'* JAN 301911 
 
 Sectioa '-H-^f^ 
 
 Z3 
 
THE BIBLE FOR HOME AND SCHOOL 
 
 SHAILER MATHEWS, General Editor 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE 
 PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH 
 
 JOHN EDGAR McFADYEN 
 
THE BIBLE FOR HOME AND SCHOOL 
 
 SHAILER MATHEWS, General Editor 
 
 GENESIS 
 
 By Professor H. G. Mitchell 
 ISAIAH 
 
 By Professor John E. McFadyen 
 ACTS 
 
 By Professor George H. Gilbert 
 GALATIANS 
 
 By Professor B. W. Bacon 
 EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS 
 
 By Reverend Gross Alexander 
 HEBREWS 
 
 By Professor E. J. Goodspeed 
 
 VOLUMES IN PREPARATION 
 DEUTERONOMY 
 
 By Professor W. G. Jordan 
 JUDGES 
 
 By Professor Edward L. Curtis 
 I SAMUEL 
 
 By Professor L. W. Batten 
 JOB 
 
 By Professor George A. Barton 
 PSALMS 
 
 By Reverend J. P. Peters 
 AMOS, HOSEA, AND MICAH 
 
 By Professor J. M. P. Smith 
 MATTHEW 
 
 By Professor A. T. Robertson 
 MARK 
 
 By Professor M. W. Jacobus 
 JOHN 
 
 By Professor Shailer Mathews 
 ROMANS 
 
 By Professor E. I. Bosworth 
 

 
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 '•'*-.^ 
 
THE BIBLE FOR HOME AND SCHOOL 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE 
 PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EDGAR ^McFADYEN, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, 
 
 AND THEOLOGY 
 
 UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1910 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 
^^ 
 
 Copyright, 1910, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1910. 
 
 The references in the foot-notes marked " S.V." are to the American Standard 
 Edition of the Revised Bible. Copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons. 
 
 By permission of the Publishers. 
 
 NoriDoolJ i^resB 
 
 J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
TO MY FRIEND 
 REV. PROFESSOR W. G. JORDAN, D.D. 
 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Bible for Home and School is intended to place 
 the results of the best modern biblical scholarship at the 
 disposal of the general reader. It does not seek to dupli- 
 cate other commentaries to which the student must turn. 
 Its chief characteristics are {a) its rigid exclusion of all 
 processes, both critical and exegetical, from its notes ; 
 {d) its presupposition and its use of the assured results 
 of historical investigation and criticism wherever such 
 results throw light on the biblical text ; (c) its running 
 analysis both in text and comment ; {d) its brief explana- 
 tory notes adapted to the rapid reader ; {e) its thorough 
 but brief Introductions ; (/) its use of the Revised Version 
 of 1 88 1, supplemented with all important renderings in 
 other versions. 
 
 Biblical science has progressed rapidly during the past 
 few years, but the reader still lacks a brief, comprehensive 
 commentary that shall extend to him in usable form mate- 
 rial now at the disposition of the student. It is hoped 
 that in this series the needs of intelligent Sunday School 
 teachers have been met, as well as those of clergymen 
 and lay readers, and that in scope, purpose, and loyalty 
 to the Scriptures as a foundation of Christian thought and 
 life, its volumes will stimulate the intelligent use of the 
 Bible in the home and the school. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The textual, critical, and historical problems of the book 
 of Isaiah are very numerous ; and this volume, which has 
 been obliged to consult brevity at every point, has been 
 able to do little more than record results without the 
 processes which justify them. Frequently the data are 
 so slender and capable of so various interpretations that 
 those results are very far from certain. Where — as not 
 infrequently in Isaiah — two scholars, adopting the same 
 critical methods, differ by half a millennium in their esti- 
 mate of the date of a passage, we are clearly yet a long 
 way from unanimity. 
 
 But, in face of this regrettable uncertainty, two things 
 have to be said. First, there is much that is practically 
 certain : few to-day, for example, doubt the exilic origin of 
 chapters 40-55. And secondly, on any view of the origin 
 of the book, it is literature and it is religion. Within the 
 limits prescribed by the editor of the series, I have en- 
 deavored to do justice to both these aspects of it. Though 
 the subject of Hebrew metre swarms with unsolved prob- 
 lems, it seemed worth while, following recent scholars, 
 to attempt a metrical arrangement of the book. There 
 can be little doubt that this encourages an appreciation 
 of its literary quality and helps us to feel that much of 
 Hebrew prophecy is poetic not only in spirit and sub- 
 stance, but in form as well. Naturally the terseness and 
 symnietryof a Hebrew verse are sometimes gravely obscured 
 
PREFACE 
 
 by the English translation, which may render two Hebrew 
 words by eleven (cf. 6i : ii), or even by thirteen (cf. 5 : 2) 
 English words. It is further obscured by an occasional 
 omission (cf. 37 : 25), or more frequently interpolation of 
 words (cf. 7 : i8b) or even of lines (cf. 22 : 9-1 1 ; 59 : i8c). 
 When, however, allowance is made for these intrusions, 
 which are sometimes plain enough in the metrically ar- 
 ranged text, and are usually noted in the commentary, we 
 cannot but recognize that in the book of Isaiah poetry 
 no less than prophecy has attained some of its noblest 
 flights. 
 
 But the supreme interest of the Bible must ever be the 
 religious interest; and any worthy study of the book of 
 Isaiah ought to carry us not only into the history of those 
 far-off days, but into the soul of the prophet himself and 
 of those others — great, too, though less majestic than he — 
 whose words are embodied in his book. This is what, in 
 brief compass, I have tried to do — to show how for these 
 men the worship of God involved the service of man, and 
 how their hearts were kept steady and hopeful in the face 
 of disappointment and disaster by their faith in God and 
 his eternal purpose. 
 
 JOHN E. McFADYEN. 
 Lake of Bays, 
 Ontario, 5th August, 1910. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ^ 
 
 I. Origin and Arrangement of the Book of Isaiah . i 
 
 II. The Political Conditions of Isaiah's Time . . 2 
 
 III. Moral and Social Conditions of Isaiah's Time . 6 
 
 IV. Isaiah the Man 8 
 
 V. Isaiah as a Writer 12 
 
 VI. Literary Problems of the Book of Isaiah . . 13 
 
 VII. Analysis 16 
 
 VIII. Chronology 19 
 
 IX. Bibliography 20 
 
 Text and Commentary on Chapters 1-39 .... 23 
 
 The Exiles' Book of Consolation (Chapters 40-55) . . 245 
 
 I. Historical Background and Origin of the Prophecy 247 
 II. The Prophet's Message 249 
 
 III. The Servant of Jehovah 252 
 
 IV. The Style of Deutero-Isaiah 256 
 
 V. Analysis 258 
 
 Text and Commentary on Chapters 40-55 . . . .261 
 
 Trito-Isaiah (Chapters 56-66) 355 
 
 I. The Background of the Prophecy . . . -357 
 
 II. The Prophet's Message 359 
 
 HI. The Style of Trito-Isaiah 361 
 
 IV. Analysis 3^2 
 
 Text and Commentary on Chapters 56-66 .... 363 
 
 Index 423 
 
THE BOOK OF THE 
 PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH 
 
 JOHN EDGAR McFADYEN 
 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 I. Origin and Arrangement of the Book of Isaiah 
 
 In the middle of the book of Isaiah, as it has come down 
 to us, occurs a purely narrative and historical section, 
 consisting of four chapters (36-39) — written for the most 
 part in prose — dealing with Isaiah's conduct during the 
 blockade of Jerusalem by the Assyrians and with his 
 relations to King Hezekiah, and having all the appearance 
 of being an excerpt from a biography of the prophet. 
 This simple fact furnishes, to begin with, three great di- 
 visions of the book : Chaps. 1-35 ; Chaps. 36-39 ; Chaps. 
 40-66. With the third division, which readily lends it- 
 self to subdivision, we shall deal more expUcitly later. 
 
 It is easy to show that the first division (Chaps. 1-35) 
 ultimately rests upon smaller groups, at least some of which 
 must have been circulated independently. This super- 
 scription — "the vision, or word, or oracle, of Isaiah the 
 son of Amoz^' — occurs at the beginning of Chaps, i, 2, and 
 13. Such a repetition would have been unnecessary and 
 unnatural, had all the prophecies originally appeared to- 
 gether as one whole : nothing would in that case have been 
 necessary but the superscription at the beginning of the 
 book. Therefore we are justified in regarding Chaps, i 
 (or 2)-i2 as a group by itself. 
 
 It is natural to take as the second group Chaps. 13-23. 
 These chapters, in addition to their special superscription, 
 are held together in two ways: (i) by the fact that almost 
 every oracle in the entire group deals with foreign peoples, 
 for example, Babylon, Moab, Egypt, Tyre ; and (2) by the 
 word burden (or rather oracle, utterance) which heads most 
 of these oracles (cf. Chaps. 13, 15, 17, 19, etc.). 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Another group is constituted by Chaps. 28-33, ^^ which 
 all the chapters but one ^ begin with Woe, and it is no 
 accident that these chapters deal with a single period 
 (704-701 B.C.) and, in the main, with a single theme, the 
 projected assault of the Assyrians upon Judah, and Judah's 
 endeavor to negotiate an Egyptian alliance. The remain- 
 ing oracles on both sides of this group further constitute two 
 groups] by themselves: Chaps. 24-27, a great picture of 
 the convulsion of the world, following not inappropriately 
 the oracles upon the heathen nations ; and Chaps. 34 and 
 35, describing the destruction of Edom and of all the nations 
 opposed to Judah, with the great golden age which should 
 follow. 
 
 The first half, then, of the book of Isaiah divides itself 
 naturally as follows : 
 
 Chaps. 1-12 ; Chaps. 13-23 ; Chaps. 24-27 ; Chaps. 28- 
 33 ; Chaps. 34, 35 ; Chaps. 36-39. ^ 
 
 The history of the ultimate origin of these groups and 
 of their subsequent association into a connected whole 
 must, in the nature of the case, be largely conjectural. 
 What is certain is that the figure of the great prophet and 
 his genuine oracles began to gather upon themselves, not 
 long after his death, the eager and reverent attention of 
 his countrymen, who, in later ages, incorporated in his 
 book the work of other hands, sometimes inferior but often 
 akin, in spirit and literary power, to Isaiah's own. This 
 process of amplification went on till at least the fourth 
 century B.C. (Chaps, 24-27). But the original oracles 
 of Isaiah are undoubtedly to be found most of all in the 
 first and fourth groups — Chaps. 1-12 and 28-33. 
 
 II. The Political Conditions of Isaiah's Time 
 
 Throughout the whole of Isaiah's career, and indeed 
 for nearly a hundred years after, the background of Hebrew 
 history was Assyria. The presence of that mighty empire 
 
 ' Chap. 32 begins with behold, which is not unlike woe in the Hebrew. 
 2 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 is always felt — at first as a shadow, but very soon as a 
 powerful hand, laid not only upon Israel and Judah, but 
 upon all the little kingdoms of the west, the Syrians (or 
 Aramaeans), the Phoenicians, the Phihstines, and others. 
 Most of the prophecies of Isaiah have Assyria in view, and 
 are fully intelligible only as the influence of that power upon 
 the fortunes and policy of Judah is understood. 
 
 In 745 B.C., five years before Isaiah's call, Tiglath Pileser 
 ascended the throne of Assyria, and soon thereafter his 
 heavy hand began to be felt in the west. Some Syrian 
 towns were taken. In 738 B.C. Assyria came into direct 
 contact with Israel. For half a century Israel under 
 Jeroboam II and Judah under Uzziah had been relatively 
 free from war, and were enjoying great prosperity. But 
 during this period were developed also those e\dls which 
 too frequently accompany prosperity, and towards the 
 end of it political and social hfe in Israel was in a state 
 of dissolution, bordering on anarchy. All this is vividly 
 reflected in the sorrowful pages of Hosea. Significantly 
 enough we are told that Menahem, now king of Israel 
 (738 B.C.), "gave Pul {i.e. Tiglath Pileser) a thousand 
 talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to con- 
 firm the kingdom in his hand" (2 Kings 15 : 19). In other 
 words, Israel is now definitely a vassal of Assyria. 
 
 In all this Judah was not involved. For over two 
 hundred years she and Israel had gone their separate ways, 
 sometimes even being involved in open hostility, so that 
 Israel's submission to Assyria was quite consistent with the 
 independence of Judah. This independence, however, 
 was not to last long. The western kingdoms, always 
 restive under the yoke of Assyria, were ready to throw it 
 off at the first opportunity. We hear in 735 of an assault 
 upon Judah by the combined forces of Israel and Syria 
 or Aram (Isa. 7 : i ; 2 Kings 16:5). In the Old Testament 
 no motive is assigned for this, but it has been very plausibly 
 assumed that the object of the attacking powers was to 
 coerce Judah into a coaHtion of western states against 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Assyria. Individually, they were helpless against the 
 mighty power which dealt with weaker peoples like a boy 
 harrying a bird's nest (Isa. lo : 14) ; their only hope lay 
 in combination : and the defection of so important a state 
 as Judah, situated midway between Syria and Israel on 
 the north and Philistia on the south, would have been fatal. 
 Thrown into consternation by the invasion, Ahaz, contrary 
 to the advice of Isaiah (7:4), took the fatal step of appeal- 
 ing for help to Assyria (2 Kings 16 : 7). This gave Tiglath 
 Pileser just the opportunity he wanted. He came west, 
 ravaged the districts of northern Israel (734 B.C., 2 Kings 
 15 : 29), and took Damascus, the capital of Aram, in 732 
 B.C. Judah for the moment was deUvered from her dis- 
 tress, but the price she paid was a heavy one: she too 
 became henceforth a tributary and vassal of Assyria. 
 This is the period which forms the background of Chaps. 
 7 and 8. 
 
 The death of the Assyrian monarch was always the signal 
 for a revolt in the west ; and on the death of Tiglath Pileser 
 in 727, Hosea, king of Israel and vassal of Assyria, trusting 
 to Egypt — that other great powder, which vividly im- 
 pressed the imagination and raised the hopes of the Hebrews 
 of those days — threw off the yoke of Assyria. In 724 
 Shalmaneser IV, the new monarch, appeared in the west, 
 and began the siege of Israel's capital, Samaria, which, 
 however, was only taken after three years by Shalmaneser's 
 general and successor, Sargon, in 721 B.C. Over 27,000 of 
 her people were carried into captivity, and, pohtically, 
 Israel was extinguished. Isaiah's prophetic words were 
 justified. He had anticipated the fall of Samaria (28 : 1-4) 
 as of Damascus (17 : i ff., cf. 7 : 16 ; 8 : 4). 
 
 The next incident of importance that meets us on the 
 pages of Isaiah is the siege and capture of Ashdod by the 
 Assyrians in 711 B.C. (Chap. 20). Phihstia (to which 
 Ashdod belonged), and other western states, taking ad- 
 vantage of difficulties in which Sargon was at this time 
 being involved in the far east, revolted. Judah is men- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tioned as among the rebels, but probably she ultimately 
 withdrew from the confederacy. At any rate — and this 
 was no doubt due to the influence of Isaiah's earnest warn- 
 ings — Judah for thirty years (from 735 B.C.) kept from an 
 open rupture with Assyria, though there must always have 
 been a would-be patriotic party in favor of such a pohcy. 
 
 The death of Sargon in 705, however, like the death of 
 his predecessors, was the signal for a general revolt through- 
 out the west, and this time Judah was tempted to join. 
 Negotiations were set on foot with Egypt, the country 
 of large promise and slender performance (30 : 5, 7 ; 31 : 
 I ff.), and the hopes of the west were high. But they had 
 reckoned without their host. The terrible Sargon was 
 succeeded by the more terrible Sennacherib (? 14:29), 
 who, after extinguishing the flame of insurrection in the 
 east, turned his steps towards the rebelhous states in the 
 west in 701. Most of Phoenicia in the north was smftly 
 reduced ; thence Sennacherib passed to PhiHstia in the 
 south, defeated at Eltekeh near Ekron a force of Egyptians 
 and Arabs, and besieged and took Ekron, one of the 
 PhiHstine cities. He was now free to begin his assault upon 
 Judah. 
 
 We have the great good fortune to possess a tolerably 
 detailed account of this campaign both from Hebrew and 
 Assyrian sources. The Hebrew account is contained in 
 Isaiah, Chaps. 36 and 37, which corresponds with slight 
 variations to 2 Kings 18:13, 17-19:37, ^^e latter account 
 being preceded by the very valuable fragment 18 : 14-16. 
 The vivid words of Sennacherib reveal the thoroughness 
 with which the devastating campaign was prosecuted in 
 Judah. "Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to 
 my yoke, I besieged forty-six of his strong cities, fortresses, 
 and small places in their neighborhood and took them. 
 Two hundred thousand one hundred and fifty men and 
 women, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen and sheep with- 
 out number, I carried off from them and counted as spoil. 
 . . . Himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 his royal city." But though Judah suffered so terribly 
 and Jerusalem was blockaded so closely that her king could 
 be compared to a bird in a cage, the city itself was not 
 captured. Addicted as the Assyrian monarchs are to 
 boasting, yet Sennacherib does not even claim 'to have 
 taken the city, and we may be very sure that the city was 
 not taken. Thus by a miraculous Providence Isaiah's 
 great prophecy was vindicated that Jehovah of Hosts 
 would defend the city whose temple was his earthly home. 
 
 III. Moral and Social Conditions of Isaiah's Time 
 
 As Isaiah was called to the prophetic office in the year 
 of Uzziah's death (740 B.C., Chap. 6) none of his oracles 
 comes from the period of Uzziah ; but something of the 
 splendor of that monarch's long and brilliant reign is re- 
 flected from the earlier prophecies of Isaiah. Judah was 
 still strong, well fortified (2 : 15), and abundantly equipped 
 with the resources of war (2:7). By the capture of the 
 port of Elath (2 Kings 14 : 22), Uzziah had carried the 
 trade of Judah to the Red Sea, and, by means of his ships 
 (Isa. 2 : 16), no doubt far beyond its northern shores. 
 This trade brought silver and gold in abundance to Judah 
 (2:7); the wealth in turn developed a spirit of pride 
 (2:12 ff.) and materialism, and created in those who 
 possessed it a cruel and unscrupulous temper. The poor 
 were ground to the dust (3 : 14 f.) ; their property was 
 gradually appropriated by the rich, who added field to field 
 and house to house (5:8). Among the upper classes 
 drunkenness and revelry became the order of the day 
 (5:11 f., 22). They were a jubilant people (5 : 14) — 
 jubilant even in a desperate crisis to the point of an almost 
 blasphemous frivolity (22 : 2, 12 f.). The women had cast 
 off the restraints with which Oriental women were wont to 
 hedge themselves about, and with haughty head and 
 leering eyes and tinkUng feet they walked the fashionable 
 streets of Jerusalem (3 : 16-4 : i). 
 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Little wonder that in a society like this moral distinc- 
 tions had lost their meaning, and the moral order was 
 flouted. Good was evil and evil good (5 : 20). The reli- 
 gious leaders, so far from stemming this tide of corruption, 
 were themselves the foremost in depravity. Within the 
 very precincts of the temple, the prophets and priests would 
 become brutally intoxicated, and scenes were enacted in- 
 describably disgusting (28 : 7 ff.). These men, who most 
 of all should have lent an intelHgent and sympathetic ear 
 to the solemn warnings of Isaiah, derided him and his 
 message in a drunken parody (28 :g f.). With the excep- 
 tion of a few faithful souls like the disciples whom Isaiah 
 gathered about him (8 : 16), the people and their leader 
 alike had abandoned all faith in the spiritual power that 
 governs the world. Their motto was, ''Don't bother us 
 with your holy One of Israel" (30 : 11). Avarice and de- 
 bauchery, scepticism (5 : 19) and mockery, were the prev- 
 alent tempers of the day among those who should have 
 been leaders, but who, as Isaiah says, were really mis- 
 leaders (3 : 12). They were in reaHty rebels against the 
 God of Israel and his holy law (i : 2). 
 
 But to us the strange thing is that these were religious 
 men — destitute indeed of the elements of morality, yet 
 passionately religious. Unlike the prophet's religion, 
 however, theirs was not only expressed, but exhausted, 
 in ritual. They drew near to God, not with their hearts, 
 but only with their Hps (29 : 13). And yet not with their 
 lips only, but with elaborate and costly ritual service as 
 well. Zealously they thronged his courts at the great 
 festivals, and though their hands were stained with blood 
 (i : 15), they were not empty. Rams, bullocks, lambs, 
 goats — all these were offered with enthusiasm and de- 
 votion (i : II ff.), which may have sometimes been born 
 of despair ; ^ but the spoil of the poor was in the houses 
 from which they came to the worship of their God (3 : 14), 
 and their bloody hands, as the prophet reminds them, 
 
 ' If Chap. I comes, as the bulk of it may, from Sennacherib's invasion. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 would therefore be stretched out to him in vain (i : 15). 
 For it was not their cattle, but their hves that he wanted 
 — worship which came out of pure and humble hearts 
 (29 : 13) and which expressed itself in an honorable civic 
 life, in social justice, and in practical pity for the defence- 
 less and the poor (i : 17). Theirs was a God who looked 
 not for holocausts, but for justice; for service indeed, but 
 for moral and social rather than ritual service. " He looked 
 for justice, but, behold, oppression ; for righteousness, but, 
 behold, a cry" (5:7). 
 
 IV. Isaiah the Man 
 
 Whether we regard it on its poHtical or on its social side, 
 the task which Isaiah had to face was as hard as ever fell 
 to the lot of mortal. Grave political problems had arisen 
 with the intrusion of Assyria ; while the social Ufe of Judah, 
 as we have seen, was honeycombed with pride, super- 
 stition (2:6; 8 : 19), materiahsm, and frivolity. Yet 
 throughout it all, the soul of Isaiah remained serene and 
 steady, because his eyes had seen the King, Jehovah of 
 hosts (6:5). 
 
 The fine consistency of his pohcy and the quiet confi- 
 dence with which he confronted even the most desperate 
 crises are explained by the great vision with which he was 
 launched upon his prophetic career (Chap. 6). Then it 
 was given him to see the glorious Lord upon his throne, 
 high and hfted up ; and from that day to the end, he bore 
 the vision on his heart. Whatever else he might see, he 
 also saw the Lord, even in dark days when no other eyes 
 in Judah could see him. His glorious presence and his 
 invincible purpose were to Isaiah the most real things in 
 the world. In this sense he is preeminently the prophet 
 of faith. In individual Hfe, in national history, God is 
 the most potent factor, — in the last analysis, the only 
 potent factor, however completely he might be ignored or, 
 in practice, denied by scheming politicians and their 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 frivolous people. The deepest folly in a military crisis 
 is to look only to the armory and ignore God (22 : 8-11). 
 When, in the invasion of Judah by the confederate forces 
 of Aram and Israel, the hearts of the king and his people 
 were shaken Hke the forest trees before the wind (7:2), 
 Isaiah's heart is calm — the only steady heart in Judah — 
 because his eyes had seen the King. Behind all the per- 
 plexities and confusions his faith pierced to the great im- 
 movable Reahty, the subHme spiritual Presence whose 
 glory fills the universe (6:3); to that mighty Purpose 
 which embraces the whole world, and which no human 
 power can ultimately thwart or annul (14 : 26 f.). PoU- 
 ticians might think themselves very astute, but he also 
 is wise, as Isaiah trenchantly says (31 : 2). He has his 
 great world-plan ; and, whatever else miscarries, that is 
 triumphant. 
 
 It is this clear and steady vision of God, this unshaken 
 faith in his abiding presence and in the triumph of his pur- 
 pose, that explains the poUtical conduct of Isaiah, and 
 justifies its seeming inconsistency. In his earher ministry 
 he had passionately sought to dissuade Judah from forni- 
 ing an alHance with Assyria (7:4); towards the close of 
 his career he is equally insistent that that alHance be 
 maintained, and that no attempt be made to negotiate 
 with Eg3^t (30 : I f. ; 31:1). In both cases his advice 
 must have seemed madness to the worldly-wise politicians. 
 It is small wonder that Ahaz, menaced by the confederate 
 troops of the two nations to the north of him, should have 
 sought to secure his safety by the help of the mighty As- 
 syrians ; or that, thirty years afterwards, the patriotic 
 poHticians, eager to take advantage of the difficulties of 
 Assyria, should have sought the aid of Egypt. Signifi- 
 cantly enough, these are the two occasions on which 
 Isaiah seems to have been moved to pecuHar indignation 
 by the rejection of his poHcy. Ahaz's repudiation of his 
 advice to "keep quiet and fear not" (7 14) he describes 
 in passionate words as a rejection and a provocation of 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 God himself (7 : 13) ; and on the poHtical schemers who 
 tried to negotiate a secret alUance with Egypt he denounces 
 a Woe (30 : I ; 31:1). Guthe has said that a poUtician 
 of our day would have regarded his advice to Ahaz as at 
 once idle and ridiculous ; and, on the basis of it, some have 
 maintained that, though Isaiah may have been a mighty 
 man of faith, he was in no sense a statesman. But, as a 
 matter of fact, even from a purely pohtical point of view, 
 Isaiah's judgment was the truest wisdom after all. Aram 
 and Israel, had they been even more powerful than they 
 were, — Isaiah contemptuously calls them the "tails of 
 smoking fire-brands" (7:4), — would in any case, even 
 without the appeal of Ahaz, very soon have been crushed 
 by Assyria, who, for good reasons of her own, would not 
 have tolerated the rise of a powerful confederacy in the 
 west; and as for Egypt, the folly of relying upon her had 
 been demonstrated over and over again. Always ready 
 to promise, seldom willing or able to perform — such was 
 her reputation far beyond her own borders; even the 
 Assyrian Sargon, in 711, incidentally alludes to Pharaoh, 
 king of Egypt, as '^a prince who could not save." 
 
 Isaiah's faith in God turned out to be the truest political 
 wisdom. On his view of the world, God alone was worthy 
 of fear (8 : 13) — not Aram or Israel, not Egypt or Assyria, 
 no force in the universe but God himself. For as the 
 world is resplendent with his glory (6:3) and the arena of 
 his purpose, so history is nothing but the gradual evolu- 
 tion of that purpose, and every earthly power is but his 
 tool which, wiUingly or unwillingly, must become con- 
 tributory to its accomplishment. The Assyrian may 
 proudly work his cruel and terrible will upon the weaker 
 nations of the world (10 : 7 ff.) ; but in reality he is nothing 
 but a tool in Jehovah's hand, an instrument mth which 
 his holy omnipotent will is done (10 : 5) : and he too, 
 when he has played his predetermined part, will one day, 
 for his pride and cruelty, be shattered by the Arm that is 
 infinitely mightier than his own (10:33 f-)- Doubtless 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the event did not always happen at the moment or in the 
 manner Isaiah had anticipated. Samaria fell a decade or so 
 later than he seems at one time to have expected (8:4); 
 and the might of Assyria was not shattered upon the hills 
 of Judah (14 : 25). But in every essential feature the 
 forecast of Isaiah was justified. Samaria did fall, and 
 Assyria did retire from Judah, her purpose unaccomplished. 
 
 These marvellous forecasts were no accident; they came 
 from the prophet's intimate communion with his God 
 (Amos 3:7), and from his clear appreciation of and w^hole- 
 hearted devotion to the divine purpose which stood clear 
 before his purged eyes. It was this that enabled him to 
 announce the security of Jerusalem when, beleaguered as she 
 was by Assyria, the prospects of her deUverance seemed 
 meagre and remote indeed. Surely nothing in the annals 
 of faith is more subhme than this, that after Judah had 
 been cruelly overrun, with forty-six of her cities in ruins 
 and the dread enemy at the gates, Isaiah should stand 
 forth, calm and unafraid, and declare, against all seeming 
 and all hope, that the unseen Jehovah would defend his 
 city. Jerusalem was one day destined to fall, but not yet; 
 her destruction at that time would have meant the ex- 
 tinction of the rehgion which found a home within her walls, 
 and that must not be. There, in Zion, was to rise the 
 building whose stones were the faithful (28 : 16) — men 
 Hke Isaiah and the little band he gathered about him, 
 disciples who, hke the master, had a passion for justice and 
 righteousness (28 : 17), and whose eyes had seen the King, 
 in other words, men of faith and character. 
 
 Isaiah is thus the prophet of hope as much as of faith. 
 His hope he expressed in his so-called doctrine of the 
 remnant, in the belief that, though not the whole people — 
 that was impossible (22:14) — yet a remnant would 
 return to Jehovah ; and this hope he incarnated in the son 
 whom he named Shear-jashub ^ (j's)- He looked for- 
 ward to the day when, by a stern judgment, the wicked 
 
 1 This means " a remnant will return." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 city would be purged of her dross and become indeed "the 
 City of righteousness, the faithful Town " (i : 25 f.). Right- 
 eousness and faith, just and noble civic Hfe and quiet con- 
 fidence in the unseen God, — it was to create these things 
 among men that Isaiah devoted his long and splendid 
 ministry. Others had insisted on righteousness, but more 
 than any other is he the prophet of faith ; and his message 
 is summed up in these three immortal words: 
 
 "If ye will not beUeve, surely ye shall not be estabUshed'' 
 
 (7:9)- 
 
 "He that beheveth shall not give way" ^ (28 : 16). 
 
 "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength" 
 (30 : 15)- 
 
 V. Isaiah as a Writer 
 
 The regal soul of Isaiah is reflected in the majesty of his 
 style. He is a rare master in the art of noble speech : 
 always incisive, never diffuse; clear, clean-cut, full- 
 toned, yet governed everywhere by a fine restraint. His 
 superb imagination is evidenced ahke in simple figures, 
 such as the comparison of Jehovah to the lion that faces 
 the shepherds, defiant and unafraid (31 :4), and in longer 
 and more sustained passages, such as his description of 
 the day of Jehovah, or of the terrible Assyrian army. An 
 illustration or two will be more effective than a chapter of 
 criticism. 
 
 Here, for example, is the day of Jehovah, as it appeared 
 to the prophetic eyes of Isaiah : 
 
 For a day of Jehovah is coming 
 Upon all that is haughty and proud, 
 Upon all that is lofty and high : 
 Upon cedars of Lebanon all, 
 And oaks of Bashan all; 
 Upon all the great mountains 
 And all the high hills; 
 
 I Emended text. RV has make haste, SV he in haste, Gr. he asJtamed. 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Upon all the proud towers 
 
 And all the strong walls 
 
 And all gallant ships. 
 
 Man's haughtiness shall he brought down, 
 
 And man's loftiness shall he laid low, 
 
 And in that great day 
 
 Shall Jehovah alone he exalted. 
 
 Get ye into the caves of the rocks 
 
 And the holes of the earth, 
 
 From hefore the dread presence of God, 
 
 When he rises up to smite earth with his terror 
 
 (2 : 12 ff.). 
 There are few things in hterature to surpass in vividness 
 and simple vigor Isaiah's description of the Assyrian army : 
 
 See! hastily, swiftly they come, 
 
 None weary, none stumhling among them. 
 The hand of their loins never loosed. 
 
 The thong of their shoes never torn. 
 Their arrows are sharpened. 
 
 Their hows are all hent. 
 The hoofs of their horses are counted as flint. 
 
 And their wheels as the whirlwind. 
 Their roar is like that of the lioness, 
 
 And like the young lions they roar, 
 Thundering, seizing the prey. 
 
 And hearing it of to a place of security 
 
 (5 : 26-29). 
 
 VI. Literary Problems of the Book of Isaiah 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the Uterary problems of 
 the book of Isaiah ; but they happen to be of unusual im- 
 portance in forming a true estimate of what the prophet's 
 message really was, and their nature may be briefly in- 
 dicated by one or two illustrations. 
 
 Take, for example, Chap. 29. The first four verses an- 
 
 13 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 nounce, in the most unmistakable terms, a terrible siege of 
 Jerusalem, when there will be mourning and lamentation 
 and the city shall be reduced to the most abject humihation. 
 The fifth verse, however, starts off in a wholly different 
 strain. Here it is announced that the enemy shall become 
 Hke small dust, and hke the chaff that passeth away. In 
 vs. 6, Jerusalem is to be "visited of Jehovah" with thunder 
 and earthquake, whirlwind and tempest, and fire. The 
 natural impression made by this verse, if it stood alone, 
 or if it immediately followed vss. 1-4, would be that for 
 Jerusalem the visitation is to be one of terror : Jehovah 
 will come in judgment, and bring the awful powers of 
 nature, as in vss. 1-4 he is to bring the Assyrians, to bear 
 upon the guilty city. But following vs. 5, we must sup- 
 pose, though this does not seem very natural, that, for 
 Jerusalem, the visitation is a gracious visitation, and the 
 terrors announced are for the enemy. So in vs. 7 the 
 beleaguering foes are to pass like a dream, and in vs. 8 
 their disappointment is compared to that of a dreamer 
 when he wakes. 
 
 Unquestionably the effect of this announcement of the 
 sure and utter destruction of the enemy is to blunt the 
 edge of the terrible prophecy against Jerusalem which had 
 just gone before ; and it is not only fair but necessary to 
 ask whether the same prophet — especially when that 
 prophet is so consummate an orator as Isaiah — could at 
 the same time have delivered two messages, one of which 
 must have gone very far to obhterate from the mind of 
 his audience the terror produced by the other. It is not 
 absolutely inconceivable, especially if the second message 
 were spoken among his intimate disciples, but it does not 
 seem probable. 
 
 Or take a similar case in 31 : 4. Isaiah has just been 
 denouncing (vss. 1-3) the Egyptian aUiance and declaring 
 that ''both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is 
 helped shall fall, and they all shall be consumed together." 
 Then in a simile of splendid power he goes on : 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "For thus saith Jehovah unto me, As the Hon and the 
 young Hon growHng over his prey, if a multitude of 
 shepherds be caUed forth against him, will not be dis- 
 mayed at their voice, nor daunted at the noise of 
 them : so will Jehovah of hosts come down to fight 
 upon Mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof" (vs. 4). 
 
 The point is obscured, or rather obliterated, by the transla- 
 tion ^^upon mount Zion" instead of against (which is read 
 in the margin).^ But coming as it does after the threat 
 that "all shall be consumed together," against is certainly 
 much more natural and almost certainly correct. In that 
 case, Jehovah is the lion, mighty and unafraid, and Zion is 
 his prey. Very different, however, — indeed, quite the 
 reverse, — is the impression made by the following verse (5) : 
 
 "As birds hovering, so will Jehovah of hosts protect 
 Jerusalem ; he will protect and deliver it, he will pass 
 over and preserve it." 
 
 The transition from the fearless Hon to the fluttering birds, 
 though not absolutely indefensible, certainly seems very 
 improbable ; and to say nothing of the awkwardness of 
 the sentence in Hebrew, the threat of destruction in vs. 4, 
 which is also supported by the previous context, is simply 
 negated by the promise of preservation in vs. 5. And 
 again we must raise the question : Is it probable that 
 Isaiah or any other speaker would have presented to his 
 audience a message whose component parts were so con- 
 flicting as to cancel each other? That were perplexity 
 indeed. 
 
 The alternative is to suppose that the original words 
 of Isaiah, which in these passages (as, beyond any question, 
 in 22 : 1-14) were probably words of threat and doom, were 
 supplemented by later writers, who had in view the un- 
 doubted historic fact of the preservation of the city, besides 
 other words of Isaiah which had definitely foretold that 
 
 I The Hebrew preposition can mean either upon or against. 
 15 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 preservation (cf. 37 : 29; cf. vs. 7). There was all the more 
 likeHhood of this, as later ages, which were fond of ideahz- 
 ing Jerusalem, looked forward with imagination and hope 
 to the great day of Jehovah, when the godless nations, in 
 vain assault upon the holy city, would be shattered, and 
 the city preserved inviolate. Nothing would be more 
 natural to later scribes, whose ideas of hterary property 
 were very different from our own, than to project this 
 thought back upon the prophecies of Isaiah, the more so 
 as it had been encouraged and expressed by other words 
 of his. But in that case it becomes a duty — though fre- 
 quently a task of great complexity — to disentangle from 
 our present text the original words of Isaiah. It is only 
 then, when the text is stripped of the comments and hopes 
 of later ages, that we can understand the prophet's real 
 message and the changing phases it assumed. Thus, 
 for example, if the argument is correct, Isaiah's message 
 at that moment (in Chaps. 29 and 31) was one of unmiti- 
 gated doom, and the great prophet strikes a far sterner 
 note than our present text would lead us to suppose. 
 
 This is, of course, by no means to say that he was a 
 prophet of doom. We know that he announced the 
 miraculous preservation of the city : we know that he was 
 a prophet of hope, and that he beheved that "a remnant 
 would return." But there was also a very stern side to 
 his character and message (cf. 5:17; 7:175.; 22: 1-14), 
 which the present text of some passages, whose terror is shot 
 through with promise, too easily leads us to forget and 
 ignore; and it is the dehcate task of literary criticism to 
 recover so far as it can the prophet's genuine and original 
 words. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF CHAPTERS 1-39 
 Prophecies concerning Judah and Israel (Chaps. 1-12) 
 
 I. Jerusalem : her present sin and punishment : her future redemption and 
 glory (i :i-2 15). 
 
 (i) The prophet's lament over the unfaithfuhiess of the people 
 to their God (i :i-9). 
 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 (2) The futility of a merely ceremonial worship (i : 10-17). 
 
 (3) The great alternatives (i : 18-20). 
 
 (4) Zion's present shame and future glory (i : 21-28). 
 
 (5) The heathen cult and its doom (i : 29-31). 
 
 (6) Jerusalem the centre of blessing to the world (2 : 1-5). 
 
 2. Judgment upon the wealth and pride of Judah (2 : 6-4 : 6). 
 
 (i) Jehovah's judgment day (2 : 6-22). 
 
 (2) A reign of anarchy (3 : 1-15). 
 
 (3) The doom of the haughty women (3 : 16-4 : i). 
 
 (4) Zion's final glory (4 : 2-6). 
 
 3. The vineyard with the wild grapes (chap. s). 
 
 (i) The song of the vineyard (5 : 1-7). 
 
 (2) Woe! (5:8-24). 
 
 (3) A foreign army is coming (5 : 25-30). 
 
 4. The prophet's call (chap. 6). 
 
 5. The crisis of 735 B.C. (7:1-9:7). 
 
 (i) The prophet's word to the terrified king (7 : 1-9). 
 
 (2) The great refusal and the sign (7 : ia-i6). 
 
 (3) Judah will also be ravaged (7 : 17-25). 
 
 (4) The fall of Damascus and Samaria (8 : 1-4). 
 
 (5) The invasion of Judah (8 : 5-8). 
 
 (6) The futility of opposition to Judah (8 : 9 f). 
 
 (7) None is to be feared but Jehovah (8 : 11-15). 
 
 (8) Isaiah's patient hope (8 : 16-18). 
 
 (9) The awful pUght of imbeUeving Judah (8 : 19-22). 
 (10) The great deUverance and the glorious king (9 : 1-7). 
 
 6. The doom of Israel (9 : 8-10 : 4). 
 
 7. The doom of the Assyrian (10 : 5-34)- 
 
 (i) The two plans — Assyria's and Jehovah's (10 : 5-15). 
 
 (2) The fate of Assyria and Judah (10 : 16-23). 
 
 (3) The consolation of Zion : Assyria will assuredly fall (10 : 24-34). 
 
 8. The bliss of Israel in the latter days (chaps. 11 and 12). 
 
 (i) The Messianic king and kingdom (11 : 1-9). 
 
 (2) The triumphal return (11 : 10-16). 
 
 (3) The song of thanksgiving (chap. 12). 
 
 Prophecies concerning Foreign Nations (Chaps. 3-23) 
 
 1. Prophecy concerning Babylon (13 : 1-14 : 23). 
 
 (i) The doom of Babylon (chap. 13). 
 
 (2) Song of triumph over the fall of Babylon's king (14 : 1-23). 
 
 2. Jehovah's invincible world plan (14 : 24-27). 
 
 3. Warning to Philistia (14 : 28-32). 
 
 4. Lament over Moab (chaps. 15 and 16). 
 
 5. Prophecy concerning Damascus and northern Israel (17 : i-ii). 
 
 (i) The destruction of Damascus (17 : 1-3). 
 (2) The doom of Israel (17 : 4-1 1). 
 
 6. The speedy doom of the Assyrians (17 : 12-18 : 7). 
 
 (i) Their sudden destruction (17 : 12-14). 
 
 (2) Isaiah's answer to the Ethiopian ambassadors (chap. 18). 
 
 7. The destiny of Egypt (chap. 19). 
 
 (i) The disasters of Egypt (19 : 1-15)- 
 (2) The conversion of Egypt (19 : 16-25). 
 C 17 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 8. Warning against the folly of an alliance with Egypt (chap. 20). 
 
 9. The Fall of Babylon (chap. 21). 
 
 (i) Its consequences for Judah (21 : i-io). 
 
 (2) Its consequences for the trading tribes of the desert (21 : 11-17). 
 
 10. Judah's unpardonable sin (22 : 1-14). 
 
 11. Personal threats and promises (22 : 15-25). 
 
 (i) The doom of Shebna (22 : 15-18). 
 
 (2) The exaltation of EUakim (22 : 19-23). 
 
 (3) The downfall of Eliakim's family (22 : 24i). 
 
 12. The fate of Phoenicia (chap. 23). 
 
 (i) The elegy (23 : 1-14). 
 
 (2) The revival of Tyre (23 : 15-18). 
 
 The Great World Judgment (Chaps. 24-27) 
 
 1. The judgment : the rebels punished (chap. 24). 
 
 2. Song of thanksgiving over the destruction of some proud city (25 : 1-5). 
 
 3. The banquet of the nations on Mount Zion (25 : 6-8). 
 
 4. Song over the anticipated destruction of Moab (25 : 9-12). 
 
 5. Song of gratitude and hope (26 : 1-19). 
 
 (i) Jerusalem secure : the proud city destroyed (26 : 1-6). 
 
 (2) It is well with the righteous, iU with the wicked (26 : 7-10). 
 
 (3) The utter destruction of the enemy (26 : 11-14). 
 
 (4) A yet more glorious day (26 : 15-19). 
 
 6. Israel's security in the great world judgment (26 : 20-27 : i). 
 
 7. Song of the vineyard (27 : 2-6). 
 
 8. Jehovah's mercy to Israel (27 : 7-1 1). 
 
 9. Gathered home (27 : 12 f). 
 
 Warnings and Promises to Jerusalem (Chaps. 28-33) 
 
 1. Woe to Samaria (28 : 1-6). 
 
 2. The scoffers of Jerusalem threatened (28 : 7-22). 
 
 (i) Isaiah's solemn warning to the drunken priests and prophets 
 
 (28:7-13). 
 (2) The folly of the Egyptian alliance (28 : 14-22). 
 
 3. The patience and considerateness of the divine purpose (28 : 23-29). 
 
 4. The character and fate of Jerusalem (29 : 1-15). 
 
 (i) The fate of Jerusalem (29 : 1-8). 
 
 (2) The spiritual torpor and religious formality of the people 
 (29:9-15). 
 
 5. Doubters rebuked by a vision of Israel's welfare in the latter days 
 
 (29:16-24). 
 
 6. The Egyptian alliance a ruinous policy (30 : 1-17). 
 
 (i) The embassy to Egypt (30 : 1-7). 
 (2) Judah's rebellion and ruin (30 : 8-17). 
 
 7. The final trixmiph and prosperity of Jerusalem (30 : 18-33). 
 
 (i) Forgiveness and prosperity (30 : 18-26). 
 (2) The glorious triumph (30 : 27-33). 
 
 8. The folly of the Egyptian alliance (31 : 1-4). 
 
 9. The enemy's downfall (31 : 5-9). 
 
 10. Rulers and people in the coming days (32 : 1-8). 
 
 11. Warning to the women (32 : 9-14). 
 
 18 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 12. The security and prosperity of the coming days (32 : 15-20). 
 
 13. The present distress and future glory of Jerusalem (chap. 33). 
 
 (i) The distress {33 ■ i-q)- 
 
 (2) The deliverance {33 : 10-24). 
 
 The Golden Age (Chaps. 34 and 35) 
 
 1. The day of vengeance (chap. 34). 
 
 (i) The destruction of the nations (31 : 1-4). 
 (2) The destruction of Edom (34 : 5-17). 
 
 2. The joy of the redeemed (chap. 35). 
 
 Historical Appendix (Chaps. 36-39) 
 
 1. Isaiah encourages Hezekiah to resist Sennacherib's summons to surrender 
 
 Jerusalem (chaps. 36 and 37). 
 
 (i) First narrative (36 : 1-37 : ga, 37 f). 
 (2) Second narrative (36 : 9-36). 
 
 2. Hezekiah's sickness, recovery, and song of thanksgiving (chap. 38). 
 
 (i) Hezekiah's sickness (38 : 1-8). 
 
 (2) His song of thanksgiving (38 : 9-20). 
 
 (3) His recovery (38 : 21 f). 
 
 3. Hezekiah's vanity and Isaiah's rebuke (chap. 39). 
 
 VIII. Chronology 
 
 B.C. 
 
 I Death of Uzziah, king of Judah. 
 74°' 1 Call of Isaiah. 
 
 735. Invasion of Judah by Aram (Syria) and Israel. 
 734. Northern Israel ravaged 
 732. Capture of Damascus (chief city 
 
 of Aram) 
 721. Capture of Samaria (cliief city 
 
 of Israel) 
 711. Capture of Ashdod (one of the 
 
 chief cities of the Philistines) 
 701. Invasion of Judah by the Assyrians under Sennacheribo 
 681. Assassination of Sennacherib. 
 607. Fall of Nineveh. • 
 
 End of the Assyrian and estabUshment of the Baby-- 
 
 Ionian empire. 
 604-561. Reign of Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon. 
 586. Fall of Jerusalem. 
 586-538. Babylonian exile. 
 
 19 
 
 by the Assyrians. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 549-546. Conquest of Media and Lydia by Cyrus. 
 540 (about). Deutero-Isaiah (Chaps. 40-55). 
 538. Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. 
 
 End of the Babylonian and establishment of the 
 Persian empire. 
 537. Jewish exiles return to Palestine. 
 520-516. Building of the second temple. 
 460 (about). Trito-Isaiah (Chaps. 56-66). Malachi. 
 445. Nehemiah arrives at Jerusalem, rebuilds the walls, 
 and reorganizes the community. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 The literature on Isaiah is very extensive. Especially 
 numerous are German monographs dealing with particular 
 critical or historical problems. The following brief list, 
 having in view the needs of the average English or Ameri- 
 can reader unacquainted with Hebrew and not deeply 
 interested in critical problems, is deliberately confined to 
 English books of a scholarly but untechnical nature. 
 
 Commentaries 
 
 T. K. Cheyne. The Prophecies of Isaiah, 2 vols. (1889). Very 
 thorough and able ; the writer has since modified many of his 
 conclusions. 
 
 J. Skinner. Isaiah, 2 vols, in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and 
 Colleges. Scholarly and judicial ; especially good on the theo- 
 logical side. 
 
 O. C. Whitehouse. Isaiah, 2 vols, in The Century Bible. Careful 
 and independent ; especially strong on the historical side. 
 
 H. G. Mitchell. Isaiah, A study of Chaps. 1-12. 
 
 A. B. Davidson. Isaiah (in the Temple Bible). 
 
 Translations 
 
 T. K. Cheyne. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, in Sacred Books of 
 the Old Testament. The prophecies are arranged, so far as pos- 
 sible, in chronological order, with explanatory notes and pictorial 
 illustrations. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 G. H. Box. The Book of Isaiah. This translation gives special 
 attention to the metrical structure of the book. 
 
 C. F. Kent. Isaiah is translated in the third volume of The Studeni's 
 Old Testament, entitled " The Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses 
 of Israel's Prophets." With a historical introduction and careful 
 attention to metrical structure. 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 A. F. KiRKPATRiCK. The Doctrine of the Prophets. 
 S. R. Driver. Isaiah, his Life and Times. 
 W. R. Smith. The Prophets of Israel, pp. 191-373. 
 G. A. Smith. The Book of Isaiah, in The Expositor's Bible. Illumi- 
 nating, eloquent, and stimulating. 
 Jerusalem, vol. II, pp. 132-180. 
 Article on Isaiah in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. 
 C. F. Kent and F. K. Sanders. Isaiah is dealt with in vols. I and II 
 of the Messages of the Bible series. A good English paraphrase 
 with brief historical introductions. 
 W. G. Jordan. Prophetic Ideas and Ideals, pp. 55-108. 
 
 Histories 
 
 C. F. Kent. The Divided Kingdom. 
 
 H. P. Smith. Old Testament History. 
 
 J. F. McCuRDY. History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 
 
 G. W. Wade. Old Testament History. 
 
 Chapters 40-66 
 
 In addition to the above list, the following books should be added 
 for the study of Chaps. 40-66. 
 A. B. Davidson. The Exile and the Restoration. 
 
 Old Testament Prophecy (pp. 367-467). 
 A. S. Peake. The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament, 
 
 pp. 34-72; 172-193- 
 G. C. Workman. The Servant of Jehovah. 
 T. K. Cheyne. Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, pp. 1-125. 
 C. F. Kent. A History of the Jewish People. 
 
 21 
 
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET 
 ISAIAH 
 
 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDAH AND 
 ISRAEL (Chaps. 1-12) 
 
 Jerusalem: Her Present Sin and Punishment: Her 
 Future R^deiiIption and Glory (i : 1-2 : 5) 
 
 The Superscription (1:1) 
 
 1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which 
 he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the 
 days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings 
 of Judah. 
 
 The interest of the opening section of the book of Isaiah 
 (i : 1-2 : 5) gathers round the fortunes of Jerusalem. The tone is 
 on the whole sorrowful and severe ; but the pervading gloom gives 
 place in occasional verses, and especially towards the end (2 : 2-4), to 
 briUiant visions of the ultimate redemption and glory of the now 
 sinful city. Thus, whether its several paragraphs all come from 
 the hand of Isaiah or not, the section, as we now have it, constitutes 
 an artistic and impressive unity. 
 
 1:1. A prophet is a seer, a man of vision; and what he de- 
 clares is what he saw. The title in vs. i, which confines the 
 prophecies to Judah and Jerusalem, clearly cannot apply to the 
 whole book. Chap. 13, for example, deals with Babylon; 
 probably it apphes only to Chaps. 1-12. Isaiah received his 
 prophetic call in the year that King Uzziah died (cf. 6:1), i.e. 740 
 B.C., and his career extended at any rate through forty years — 
 to 701 B.C., the year of Sennacherib's famous campaign against 
 Jerusalem, in the reign of Hezekiah. 
 
 I : 2-9. The forlorn condition of Jerusalem (vs. 8), the havoc 
 wrought in Judah (vs. 7), and the fact that this havoc is wrought 
 
 23 
 
I : 2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Prophefs Indignant Lament over the Unfaithfulness of 
 the People to their God (i : 2-9) 
 
 2. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, 
 
 For the Lord hath spoken ; 
 I have nourished and brought up children, 
 And they have rebelled against me. 
 
 3. The ox knoweth his owner, 
 
 And the ass his master's crib ; 
 But Israel doth not know, 
 
 by strangers (vs. 7), seem to point to the invasion of the country 
 by Sennacherib and the Ass3^rians in 701 B.C. In that case, this 
 would be one of the very latest of Isaiah's prophecies, and the 
 chapter would serve, as it were, the purpose of a frontispiece to 
 the book. 
 
 2. The book grandly opens with a few brief, sad words of 
 Jehovah himself, in which he laments his people's ignorance, 
 ingratitude, and infidehty — words of such high and serious im- 
 port that the prophet calls upon the heavens to hear, and the earth 
 to hearken : for heaven and earth are silent witnesses of the great 
 human drama, and are here poetically conceived as capable of 
 being moved by the sight and the story of Israel's guilt — awful 
 witnesses of an awful crime. 
 
 Jehovah hath spoken : and the quickened conscience of the 
 prophet, as he watched and pondered the conduct of his sinful 
 people, heard the words plainly enough. 
 
 Sons have I reared, and lifted to Jionor; 
 But as for them, they are rebels against me. 
 
 The love of Jehovah for his children had been signally manifested 
 in the exodus (cf. Hos. 11 : i ; 9 : 10), but that love had followed 
 them into Canaan, and had there exalted them by giving them vic- 
 tory in war, a high place among the nations, healthful institutions, 
 — in particular, the institutions of religion (cf. Deut. 4 : 6). But 
 they (emphatic in the Hebrew) — those very children whom he 
 had thus reared and honored — have played the rebel, in ways 
 which are illustrated but too vividly by the subsequent verses of 
 the chapter (cf. vss. 15-23) : chiefly by violation of the spirit of 
 justice and mercy which are the essence of true religion (cf. Mic. 
 6:8). 
 
 3. In a household, the domestic animals know their master; 
 
 24 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i : 6 
 
 My people doth not consider. 
 
 4. Ah sinful nation, 
 
 A people laden with iniquity, 
 A seed of evil-doers, 
 
 Children that deal corruptly : 
 They have forsaken the Lord, 
 
 They have despised the Holy One of Israel, 
 
 They are estranged and gone backward. 
 
 5. Why will ye be still stricken. 
 
 That ye revolt more and more ? 
 The whole head is sick. 
 And the whole heart faint. 
 
 6. From the sole of the foot even unto the head 
 
 There is no soundness in it ; 
 But wounds, and bruises. 
 And ^ festering sores : 
 
 ' AV putrifying sores. m, SV fresh stripes. 
 
 how much more the children their father ! But Israel, though 
 my people, a family of sons for whom Jehovah had done so much 
 (vs. 2), does not know; they are more stupid than the ox or ass. 
 Ignorance of God and of the true nature of his demands as moral 
 and not ceremonial (cf. vss. 11-17) was responsible for the deplo- 
 rable condition of Israel (cf. Hos. 4:1). 
 
 4. The calm speech of Jehovah is followed by the more passion- 
 ate utterance of his prophet (vss. 4-9), who now addresses the 
 people directly (the Greek version reads, " ye have forsaken the 
 Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel ") in the language of 
 indignant reproach, as a brood of malefactors, who despise " the 
 Holy One of Israel," Isaiah's favorite epithet for Jehovah. Some- 
 thing of what this holiness meant may be gathered from Isaiah's 
 inaugural vision (6 : 3). 
 
 5a. The precise meaning of the first clause is not absolutely 
 certain. It is either a half-pathetic, half-indignant reproach of 
 their folly for their persistent depravity, " Why will ye still be 
 smitten? " or the words may mean that the body has already been 
 so thoroughly battered and bruised that there is no place left for 
 a further blow : " On what spot can ye still he smitten? " 
 
 Sb, 6. Here, as frequently in the Old Testament (cf. Ezek. 16), 
 
 25 
 
I : 7 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 They have not been closed, neither bound up, 
 Neither molhfied with ^ oil. 
 
 7. Your country is desolate ; 
 
 Your cities are burned with fire ; 
 Your land, strangers devour it in your presence, 
 And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 
 
 8. And the daughter of Zion is left 
 
 1 AV ointment. 
 
 the nation is regarded as a person. It is "bruised and wounded, 
 sick, and faint ; the head and heart are specially mentioned as the 
 most vital members. They have not been closed : the meaning is 
 probably that the matter has not been pressed out of the wounds. 
 Jehovah is the great physician who alone can heal them. But 
 they have rebelled (vs. 2), and revolted (vs. 5), so they remain 
 unhealed. These verses might be a description of the corrupt 
 state of the body politic ; but after the reference to the further 
 strokes in prospect (at the beginning of vs. 5), the}^ are more 
 naturally explained, in accordance with vs. 7, as a description of 
 the effect of the Assyrian invasion of Judah. It was this that had 
 bruised and wounded the country, and left it in a state of unhealed 
 misery. 
 
 7. A graphic description, apparently, of the desolation wrought 
 in Judah by Sennacherib and the Assyrians in 701 B.C. In his 
 inscription, Sennacherib claims to have taken forty-six of the cities 
 of Judah. The strangers who destroy the land, i.e. the culti- 
 vated land, are the Assyrians ; and the desolation they have wrought 
 in Judah is comparable only to '' the overthrow of Sodom" as 
 we should probably read (rather than strangers) at the end of the 
 verse. The story of the fate of Sodom (Gen. 19) left an indehble 
 impression upon the Hebrew mind, and was often used by the 
 prophets to heighten the terror of a threat or a description. (Cf. 
 Amos 4 : 11.) The last sentence is regarded by some recent schol- 
 ars as a gloss. 
 
 8. In the invasion of 701 B.C. Jerusalem was, in the most 
 wonderful way and against all probability, preserved, as Isaiah 
 had foretold (cf. 37 : 29). But Sennacherib claims, in his inscrip- 
 tion, to have shut up Hezekiah " hke a bird in a cage," and the 
 position of Jerusalem must have been desperate enough. Through 
 the imagery of this verse we get a glimpse of her forlorn and help- 
 less case. The daughter of Zion, i.e. Zion or Jerusalem herself, 
 
 26 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 1:9 
 
 As a booth in a vineyard, 
 As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, 
 
 As a besieged city. 
 Except the Lord of hosts 
 
 Had left unto us a very small remnant, 
 We should have been as Sodom, 
 
 We should have been like unto Gomorrah. 
 
 Rom. 9 : 29 
 
 personified as a woman, is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a 
 lodge in a field of cucumbers. The booth or lodge was a simple 
 and rather flimsy structure, which served as a temporary shelter 
 for the men who watched and guarded the fields ; it well suggests 
 the lonehness and defencelessness of Jerusalem at a time when 
 city after city of Judah was falling before the Assyrians. As 
 Jerusalem actually was at this time a besieged city and not 
 merely like one, the last comparison should perhaps be translated, 
 like a watch-tower, a figure which would practically repeat and 
 clinch the other two. 
 
 9. In the havoc wrought upon Judah, Jerusalem is providen- 
 tially left as a remnant. The idea of the remnant (though the 
 word here used is not Isaiah's habitual word) plays an important 
 part in the thought and teaching of the prophet. Jerusalem was 
 spared, according to Isaiah, not by accident, but by Providence; 
 it was the work of Jehovah of hosts — a phrase which, originally 
 used perhaps to designate Jehovah as the lord and leader of the 
 hosts of heaven {i.e. the stars conceived as human beings) and 
 subsequently of the hosts or armies of Israel, comes, in the proph- 
 ets, to have a more comprehensive sweep, and marks him out as 
 lord of the universe. We should perhaps transfer the word ren- 
 dered very small to the next sentence, and read : 
 
 Had Jehovah of hosts not left us a remnant, 
 Almost had we been as Sodom and like to Gomorrah. 
 
 The sin of Judah and the devastation which was sent by way of 
 penalty have been vividly set forth. The people may have re- 
 sented the prophet's interpretation of their calamities, and 
 pointed to the splendor and assiduity of their worship. To their 
 protest he replies in the next paragraph. 
 
 I : 10-17, The prophet's message of doom sounded in the ears 
 of the people as a heresy. Was not their worship of the most 
 earnest and sumptuous sort ? Surely Jehovah could never destroy 
 the people who served him so scrupulously. But to Isaiah and the 
 people the service of Jehovah meant two very different things : 
 
 27 
 
I : 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Futility of a merely Ceremonial Worship (i : 10-17) 
 
 10. Hear the word of the Lord, 
 
 Ye rulers of Sodom ; 
 Give ear unto the law of our God 
 Ye people of Gomorrah. 
 
 11. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacri- 
 
 fices unto me ? 
 
 Saith the Lord. 
 I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, 
 
 And the fat of fed beasts ; 
 And I deHght not in the blood of bullocks, 
 
 Or of lambs, or of he-goats. 
 
 to them it was a ritual thing, to him a moral. This great section 
 shows how completely the prophets despised a rehgion which was 
 exhausted in ritual, and how earnestly they championed morality 
 as the supreme expression of religion. 
 
 10. Through the imperative hear we get a glimpse of a great and 
 eager crowd of worshippers gathered in the temple courts. The 
 prophet addresses the worshippers — leaders and people alike — 
 as citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. The idea is not so much 
 that the fate of Jerusalem will be like theirs, as that her guilt is 
 Hke theirs, as though the two really go together — Hke in guilt, and 
 like in destiny. This is, of course, the language of prophetic 
 hyperbole ; in point of fact, the sins of which Jerusalem was guilty, 
 as enumerated, e.g., in vs. 17, were not so terrible as the sins of 
 Sodom (cf. Gen. 13 : 13 ; 19 : 5 £F.). But the strong language shows 
 how utterly abominable to the soul of a prophet is a religion which 
 cares everything for ritual, and nothing for morals. The law of 
 our God has here nothing to do with any written law, such as we 
 find in the Pentateuch. Law is instruction, and is here, as the 
 parallelism shows, identical with the word of Jehovah, that is, the 
 word which he speaks through his prophet Isaiah — practically 
 it is the challenge which follows in vss. 11-17. 
 
 11. The people addressed by Isaiah are a zealous people, who 
 offer a multitude of sacrifices : probably their zeal was at this 
 period heightened by the fear of Assyria. The sacrifice is here a 
 general word for the offering of a slain animal ; it might be offered 
 to the deity in whole, as a burnt offering entirely consumed upon 
 the altar, or in part, as the fat and the blood. Beasts of several 
 kinds were offered, Jehovah is sated with them ; but what is it all 
 
 28 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i : 12 
 
 12. When ye come to appear before me, 
 
 Who hath required this at your hand, 
 
 to him? That is not what he desires or delights in. In their 
 conception of religion, the great prophets appear to have given 
 practically no place whatever to animal sacrifice, which bulked so 
 largely in the popular conception ; to them the sacrifice of the 
 will was paramount (Ps. 40:6-8). Amos (5: 25) and Jeremiah 
 (7 : 22) maintain that animal sacrifice had formed no part of the 
 divine demand in the days of the Exodus — then and now and 
 ever, what God requires of man is a moral service (Micah 6 : 6-8), 
 mercy, and not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6). It is not surprising that this 
 word of Hosea's, which so aptly crystalHzes the prophetic concep- 
 tion of religion, was specially dear to our Lord (Mat. 9 : 13; 12 : 7). 
 12, 13a. Metrical and other considerations seem to suggest 
 that the last clause of vs. 12 should be taken with vs. 13. The 
 treading of the courts could not in any case be required of the 
 hands. We should probably therefore translate : 
 
 When ye come to behold my face, 
 
 Who hath required this at your hands? 
 
 Trample my courts no more, 
 Bring offerings {no more). 
 
 Vain is the smoke of sacrifice, 
 It is an abomination to me. 
 
 The present Hebrew text is pointed, against the grammar, to 
 mean : " when ye come to appear, or show yourselves, before me." 
 There can be no doubt, however, that the Hebrew words origi- 
 nally meant and were intended to mean : " when ye come to see 
 my face " — a phrase which carries one back to a time when God 
 was conceived as a man, and mortals were supposed to speak to 
 him, and see him face to face, though in Isaiah's time the phrase 
 can have meant little more than turning the face in the direction 
 of the inner shrine of the sanctuary, where the presence of Jehovah 
 was supposed uniquely to be. Even so, however, the anthropo- 
 morphic flavor of the phrase was objectionable to the austere 
 theologians of a later date, and the word was pointed as a passive, 
 or rather middle, not active, so as to suggest that the people ap- 
 peared or showed themselves, and thus to eliminate the idea of 
 beholding the divine face. Similar liberties are not infrequently 
 taken with the original text, sometimes by the later Jews who 
 pointed the consonantal text, sometimes much earlier still by the 
 Greek-speaking translators, who, for example, in Exod. 24 : 10, 
 transform " they saw the God of Israel " into " they saw the place 
 where the God of Israel stood." 
 
 Who hath required this — that is, such sacrifices as are men- 
 
 29 
 
13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 To trample my courts ? 
 
 13. Bring no more vain oblations. 
 Incense is an abomination unto me ; 
 
 New moon and sabbath, the calling of assembHes, — 
 I cannot away with 
 
 ^ Iniquity and the solemn meeting. 
 
 14. Your new moons and your appointed feasts 
 
 1 Gr. fasting. 
 
 tioned in the preceding verse — at your hand ? As a matter of 
 fact, there was an ancient law which did require that no wor- 
 shipper should appear empty-handed (Exod. 23 : 15 ; 34 : 20). The 
 prophetic conception of rehgion, however, as we have seen, was 
 different. 
 
 It is difficult to decide between Bring no more a vain offering: 
 the smoke of sacrifice is an abomination to me, and Bring no more 
 offerings: vain is the smoke of sacrifice, it is an abomination to we. 
 The latter is more drastic and is probably to be preferred. Ofifer- 
 ing here is a general word covering animal sacrifice, though in the 
 later law the term was confined to the bloodless sacrifice. 
 
 13b, 14. Not only are the sacrifices detestable, but the very 
 holy days themselves, of which the new moon and the sabbath 
 (frequently mentioned together, cf. Amos 8: 5, Hos. 2: 11) are 
 specially singled out. The new moon must have been a very 
 ancient festival, and goes back to Israel's nomadic days : the 
 sabbath, apparently of Babylonian origin, was probably first 
 domesticated among the Hebrews — and, in the process, trans- 
 formed — in the agricultural period that followed their entrance 
 into Canaan. We can hardly suppose that the holy days are 
 objectionable in themselves, but simply as affording opportunity 
 for the convocation of the immoral worshippers. After I cannot 
 perhaps the word bear should be suppKed (there is no equivalent 
 for away with in the Hebrew) : New moon and sabbath, solemn 
 convocation, I cannot bear. The last two Hebrew words of 
 vs. 13 might be translated wickedness and worship (lit. iniquity and 
 sacred assembly), and would give a fine epigrammatic point to the 
 verse. For " iniquity," however, the Greek version r e&ds fasting, 
 and this is possibly correct. Participation in the act of worship or 
 communion with the deity was often preceded by preparatory 
 fasting, so that the two words together might indicate a certain 
 scrupulous piety. This kind of piety, however, offered by wor- 
 
 30 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i : 17 
 
 My soul hateth : 
 They are a trouble unto me ; 
 I am weary to bear them. 
 
 15. And when ye spread forth your hands, 
 
 I will hide mine eyes from you : 
 Yea, when ye make many prayers, 
 
 I will not hear: 
 Your hands are full of blood. 
 
 16. Wash you, make you clean ; 
 Put away the evil of your doings 
 
 From before mine eyes ; 
 Cease to do evil : 
 
 17. Learn to do well 
 Seek judgement, 
 
 shippers with hands full of blood (vs. 15), my soid hateth. The 
 appointed feasts are the festivals determined by the season of the 
 year (Gen. i: 14). The sacred seasons and sacrifices lie upon 
 Jehovah like a burden which wearies him ; his patience is exhausted 
 and he will bear it no more. 
 
 15. Prayer is a higher expression of religion than animal sacri- 
 fice; but their prayers, passionately offered with outstretched 
 hands, are as detestable as their sacrifices, because in their social 
 relations they show neither mercy nor justice (vss. 16, 17). Je- 
 hovah will not hear the prayers of such men, however many or 
 passionate they be : he will hide his eyes as a man does, who re- 
 fuses to grant a request (Prov. 28 : 27). 
 
 16. The last clause of vs. 15 should go with vs. 16 : 
 
 Your hands are full of blood, 
 Wash, cleanse yourselves. 
 
 The blood which stained their hands vividly suggests the violence 
 which those unscrupulous hypocrites did not hesitate to use, in 
 order to compass their nefarious ends. The hands outstretched 
 in prayer are red. Hands and hearts sorely need to be cleansed. 
 The God whom they worshipped was not blind to the immorality 
 of their social life: " put away the evil of your doings from before 
 mine eyes.'''' 
 
 17. The vague phrases, cease to do evil, learn to do well — 
 whether part of the original text or not — receive at any rate 
 much more concrete and definite expression in the four following 
 
 31 
 
I : i8 THE BOOK OF ISMAH 
 
 Relieve the oppressed, 
 Judge the fatherless, 
 Plead for the widow. 
 
 The Great Alternatives (i : 18-20) 
 
 18. Come now, and let us reason together, 
 
 Saith the Lord ; 
 Though your sins be as scarlet. 
 They shall be as white as snow ; 
 
 phrases, which show that what Isaiah means by good is justice and 
 mercy as applied to social relations, " seek justice." Probably 
 instead of relieve the oppressed, we should translate restrain 
 (or, by the change of a letter, chastise) the man of violence. The 
 fatherless and the widow, having no natural defenders, would fall 
 an easy pre}^ to the unscrupulous ; but Israel's God is on the side 
 of the weak, and those who worship him truly are like him in their 
 regard for the defenceless. True religion, according to Isaiah, 
 consists not in offering animal sacrifice, but in defending the rights 
 of the weak, especially when they were assailed by avarice and 
 imperilled by unjust legal processes. The truest expression of 
 religion is justice and pity in our relations with our fellow-men 
 (cf. Js. I : 27). 
 
 I : 18-20. An invitation is given by Jehovah to the people to 
 come — before a court, as it were, in which each party may argue 
 his case. In point of fact, it is only Jehovah who speaks ; he lays 
 down the terms of acceptance and rejection — terms which the con- 
 science of the people must admit to be reasonable. 
 
 18. Though your sins (such as are described or implied in vss. 
 15-17, 21, etc.) be as scarlet, etc. This looks hke a promise of 
 forgiveness — the red sin (cf. vs. 15) will be washed white (though, 
 in vs. 16, the washing was to be done by themselves). It must be 
 admitted, however, that, considering the dreadful state of Jeru- 
 salem as disclosed alike by the preceding and the following verses 
 (21 ff .), so emphatic an assurance of forgiveness, especially at the very 
 beginning of Jehovah's argument, comes as an abrupt surprise — 
 softened indeed, somewhat, by reading back into vs. 18 the condi- 
 tions laid down in vss. 19 and 20. This difficulty has led some 
 scholars to take the second clauses as stinging and indignant ques- 
 tions: " though your sins be as scarlet, shall they he ivhite as snow? 
 . . . shall they he as wool? " with the implied answer, " Nay, 
 verily." Red sins cannot be so easily washed out as a frivolous 
 
 32 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i :2i 
 
 Though they be red Hke crimson 
 They shall be as wool. 
 
 19. If ye be willing and obedient, 
 
 Ye shall eat the good of the land : 
 
 20. But if ye refuse and rebel, 
 
 Ye shall be devoured with the sword. 
 
 For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 Zion's Present Shame and Future Glory (i : 21-28) 
 
 21. How is the faithful city 
 
 Become an harlot ! 
 She that was full of judgement ! 
 
 people may imagine (cf. Hos. 6 : 1-4). The common interpreta- 
 tion of the verse may, however, perhaps be retained, for the next 
 two verses make it very plain that the forgiveness is not uncondi- 
 tionally oilered. Crimson, the Hebrew word denotes primarily the 
 insect from which the color was obtained: 
 
 19 f. Note how, as so often in the Old Testament, penitence and 
 obedience are represented as being rewarded by material pros- 
 perity — the good of the land — and disobedience by disaster, here 
 the disaster of war : " ye shall be made to taste the sword," meaning 
 " the sword shall devour you." Apparently, when these verses 
 were spoken, an invasion was impending and the prophet seizes 
 the opportunity to lead the people to repentance. 
 
 I : 21-28. This little poem in Hebrew elegiac metre (generally 
 with three accents in the first line and two in the second, thus : 
 
 How is the faithful city 
 Become a harlot!) 
 
 repeats in more pathetic words the charges already made against 
 Jerusalem, and contrasts her present shame with the glory that 
 will be hers when she is redeemed from her sin. 
 
 21. The prophet looks wistfully back to the early da3's of 
 Jerusalem's history, the times of David and Solomon, when she 
 was a faithful city, faithful to the principles of right and justice, 
 with which Jehovah is peculiarly identified (vss. 16, 17) ; now she 
 is a harlot, that is, unfaithful to those principles. She may be 
 faithful enough in offering her animal sacrifices (vss. 11 ff.) ; but 
 it is her attitude to what is socially just and right that is the real 
 test of her fidelity to her God. 
 
 D 33 
 
I : 22 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Righteousness lodged in her, 
 But now murderers. 
 
 22. Thy silver is become dross, 
 
 Thy wine mixed with water. 
 
 23. Thy princes are rebellious, 
 
 And companions of thieves : 
 Every one loveth gifts. 
 
 And followeth after rewards : 
 They judge not the fatherless. 
 
 Neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. 
 
 24. Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The Mighty One of Israel, 
 Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, 
 And avenge me of mine enemies : 
 
 25. And I will turn my hand upon thee, 
 And thoroughly purge away thy dross, 
 
 And will take away all thy tin : j 
 
 22. The contrast between then and now is pitiful. Then it was 
 silver, now it is dross ; then pure wine, now adulterated. The 
 silver and the wine probably refer to the " justice and right " 
 of vs. 21 — corrupted now by the venal practices of the judges. 
 
 23. This verse gives a concrete picture of the deterioration, 
 which consists, as in vs. 17, in the unblushing disregard of justice 
 and mercy. The princes represent officialdom : in the Hebrew 
 sentence, there is, as often (cf. Hos. 9 : 15), a play upon words — 
 *' thy rulers are unruly " (Cheyne), thy rulers are rebels. They 
 were responsible, in part, for the administration of justice, but 
 instead of suppressing crime they actually abetted it by accepting 
 bribes, and so made themselves the confederates of contemptible 
 thieves. Worst of all, they ignore the rights of the defenceless 
 orphan and widow (vs. 17). 
 
 24. There can be no hope for a city with officials like these ; 
 enemies of right, they are enemies of God, and he must get rid of 
 them. He is Israel's strong one, who will use his strength to take 
 vengeance upon them. 
 
 25. The process by which the city is to be purified is compared 
 to the smelting of impure ore. Jehovah turns his mighty hand in 
 judgment against the city. I will purge thy dross as with lye — 
 a vegetable alkali, which was used to help the process of smelting 
 
 34 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i : 28 
 
 26. And I will restore thy judges as at the first, 
 
 And thy counsellors as at the beginning : 
 Afterward thou shalt be called The City of Righteous- 
 ness, 
 The Faithful City. 
 
 27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgement, 
 
 And her converts with righteousness. 
 
 28. But the destruction of the transgressors and the sinners 
 
 shall be together. 
 And they that forsake the Lord shall be con- 
 sumed. 
 
 and separation — and all thine alloy I will remove, that Jerusalem 
 might again become the pure silver which she had been at the 
 first (vs. 22). Instead of as with lye, we may read, by a very simple 
 change, " I will purge away thy dross in the furnace." 
 
 26. The result of this smelting process, with its consequent 
 removal of the dross, would be the restoration of Jerusalem to its 
 pristine purity. And as the rulers, and in particular the adminis- 
 trators of justice, were largely responsible for her decadence (vs. 
 23), so, in the restoration, their places would be taken by men wor- 
 thy of the ancient regime; and then Jerusalem, once more the 
 home of right and justice (vs. 21), would again deserve the 
 name Faithful City — the name with which the elegy began 
 (vs. 21). 
 
 27 f. With vs. 26, which is an echo of vs. 21, the poem is admira- 
 bly rounded off. Vss. 27, 28, the terms of which are more general 
 and less concrete, may have been added at a later date ; but they 
 are thoroughly appropriate to the spirit of the preceding poem, 
 contemplating as they do the salvation of Zion and the destruction 
 of the rebels. Here it is apparently not to her own (cf. vs. 21), 
 but to the divine justice and righteousness that Zion and her con- 
 verts owe their redemption. 
 
 I : 29-31. This section gives us a glimpse into the old heathen 
 worship of trees and springs, which persisted among the people 
 despite all prophetic preaching and which even yet is not dead. 
 In 65 : 3 ; 66 : 17, passages which are almost certainly post-exilic, 
 there is a similar reference to gardens as the seats of idolatrous 
 worship; but, considering the reverence with which "sacred" 
 trees were always regarded, this practice may well have been com- 
 mon in Isaiah's time, and this scathing condemnation may have 
 come from the prophet himself. 
 
 35 
 
I : 29 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Heathen Cult and Its Doom (i : 29-31) 
 
 29. For^ they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have 
 
 desired, 
 And ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye 
 have chosen. 
 
 30. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, 
 
 And as a garden that hath no water. 
 
 31. And the strong shall be as tow, and his work as a spark ; 
 
 And they shall both burn together, and none shall 
 quench them. 
 
 Jerusalem, the Centre of Blessing to the World (2 : 1-5) 
 
 2. The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concern- 
 ing Judah and Jerusalem. 
 
 1 Some Hebrew MSB. read ye. Gr. reads tkey throughout in vss. 29-31. 
 
 29. The change in vs. 29 from the third person to the second 
 is strange and difficult to explain naturally : apparently we must 
 read throughout the section either the third person or the second, 
 " Ye shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye 
 shall be confounded," etc. Their heathenish worship would lead 
 to nothing but disappointment. 
 
 30. The withered leaves of the tree and the vanished waters of 
 the spring were proofs of the impotence of the deities who were 
 supposed to haunt them, and symbols of the fate of those who 
 worshipped there. " In Palestine, for the most part, the presence 
 of a spring, or a capacious cistern, was essential to the existence 
 of a garden" (Hastings, Diet, of the Bible, ii, 109); hence the 
 pathos of the garden that hath no water. 
 
 31. These idolaters, strong in their own eyes as the oaks (cf. 
 Amos 2 : 9) which they worship, are doomed, with all their works 
 and devices, to irrevocable destruction — pictured here as a judg- 
 ment of fire. 
 
 2 : 1-5. This beautiful picture of Jerusalem in "the issue of the 
 days," when the whole world would recognize her unique religious 
 supremacy, and flock to her to have difficult cases settled by the 
 
 36 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 2:2 
 
 2. And it shall come to pass in the latter days, 
 
 That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be 
 estabhshed 
 ^ In the top of the mountains, 
 ■ And shall be exalted above the hills ; 
 
 ' Gr. adds and the house of God. 
 
 arbitration of her God and his laws, forms a very effective contrast 
 to the picture of the sinful city with which Chap, i opened, and of 
 the description of the idolatries with which it closed. In spite of 
 the new superscription (vs. i ; cf. 1:1) which shows that the 
 chapters introduced by it (probably Chaps. 2-4) once formed an 
 independent group and circulated separately, the present setting 
 of the passage strongly suggests that it was originally intended as a 
 foil to the descriptions of the real Jerusalem in Chap, i, like the 
 corresponding passage in Micah 4 : 1-4 ; it would certainly form a 
 happy conclusion to the first group of prophecies (i : 1-2 : 5). 
 
 It is difficult to say what the connection is between this passage 
 and the similar passage in Micah 4 : 1-4. Either Isaiah borrowed 
 from Micah, or Micah from Isaiah, or both from an older proph- 
 ecy, or in both cases the passage is a later insertion. For several 
 reasons the last suppositi.on seems, on the whole, the most prob- 
 able. 
 
 1. Cf. i: I. 
 
 2. In the latter days. The true prophet looks frankly at the pres- 
 ent (cf. Chap, i), but his eyes are no less fixed upon the future. 
 Beyond these days, he sees the days that come after ; and the phrase 
 " the after-days," the sequel or " issue of the days," naturally 
 came to acquire an almost technical meaning, and was used to 
 indicate what we commonly speak of as the Messianic age,_ the 
 happy, righteous era which would succeed the wretched and sinful 
 age that now is. In this striking passage, it is regarded as an age 
 in which war shall be no more (cf. 9 : 5) and the disputes of the 
 nations will be settled by arbitration. 
 
 The Greek version and the parallelism in vs. 3 suggest that the 
 original text ran thus : 
 
 The mount of Jehovah shall he firmly established, 
 And the house of our God on the chief of the mountains. 
 
 The reference is to the temple and the temple hill. Jerusalem 
 is the religious capital of the world, the temple the most sacred 
 thing in Jerusalem, the house of our God, and the temple hill the 
 chief mountain in the world, the head of the mountains. This is 
 
 37 
 
2 : 3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And all nations shall flow unto it, 
 
 3. And many peoples shall go and say, 
 
 ''Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of 
 the Lord, 
 
 To the house of the God of Jacob; 
 And he will teach us of his ways. 
 
 And we will walk in his paths : 
 For out of Zion shall go forth the law. 
 
 And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." 
 
 4. And he shall judge between the nations, 
 
 And shall reprove many peoples, 
 And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
 
 the vision of a patriot. The translation in the text of SV, " on the 
 top of the mountains," is too grotesque to be probable; '' at the 
 top or head " (SVm) is more likely, especially as later writers do 
 actually appear to have anticipated a physical elevation of Zion, 
 which, according to Ezek. 40 : 2, for example, is a very high 
 mountain — it is to tower above the other hills. In any case, 
 however, the real greatness of Zion in this passage is her spiritual 
 elevation ; in knowledge of the right, in appreciation of the 
 divine will, she towers above all other nations of the world, who 
 have to come (to stream) to her for instruction. 
 
 3. The nations are represented as recognizing the rehgious su- 
 premacy of Jerusalem : she has what they have not — a divine 
 word, a law, that is, instruction (cf. i : 10) in the way in which he 
 would have them walk. Therefore to Jerusalem they go " that 
 he may teach " them through the medium of priest or prophet. 
 
 4. This verse explains the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion. 
 They go for the arbitration of difficult cases, which they would 
 otherwise have settled by war. The pilgrims are men famihar with 
 the use of sword and spear ; but the decision which they receive 
 in Zion is so just and satisfactory that they destroy their weapons, 
 for which they have now no more use. Or rather they do not 
 destroy them, they transform them into useful implements of 
 agriculture. Here we get a glimpse of Israel's love for the coun- 
 try life ; in the golden age, ploughshares and pruning-hooks will 
 have a conspicuous place. Again we see the prophet's horror of 
 war — in the better world to be, the nations shall learn war no 
 more (cf. 9 : 5). 
 
 38 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 2:6 
 
 And their spears into pruning-hooks : 
 Nation shall not Hft up sword against nation, 
 Neither shall they learn war any more. 
 
 5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the 
 
 light of the Lord. 
 
 Judgment upon the Wealth and Pride or Judah 
 (2 : 6-4 : 6) 
 
 Jehovah'' s Judgment Day (2 : 6-22) 
 
 6. For ^ thou hast forsaken thy people 
 The house of Jacob, 
 
 1 Gr. he lias forsaken his people. 
 
 5. A tender appeal to Israel herself to walk in the light of the 
 revelation with which she has been so conspicuously blessed. 
 
 This remarkable passage (vss. 2-5) shows how practical, as well 
 as idealistic, were the thinkers of Israel. It contains in germ the 
 solution of the peace problem. War will be no more when the 
 nations, now armed to the teeth, are willing to submit their dis- 
 putes to the arbitration of Zion ; in other words, when they are 
 willing to have them decided by those principles of justice which 
 were never more earnestly or eloquently proclaimed than by the 
 Hebrew prophets, and which are identified with Jerusalem as 
 with no other city in the world. The passage presupposes nations 
 which will be reasonable enough to seek for arbitration from a 
 court which they can trust, and content to abide by the decision 
 when it is pronounced. 
 
