it finds too few. In other\nwords, no one can say that the book is not full of life.\"\n\n=Saturday Review.=--\"He writes with great rhetorical power, and\nbrings out into vivid reality the historical position of his author.\"\n\n=Record.=--\"He is always reverent and thoroughly Christian in his\nexposition. He gives us models of exposition. They are full of\nmatter, and show careful scholarship throughout. We can think of no\ncommentary on Isaiah from which the preacher will obtain scholarly\nand trustworthy suggestions for his sermons so rapidly and so\npleasantly as from this.\"\n\n=Prof. T. K. Cheyne in \"Academy.\"=--\"Here is a well-trained critical\nscholar coming forward to help preachers and ordinary readers to a\ntruer comprehension of their Scriptures. In all essentials this new\nexpositor has succeeded. His work is in every sense mature, and shows\na thorough comprehension of the problem.\"\n\n=British Weekly.=--\"Isaiah is for the first time made perfectly\nintelligible to the people; and not only is he made intelligible,\nbut he is reproduced and connected with so much of modern life as\nvirtually to give him a resurrection in all his original power....\nMr. Smith has at one stride taken his place at the head of living\nexpositors, and opened out a new line of work in which, perhaps, few\nwill be found able to follow him, but which will do more than many\narguments to reconcile a timorous and misguided public to scientific\nscholarship and the newer criticism. This may seem extravagant\npraise. We are quite confident that those who are most familiar with\nthe exposition will be the readiest to endorse it.\"\n\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\n HODDER & STOUGHTON'S\n\n NEW AND RECENT WORKS.\n\n\n A. M. MACKAY, Pioneer Missionary of the Church Missionary Society\n to Uganda. By his SISTER. With Etched Portrait by H. Manesse.\n Third Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Seldom have I read a more fascinating volume.\"--_Echo._\n\n\"A most valuable storehouse of facts and original documents about\nMackay.... Few more engrossing or impressive works have ever been\nissued than this simple account of a pioneer missionary.\"--_Record._\n\n\"Very interesting biography.\"--_Times._\n\n\n SIR GEORGE BURNS, BART.: HIS TIMES AND FRIENDS. By EDWIN\n HODDER, Author of \"The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of\n Shaftesbury, K.G.,\" \"The Life of Samuel Morley,\" etc. With\n Etched Portrait by Manesse. Now ready, 8vo, cloth, price 14_s._\n\n\"Mr. Hodder, who is well, and in many respects favourably known by\nhis biographies of Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Samuel Morley, has found\nan equally congenial theme in the life of a man who had not a little\nin common with these two eminent philanthropists.\"--_Times._\n\n\"The wonderful story of his rapid and remarkable rise from very small\nbeginnings to the position of one of the greatest shipowners and\nphilanthropists of the age is narrated compactly, discriminatingly,\nand skilfully. The volume abounds with racy anecdotes and interesting\nincidents relating to business men, literary men, ministers,\nphilanthropists, scientists, soldiers, and statesmen with whom Sir\nGeorge Burns was on terms of personal friendship.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\"A delightful book, abounding in interesting matter.\"--_Liverpool\nMercury._\n\n\n PROFESSOR W. G. ELMSLIE, D.D. MEMOIRS AND SERMONS. Memoir by W.\n ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. With Reminiscences by Professor\n MARCUS DODS, D.D., Professor HENRY DRUMMOND, Rev. JOHN SMITH,\n M.A., and Rev. JAMES STALKER, D.D. Third Edition. With\n Portrait, crown 8vo, cloth, price 6_s._\n\n\"Elmslie was too remarkable a man to be left without a memoir. He\nwas too bright and genial a spirit to be buried in a ponderous\nbiographical sarcophagus. Dr. Robertson Nicoll may be heartily\ncongratulated on having produced a 'speaking portrait' of his\nfriend. The presentation of him is, indeed, dramatic, with its keen\nstrokes of characterisation, its rapid action, its bright succession\nof scenes, and the success with which it enables the reader to\nrealise the man Elmslie, his achievements, his springs of action,\nthe atmosphere and sunshine of his life, his speech, and almost, it\nseems, his play of feature.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\n IMAGO CHRISTI; The Examples of Jesus Christ. By the Rev. JAMES\n STALKER, M.A., Author of the \"Life of Jesus Christ,\" \"The Life\n of St. Paul,\" etc. Fifth Edition, completing 16,000. Crown 8vo,\n cloth, price 5_s._\n\n\"Will sustain the author's already high reputation as a thinker and\nliterary artist. It is a volume alive with interest.\"--_Glasgow\nHerald._\n\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n SHEAVES OF MINISTRY: Sermons and Expositions. By JAMES MORISON,\n D.D. 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._\n\n NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. By Professor HENRY DRUMMOND,\n F.R.S.E. Twenty-sixth Edition, completing One Hundred Thousand.\n Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"We have no hesitation in saying that this is one of the most able\nand interesting books on the relations which exist between natural\nscience and spiritual life that has appeared.\"--_Literary Churchman._\n\n\"One of the most impressive and suggestive books on religion that we\nhave read for a long time.