 2 : 6-4: 6. This group must be among the very earliest of all 
 Isaiah's prophecies. Part of it falls in the brief reign of Jotham 
 (740-736 B.C.) soon after Uzziah's death (cf. 6:1); the brilKance, 
 energy, and enterprise of Uzziah's highly prosperous reign are felt 
 through the prophet's solemn warnings of doom. Part of the 
 prophecy may come, however, from the beginning of the reign of 
 Ahaz ; 3 : 12, for example, seems to be an unmistakable allusion to 
 that irresolute king. We cannot go far wrong in assigning at least 
 Chaps. 2 and 3 to the years 740-736 or 735 B.C. 
 
 2: 6-22. The prosperous enterprise of the reign of Uzziah has 
 brought to Judah the luxury and the superstition of the East, and 
 engendered in her a temper of worldliness and pride. For all 
 
 39 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Because they be filled with customs from the east, 
 And are soothsayers Hke the Philistines, 
 
 And they strike hands with the children of strangers. 
 7. Their land also is full of silver and gold, 
 
 Neither is there any end of their treasures ; 
 
 these things a day of judgment is coming ; and the judgment, 
 which is described in a poem of splendid power, is colored by 
 Isaiah's experience of the terrible earthquake which occurred in 
 the reign of Uzziah (cf. Amos 1:1), and which remained a national 
 memory for centuries (Zech. 14: 5). 
 
 6. The poem can hardly have begun with for. It has been 
 aptly conjectured that this verse may originally have been pre- 
 ceded by the refrain which now appears in different forms, in vss. 
 10, 19, 21. " Enter the rocky caverns and hide thee in the dust, 
 etc., for he hath forsaken his people" (3d person; so the Greek 
 version). 
 
 The first count in the indictment against Judah is her supersti- 
 tion. As the Hebrew word for soothsayer, very like the word for 
 east, appears to have fallen out, we should probably read : 
 
 They are full of diviners from the east. 
 And of soothsayers like the Philistines. 
 
 The first term is used of obtaining an oracle by drawing lots, the 
 second is quite obscure ; it may suggest divination by watching 
 the clouds, or it may indicate the monotonous croon of the sooth- 
 sayer, or the glance of the evil eye. These and other forms of 
 superstition are severel}^ condemned and forbidden in Deut. 
 18 : 10 ff. Indulgence in such superstitious practices was greatly 
 encouraged by Israel's intercourse, through trade and in other 
 ways, with, foreigners ; the soothsayers a-re from the east, the near 
 east (cf. Balaam), and still more the distant Babylonia, whose 
 diviners were the recognized experts of the ancient world. For 
 Philistine divination cf. i Sam. 6 : 2; 2 Kings 1:2. Uzziah's wars 
 with the Phihstines (2 Chron. 26:6f.) would have brought his 
 people into special contact with them. 
 
 They strike hands, etc. Any sort of contract with foreigners 
 always involved a menace to the purer religion of Israel, and was 
 therefore deprecated by the prophets (cf. Hos. 7:8; Num. 23 : 9). 
 It has been suggested, however, with some probability, that this 
 word has displaced an original word of somewhat similar sound, 
 meaning " they practise sorcery." 
 
 7. Uzziah had recovered Elath, the port on the northeasterly 
 arm of the Red Sea (2 Kings 14 : 22) ; the silver and gold are the 
 
 40 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 2 : 10 
 
 Their land also is full of horses, 
 
 Neither is there any end of their chariots. 
 
 8. Their land also is full of idols ; 
 
 They worship the work of their own hands, 
 That which their own fingers have made. 
 
 9. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great 
 
 man is brought low : 
 Therefore forgive them not. 
 10. Enter into the rock, 
 
 And hide thee in the dust. 
 From before the terror of the Lord 
 And from the glory of his majesty.^ 
 
 1 Gr. here properly inserts, when he arises to shake the earth (cf. vss. 19, 21). 
 
 result of foreign trade, the horses and chariots would be neces- 
 sary in Uzziah's wars (2 Chron. 26 : 6-15). All alike would beget 
 a confidence in material resources, and divert Judah from faith 
 in her unseen God. 
 
 8. Superstition (vs. 6), wealth (vs. 7), idolatry (vs. 8). The 
 idolatry goes naturally with the superstition. The prophet has 
 nothing but scorn (cf. 40: 19, 20) for worshippers who bow down 
 before the creations of their own hands. Such hand-made gods 
 are no gods — mere nothings, as the Hebrew word suggests. 
 
 The frequent repetition of the word full in vss. 6-8 is very 
 impressive; Judah is full of practices, influences, possessions, 
 which drive her from her God and compel him to reject her. 
 
 9. It does not seem natural to explain the being bowed down 
 and brought low of the people being sunk in superstition. It is 
 more probable, especially in view of vs. 10, which urges the people 
 to hide from the awful presence of Jehovah, that the doom is here 
 pronounced for the first time. The language, though briefer, 
 strongly resembles vss. 11, 17, and still more 5:15; perhaps 
 originally ran " the mean man shall he bowed down," etc. The 
 last clause of the verse is probably corrupt ; it is difficult to assign 
 a really satisfactory meaning to it. The last clause of the corre- 
 sponding verse, 5 : 15, is more satisfactory. 
 
 10. In view of the inevitable doom, the prophet bids the people 
 flee from the terrible avenging Jehovah, to the caves in the lime- 
 stone rocks, in which men were wont to seek safety from their 
 enemies (i Sam. 13 : 6). 
 
 41 
 
II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 11. The lofty looks of men shall be brought low, 
 And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, 
 And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 
 
 12. For there shall be a day of the Lord of hosts 
 Upon all that is proud and haughty, 
 
 And upon all that is lifted up : ^ and it shall be brought 
 low : 
 
 13. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and 
 
 Hfted up, 
 And upon all the oaks of Bashan ; 
 
 14. And upon all the high mountains. 
 
 And upon all the hills that are Hfted up ; 
 
 15. And upon every lofty tow^r, 
 
 And upon every fenced wall ; 
 
 1 Gr. and high. 
 
 II f. That day is the day of judgment, the great day of Jehovah, 
 described so powerfully in the following verses. To the people, 
 it meant the day of judgment upon Israel's enemies (cf. Amos 
 5: 18 ff.); to the early prophets, with their moral conception of 
 Jehovah (cf. i: 17), it meant the day of judgment upon Israel 
 herself. There is no one in all the universe that is really exalted 
 but Jehovah (6:1); all that seems or pretends to be exalted — 
 whether persons or things — must therefore be thrown remorse- 
 lessly down in " that day," which is coming " upon all that is proud 
 and haughty, and upon all that is high and lifted tip " (so Gr). 
 The passage finely illustrates Isaiah's conception of the lonely 
 majesty and exaltation of God. 
 
 13-16. Again (as in vss. 6-8, with their impressive repetition of 
 full) the swing and cadence of the poem can be distinctly felt 
 through the English translation ; upon the cedars, upon the moun- 
 tains, upon the towers, upon the ships, the judgment shall fall. 
 The storm, which lays these lofty things low, begins, as in Ps. 29, 
 in the north: it sweeps through the forests, prostrating the mighti- 
 est trees ; across the cities, levelling their towers and walls ; over 
 the seas, wrecking the giant ships. These allusions have perhaps a 
 special as well as a general point: the cedars and oaks would 
 contribute to the luxury of the palatial homes of Judah, the towers 
 
 42 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 2:20 
 
 16. And upon all the ships of Tarshish, 
 
 And upon all pleasant imagery. 
 
 17. And the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, 
 And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low, 
 And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 
 
 18. And the idols shall utterly pass away. 
 
 19. And men shall go into the caves of the rocks, 
 
 And into the holes of the earth, 
 From before the terror of the Lord, 
 
 And from the glory of his majesty. 
 When he ariseth to shake mightily the earth. 
 
 20. In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, 
 
 and walls suggest the fortifications of Uzziah and Jotham, and the 
 ships recall Uzziah's fleet. Uzziah held Elath, a harbor of great 
 commercial importance (2 Kings 14:22), and must have pos- 
 sessed a fleet. Ships of Tarshish, primarily ships built (by the 
 Phoenicians) to go to Tartessus in Spain, came to mean simply 
 large merchant-ships. Imagery has been explained as ornanien- 
 tal work on the ships, or as works of art carried by the ships ; 
 perhaps it simply conceals another word for ships, parallel to the 
 ships of the first clause. 
 
 17 f. Again the refrain; cf. vs. 11. The whole passage grandly 
 suggests the might of the great storm-god, and by impHcation the 
 impotence of men. In that day, when his storm sweeps across 
 the world, it will be patent to the proudest eyes that Jehovah alone 
 is exalted, and the folly of idolatry (cf. vs. 8), of worshipping idols, 
 nothings, will be obvious ; the storm will sweep them, too, away. 
 
 19. And they (not 7nen) shall go into the caves of the rocks. 
 Who? In this context, apparently the idols (vs. 18); and with 
 this idea it is supposed that vs. 20 which, unHke the poetic context, 
 is in pure prose, was added by a later hand, to show how the 
 idols got into the caves, viz. through having been thrown to the 
 moles and the bats. Having regard, however, to the very similar 
 vs. 10, it seems altogether probable that this verse, of which vs. 21 
 is practically a duplicate, originally began with an imperative : 
 Enter into the caves of the rocks, etc. There is an infinite pathos 
 about this refrain, for how can puny man, by any device, hope to 
 escape (cf. Ps. 139 : 7) the terrible presence of Jehovah, when he 
 rises to affright the earth, as he did in the ever memorable earth- 
 quake of Uzziah's reign ? 
 
 43 
 
2 121 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 and his idols of gold, which they made for him to 
 worship, to the moles and to the bats; 
 
 21. To go into the caverns of the rocks. 
 
 And into the clefts of the ragged rocks, 
 From before the terror of the Lord, 
 
 And from the glory of his majesty, 
 When he ariseth to shake mightily the earth. 
 
 22. ^ Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; 
 
 for wherein is he to be accounted of? 
 
 A Reign of Anarchy (3 : 1-15) 
 
 3. For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 Doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah 
 Stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole 
 
 1 This vs. is not in Gr. 
 
 2 2. This verse, which is not in the Greek version, is a conclusion 
 drawn from the previous description of the majestic omnipotence 
 of God. Cease — the readers are reminded — from trusting in 
 man : his life is but a breath (cf. Gen. 2:7), and he is of no account 
 whatever. This is the comment that rises naturally to the mind 
 of any reader fresh from the description of the devastating storm. 
 
 3: 1-15. Already, in Chap. 2, we have seen the storm sweep 
 across Judah, and we have also seen something of the sin which 
 made its coming inevitable. In Chap. 3 the doom is again pro- 
 claimed, and the sins — here injustice rather than superstition 
 and pride — again enumerated, though the order of the sin and 
 doom in this chapter is reversed. The doom is here described 
 (vss. 1-7) as social and political chaos, though whether that is to 
 be effected from without, as, for example, by an invasion of the 
 Assyrians, or from within, by revolution, is not clearly stated — 
 indeed the one often gave opportunity for the other. The pas- 
 sage comes no doubt from the reign of Ahaz, and that reign had not 
 advanced far till Isaiah had witnessed in the northern kingdom 
 the very confusion he here describes (2 Kings 15) — invasion and 
 revolution, with consequent confusion and anarchy, went hand in 
 hand ; and Isaiah foresees here for Judah a fate similar to that of 
 her sister to the north. The guilt which justifies the doom is 
 described in vss. 8-15. 
 
 44 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 3:4 
 
 2. staff of water, the mighty man, and the man of 
 war; 
 
 The judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the 
 ^ ancient : 
 
 3. The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the 
 
 counsellor, 
 And the ^ cunning ^ artificer, and the skilful enchanter. 
 
 4. And I will give children to be their princes, 
 
 1 m. elder. - SV expert. ^ m. charmer. 
 
 1. The doom is to be executed by Jehovah as Sovereign, the 
 Lord ; and it is to take the form of the removal of all the " pillars " 
 of the state — military, administrative, political, religious. How 
 they are to be removed we are not told, perhaps by assassination, 
 perhaps by the captivity that would naturally follow a foreign 
 invasion of the land ; but, however that might be, their removal 
 v/ould mean the collapse of the whole social fabric. Stay and staff 
 not unaptly render the Hebrew, which repeats its word twice, 
 first in the mascuHne and then in the feminine, to indicate the 
 completeness of the doom. The " stay and the staff " are 
 those on whom the country leans — such officials as are 
 enumerated in the two following verses ; there can therefore be 
 little doubt that " stay of bread and staff of water,'' with its some- 
 what irrelevant outlook on famine and drought, is a later and 
 rather inappropriate addition, suggested, perhaps, by such pas- 
 sages as Ps. 105 : 16; Lev. 26 : 26. In Isaiah's own words (contrast 
 the opening verse, i: i) Jerusalem always precedes Judah ; the 
 capital city illustrates on a brilliant scale the sins that stained the 
 whole land. 
 
 2, 3. In the enumeration of the officials no order is observable, 
 though it is significant that the military men come first, and that 
 the prophet and diviner or soothsayer (condemned, by impHcation, 
 in the restored text of 2:6, " soothsayers from the east ") are 
 mentioned together. The prophets as a whole are unworthy men 
 (cf. 28: 7 ff.), with whom such men as Isaiah and Amos (7: 14) 
 can have little in common. The absence of the priest from this 
 list is curious, and the mention of the wise magician (as we should 
 perhaps translate instead of " the cunning artificer ") and of 
 the skilful enchanter as among the supports of the state is certainly 
 very ominous (cf. 2 : 6). 
 
 4, 5. The withdrawal of the officials, among whom were elders 
 
 45 
 
3:5 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And babes shall rule over them. 
 
 5. And the people shall be oppressed, everyone by another, 
 
 And every one by his neighbour : 
 The child shall behave himself proudly against the 
 ^ ancient, 
 And the base against the honourable. 
 
 6. When a man shall take hold of his brother 
 
 In the house of his father, saying, 
 "Thou hast clothing, 
 
 Be thou our ruler. 
 And let this ruin be 
 
 Under thy hand :" 
 
 7. In that day shall he lift up his voice , saying, 
 
 "I will not be an healer ; 
 For in my house is neither bread nor clothing : 
 Ye shall not make me ruler of the people." 
 
 1 m. elder. 
 
 (vs. 2), throws the reins of government into the hands of young 
 men, inexperienced, capricious, and insolent; "caprice shall rule 
 over them," i.e. youths whose whim is their law, and who care 
 nothing for justice. Indeed, the tj^ranny and insolence become 
 general ; age and honor count for nothing in the general confusion 
 and dissolution of society. 
 
 6. In the welter, things come to such a pass that no one will 
 accept office, even when it is thrust upon him. The country is 
 nothing but a " heap of ruins "; and the verse seems to imply that 
 the people, recognizing that such a state of anarchy can no longer 
 continue, offer the leadership to a member, apparently, of one of 
 the noble houses referred to in vss. 2, 3 — to one who possesses a 
 robe of office, if Marti's plausible emendation (" thy father " for 
 " his father ") and interpretation be accepted : 
 
 When one takes hold of his brother {-citizen), 
 Saying, " In thy father's house is a robe of office ; 
 Come, do thou be our leader,'' etc. 
 
 7. But not all their vigor and violence (vs. 6) can induce him to 
 accept office. He lifts up (his voice) in protest. How can he 
 
 46 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 3:11 
 
 8. For Jerusalem is ruined, 
 
 And Judah is fallen : 
 Because their tongue and their doings are against the 
 Lord, 
 To provoke the eyes of his glory. 
 
 9. ^ The shew of their countenance 
 
 Doth witness against them ; 
 And they declare their sin as Sodom, 
 
 They hide it not. 
 Woe unto their soul ! 
 
 For they have rewarded evil unto themselves. 
 
 10. Say ye of the righteous, that it shall he well with him: 
 
 For they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 
 
 11. Woe unto the wicked ! it shall he ill with him: 
 
 1 m. their respecting of persons. 
 
 who, as a result of the anarchy, has no resources of his own, help a 
 confused and resourceless people? He cannot heal (lit. hind up, 
 same word as in i : 6) the wounds of a country so torn : ye shall 
 not make me leader. 
 
 8. Jerusalem is mined (cf. vs. 6) — not yet in reality, but to 
 the clear e3^es of the prophet, she is as good as ruined : a political 
 chaos (1-7) in consequence of her having become a moral chaos, or, 
 as Isaiah puts it, because her words and deeds are against Jehovah. 
 Her people forget that the eyes of his glory, which pierce beneath 
 the show and surface of things, are upon them — watching alike 
 the cruelty practised upon the poor, and the superfluous finery 
 with which the proud and haughty dames of Jerusalem walk up 
 and down her streets. Such sights provoke those glorious eyes. 
 
 9. The great sin here, as so often in Isaiah (cf. i : 17), is the mis- 
 carriage of justice. In the presence of the great Judge, who in 
 vs. 13 sets up his tribunal, these earthly ministers of justice stand 
 self-condemned : their partiality (lit. respect of persons, rather 
 than the show of their countenance) witnesses against them ; they 
 play into the hands of the rich and exploit the poor. Before the 
 bar of the divine Judge, they in this way announce their sin undis- 
 guisedly, and thus bring evil upon themselves. 
 
 10. II. These verses sound weak in so powerful a context. 
 Besides, they make a distinction between the destinies of the good 
 
 47 
 
3:i2 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For the reward of his hands shall be given him. 
 
 12. As for my people, children are their oppressors, 
 
 And ^ women rule over them. 
 O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, 
 And destroy the way of thy paths. 
 
 13. The Lord standeth up to plead, 
 
 1 Gr. extortioners. 
 
 and the bad, which is not recognized in the preceding verses, where 
 the evils of anarchy fall upon all alike. The Greek translators 
 felt the difficulty of the verses, and endeavored to connect them 
 more definitely with the context. They are in all probability a 
 later addition, and even the text does not appear to have been 
 well preserved. The original may have run : 
 
 Happy is the righteous ! for it is well with him . . . 
 Woe to the wicked ! for it is ill with him, etc. 
 
 12. The divine pity for the crushed and misguided people finds 
 forcible expression in the twice repeated my people at the begin- 
 ning and the middle of the verse. The first line is usually rendered 
 " children are their oppressors " (or " a child is their oppressor"), 
 and "women rule over them" {i.e. the people; or him — the 
 child-king). The child — whether in years or in character — 
 is taken to refer to Ahaz, who was young when he ascended the 
 throne (2 Kings 16: 2), and the women would be those of the 
 harem, or perhaps the queen-mother. " Child," however, is not 
 usually represented by the Hebrew word found here, which is the 
 participle of a verb meaning " to deal severely with," and, as 
 Marti points out, the words may equally mean their rulers deal 
 harshly with them, and in the next clause the word rendered " wo- 
 men " may equall}^ well be rendered by usurers, oppressors (cf. 
 vs. 15), and was so taken by the Greek translators. It is a pity 
 that the meaning of so important a verse should be ambiguous. 
 On the common view, the passage could be safely assigned to a 
 period very early in the reign of Ahaz ; but on any view it comes 
 almost certainly from his reign. The disastrous effects of his 
 weak and vacillating policy are apparent. 
 
 my people, those who should lead thee straight, lead thee astray. 
 The leaders had themselves confused the paths, so that the people 
 did not know how to walk or where to turn. It is interesting to 
 note how the prophets hold the leaders in large measure respon- 
 sible for the moral condition of the people ; leaders should lead. 
 
 13, 14. The divine judgment, hinted at in vs. 9, is here explicitly 
 
 48 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 3 : 15 
 
 And standeth to judge ^ the peoples, 
 
 14. The Lord will enter into judgement 
 
 With the elders of his people, and the princes thereof 
 "It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard ; 
 The spoil of the poor is in your houses : 
 
 15. What mean ye that ye crush my people, 
 
 And grind the face of the poor?" 
 Saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 Gr. his people. 
 
 set forth, — Jehovah takes his stand for the trial, to judge (not per- 
 haps peoples, but rather, with Gr.) his people. In particular, he 
 enters into judgment with the leading men, in their two representa- 
 tive classes — the elders, who represented the traditional order of 
 things, and the princes, the official representatives of the monarchi- 
 cal government. It was their business to protect the people, here 
 compared to a vineyard (cf. Chap. 5), from depredation; instead 
 of that, as for yon (very emphatic ; you, its divinely constituted 
 defenders), you have yourselves devoured it, \n the sense explained in 
 the remaining clause of the verse and vs. 15, by cruelly plundering 
 the poor ; the evidence is incontrovertible, for the spoil is in your 
 houses. 
 
 15. What do you mean, the prophet indignantly asks in the 
 name of his God, by crushing my people, and by grinding, as between 
 the upper and the nether millstone, the face of the poor ? Again 
 the prophetic interest in the poor. The fierce vigor of the language 
 here recalls the similar passages in Amos (4: i) and, still more, 
 Micah 3 : 2, 3. 
 
 This passage (vss. 1-15) is a very graphic description of the 
 misery of a state given over to anarchy, and it is significant that 
 here, as so often, the crime, of which such anarchy is the awful 
 chastisement, is simply social injustice. When the faces of the 
 poor are being ground, revolution and anarchy are not far off. 
 The moral insight of the passage is as keen as its descriptive power 
 is great. 
 
 3 : 16-4 : I. With his customary insight, Isaiah, like Amos (4 : i), 
 sees that for the moral depravity of a people the women must bear 
 a heavy share of responsibility. Appropriately enough he here 
 turns to them and, in terms scarcely less scathing than those of 
 Amos, he satirizes their haughtiness and conceit, as it is expressed 
 in their stylish dress and coquettish manner, and pronounces upon 
 them his terrible word of doom. 
 
 E 49 
 
3:i6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Doom of the Haughty Women (3 : 16-4 : i) 
 
 16. Moreover the Lord said, 
 
 Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, 
 And walk with stretched forth necks 
 
 And wanton eyes, 
 Walking and mincing as they go, 
 
 And maldng a tinkhng with their feet : 
 
 17. Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown 
 
 of the head of the daughters of Zion, 
 And the Lord will lay bare their secret parts. 
 
 18. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of 
 
 19. their anklets, and the ^ cauls, and the crescents : the 
 
 20. pendants, and the bracelets, and the mufflers ; the 
 headtires, and the ankle chains, and the sashes, and 
 
 21. the perfume boxes, and the amulets ; the rings, and the 
 
 22. nose jewels ; the festival robes and the mantles, and 
 
 23. the shawls, and the satchels ; the - hand mirrors, and 
 the fine Hnen, and the turbans, and the veils. 
 
 1 m. networks. 2 Qr. transparent dresses. 
 
 16, 17. Zion, on which the royal palace and temple were built, 
 would be, as Duhm says, the fashionable quarter. It is therefore 
 the daughters of Zion, the fine ladies, whom the prophet here 
 lashes with his scorn. They are haughty (lit. high), and, as they 
 strut along, with outstretched neck, and tinkling anklets to 
 attract attention, and eyes coquettishly turned upon the passers- 
 by, they forget — if ever they knew — the truth which in Chap. 2 
 the prophet had proclaimed with such terrible earnestness, that 
 a day of Jehovah is coming upon all that is proud and haughty 
 (2: 12); and then, reduced by the exigencies of war or by the 
 prevailing anarchy, to destitution, he will smite with disease 
 (the scab) the heads that were once so fair, and expose the once 
 haughty dames to the licentious insults of the rabble. 
 
 18-23, It is now generally recognized that this prosaic inventory 
 of a Hebrew woman's articles of dress and toilet, interrupting as 
 it does the terse and solemn poetry on both sides of it, is from some 
 
 50 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 4:1 
 
 24. And it shall come to pass, 
 
 That instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness, 
 
 And instead of a girdle a rope ; 
 And instead of weU set hair baldness ; 
 
 And instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth ; 
 Branding instead of beauty. 
 
 25. Thy men shall fall by the sword, 
 
 And thy mighty in the war. 
 
 26. And her gates shall lamxcnt and mourn. 
 
 And she shall be ^ desolate and sit upon the ground. 
 4. And seven women shall take hold 
 Of one man in that day, saying, 
 
 ' m. emptied. 
 
 later hand than that of Isaiah. The number of apparently for- 
 eign words shows the powerful influence of foreign customs, and 
 explains the prophetic dread of " striking hands with foreigners " 
 (2:6, cf. Zeph. 1:8). 
 
 24. The poem is here resumed. For perfume there shall he 
 rottenness, and for a girdle the captive's rope. . . . Burning — 
 perhaps the brand of a slave — for beauty. 
 
 25, 26. In these verses it would seem as if, for the moment, the 
 women were forgotten, and some city, no doubt Jerusalem, is 
 being apostrophized, her young men slain, her gates mourning 
 that the people who had gathered there are now no more, the city 
 herself emptied (of her men) and sitting, like an uncrowned 
 queen, upon the ground. The passage recalls the spirit and lan- 
 guage of Lamentations (cf. 2 : 10). Note the change in these 
 verses from the second to the third person. 
 
 4:1. The case of the women is now resumed, and the descrip- 
 tion of their fate continued. Exposed as they are to insult on 
 every side, their plight will be so desperate that seven of them, 
 with a violence much Hke that of those who were in search of a 
 man to stem the tide of anarchy (3:6), will lay hold of any man 
 they meet, and beseech him to marry them, not for support — 
 that they will find for themselves — but for the protection that 
 his name will throw around the one whom he makes his wife. 
 And this — humiliation and despair — is the end of the haughty 
 women who tripped so daintily through the streets of Jerusalem ! 
 
 51 
 
4:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 " We will eat our own bread, 
 
 And wear our own apparel : 
 Only let us be called by thy name ; 
 
 Take thou away our reproach." 
 
 Zion^s Final Glory (4 : 2-6) 
 2. In that day 
 
 Shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, 
 And the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely 
 For them that are escaped of Israel. 
 
 4 : 2-6. This description of the golden age, in which Jerusalem 
 will enjoy the visible presence of Jehovah, at once protected and 
 glorified by it, is a foil to the preceding chapters (2 and 3) with their 
 melancholy story of Judah's idolatry, pride, and injustice. Every 
 one can see that there is no real inner connection between the two 
 descriptions. The prospect announced in vss. 2-6 was hardly 
 likely to be realized in that day — the day of anarchy and calamity 
 described in Chap. 3. That day is in reality the golden age to 
 which especially the later writers look forward, and the passage 
 is an independent piece. This picture of the ideal Jerusalem of the 
 latter days is set very effectively, and no doubt deliberately, be- 
 side the picture of the real Jerusalem with its venal judges, its 
 crushed poor, its proud men, its haughty women ; and like the 
 similar passage in 2 : 1-5, it forms a very appropriate conclusion 
 to the group (2 : 6-4 : 6). The " daughters of Zion " (vs. 4) form 
 the connecting link between this section and the last (3:16). 
 Many features of the passage — the " holiness '' of the people of 
 Jerusalem, the reminiscence of the Mosaic age in the dehneation 
 of the ideal, etc. — seem to point to a post-exilic date. The later 
 age loved to supplement the sternness of an ancient prophet's 
 message by words of hope and consolation. 
 
 2. In a prophecy of the Messianic age, it is from a modern point 
 of view surprising to find the initial emphasis thrown upon the 
 fertility of the land, for there can be no doubt that the phrase the 
 fruit of the land is to be interpreted literally. It is only to the 
 phrase the branch of Jehovah that doubt can attach. This has 
 often been interpreted personally — of the Messiah, and the per- 
 sonal use of the word branch in Jer. 23 : 5 ; 33 * ^5 ; Zech. 3:8; 
 6:12, lends a certain plausibility to this interpretation. But the 
 context, in which the ambiguous phrase is parallel to the unam- 
 biguous /rz/i/ of the land, practically puts the literal interpretation 
 
 52 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 4:4 
 
 3. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, 
 And he that remaineth m Jerusalem, shall be called 
 
 holy. 
 Even every one that is written ^ among the Hving in 
 Jerusalem : 
 
 4. When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of 
 
 the daughters of Zion, 
 
 And shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the 
 midst thereof. 
 
 By the 2 spirit of judgement, and by the ^ spirit of burn- 
 ing. 
 
 1 m. unto life. ^ m. blast. 
 
 beyond all doubt, and that which Jehovah causes to sprout ^ (as the 
 words literally mean) will be the wild vegetation, for which man 
 does nothing (Ps. 104: 14), as opposed to the cultivated fruits of 
 the land (Deut. 8:8). There will be supernatural fertility in the 
 latter days for them that are escaped of Israel, that is, for those 
 who escape the final judgment (Joel 2 : 32). 
 
 3. Those who are left in Jerusalem shall be called (because they 
 shall be; the name is a real index to the thing) holy — probably in 
 the technical sacerdotal sense as well as in the moral. To later 
 hope and imagination, the people of Jerusalem appeared as Je- 
 hovah's priests for the whole world (61:6). -They are his " holy 
 people " (62 : 12) — not indeed all of them, but every one who is 
 registered unto life. The idea of the " book of life " (Ps. 69 : 28, cf. 
 Exod. 32 : 32 f. ; Mai. 3:16; Dan. 12 : i), in which were recorded 
 the names of all who would " live," that is, survive the final judg- 
 ment, was suggested by the register in which the names of citizens 
 were recorded (cf. Neh. 7 : 64). In Ps. 87 : 6, the civic and spirit- 
 ual ideas are suggestively blended. 
 
 4. This verse goes with vs. 3. The golden age will come, when 
 the Lord shall have washed away the impurity, etc. Men and wo- 
 men were guilty alike — the men of " bloody crimes " (Ezek. 
 7: 23), especially against the poor (Jer. 2 : 34). They are to be 
 cleansed by the mighty blast (or spirit — the spirit being con- 
 ceived as the medium or agent) of judgment, which is a blast^ of 
 extermination (rather than burning) ; that is, it is a judgment which 
 " puts away " (Deut. 13 : 5, same word as here) the evil from the 
 midst of the congregation. 
 
 53 
 
415 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. And the Lord will ^ create over the whole habitation 
 
 of Mount Zion, 
 And over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, 
 And the shining of a flaming fire by night : 
 For over all the glory shall he spread a canopy. 
 
 6. And there shall be a pavilion for a shadow in the day- 
 
 time from the heat, 
 And for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from 
 rain. 
 
 The Vineyard with the Wild Grapes (5 : 1-30) 
 
 The Song of the Vineyard (5 : 1-7) 
 
 5. Let me sing ^ for my wellbeloved a song 
 
 Of my beloved touching his vineyard. 
 
 ' Gr. come. " Or oj. 
 
 5. Instead of create we should probably read, with the Greek, 
 come, by the omission of a single letter. And Jehovah will come 
 and his presence will rest upon the whole site of Mount Zion and 
 upon her holy convocations as (or in) a cloud by day, and as smoke 
 and the shining of a flaming fire by night. The sublimest feature 
 of those future golden days would be the visible presence of Je- 
 hovah himself with his people, and that in a form which recalled 
 the high privilege of the Mosaic age (Exod. 13: 21, 22). That 
 presence would be to the people at once protection and glory. 
 
 6. With this verse should be taken perhaps the last clause of 
 vs. 5, /or over all the holy city and mountain the glory of Jehovah 
 (that is, the cloud and the flame of fire) will be canopy and cover- 
 ing (lit. pavilion), — a shade from the heat, a refuge and shelter from 
 storm and rain. The storm and rain typify floods of disaster or 
 oppression (cf. 25:4). Probably, with the Greek, in the daytime 
 should be omitted. 
 
 There is much that is attractive in this vision of the future. 
 True, it embraces the fertility of the land — a certain healthy 
 materialism is seldom absent from the Old Testament conception 
 of blessedness — but its inhabitants are a people whose sins have 
 been washed away, and whose life is overshadowed by the pres- 
 ence of their God. 
 
 5 : 1-30. The prophecies of which Chap. 5 is composed, having 
 
 54 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 5:2 
 
 My wellbeloved had a vineyard Mat. 21 : 33 
 
 In a very fruitful hill : Lk.^o^^ 
 
 2. And he made a trench about it, and gathered out 
 
 the stones thereof, 
 And planted it with the choicest vine, 
 And built a tower in the midst of it, 
 
 no connection either with Chap. 4 or Chap. 6, appear to form an 
 independent group, and probably belong, like Chaps. 2 and 3, 
 to Isaiah's earlier period ; but, early as they are, they already show- 
 literary power and moral insight of the most splendid kind. In 
 Isaiah the poet was no less great than the prophet. 
 
 5: 1-7. We are to suppose the prophet appearing — probably 
 in the temple on the occasion of some festival — before a great 
 gathering drawn from the capital and the country towns of Judah 
 (vs. 3). He skilfully attracts their attention by proposing to 
 sing a song whose theme is the vineyard of a friend of his. As the 
 song advances, the bitter truth gradually discloses itself. The 
 friend is Jehovah, the vineyard is Judah, which, because of the 
 miserable fruit she has produced, will be laid utterly waste. 
 
 I, 2. These verses have been admirably rendered by Professor 
 Cheyne : 
 
 A song tvill I sing of my friend, 
 
 A love-song touching his vineyard. 
 A vineyard belongs to my friend, 
 
 On a hill that is fruitful and sunny; 
 He digged it, and cleared it of stones, 
 
 And planted there vines that are choice; 
 A tower he built in the midst. 
 
 And hewed also therein a wine-vat ; 
 And he looked to find grapes that are good, 
 Alas ! it bore grapes that are wild. 
 
 A translation like this, with rhythm and real poetic flavor, helps 
 us to feel how little justice is done the poetry of the great prophets 
 by the average prose translation. 
 
 The vineyard was on a very fruitful hill (lit. a horn, the son of 
 oil). Everything was therefore in its favor from the beginning; 
 in addition, the most affectionate effort had been spent upon it. 
 A substantial tower (and not merely a hut, cf . i : 8) had been built 
 for the watchmen, and a wine-vat had been hewn out in the rock, 
 into which the juice flowed from the wine-press above. The friend 
 had naturally set high hopes upon a vineyard so carefully tended, 
 but the grapes it produced were poor (lit. evil-smelhng). 
 
 55 
 
5:3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And also hewed out a ^ winepress therein : 
 And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, 
 And it brought forth wild grapes. 
 
 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 
 And men of Judah, 
 Judge, I pray you, betwixt me 
 
 And my vineyard. 
 What could have been done more to my vineyard. 
 
 That I have not done in it ? 
 Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
 forth grapes. 
 
 Brought it forth wild grapes ? 
 
 And now go to ; I will tell you 
 
 What I will do to my vineyard : 
 I will take away the hedge thereof. 
 
 And it shall be eaten up : 
 I will break down the fence thereof, 
 
 And it shall be trodden down : 
 And I will lay it waste ; 
 
 It shall not be pruned nor hoed ; 
 
 But there shall come up briers and thorns : 
 I will also command the clouds 
 That they rain no rain upon it. 
 
 1 m. SV whiercat. 
 
 3, 4. The prophet, now in the role of the friend, appeals to the 
 crowd. Had he not a right to expect the best of his vineyard? 
 Had he not done for it all that could be done? He leaves it to 
 their sense of justice to declare what such a vineyard deserves. 
 
 5, 6. As in the very similar parable of our Lord, the men ap- 
 pealed to are silent (Luke 20: 15 f.) ; and the owner himself goes 
 on to describe its fate, using impersonal verbs which render the 
 Hebrew words very vivid, calling attention, as they do, simply to 
 
 S6 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 5:8 
 
 7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house 
 
 of Israel, 
 And the men of Judah his pleasant plant : 
 And he looked for judgement, but behold oppression ; 
 For righteousness, but behold a cry. 
 
 1^^6/(5:8-24) 
 
 8. Woe unto them that join house to house, 
 
 That lay field to field, 
 
 the awful fact: — the removal of the protecting hedge, the demoli- 
 tion of the encircling wall, so that the once lovely height is now 
 exposed to the trampHng of beasts. And now it will be as de- 
 liberately neglected as formerly it was cared for, and for the future, 
 its desolation will be guaranteed, for no rain will fall upon it. 
 Now Jehovah is clearly the friend, as he alone is lord of the rain. 
 
 7. The grim meaning of the song which began so tenderly is 
 now obvious enough, but Isaiah states it in plain terms in a cHmax 
 of great power. The men before him are the vineyard, and their 
 God is the disappointed Friend. His disappointment is expressed 
 in a play upon words which it is impossible to reproduce in English 
 — G. H. Box suggests for the last pair right and riot ; but the two 
 words of each group, sounding almost exactly alike, and differing 
 only by a single Hebrew letter {e.g. mishpat and mispach), must 
 have written themselves indelibly upon the memories of those who 
 heard them. He looked for good grapes, and he found wild ones ; 
 how like, yet how unlike. He looked for justice (mishpat) and 
 behold ! something that differed little {mispach) yet differed 
 infinitely — perhaps bloodshed; for righteousness, and behold! 
 (a very similar word) a cry, the cry of those unrighteously oppressed. 
 
 The effect of this skilful parable must have been startling, and 
 was no doubt irritating. " God forbid ! " (Luke 20 : 16). 
 
 5 : 8-24. What the wild grapes of the parable really mean is 
 illustrated in the group of woes which follows, seven perhaps origi- 
 nally, though, judging by the brevity of some of them, longer or 
 shorter fragments appear to have been occasionally lost. This 
 artistic and powerful section gives us a vivid glimpse of con- 
 temporary society in Judah, and of the vices which corrupted it. 
 
 First woe (5 : 8-10) upon the wealthy land-owners. 
 
 8. The tenacity with which the Hebrew peasant clung to his 
 possessions is admirably illustrated by the story of Naboth (i 
 Kings 21). But the exigencies of poverty, due sometimes to war, 
 
 57 
 
5:9 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell 
 
 Alone in the midst of the land ! 
 9. ^ In mine ears saith the Lord of hosts, 
 
 Of a truth many houses shall be desolate. 
 
 Even great and fair, without inhabitant. 
 
 10. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, 
 
 And a homer of seed shall yield hut an ephah. 
 
 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, 
 
 That they may follow strong drink ; 
 That tarry late into the night, 
 Till wine inflame them ! 
 
 12. And the harp and the lute, the tab ret and the pipe, 
 
 And wine, are in their feasts ; 
 
 1 Gr. these things have been heard in the ears of tJie Lord of hosts. 
 
 would compel him to cede his property to men of wealth, who would 
 take advantage of the situation to join house to house and lay 
 field to field, till, the poor being reduced to the position of de- 
 pendents or slaves, there was no more room for any but themselves, 
 and they were settled alone in the land. Micah (2:2) similarly 
 denounces the unscrupulousness of men of wealth and power. 
 
 9, 10. The callous land-owners think they may continue such 
 conduct with impunity ; they are too dull to hear the divine word 
 of doom pronounced upon it. But the sharp ears of Isaiah hear 
 it. Jehovah has — perhaps we should add revealed himself (cf. 
 22 : 14) or sworn — in mine ears, that the end of these things is 
 desolation, for the land will be cursed with barrenness — a 
 homer yielding only an ephah, i.e. one-tenth part of the seed sown. 
 The hath was a liquid measure equal to the ephah, about eight or 
 nine gallons ; and this was all that would be yielded by ten acres, 
 the word rendered acre meaning the land that two oxen could 
 plough in a day. The punishment is in kind : the farm lands 
 unjustly seized prove profitless. 
 
 Second woe (5 : 11-13) — upon the devotees of drink and pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 II, 12. Drinking in the morning was very unusual and specially 
 disgraceful (cf. Eccl. 10: 16 f. ; Acts 2: 15). The carousals are 
 accompanied by music, as in Amos's companion picture (6: 5 f.), 
 and had the effect of drowning the moral and spiritual sense. 
 
 58 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 5 : 14 
 
 But they regard not the work of the Lord, 
 Neither have they considered the operation of his 
 hands. 
 
 13. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, 
 
 For lack of knowledge : 
 And their honourable men are ^ famished, 
 And their multitude are parched with thirst. 
 
 14. Therefore ^ hell hath enlarged her desire. 
 
 And opened her mouth without measure ; 
 And their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, 
 And he that rejoiceth among them, descend 
 into it. 
 
 ' Heb. men of hunger ; Gr. dead with hunger. ' Heb. Sheol. 
 
 They have no perception of the work of Jehovah, of the great his- 
 torical forces then in operation, of the divine purpose that con- 
 trolled them, of the evil day that for them was so near (vss. 
 26-29). 
 
 13. The end of such besotted stupidity could only be exile. 
 My people though they be (i : 2), they shall surely go (prophetic 
 pf .) into captivity, for want of knowledge; or it may be unaware — 
 too stupid to know what is really happening to them. Their 
 nobility shall he consumed with hunger, and their noisy throng 
 parched with thirst. Here again punished in kind, — for the ban- 
 quet, the famine. 
 
 Third woe (5 : 14, 17) — upon Jerusalem (?). 
 
 Vs. 14, with its therefore, does not naturally follow vs. 13 {there- 
 fore, etc.), whose picture of doom is complete, forming an appro- 
 priate and striking conclusion to the second woe. Besides, the 
 suffixes here are feminine (in vs. 13, masc), pointing apparently 
 to a city. Vss. 14, 17, then, beginning with therefore, probably 
 form the conclusion of the third woe (like vs. 13), of which the 
 beginning has been lost. Hell, Sheol, the underworld, hke a 
 ravenous monster, opens her huge jaws to swallow up in everlast- 
 ing silence the splendor and noise of the joyous, wicked city — a 
 very impressive picture ; and on the site where once the city stood, 
 lambs shall graze, and — perhaps we should read, omitting one of 
 the Hebrew words — fallings (or kids; not wanderers) shall feed 
 in her ruins. 
 
 59 
 
5 : 15 THE BOOK OF ISMAH 
 
 15. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man 
 
 is humbled, 
 And the eyes of the lofty are humbled : 
 
 16. But the Lord of hosts is exalted in judgement. 
 
 And God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. 
 
 17. Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, 
 
 And the waste places of the fat ones shall ^ wanderers 
 eat. 
 
 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity 
 
 With cords of vanity. 
 And sin as it were with a cart rope : 
 
 19. That say, "Let him make speed, let him hasten 
 
 His work, that we may see it : 
 And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh 
 And come, that we may know it !" 
 
 20. Woe unto them that call evil good, 
 
 And good e\dl ; 
 
 1 Gr. lambs. 
 
 15, 16. These verses, especially 15, are probably a later insertion. 
 Vs. 15 weakens the effect of the preceding verse, according to 
 which the people are already plunged into Sheol, besides being a 
 reminiscence of 2: 11, 17. The holy God shows himself holy in 
 righteousness, i.e. by his righteous act of judgment upon the wicked 
 city. 
 
 Fourth woe (5 : 18, 19) — • upon the sceptics. 
 
 18, 19. With the sin is intimately bound up the penalty; and 
 this, though they fondly imagine it will never come (vs. 19), they 
 are actually dragging on, pulling it towards them, as it were, with 
 ropes. They are sceptics, who will not believe in the judgment 
 until they see it ; and their scepticism is passing into scorn : 
 let God make haste ! It is possible that the conclusion of this woe 
 and of the next two {therefore, etc.) has been lost. 
 
 Fifth woe (5 : 20) — upon those who subvert the moral order. 
 
 20. To these men good and evil have no absolute meaning. 
 That is good which is good, i.e. profitable for them, though it may 
 be absolutely bad, e.g. their ruthless absorption of the property of 
 the poor (vs. 8). Goodness, in Isaiah's sense of social justice 
 
 60 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 5:24 
 
 That put darkness for light, 
 
 And Hght for darkness ; 
 That put bitter for sweet, 
 
 And sweet for bitter ! 
 
 21. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, 
 
 And prudent in their own sight ! 
 
 22. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine. 
 
 And men of strength to mingle strong drink : 
 
 23. Which justify the wicked for a reward, 
 
 And take away the righteousness of the righteous 
 from him ! 
 
 24. Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, 
 
 And as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame, 
 So their root shall be as rottenness, 
 
 And their blossom shall go up as dust : 
 Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, 
 
 And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 (i : 17), means sweetness and light; injustice is bitterness and 
 darkness. 
 
 Sixth woe (5:21) — upon the men of conceited intelligence. 
 
 21. These were probably politicians, who turned a deaf ear to 
 the prophetic truths on which such men as Isaiah insisted. 
 
 Seventh woe (5 : 22-24) — upon corrupt judges. 
 
 22. The sentiment of vs. 22 has occurred already (vs. 11), 
 and the connection between drunkenness and the maladministra- 
 tion of justice, though thoroughly intelligible, fails to concentrate 
 attention upon the single sin, as the other woes do ; the place of 
 vs. 22 has therefore been questioned. The men were mighty, 
 heroes, at the wine-bowl (Amos 6:6); they could spice the wine 
 and drink it valiantly. 
 
 23. Justice was bought and sold — one of the root-evils of 
 Oriental society (i : 23). For a bribe they acquitted the guilty 
 (the man who was in the wrong) and condemned the innocent 
 (the man who was in the right). 
 
 24. This announcement of doom serves for the conclusion not 
 only of the last woe, but of the whole group. The sinners shall 
 perish as quickly as stubble in the flame, the crackling of which 
 one can hear in the Hebrew words with their multiplied 5^, The 
 
 61 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 A Foreign Army is Coining (5 : 25-30) 
 
 25. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his 
 people, 
 And he hath stretched forth his hand against them, 
 and hath smitten them, 
 And the hills did tremble, and their carcases were 
 
 As refuse in the midst of the streets. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 metaphor which describes how they perish, root and branch, 
 changes in the next clause. The clause because they rejected, etc., 
 which seems very general for so concrete a context, may be in- 
 tended as a comprehensive summary of all the sins denounced; 
 the law of Jehovah will then be the prophetic instruction (cf. i : 10). 
 
 This group of woes, which is very skilfully composed, shows how 
 strikingly the vices of one civilization resemble those of another. 
 The land question and the drink question belong as truly to our 
 world as to Isaiah's. The paragraph is haunted, too, by a sense 
 of nemesis : the land unjustly acquired would be cursed with 
 barrenness, and the end of the wine-drinkers would be hunger and 
 thirst. 
 
 5 : 25-30. This piece, beginning with therefore, can hardly be 
 the continuation of the last verse, which began similarly (cf. vss. 
 13, 14). As the end of vs. 25 : 
 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still, 
 
 forms the refrain of the great poem (9 : 8-10 : 4 ; cf . 9 : 1 2, 1 7, etc.), 
 it has been conjectured with much probability that it really be- 
 longs to that poem, to which indeed, with its definite announce- 
 ment of the invasion of Judah by a foreign army, it would form a 
 very powerful conclusion. Even so the position of the section 
 5 : 25-30, however it came to be where it now is, is by no means 
 inappropriate. It shows how the woes announced in the previous 
 section are to be executed, and fills them with a very terrible mean- 
 ing. 
 
 25. Behind this picture of destruction may lie Isaiah's experi- 
 ence of the earthquake (Amos i : i). " The hills seemed to topple 
 over, and when the living recovered from the shock there lay the 
 dead, flung like refuse about the streets " (G. A. Smith, Isaiah, 
 Vol. I, p. 50). But the hand is still uplifted to strike a yet more 
 
 62 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5:30 
 
 26. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, 
 
 And will hiss for them from the end of the earth : 
 And, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly : 
 
 27. None shall be weary, nor stumble among them : 
 
 None shall slumber nor sleep ; 
 Neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed. 
 Nor the latchet of their shoes be broken : 
 
 28. Whose arrows are sharp. 
 
 And all their bows bent ; 
 Their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, 
 And their w^heels like a whirlwind : 
 
 29. Their roaring shall be like a lion. 
 
 They shall roar like young Uons ; yea, they shall roar, 
 And lay hold of the prey, and carry it away safe, 
 And there shall be none to dehver. 
 
 30. And they shall roar against them in that day like the 
 
 roaring of the sea : 
 And if one look unto the land, behold darkness and 
 
 distress, 
 ^ And the Hght is darkened in the clouds thereof. 
 
 1 Gr. om. and the light is darkened, and reads simply in their perplexity. 
 
 terrible blow ; what that will be becomes clear in the splendid 
 description of the Assyrian army that follows. Isaiah does not 
 indeed name them here any more than Amos does in 6 : 14, but 
 there is no more doubt here than there. 
 
 26-29. Jehovah will raise a military signal, as a rendezvous, to a 
 nation from afar, i.e. the Assyrians, and hiss to them, as a bee- 
 keeper to attract his bees (cf. 7 : 18). 
 
 And behold ! With this appeal the magnificent description of 
 the Assyrian host commences — their rapidity of movement, their 
 unwearied persistence, the excellence of their deadly weapons, 
 the invincible rush of their horses and chariots, their thunderous 
 roar as they leap upon their prey. 
 
 30. This verse heightens the terror of Israel's doom, described 
 in vs. 29 — not only defeat, but distress and darkness. As the 
 
 63 
 
6: I THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Rev. 4 : 2 
 
 The Prophet's Call (Chap. 6) 
 
 6. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord 
 5:'i' sitting upon a throne, high and hfted up, and his train 
 
 text, however, appears to be somewhat confused (cf. the Greek 
 version), and the verse strongly resembles 8 : 22, it has been sup- 
 posed by some to be a later insertion, consolatory to Israel, de- 
 scribing the fate of the Assyrian. " Over him there shall be a 
 roaring, etc." For a poetical translation of this passage, see 
 Introduction, p. 13. 
 
 Chap. 6, There are few things more impressive in literature 
 than this account of the inaugural vision of Isaiah. In few and 
 simple words he leads us into the august presence of the Lord whose 
 glory fills the whole earth, he lets us hear the music of the choir of 
 the seraphim, he carries us, so far as human words may, into the 
 secret of his call and consecration, and the mysterious atmosphere 
 of the supernatural hes about the whole wonderful scene. 
 
 We should expect the story of the call, which came at the be- 
 ginning of his ministry, to appear at the beginning of his book. 
 There is, however, as we have seen, a certain propriety in Chap, i 
 as a frontispiece ; besides, it is plain that the story of the call was 
 written some time after his experience of it. Even if it be too 
 much to say that vss. 9 f. are best explained as a retrospective 
 glance at a relatively unsuccessful ministry, the very first sentence, 
 Ifi the year that King Uzziah died, seems to look back upon that 
 event from a later day. The chapter was probably intended to 
 introduce the group of prophecies in 7 : 1-9 : 7 which gather round 
 Ahaz and the ominous events of 735 B.C. 
 
 I. In the year that King Uzziah died (740 b.c). The king who, 
 in the course of his long, brilliant, and successful reign, had done 
 so much for the security and prosperity of Judah (2 Chron. 26), 
 died. But Jehovah did not die ; in that very year, Isaiah saw him 
 as the Lord, sitting upon a throne. The invisible King sits upon an 
 everlasting throne. Isaiah does not attempt to describe him. He 
 does not see him, for his eyes are humbly cast down — he sees 
 nothing but the sweep of his garments. The vision takes place 
 in the temple. The word, which may be translated palace, has 
 been referred to the heavenly temple (cf. Ps. 11 : 4), but it is more 
 natural to refer it to the temple at Jerusalem. The young prophet, 
 meditating in the temple upon his country's future and his own, 
 may well have received his revelation there. In any case, the 
 vision is colored by his experience of the temple worship. The 
 majesty and exaltation of the Lord have already been powerfully 
 treated in 2 : 10-19; this is one of the leading thoughts of Isaiah. 
 
 64 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 6:4 
 
 2. filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim : 
 each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face, 
 and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he 
 
 3. did fly. And one cried to another, and said, 
 
 "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ; 
 The whole earth is full of his glory." 
 
 4. And the fomidations of the thresholds were moved 
 
 2. The Lord is sitting, and his ministers, the seraphim, are 
 standing, therefore they appear above him. The seraphim are 
 not angels. The same word is used of the serpents by which the 
 Israelites were plagued in the wilderness (Num. 21:6-9); and 
 when we consider that in antiquity serpents were considered to 
 guard the thresholds of temples, and that at this very time there 
 was a brazen serpent in the temple at Jerusalem (2 Kings 18 : 4), it 
 is natural to suppose that the seraphim of the vision were in this 
 way suggested to the imagination of the prophet. They were, 
 however, very different in appearance from ordinary serpents, as 
 they had wings — two to cover their faces, for they must not look 
 upon the Lord any more than man may (vs. 5 ; i Kings 19 : 13), 
 two to cover the nether portions of their body, v/hich would have 
 been otherwise exposed, and two with which they could fly in the 
 service of their Lord (cf. vs. 6). 
 
 3. Their song was probably responsive — one -would call to 
 another — the first line ( Holy . . . ) being answered by the second 
 {ilie ivhole earth . . . ). The word holy appears primarily to have 
 involved the idea of separation, and was thus admirably fitted, 
 as an epithet of Deity, to express the distance that separates God 
 from man. He is separated from, and elevated above, the limi- 
 tations of that which is human. But though the word had origi- 
 nally no moral connotation, it very naturally acquired one in 
 course of time. Human weakness expresses itself conspicuously 
 in sin, and from this, too, God is separated. That the word here 
 involves a moral idea is shown by Isaiah's horror at the conscious- 
 ness of his guilt in such a holy presence. As a consequence of his 
 holiness (in both senses — majesty and purity), his glory fills the 
 whole world ; he is Lord alike of nature and of the moral order. 
 The seraphic song is more than a prayer: " Hallowed be Thy 
 name, Thy Kingdom come." The eyes of those mysterious ser- 
 vants see beyond all the sins and confusions of history, beyond the 
 wicked kingdom and the dead king, to that eternal world where 
 God's name is already hallowed and his kingdom already come. 
 
 4. The song is followed by a mysterious shaking, and the temple 
 
 F 65 
 
6:5 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Rev. is: 8 at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled 
 
 5. with smoke. Then said I, 
 
 "Woe is me ! for I am undone ; 
 
 Because I am a man of unclean lips, 
 
 And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean 
 
 lips: 
 For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
 
 hosts." 
 
 6. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a 
 1 live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the 
 
 7. tongs from off the altar : and he touched my mouth 
 with it, and said, 
 
 "Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; 
 And thine inquity is taken away, and thy sin 
 -purged." 
 
 8. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying. 
 
 1 m. hot stone. 2 ^a. expiated. 
 
 began to fill with smoke — whether from the altar fire (vs. 6), or, 
 as Duhm has suggested, from the mouth of the seraphim (cf. 
 Ezek. I : 13 f.) ; in either case, perhaps a weird symbol of the di- 
 vine displeasure with the " man of unclean lips." 
 
 5. The shaking, the song, the smoke, above all the holy pres- 
 ence, throw Isaiah into terror. According to an ancient idea, the 
 sight of God brings death (cf. Jud. 13: 22, Exod. 19: 21); espe- 
 cially does the iinclean Isaiah feel that he must perish. Besides 
 his own sin, the taint of his environment is upon him — he dwells 
 in the midst of a people of unclean lips. 
 
 6, 7. His sin is concentrated, as it were, upon his lips, which, 
 to the prophet or preacher, constitute the great instrument of 
 service. Before service is possible, the sin must be burned off 
 these. So, with a hot stone, such as was used in transferring heat, 
 one of the seraphic servants, who needs no bidding from his Lord, 
 touched the sinful lips, burnt up the sin upon them, and solemnly 
 pronounces that it is now purged, removed, covered. It is interest- 
 ing and of great significance that, although the scene of this for- 
 giveness is the temple, it is effected without sacrifice. 
 
 8. It is the consecrated man who hears the divine voice, and the 
 66 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 6: 10 
 
 "Whom shall I send, 
 And who will go for us ? " 
 Then I said, 
 "Here am I ; send me." 
 9. And he said, 
 
 " Go, and tell this people, 
 ' Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; 
 And see ye indeed, but perceive not.' 
 10. Make the heart of this people fat. 
 
 And make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; 
 Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their 
 
 ears. 
 And understand with their heart, and turn again, jn, 12:40 
 and be healed." 
 
 Mat. 13 : 14 
 
 f. 
 Mk. 4 : 12 
 Lk. 8 : 10 
 Acts, 28 : 26 
 
 f. 
 
 words which he hears are a call to service. The impulse to service 
 is the first effect of fellowship with God ; and Isaiah answers the 
 call without hesitation or compromise — behold me, send me — 
 though he does not know in detail what it may involve. The di- 
 vine voice is not addressed specially to him ; he has no special call. 
 The need of the world constitutes the call, and the consecrated 
 man hears it. The service of God is the service of man ; in going 
 for us, he goes to the people (vs. 9). For us, i.e. for the supernatural 
 beings, the " sons of God," the heavenly council, by whom in 
 earlier times Jehovah was conceived as being surrounded (Job i : 6). 
 9, 10. The task upon which he is sent is surprising and painful 
 — to deliver a message which \A\\ be continually rejected. The 
 more he would preach, the more dull and callous would his hearers 
 become — eyes smeared, ears heavy, hearts unfeeling — till no 
 healing would be possible. The words, put here in the imperative 
 form, are to be explained not so much as a command, but rather as 
 the statement of a great law — that if men, under the influence of 
 preaching, do not grow more responsive, they will grow more 
 callous. The penalty of their indifference is simply that they 
 will be confirmed in it, until all spiritual receptivity is lost. It has 
 seemed to some that the enthusiastic prophet can hardly have 
 been launched upon his ministry with a prospect so hopeless, but 
 that in later days he read his subsequent experience back into his 
 call. That may be; but there was enough in the life-story of 
 predecessors like Elijah and Amos to keep so sane and clear-eyed 
 
 67 
 
6: II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 11. Then said I, 
 
 "Lord, how long?" 
 And he answered, 
 
 "Until cities be waste without inhabitant, 
 
 And houses without man. 
 
 And the land ^ become utterly waste, 
 
 12. And the Lord have removed men far away, 
 
 And the forsaken places be many in the midst of 
 the land. 
 
 13. And if there be yet a tenth in it. 
 
 It shall again be ^ eaten up : 
 As a terebinth, and as an oak, 
 Whose stock remaineth when they are felled : 
 ^ So the holy seed is the stock thereof." 
 
 Gr. he left. 2 m. burnt. ^ Gr. om. 
 
 a man as Isaiah from cherishing too sanguine hopes as to the 
 success of his ministry. 
 
 II, 12. The earnest preaching and the callous reception of it 
 would continue until the land was reduced to a desolation. The 
 kingdom of God cannot come until this obdurate generation is 
 wiped out; war and exile will do the work. 
 
 13. The work will be well done; should it happen that any 
 fraction of the people survives, that too will, in its turn, be de- 
 stroyed, just as, after a tree has been felled, the stump is burned. 
 This very graphic statement of the completeness of the destruc- 
 tion has its point quite blunted by the last clause, the holy seed is 
 the stock thereof, which is clearly intended to mitigate the pre- 
 ceding judgment (cf. 2: 1-4; 4: 2-6). It is hardly possible that 
 the verse can be Isaiah's. In answer to the assertion that it 
 resembles his doctrine of the remnant that is to be saved and 
 form the nucleus of the new community and so may be Isaiah's 
 own, it may be said that, besides being in contradiction with vs. 11 
 and with the terrible picture that immediately precedes it (vs. 13), 
 the words are not found in the Greek version. This would suggest 
 that the addition is perhaps as late as the second century B.C. 
 
 Isaiah beheves in the sovereignty of God and his control of 
 history. He began his prophetic work with the vision of the Lord 
 upon his throne ; and amid all the disappointments, changes, and 
 
 68 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 7 : i 
 
 The Crisis of 735 b.c. (7 : 1-9 : 7) 
 
 The Prophet's Word to the Terrified King (7 : 1-9) 
 
 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of 
 Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin 
 the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, 
 
 confusions of the forty years during which he served his God and 
 his wih'ul people, that vision sustained him, imparting to his long 
 career something of the serenity and majesty of the God whom his 
 young eyes had seen at the beginning, in his inaugural vision. 
 
 7 : 1-9 : 6. This group of prophecies introduces us to a great 
 crisis in the history of Judah, and shows us how differently that 
 crisis was met by the prophet (Isaiah) and the King (Ahaz). 
 In 735 B.C. — and earlier perhaps also, cf. 2 Kings 15:37 — a 
 combined assault was made upon Judah by Aram (Syria) and Is- 
 rael. We are not expressly told the reason of this assault, but 
 there can be no doubt that it was an attempt to force Judah to 
 join a western confederacy which was forming to resist the aggres- 
 sions of Assyria. Through her famous temple at Jerusalem and 
 her unbroken Davidic dynasty, Judah enjoyed a certain strength 
 and stability, and her presence or absence meant much to the 
 confederacy. Judah was not unnaturally terrified by the assault ; 
 the heart of king and people " shook as shake the forest trees be- 
 fore the wind " (Is. 7 : 2), and Ahaz, in his anxiety, begins to 
 cherish thoughts of calling in the powerful aid of Assyria (2 Kings 
 16 : 6 f.) ; Isaiah's attempt to dissuade him witnesses as strongly 
 to his poHtical sagacity as to his religious faith. The prophet 
 saw that, in any case, the Assyrian would in his own interest march 
 against the western nations that were planning to defy him, so 
 that Judah, if only she " kept quiet " (7:4), had in reality noth- 
 ing to fear from Aram and Israel ; and further, the request of 
 Ahaz gave the Assyrian just the chance he was only too anxious 
 to embrace, of interfering in the politics of Judah. 
 
 The tense and graphic scenes (7 : 3-17) show how much Isaiah 
 conceived to be at stake in the attitude of Ahaz, and how highly 
 wrought is his soul over the crisis. 
 
 Chap. 7 is appropriately preceded by Chap. 6. Isaiah must 
 have his vision of the Lord upon his throne before he can face the 
 King of Judah. 
 
 I. This historical introduction is probably borrowed from 2 
 Kings 16: 5. The king of Syria (Aram), always mentioned first 
 
 69 
 
7:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against 
 it ; but could not prevail against it. And it was told 
 
 2. the house of David, saying, "Syria is ^confederate 
 with Ephraim." And his heart ^ was moved, and the 
 heart of his people, as the trees of the forest ^ are moved 
 
 3. with the wind. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, "Go 
 forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy 
 son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the 
 
 4. highway of the fuller's field ; and say unto him, 
 'Take heed and be quiet; 
 
 Fear not, neither let thine heart be faint, 
 
 I Heb. rests on (perhaps is encamped on). 2 gy tremhle{d). 
 
 throughout the passage, appears to have been the more important 
 member of the confederacy. Aram (known as Syria in the Eng- 
 lish version) is, roughly speaking, the country northeast of Israel, 
 whose chief city was Damascus. 
 
 2. Is confederate with, Ht. is settling down upon, Hke swarms of 
 insects (vs. 19). The Syrians are already in Ephraim, ^.g. Israel, 
 preparatory to their united descent upon Judah — with the result 
 that the hearts of king, court, and people are shaken as shake the 
 forest trees before the wind; finely symbolic of the fear and insta- 
 hility (cf. vs. g) of those who have not, like Isaiah, seen the Lord 
 upon his throne, and who do not, like him, believe (vs. 9) in a 
 sovereign Providence. 
 
 3. Isaiah's is the only heart that does not flutter. He is di- 
 vinely prompted to go out to meet Ahaz, who is to be found at the 
 end of the conduit, etc., apparently at the southeast corner of the 
 city, to which he had gone probably to inspect the water supply in 
 view of the expected siege. The prophet takes with him his son 
 Shear-jashub, whose name means a remnant shall turn {i.e. to 
 Jehovah), and who is therefore in his own person, even though no 
 words be spoken, a living embodiment of Isaiah's message of 
 judgment and hope for a better Israel to be. The meeting of 
 Isaiah and Ahaz is very suggestive ; the faithful and the vacillat- 
 ing, representatives of opposite views of the world — faith in 
 the supremacy of God and faith in the supremacy of human schem- 
 ing. 
 
 4. Take heed, and keep calm. It was well enough for Ahaz to 
 look to his defences, but there was no need for him to be faint- 
 
 70 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 7:9 
 
 Because of these two tails of smoking fire-brands, 
 For the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son 
 of Remaliah. 
 . Because Syria hath counselled evil against thee, 
 
 Ephraim also, and the son of Remaliah, saying, 
 . " Let us go up against Judah and vex it. 
 And let us make a breach therein for us, 
 And set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of 
 Tabeel: " 
 , Thus saith the Lord God, 
 
 'It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. 
 , For the head of Syria is Damascus, 
 And the head of Damascus is Rezin : 
 And within threescore and five years 
 Shall Ephraim be broken in pieces, that it be not a 
 people : 
 9. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, 
 
 And the head of Samaria is RemaHah's son. 
 
 hearted, because his two opponents were literally but the tails, or 
 stumps, of smoking firebrands, already exhausted through former 
 wars with the Assyrians and incapable now of kindling a blaze in 
 Judah. Pekah, the son of Remaliah, who assassinated his pre- 
 decessor Pekahiah (2 Kings 15 : 25), is a usurper, too contemptible 
 even to mention by name. 
 
 6. Their plan was to break into Judah, and to overthrow the 
 dynasty, setting up, in place of Ahaz, one whose name — the son 
 o^ Tabeel — suggests that he was a Syrian. With a Syrian king, 
 Judah would be more easily coerced into the confederacy. 
 
 7. But the Lord Jehovah has his plans, as well as the two kings ; 
 and in his name, Isaiah announces that their plan is doomed to 
 failure. 
 
 8. 9. The rhythm and the thought of these verses is interrupted 
 by the second clause of vs. 8, which, with a definiteness unusual, 
 if not unparalleled in prophecy proper, announces the destruction 
 of Israel's national existence within sixty-five years {i.e. about 
 670 B.C.). The passage appears to be a late insertion, having in 
 view the introduction of foreign colonists to Samaria by Esar- 
 haddon (681^668 B.C.; Ezr. 4:2), or possibly his successor 
 
 71 
 
7: 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 If ye will not believe, 
 
 Surely ye shall not be established.' " 
 
 The Great Refusal and the Sign (7 : 10-16) 
 
 II. And the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, " Ask J 
 thee a sign of tlie Lord thy God ; ask it either in the " 
 
 Assurbanipal (Ezr. 4: 10). When this clause is removed, we are 
 left with four rhythmic lines, which Ewald proposed to complete 
 by adding : 
 
 But the head of Judah is Jerusalem, 
 A nd the head of Jerusalem is Jehovah. 
 
 This is at any rate the sense of the passage. Why should Judah 
 be afraid of two cities whose kings were but the stumps of smoking 
 firebrands, while her King was Jehovah of Hosts, and her capital 
 was the " city of the great King " (Ps. 48 : 2) ? 
 
 If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. It is a 
 pity that the brevity and the assonance (cf. 5 : 7) of the Hebrew 
 words are so difficult to reproduce. The general effect might be 
 given thus : No faith, no fixity. This is one of the greatest words 
 in the Bible. The secret of stability is trust in the invisible 
 King. Ahaz has not this trust, therefore he inspects his water- 
 supply with fear and trembUng, bethinks him of a coahtion with 
 the Assyrians, and his heart shakes like the leaves on the forest 
 trees; he is disestablished. Isaiah leans upon his God, sees him 
 as the great Controller of history, and he is " quiet," strong, 
 established. Faith is the secret of fixity, stability, firmness. He 
 who really believes in the overruhng Providence of God will always 
 be established. 
 
 10, II. And Jehovah spake should probably be And I spake. 
 Isaiah sees the hesitation of Ahaz, his inabihty to rise to the faith 
 to which he would lift him. Desperately in earnest, he offers 
 him a sign from Jehovah thy God — a tender phrase fitted to 
 wake dormant covenant memories in the mind of Ahaz. If the 
 king cannot believe what he does not see, perhaps he will at least 
 believe what he sees; and this faith, imperfect as it is, may help 
 him to the other. 
 
 For ask it in the depth, etc., we should probably read : make it 
 deep to Sheol or high to the height. Isaiah is ready to offer Ahaz a 
 sign from the underworld or the upperworld — practically = any 
 sign he may demand. Considering the prophet's repudiation of 
 necromancy (8 : 19), it is not likely that by a sign from Sheol he 
 means the raising of a shade from the dead, as in i Sam. 28. In 
 
 72 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 7:14 
 
 12. depth or in the height above." But Ahaz said, ''I will 
 
 13. not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord." And he said, 
 " Hear ye now, O house of David: is it a small thing for 
 you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also? 
 
 14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign ; 
 
 Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Mat. 1:23 
 
 any case, this voluntary offer of Isaiah to give Ahaz a sign is a 
 splendid illustration of the prophet's fearless faith. He knows 
 that his God will not leave him in the lurch, but will interpose to 
 help a weaker faith to confidence in himself. It has been cynically 
 suggested that it was fortunate for Isaiah that his challenge was 
 not accepted by Ahaz. It is clear, however, that Isaiah has no 
 doubt in his own mind that the miracle he offers could be per- 
 formed ; but what is more to the point is that iVhaz too has no 
 doubt. He is sure that, if he requested it, the miracle would be 
 performed ; that is why he refuses it. It would leave him prac- 
 tically without excuse, and that he does not want. 
 
 12. Ahaz declines the sign. His answer is the answer of a man 
 with a bad conscience, though it carries with it a certain religious 
 plausibility — I will not tempt Jehovah. There were familiar 
 historical warnings against such a provocation of Jehovah (Exod. 
 17 : 2, 7 ; cf. Deut. 6 : 16). But the sign here was offered by one 
 whom Ahaz felt instinctively to be a true prophet, and his refusal 
 was only a refusal to be led into the hght and liberty of faith. He 
 stands before us as a worldling who excuses his obstinacy in the 
 language of rehgious cant. 
 
 13. The indignation of Isaiah blazes forth. Ahaz had no faith, 
 and did not wish to have any ; could not see the invisible with his 
 own eyes, and refused that which might have helped him to a faith 
 in it. King and court — the house of David — were infected by 
 the same spirit. Isaiah had often approached them_ before as a 
 man with words of wise counsel, but here he is conscious of being 
 commissioned by the most high God. It is God whom they are 
 wearying, and not merely his human servant. At this moment 
 God is in a very special sense behind his prophet; he calls him 
 " my God " — Ahaz's God no more (vs. 10). 
 
 14. The indignant Isaiah now thrusts a sign upon the reluctant 
 and incredulous Ahaz — a sign, too, which shall humble him, for 
 it will show that some among his people are not so incredulous 
 as he. It is the mighty Lord, not the gracious Jehovah, who gives 
 the sign. An endless controversy has gathered round this sign, 
 but two or three things are practically certain, (a) One, is that 
 the word rendered virgin would be more adequately rendered, as 
 
 73 
 
7:i5 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And shall call his name Immanuel. 
 
 15. Butter and honey shall he eat, 
 
 When he knoweth to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 
 
 16. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and , 
 
 choose the good, I 
 
 in SV mg., by maiden; the word implies a young woman of mar- 
 riageable age, whether she is married or not. (b) Again, as in 8 
 Gen. 16: II, the same Hebrew words and construction {Behold, I 
 thou art with child and shall bear a son) are used of Hagar who is ' 
 already with child, so that the child alluded to in this verse may be 
 already conceived ; in any case, Syria and Israel are to be ravaged 
 in war while the child to be born is still very little (vs. 16 ; cf . 8 : 4). 
 It is clear, therefore, that he must belong to the immediate future, 
 and there can be no allusion to the birth of the Messiah over seven 
 centuries after this date. Duhm has trenchantly argued that the 
 real significance of the sign lies not so much in the child as in his 
 name. This name does not imply that the child would be God 
 incarnate ; it is, like so many other Hebrew names compounded 
 with Jah or El, a sentence, which embodies a confession of faith; 
 With us (is) God. The words are the same as those addressed by 
 Samuel to Saul; God (is) with thee (i Sam. 10: 7), and recall the 
 refrain of Ps. 46 (Jehovah of Hosts is with us). The point is that 
 the defeat of Syria and Israel at the hands of Assyria is imminent, 
 and mothers, inspired by that faith in God which the incredulous 
 Ahaz lacks, will call their children Immanuel (With us is God). 
 When disaster comes upon those two lands, and the name of 
 Immanuel falls upon the ears of Ahaz, then he will be reminded of 
 his meeting with Isaiah, he will be compelled to acknowledge the 
 reasonableness of the prophet's demand for faith, and he will be 
 shamed by the faith of his own subjects. The Hebrew " the maid " 
 is practically equivalent to " a maid " ; and, as Duhm remarks, 
 since no particular woman is named, probably no particular wo- 
 man is intended. Gressmann, however, has recently shown it to 
 be possible that, after all, Isaiah is here adapting an ancient Se- 
 mitic tradition or oracle of the birth of a wonderful boy who was 
 to emancipate his people, and usher in an era of prosperity. 
 Isaiah boldly claims that this ancient prophecy is to be fulfilled 
 not in the remote, but in the immediate future. 
 
 15. Butter, i.e. soured milk, and wild honey, the poor fare of the no- 
 mad, are here probably intended to suggest the temporary desolation 
 by war of Immanuel's land (Judah). The vs. is usually regarded 
 as a gloss, made up of elements derived from vss. 16 and 22. 
 
 16. For before two or three years have passed, Syria and Israel, 
 
 74 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 7:20 
 
 The land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be for- 
 saken. 
 
 Jiidah Will also he Ravaged (7:17-25) 
 
 17. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, 
 and upon thy father's house, days that have not come 
 from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah ; 
 even the king of Assyria. 
 
 18. And it shall come to pass in that day. 
 
 That the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the utter- 
 most part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee 
 that is in the land of Assyria. 
 
 19. And they shall come, and shall rest all of them 
 
 In the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, 
 And upon all thorns, and upon all pastures. 
 
 20. In that day shall the Lord shave 
 
 of which Ahaz stood in fear, would be ravaged in war and deso- 
 lated. The prophecy was literally fulfilled ; northern Israel was 
 ravaged by the Assyrians in 734 B.C. Damascus was captured 
 in 732 B.C., and the people of both districts deported (2 Kings 
 16: 7-9; 15: 29). Good and evil may have a moral meaning, 
 but it may equally well refer to pleasant and unpleasant kinds of 
 food (cf. 2 Sam. 19 : 35) ; the first meaning would imply an older 
 child (cf. 8:4). 
 
 Vs. 17 links the last section with this one. There the message 
 was that the coalition was in reality impotent, and would be de- 
 stroyed. Here Isaiah foretells for Judah a fate similar to that 
 which was to overtake Syria and Israel — desolation — at the 
 hands of the very people whose favor Ahaz had courted (2 Kings 
 16 : 7 f.), and whose power he was ready to place above Jehovah's, 
 
 17. Ephraim {i.e. Israel) departed from Judah. This is the 
 Judsean conception of the history. In point of fact, the rupture 
 was as much due to Solomon's apostasy from the ideals and tradi- 
 tions of Israel as to anything else. 
 
 18-20. Jehovah will summon (cf. 5 : 26) foreign peoples — 
 especially the Assyrians — to punish his own people in Judah, 
 upon every corner of whose land they will settle like pestiferous 
 flies and stinging hees. The king whom Ahaz had hired to help 
 
 75 
 
7:21 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 With a razor that is hired, which is in the parts beyond 
 
 the River, even with the king of Assyria, 
 The head and the hair of the feet ; 
 And it shall also consume the beard. 
 
 21. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep : 
 
 22. And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk 
 
 that they shall give he shall eat butter : 
 For butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in 
 the midst of the land. 
 
 23. And it shall come to pass in that day. 
 
 That every place where there were a thousand vines at 
 
 a thousand silverlings. 
 Shall even be for briers and thorns. 
 
 24. With arrows and with bow shall one come thither ; 
 Because all the land shall be brier and thorns. 
 
 25. And all the hills that were digged with the mattock, 
 Thou shalt not come hither for fear of briers and thorns. 
 But it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the 
 
 treading of sheep." 
 
 him (2 Kings 16:8) would, like a razor, shave the land bare — 
 of crops and people. 
 
 21, 22. So thorough would this process of " shaving " be that 
 nothing would be possible but the meagre life of a poor shepherd, 
 whose fare was butter {i.e. soured milk) and wild honey. (The 
 first half of vs. 22 is usually regarded as an intrusion.) 
 
 23-25. The vine-clad hills would also be reduced to a howling 
 waste of thorns and thistles. So thick would be the jungle that 
 wild beasts would have their home there, and hunters come with 
 bow and arrow, and the once carefully tended vineyard slopes 
 would be trampled upon by sheep and oxen. The ravaged vines 
 are represented as having been very costly — a silver shekel 
 each (about 60 cents : two shillings and six pence). 
 
 It has been happily suggested by Cheyne that this prophecy 
 was delivered after Ahaz's appeal for assistance to the Assyrian 
 king. Isaiah saw that, whatever its immediate effects might be, 
 
 76 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 8:3 
 
 The Fall of Damascus and Samaria (8 : 1-4) 
 
 And the Lord said unto me, "Take thee a great 
 tablet, and write upon it ^ with the pen of a man, ' For 
 Maher-shalal-hash-baz ' ; and ^ I will take unto me 
 faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and 
 Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah." And I went unto 
 the prophetess ; and she conceived, and bare a son. 
 Then said the Lord unto me, '' Call his name Maher- 
 
 1 m. in common characters. 2 Qr. take. 
 
 the ultimate result of Assyrian intervention would assuredly be 
 the desolation of Judah (i : 7). 
 
 8 : 1-4. This prophecy must have been delivered about the 
 same time as 7 : 3-16, clearly before Ahaz's appeal to Assyria, 
 after which it required no prophetic eye to foresee the fall of 
 Damascus and Samaria. The earnestness and variety of the 
 prophecies of this period show how powerfully Isaiah's mind was 
 excited by the strain of the situation, yet beneath it all he is calm 
 and sure. He has seen his God, he understands his purpose, and 
 he knows in advance the issue of the crisis. 
 
 1. As Isaiah had appealed to the king in vain (7 : 12), he now 
 appeals, through his tablet with the strange inscription, to the 
 people. The words were to be written with the pen of a common 
 man, i.e. in letters intelligible to him. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 
 " crowded, clashing letters, full to the dullest ears of rumors of 
 war : Speeds poil-Hnrry-prey " (G. A. Smith, Isaiah, Vol. 1, p. 120). 
 The strange inscription, presumably hung in some conspicuous 
 pubHc place, would excite curiosity. 
 
 2. Read, with the Greek version. And take unto fne reliable 
 witnesses. In the nature of the case, these witnesses were prob- 
 ably no particular friends of Isaiah ; least of all if Uriah is to be 
 identified with the priest whom the idolatrous Ahaz later com- 
 missioned to build an altar in accordance with the pattern he had 
 seen at Damascus (2 Kings 16: 10 f.). Of Zechariah, who must 
 have been a public man, we know nothing. 
 
 3. The mysterious name is conferred upon Isaiah's new-born 
 child ; the message it implies — which is not explained till vs. 4 — 
 is incarnate in him (cf. note on 7 : 14). Isaiah's wife appears to be 
 called the prophetess by courtesy. 
 
 77 
 
8:4 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 4. shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have 
 knowledge to cry, 'My father,' and 'My mother,' 
 the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall 
 be carried away before the king of Assyria." 
 
 The Invasion of Judah (8 : 5-8) 
 
 5. And the Lord spake unto me yet again, saying, 
 
 6. " Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of 
 
 Shiloah 
 That go softly. 
 And rejoice in Rezin, 
 And RemaUah's son ; 
 
 4. Before the child was two years of age (cf. 7 : 16), Damascus 
 and Samaria, the capital cities of Syria and Israel, would be 
 spoiled by Assyria. The two parts of the enigmatic name refer 
 to the two kingdoms, whose spoil is hurried off to Assyria. Now 
 the meaning is clear. The message of deliverance for Judah is 
 essentially the same as Isaiah had already given to the king (7 : 16). 
 As a matter of fact, Damascus fell in 732, and although Samaria 
 did not fall till 721 B.C., the essence of the prophecy was fulfilled 
 in the devastation wrought on northern Israel in 734 B.C. (2 
 Kings 15 : 29). The precision with which Isaiah foretold the 
 fate of these countries in the very near future is very remarkable. 
 Throughout this crisis he must have been in remarkably intimate 
 communion with his God (cf. vs. 11). 
 
 8 : 5-8. Here, as in 7 : 17 ff., is a prophecy of judgment follow- 
 ing one of dehverance : Assyria will come like a flood and deluge 
 the land. The rejection of the waters of Shiloah (vs. 6) appears 
 to imply Ahaz's appeal to Assyria, and is therefore later than 
 8 : 1-4. 
 
 6. This people — Judah. A tunnel ran from Gihon (now the 
 Virgin's Spring), on the east side of Jerusalem, to the reservoir at 
 the southeast angle of the city; and the waters that ran, or rather 
 went softly, leisurely, through this conduit from spring to pool 
 (cf. 7 : 3) were the waters of the Shiloah. The people are as 
 unbelieving as the king ; they rejected the waters of Shiloah, or 
 rather him of whose unobtrusive grace the}^ were the emblem 
 (Ps. 46 : 4); and they melt, i.e. faint as we should perhaps read, 
 instead of the meaningless and [in Hebrew] ungrammatical 
 rejoice, before Rezin and Pekah. 
 
 78 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 8:9 
 
 7. Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them 
 
 The waters of the River, strong and many, 
 Even the king of Assyria and all his glory : 
 And he shall come up over all his channels. 
 And go over all his banks : 
 
 8. And he shall sweep onward into Judah ; he shall over- 
 
 throw and pass through: 
 He shall reach even to the neck ; 
 And the stretching out of ^ his wings shall fill 
 The breadth of thy land, O Immanuel." 
 
 The Futility of Opposition to Judah (8:9, 10) 
 
 9. ^ Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken 
 
 in pieces; 
 And give ear, all ye of the far countries : 
 Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; 
 Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. 
 
 1 SV its. 2 Gr. take knowledge. 
 
 7 f . If they have rejected Jehovah, they will have Assyria ; if 
 they have rejected the gentle Shiloah, they will have the terrible 
 Euphrates, which will overflow its banks and deluge Judah — 
 symbol of the havoc to be wrought by Assyria, a havoc so complete 
 that only Judah's head will be above water. 
 
 The stretching out of its (SV) wings, etc. This sentence is 
 difficult. If the wings are the wings of the river, Assyria is now 
 regarded as a bird of prey, and the metaphor is mixed. Possibly, 
 however, the reference is to his {i.e., Jehovah's) protecting wings — 
 a thought which would modify the preceding idea of judgment; 
 cf. 6: 13c. Instead of 'Uhy land, O Immanuel," we should per- 
 haps translate " the land ; 'for with us is God," taking the words, 
 as in vs. 10, in their literal meaning. This concluding promise 
 of protection (cf . 2 : 2-4 ; 4 : 2-6) would be in the spirit of the two 
 following verses. 
 
 8 : 9 f . These verses can hardly have been spoken at the same 
 time as the preceding threat of devastation. Formally addressed 
 to the nations, they are really words of encouragement to Judah. 
 
 79 
 
8; 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought : 
 
 Speak the word, and it shall not stand ; for God is 
 with us. 
 
 None is to he Feared hut Jehovah (8 : 11-15) 
 
 11. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, 
 and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of 
 this people, sa^dng, 
 
 12. "Say ye not, 'A ^ conspiracy.' 
 
 Concerning all whereof this people shall say, 'A 
 conspiracy ' : 
 Neither fear ye their fear. 
 Nor be in dread thereof. 
 
 1 AV confederacy. 
 
 9, 10. The meaning is: rage and prepare yourselves for the fray- 
 as ye please, your plans will be frustrated, for with us is God. 
 
 The counsel and the word (vs. 10) may refer to the invasion of 
 Judah (7 : 6), and the peoples are primarily Syria and Israel. 
 Because these nations could not be properly called distant, it has 
 been inferred that this passage, with its high hopes for Judah, is a 
 later insertion. It may, however, quite well be a daring generali- 
 zation, natural to Isaiah in the tense emotion of that crisis. Every 
 nation opposed to Judah, he is confident, would prove to be as 
 impotent as Syria and Israel: for El, the strong God, is with Ju- 
 dah. 
 
 8: 11-15. How difl&cult it was to keep one's head clear and 
 one's heart calm in the crisis created by the coalition of Syria 
 and Israel against Judah is well illustrated by this section : only 
 one steadied by Jehovah's mighty hand was equal to it. 
 
 11. Isaiah has the sense of being under powerful divine con- 
 straint, mastered by JehovaWs hand — another proof of the intense 
 emotional experiences of the prophet during the crisis (cf. 7 : 13). 
 Even he was tempted to walk in the way of this people, to be 
 caught by the popular excitement, and depressed^ by the popular 
 despondency ; but the divine hand kept him straight and steady. 
 
 12, 13. The prophet must have a different outlook and a differ- 
 ent vocabulary from the people. What they call conspiracy or 
 confederacy (this word of AV gives the sense well), he and his 
 
 80 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH . 8:17 
 
 Rom. 9 : 3a 
 
 13. The Lord of hosts, him shall ye sanctify ; 
 
 And let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." 
 
 14. And he shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone of i Pet. a : 8 
 
 stumbling 
 And for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, 
 For agin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 
 
 15. And many shall stumble thereon, 
 And fall, and be broken, 
 And be snared, and be taken. 
 
 Isaiah's Patient Hope (8 : 16-18) 
 
 16. Bind thou up the testimony, seal the ^ law among 
 
 17. my disciples. And I will wait for the Lord, that 
 
 1 m. teaching. 
 
 disciples (plur.) are not to call confederacy. To any one who 
 understands the purpose of Jehovah the coalition of Rezin and 
 Pekah is nothing to be afraid of. But count Jehovah of Hosts 
 the conspirator — it is he and not they that you ought to fear and 
 dread. He is the Lord of history — not they. The difference 
 between sanctify and count him the conspirator, is, in Hebrew, but 
 the fraction of a consonant ; and the latter word, with its echo of 
 vs. 12, being the more daring and original, is the more natural in 
 so impassioned a context. 
 
 14, 15. Omit the word sanctuary, which disturbs rhythm and 
 context. The path of those who do not, like Isaiah, believe in 
 Jehovah, and his control of history, would be beset by obstacles 
 and dangers manifold — stones to trip them up, and snares to 
 hold them fast. Their way (vs. 11) would be unhappy, unpros- 
 perous, deadly ; at least, it would be so for many. Not, however, 
 for all ; not, for example, for Isaiah and his band. Here we get 
 another glimpse of the doctrine of the remnant. 
 
 8: 16-18. The people to whom Isaiah speaks are mostly unbe- 
 lievers (vs. 12), dull of hearing and sight (6 : 9 f.) ; many, most, are 
 stumbling (vs. 15). He will declare his message no more — at 
 least for a season. Disappointed with the people, he will wait for 
 his God. That is the general sense of 1 6 f . , but .the detail is difficult. 
 
 16. This verse looks like a command of Jehovah to Isaiah, 
 though in that case the phrase my disciples is strange. But in 
 vs. 17 the speaker is clearly Isaiah, and vs. 16 should perhaps be 
 G 81 
 
8:i8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look 
 
 Heb. 3:13 18. for him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord 
 
 hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel 
 
 from the Lord of hosts which dwelleth in mount Zion. 
 
 The Awful Plight of Unbelieving Judah (8 : 19-22) 
 
 19. And when they shall say unto you, "Seek unto 
 them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, 
 
 pointed to mean I will bind up the testimony and seal the law, 
 etc. The law is Isaiah's teaching (cf. i : 10) throughout the pres- 
 ent crisis (cf. 7:4); the testimony is the same thing considered 
 as evidential. This he will write, bind up, seal like a legal docu- 
 ment, and commit to his disciples, seeing that the people as a 
 whole are obdurate, and turn a deaf ear to his message. The 
 phrases, hind, seal, may however be metaphorical, and he may be 
 merely resolving to set his message firmly in the heart of his dis- 
 ciples. Scholars have often quoted this passage as marking " the 
 birth of the conception of the Church, the first step in the emancipa- 
 tion of spiritual religion from the forms of political life " (W. 
 Robertson Smith, Prophets oj Israel, p. 275); the nation had re- 
 jected the message, a new community was formed in which it 
 could be preserved and perpetuated. Unfortunately for this 
 interpretation, however, the word disciples is not so firmly estab- 
 lished in the text as one might wish. Judging by the Greek ver- 
 sion, the original reading may have been, " bind the testimony, 
 seal the instruction, teach it not " — in which case the picturesque 
 figures of the disciples would disappear. On an}' view, however, 
 the verse testifies to the deep sorrow of Isaiah at the popular lack 
 of response to his message ; and there can be little doubt that such 
 a man as Isaiah had disciples. 
 
 17. But his sorrow is not without hope. The divine face is 
 hidden from the people, they are too blind to see it (6:9 f.), but 
 Isaiah has seen it (6 : i), and I will look for, hope in, him. 
 
 18. If Isaiah could not preach, he did not need. He and his 
 children were living sermons, incarnate pledges of the future. 
 Their very names were eloquent and prophetic — Isaiah (Je- 
 hovah saves), Shear-jashuh (7 : 3, a remnant will turn), and Maher- 
 shalal-hash-haz (8 : 1-4) — prophetic of mercy as well as of 
 judgment. He could not look on them without thinking of the 
 future and of God — the God whose home was on mount Zion, 
 and whose glory he had seen there (6 : i). 
 
 82 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 8:21 
 
 that chirp and that mutter" : should not a people seek 
 unto their God ? on behalf of the living should they seek 
 
 20. unto the dead? "To the law and to the testimony! " 
 if they speak not according to this word, surely there 
 is no morning for them. 
 
 21. And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and 
 
 hungry : 
 And it shall come to pass that, when they shall be 
 
 hungry, they shall fret themselves. 
 And curse ^ by their king and by their God, 
 
 1 Or om. hy. 
 
 8: 19-22. The depths of despair to which the unbelievers will 
 be reduced are strikingly portrayed in this passage. It is a very 
 powerful picture of the effects of an'Assyrian invasion. 
 
 19. The contrast between the popular way (vs. 11) and Isaiah's 
 is vividly suggested here. The prophet can always consult the 
 hving God: the people, in their despair, turn like Saul (i Sam. 28) 
 to necromancy and witchcraft. On this view of the verse, the 
 first half represents the people's speech, and the second the 
 prophet's indignant reply. It is possible, however, to regard the 
 whole verse as spoken by the people. In that case the last clause 
 should be translated, On behalf of the living should they not seek 
 unto the dead? and the dead would be the gods consulted (cf. 
 the previous clause), exactly as in i Sam. 28 : 13 the shade of 
 Samuel is called a god. For similar superstitious practices, cf. 
 2 : 6. We might translate ghosts and familiar spirits that cheep 
 and moan (Cheyne). The Greek suggests, what is very probable, 
 that the professors of the arts here alluded to were ventriloquists. 
 
 20. This verse is very obscure. The meaning may be that, 
 realizing the impotence of those whom they have consulted, the 
 desperate people will clamor for some such prophetic instruction 
 as that which is now sealed up, because they have already rejected 
 it (vs. 16) ; their cry will be to the law and to the testimony 
 (cf. Amos 8 : 11). Such assuredly will he the words uttered by those 
 for whom there is no daybreak. The thick night has fallen about 
 them, unbroken by any light from heaven; they are wrapped in 
 despair. 
 
 21. 22. The spiritual desolation is accompanied by physical 
 distress. In their flight through it, i.e. the land, the desperate 
 people are goaded by their hunger into indignation and blasphemy, 
 
 83 
 
8:22 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 22. And turn their faces upward : and they shall look unto 
 the earth, 
 And behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; 
 And into thick darkness they shall be driven away. 
 
 The Great Deliverance and the Glorious King (9 : 1-7) 
 
 9. But there shall be no gloom to her that was in anguish. 
 
 In the former time he brought into contempt the 
 
 land of Zebulun and the land of NaphtaH, but in the 
 
 latter time hath he made it glorious, by the way of 
 
 the sea, beyond Jordan, ^ GaHlee of the nations. 
 
 I m. the district. 
 
 cursing the king who cannot and the God who will not save them. 
 In all directions they will look for help, up to the heaven, down to 
 the earth, but everywhere will be distress and gloom. 
 
 9 : 1-7. The contrast between the joy of this section and the 
 anguish of the last is very dramatic. The darkness in which it 
 was wrapped is illuminated by a great light, the distress of inva- 
 sion gives place to the joy of deliverance and victory ; and the 
 gladness of these latter days is crowned by the birth of a child, 
 who, possessed with no less than marvellous gifts for government, 
 is destined to sit upon the throne of David — a throne whose 
 stability and perpetuity are now guaranteed. 
 
 I. The transition from the last section to this is mediated by this 
 verse. This is especially obvious, if we accept the translation of 
 RV — But there shall he no gloom to her that was in anguish, etc. 
 AV seriously mistranslates the whole verse. As, however, the 
 last section had dealt with an invasion of Judah, while the dis- 
 tricts mentioned in this verse as first humbled and then lifted to 
 honor belong to Israel, it has been not unnaturally suggested that 
 this verse which, unlike the poem that follows, is written in prose, 
 was added to connect the two sections, by one who referred the 
 darkness of vs. 2 to the deportation of the inhabitants of the north- 
 ern districts of Israel by the Assyrian king (2 Kings 15 : 29). 
 
 The sea is the sea of Galilee. Beyond the Jordan, i.e. east of it 
 — Gilead. Galilee, rather the circuit of the nations — part of 
 the district later known as Galilee. Both in Old and New Testa- 
 ment times its population appears to have been very heterogeneous. 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 9:4 
 
 16 
 Lk. z : 79 
 
 2. The people that walked in darkness 
 
 Have seen a great light : 
 They that dwelt in the land of the ^ shadow of death, Mat. 4 : 14- 
 Upon them hath the hght shined. 
 
 3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, 
 
 - Thou hast increased their joy ; 
 They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, 
 As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 
 
 4. For the yoke of his burden, 
 
 And the staff of his shoulder, 
 The rod of his oppressor, 
 
 Thou hast broken as in the day of Midian. 
 
 1 m. deep darkness. 2 a Hebrew variant is thou didst not increase the joy. 
 
 2. It was natural and almost inevitable that the light that arose 
 upon the people of Galilee should be interpreted by Jewish- Chris- 
 tians as a prophecy of the appearance of Jesus in Galilee at the 
 beginning of his ministry (Mat 4: 12-16). 
 
 3. There can be no doubt that RV — Thou hast increased 
 their joy — is right, as against AV {thou hast not increased the 
 joy). The Hebrew words for not and to him (Thou hast increased 
 the joy to him, i.e. the nation) sound ahke (viz., lo) ; and the 
 parallelism excludes the possibility of the negative. This same 
 law of parallelism, however, suggests the high probability of the 
 following translation, which greatly improves the parallelism, and 
 rests upon a very simple emendation — " Thou hast multiphed 
 the gladness and increased the joy." The joy is described as the 
 keenest known to Hebrew experience — harvest joy and battle 
 joy, the joy of the reaper and that of the victor as he divides the 
 spoil. 
 
 4. The joy is explained by the defeat of the enemy, i.e. the 
 Assyrian. The yoke which burdened him {i.e. Israel, or rather 
 Judah ; see note on vs. i) and the staff with which the oppressor, 
 or rather taskmaster, beat his shoulder or back, are broken in 
 pieces; it is as a deliverance from a second Egyptian bondage. 
 The Assyrians are routed as completely as the Midianites were in 
 that great day, i.e. battle-day, in the olden times, by Gideon 
 (Jud. chaps. 6-8). The discomfiture of the enemy, and indeed all 
 the incidents of this section, the rising of the light, the birth of the 
 
 85 
 
9:5 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. For 1 all the armour of the armed man in the tumult, 
 And the garments rolled in blood, 
 Shall even be for burning, 
 For fuel of fire. 
 
 6. For unto us a child is born. 
 Unto us a son is given ; 
 And the government shall be 
 Upon his shoulder : 
 
 1 m. exery hoot oj the booted warrior. 
 
 child, etc., belong to the future; but they are described in the perfect 
 tense, because to the prophet they are divine certainties. 
 
 5. A splendid verse. 
 
 For every hoot of the hooted warrior that thundered along, 
 
 And garment rolled in hlood, 
 Shall he doomed to the hurning, 
 Fuel for the fire. 
 
 Every trace of war and its accoutrements — heavy warrior 
 boots and bloody cloaks — must vanish. 
 
 6. Associated with this deliverance, and indeed the most blessed 
 feature of the happy days to which the prophet looks forward, 
 is the birth, the gift (as he also calls it), of a child, none other than 
 the Messianic king. On his shoulders rests the government, the 
 insignia of government — perhaps a royal robe is intended. 
 The name by which he is to be called indicates how splendid is 
 his equipment for the royal office. Particular emphasis is laid 
 upon the two most essential qualities, — wisdom and power, — and 
 his rule will guarantee the peace and welfare of his people. There 
 can be little doubt that his name is fourfold, not (as in AV and 
 RV) fivefold ; the first two words, Wonderful, Counsellor, ought 
 to be taken together, whether we interpret the Hebrew as a 
 wonder of a counsellor, or one whose counsel is wonderful (practically 
 = wonderful counsellor). And his strength is as divine as his wis- 
 dom. The phrase Mighty God, however, is somewhat misleading, 
 suggesting as it does to English ears that the king is God incarnate. 
 The same Hebrew words may indeed be used of God (cf. Jer. 32 : 
 18), but, in such a context as this, their flavor would be better 
 represented by some such translation as Warrior Divine, or Hero 
 of Superhutnan Might; Deity is in him, but he is not Deity. Un- 
 
 86 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 9:7 
 
 k 
 
 And his name shall be called 
 
 ^ Wonderful, Counsellor, 
 Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
 
 Prince of Peace. 
 
 7. 2 Of the increase of his government 
 
 And of peace there shall be no end, 
 Upon the throne of David ^^- ' = ^^ *' 
 
 And upon his kingdom, 
 To establish it, and to uphold it 
 
 With judgement and with righteousness 
 From henceforth even for ever. 
 
 The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this. 
 
 1 m. wonderful counsellor. 2 Qr great {shall be) his government. 
 
 fortunately much doubt attaches to the meaning of the words 
 rendered Everlasting Father. Father of duration, or eternity, has 
 been explained as (i) one possessing the attribute of eternity, i.e. 
 eternal; or (ii) fatherly (cf. Job 29:16) forever. Neither ex- 
 planation is very satisfactory, and there is a strong temptation, 
 especially in so military a context, to adopt the other possible 
 translation. Father of booty, i.e., the Messianic king is one who, as a 
 warrior divine, vanquishes his foes, divides the booty, and secures 
 peace for his people, becoming thus in very truth a prince of peace. 
 But in so lofty a context, everlasting father appears, perhaps, to 
 be the most appropriate meaning after all. 
 
 7. The perpetuity of a kingdom with such a king is guaranteed, 
 especially as it is supported by those ethical qualities which alone 
 exalt a nation ; it is the justice and righteousness that ensure its 
 continuance from henceforth and even for ever. Religiously 
 speaking, the certainty of this whole brilliant future is guaranteed 
 by the zeal of Jehovah — jealousy on its good side, that warm 
 passion with which Jehovah defends and maintains his interests 
 and his honor. With the omission of two Hebrew letters which 
 appear to have been inadvertently repeated, the first clause of vs. 
 7 runs thus : " Great is the {i.e., his) government, and without end 
 the peace." 
 
 Though in this remarkable poem, the kingdom and the king 
 are sketched in very rapid outUnes, and the details are few, every 
 stroke tells. In the future days war will be abolished, and its 
 
 87 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Doom of Israel (9 : 8-10 ; 4) 
 
 8. The Lord sent ^ a word into Jacob, 
 And it hath Ughted upon Israel. 
 
 1 Gr. death. 
 
 cruel symbols will disappear (2:4); the great King will be gifted 
 with superhuman wisdom, and with a strength which he will use 
 in the interests of peace ; and his throne rests securely upon a moral 
 and religious foundation. His empire is established and upheld 
 not by brute force, although the king is divinely strong, but by 
 justice and righteousness, and it will be as eternal as they. Surely 
 it is not unnatural to see in these great words an adumbration of 
 the empire established by Christ. 
 
 9: 8-10: 4. Somewhat in the manner of Amos 4: 6-12, Isaiah 
 here, in a very powerful and artistically constructed poem, de- 
 scribes the various blows which are to fall on Israel — blows 
 which, on the one hand, were intended as chastisement, but which, 
 on the other, were designed to bring the people back to the God 
 who had smitten them (vs. 13; cf. Amos 4:6, 8, 10). In spite 
 of the tone of 10 : 1-4, and of the vagueness of the language in 
 9 : 8, it seems reasonably certain that this message was addressed 
 not to Israel and Judah together, but to Israel only (cf. vs. 9). 
 As Syria (Aram) is hostile to Israel (vs. 12), the passage must have 
 been written before 735 B.C., when the two countries united in 
 their assault upon Judah (7: i ff.), and is therefore one of the 
 earhest of Isaiah's prophecies. It is not easy to say whether the 
 passage refers to the past, or the future — whether it is a descrip- 
 tion (as in Amos) of blows that have already fallen, to be followed 
 by the more awful blow which will be dealt by the terrible Assyr- 
 ian army (for it is all but universally agreed that 5 : 26-30 is the 
 real climax of this passage), or whether it is a prediction. The 
 latter seems the more probable. The past tenses prove nothing; 
 for, as in 9 : 2-7, they may well be prophetic. The jaunty tone 
 of vs. 10 seems to show that the catastrophes alluded to in vss. 12, 
 18, have not yet occurred. But some of them, e.g. the anarchy 
 and civil war in vss. 18-20, are only too probable. 
 
 Israel will he assailed in War by her Neighbors (9 : 8-12) 
 
 8. The word is the oracle that follows, uttered by Isaiah. It is 
 almost personified (cf. Ps. 107: 20; 147: 15); it has been sent 
 and it shall light (lit. fall) with deadly effect upon Israel, i.e. not 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 9:12 
 
 9. And all the people shall know, 
 
 Even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, 
 That say in pride 
 
 And in stoutness of heart, 
 
 10. " The bricks are fallen, 
 
 But we will build with hewn stone : 
 The sycamores are cut down. 
 
 But we will change them into cedars." 
 
 11. 1 Therefore the Lord shall set up on high against him 
 
 the adversaries of Rezin, 
 And shall stir up his enemies ; 
 
 12. The Syrians before, and the PhiHstines behind ; 
 
 And they shall devour Israel with open mouth. 
 
 1 Gr. God shall dash down those that rise up against mount Zion, and shall scatter his 
 
 enemies. 
 
 the whole people, but the northern kingdom, as the following 
 verse with its express reference to Ephraim and the capital city 
 Samaria seems to show. 
 
 9. They shall know it, by experience; the blow will be such as 
 they shall feel. Grammar and metre ahke suggest that a word 
 has dropped out ; perhaps : 
 
 (For they boast) in pride 
 
 And in stoutness of heart, saying. 
 
 10. The people here practically acknowledge that their situa- 
 tion is not all that might be desired. But they deal with it light- 
 heartedly (cf. Hos. 6:2); ignorant of their real decrepitude (Hos. 
 7:9 f.), they face the future with boundless self-confidence and 
 ambition. A palatial splendor will replace the simpler things 
 that have been destroyed. 
 
 11. 12. Invasion will be the penalty of their ambitious and im- 
 penitent life. Instead of the adversaries of Rezin, parallelism 
 suggests that we should simply read his adversary, regarding Rezin 
 as a gloss. It is Syria (vs. 12), and therefore Rezin himself, its 
 king (7 : i), that is to be raised up. This was clearly written before 
 Syria and Israel joined forces (7 : i ff.), and therefore before 735 
 B.C. An attack upon Israel or Judah by the Philistines was al- 
 ways a possibility (cf . for a somewhat later date, 2 Chron. 28 : 
 18; and earlier, Amos i : 6-8). 
 
 89 
 
9:13 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 13. Yet the people hath not returned unto him that smote 
 
 them, 
 Neither have they sought the Lord of hosts. 
 
 14. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and 
 
 tail, 
 Palm-branch and rush, in one day. 
 
 15. The ^ ancient and the honourable man, he is the head ; 
 
 And the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. 
 
 16. For they that lead this people cause them to err ; 
 
 And they that are led of them are destroyed. 
 
 17. Therefore the Lord shall not rejoice over their young 
 
 men, 
 
 1 m. dder. 
 
 Here for the first time occurs the refrain which ends each 
 strophe : 
 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 It is a most solemn and impressive picture. Isaiah sees in imagi- 
 nation the first blow already fallen ; but terrible as it is — an 
 invasion before and behind — the divine Hand is still outstretched 
 to smite again. 
 
 Israel will suffer some very Grievous Disaster (9 : 13-17) 
 
 13, 14. The object of the first blow was not merely punitive; 
 it was to lead the people to repentance. But it failed. So another 
 blow must fall, though what form it will take is not clear ; in any 
 case, leader and led will be destroyed — the aspiring palm-branch 
 and the lowly rush, a figure for high and low. In one day — per- 
 haps battle-day (cf. vs. 4). 
 
 15, 16. Vs. IS has all the appearance of a gloss, intended to 
 explain the figures of vs. 14; and vs. 16 seems to be an echo of 
 3 : 12. 
 
 17. The moral situation in Israel must be desperate indeed, 
 when the divine pity is refused even to the orphans and the wid- 
 
 90 
 
THE BOOK OF ISMAH 9:19 
 
 Neither shall he have compassion on their fatherless 
 and widows : 
 For every one is profane and an evil-doer, 
 
 And every mouth speaketh folly. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, 
 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 18. For wickedness burneth as the fire ; 
 
 It devoureth the briers and thorns ; 
 Yea, it kindleth in the thickets of the forest, 
 And they roll upward in thick clouds of smoke. 
 
 19. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land 
 
 burnt up: 
 The people also are as the fuel of fire. 
 No man spareth his brother ; 
 
 ows, who can otherwise count upon it so surely (i : 17). The 
 reason is that every one sets religion and morality at defiance, 
 and every mouth talks blasphemous folly (cf. Ps. 14: i). Instead 
 of " the Lord will not rejoice over," the change of a letter will give 
 us " the Lord will not pass over,'" i.e., spare, which suits the paral- 
 lelism much better. The Hand is still outstretched to deal a 
 further blow. 
 
 Israel will he torn hy Anarchy and Civil War (9 : 18-21) 
 
 18. The wickedness of Israel is graphically compared to a fire 
 which starts among the thorns and thistles of the field and then 
 spreads to the forest, rolling up in columns of smoke. This figure 
 finely suggests the havoc and lurid horrors wrought by anarchy 
 and civil war, which vss. 19, 20 show the prophet has in mind, — 
 if not as an expression of the " wickedness," at any rate as the 
 immediate consequence of it. 
 
 19, 20. The meaning of the word rendered in RV burnt up, 
 and in AV darkened, is quite uncertain. Some suggest is con- 
 fused, reels, etc. Instead of are as the fuel of fire, Hackmann, 
 by a very simple and plausible emendation, reads are as eaters of 
 men, i.e. like cannibals, which would be a vivid, and not over- 
 drawn (cf. Hos. 7:7), statement of the effects of civil war. The 
 insatiable ferocity of the strife is suggested with equal vigor by 
 
 91 
 
9120 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 20. And one shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry ; j 
 And he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not ' 
 
 be satisfied : 
 They shall eat every man the flesh of his ^ own arm ; 
 
 21. Manasseh, Ephraim ; and Ephraim, Manasseh : 
 
 And they together shall be against Judah. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away. 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 10. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, 
 And to the writers that write perverseness : 
 2. To turn aside the needy from judgement, 
 
 And to take away the right of the poor of my people, 
 That widows may be their spoil. 
 
 And that they may make the fatherless their prey ! 
 
 1 Tar. neighbor. 
 
 the similar figures of vs. 20. Instead of " the flesh of his own 
 arm," we should no doubt read, by the omission of a single letter, 
 " the flesh of his neighbor." Much can be said for the suggestion 
 that the last clause of vs. 19 should immediately precede the last 
 clause of vs. 20, thus : 
 
 No man shall spare his brother, 
 Each shall eat the flesh of his neighbor. 
 
 21. Intertribal feuds will break out, only in turn to be swallowed 
 up by the common hatred of Judah. Isaiah's picture of anarchy 
 finds its historical counterpart in the confusions reflected in 
 2 Kings 15 and passim in Hosea. Yet, fearful as this anarchy is, 
 the divine Hand is stretched out still to deal another blow. 
 
 Israel will be swept by a Storm from afar (10 : 1-4) 
 
 10:1,2. The detail in vss. i, 2 — so like Isaiah's complaints 
 elsewhere of Judah (cf. 1:17, 23) and so unlike the vaguer lan- 
 guage of the preceding strophes — coupled with the introductory 
 Woe, which irresistibly recalls the group of Woes in Chap. 5 : 8 ff., 
 pronounced upon Judah, have led some scholars to the conclusion 
 that this section deals with Judah, not with Israel. This conclu- 
 
 92 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 10:4 
 
 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, 
 
 And in the desolation which shall come from far? 
 To whom will ye flee for help ! 
 
 And where will ye leave your glory ? 
 They shall only bow down under the prisoners, 
 
 And shall fall under the slain. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away. 
 
 But his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 sion, though by no means impossible, is unnecessary. The pages 
 of Amos and Hosea show us that the thing here denounced was as 
 common in Israel as in Judah. The Hebrew suggests the zeal 
 with which the writing was done. The elaborate legal formalities 
 really violated the plain man's sense of justice, and indeed had 
 the effect — which, according to vs. 2, was intentional — of 
 injustice (cf. Amos 5 : 12). 
 
 3. With starthng abruptness the prophet puts his question to 
 the champions of injustice : But what will ye do, etc. ? For them 
 there is coming " a day of revision, when they must answer to the 
 Supreme Judge" (Skinner). The figure changes; the visitation 
 will take the form of a storm (rather than desolation) which shall 
 come from afar. This dark allusion, worked out with terrible 
 frankness in the concluding strophe (5 : 26-30), is of course to the 
 Assyrians, who in 5 : 26 are described as " a nation from afar." 
 
 To whom will ye flee? The Hebrew here is subtle, combining 
 the ideas To whom will ye flee ? and on whom can ye lean ? Glory = 
 wealth, resources. 
 
 4. This verse, in its present form, defies translation. It could 
 not without violence be rendered : {They can do nothing) hut crouch 
 among the prisoners, and fall beneath the slain, i.e. their doom would 
 be either imprisonment or death upon the battlefield. A very 
 ingenious rearrangement of the consonantal text, suggested by 
 Lagarde, yields the meaning : Beltis has sunk down, Osiris is 
 broken, and under the slain they fall. Osiris is an Egyptian Deity, 
 and Beltis, the Lady, would in this connection be Isis. It is 
 certain from Hosea (cf. 7:11; 12:1) that a party in Israel aimed 
 at an Egyptian alliance ; and Isaiah would in that case be here 
 foretelling the futility of Egyptian help, the impotence of Egyp- 
 tian gods (cf . 46 : i). This very daring textual suggestion cannot be 
 regarded as improbable, considering, on the one hand, Israel's 
 leanings to Egypt, and, on the other, the tendency of later Jewish 
 editors to obliterate the unworthier aspects of Israel's early 
 
 93 
 
10 : 5 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Doom op the Assyrian (io : 5-34) 
 The Two Plans — Assyrians and Jehovah's (10: 5-15) 
 
 5. Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, 
 
 The staff in whose hand is mine indignation ! 
 
 6. I will send him against a profane nation. 
 
 And against the people of my wrath will I give him 
 a charge, 
 
 religion ; or it may be that to them the names were really obscure. 
 The suggestion is, at any rate, superior to our present text. 
 
 The divine Hand is stretched out still, this time to deal the last 
 and deadliest blow of all — for it is now generally admitted that 
 the magnificent description of the onward march of the Assyrian 
 army in 5 : 26-30 is the real and original climax of this noble poem. 
 After it has come, the Hand needs to be stretched out no more. 
 Roaring hke lions, the Assyrians will carry off their helpless prey, 
 and nothing will be left but a desolation. 
 
 This poem (9 : 8-10 : 4) shows that Isaiah was no less great as a 
 poet than as a prophet. There is a singularly weird impressiveness 
 about the outstretched Hand, dealing in each successive strophe 
 a new and terrible blow, bringing upon unhappy Israel invasion, 
 war, anarchy, despair, and only withdrawn when the tireless and 
 invincible Assyrians come to tear Israel in pieces. 
 
 10 : 5-34. A very profound conception of history marks this group 
 of oracles. History is but the gradual outworking of Jehovah's 
 purpose, and to this purpose the Assyrians are all unconsciously 
 made to contribute. The passage implies the fall of Samaria 
 (vss. 9, II : 721 B.C.) and Carchemish (vs. 9: 717 B.C.) and must 
 therefore be later than 717 B.C.; on the other hand, it must be 
 earlier than 701 b.c, when Sennacherib was compelled to abandon 
 his projected assault upon Jerusalem. Sometime between those 
 two dates it falls — probably nearer, but not immediately before 
 701 B.C., as the Assyrian advance did not come (as pictured in 
 vss. 28-32) from the north. 
 
 10: 5-15. Jehovah has his plan and the Assyrians have theirs; 
 but he, the true Lord of history, uses them as his instruments to 
 work out his own plan, while all the time they imagine that they 
 are working out theirs. 
 
 5, 6. The verse should run — Woe, Assyrian! the rod of mine 
 anger, and the staff of mine indignation. The Assyrians are the rod 
 which Jehovah uses to smite the godless nations — Judah in par- 
 
 94 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH io:i2 
 
 To take the spoil, and to take the prey, 
 
 And to tread them down hke the mire of the streets 
 
 7. Howbeit he meaneth not so, 
 
 Neither doth his heart think so ; 
 , But it is in his heart to destroy. 
 And to cut off nations not a few. 
 
 8. For he saith, 
 
 ''Are not my princes all of them kings? 
 
 9. Is not Calno as Carchemish ? 
 Is not Hamath as Arpad ? 
 
 Is not Samaria as Damascus ? 
 
 10. As my hand hath ^ found the kingdoms of the idols, 
 
 Whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem 
 and of Samaria ; 
 
 11. Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols. 
 
 So do to Jerusalem and her idols ?" 
 
 12. Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord 
 
 1 m. reached. 
 
 ticular is meant — with which he is angry; and they execute their 
 commission with terrible thoroughness. 
 
 7. He — the Assyrian — does not realize that he is but a tool 
 in Jehovah's hands ; his purpose is simply destruction on a gigantic 
 scale. His arrogance and passion for destruction are illustrated 
 in the following speech — vss. 8-1 1. 
 
 8-1 1. How could Jerusalem withstand a monarch who had 
 kings for officials and who had already subdued cities much 
 stronger than herself — Calno in 738 B.C., Carchemish (a famous 
 city on the Euphrates) in 717, Hamath on the Orontes in 720, 
 Arpad (a little north of Aleppo) in 740, Samaria (the capital of 
 northern Israel) in 721, and Damascus in 732? Jerusalem and 
 her idols — a natural phrase on Assyrian lips — can hope to fare 
 no better than Samaria and her good-for-nothing gods: the defeat 
 of a people was held to prove the impotence of its god. In vs. 10, 
 the conquered kingdoms generally are described as the kingdoms 
 of the good-for-nothing gods. 
 
 12. This vs. interrupts the proud speech of the Assyrian king 
 with a threat of divine punishment. (Read " He will punish.") 
 
 95 
 
io:i3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on I 
 Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of 
 the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. 
 
 13. For he hath said, 
 
 ''By the strength of my hand I have done it, 
 And by my wisdom ; for I am prudent : 
 
 And I have removed the bounds of the peoples, 
 And have robbed their treasuries, 
 
 And ^ I have brought down as a valiant man 
 Them that sit on thrones : 
 
 14. And my hand hath found as a nest 
 
 The riches of the peoples ; 
 And as one gathereth eggs that are forsaken, 
 
 Have I gathered all the earth ; 
 And there was none that moved the wing. 
 
 Or that opened the mouth, or chirped." 
 
 15. Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth 
 
 therewith ? 
 Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh 
 it? 
 
 ' Gr. I •will shake cities with their inhabitants. 
 
 13. The Assyrian attributes his success to his own might and 
 the astuteness of his own policy in removing national boundaries 
 (for example, by transferring the inhabitants of one country to 
 another) ; he does not know that he is but a tool in Jehovah's 
 hand (vss. 5-7). As a valiant man — or perhaps like a hull (a 
 figure of frequent occurrence in Assyrian art) — he brings down 
 to the dust the peoples of the world, or it may be their kings. 
 
 14. The irresistible might claimed by the Assyrian in vs. 13 is 
 graphically described in vs. 14, which compares his depredations 
 to the harrying of birds' nests ; as the eggs are carried ruthlessly 
 away, and the helpless birds dare not even chirp, so the nations are 
 impotent when their treasures are swept away by the Assyrians. 
 
 15. Shall the axe boast, etc.? This is the prophet's answer to 
 Assyria's proud boast. Assyria was but an axe, a saw, a rod, wielded 
 
 96 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 10:20 
 
 As if a rod should shake them that lift it up, 
 Or as if a staff should lift up him that is not wood. 
 
 The Fate of Assyria and Judah (10 : 16-23) 
 
 16. Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, 
 
 Send among his fat ones leanness ; 
 And under his glory there shall be kindled 
 A burning like the burning of fire. 
 
 17. And the Hght of Israel shall be for a fire, 
 
 And his Holy One for a flame ; 
 And it shall burn and devour his thorns 
 And his briers in one day. 
 
 18. And he shall consume the glory of his forest, 
 
 And of his fruitful field, both soul and body : 
 
 And it shall be ^ as when a standard bearer fainteth. 
 
 19. And the remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few. 
 
 That a child may write them. 
 
 20. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the 
 
 1 m. a5 when a sick man pineth away. 
 
 by the mighty arm of Jehovah, with no more right to brag over 
 him than those instruments have over the man who wields them. 
 Not wood, i.e., man — greater than, and master of, the wood. 
 
 10: 16-23. After the boastful speech of the Assyrian (cf. esp. 
 vss. 13, 14) the announcement of his downfall comes with singular 
 effect. 
 
 16-19. The destruction is described first as leanness, or wasting 
 away, and then as a conflagration, though only the latter figure is 
 elaborated; the fire is kindled by the holy Jehovah,* the Light of 
 Israel — or rather he is the flame that will speedily consume them. 
 The picture is that of a forest fire (cf. 9 : 18), in which but few trees 
 survive; in vs. 18 the destruction is represented as absolute — 
 body and soul. And it shall be as when a sick man pineth away 
 (RV m.) — a reversion to the figure of vs. 16. The change and 
 confusion of metaphors is very unlike Isaiah's, and may point to 
 interference by a later hand. 
 
 20-23. For Israel (i.e. Judah) no less than for Assyria, destruc- 
 
 H 97 
 
io:2i THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 remnant of Israel, and they that are escaped out of 
 the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon 
 him that smote them ; but shall stay upon the Lord, i 
 21. the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant shall ' 
 return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty 
 Rom. 9: 27 22. God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand 
 of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return : a 
 consumption is determined, overflowing with right- 
 
 23. eousness. For a consummation, and that determined, 
 shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, make in the midst 
 of all the earth. 
 
 The Consolation of Zion: Assyria will assuredly Fall 
 (10 : 24-34) 
 
 24. Therefore thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, 
 "O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of 
 the Assyrian : though he smite thee with the rod, and 
 Hft up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. 
 
 25. For yet a Httle while, and the indignation shall be 
 accompHshed, and mine anger, in their destruction. 
 
 26. And the Lord of hosts shall stir up against him a 
 
 Hon is strictly decreed, bringing in justice like a flood (vs.^ 22: 
 Cheyne) ; but a remnant will survive, and, taught by the divine 
 judgment upon Assyria, will lean no more (vs. 20), as Ahaz had 
 done (2 Kings 16 : 7 £f.) upon that power which later, in the reign 
 of Hezekiah, smote Judah, but will turn to their own mighty God 
 {el gibbor — the name given in 9:6 to the Messianic king) and 
 lean upon him in truth, i.e. sincerity. A remnant shall return : 
 this is intended to recall the name of Isaiah's son — Shear-jashub 
 (7:3), who was a sort of incarnate prophecy. 
 
 24-27. In view of the hope just expressed (vss. 20-23) the people 
 of Jerusalem, in which is the sacred temple hill of Zion, are urged 
 not to be afraid of the Assyrians, though they smite as the Egyp- 
 tians did in the ancient days of the oppression; for Jehovah in 
 his anger is determined speedily to destroy them as completely 
 as the Midianites (cf. 9 : 4) were destroyed by Gideon (cf . Jud. 7:25) 
 
 98 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 10:31 
 
 scourge, as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of 
 Oreb : and his rod shall be over the sea, and he shall 
 Uft it up after the manner of Egypt. 
 
 27. And it shall come to pass in that day, that 
 His burden shall depart from off thy shoulders, 
 
 And his yoke from off thy neck, 
 And the yoke shall be destroyed 
 Because of the anointing. 
 
 28. He is come to Aiath, 
 
 He is passed through Migron ; 
 
 At Michmash he layeth up his baggage : 
 
 29. They are gone over the pass ; 
 
 1 They have taken up their lodging at Geba : 
 Ramah trembleth ; 
 Gibeah of Saul is fled. 
 
 30. Cry aloud with thy voice, O daughter of Gullim! 
 
 Hearken, O Laishah ! 
 2 thou poor Anathoth ! 
 
 31. Madmenah is a fugitive : 
 
 The inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. 
 
 1 m. Geba is our lodging (they cry). 2 m. Answer her, Anathoth. 
 
 or the Egyptians at the Red Sea. Jehovah is about to stir up 
 against him — the Assyrian — a scourge, in other words, brandish 
 the whip or the rod of destruction; and the result will be that the 
 burden will fall from the shoulder and the yoke from the neck of 
 Judah (cf. 9 : 4). 
 
 2 7b-32. This passage describes an imaginary march of the 
 Assyrian army upon Jerusalem from the north. Its opening 
 words — the last clause of vs. 27, which can hardly be correct as 
 it stands (because of the anointing) — may originally have run : 
 A destroyer goeth up from the north (Robertson Smith) or from 
 Rimmon (cf. Jud. 20: 45) east of Bethel (so Duhm). Aiath is Ai, 
 nine miles from Jerusalem, so that the enemy is very near. The 
 places named he passes on his way, and they are filled with con- 
 
 99 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 32. This very day shall he halt at Nob : 
 
 He shaketh his hand at the mount of the ^ daughter of 
 Zion, 
 The hill of Jerusalem. 
 
 33. Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, 
 
 Shall lop the boughs with terror : 
 And the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, 
 And the lofty shall be brought low. 
 
 34. And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with 
 
 iron, 
 And Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one. 
 
 1 Heb. by a slip, house. 
 
 sternation. The passage is full of word-play (cf. Mic. i : 10-15) 
 impossible to reproduce; thus, Yell, Gallim : listen, Laishah: 
 answer, Anathoth. Anathoth, about three miles from Jerusalem, 
 was Jeremiah's birthplace. A halt is called at Noh immediately 
 to the north of Jerusalem, whose doom now seems to be sealed, 
 as the Assyrian fist is shaken in her face. 
 
 33, 34. But — "a quiet pause of breathless anxiety " (OreUi), 
 and — behold ! The climax is as surprising as it is wonderful. 
 The foe, mighty and haughty though they be, so far from smiting 
 Jerusalem, are themselves mysteriously smitten by Jerusalem's 
 mightier God. The Assyrian army is compared to a great forest, 
 like Lebanon, and crash go the giant cedars, felled by the irresist- 
 ible arm of Jehovah. 
 
 The chapter forms an impressive picture of the clash between 
 Assyria and Judah, representatives to Isaiah, respectively, of the 
 secular and the divine idea. Assyria is Jehovah's tool for the 
 chastisement of Judah, but Assyria's arrogance must also be 
 chastised ; and she receives her most signal chastisement in the 
 hour of her loftiest arrogance and before the walls of the very city 
 she was bent on humiliating. With such a prospect, the people of 
 Jerusalem might well /ear not (vs. 24) : a great purpose of Jehovah 
 was involved in her preservation (cf. 14: 24-27). 
 
 Chaps. II and 12. In the closing verses of Chap. 10 the fall of 
 Israel's great antagonist was portrayed, and the ground is now 
 clear for the establishment of Messiah's kingdom. To that this 
 chapter is devoted — vss. 1-9 describing the King himself, his 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Bliss of Israel in the Latter Days (Chaps. 
 II, 12) 
 
 The Messianic King and Kingdom (11 : 1-9) 
 
 11. And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of 
 Jesse, 
 And a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit: 
 
 2. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. 
 
 The spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
 The spirit of counsel and might. 
 The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord ; 
 
 3. And his ^ delight shall be in the fear of the Lord : 
 And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes. 
 
 Neither ^ reprove after the hearing of his ears : 
 
 ' Heb. scent. = m. SV decide. 
 
 character, and the effects of his rule, vss. 10-16 the triumphant 
 return to Palestine of Hebrew exiles from the four corners of the 
 earth. 
 
 1. The Messianic king will be of the same family as David — 
 so to speak, a second David. That family is now like the stock 
 or stump of a tree — a phrase which suggests, perhaps, that the 
 days of the monarchy are over. 
 
 2. The king will be specially equipped for his high office by 
 the spirit of Jehovah, which will not simply, as in the olden times 
 (Jud. 14: 6), inspire him intermittently, but rest upon him per- 
 manently ; and its quahty will be seen in the three different spheres 
 of intellect, of practical life, and of religion. It will equip hira 
 with a general wisdom and insight into the meaning and conditions 
 of his office, with a penetration which will enable him to discover 
 ways and means to secure his ends, and a strength to carry them 
 out, and finally with a real appreciation of and reverent regard for 
 the will of Jehovah whose servant he is. 
 
 3. The first clause of vs. 3 is somewhat obscure, but it at least 
 implies that the king's work is done in the spirit and atmosphere 
 of religion. One great function of the ancient ruler was the ad- 
 ministration of justice ; here the Messianic king, endowed as he is 
 by the spirit, will be a master, with an unerring judgment that 
 no specious appearances or plausible statements can deflect. 
 
 . loi 
 
II : 4 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 4. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, 
 
 And ^ reprove with equity for the meek of the earth : 
 And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, 
 2Thes. 2:8 And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the 
 
 wicked. 
 
 5. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, 
 Eph. 6 : 14 And faithfulness the girdle of his reins. 
 
 6. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, 
 
 And the leopard shall He down with the kid ; 
 And the calf and the young lion and the fatHng ^to- 
 gether ; 
 And a Httle child shall lead them. 
 
 7. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; 
 
 Their young ones shall He down together : 
 And the Hon shall eat straw Hke the ox. 
 
 8. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, 
 
 I SV decide. = Gr. adds sliall graze. 
 
 4. For reprove, read decide. As the champion of justice, his 
 business will be, on the one hand, to help the downtrodden to their 
 rights, and, on the other, to put an end to violence. His mere word 
 will bring death to godless and violent men, as Peter's word 
 brought death to the lying Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5 : 5, 10). 
 For "■ smite the earth " read " smite the violent man." 
 
 5. The girdle graphically suggests the king's activity ; he will be 
 ready to work and fight, and the cause to which he gives himself is 
 righteousness and faithfulness — the strenuous and conscientious 
 pursuit of justice. On this his throne was founded and by this its 
 stabihty was guaranteed (cf. 9:7). 
 
 6-8. In its present setting, this beautiful picture of peace in the 
 animal world is to be regarded not only as an accompaniment of, 
 but perhaps, in a measure, as the result of the transformation of 
 human character effected by the righteous rule of the Messiah. 
 Among the animals, special enemies will become special friends, 
 the wild and the tame will be found grazing peacefully together. 
 
 In 6b, perhaps we should read " the calf and the young lion shall 
 feed together," and in 7a, " the cow and the bear shall be friends." 
 
 102 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And the weaned child shall put his hand 
 On the basilisk's den. 
 9. They shall not hurt nor destroy- 
 On all my holy mountain : 
 
 For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, 
 As the waters cover the sea. 
 
 The Triumphant Return (11 : 10-16) 
 
 10. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That the root of Jesse which standeth for an ensign Rom. 15 : 12 
 of the peoples, Rev. 22: 16 
 
 Unto him shall the nations seek ; 
 
 And his resting place shall be glorious. 
 II.' And it shall come to pass in that day. 
 
 That the Lord shall ^ set his hand again the second 
 time, 
 
 ' Gr. show. 
 
 8. The presence of the little child (vs. 6) among the wild animals 
 shows how tame they have become — a point enhanced in vs. 8, 
 where a baby can fearlessly play with a venomous viper, sportively 
 reaching out with his finger for its eye (though perhaps we should 
 read den). 
 
 9. In all Palestine, the mountain land, blessed as it now is with a 
 perfect knowledge of Jehovah (for earth read land), men will do 
 no harmful or destructive work ; peace and virtue will reign. The 
 vs. is either the original of or a reminiscence of 65 : 25 and Hab. 
 2: 14. 
 
 11: 10-16. In that glorious day of the poet's dream, the He- 
 brews that have been scattered about the earth will return to the 
 home-land, over which now reigns the Messianic king. 
 
 10. This vs. hangs midway between the last section and this, 
 pointing back to the Messiah (a branch, rather than a root of Jesse), 
 and forward to the larger world beyond Messiah's land. He is 
 as an ensign, a standard, to which the nations resort; to him 
 they go, as in 2 : 2-4, for instruction ; and Jerusalem, his resting 
 place or residence, shall be glorious (cf. 4 : 2-6). 
 
 11. 12. As once before the Lord had brought Israel out of exile 
 
 103 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 To recover the remnant of his people 
 
 Which shall remain, from Assyria and from Egypt, 
 And from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, 
 and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from 
 the islands of the sea. 
 
 12. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, 
 
 And shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, 
 And gather together the dispersed of Judah 
 From the four corners of the earth. 
 
 13. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart. 
 
 And they that vex Judah shall be cut off : 
 Ephraim shall not envy Judah, 
 And Judah shall not vex Ephraim. 
 
 14. And they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the 
 
 PhiHstines on the west ; 
 Together shall they spoil the children of the east : 
 They shall put forth their hand upon Edom and 
 Moab; 
 And the children of Ammon shall obey them. 
 
 in Babylon, so he would again lift up his hand to redeem those of 
 his people who were dispersed throughout the world, notably in 
 Assyria (possibly here = Syria) and Egypt. The remaining names 
 represent parts of these two empires (a) Pathros (Southern Egypt), 
 Cush (Ethiopia); and (b), Elam (Susiana), Shinar (Babylonia), 
 Hamath (on the Orontes), and the islands and coasts of the Medi- 
 terranean Sea. A signal would be divinely given to the nations 
 to bring back the exiles, both men and women {dispersed is fem.), 
 to their own land. 
 
 13. All those who are jealous of Ephraim {i.e. Israel) and hostile 
 to Judah will be destroyed, nor between these two shall there be 
 any such jealousy or hostihty as animated them in post-exilic 
 times (cf. John 4:9); they shall be at peace with the world and 
 with one another. 
 
 14. Their return shall be signaHzed b}- a triumph over all their 
 enemies — PhiHstines on the west, Arabs on the east, etc. They 
 shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines, i.e. their 
 mountains that slope towards the sea. 
 
 104 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 15. And the Lord shall ^ utterly destroy the tongue of the 
 
 Egyptian sea ; 
 And with his ^ scorching wind shall he shake his 
 
 hand over the River, 
 And shall smite it into seven streams, 
 And cause men to march over dry-shod. 
 
 16. And there shall be an high way for the remnant of his 
 
 people, 
 Which shall remain, from Assyria ; 
 Like as there was for Israel 
 
 In the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 The Song of Thanksgiving (Chap. 12) 
 
 12. And in that day thou shalt say, 
 
 "I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord ; 
 
 1 Gr. Tar. dry up. 2 Gr. Vg. Syr. violent. 
 
 15, 16. To facilitate their return (15 f. precedes 13 f. in thought) 
 the wonders of the Exodus will be repeated : Jehovah will destroy 
 (or rather, with the Greek version, dry up) as he then did (Ex. 
 14: 21; 15: 8) by the might (or the gloitf) of his breath, i.e. by a 
 mighty wind, the tongue of the Egyptian {i.e. the Red) Sea ; and 
 the great river Euphrates he will smite into seven streams so 
 shallow that the people could cross them dryshod, i.e. in sandals, 
 and a miraculous way would be made for the people across the 
 eastern desert (cf. 40 : 3). 
 
 The great extent of the dispersion implied by this passage 
 (vs. 11) hardly fits the circumstances of Isaiah's time, when at 
 most the people of the northern kingdom had been taken to 
 Assyria (2 Kings 15 : 29; 17 : 6). This picture of the restoration 
 comes no doubt from a much later time, when Israel was, almost 
 literally, to be found " in the four corners of the earth " (vs. 12). 
 How precious in those days was the memory of ancient deliver- 
 ances is shown by vss. 15 f., and the poHtical ambitions that 
 marred the purity of their religious hopes are seen in the desire 
 for the subjugation of the sister peoples. On the whole the passage 
 does not stand upon so high a level as that to which it is appended 
 (11:1-9), with its fine description of Messiah's righteous and 
 
12:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For though thou wast angry with me, 
 Thine anger is turned away, 
 And thou comfortedst me. 
 
 2. Behold, God is my salvation ; 
 
 I will trust, and will not be afraid : 
 For ^ the Lord Jehovah is my strength and song ; 
 And he is become my salvation." 
 
 3. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water 
 
 Out of the wells of salvation. 
 
 4. And in that day shall ye say, 
 
 " Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, 
 Declare his doings among the peoples, 
 Make mention that his name is exalted. 
 
 ' Heb. Jah Jehovah. 
 
 happy reign, in which even the beasts were at peace with men and 
 with one another. 
 
 Chap. 12. With such an outlook as that opened up by Chap. 11 
 — the Messianic kingdom and the restoration of the exiles to the 
 home land — well might Israel lift up her song of praise. The 
 affinities of this song with the song of Moses (Exod. 15) are not 
 unnatural, considering the allusion in the preceding verses (cf. 
 11: is). 
 
 2. Read, Behold the God of my salvation. I will fearlessly trust; 
 for Jah {i.e. Jehovah) is my strength, etc. Cf. Ex. 15 : 2. In this 
 passage, / is not Isaiah, but the later Jewish church. 
 
 3-6. These vss. in the second person plural are perhaps another 
 poem (cf. vs. 4 with vs. i). 
 
 The salvation which stirred Israel to such exuberant joy and 
 gratitude was larger than the recent deliverance; it was Hke an 
 inexhaustible well, or fountain from which she could draw con- 
 tinually; and the story of this divine deliverance deserves to be 
 told to all the world. 
 
 This song of thanksgiving forms a very appropriate conclusion 
 not only to the last chapter, but to the whole of the first great 
 division of the book of Isaiah (Chaps, i to 12). Its manner, 
 however, is quite unhke Isaiah's, and it was probably added by a 
 later hand to complete and conclude the group, Chaps. 1-12. The 
 redemption and gratitude of Israel make an admirable foil to 
 
 106 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 12:6 
 
 5. Sing unto the Lord ; for he hath done excellent things : 
 
 Let this be known in all the earth. 
 
 6. Cry aloud and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion : 
 
 For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of 
 thee." 
 
 the picture of her sin and ingratitude with which the section opens 
 (Chap. i). 
 
 107 
 
PROPHECIES CONCERNING FOREIGN NATIONS 
 
 (Chaps. 13-23) 
 
 13 : 1 Prophecy Concerning Babylon (13 : 1-14 : 23) 
 
 The Doom of Babylon (Chap. 13) 
 
 13. The ^ burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of 
 Amoz did see. 
 2. Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, 
 Lift up the voice unto them, 
 
 1 m. oracle concerning. 
 
 Chaps. 13-23. With the exception of 17 : 3-11, which deals 
 with Israel, and Chap. 22 with Jerusalem, all the prophecies of 
 this group are concerned with foreign peoples. 
 
 13:1-14:23. This magnificent poem has for its theme the 
 destruction of Babylon (13: 19) and her king (14:4). It glows 
 from end to end with passionate hatred of the oppressorj and looks 
 forward with grim satisfaction to the day of doom to be ushered 
 in by Cyrus and his Medes (13 : 17) and Persians. 
 
 I. Burden, or rather oracle — literally, lifting up (of the proph- 
 et's voice) — on Babylon. The Babylon here denounced is the 
 great empire that conquered and succeeded the Assyrian empire 
 of Isaiah's age. As the doom is imminent, the date must fall 
 shortly before the capture of Babylon in 538 B.C. by Cyrus, and 
 no doubt after he had put himself at the head of the Median 
 empire (13: 17). The passage would then come, like Chaps. 40- 
 55, from the Babylonian exile, and could not belong to Isaiah. 
 The headings of oracles were often added by later hands. 
 
 The Gathering of the Enemy for the Attack on Babylon (vss. 2-4) 
 
 Upon a bare mountain, the signal for the summons will be more 
 clearly seen. They, i.e. the Medians (vs. 17), are loudly sum- 
 moned to enter the gates of the princely Babylonians, i.e. Baby- 
 
 108 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 13:8 
 
 Wave the hand that they may go 
 
 Into the gates of the nobles. 
 I have commanded 
 
 My consecrated ones, 
 Yea, I have called my mighty men for mine anger, 
 
 Even my proudly exulting ones. 
 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, 
 
 Like as of a great people ! 
 The noise of a tumult of the kingdoms 
 
 Of the nations gathered together ! 
 The Lord of hosts mustereth 
 
 The host for the battle. 
 
 They come from a far country, 
 
 From the uttermost part of heaven, 
 Even the Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, 
 
 To destroy the whole land. 
 Howl ye ; for the day of the Lord is at hand ; 
 
 As destruction from the Almighty shall it come. 
 Therefore shall all hands 
 
 Be feeble. 
 And every heart of man shall melt : 
 
 And they shall be dismayed ; 
 Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; 
 
 They shall be in pain as a woman in travail: 
 
 Ion itself. These proudly exulting foreign warriors are actually 
 regarded as consecrated (among the Semites war is a sacred thing, 
 of. I Sam. 13 : 9) to the service of Jehovah, to execute his anger 
 upon Babylon. And hark! the sound of the gathering hosts, as 
 they are mustered by Jehovah himself. 
 
 Their Coming shall strike Terror into Babylon (vss. 5-8) 
 
 Jehovah comes at the head of the army, whose warriors are the 
 weapons of his indignation. Well may the Babylonians howl 
 
 109 
 
13:9 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 [at. 24 : 29 
 -K. 13 : 24 
 
 They shall be amazed one at another ; 
 Their faces shall be faces of flame. 
 
 9. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel, 
 With wrath and fierce anger ; 
 To make the land a desolation, 
 
 And to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. 
 
 10. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof 
 
 Shall not give their Hght : 
 The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, 
 And the moon shall not cause her light to shine. 
 
 11. And I will punish the world for their evil, 
 
 And the wicked for their iniquity ; 
 And I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, 
 And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 
 
 12. I will make a man more rare than fine gold. 
 
 Even a man than the pure gold of Ophir. 
 
 13. Therefore ^ I will make the heavens to tremble. 
 
 And the earth shall be shaken out of her place, 
 
 1 Gr. tiie heavens sliall trenible. 
 
 (with vs. 6 cf. Joel 1:15), and their faces be faces of flame, i.e. 
 flushed with excitement, as they see the oncoming day of Jehovah, 
 i.e. of Jehovah's triumph over them. 
 
 The Desolation Wrought (vss. 9-12) 
 
 The judgment, in which Babylon will fall, is a world-judgmpnt 
 (vs. II ; cf. vs. 9, the earth, rather than the land) which will annihi- 
 late the guilty, especially the proud and violent (vs. 11). ^ Nature, 
 too, will be involved, the sun, moon, and constellations (lit. 
 Orions, cf. Job 9:9; 38 : 31) becoming dark ; and the survivors of 
 the judgment would be so few that they would be as rare as fine 
 gold. 
 
 The Horrors of the Judgment (vss. 13-16) 
 
 There is panic alike in nature and among men. The merchants, 
 of whom Babylon is full, will flee in terror, hke wandering or 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 13:18 
 
 In the wrath of the Lord of hosts, 
 And in the day of his fierce anger. 
 
 14. And it shall come to pass, that as the chased ^ roe, 
 
 And as sheep that no man gathereth, 
 They shall turn every man to his own people, 
 And shall flee every man to his own land. 
 
 15. Every one that is found shcill be thrust through ; 
 
 And every one that is taken shall fall by the sword. 
 
 16. Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces 
 
 Before their eyes; 
 Their houses shall be spoiled. 
 And their wives ravished. 
 
 17. Behold, I will stir up the Medes 
 
 Against them, 
 Which shall not regard silver, 
 
 And as for gold, they shall not delight in it. 
 
 18. And their bows shall dash 
 
 The young men in pieces ; 
 And they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb ; 
 Their eye shall not spare children. 
 
 1 m. gazelle. 
 
 hunted animals (roes or gazelles) each to his own land ; and the 
 Babylonians — every one that is taken or caught — shall die a 
 bloody death. In point of fact, the conquerors did not behave 
 according to the hopes expressed in vss. 15 f. 
 
 The Medes are to he the Destroyers (vss. 17-19) 
 
 17. Not till now are we told by what historical power the de- 
 struction is to be effected. Cyrus was in reality a Persian; but 
 after overthrowing the Median dynasty in 549 B.C., he united the 
 Medes and Persians under his sway, and some of his generals 
 appear to have been Medes. No bribes of silver or gold will 
 divert them from their vengeance. 
 
 18. The first clause makes little sense, and the metre is defective. 
 
 in 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 19. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, 
 
 The beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, 
 Shall be as when God overthrew 
 Sodom and Gomorrah. 
 
 20. It shall never be inhabited. 
 
 Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to 
 generation : 
 Neither shall the Arabian pitch there ; 
 
 Neither shall shepherds make their flocks to he down 
 there. 
 
 21. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ; 
 
 And their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; 
 And ostriches shall dwell there, 
 And ^ satyrs shall dance there. 
 
 1 m. he-goats. 
 
 It has been suggested that the original may have run somewhat as 
 follows (cf. Jer. 50 : 42) : 
 
 Bow and spear they hold, 
 
 Cruel are they, 
 All the young men they smite 
 
 And the maidens in pieces are dashed. (So Marti.) 
 
 19. At the hands of the Medes, the fate of the glorious Babylon 
 would be as terrible as that of Sodom (Gen. 19). The Chaldeans, 
 near the north end of the Persian Gulf, became in the seventh 
 century B.C. masters of Babylonia, so that Chaldean is prac- 
 tically equivalent to Babylonian. 
 
 Babylon a Wild Desolation (vss. 20-22) 
 
 The destruction of the city would be so thorough^ that its site 
 would be for ever the gloomy haunt of wild beasts — incarnations, 
 as it were, of evil spirits (cf. Rev. 18 : 2). 
 
 No trading Arabian, or Bedouin, with his caravan, would pitch 
 his tent there. No shepherds with their flocks would be there, 
 but wild cats, and creatures that howl; to the music of their bowl- 
 ings the satyrs or wild goats (cf. Lev. 17: 7) — demons (so the 
 
 112 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 14:2 
 
 22. And ^ wolves shall cry in their castles, 
 And jackals in the pleasant palaces : 
 And her time is near to come, 
 And her days shall not be prolonged. 
 
 Song of Triumph over the Fall of Babylon's King (14 : 1-23) 
 
 14. For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and 
 will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land : 
 and the stranger shall join himself with them, and they 
 2. shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the peoples 
 shall take them, and bring them to their place : and 
 the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of 
 the Lord for servants and for handmaids : and they 
 shall take them captive, whose captives they were ; 
 and they shall rule over their oppressors. 
 
 1 Heb. howling creatures. 
 
 Greek version) incarnate — would dance ; and soon in the palaces 
 where pleasure reigned jackals would howl to each other. 
 
 The streets and happy halls of Babylon would be a grim deso- 
 lation, with supernatural horror hanging about them. Such 
 were not, in point of fact, the consequences of the capture of 
 Babylon ; the Hebrew poet is here giving expression to his pas- 
 sionate hopes. 
 
 14: 1-23. This song is even more brilliant than the last. It 
 describes with wonderful realism the joy of Israel and of the world 
 at the downfall of the Babylonian oppressor, the ironical welcome 
 he receives from the shades in the underworld, and the infinite 
 contrast between his soaring ambitions and his humiliating fate. 
 
 i-4a. The real song begins with vs. 4b; vss. i-4a serve to con- 
 nect this song with the last. They bring out, in an intensely 
 national and, in fact, ungenerous way, the significance of the fall 
 of Babylon for Israel. The joy of the return to the home-land is 
 very natural, and the vision of the strangers, or proselytes, being 
 joined (in marriage, for example) to the Jews, is altogether worthy 
 _(cf. Is. 56 : 3-7, Zech. 2: 11). But it is by the heathen that Israel 
 is to be brought to her own land (cf. 49: 23), and there they are 
 to be the servants of their Jewish masters, who are themselves to 
 I 113 
 
14:3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 3. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord 
 shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy 
 trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast 
 
 4. made to serve, that thou shalt take up this parable 
 against the king of Babylon, and say, 
 
 How hath the oppressor ceased ! 
 The ^ golden city ceased ! 
 
 5. The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, 
 
 The sceptre of the rulers ; 
 
 6. That smote the peoples in wrath 
 
 With a continual stroke, 
 That ruled the nations in anger, 
 
 With a persecution that none restrained. 
 
 7. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet : 
 
 They break forth into singing. 
 
 8. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee. 
 
 And the cedars of Lebanon, saying^ 
 "Since thou art laid low, no feller 
 Is come up against us." 
 
 9. 2 Hell from beneath is moved for thee 
 
 To meet thee at thy coming : 
 
 1 m. exactress. 2 Heb. Sheol. 
 
 be spared all that sorrow, unrest, and toil, which is the general lot 
 of man (Gen. 3 : 16 ff. ; Job 14 : i). Then follows the grea-t taunt- 
 song (rather than parable). 
 
 The Joy of the World at the Fall of the Mighty Tyrant (vss. 4b-8) 
 
 Read (in vs. 4) : How is the oppressor stilled — the storming 
 stilled. He is the staff which smote the peoples, and trampled the 
 nations in wrath with tramp (not persecution) unrelenting. Well 
 may earth break into a ringing cry, and even inanimate nature, 
 like the stately cedars of Lebanon, that had been felled for pur- 
 poses of building and instruments of war. 
 
 114 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14 : 12 
 
 It stirreth up the ^ dead for thee, 
 Even all the ^ chief ones of the earth 
 
 It hath raised up from their thrones 
 All the kings of the nations. 
 
 10. All they shall answer 
 
 And say unto thee, 
 "Art thou also become weak as we, 
 Art thou become Hke unto us ?" 
 
 11. Thy pomp is brought down to ^ hell. 
 
 And the noise of thy viols : 
 The worm is spread under thee, 
 And worms cover thee. 
 
 12. 
 
 How art thou fallen from heaven, 
 O day star, son of the morning ! 
 
 How art thou cut down to the ground, 
 Which didst lay low the nations ! 
 
 Rev. 8 : 10 
 
 m. the shades ; Heb. repliaim. 2 Heb. he-goats. ^ Heb. Sheol. 
 
 The Excitement in the Underworld at the Approach of Babylon's 
 King (vss. 9-1 1 ) 
 
 Earth is quiet; Hell, i.e. Sheol, the underworld, is moved; 
 a fine contrast. It rouses the shades (cf. i Sam. 28: 15) or ghosts 
 (rephaim, same word as is used in Deut. 2 : 20 of extinct giants), 
 all earth's chief ones, leaders (Ht. bell-wethers) — dead kings are 
 meant : kings on earth, shadow kings in the underworld. They 
 rise to offer their ironical welcome to the newly arrived king, who 
 is now not even a shadow-king — worms are his couch and his 
 coverlet. Others have thrones, his fate among the worms is the 
 worst of all. The music of his banquets has given place to music 
 of a very different kind (13 : 21). 
 
 The King's Ambition and Fall (vss. 12-15) 
 
 Aspiring to heaven, to be worshipped like the morning star, 
 son of the dawn, he is struck down to earth, yes, to Sheol, down to 
 its lowest depths — he who on earth laid nations prostrate ; or, by 
 
 IIS 
 
14:13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 13. And thou saidst in thine heart, 
 
 "I will ascend into heaven, 
 I will exalt my throne 
 
 Above the stars of God ; 
 And I will sit upon the mount of congregation, 
 
 In the uttermost parts of the north : 
 
 14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; 
 
 I will be Hke the Most High." 
 
 15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to ^ hell, 
 
 To the uttermost parts of the pit. 
 
 16. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, 
 
 They shall consider thee, saying, 
 "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, 
 That did shake kingdoms ; 
 
 17. That made the world as a wilderness. 
 
 And overthrew the cities thereof ; 
 That let not loose his prisoners 
 To their home ? " 
 
 18. All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, 
 
 Every one in his own house. 
 
 19. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre 
 
 Like an abominable branch, 
 
 1 Heb. Sheol. 
 
 a suggested change, the words may mean, " now lying stiff (a 
 corpse) upon corpses." 
 
 ^ The mount of congregation, or assembly to which the king as- 
 pired, was in the recesses of the mysterious north, and apparently 
 denotes the mountain where mythical imagination had apparently 
 supposed the gods to meet. 
 
 The World's Astonishment at the King of Babylon's Fate (vss. 16-19) 
 
 Those who look upon his corpse are struck by the contrast 
 between the power and glory of his life and the impotence and dis- 
 grace of his death. 
 
 116 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 14:21 
 
 i 
 
 Clothed with the slain, 
 
 That are thrust through with the sword, 
 That go down to the stones of the pit ; 
 
 As a carcase trodden under foot. 
 
 20. Thou shalt not be joined 
 
 With them in burial, 
 Because thou hast destroyed thy land, 
 
 Thou hast slain thy people ; 
 The seed of evil-doers 
 
 Shall not be named for ever. 
 
 21. Prepare ye slaughter for his children 
 
 For the iniquity of their fathers ; 
 
 Probably the last clause of vs. 18 should be moved to vs. 17, 
 and the whole read thus : 
 
 Who let not his prisoners go free, 
 
 Each to his house. 
 The kings of the nations, one and all 
 Rest in honor, 
 {i.e. in their splendid graves). 
 
 In contrast to the honorable burial of the other kings is the awful 
 fate of Babylon's king. It is not unreasonable to suppose, with 
 some scholars, that some words in vs. 19 have been accidentally 
 transposed, and some perhaps omitted. The following restoration 
 has been proposed : 
 
 How art thou cast out among the slain, 
 
 That are pierced by the sword, 
 Going down to the floor of the pit, 
 
 Like a corpse that is trodden on 1 
 How art thou cut of from thy grave. 
 
 Like a scion abhorred ! 
 How dost thou lie inglorious. 
 Clothed in shame. 
 For scion (here apparently = member of a family), a similar word 
 meaning untimely birth has been proposed. 
 
 His Family shall be Exterminated (vss. 20, 21) 
 
 His doom shall be the extinction of his family — a doom justi- 
 fied by his tyranny. Vs. 20 should perhaps read : As for thy 
 
 117 
 
14:22 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 That they rise not up, and possess the earth, 
 And fill the face of the worid with ^ cities. 
 
 22. And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, 
 
 23. and son and son's son, saith the Lord. I will also 
 make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of 
 water : and I will sweep it with the besom of destruc- 
 tion, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 Jehovah's Invincible World Plan (14 : 24-27) 
 
 24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, 
 
 Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass ; 
 And as I have purposed, so shall it stand : 
 
 25. That I will break the Assyrian in my land. 
 
 And upon my mountains tread him under foot : 
 Then shall his yoke depart from off them. 
 
 And his burden depart from off their shoulder. 
 
 1 Gr. wars. 
 
 fathers, thou shalt not be joined with them, etc. ; and the seed of the 
 evildoer, etc. Also in vs. 21, restd father for fathers; and with 
 cities (at the end) should perhaps be dropped. 
 
 22, 23. These verses, a sort of epilogue, repeat and confirm the 
 assurance that Babylon will be utterly destroyed (cf. 13 : 21 f.). 
 
 This poem, like the last (Chap. 13) was written before the cap- 
 ture of Babylon in 538 B.C. The use of the perfect tense through- 
 out in the Hebrew is a graphic way of representing the impending 
 fall of the king as an already accomplished fact. Both these poems, 
 especially the latter, are marked by intense emotional power, vivid 
 imagination, and great hterary skill. The contrasts between the 
 quiet upon earth and the movement in Sheol, between the ambition 
 of the king and his downfall, are executed with great dramatic 
 power. 
 
 24-27. This oracle brings us back to the times and the work of 
 Isaiah. It solemnly foretells the destruction of the Assyrian — 
 probably Sennacherib and his army — in my land, i.e. Palestine 
 (with 25b cf. 10: 27). The subhme thought is reached that Je- 
 
 118 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 26. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole 
 
 earth : 
 And this is the hand that is stretched out upon all 
 the nations. 
 
 27. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall 
 
 disannul it? 
 And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn 
 it back ? 
 
 Warning to Philistia (14 : 28-32) ■ 
 
 28. In the year that king Ahaz died was this ^ burden. 
 
 29. Rejoice not, O Phihstia, all of thee, 
 
 Because the rod that smote thee is broken : 
 For out of the serpent's root shall come forth a basilisk^ 
 And his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. 
 
 1 m. oracle. 
 
 hovah's plan is wide as the world, and no power can frustrate it. 
 Very impressive is the figure of the outstretched Hand (cf. 9: 12, 
 etc.) which nothing can turn back. Isaiah has a splendid sense 
 of the unity of history, and of the divine purpose that inspires 
 and controls it. Vss. 26, 27 constitute one of the most daring 
 and magnificent thoughts in the Old Testament — the invincible 
 world-purpose of God. 
 
 28-32. The general sense of this brief oracle is plain, its particu- 
 lar application is obscure. It reminds Philistia that her joy at the 
 destruction of her tyrant is ill-timed, as there is a worse tyranny to 
 follow. But whether the new tyrant is the old, with strength 
 recovered, or his successor, is not clear; and the obscurity is 
 heightened by our uncertainty as to the year of King Ahaz's 
 death. It is fairly certain that the tyrant alluded to is in both 
 cases an Assyrian ruler — Sargon in both cases, if vs. 29 refers 
 to a defeat which he sustained in Babylonia about 720 B.C.; if, 
 however, the reference is to Sargon's death in 705 B.C., his basilisk 
 successor would be Sennacherib. PhiUstine territory was re- 
 peatedly ravaged by the Assyrians. 
 
 29. For fiery serpent read dragon. 
 119 
 
14:30 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 30. And the first-bom of the poor shall feed, 
 
 And the needy shall He down in safety : 
 And I will kill thy root with famine, 
 And thy remnant shall be slain. 
 
 31. Howl, gate ; cry, O city ; 
 
 Thou art melted away, O PhiHstia, all of thee ; 
 For there cometh a smoke out of the north, 
 ^ And none standeth aloof at his appointed times. 
 
 32. What then shall one answer 
 
 The messengers of the nation ? 
 That the Lord hath founded Zion, 
 
 And in her shall the afflicted of his people take refuge. 
 
 1 m. SV there is no straggler in his ranks. 
 
 30. While the Philistines are doomed, the Judseans are safe; 
 it is they that are meant by the needy and the poor who shall feed 
 on my meadows (as we should probabl)^ read instead of the firstborn 
 of). For shall be slain, read / ivill slay. 
 
 31. Philistia is called upon to howl, cry, and melt away (=im- 
 per.), because out of the north (cf. 10 : 28 ff.) comes the smoke of 
 war, which reveals the trail of the Assyrian army, and no straggler 
 is found in his ranks (cf. 5 : 27 ff.). 
 
 32. The messengers of the nation, i.e. the Philistine envoys, 
 will come, in their terror, to solicit the aid of Judah ; but Judah's 
 answer, inspired by Isaiah, will be a refusal. Jerusalem is safe, 
 founded and defended as she is by Jehovah himself. 
 
 Chaps. 15 and 16. With the exception of one or two verses 
 (15 : 9; 16 : 2, 13 f.), which are in the prophetic strain, these two 
 chapters (15, 16) constitute a lament over Moab, which has been 
 devastated in some invasion. The invaders, who are not named, 
 are probably either IsraeHtes of the time of Jeroboam II (781-740 
 B.C.) who recovered much of Israel's ancient territory (2 Kings 
 14: 25, 28), or possibly Arabian tribes from the desert. 
 
 The two chief fortresses have fallen before the invaders (15 : i). 
 The news of their fall spread northwards, bringing consternation 
 wherever it goes. The people flee southwards to Edom; from 
 there they send to Judah a pitiful appeal for protection. The 
 appeal is rejected, and the poet continues his lamentation for 
 
Jerusalem 
 
 ^^^ °Heshbon 
 
 10 IB 
 
 WllUanu E(igr«Tliig ComK.T. 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Lament over Moab (Chaps. 15 and 16) 
 
 15. The burden of Moab. 
 For in a night Ar of Moab 
 
 Is laid waste, and brought to nought : 
 For in a night Kir of Moab 
 
 Is laid waste, and brought to nought. 
 
 2. He is gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, 
 
 To the high places, to weep ; 
 Moab howleth over Nebo, 
 
 And over Medeba : 
 On all their heads is baldness, 
 
 Every beard is cut off. 
 
 3. In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth : 
 
 On their housetops, 
 And in their broad places every one howleth, 
 Weeping abundantly. 
 
 4. And Heshbon crieth out, and Elealeh ; 
 
 Their voice is heard even unto Jahaz. 
 
 Moab, bewailing especially the fate of her glorious vineyards which 
 now ring with shouts not of vintage, but of war ; and no prayers 
 shall avail to save her. 
 
 To this poem (15: 1-16 : 12), which, whether we consider its 
 literary style or its absence of prophetic thought, is probably not 
 Isaiah's, but the work of a somewhat older poet, are appended 
 two verses (16 : 13 f.), most probably Isaiah's (at any rate vs. 14), 
 which regard the preceding lament as a prophecy and assert its 
 fulfilment, i.e. the humiUation of Moab, within three years. 
 
 Consternation at the Fall of the Fortresses (vss. 1-4) 
 
 • " I. At on the Arnon (which flows into the Dead Sea at a point 
 about the middle of its east side), and Kir (apparently = Kir-heres 
 or hareseth, 16: 7, 11) to the south of Ar, were the two chief for- 
 tified cities of Moab. 
 
 2-4. The news spreads north to Dibon (where in 1868 the now 
 famous Moabite stone was found), further north to Nebo, due east 
 of the northern end of the Dead Sea, Medeba, a little south of 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud ; 
 His soul trembleth within him. 
 
 5. My heart crieth out for Moab ; 
 
 Her ^ nobles flee unto Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah : 
 For by the ascent of Luhith 
 
 With weeping they go up ; 
 For in the way of Horonaim 
 
 They raise up a cry of destruction. 
 
 6. For the waters of Nimrim . 
 
 Shall be desolate : 
 For the grass is withered away, the tender grass faileth, 
 There is no green thing. 
 
 7. Therefore the abundance they have gotten, 
 
 And that which they have laid up, 
 Shall they carry away 
 2 To the brook of the willows. 
 
 1 m. fugitives. 2 m. SV over. 
 
 Nebo, Heshbon and Elealeh, a little north. Vs. 2 should perhaps 
 read: The daughter ( = the people) of Dihon (cf. Jer. 48: 18) is 
 gone up to the high places {i.e. the sanctuaries) to weep. Moab 
 wails upon (not over) Nebo, etc. Everywhere — in streets, on 
 roofs, in squares, are to be heard and seen all the signs of mourning. 
 For the armed men, etc., in vs. 4, read perhaps the loins of Moab 
 quiver. 
 
 The Flight of the Moabites (vss. 5-9) 
 
 The people flee southwards. Zoar is at the southeast corner of 
 the Dead Sea; Eglath Shelishiyah, perhaps = the third Eglath, 
 in distinction from two others (cf. Jer. 48: 34). Luhith, between 
 Ar and Zoar; Horonaim, probably in the neighborhood of Zoar; 
 Nimrim, between Horonaim and Zoar. Its waters become desola- 
 tions, through being stopped by the enemy; for this and the 
 destruction of the fruitful land, cf. 2 Kings 3: 25. The fleeing 
 Moabites carry their property with them over the brook of the 
 willows, probably the brook at the southern end of the Dead Sea, 
 which forms the boundary between Moab and Edom. The wail- 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 16:2 
 
 8. For the cry is gone round 
 
 About the borders of Moab ; 
 The howHng thereof unto Eglaim, 
 And the howHng thereof unto Beer-elim. 
 
 9. For the waters of Dimon 
 
 Are full of blood ; 
 For I will bring 
 
 Yet more upon Dimon, 
 A Hon upon him that escapeth of Moab, 
 
 And upon the remnant of the land. 
 
 16. Send ye the lambs 
 
 For the ruler of the land 
 From ^ Sela wJiich is toward the wilderness, 
 Unto the mount of the daughter of Zion. 
 2. For it shall be that, as wandering birds. 
 
 As a scattered nest, 
 So shall the daughters of Moab be 
 At the fords of Amon. 
 
 1 m. Petra. 
 
 ing resounds as far as Eglaim in the south, and Beer-elim, possibly 
 in the north (cf. Num. 21:16) and therefore = throughout the 
 land, from N. to S., but probably in the south, as also apparently 
 Dimon. 
 
 The last half of vs. 9 and 16 : 2 strike the prophetic note. I is 
 of course Jehovah; and the lion is some yet fiercer enemy (cf. 
 14:29), — probably the Assyrian. This vs. should perhaps be 
 directly followed by 16: 2, which vividly compares the effect of 
 the lion's appearance upon the daughters (i.e. the communities) 
 of Moab to the panic and flight of alarmed birds. 
 
 Moab's Earnest Appeal to Judah for Protection (16: i, 3-5) 
 
 The fugitives are now in Edom, and from Sela (or Petra), its 
 capital, they sent (so Duhm) lambs as tribute (exactly as the king 
 of Moab does in 2 Kings 3:4) by way of the wilderness which 
 separates Sela from Jerusalem, to the mount of the daughter of 
 
 123 
 
i6:3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 3. Give counsel, 
 
 Execute judgement ; 
 Make thy shadow as the night 
 
 In the midst of the noonday : 
 Hide the outcasts ; 
 
 Bewray not the wanderer. 
 
 4. ^ Let mine outcasts 
 
 Dwell with thee ; 
 As for Moab, be thou a covert to him 
 From the face of the spoiler. 
 
 For the extortioner is brought to nought, 
 
 SpoiHng ceaseth, 
 The oppressors are consumed out of the land. 
 
 5. And a throne shall be established in mercy, 
 And one shall sit thereon in truth, 
 
 In the tent of David ; 
 Judging, and seeking judgement, 
 And swift to do righteousness. 
 
 6. We have heard of the pride of Moab, 
 
 That he is very proud ; 
 Even of his arrogancy, and his pride, and his wrath ; 
 His boastings are nought. 
 
 1 m. Gr. Syr. Tar. let the outcasts of Moab dwell with thee. 
 
 Zion ; i.e. they supplicate the help of Judah, saying, " Give 
 counsel, make your decision in our behalf, when the enemy demand 
 our surrender; be to us as a protecting shadow (cf. 32 : 2). Lei 
 the outcasts of Moab dwell as sojourners with (and therefore pro- 
 tected by) thee, etc. When (rather than for) the oppressor is no 
 more . . . then shall the throne (apparently of Judah) he estab- 
 lished in loving-kindness, and there shall sit upon it . . . one who 
 judges and seeks justice,''^ etc. 
 
 6. The very earnest and flattering appeal of Moab is rejected, 
 because Judah knows too well Moab's pride and insolence and 
 baseless pratings, illustrated in part by this very appeal. 
 
 124 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH i6 
 
 7. Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, 
 
 Every one shall howl : 
 For the raisin-cakes of Kir-hareseth 
 Shall ye mourn, utterly stricken. 
 
 8. For the fields of Heshbon languish, 
 
 And the vine of Sibmah ; 
 1 The lords of the nations have broken down 
 
 The choice plants thereof ; 
 They reached even unto Jazer, 
 
 They wandered into the wilderness ; 
 Her branches were spread abroad, 
 
 They passed over the sea. 
 
 9. Therefore I mil weep with the weeping of Jazer 
 
 For the vine of Sibmah : 
 I will water thee with my tears, 
 O Heshbon and Elealeh : 
 
 1 m. fier choice plants did break down the lords of nations. 
 
 MoaVs Lament (vss. 7, 8) 
 
 Her appeal is rejected, therefore Moab wails. The attack 
 appears to have been made in autumn, the season of the vintage, 
 and through vss. 7-1 1 runs the wail for the destruction of Mpab's 
 famous vineyards. There are now no grape or raisin cakes to 
 celebrate the vintage festival (cf. Hos. 3:1). For Kir-hareseth 
 and Kir-heres (vs. 11) cf. 15:1; Heshbon, 15:4; Sibmah, near 
 Heshbon. The famous red grapes had smitten down, i.e. intoxi- 
 cated, the lords of the nations — princes in many lands. The 
 writer " represents the whole vine culture of the district under 
 the image of a single vine, which reached to Jazer in the north, 
 strayed to the desert on the east, and passed to the (Dead) Sea on 
 the west " (Skinner). 
 
 The Foetus Lament (vss. 9-1 1) 
 
 The poet shares Jazer's sorrow at the devastation of the vine- 
 yards. The glad shout of the vintage has been exchanged for the 
 terrible shout of war. 
 