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\n ROMANCE OF PSALTER AND HYMNAL: Authors and Composers. By the\n Rev. R. E. WELSH, M.A., and F. G. EDWARDS, Author of \"United\n Praise.\" Crown 8vo, cloth, 5_s._\n\n\"A work of more than ordinary interest and ability.\"--_Morning Post._\n\n\"This handsome and interesting book.\"--_Methodist Recorder._\n\n\"Will charm those who take an interest in the hymnology of the\nChristian Church.\"--_Bradford Observer._\n\n\n LIGHT IN AFRICA. By the Rev. JAMES MACDONALD. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6_s._\n\n\"One of the brightest and most readable books of its class produced\nduring recent years.... A book that has not a single dull or\nsuperfluous page.\"--_Athen\u00e6um._\n\n\n AN ITALIAN CAMPAIGN; or, The Evangelical Movement in Italy,\n 1845-1887. From the Letters of the late Rev. R. W. STEWART,\n D.D., of Leghorn. By the Rev. J. WOOD BROWN, M.A., Gordon.\n Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\n RESCUERS AND RESCUED: Experiences among our City Poor. By the Rev.\n JAMES WELLS, M.A., Glasgow. Author of \"Christ and the Heroes of\n Heathendom,\" etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"This is a most interesting book, written with admirable taste, and\nthough some of the sketches of Glasgow low life are almost painfully\nrealistic, they are not in any way sensational, and are saved from\nbeing dull and depressing by the touches of genuine pathos and humour\nwhich abound throughout.\"--_Glasgow Herald._\n\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\n _WORKS BY THE REV. PROFESSOR A. B. BRUCE, D.D._\n\n 1. THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS. 8vo, cloth, price 12_s._\n\n\"Dr. Bruce once more gives us a volume of great value. There is\nno living Apologist in whose hands the Christian faith is so\nsafe.\"--_Presbyterian Messenger._\n\n\"It displays minute acquaintance with the modern literature of the\nsubject, and all forms of attack to which Christian belief in the\nsupernatural has been subjected. The defence is able all round; and\nthe closing chapters--in which the miracle implied in the character\nof Jesus is dwelt on, and where the defence is for a moment changed\ninto attack--are full of spirit and fire.\"--_Methodist Recorder._\n\n\"A valuable apologetic work, which will be a useful weapon against\nrationalism, and one which should be in the library of every\nminister.\"--_Ecclesiastical Gazette._\n\n\n 2. THE CHIEF END OF REVELATION. Third Edition. In crown 8vo,\n cloth, price 6_s._\n\n\n 3. THE PARABOLIC TEACHING OF CHRIST: A Systematic and Critical\n Study of the Parables of our Lord. Second Edition. Crown 8vo,\n cloth, price 12_s._\n\n\"Professor Bruce brings to his task the learning, and the liberal\nand finely sympathetic spirit, which are the best gifts of an\nexpositor of Scripture. His treatment of his subject is vigorous and\noriginal.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\n 4. THE GALILEAN GOSPEL. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, price\n 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"We heartily commend this little volume as giving an outline ably\ndrawn of the teachings of Christ.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\"The product of a rich, imaginative mind, marked by scholarly\nanalysis, subtle insight and the suggestiveness of an original and\nunconventional thinker.\"--_Glasgow Herald._\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD. Expository and Homiletic. By the Rev.\n JOHN LAIDLAW, D.D., Professor of Theology, New College,\n Edinburgh. Second Edition, with New Index. Crown 8vo, cloth,\n 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Marked by the competent scholarship, the sound and cautious exegesis,\nthe homiletic tact, the mastery of lucid and, at times, beautiful style\nwhich characterise his preaching.\"--_Theological Review._\n\n\n UNTIL THE DAY BREAK, and Other Hymns and Poems Left Behind. By\n HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. Crown 8vo, cloth, red edges, price 5_s._\n\n\"There is not one we could have spared; while there are several of\nwhich it may safely be predicted that they will become universal\nfavourites.\"--_Christian Leader._\n\n\"All of them have merit as verses, and breathe a pure and sweet\nspirit of Christian piety.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\"A prettier gift book we could not recommend.\"--_Rock._\n\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\n _WORKS BY REV. PROF. MARCUS DODS, D.D._\n\n\n 1. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. Second Edition. Crown\n 8vo, cloth, price 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Full of earnest pleading for reality in religion, and of an\nintelligent interest in modern social problems.\"--_Guardian._\n\n\n 2. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo,\n cloth, price 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Each book is the subject of a separate chapter, the volume being\nreally a series of introductions to the several Gospels and Epistles.\nThe authenticity, authorship, history, object, and general character\nof each are discussed with admirable condensation and lucidity, and\nwith ample critical knowledge.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\n 3. THE BOOK OF GENESIS. Fourth Edition. 