 125 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For upon thy summer fruits and upon thy harvest 
 The battle shout is fallen. 
 
 10. And gladness is taken away, and joy 
 
 Out of the fruitful field ; 
 And in the vineyards there shall be no singing, 
 
 Neither joyful noise : 
 No treader shall tread out wine in the presses ; 
 
 I have made the vintage shout to cease. 
 
 11. Wherefore my bowels sound 
 
 Like an harp for Moab, 
 And mine inward parts for Kir-heres. 
 
 12. And it shall come to pass, when Moab presenteth 
 himself, when he wearieth himself upon the high place, 
 and shall come to his sanctuary to pray, that he shall 
 not prevail. 
 
 13. This is the word that the Lord spake concerning 
 
 14. Moab in time past. But now the Lord hath spoken, 
 saying, ''Within three years, as the years of an hireling, 
 and the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, 
 with all his great multitude ; and the remnant shall be 
 very small and of no account." 
 
 12. Moab's calamity would drive him to pray to his god Che- 
 mosh, but his prayer would be futile. Perhaps we should simply 
 read: When Moab wearies himself (omitting presenteth). 
 
 13, 14. Vs. 13 regards the preceding lament as a prophecy 
 given in time past, which, according to vs. 14, will be fulfilled — 
 doubtless by the Assyrians within three years, a hireling or mer- 
 cenary soldier's time of service. 
 
 The wealth of unfamihar proper names in this elegy has partly 
 obscured for us its real poetic merit. The poem is written with 
 much feehng, and in places (cf. 16 : 8-10) with real hterary power. 
 The passage has been utiHzed in the oracle on Moab in Jer. 
 48. Moab must have possessed at this time a relatively high 
 civilization. Six or seven of the place-names here mentioned 
 occur also on the Moabite stone, which was erected about 850 B.C. 
 
 126 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Prophecy concerning Damascus and Northern Israel 
 (17 : i-ii) 
 
 The Destmction of Damascus (17 : 1-3) 
 
 17. The 1 burden of Damascus. 
 
 Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, 
 And it shall be a ruinous heap. 
 
 2. 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken ; they shall be for 
 
 flocks, 
 Which shall he down, and none shall make them afraid. 
 
 3. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, 
 
 And the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant 
 of Syria ; 
 They shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, 
 Saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 1 m. oracle concerning. 2 Gr. forsaken for ever. 
 
 by Mesha the king to commemorate his victories over Israel, and 
 discovered among the ruins of Dibon in 1868 a.d. 
 
 17: i-ii. This prophecy deals not only, as the superscription 
 suggests, with Damascus, the capital of Syria (Aram), but even 
 more specifically with Israel, announcing the utter destruction of 
 the former kingdom, and the all but utter destruction of the latter. 
 
 The prophecy falls about 735 B.C., at any rate before the united 
 assault of Syria and Israel upon Judah alluded to in 7 : i f . 
 
 2. As nothing is known of a Syrian Aroer, though by the con-- 
 text it ought to be a well-known district or city, we may adopt the 
 slight change of text, supported in part by the Greek version, 
 which would give us : 
 
 A ruin shall she be for ever, 
 Her cities shall be for flocks. 
 
 3. Ephraim, i.e. northern Israel, shall lose her fortress, i.e. 
 either Samaria, the capital city, or possibly Syria, which was 
 Israel's bulwark against the advance of Assyria. The last clauses 
 should perhaps read. 
 
 And the remnant of Syria shall perish, 
 They shall be as the children of Israel. 
 127 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Doom of Israel (17:4-11) 
 
 4. And it shall come to pass on that day, that 
 The glory of Jacob shall be made thin, 
 
 And the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. 
 
 5. And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the 
 
 standing corn, 
 And his arm reapeth the ears ; 
 Yea, it shall be as when one gleaneth ears 
 In the valley of Rephaim. 
 
 6. Yet there shall be left therein gleanings, 
 
 As the ^ shaking of an olive tree. 
 Two or three berries 
 
 In the top of the uppermost bough, 
 Four or five 
 
 In the outmost branches of a fruitful tree, 
 Saith the Lord, the God of Israel. 
 
 7. In that day shall a man look unto his Maker, 
 
 And his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of 
 Israel. 
 
 8. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his 
 
 hands. 
 Neither shall he have respect to that which his fingers 
 
 1 m. Heb. beating. 
 
 The powerful city was doomed to be a quiet pasture land. In 
 point of fact, Damascus fell before the Assyrians, in 732 B.C. 
 
 4-6. Israel's doom (Jacob = Israel) is sealed in that day — the day 
 when Damascus falls, for Damascus was Israel's bulwark (vs. 3). 
 The doom is described in three figures : (i) as a wasting away of 
 the body, (ii) as the meagre gleanings of corn which might be 
 gathered after harvest in the plain of Rephaim, southwest of 
 Jerusalem, and (iii) as the few berries left upon an olive-tree after 
 its branches have been beaten. Israel's ruin will not be utter, 
 like Syria's, but very nearly so. 
 
 128 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 17:10 
 
 have made, either the Asherim, or the sun- 
 images. 
 9. In that day shall his strong cities be 
 
 As the forsaken places ^ in the wood and on the 
 
 mountain top, which were forsaken before the 
 
 children of Israel ; and it shall be a desolation. 
 
 10. For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, 
 
 And hast not been mindful of the rock of thy 
 
 strength; 
 
 1 m. Gr. of the AmorUes and the Ernies. 
 
 7, 8. These verses do not perhaps belong to the original poem, 
 as they somewhat interrupt its continuity, and interfere with its 
 metrical arrangement. They describe the effect of the judgment 
 upon Israel in leading mankind (not only a man, i.e. an Israelite) 
 to a reverent regard for their Creator, and to a complete rejection 
 of idolatry. To a Hebrew prophet hand-made gods were con- 
 temptible (cf. the scorn in 40:20). The metre suggests that 
 the altars, the asherim, and the sun-images were added later to 
 explain " the work of their hands." Without these words, we 
 have two well-balanced lines. 
 
 The numerous altars are rejected, for, at the time when this 
 word was added, only the one altar at Jerusalem was regarded as 
 legitimate. The asherim were sacred poles — probably a survival 
 of tree worship — which stood beside Canaanitish altars and even 
 beside the altars of Jehovah (2 Kings 18:4; 23:6), but which were 
 finally forbidden in the Jehovah worship (Deut. 16 : 21). The 
 sun-pillars point to the worship of the sun. 
 
 9. There can be little doubt that, instead of the very obscure 
 text at the beginning of this verse, we should, following a valuable 
 hint of the Greek version, read : 
 
 In that day shall thy cities be deserted 
 
 Like the deserted (cities) of the Amorites and the Hivites, 
 
 i.e. the ancient inhabitants of Canaan — the latter part of the 
 verse (from which) being regarded as an explanatory gloss. Isaiah 
 has in view Israel's devastation at the hands of the Assyrians. 
 
 10 f. Israel's league with Syria, besides turning her away from 
 her own God, brought with it the worship of the Syrian god Adonis. 
 But this worship, however sedulously cultivated, says the prophet, 
 will not save Israel from the coming disaster. 
 K 129 
 
17:11 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Therefore thou plantest ^ pleasant plants, 
 And settest it with ^ strange slips : 
 
 11. In the day of thy planting thou hedgest it in, 
 
 And in the morning thou makest thy seed to blossom : 
 But the harvest fleeth away in the day of grief 
 And of desperate sorrow. 
 
 The Speedy Doom of the Assyrians (17 : 12-18 : 7) 
 Their Siddden Destruction (17 : 12-14) 
 
 12. Ah, the uproar of many peoples, 
 
 Which roar hke the roaring of the seas ; 
 And the rushing of nations, 
 
 That rush hke the rushing of mighty waters ! 
 
 1 m. plantings oj Adonis ; Gr. Vg. a faithless plant. 2 m, j,f,jg slips of a strange god. 
 
 Though thou plantest Adonis plants, 
 
 And dost set {thy garden) with the scions of a stranger {i.e. strange 
 god) : 
 Though in the day when thou plantest, thou makest it grow, 
 
 And in the morning when thou sowest thou dost bring it to blossom; 
 Yet surely the harvest shall vanish in the day of sickness, 
 
 And sorrow incurable {shall be thine). 
 
 The strange god (so margin) is Adonis, who is no doubt alluded to in 
 the word pleasant (vs. 10). The pleasant plants are the so-called 
 " Adonis gardens," which played a conspicuous part in the x\donis 
 festivals — " flower pots with all kinds of artificially developed 
 plants, flowers, etc., which withered as quickly as they had 
 grown," and which were therefore an apt symbol of the futility of 
 the Syrian alliance. 
 
 17: 12-18: 7. In these verses are two short oracles (17: 12-14 
 and 18 : 1-7) connected in theme, and probably produced about 
 the same time — between 705 and 701 B.C., when Sennacherib 
 and his Assyrians were becoming an ever more formidable menace 
 to Judah. Common to both is the serenity with which Isaiah con- 
 templates their tumultuous advance, and the clearness with which 
 he foresees and foretells their doom. 
 
 12. This is a very spirited passage. Through its well-chosen 
 Hebrew words one vividly hears the roar of the sea, to which is 
 
 130 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 18:2 
 
 13. The nations shall rush 
 
 Like the rushing of many waters : 
 But he shall rebuke them, 
 
 And they shall flee far off, and shall be chased 
 As the chaff of the mountains before the wind, 
 
 And Uke the whirhng dust before the storm. 
 
 14. At eventide behold terror ; 
 
 And before the morning they are not. 
 This is the portion of them that spoil us, 
 And the lot of them that rob us. 
 
 Isaiah'' s Answer to the Ethiopian Ambassadors (Chap. 18) 
 
 18. Ah, the land of ^ the rusthng of wings. 
 
 Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia : 
 2. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea. 
 
 Even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, saying^ 
 
 1 Gr. winged boats. 
 
 compared the tumult of the many and mighty nations (as we should 
 read in the second half of vs. 12) that went to make up the Assyr- 
 ian army. 
 
 13 f. Threshing floors were often set upon a height where the 
 wind could easily bear the chaflf away. Terror in Jerusalem be- 
 cause of the Assyrian army. These verses describe the complete- 
 ness and the suddenness with which these foreign plunderers and 
 robbers would be destroyed. Cf. 37 : 36. 
 
 18 : 1-7. Ethiopia, the land to the south of Egypt, and now her 
 mistress, had despatched an embassy to Jerusalem, for some pur- 
 pose which is not definitely stated, but which had no doubt to do 
 with an alliance against the common enemy Assyria. Isaiah 
 implicitly rejects their overtures by his courteous and serene 
 assurance that Jehovah himself would speedily seal the doom of 
 the Assyrians. 
 
 1. Ethiopia (modern Nubia) is the land of the rustling of insect 
 wings — probably an allusion in particular to the tsetse-fly in 
 which the Nile lands abound. It is vaguely described as beyond 
 the rivers of Ethiopia, i.e. the White and the Blue Nile. 
 
 2. By the sea the river Nile is meant, and down its waters the 
 
 131 
 
i8:3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Go, ye swift messengers, 
 
 To a nation tall and smooth, 
 To a people terrible from their beginning onward : 
 
 A nation that meteth out and treadeth down, 
 Whose land the rivers divide ! 
 
 3. All ye inhabitants of the world, and ye dwellers on 
 
 the earth. 
 When an ensign is Ufted up on the mountains, see ye ; 
 And when the trumpet is blown, hear ye. 
 
 4. For thus hath the Lord said unto me, 
 
 " I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelHng place ; 
 Like clear heat in sunshine. 
 
 Like a cloud of dew in the ^ heat of harvest. 
 
 1 Gr. Vg. SjT. day. 
 
 ambassadors travel in swift light boats made of papyrus. The 
 word saying (RV), which has no Hebrew warrant, obscures the 
 point and should be deleted. In reality, Go introduces the speech 
 of Isaiah to the ambassadors, now arrived at Jerusalem. The 
 Ethiopians are described by the prophet in comphmentary terms 
 as tall and smooth, or rather of polished bronze-like skin, dreaded 
 near and far, a nation of strength and victory, whose land the Nile 
 streams divide. They are known to have been remarkable for 
 their beauty and stature (the obscure words of the last half of 
 vs. 2 seem best rendered as above). 
 
 3. The announcement of Jehovah's impending triumph con- 
 cerns not only Ethiopia, but the whole world. Universal attention 
 will be called to it by the rising of a standard and the blast of a 
 trumpet — words to be taken not literally but poetically, as sym- 
 bols of Jehovah's sudden and victorious intervention. 
 
 Vss. 4-6 contain the real message — especially 5 f . 
 
 4. The majestic confidence with which Isaiah awaits and fore- 
 tells the issue is but a reflex of the serenity with which his God 
 contemplates it all. Jehovah looks quietly on, still as the shim- 
 mering heat in sunshine when the glow is intense, or as the high 
 motionless dew-clouds in the heat of harvest — two pictures 
 beautifully suggestive of the sublime peace of Jehovah. The 
 words Thus Jehovah said to me apparently indicate that this 
 
 132 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 19:1 
 
 5. For afore the harvest, when the blossom is over, 
 
 And the flower becometh a ripening grape. 
 He shall cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks. 
 
 And the spreading branches shall he take away and 
 cut down. 
 
 6. They shall be left together unto the ravenous birds of 
 
 the mountains, 
 And to the beasts of the earth : 
 And the ravenous birds shall summer upon them. 
 And all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon 
 
 them. 
 
 7. In that time shall a present be brought unto the 
 Lord of hosts ^ of a people tall and smooth, and from 
 a people terrible from their beginning onward ; a 
 nation that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land 
 the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the Lord 
 of hosts, the mount Zion. 
 
 The Destiny of Egypt (Ch. 19) 
 The Disasters of Egypt (19: 1-15) 
 19. The 1 burden of Egypt. 
 
 1 Gr. Vg. from. 2 m. oracle coticerning. 
 
 great vision and message of peace came to Isaiah in a moment of 
 ecstasy. 
 
 5. The doom of the Assyrians will come upon them as an im- 
 mense surprise; just when their plans are ripe for execution, they 
 will be swiftly and terribly frustrated. The figures are borrowed 
 from the vintage ; just when the grapes are almost ready for 
 gathering, the branches will be hewn mercilessly down. 
 
 6. Figure changes to fact. The number of Assyrian slain shall 
 be so great that for a whole summer and winter wild beasts and 
 birds shall feast upon them. 
 
 7. It is pretty generally acknowledged that this vs., with its 
 
 133 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, 
 And Cometh unto Egypt : 
 And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, 
 And the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst 
 of it. 
 
 2 . And I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians: 
 And they shall fight every one against his brother, 
 And every one against his neighbour ; city against 
 
 city. 
 And kingdom against kingdom. 
 
 repetitions of vs. 2, is much later than Isaiah. In the spirit of a 
 later age, it contemplates the " latter days " when Ethiopia 
 would acknowledge Israel's God, and come to Jerusalem, the place 
 of his name, to offer him gifts of homage (cf. Zeph. 3 : 10). For 
 " of a people " read "from a people." 
 
 The serenity of Isaiah in face of the Assyrian menace recalls 
 his composure on a former occasion, when every other heart was 
 thrown into consternation at the projected invasion of Judah by 
 the joint forces of Israel and Syria (7 : 1-7). In all such crises his 
 faith " estabhshes " him (7 : 9). 
 
 Chap. 19. The oracle on Egypt appropriately succeeds that 
 addressed to the Ethiopians (Chap. 18). For Egypt the doom is 
 announced of civil war and oppression at the hands of a hard 
 master. With these political calamities are associated disasters 
 of another kind — the drying up of the Nile, and the decay of 
 fishing and weaving; and all the ancient and famous wisdom of 
 Egypt shall be unable to cope with this distress, which has been sent 
 upon her by the God of Israel (vss. 1-15). In their terror, how- 
 ever, the Egyptians will cry to this God, who will reveal himself 
 to them, and be, in consequence, honored and worshipped on Egyp- 
 tian soil. Then Egypt and Assyria will unite in the common wor- 
 ship of Jehovah ; a triple alliance will be formed between Egypt, 
 Assyria, and Israel, and they shall all be Jehovah's fieople (vss. 
 16-25). 
 
 Civil War and Oppression (vss. 1-4) 
 
 1. Jehovah rides on a storm cloud (as in Ps. 18 : 10) to Egypt, 
 to execute his will upon her people ; and before this mighty God 
 the idols, or impotent gods of Egypt quake, and the people share 
 their terror. 
 
 2, 3. Civil war breaks out, and the people so lose head and 
 
 134 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 19:7 
 
 3. And the spirit of Egypt shall be made void in the midst 
 
 of it; 
 And I will destroy the coimsel thereof : 
 And they shall seek unto the idols, and to the charmers, 
 And to them that have famihar spirits, and to the 
 
 wizards. 
 
 4. And I will give over the Egyptians 
 
 Into the hand of a cruel lord ; 
 And a fierce king shall rule over them, 
 Saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 5. And the waters shall fail from the sea, 
 
 And the river shall be wasted and become dry. 
 
 6. And the rivers shall stink ; 
 
 The streams of Egypt shall be minished and dried 
 up: 
 
 The reeds and flags shall wither away. 
 
 7. 1 The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, 
 
 1 Gr. ail the green recdgrass round about the river. 
 
 heart that they resort to occult means of ascertaining the divine 
 will — to charmers, i.e. mutterers of magical spells, ghosts and 
 familiar spirits (cf. 8 : 19). 
 
 4. Finally, a prey to confusion and despair, Egypt comes under 
 the domination of a harsh and probably foreign master. Who 
 this is, will depend upon our view of the date and origin of the 
 prophecy — an Assyrian ruler, Sargon or Sennacherib, if the proph- 
 ecy be Isaiah's. 
 
 The Drying up of the Nile and the Extinction of Fishing and Weaving 
 (vss. 5-10) 
 
 5,6. By the sea and the river the Nile is meant. The streams, 
 lit. Niles, i.e. arms or canals of the Nile, become dry : reed and 
 rush decay. 
 
 7. The first two clauses, which are obscure, may have run some- 
 what as follows : All withered are the reeds by the banks of the Nile. 
 
 13s 
 
19:8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And all that is sown by the Nile, 
 Shall become dry, be driven away, and be no more. 
 
 8. The fishers also shall lament, 
 
 And all they that cast angle into the Nile shall mourn, 
 And they that spread nets 
 
 Upon the waters shall languish. 
 
 9. Moreover they that work in combed flax, 
 
 And they that weave white cloth, shall be ashamed. 
 
 10. And her pillars shall be broken in pieces, 
 
 1 All they that work for hire shall be grieved in soul. 
 
 11. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; 
 
 The counsel of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is 
 become brutish : 
 How say ye unto Pharaoh, 
 
 "1 am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings" ? 
 
 I Cor. 1 : 20 12. Where then are thy wise men ? 
 And let them tell thee now ; 
 
 1 Gr. all that make beer. 
 
 8 f. There was fishing both by hook and net ; but when the Nile 
 is dried up (vss. 5, 6), there can be no more fishing. Other in- 
 dustries also languish. 
 
 10. The first clause, with its difiicult pillars or foundations, 
 should perhaps read : 
 
 And those who weave it {i.e. the flax) are broken {in heart). 
 
 The Helplessness of Egypt (vss. 11-15) 
 
 1 1 f . Zoan, a great and ancient city, on one of the eastern branches 
 of the Nile. The wisdom or " lore of the many past centuries 
 was concentrated in the priestly class, to which not only the kings, 
 but the principal officers of the state belonged " (Cheyne) ; but 
 Pharaoh's wisest counsellors have been a silly council. Vs. 12 is an 
 ironical address to Pharaoh. For " let them know " read " let 
 them make known " (so the Greek version). 
 
 136 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 19:17 
 
 And ^ let them know what the Lord of hosts 
 Hath purposed concerning Egypt. 
 
 13. The princes of Zoan are become fools, 
 
 The princes of Noph are deceived ; 
 They have caused Egypt to go astray, 
 That are the corner stone of her tribes. 
 
 14. The Lord hath mingled a spirit 
 
 Of perverseness in the midst of her ; 
 And they have caused Egypt to go astray in every 
 work thereof, 
 As a drunken man ^ staggereth in his vomit. 
 
 15. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work. 
 
 Which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do. 
 
 The Conversion of Egypt (19 : 16-25) 
 
 16. In that day shall Egypt be like unto women : and 
 it shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the 
 hand of the Lord of hosts, which he shaketh over it. 
 
 17. And the land of Judah shall become a terror unto 
 
 1 Gr. Vg. let them make known. 2 m. goeth astray. 
 
 13-15. Noph, i.e. Memphis, near Cairo, the capital of lower 
 Egypt. The cornerstone, i.e. chiefs, rulers, of her tribes, i.e. 
 the nomes or districts { = kingdoms of vs. 2) into which Egypt was 
 divided, have, through their own mental confusion and perplexity, 
 the spirit of perverseness or giddiness which Jehovah has poured 
 out upon them — led Egypt astray : with the result that no con- 
 certed action is possible (cf. vs. 2). Palm-branch and rush = 
 high and low (cf. 9 : 14). 
 
 Vss. 16, 17 mediate the transition between this section (vss. 
 16-25) and the last. The calamities into which Egypt has been 
 thrown by the terrible hand of Jehovah inspire in Egypt a dread 
 also of Judah, Jehovah's land, and the way is prepared for Egypt's 
 conversion, through her submission to the influence of Judah. 
 
 137 
 
19:18 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Egypt, every one to whom mention is made thereof 
 shall be afraid, because of the purpose of the Lord of 
 hosts, which he purposeth against it. 
 
 In that day there shall be five cities in the land of 
 Egypt that speak the language of Canaan, and swear 
 to the Lord of hosts ; one shall be called The city of 
 
 ^ destruction. 
 
 1 Heb. heres ( = destruction?); Gr. tsedeq (=righteousness). Some Heb. MSS. 
 read heres (=the sun). 
 
 This submission is apparently what is meant by Jehovah's pixr- 
 pose in vs. 17. 
 
 A series of brief oracles follows, each introduced by in that day. 
 
 The Hebrew Religion and Language in Egypt (vs. 18) 
 
 Are those five cities which are to speak the language of Canaan 
 {i.e. Hebrew) Jewish or Egyptian cities? Apparently Jewish; 
 for, considering that Jews resident in foreign countries did not 
 always themselves speak Hebrew (cf. Acts 2:5, 8, 9, etc.), and 
 that even in Egypt most of them spoke Greek (the Septuagint 
 being written to meet the needs of Egyptian Jews), it would be 
 too much to expect the Egyptians to speak Hebrew. The cities 
 were therefore probably Jewish colonies, whose presence naturally 
 brought the Jewish religion — the worship of Jehovah of hosts — 
 with all its possibilities, very close to the Egyptians. 
 
 One of these cities was to be called " The city of heres.''' This, 
 which means the city of destruction, would be a strange name to 
 apply to such a city, unless the allusion be to the destruction of 
 Egyptian idolatry. The Greek version calls the city " the city of 
 tsedeq,'' of righteousness ; and as this Hebrew word bears Httle 
 resemblance to heres, the question may be fairly raised whether, 
 for some reason, a change has not been deliberately made. The 
 suspicion that the original word was in some way felt to be un- 
 satisfactory is confirmed by the existence of another reading, pre- 
 supposed by some ancient witnesses and very closely resembling 
 our present Hebrew text, viz., heres, which would mean " the 
 city of the stcn," and refer no doubt toHeliopolis (=0n, Gen. 41 : 
 50). Possibly this is the original reading, altered to righteousness 
 and destruction respectively by those who approved or disapproved 
 of the temple at Leontopolis, which appears to be alluded to in the 
 following verse. As, however, haris is in Arabic an epithet of 
 
 138 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 19:22 
 
 19. In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord m 
 the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the 
 
 20. border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign 
 and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land 
 of Egypt : for they shall cry unto the Lord because 
 of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, 
 
 21. and a defender, and he shall deliver them. And the 
 Lord shall ^ be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians 
 shall know the Lord in that day ; yea, they shall wor- 
 ship with sacrifice and oblation, and shall vow a vow 
 
 22. unto the Lord, and shall perform it. And the Lord 
 shall smite Egypt, smiting and heahng ; and they shall 
 return unto the Lord, and he shall be intreated of 
 them, and shall heal them. 
 
 1 m. make himself known. 
 
 the lion, it has been conjectured with some plausibility that even 
 in this verse the allusion is to Leontopolis, " the city of the lion." 
 
 The Worship of Jehovah by the Egyptians (vss. ig-22) 
 
 19. An altar. This is by some recent scholars regarded as a 
 reference to the Jewish temple at Leontopolis, built by Onias IV 
 in 160 B.C. The sacred stone erected near a shrine was called 
 pillar, ht. something set up. Whether this is intended here, or 
 only a memorial pillar, perhaps conceived Hke an Egyptian obe- 
 lisk, its place at the border is significant, suggesting to those who 
 cross the line that Jehovah is worshipped in Egypt. 
 
 20. Altar and pillar are a sign and witness that Egypt is now 
 Jehovah's land, and that her people can claim and will receive his 
 protection, like ancient Israel in the time of the Judges ; when they 
 cry to him, he will send them a saviour, who will contend (rather 
 than a defender) and deliver them. 
 
 21. Jehovah, by his deliverance of them, will thus make himself 
 known to the Egyptians, who in turn will acknowledge him in 
 worship which will take the form of ritual service — sacrifice of 
 animals and bloodless offerings — and (perhaps Nazirite) vows. 
 
 22. When he smites the Egyptians, it will be, as with ancient 
 Israel, for purposes of discipline ; their penitent prayer will be 
 answered by restoration. 
 
 139 
 
19:23 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 23. In that day shall there be a high way out of Egypt 
 to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, 
 and the Egyptian into Assyria ; and the Egyptians 
 shall worship with the Assyrians. 
 
 24. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and 
 with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth : 
 
 25. for that the Lord of hosts hath blessed them, sa3dng. 
 Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of 
 my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. 
 
 The Triple Alliance (vss. 23-25) 
 
 23. Egypt and Assyria, the great historical enemies of Israel, 
 are now conceived as united in the common service of Jehovah, 
 Israel's God ; and now that they are at peace, their lands are con- 
 nected by a common highway. 
 
 24 f . Read : In the midst of the earth, which Jehovah of hosts has 
 blessed. In these verses we have one of the most generous visions 
 of the Old Testament. The three powers, Egypt, Assyria, Israel 
 — representing practically the whole world — each power in time 
 past frequently hostile to the other two, are now united in the 
 bonds of peace, and of a common worship, and over all three 
 rests the blessing of Jehovah. It is just possible that even here a 
 certain uniqueness is implicitly claimed for Israel in the words 
 mine inheritance ; but this can hardly be pressed, when we con- 
 sider that Egypt is to be called my people, which throughout the 
 Old Testament is a familiar designation for Israel. 
 
 The difference between the two halves into which this chapter is 
 divided is very striking. It affects both style and contents. The 
 first half is in verse, and is continuous ; the second in prose, and 
 somewhat broken. The attitude to the Egyptians is much more 
 friendly and favorable in the second half than in the first ; the 
 first anticipates for them a cruel lord (vs. 4), the second a saviour 
 (vs. 20). 
 
 The very definite reference in vs. 18 to Hebrew-speaking cities 
 in Egypt, and the specific mention of one of them, whether the 
 allusion be to Heliopolis or Leontopolis, would seem to point 
 to post-exilic days, when there were extensive Jewish colonies in 
 Egypt, and consequently to carry us to an age much later than 
 Isaiah's. That age is perhaps definitely fixed by vs. 19, which 
 can be very naturally explained as an allusion to the temple at 
 Leontopolis built in 160 b.c. At first, indeed, this very verse 
 
 140 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 20:1 
 
 Warning against the Folly of an Alliance with 
 Egypt (20 : 1-6) 
 
 20. In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, when 
 Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought 
 
 may seem to tell powerfully in favor of the Isaianic authorship, as 
 the pillar here associated with Jehovah was proscribed a century 
 after Isaiah by the Deuteronomic law (Deut. 12:3). But we 
 know that the Egyptian Jews were not so strict as the Palestinian ; 
 and in any case, the temple at Leontopolis must itself have been 
 an offence to the strict Palestinian Jews, to whom the Jerusalem 
 temple was the only legitimate sanctuary. These verses seem 
 therefore to justify us in placing the whole passage (vss. 16-25) 
 about the middle of the second century B.C., about five and a half 
 centuries after Isaiah's time. In that case Assyria would stand 
 for Syria, as in Ezra 6: 22 for Persia (cf. Ezr. 9:9). It is just 
 possible, after all, however, that the passage is earlier, as there is 
 reason to believe that there were Jewish colonies in Egypt in the 
 seventh century B.C. 
 
 The former passage (vss. 1-15), however, has been claimed for 
 Isaiah by some who are willing to concede the post-exilic author- 
 ship of vss. 16-25. It lacks, however, some of the qualities which 
 we should expect in a work of Isaiah's. It is not definitely related 
 to any historical situation, the sin of Egypt which justifies her 
 punishment is not made clear, and the style, especially of yss. 5-10, 
 is somewhat prolix. Altogether, the Isaianic authorship of vss. 
 1-15 is very far from certain ; on the other hand, the temper and 
 attitude of the passage is so different from vss. 17-25 that it is 
 very probably from a different, and earlier, hand. In that case, 
 it may reflect one of the struggles of Egypt with Persia, and the 
 cruel lord would be not an Assyrian, but a Persian. Where the 
 descriptions are so general, we cannot rise above conjecture. 
 
 The passage vss. 18-25 exhibits a fine consciousness of the unique- 
 ness of the Jewish religion, and of its power to conquer the world. 
 Through Jewish colonists, it finds a lodgment in Egypt, and wins 
 the Egyptians, and it is the bond that binds together in peace 
 the hostile nations of the world. The Jews have often been con- 
 demned for their ungenerous and exclusively national outlook ; 
 but surely such a criticism finds its answer and rebuke in the 
 wonderful vision of the triple alliance in which Israel takes her 
 place by the side of Egypt and Assyria, and hears the divine 
 blessing pronounced upon those once hostile and heathen nations 
 no less than upon herself. 
 
 20 : 1-6. The references to Egypt in this chapter (vss. 3-5) 
 
 141 
 
2012 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. against Ashdod and took it; at that time the Lord 
 spake by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and loose 
 the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put thy shoe from 
 off thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and bare- 
 
 3. foot. And the Lord said. Like as my servant Isaiah 
 hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign 
 
 4. and a wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; so 
 shall the king of Assyria lead away the captives of 
 Egypt, and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, 
 naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to 
 
 5. the shame of Egypt. And they shall be dismayed and 
 
 connect it naturally with the last, with which, however, it has 
 nothing to do chronologically. Isaiah indicates here in symbolic 
 prophecy — by going for three years in the garb of a captive, 
 without mantle or shoes — the fate of captivity in store for the 
 Egyptians and Ethiopians at the hands of the Assyrians. His 
 object was to dissuade the people of Judah from entangling them- 
 selves in an Egyptian aUiance. 
 
 I. Relying upon Ethiopia, which was then mistress of Egypt, 
 Ashdod, an important Philistine city, had formed, with the neigh- 
 boring states, including Judah, a league against Assyria. The 
 Tartan (the official title for the Assyrian commander-in-chief) 
 besieged and captured Ashdod in 711 B.C. Sargon was the king of 
 Assyria (722-705 B.C.) who destroyed the power of northern 
 Israel by the capture of Samaria in 721. 
 
 2-4. Isaiah symbolically wears the garb of a captive, going 
 barefoot and naked, i.e. in his undergarment only (cf. Jn. 21 : 7). 
 The sackcloth, which he put off, and which was worn as a sign of 
 mourning (15 : 3), was no doubt the coarse hairy mantle worn both 
 in earher (2 Kings i : 8) and later times (Zech. 13:4) by prophets. 
 From vs. 3 we learn that he had gone thus for three years. For a 
 man of Isaiah's standing thus to appear in the streets of Jerusalem 
 must have been provocative of many questionings ; to which the 
 answer was this — that he did it for a sign and a wonder (cf . 8:18), 
 and as the servant of Jehovah, whose commission he was in this act 
 executing. His appearance was symbolic of the fate in store for 
 Egypt and Ethiopia at the hands of Assyria. Perhaps " to the 
 shame of Egypt " should be omitted, as a gloss on the word 
 " buttocks." 
 
 5, 6. As Egypt had been impotent to save Ashdod from Ass3'-ria, 
 
 142 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 21:1 
 
 ashamed, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of 
 Egypt their glory. And the inhabitant of this coast- 
 land shall say in that day. Behold, such is our expec- 
 tation, whither we fled for help to be delivered from 
 the king of Assyria : and we, how shall we escape ? 
 
 The Fall of Babylon (21 : 1-17) 
 
 The Fall of Babylon: its Consequences for J udah (21: i-io) 
 
 21. The ^ burden of the wilderness ^ of the sea. 
 As whirlwinds in the South 
 Sweep through, 
 
 1 m. oracle concerning. 2 Qr. om. of the sea. 
 
 SO she would prove impotent to save the inhabitants of this coast- 
 land, i.e. in general, Palestine — Isaiah is thinking more particu- 
 larly of Judah, and indirectly warning her against an alliance with 
 Egypt. If such is the fate of Egypt, "how shall we escape — 
 we? " (emphatic). They of vs. 5 are the people of the coastland 
 in vs. 6. As it happened, Egypt did not suffer at this time from 
 Assyria the fate which Isaiah had anticipated for her; neverthe- 
 less his message was effective, as Hezekiah took the hint and re- 
 sumed his vassalage to Assyria. 
 
 Chap. 21. The impending fall of Babylon must have been 
 awaited by patriotic Jews with the most intense emotion. In 
 Chaps. 13 and 14 we have seen one poet, in anticipation of it, 
 break out into wild strains of triumph. This poet anticipates 
 the fall of the city in a more neutral spirit, but his real feelings 
 shine through his allusion to Israel in vs. 10 as the people threshed 
 and trodden upon the floor. The passage must fall between 
 Cyrus's conquest of Media in 549 B.C. — for Medians are in the 
 invading army (vs. 2) — and his capture of Babylon in 538. It 
 suggests the consequences of the fall of Babylon for Judah, 
 Edom, and the desert tribes of North Arabia. 
 
 I. Fpr the burden, etc., read Oracle on the Wilderness. Wilder- 
 ness, like Arabia in vs. 13, is probably simply a catchword taken 
 from the oracle itself (vs. i), and the word rendered by the sea 
 
 143 
 
21 : 2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 It Cometh from the wilderness, 
 From a terrible land. 
 
 2. A grievous vision 
 
 Is declared unto me ; 
 The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, 
 
 And the spoiler spoileth. 
 "Go up, O Elam; 
 
 Besiege, O Media ; 
 All the sighing thereof 
 
 Have I made to cease." 
 
 3. Therefore are my loins 
 
 Filled mth anguish ; 
 Pangs have taken hold upon me, 
 
 As the pangs of a woman in travail : 
 I am pained so that I cannot hear ; 
 
 I am dismayed so that I cannot see. 
 
 4. My heart ^ panteth, 
 
 Horror hath affrighted me : 
 
 iHeb. wandereth. 
 
 may be a mutilated form of the first word of the oracle ; perhaps — 
 it rages like storms that siveep on in the southland, i.e. the dry region 
 to the south of Judah, where the prophet possibly had his home 
 (cf. vs. 12). It, i.e. the noise of the attack on Babylon, comes 
 from the wilderness lying between Palestine and Babylon, which 
 is here described as the terrible land. 
 
 2. The ecstasy has begun. The seer hears sounds (vs. i) and 
 sees a vision of Babylon assailed by robbers and spoilers, i.e. the 
 soldiers of Cyrus's army, from Elam (east of the lower Tigris and 
 north of the Persian gulf) and Media (north of Elam). The last 
 clause of the vs., if genuine, must be conceived as spoken by Je- 
 hovah, and the sighing would be that of the people oppressed by 
 Babylon. 
 
 3, 4. These vss. graphically describe the excitement into which 
 the seer has been thrown by his vision. My heart (practically = 
 
 144 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 21:8 
 
 The twilight that I desired 
 Hath been turned into trembling unto me. 
 
 5. They prepare the table, 
 
 They ^ set the watch, they eat, they drink : 
 Rise up, ye princes, 
 Anoint the shield. 
 
 6. For thus hath the Lord 
 
 Said unto me, 
 "Go, set a watchman ; 
 Let him declare what he seeth : 
 
 7. And when he seeth ^ a troop, 
 
 Horsemen in pairs, 
 A troop of asses, 
 
 A troop of camels. 
 He shall hearken dihgently 
 
 With much heed." 
 
 8. And he cried as a Hon, 
 
 "OLord, I stand 
 
 1 m. spread the carpets ; Gr. om. 2 m. chariot or chariots. 
 
 my head) wanders. The twilight that I desired, i.e. the pleasant 
 evening hours with their quiet and rest; the vision came in the 
 evening. 
 
 5. It is during a Babylonian banquet, as at Belshazzar's feast 
 in Dan. 5, that the seer sees the attack made, and hears the call to 
 the effeminate Babylonian princes to rise and anoint their shields, 
 i.e. apparently to rub the leather straps with oil, so as not to cut 
 the arm. For they set the watch, read with the margin, they 
 spread the carpets, i.e. for reclining on. 
 
 6. The seer is in ecstatic mood, and the watchman or spy is 
 himself, his other or ecstatic self, which sees, as in a vision, what is 
 going on in distant Babylon, and reports to the seer's proper self. 
 
 7. The vision is one of war — cavalry, and beasts of burden to 
 carry off the prey. 
 
 8. 9. Perhaps for the lion, which is rather irrelevant, we should 
 
 L 145 
 
2119 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Continually upon the watch-tower 
 
 In the day-time, 
 And am set in my ward 
 
 Whole nights " : 
 9. And behold, here cometh a troop of men, 
 
 Horsemen in pairs. 
 And he answered and said, 
 Rev. 14 : 8 " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; 
 
 And all the graven images of her gods 
 
 Are broken unto the ground." 
 
 10. thou my threshing. 
 
 And the ^ corn of my floor : 
 
 That which I have heard 
 From the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The God of Israel, 
 
 Have I declared unto you. 
 
 ^ SV grain. Heb. son. 
 
 read : " and he cried : / see." After long gazing, he at length sees 
 the warriors and knows that they betoken the fall of Babylon. 
 The other part of the vision, in which the images of Babylon's 
 gods were shivered to pieces, was not fulfilled ; Cyrus even spoke of 
 himself as having been called by Marduk, the chief god of Baby- 
 lon. 
 
 10. This vs. hints at the happy consequences for the Hebrew 
 exiles of the fall of Babylon. What the seer has heard, i.e. the 
 story of her fall, he declares. My threshing and the son (cf. 
 margin) of my floor is a pathetic description of Judah, which has, 
 as it were, been threshed and fiercely trodden upon the threshing 
 floor by Babylon. 
 
 This passage is of great importance, as giving us a rare and wel- 
 come glimpse into the phenomenon of ecstasy. The seer wins his 
 vision of what is happening in distant Babylon through a sort of 
 second sight. He has, as it were, two personahties, the normal 
 and the ecstatic : the latter '' spies " the vision and brings back 
 word to the former. 
 
 146 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 21:13 
 
 The Fall of Babylon : its Consequences for the Trading Tribes 
 of the Desert (21 : 13-17) 
 
 11. The^ burden of Dumah. 
 
 One calleth unto me out of Seir, 
 
 ''Watchman, ^ what of the night? 
 Watchman, what of the night ? '* 
 
 12. The watchman said, 
 
 "The morning cometh, 
 
 And also the night : 
 If ye will inquire, inquire ye ; 
 
 ^ Turn ye, come." 
 
 13. The ^ burden upon Arabia. 
 
 In the forest ^ in Arabia shall ye lodge, 
 ye travelling companies of Dedanites. 
 
 3 m. oracle concerning. 2 m, ^/«j/ hour. ^ ^a. come ye again. * m. oracle. 
 
 6 Gr. Tar. Sjt:. Vg. in the evening. 
 
 11. For the burden of Dumah read perhaps Oracle on Edom. 
 This oracle probably comes from the same seer as the last ; it 
 makes a similar distinction between the ecstatic personality, here 
 called the watchman, vs. 12 (='spy, vs. 6; different Hebrew 
 words), and the normal personahty (me, vs. 11). As the question 
 comes from Seir, i.e., Edom, probably Edom should be read for 
 Dimiah. The question is, " How late is it in the night?" i.e. 
 How far is the night spent — the night, which enwrapped Edom, as 
 all western Asia, of subjection to the Babylonians? 
 
 12. The seer has as yet no clear answer to offer. The morning 
 of freedom which has dawned for Edom with the fall of Babylon 
 may be followed by another night, through the rise of Persia — 
 he is not sure; and in his uncertainty, he bids his questioner con- 
 sult him again later, when perhaps his vision will be clearer. 
 
 13. For the burden upon Arabia read oracle '^ in the steppe.'' 
 The phrase in the steppe, Uke the superscription in vs. i,is taken 
 from the opening words of the oracle. The caravans of the 
 Dedanites, a trading tribe of northwestern Arabia, will, in the 
 insecurity attending the fall of Babj-lon (cf 13 : 14 f.), be exposed 
 
 147 
 
2i:i4 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14. Unto him that ^ was thirsty 
 
 They brought water ; 
 2 The inhabitants of the land of Tema 
 Did meet the fugitives with their bread. 
 
 15. For they fled away from the swords, 
 
 From the drawn sword, 
 And from the bent bow, 
 
 And from the grievousness of war. 
 
 16. For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a 
 year, according to the years of an hirehng, and all the 
 
 17. glory of Kedar shall fail : and the residue of the num- 
 ber of the archers, the mighty men of the children 
 of Kedar, shall be few : for the Lord, the God of Israel, 
 hath spoken it. 
 
 Judah's Unpardonable Sin (22: 1-14) 
 
 22. The ^ burden of the valley of ^ vision. 
 
 What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly 
 
 1 m. is thirsty, bring ye. 2 Qj-. Tar. Syr. Vg. ye inhabitants . . . jneet. ^ m. oracle 
 concerning. * Gr. Zion. 
 
 to assault, for safety's sake they will have to leave the caravan 
 routes, and lodge in the hush, in the steppe or wilderness (as we 
 should translate, instead of in Arabia). 
 
 14, 15. The people of the tribe of Tema (south of the Dedan- 
 ites) are urged to bring water to meet the thirsty caravans, and to 
 ofer to the fugitives the bread they need (imperative ; so the Greek 
 version) ; they have fled to escape an attack. Read " the whetted 
 sword." 
 
 16, 17. These vss. forcibly recall 16: 13 f. Kedar appears here 
 to be a general designation for the north Arabian tribes, who were 
 skilled in the use of the bow (cf. Gen. 21 : 20). 
 
 22:1-14. This very striking oracle, though appearing in the 
 foreign group (Chaps. 13-27), has to do with Jerusalem. Before 
 her people, who are for the moment in a tumult of joy, Isaiah 
 appears with sorrow in his heart and on his face, and solemnly 
 announces a coming day of doom for their incurable impenitence 
 
 148 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 22 
 
 Gone up to the housetops ? 
 
 2. O thou that art full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, 
 
 A joyous town ; 
 Thy slain are not slain with the sword, 
 Neither are they dead in battle. 
 
 3. All thy rulers fled away together, 
 
 They were bound ^ by the archers : 
 All that were found of thee were bound together, 
 They fled afar off. 
 
 4. Therefore said I, "Look away from me. 
 
 1 m. without the how ; Gr. cruelly. 
 
 and frivolity. The occasion was probably the departure of the 
 Assyrians from Jerusalem — a departure which Hezekiah had 
 purchased from Sennacherib, who was blockading Jerusalem after 
 having already captured forty-six cities of Judah, by the payment 
 of a very heavy tribute (cf. 2 Kings 18: 13-16). From the roofs 
 of their houses (vs. i) the people are gleefully watching the depart- 
 ing foe, and celebrating their ignominious deliverance with riotous 
 merriment (vs. 13), when Isaiah hurls among them his terrible 
 threat of doom (vs. 14). 
 
 The Prophet's Vision of Doom (vss. 1-5) 
 
 I. Oracle on the Valley of Vision — a title suggested by vs. 5. 
 Clearly one of the valleys near Jerusalem is meant (Gr. reads 
 valley of Zion) — perhaps once the site of an ancient oracle. The 
 reading " Valley of Hinnom " has been suggested. 
 
 2 f. Isaiah is astonished and vexed at the tumultuous joy of the 
 people, who are assembled on the flat roofs of their houses; and 
 in vision he sees another day, when the city will be taken, " the 
 defenceless citizens cut down, and the magnates, who have vainly 
 sought to flee (cf. 2 Kings 25 : 4-7) are captured " (Cheyne). 
 They die, not in battle, but by the hand of the executioner. Per- 
 haps the verse should read somewhat as follows : 
 
 All thy captains are fled, 
 
 They that wielded the bow, 
 All thy strong men are taken, 
 
 Though they fled far away. 
 
 4, 5. Isaiah's gaze is on the terrible day that is coming (vs. 5), 
 the thought of which throws him into bitter and inconsolable 
 
 149 
 
22:5 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I will weep bitterly ; 
 Labour not to comfort me 
 
 For the spoiling of the daughter of my people. 
 
 5. For it is a day of discomfiture, and of treading down, 
 
 and of perplexity, 
 From the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 In the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, 
 And a crying to the mountains. 
 
 6. And Elam bare the quiver. 
 
 With chariots of men, and horsemen ; 
 And Kir uncovered the shield. 
 
 7. And it came to pass that thy choicest valleys were 
 
 full of chariots. 
 And the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate. 
 
 8. And he took away the covering of Judah ; 
 
 And thou didst look in that day to the armour in the 
 house of the forest. 
 
 9. And ye saw the breaches in the city of David, that 
 
 they were many: and ye gathered together the 
 
 sorrow. He hears in imagination the enemy's wild war-cry 
 resounding to the mountains. 
 
 The Siege of Jerusalem (vss. 6-1 1) 
 
 In this passage, Isaiah looks back to the blockade which has 
 just been raised, and to the city's preparations to meet it. 
 
 6, 7. Elam and Kir are contingents of the Assyrian army. 
 Elam bore the quiver on chariots with horses, and Kir uncovered 
 the shield, i.e. from its leathern case. In vs. 7, omit it came to 
 pass that. 
 
 8. The first clause, which is very obscure, may refer to Sennach- 
 erib's capture of the other cities of Judah, whose defensive cover- 
 ing was removed by their capture. The house of the forest, i.e. 
 of Lebanon (i Kings 7 : 2 f.), so-called from its cedar pillars, 
 formed part of the palace at Jerusalem, and served in part the 
 purpose of an armory (i Kings 10: 17). 
 
 9-1 1. It is generally agreed that the details of the defence 
 ISO 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 22 : 13 
 
 10. waters of the lower pool. And ye numbered 
 the houses of Jerusalem, and ye brake down 
 
 11. the houses to fortify the wall. Ye made also 
 a reservoir between the two walls for the water 
 of the old pool : 
 
 But ye looked not unto him that had done this, 
 Neither had ye respect unto him that fashioned it 
 long ago. 
 
 12. And in that day did the Lord, the Lord of hosts, call, 
 
 To weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and 
 to girding with sackcloth : 
 
 13. And behold, joy and gladness. 
 
 Slaying oxen and killing sheep, 
 Eating flesh and drinking wine : 
 
 "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die." 
 
 measures in vss. gb-iia are not from the hand of Isaiah, though 
 they must have been added by some one famiUar with Hezekiah's 
 arrangements (cf. 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chr. 32:2-5). The water 
 supply of Jerusalem was poor, and the prospect of a siege made this 
 defect felt with double keenness (cf. Isa. 7: 3). The material of 
 the demolished houses was used to strengthen the wall. Vs. iib, 
 read after ga, is very striking : 
 
 Ye looked to the armor in the House of the Forest, 
 And ye saw that the breaches in David's city were many: 
 
 But ye did not look to him who was doing all this. 
 And him who fashioned it long ago, ye saw not. 
 
 The look and see of the first couplet, repeated as they are in the 
 second, make a very effective contrast. The people have eyes 
 for the material, but none for the spiritual ; they depend upon their 
 armor, and forget their God — rely upon their own prudent 
 measures and material resources, and ignore the greatest Factor 
 of all, the Lord of history, who, through all that happens, is work- 
 ing out his eternal purpose. This is the sublimest of all follies. 
 
 12 f. The desperate experience through which the people had 
 just passed was in reality — had they had the eyes to see it (vs. 11) 
 — a divine call to humiliation ; the customs alluded to are mourn- 
 ing customs (cf. 15 : 2 f.). Instead of this, however, the people, 
 
 151 
 
22 : 14 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14. And ^ the Lord of hosts revealed hnnself in mme ear, 
 
 Surely this iniquity shall not be ^ purged from you till 
 ye die, 
 ^ Saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 Personal Threats and Promises (22 : 15-25) 
 
 The Dooffi of Shebna (22 : 15-18) 
 
 15. Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, 
 
 " Go, get thee unto this ^ treasurer, even unto Shebna, 
 which is over the house, and say, 
 
 1 Gr. tlwse things have been revealed in the ears of the Lord of hosts. - m. expiated by. 
 3 Gr. om. this line. * m. steward. 
 
 with their incurable frivolity, abandoned themselves to revelry 
 and met with scorn the prophet's solemn words of warning — " let 
 us eat and drink, if tomorrow, as you say, we are to die." 
 
 14. " You shall die," retorts the prophet. Their levity is 
 unpardonable, it must be punished with death; and this awful 
 threat of doom is a direct revelation, whispered as it were into 
 Isaiah's ear by God himself. 
 
 Even for Isaiah, this is a remarkably graphic and powerful 
 passage ; the city blockaded by foreign soldiery, the desperate 
 measures of defence in which everything was remembered but 
 God ; and then — after peace has been purchased by a heavy 
 bribe — the roofs crowded with tumultuous merry-makers, and 
 the prophet with his sorrowful face and his eyes fixed upon a coming 
 day of doom. The unpardonable sin of Jerusalem was frivolity — 
 that shallow temper which no humiliation could sober. 
 
 22:15-25. A high official, named Shebna, apparently a for- 
 eigner, is threatened b}^ Isaiah with the doom of exile (vss. 15-18). 
 This threat is followed by a promise of unique authority to be 
 conferred upon EHakim (vss. 19-23), — a promise to which is 
 appended a forecast of the ruin of his family (vss. 24 f.). 
 
 15 f. For Even unto Shebna, which is over the house, read 
 Against Shebna, the governor oj the palace. This is no doubt the 
 title of the oracle, accidentally transposed to the end of the vs. 
 Shebna is contemptuously called that official (steward, cf. margin, 
 rather than treasurer). Isaiah's stern words have suggested to 
 
 152 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 1 6. 'What doest thou here? and whom hast thou here, 
 
 That thou hast hewed thee out here a sepulchre?' 
 Hewing him out a sepulchre on high, 
 
 Graving an habitation for himself in the rock ! 
 
 17. Behold, the Lord will hurl thee violently away 
 
 ^ As a strong man ; yea, he will wrap thee up closely. 
 
 18. He will surely ^turn and toss thee 
 
 Like a ball into a large country ; 
 There shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots 
 of thy glory. 
 Thou shame of thy lord's house. 
 
 The Exaltation of Eliakim (22 : 19-23) 
 
 19. And I will thrust thee from thine office, 
 
 And from thy station shall ^ he pull thee down. 
 
 20. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That I will call my servant Eliakim the son of 
 Hilkiah : 
 
 1 m. thou strong man, he will lay fast hold on thee. 2 m. wind tliee round and 
 round like a hall and toss thee. ^ Syr. Vg. /. 
 
 some that Shebna championed the policy of an Egyptian alliance, 
 denounced by the prophet (31:1 ff.). In any case, Isaiah was 
 provoked, partly by the sight of his splendid chariots, but much 
 more by his pride in preparing for himself a sepulchre here on 
 high, in some conspicuous place on Zion, probably among the 
 sepulchres of the nobility — he, a foreigner, who had no right and 
 no kindred in Jerusalem. 
 
 1 7 f . His fate will be exile — to be taken like a ball, and hurled 
 into the broad land of Assyria, there to die. 
 
 19. Exile involved, of course, deposition from office. Read 
 "/ will pull thee down." 
 
 20-22. The change of officials no doubt implied a change of 
 poHcy. EHakim is spoken of in enthusiastic terms as Jehovah's 
 servant (hke Isaiah himself, 20: 3), and father (Hke Joseph, Gen. 
 45 :8), i.e. beneficent ruler, of the people. He will wear the official 
 
 153 
 
22 121 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 21. And I will clothe him with thy robe, 
 
 And strengthen him with thy girdle, 
 And I will commit thy government into his hand : 
 And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jeru- 
 salem and to the house of Judah. 
 
 22. And the key of the house of David 
 
 Will I lay upon his shoulder ; 
 Rev. 3 : 7 And he shall open, and none shall shut ; 
 
 And he shall shut, and none shall open. 
 
 23. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place ; 
 
 And he shall be for a throne of glory to his father's 
 house. 
 
 The Downfall of Eliakim^s Family (22: 24 f.) 
 
 24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his 
 father's house, ^ the offspring and the issue, every 
 small vessel, from the vessels of cups even to all the 
 
 1 For the rest of the vs. Gr. reads simply small and great. 
 
 robe and girdle. Over his shoulder is laid the large Oriental key, 
 which, with its power to open or close, is a fit symbol of absolute 
 authority (cf. 9:6; Mat. 16:19). In 36 : 3 ; 37:2, Eliakim is 
 mentioned as governor of the palace, and as taking precedence of 
 Shebna. 
 
 23. The firmly driven nail or tent-peg implies the permanence of 
 his position, in contrast to Shebna (cf. Ezr. 9:8); and through 
 him his family would reach posts of honor. 
 
 24 f. Rather to our surprise, these verses predict ruin for the 
 family so generously spoken of in vs. 23. They will hang upon the 
 nail (cf, vs. 23) — like vessels (cups or howls and pitchers they are 
 contemptuously called) on a kitchen wall — and when the nail 
 gives way, down they will come with a crash. 
 
 These verses, which contradict the spirit of the last oracle, were 
 apparently added later by some one hostile to Eliakim's family. 
 
 Chap. 23. This oracle concludes the series upon the foreign 
 nations. As a sailor people, whose ships were upon every known 
 sea, the Phoenicians occupied a conspicuous place as the middle- 
 men of the ancient world. This poem, which describes Phoenicia's 
 
 IS4 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 23 : I 
 
 25. vessels of flagons. In that day, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, shall the nail that was fastened in a sure place 
 give way ; and it shall be hewn down, and fall, and 
 the burden that was upon it shall be cut off ; for the 
 Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 The Fate of Phcenicia (Chap. 23) 
 
 The Elegy (23 : 1-14) 
 
 23. The 1 burden of Tyre. 
 
 Howl, ye ships of " Tarshish ; for it is laid waste, 
 ^ So that there is no house, no entering in : 
 
 1 m. oracle concerning. ^ Gr. Carthage. * Gr. om. 
 
 fall, gives a vivid picture of her commerce, her power, and her 
 pride. She is the incarnation of the purely commercial spirit, 
 untouched and unrestrained by religion, and naturally therefore 
 falls under the prophetic condemnation. The closing verses 
 (15-18) look out upon a time in which the gains from Tyrian 
 commerce will be made contributory to the welfare of Jerusalem. 
 23 : 1-14. In form this is an elegy — rather than a prophecy — 
 upon the fall of Sidon (vss. 2, 4, 12), or it may be Tyre (vs. 8). 
 More than once in Isaiah's time was Phoenicia ravaged by the 
 Assyrians, and the elegy may be his; it has also been referred, 
 however, to Nebuchadrezzar's siege of Tyre (586-573 B.C., cf. 
 Ezek. 26-28), and even to the destruction of Sidon by the Per- 
 sians in 348 B. c. Whatever be its origin, the poem is a striking 
 description of the fall of a great naval power. 
 
 The Call to Lament (vss. 1-5) 
 
 1-3. Ships of Tarshish, cf. 2 : 16. For several reasons, the 
 following verses seem to need slight emendation. Read perhaps : 
 for your haven (or stronghold) is laid waste: on the way hack (to 
 Phoenicia) from the land of Chittim (i.e. Cyprus) it (i.e. the news 
 of the destruction) has been revealed to themyperh.a.ps by ships which 
 they met on the way. Perished are the inhabitants of the coast- 
 land, the merchants of Sidon, who crossed the sea, whose messengers 
 were upon many waters (cf. Ps. 107 : 23), whose harvest was the seed 
 (i.e. wheat) of Shihor (i.e. the Nile; Jer. 2 : 18), and whose revenue 
 
23:2 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 From the land of Kittim 
 It is revealed unto them. 
 
 2. Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; 
 
 Thou whom the merchants of Zidon, 
 That pass over the sea, have replenished. 
 
 3. And on great waters the seed of Shihor, 
 The harvest ^ of the Nile, was her revenue ; 
 
 And she was the mart of nations. 
 
 4. Be ashamed, O Zidon ; for the sea hath spoken, the 
 
 stronghold of the sea, saying, 
 "1 have not travailed, nor brought forth, 
 Neither have I nourished young men, 
 Nor brought up virgins." 
 
 5. When the report cometh to Eg3^t, they shall be sorely 
 pained at the report of Tyre. 
 
 6. Pass ye over to Tarshish ; howl. 
 
 Ye inhabitants of the isle. 
 
 7. Is this your joyous city, 
 
 Whose antiquity is of ancient days, 
 Whose feet carried her 
 Afar off to sojourn ? 
 
 1 Gr. om. 
 
 was the traffic of nations. The world's commerce was carried on 
 Phoenician ships. 
 
 4 f . Vs. 4 (omit the stronghold of the sea) finely pictures the sea as 
 a childless mother (cf. i : 2) now that Phoenicia is ruined, and her 
 sons sail the seas no more. Vs. 5, perhaps late, represents Egypt 
 as terrified by the fall of Tyre — her turn is coming next. 
 
 The Call to Flight (vss. 6-9) 
 
 6 f. The Phoenicians are urged to flee to Tarshish, a colony ol 
 theirs in Spain, now that their happy ancient city is ruined, the 
 city whose merchants were wont to sojourn, i.e. settle, in distant 
 lands. 
 
 156 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 23:12 
 
 8. Who hath purposed this 
 
 Against Tyre, the crowning cityj 
 Whose merchants are princes, Rev. 18 : 23 
 
 Whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth ? 
 
 9. The Lord of hosts both purposed it, 
 
 To stain the pride of all glory. 
 To bring into contempt 
 All the honourable of the earth. 
 
 10. ^ Pass through thy land ^ as the Nile, O daughter of 
 
 Tarshish ; 
 There is no girdle about thee any more. 
 
 11. He hath stretched out his hand over the sea, 
 
 He hath shaken the kingdoms ; 
 The Lord hath given commandment concerning 
 Canaan, 
 To destroy the strongholds thereof. 
 
 12. And he said, "Thou shalt no more rejoice, 
 
 O thou oppressed virgin daughter of ^ Zidon : 
 Arise, pass over to Kittim ; 
 
 Even there shalt thou have no rest. 
 
 I Gr. cultivate. 2 Gr. om. ^ Some MSS. read Zion. 
 
 8 f. The ruin of Phoenicia is in accordance with the purpose of 
 Jehovah, to whom pride is detestable. Tyre is the bestower of 
 crowns (so SV), appointing petty kings in her subject colonies ; or 
 perhaps the word means the crowned (queen). 
 
 The Ruin of Phcenicia (vss. 10-14) 
 
 10. For this verse, whose opening words are obscure, and per- 
 haps but repeat, with modification, the closing words of vs. 9, 
 Duhm cleverly suggests : Weep, ye ships of Tarshish (cf. vs. 14) : 
 no harbor have ye any more. 
 
 II f. He, i.e. Jehovah (cf. vs. 9). Canaan, i.e. Phcenicia. 
 Even if she fled to her own colonies, Kittim, i.e. Cyprus, she would 
 find no rest. 
 
 157 
 
23 : 13 THE BOOK OF ISx\IAH 
 
 13. Behold, the land of the Chaldeans ; this people is 
 
 no more ; the Assyrian hath appointed it for the 
 beasts of the wilderness : they set up their towers, 
 they overthrew the palaces thereof ; 
 He made it a ruin. 
 
 14. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish : 
 
 For your stronghold is laid waste. 
 
 The Revival of Tyre (23 : 15-18) 
 
 15. And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre 
 shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days 
 of one king : after the end of seventy years it shall be 
 unto Tyre as in the song of the harlot : 
 
 16. Take an harp. 
 
 Go about the city, 
 
 Thou harlot that hast been forgotten ; 
 
 Make sweet melody, 
 
 Sing many songs. 
 
 That thou mayest be remembered. 
 
 13. Of this desperate verse, Duhm's explanation seems best — 
 that it originally ran : Behold the land of Kitiim {i.e. Cyprus, 
 the land to which they flee), he {i.e. Jehovah) has made it a ruin — 
 the intervening words being a gloss to be rendered as follows : 
 this is the people that (in Hebrew the word which is very like the 
 word for Assyrian) was founded by the seafarers, they erected its 
 watchtowers, cities, and palaces. 
 
 14. The elegy ends as it began. 
 
 15. Seventy years, a round number, suggested by Jer. 25: 11. 
 One king, i.e. one dynasty (Exod. 1:8). Tyre shall fare as the 
 harlot in the song. 
 
 16. The song is thus happily rendered by G. H. Box : 
 
 Seize lyre — walk up and down the street, 
 
 O Harlot, by the world forgot! 
 Twang well — sing many a ditty sweet 
 
 To win a last forget-tne-not ! 
 
 158 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 17. And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy 
 years, that the Lord will visit Tyre, and she shall 
 return to her hire, and shall play the harlot with all 
 
 the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. Rev. 17 : 2 
 
 18. And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness 
 to the Lord : it shall not be treasured nor laid up ; 
 for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before 
 the Lord, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. 
 
 1 7 f . The metaphor of vss. 1 5 f . is maintained — Tyre's commerce 
 is described as intercourse with the nations; and the proceeds of 
 it, unlike those of the women dedicated to immorality (Deut. 
 23 : 18), are to be consecrated to Jehovah — in other words, are to 
 be devoted to supplying the needs of the Jews, those who dwell 
 before Jehovah, securing for them ample food and stately cloth- 
 ing (cf. 60: 11). This view of the heathen as the slaves of the 
 Jews is characteristic of post-exilic Judaism (61 : 5). 
 
 159 
 
THE GREAT WORLD JUDGMENT (Chaps. 24-27) 
 
 The Judgment : the Rebels Punished (Chap. 24) 
 
 24 : 1 24. Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh 
 it waste, 
 And turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad 
 the inhabitants thereof. 
 
 Chaps. 24-27. These four remarkable chapters are unique in the 
 Old Testament. Roughly speaking they are a prophetic, or rather 
 apocalyptic, description — interrupted by a few songs of praise — 
 of the great impending day of Jehovah, when the world will be 
 convulsed, but the Jews will be saved and gathered to Zion. The 
 songs (25 : 1-5 ; 25:9-11; 26:1-19; 27:2-6; 27 : 7-1 1) chiefly 
 celebrate the overthrow of some important city (cf. 25:2; 26 : 5) 
 or describe the care with which Jehovah watches over Israel 
 (27 : 2). When these lyrics are removed, there is a more or less 
 continuous prophecy, which runs briefly thus : The world is about 
 to be convulsed by reason of the heavy load of sin that lies upon 
 it : in that day Jehovah will punish the rebellious powers in earth 
 and heaven and assume sovereignty himself on Zion (Chap. 24), 
 where for the sorrowing nations a royal banquet will be spread 
 (25 : 6-8). In the judgment, Jehovah's own people will be pre- 
 served (26 : 20-27 : i) and at the sound of the trumpet they shall 
 come from the ends of the earth and worship their God on Zion 
 (27: 12 f.). 
 
 The whole tone of the prophecy and the reference to a resurrec- 
 tion in 26 : 19 point to a date long after the age of Isaiah. Doubt- 
 less the picture of the world reeling and convulsed in judgment was 
 suggested by some definite historical situation, when gloom and 
 confusion reigned. The allusions are too veiled to enable us to 
 date the prophecy, but it has been placed with much probability 
 about the time of the dissolution of the Persian empire, and the 
 conquests of Alexander the Great (circa 334 B.C.), to whose 
 victories the songs of rejoicing in 24:14-16 have been supposed to 
 refer. 
 
 160 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest ; 
 As with the servant, so with his master ; as with the 
 
 maid, so with her mistress ; 
 As with the buyer, so with the seller ; as with the lender, 
 
 so with the borrower ; 
 As with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury 
 
 to him. 
 
 3. The earth shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled ; 
 For the Lord hath spoken this word. 
 
 4. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, 
 The world languisheth and fadeth away. 
 The lofty people of the earth do languish. 
 
 5. The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants thereof ; 
 Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the 
 
 ordinance. 
 
 Chap. 24. In a series of powerful pictures, this poem describes 
 the judgment upon the wicked world. The moral order has been 
 grievously violated, and the end cannot be far off {behold! vs. i). 
 It will come with accompaniments of violence and terror, and the 
 very earth itself will reel and rock. All the powers natural and 
 supernatural, upon the earth and above the earth, will be laid pros- 
 trate ; and the glorious Jehovah, who will then be all in all, will 
 set up his everlasting throne in Zion. 
 
 The Overturning of the World (vss. 1-13) 
 
 I, 2. Behold! This turning of the world upside down is ex- 
 pected soon; it will take the form of social anarchy (vs. 2), and 
 the convulsion of physical nature (i8b-2o). Society (cf. 3: 1-7) 
 and nature will be reduced to chaos. 
 
 3. The confusion will be effected in part by a plundering army, 
 in accordance with some such prophecy as Ezek. 38 f . 
 
 4-12. These verses, though they describe the future, no doubt 
 reflect the weary and gloomy mood of the contemporary world. 
 
 4. The last clause should probably read : the heaven (lit. the height, 
 cf. vs. 21), together with the earth languishes. 
 
 5. The earth is polluted, etc. The power of human sin to infect 
 and transform even nature itself is here strikingly suggested (cf. 
 vs. 20). The sin is a breach of the universal moral laws, espe- 
 
 M 161 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Broken the everlasting covenant. 
 
 6. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, 
 And they that dwell therein are found guilty : 
 Therefore the inhabitants of the earth ^ are burned, 
 And few men left. 
 
 7. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth. 
 All the merry-hearted do sigh. 
 
 8. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, 
 
 The noise of them that rejoice endeth, 
 The joy of the harp ceaseth. 
 
 9. They shall not drink wine ^ with a song ; 
 Strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. 
 
 10. The city of ^ confusion is broken down : 
 
 11. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in. 
 There is a crying in the streets because of the wdne ; 
 All joy is darkened, 
 
 The mirth of the land is ^ gone. 
 
 12. In the city is left desolation. 
 
 And the gate is smitten with destruction. 
 
 13. For thus shall it be in the midst of the earth 
 Among the people, as the shaking of an olive tree. 
 As the grape gleanings when the vintage is done. 
 
 1 Gr. shall be poor. 2 Qr. they are ashamed. ^ Heb. chaos ; Gr. every city. ^ Heb. 
 gone into captivity. 
 
 dally of the law against murder (cf. 26 : 21), which appears to be 
 specially in view in the reference to the everlasting covenant 
 (cf. Gen. 9 : 6, 16). 
 
 6. Therefore : sin brings a curse. Are burned, parched with 
 drought or fever. 
 
 7-9. In the sorrowful days to come, there would be no more 
 happy wine-drinking to the accompaniment of music and song. 
 
 10-12. The traits of this description seem to be drawn from an 
 existing situation. The city of chaos (Gen. 1:2) is apparently 
 Jerusalem. The houses are shut for very fear, joy is darkened or 
 gone, gladness is banished, the gates are battered to ruins. 
 
 162 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14. These shall lift up their voice, ^ they shall shout ; 
 For the majesty of the Lord they cry aloud from the 
 
 sea. 
 
 15. "\Vherefore glorify ye the Lord in the ^east, 
 Even the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, in the 
 
 isles of the sea." 
 
 16. From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard 
 
 songs, "Glory to the righteous." 
 
 But I said, ^ "I pine away, I pine away, woe is me ! 
 
 The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously ; yea, 
 the treacherous dealers have dealt very treach- 
 erously." 
 
 17. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, in- 
 
 habitant of the earth. 
 
 1 Gr. tJiose that are left behind upon the earth shall rejoice together in the glory oj the 
 Lord ; the water of the sea shall be troubled. 2 Heb. lights ; Gr. om. 3 Heb. leanness 
 tome. 
 
 13. The judgment will be so very thorough that but few will 
 survive (vs. 6 : cf. 17:6). 
 
 A Significant Event (vss. 1 4-1 8a) 
 
 14. Something has just happened — whether Alexander's 
 crossing of the Hellespont or something else — which seems to 
 these, i.e. the Jews dwelHng in the west (Asia Minor? Ht. the 
 sea), to illustrate the majesty of Jehovah and to call for devout 
 gratitude, though the poet takes a very different view (i6b). 
 
 15. 1 6a. This is what they shout. The}' call upon their breth- 
 ren in the east (lit. in the lights, i.e. perhaps the regions of Hght ; 
 the phrase is obscure) to glorify Jehovah; and to the east, not 
 only do the western isles respond, but from the distant fringe of 
 the earth (Ethiopia?) are borne the strains of the song, " Glory 
 is come for the righteous," i.e. for Israel. 
 
 i6b-i8a. This hopeful outlook, however, the poet cannot share. 
 He can only see in the movement the advance of robbers, who will 
 plunge the whole world into irretrievable misery (cf. Amos 5 : 18- 
 20). 
 
 163 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 1 8. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the 
 
 noise of the fear shall fall into the pit ; 
 And he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall 
 
 be taken in the snare : 
 For the windows on high are opened, 
 And the foundations of the earth do shake. 
 
 19. The earth is utterly broken. 
 The earth is clean dissolved. 
 The earth is moved exceedingly. 
 
 20. The earth shall stagger like a drunken man, 
 And shall be moved to and fro hke a hut ; 
 
 And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, 
 And it shall fall, and not rise again. 
 
 21. And it shall come to pass in that day. 
 
 That the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones 
 
 on high, 
 And the kings of the earth upon the earth. 
 
 22. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are 
 
 gathered in the pit, 
 And shall be shut up in the prison. 
 
 i8b-2o. Here follows a passage of extraordinary power. The 
 terrors of the ancient Flood return (Gen. 7:11). As if in the grasp 
 of Titanic powers, the earth splits and breaks, reels and rocks, 
 like a hammock, or watchman's hut (1:8); and the supreme 
 ethical passion of the poet is shown in this that, for him, the ulti- 
 mate reason for this awful elemental confusion is a moral one — 
 the heavy burden of guilt that rests upon the earth ; and its doom 
 is to be irretrievable, like that which long ago Amos (5 : 2) had 
 announced for Israel. 
 
 21 f. The judgment is all-embracing, it will fall upon celestial 
 no less than upon terrestrial powers. The host of the height, i.e., 
 of heaven, whether identified with or in some way related to the 
 stars, are probably the patron angels of the nations of the world, 
 and appropriately involved in their doom. Their special fate is 
 to be swept like prisoners into a subterranean pii (as described in the 
 
 164 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 25:1 
 
 And after many days shall they be visited. 
 23. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun 
 ashamed ; 
 For the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion and in 
 
 Jerusalem, 
 And ^ before his ancients gloriously. 
 
 Song or Thanksgiving over the Destruction of Some 
 Proud City (25 : 1-5) 
 
 25. O Lord, thou art my God ; 
 
 I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name ; 
 For thou hast done wonderful things. 
 Even counsels of old, in faithfulness and truth. 
 
 1 m. before his elders there shall be glory. 
 
 apocalyptic book of Enoch, Chaps. 18, 21), where, after long con- 
 finement, they will be visited with final and irrevocable punish- 
 ment. 
 
 23. For Israel, however, the end will not be chaos and darkness, 
 but order and light. There will be no need of sun or moon, for 
 the glorious Jehovah will be both light and king, and mount Zion 
 will be his throne; there the elders of Israel would behold his 
 glory (cf. 4:5 f.) as of old the elders on Sinai (Exod. 24: 9-11). 
 Thus the gloom and confusions of the chapter end in a vision of 
 hope, which recalls the blessed days of Israel's olden time. 
 
 25 : 1-5. This passage is not the continuation of the last. It is 
 a lyrical poem in the style of the Psalms, celebrating with devout 
 gratitude the fall of some strong, proud city — whether Babylon 
 in the sixth century B.C., or Samaria, towards the close of the 
 second, or more probably Tyre, which was destroyed by Alexander 
 the Great in 332 B.C. The objection that the fall of Tyre could 
 not have been the occasion of such rejoicing on the part of the 
 Jews is hardly valid when we consider that this had more than once 
 been the theme of Hebrew prophecy (Ezek. 26 ; cf. Is. 23, etc.) 
 
 I. For Thou hast accomplished marvellous purposes 
 
 That of old -were faithful and sure. 
 
 The idea is that the purpose — the destruction of this city, 
 as announced in ancient prophecy {e.g. Ezek. 26) — was wonder- 
 
 165 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. For thou hast made of a city an heap ; 
 
 Of a defeiiced city a ruin : 
 A palace of ^ strangers to be no city ; 
 It shall never be built. 
 
 3. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, 
 
 The city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. 
 
 4. For thou hast been a stronghold to the poor, 
 
 A stronghold to the needy in his distress. 
 
 A refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, 
 when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm 
 
 5. against the wall. ^ As the heat in a dry place 
 Shalt thou bring down the noise of strangers ; as the 
 
 heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the 
 terrible ones shall be brought low. 
 
 1 Gr. ungodly (insolent). 2 Qj-. ^5 fainthearted men thirsting in Zion by reason of 
 
 ungodly men to whom thou didst deliver tis. 
 
 ful, almost incredible ; nevertheless the announcement was true, 
 and has now been fulfilled. 
 
 2. Of strangers — perhaps, of the insolent. 
 
 3. The fall of this proud cit}^ leads even the heathen nations, 
 and not the Jews only, to acknowledge Jehovah and his might. 
 If the poem belong to the second century B.C., the city would prob- 
 ably be Rome; if, however, it belong to the fourth century, the 
 word city — as no single city seems to fit the allusion — may be 
 interpreted collectively (cities). 
 
 4 f . The poor and needy are the Jews. The last clause of vs. 4 
 (" for the blast of the terrible ones is as a rainstorm in winter " — 
 rather than against the wall), and the whole of vs. 5 except " Thou 
 dost lay low the pride of the insolent " (rather than the noise of 
 strangers — by two very simple changes in the text) are probably 
 glosses. The verses would then run : 
 
 For Thou hast been a stronghold to the weak, 
 
 A stronghold to the poor in his distress, 
 A refuge from the rainstorm, a shadow from the heat, 
 
 The pride of insolence thou layest low. 
 166 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 25:8 
 
 The Banquet of the Nations on Mount Zion (25 : 6-8) 
 
 6. And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts 
 Make unto all peoples 
 
 A feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, 
 Of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well 
 refined. 
 
 7. ^ And he will - destroy in this mountain 
 
 The face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, 
 And the veil that is spread over all nations. 
 
 8. ^He hath swallowed up death for ever ; i Cor. 15:54 
 
 1 Gr. they shall anoint themselves with myrrh upon this mountain. 2 Heb. swallow 
 up. 3 Gr. death hath prevailed atid swallowed tip. Theodotion, i Cor. 15 : 54, death has 
 been swallowed up into victory. 
 
 25 : 6-8. This passage, different in theme and spirit from the' 
 last, is in reality the continuation of 24 : 23. It is on this mountain, 
 i.e. mount Zion, where Jehovah of Hosts is King (24: 23), that 
 the banquet of the nations takes place. This beautiful image 
 symbolizes their reception into the kingdom of God (cf. Mat. 8:11, 
 Luke 14 : 21-24), and the gladness of the scene forms an admirable 
 counterpart to the gloom and joylessness of 24 : 7-9. 
 
 6. Not only, as in ancient days, for the nobles of Israel (Exod. 
 24: 11), but for all peoples, Jehovah makes a feast. Ordinarily 
 it was the worshippers who feasted the god, here it is God himself 
 who is the host. And the feast is of the finest — fat things (the 
 fat parts were supposed to be best and therefore customarily 
 offered to the god) and wine that had been long settled on the 
 lees, and had therefore acquired a powerful flavor. Before drink- 
 ing, it was well refined, i.e. strained. 
 
 7. The veil is the veil of sorrow, graphically described in 24 : 7- 
 12. The covered head was a sign of mourning (2 Sam. 15: 30). 
 All the nations share in the banquet, for all had known the 
 sorrow. 
 
 8. When the veil is removed, tears are seen upon the sorrowful 
 faces ; but these are wiped away by divine hands, the hands of the 
 King (24:23) — wiped from all faces. As for his people, the 
 Jews, they are scattered over all the earth, reproached and detested ; 
 but this reproach and hostility will be removed, for there is a divine 
 promise to that effect. The phrase He hath swallowed up death for 
 
 167 
 
25:9 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 21:4 
 
 Rev. 7: 17; And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; 
 
 And the reproach of his people shall he take away from 
 
 off all the earth : 
 For the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 Song over the Anticipated Destruction of Moab 
 
 (25:9-12) 
 
 9. And it shall be said in that day, 
 Lo, this is our God ; 
 
 We have waited for him, 
 And he will save us : ^ this is the Lord ; we have 
 waited for him, 
 We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. 
 
 1 Some Gr. MSS. om. this clause and next. 
 
 ever (quoted by Paul in i Cor. 15 : 54), coming between the veil 
 and the tears which are visible on its removal, appears to be an 
 intrusion, though not an inappropriate one, as it is in general har- 
 mony with the spirit of the context. That great " last enemy " 
 (i Cor. 15 : 26), cause of so many tears, will also be annihilated in 
 the coming kingdom — its citizens will be immortal. 
 
 This scene is one of the most daring and beautiful in the Old 
 Testament. It is at once infinitely tender and splendidly gener- 
 ous. It shows us a sorrowful world in which tears stand upon every 
 face ; but Jehovah with his own hands dries the tears, and spreads 
 his table upon Mount Zion not for his own people only, but for 
 all peoples, and gives his motley company of guests of his finest 
 and best. It is a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God as a 
 redemption from sorrow and a fountain of satisfaction, and it is 
 instinct with a sense of the infinite pity and the all-embracing 
 hospitality of Jehovah of Hosts. 
 
 25 : 9-12. These verses, with their unconcealed hatred of Moab, 
 do not breathe the generous atmosphere of the last section, and 
 are doubtless from a different hand. Some historical incident must 
 have given the impulse to this impetuous outburst, but we do not 
 know what it was. 
 
 9. A proud and grateful recognition of Jehovah's power. 
 Apparently the middle clause has been inadvertently repeated ; 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 25:12 
 
 10. For in this mountain 
 
 Shall the hand of the Lord rest, 
 And Moab shall be trodden down in his place, 
 
 ^ Even as straw is trodden down " in the water of the 
 dunghill. 
 
 11. And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst 
 
 thereof, 
 As he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to 
 swim : 
 And he shall lay low his pride 
 
 Together with the craft of his hands. 
 
 12. And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls hath he 
 
 brought down, laid low, 
 And brought to the ground, even to the dust. 
 
 1 Gr. as they tread the threshingfloor in waggons. 2 Qr in the dunghill. 
 
 it is absent from some of the Greek MSS. The verse would then 
 run : 
 
 Lo 1 Here is our God, 
 
 On whom we have hoped 
 That he should deliver us. 
 
 Let us rejoice and be glad in his deliverance. 
 
 10. Jehovah's hand would graciously rest in this mountain, i.e. 
 in Zion, for that is the capital of his kingdom (24: 23; 25 : 6) — 
 but Moab would be crushed by it. For a similarly vigorous and 
 contemptuous reference to Moab, cf. Ps. 60 : 8. The word for 
 straw (mathbcn) is probably intended to suggest an allusion to 
 'the Moab town of Madhmen (Jer. 48 : 2). 
 
 11. '' And when he (Moab) spreads forth his hands ... he 
 (Jehovah) will lay low his pride." Moab's blustering efforts to 
 swim in the water of the dungpit would be effectively frustrated ; 
 down he would be thrust, despite (rather than together with) the 
 craft of his hands. 
 
 12. This verse, hardly relevant here, appears to be a variant 
 to 26 : 5. 
 
 169 
 
26: I THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Song or Gratitude and Hope (26 : 1-19) 
 Jerusalem Secure: The Proud City Destroyed (26 : 1-6) 
 
 26. In that day shall this song be sung in the land of 
 Judah : 
 We have a strong city ; salvation will he appoint 
 For walls and bulwarks. 
 
 2. Open ye the gates, ^ that the righteous nation which 
 
 keepeth truth 
 May enter therein. 
 
 3. - Thou wilt keep him in ^ perfect peace, whose mind is 
 
 stayed on thee : 
 Because he trusteth in thee. 
 
 4. Trust ye in the Lord for ever : for ^ in ^ the Lord 
 
 Jehovah 
 
 1 Gr. reads vss. 2b-4 thus : let the nation enter that keepeth righteousness and keepeth 
 truth, that layeth hold of truth and keepeth peace; for in thee, O Lord, they have assuredly 
 trusted forever, the great, the eternal God. ^ m. A stedfast mind thou keepest in perfect 
 peace, because it, etc. ^ Heb. peace, peace. * Gr. om. m the Lord. * Heb. Jah Jehovah. 
 
 26 : 1-9. More moods than one are reflected in this carefully 
 constructed poem. The opening stanza (vss. i-6) is a song of 
 praise for the safety of Jerusalem and the destruction of some 
 unnamed lofty city. This leads in the next stanza (vss. 7-10) 
 to a meditation on the ways of God, which, in the third (vss. 11-14) 
 and fourth (vss. 15-19), issues in a daring outlook — not unmind- 
 ful of the pathos of the past — upon the coming Day, when Is- 
 rael's dead would be raised again to share the national glory. 
 
 Here again the historical situation is very hard to reconstruct; 
 but the city whose destruction is celebrated is possibly Samaria, 
 probably Tyre (cf. 25 : 1-5). 
 
 I, 2. In that day . . . Judah: a later introduction to the poem. 
 That day is the glorious day to come (24 : 21-23). 
 
 The strong city is Jerusalem, which now appears to have walls. 
 Walls and bulwarks he appoints for her safety. The gates may have 
 just been dedicated, and the righteous who pass through them are 
 the Jews. 
 
 3. The steadfast mind, i.e. him who is steadily faithful, thou dost 
 keep in good fortune: peace, i.e. welfare, prosperity, is the reward 
 of faith and fideHty. 
 
 4, 5. Jehovah is worthy of all confidence; for he is a rock of 
 
 170 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Is ^ an everlasting rock. 
 
 5. For he hath brought down them that dwell on high, 
 
 The lofty city : 
 He layeth it low, he layeth it low even to the ground ; 
 He bringeth it even to the dust. 
 
 6. ^ The foot shall tread it down ; even the feet of the poor, 
 
 And the steps of the needy. 
 
 It is Well with the Righteous^ III with the persistently Wicked 
 (26 : 7-10) 
 
 7. The way of the just is ^ uprightness : 
 
 ^ Thou that art upright dost ^ direct the path of the 
 just. 
 
 8. Yea, in the way of thy judgements, 
 
 O Lord, we have waited for thee ; 
 To thy name and to thy memorial 
 Is the desire of our soul. 
 
 9. With my soul have I desired thee in the night ; yea, 
 
 with my spirit within me 
 Will I seek thee ^ early ; 
 
 1 Heb. a rock of ages. 2 Gr. om. the foot. ^ va. a right way : the path of the just 
 thou directest aright. ^ Gr. om. thou that art uprigJit. ° m. level. ^ m. diligently. 
 
 ages, as is proved by his power to lay the lofty city (Tj^re : or 
 Samaria?) level with the dust. 
 
 6. There is the same wild joy at the thought of trampling the 
 enemy down as in Mai. 4:3. 
 
 7. In the spirit of Psalm i, this vs. asserts the good fortune of the 
 good. The path of the righteous is straight, thou smoothest the way 
 of the righteous. This truth had just been illustrated in the expe- 
 rience of the Jews (vss. 1-6). 
 
 8. g. Jehovah's way is a way of judgment, it is by this that he 
 brings the disobedient to their senses. Israel's patient waiting 
 for the divine judgment has already been in part rewarded, but 
 she still longingly awaits some more signal memorial or manifes- 
 tation of Jehovah's name or character. 
 
 171 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For when thy judgements are in the earth, the inhabit- 
 ants of the world 
 Learn righteousness. 
 
 10. Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn 
 
 righteousness ; 
 In the land of uprightness 
 Will he deal wrongfully, and will not behold 
 The majesty of the Lord. 
 
 The Utter Destruction of the Enemy (26: 11-14) 
 
 11. Lord, thy hand is lifted up, yet they see it not: 
 
 But they shall see 
 Thy zeal for the people, and be ashamed ; 
 Yea, ^ fire shall devour thine adversaries. 
 
 12. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us : for thou hast also 
 
 wrought 
 All our works for us. 
 
 13. Lord our God, - other lords beside thee 
 
 Have had dominion over us ; 
 But by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 
 
 ^m. the fire of (i.e. kindled against) thine adversaries shall devour them. 2 Gr. take 
 possession of us. Lord, besides thee we know no other : we name thy name. 
 
 ^ 10. A very slight and reasonable addition of Marti's to the text 
 gives the following excellent sense : No favor will be shown to the 
 wicked who has not learned righteousness. The land of uprightness 
 is Judah, and despite what has happened there (vs. i) the wicked 
 have no eyes for the majesty of Jehovah, but even there go on their 
 perverse way. 
 
 1 1 . It is a familiar Old Testament thought that the bad are blind, 
 stupid ; though the divine hand has been so powerfully lifted up 
 in recent history (vs. 5), they do not see it. Hence the prayer: 
 Let them see it and be ashamed, let Thy zeal for Thy people, and the 
 jire ordained for Thine adversaries devour them. 
 
 12. Fire for them, but peace, i.e. prosperity, for us. 
 
 13. Other lords, foreign despots, like the Persians. But no 
 
 172 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14. ^ They are dead, they shall not Hve ; //^e}; are ^ deceased, 
 
 they shall not rise : 
 Therefore thou hast visited 
 And destroyed them, and made all their memory 
 To perish. 
 
 A Yet More Glorious Day (26 : 15-19) 
 
 15. Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast in- 
 
 creased the nation ; thou art glorified : 
 Thou hast enlarged all the borders of the land. 
 
 16. Lord, in trouble have they ^ visited thee, ^ they poured 
 
 out a prayer 
 When thy chastening was upon them. 
 
 17. Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the 
 
 time of her delivery, ^ is in pain 
 And crieth out in her pangs ; 
 So have we been before thee, O Lord. 
 
 1 Heb. the dead shall not live, tlie shades shall not arise. ^ m. sJtades ; Heb. rephaitn. 
 3 m. looked for. * Gr. irith small (perhaps originally bitter) afliction was thy chasten- 
 itig to us. 5 Gr. om. 
 
 other do we know (so the Greek version) besides Thee : Thy name 
 we name, in praise, now that the tyranny is over, the tyrants dead 
 (vs. 14) and Jerusalem secure (vs. i). 
 
 14. This verse, which appears to refer to the permanent pros- 
 tration, in death, of the tyrants who had '' lorded " it over Israel, 
 should be rendered as follows : Dead men cannot live, shades (cf. 
 14 : 9) cannot rise. Thou hast made all their memory to perish, 
 i.e., every memorial of them, everything that brings them back to 
 mind. 
 
 15. Through the recent successes (vss. i, 2) the nation and its 
 borders have been enlarged, and thus Thou hast gotten Thee glory 
 (rather than art glorified). 
 
 16. By a few simple changes this verse, which is not satisfactory 
 in its present form, would read as follows : In trouble we sought 
 Thee, we cried out in distress, when Thy chastisement came upon us. 
 
 17. 18. These verses give a graphic picture of the agonized but 
 
 173 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 i8. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we 
 have as it were brought forth wind ; 
 We have not wrought any dehverance in the 
 earth ; 
 ^Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 
 19. 2 Thy dead shall Hve ; my dead bodies shall arise. 
 Awake and sing, 
 Ye that dwell in the dust ; 
 For thy dew is as the dew of ^ herbs, 
 And the earth shall ^ cast forth the ^ dead. 
 
 1 m. neither have inhabitants oj the world been born. 2 Gr. The dead shall arise and 
 they that are in the tombs shall be raised, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice ; for the 
 dew from thee is healing to them ; but the land of the ungodly shal! fall. ^ Heb. lights. 
 * Heb. let fall. ^ m. shades; Heb. rephaim. 
 
 ineffective efforts of Israel in the past — efforts which brought 
 no deliverance to the land, and no increase to the population (cf. 
 margin). The word fallen in vs. 18 and cast (same verb in He- 
 brew) in vs. 19 refers to birth. 
 
 19. The men were few (cf. 24 : 6). The situation is now indeed 
 greatly improved (vs. 15), but a yet more glorious day is coming, 
 when Israel's dead will he raised again to share the blessings of 
 the ransomed people in their larger borders (vs. 15). This daring 
 thought is introduced very abruptly. Unfortunately the text 
 and the grammar are not as certain as we could wish, but probably 
 the words originally ran : Thy dead shall arise, the dwellers in the 
 dust shall awake and shout for joy. The dead bodies may have 
 been inserted to make more prominent the idea of bodily resur- 
 rection. It is only thy dead, i.e. Israelites, who are to rise ; the 
 dead who oppressed them shall not rise (vs. 14). The manner of 
 the resurrection appears to be suggested in the last clause of the 
 vs. ; for dew of lights, i.e. of supernal light, is Thy dew, and earth shall 
 bring the shades to birth. The dew is represented as falling from 
 the upper regions of heavenly light upon the dusty graves of 
 Israel's dead, quickening their inhabitants into life, as dew 
 quickens the grass and the flowers. 
 
 With its vision of a day on which the faithful dead, triumphant 
 over death, will take their places side by side with the living 
 members of the commonwealth of Israel, the verse forms an ad- 
 mirable conclusion to the grateful praise and the tender hopes of 
 the poem. 
 
 174 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 27:1 
 
 Israel's Security in the Great World Judgment 
 (26 : 20-27 : i) 
 
 20. Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, 
 
 And shut thy doors about thee : 
 Hide thyself for a Httle moment, 
 Until the indignation be overpast. 
 
 21. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place 
 
 To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 
 iniquity : 
 The earth also shall disclose her blood, 
 And shall no more cover her slain. 
 27. In that day the Lord 
 
 With his sore and great and strong sword 
 Shall punish leviathan the swift serpent ; 
 And leviathan the crooked serpent : 
 And he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. 
 
 26: 20-27: I. This picture of the security of Israel is the con- 
 tinuation of 25:6-8; it illustrates practically what is meant by 
 the promised removal of Israel's reproach (25:8). While the 
 hostile world-powers are punished, she is hidden and saved. 
 
 20 f. The indignation is the storm of judgment which will 
 sweep across the wicked world, when Jehovah comes out of his 
 place, i.e. heaven, to avenge the deeds of blood. The earth shall 
 disclose the blood which it had absorbed, and which therefore 
 could not cry for vengeance (Gen. 4: 11), and the corpses of the 
 slain shall be exposed in proof of the murderers' guilt. 
 
 27: I. Jehovah's mighty sword would speedily (26: 21) anni- 
 hilate the hostile empires (24: 21), Whether the two leviathans 
 and the dragon represent three empires or one, is not clear — 
 probably three ; in that case, the sea-dragon is no doubt Egypt 
 (Ezek. 29 : 3), the other two, if the passage come from the fourth 
 century, will probably be Babylonia and Persia, the two most 
 recent oppressors of Israel. In the swift or fleeing serpent, the 
 crooked or coiled serpent, and the sea-dragon, there is an allusion 
 to the old Babylonian story of the victory of Marduk, for whom the 
 Hebrews substituted Jehovah, over the primeval monster which 
 
 175 
 
27*. 2 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Song of the Vineyard (27 : 2-6) 
 
 2. In that day : 
 
 ^ A vineyard of wine, sing ye ^ unto it. 
 
 3. ^ I the Lord do keep it ; 
 
 I will water it every moment : 
 
 Lest any hurt it, 
 I will keep it night and day. 
 
 4. Fury is not in me. 
 
 Would that the briers and thorns 
 
 Were against me in battle ! 
 I would march upon them, 
 
 I would burn them together. 
 
 5. Or else let him take hold of my strength, 
 
 That he may make peace with me ; 
 Yea, let him make peace with me. 
 
 6. In days to come shall Jacob take root : 
 Israel shall blossom and bud : 
 
 And they shall fill the face of the world with fruit. 
 
 1 Tar. and some Gr. and Heb. MSS. read a pleasant vineyard. 2 ^n. of. ^ In vss. 
 3-5, Gr. diverges very widely from Heb. 
 
 represented chaos. That ancient conquest was but an adumbra- 
 tion of this over the latter-day monsters. 
 
 27 : 2-6. This piece is loosely connected with the last by the 
 general thought of Jehovah's care for Israel. It is the counter- 
 part of that other song of the vineyard (5 : 1-7) where its fate was 
 so different. 
 
 2. Read : In that day it shall be said: Delightsome vineyard, sing 
 ye of it. 
 
 4 f. Jehovah cherishes no fury against his vineyard, Israel ; but 
 he will wage deadly war against the thorns and thistles, i.e., the 
 enemies of Israel (cf. 2 Sam, 23 : 6 f.). Even for them, however, 
 there is mercy, if only they will take hold of my stronghold, i.e. 
 flee for refuge to Jehovah, and make peace with me. 
 
 6. Israel's future prosperity will be wide as the world. 
 176 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 27:9 
 
 Jehovah's Meecy TO Israel (27: 7-11) 
 
 7. Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him ? 
 
 Or is he slain according to the slaughter of ^ them 
 that were slain by him ? 
 
 8. In measure, when thou sendest her away, thou dost 
 
 contend with her ; 
 He hath removed her with his rough blast in the day 
 of the east wind. 
 
 9. Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be - purged, 
 
 And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin ; 
 When he maketh all the stones of the altar 
 
 As chalkstones that are beaten in sunder. 
 So that the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no 
 more. 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. those that slew him. ^ m. expiated. 
 
 27:7-11. This section, like the last, acknowledges Jehovah's 
 tenderness towards Israel, here especially manifested in the con- 
 trast between Israel's fate and that of her enemies. 
 
 7. Hath he (Jehovah) smitten him (Israel), as he (Jehovah) 
 smote those (the foreign oppressors) that smote him (Israel) ? Israel 
 suffered at the hands of the Persians, but not so terribly as the 
 Persians suffered at the hands of Alexander the Great, who overthrew 
 their empire. Or was he (Israel) slain as those oppressors who slew 
 him were slain? 
 
 8. This difficult verse is now usually regarded as a gloss to vs. 10, 
 elaborating the fate of the city. This would explain the feminine 
 pronouns, which do not naturally follow the masculines in vs. 7 ; 
 and the figure is that of a bird's nest carried away by a storm (cf. 
 16: 2). The whole verse should probably run somewhat as fol- 
 lows : By scaring her away, by sending her forth, he contended with 
 her; he removed her with his rough blast in the day of the east wind. 
 
 9. By this : rather, on this condition. For the Asherim and the 
 sun-images, cf. 17 : 8. The meaning is that the destruction of the 
 idolatrous symbols is, in one aspect, the condition, in another the 
 fruit, of the forgiveness of their sins. For when he maketh, 
 read that he should make. 
 
 N 177 
 
10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. For the defenced city is solitary, 
 
 An habitation, deserted and forsaken, like the wil- 
 derness: 
 There shall the calf feed, 
 
 And there shall he He down and consume the branches 
 thereof, 
 
 11. When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall 
 
 be broken off ; 
 The women shall come, and set them on fire : 
 
 For it is a people of no understanding ; 
 Therefore he that made them will not have compas- 
 sion upon them, 
 And he that formed them will shew them no favour. 
 
 Gathered Home (27 : 12 f.) 
 
 12. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That the Lord shall beat off his fruit, from the flood 
 of the River unto ^ the brook of Egypt, 
 
 1 Gr. Rhinocoroura. 
 
 10 f. These verses vividly describe the present desolation of 
 Jerusalem (cf. 24:10-12) — a place where cattle pasture and 
 women come to gather fuel. The divine pity and favor are with- 
 held from the people because they have no understanding — that 
 is, because they are impenitent, and have not abandoned their 
 sinful idolatry. But if this be abandoned, the sin will be expiated 
 (vs. 9) and the glorious future will begin (cf. vss. 6, 12 f.). 
 
 27:12, 13. The great apocalypse (Chaps. 24-27) impressively 
 closes with a vision of the return of the Jews from the lands in 
 which they had been scattered, to Jerusalem, where they can 
 worship their own God in his own peculiar home. These vss. 
 appear to follow 27:1. 
 
 12. For flood, read ears. Jehovah will heat out ears of wheat 
 from the river Euphrates to the torrent of Egypt, the southwestern 
 boundary of Palestine — these being the ideal limits of Israel's 
 kingdom. The final judgment is compared to a threshing, in 
 which the heathen, Hke the chaff, will be swept away, and the 
 
 178 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 27:13 
 
 And ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of 
 
 Israel. 
 13. And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 That a great trumpet shall be blown ; Mat. 24 : 31 
 
 And they shall come which were ^ ready to perish in 
 
 the land of Assyria, 
 And they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt ; 
 And they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain 
 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 1 m. lost. 
 
 Jews, like the good grain, will be gathered one by one ; not one 
 of them will be lost. 
 
 13. From the wider world, too, here represented by Assyria 
 and Egypt, those who were lost and outcasts will come to Jerusalem 
 at the sound of the tnunpet — one of the imposing features of 
 apocalyptic utterance (cf. Mat. 24: 31). The vision significantly 
 ends in an act of worship. 
 
 The great world judgment is over; the hostile powers have 
 been annihilated (vs. i), and the Jews, redeemed and restored to 
 their own land, do homage to their God upon the holy temple hill. 
 
 179 
 
WARNINGS AND PROMISES TO JERUSALEM 
 
 (ChAPS. 28-33) 
 
 Woe to Samaria (28 : 1-6) 
 
 28. Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, 
 And to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, 
 Which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are 
 ^ overcome with wine. 
 
 2. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one ; 
 As a tempest of hail, a destroying storm. 
 
 As a tempest of mighty waters overflowing. 
 Shall he cast down to the earth ^ with the hand. 
 
 3. The crown of the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim 
 Shall be trodden under foot : 
 
 1 Heb. smitten down. 2 m. -^itji liolence. 
 
 A fourth group of prophecies is constituted by Chaps. 28-33, 
 which come from Isaiah's old age, and centre round the fortunes 
 of Jerusalem during the years 704-701 B.C., when Judah, men- 
 aced by Assyria under Sennacherib, was secretly planning an 
 alliance with Egypt. This group contains some of Isaiah's 
 noblest work. 
 
 28 : 1-6. Obviously this threat of Samaria must precede her 
 fall (in 721 B.C.). Isaiah, however, appropriately prefixes it to 
 the prophecies concerning Jerusalem about twenty years later, 
 thereby ominously suggesting that as Jerusalem was like Samaria 
 in character (vss. i, 7) so she may be also in her fate. 
 
 1. The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim was the city of 
 Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom, which crowned a hill 
 that rose in the middle of a fat {i.e. fertile) valley. Drunkenness 
 was one of her besetting sins (Amos 6:6). Apparently garlands 
 of flowers were worn at carousals (vs. 3) — a fact which lends 
 point to the picture. " The prophet describes Samaria as the 
 head of a drunken reveller, encircled with a wreath of fading 
 flowers" (O. C. Whitehouse). 
 
 2. The strong one is the Assyrian, who will come like a destroy- 
 ing storm and lay Samaria prostrate upon the ground, with violence 
 (cf. margin). 
 
 180 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH '28 
 
 4. And the fading flower of his glorious beauty, 
 Which is on the head of the fat valley, 
 
 Shall be as the firstripe fig before the summer ; 
 Which when he that looketh upon it seeth, 
 While it is yet in liis hand he eateth it up. 
 
 5 . In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, 
 And for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people : 
 
 6. And for a spirit of ^ judgement to him that sitteth in 
 
 judgement, 
 And for strength to them that turn back the battle 
 at the gate. 
 
 The Scoffers of Jerusalem Threatened (28 : 7-22) 
 
 Isaiah^s Solemn Warning to the Drunken Priests and Prophets 
 (28 : 7-13) 
 
 7. But these also ^ have erred through wine. 
 
 And through strong drink ^ are gone astray ; 
 
 1 SV justice. 2 m. reel. 3 m. stagger. 
 
 3 f. The lovely city will be trampled underfoot; it will be swal- 
 loived up by Assyria, as greedily as one swallows the dainty first 
 ripe fig which appears in June, several weeks before the fig season. 
 In point of fact Samaria stood a siege of three years. 
 
 5 f. These verses, which interrupt the context, are probably a 
 later foil to vss. 1-4. They look out upon the fortunes of the 
 remnant of Jehovah's people in the Messianic days, when he will 
 inspire theni with justice and valor, — equip them for the duties of 
 administration and war. 
 
 28 : 7-13. This scene is very dramatic. Isaiah, mocked by the 
 priests and prophets whom he has surprised in their carousals, 
 answers their mockery by the terrible threat that God would yet 
 speak to them a more strange and unwelcome message than his 
 own; he would speak in Assyrian. When the Assyrians, with 
 their foreign jargon, were scouring the land of Judah, then It 
 would be clear that Isaiah had been right after all. 
 
 7 f. These also in Jerusalem (vs. 14) as well as in Samaria 
 181 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The priest and the prophet 
 
 Have erred through strong drink, 
 They are swallowed up of wine, 
 
 They are gone astray through strong drink ; 
 They err in vision, 
 
 They stumble in judgement. 
 8. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, 
 
 So that there is no place clean. 
 
 g. " Whom will he teach knowledge ? 
 
 And whom will he make to understand the message? 
 Them that are weaned from the milk. 
 And drawn from the breasts ? 
 
 10. For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept ; 
 
 Line upon line, hne upon line ; 
 Here a Httle, 
 
 And there a little." 
 
 11. Nay, but by men of strange lips 
 
 And with another tongue 
 Will he speak to this people : 
 
 (vs. i), were guilty of abominable excess — all the more deplorable 
 that they were religious leaders. Possibly the scene was in the 
 temple court. Judgment, the decision of cases. 
 
 9 f. These are the contemptuous and ironical words with which 
 the prophet is greeted as he comes upon the drunken revellers. 
 The priests had the knowledge, the prophets the divine message ; 
 they needed no instruction from Isaiah, they were not babies. 
 They would have nothing to do with his perpetual and monoto- 
 nous jingle, inimitably expressed in the original Hebrew by the 
 uncouth tsaw latsaw tsaw latsaw qaw laqaw qaiv laqaw — sugges- 
 tively rendered by Whitehouse " law on law, saw on saw." 
 
 II. The indignant prophet immediately hurls his threat. They 
 had rejected and satirized the divine message as it came through 
 him, they would be compelled to listen to it as it came through 
 men of strange lips and another tongue, i.e. the Assyrians. 
 
 182 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 12. To whom he said, 
 ''This is the rest, 
 
 Give ye rest to him that is weary ; 
 And this is the refreshing :" 
 Yet they would not hear. 
 
 13. Therefore shall the word of the Lord 
 
 Be unto them 
 Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, 
 
 Line upon line, Une upon line ; 
 Here a Httle, 
 
 There a little ; 
 That they may go, 
 
 And fall backward, 
 And be broken, and snared, 
 
 And taken. 
 
 The Folly of the Egyptian Alliance (28 : 14-22) 
 
 14. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, 
 
 Ye scornful men. 
 
 12. Read : he who said to them. The words that follow sum- 
 marize Isaiah's general message; this is the true rest, namely, 
 quiet confidence in God (30:15). Political alliances, such as 
 Judah was then negotiating with Egypt (vs. 15), often led to 
 international complications, sometimes to war ; those thus ren- 
 dered weary, exhausted, would find rest and refreshing in ab- 
 staining from political ambitions and combinations, and in simply 
 trusting Jehovah. 
 
 13. Because they refused to listen to Isaiah's demand for simple 
 faith, the divine message would come to them again in a more 
 terrible form, fraught with ruin. With grim irony, Isaiah de- 
 scribes the message which the Assyrians will bring in the same 
 jingling words as they had used to describe his own. The words 
 will be stranger than Isaiah's — real foreign words, but their mean- 
 ing will be plain enough ; they spell doom for Judah. 
 
 14.. The announcement concerns the priests, prophets (vs. 7), 
 
 183 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 That rule this people 
 Which is in Jerusalem: 
 
 15. Because ye have said, "We have made 
 
 A covenent with death, 
 And with ^ hell 
 
 Are we at agreement ; 
 When the overflowing ^ scourge shall pass through, 
 
 It shall not come unto us ; 
 For we have made lies our refuge, 
 
 And under falsehood have we hid ourselves." 
 
 16. Therefore thus saith 
 
 The Lord God, 
 "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, 
 
 A tried stone, 
 A precious corner stone of sure foundation : 
 
 He that believeth shall not ^ make haste. 
 
 iHeb. Sheol. 2 Gr. storm (flood). ^ Qr. he ashamed; SV be in haste. 
 
 and the rulers generally, who, resting their faith, like Ahaz (Chap. 
 7), rather in political alliances than in God, are appropriately 
 described as scoffers (cf. vs. 22), scorners of religion and the unseen. 
 
 15 goes with 16; because . . . therefore. The vss. contrast 
 the false with the true ground of confidence — faith in Egypt with 
 faith in Jehovah. By superstitious and necromantic practices, 
 connected perhaps with Egyptian mysteries, the leaders imagined 
 themselves to bear a charmed life, secure against Death and 
 Sheol. The overflowing flood (cf. 8 : 7 f . ; rather than scourge), 
 that is, the Assyrians, could not reach them. Such sources of 
 confidence, however, are nothing but lies and falsehood — Isaiah's 
 own words, which he puts into their mouths. 
 
 16. To their diplomacy and superstition Isaiah opposes faith; 
 with the scheming and scoffing poHticians, " that rule this people 
 in Jerusalem " (vs. 14), he contrasts the little band of the faithful. 
 They are the precious foundation stone of the building yet to be 
 raised on Zion — that is, of a community consisting of those who, 
 like Isaiah, have faith in God and who care ior justice and righteous- 
 ness (vs. 17). The foundation is appropriately conceived as being 
 laid in Zion, as that was Jehovah's earthly home, and with Zion's 
 
 184 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 17. And I will make judgement the line, 
 
 And righteousness the plummet, 
 And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of Hes, 
 And the waters shall overflow the liiding place. 
 
 18. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, 
 
 And your ^ agreement with ^ hell shall not stand ; 
 When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, 
 Then ye shall be trodden down by it. 
 
 19. As often as it passeth through. 
 
 It shall take you ; 
 For morning by morning shall it pass through, 
 
 By day and by night : 
 And it shall be nought but terror 
 
 To understand the message. 
 
 20. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch him- 
 
 self on it ; 
 And the covering narrower than that he can wrap 
 himself in it. 
 
 Gr. confidence in. 2 Heb. Sheol. 
 
 fortunes were implicated, for the time, the fortunes of the true 
 religion. (See Introduction, p. 11.) The last clause should per- 
 haps run : the man of faith shall not give way (or he put to shame, 
 (so Gr.). It is the same message as Isaiah offered to Ahaz, that 
 faith is the secret of firmness and fixity (7:9). 
 
 17 f. Judgment, i.e. justice. The standards of the kingdom of 
 God are to be ethical. Faith (vs. 16) must express itself in works, 
 religion in morahty. But the refuge, found in the Egyptian alli- 
 ance, respects neither morality nor rehgion ; it is but a house built 
 on the sand, doomed to be swept away by the (Assyrian) flood 
 
 — swept into death and Sheol, from which their superstitious 
 covenant could not save them. 
 
 19. You — emphatic; you sceptics and scoffers. Then, when 
 the terrible flood (or scourge) moves ceaselessly and inexorably on 
 
 — then perhaps you will believe the prophetic message ; its mean- 
 ing will be only too plain. 
 
 20. A proverb. The Egyptian alliance will prove inadequate; 
 it will not cover the situation. 
 
 i8S 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 21. For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, 
 
 He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon ; 
 That he may do his work, 
 
 His strange work, 
 And bring to pass his act, 
 
 His strange act. 
 
 22. Now therefore be ye not scorners, 
 
 Lest your bands be made strong : 
 For a consummation, and that determined, 
 Have I heard from the Lord, the Lord of hosts, upon 
 the whole earth. 
 
 The Patience and Considerateness of the Divine 
 Purpose (28 : 23-29) 
 
 23. Give ye ear, and hear my voice ; 
 
 Hearken, and hear my speech. 
 
 21. Mount Perazim and Gibeon (i Chron. 14: 16), or Geba, 
 where David defeated the Philistines (2 Sam. 5 : 20, 25). Jehovah, 
 through the Assyrians, would rise up against his people as 
 formerly he had risen against their enemies ; that is why his 
 action is described as strange and alien (the Hebrew words are 
 different). 
 
 22. Isaiah's final warning to the scoffers (vs. 14) not to tighten 
 still further, by their scoffing, the bonds of sin, with which penalty 
 was inextricably bound up (5 : 18) ; for to the sensitive ears of the 
 prophet (22: 14) had come from Jehovah the message of destruc- 
 tion decreed (cf. 10: 23). 
 
 These verses (7-22) are remarkably vivid; the "weary" 
 people in the background (vs. 12) ; and on the one side, the drunken 
 clergy with their ribald mimicry of the prophet, and the secret 
 treaty, with its concomitant of dark superstition; on the other 
 hand, Isaiah, flaming with holy indignation, warning the scorners 
 of the oncoming flood, himself kept steady by his splendid 
 faith. 
 
 28 : 23-29. The bearing of this curious little section upon the 
 186 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 24. Doth the plowman plow continually to sow ? 
 
 Doth he continually open and break the clods of 
 his ground ? 
 
 25. When he hath ^ made plain the face thereof, 
 
 Doth he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the 
 cummin, 
 And put in the wheat ^ in rows and the barley in the 
 appointed place 
 And the spelt in the border thereof ? 
 
 26. For his God doth instruct him aright, 
 
 And doth teach him. 
 
 27. For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing 
 
 instrument, 
 
 1 SV levelled. 2 Gr. om. 
 
 context is not easy to determine. It describes, generally, how the 
 farmer adapts his methods to circumstances — he is not always 
 doing the same thing (ploughing) nor always doing it in the same 
 way (sowing) — and, more particularly, with what tender con- 
 sideration this principle is applied when, as in threshing, severe 
 measures are necessary. The implication is that the farmer's 
 methods are a parable or antitype of the divine dealings with 
 men; God will be careful, like the farmer, not to destroy in the 
 process of threshing. The passage has the effect of softening the 
 grave announcement, just made, of the impending judgment on 
 Judah (vss. 21 f.), and may be from a later hand. 
 
 24 f . The farmer is not continually ploughing ; he ploughs with 
 a view to the sowing and the harvest. So for Judah, now ploughed 
 by oppressors (cf. Ps. 129 : 3), quiet fruitful days are in store. In 
 25b, read simply : does he not set wheat and barley, and spelt as its 
 border ? 
 
 26. The farmer's agricultural knowledge, which he owes to 
 tradition and experience, is here regarded as imparted by God 
 himself. The methods of adaptation and patience which he 
 teaches the farmer, are the methods he himself adopts in his 
 conduct of history. 
 
 27. When the farmer threshes, he adapts his methods to the 
 nature and delicacy of the object to be threshed ; so also God. 
 
 187 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the 
 cummin : 
 But the fitches are beaten out with a staff, 
 And the cummin with a rod. 
 
 28. ^ Bread corn is ground ; 
 
 For he will not ever be threshing it : 
 And though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter 
 it, 
 He doth not grind it. 
 
 29. This also cometh from the Lord of hosts, 
 
 Which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in 
 wisdom. 
 
 The Character and Fate of Jerusalem (29 : 1-15) 
 
 The Fate of Jerusalem (29 : 1-8) 
 
 29. 2 Ho Ariel, Ariel, 
 
 The city where David encamped ! 
 Add ye year to year ; 
 Let the feasts come round : 
 
 1 m. is bread corn crushed? Nay, he will not ever he threshing it. 2 m. Woe to. 
 
 28. This verse should probably run: Is bread {corn) crushed? 
 Nay, he does not keep threshing it continually : but, when he has 
 rolled his wagon wheel over it he scatters it, but does not crush it. 
 (So Duhm.) 
 
 29. These wonderful principles that govern the farmer's action 
 can only have had a divine origin. 
 
 29: 1-15. This passage belongs to a period two or three years 
 before the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians (about 703 B.C.)- 
 It portrays with grim power the impending fate of the city, and 
 the pathetic incredulity and blindness of the people. It begins 
 with Woe (cf. 28: i). 
 
 I. Ariel: an obscure name for Jerusalem. It probably means 
 altar-hearth, and may have been suggested to Isaiah by the sight 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. Then will I distress Ariel, 
 
 And there shall be mourning and lamentation, 
 And she shall be unto me as Ariel. 
 
 3. And I will camp against thee ^ round about, 
 And will lay siege against thee with a fort. 
 
 And I will raise siege works against thee. 
 
 4. And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out 
 
 of the ground. 
 And thy speech shall be low out of the dust ; 
 And thy voice shall be as of one that hath a famihar 
 
 spirit, out of the ground, 
 And thy speech shall ^ whisper out of the dust. 
 
 5. But the multitude of thy foes 
 
 Shall be like small dust. 
 And the multitude of the terrible ones 
 
 As chaff that passeth away : 
 Yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. 
 
 6. She shall be visited of the Lord of hosts 
 
 1 Gr. like David (cf. vs. i). ^ m. Heb. chirp. 
 
 of the great altar, with its bleeding victims, in the temple court, 
 where the prophet may have delivered this speech at a harvest 
 festival. The name impHes that Jerusalem would drip, Hke the 
 altar, with the blood of the slain — and that within a year or two 
 (when year was added to year). 
 
 2. Distress, i.e. by the Assyrian army; and, instead of festal 
 joy, there shall be moaning and bemoaning, and Jerusalem shall 
 become a veritable Ariel, drenched with blood. 
 
 4. And humbly shalt thou speak from the ground. The faintness 
 of the prostrate city's voice is compared to the twittering of a 
 ghost (cf. 8 : 19). 
 
 5. This verse, predicting the annihilation of Jerusalem's foes, 
 is probably, like vss. 7, 8, the insertion of some later patriot, who 
 believed in Zion's ultimate triumph over all her foes. 
 
 6. With this verse should go the words and suddenly, full sud- 
 denly, it shall come, from vs. 5. The words that follow describe 
 how sternly Jerusalem will be visited. In the Assyrian army, 
 
 189 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 With thunder, and with earthquake, and with great 
 noise. 
 With whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a de- 
 vouring fire. 
 
 7. And the multitude of all the nations 
 
 That fight against Ariel, 
 Even all that fight against her and her stronghold, 
 
 And that distress her. 
 Shall be as a dream. 
 
 As a vision of the night. 
 
 8. And it shall be as when an hungry man dreameth, 
 
 And, behold, he eateth ; 
 But he awaketh, 
 
 And his soul is empty : 
 Or as when a thirsty man dreameth. 
 
 And, behold, he drinketh ; 
 But he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, 
 
 And his soul hath appetite : 
 So shall the multitude of all the nations be, 
 
 That fight against mount Zion. 
 
 The Spiritual Torpor and Religious Formality of the People 
 (29 ' 9-15) 
 
 9. ^ Tarry ye and wonder ; 
 
 2 Take your pleasure and be bhnd : 
 
 1 m. he ye amazed. 2 m. blind yourselves. 
 
 Jehovah will come as a swift and terrible storm — with thunder, 
 lightning, etc. Here the original message probably ends. 
 
 7 and 8 announce, in later fashion, the disappointment and 
 defeat of Jerusalem's enemies. They will be like dreamers who 
 awake to find themselves mocked by the reality; nay, they will 
 be even as an unsubstantial dream itself. 
 
 190 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ^ They are drunken, but not with wine ; 
 2 They stagger, but not with strong drink. 
 
 10. For the Lord hath poured out upon you 
 
 The spirit of deep sleep, Rom. u : 8 
 
 And hath closed your eyes, the prophets ; 
 
 And your heads, the seers, hath he covered. 
 
 11. And all vision is become unto you 
 
 As the words of a book that is sealed, which men Rev. 5 : i 
 dehver to one that is learned, saying, "Read 
 this, I pray thee" : and he saith, "I cannot, for 
 
 12. it is sealed" : and the book is delivered to him 
 that is not learned, saying, "Read this, I pray 
 thee" : and he saith, "I am not learned." 
 
 1 Gr. be drunken. 2 Gr. om. 
 
 9 f . Tarry : read with Cheyne : 
 
 " Stupefy yourselves and be stupid, 
 Blind yourselves and be blind; 
 Be drunken, but not with wine: 
 
 Stagger, but not with strong drink.'* 
 
 The imperatives are equivalent to very emphatic futures (cf. 
 8:9). The prophet means that their past apathy will be punished 
 by continued apathy (cf. 6 : 9 f.), which will render them insensible 
 to the signs of the coming storm (vs. 6) till it is upon them ; and 
 when they do open their sealed and stupid eyes, it will be to look 
 upon the awful flame of devouring fire (vs. 6), and they will reel 
 and stagger, amid that terrible storm, Hke drunken men. 
 
 ID. The Lord hath poured, etc. ; this torpor is, in one aspect, 
 a divine judicial penalty; in another, the effect of psychological 
 law — the atrophy of an unused faculty. God had closed their 
 eyes, but the people had closed their own eyes. With sealed eyes 
 and muffled heads they could see nothing. Omit the prophets 
 and the seers as glosses ; all the people are guilty — not these 
 only. 
 
 II f. All vision, the vision of all this. These verses illustrate the 
 complete spiritual incapacity of all classes, educated and illiterate. 
 No one can interpret the signs of the times, or believe in the com- 
 ing judgment. 
 
 191 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 13. And the Lord said, 
 
 "Forasmuch as this people draw nigh unto me, 
 And with their mouth and with their Hps do honour 
 me, 
 But ^ have removed their heart far from me, 
 And 2 their fear of me 
 
 Is a commandment of men which hath been taught 
 the^n ; 
 
 14. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous 
 
 work among this people. 
 Even a marvellous work and a wonder : 
 And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. 
 
 And the understanding of their prudent men shall 
 
 be hid. 
 
 15. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide 
 
 Their counsel from the Lord, 
 And their works are in the dark, 
 And they say, "Who seeth us? 
 
 And who knoweth us ? " 
 
 1 Gr. their heart is far from me (cf. Mat. 15 : 8). 2 Gr. in vain do they worship me, 
 teaching Hie commandments and doctrines of men (cf. Mat. 15 : 9). 
 
 13. With this spiritual obtuseness goes religious formality, 
 which imagines that religion is a matter of prescribed and recited 
 formulas, instead of being a thing of the heart. They draw nigh 
 with their mouth (omit and) — a very trenchant description of 
 insincere worship. 
 
 14. Because their worship was but a heartless lip-worship, 
 Jehovah will do some strange (cf. 28: 21) and marvellous thing 
 (cf. vs. 6), which will convince them of the futihty of all their 
 clever scheming (cf. vs. 15). 
 
 15. A woe (cf. 28 : I ; 29 : i) is pronounced upon those who hide 
 deep their purpose from Jehovah; i.e. who secretly negotiated 
 for an Egyptian alliance, without consulting Jehovah through his 
 prophet. Despite their secrecy, however, Isaiah is aware of their 
 plan. 
 
 192 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 29: 19 
 
 Doubters rebuked by a Vision of Israel's Welfare 
 IN THE Latter Days (29 : 16-24) 
 
 16. ^ Ye turn things upside down ! Shall the potter be 
 
 counted as clay ; 
 That the thing made should say of him that made it, Rom. 9: 20 
 
 ''He made me not ;" 
 Or the thing framed say of him that framed it, "He 
 
 hath no understanding" ? 
 
 17. Is it not a very little while. 
 
 And Lebanon shall be turned into ^ a fruitful field. 
 And ^ the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest ? 
 
 18. And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the 
 
 book. 
 And the eyes of the bUnd shall see out of obscurity and 
 out of darkness. 
 
 19. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, 
 
 1 m. your percersity I 2 q^. mount Cannel. 
 
 29 : 16-24. Some recent scholars believe that this section is the 
 work of a later age. It has no intimate relation to the context, 
 whose woes (29: 15; 30: i) are here replaced by tender promises. 
 
 16. Read with margin your perversity! The perversity of 
 those here addressed consisted in doubting whether their hopes of 
 Israel's deliverance and welfare would ever be realized. But 
 surely God, as the potter, has power to mould the clay. 
 
 17. A great transformation is impending, when the great 
 heathen world-power, typified by Lebanon (cf. 10: 34), shall be 
 levelled, like the field, and Israel, now lowly, shall be exalted like 
 the forest of Lebanon (cf. 32:15). Or the meaning may be that 
 the physical world will also be transformed, the fruitful becoming 
 more fruitful ; in that case, forest = luxurious forest. 
 
 18. In that day of transformation, the spiritually deaf and blind 
 will understand and respond to the ancient prophetic promise, 
 the words of the book which had hitherto been to them sealed 
 and unintelligible (vss. 11, 12). 
 
 19. 20. The humble, poor, crushed Jews would rejoice because, 
 
 o 193 
 
29:20 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy 
 One of Israel. 
 
 20. For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the 
 
 scorner ceaseth, 
 And all they that watch for iniquity are cut off : 
 
 21. That make a man an offender Hn a cause, 
 
 And lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, 
 And turn aside the just with a thing of nought. 
 
 22. Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, 
 
 concerning the house of Jacob : 
 Jacob shall not now be ashamed. 
 Neither shall his face now wax pale. 
 
 23. But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, 
 
 in the midst of him. 
 They shall sanctify my name ; 
 Yea, they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, 
 And shall stand in awe of the God of Israel. 
 
 ^m. by their words. 
 
 by the mercy of their God, the tyrant who oppressed them, the 
 apostates who scorned them, and all who were vigilant in the cause 
 of iniquity, would then have disappeared. 
 
 21. The offenders specially mentioned in vs. 21 are those who 
 denounce men with a word (rather than in a cause), i.e. calum- 
 niously ; those who lay a snare by speech or bribery, for him that 
 reproveth in the city gate (where cases were tried), i.e. for the judge 
 and those who with a thing of nought, i.e. on an empty pretext, 
 turn aside the just from the decision to which he is entitled. The 
 old sin of legal injustice (i : 17) will have vanished in that day. 
 
 22. Read: Therefore thus saith Jehovah, the God of the house of 
 Jacob, who redeemed Abraham. The future redemption of the 
 people (here called Jacob, as often Israel) will match the ancient 
 redemption of Abraham. 
 
 23. Omit his children. Read : when he (i.e. Jacob, the people) 
 seeth the work of mine hands, i.e. the glorious redemption and 
 transformation, the result will be a deeper reverence and awe 
 (cf. 8:13). 
 
 194 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 30:3 
 
 24. They also that err in spirit shall come to understanding, 
 And they that murmur shall learn doctrine. 
 
 The Egyptian Alliance a Ruinous Policy (30:1-17) 
 The Embassy to Egypt (30 : 1-5, 6 f.) 
 
 30. Woe to the rebeUious children, 
 
 Saith the Lord, 
 That take counsel, 
 
 But not of me ; 
 And that ^ cover with a covering, 
 
 But not of my spirit. 
 That they may add 
 
 Sin to sin : 
 
 2. That walk to go down into Egj^t, 
 
 And have not asked at my mouth ; 
 To 2 strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, 
 And to trust in the shadow of Egypt ! 
 
 3. Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame. 
 
 And the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. 
 
 1 m. weave a web or pour out a drink offering. "^m. flee to the stronghold of Pharaoh. 
 
 24. The erring and discontented Jews would then submit 
 themselves to the disciphne of the law. 
 
 30:1-17. The Egyptian alliance, already vaguely alluded to 
 (29: 15), is now explicitly described and denounced as at once a 
 folly and an apostasy. It is folly to trust to fickle Egypt ; and 
 trust in Egypt springs from that lack of confidence in Jehovah 
 which will bring the state, like a tottering wall, to sudden ruin. 
 
 I. Woe: cf. 28 : I ; 29: i, 15. For take counsel, read carry 
 out a purpose; for cover with a covering, read with margin, pour 
 out a drink ofering, i.e. make a treaty; and at end read adding 
 sin to sin. The children enter upon this important alliance with- 
 out consulting their father Jehovah (cf. i : 2) through his prophet 
 Isaiah (cf. 29 : 15). 
 
 2 f. To strengthen themselves, etc. : read to flee to the shelter of 
 Pharaoh. Egyptian help would prove a delusion. 
 
 195 
 
3014 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 4. For his princes are at Zoan, 
 
 And his ambassadors ^ are come to Hanes. 
 
 5. They shall all be ashamed 
 
 Of a people that cannot profit them, 
 That are not an help nor profit, 
 But a shame, and also a reproach. 
 
 6. The - burden of the beasts of the South. 
 
 Through the land of trouble and anguish, 
 From whence come the honess and the lion. 
 
 The viper and fiery flying serpent. 
 They carry their riches upon the shoulders of young 
 asses, 
 
 And their treasures upon the ^ bunches of camels. 
 To a people that shall not profit them. 
 
 1 Gr. shall labor in vain. 2 m, oracle concerning. ^ SV humps. 
 
 4 f. His, i.e. Pharaoh's. For Zoan, cf. 19 : 11 ; Hanes, south of 
 Memphis ; the two names indicate the northern and southern 
 limits of Egypt. Despite the extent of Pharaoh's sway, all 
 who, Hke Judah, appeal to him for help, come to shatne (or, by 
 another reading, come into bad odor). With some very slight 
 changes, however, a somewhat more appropriate rendering may 
 be obtained : For the princes {i.e. of Judah) have encamped in 
 Zoan, and his ambassadors reach Hanes ; they have all brought 
 presents to a people that cannot help. This picture of the royal 
 ambassadors of Judah with their presents would then be a compan- 
 ion to that of vss. 6 f. 
 
 6 f . This is an independent oracle, though parallel, in thought, 
 to the last. It describes the dangers of the South, the Negeb 
 (cf. 21 : I ), the wilderness south of Judah (cf. Deut. 8: 15), which 
 the Judaean ambassadors, their animals loaded with presents, had 
 to cross on their way to Egypt. In the somewhat obscure intro- 
 ductory words Oracle concerning the beasts of the south (cf. margin), 
 the beasts are perhaps those alluded to in the course of the verse. 
 For from whence come the lioness and the lion, read of the roaring 
 lion and lioness. Seq)ent, cf. 14 : 29. The dangers are enumer- 
 ated to illustrate the folly of the embassy, which is doomed in 
 
 196 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 30:10 
 
 7. For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose : 
 Therefore have I called her 
 
 Rahab that sitteth still. 
 
 Jtidah's Rebellion and Ruin (30 : 8-1 7) 
 
 8. Now go, write it before them on a tablet, 
 
 And inscribe it in a book, 
 That it may be for the time to come 
 ^ For ever and ever. 
 
 9. For it is a rebellious people, 
 
 Lying children, 
 Children that will not hear 
 The law of the Lord : 
 10. Which say to the seers, ''See not" ; 
 
 And to the prophets, "Prophesy not unto us right 
 things, 
 Speak unto us smooth things. 
 Prophesy deceits : 
 
 1 Syr. Vg. Tar. for a witness for ever. 
 
 advance to be fruitless. Rahab, etc. : these words are very ob- 
 scure. Almost all that is certain is that Rahab, a mythological 
 monster (Job 9 : 13), stands for Egypt (Ps. 87 : 4) with her bluster- 
 ing but impotent arrogance. 
 
 30:8-17. Isaiah's message has been received with mockery 
 (28: 10, 14). He therefore retires to his house, and commits it 
 to writing as an everlasting witness to the unbelief of his people. 
 
 8. Now that the message had been spurned (cf. 8:16-18). 
 The it is the message, whether the substance of Chaps. 28-30 or 
 more briefly the fine summary of it in 30 : 15 f. Read, with margin, 
 for a witness forever. 
 
 9 f . The law of Jehovah is instruction such as Isaiah had given 
 (cf. 1 : 10). There were others hke-minded with Isaiah, seers 
 and prophets, whose words w^ere also spurned. In vs. 10, as in 
 28 : 15, Isaiah puts his own estimate into the mouth of the people 
 when he makes them say prophesy illusions (or delusions). 
 
 197 
 
3o:il THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 11. Get you out of the way, 
 
 Turn aside out of the path, 
 Cause the Holy One of Israel 
 To cease from before us." 
 
 12. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, 
 "Because ye despise this word, 
 
 And trust in ^ oppression and perverseness, 
 And stay thereon ; 
 
 13. Therefore this iniquity 
 
 Shall be to you 
 As a breach ready to fall. 
 
 Swelling out in a high wall, 
 Whose breaking cometh suddenly 
 
 At an instant." 
 
 14. And he shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken, 
 
 Breaking it in pieces without sparing ; 
 So that there shall not be found 
 Among the pieces thereof a sherd ^ 
 
 1 Gr. falsehood. 2 SV adds wherewith. 
 
 11. Get ye out of the way, i.e. your way of teaching : the people 
 request the prophets to give up their threatening and alarming 
 message, and to trouble them no more with the Holy One of Israel. 
 This is a real revolt from God, though not a formal one ; for the 
 people who say this still '' draw near him with their mouth and 
 honor him with their lips " (29 : 13). But it is the holy, the moral, 
 demands of the prophets that provoke them ; it is their own will, 
 and not his, that they wish to see done (cf. 30 : i f.). 
 
 12. To their speech, vss. 10 f., the prophet rephes ; and the reply 
 is offered in the name of the holy One, with whom they wished to 
 have nothing to do. This word, denouncing the Egyptian alli- 
 ance, a policy here described as ivile (rather than oppression) 
 and craft. 
 
 13 f. A very expressive figure. As a wall in which a breach has 
 been made bulges out and finally comes suddenly crashing down, 
 so by her crooked policy will the state of Judah collapse in swift 
 and irretrievable ruin — with not a useful fragment left. 
 
 198 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 30:17 
 
 To take fire from the hearth, 
 
 Or to take water withal out of the cistern. 
 
 15. For thus saith the Lord God, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel, 
 "In returning and rest 
 
 Shall ye be saved ; 
 In quietness and confidence 
 
 Shall be your strength: 
 And ye would not. 
 
 16. But ye said, 'No, 
 
 For we will flee upon horses ' ; 
 
 Therefore shall ye flee : 
 And, ' We will ride upon the swift ' ; 
 
 Therefore shall they that pursue you be swift, 
 
 17. One thousand shall flee 
 
 At the ^ rebuke of one ; 
 At the ^ rebuke of five shall ye flee : 
 
 Till ye be left 
 As a ^ beacon upon the top of a mountain. 
 
 And as an ensign on a hill." 
 
 ^SY threat. ^ m. mast; SVm. pole. 
 
 15. This verse is a terse and splendid summary of Isaiah's 
 gospel. Judah's salvation depended upon her turning away (rather 
 than returning) from schemes of political ambition, and remaining 
 quiet; but this quietness was only possible to those who had 
 confidence in Jehovah, in his control of history and in the triumph 
 of his purpose. Therein lay the secret of all real strength. 
 
 16 f. To this quiet trust in the unseen God, Judah preferred the 
 substantial and visible support of Egyptian horses. Isaiah 
 grimly reminds them that the pursuing Assyrian horses would also 
 be swift; and then their heroism would vanish, a handful of 
 Assyrians {five) scattering them completely, the survivors being 
 as lonely as a beacon, mast (cf. margin), or signal pole on a hill. 
 Omit the first clause one thousand . . . of one (from Deut. 32 : 
 30?). 
 
 199 
 
3o:i8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Final Triumph and Prosperity op Jerusalem 
 (30: 18-33) 
 
 Forgiveness and Prosperity (30 : 18-26) 
 
 18. And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be 
 
 gracious unto you, 
 And therefore will he be exalted, that he may have 
 
 mercy upon you : 
 For the Lord is a God of judgement ; 
 Blessed are all they that wait for him. 
 
 19. ^ For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem : 
 Thou shalt weep no more ; 
 
 He will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of 
 
 thy cry ; 
 When he shall hear, he will answer thee. 
 
 20. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity 
 
 and the water of afHiction, 
 Yet shall not thy - teachers be hidden any more, 
 But thine eyes shall see thy ^ teachers : 
 
 1 m. people that dwellest. 2 jn_ teacher. 
 
 30: 18-33. This passage, with its vision of the divine pity and 
 forgiveness bestowed upon Jerusalem, of her brilliant material 
 and spiritual welfare, and of her signal triumph over Assyria, 
 is in very marked contrast to the last passage, to which it is ap- 
 pended rather than intimately related. It probably expresses the 
 hopes of a much later age. 
 
 18 f. The divine yearning ought to be met by the human; 
 " Jehovah longs to be gracious to you . . . Happy are all who 
 long for him." He is a God of judgment — rather of justice; 
 he helps Israel to her rightful place. In vs. 19, read : people in 
 Zion, that dwellest at Jerusalem, thou shalt -weep no more (cf. 25 : 8). 
 
 20 f. This bread and water, practically prison fare (i Kings 22 : 
 27), may suggest a siege. In the era of redemption which follows 
 Jehovah is — characteristically for post-exilic Judaism — re- 
 garded as Teacher ; yet thy Teacher (sing.) unll no more withdraw 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 30:25 
 
 21. And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying : 
 "This is the way, walk ye in it": when ye turn to the 
 
 right hand, and when ye turn to the left. 
 
 22. And lye shall defile the overlaying of thy graven 
 
 images of silver, 
 And the plating of thy molten images of gold : 
 Thou shalt cast them away as an ^ unclean thing ; 
 Thou shalt say unto it, "Get thee hence." 
 
 23. And he shall give the rain of thy seed that thou shalt 
 
 sow the ground withal ; 
 And bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall 
 
 be fat and plenteous : 
 In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. 
 
 24. The oxen Hkewise and the young asses that till the 
 
 ground 
 Shall eat ^ savoury provender, which hath been win- 
 nowed with the shovel and with the fan. 
 
 25. And there shall be upon every lofty mountain. 
 
 And upon every high hill rivers and streams of water. 
 In the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 
 
 1 Gr. Vg. thou slialt. 2 Heb. menstruoiis . ^ Heb. salted. 
 
 himself — he would remain in Zion (4 : 5 f .) — hut thine eyes shall 
 continually see thy Teacher, who would always be ready with a 
 word of instruction for those who turned aside. 
 
 22. With such a teacher, the people would naturally abandon 
 idolatry, and destroy its symbols as Moses did the golden calf 
 (Exod. 32 : 20). 
 
 23-25. Spiritual blessings (vss. 20 f.) would be crowned with 
 material (Mat. 6:33). In those great days, the land would be 
 gloriously fertile ; even the animals would share in the general 
 prosperity — for God does care for the oxen (i Cor. 9:9). They 
 are to have salted provender, of which they are specially fond. 
 From the hills, so frequently parched, would stream abundance of 
 water in those latter days, in the day of the great slaughter of 
 the proud heathen, who are here perhaps intended by the towers. 
 
30:26 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 26. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of 
 
 the sun, 
 And the Hght of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light 
 
 of seven days. 
 In the day that the Lord bindeth up the hurt of his 
 
 people. 
 And healeth the stroke of their wound. 
 
 The Glorious Triumph (30 : 27-33) 
 
 27. Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far. 
 
 Burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke : 
 His lips are full of indignation. 
 
 And his tongue is as a devouring fire : 
 
 28. And his breath is as an overflowing stream, 
 
 That reacheth even unto the neck. 
 To sift the nations with the sieve of vanity : 
 
 And a bridle that causeth to err shall he in the jaws 
 of the peoples. 
 
 29. Ye shall have a song 
 
 26. The glory of the earth would be matched by the glory of 
 the heavens, the moon shining with the brilliance of the sun, and 
 the sun with seven times its normal splendor. 
 
 27. The name of the LORD, that is, Jehovah in some glorious 
 manifestation, is coming. This fine description of the manifesta- 
 tion combines the figures of a storm and an angry face. The 
 tongue of fire is the Hghtning that flashes from the heavy rising 
 clouds. 
 
 28. In this verse the figure changes three times : (i) his breath 
 is compared to a mountain torrent, suddenly rising to men's 
 necks; (ii) he sifts the heathen nations with a sieve which re- 
 duces them to nothing — that is, sifts them till they are annihi- 
 lated; (iii) he is a bridle, restraining the nations, and guiding 
 them astray, that is, to destruction. 
 
 29. When so mighty a God assails Israel's enemies, victory 
 must be hers ; and therefore a glad song of thanksgiving and praise 
 shall he yours, — a song which, for gladness, can only be compared 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 30:33 
 
 As in the night when a holy feast is kept ; 
 And gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe 
 To come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock 
 of Israel. 
 
 30. And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard. 
 
 And shall shew the hghting down of his arm. 
 With the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a 
 devouring fire, 
 With a ^ blast, and tempest, and hailstones. 
 
 31. For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian 
 
 be broken in pieces, 
 2 Which smote with a rod. 
 
 32. And every ^ stroke of the appointed staff, 
 
 Which the Lord shall lay upon him. 
 Shall be with tabrets and harps : 
 
 And in battles of shaking will he fight with them. 
 
 33. For a Topheth is prepared of old ; yea, for the king it 
 
 is made ready ; 
 
 1 m. crashing. 2 m. ^th his rod shall he smite him. 3 Heb. passing. 
 
 to that of the holy festival, whether the harvest feast of ingather- 
 ing, or (because of the reference to the night) the passover; or 
 to the joy of those who march, to the sound of music, in festal 
 procession to the temple. These comparisons are instinct with 
 the joy of worship. 
 
 30. Jehovah fights for his people as the God of the storm, with 
 his angry thunder and lightning and hail, as long ago he fought 
 against the Canaanites (Josh. 10: 11). 
 
 31. The awful thunder-peal creates a panic artiong the enemy. 
 It is difiicult to say whether the last clause should be referred to 
 the Assyrians (RV text) or to Jehovah (RV m.). 
 
 32. The blows which Jehovah rains upon the enemy will be 
 accompanied by music on the part of the delighted Jews; with 
 music also the Victor is greeted (Exod. 15: 20) . Battles of shaking 
 are battles in which Jehovah swings his mighty arm (cf. 19 : 16). 
 
 33. Read, A pyre has been made ready beforehand, deep and 
 wide ; that is, for burning the Assyrian dead. To a Hebrew ear, 
 
 203 
 
31 : 1 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 He hath made it deep and large : 
 The pile thereof is fire and much wood ; 
 The breath of the Loed, Hke a stream of brimstone, 
 doth kindle it. 
 
 The Folly of the Egyptlvn Alll\nce (31 : 1-4) 
 
 31. Woe to them that go down 
 
 To Egypt for help, 
 And stay on horses ; 
 
 And trust in chariots, because they are many, 
 And in horsemen, 
 
 Because they are very strong ; 
 But they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, 
 
 Neither seek the Lord ! 
 
 2. Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil. 
 
 And will not call back his words : 
 But will arise against the house of the evil-doers. 
 And against the help of them that work iniquity. 
 
 3. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God ; 
 
 And their horses flesh, and not spirit : 
 
 the word for pyre would suggest Topheth, in the valley of Hinnom, 
 where sacrifices were ofifered to Molech. This may explain the 
 words, Is this also for Molech? (or for the king, that is, the king of 
 Assyria), which appear to be a later insertion. The meaning is 
 that in a huge fire, carefully prepared and kindled by Jehovah 
 himself, the heathen dead will be consumed. There is a touch of 
 bitterness about these last verses. The writer contemplates, 
 with grim satisfaction, the annihilation of his people's foes. 
 
 31 : 1-4. The theme of this passage is the same as that of 30 : 1-7. 
 
 1. "Woe: cf. 30: I. The contrast is striking between trust in 
 Egyptian cavalry (cf. 30 : 16) and trust in God. 
 
 2. He also is wise, as well as the politicians; they have their 
 plans, he has his. And his words — his threats through the prophet 
 Isaiah — he has not recalled. The evil-doers are the Judaeans, 
 their help the Egyptians. 
 
 3. The Egyptians . . . spirit: one of the most remarkable 
 
 204 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 31:5 
 
 And when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, 
 
 Both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that 
 is holpen shall fall, 
 And they all shall fail together. 
 
 4. For thus saith the Lord unto me, 
 Like as when the Hon growleth, 
 
 And the young lion over his prey, 
 If a multitude of shepherds 
 
 Be called forth against him. 
 He will not be dismayed at their voice, 
 
 Nor abase himself for the noise of them : 
 So shall the Lord of hosts come down 
 
 To fight 1 upon mount Zion, and ^ upon the hill 
 thereof. 
 
 The Enemy's Downfall (31 : 5-9) 
 
 5. As birds flying, 
 
 So will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem ; 
 
 1 m. against. 
 
 statements in the Old Testament. The contrast between God 
 and man, the spiritual and the material, could not be more abso- 
 lutely stated. God is one, history is the arena for the exhibition 
 of his victorious purpose, he and his spiritual order must be trium- 
 phant. He has but to stretch out his omnipotent hand, and all 
 human might is laid low. 
 
 4. Like as when the lion growleth, etc. This is an altogether 
 glorious simile, and as daring as it is glorious, v^-hen the last clause 
 is correctly translated ; so shall Jehovah of Hosts come down to 
 fight against (not upon) mount Zion. Like a lion, Jehovah will 
 hold Jerusalem in his terrible grasp — the allusion is to the Assyr- 
 ian siege — and all the clamor of the shepherds (the Egyptian 
 allies) will be powerless to scare him away. 
 
 31 : 5-9. This passage is a foil to the last, as 30: 27-33 was to 
 30 : 1-17, and probably comes from a later age. 
 
 5. The contrast between the divine Defender of vs. 5 and the 
 
 205 
 
31 : 6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 He will protect it and deliver it 
 He will pass over and preserve it. 
 
 6. Turn ye unto him from whom ^ ye have deeply re- 
 
 7. volted, O children of Israel. For in that day they 
 shall cast away every man his idols of silver, and his 
 idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto 
 you 2 for a sin. 
 
 8. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of 
 
 man ; 
 And the sword, not of men, shall devour him : 
 And he shall flee from the sword, 
 
 And his young men shall become tributary. 
 
 9. And his rock shall pass away by reason of terror, 
 
 And his princes shall be dismayed at the ensign, 
 Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, 
 And his furnace in Jerusalem. 
 
 m. from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. 2 Qj-. om. 
 
 roaring Lion of vs. 4 is so startling as to justify the belief that the 
 original form of the verse may have been modified. After the 
 phrase like fluttering birds, the words that follow, as Marti suggests, 
 may once have been something like — the boastful defenders (the 
 " wise " politicians and their Egyptian allies) will flee away. As 
 the verse now stands, pass over recalls the passover and the 
 deliverance from Egypt (Exod. 12 : 13). 
 
 6 f. are a call to repentance, which involves the abolition of 
 idolatry (cf. 30 : 22 and 2 : 20). 
 
 8. The x^ssyrian is to perish in some supernatural way, and his 
 young men shall be put to taskwork. 
 
 9. His rock, etc. This clause, which is obscure, means either 
 (a) he shall flee past his rock (that is, his refuge) for terror; or {b) 
 his rock (that is, the troops on which he relied) will pass {i.e. 
 vanish) like the chaff (cf . 29 : 5) in terror. And his princes or 
 officers shall flee in dismay from the standard. The fire and the 
 furnace probably refer to the pyre prepared for the enemy 
 (30:33)- 
 
 206 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 32:5 
 
 Rulers and People in the Coming Days (32 : 1-8) 
 
 32. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, 
 And princes shall rule in judgement. 
 
 2. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, 
 
 And a covert from the tempest ; 
 As rivers of water in ^ a dry place, 
 
 As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
 
 3. 2 And the eyes of them that see shall not be ^ dim. 
 
 And the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 
 
 4. The heart also of the ^ rash shall understand knowledge. 
 
 And the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to 
 speak plainly. 
 
 5. The ^ vile person shall no more be called ^ liberal, 
 
 Nor the churl said to be bountiful. 
 
 1 Gr. Zion. 2 Gr. and they shall no more put confidence in men. ^ m. closed. * Heb. 
 hasty. 5 m. SV fool. '> m. SV tioble. 
 
 Chap. 32. This chapter, whether Isaiah's or not, presents, 
 except in vss. 9-14, a fine picture of the blessed days to come, in 
 which just government, pure religion, and general prosperity 
 will prevail. 
 
 I f. The government. The government, ruling in justice, will 
 be a welcome contrast to the corrupt nobility so often alluded to in 
 Chaps. 28-31. A man, i.e. each man, each ruler, will be a source 
 of protection and comfort to those in danger or distress. The 
 political leaders will be men of character, strong and just. 
 
 The People (vss. 3-5). 3 f. Dim: read with margin, closed. 
 In the people there will be religious responsiveness, in place of 
 their former callousness (6 : 10; 29 : 9). Rashness will give place 
 to wise and careful deliberation ; and decisions, when reached, 
 will be expressed in language clear and ready. 
 
 5. Things and people will be called by their right names — a 
 nobleman must be a noble man, and a gentleman a gentle man. 
 These great words must not be applied to aristocrats and others 
 who do not deserve them. The fool who ignores God (cf. Ps. 14 : i) 
 shall no more be called noble, nor the fraudulent successful man any 
 more named fortunate (cf. G. A. Smith). 
 
 207 
 
32:6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 6. For the vile person will speak villany, 
 
 And his heart will ^ work iniquity, 
 To practise profaneness, 
 
 And to utter error against the Lord, 
 To make empty the soul of the hungry, 
 
 And to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. 
 
 7. The instruments also of the churl are evil : 
 
 He deviseth wicked devices 
 To destroy the - meek with lying words, 
 Even when the needy speaketh right. 
 
 8. But the liberal deviseth Hberal things ; 
 
 And ^ in liberal things shall he continue. 
 
 Warning to the Women (32 : 9-14) 
 
 9. Rise up, ye women that are at ease, 
 
 And hear my voice ; 
 Ye * careless daughters, 
 Give ear unto my speech. 
 10. For days beyond a year 
 
 Shall ye be troubled, ye careless women : 
 
 1 Gr. Tar. devise. ^ m. poor. ' m, j_y Uheral things shall he stand, * Heb. confident. 
 
 6-8 is a little excursus, in the style of the proverbs, on the fool 
 SLud the fraudulent (or knave). What we have in vss. 6 f. is a de- 
 scription of the practical atheist (fool) whose irrehgion leads him 
 to cruelty, injustice — in brief, to immorahty. In contrast with 
 him is the noble man (vs. 8) who backs up noble intentions by 
 noble deeds. 
 
 32:9-14. This warning and announcement of doom, which 
 interrupts the description of the coming days, recalls 3: 16-4: i. 
 Here, as there, it is aristocratic women (cf. vs. 14) who are threat- 
 ened. 
 
 9. Careless — confident (cf. margin) in a bad sense. In its 
 good sense, confidence is the very quality for which Isaiah had 
 pled in the great passage 30 : 15. 
 
 10-13. ^or days beyond a year: rather, in a little (a few days) 
 208 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 32 : 15 
 
 For the vintage shall fail, 
 The ingathering shall not come. 
 
 11. Tremble, ^ ye women that are at ease ; 
 
 Be troubled, ye careless ones : 
 Strip you, and make you bare. 
 
 And gird sackcloth upon your loins. 
 
 12. They shall smite upon the breasts 
 For the pleasant fields. 
 
 For the fruitful vine 
 
 13. Upon the land of my people 
 
 Shall come up thorns and briers ; 
 Yea, upon all the houses of joy 
 In the joyous city : 
 
 14. For the palace shall be forsaken ; 
 
 The populous city shall be deserted ; 
 2 The hill and the watch-tower shall be dens for ever, 
 A joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks. 
 
 The Security and Prosperity of the Coming Days 
 (32 : 15-20) 
 
 15. Until the spirit be poured 
 Upon us from on high, 
 
 Gr. om. 2 m. Ophel. 
 
 more than a year. The vintage and the fruit would not be gathered, 
 in consequence of the devastation of the land by the enemy. 
 For this devastation, the women are called upon to show every 
 sign of mourning. 
 
 14. The reference to the palace, and the hill (Hebrew Ophel, 
 the southeastern spur of mount Zion on which palace and temple 
 stood) shows that the women are aristocrats. Those palatial 
 quarters were doomed to be an everlasting desolation, over which 
 the wild ass would roam. 
 
 32: 15-20. This Messianic picture is related to the preceding 
 threat against the women, much as 4 : 2-6 is related to 3 : 16-4 : i, 
 
 209 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And the wilderness become a fruitful field, 
 
 And the fruitful field be counted for a forest. 
 
 1 6. Then ^ judgement shall dwell in the wilderness, 
 
 And righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field. 
 
 17. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; 
 
 And the effect of righteousness quietness and con- 
 fidence for ever. 
 
 18. And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation, 
 
 And in sure dwelhngs, and in quiet resting places, 
 
 19. But it shall hail, in the downfall of the forest ; 
 
 And the city shall be utterly laid low. 
 
 20. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters. 
 
 That send forth the feet of the ox and the ass. 
 
 1 SY justice. 
 
 but it connects rather with vss. 1-5 than with 9-14, where the 
 desolation is said to be forever, and consequently such a hope as is 
 here held out is excluded. Perhaps until was added to connect 
 the two passages. 
 
 15. The spirit which is poured from on high transforms both 
 the land and the people. The fertile field is so thick sown with 
 trees as to look like a. forest (cf. 29: 17). The marvellous fruit- 
 fulness of the land is a frequent trait in these descriptions (cf. 4:2). 
 
 16. Justice will reign everywhere, even in the wilderness, where 
 lawlessness is wont to prevail (Gen. 16 : 12). 
 
 17. This all-prevailing justice will produce a sense of security, 
 very different from the false security of vs. 9. In the second clause 
 read : and the efect of justice shall be everlasting confideyice. 
 
 19. This verse, whose first clause should perhaps read. And 
 down will come the forest with a downfall, rather curiously interrupts 
 the context. The forest is apparently the hostile world power 
 (cf. 10 : 33 f.) and the city its capital city (25:2; 26:5); unless 
 the proper place of the verse is after vs. 14, in which case the city 
 would be Jerusalem. 
 
 20. Everywhere the land is well-watered (30: 25), and the ox 
 and the ass may be sent forth to pasture, with nothing to fear 
 from wild beasts (11 : 6-8). 
 
 This idyllic picture of agricultural peace and prosperity, fol- 
 lowing upon the establishment of a just government, powerfully 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 33:2 
 
 The Present Distress and the Future Glory of 
 Jerusalem (Ch. ^,2)) 
 
 The Distress (33 : 1-9) 
 
 33. Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled ; 
 And dealest treacherously, and they dealt not 
 treacherously with thee ! 
 When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled ; 
 And when thou hast made an end to deal treach- 
 erously, they shall deal treacherously with thee. 
 
 2. O Lord, be gracious unto us ; 
 We have waited for thee : 
 Be thou ^ their arm every morning, 
 
 Our salvation also in the time of trouble. 
 
 1 Tar. S3T. Vg. our. 
 
 recalls II : i-8, where the very same sequence is observable (vss. 
 1-5 and 6-8). The ideal exhibited in this chapter is very at- 
 tractive. Its background is country Hfe, and its basis is a just 
 government. Character counts for much. The king and his 
 officers are strong, just men, the people are keenly alive to 
 moral distinctions, justice and honor prevail even in the remoter 
 parts of the land, the land itself is a very garden, and even the 
 animals^ share in the glad sense of security enjoyed by the people. 
 Chap. 33. With increasing confidence this chapter is being rele- 
 gated, on the strength of its language and its thought, to the 
 postexihc period, though its precise place there is difficult to 
 determine. Whatever be its origin, it forms a very striking and 
 eloquent conclusion to the group in which it occurs (Chaps. 28-33), 
 summarizing as it does the deep sorrow and the radiant hopes 
 expressed elsewhere in this section. 
 
 1. Woe : cf. 28 : I ; 29 : i, etc. 
 
 Woe, thou spoiler — thyself not despoiled; 
 Thou robber, when none has robbed thee. 
 
 Who is meant by the spoiler and the robber will depend upon the 
 date — in any case, some oppressor of Israel ; and sure nemesis 
 awaits him. 
 
 2. An interjected prayer. Their arm; perhaps our arm. 
 
 211 
 
33-3 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 3. At the noise of the tumult the peoples are fled ; 
 
 At the Hfting up of thyself the nations are scattered. 
 
 4. And your spoil shall be gathered as the caterpillar 
 
 gathereth : 
 As locusts leap shall they leap upon it. 
 
 5. The Lord is exalted ; for he dwelleth on high : 
 
 He hath filled Zion with judgement and righteousness, 
 
 6. And there shall be stabihty in thy times, abundance 
 
 of salvation, 
 Wisdom and knowledge : the fear of the Lord ^ is his 
 treasure. 
 
 7. Behold, their valiant ones cry without : 
 
 The ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. 
 
 8. The high ways lie waste. 
 
 The wayfaring man ceaseth : 
 He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, 
 He regardeth not man. 
 
 9. The land mourneth and languisheth : 
 
 Lebanon is ashamed and withereth away : 
 
 1 Gr. these are the treasures of righteousness. 
 
 3 f. The tumult is that of the divine judgment. Jehovah, who 
 has routed and scattered the nations before, can and will do so 
 again. For yoiu: spoil read simply spoil. Shall be gathered, i.e. 
 by the Jews. Shall they leap, i.e. the Jews. 
 
 5 f. Jehovah, as the transcendent God (on high), has made Jeru- 
 salem a treasure-house of spiritual blessings — righteousness 
 (cf. 1 : 26), wisdom, and religion. For his treasure, read its {i.e. 
 Zion's) treasure. 
 
 7-9. Despite the spiritual glory described (or, as some say, 
 predicted) in 5 f., the present situation is very terrible. The 
 Jews have suffered in some grievous way from the treachery and 
 arrogant cruelty of the foe, and nature is conceived as mourning 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Sharon is like ^ a desert : 
 And Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. 
 
 The Deliverance {^t^ : 10-24) 
 
 10. "Now will I arise," saith the Lord ; 
 
 "Now will I Hft up myself ; now will I be exalted. 
 
 11. Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: 
 
 Your breath is a fire that shall devour you. 
 
 12. And the peoples shall be as the burnings of hme : 
 
 As thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire. 
 
 13. ^.Hear, ye that are afar off, what I have done; 
 
 And, ye that are near, acknowledge my might." 
 
 14. The sinners in Zion are afraid ; 
 
 Trembling hath surprised the godless ones. 
 "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? 
 Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings ? 
 
 1 m. the Arahah. 2 Gr. they that are afar of shall hear . . . and they that are near 
 shall acknowledge. 
 
 in sympathy (cf. 24: 4). Sharon, the plain between Carmel and 
 Joppa. Bashan (north of Gilead) and mount Carmel, i.e. the 
 trees in Bashan and on Carmel. 
 
 ia-12. Jehovah's answer to the lament invss. 7-9. Now, three 
 times — emphatic; dehverance is very near. Vs. 11 pictorially 
 describes the ultimate futility of the efforts of the foe — the last 
 clause perhaps reading my breath shall devour you like fire, which 
 will burn them as if to Ihfte (vs. 12). 
 
 13, 14a. This signal judgment will astonish the whole world, 
 and terrify the sinners in Zion, i.e. the unfaithiul Jews. Read 
 (with the Greek version) : 
 
 Those thai are afar of shall hear what I have done,^ 
 And those that are near shall acknowledge my might. 
 
 14b. Who among us shall dwell, etc. : the terrified cry of the 
 sinners in Zion, as they watch the impending judgment. The 
 devouring fire and everlasting burnings indicate the presence of 
 
 213 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 15. He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly, 
 
 He that despiseth the gain of oppressions, 
 That shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, 
 
 That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, 
 And shutteth his ears from looking upon evil : 
 
 16. He shall dwell on high : 
 
 His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks : 
 His bread shall be given hhn; his waters shall 
 be sure. 
 
 17. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty : 
 
 They shall behold ^ a far stretching land. 
 
 18. Thine heart shall muse on the terror : 
 
 Where is he that counted, where is he that weighed 
 the tribute? 
 
 1 Heb. a land of far distances. 
 
 Jehovah, who appears in fire (Deut. 5 : 24-26), protecting the faith- 
 ful (Isa. 4 : 5) and destroying the wicked. 
 
 15 f. The elaborate answer to the question in vs. 14 powerfully 
 recalls the description of the good man in Pss. 15 and 24. Though 
 more vigorous than those psalms, it is no doubt modelled on them, 
 and probably in its original form contained only the first two 
 clauses. The man who walketh righteously and speaketh up- 
 rightly is compared to one who is safe within a high rock fortress, 
 inaccessible and well-provisioned. The assailants, the judgment, 
 cannot touch or terrify him. 
 
 17. Of those glorious days, the king (whether the Messianic 
 king, or, as in vs. 22, Jehovah himself) and the far-stretching land 
 (recaUing in its extent the ancient Davidic kingdom) are neces- 
 sary features. 
 
 18. The terror, that is now forever past and nothing but a 
 memory, was the sight of the hated foreign tyrant, who counted 
 and weighed the tribute which unhappy Jerusalem, in her subjec- 
 tion, had to pay into his hands. Where is he that counted the 
 towers? apparently with a view to attack. But, as this is not 
 very satisfactory in the context, Cheyne has emended the verse to 
 mean: Where are the tablet-writers? Where are the measuring 
 clerks ? 
 
 214 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 33^22 
 
 Where is he that counted the towers ? 
 
 19. Thou shalt not see the fierce people, 
 
 A people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive ; 
 Of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand. 
 
 20. Look upon Zion, the .city of our ^ solemnities : 
 Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem 
 
 A quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, 
 The stakes whereof shall never be plucked up, 
 Neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. 
 
 21.2 But there the Lord will be with us in majesty, 
 A place of broad rivers and streams ; 
 Wherein shall go no galley with oars, 
 Neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. 
 
 22. For the Lord is our judge. 
 The Lord is our lawgiver, 
 
 even 
 
 u set feasts. 2 Gr. for the name of the Lord is great to you; ye shall have a place, 
 rivers and broad aitd spacious channels. Thou shalt not go this way, neither shall 
 
 vessel with oars pass by. 
 
 19. The insolent foreign oppressors, with their unintelligible 
 jargon, would be seen no more. 
 
 20. Jerusalem would henceforth enjoy permanent security, 
 never again being compelled to travel into exile ; not like a tent 
 that is taken down and moved, but a city that abides (Heb. 1 1 : 9 f .) . 
 
 21. There is a magnificent haunting music about the EngHsh 
 words of this verse, though the Hebrew appears to need some slight 
 emendation, and the precise meaning of the latter half of the verse 
 is not certain. The general sense, however, is clear. The unseen 
 river of Jehovah, whose praises are so splendidly sung in Ps. 46, 
 is the real defence of Jerusalem, mightier far than the broad 
 streams, for example, of the Tigris and Euphrates (cf. Isa. 8 : 6 f.). 
 Perhaps the first two clauses originally ran somewhat as follows : 
 
 There we shall have the river of Jehovah, 
 
 A (or in) place of hroad encompassing streams. 
 
 (Cheyne.) 
 
 215 
 
23 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Lord is our King ; 
 He will save us. 
 
 23. Thy tacklings are loosed ; 
 
 They could not strengthen the foot of their mast, 
 They could not spread the sail. 
 
 Then was the prey of a great spoil divided ; 
 The lame took the prey. 
 
 24. And the inhabitant shall not say, "I am sick" ; 
 
 The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their 
 iniquity. 
 
 The passage forcibly recalls Ezek. 47 : 1-12 ; in that case Jehovah's 
 river may itself be a place of broad streams. Or the meaning 
 may be that this gentle stream (Isa. 8:6) is in place of the broad 
 streams of other earthly rivers. In it no ships will be seen. 
 Jehovah is our king, He will save us (vss. 22) ; and such a people 
 needs not the defence of warships. 
 
 23 f. Thy tacklings . . . the sail. These three clauses, de- 
 scribing a helpless ship upon the sea, appear to have crept in, 
 under the influence of the imagery in vs. 21, from some other 
 source. Then . . . prey. These clauses, which should perhaps 
 read : 
 
 Then will the blind divide spoil in abundance, 
 A nd the lame seize the prey, 
 
 reaffirm the hope of vs. 4. Saved by Jehovah (vs. 22), the Jews 
 will be triumphant, healed, and forgiven. 
 
 216 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE (Chaps. 34, 35) 
 The Day of Vengeance (Chap. 34) 34 
 
 The Destruction of the Nations (34 : 1-4) 
 
 34. Come near, ye nations, to hear ; 
 And hearken, ye peoples : 
 Let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof ; 
 The world, and all things that come forth of it. 
 
 2. For the Lord hath indignation against all the nations, 
 And fury against all their host : 
 He hath ^ utterly destroyed them, 
 He hath delivered them to the slaughter. 
 
 1 Heb. put them under the ban. 
 
 Chaps. 34 and 35. These brilliant chapters, exuberant alike 
 in their hatred of Edom and in their affection for Judah, were 
 probably set here as a fitting conclusion to the first great section 
 of the book of Isaiah (Chaps. 1-35). The passage may be very 
 late, and in any case must be post-exihc, as it shows dependence 
 upon the latter half of the book of Isaiah (40 £f.), and also upon 
 Chaps. 13 f. In spite, however, of its literary dependence, it is 
 written with an impetuosity and a glow which have few parallels 
 in prophecy. 
 
 Chap. 34. Here, as frequentl}^, though not always, in the Old 
 Testament, the golden age has two aspects: it involves not only 
 the happiness of the Jews, but also the complete destruction of all 
 that is opposed to Zion. Of the hostile nations Edom was the 
 most detested, and upon her most of the writer's passionate ha- 
 tred is poured. 
 
 I f. The nations are summoned to their destruction, and no 
 reason is assigned for the divine indignation. It is enough that 
 the world as a whole is conceived as hostile to Judah, and all that 
 Judah stands for ; no doubt bitter historical experiences lie behind 
 such a conception. The fulness of the earth, and all things that 
 come forth of it, are phrases for the men upon it. 
 
 217 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 3. Their slain also shall be cast out, 
 
 And the stink of their carcasses shall come up, 
 And the mountains shall be melted with their blood. 
 
 4. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved. 
 
 And the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll : 
 
 And all their host shall fade away. 
 As the leaf fadeth from off the vine, 
 And as a fading leaf from the fig tree. 
 
 The Destruction of Edom (34 : 5-17) 
 
 For my sword hath drunk 
 Its fill in heaven : 
 
 3 f . Slain, they will lie unburied. It is a gruesome picture — 
 smelling corpses, and mountains drenched with blood. The first 
 clause of vs. 4 should probably parallel the last clause of vs. 3, 
 thus: 
 
 The mountains shall melt with their blood, 
 And all the hills shall dissolve. 
 
 The heavens shall be rolled, etc. : the physical world is involved 
 in the catastrophe (cf. 24: 19 f.). 
 
 34: 5-17. The hatred of the foreign world, with which the first 
 four verses are charged, concentrates itself upon Edom. The 
 feud between Edom and Israel was of very ancient origin (cf. 
 Gen. 25: 22-26), but it was raised to fever heat by Edom's cruel 
 treatment of Israel when Jerusalem fell and her people were taken 
 into exile (Ezek. 25: 12; Ps. 137) — cruelty which Israel never 
 forgot or forgave ; and the hostility was fomented by subsequent 
 Edomite encroachments upon Judaean territory. These facts 
 help to explain the bitterness of this passage and the almost fierce 
 delight with which the writer contemplates the ruin of Edom. 
 
 5. The vs. should perhaps run : 
 
 For already drunk with his wrath 
 
 Is the sword of Jehovah in heaven, 
 Behold, it descends upon Edom, 
 
 For judgment — upon the folk of his ban. 
 
 For the ban, cf. Deut. 3 : 6. 
 
 218 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 34:10 
 
 Behold, it shall come down upon Edom, 
 And upon the people of my ^ curse, to judgement. 
 
 6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, 
 
 It is made fat with fatness. 
 With the blood of lambs and goats. 
 With the fat of the kidneys of rams : 
 
 For the Lord hath a sacrifice in ^ Bozrah, 
 And a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 
 
 7. And the wild-oxen shall ^ come down with them, 
 
 And the bullocks with the bulls ; 
 
 And their land shall be drunken with blood, 
 And their dust made fat with fatness. 
 
 8. For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, 
 
 The year of recompence in the controversy of Zion. 
 
 9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch. 
 
 And the dust thereof into brimstone, 
 And the land thereof -^^ 
 
 Shall become burning pitch. 
 