8vo, cloth, price 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"The style of the book is so simple, the march of the thought so\nstrong and unencumbered, and there is in the ripe result such a\nperfect assimilation of varied erudition, that none but fellow\ncraftsmen will realise the amount of study, industry, and many-sided\nability that was requisite to produce it.\"--_Professor Elmslie, D.D._\n\n\n 4. THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. First Series. The Parables recorded\n by St. Matthew. New Edition. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth,\n price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"There is certainly no better volume on the subject in our\nlanguage.\"--_Glasgow Mail._\n\n\n 5. THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Second Series. The Parables recorded\n by St. Luke. New Edition. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth,\n price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Expositions of marvellous clearness and insight.\"--_Glasgow Herald._\n\n\n 6. ISAAC, JACOB, AND JOSEPH. Fifth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth,\n price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"The present volume is worthy of the writer's reputation. He\ndeals with the problems of human life and character, which these\nbiographies suggest, in a candid and manly fashion.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\n 7. THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo,\n price 2_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"It is highly instructive, singularly lucid, and unmistakable for\nquiet personal use.\"--_Clergyman's Magazine._\n\n\n 8. ISRAEL'S IRON AGE. Sketches from the Period of the Judges.\n Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"Powerful lectures. This is a noble volume, full of\nstrength.\"--_Nonconformist._\n\n\n 9. MOHAMMED, BUDDA, AND CHRIST. Fifth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth,\n price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"To us this book is specially welcome, as an evidence, in addition\nto many others, of a new outburst of earnest religious thought and\nsentiment.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n JOHN G. PATON, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography.\n FIRST PART. Edited by his Brother, Rev. JAMES PATON, B.A.\n Fifteenth Thousand. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 6_s._\n\n\n JOHN G. PATON, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography.\n SECOND PART. Twelfth Thousand. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo,\n cloth, price 6_s._\n\n * * * * *\n\n _WORKS BY THE REV. W. J. DAWSON._\n\n I.\n\n THE THRESHOLD OF MANHOOD: A Young Man's Words to Young Men. By the\n Rev. W. J. DAWSON, Glasgow, Author of \"The Makers of Modern\n English,\" etc. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3_s._ 6_d._\n\n\"His discourses are rich in thought, are lighted up with a vivid\nimagination, and glow with the fire of imagination. Young men will be\ncharmed with the book.\"--_North British Daily Mail._\n\n II.\n\n THE MAKERS OF MODERN ENGLISH. Crown 8vo, price 5_s._\n\n\"Mr. Dawson has evidently made a careful study of his subject, and\nhas read widely and with considerable range of sympathy. His work\ncontains a good deal of really useful and unpretending information,\nlikely to be of considerable service to the readers whose wellbeing\nhe has at heart; and with this is combined a sound and appreciative\njudgment which ought not to be unnoticed.\"--_Guardian._\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE LIVING CHRIST AND THE FOUR GOSPELS. By R. W. DALE, LL.D. Crown\n 8vo, cloth, price 6_s._\n\n\"Characterised by Dr. Dale's usual breadth of view, strong common\nsense, and clear, forcible style.\"--_Manchester Examiner._\n\n\"As a man of culture and eloquence he has put the case strongly\nand well, and it will not be surprising if his book, which is not\nwritten, he tells us, for Masters of Arts, but in the first instance\nfor members of his own congregation, and then for all ordinary\npeople who take an interest in such matters, should be the means of\nconvincing many that the assumptions sometimes made about late origin\nof the Gospels, etc., are utterly unfounded.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\"Dr. Dale has enriched theological literature with many volumes full\nof the strenuous thinking of a man thoroughly alive with the life\nof his time. He has given us one or two volumes which will be read\nwhen the problems of this present time have been forgotten; but he\nhas given us nothing which is more likely to be helpful, both to his\nown and to future generations, than 'The Living Christ and the Four\nGospels.'... Its publication is a most helpful sign of the times. It\nwill bring light to many who have been feeling their way. It will\nencourage many to speak out. It will help to dissipate the mists\nbegotten by spurious Protestantism, and to show us where we are and\nwhat the ground is that we stand upon. A more significant or a more\nvaluable book has not appeared for many a day.\"--_Professor Marcus\nDods, in the \"British Weekly.\"_\n\n LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\n\nObvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.","title":"The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":145130}