 10. It shall not be quenched night nor day ; 
 
 The smoke thereof shall go up for ever : Rev. 19 : 3 
 
 From generation to generation it shall lie waste ; 
 None shall pass through it for ever and ever. 
 
 2 Heb. ban. 3 Qr. Bosor. * Gr. fall down. 
 
 6 f. The Edomites are compared to sacrificial animals, the ani- 
 mals of vs. 6 representing the common people, those of vs. 7 the 
 leaders. Bozrah, one of Edom's chief cities. 
 
 9 f. A fearful picture — Edom will be a sort of hell. The im- 
 agery recalls the story of Sodom (Gen. 19 : 24 f.). 
 
 219 
 
34: II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 11. But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; 
 
 And the owl and the raven shall dwell therein : 
 And he shall stretch over it 
 
 The Une of confusion and the ^ plummet of emptiness. 
 
 12. 2 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, 
 But none shall be there ; 
 
 And all her princes shall be nothing. 
 
 13. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, 
 
 Nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof : 
 And it shall be an habitation of jackals, 
 A court for ostriches, 
 
 14. And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the 
 
 ^ wolves. 
 Rev. 18:2 And the ^ satyr shall cry to his fellow ; 
 
 Yea, ^ the night monster shall settle there, 
 And shall find her a place of rest. 
 
 iHeb. stones, ^va. as for her nobles, none shall he there to proclaim the kingdom; 
 Gr. satyrs shall dwell therein, her rulers shall be no more, for her kings and her great men 
 hall be destroyed. ^ Heb. howling creatures. ^ m. he-goat ; SV wild goat, s Heb. Liliths. 
 
 11. With this picture of the fiery land, the following vss., 
 describing the desolation of Edom are, strictly speaking, incon- 
 sistent. They combine to intensify the horror of Edom's fate. 
 Confusion and emptiness are the words used in Gen. i : 2 to de- 
 scribe primeval chaos. The words line and plummet (lit. stones), 
 strictly applicable to building, are here used to suggest the inexo- 
 rable thoroughness of the destruction. 
 
 12. This verse, which is metrically defective, may thus be re- 
 stored with the help of the Greek version : 
 
 Satyrs shall dwell therein, 
 
 Its nobles shall be no more; 
 There will be no kingdom there to proclaim. 
 
 And all its princes shall pass away. 
 
 13. Cf. 13: 21 f. 
 
 14. Satyr, a demon in the form of a wild goat (cf. SV). The 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 15. There shall the arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, 
 
 And hatch, and gather under her shadow ; 
 Yea, there shall the kites be gathered, 
 Every one with her mate. 
 
 16. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read : 
 
 No one of these shall be missing. 
 None shall want her mate : 
 For ^ m.y mouth it hath commanded, 
 And his spirit it hath gathered them. 
 
 17. And he hath cast the lot for them, 
 
 And his hand hath divided it unto them by Hne : 
 They sh?Jl possess it for ever, 
 From generation to generation shall they dwell 
 therein. 
 
 The Joy of the Redeemed (Ch. 35) 
 
 35. The wilderness and ^ the solitary place shall be glad ; 
 And the desert shall rejoice and blossom. 
 
 1 Gr. the Lord. ^ nj parched land. 
 
 night-monster, Liliih, a demon of the night, which was supposed 
 to persecute sleepers, slay children, etc. 
 
 15. For gather under her shadow, read brood over her eggs 
 (Duhm). 
 
 16. The Book of Jehovah, if it does not point to a large and 
 practical canonical collection of prophecies, appears at least to 
 include the iirst section of Isaiah (Chaps. 1-35), of which this 
 oracle on Edom forms a part. The writer virtually means that 
 the time will come when all that is predicted for Edom will have 
 been demonstrably fulfilled. For my mouth, read the mouth of 
 Jehovah. Omit nou.e shall want her mate, which appears to be but 
 a variant to vs. i5d. 
 
 17. Jehovah had assigned Edom to those weird animals as surely 
 and deliberately as he had once assigned Canaan to Israel. 
 
35:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 As the ^ rose it shall blossom abundantly, 
 And rejoice even with joy and singing. 
 
 2. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, 
 
 The excellency of Carmel and Sharon : 
 They shall see the glory of the Lord, 
 The excellency of our God. 
 
 3. Strengthen ye the weak hands, 
 
 And confirm the feeble knees. 
 
 4. Say to them that are of a ^ fearful heart, 
 
 Be strong, fear not : 
 
 Behold, your God 
 
 Will come with vengeance, 
 With the recompence of God ; 
 
 He will come and save you. 
 
 5. Then the eyes of the bhnd shall be opened. 
 
 And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 
 
 6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart. 
 
 And the tongue of the dumb shall sing : 
 
 For in the wilderness shall waters break out, 
 And streams in the desert. 
 
 1 m. autumn crocus. ^ Heb. hasty. 
 
 Chap. 35. Against the destruction of the nations and the deso- 
 lation of Edom, the joy of Judah stands out the more conspicuous 
 and radiant. 
 
 I f . Nature will be transformed. The rose — some pretty- 
 meadow flower, seen on the plains of Sharon (33 : 9; Song 2:1). 
 They shall see : they, the despondent Jews addressed in vss. 3f. 
 
 3 f . The despondent are encouraged ; the avenging God (34 : 8) 
 will assuredly come. • 
 
 5 f . The blind : the transformation in men will be not only 
 spiritual (cf. 3 f.) but physical (cf. Mat. 11:5). 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 7. And the ^ glowing sand shall become a pool, 
 
 And the thirsty ground springs of water. 
 
 2 In the habitation of jackals, where they lay, 
 Shall be ^ grass with reeds and rushes. 
 
 8. ^ And a high way shall be there, and a way. 
 
 And it shall be called The Way of HoUness ; 
 The unclean shall not pass over it ; 
 
 ^ But it shall be for those : the wayfaring men, 
 Yea, fools shall not err therein. 
 
 10. 
 
 No Hon shall be there. 
 
 Nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, 
 They shall not be found there ; 
 But the redeemed shall walk there : 
 
 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return. 
 
 im. mirage. 2 Gr. there shall be the joy of birds. ^ m. Gr. a court for, cf. 34: 13. 
 ♦ Gr. a pure highway shall be there, s Gr. wo unclean way shall be there, but the dis- 
 persed shall walk upon it, and they shall not go astray. 
 
 7. Again the transformation of nature (cf. i f.). The last half 
 of the verse, which is defective, has been restored as follows : 
 
 In the haunt of jackals and hycenas, 
 
 Your herds shall rest: 
 And the court for ostriches 
 
 Will he filled with reeds and rushes. 
 
 8 f. And a highway . . . and a way: the Greek version reads, 
 perhaps correctly, and a pure highway shall he there. This is the 
 way that leads to Zion, and upon it the faithful pilgrims travel. 
 The clause, but it shall be for those : the wayfaring men, has 
 every appearance in the Hebrew of being a gloss, and should be 
 deleted. The fools are the godless (cf. Ps. 14: i); they must err 
 (cf. 32 : 6), wander elsewhere; this holy way is not for them, it is 
 for the redeemed. 
 
 10. By this way the redeemed and ransomed of Jehovah will 
 return to Zion — there to abide — from the foreign lands in which 
 
 223 
 
35: 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And come with singing unto Zion ; 
 
 And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: 
 They shall obtain gladness and joy, 
 
 And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 they had been scattered. Upon their heads : some ornament 
 must have been worn on the head as a symbol of gladness. For 
 they shall obtain, etc., read joy and gladness shall overtake them. 
 While sorrow flees from them, joy runs up and overtakes them — a 
 striking and beautiful contrast. 
 
 This chapter constitutes the brilliant climax of the first great 
 division of the book of Isaiah. It is the outpouring of the heart 
 of one who was at once patriot and poet ; and, in the golden days 
 to which he looked forward from out a too sorrowful present, he 
 saw the desolations of nature and the pains and sorrows of human- 
 ity transformed, with Zion as the capital of the world, and the 
 road that led to her trod by the happy feet of pilgrims and of the 
 redeemed. 
 
 224 
 
HISTORICAL APPENDIX (Chaps. 36-39) 
 
 Isaiah encourages Hezekiah to resist Sennacherib's 36 - 1 
 Summons to surrender Jerusalem (Chaps. 36 f.) 
 
 First Narrative (36 : 1-37 :9 a, 37 f.) 
 
 36. Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king 
 Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up 
 against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. 
 
 Chaps. 36-39. The stories of Elijah and Elisha and other 
 briefer sections in the book of Kings show that from compara- 
 tively early times the profoundest interest was taken in the 
 careers of the prophets, and narratives which illustrated their 
 power and influence were faithfully gathered and lovingly cher- 
 ished. It is to this impulse that these chapters of Isaiah are due. 
 In them interest is divided between Hezekiah and Isaiah, but the 
 king is, as it were, a foil to the prophet. When his heart, like that 
 of his father Ahaz about thirty-five years before, was swayed 
 like the forest trees before the wind (7 : 2) by fear of an impending 
 invasion, now, as then, it is Isaiah who speaks the steadying word 
 (36 f.). It is he who announces to the sick king the welcome news 
 that his life will be prolonged (Chap. 38) and who afterwards fore- 
 tells to him the exile (Chap. 39). 
 
 Except for the omission of the story of Hezekiah's tribute to 
 Sennacherib (2 Kings 18: 14-16) and the addition of the song 
 of thanksgiving on his recovery from sickness (Isa. 38 : 9-20), 
 these chapters (36-39) simply repeat, occasionally in a slightly 
 abbreviated form, the narrative of 2 Kings 18 : 13-20 : 19. 
 
 Chaps. 36 and 37. Every one who reads these two chapters 
 attentively must have been struck by the seeming repetitions in 
 the story they tell. Two attempts are made by Sennacherib to 
 induce Hezekiah to surrender Jerusalem. First an Assyrian depu- 
 tation comes, which discusses the matter orally; in the second 
 case a letter is sent, but its terms closely resemble the words of the 
 deputation. Both times Hezekiah is thrown into consternation, 
 and both times he is heartened by the word of Isaiah. The prob- 
 able explanation of these facts is that we have here not two narra- 
 
 Q 22 s 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish 
 to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. 
 And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the 
 
 3. high way of the fuller's field. Then came forth unto 
 him EUakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the 
 household, and Shebna the ^ scribe, and Joah the son 
 of Asaph the ^ recorder. 
 
 4. And Rabshakeh said unto them. Say ye now to 
 Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of 
 Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou 
 
 1 m. secretary. 2 m, chronicler. 
 
 tives of different events, but two parallel narratives of the same 
 event, which, while they differ somewhat in detail, agree in the 
 main fact that, in accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah, Sen- 
 nacherib was compelled to withdraw from Judah without captur- 
 ing Jerusalem. There are several indications that both narratives 
 are late. 
 
 The Assyrian Challenge (vss. 1-3) 
 
 1. In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah. The year in- 
 tended is unquestionably 701 B.C. The number fourteenth 
 appears to be reached artificially, by deducting the fifteen years 
 by which 38 : 5 states that his life was prolonged from the twenty- 
 nine years which covered his reign (2 Kings 18:2). All the fenced 
 cities : Sennacherib claims to have taken forty-six. 
 
 2. Rabshakeh, a title, the Rabshakeh. Lachish, now Tell-el- 
 Hesy, an important Judsean fortress, southwest of Jerusalem, 
 commanding the road from Egypt. The conduit of the upper pool, 
 where Isaiah had gone out to meet Ahaz, thirty-five years before 
 (7:3). It is interesting to find faith twice challenged on the same 
 spot — by the increduHty of the Hebrew Ahaz, and a generation 
 after, by the insolence of the Assyrian Rabshakeh. 
 
 3. Eliakim and Shebna: cf. 22:15-23. Scribe: secretary 
 (cf. margin). Recorder: Ht. remembrancer, probably the officer 
 whose duty it was to bring important business before the king. 
 
 The Rabshakeh' s Speech (vss. 4-10) 
 
 There are three possible sources of confidence for Hezekiah — 
 all, according to this clever diplomat, equally futile : Egypt, 
 Jehovah, and the Judaean soldiery. 
 
 226 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 36:10 
 
 5. trustest? I say, thy counsel and strength for the 
 war are but vain words : now on whom dost thou 
 
 6. trust, that thou hast rebelled against me ? Behold, 
 thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, 
 even upon Egypt ; whereon if a man lean, it will go 
 into his hand, and pierce it : so is Pharaoh king of 
 
 7. Egypt to all that trust on him. But if thou say unto 
 me, We trust in the Lord our God : is not that he, 
 whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath 
 taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 
 
 8. Ye shall worship before this altar? Now therefore, 
 I pray thee, ^ give pledges to my master the king of 
 Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, 
 if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. 
 
 9. How then canst thou turn away the face of one captain 
 of the least of my master's servants, and put thy trust 
 
 10. on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? And am 
 I now come up without the Lord against this land 
 
 1 m. make a wager with. 
 
 5. I say, etc. : read Thinkest thou (second person) that a mere 
 word of the lips is counsel and strength for war ? 
 
 6. Egyptian help is futile (cf. 30 : i ff. ; 31 : 1-3). 
 
 7. Hezekiah's attempt to " remove the high places " (2 Kings 
 18:4) and to concentrate worship in Jerusalem before this altar 
 of the temple would seem to the heathen diplomat to be equivalent 
 to the disestablishment of religion in the provinces, so that Je- 
 hovah could not be expected to help such a people, 
 
 8. Give pledges to : read with margin, make a wager with. 
 Neither Egypt nor Jehovah would help the people of Judah ; nor, 
 with their deficiency in cavalry (30: 16), could they effectively 
 help themselves. 
 
 9. Turn away the face, i.e. repel the onset. How shall Heze- 
 kiah assail the great king, when he is not even a match for a 
 subordinate Assyrian official? 
 
 10. Against this land, better, place (so 2 Kings 18 : 25), i.e. 
 Jerusalem. The LORD said unto me : the claim that the Assyrian 
 
 227 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 to destroy it ? The Lord said unto me, Go up against 
 this land, and destroy it. 
 
 11. Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rab- 
 shakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the 
 ^ Syrian language ; for we understand it : and speak 
 not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the 
 
 12. people that are on the wall. But Rabshakeh said. 
 Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, 
 to speak these words ? hath he not sent me to the men 
 that sit upon the wall, to eat their own dung, and to 
 drink their own water with you? 
 
 13. Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice 
 in the Jews' language, and said. Hear ye the words 
 
 14. of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus saith 
 the king. Let not Hezekiah deceive you ; for he shall 
 
 15. not be able to deliver you : neither let Hezekiah make 
 
 1 Heb. Aramean. 
 
 advance upon Jerusalem is in obedience to an oracle of Jehovah 
 is a very remarkable one. The Rabshakeh, who is familiar with 
 Hebrew (vs. 13), may conceivably have known something of oracles 
 of Isaiah, which assigned to Assyria the duty of chastising Judah 
 (cf. 10: 5 fif.) ; more probably it was simply a fabrication designed 
 to terrify Judah. 
 
 The Rabshakeh' s Taunt (vss. 11 f.) 
 
 11. In the Sj^an language, in Aramaic, which was the inter- 
 national language throughout western Asia, and therefore familiar 
 alike to Assyrian and Hebrew officials. 
 
 12. With you. The coarse and insolent words simply mean that 
 so long as the people are led by Hezekiah and his officials, they have 
 nothing to expect but starvation fare (cf. 2 Chr. 32: 11). Con- 
 trast vs. 16. 
 
 The Rabshakeh' s Fruitless Appeal to the People (vss. 13-22) 
 
 Throughout this speech, the Rabshakeh deliberately refrains 
 from calling Hezekiah king. 
 
 228 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 36; 
 
 you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely 
 deliver us ; this city shall not be given into the hand 
 
 16. of the king of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah : 
 for thus saith the king of Assyria, ^ Make your peace 
 with me, and come out to me ; and eat ye every one of 
 his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye 
 
 17. every one the waters of his own cistern : until I come 
 and take you away to a land hke your own land, a 
 land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 
 
 18. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying. The Lord 
 will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations 
 delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria ? 
 
 19. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where 
 are the gods of Sepharvaim ? and have they delivered 
 
 20. Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all 
 the gods of these countries, that have delivered their 
 country out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver 
 
 21. Jerusalem out of my hand? But they held their 
 peace, and answered him not a word : for the king's 
 
 22. commandment was, saying, Answer him not. Then 
 came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, that was over the 
 
 1 Heb. Make with me a blessing. 
 
 16 f. Make your peace : make a blessing (cf. margin) — i.e. be 
 on terms of greeting, on friendly footing. Come out, surrender. 
 Immediate surrender will mean that agricultural operations, 
 suspended by the blockade, may be at once resumed ; though the 
 people are cynically reminded that their ultimate fate will be 
 deportation. 
 
 18-20. Jehovah will prove no more able to save his people than 
 other gods to save their peoples. Hamath and Arpad : cf. 10 : 9. 
 Sepharvaim, perhaps Sibraim, between Hamath and Damascus 
 (Ezek. 47 : 16). In reality Samaria had been taken (721 B.C.) by 
 Sargon, not by Sennacherib. With vss. 18-20 cf. 10: 5-11. 
 
 21. They held their peace, i.e. the people on the wall (2 Kings 
 18 : 36). The delegates no doubt returned some formal answer. 
 
 229 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son 
 of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes 
 rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh. 
 37. And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, 
 that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sack- 
 
 2. cloth, and went into the house of the Lord. And he 
 sent EKakim, who was over the household, and Shebna 
 the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with 
 sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. 
 
 3. And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This 
 day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of con- 
 tumely : for the children are come to the birth, and 
 
 4. there is not strength to bring forth. It may be the 
 Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, 
 whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to 
 reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words 
 which the Lord thy God hath heard : wherefore lift 
 
 5. up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. So the 
 
 6. servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. And 
 
 22. Clothes rent, sign of grief. 
 
 Hezekiah's Appeal to Isaiah; Isaiah's Answer (37 : i-ga) 
 
 1. Sackcloth, sign of mourning (cf. 36 : 22). 
 
 2. Unto Isaiah : prophets were frequently consulted in times of 
 public distress (cf. 2 Kings 22 : 12 ff. ; Jer. 37:3). They were be- 
 lieved to stand specially near their God (cf. vs. 4, Jehovah ihy 
 God ; and Amos 3:7). 
 
 3. Here Hezekiah implicitly acknowledges the futility of his 
 Egyptian policy (31:1 flf.), which has but brought him distress, 
 chastisement, and rejection. The children, etc. : the crisis is grave, 
 and there is no strength to cope with it. 
 
 4. Lift up thy prayer: intercessory prayer, especially of pro- 
 phetic men, '' availeth much " (Gen. 20 : 7 ; Jer. 18 : 20 ; Job 42 : 8 ; 
 James 5 : 16). 
 
 6. Isaiah has his inspired answer ready. He and the Rab- 
 shakeh are representatives of Faith and Force. 
 
 230 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 37 : 10 
 
 Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, 
 Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that 
 thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king 
 
 7. of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will put 
 a spirit in him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall 
 return unto his own land ; and I will cause him to 
 fall by the sword in his own land. 
 
 8. So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of 
 Assyria warring against Libnah : for he had heard that 
 
 9. he was departed from Lachish. And he heard say 
 concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He is come out 
 to fight against thee. And when he heard it . . . 
 
 Second Narrative (37:9-36), including the Taunt Song 
 (37:22-29) 
 
 10. He sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus shall ye 
 speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy 
 
 7. A spirit, the spirit of fear. The nunor is of the advance of 
 Tirhakah (vs. 9). To fall by the sword : the implication is that he 
 was murdered soon after his return (cf. vs. 38). As a matter of 
 fact, this did not take jilace till twenty years after, in 681 B.C. 
 
 8. Libnah appears to be the seat of the Assyrian army in the 
 second story, as Lachish in the first, and the words warring . . . 
 Lachish serve the purpose of binding the stories together. 
 
 ga is followed by vss. 37 f. which show how Sennacherib met his 
 end, in fulfilment of the prediction in vs. 7. 
 
 37 '■ 9^36. This second narrative, which assigns Sennacherib's 
 departure from Judah not to a rumor, but to the mysterious de- 
 struction of an immense contingent of the Assyrian host (vs. 36), 
 is interrupted (a) by a taunt song (vss. 22-29), which declares 
 that the Assyrian will be led back to his own land Hke a wild 
 beast that is captured and mastered, and (&) by a sign (vss. 30-32), 
 which announces for the very near future the dawn of the better 
 day to be. 
 
 The Letter (vss. 9b-i3) 
 
 The letter (cf. vs. 14) is in the same strain as the speech of 
 the deputation in Chap. 36, and appears to be not a subsequent 
 
 231 
 
37: II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, 
 Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the Idng 
 
 11. of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings 
 of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them 
 
 12. utterly: and shalt thou be delivered ? Have the gods 
 of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have 
 destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the 
 
 13. children of Eden wliich were in Telassar? Where 
 is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the 
 king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Iwah ? 
 
 14. And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of 
 the messengers, and read it : and Hezekiah went up 
 unto the house of the Lord, and spread it before the 
 
 15. Lord. And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying, 
 
 16. O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, that ^ sittest upon 
 the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all 
 the kingdoms of the earth ; thou hast made heaven 
 
 1 m. dwellest between; SV sittest above ; SV m. art enthroned above. 
 
 incident, but a parallel account of the same incident. The letter 
 could not be expected to effect what the speech had failed to 
 effect. 
 
 10. Let not thy God deceive thee : in 36 : 14 Hezekiah is the 
 deceiver. 
 
 12. Fathers -= predecessors. Gozan and Karan, in Mesopotamia. 
 Rezeph, near the Euphrates, midway between Palmyra and Haran. 
 The children of Eden, Bit Adini, a district on the Upper Euphrates 
 north of Rezeph. Telassar, not identified, but doubtless in the 
 same neighborhood. 
 
 Hezekiah's Prayer (vss. 14-20) 
 
 14. Spread it before Jehovah — a curious and interesting 
 touch, as if the sight of the insolent letter would provoke the 
 indignation and vengeance of Jehovah. 
 
 16. That sittest upon, throned upon. The cherubim, figures with 
 outstretched wings above the ark (i Kings 8:6 f.). The creative 
 power (cf. Ps. 121: 2), divinity, and sovereignty of Jehovah are 
 
 232 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 37^22 
 
 17. and earth. Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear ; open 
 thine eyes, O Lord, and see : and hear all the words 
 of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the 
 
 18. living God. Of a truth. Lord, the kings of Assyria 
 
 19. have laid waste all the ^ countries, and their land, and 
 have cast their gods into the fire : for they were no 
 gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone ; 
 
 20. therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, 
 O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the 
 kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the 
 Lord, even thou only. 
 
 21. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, 
 saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, ^ Where- 
 as thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib, king 
 
 22. of Assyria, this is the word which the Lord hath 
 spoken concerning him : 
 
 2 Kings 19 : 15, nations. ^ Gr. / have heard thy prayer. 
 
 appropriately emphasized in the opening words of the prayer, as 
 the Assyrian letter had insinuated his impotence. 
 18. Countries: read nations (so 2 Kings 19: 17). 
 
 20. The last clause should read, as 2 Kings 19 : 19 (margin), 
 that thou, Jehovah, art God alone. The deliverance of Jerusalem 
 from Sennacherib would be conclusive proof of Jehovah's sole 
 divinity. 
 
 Isaiah's Reply (vss. 21, 33-35) 
 
 21. Isaiah has a mysterious knowledge of Hezekiah's prayer, 
 and at once announces the divine answer, which is given in vss. 
 33-35. In our present text, the sequence between the prayer and 
 the answer is interrupted by the taunt song (vss. 22-29) and the 
 sign iyss. 30-32). 
 
 The Taunt Song (vss. 22-29) 
 
 This is a striking and powerful poem. The arrogant might of 
 the Assyrian is vividly portrayed in vss. 24 f., 27, only to be thrown 
 against the invincible omnipotence of Jehovah, who leads him 
 
 233 
 
37:23 THE BOOK OF IS-\L\H 
 
 The \'irgin daughter of Zion 
 
 Hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn ; 
 The daughter of Jerusalem 
 
 Hath shaken her head ^ at thee. 
 
 23. WTiom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? 
 
 And agamst whom hast thou exalted thy voice 
 And hf ted up thine eyes on high ? 
 Even against the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 24. By thy ^ ser\-ants hast thou reproached 
 
 The Lord, and hast said, 
 ''With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to 
 the height of the mountains, 
 
 To the innermost parts of Lebanon ; 
 And I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, 
 
 And the choice fir trees thereof ; 
 And I will enter into ^his ^ farthest height, 
 
 The forest of ^ his fruitful field. 
 25.1 have digged and drunk 
 
 ^ Water, 
 And with the sole of my feet will I dry up 
 
 .\11 the rivers of Eg^'pt." 
 
 1 Heb. after. -2 Kings 19:23, messengers. ■' 5V :7;. <2 Kings 19:23, lodging 
 place. -- 2 Kings 19: 24, strange waters. 
 
 avray, like the wild beast that he is, with a ring through his nose, 
 amid the derisive shouts of the people whom he had despised and 
 insulted. 
 
 22. The virgin: Jerusalem, the inviolate. Hath shaken her 
 head in mockery. 
 
 24. He can do what is impossible for others — traverse with his 
 chariots the lofty mountains ; and their forests yield him timber. 
 Read I go up. I cut do'jjn, elc. Such experiences are frequent. His 
 furthest height: read its furthest retreat (2 Kings 19 : 23). 
 
 25. Waters: read strange waters (so 2 Kings 19:24). The 
 meaning is that he never allowed his course to be impeded either 
 by lack of water or by floods. 
 
 234 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 37:29 
 
 26. Hast thou not heard how I have done it 
 
 Long ago ; 
 And formed it of ancient times ? 
 
 Now have I brought it to pass, 
 That thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities 
 
 Into ruinous heaps. 
 
 27. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, 
 
 They were dismayed and confounded ; 
 They were as the grass of the field, and as the green 
 
 herb, 
 As the grass on the housetops, and as a ^ field of corn 
 
 before it be grown up. 
 
 28. But I know thy sitting down, 
 
 And thy going out, and thy coming in, 
 
 29. And thy raging against me. Because of thy raging 
 
 against me, and for that thine arrogancy 
 Is come up into mine ears. 
 Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose. 
 And my bridle in thy Hps, 
 
 1 2 Kings 19: 26, corn (SV grain). 
 
 26. Sennacherib's destructive activity has been in accordance 
 with Jehovah's ancient purpose (10:5-7). The verse recalls 
 passages in the latter part of Isaiah (cf. 40 : 28 ; 45 : 21). 
 
 27 f. As grass, cut down or trampled with ease. Before it be 
 grown up : this clause, emended, seems to go with the next verse, 
 so that the whole would read : 
 
 Before me is thine uprising and thy downsitting (Ps. 139 : 2), 
 
 Thy going out and coming in I know, 
 And thy turbulent raging against me 
 
 And thy tumult have come up into my ears. 
 
 The third line has been inadvertently repeated. 
 
 29. The figure of the roaring, raging beast, dragged back against 
 its will, with a ring through its nose, is a very striking symbol 
 for the humiliating departure of the powerful and haughty Assyr- 
 ian. 
 
 23s 
 
37:30 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And I will turn thee back by the way 
 By which thou earnest. 
 
 30. And this shall be the sign unto thee : 
 
 Ye shall eat this year that which groweth of itself, 
 And in the second year that which springeth of the 
 same ; 
 
 And in the third year sow ye, and reap, 
 
 And plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof. 
 
 31. And the remnant that is escaped out of the house of 
 
 Judah 
 Shall again take root downward, and bear fruit up- 
 ward. 
 
 32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant. 
 
 And out of mount Zion they that shall escape : 
 The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this. 
 
 33. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of 
 Assyria, 
 
 " He shall not come into this city. 
 
 Nor shoot an arrow there, 
 Neither shall he come before it with shield. 
 
 Nor cast a mound against it. 
 
 The Sign (vss. 30-32) 
 
 30. Agricultural operations, which had been suspended by the 
 presence of the Assyrians in the land, would be resumed in less 
 than two years. The fulfilment of this sign would be proof that 
 Jehovah had foreseen all the circumstances of the deliverance, 
 and accurately foretold them by his prophet. 
 
 31 f. Deliverance from the Assyrians is but the prelude to an 
 era of stability and fruitfulness for Judah, and Jehovah is pledged 
 to this (cf. 9:7). 
 
 33~35- These verses follow vs. 21, and constitute the divine 
 answer — announced through Isaiah — to Hezekiah's prayer. 
 There is to be no siege of the city. Elsewhere, and earlier, Isaiah 
 
 236 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 37:38 
 
 34. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, 
 
 And he shall not come unto this city," saith the Lord. 
 
 35. For I will defend this city to save it. 
 
 For mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. 
 
 36. And ^ the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote 
 in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore 
 and five thousand : and when men arose early in the 
 morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 
 
 Conclusion of the First Narrative (37 : 37 f.) 
 
 37. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went 
 
 38. and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to 
 pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch 
 his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote 
 him with the sword : and they escaped into the land of 
 Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead. 
 
 1 2 Kings 19:35, it came to pass that night, that . . . 
 
 had announced a very grievcuis siege (29:3). In point of fact, 
 though the city was really blockaded — Hezekiah being shut up 
 " like a bird in a cage " — it was not besieged. With vs. 35, cf. 
 31 : 5. 
 
 36. The angel : no doubt pestilence is intended (cf. 2 Sam. 24 : 
 13, 16), which from time immemorial has been associated with 
 the swampy land northeast of the Nile delta. There is indepen- 
 dent evidence in Herodotus that a disaster of some kind overtook 
 the Assyrian army, and his story suggests, though it does not 
 directly assert, that the cause of it was plague. When men arose : 
 rather when they arose. There is grim humor in this. 
 
 37 f. These verses follow vs. 9a, and constitute the conclusion 
 of the first narrative (36 : i ff.). They describe how Sennacherib 
 returned to his country, and met his end, in accordance with the 
 prediction in vs. 7. 
 
 38. Nisroch. No Assyrian god bearing this name is known — 
 perhaps Nusku, god of fire. His sons : only one son is mentioned 
 in Assyrian sources. Ararat, Armenia. Esar-haddon reigned 
 681-668 B.C. 
 
 237 
 
38: 1 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Hezekiah's Sickness, Recovery, and Song of Thanks- 
 giving (Chap. 38) 
 
 Hezekiah's Sickness (38 : 1-8) 
 
 38. In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And 
 Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and 
 said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house 
 
 2. in order ; for thou shalt die, and not hve. Then Hez- 
 ekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the 
 
 3. Lord, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech 
 thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with 
 a perfect heart, and have done that which is good 
 
 4. in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Then came 
 
 5. the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying. Go, and say 
 to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David 
 thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy 
 tears : behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. 
 
 6. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand 
 of the king of Assyria : and I will defend this city. 
 
 38 : 1-8. The story of Hezekiah's sickness and recovery (Chap. 
 38), dealing with the private, as Chaps. 36!. with the public, life 
 of Hezekiah, illustrates, like those chapters, the high importance 
 of the prophet. 
 
 1. In those days: a loose phrase — not, in any case, the days 
 of the blockade of Jerusalem round which Chaps. 36 f. turn, but 
 some earlier time. Hezekiah's sickness preceded the embassy 
 from Merodach-Baladan (39 : i), which probably fell in 704 b.c. 
 
 2. Hezekiah prayed as in 37 : 15, 21. 
 
 3. There are several confessions of integrity in the Old Testa- 
 ment (cf. Ps. 44: 17 f.). 
 
 4. The prayer is heard at once (cf. 2 Kings 20: 4), and the di- 
 vine answer communicated, exactly as in 37 : 21. 
 
 6. This verse must be a later insertion (from 37 : 35), as it only 
 fits the date of the blockade (701 B.C.), which was later than Heze- 
 kiah's sickness. 
 
 238 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 38:10 
 
 7. And this shall be the sign unto thee from the Lord, 
 that the Lord will'do this thing that he hath spoken : 
 
 8. behold, I will cause the shadow on the steps, which 
 is gone down on the ^ dial of Ahaz ^ with the sun, to re- 
 turn backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten 
 ten steps on the dial whereon it was gone down. 
 
 Hezekiah's Song of Thanksgiving (38 : 9-20) 
 
 9. The 3 writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had 
 been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. 
 
 10. I said, "In the ^ noontide of my days 
 
 I shall go 
 
 iHeb. steps, "^m. by. 3 Gr. prayer, ^m. tranquillity; AV cutting ojff. 
 
 7 f. The sign, cf. 37 : 30. In 2 Kings 20: 8-1 1, the miracle of 
 the sign is enhanced by the prophet's offer of a choice to Hezekiah. 
 Which is gone down . . . with the sun : read, which the sun has 
 gone down (so the Greek version) on the steps of Ahaz. ^ Some means 
 of measuring time appear to be implied, though precisely what we 
 do not know ; possibly " a pyramid of steps on the top of which 
 stood a short pillar or obeKsk " (G. A. Smith), whose shadow, 
 cast by the sun, would fall upon the steps. Ewald makes the 
 interesting suggestion that the story rests, hke that in Josh. 10 : 
 13 f. on the misunderstanding of a poetical expression. The story 
 may well, however, have some other origin. 
 
 38 : 9-20. There is a certain dramatic propriety in the insertion 
 of such a song at this point, and such an insertion is quite in ac- 
 cordance with the practice of Hebrew historians (cf. Hannah's 
 song in i Sam. 2) ; nevertheless the fact of its being described as 
 the writing of Hezekiah (which should, besides, perhaps be the 
 Michtam of Hezekiah, cf. the titles of Ps. 56-60) is very far from 
 proving that the song really comes from him, especially when 
 we consider how little historical value attaches to the superscrip- 
 tions of the so-called " Davidic " psalms. Many of its phrases 
 recall late psalms and the book of Job, and in all probability it is 
 a late composition, taken from a liturgical collection, and sung 
 in public worship (cf. vs. 20). 
 
 10. Noontide, a difficult word; either height (so Gr.) or even 
 239 
 
38: II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Into the gates of ^ the grave : I am deprived 
 Of the residue of my years." 
 
 11. I said,^ "I shall not see ^ the Lord, even ^ the Lord 
 
 In the land of the living : 
 I shall behold man no more 
 
 ^ With the inhabitants of the world." 
 
 12. Mine ^ age is removed, and is carried away from me 
 
 As a shepherd's tent : 
 I have rolled up like a weaver my life ; 
 
 He will cut me off from the ^ loom : 
 From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. 
 
 13. I ^ quieted myself until morning ; 
 As a lion, so he breaketh 
 
 All my bones. 
 From day even to night 
 
 Wilt thou make an end of me. 
 
 14. Like a swallow or ^ a, crane, so did I chatter ; 
 
 I did mourn as a dove ; 
 
 1 Heb. Sheol. 2 Gr. 7 shall no more at all see the salvation of God in the land of the 
 living ; I shall no more at all see the salvation of Israel on the earth : I shall no more at 
 all see man. ^ Heb. Jah. * m. when I am among them that have ceased to he. 
 6 m. fiabitation ; SV dwelling. ^ Heb. thrum. ^ in. / thought (AY reckoned) until morn- 
 ing, As a lion, so will he break ; Tar. / cried. * Gr. om. 
 
 tenor. Deprived : or perhaps — " to the gates of Sheol I am 
 consigned." 
 
 11. The Lord, even the Lord : read simply Jehovah once. To 
 see Jehovah is to take part in his worship in the temple (cf. i : 12). 
 Death is pecuharly bitter because, besides removing a man from 
 human fellowship, it deprives him of the privilege of worship (cf. 
 vs. 18). 
 
 12. Age: read, with margin, habitation. Carried away as into 
 exile. Death is compared to the moving of the tent, the snapping 
 of the thread. From day, etc. : night and day thou didst deliver 
 me up (i.e. to torment). 
 
 13. I quieted myself , etc. : resid I cried. Omit the last sentence 
 of vs. 13 as a repetition of the last sentence of vs. 12. 
 
 240 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 38:17 
 
 Mine eyes fail with looking upward ; 
 O Lord, I am oppressed, be thou my surety. 
 
 15. What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, 
 
 And himself hath done it : 
 I shall go ^ softly all my years 
 
 Because of ^ the bitterness of my soul. 
 
 16. ^ Lord, by these things men live. 
 
 And wholly therein is the life of my spirit : 
 Wherefore recover thou me. 
 And make me to live. 
 
 17. ^ Behold, it was for my peace 
 
 That I had great bitterness : 
 But ^ thou hast in love to my soul delivered it 
 From the pit of ^ corruption ; 
 
 1 m. as in solemn procession, cf. Ps. 42 : 4. 2 Qj-. mine eyes have failed unth looking 
 to the height 0] the heaven to the Lord (vs. 14), who has delivered me arid removed the pain 
 of my soul. ^ Gr. Yea, O Lord, for it was told thee concerning this; and thou hast 
 awakened my breath, and I am comforted, and live. * Gr. om. behold . . . bitterness. 
 6 Heb. thou hast loved my soul from the pit ; Gr. thou hast taken my soul that it should 
 not perish. ^ m. nothingness. 
 
 14. Omit or a crane. For chatter read twitter. Fail with look- 
 ing upward : read look tearfully upward. I am oppressed : read 
 perhaps care thou for me. 
 
 15. This perplexing verse has thus been emended and rendered 
 by Duhm : 
 
 What shall I utter and speak unto him, 
 
 Since 'tis he that has done it? 
 I will restlessly toss all the time of my slumber, 
 
 Because of my bitterness of soul. 
 
 16. The rendering of AV and RV is quite impossible. With 
 the help of the Greek version, Duhm proposes a text, which reads : 
 
 Lord, touching this my heart makes mention to thee, 
 Refresh thou my spirit, give me health and revive me. 
 
 17. Behold . . . bitterness. This clause, emphasizing, as no- 
 where else in the song, the disciplinary efifect of the suffering, 
 is omitted, perhaps rightly, in the Greek version. Thou hast in 
 
 R 241 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For thou hast cast all my sins 
 Behind thy back. 
 
 1 8. For ^ the grave cannot praise thee, 
 
 Death cannot celebrate thee : 
 They that go down into the pit 
 Cannot hope for thy ^ truth. 
 
 19. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, 
 
 As I do this day : 
 The father to the children 
 Shall make known thy truth. 
 
 20. The Lord is ready to save me : 
 
 Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed 
 instruments 
 All the days of our Hfe 
 In the house of the Lord. 
 
 HezekiaKs Recovery (38 : 21 f.) 
 
 21. Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs, 
 and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall 
 
 22. recover." Hezekiah also had said, "What is the sign 
 that I shall go up to the house of the Lord ? " 
 
 1 Heb. Sheol. 2 Gr. mercy. 
 
 love . . . : perhaps, Thou didst keep hack my soul from the pit of 
 destruction. Recovery is the proof and seal of sin forgiven. 
 
 18 f. Life is peculiarly precious, for only to the living is worship 
 possible (cf. vs. 11). The restored man has the duty of acquaint- 
 ing his children with the divine truth, i.e., faithfulness (cf. Ps. 48: 
 
 13)- 
 
 20. Whatever be the origin of the song, it is adapted by this 
 verse to the use of the worshipping community. Read : 
 
 Jehovah, he pleased to deliver us, 
 And stringed music we will play, etc. 
 
 21 f. In their present position, these verses are clearly belated, 
 
 242 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 39 
 
 Hezekiah's Vanity and Isaiah's Rebuke (Chap. 39) 
 
 39. At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, 
 king of Babylon, sent letters and ^ a present to Heze- 
 kiah : for he heard that he had been sick, and was 
 recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and 
 shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, 
 
 2. and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and 
 all the house of his armour, and all that was found 
 in his treasures : there was nothing in his house, nor 
 in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. 
 
 3. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, 
 and said unto him, What said these men? and from 
 whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, 
 
 1 Gr. ambassadors and gifts. 
 
 following as they do the song of thanksgiving for recovery. Par- 
 ticularly so is the reference to the sign which, strictly speaking, 
 must precede vss. 7 f. Lay, rather rub. 
 
 39: I. At that time — after Hezekiah's recovery. Merodach- 
 Baladan gave much trouble to Assyria before he was finally over- 
 thrown. He reigned over Babylon from 721 to 710 B.C., when he 
 was driven out by Sargon. On Sargon's death, in 705, he recovered 
 his power, but held it only for a few months. This embassy to 
 Hezekiah ( ? 704 B.C.), ostensibly to congratulate him on his re- 
 covery, had no doubt the deeper poHtical object of securing his 
 help in a revolt against Assyria. 
 
 2. The house of his precious things — his treasure house. The 
 silver and gold which fill the treasure house show that the period 
 covered by Chaps. 38 f. must be earher than 36 f ., when the treasury 
 was depleted (2 Kings 18:14-16; cf. Isa. 38:1). The house 
 of his armor — the armory alluded to in 22 : 8 as the house of the 
 forest. 
 
 3-7. Isaiah, who is the sworn foe of entangling political alliances 
 (cf. 30: I &.), rightly fears the fatal consequences of such a visit, 
 and has his prophetic word ready for the foolish king ; but it may 
 fairly be doubted whether vss. 5-7 adequately represent Isaiah's 
 announcement. There is no rebuke of Hezekiah's pride or of his 
 foreign leanings, no announcement of immediate or speedy conse- 
 
 243 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 They are come from a far country unto me, even from 
 
 4. Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine 
 house? And Hezekiah answered. All that is in mine 
 house have they seen : there is nothing among my 
 
 5. treasures that I have not showed them. Then said 
 Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 6. Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, 
 and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until 
 this day, shall be carried to Babylon : nothing shall 
 
 7. be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall 
 issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take 
 away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the 
 
 8. king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, 
 Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. 
 ^ He said moreover, ^ For there shall be peace and truth 
 in my days. 
 
 Gr. om. 2 Gr. let there be, I pray. 
 
 quences; but instead, a prediction of deportation and disgrace 
 for Hezekiah's posterity in the land of Babylon. In all Isaiah's 
 genuine prophecies, Assyria, not Babylon, is the eastern power to 
 be reckoned with ; nor is there any hint that the domination of 
 Assyria is to be followed by the domination of Babylon. This 
 prophecy is not, like Isaiah's prophecies in general, deeply rooted 
 in the contemporary situation. Nevertheless there is a certain 
 poetic truth in it ; it is marked by that sense of Nemesis which 
 is so frequent in the Old Testament. From Babylon had come the 
 temptation, in Babylon the sin would be punished ; everything had 
 been displayed by Hezekiah, everything would be taken to Babylon. 
 8. Good : Hezekiah listens with pious resignation to the word of 
 doom. It does not affect him personally, there is to be peace and 
 stability in his days — a sentiment which does not raise our respect 
 for the king. 
 
 244 
 
THE EXILES' BOOK OF CONSOLATION 
 
 (CHAPS. 40-55) 
 
THE EXILES' BOOK OF CONSOLATION (Chaps. 
 
 40-55) 
 
 I. Historical Background and Origin of the 
 Prophecy 
 
 Almost exactly two centuries elapsed between the call 
 of Isaiah in 740 B.C. and the pubHcation of the great proph- 
 ecy contained in Chaps. 40-55. Of the Assyrian empire, 
 which constitutes the background of the prophecies of 
 Isaiah, we hear in this prophecy nothing whatever; its 
 place has been taken by the Babylonian empire (43 : 14 ; 
 48 : 20). The Assyrians continued to dominate western 
 Asia for about a hundred years after Isaiah's death ; but 
 their empire, which towards the end of that period had 
 begun to totter, came to an end in 607 B.C. with the de- 
 struction of their capital city, Nineveh, by the Babylonians, 
 whose empire, in its turn, lasted about seventy years (till 
 538 B.C.). 
 
 It is within this period that the exile falls — that ex- 
 perience which affected so profoundly the subsequent 
 history, religion, and literature of the Jews. The great 
 Nebuchadrezzar came to the throne in 604 B.C. As in the 
 previous century the small Syrian kingdoms, ever restless 
 under the Assyrian yoke, were ever ready to throw it off 
 when opportunity offered, so it was in Judah now. For 
 a few years the king, Jehoiakim, son of the reforming king 
 Josiah, remained the nominal vassal of Babylonia ; but 
 at last he revolted, and consequently drew upon himself 
 and his land the speedy vengeance of his overlord. Neb- 
 uchadrezzar appeared upon the scene, besieged Jeru- 
 salem, plundered the temple and palace of their treasures, 
 and deported several thousand of the most efficient in- 
 
 247 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 habitants, including Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin, who, just 
 three months before, had ascended the throne (2 Kings 24). 
 This was in 597 B.C. The Babylonians placed Jehoiakim's 
 brother Zedekiah upon the throne of Judah, and for about 
 ten years he remained faithful in his allegiance to Babylon. 
 Then he rebelled, and soon the Babylonian hosts were round 
 the walls of Jerusalem. After a terrible siege of a year 
 and a half the city was taken, its walls destroyed, its temple, 
 palace, and great buildings reduced to ashes, and the best 
 of its inhabitants carried away to Babylon — there to 
 remain for nearly half a century (586-538 B.C.). This is 
 the period known in Hebrew history as the exile. 
 
 Of this sorrowful period no history exists, and what we 
 know of it we know only by inference. With the death 
 of Nebuchadrezzar in 561 B.C., after a reign of forty- three 
 years, hope was temporarily kindled in the desperate hearts 
 of the exiles by the clement policy of his successor Evil- 
 merodach, who showed particular favor to their king 
 Jehoiachin by releasing him from the prison in which for 
 thirty-six years he had been languishing (2 Kings 
 25 : 27 ff.). This hope was probably extinguished by the 
 death of the Babylonian monarch in 559 B.C. At any rate 
 the Jews who, twenty years after, are addressed in Isa. 
 40-55, are sorrowful and disconsolate enough (cf. 40 : i). 
 
 The control of the Babylonian empire passed in 555 B.C. 
 into the weak hands of Nabonidus, who cared more for 
 religious and antiquarian interests than for political and 
 military enterprise. Suddenly about this time a new 
 figure appeared upon the historical horizon in the person 
 of the conqueror Cyrus, a Persian, no less gifted as a man 
 than as a soldier. His w^hole career is a romance. With 
 almost incredible rapidity he pursued his victorious way 
 through Asia (Isa. 41 : 3). The Median empire fell before 
 him in 549 B.C., and the Lydian empire, whose head was the 
 wealthy Croesus, in 546 B.C.; and no doubt it is somew^here 
 between that date and 538, when Cyrus captured Babylon 
 and brought her dominion to an end, that the great anony- 
 
 248 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 mous prophet sought to comfort and stimulate his exiled 
 brethren with the noble words which now form Chaps. 
 40-55 of the book of Isaiah. 
 
 The Babylonian background of these chapters is as 
 plain as words can make it. Jerusalem and the cities of 
 Judah are a desolation, her temple has been razed to the 
 ground (44 : 26-28 ; 51:3), her people are languishing 
 in Babylonia (48 : 20). Babylon is the empire which, for 
 her pride and cruelty (47 : 6) , is doomed to speedy extinc- 
 tion ; and Babylon's are the gods on whom scornful rid- 
 icule is poured (46 : i). Cyrus is announced as the con- 
 queror by whom B ably on is to be overthrown and Israel 
 set free. He it is who will execute Jehovah's purpose on 
 Babylon (48: 14), set free the exiles (45 : 13), and rebuild 
 Jerusalem (44 : 28). To this high task he has been divinely 
 called (41 : 2, 25), and in it he is divinely upheld (45 : 1-5). 
 He is not predicted as a figure of the distant future ; he 
 is already on the stage of history, and well advanced on 
 his triumphant career. Already victory has attended his 
 every step (41 : 2), and soon he will burst Babylon's gates 
 of bronze in sunder (45 12). We shall not go far wrong 
 if we set the prophecy about the year 540 B.C. — after the 
 brilliant successes of Cyrus had become matter of common 
 knowledge, but before his capture of Babylon (in 538 B.C.). 
 
 II. The Prophet's Message 
 
 Deutero-Isaiah (that is, second Isaiah) — as this name- 
 less prophet is now commonly called — addressed himself 
 to the difficult task of consoHng his fellow-countrymen 
 in exile, and of interpreting for them the signs of the times. 
 They are despondent. They not unnaturally imagine that 
 their God has forgotten or forsaken them (49 : 14), that he 
 ignores their case and cares nothing for their fate (40 : 27). 
 The prophet's first aim is therefore to inspire them with 
 his own magnificent conception of God. His people, now 
 half a century in exile, might well beUeve that the gods 
 
 249 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 of Babylon, Bel, Nebo, etc. (46 : i), are more powerful 
 than their own God Jehovah. But not so. Jehovah is the 
 omnipotent God of the universe, the Creator and Lord 
 of the mountains, the world, the stars. This is the real 
 significance of the famihar and splendid description of 
 the power of God in Chap. 40 : it is meant to inspire a 
 broken-hearted people with faith and hope. Israel's God 
 is the mighty God, never faint and never weary, but ever 
 fresh and strong, and able to inspire the wxak and the faint 
 with something of his own strength (40 : 28 ff.). 
 
 He is Lord of nature ; he is no less Lord of history — 
 another reason why the disconsolate people should take 
 courage. For he is the First and the Last, the Eternal 
 One ; he knows the end from the beginning and announces 
 it through his prophets. All the generations are his (41 : 
 4), and they are all moving on to the grand consumma- 
 tion, when they shall all voluntarily acknowledge him. 
 The sense of purpose that runs through the universe is 
 finely expressed in 45 : 18 f., where Jehovah is represented 
 as creating the earth not to be a waste, but to be inhabited 
 by saved and happy men, and as speaking his great word 
 of revelation to Israel and, through Israel, to the world, 
 plainly and in no dark and mystic way. Nature and 
 history alike are pervaded by intelligence,^ order, purpose ; 
 and the ultimate end of the long series of events we call 
 history is that all men should be saved. "Look unto me, 
 and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (45 : 22). 
 
 This salvation, however, can only come through a knowl- 
 edge of God, of Israel's God — for he alone is the true 
 God (45 : 6) ; and this knowledge of God can only be 
 mediated by Israel, for she alone possesses it. "Surely 
 God is in //zee," the foreign peoples say to her (45 : 14), 
 and she alone is his competent witness — "Ye are my 
 witnesses" (43 : 10, 12). Especially will Israel attain to 
 her power to testify for him through her experience of his 
 omnipotent grace in delivering her from exile. And here 
 
 ^For "spirit of the Lord" in 40: 13, the Greek version suggestively reads mind. 
 250 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 we can see the immense significance, to our prophet, of 
 Cyrus. He speaks of him in language that sounds as 
 extravagant as it is daring, showering upon him promises 
 the most lavish and titles the most lofty, like Jehovah's 
 Shepherd or Friend, and Anointed (44 : 28 ; 45 : i) — 
 titles which, pronounced as they were upon a foreigner, 
 seem to have stirred the prophet's narrow-hearted country- 
 men to increduHty and resentment (45 19 ff.). But it is 
 for IsraePs sake that Cyrus has been called and equipped 
 to do his mighty work of overthrowing Babylon : primarily 
 for Israel's sake, that she may be emancipated and thus 
 enjoy the great experience of redemption (45 : 4) , but 
 ultimately for the sake of the whole world — "that they 
 may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, 
 that there is none beside me" (45 : 6). The goal of history 
 is that every knee shall bow to Jehovah (45 : 23), and 
 every soul confess with joy that she belongs to him 
 (44 : 5). Thus Israel is Jehovah's Servant, for her mission 
 is to bring the round world to a knowledge of him ; and 
 Cyrus is his Anointed or Messiah, for it is through him that 
 Israel is set free, thus winning her historic experience of 
 redemption. 
 
 With such a God, then, who has shown both his power 
 and his love for her by raising up Cyrus, why should Israel 
 be depressed or afraid? She is indeed dull and irre- 
 sponsive, blind to the signs of the times, and deaf to the 
 sound of the divine footsteps in contemporary history 
 (42 : 18) ; and what she needs — to come back to the point 
 from which we started — is a vision of God, of his omnip- 
 otence and his love. This it is that will comfort (40 : i), 
 encourage, nerve her, if only she can be persuaded to be- 
 Heve it. "Fear not" is rung out by the prophet again and 
 again (44 : 2, 8 ; 54 : 4). Jehovah is mighty, and as kind 
 and tender as he is mighty (54 : 8), caring for Israel as a 
 shepherd for his lambs (40 : 11), pitying her more than a 
 mother her babe (49 : 15), sustaining her with a love that 
 shall outUve the mightiest and most permanent things in 
 
 251 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 the universe (54 : 10). Of these two things, then, the 
 prophet very earnestly seeks to convince his despondent 
 people — of God and of their high destiny, which is to 
 bring the world to God. This destiny constitutes Israel 
 in a peculiar sense his Servant. 
 
 III. The Servant of Jehovah 
 
 The figure of the Servant — his mission, his experience, 
 and his ultimate destiny — is sketched more particularly 
 in four songs, 42 : 1-4 ; 49 : 1-6 ; 50 : 4-9 ; and 52 : 13- 
 53 : 12, which it has of late become customary to isolate 
 from the body of the poem and consider independently. 
 These songs reveal a certain progressive development in 
 their idea of the Servant. The first (42 : 1-4) concentrates 
 attention upon his mission, which is to bring the true 
 religion to the nations of the world, and upon the kind and 
 unobtrusive way in which he is to accomplish it. The 
 second (49 : 1-6) touches upon his divine equipment for 
 that mission, and upon the sorrow and seeming futility 
 which has thus far attended his efforts (49 : 4). The third 
 (50 : 4-9) describes more explicitly the sorrow and the 
 opposition he had to endure (50 : 6), but sets over against 
 this his invincible faith in God and his splendid confidence 
 in the ultimate triumph of the cause he represents. The 
 chmax of the description is reached in the fourth song 
 (52 : 13-53 '12), which elaborates with very striking 
 concrete detail the sufferings of the Servant, and shows 
 him in the end crowned with glory and honor. 
 
 Who is this Servant ? This question has been hotly 
 debated in recent years, and the answers to it divide the 
 critical camp. After the argument of the previous chapter, 
 it is most natural to suppose that Israel is the Servant, as, 
 indeed, in the body of the prophecy he is repeatedly and 
 unambiguously called ( cf>4i : 8 ; 44 : i, 21 ; 45 : 4 ; 48 : 20). 
 But for several reasons objection has been taken to this 
 view. The temper of the songs differs, it is argued, from 
 
 252 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 that of the prophecy. The prophecy brings before us 
 the real Israel, irresponsive, blind, and deaf (42 : 18 ff.); 
 the Servant of the songs is an exalted figure to whom this 
 description would be quite inappropriate. The Servant 
 of the songs suffers for sins that were not his own (53 : 4-6) ; 
 in the prophecy it is for her own sins that Israel suffers 
 (40 : 2). In the prophecy, the foreign nations are looked 
 upon with less generous and sympathetic eyes — the 
 impending downfall of Babylon, for example, is celebrated 
 in a scornful elegy (Chap. 47) ; in the songs, the Servant 
 is to be a light to the Gentiles, and to carry the salvation 
 of Jehovah to the end of the earth (49 : 6). In general, 
 the Servant of the songs is supremely interested in the 
 heathen; in the prophecy, Israel is more interested in 
 herself, especiaily in Chaps. 49-55, where attention gathers 
 largely upon the coming welfare and glory of Zion. 
 
 For these and other reasons it has been maintained by 
 many scholars that the Servant of the songs cannot be the 
 Israel of the prophecy, the actual historical Israel, with 
 her blindness and her sin ; but that, if the term be collective 
 at all, it must refer either to ideal Israel — Israel, not as 
 she is in reality, but as she is in the purpose of God and in the 
 light of her mission and destiny — or to the group of faith- 
 ful souls, in whom this ideal found its concrete embodi- 
 ment. Others deny the collective application in the songs 
 altogether, and regard the Servant there as an individual. 
 
 Some encouragement has been given to this latter view 
 by two circumstances, (i) Once or twice ^ the Servant 
 seems to be expressly distinguished from Israel : for ex- 
 ample, in 49 : 5 f., where, according to the common English 
 translation, his primary task is "to bring Jacob again to 
 Jehovah," "to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore 
 the preserved of Israel." But these verses ^ can be fairly 
 read to imply no more than that the restoration of Israel is 
 
 1 In 53; 8 for "transgression of my people," we should perhaps read either "for 
 our transgressions" or "for the transgression of the peoples." The change in Hebrew 
 would be exceedmgly simple. 2 See the commentary. 
 
 253 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 to be effected by Jehovah ; and then Israel, thus restored by 
 him, is to be a light to the Gentiles. (2) Again, the de- 
 scription of the Servant, especially in Chap. 53, is so highly 
 individualized, it is argued, as to necessitate an individual 
 interpretation, the collective reference being unnatural 
 and improbable, if not altogether impossible ; and Je- 
 hoiachin, Zerubbabel, some Messianic king, have been 
 thought of. But here we have to remember how much 
 more easy personification has always been to the Oriental 
 than to us, and how much more ready he is to work out 
 in minute detail a personification upon which once he has 
 entered. "The whole head is sick," says Isaiah, of Judah, 
 ''and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot 
 even unto the head there is no soundness in it ; but wounds, 
 and bruises, and festering sores : they have not been closed, 
 neither bound up, neither mollified with oil" (i : 5 f.) ; and 
 Ezekiel (Chaps. 16 and 23) describes the national careers of 
 Israel and Judah in terms of the experience of two unfaith- 
 ful women, elaborating his comparison with detail of the 
 most painfully concrete kind. The fact, then, that the 
 description of the Servant is so highly individualized is 
 no proof that he is an individual; consequently we are free 
 to consider the possibility of his being the people — Israel. 
 It is something in favor of this interpretation that every- 
 where in the body of the prophecy the Servant is un- 
 doubtedly Israel (cf. 41 : 8). Once even in the songs, the 
 Servant is expUcitly addressed as Israel (49 : 3), and the 
 Greek version of 42 : i reads ^^ Jacob my servant" and 
 ^^ Israel my chosen." Even if these be all late insertions, 
 they are at any rate evidence for the view that the ser- 
 vant was very early regarded as Israel. The context of 
 the songs strongly suggests that they are integral to the 
 prophecy, and that their theme is the same. 42 : 6, "I will 
 give thee for a Hght of the Gentiles," clearly points back 
 to the first song (42 : 1-4); and 52 : 10, ''The Lord hath 
 made bare his holy arm," as clearly prepares the way for 
 the last (52 : 13-53 • 12 ; cf. 53 : i, "to whom hath the 
 
 254 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 arm of the Lord been revealed? ")• Cross references be- 
 tween the songs and the prophecy are numerous ; and, 
 in cases where the phraseology is almost identical, it is 
 most natural to interpret the possibly ambiguous references 
 of the songs by the unambiguous references of the prophecy. 
 For example. 
 
 Attend unto me, my people, 
 
 And give ear unto me, my nation;^ 
 
 For a law shall go forth from me. 
 And my judgement for a light of the peoples (51:4). 
 
 Here the allusion to the first song (42 : 1-4) is unmistak- 
 able. Here (in 51 : 4) it is the people who are addressed; 
 why not then also in 42 : 1-4? So also 51 : 8, admittedly 
 addressed to the people (cf. vs. 7), unmistakably recalls 
 50 : 9, where the Servant speaks. 
 
 Another argument which makes strongly for the col- 
 lective and against the individual interpretation is the large 
 outlook of the passages which describe the work the Ser- 
 vant is commissioned to do, and the impression made by 
 his sufferings and triumph. His mission is to the world, 
 and it is whole nations that are astonished at his humiliation 
 and exaltation (52 : 14 f.). All this seems to point most 
 naturally to experiences upon a national scale ; it is the 
 fortunes of a people rather than of an indi\'idual that are 
 watched by the world. Further, the function of the Ser- 
 vant in bringing religion and justice to the Gentiles (42 : i- 
 4) is curiously paralleled by the noble prophecy in 2 : 2-4, 
 which pictures the nations as flocking for justice to Jeru- 
 salem. All these considerations strongly suggest that 
 in the songs, as in the prophecy, the Servant is Israel. 
 The outlook in both upon the world is much the same ; 
 there is only a difference in emphasis. Certainly in the 
 prophecy — especially towards the close — Zion and her 
 
 1 Even if, with Duhm, Cheyne, Marti, Box, we delete my nation as metrically 
 superfluous, and as a corruption of the two preceding Hebrew words, the argument 13 
 unaffected. my people in the first clause stands, and the context shows that the 
 address is to Israel (vss. 1,7). 
 
 25s 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 fortunes occupy the foreground, but the welfare of the 
 wider world is never forgotten. Israel's salvation is but 
 the first step to the salvation of the world. It was first 
 ''for Jacob my servant's sake" that Cyrus was called to 
 the overthrow of Babylon (45:4), but ultimately that 
 across the world from east to west men might acknowledge 
 Jehovah (45 : 6), that to him every knee might bow and 
 every tongue swear (45 : 23). 
 
 Not even the songs open a wider or more brilliant 
 prospect than that. But the final conversion of the 
 heathen receives in the last song peculiarly pathetic and 
 significant expression. It takes the form of a confession 
 that the sins for which Jehovah's servant suffered so 
 tragically were not his own, but theirs (Chap. 53).^ In this 
 penitent appreciation of the Servant and his sufferings, 
 the conversion of the heathen world is practically attested, 
 and the prophet's dream is ideally fulfilled. The Ser- 
 vant is now vindicated, his mission is accomplished, the 
 world is converted ; and in this crowning song the prophet's 
 most daring hopes find an embodiment as beautiful as it 
 is immortal. 
 
 Throughout the Servant songs, Israel is ideally conceived. 
 They are not a description, but a splendidly original in- 
 terpretation, of her sufferings and destiny. Doubtless 
 the nation never did, as a nation, fulfil the wonderful 
 programme sketched for her in these songs by one of her 
 greatest sons ; and it was a true instinct that led the 
 New Testament Church to see in it an adumbration of the 
 sufferings, the work, and the triumph of our Lord (Mat. 
 12 : 18-21; Acts 8 : 32-35, etc.). 
 
 IV. The Style of Deutero-Isaiah 
 
 The style of Chaps. 40-55 is very different from that of 
 Isaiah himself. Isaiah is incisive ; this writer tends to 
 
 1 In vss. i-ii, the heathen (cf. 52 ; 15) appear to be the speakers. See the com- 
 mentary. 
 
 256 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 an agreeable diffuseness — agreeable, because he too, 
 like Isaiah, is a great master of the music of human speech, 
 and can express the few great thoughts which stir him with 
 endless variety. Both display great powers of imagina- 
 tion ; but in tliis, as in other respects, "Isaiah is very bold," 
 the writer of these chapters is less daring, more soft and 
 tender. Especially does his imagination Idndle when 
 he thinks of his beloved Zion and the glory that he antici- 
 pates for her in the near future. Nowhere has this re- 
 ceived more beautiful expression than in the noble picture 
 of mother Zion, welcoming back, with wonder in her eyes, 
 the multitude of her scattered children. They are so 
 many that the old city is too small for them, and she can- 
 not bring herself to believe that these thronging hosts are 
 hers (49: 18-21). 
 
 The poet is calling upon the city to hft up her eyes and 
 behold the returning children she had never thought to 
 see again : 
 
 Lift up thine eyes round about and behold 
 
 How they gather together. 
 And thou shalt be gaily adorned with them, 
 
 As a bride with her girdle. 
 And thou shalt have scarce room enough for them all — 
 
 When far off are the spoilers. 
 Then this cry shall resound in thine ears from the sons 
 
 Whom thou long wast bereft of : 
 "This place is too strait and too narrow for me. 
 
 Give me more room to dwell in." 
 Then indeed shalt thou marvel and say in thine heart, 
 
 "Who hath borne me these children? 
 For all unfruitful and childless am I : 
 
 Who hath brought up these children ? 
 As for me, I was lonely and desolate ; say, 
 
 Who then are these children?" 
 
 257 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ANALYSIS OF CHAPTERS 40-55 
 
 Jehovah the Omnipotent is about to usher in the Day of Israel's 
 Deliverance (Chaps. 40-48) 
 
 1. Jehovah is Lord of nature and history (chaps. 40 and 41). 
 
 (i) Redemption is nigh (40 : i-ii). 
 
 (2) The sovereignty and omnipotence of God as seen in nature 
 
 (40:12-31). 
 is) The sovereignty of God as seen in history, and especially in the 
 
 rise of Cyrus (chap. 41). 
 
 2. The servant (Israel), his task and destiny (42 : 1-44 : 23). 
 
 (i) The servant's task (42 : 1-9). 
 
 (2) The new song (42 : 10-13). 
 
 (3) Jehovah at last bestirs himself (42 : 14-17). 
 
 (4) A call for responsiveness on Israel's part (42 : 18-25). 
 
 (5) Jehovah will show his love for Israel by gathering her exiles 
 
 home (43 : 1-7). 
 
 (6) Israel is Jehovah's witness to the world (43 : 8-13). 
 
 (7) The deliverance from Babylon more wonderful than the de- 
 
 liverance from Egypt (43 : 14-21). 
 
 (8) Israel's restoration is due not to her own merits, but to 
 
 Jehovah's free grace (43 : 22-44 : 5)- 
 
 (9) Israel's God is sovereign and eternal (44 : 6-8). 
 
 (10) The folly of idolatry (44 : 9-20). 
 
 (11) Let the world rejoice over Israel's redemption (44 : 21-23), 
 
 3. Cyrus and the overthrow of Babylon (44 : 24-48 : 22). 
 
 (i) Jehovah calls Cyrus and bestows upon him a career of victory, 
 for Israel and the world's sake (44 : 24-45 : 8) . 
 
 (2) Murmurs against Cyrus (45 : 9-13)- 
 
 (3) The heathen acknowledged the uniqueness of Israel and her 
 
 God (45 : 14-17)- 
 
 (4) Jehovah desires the salvation of the whole world (45 : 18-25). 
 
 (5) The downfall of Babylon's gods (chap. 46). 
 
 (6) The downfall of Babylon (chap. 47). 
 
 (7) The simiraons to depart from Babylon (chap. 48). 
 
 The Restoration op Israel and the Future Glory of Zion 
 (Chaps. 49-55) 
 
 The Servant discouraged, but at last triumphant (49 : 1-13). 
 
 (i) The Servant : his seeming failure and his great destiny 
 
 (49:1-6). 
 (2) Israel's happy return and restoration (49 : 7-13). 
 
 258 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. The consolation of Zion (49 : 14-50 : 3)- 
 
 (i) Wasted Zion will be rebuilt and filled again with people 
 
 (49: 14-21). 
 (2) Three words of consolation (49 : 22-50 : 3). 
 
 3. The Servant tried but trusting (50 : 4-1 1). 
 
 4. Words of encouragement and promise (51 : 1-52 : 12). 
 
 (i) Deliverance is near and sure (51 : 1-16). 
 
 (2) Jerusalem's affliction : her speedy redemption and glory 
 (SI : 17-52 : 12). 
 
 5. The humiliation and exaltation of the servant (52 : 13-53 : 12). 
 
 (i) The Servant : his sufferings and his great glory (52 : 13-53 : i)- 
 
 (2) The sorrows, humiliation, and death of the servant (53 : 2-9). 
 
 (3) The Servant's ultimate glory and exaltation (53 : 10-12). 
 
 6. The future glory of Jerusalem (chap. 54) . 
 
 (i) The new Jerusalem will be large and populous, and blessed 
 
 with the steadfast favor of God (54 : i-io). 
 (2) The new Jerusalem will be fair and impregnable (54 : 11-17). 
 
 7. Invitation to embrace the impending salvation (chap. 55). 
 
 (i) The blessings in store for Israel (55 : 1-5). 
 (2) The wonderful salvation is near : forth then from Babylon 
 (55:6-13). 
 
 259 
 
THE EXILES' BOOK OF CONSOLATION (Chaps. 
 
 40-55) 
 
 PART I 
 
 Jehovah the Omnipotent is about to usher in the 40 : 2 
 Day of Israel's Deliverance (Chaps. 40-48) 
 
 The Glorious News — Redemption is Nigh (40: i-ii) 
 
 40. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," 
 
 Saith your God. 
 2. ^ " Speak ye ^ comfortably to Jerusalem, 
 
 And cry unto her, 
 
 1 Gr. ye priests, speak, etc. 2 pieb. to the heart of. 
 
 Chaps. 40-48. As we have seen, the time is about 540 B.C., the 
 place is Babylonia, the people addressed are the disconsolate 
 Hebrew exiles, the speaker is a prophet whose name is unknown. 
 His task is no easy one. The men whom he seeks to inspire with 
 comfort and hope are men who believe that God has forsaken and 
 forgotten them (40: 27), and he seeks to confirm their shattered 
 faith by confronting them with his own magnificent conception of 
 God as the only and incomparable Lord of nature and history. 
 
 1. Comfort, the key-note of the prophecy; twice repeated, for 
 the people are despondent (vs. 27), and such a message is all but 
 incredible. Ye, plural ; the command is addressed to the prophet 
 and to all who, Hke him, have the power to comfort. That power 
 depended upon the power to hear the voice of God in the events of 
 the times ; your God saith, is continually speaking in those events 
 — though there were few who could, like this prophet, interpret 
 the real significance for Israel of the victorious progress of Cyrus. 
 
 2. Comfortably — home to the heart of id. margin), as a man 
 speaks to a maid whom he woos. Warfare, i.e. time of sore 
 
 261 
 
40:3 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 That her ^ warfare is accomplished, 
 
 That her iniquity is pardoned ; 
 That she hath received of the Loed's hand 
 
 Double for all her sins." 
 
 Mat. 3:3 3. The voice of one that crieth, "Prepare ye in the wil- 
 
 Lk. 3 : 4 ff. aerness 
 
 Jn- 1 : 23 The way of the Lord, 
 
 Make straight ^ in the desert 
 A high way for our God. 
 
 4. Every valley shall be exalted, 
 
 And every mountain and hill shall be made low : 
 And ^ the crooked shall be made straight. 
 And the rough places ^ plain :" 
 
 5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. 
 And all flesh shall see ^ it together; 
 
 For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 6. The voice of one saying, "Cry." 
 
 And ^one said, "What shall I cry ?" 
 
 1 m. ttTne of service. 2 Gr. om. in the desert. ^ m. SV the uneven shall be made level. 
 * m. SV a plain. * Gr. the salvation of God, cf . Lk. 3:6. * Gr. Vg. / said. 
 
 service. Double perhaps means no more than that Jerusalem's 
 punishment (in exile) has been thorough. 
 
 Prepare for Jehovah's coming (vss. 3-5) 
 
 3. The -voice = hark! The prophet hears a supernatural voice. 
 Jehovah is to march at the head of his people across the wilderness 
 from Babylon to Palestine, and the way for him must be prepared, 
 made straight and plain — without heights or hollows (vs. 4). 
 The literal meaning melts into the figurative ; the whole historical 
 situation is about to be transformed. To the keen eyes of the 
 prophet the glory of Jehovah was already shimmering through the 
 clouds. 
 
 262 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 "All flesh is grass, 
 And all the ^ goodhness thereof is as the flower of the j^g '^f ** 
 field: 
 
 7. 2 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; 
 
 Because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it : 
 Surely the people is grass. 
 
 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; 
 
 But the word of our God shall stand for ever." 
 
 9. ^ O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, 
 
 Get thee up into the high mountain ; 
 ^ thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, 
 
 Lift up thy voice with strength ; 
 Lift it up. 
 
 Be not afraid ; 
 Say unto the cities of Judah, 
 
 "Behold, your God!" 
 
 1 Gr. glory of man. 2 Gr. om. vs. 7. ^ m. AV Zion, thai bringesl good tidings. 
 * m. AV Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings. 
 
 The Prophet's Message ; Nothing is Eternal hut the Divine Purpose 
 (vss. 6-8) 
 
 This is the theme of vss. 12-31. Another supernatural voice 
 urges the prophet to proclaim the inevitable decay of all flesh, 
 i.e. of the mighty heathen empires, like the Babylonian, which 
 were not in line with the purpose of God. They wither, as the 
 breath of Jehovah, the hot wind from the desert, withers the 
 flowers. But the word of our God, i.e. his great purpose as pro- 
 claimed and interpreted by the prophets, — his world-plan, which 
 needs Israel for its reahzation, — that is eternal. Surely the people 
 is grass (vs. 7) is rightly regarded by Cheyne as a '' weak homileti- 
 cal addition." 
 
 Declare the Glad News: Jehovah is coming (vss. 9-1 1) 
 
 9. The way is prepared for his coming (vs. 3), the messengers 
 are to climb the heights, and loudly proclaim — the moment they 
 catch sight of him — Behold your God. 
 
 263 
 
4o:io THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Rom. 
 
 10. Behold, the Lord God will come ^ as a mighty one, 
 
 And his arm shall rule for him : 
 Behold, his reward is with him. 
 And his recompence before him. 
 
 11. He shall feed his flock Hke a shepherd, 
 
 He shall gather the lambs in his arm. 
 And carry them in his bosom. 
 And shall gently lead those that give suck. 
 
 The Sovereignty and Omnipotence of God as seen in Nature 
 (40: 12-31) 
 
 1 2 . Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, 
 
 And meted out heaven with the span, 
 And comprehended ^ the dust of the earth in a measure, 
 And weighed the mountains in scales. 
 
 And the hills in a balance ? 
 
 13. Who hath ^ directed the ^ spirit of the Lord, 
 
 34 i. Or being his counsellor hath taught him ? 
 
 I Cor. 2 : 16 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. Tar. Vg. with strength. 2 Gr. all the earth. ^ m. meted out ; Gr. known. 
 * Gr. mind. 
 
 10 f. With his mighty arm, he secures for his people salvation, 
 here described as his reward — their redemption from Babylon 
 and return to Palestine. The mighty conqueror, who wins their 
 victory, is the gentle shepherd, who tenderly guides them home; 
 a fine combination. 
 
 40: 12-31. The magnificent description of the might and wis- 
 dom of God which follows is intended to reassure the despondent 
 (vs. 27). There is no danger that the purpose of God (vs. 8), 
 which involves the deliverance of Israel, will be frustrated ; for 
 all power is his. This is illustrated fully on the arena of nature 
 and, briefly, in history. 
 
 Jehovah is Peerless in Wisdom and Might (vss. 12-16) 
 
 12 f. The majesty and order of nature testify to his incomparable 
 might and intelligence. Spirit, here d\Taost = mind (so Gr.). 
 Jehovah is alone. 
 
 264 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 40:19 
 
 14. With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, 
 And taught him in the path of judgement ^ and taught 
 
 him knowledge, 
 And shewed him the way of understanding ? 
 
 15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. 
 
 And are counted as the ^ small dust of the balance : 
 ^ Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very httle thing. 
 
 16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, 
 
 Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 
 
 17. All the nations are as nothing before him ; 
 
 They are counted to him less than nothing, and 
 ^ vanity. 
 
 18. To whom then will ye Hken God? 
 
 Or what likeness will ye compare unto him? 
 
 19. The graven image, a workman melted it, 
 
 1 Gr. om. 2 Gr. turning. ^ Gr. they sfiall be counted as spittle. * Heb. chaos (cf. 
 Gen. 1 : 2). 
 
 14. The Greek version rightly omits and taught him knowledge. 
 The path of judgement, of right, i.e. the right control of history. 
 
 15. Like a drop /row (almost = o«) a bucket, or Hke dust, etc.; 
 of no appreciable weight, insignificant. Isles, usually = coast- 
 lands (cf. 20: 6), in DeuteroTsaiah practically = lands. A very 
 little thing, something _^He, Hke manna (Exod. 16 : 14). 
 
 16. For such a God, no sacrifice would be adequate. A verse 
 of splendid imagination ; not all the cedars of Lebanon enough for 
 altar fires, nor all the beasts that roam her forests enough for sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The Folly of worshipping such a God by Images (vss. 17-20) 
 
 lyf. Less than may be omitted. Vanity, chaos (Gen. 1:2). If 
 even nations are nothing, how great the folly of likening God to 
 anything ! 
 
 19. This is the first of the prophet's attacks on idolatry (cf. 
 44:9-20; 46:1-7), which was rampant in Babylon. The pa- 
 thetic folly of it he illustrates by an ironically realistic description 
 
 265 
 
40120 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, 
 ^ And casteth for it silver chains. 
 
 20. ^ He that is too impoverished for such an oblation 
 
 Chooseth a tree that will not rot ; 
 He seeketh unto him a cunning workman 
 To set up a graven image, that shall not be moved. 
 
 21. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? 
 
 Hath it not been told you from the beginning ? 
 Have ye not ^ understood 
 
 From the foundations of the earth ? 
 
 22. // is he that sitteth ^ upon the circle of the earth, 
 
 And the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; 
 
 1 Gr. he fashioned it as a likeness. ^ Gr. an artificer clwoseth, etc. ^ m. Gr. Syr. 
 Vg. understood the foundations. ^ m. SV above. 
 
 of the process of idol manufacture. Omit and casteth for it silver 
 chains. 
 
 It is generally admitted that this verse should be followed by 
 41 : 6, 7, which are clearly not in place where they now stand. 
 There is grim humor in this description (41 : 6 f.) of the workmen 
 cheering each other up, while they are fabricating the image. 
 That it should not he moved has probably crept in from 40 : 20, 
 where it is original. The precautions taken to keep the image from 
 toppling over show the absurdity of idolatry. 
 
 20. He that is too impoverished for such an oblation, for several 
 reasons, can hardly be right. With two slight changes in the text, 
 Duhm reads, he who carves an linage. Apparently in 19 f. as in 
 44: 12 ff., two kinds of images are described — first metal, and 
 then wood. 
 
 God^s Control of Nature and History (vss. 21-26) 
 
 21. The power of God ought to be known, familiar, to every one 
 who contemplates nature. In any case, the story of it must be 
 familiar, handed on as it was by tradition from the most ancient 
 times and recorded in one of Israel's own books (Gen. 2). Read, 
 " do you not know . . . hear? " 
 
 22. From his throne in heaven high above the earth, men look 
 like grasshoppers. A curtain, gauze. 
 
 266 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 40:26 
 
 ^ That stretcheth out the heavens as ^ a curtain, 
 And spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in : 
 
 23. That bringeth princes to nothing ; 
 
 He maketh the judges of the earth as ^ vanity. 
 
 24. ^ Yea, they have not been planted ; 
 
 Yea, they have not been sown ; 
 
 Yea, their stock hath not 
 
 Taken root in the earth : 
 Moreover he bloweth upon them, and they wither, 
 
 And the whirlwind taketh them away as stubble. 
 
 25. To whom then will ye liken me. 
 
 That I should be equal to him ? saith the Holy One. 
 
 26. Lift up your eyes on high, 
 
 ^ And see who hath created these. 
 
 That bringeth out their host by number ; 
 
 He calleth them all by name ; 
 By the greatness of his might, and ^ for that he is strong 
 in power. 
 
 Not one is lacking. 
 
 1 Gr. that set up the heaven as a vaulted chamber. 2 xn. gauze. ' Heb. chaos (cf. 
 vs. 17). * m. scarce are they planted, scarce are they sown, scarce hath their stock taken 
 root in the earth, when he bloweth upon them. ^ m. and see; who hath created these? he 
 that, etc. * Gr. by the strength of his power. 
 
 23 f. He is Lord of history, as of nature (vs. 22). Mighty 
 princes had within the last few years been defeated by Cyrus 
 (cf. 41:2), his anointed (45:1). Vs. 24 becomes plain in the 
 margin: scarcely are they planted . . . when he blows {d. vss. 6-8). 
 
 25 f. There can be no image of one who controls history and 
 created the stars. These, the stars ; they are conceived as an 
 army — as living things which come forth, like soldiers, from their 
 place when Jehovah summons them by name — they obey. 
 Read : by reason of the greatness of (his) might and the strength of 
 (his) power, not one is missing. 
 
 267 
 
40:27 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, 
 
 And speakest, O Israel, 
 " My way is hid from the Lord, 
 And my judgement is passed away from my God" ? 
 
 28. Hast thou not known ? 
 
 Hast thou not heard ? 
 ^ The everlasting God, the Lord, , 
 The Creator of the ends of the earth, 
 
 Fainteth not, neither is weary ; 
 There is no searching of his understanding. 
 
 29. He giveth power to the faint ; 
 
 And to him that hath no might he increaseth 
 strength. 
 
 30. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, 
 
 And the young men shall utterly fall : 
 
 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
 
 strength; 
 They ^ shall mount up with wings as eagles ; 
 
 ^m. the LORD is an everlasting God, tJie Creator . . . he fainteth not, etc. 2 Gr. 
 Vg. put forth new pinions. 
 
 Trust brings Strength (vss. 27-31) 
 
 27. The cumulative force of the long argument for the power of 
 God is now driven home with overwhelming cogency and earnest- 
 ness upon the despondent people who had begun to doubt the 
 power and the love of their God. Way=/a/e. My judgment = 
 my case, the justice of my cause. Passed away from = ignored by. 
 
 28 f. Read, an everlasting God is Jehovah . . . he fainteth not. 
 He is full of strength and wisdom. So far is he from being faint 
 himself that he gives power to the faint — the spiritually faint, as 
 vs. 31 shows. 
 
 30 f . Physical strength will fail ; but patient faith in God 
 enables a man to soar, as on eagles' wings, above the disappoint- 
 ments of the present, towards the sure and blessed future. This 
 utterance from a time of national despair (vs. 27) is itself a brill- 
 iant illustration of that faith which can see beyond the sorrow of 
 
 268 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 41:1 
 
 They shall run, and not be weary ; 
 They shall walk, and not faint. 
 
 The Sovereignty of God as seen in History, and especially 
 in the Rise 0} Cyrus (Chap. 41) 
 
 41. ^ Keep silence before me, islands ; 
 
 And let the peoples renew their strength : 
 
 1 Gr. hold a feast of consecration. 
 
 the night to the joy that cometh in the morning. For they 
 mount, etc., read rather, they putfo'ih as it tvere eagles' wings. 
 
 Chap. 41. The prophet had sought, in Chap. 40, to comfort and 
 stimulate the disconsolate people by passing before them the 
 panorama of nature, with its mighty testimony to the power and 
 wisdom of God. Now he passes from nature to history, upon 
 which he had already shghtly touched (40: 23 f.), and illustrates 
 the divine purpose which has controlled it from the beginning 
 until now, and which gives a world of significance to the rise and 
 the victorious career of Cyrus. That career, rightly interpreted, 
 is the proof that Jehovah is mindful of his people. So from his- 
 tory the prophet clinches the argument for the ever present power 
 and love of God which he had already drawn from nature. 
 
 Twice, in this chapter, the argument for the uniqueness of 
 Israel's God is illustrated, in a way strange to us but significant 
 for the ancient world, by a comparison between his power, espe- 
 cially his predictive power, and that of the heathen gods. The 
 great Cyrus is marching triumphantly across the world ; which of 
 those gods had predicted this ? which of them even now knows the 
 meaning or the issue of it? They have no key to history, their 
 oracles are unable to interpret it. It is a Hebrew prophet who 
 sees it to be illuminated with a divine Presence and instinct with a 
 divine purpose (vs. 4) ; it is he who, inspired by his God, announces 
 and interprets aright the rise of Cyrus. Thus in this way again 
 is brought home to the people the folly of idolatry, the immeasu- 
 rable greatness of their God, and the inestimable privilege that is 
 theirs in having him and calhng him their own. 
 
 The helplessness of contemporary heathen oracles to interpret 
 or appreciate the new situation created by Cyrus is expounded in a 
 very striking passage by Principal G. A. Smith {Isaiah, vol. ii, 
 pp. 1 13-120). 
 
 269 
 
41 : 2 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Let them come near ; then let them speak : 
 Let us come near together to judgement. 
 
 2. Who hath raised up one from the east, 
 
 ^ Whom he calleth in righteousness to his foot ? 
 He giveth nations before him, 
 
 And 2 maketh him rule over kings ; 
 
 He giveth them as the dust to his sword, 
 As the driven stubble to his bow. 
 
 3. He pursueth them, and passeth on safely ; 
 
 Even by a way that he had not gone with his feet. 
 
 * m. whom righteousness calleth to its foot ; or, whom righteousness meeteth whithersoever 
 he goeth. 2 Gr. terrifieth. 
 
 The Rise of Cyrus a Proof of Jehovah's Power (vss. 1-5) 
 
 1. The islands (i.e. distant heathen lands, cf. 40: 15) are sum- 
 moned to judgement, i.e. to have the question judicially argued; 
 how are the rise and victories of Cyrus to be explained? what, or 
 rather who (vs. 2) is the cause of them? Renew their strength, 
 here inappropriate, has apparently been repeated from the 
 preceding vs. (40 : 31). The opening words may have run : 
 
 Listen to me in silence, ye coastlands, 
 And ye peoples, wait for my arguing. 
 
 2. One from the east, Cyrus (cf. vs. 25), named in 44:28: 
 45 : I. Whom he calleth, etc. : rather, one whom victory meets at 
 every step. The word rendered righteousness has a wide meaning 
 in this prophecy ; it is often that by which the right (man, people, 
 or cause) is vindicated — hence it approximates to vindication, 
 victory, salvation. Maketh him rule over : obscure ; either 
 brings down, subdues, or terrifies. He giveth them, etc. : perhaps, 
 his sivord makes them like dust, his bow like driven stubble. These 
 are allusions to the victories of Cyrus; he had conquered Media 
 in 549 B.C., and Croesus of Lydia in 546. 
 
 3. Even by a way, etc. : the path he treads not, does not seem to 
 touch, with his feet — an allusion to the swiftness of his marches. 
 
 270 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 41:8 
 
 4. Who hath wrought and done it, 
 
 Calhng the generations from the beginning ? 
 I the Lord, the first, 
 And with the last, I am he. 
 
 5. The isles saw, and feared ; 
 
 The ends of the earth trembled ; 
 They drew near, and came.^ 
 
 6. They helped every one his neighbour ; 
 
 And every one said to his brother, "Be of good 
 courage." 
 
 7. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith. 
 
 And he that smootheth with the hammer him that 
 smiteth the anvil, 
 Saying of the soldering, "It is good" ; 
 And he fastened it with nails, that it should not be 
 moved. 
 
 8. But thou, Israel, my servant, 
 
 Jacob whom I have chosen. 
 The seed of Abraham my friend ; Jas. 2 : 23 
 
 1 Gr. adds together. 
 
 4. The rise of Cyrus is a historical event which, Kke all history, 
 finds its explanation in God. Jehovah is Lord of history, his 
 purpose inspires it, and it is his call that stirs up great men, like 
 Cyrus, to fulfil that purpose. 
 
 5. Probably a late verse. The people of the isles are already 
 present (vs. i) and do not require to draw near. 
 
 6 f. follow 40: 19, which see. 
 
 Israel is Jehovah^s Servant, loved and upheld by Him (vss. 8-10) 
 
 8 f . But thou, in contrast to the people subdued by Cyrus (vs. 2). 
 My servant — the first appearance in the prophecy of this impor- 
 tant phrase. Here clearly Israel is meant — the nation, not an 
 
 271 
 
41:9 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 9. Thou whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the 
 earth, 
 And called thee from the ^ corners thereof, 
 And said unto thee, "Thou art my servant, .^^ 
 
 1 have chosen thee and not cast thee away" ; 
 
 10. Fear thou not, for I am with thee ; 
 
 2 Be not dismayed, for I am thy God : 
 
 I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ; 
 
 Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my 
 righteousness. 
 
 11. Behold, all they that are incensed against thee 
 
 Shall be ashamed and confounded : 
 They that strive with thee 
 
 Shall be as nothing, and shall perish. 
 
 12. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, 
 
 Even them that contend with thee : 
 They that war against thee 
 
 Shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. 
 
 1 Gr. watch-towers. ^m. look not around thee; Gr. wander not. 
 
 individual. As the chosen servant, Israel stands in special rela- 
 tion to Jehovah — a relation rooted in the past and going back 
 to the days of Abraham my friend, whose home was in the ends of 
 the eaith, i.e. Mesopotamia — and therefore has nothing to fear 
 from Cyrus (vs. 10), who has been called (vs. 4) of God to effect 
 Israel's deliverance. 
 
 10. Be not dismayed : look not around thee anxiously (cf. mar- 
 gin). I will strengthen, etc.: very emphatic; I will assuredly. 
 The right hand of my righteousness : my right hand which will 
 vindicate thee (cf. vs. 2) ; my victorious right hand. 
 
 Israel Triumphant over her Foes (vss. 11-16) 
 
 These verses explain how Jehovah will vindicate Israel (vs. 10) 
 — by making her triumphant over the forces that oppose her. 
 
 272 
 
THE BOOK OF ISMAH 41 : 17 
 
 13. For I the Lord thy God 
 
 Will hold thy right hand, 
 Saying unto thee, "Fear not ; 
 ' I will help thee." 
 
 14. ^ Fear not, thou worm Jacob, 
 
 And ye men of Israel ; 
 I will help thee, saith the Lord, 
 
 And thy redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 15. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instru- 
 
 ment 
 Having teeth : 
 Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, 
 And shalt make the hills as chaff. 
 
 16. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them 
 
 away, 
 And the whirlwind shall scatter them : 
 And thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, 
 Thou shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 17. The poor and needy seek water and there is none, 
 
 And their tongue faileth for thirst ; 
 
 1 Gr. fear not, Jacob, Israel few in number. 
 
 13. Saying : / who say. Fear not : three times in this short 
 section (10, i3f.) — showing how real is Israel's fear. 
 
 14-16. Ye men of Israel becomes, by a simple and probable 
 change, thou {puny) worm Israel. Worm suggests helplessness, 
 but Jehovah helps her, turns her weakness into strength, and en- 
 ables her to thresh not only grain, but mountains — symbols of 
 giant opposition — with deadly thoroughness. In vs. 1 5 omit sharp. 
 
 Jehovah's Wondrous Restoration of his People (vss. 17-20) 
 
 17 f. In this picture of the restoration, as in 40 : 3 f., the material 
 melts into the spiritual. The people, languishing in exile, are 
 
 T 273 
 
41 : i8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I the Lord will answer them, 
 I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 
 
 1 8. I will open rivers on the bare heights, 
 
 And fountains in the midst of the valleys : 
 I will make the wilderness a pool of water, 
 And the dry land ^ springs of water. 
 
 19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, 
 
 The acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the ^ oil tree ; 
 I will set in the desert the ^ fir tree. 
 The ^ pine, and the ^ box tree together : 
 
 20. That they may see, and know, 
 
 And consider and understand together, 
 That the hand of the Lord hath done this. 
 And the Holy One of Israel hath created it. 
 
 21. Produce your cause, 
 
 Saith the Lord ; 
 
 1 Gr. water-courses. 2 m. oleaster. ^ SVm. cypress. * m. plane. ^ m. cypress. 
 
 represented as thirsty, and they will be refreshed with abundance 
 of water (cf. 35 : 6 f.). 
 
 19 f. The dreary wilderness through which they have to pass 
 will be transformed into an enchanting oasis, planted with glori- 
 ous trees, such as grew on Lebanon (60: 13); and the object of 
 the transformation is to convince the people to a demonstration 
 that the hand of their God is in this thing. These words (vss. 17- 
 20), whose Hteral meaning is not, of course, to be ignored, surely 
 also suggest the miraculous transformation of the existing histori- 
 cal situation. 
 
 No Heathen God can predict the Future (vss. 21-24) 
 
 Here begins another dispute, like vss. 1-4, not this time, how- 
 ever, with the heathen worshippers, but with their gods them- 
 selves ; a challenge which shows the helplessness of those gods to 
 
 274 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 41:24 
 
 Bring forth your strong reasons, 
 Saith the King of Israel. 
 
 22. Let them ^ bring them forth and declare unto us 
 
 What shall happen : 
 Declare ye the former things, what they be. 
 That we may consider them. 
 
 And know the latter end of them ; 
 Or shew us things for to come. 
 
 23. Declare the things that are to come hereafter, 
 
 That we may know that ye are gods : 
 
 Yea, do good, or do evil. 
 
 That we may ^ be dismayed, and ^ behold it together. 
 
 24. ^ Behold, ye are of nothing, 
 
 And your work is nought : 
 
 An abomination is he that chooseth you. 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. Tar. Vg. draw near. 2 m. look one upon another. ^ A Heb. variant, fear. 
 < Gr. we shall beliold together whence ye are and whence your work. 
 
 predict the future, in particular the advent of Cyrus (25-29), 
 and which therefore estabHshes the exclusive divinity of Israel's 
 God. 
 
 21. Produce your cause, addressed to the heathen gods (vs. 23), 
 whose worshippers are also present (vs. 29). 
 
 22 f. The last two clauses of vs. 22 should be transposed: 
 
 Or the things to come let us hear, 
 That we may mark the issue of them. 
 
 Do good or evil, i.e. anything, something. Be dismayed, etc.: 
 
 i.e. look on it with astonishment. 
 
 " The false gods may mention either predictions of past events, 
 which were duly fulfilled, or predictions of future events, the issue 
 of which Jehovah and His followers will carefully mark. Or 
 lastly, let them give any proof that they like of their ability to 
 act." — Cheyne. 
 
 24. A dead silence follows the challenge. The gods have 
 nothing to say; therefore they are of nothing, nonentities, not 
 gods at all (vs. 23). 
 
 275 
 
41:25 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 25. I have raised up one from the north, and he is come ; 
 
 From the rising of the sun one that calleth upon my 
 name : 
 And he shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, 
 And as the potter treadeth clay. 
 
 26. Who hath declared it from the beginning, that we may 
 
 know? 
 And beforetime, that we may say, ''He is righteous"? 
 Yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none 
 
 that sheweth, 
 Yea, there is none that heareth your words. 
 
 27. I first will say unto Zion, "Behold, behold them" : 
 
 And I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good 
 tidings. 
 
 No Heathen God, hut Jehovah alone, predicted the Advent of Cyrus 
 (vss. 25-29) 
 
 The general ignorance of the future displayed by the heathen 
 gods (21-24) is illustrated by their particular ignorance of 
 Cyrus. 
 
 25. One, Cyrus; from the north and east, practically = the 
 northeast. That calleth upon my name, i.e. in worship; this, 
 of course, is an ideal representation. To the idealkm of our 
 prophet it is natural that Cyrus, who at the beginning of his career 
 was ignorant of Jehovah (45 : 4), should finally acknowledge him 
 as the author of his success. Perhaps, however, we should read, 
 by a very simple change, / will call him by his name; this would 
 bring the passage into complete accord with 45 : 4. He shall 
 come upon : read, that he may trample upon (cf. 40 : 23). 
 
 26. No heathen god had foretold the advent of Cyrus. Right- 
 eous should be right, i.e. in his prediction. 
 
 27. Will give should be gave. The bringer of good tidings is the 
 prophet himself (cf. 40:9), who was a veritable gift of God to 
 Jerusalem; he was the first to explain the meaning of Cyrus. 
 The first half of this verse is very obscure; perhaps originally, 
 / announced it in advance unto Zion. 
 
 276 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 42 
 
 28. And when I look, there is no man ; 
 
 Even among them there is no counsellor, 
 
 That, when I ask of them, can answer a word. 
 
 29. Behold, ^ all of them. 
 
 Their works are vanity and nought. 
 
 Their molten images are wind and confusion. 
 
 The Servant (Israel), His Task and Destiny 
 (42 : 1-44 : 23) 
 
 The Servants Task (42 : 1-9) 
 
 42. Behold, 2 my servant, whom I uphold ; 
 
 ^ My chosen, in whom my soul deUghteth : 
 
 1 m. they are all vanity: their works are nought. 2 Qr. adds Jacob. 3 Qr. adds Israel. 
 
 28 f. For look, read looked; for no man, none; further was, 
 asked, could answer. The gods were dumb; therefore, as before 
 (vs. 24), they are proved nonentities. 
 
 This dispute between Jehovah and the gods is thoroughly 
 dramatic. Particularly effective is the helpless silence that follows 
 Jehovah's challenge of them. And the conclusion of the whole 
 matter is that they are nothing, while he is everything, and he 
 may therefore well be trusted by his downcast people. 
 
 42 : 1-44 : 23. Now that the power of God to deliver Israel has 
 been persuasively set forth (Chap. 40), and the conquering Cyrus 
 has been interpreted as the human agent of that deliverance 
 (Chap. 41), it is fitting that the real meaning and purpose of it 
 should be explained. Israel, the nation, is Jehovah's servant 
 (41 : 8), and she is deHvered in order to perform the high task of 
 bringing the true religion, which she alone possesses — for there 
 is no God like hers (41 : 29) — to the whole world. 
 
 42 : 1-4. This is the first of the four songs (49 : 1-6 ; 50 : 4-9 ; 
 52: 13-53: 12) whose theme is the Servant of Jehovah. Whether in 
 these songs the servant was originally an individual or the nation in 
 its ideal capacity (see pp. 250 ff .), in their present setting the national 
 interpretation is obligatory. Israel is the servant, as expressly 
 stated in 41 : 8, and as the Greek version also reads here (42 : i). 
 
 I. Behold: for my servant (Jehovah is speaking) is a fact 
 277 
 
42:2 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I have put my spirit upon him ; 
 He shall bring forth judgement to the ^ Gentiles. 
 
 2. He shall not cry, nor lift up, 
 
 Nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 
 
 3. A bruised reed shall he not break, 
 
 And the ^ smoking flax shall he not quench : 
 
 He shall bring forth judgement in truth. 
 
 4. He shall not ^ fail nor be ^ discouraged. 
 Till he have set judgement in the earth ; 
 
 And the isles shall wait for his law. 
 
 5. Thus saith God the Lord, 
 
 He that created the heavens, and stretched them forth; 
 
 1 m. nations. 2 m, SV dimly burning imck. 3 m. jjeb. burn dimly. * m. Heb. 
 bruised. 
 
 worthy of the greatest attention (cf. 41:29). He is chosen 
 (41 : 8) by his God and equipped with the spirit, like a prophet, 
 for his task of carrying judgment {^xdiCt\c2X\y = religion on its 
 civic side) to the world. In other words, Israel is to be a mis- 
 sionary people. 
 
 2. His methods are to be unsensational. Noise and self-ad- 
 vertisement are unseemly and unnecessary in one who is conscious 
 of being upheld and inspired (vs. i) by an omnipotent God. 
 
 3. Those whose power is bent and broken he lifts up ; smoulder- 
 ing hope he fans into a flame, by his faithful proclamation of the 
 true religion (judgment, cf. vs. i). In truth, i.e. faithfully. The 
 reed and the flax are the heathen (vss. i, 4) who are revived by 
 Israel's message. 
 
 4. The translation fail and be discouraged misses a fine point 
 in the original, which echoes the words of the previous verse (see 
 margin, hum dimly, he hruised). The servant is a reed not bruised, 
 but erect ; a wick not dim, but brightly burning ; and he continues 
 his rehgious work till it is effectively established throughout the 
 whole world. 
 
 These words, suggesting the gentleness, the serenity, the ten- 
 derness, and the triumph of the servant's work are very happily 
 applied by Matthew (12 : 17-21) to our Lord. 
 
 5. The omnipotence of Jehovah is the guarantee that he will 
 carry his servant's work to complete success. 
 
 278 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 He that spread abroad the earth and that which com- 
 eth out of it ; 
 He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, 
 And spirit to them that walk therein : 
 
 6. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, 
 
 And will hold thy hand, 
 And will ^ keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of 
 the people. 
 For a Ught of the Gentiles ; 
 
 7. To open the blind eyes. 
 
 To bring out the prisoners from the dungeon. 
 And them that sit in darkness out of the prison 
 house. 
 
 8. I am the Lord ; 
 
 That is my name : 
 And my glory will I not give to another, 
 Neither my praise unto graven images. 
 
 9. Behold, the former things are come to pass, 
 
 And new things do I declare : 
 
 1 m. form ; Gr. slrenglken. 
 
 6. In righteousness, i.e. in accordance with my purpose. 
 The people, as in vs. 5, the people upon the earth, i.e. humanity 
 = the Gentiles. In Israel, God's covenant with humanity, his 
 true relation with man, is embodied, incarnate ; in her the divine 
 light that is to hghten the Gentiles is shining. 
 
 7. To open: read, opening. The blind and the prisoners are 
 probably the heathen (cf. vss. i, 4, 6), though a reference to Israel 
 herself is not necessarily excluded (cf. vss. 18, 20). 
 
 8. Jehovah's name, his honor, his glory are bound up with the 
 success of Israel's mission. If Israel fails, Jehovah is no better 
 than other gods. 
 
 9. The former things, the victorious career of Cyrus (41 : 25-29). 
 New things, the impending emancipation of Israel, with its vast 
 
 279 
 
42 : 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Before they spring forth 
 I tell you of them. 
 
 The New Song (42 : 10-13) 
 
 10. Sing unto the Lord a new song, 
 
 And his praise from the end of the earth ; 
 Ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein, 
 The isles, and the inhabitants thereof. 
 
 11. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof ^ Hft up their 
 
 voice, 
 The villages that Kedar doth inhabit ; 
 Let the inhabitants of Sela sing. 
 
 Let them shout from the top of the mountains. 
 
 12. Let them give glory unto the Lord, 
 
 And declare his praise in the islands. 
 
 13. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man ; 
 
 He shall stir up - jealousy like a man of war : 
 He shall cry, yea, he shall ^ shout aloud ; 
 He shall do mightily against his enemies. 
 
 1 Gr. Tar. rejoice. ^ m. zeal ; SV his zeal. ^ Gr. shall shout against his enemies -with 
 strength. 
 
 spiritual consequences for the world. This prophecy will be ful- 
 filled as surely as the other. 
 
 10-13. The whole world is concerned in the deliverance of 
 Israel, and is therefore summoned to sing a new song for this new 
 and wonderful experience. For ye that go down to the sea, read 
 let the sea roar. Kedar, an Arabian tribe. For Sela, the capital 
 of Edom, perhaps we should read with AV the rock {i.e. cliffs, in 
 contrast to the mountains). The reason for this universal joy is 
 that Jehovah, in his warhke zeal, is taking the field, in the person 
 of Cyrus, against his enemies, i.e. the Babylonians. 
 
 280 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Jehovah at last bestirs Himself (42 : 14-17) 
 
 14. ^ I have long time holden my peace ; 
 
 I have been still, and refrained myself : 
 Now will I cry out Hke a travaihng woman ; 
 I will gasp and pant together. 
 
 15. I will make waste mountains and hills, 
 
 And dry up all their herbs ; 
 And I will make the rivers islands, 
 And will dry up the pools. 
 
 16. And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not ; 
 
 In paths that they know not will I lead them : 
 I will make darkness light before them, 
 And crooked places straight. 
 
 These things will I do, 
 
 ^ And I will not forsake them. 
 
 17. They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly 
 
 ashamed, that trust in graven images, 
 That say unto molten images, "Ye are our gods." 
 
 A Call for Responsiveness on Israel's Fart (42 : 18-25) 
 
 18. Hear, ye deaf ; 
 
 And look, ye bhnd, that ye may see. 
 
 1 Gr. / have been silent; sJiall I also be for ever silent? ^m. and will not forbear. 
 
 14-17. Jehovah, who has long been silent, inactive (perhaps 
 since 701 B.C., when he delivered Jerusalem from Sennacherib), 
 now pants to do something for Israel. He will work havoc for 
 her enemies (vs. 15), and lead her, blind as she is, across the dark 
 desert to the home land. These things will I surely do, and not 
 leave undone (vs. 16) ; and then will be seen the folly of trusting 
 any other god but him. For islands (vs. 15) read perhaps dry land. 
 
 18. Israel, as a whole, is still deaf and blind. She fails to read, 
 281 
 
42 : 19 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 19. Who is blind, but my ^ servant ? 
 
 Or deaf, as ^ my messenger that I send ? 
 Who is blind as he that is ^ at peace with we, 
 And bHnd as the Lord's servant ? 
 
 20. ^ Thou seest many things, but thou observest not 
 
 ^His ears are open, but he heareth not. 
 
 21. It pleased the Lord, for his righteousness' sake. 
 
 To ^ magnify the law, and make it honourable. 
 
 22. But this is a people robbed and spoiled ; 
 They are all of them snared in holes. 
 
 And they are hid in prison houses: 
 They are for a prey, and none dehvereth ; 
 For a spoil, and none saith, ''Restore." 
 
 23. Who is there among you that will give ear to this ? 
 
 That will hearken and hear for the time to come ? 
 
 1 Gr. servants. 2 Gr. their rulers. ^ m. made perfect, or recompensed ; AV perfect. 
 * Gr. ye saw . . . observed not . . . heard not. ^ Gr. the. ^ m. make the teaching 
 great and glorious. 
 
 as this great prophet so clearly does, the signs of the times; she 
 does not understand that Jehovah is panting to deliver her (vss. 
 
 19. This verse, which interrupts the direct appeal in vss. 18, 20, 
 and is explanatory of vs. 18, may originally have been briefer : 
 Who is blind, hut my servant, and deaf, as mine emissary? The 
 word he that is at peace with me is obscure, and perhaps should be 
 (by the change of a single letter) he that is sent. 
 
 20. For his and he, perhaps thine and thou. Israel has no real 
 power of observation, no ear for the voice of God in contemporary 
 history. 
 
 21 f. Read, with margin, make the teaching, perhaps the prophetic 
 teaching, great and glorious. But to this, as to the teaching of 
 history, Israel is irresponsive, made dull and desperate by her 
 misery, which is figuratively described in vs. 22. 
 
 23-25. An appeal to Israel to learn, with a view to the future, to 
 282 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 43:1 
 
 24. Who gave Jacob ^ for a spoil, 
 
 And Israel to the robbers ? 
 Did not the Lord ? he against whom we have sinned, 
 And in whose ways they would not walk. 
 Neither were they obedient unto his law. 
 
 25. Therefore he poured upon him the fury of his anger, 
 
 And the strength of battle ; 
 And it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not ; 
 And it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart. 
 
 Jehovah will show his Love for Israel hy gathering her Exiles 
 Home (43 : 1-7) 
 
 43. But now thus saith the Lord 
 
 That created thee, Jacob, and he that formed thee, 
 O Israel : 
 Fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; 
 
 I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. 
 
 1 Heb. variant, to the plunderer. 
 
 recognize Jehovah's hand and purpose in these her sorrows of 
 spoliation and captivity. It was he, though Israel knew it not 
 (vs. 25), who gave Jacob to the spoilers and Israel to the robbers, and 
 who poured out upon him his anger, and the violence of war, here 
 described as a flaming fire. For several reasons, vs. 24 — from 
 did not the LORD to the end — appears to be a later insertion, 
 interrupting 24a and 25 (which really begins with and, not there- 
 fore), and introducing a somewhat irrelevant idea; here it is 
 rather sharpened eyes than a sharpened conscience that the 
 prophet desiderates. Who gave Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel 
 to the robbers, and poured upon him the jury of his anger? 
 
 43 : 1-7. Israel's irresponsiveness has not dimmed Jehovah's 
 love for her; "thou art mine." So again comes the assurance 
 that he will ransom her, and bring her scattered children home. 
 
 I f. Now, in contrast to the misery which has just been de- 
 scribed (42:18-25), Israel's creator will show himself as her re- 
 deemer: therefore fear not. Called thee by thy name, as my 
 
 283 
 
43:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with 
 
 thee; 
 And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : 
 When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
 burned ; 
 Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 
 
 3. For I am the Lord thy God, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel, thy saviour : 
 I have given Egypt as thy ransom, 
 Ethiopia and ^ Seba for thee. 
 
 4. Since thou hast been precious in my sight, 
 
 And honourable, and I have loved thee ; 
 Therefore will I give men for thee, 
 And peoples for thy Ufe. 
 
 5. Fear not ; for I am with thee : 
 
 I will bring thy seed from the east, 
 And gather thee from the west ; 
 
 6. I will say to the north. Give up ; 
 
 And to the south. Keep not back ; 
 
 Bring my sons from far, 
 
 And my daughters from the end of the earth ; 
 
 1 Gr. Soene ( = Syene or Assouan). 
 
 favorite and friend; and in the gravest perils (water and fire) 
 thou shalt be sure of my presence and protection (cf. Ps. 91). 
 
 3 f. Thy ransom : as the price paid for the emancipation of 
 Israel, Cyrus is here represented as being rewarded with the con- 
 quest of rich and distant lands (Ps. 72: 10). For men (vs. 4) 
 read, by a simple change, laiids. Seba, in the north of Ethiopia. 
 
 5-7. Israel is scattered throughout the world — east, west, 
 north, and south; and Jehovah's glory will be manifested his- 
 torically by bringing them back home. He cares not only for 
 
 284 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 7. Every one that is called by my name, 
 
 And whom I have created for my glory ; I have 
 formed him ; yea, I have made him. 
 
 Israel is Jehovah's Witness to the World (43 : 8-13) 
 
 8. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, 
 
 And the deaf that have ears. 
 
 9. ^ Let all the nations be gathered together, 
 
 And let the peoples be assembled : 
 
 Who among them can declare this. 
 
 And shew us former things ? 
 Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may 
 be justified : 
 
 Or let them hear, and say, ''It is truth." 
 
 1 Heb. Gr. all ike nations have been gathered together. 
 
 the nation as a whole, but for the individuals; they are his dear 
 sons and daughters (cf. 1:2). For I have formed, etc., read sim- 
 ply, formed and made. 
 
 43 : 8-13. Here, as before (41 : 1-4, 21-28) is a judgment scene. 
 The nations are gathered in court (vs. 9), and Israel testifies to 
 the uniqueness of her God. He and he alone has both foretold 
 and effected this great salvation for her; therefore he is God 
 alone. 
 
 8. The blind and deaf are Israel (42 : 18 f.) ; yet, though blind 
 and deaf to the meaning of her history, she nevertheless has 
 eyes and ears, and cannot refuse her testimony to the facts 
 themselves — the facts especially (a) of the prediction of^ this 
 deliverance (cf. 41 : 22), and (b) of the deliverance itself, which is 
 imminent 
 
 9. Read : the nations are gathered, the peoples assembled, in court 
 for the trial between their gods and Israel's. But none of the 
 heathen gods has shown the powder to declare this deliverance 
 in advance (read thus, instead of former things) ; and they have 
 no witnesses to corroborate their statement, and say. It is true 
 (cf. 41 : 26). 
 
 285 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, 
 
 And my servant whom I have chosen : 
 That ye may know and beheve me, 
 And understand that I am he : 
 
 Before me there was no god formed. 
 Neither shall there be after me. 
 
 11. I, even I, am the Lord ; 
 
 And beside me there is no saviour. 
 
 12. I have declared, and I have saved. 
 
 And I have shewed. 
 And there was no strange god among you : 
 
 Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord. 
 
 And I am God. 
 
 13. Yea, 1 since the day was I am he ; 
 
 And there is none that can deliver out of my hand : 
 I will work, and who shalF let it ? 
 
 The Deliverance from Babylon more Wonderful than the 
 Deliverance from Egypt (43 : 14-21) 
 
 14. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 Your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel : 
 
 1 m. from this day forth I, etc. ; Gr. Tar. Vg. from everlasting. 2 m. reverse ; SV cart 
 hinder. 
 
 10. The nations, thus challenged, are silent. Jehovah, however, 
 has a witness in Israel ; YE are my witnesses and servants. Prob- 
 ably the following verbs should be read in the third person : 
 that they {i.e. the heathen) shoidd know and believe me, etc. The 
 object of Israel's testimony is to convince the world that her God 
 is the only God, and to lead the nations to faith in him. 
 
 13 (with last clause of vs. 12). Read: 
 
 / am God {from of old). 
 Yea from now I am ever the same. 
 286 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 For your sake I have sent to Babylon, 
 
 And I will bring down ^ all of them as fugitives, 
 
 Even the Chaldeans, 
 2 In the ships of their rejoicing. 
 
 15. I am the Lord, your Holy One, 
 
 The Creator of Israel, your King. 
 
 16. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 Which maketh a way in the sea. 
 And a path in the mighty waters : 
 
 17. Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, 
 
 The army and the power ; 
 They He down together, they shall not rise ; 
 They are extinct, they are quenched as ^ flax. 
 
 18. Remember ye not the former things, 
 
 Neither consider the things of old. 
 
 19. Behold, I will do a new thing ; 
 
 Now shall it spring forth ; shall ye not know it ? 
 
 1 m. AV all their nobles. 2 AV whose cry is in the ships ; Gr. {and the Chaldeans) 
 shall be bound in ships. * m. SV a wick. 
 
 Let: read with margin, reverse. The purpose of the eternal God 
 is triumphant and irreversible (cf. 14: 27). 
 
 43 : 14-21. The ancient deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian 
 horsemen at the Red Sea will be transcended by this new and more 
 wonderful deliverance from Babylon. 
 
 14. The detail of this verse is unfortunately so obscure that we 
 are obliged to be content with the general sense, which appears 
 to be an announcement of the impending fall of Babylon. 
 
 16 f. The sea is the Red Sea, the chariot and horse are those of 
 the Egyptians. 
 
 18 f. Those former things — the defeat of Pharaoh and the 
 passage through the sea — are hardly worth remembering in 
 comparison with the new thing (the overthrow of Babylon, and 
 the way through the wilderness to the home land) which is about 
 
 287 
 
43:20 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I will even make a way in the wilderness, 
 And rivers in the desert. 
 
 20. The beasts of the field shall honour me, 
 
 The jackals and the ostriches : 
 
 Because I give waters in the wilderness. 
 
 And rivers in the desert, 
 To give drink to my people, my chosen : 
 
 21. The people which I formed for myself, 
 1 That they might set forth my praise. 
 
 IsraeVs Restoration is Due not to her Own Merits, hut to 
 Jehovah^s Free Grace (43 : 22-44 ' S) 
 
 22.2 Yet thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob ; 
 
 But thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. 
 23. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt 
 offerings ; 
 
 Neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. 
 
 1 m. they shall set forth. 2 Qr. not now ha-'e I called thee, Jacob, or wearied thee, 
 Israel. 
 
 to Spring forth from the success of Cyrus. Shall ye not know it ? 
 
 do ye not recognize it? 
 
 20 f . The very beasts will honor Jehovah for this glorious trans- 
 formation of the wilderness. The last half of vs. 20, which but 
 repeats 19b, besides giving it a prosaic turn, may, with vs. 21, be a 
 later insertion. 
 
 The wonderful way across the desert is a favorite theme of this 
 prophecy. 
 
 43:22-44:5. The imminent emancipation and restoration of 
 Israel are not a reward for her fidelity to Jehovah. She had 
 brought him no offering — nothing but a long record of sin : it is 
 only of his free grace that Jehovah forgives and restores her. 
 The argument of the section recalls 42 : 18-43 • 7- 
 
 22. Jehovah had called Israel (vs. i), but Israel had not called 
 upon Jehovah, nor hast thou wearied thyself about me. 
 
 23 f . Israel had brought no offering or sacrifice to Jehovah during 
 288 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I have not made thee to serve with ^ offerings, 
 Nor wearied thee with frankincense. 
 
 24. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, 
 
 Neither hast thou ^ filled me with the fat of thy 
 sacrifices : 
 
 But thou hast made me to serve with thy sins. 
 Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. 
 
 25. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions 
 
 ^ for mine own sake ; 
 And I will not remember thy sins. 
 
 26. Put me in remembrance ; let us plead together : 
 
 Set thou forth thy cause , that thou may est be 
 justified. 
 
 27. ^ Thy first father sinned. 
 
 And thine ^ interpreters have transgressed against 
 me. 
 
 1 m. a meal-offering, ^m.. satiated; Gr. {neither have I) desired. ^ gome Gr. 
 MSS. om. * Gr. your first fathers. * SV teachers. 
 
 the exile — indeed, away from the temple, she could not — nor 
 had Jehovah made any such demand upon her. No opinion for or 
 against the efficacy of sacrifice is here expressed (cf. i : 11 ff.) ; it is 
 simply a conceivable way of serving Jehovah. Instead, however, 
 of serving him, she had, by reason of her sins, made him serve her, 
 her guilt imposing upon him the burden of punishing her by exile, 
 and the task of restoring her again. 
 
 25. The fact that their transgressions are being blotted out is 
 attested by the impending dehverance. This happens, not for 
 their merits, but for mine own sake, i.e. of his own free grace. I 
 emphatically repeated. 
 
 26. Israel is summoned to set forth, or rather count up (her 
 claims to merit) ; but she is ominously silent (cf. end of vs. 24) — 
 there has been sin from the beginning (vs. 27). 
 
 27. Thy first father, Jacob. Thine interpreters, the false 
 prophets. 
 
 u 289 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 28. Therefore I ^ will profane ^ the princes of the sanctuary, 
 And I ^ will make Jacob a ^ curse, 
 And Israel a revihng. 
 
 44. Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant ; 
 And Israel, whom I have chosen : 
 
 2. Thus saith the Lord that made thee. 
 
 And formed thee from the womb, who will help thee : 
 
 Fear not, O Jacob my servant ; 
 And thou, ^ Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. 
 
 3. For I will pour water upon ^ him that is thirsty, 
 
 And streams upon the dry ground : 
 
 I will pour my spirit upon thy seed. 
 And my blessing upon thine offspring : 
 
 4. And they shall spring up ^ among the grass, 
 
 As willows by the watercourses. 
 
 5. One shall say, "I am the Lord's" ; 
 
 And another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; 
 
 1 m. AV have profaned; Gr. the princes have profaned my holy things. ^ va. holy 
 princes. ^ m. have (so AV) made. * m. dei'oted thing. * Gr. Syr. and some Heb. 
 MSS. Israel. ^ m. the thirsty land. ' Gr. as grass among water. 
 
 28. For the first clause, which is not very satisfactory, following 
 the Greek version we may read, Thy princes profaned my sanc- 
 tuary (cf. Ezek. 8: 5-18). For And I will make, etc., read, so I 
 gave up Jacob to the ban, and Israel to reviling. 
 
 44: I. Now, in contrast to the sin and misery just described 
 
 (cf.43:i). 
 
 2. Jeshurun, a rare name for Israel (Deut. 32 : 15). 
 
 3. In exile, Israel is as a thirsty land that needs the refreshing 
 showers. The divine spirit is the source of the blessing, which 
 here covers material as well as spiritual welfare. 
 
 4. They shall spring up fair and abundant, as grass among waters 
 (soGr.). 
 
 5. So wonderful will be their prosperity (the blessing, vs. 3) 
 that one, and another, and another — members of other nations 
 and worshippers of other gods — will wish to call himself by the 
 
 290 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And another shall ^ subscribe with his hand unto the 
 Lord, 
 And 2 surname himself by the name of Israel. 
 
 IsraeVs God is Sovereign and Eternal (44 : 6-8) 
 
 6. Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, 
 
 And his redeemer the Lord of hosts : 
 I am the first, and I am the last ; Rev. i: 17; 
 
 And beside me there is no God. ^* • '3 
 
 7. 3 And who, as I, shall call, 
 
 And shall declare it, and set it in order for me, 
 
 1 m. write on his hand. Unto the LORD. 2 m. give for a title the name of Israel. ^ Gr. 
 Who is like me? let him stand, and call and declare, and prepare for me from the time that 
 I made man for ever. 
 
 name of Jacob (i.e. join the commonwealth of Israel), and call 
 Israel's God his own. One will inscribe his hand — a reminis- 
 cence of the ancient tattoo — with the words To Jehovah, indi- 
 cating his new lord, and assume the honorable surname of Israel. 
 
 This verse suggests the effect which the redemption of Israel 
 is to have upon the world. Proselytes will be won. 
 
 44 : 6-8. The conspicuous greatness of Israel's blessing (vss. 3-5) 
 brings up the familiar thought of the lonely greatness of Israel's 
 God (vss. 6-8). 
 
 6. Jehovah is king (43 : 15) and (for the first time in this proph- 
 ecy) Jehovah of hosts, with reference perhaps to the imminent 
 overthrow of mighty Babylon through Cyrus (vs. 28). He is 
 the first and the last, i.e. the eternal God, the o?ily God (cf. 43 : 
 10 f.). 
 
 7. Read, with the help of the Greek version in the first half, 
 and of a brilliant emendation of Oort's in the second half of the 
 verse : 
 
 Who is like me? let him stand forth and cry, 
 
 Let him declare it, and set it i?i order before me. 
 Who hath announced from of old things future? 
 
 And what is to come, let them declare to us. 
 
 It is the same sort of challenge of the heathen and their gods, and 
 the same emphasis on prediction, as in 41 : 21 f. 
 
 291 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Since I appointed the ancient people ? and the things 
 that are coming, 
 And that shall come to pass, let them ^ declare. 
 
 8. Fear ye not, neither be afraid : 
 
 Have I not declared unto ^ thee of old, and shewed 
 it? 
 And ye are my witnesses. Is there a God beside me ? 
 Yea, there is no Rock ; I know not any. 
 
 The Folly oj Idolatry (44 : 9-20) 
 
 9. They that fashion a graven image are all of them 
 
 ^ vanity ; 
 And their delectable things shall not profit : 
 And their own witnesses see not, nor know ; 
 That they may be ashamed. 
 10. Who hath fashioned a god, or molten a graven image 
 That is profitable for nothing ? 
 
 * Heb. {declare) unto them ; Gr. to you ; Tar. to us. 2 q^. you. ' Heb. chaos. 
 
 8. Israel is Jehovah's witness, as in 43 : 10. The last words 
 should probably read, Is there any God or Rock besides me? 
 
 44 : 9-20. The powerful emphasis in vss. 6-8 on the greatness of 
 Jehovah has led to the insertion of an elaborate passage on the 
 folly of idolatry, which is exposed in a grimly humorous and 
 scornful description of the process of idol manufacture (cf. 40 : 18- 
 20; 41 : 6 f.). 
 
 The Uselessness of the Idols and the Stupidity of Those who make 
 Them (vss. 9-1 1) 
 
 9. Their delectable things, the idols. Their witnesses (omit 
 own), i.e. their worshippers (cf. vs. 8), have no perception, are 
 stupid, with the result that they will be put to shame. 
 
 10. Perhaps a statement rather than a question. Any otte who 
 in his folly imagines that he has fashioned a god, will find to his 
 cost that he has really done nothing but cast a graven image that is 
 utterly useless. 
 
 292 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 44:14 
 
 11. Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed ; 
 And the workmen, they are of men : 
 
 Let them all be gathered together, let them stand up ; 
 They shall fear, they shall be ashamed together. 
 
 12. The smith ^ maketh an axe, and worketh in the coals, 
 And fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with 
 
 his strong arm : 
 Yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth ; he drinketh 
 no water, and is faint. 
 
 13. The carpenter stretcheth out a Hne ; 
 
 He marketh it out with - a pencil ; he shapeth it with 
 
 planes. 
 And he marketh it out with the compasses, 
 And shapeth it after the figure of a man, 
 According to the beauty of a man, to ^ dwell in the 
 
 house. 
 
 14. ^ He heweth him down cedars, 
 
 And taketh the holm tree and the oak, 
 
 1 Gr. sharpens. 2 m. red ochre. ^ Gr. set. ^ Gr. He cuts wood out of the thicket which 
 the Lord planted, even a pine, and the rain, etc. 
 
 II. Perhaps: 
 
 Behold, all his charmers will he put to shame, 
 And his enchanters will he confounded (Cheyne). 
 
 Even all their combined skill could lead to no other result. 
 
 The Manufacture (vss. 12 f.) 
 
 The smith (contrasted with the carpenter, vs. 13) works with 
 
 the coals (omit an axe, and). The process of fabricating his god 
 makes him hungry and thirsty. House, perhaps a private house 
 or chapel. 
 
 Securing the Material for a Wooden Idol (vss. 14-17) 
 
 14. Read, (He went) to cut the wood for his use, choosing a plane 
 or an oak. For he planteth a fir tree, etc., read, which the Lord 
 
 293 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And strengtheneth for himself one among the trees of 
 
 the forest.: 
 He planteth a ^ fir tree, and the rain doth nourish it. 
 
 15. Then shall it be for a man to burn : 
 
 And he taketh thereof, and warmeth himself ; 
 
 Yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread : 
 
 Yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it ; 
 
 He maketh it a graven image, and f alleth down thereto. 
 
 16. He burneth - part thereof in the fire ; 
 With ^ part thereof he ^ eateth flesh ; 
 He roasteth roast, and is satisfied : 
 
 Yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, 
 "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire" : 
 
 17. And the residue thereof he maketh a god, 
 
 Even his graven image : he falleth down unto it 
 
 And worshippeth, and prayeth unto it. 
 
 And saith, "Deliver me ; for thou art my god." 
 
 18. They know not, neither do they consider : 
 
 For he hath ^ shut their eyes, that they cannot see ; 
 And their hearts, that they cannot understand. 
 
 19. And none calleth to mind. 
 
 Neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say. 
 
 1 m. ash. 2 m. the fialf. ^ Gr. bakes loaves on the coals and roasts flesh thereon and 
 eats and is satisfied. * Heb. daubed. 
 
 planted (so Gr.), i.e. a natural tree (cf. Ps. 104: 16), and the rain 
 nourished. 
 
 16 f. With part thereof : read with Gr. on the coals thereof. He 
 roasts flesh, he eats the roast (roasting before eating ; transpose the 
 verbs). I have seen the fire, / feel the glow. He prays to the 
 useless image (cf. vss. 9 f.). 
 
 The Stupidity of Idolaters (vss. 18-20) 
 
 18 f. It must be incurable stupidity (cf. vs. 9) which blinds one 
 to the absurdity of making a god to be worshipped out of scraps of 
 
 294 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 44:23 
 
 "I have burned part of it in the fire ; 
 
 Yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof ; 
 
 I have roasted flesh and eaten it : 
 
 And shall I make the residue thereof an abomination ? 
 
 Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree ? " 
 
 20. He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned 
 
 him aside, 
 That he cannot dehver his soul, nor say, 
 ''Is there not a lie in my right hand?" 
 
 Let the World rejoice over IsraeVs Redemption (44 : 21-23) 
 
 21. Remember these things, Jacob ; 
 
 And Israel, for thou art my servant : 
 I have formed thee ; thou art my servant : 
 O Israel, thou shalt not ^ be forgotten of me. 
 
 22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, 
 
 And, as a cloud, thy sins : 
 Return unto me ; for I have redeemed thee. 
 
 23. Sing, ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it ; 
 
 Shout, ye lower parts of the earth ; 
 
 1 Gr. forget me. 
 
 wood left over from burning and baking. The whole passage is 
 full of remorseless irony. Abomination, i.e. abominable idol. 
 
 20. He feedeth on ashes, etc. : rather as for the man who de- 
 lighteth in ashes {i.e. in wooden, combustible idols, 15 ff.) a deluded 
 heart has misled him, so that he can neither save himself, as he had 
 hoped to do (vs. 17), nor even understand that he is clinging to a 
 delusion. 
 
 21. These things, Jehovah's greatness and power to predict the 
 future (vss. 6-8). Be forgotten of: perhaps renounce. 
 
 23. A glad appeal to nature to break into song over the re- 
 demption of Israel. With this little burst of joy, the passage 
 descriptive of the high destiny of the Servant concludes (42 : i- 
 44: 23). 
 
 295 
 
44:24 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Break forth into singing, ye mountains, 
 
 O forest, and every tree therein : 
 For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, 
 
 And will glorify himself in Israel. 
 
 Cyrus and the Overthrow of Babylon (44 : 24-48 : 22) 
 
 Jehovah calls Cyrus and bestows upon him a Career of 
 Victory, for Israel and the World's Sake (44 : 24-45 • ^) 
 
 24. Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer. 
 
 And he that formed thee from the womb : 
 I am the Lord, that maketh all things ; 
 That stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; 
 
 In this section the nation has repeatedly come before us in a 
 double capacity : on the one hand, the people are blind and deaf, 
 robbed and spoiled, sinful and irresponsive ; on the other, they are 
 servants and witnesses, precious and beloved, redeemed and re- 
 stored, the wonder of the world. Striking contrasts abound — 
 Israel as she is and as she is to be, her present misery and the 
 glorious redemption that is about to break, her present apathy and 
 the sense of her great destiny which is so profoundly to afifect 
 the world. And behind all her changing fortunes is her unchang- 
 ing God, the First and the Last: I am He. 
 
 44: 24-48: 22. In this section Cyrus is the centre of interest 
 as the Servant was in the last. Israel has been assured that, de- 
 spite her sin and blindness, her redemption is nigh. Her true 
 Redeemer is Jehovah, but Cyrus is the human agent through whom 
 he works — his Friend and Anointed (or Messiah) as the prophet 
 boldly calls him. His victories, most of all his impending victory 
 over Babylon, which will procure the emancipation and restoration 
 of Israel, constitute a signal contribution to Jehovah's purpose 
 for the world, which, through Israel, is to be brought to a saving 
 knowledge of himself. Without Cyrus this consummation is 
 impossible. 
 
 24. The introductory description of Jehovah as the maker of 
 all things, and the Lord of history (vs. 26), leads to a fine climax 
 in the announcement of the name of Cyrus (vs. 28). Who is 
 with me? read was. 
 
 296 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 That spreadeth abroad the earth ; 
 ^ Who is with me ? 
 
 25. That frustrateth the tokens of the ^ Uars, 
 
 And maketh diviners mad ; 
 
 That turneth wise men backward, 
 And maketh their knowledge fooHsh : 
 
 26. That confirmeth the word of his ^ servant, 
 
 And performeth the counsel of his messengers. 
 
 That saith of Jerusalem, "She shall be inhabited"; 
 And of the cities of Judah, "They shall be built, 
 And I will raise up the waste places thereof ": 
 
 27. That saith to the deep, "Be dry, 
 
 And I will dry up thy rivers" : 
 
 28. That ^ saith of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, 
 
 And shall perform all my pleasure" : 
 Even saying of Jerusalem, "She shall be built" ; 
 And to the temple, "Thy foundation shall be laid." 
 
 1 Heb. variant, AV by myself. 2 m. boasters. 3 Qne Gr. MS. Tar. servants. * Gr. 
 hiddeth Cyrus be wise. 
 
 25 f. Tokens of the liars, omens of the Babylonian astrologers. 
 In contrast to these are the servants (rather than servant) and 
 messengers of Israel, i.e. the prophets, whose words are confirmed 
 by Jehovah. Many scholars believe that the last half of vs. 28 
 is a variant to the last half of vs. 26, which, completed with the 
 help of vs. 28, should therefore run : 
 
 Who says of Jerusalem: Let her he inhabited ! 
 
 And of the Temple: Be thy foundation laid! 
 And of the cities of Judah: Let them he huilt! 
 
 A fid the ruins thereof I will raise. 
 
 27. The deep . . . rivers, symbolic of the difficulties to be 
 encountered. 
 
 28. Shepherd, i.e. ruler : but more probably we should point 
 to read the more august title my Friend. It is this foreigner who 
 
 297 
 
45: 1 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 45. Thus saith the ^ Lord 
 
 To his anointed, to Cyrus, 
 Whose right hand I have holden, 
 To subdue nations before him. 
 And I will loose the loins of kings ; 
 
 To open the doors before him, 
 And the gates shall not be shut ; 
 
 2. "I will go before thee, 
 
 And ^ make the rugged places plain : 
 
 I will break in pieces the doors of brass. 
 And cut in sunder the bars of iron : 
 
 3. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness. 
 
 And hidden riches of secret places, 
 That thou mayest know that I am the ^ Lord, 
 
 Which call thee by thy name even the God of 
 Israel. 
 
 1 Gr. Lord God. 2 Qx. level mountains. 
 
 has been chosen to perform Jehovah's purpose — the restoration 
 of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple. 
 
 45: I. Cyrus is not only Jehovah's Friend, but his Anointed 
 (Heb. Messiah), i.e. dedicated by him to a special mission. The 
 mission was the emancipation of Israel (vs. 4), ultimately the 
 salvation of the world (vss. 22, 6); and to this end a victorious 
 career was necessary — to subdue nations. The gates are those 
 of cities to be captured. The clause I will loose the loins of 
 kings, i.e. ungird, disarm, defeat them, is more appropriately 
 transferred to the beginning of 5b. 
 
 2. Cyrus is to be sustained (vs. i) and accompanied in his 
 career by Jehovah. Doors of brass, a possible allusion to Baby- 
 lon with its hundred gates of brass. 
 
 3. Treasures : stored in dark and secret chambers. Cyrus was 
 already master of the wealth of Croesus, whom he had defeated, 
 and was soon to be of Babylon : for it is I, Jehovah, who calls 
 thee by name (omit that thou mayest know). 
 
 298 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 45 : 7 
 
 4. For Jacob my servant's sake, 
 
 And Israel my chosen, 
 I have called thee by thy name : 
 I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known 
 me. 
 
 5. I am the ^ Lord, and there is none else ; 
 
 Beside me there is no God : 
 
 I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me : 
 
 6. That they may know from the rising of the sun. 
 
 And from the west. 
 That there is* none beside me : I am the ^ Lord, 
 And there is none else. 
 
 7. I form the Hght, and create darkness ; 
 
 I make peace, and create evil ; 
 I am the ^ Lord, 
 
 That doeth all these things." 
 
 1 Gr. Lord God. 
 
 4. Cyrus's call and victories are for Israel's sake — for her 
 emancipation and restoration. For have surnamed (cf . 44 : 5) 
 perhaps delight in (so Gr.) Thou hast not known me : Cyrus 
 was not a Jehovah worshipper, but his victorious career is expected 
 to bring him (cf. 41 : 25) in common with the rest of the world 
 (vs. 6) to the recognition of Jehovah. 
 
 5 f. Before I gird thee, read the loins of kings I ungird (from 
 vs. i) ; they are defeated, he is victorious; and the ultimate, as 
 opposed to the immediate (vs. 4), object of his victory is that the 
 world from east to west may recognize that there is no God but Is- 
 rael's God. 
 
 7. There are not two gods in the world — one presiding over 
 light and good, the other over darkness and evil — there is only 
 one, and that is Jehovah, the cause and maker of all things, and 
 therefore of these things. Peace, welfare, good fortune; evil, 
 calamity. The section ends, as it began (44 : 24), with the thought 
 of God as the maker of all things. 
 
 299 
 
45:8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 8. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, 
 
 And let the skies pour down righteousness : 
 Let the earth open, 
 
 That they may bring forth salvation. 
 And let her cause righteousness to spring up to- 
 gether ; 
 
 I the Lord have created ^ it. 
 
 Murmurs against Cyrus Rebuked (45 : 9-13) 
 
 9. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker ! 
 
 A potsherd among the potsherds of the earth ! 
 Rom. 9: 20 ^Yi2i\\ the clay say to him that fashioneth it, "What 
 
 makest thou?" 
 Or thy work, "He hath no hands?" 
 10. Woe unto him that saith unto a father, "What be- 
 gettest thou ? " 
 Or to a woman, "With what travailest thou?" 
 
 2 Gr. thee. 
 
 8. The vision of a converted world causes the prophet to break 
 into a little song of joy (cf. 44 : 23). The righteousness of heaven is 
 answered by the righteousness of earth ; there is, as it were, " a 
 bridal of the earth and sky" (cf. Hos. 2 : 21 f.), so that upon the 
 earth salvation and peace (as Duhm supplies; the verb is plural) 
 spring up. 
 
 45 : 9-13- There must have been some Israelites to whom the 
 titles of Jehovah's Friend and Anointed (44: 28; 45: i) seemed 
 much too extravagant an honor to confer upon a foreigner. Their 
 national pride was insulted. Such murmurers are reminded that 
 Jehovah, as the unchallengeable Sovereign and Creator of the 
 world and men, has deliberately chosen Cyrus to execute his pur- 
 pose of emancipating Israel. 
 
 9. Jehovah is the potter, Israel the clay ; and it is for the potter 
 to say how the clay is to be moulded. Israel has no right to mur- 
 mur at Jehovah's choice of Cyrus. Among, i.e. no better than 
 an earthen potsherd. Thy work, etc, : read His work: thou hast 
 no hands. 
 
 300 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 45:14 
 
 11. Thus saith the ^Lord, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker : 
 Ask me of the things that are to come ; 
 
 Concerning my sons, and concerning the work of 
 my hands, command ye me. 
 
 12. I have made the earth, 
 
 And created man upon it : 
 I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, 
 And all their host have I commanded. 
 
 13. I have raised him up in righteousness, 
 
 And I will make straight all his ways ; 
 He shall build my city. 
 
 And he shall let my exiles go free, 
 Not for price nor reward, 
 
 Saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The Heathen acknowledge the Uniqueness oj Israel and her 
 God (45 : 14-17) 
 
 14. Thus saith the ^ Lord, 
 
 1 Gr. Lord God. 2 Gr. Lord of hosts. 
 
 II. Omit concerning my sons, as an erroneous explanation of 
 the work of my hands, which really signifies the whole historical 
 situation. Read : 
 
 Of things to come would ye question me? 
 
 Or concerning the work of my hands command me? 
 
 12 f. It is no less an one than the Creator of the world (vs. 12) 
 that has raised up Cyrus as his instrument, and he has done this 
 in righteousness, i.e. as was meet and right ; hence the folly and 
 impiety of Israel's^ murmurs. Their host, the stars. Cyrus's 
 task is the emancipation and restoration of Israel. My city, 
 Jerusalem (44: 26). The clause not for price nor reward, which is 
 
 301 
 
45 : 15 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I Cor. 14 : 25 
 
 The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, 
 
 And the Sabeans, men of stature. 
 Shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine ; 
 
 They shall go after thee ; in chains they shall come 
 over: 
 
 And they shall fall down unto thee. 
 
 They shall make supplication unto thee, sayings 
 "Surely God is in thee ; 
 
 And there is none else, there is no God. 
 
 15. Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, 
 O God of Israel, the Saviour." 
 
 irrelevant, and inconsistent with 43 : 3, is regarded by some as a 
 later insertion. 
 
 14. In this verse it is clear that the heathen pay some sort of 
 homage to Israel, though it is difficult to be sure of the details. 
 Our present text, which, from shall come over to shall come over is 
 rather heavily weighted and redundant, represents Egypt, Ethio- 
 pia, and Seba (or at least their wealth) as destined to belong to 
 Israel — they shall he thine — for the clause Surely God is in thee 
 shows that Israel is being addressed. But this is inconsistent 
 with 43 : 3, which assigns these peoples to Cyrus. It is possible, 
 as Cheyne and Marti believe, that this verse has been expanded, 
 in the spirit of a somewhat later age (cf. 60 : 11 ; 61 : 5 f.), so as to 
 suggest the idea that the wealth of the world shall one day belong 
 to Israel, and that the original may have simply run : 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: The exiles of Egypt, 
 
 And the captives of Ethiopia, and the Sahceans, men of stature^ 
 
 Before thee shall pass, and to thee shall bow down, etc. 
 
 The confession of the heathen which begins with Surely continues 
 to the end of vs. 17. 
 15 f. Read: 
 
 Verily with thee {i.e. Israel) God hides himself, the God of Israel is a 
 
 Saviour. 
 Ashamed, yea, confounded, are all who rise up against Him (so Gr.). 
 
 These vss. acknowledge that Israel's God is the only true God, 
 and suggest the complete collapse of the idolatrous religions. 
 Israel holds the religious secret of the world (cf. 42 : 6). 
 
 302 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 45 : 19 
 
 16. They shall be ashamed, yea, confounded, all ^ of them, 
 
 2 They shall go into confusion together that are 
 makers of idols. 
 
 17. But Israel shall be saved by the Lord 
 
 With an everlasting salvation : 
 Ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded 
 World without end. 
 
 Jehovah desires the Salvation of the whole World (45 : 18-25) 
 
 18. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens ; 
 
 He is God ; 
 That formed the earth and made it ; 
 
 He estabhshed it, 
 He created it not a ^ waste. 
 
 He formed it to be inhabited : 
 I am the Lord; and there is none else. 
 
 19. I have not spoken in secret. 
 
 In a place of the land of darkness ; 
 I said not unto the seed of Jacob, 
 "Seek ye me ^ in vain" : 
 
 1 Gr. that oppose him. 2 Gr. keep a feast of consecration to me, ye islands. ^ Heb. 
 chaos. ■* m. as in a waste (chaos; cf. vs. 18) ; Gr. {seek) vanity: I, I am the Lord, 
 who speak, etc. 
 
 17. This deliverance of Israel, which has behind it such a God 
 as Jehovah, is decisive for all time — not only the guarantee, but 
 actually the beginning, of her Messianic age. 
 
 45 : 18-25. God's purpose, alike in nature (18), revelation (19) 
 and history (22 f.), is beneficent — not waste and destruction, but 
 life, salvation. All his action, alike in creation and history, is 
 inspired by his love for men. 
 
 18. The world he created to be not a waste, but the home of 
 saved men. 
 
 19. Though it is true that it is in Israel that Jehovah hides 
 (and reveals) himself (vs. 15), his words within Israel, spoken by 
 
 303 
 
45:20 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I the Lord speak righteousness, 
 I declare things that are right. 
 
 20. Assemble yourselves and come ; draw near together, 
 
 Ye that are escaped of the nations : 
 They have no knowledge that carry 
 The wood of their graven image, 
 ' And pray unto a god 
 That cannot save. 
 
 21. Declare ye, and bring it forth ; 
 
 Yea, let them take counsel together : 
 Who hath shewed this from ancient time ? 
 
 Who hath declared it of old ? 
 Have not I the Lord ? 
 
 And there is no God else beside me. 
 A just God and a saviour ; 
 
 There is none beside me. 
 
 22. Look unto me, and be ye saved, 
 
 All the ends of the earth : 
 For I am God, and there is none else. 
 
 23. By myself have I sworn, 
 
 his human representatives, the prophets, have not been obscure 
 or mysterious, like the oracular utterances of the heathen, but 
 clear, frank, and true — righteousness and right, i.e. words which 
 are right and true, as the near future will show. In vain, " lit. 
 in chaos, i.e. without definite guidance and without hope of re- 
 sult " (Skinner). 
 
 20 f. Another scene like 41 : 1-4 21-29 ; 43 • 9~i3- The futility 
 of the heathen gods is proved by their inability to predict the 
 future. Jeremiah and other prophets, in the inspiration of Je- 
 hovah, had predicted the exile and the restoration. 
 
 22-25. These verses form a magnificent climax to the poem on 
 Cyrus beginning 44 : 24. They show Jehovah's real object, in the 
 deliverance of Israel by Cyrus, to be the salvation of the whole 
 world. 
 
 304 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ^ The word is gone forth from my mouth in righteous- 
 ness, 
 
 And shall not return, 
 That unto me every knee shall bow, 
 
 Every tongue shall swear. 
 
 24. Only in the Lord, shall one say unto me. 
 
 Is righteousness and strength : 
 Even to him shall men come, 
 And all they that were incensed against him shall 
 be ashamed. 
 
 25. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel 
 
 Be justified, and shall glory. 
 
 The Downfall of Babylon's Gods (46 : 1-13) 
 
 46. Bel boweth dowTi, ^ Nebo stoopeth ; 
 
 Their idols are upon the beasts, and upon the cattle : 
 
 1 m. righteausness is gone forth from my mouth, a word which shall not return. 2 Some 
 Gr. MSS. read Dagon. 
 
 22 i. The word ... in righteousness, i.e. a true word. Jeho- 
 vah's unalterable purpose is to save the whole world (through the 
 knowledge of him which redeemed Israel possesses, vs. 15), and 
 in consequence to receive universal homage and worship ; but 
 it is for the individuals themselves to look, to turn, to him. Shall 
 swear, i.e. allegiance to him. 
 
 24 f. This verse is somewhat obscure. The meaning appears 
 to be : 
 
 Only through Jehovah has Jacob victories (lit. righteousness) and 
 
 strength; 
 For his sake shall be put to confusion and shame all that were 
 
 incensed against him. 
 
 Again we have the telling contrast (cf. 16 f.) between the gentile 
 nations and Israel, with her wonderful God — Israel's triumph and 
 joy in her God being specially emphasized in the concluding verse. 
 Chap. 46. To the ancient mind the overthrow of Babylon was 
 equivalent to the overthrow of her gods. This chapter scornfully 
 
 X 305 
 
46:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The things that ye carried about are made a load, a 
 burden to the weary heast. 
 
 2. They stoop, they bow down together ; 
 They could not dehver the burden. 
 But themselves are gone into captivity. 
 
 3. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, 
 
 And all the remnant of the house of Israel, 
 Which have been borne hy me from the belly, 
 Which have been carried from the womb. 
 
 4. And even to old age I am he. 
 
 And even to hoar hairs will I carry you : 
 I have made, and I will bear ; 
 Yea, I will carry, and will deliver. 
 
 depicts their fate, and takes occasion to contrast their foolish 
 impotence with the victorious power of Jehovah. 
 
 1. The gods are pictured as already prostrate. Bel, here = 
 Merodach or Marduk, the patron God of Babylon ; Nebo, his 
 son, probably the patron of the dynasty (cf. JVeZ^z/chadrezzar). 
 The beasts are beasts of burden, on whose weary backs the idols 
 are packed for the flight. Ye, which must refer to the Babylo- 
 nians, is here inapplicable in an address to Israel (cf. vs. 3). The 
 verse, which is cumbrous in comparison with vs. 2, may origi- 
 nally have been briefer — thus : 
 
 Bel is bowed down, Nebo croucheth, 
 Their idols are consigned to the beasts, 
 Lifted up, laden on the weary. 
 
 2. The idea is that the gods could not save their own idols from 
 the fate of captivity ; they are simply " so much dead weight for 
 weary beasts " (G. A. Smith). 
 
 3 f . What a contrast (cf. vs. 5) between those helpless gods and 
 the God of Israel ! Their people have to carry them, but Israel's 
 God carries his people forever. Vs. 3 echoes vs. i, and gives its 
 thought a profound and brilliant turn, finely suggesting the sus- 
 taining power of true religion. For I have made read perhaps 
 / have borate. 
 
 306 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, 
 
 And compare me, that we may be hke ? 
 
 6. Such as lavish gold out of the bag. 
 
 And weigh silver in the balance. 
 They hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god ; 
 They fall down, yea, they worship. 
 
 7. They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, 
 
 And set him in his place. 
 And he standeth ; from his place shall he not remove : 
 
 Yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, 
 Nor save him out of his trouble. 
 
 8. Remember this, and ^ shew yourselves men : 
 
 Bring it again to mind, ye transgressors. 
 
 9. Remember the former things of old : 
 For I am God, and there is none else ; 
 
 I am God, and there is none Hke me ; 
 
 1 m. standfast; Gr. groan. 
 
 6-8. In the spirit of 44 : 9-20, these vss. pour scornful sarcasm 
 upon the idols. For certain reasons (cf. change of person from 
 second to third, characterization of Israel as transgressors or 
 rebels, vs. 8, whereas elsewhere she is Jehovah's witness ; cf. 43 : 10, 
 etc.), some recent scholars believe these verses to be an interpola- 
 tion. 
 
 6 f . The gold and silver are not to pay the goldsmith ; they are 
 for use in the construction of the image, which is small enough to 
 be carried on the shoulder. Once fixed in his place, the god can 
 neither move nor speak, — stiff, mute, helpless, — a very scornful 
 picture. 
 
 8. Show yourselves men, perhaps acknowledge your guilt. 
 
 9-1 1. Former things, deeds and especially predictions, which 
 show that Jehovah alone is God. His irresistible will must be 
 done, and it is done by calling. Cyrus, the ravenous bird, who will 
 swoop victorious like an eagle upon the prey. The man of my 
 counsel, i.e. who executes my counsel (so A.V.). 
 
 307 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. Declaring the end from the beginning, 
 
 And from ancient times things that are not yet done ; 
 Saying, My counsel shall stand, 
 And I will do all my pleasure ; 
 
 11. Calhng a ravenous bird from the east, 
 
 The man of my counsel from a far country ; 
 Yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass ; 
 I have purposed, I will also do it. 
 
 12. Hearken unto me, ye ^ stouthearted, 
 
 That are far from righteousness : 
 
 13. I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, 
 
 And my salvation shall not tarry ; 
 And I will 2 place salvation in Zion 
 For Israel my glory. 
 
 The Downfall of Babylon (47 : 1-15) 
 
 47. Come down, and sit in the dust, 
 O virgin daughter of Babylon ; 
 
 * Gr. that have lost heart. 2 m. give salvation in Zion, and my glory unto Israel. 
 
 12 i. With such a God, why should Israel faint or fear? Stout- 
 hearted, TSiiher faint-hearted (so Gr.). Righteousness, as so often 
 in this prophecy, practically = victory, salvation. This is not, 
 as they suppose, far of, but, through the victories of Cyrus, is 
 near. 
 
 Chap. 47. This taunt-song on the downfall of Babylon appro- 
 priately follows the song on the downfall of her gods (Chap. 46). 
 She is here portrayed as a haughty queen reduced to the condition 
 of the meanest slave, and all her magicians and astrologers are 
 powerless to save her. 
 
 The Humiliation of Babylon (vss. 1-4) 
 
 I f. Babylon is herself the virgin, tender and delicate, once en- 
 throned, now throneless, sitting in humihation on the ground, and 
 
 308 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 47:6 
 
 Sit on the ground without a throne, 
 
 O daughter of the Chaldeans ; 
 For thou shalt no more be called 
 
 Tender and deUcate. 
 
 2. Take the millstones, and grind meal : 
 
 Remove thy veil. 
 Strip off the train, uncover the leg. 
 Pass through the rivers. 
 
 3. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. 
 
 Yea, thy shame shall be seen : 
 I will take vengeance, and will ^ accept no man. 
 
 4. 2 Our redeemer, 
 
 The Lord of hosts is his name. 
 The Holy One of Israel. 
 
 5. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, 
 
 daughter of the Chaldeans : 
 For thou shalt no more be called 
 
 The Lady of Kingdoms. 
 
 6. I was wroth with my people, 
 
 1 profaned mine inheritance, 
 
 1 Heb. meet ; SV spare ; AV / will not meet thee as a man ; Gr. I will no more 
 at all deliver thee to men. 2 Some Gr. MSS. here read saith. 
 
 reduced to the position of the meanest maidservant, who grinds 
 the meal (cf. Exod. 11 : 5). The rivers may be those passed on the 
 way to exile, or the whole clause may suggest the degradations of 
 her lot. 
 
 3 f. The first half of vs. 3 is probably a gloss on 2b, in the second 
 half the text is obscure, and vs. 4 should be taken with 3, thus : 
 
 / will take irrevocable vengeance, saith our Redeemer. 
 Jehovah of hosts is his name, the holy One of Israel. 
 
 Babylon, the Proud and Cruel, laid Low (vss. 5-7) 
 
 5. Darkness, whether of dungeon or misery. Lady, mistress. 
 
 6. Jehovah permitted Babylon to chastise Israel because of 
 
 309 
 
47:7 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And gave them into thine hand : 
 
 Thou didst shew them no mercy ; 
 Upon the aged hast thou 
 Very heavily laid thy yoke. 
 Rev. 18:7 7. And thou saidst, "I shall be 
 A lady for ever" : 
 So that thou didst not lay these things to thy 
 heart, 
 Neither didst remember the latter end thereof. 
 
 8. Now therefore hear this, thou that art given to 
 
 pleasures. 
 
 That ^ dwellest carelessly, 
 That sayest in thine heart, 
 
 "I am, and there is none else beside me; 
 I shall not sit as a widow. 
 
 Neither shall I know the loss of children" : 
 
 9. But these two things shall come to thee 
 
 In a moment, in one day, 
 The loss of children, and widowhood: ^in their full 
 measure 
 Shall they come upon thee, 
 
 1 m. SV sittest securely. ~ Gr. Syr. suddenly. 
 
 her sin, but Babylon proved cruel, especially to the aged (Lam. 
 5:12). 
 
 7. Cruel, and proud, for she said, / shall endure for ever, he mis- 
 tress for aye. These things, the fact that her power over Israel 
 was only temporary, consequent upon Jehovah's anger (vs. 6), 
 and that the latter end, i.e. the issue of it all, would be the res- 
 toration of Israel (cf. Jer. 29 : 11). 
 
 Babylon's Sudden Discomfiture (vss. 8-ioa) 
 
 8. Widoivhood and bereavement : desolation of the city, destruc- 
 tion or deportation of her people, 
 
 g. Babylon imagined her magicians could save her. 
 310 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 47:12 
 
 ^ Despite of the multitude of thy sorceries, 
 
 And the great abundance of thine enchantments. 
 
 10. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness ; 
 
 Thou hast said, "None seeth me." 
 
 Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, 
 
 It hath perverted thee : 
 And thou hast said in thine heart, 
 
 "I am, and there is none else beside me." 
 
 11. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; 
 
 Thou shalt not know ^ the dawning thereof : 
 And mischief shall fall upon thee ; 
 
 Thou shalt not be able to put it away : 
 And desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, 
 
 Which thou knowest not. 
 
 12. Stand now with thine enchantments. 
 
 And with the multitude of thy sorceries. 
 
 Wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth, 
 
 ^ m. amidst ; SV in. ^ m. how to charm it away. 
 
 10. For thou hast trusted, read and though thou didst feel secure. 
 None, especially no holy God. 
 
 Babylon's Magic Arts cannot save Her (vss. iob-12) 
 
 10. Babylon's wisdom and knowledge of magic and sorcery 
 (vs. 9) lulled her into a false security. 
 
 11. This very symmetrically built verse, which asserts the impo- 
 tence of sorcery to ward ofif the impending calamity, offers a fine 
 climax. After the last word, an infinitive seems necessary; 
 which thou knowest not how to banish (by charm) : 
 
 Calamity shall come upon thee, which thou hast no knowledge to 
 
 charm away (see margin), 
 Destruction shall fall upon thee, which thou hast no power to appease, 
 Ruin shall suddenly come, which thou hast no knowledge to banish by 
 
 charm. 
 
 12. An ironical challenge to the sorcerers. Omit wherein . . . 
 youth (from vs. 15?). Read, Perhaps thou {i.e. through thy 
 
 311 
 
47: 13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 If so be thou shalt be able to profit, 
 If so be thou mayest ^ prevail. 
 
 13. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels : 
 
 Let now the ^ astrologers, 
 The stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, 
 
 Stand up. 
 And save thee from the things 
 
 That shall come upon thee. 
 
 14. Behold, they shall be as stubble ; 
 
 The fire shall burn them ; 
 They shall not deliver themselves 
 
 From the power of the flame ; 
 It shall not be a coal to warm at, 
 
 Nor a fire to sit before. 
 
 15. Thus shall the things be unto thee wherein thou hast 
 
 laboured : 
 They that have trafficked with thee from thy youth 
 
 * m. strike terror. 2 Heb. dividers of the heavens. 
 
 sorcerers) mayest somewhat avail, perhaps thou mayest strike terror 
 (so margin), i.e. into the demons that cause the calamity. 
 
 Astrologers, all, ore Impotent: no Salvation possible for Babylon 
 (vss. 13-15) 
 
 13. Counsels, perhaps counsellors. The order of RV is not ac- 
 curate ; read, let them stand forth and save thee, the astrologers, the star- 
 gazers, those who make known each month whence {troubles) are coming. 
 Monthly almanacs were prepared which announced in advance lucky 
 and unlucky days, etc. Another ironical challenge (cf. vs. 12). 
 
 14. The astrologers cannot save themselves, far less the city, 
 from the fire which will consume her. Omit the last clause. 
 
 15. The traffickers SiXQ. here irrelevant; it is the sorcerers (vs. 9) 
 and astrologers (vs. 3) who are in question. Read : 
 
 Such are those become unto thee, 
 
 About whom thou didst trouble thyself from thy youth: 
 Staggering they flee, every man straight before him. 
 
 There is none that can save thee. 
 312 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Shall wander every one to his quarter ; 
 There shall be none to save thee. 
 
 The Summons to depart from Babylon (48 : 1-22) 
 
 48. Hear ye this, house of Jacob, 
 
 Which are called by the name of Israel, 
 
 And are come forth ^ out of the waters of Judah ; 
 Which swear by the name of the Lord, 
 And make mention of the God of Israel, 
 But not in truth, nor in righteousness. 
 2. For they call themselves of the holy city. 
 
 And stay themselves upon the God of Israel ; 
 The Lord of hosts is his name. 
 
 1 Gr. from Judah. 
 
 A fine picture of the headlong flight of those to whom Babylon 
 had vainly looked to avert the disaster. 
 
 Chap. 48. This chapter, which closes the first great section of 
 the prophecy, touches briefly upon its leading themes, — the 
 argument from prophecy, the " former things " fulfilled and the 
 " new thing " soon to be accomplished, the victories of Cyrus, 
 the fall of Babylon, — and ends in an exultant appeal to Israel 
 to leave Babylon, and then to tell the wondrous story of her re- 
 demption to the whole world. 
 
 There is much in the chapter which suggests the conclusion 
 that the original message of the prophet has been touched, in 
 later and very sorrowful times, by the hand of one whose view of 
 Israel was much more severe than that of our prophet. Elsewhere 
 in this prophecy the charge against her is chiefly apathy and want 
 of faith ; here it is disobedience and obstinacy. 
 
 The New Prophecies will he fulfilled as surely as the Old (vss. i-ii) 
 
 I f. This, the message beginning with vs. 3. Waters, perhaps 
 loins. Swear by the name of, own allegiance to. Make men- 
 tion of, practically = worship. The holy city, Jerusalem. The 
 religious insincerity implied by vss. ib, 2 seems to betray the 
 later hand ; so also the obstinacy of vs. 4. 
 
 313 
 
48:3 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 3. I have declared the former things from of old ; 
 Yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed 
 
 them : 
 Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. 
 
 4. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, 
 
 And thy neck is an iron sinew, 
 And thy brow brass : 
 
 5. Therefore I have declared it to thee from of old ; 
 
 Before it came to pass I shewed it thee : 
 Lest thou shouldest say, "Mine idol hath done them, 
 And my graven image, and my molten image, hath 
 commanded them." 
 
 6. ^ Thou hast heard it ; behold all this ; 
 
 And ye, will ye not declare it ? 
 I have shewed thee new things from this time. 
 Even hidden things, which thou hast not known. 
 
 7. They are created now, and not from of old ; 
 
 And before this day thou heardest them not ; 
 Lest thou shouldest say, "Behold, I knew them." 
 
 1 Gr. ye have heard all things, yet ye have not discerned. 
 
 3-6a. The argument from prophecy, which has already been 
 met with frequently. If older prophecies have been fulfilled, 
 the " new thing " will also be fulfilled (cf. 42 : 9). The announce- 
 ment of events in advance made it impossible to say that they 
 had been caused by idols, but the idolatry imphed by vs. 5b 
 seems hardly consistent with our prophet's general view of Israel's 
 past (cf. 43 : 12). The meaning of behold all this (vs. 6) is rather 
 obscure ; the text may be faulty. And ye, etc. : perhaps, and 
 thou, wilt not thou hear witness to it? Israel is Jehovah's witness 
 (43: 12). 
 
 6b, 7. I have showed, / announce. The new and hidden things, 
 which are created now (vs. 7), in contrast to the former things, 
 (vs. 3) are the rise of Cyrus — with all that it involves — the fall 
 of Babylon (vs. 14), the redemption of Israel, and the proclamation 
 of the story throughout the world (vs. 20). 
 
 314 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 48:12 
 
 8. Yea, thou heardest not ; yea, thou knewest not ; 
 
 Yea, from of old ^ thine ear was not opened : 
 For I knew that thou didst deal very treacherously, 
 And wast called a transgressor from the womb. 
 
 9. For my name's sake will I - defer mine anger. 
 
 And ^ for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut 
 thee not off. 
 
 10. Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver ; 
 
 I have ^ chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. 
 
 11. For mine own sake, for mine own sake, will I do it, 
 
 For ^ how should my name be profaned ? 
 And my glory will I not give to another. 
 
 12. Hearken unto me, O Jacob, 
 
 And Israel my called : 
 I am he ; I am the first, Rev. i : 17 
 
 I also am the last. 
 
 1 Gr. I have not opened thine ears. 2 Gr. show thee. ^ Gr. my glorious acts / will 
 bring upon thee. * m. tried. * Gr. my name is profaned. 
 
 8-1 1. Only the first half of vs. 8 and the first and third clauses 
 of vs. II seem to be original. The idea of Israel's treachery (vs. 
 8b) and of her possible extermination (vs. 9) is very unHke Deutero- 
 Isaiah. 
 
 10. Read :' Surely I have refined thee, hut without gain of silver; 
 I have tried thee in the furnace in vain (Cheyne). 
 
 11. How is my name profaned — apparently the sigh of a later 
 reader. My glory, the glory of accomphshing the " new " and 
 " hidden things " alluded to in vs. 6. 
 
 Cyrus fulfils Jehovah's Purpose upon Babylon (vss. 12-16) 
 
 The general mention of the " new " things easily leads to the 
 specific mention of Cyrus, by whom those things are to be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 12 f. Again the old emphasis on the eternity and the creative 
 power of Jehovah. It is no less than the eternal One, the Creator 
 of the universe, who has called Cyrus. 
 
 31S 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 13. Yea, mine hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, 
 
 And my right hand hath spread out the heavens : 
 When I call unto them, 
 They stand up together. 
 
 14. Assemble yourselves, all ye, and hear ; 
 
 Which among ^ them hath declared these things ? 
 2 The Lord hath loved him : he shall perform his 
 pleasure on Babylon, 
 And his arm shall he on the Chaldeans. 
 
 15. I, even I, have spoken ; yea, I have called him : 
 
 I have brought him, and ^ he shall make his way 
 prosperous. 
 
 16. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this ; 
 
 From the beginning I have not spoken in secret ; 
 
 From the time that it was, there am I: 
 And now the Lord God 
 
 Hath sent me, and his spirit. 
 
 1 Many Heb. MSS. read you. ^ m. SV Jte whom the Lord (SV Jehovah) shall, etc. ; 
 Gr. out of love to thee I have fulfilled thy desire on Babylon, to destroy the seed of the 
 Chaldeans. ^ Gr. Syr. have made. 
 
 14. All ye Israelites. Among them, i.e. the heathen gods. 
 These things, the rise and achievements of Cyrus. The general 
 sense of vs. 14b is clear; but the detail is uncertain, because the 
 text is doubtful. Either : He whom I love, is accomplishing my 
 pleasure on Babylon and on the seed of the Chaldaeans (Duhm) ; 
 or: Who has brought him (cf. vs. 15) to accomplish his pleasure on 
 Babylon and to reveal his arm ( = might) upon the Chaldaeans? 
 (Cheyne). 
 
 15. It is Jehovah who has called, brought, and prospered him. 
 For he shall make, read / have made. 
 
 16. The appeal to come and hear seems superfluous after vss. 1 2, 
 14. From the beginning, i.e. of the career of Cyrus, Jehovah, 
 through his prophet, has offered a clear interpretation of it (cf. 
 45: 19). For there am I, read, perhaps, / have announced (i.e. 
 new things, vs. 6) ; so Marti. His spirit, object not subject 
 (as AV) ; the writer is endowed with the (prophetic) spirit 
 (cf. 61:. i). This last clause, however, is probably an insertion; 
 nowhere else does Deutero-Isaiah refer to himself. 
 
 316 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 17. Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, 
 
 The Holy One of Israel : 
 
 1 am the Lord thy God, 
 Which teacheth thee to profit, 
 
 Which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. 
 
 18. Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments ! 
 Then had thy peace been as a river, 
 
 And thy righteousness as the waves of the sea : 
 
 19. Thy seed also had been as the sand, 
 
 And the offspring of thy bowels Hke the ^ grains 
 thereof : 
 
 2 His name should not be cut off 
 
 Nor destroyed from before me. 
 
 20. Go ye forth of Babylon, 
 
 Flee ye from the Chaldeans ; 
 
 1 AV gravel ; Gr. dust of the earth. 2 Gr. thy. 
 
 The Blessings of Obedience (vss. 17-19) 
 
 These verses are a sorrowful retrospect of Israel's disobedient 
 career. Obedience would have meant prosperity, population, a 
 great national future ; as it is, extermination seems a more prob- 
 able prospect for Israel. 
 
 Several recent scholars believe these verses to be a later inter- 
 polation. They interrupt the fine connection between the activ- 
 ity of Cyrus (vss. 12-16) and the departure of Israel from Babylon 
 (vss. 20 f.). Their gloomy mood is altogether alien to the context 
 (vs. 20) ; their conception of religion as commandments (vs. 18) is 
 unlike DeuteroTsaiah's. 
 
 17 f. To profit, i.e. for thy profit. Peace, welfare; righteous- 
 ness, salvation in the most comprehensive sense. They would have 
 flowed on copiously, steadily, unimpeded, like the waves of the sea. 
 
 19. Clearly Israel is, for the moment, in danger of extermination. 
 
 Forth from, Babylon! (vss. 20, 21) 
 
 20. Cyrus is about to fulfil Jehovah's purpose on Babylon (vs. 
 14), and Israel is summoned to leave with ringing shouts of joy. 
 The story of her redemption she must then tell the whole world. 
 
 317 
 
48:21 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 With a voice of singing declare ye, 
 
 Tell this, 
 Utter it 
 
 Even to the end of the earth : 
 Say ye, "The Lord hath redeemed 
 
 His servant Jacob." 
 
 21. And they thirsted not 
 
 When he led them through the deserts : 
 He caused the waters to flow 
 
 Out of the rock for them : 
 He clave the rock also, 
 
 And the waters gushed out. 
 
 22. There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked. 
 
 21. The exodus from Babylon will repeat the ancient wonders 
 of the exodus from Egypt (Exod. 17:6). 
 
 This ringing summons to leave Babylon (20 f.) appropriately 
 brings the first part of the prophecy to a close. Vs. 22, which is 
 irrelevant here, was added from 57 : 21 to mark an important divi- 
 sion in the prophecy. 
 
 318 
 
PART II. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL AND THE 
 FUTURE GLORY OF ZION (Chaps. 49-55) 
 
 The Servant discouraged but at last Triumphant 
 
 (49 • 1-13) 
 The Servant: His Seeming Failure and his Great Destiny 
 
 (49 • 1-6) 
 
 49. Listen, O isles, unto me ; 
 
 And hearken, ye peoples, from far : 
 
 Chaps. 49-55. With Chap. 49 we enter upon a new and appar- 
 ently somewhat later phase of this great prophecy. The theme is 
 still, as before (40: i), the consolation of Israel, but here atten- 
 tion is more severely concentrated upon Israel herself, and upon 
 Zion, her capital city. The way has been prepared for this con- 
 centration by the arguments which, in Chaps. 40-48, were ad- 
 vanced with such frequency and power — the omnipotence of 
 Israel's God, the impotence of the heathen gods whose people had 
 thwarted his purpose, the victorious career of Cyrus which must 
 issue in the overthrow of Babylon ; and now that the way to Is- 
 rael's poHtical emancipation has been made plain, the prophet 
 reassures her of the love of her God, and in beautiful language 
 describes the glory to which she and Zion will soon be lifted from 
 out the suffering and sorrow of the present. 
 
 49 : 1-13. Israel has a prophetic mission to the world, but the 
 exile has smitten her with a sense of defeat. Her great mission, 
 however, will yet be triumphantly accomplished (49: 1-6), and 
 vss. 7-13 picture the restoration, when from the ends of the earth 
 her children shall return, and her ruined places will be built again. 
 
 49 : 1-6. This is the second of the Servant songs (cf. 42 : 1-4). 
 It is represented as uttered by the servant himself, and it strikes 
 a very definite and personal note. The servant, with his sense of 
 a divine call, equipment, and protection, sees through his tempo- 
 rary defeat to the ultimate glory which his God will enable him 
 to achieve. The servant is Israel, languishing in exile; his 
 destiny is to bless the world, to be " a light to the Gentiles." 
 
 I. Isles: the message (of salvation) concerns the whole world 
 
 319 
 
4912 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Gal. I : IS The Lord hath called me from the womb ; 
 
 From the bowels of my mother hath he made men- 
 tion of my name. 
 
 2. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, 
 
 In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me ; 
 And he hath made me a polished shaft, 
 In his quiver hath he kept me close : 
 
 3. And he said unto me, ''Thou art my servant ; 
 
 Israel, in whom I will be glorified." 
 
 4. But I said, "I have laboured in vain, 
 
 I have spent my strength for nought and vanity. 
 
 Yet surely my judgement is with the Lord, 
 And my recompence with my God." 
 
 5. And now ^ saith the Lord 
 
 That formed me from the womb to be his servant, 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. thus saith. 
 
 (vs. 6). Israel was divinely called from its birth, like Jeremiah 
 (i : 5). My name as the Servant of Jehovah, divinely appointed 
 to do a mighty work for the world. 
 
 2. The mouth is specially mentioned, because Israel is the 
 prophet nation. She is Jehovah's weapon in his contest with the 
 false gods ; through her victory is won for the true religion through- 
 out the world (vs. 6) : therefore he hid, preserved, protected her 
 carefully, as a warrior his sword or his arrow, till the decisive 
 moment. 
 
 3. Will be glorified, will get me glory. 
 
 4. Notice the contrast between what He said (vs. 3) and what / 
 said (vs. 4) — between high destiny and deep despondency. Yet 
 Israel triumphs over her despondency, through the faith that her 
 God will defend her cause, her right (rather than judgment). 
 
 5 f. Again the high sense of destiny. Not only will Israel's 
 work not be fruitless (vs. 4), it will be glorious. These verses 
 seem to lend strong support to the view that the Servant in the 
 songs is an individual, whose duty is first to restore his people 
 
 320 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 49:7 
 
 To bring Jacob again to him, 
 
 1 And that Israel be gathered unto him : 
 (For I am honourable in the eyes of the Lord, 
 
 And my God is become my strength :) 
 
 6. Yea, he saith, -"It is too Hght a thing that thou 
 
 shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes 
 
 of Jacob, 
 And to restore the ^ preserved of Israel : 
 I will also give thee for a Ught to the Gentiles, Acts 13 : 47 
 
 4 That thou mayest be my salvation unto the end 
 
 of the earth." 
 
 IsraeVs Happy Return- and Restoration (49 : 7-13) 
 
 7. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 The redeemer of Israel, ^ and his Holy One, 
 
 1 AVand Heb. variant, though Israel he not gathered, yet shall I be glorious, etc. ; Gr. 
 to gather Jacob to him and Israel : I shall be gathered and glorified before the Lord. 2 Gr. it 
 is a great thing for thee to be called my servant. ^ Gr. dispersed. * m. that my salvation 
 may be. ^ Gr. sanctify him who despises his life. 
 
 Israel, and then to carry the light of salvation to the world. But 
 vs. 6, if we omit the words that thou shouldest he my servant (which 
 are very awkward, and probably not original in the Hebrew), 
 impHes that the task of restoring Israel is Jehovah's task — too 
 light for him; and similarly in vs. 5, the bringing back of Jacob 
 and the gathering of Israel can be referred, in point of grammar, 
 as well to Jehovah as to the Servant ; and the context, as well as 
 the general tone of the songs, decides in favor of Jehovah. It is 
 he, not the Servant, who brings back Jacob. When Israel, pre- 
 served from destruction (or scattered, so Gr.), has been restored by 
 Jehovah, then she, the Servant, will turn to the wider world to be 
 a light to the Gentiles (cf. 42:1, 4),ihat my salvation may be unto the 
 end of the earth (so margin). Jehovah's salvation is for all man- 
 kind (45 : 22 f.), not for Israel only ; she is the means to the larger 
 end. 
 
 49: 7-13. The thought of Israel's return, touched on in vs. 5, 
 is here elaborated in glowing language; the larger mission of 
 Israel, with which the previous song closed (vs. 6), is here touched, 
 but briefly, in the opening verse (7). 
 y 321 
 
49:8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 To him whom man despiseth, to him whom the ^ nation 
 abhorreth, 
 To a servant of rulers : 
 
 Kings shall see and arise ; 
 
 Princes, and they shall worship ; 
 Because of the Lord that is faithful, 
 
 Even the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee. 
 
 8. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 2 Cor. 6:2 In an acceptable time have I answered thee, 
 
 And in a day of salvation have I helped thee : 
 And I will preserve thee, and give thee 
 For a covenant of the ^ people, 
 
 To raise up the land. 
 
 To make them inherit the desolate heritages ; 
 
 9. Saying to them that are bound, " Go forth" ; 
 
 To them that are in darkness, "Shew yourselves." 
 
 They shall feed in ^ the ways. 
 
 And on all bare heights shall be their pasture. 
 
 1 Gr. nations. * Gr. all. 
 
 7. Humiliation is followed by exaltation. Now Israel is de- 
 spised of men, abhorred of people, servant of tyrants; but the great 
 ones of the earth, when they see her wonderful restoration, will 
 rise up in homage, and prostrate themselves (rather than worship) 
 in reverence. 
 
 8, 9a. In an acceptable time, in a time of favor, i.e. now. I 
 have answered, have helped ; it is already as good as accomplished 
 (hence pf. tense). Covenant, etc. : cf. 42 : 6. To raise up, etc. : 
 read raising up the (ruined) land {i.e. Judah), allotting the desolate 
 heritages, saying to the prisoners, etc. The prisoners and those 
 in darkness are the exiles. 
 
 gb-ii. These verses describe the homeward way, on which 
 Israel would enjoy abundance and suffer no privation. Read 
 in all the ways (so Gr.) ; everywhere they went they would find 
 pasture and water. In vs. 11, omit my. 
 
 322 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 49 : 14 
 
 10. They shall not hunger nor thirst ; Rev. 7: 16 f. 
 
 Neither shall the ^ heat nor sun smite them. 
 
 For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, 
 Even by the springs of water shall he guide them. 
 
 11. And I will make ^ all my mountains a way, 
 
 And my high ways shall be exalted. 
 
 12. Lo, these shall come from far ; 
 
 And, lo, these from the north and from the west ; 
 And these from the land of ^ Sinim, 
 
 13. Sing, O heavens ; and be joyful, O earth ; 
 
 And break forth into singing, O mountains : 
 For the Lord hath comforted his people, 
 And will have compassion upon his afHicted. 
 
 The Consolation of Zion (49 : 14-50 : 3) 
 
 Wasted Zion will be rebuilt and filled again with People 
 (49: 14-21) 
 
 14. But Zion said, "Jehovah hath forsaken me. 
 
 And the Lord hath forgotten me." 
 
 1 m. mirage (cf. 35 ; 7). ^ Gr. every mountain a way and every path a pasture to them. 
 3 Gr. iJte Persians. 
 
 12. These shall come from the various centres of the Jewish 
 dispersion. Skdm, once thought to be China, is probably Syene 
 (Assouan) in the south of Egypt, where we now know there was a 
 Jewish colony (cf. Ezek. 29: 10; 30: 6, Seveneh). 
 
 13. The vision of the glad return leads the prophet to break 
 into a song of joy (cf. 44 : 23). 
 
 49 : 14-50 : 3. The people find it hard to believe the glowing 
 promises of their return and restoration, and the prophet again 
 assures them of Jehovah's tender love and irresistible power. 
 
 14 f . The broken-hearted and sceptical people receive the assur- 
 
 323 
 
49:15 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child, 
 
 That she should not have compassion on the son 
 of her womb ? 
 Yea, 1 these may forget. 
 Yet will not I forget thee. 
 
 16. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my 
 
 hands; 
 Thy walls are continually before me. 
 
 17. Thy 2 children make haste; thy destroyers and they 
 
 that made thee waste 
 Shall go forth of thee. 
 
 18. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold : 
 
 All these gather themselves together, 
 And come to thee. As I live, 
 
 Saith the Lord, 
 Thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with 
 an ornament, 
 
 And gird thyself with them, like a bride. 
 
 19. For, as for thy waste and thy desolate places 
 
 And thy land that hath been destroyed, 
 Surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, 
 And they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 
 
 1 Gr. though a woman should forget these. 2 Q^. Vg. Tar. builders. 
 
 ance that God is love. He can no more forget them than a mother 
 her infant child. 
 
 16 f. Graven, so as not to forget. The plan of the walls of the 
 restored city is continually in his mind; and speedily it will be 
 executed by the builders (rather than sons, vs. 17). The triumph 
 of the builders is vividly contrasted with the departure of the 
 destroyers. 
 
 18. A fine picture of the exiles flocking back to Zion, adorning 
 her as jewels adorn a bride. 
 
 19 f. The sense is correct, but something has clearly been lost 
 after the word destroyed (vs. 19). Now Jerusalem is too small for 
 the inhabitants. The children of thy bereavement are those 
 
 324 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 49:22 
 
 20. The children of thy bereavement 
 
 Shall yet say in thine ears, 
 The place is too strait for me ; 
 
 Give place to me that I may dwell. 
 
 21. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, 
 
 Who hath ^ begotten me these, 
 Seeing I have been bereaved of my children, and am 
 2 solitary, 
 
 ^ An exile, and wandering to and fro ? 
 
 And who hath brought up these ? 
 Behold, I was left alone ; 
 
 These, where were they ? • 
 
 Three Words of Consolation (49 : 22-50 : 3) 
 
 22. Thus saith the Lord God, 
 
 Behold, I will Hft up mine hand to the nations, 
 
 And set up my ensign to the peoples : 
 And they shall bring thy sons in their bosom, 
 
 And thy daughters shall be carried upon their 
 shoulders. 
 
 1 m. borne. 2 jq. barren. ^ Gr. om. this line. 
 
 born in exile, and who are now flocking back to Jerusalem, their 
 true mother city. 
 
 21. Zion is beautifully represented as astonished at the multi- 
 tude of her children. She cannot understand who has borne 
 (not begotten) them, since she herself (in exile) is bereaved and 
 barren. The city is the mother of her people, and the children 
 born in Babylon are hers (cf. Ps. 87:4), as Hagar's child was 
 Sarah's (Gen. 16: 2). Delete an exile and wandering to and fro 
 (not in Gr.), and for these, where were they? read and these — 
 who then are they? 
 
 At a Signal from Jehovah, the Nations bring Israel back to Zion 
 (49: 22 f.) 
 
 22 f. The signal is the raised hand or banner. Bosom, etc. : of 
 course figurative. The people will be brought back as tenderly 
 
 325 
 
49:23 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 23. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, 
 
 And their queens thy nursing mothers : 
 They shall bow down to thee with their faces to the 
 earth, 
 And Hck the dust of thy feet ; 
 
 And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, 
 
 And they that wait for me shall not be ashamed. 
 
 24. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty. 
 
 Or the ^ lawful captives be deUvered ? 
 
 25. But thus saith the Lord, 
 
 Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, 
 
 And the prey of the terrible shall be dehvered : 
 For I will ^ contend with him that contendeth with thee, 
 And I will save thy children. 
 
 26. And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own 
 
 flesh ; 
 And they shall be drunken with their own blood, as 
 with sweet wine : 
 
 iHeb. captives of the just; Syr. Vg. captives of the terrible (or tyrant, cf. vs. 25). 
 a Gr. plead thy cause. 
 
 as one carries a little child (Num. 11:12). The ungenerous 
 attitude to the heathen in the first half of vs. 23 is unlike our 
 prophet (cf. 45 : 23) and more in the spirit of later Judaism (cf. 
 61:5). 
 
 Jehovah is Omnipotent (49 : 24-26) 
 
 Jehovah is Omnipotence as well as Love (vs. 15), and the de- 
 liverance which he effects for his people no power on earth can 
 cancel. 
 
 24 f . For the lawful captives, read the captives of a tyrant; for 
 the terrible, a tyrant; for for I will contend . . . liiee, read but I 
 will plead thy cause (so Gr.). Israel, once saved from Babylon 
 by the mighty hand of Jehovah, can never be torn from him again. 
 The question and answer recall vs. 15. 
 
 26. The enemies of Israel will die by each other's hands. 
 326 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 50:2 
 
 And all flesh shall know 
 That I the Lord am thy saviour, 
 And thy redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 
 
 50. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, 
 Wherewith I have put her away ? 
 
 Or which of my creditors is it 
 
 To whom I have sold you ? 
 Behold, for your iniquities were ye sold, 
 
 And for your transgressions was your mother put 
 away. 
 
 2. Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? 
 When I called, was there none to answer ? 
 Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem ? 
 Or have I no power to dehver ? 
 
 Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, 
 I make the rivers a wilderness : 
 
 Jehovah's Love and Power (50 : 1-3) 
 
 The people might well suppose that the covenant relationship 
 between Jehovah and Zion had been dissolved. But not so; 
 he has neither divorced her nor sold her children. 
 
 I. Your mother is Zion, Jehovah is her husband; but there is 
 no bill of divorcement to show {where? = nowhere) — clearly he 
 has not permanently put her away (cf. Deut. 24: i). Children 
 could be sold for the debt of their parents (2 Kings 4: i), but 
 Jehovah, as he could not be in need, could not possibly have any 
 creditors to whom his children (Israel) might be sold. It is their 
 sin that has created the temporary separation between them and 
 their God. 
 
 2 f . To the prophet's message that Jehovah himself was commg 
 and calling to them through the new political situation, the people 
 had offered no eager response. Surely they did not doubt the 
 divine power; for in creation (or some think at the Exodus) 
 
 327 
 
50:3 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Their fish ^ stinketh, because there is no water, 
 And dieth for thirst. 
 
 3. I clothe the heavens with blackness, 
 
 And I make sackcloth their covering. 
 
 The Servant Tried but Trusting (50:4-11) 
 
 4. The Lord God hath given me 
 
 The tongue of ^ them that are taught. 
 That I should know ^ how to sustain with words 
 Him that is weary. 
 
 He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine 
 ear 
 To hear as ^ they that are taught. 
 
 5. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, 
 
 1 Gr. dry up. 2 m. disciples. 3 m. how to speak a word in season to him, etc. ; Gr. 
 when it is necessary to speak a word. 
 
 Jehovah had shown himself master of the forces of nature. Read 
 their fish dry up (so Gr.) for lack of water, and their monsters on the 
 thirsty land. 
 
 50:4-11. This (vss. 4-9) is the third of the Servant songs, 
 and constitutes a Hnk between the second (49 : 1-6) and the fourth 
 (52 : 13-53 : 12), elaborating the idea of the servant's suffering in 
 49 : 4, and preparing the way for the large interpretation of that 
 suffering in Chap. 53. Here again, the servant is the nation in its 
 ideal capacity. 
 
 4 f. Jehovah has given me a disciple's tongue. As in 49 : 2 
 {mouth) the nation is a prophet, teaching others because taught of 
 Jehovah — his disciple. The clause that follows describes more 
 narrowly the nature of his task. The word rendered sustain is 
 obscure ; perhaps to answer, to feed, or to revive the weary with a 
 word {of consolation). 
 
 He wakeneth : read simply In the morning he wakens mine ear 
 to listen disciple-like, and omit the first clause of vs. 5 as a belated 
 explanation of 4b. This is a fine description of the vigilance and 
 responsiveness with which the servant awaits the new revelation 
 
 328 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 50:9 
 
 And I was not rebellious, 
 Neither turned away backward. 
 
 6. I gave my back to the smiters, 
 
 And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair : 
 I hid not my face 
 
 From shame and spitting. 
 
 7. For the Lord God will help me ; 
 
 Therefore have I not been confounded : 
 Therefore have I set my face like a flint, 
 And I know that I shall not be ashamed. 
 
 8. He is near that justifieth me ; who will contend with Rom. 8 ; 
 
 me? '''• 
 
 Let us stand up together : 
 Who is mine adversary ? 
 Let him come near to me. 
 
 9. Behold, the Lord God will help me ; 
 
 Who is he that shall condemn me ? 
 Behold, they all shall wax old as a garment ; 
 The moth shall eat them up. 
 
 which each new day brings. There is nothing starthng or mys- 
 terious in it ; but enjoying unbroken intercourse with his God, 
 the disciple's ears are sharp and sensitive to the teaching which the 
 divine Master sends through the common experiences of every day, 
 and, stern as they sometimes were, he was not rebellious. 
 
 6. His fidelity brought him suffering and indignities manifold. 
 The smiters are the heathen, as in Ps. 129 : 3. 
 
 7-9. The secret of the Servant's unflinching endurance is the 
 confident assurance that Jehovah will help him, justify him, i.e. 
 vindicate him by delivering him (46:13; 51:5) — and that 
 speedily. The adversary is the heathen; all they who oppose 
 Israel and her God are doomed to annihilation. 
 
 329 
 
5o:io THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, 
 
 ^ That obeyeth the voice of his servant ? 
 2 He that walketh in darkness, 
 
 And hath no Hght, 
 Let him trust in the name of the Lord, 
 
 And stay upon his God. 
 
 11. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire. 
 
 That ^ gird yourselves about with firebrands : 
 Walk ye in the flame of your fire, 
 
 And among the brands that ye have kindled. 
 This shall ye have of mine hand : 
 
 Ye shall Ue down in sorrow. 
 
 Words or Encoxjragement and Promise (51 : 1-52 : 12) 
 
 Deliverance is Near and Sure (51 : 1-16) 
 
 51. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, 
 Ye that seek the Lord : 
 
 1 Gr. let him obey. 2 m. though he walketh. ^ Syr. set brands alight. 
 
 Exhortation (vss. 10, 11) 
 
 In these verses, a later writer applies the preceding passage 
 (vss. 4-9) to the situation of his own time, using it as a basis of 
 encouragement to the faithful and of warning to the godless. 
 
 For that obeyeth, read, with the Greek version, let him obey. 
 The faithful who fear Jehovah are urged to imitate the Servant's 
 confidence in God (vss. 7, 8), while those who kindle a fire and set 
 arrows aflame (as we should probably read), i.e. those who assail 
 the faithful with cruelty and cunning, are urged to begone into the 
 flame of your flre. The divine penalty is that they shall lie down 
 in torment — the torment of hell-fire, Gehenna (66 : 23 f.). 
 
 51: 1-52: 12. This is one of the most effective and beautiful 
 sections in the whole prophecy. The consolation, interrupted by 
 the Servant's song (50 : 4 ff.), is here resumed, and urged in a series 
 of brilliant and powerful appeals. 
 
 51 : 1-16. The prophet meets Israel's doubts and fears by re- 
 
 330 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 51:4 
 
 Look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, 
 And to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. 
 
 2. Look unto Abraham your father, 
 
 And unto Sarah that bare you : 
 For when he was but one I called him, 
 And I blessed him, and ^ made him many. 
 
 3. For the Lord hath comforted Zion : 
 
 He hath comforted all her waste places, 
 And hath made her wilderness like Eden, 
 
 And her desert hke the garden of the Lord ; 
 Joy and gladness shall be found therein. 
 
 Thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. 
 
 4. Attend unto me, - O my people ; 
 
 And give ear unto me, ^ O my nation ; 
 For a law shall go forth from me, 
 And ^I will make my judgement to rest for a hght 
 of the peoples. 
 
 I Gr. loved him. « Some Heb. MSS. Syr. ye peoples. 3 Some Heb. MSS. Syr. ye 
 tuitions; Gx. ye kings. * Gr. and my judgement shaW. he for a light, etc. 
 
 calling what Jehovah had already done in the past (vss. 1-3), 
 and by reminding her that the religion which she represents before 
 the world is destined to be universal (4 f.) and everlasting (6-8). 
 
 1-3. Righteousness, = practically = vindication, deliverance. 
 For pit, read quarry, and omit the hole of. Israel is asked to 
 consider its slender origin ; it began in a single family — Abra- 
 ham and Sarah. But as they viltimately became numerous, so 
 will also the present Israel, unpromising though the outlook may 
 be. The fertility, beauty, and gladness in store for Zion are de- 
 scribed in vs. 3, 
 
 4 f . Israel's (law, judgment = ) rehgion is destined to be the re- 
 ligion of the whole world (cf. 42 : 1-4) — another source of inspira- 
 tion and consolation. I will make to rest should go with the next 
 verse, and be translated " I will act in a twinkling." Read atid 
 my judgment ( = religion) for a light of the peoples. Suddenly will I 
 
 331 
 
51 : 5 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. My righteousness ^ is near, 
 
 My salvation is gone forth, 
 And mine arms shall judge the peoples ; 
 The isles shall wait for me. 
 And on mine arm shall they trust. 
 
 6. Lift up your eyes to the heavens. 
 
 And look upon the earth beneath ; 
 For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke. 
 And the earth shall wax old Uke a garment. 
 
 And they that dwell therein 
 
 Shall die ^ in Hke manner : 
 But my salvation shall be for ever. 
 
 And my righteousness shall not ^ be abohshed. 
 
 7. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, 
 
 The people in whose heart is my law ; 
 Fear ye not the reproach of men. 
 
 Neither be ye dismayed at their revilings. 
 
 8. For ^ the moth shall eat them up Hke a garment. 
 
 And the worm shall eat them like wool : 
 But my righteousness shall be for ever. 
 And my salvation unto all generations. 
 
 1 Gr. draweih quickly near. 2 m. perhaps like gnats. ' Gr. Vg. fail. * Gr. time. 
 
 bring my righteousness (= deliverance, as in vs. i) near. Omit the 
 last clause of vs. 5. 
 
 6. The things that are seen are temporary, but the unseen things 
 (in particular the sah^ation which religion brings) are eternal 
 (2 Cor. 4:18) — "the greatest and loftiest thought conceived 
 before Christianity " (Duhm). For in like manner, read, with 
 margin, like gnats. Righteousness = salvation (cf. vss. i, 5). 
 
 7 f. This hope of everlasting salvation (vs. 6) should inspire 
 Israel to bear with patience the reproach of frail mortal men. 
 
 332 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 51: 12 
 
 9. Awake, awake, ^ put on strength, 
 O arm of the Lord ; 
 Awake, as in the days of old. 
 The generations of ancient times. 
 
 ^ Art thou not it that cut Rahab in pieces. 
 That pierced the dragon ? 
 
 10. Art thou not it which dried up the sea, 
 
 The waters of the great deep ; 
 That made the depths of the sea a way 
 For the redeemed to pass over ? 
 
 11. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, isa. 35: 10 
 
 And come with singing unto Zion ; 
 And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads : 
 They shall obtain gladness and joy. 
 And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 12. I, even I, am he that comforteth you : 
 
 Who art thou, that thou art afraid 
 Of man that shall die, and of the son of man 
 Which shall be made as grass ; 
 
 ^ Gr. Jerusalem, and put on the strength of thine arm. ^ Gr. om. from art thou to 
 dragon. 
 
 Appeal to Jehovah to show his Ancient Power (vss. 9-1 1) 
 
 9-1 1. The days of old are the days of creation, and the allusion 
 is to the mythical conflict between Jehovah and the dragon (or 
 Rahab), personification of the great deep, the chaotic sea — a con- 
 flict which was supposed to have preceded creation. The mention 
 of the drying up of the sea leads in vs. lob to the thought of the 
 passage of the Red Sea; and the mention of the redeemed has 
 further led to the insertion of 35 : 10, which is here irrelevant. 
 The verses appeal to Jehovah to assert his power in history, and 
 to create out of the existing confusion a moral order like the physi- 
 cal order he created at the beginning by the destruction of chaos. 
 
 333 
 
51 : 13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 13. And hast forgotten the Lord thy Maker, that stretched 
 
 forth the heavens, 
 And laid the foundations of the earth ; 
 And fearest continually all the day 
 
 Because of the fury of the oppressor, 
 1 When he maketh ready to destroy ? 
 
 And where is the fury of the oppressor ? 
 
 14. 2 The captive exile shall speedily be loosed ; 
 
 And he shall not die and go down into the pit, 
 Neither shall his bread fail. 
 
 15. For I am the Lord thy God, 
 
 Which stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar : 
 The Lord of hosts is his name. 
 
 16. And I have put my words in thy mouth, 
 
 And have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, 
 That I may ^ plant the heavens, and lay the foundations 
 
 of the earth, 
 And say unto Zion, "Thou art my people." 
 
 1 m. as though he made ready (or aimed). 2 m. he tliat is bent down. For vs. 14, 
 Gr. reads only in thy deliverance he shall not stand still nor tarry. 3 Syr. stretch forth. 
 
 Jehovah is Omnipotent: let Israel he Comforted and not he Afraid 
 (vss. 12-16) 
 
 This section almost looks like an answer to the preceding prayer, 
 though possibly of independent origin. The old emphasis upon 
 Jehovah's power as shown in creation (Chap. 40) is again used to 
 put heart into timid and disconsolate Israel. 
 
 13. Israel has forgotten the infinite power of her God. He v/ho 
 made her made the heavens. The oppressor, Babylon. Where ? 
 = nowhere. 
 
 14. Israel is here compared to a famished prisoner in a dungeon 
 (cf. Jer. 38), but probably we have not the original text, as the 
 Greek version is quite different and shorter. 
 
 15 f. The authenticity of these verses is doubted, as they are 
 little more than a compilation of other passages (Jer. 31 : 35 ; Is. 
 
 334 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 51 : 19 
 
 Jerusalem's Affliction: her Speedy Redemption and Glory 
 (51 : 17-52 : 12) 
 
 17. Awake, awake, 
 
 Stand up, Jerusalem, 
 Which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord Rev. 14 : 10 
 
 The cup of his fury. 
 Thou hast drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering. 
 
 And drained it. 
 
 18. There is none to guide her 
 
 Among all the sons whom she hath brought forth ; 
 Neither is there any that taketh her by the hand 
 Of all the sons that she hath brought up. 
 
 19. These two things are befallen thee ; 
 
 Who shall bemoan thee ? 
 Desolation and destruction, and the famine and the 
 sword ; 
 ^ How shall I comfort thee ? 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. Vg. Tar. who shall. 
 
 59 : 21 ; 49 : 2). They assert Jehovah's power, also his equipment 
 and protection of Israel, which had for its ultimate object the 
 creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Or Marti may be right 
 in supposing the meaning to be that Jehovah had appointed 
 Israel to her high destiny already at creation {when he stretched 
 out the heavens, etc.). 
 
 51:17-52:12. Jerusalem, compared to a prostrate, helpless 
 woman, is bidden to arise and put on her festal robes, for the great 
 salvation is very near ; already the watchmen see the messengers 
 of it upon the mountains. Therefore away, away from Babylon. 
 
 The Humiliation of Jerusalem (51 : 17-20) 
 
 17 f. Jerusalem has drunk to the dregs the cup of the divine 
 indignation, she lies senseless ; therefore bestir thee. Omit of the 
 cup. Vs. 18, which speaks of Jerusalem in the third person, is 
 probably a later, insertion. 
 
 19. Two things, or pairs of things — " Wreck and Ruin, Want 
 
 335 
 
5i:20 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 20. Thy sons have fainted, they he at the top of all the 
 
 streets, 
 As an antelope in a net ; 
 They are full of the fury of the Lord, 
 The rebuke of thy God. 
 
 21. Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, 
 
 And drunken, but not with wine : 
 
 22. Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, 
 
 And thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, 
 " Behold, I have taken out of thine hand 
 
 The cup of staggering. 
 Even the bowl of the cup of my fury ; 
 
 Thou shalt no more drink it again : 
 
 23. And I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee ; ^ 
 Which have said to thy soul, 
 
 ' Bow down, that we may go over ' : 
 And thou hast laid thy back as the ground. 
 And as the street, to them that go over." 
 
 52. Awake, awake, put on 
 Thy strength, O Zion 
 
 Gr. adds and of them that humbled thee. 
 
 and War " (G. H. Box : alliteration and assonance in the Hebrew) 
 — the former befalling the land, the latter the people, in conse- 
 quence of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. For how shall I, 
 read who can comfort thee? 
 
 20. Omit at the top of all the streets (from Lam. 2 : 19). As an 
 antelope in its fruitless effort to escape. 
 
 The Tables Turned (51 : 21-23) 
 
 The cup of the divine indignation, which threw Jerusalem 
 prostrate, is to be handed to Babylon. 
 
 23. To thy soul, i.e., simply to thee. Thy back : the allusion is 
 to the cruel Oriental custom of riding over the backs of conquered 
 enemies, as they lie prostrate on the ground. 
 
 336 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 52:5 
 
 Put on ^ thy beautiful garments, 
 
 O Jerusalem, the holy city ; Rev. 21 ; 2, 
 
 For henceforth there shall no more come into thee ^l^ ^^ . ^^ 
 
 The uncircumcised and the unclean. 
 
 2. Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, 
 
 Sit thee down, O Jerusalem : 
 ^ Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 
 O captive daughter of Zion. 
 
 3. For thus saith the Lord, ye were sold for nought ; and 
 
 4. ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith 
 the Lord God, My people went down at the first into 
 Egypt to sojourn there : arid the Assyrian oppressed 
 them ^ without cause. Now therefore, what do I here, 
 
 5. saith the Lord, ^ seeing that my people is taken away 
 for nought? They that rule over them do howl, 
 saith the Lord, and my name continually all the day 
 
 1 Gr. iky glory. ^ Heb. variant, the bands of thy neck are loosed. ^ Gr. with violence. 
 * Gr. because my people has been taken for nought, (ye) marvel and howl. 
 
 Let Jerusalem arise from the Dust and put on her Holiday Attire 
 (52: If.) 
 
 52 : I f. The prostrate (51 : 17-23) Jerusalem is to awake and 
 arise, just as Babylon, her adversary, is bidden to come down 
 (47:1). The uncircumcised and the unclean are the Babylo- 
 nians. Sit thee down, i.e., on thy throne; but perhaps we should 
 read, as at the end of the verse, O captive Jerusalem. 
 
 The Three Unjust Oppressions of Israel (52 : 3-6) 
 
 Several recent scholars believe this passage to be a late interpo- 
 lation. It does not fit well into the context, which deals with the 
 immediate future of Jerusalem. 
 
 5. Of the three oppressions, the Egyptian, the Assyrian (vs. 4), 
 the Babylonian, the last is in some aspects the worst. What do I 
 here? rather what have I (obtained) here, i.e., in Babylonia? in 
 what way has the Babylonian captivity advantaged Jehovah? 
 They that rule over them, i.e., the Babylonians, do howl, appar- 
 
 z 337 
 
52:6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 6. is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my 
 name: ^ therefore they shall know in that day that I 
 am he that doth speak ; ^ behold, it is I. 
 Rom. 10:15 7. How beautiful upon the mountains 
 Eph. 6 : 15 Aj.g xhQ feet of him that bringeth good tidings, 
 
 That pubHsheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of 
 good, 
 That publisheth salvation ; 
 That saith to Zion, 
 "Thy Godreigneth!" 
 
 8. The voice of thy watchmen ! they Hft up the voice, 
 
 Together do they siijg ; 
 For they shall see, eye to eye. 
 When the Lord returneth to Zion. 
 
 9. Break forth into joy, sing together. 
 
 Ye waste places of Jerusalem : 
 For the Lord hath comforted his people. 
 He hath redeemed Jerusalem. 
 
 Gr. Vg. cm. 2 m, jigfg j Qf^ 
 
 ently in exultation; but this meaning is very doubtful, and the 
 passage has been emended to read, Behold those who waited for me 
 are become a byword. 
 
 6. By some future interposition which will corroborate his 
 present promise, Jehovah will give his people a convincing expe- 
 rience of himself, and his name, which was despised (vs. 5), will 
 come again to its own. 
 
 Jehovah^s Return to Zion (52: 7-12) 
 
 A beautiful picture of Jehovah's return to Zion, first heralded by 
 messengers and then witnessed by watchmen from her walls (vss. 
 
 7-9)- 
 
 7 f. Thy God reigneth, i.e. has entered upon his sovereignty. 
 Eye to eye, practically = face to face : Jehovah will be so near that 
 the watchmen and he will be able to look into one another's 
 faces. 
 
 338 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 52 : 14 
 
 10. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm 
 
 In the eyes of all the nations : 
 And all the ends of the earth shall see 
 The salvation of our God. 
 
 11. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, 
 
 Touch no unclean thing ; 2 Cor. 6 : 17 
 
 Go ye out of the midst of her ; be ye clean, 
 Ye that bear the vessels of the Lord. 
 
 12. For ye shall not go out in haste, 
 
 Neither shall ye go by flight : 
 For the Lord will go before you ; 
 And the God of Israel will be your rearward. 
 
 The Humiliation and Exaltation or the Servant 
 (52 : 13-53 ' 12) 
 
 The Servant: His Suferings and His Great Glory 
 (52:13-53:1) 
 
 13. Behold, my servant shall ^ deal wisely, he shall be ^ exalted 
 
 And Hfted up, and shall be very high. 
 
 14. Like as many were astonied ^ at thee, 
 
 1 m. prosper. 2 Gr. om. ^ gyr. Tar. at him. 
 
 10. The whole world will be witness of Israel's deliverance. 
 Bared his arm to deal the blow, by throwing back the loose upper 
 garment from the right shoulder. 
 
 11. A ringing call to depart from Babylon (cf. 48: 20) and, 
 purifying themselves and bearing the sacred vessels, to form a 
 solemn procession to the " holy city " (52 : i). 
 
 12. The previous verse had suggested the exodus from Egypt; 
 but the exodus from Babylon shall not be in every respect like 
 that — for ye shall not go out in haste (as Israel then did, Exod. 
 12: II, Deut. 16: 3), but in leisure and security, for their God 
 will be their defence behind and before. 
 
 52: 13-53: 12. This great passage, the fourth and last of the 
 Servant songs (42 : i ff. ; 49 : i £F. ; 50 : 4 ff.), gathers up the leading 
 ideas of the other three, reveals them in their relation to each other, 
 
 339 
 
52 : 15 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 (His visage was so marred ^ more than any man, 
 And his form more than the sons of men,) 
 15. So shall ^ he ^ sprinkle many nations ; 
 Kings shall shut their mouths at him : 
 
 Rom. 15:21 For that which had not been told them shall they see ; 
 
 And that which they had not heard shall they ^ un- 
 derstand. 
 
 1 m. from that of man, and his form from that of the sons of men. 2 Gr. many nations 
 marvel at him. ^ m. startle. * m. consider. 
 
 and presents them in the form of a complete and coherent picture of 
 the character and fortunes of the Servant of Jehovah. He has 
 already appeared as Prophet, the destiny of whose message is the 
 whole world (Chap. 42), and as one who has toiled hard (Chap. 49) 
 and suffered grievously (Chap. 50) in the exercise of his high calling ; 
 here the idea of his sufferings is treated with great elaboration, and 
 the Prophet is merged in the Martyr. But the sufferings are 
 crowned in the end with glory ; the Servant receives the homage of 
 the world, and is lifted to a place of the very highest honor. Here 
 again the Servant appears to be Israel (see Introduction, pp. 251 ff.). 
 52 : 13-53 : I. These three verses are a summary of the whole 
 poem — the awful humiliation of the Servant, and the great glory 
 that should follow. 
 
 13. Deal wisely: rather, with margin, prosper (as the result of 
 his insight) ; but not impossibly the original word was Israel. So 
 important and unexpected is his exaltation that three verbs are 
 used to describe it. 
 
 14. After the first clause (read him for thee), another seems to 
 have fallen out, such as " So will many take delight in him " 
 (Cheyne). His exaltation will be as amazing as was his humiHa- 
 tion (in exile). More than, etc.; read with margin /row that of 
 man, i.e., out of all human likeness — alluding to the disfigurement 
 caused by leprosy (cf. 53 : 4). 
 
 15. In contrast to the Servant's appalling sufferings is the 
 reverent homage that will be paid to him. Sprinkle can hardly be 
 right; perhaps, many nations will do him homage (Gr. marvel). 
 Shut their mouths in awe of him. For understand read perceive. 
 The meaning is that the change in the Servant's (Israel's) fortunes 
 will be without parallel — a thing such as had never been heard 
 before. The sorrows and horrors of exile will be followed by a glory 
 which will command the homage and the astonishment of the world. 
 
 340 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 53 
 
 53. Who hath believed ^ our report ? 
 
 And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been re- 
 vealed ? 
 
 The Sorrows, Humiliation^ and Death of the Servant (53 : 2-9) 
 
 2. For he grew up before him as a tender plant, 
 
 And as a root of a dry ground : 
 He hath no form or comeliness ; - and when we see him, 
 There is no beauty that we should desire him. 
 
 3. He was despised, and ^ rejected of men ; 
 
 A man of sorrows, and acquainted with ^ grief ; 
 And as one from whom men hide their face 
 He was despised, and we esteemed him not. 
 
 1 m. that which we have heard. SV message. 2 m. //^/ j^ig should look upon him; nor 
 beauty, etc. ^ m_ forsaken. * Heb. sickness. 
 
 53 : I. This verse goes closely with the last. The transforma- 
 tion is alike unparalleled and incredible — for who could have 
 believed what we have heard (see margin), namely, /^g revelation 
 of the arm {i.e., the power) of Jehovah, as shown in the miraculous 
 exaltation of Israel? The whole passage from vs. i to iia appears 
 to be spoken by the heathen, whose astonishment at the change in 
 the fortunes (of Israel) has just been alluded to (52 : 15). 
 
 2. Before him (Jehovah?), perhaps, " before us.'' The soil on 
 which the Servant grew up was dry ground; i.e., the circum- 
 stances by which he was surrounded were unpromising, dishearten- 
 ing — a possible allusion to the exile. Further, he was in himself 
 unattractive : 
 
 Having no form that we should regard him, 
 And no beauty that we should desire him. 
 
 Omit nor comeliness. 
 
 3. Not only unattractive was he, but repulsive, a man of pains 
 and familiar with sickness (not grief), smitten, as it were, with 
 loathsome leprosy (vs. 4), and therefore by others despised, for- 
 saken, shunned. 
 
 341 
 
53:4 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 4. Surely he hath borne our ^ griefs, 
 Mat. 8 : 17 And Carried our sorrows : 
 
 Yet we did esteem him stricken, 
 Smitten of God and afflicted. 
 
 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, 
 
 He was bruised for our iniquities : 
 The chastisement of our peace was upon him ; 
 I Pet. 2 : 24 And with his stripes we are healed. 
 
 I Pet. 2 : 25 6. All we like sheep have gone astray ; 
 
 We have turned every one to his own way ; 
 And the Lord hath ^ laid on him 
 The iniquity of us all. 
 
 7. He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself 
 • And opened not his mouth ; 
 
 1 Heb. sicknesses. 2 Heb. made to light. 
 
 . 4. The fact of the Servant's sufferings led the spectators to the 
 theory that he was ''smitten of God" for sins of his own — a 
 frequent explanation of suffering in the Old Testament (cf. the 
 friends of Job) ; but in truth, as they are led to feel afterwards, it 
 was their pains and sickness that he bore. What he suffered, they 
 deserved. Throughout these verses he and we are strongly 
 and strikingly contrasted. Leprosy was in a special sense the 
 stroke of God, and the figure of the leper undoubtedly underlies 
 this description. 
 
 5. Not only is his suffering vicarious (because of their sins), but 
 redemptive (with a view to their salvation, peace, welfare). 
 Upon him was the chastisement which was to procure our welfare; 
 and the stripes which he suffered brought healing to the guilty, 
 by waking in them a sense of guilt and penitence. 
 
 6. Sheep without their shepherd God (cf. Ps. 23: i). The Ser- 
 vant's suffering was not an accident, nor was it punishment for 
 his own sin; it was Jehovah's doing, and for the sins of others. 
 It was Jehovah who caused to light upon him the guilt of, and the 
 punishment due to, us all. 
 
 7. Though oppressed by the Babylonians (if the servant be 
 
 342 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 53:9 
 
 As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, Acts 8: 32!. 
 
 And as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb ; ^®^" ^ ' '^ 
 Yea, he opened not his mouth. 
 
 8. ^ By oppression and judgement he was taken away ; 
 
 2 And as for his generation, who among them con- 
 sidered 
 That he was cut off out of the land of the living ? 
 ^ For the transgression of my people ^ was he stricken. 
 
 9. And ^ they made his grave with the wicked, 
 
 And with the rich in his death ; 
 
 ^xa.. from; AV he was taken from prison and from judgment ; Gr. in his humilia- 
 tion his judgment ( = rights) was taken away. 2 Gr. AV who shall declare his generation ? 
 3 Gr. for the transgressions of my people he -ivas led to death. * m. SV to whom the stroke 
 was due. 5 Gr. / will give the wicked for his burial, atid the rich for his death. 
 
 Israel), he was submissive and gentle as a lamb, like Jeremiah 
 (11 : 19). Omit the last clause. 
 
 8. Almost every word in the first half of this verse is difficult 
 and ambiguous, but out of the obscurity emerges clearly enough 
 the fact that the Servant died by an act of injustice. We may 
 tentatively emend and translate with Marti : debarred from justice 
 he was taken away to death, and as for his fate (so Cheyne) , who 
 gave it a thought, that (or for) . . . ? The land of the living : in 
 exile Israel is as good as dead (cf. Ezek. 37). My people: the 
 abrupt use of the first person singular, not yet used in this chapter, 
 is strange. A very simple textual change would give " for otir 
 rebellions " or " for the rebellion of the peoples " — either of which 
 would be appropriate, as it is the Gentiles who are speaking (cf. 
 note on vs. i). 
 
 9. Another difficult verse. Instead of in his death, a word is 
 needed parallel to his grave : possibly we should translate his 
 burial-mound — Sellin ingeniously conjectured his cross. Just as 
 the poor and the pious are often practically synonymous in the 
 Old Testament, so might the wicked and the rich be ; but by a sim- 
 ple change the verse may be made to read : 
 
 His grave was appointed with the rebellious, 
 And with the wicked his burial mound. 
 
 In any case, the idea is that he was dishonored, in death, with a 
 felon's burial. 
 
 343 
 
53 : 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 I Pet. 2 : 22 ^ Although he had done no violence, 
 ^®^* '4:s Neither was any deceit in his mouth. 
 
 The Servants Ultimate Glory and Exaltation (53 : 10-12) 
 
 10. Yet ^ it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath ^ put 
 
 him to grief : 
 ^ When thou shalt make his soul ^ an offering for sin, 
 He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, 
 And ^ the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his 
 
 hand. 
 
 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall 
 
 be satisfied. 
 
 1 m. Gr. Vg. AV because. 2 Gr. the Lord is pleased to purify him from his stroke. 
 3 Heb. made him sick. * ra. when his soul shall make an ofering ; Gr. if ye give an 
 offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed, s Heb. a guilt ojfering. ^ Gr. the 
 Lord is pleased to rescue from the trouble of his soul (originally no doubt to rescue his soul 
 from trouble), to show him light, and to form (perhaps originally^//) him with understand- 
 ing: to justify the just one who serves many well. 
 
 10, iia. These verses present difi&culties of many kinds, but 
 two things are plain : (i) that behind the Servant's fate is the divine 
 will — no accident or caprice, but the pleasure or purpose of 
 Jehovah; and (ii) that that purpose has decreed the ultimate 
 exaltation of the Servant. Though slain and buried, he is to rise 
 again, to enter upon a long and prosperous career, and trium- 
 phantly to prosecute the purpose of Jehovah. This language is 
 much more appropriate to the nation (cf. 52 : 15) than to an indi- 
 vidual. Unfortunately the Greek text of this passage deviates 
 very seriously from the Hebrew, and the original text is beyond the 
 possibility of recovery. Marti, assuming that a certain group of 
 letters has been accidentally duplicated, and adopting some hints 
 from the Greek, translates : 
 
 But Jehovah had pleasure in his servant, 
 
 And rescued his soul from 7nisery, 
 He lets him see light to the full, 
 
 And in his posterity helps him to his vindication. 
 
 With our present text, the third clause of vs. 10 (which should 
 perhaps be translated " when he makes his soul, i.e., himself, 
 a guilt-ofifering ") is explained by the fuller statements of vss. 
 
 344 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 53 : 12 
 
 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant ^ justify 
 many : 
 And he shall bear their iniquities. 
 12. Therefore - will I divide him a portion with the great, 
 And he shall divide the spoil with the strong ; 
 
 Because he poured out his soul unto death, 
 
 And was numbered with the transgressors: Lk. 22 -. 37 
 
 Yet he bare the sin of many, i Pet. 2 : 24 
 
 And made intercession for the transgressors. nXgi^l 
 
 1 m. make many righteotis. 2 Gr. he will inherit. 
 
 5 f . ; but the when (or if) is hard to reconcile with the fact that the 
 offering has already been made. Again, iia, in its present form, 
 would mean that, as a result of his sorrow, the Servant would see 
 with satisfaction the cause of Jehovah prospering in his hand; 
 and the next clause would read, by his knowledge of God and his 
 saving purpose shall a righteous one, my servant, make the many 
 righteous. But the Hebrew for this is stiff and unnatural, and the 
 original text was probably different. From the general tenor of 
 the prophecy, it is fairly probable that the reference here is to 
 Jehovah's justification or vindication of his Servant rather than to 
 the Servant's justification of others. With these words — He 
 (Jehovah) will justify him (the Servant) — the speech of the 
 heathen, begun in vs. i, comes to an end. 
 
 lib, 12. My righteous servant: rather, " there stands my ser- 
 vant (Jehovah is now speaking, as in 52:13) righteous," i.e. 
 justified, vindicated, before the many : the many are the heathen 
 (52 : 15). Israel, triumphantly emerging from the exile, in which 
 she had borne the penalty of the sins of others, is vindicated, and 
 takes her place among the great and the strong, i.e. the notable ones 
 of the earth. For I will divide, read, with the Greek version, he 
 will inherit. This exaltation is at once the result and the reward 
 of his sufferings — because he poured out his soul {i.e. his life- 
 blood) : omit unto death. Yet, or though, whereas. 
 
 The interpretation of suffering presented by this passage is the 
 profoundest in the Old Testament. The common theory ex- 
 plained suffering as the result of sin on the part of the sufferer, 
 though cases are not unknown where the innocent perished for the 
 guilty (2 Sam. 21). But the greatness of this interpretation is 
 that the suffering of the innocent is regarded as inspired with a 
 
 345 
 
54: I 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Future Glory of Jerusalem (Chap. 54) 
 
 The New Jerusalem will be Large and Populous, and Blessed 
 with the Steadfast Favor of God (54 : i-io). 
 
 Gal, 4:27 54. Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear ; 
 
 Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that 
 didst not travail with child : 
 For more are the children of the desolate 
 Than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. 
 
 2. Enlarge the place of thy tent. 
 
 And ^ let them stretch forth the curtains ^ of thine 
 habitations ; spare not : 
 
 1 Gr. stretch, etc. 2 Gr. om. 
 
 redemptive purpose — the redemption of the guilty. It is im- 
 posed by God with this purpose, and accepted by the Servant in 
 this spirit. It is chastisement which ultimately procures the peace 
 of the guilty (53 : 5), and it is borne by the sufferer obediently and 
 unmurmuringly. The result is that the guilty are conscience- 
 smitten, and finally won, accepting Jehovah's salvation and honor- 
 ing his Servant. Thus the reward of the Servant is twofold : 
 through him the guilty are won to God, and he himself is Hfted to a 
 place of the very highest honor. The suffering has not been in 
 vain (49 : 4), it issues in triumph — in the conversion, if not of all, 
 yet of some ; and the sufferer comes down from his cross to be 
 crowned with glory and honor. (See Introduction, pp. 252 ff.) 
 
 Chap. 54. This glowing picture of the future of Jerusalem appro- 
 priately follows the vision of the exaltation of the Servant in 53 : 
 10-12, especially if the Servant be Israel : in any case it continues 
 the strains of consolation and encouragement, begun in 49 : 14, 
 with which the prophet wishes to close. 
 
 Size and Population of the New Jerusalem (vss. 1-6) 
 
 I. Barren: Zion is addressed. Desolate and married — de- 
 scribe Zion during and before the exile. Zion is married to Jehovah ; 
 during the exile she has been temporarily put away, but not di- 
 vorced (50: i). For the thought of the numerous children that 
 Zion shall have on her restoration, cf. 49 : 19-21. 
 
 346 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 54:6 
 
 Lengthen thy cords, 
 
 And strengthen thy stakes. 
 
 3. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and 
 
 on the left ; 
 And thy seed shall possess the nations, 
 
 And make the desolate cities to be inhabited. 
 
 4. Fear not ; for thou shalt not be ashamed : 
 
 Neither be thou confounded ; for thou shalt not be 
 put to shame : 
 For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth. 
 
 And the reproach of thy widowhood shalt thou re- 
 member no more. 
 
 5. For thy Maker is thine husband ; 
 
 The Lord of hosts is his name : 
 And the Holy One of Israel is thy redeemer ; 
 The God of the whole earth shall he be called. 
 
 6. For the Lord hath called thee 
 
 ^ As a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, 
 
 1 Gr. not as, etc. 
 
 2 f. Omit of thine habitations (so Gr.). Spare not, i.e. unstint- 
 ingly. The curtains are the tent hangings. Jerusalem is com- 
 pared to a large tent, which will need long ropes and strong tent 
 pegs. Spread abroad, said of population. The nations: the 
 old Davidic empire is to be restored (55 : 3-5). Desolate cities of 
 Palestine. 
 
 4 f. The shame of thy youth, Israel's subjection to Egypt, and 
 perhaps to Assyria : the reproach of thy widowhood, her subjec- 
 tion to Babylon (in exile). Shall he be called, rather is he called : 
 Israel's God is the great God of the universe. 
 
 6. Called thee back as a wife who was temporarily out of favor 
 (Est. 2 : 14) — outcast and downcast (there is a word play in the 
 
 347 
 
54:7 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ^ Even a wife of youth, ^ when she is cast off, 
 Saith thy God. 
 
 7. For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; 
 
 But with great mercies will I gather thee. 
 
 8. In ^ overflowing wrath I hid my face from thee ^ for 
 
 a moment ; 
 But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon 
 thee, 
 Saith the Lord thy redeemer. 
 
 9. For this is as the ^ waters of Noah unto me : 
 For as I have sworn 
 
 That the waters of Noah should no more go over the 
 earth. 
 So have I sworn 
 That I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. 
 
 10. For the mountains shall depart, 
 And the hills be removed ; 
 But my kindness shall not depart from thee, 
 Neither shall my covenant of peace be removed, 
 Saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. 
 
 1 Gr. nor as a wife hated from her youth. ^ AV when thou wast refused, ^m. Gr. 
 a Utile wrath. * Gr. om. s Sjt. Tar. Vg. some Gr. and Heb. MSS. days. 
 
 Hebrew, Cheyne). When she is cast off: " and one who has 
 been wedded in youth, can she be rejected? " (Che3me). See vs. i. 
 
 The Immovable Love of God (vss. 7-10) 
 
 7 f . A small moment — the exile, which seemed but a moment in 
 comparison with the everlasting glory that should follow (2 Cor. 
 4:17). In vs. 8 omit overflowing and for a moment. 
 
 g f. This crisis is as the days (rather than waters) of Noah 
 (Gen. 8: 20-22). In vs. 10, for for . . . but, read though . . . 
 yet. The divine love is more firm and constant than the order of 
 nature. 
 
 348 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 54: 16 
 
 The New Jerusalem will he Fair and Impregnable (54 : 11-17) 
 
 11. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not com- 
 
 forted, 
 Behold, I will set thy stones in ^ fair colours. 
 And lay thy foundations with sapphires. ^^^ 21 : 
 
 12. And I will make thy ^ pinnacles of ^ rubies, 18 f. 
 
 And thy gates of carbuncles. 
 
 And all thy border of pleasant stones. 
 
 13. And all thy children shall be ^ taught of the Lord, jn. 6:45 
 
 And great shall be the peace of thy children. 
 
 14. In righteousness shalt thou be established : 
 Thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear ; 
 
 And from terror, for it shall not come near thee. 
 
 15. Behold, they may ^ gather together, but not by me : 
 
 Whosoever shall ^ gather together against thee, shall 
 fall because of thee. 
 
 16. Behold, I have created the smith 
 
 That bloweth the fire of coals, 
 
 And bringeth forth a weapon for ^ his work : 
 
 1 m. antimony ; Gr. carbuncle. 2 m. AV windows. ^ Gr. Vg. jasper. * m. disciples. 
 6 m. stir up strife. ® m. its. 
 
 The Beauty of Jerusalem (vss. ii-i4a) 
 
 1 1 f . Read perhaps, / will set thy bases in malachite. Border, the 
 surrounding wall. The whole will glitter with precious stones. A 
 glorious imagination, when we think of the burned city and the 
 ruined walls (2 Kings 25 : 9 f). 
 
 13, 14a. Taught — acquainted with their God (Jer. 31 : 34) and 
 obedient disciples of his. Peace, welfare. 
 
 The Strength and Security of Jerusalem (vss. I4b-i7) 
 
 15. A very obscure verse, probably late. It may be provi- 
 sionally rendered, '' If any one should stir up strife, it is not of me; 
 whoso stirs up strife with thee, on thy account shall fall." 
 
 16 f. This verse explains why Jerusalem may feel so secure, 
 
 349 
 
54:17 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And I have created the waster to destroy. 
 17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; 
 And every tongue that shall rise against thee in 
 judgement thou shalt condemn. 
 This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, 
 And their righteousness which is of me, saith the Lord. 
 
 Invitation to embrace the Impending Salvation 
 (Chap. 55) 
 
 The Blessings in Store for Israel (55 : 1-5) 
 
 Rev. 21:6; 55. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 
 ^^ ' ^^ And he that hath no money ; come ye. 
 
 Buy, and eat ; yea, ^ come, buy wine and milk 
 Without money and without price. 
 
 1 Gr. om. come, buy. 
 
 because Jehovah is the arbiter of war, the Lord ahke of those 
 who make and of those who use weapons — of the smith and the 
 waster or destroyer, i.e. the devastating warrior. This being so, 
 no assault upon Zion, whether with weapon or word, can be suc- 
 cessful. Condemn, show to he in the wrong. Righteousness = 
 vindication. The last half of vs. 17 is probably appended. 
 
 Chap. 55. In this closing chapter, the prophet makes his su- 
 preme appeal, holding before the people the emptiness of life in 
 Babylon, the brilliant future in store for them, and the speediness 
 and certainty with which God will fulfil his redemptive purpose. 
 
 I f . Thirsty describes those longing and languishing in exile ; 
 and the invitation is modelled on the call of the water sellers. The 
 wine, milk, and bread are symbolic of all that is involved in the 
 restoration of Israel — not only material welfare, but a place of 
 unique honor and power in the world (vs. 5). All this is offered 
 to Israel for nothing ; her God gives it to her as a free gift. On the 
 other hand, her own worldly efforts and ambitions in Babylon 
 have brought nothing but dissatisfaction. Vs. i should probably 
 
 Ho! all that are thirsty, come to the waters! 
 
 And ye that have no strength, eat! 
 Yea come, buy grain without money, 
 
 And wine and milk without price. 
 
 350 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 55:6 
 
 2. Wherefore do ye ^ spend money for that which is not 
 
 bread ? 
 And your ^ labour for that which satisfieth not ? 
 Hearken diUgently unto me, and eat ye that which is 
 good, 
 And let your soul deUght itself in fatness. 
 
 3. Incline your ear, and come unto me ; 
 
 Hear, and your soul shall live : 
 And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 
 Even the sure mercies of David. 
 
 4. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, 
 
 A ^ leader and commander to the peoples. 
 
 5. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, 
 
 And a nation that knew not thee shall run unto thee, 
 Because of the Lord thy God, 
 And for the Holy One of Israel ; for he hath glorified 
 thee. 
 
 The Wonderful Salvation is near; forth then from Babylon ! 
 (55 : 6-13) 
 
 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. 
 
 Call ye upon him while he is near : 
 
 1 Heb. weigh. 2 xn. earnings. ^ m. prince. 
 
 Vs. 2 means, "if ye hearken to me, ye shall eat, etc." ; prosperity 
 depends upon obedience to the call. 
 
 3-5. The new covenant made with the people is defined as 
 the sure mercies of David, i.e. the gracious promises once given 
 to David (2 Sam. 7 : 8-16) and sure, i.e. reliable, because actually 
 realized in him. The meaning of this phrase is definitely fixed by 
 the two following verses, the two beholds being practically = a5 . . . 
 so. As David, by his subjugation of foreign nations, was thus 
 a divinely constituted witness to the world of Jehovah's power and 
 glory (vs. 4), so would Israel, by a similar, though spiritual, victory 
 (cf. 2: 2-4), similarly become Jehovah's witness (43: 12; 44: 8). 
 
 351 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, 
 
 And the unrighteous man his thoughts : 
 And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have 
 mercy upon him ; 
 And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 
 
 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 
 Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 
 
 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
 So are my ways higher than your ways, 
 
 And my thoughts than your thoughts. 
 
 10. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven. 
 And returneth not thither, but watereth the earth. 
 And maketh it bring forth and bud, 
 
 And giveth seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ; 
 
 Thou shalt call (vs. 5), as a master calls his servant. Israel is 
 the spiritual lord of the world, because Hght of the world (42:6; 
 49: 6). 
 
 55 : 6-13. The prophet now returns, in the end, to the thoughts 
 upon which he had launched his prophecy — the nearness of 
 Israel's redemption and her wonderful march to the home-land 
 (Chap. 40). 
 
 6. Seek ye Jehovah : not a general exhortation — For now is the 
 day of salvation (49: 8). He is near now, in the imminent de- 
 liverance of Israel from Babylon through Cyrus. 
 
 7. Vs. 7 is probably a later insertion, as, besides addressing the 
 individual (which our prophet does not do), it deflects the thought 
 somewhat to the here rather irrelevant idea of repentance, and 
 forces upon vs. 8 the weak idea that God's thoughts are not wicked. 
 
 8 f. Israel's thoughts in Babylon were centred on the visible 
 and material (vs. 2) ; Jehovah's thoughts for them were thoughts 
 of salvation, large and high, of far reach and compass — thoughts 
 to which the sorrows of exile rightly appeared as the pathway to 
 honor and glory (Chap. 53). 
 
 10 f_. For but watereth, read without watering. The divine 
 word is regarded as a real power, which simply cannot fail of ac- 
 complishment (40 : 8) ; and that word has decreed, through 
 Jehovah's prophets, the return of the people to their own land. 
 
 352 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 55: 13 
 
 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : 
 
 It shall not return unto me ^ void, 
 But it shall accomplish that which I please, 
 And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 
 
 12. For ye shall go out with joy. 
 
 And be led forth with peace : 
 The mountains and the hills shall break forth before 
 you into singing, 
 And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
 
 13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, 
 
 And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle 
 tree : 
 And it shall be to the Lord for a name, 
 
 For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. 
 
 1 Gr. om. 
 
 12 f. For ye shall go out of Babylon (cf. 52 : 12) ; this is the proof 
 that Jehovah's word is not void (vs. 11). All nature will rejoice 
 in sympathy with Israel's second exodus. This miraculous trans- 
 formation of the desert into a region abounding in beautiful trees 
 will be an everlasting sign, a permanent memorial of the power 
 and the glory of Israel's God. 
 
 With this vision of the desert transformed and the redeemed 
 people marching across it to the dear home-land, the great proph- 
 ecy closes. 
 
 2 A 353 
 
TRITO-ISAIAH 
 
 (CHAPS. 56-66) 
 
TRITO-ISAIAH (Chaps. 56-66) 
 I. The Background of the Prophecy 
 
 A period of about eighty or ninety years seems to sepa- 
 rate Deutero-Isaiah (Chaps. 40-55) from the group of 
 prophecies contained in Chaps. 56-66, now^ frequently 
 called for convenience' sake Trito-Isaiah (third Isaiah). 
 The scenery of this group is Palestinian. The exile is 
 over. More than three quarters of a century had elapsed 
 — the date of the group is probably about 450 B.C. — 
 since the Jews, or some of them, had returned from Baby- 
 lon to the home-land, and endeavored to reconstitute 
 their national Ufe — at least along ecclesiastical lines, 
 for of pohtical power they had none ; they were but a tiny 
 dependency of the great Persian empire. 
 
 Encouraged by the brilliant promises of the great exihc 
 prophet (Chaps. 40-55), they had come back with the 
 highest hopes in their heart. But these hopes were doomed 
 to speedy and cruel disappointment. Nature and man 
 were alike unkind. There were bad seasons, and the 
 neighboring peoples seem for long to have given the Uttle 
 community much trouble by border forays and in other 
 ways. Even as late as the time when the chapters we are 
 considering were written, large tracts of Judah are desolate 
 (61 14), the enemies upon their borders are raiding their 
 fields and their vineyards (62 : 8), and the ruined walls 
 of Jerusalem are still unbuilt (60 : 10). Under the stimu- 
 lus of the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, the second 
 temple, to replace the one destroyed nearly seventy years 
 before by Nebuchadrezzar, was begun in 520 and com- 
 pleted in four years. This temple is several times referred 
 to in the course of the prophecy (60 : 7 ; 62 : 9 ; 65 : 11 ; 
 
 357 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 66 : 6), but it is very plain that throughout the period 
 reHgion was at a low ebb. Externals, such as fasting 
 (58 : 3), received careful attention : it is characteristic 
 of the period that even our prophet himself solemnly insists 
 upon the importance of Sabbath observance (56 : 2, 6 ; 
 58 : 13 f.) ; but as in the days of Isaiah (29 : 13), the hearts 
 of the worshippers were far enough from their God. The 
 service of God was completely dissociated from the service 
 of man. The men who so scrupulously fasted were guilty 
 of bad temper and violence towards their employees 
 (58 13 f.). Bloodshed, falsehood, and injustice reigned 
 (59 : 3 f.). Little could be expected of the rank and file 
 when the leaders themselves were worthless and greedy, 
 self-indulgent, and careless of the welfare of the people 
 for whom they were responsible (56 : 9-12). 
 
 On its religious side, the situation was still further com- 
 plicated by the presence of men in the community whose 
 practices were nothing short of pagan. These would 
 be in part descendants of the people who had not been 
 carried into exile, but who, remaining in the land, had 
 perpetuated many an idolatrous local custom ; in part, 
 however, they may have been Samaritans, and possibly 
 other neighbors, with lower religious ideals, who in various 
 ways had intruded into the Jewish community. Their 
 idolatrous practices are alluded to in some curious and 
 interesting passages. Sometimes these consisted in the 
 deliberate worship of other gods, for example, Milcom ^ 
 (57:9), Fortune, Destiny (65:11); sometimes in secret 
 and mysterious rites, conducted in groves (65 : 4) or gar- 
 dens (65 : 3 ; 66 : 17), and involving superstitious ideas and 
 practices which were abhorrent to the true Jew, such as 
 the eating of swine's flesh (65 : 4 ; 66 : 17). This idolatrous 
 party is sharply contrasted with the strict and faithful 
 few — notably in 65 : 13 ff., where four times within two 
 verses the latter are honored with the title " my servants." ^ 
 
 * See the commentary. 2 plural. In this prophecy we hear no more of the Ser- 
 vant, who figured so prominently in Chaps. 40-55. 
 
 358 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 II. The Prophet's Message 
 
 It is, as we have seen, to a very guilty people that the 
 prophet speaks. It is their iniquities that have separated 
 them from their God, and their sins that have hidden his 
 face (59 : 2) ; and the demand of Trito-Isaiah,^ as of most 
 of the prophets, is for a religion that expresses itself in 
 just and kindly relations between man and man. Fasting 
 was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the impor- 
 tant exercises of religion, but the fast that is approved by 
 God and this prophet of his is a fast, not from meat, but 
 from oppression. Or, to be more accurate, the true service 
 of God and the real exercises of rehgion are not negative 
 at all, but positive ; they consist in the effort, as he de- 
 scribes it in ever memorable words, ''to loose the bonds of 
 wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the op- 
 pressed go free, to deal thy bread to the hungry, to bring 
 the vagrants home, to cover the naked, to satisfy the af- 
 flicted soul" (58 : 6, 7, 10). In other words, the only re- 
 ligious service worth much is social service ; and only a 
 community which is prepared to serve God in this way 
 may hope to be happy and prosperous and divinely guided 
 (58 : 10-12). There could be no possible fellowship be- 
 tween the righteous God and the rapacious leaders; it 
 was only with men of broken and humble spirit that the 
 holy God could dwell (57 : 15 ; 66 : 2). This prophet lays 
 considerable emphasis upon material prosperity as an 
 element in the reward of Jehovah's faithful servants (65 : 
 13 ff.), but better still it was to know that Jehovah took 
 up his abode with them (57 : 15) and turned his gracious 
 face upon them (66 : 2). 
 
 The hope of Trito-Isaiah is astonishingly bold. There 
 was indeed httle in the Jerusalem with which he was famiUar 
 to kindle hope or to touch the imagination. With her 
 demolished walls and her meagre population, some wicked, 
 
 iThis word is used to cover Chaps. 56-66, though it is not impossible that the 
 group is composed of fragments from more hands than one. 
 
 359 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 others crushed and disconsolate, she must have lain as 
 a very heavy burden upon his heart. But he looked 
 beyond the shame and sorrow of the present to new heavens 
 and a new earth (65 : 17) ; beyond the guilty city he saw 
 the new Jerusalem, which was to be "a rejoicing, and her 
 people a joy" (65 : 18). Upon the description of this 
 Jerusalem to be, the prophet lavishes all the resources of 
 his imagination. Her people, who are to be all righteous 
 (60:21), shall know no fruitless toil or tears, no early 
 death or sudden sorrow (65 : 19-25). Her prosperity 
 shall flow Hke a river, and her children, gathered from the 
 ends of the earth, shall be comforted for evermore (66 : 
 12-14). Through her gates, which are to be open day 
 and night, will stream the wealth of distant peoples, and 
 over her will rest continually the wondrous Hght of the 
 glory of her God, so that she shall need the light of sun 
 and moon no more (Chap. 60). 
 
 Almost the only feature that mars the beauty of tliis 
 vision is the place which the prophet assigns in it to the 
 foreigner. Less generous than liis great predecessor 
 Deutero-Isaiah, he gives to the heathen, in comparison 
 with the Jew, a place of not only subordinate, but almost 
 menial, service. The Jews, as the mediators of the true 
 reUgion, are regarded with a perhaps not unnatural pride 
 as "the priests of Jehovah, the ministers of our God" 
 (61 : 6). But in contrast mth this high honor accorded 
 to the Jew is the destiny assigned to the foreigner : 
 "Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners 
 shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers" (61:5); 
 and it is foreigners who are to rebuild the ruined walls of 
 Jerusalem (60 : 10). Not only their service but their 
 wealth is to be made tributary to the Jews, and to go to 
 the embellishment of Jerusalem. Through the gates men 
 are to bring to her the wealth of the nations (60 : 11), and 
 "the wealth of the nations ye shall eat" (61:6). The 
 Jews are to be the lords of the world, the other nations are 
 their cringing vassals (60 112). 
 
 360 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 In these aspirations the prophecy gives expression to 
 one of the least lovely traits of Judaism. But it is only 
 fair to remember that the same prophecy generously assigns 
 a place within the sacred community to the eunuch and 
 the foreigner, if they keep the Sabbath and hold fast the 
 covenant (Chap. 56). 
 
 III. The Style of Trito-Isaiah 
 
 The literary style of Chaps. 56-66 is imitative rather 
 than original. Echoes, in particular, of Chaps. 40-55, are 
 frequent — so frequent that the two groups have till a few 
 years ago been universally ascribed to the same hand. 
 The writer's powers are seen at their best in his description 
 of the Jerusalem to be, parts of which are almost as fine 
 as anything in the Old Testament. No one can miss the 
 beauty and cadence of the following passage, for example, 
 even in the ordinary English prose translation : 
 
 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, 
 
 Desolation nor destruction within thy borders ; 
 But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, 
 
 And thy gates Praise. 
 The sun shall be no more thy light by day. 
 
 Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto 
 thee ; 
 But the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting Hght, 
 
 And thy God thy glory. 
 Thy sun shall no more go down, 
 
 Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself ; 
 For the Lord shall be thine everlasting Ught, 
 
 And the days of thy mourning shall be ended (60 : 18-20). 
 
 361 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ANALYSIS OF CHAPTERS 56-66 
 
 1. A word of cheer to those who are in danger of being excluded from the 
 
 church (56 : 1-8). 
 
 2. The demoralization of leaders and people (56 : 9-57 : 13). 
 
 (i) The sensuous leaders (56 : 9-57 : 2). 
 (2) The idolatrous people (57 : 3-13). 
 
 3. Blessings in store for the faithful (57 : 14-21). 
 
 4. The true and the false worship (chap. 58). 
 
 (i) Fasting (58 : 1-12). 
 (2) The sabbath (58:i3f). 
 
 5. The sinful people and the divine deliverance (chap. 59). 
 
 (i) The sins (59 : 1-8). 
 
 (2) The confession (59 : 9-15). 
 
 (3) The deliverance (59 : 16-21). 
 
 6. The glory of the new Jerusalem (chap. 60). 
 
 7. The proclamation of Zion's redemption (chaps. 61 and 62). 
 
 8. The destruction of the foes of Zion (63 : 1-6). 
 
 9. Passionate prayer for the divine favor (63 : 7-64 : 12). 
 
 (i) Thanksgiving for ancient mercies (63 : 7-14). 
 (2) Passionate entreaty for the divine forgiveness and pity (63 : 15- 
 64:12). 
 [o. The blessedness of the faithful and the doom of the apostates (chaps. 
 65 and 66). 
 
 (i) The fate of the apostates (65 : 1-7). 
 
 (2) The destiny of the faithful in the impending judgment 
 
 (65:8-12). 
 
 (3) The great contrast (65 : 13-16). 
 
 (4) The glorious future (65 : 17-25). 
 
 (5) Doom pronoimced upon those who purpose to build a rival 
 
 temple (66 : 1-4). 
 
 (6) The faithful cheered by the promise of Zion's prosperity 
 
 (66:5-14)- 
 
 (7) The judgment (66 : 15-18 a). 
 
 (8) Jehovah's glory announced throughout the world : the complete 
 
 restoration and perpetuity of Israel (66 : 18 b-22). 
 
 (9) The fearful fate of the apostates (66 : 23 f). 
 
 363 
 
TRITO-ISAIAH (Chaps. 56-66) 
 A Word of Cheer to those who are in Danger of 5^ 
 
 BEING EXCLUDED FROM THE ChTJRCH (56 '. 1-8) 
 
 56. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 "Keep ye judgement, and do righteousness : 
 For my salvation is near to come. 
 And my righteousness to be revealed." 
 
 56 : 1-8. The exile is over. For more than half a century, Israel 
 has been in her own land ; and questions are arising about the 
 constitution of the church. Shall it include only those who are 
 Jews by birth, or others also? The presence of aliens must, in 
 many cases, have been a menace to the purity of Hebrew religion, 
 and one can easily understand the rigor of the exclusive measures 
 of Ezra (Chaps. 9 f.), which belong no doubt to this same period; 
 but our prophet, like the writer of the book of Ruth, takes here a 
 more generous view of the foreigner, and is willing to give him a 
 place in the religious community, if he consents to observe the 
 Jewish law — the sabbath being significantly singled out for spe- 
 cial emphasis. In the sequel, it was the policy of the sterner Ezra, 
 not of the larger-hearted prophet, that prevailed. With regard 
 to eunuchs also, the hope of the prophet was more generous than 
 the demands of the law (Deut. 23 : i). 
 
 Exhortation to keep the Law (vss. i f.) 
 
 I f . The glorious future described as my salvation is to be won 
 by keeping judgment, practically = the commandments of the law. 
 During the exile, when sacrifice was impossible, circumcision, and 
 the hallowing of the sabbath, came to be important marks of 
 Judaism, and they remained so (cf. Neh. 13:17). Its prominence 
 here (cf. vs. 6) is significant. In vs. i righteousness is obviously 
 used in two senses ; in the second half of the verse, it is = salvation 
 (as in Deutero-Isaiah) ; in the first it is = legal righteousness, and 
 defined more narrowly in the last half of vs. 2. 
 
 363 
 
56:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. Blessed is the man that doeth this, 
 
 And the son of man that holdeth fast by it ; 
 That keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, 
 And keepeth his hand from doing any evil. 
 
 3. Neither let the ^ stranger, that hath joined himself to 
 
 the Lord, speak, saying, 
 "The Lord will surely separate me from his people ": 
 Neither let the enunch say, 
 "Behold, I am a dry tree." 
 
 4. For thus saith the Lord 
 
 "Of the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, 
 And choose the things that please me. 
 And hold fast by my covenant : 
 
 5. Unto them will I give in mine house and within my 
 
 walls a 2 memorial and a name 
 Better than of sons and of daughters ; 
 
 1 SY foreigner. '^ m. Gr. place; Heb. hand. 
 
 Consolation to Proselytes and Eunuchs (vss. 3-8) 
 
 3. Will surely separate: foreigners who acknowledged Jehovah 
 appear to have suspected that exclusive measures against them were 
 in contemplation, as indeed they were (cf. Ezra 10:11). The 
 eunuchs would probably be Hebrews serving at the Persian 
 court (cf. 39: 7). Their grievance was twofold, excluded as they 
 were by law (Deut. 23 : i) from a present place in the congregation, 
 and debarred through their childlessness — being a dry tree — 
 from any place in the future life and worship of Israel. 
 
 4 f . Proselytes and eunuchs are not to be disheartened, for . . . . 
 In the words of consolation, the eunuch comes first (4 f.), then the 
 proselyte (6 f.). Hold fast, etc. : i.e. fulfil the obligations of the 
 Jewish law. The consolation of the eunuch, like his grievance, 
 will be twofold : he will be given a place in the congregation, and 
 his name will be perpetuated (like the childless Absalom's, 2 Sam. 
 18:18) by the erection of a memorial or monument, within the 
 
 364 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 56:8 
 
 I will give ^ them an everlasting name, 
 That shall not be cut off. 
 
 6. Also the 2 strangers that join themselves to the Lord, 
 
 To minister unto him, and to love the name of the 
 
 LOEX), 
 
 To be his servants. 
 
 Every one that keepeth the sabbath from profan- 
 ing it, and holdeth fast by my covenant, 
 
 7. Even them will I bring to my holy mountain. 
 
 And make them joyful in my House of Prayer ; 
 Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be ac- 
 cepted upon mine altar : 
 
 For mine House shall be called an House of Prayer Mat. 21 : 13 
 for all peoples." 
 
 Mk. II : 17 
 Lk. 19 : 46 
 
 8. The Lord God which gathereth 
 The outcasts of Israel saith, 
 ''Yet will I gather others to him, 
 Beside his own that are gathered." 
 
 1 Heb. Jiim; Gr. them. 2 SV foreigners. 
 
 temple precincts (the walls of my house) — a memorial which will 
 be as permanent as the temple itself (cf. 55 : 13). 
 
 6 f. Similarly, foreigners who devoutly acknowledged Jehovah 
 would also be admitted to the privileges of worship. My holy 
 mountain, the temple mountain. The temple, the house of sacri- 
 fice, is now twice significantly called house of prayer. During 
 the exile prayer and the spiritual aspect of rehgion generally 
 would doubtless attain a prominence they had never enjoyed 
 before. In the temple, the sacrifices of these devout foreigners 
 shall be accepted, and their prayers heard (i Kings 8: 43). For 
 all peoples, not without quahfication, but on condition of obedience 
 to the Jewish law (vs. 6). This clause is strikingly quoted by our 
 Lord (Mark 11 : 17). 
 
 8. A very noble verse which sums up the thought of the section. 
 Some of Israel's exiles are already gathered back to their own land ; 
 
 365 
 
56:9 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Degradation of Leaders and People (56: 9-57: 13) 
 
 The Sensuous Leaders (56 : 9-57 : 2) 
 
 9. All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, 
 Yea, all ye beasts in the forest. 
 
 10. ^ His watchmen are blind, 
 
 They are all without knowledge ; 
 They are all dumb dogs, 
 
 They cannot bark ; 
 Dreaming, lying down, 
 
 Loving to slumber. 
 
 11. Yea, the dogs are greedy, 
 
 They can never have enough ; 
 And these are ^ shepherds that cannot understand : 
 They have all turned to their own way, 
 Each one to his gain, ^ from every quarter. 
 
 1 Gr. hehold how they are all blinded. 2 Gr. kicked. ' Gr. om. 
 
 but others are still to be gathered — citizens of other lands. 
 " Other sheep have I, which are not of this fold ; them also I must 
 bring " (John 10: 16). 
 
 56 : 9-57 : 13. This passage, which is in no way connected with 
 the last, seems to reflect the disorder and degradation of the times 
 of Ezra-Nehemiah-Malachi (about 450 B.C.). The leaders are 
 greedy, sensual, callous, the people are no better than pagans ; 
 and the blow must fall. 
 
 The Leaders (56:9-12) 
 
 9. The beasts are the heathen (cf . Ezek. 34 : 8) summoned to 
 devour wicked Israel. 
 
 10 f. The watchmen, the spiritual leaders of Israel, are compared 
 to sheep dogs (Job 30: i), but they are blind, see no danger 
 (though the situation is so desperate), and dumb, lift up no voice 
 against it, because they are themselves idle, sensual, and selfish. 
 In vs. 1 1 omit and these . . . cannot understand (as explanatory of 
 watchmen), and /row every quarter. 
 
 366 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 57:2 
 
 12. ^ ''Come ye," say they, "I will fetch wine, 
 
 And we will fill ourselves with strong drink ; 
 And to-morrow shall be as this day, 
 A day great beyond measure." 
 57. The righteous perish eth, and no man 
 Layeth it to heart ; 
 And ^ merciful men are taken away. 
 
 None considering 
 That the righteous is taken away ^from the evil to 
 come. 
 2. He entereth into peace ; 
 They rest in their beds. 
 
 Each one that walketh ^ in his uprightness. 
 
 1 Gr. om. vs. 12. ^m. godly, ^m. through wickedness . ^m. straight before him. 
 
 12. A graphic description of these besotted " pastors." 
 
 The Consequence of Bad Leadership (57: if.) 
 
 57:1. Under such leaders good men perish, and nobody cares. 
 Merciful men, rather men of piety. None considering, which is 
 parallel to no man layeth it to heart, should be followed by a colon, 
 and that should be for. The evil is not the evil to come, but the 
 existing evil. Thus — godly ?nen are swept away, none considering ; 
 for before the evil the righteous is swept away. 
 
 2. The peace is that of the grave, and the bed is the bier or 
 grave. Such a peace is welcome in these troubled times. 
 
 57 •3~i3- The people here denounced as guilty of apostasy 
 and idolatry are probably the descendants of those Judaeans who 
 had been left in the land, when the others had been carried 
 into exile. Partly through the absence in Babylon of those who 
 might have fostered nobler ideals, and partly through the influx 
 of alien elements, the religion of this native population grew very 
 corrupt ; and it is no surprise to find them in this period on friendly 
 terms with the Samaritans, themselves of mixed origin and syn- 
 cretistic religion (2 Kings 17:24-41). They created a grave 
 problem for the reformers, as we can see from Ezra-Nehemiah, 
 and from this and other passages in the prophecy of the 
 period. 
 
 367 
 
57^3 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Idolatrous People (57 : 3-13) 
 
 3. But draw near hither, ^^ 
 
 Ye ^ sons of the sorceress, 
 The seed of the adulterer and the whore. 
 
 4. Against whom do ye sport yourselves ? 
 
 Against whom make ye a wide mouth, 
 
 And draw out the tongue ? 
 Are ye not children of transgression, 
 
 A seed of falsehood, 
 
 5. 2 Ye that inflame yourselves ^ among the oaks. 
 
 Under every green tree ; 
 That slay the children in the valleys, 
 ^ Under the clefts of the rocks ? 
 
 6. Among the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion ; 
 
 They, they are thy lot : 
 
 1 Gr. wicked sons. 2 Gr. ye that call upon idols. ^ m. -unth idols. * Gr. among. 
 
 3. But as for you, the people, not the leaders — a new address. 
 For adulterer, read perhaps adidteress. An Oriental reviles a man 
 most effectively by reviling his mother; the verse simply means 
 that the people themselves were adulterous, i.e. unfaithful to 
 Jehovah and devoted to other gods, apostate and idolatrous, 
 sorcery being one of the consequences or aspects of this apostasy 
 (cf. 2:6). In the Old Testament idolatry is frequently described, 
 as here, in terms of adultery. 
 
 4. The second clause describes the gestures of the mocking 
 sport. The contempt with which the pious Jews and their efforts 
 were treated by their opponents is well illustrated by Neh. 4 : 1-3. 
 
 5. The apostate worship involves immorahty and child sacrifice. 
 
 6. Idolatry in the valleys. There is a play upon the words 
 smooth and portion (much alike in the Hebrew) which it is impos- 
 sible to reproduce in EngHsh. The reference may be to stone 
 worship (cf. Gen. 28 : 18), but it is by no means certain that stones 
 are meant at all ; the allusion may be to smooth, i.e. flattering, 
 deceptive, gods of the valley. Whatever they were, it was they 
 
 368 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 57; 
 
 Even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, 
 Thou hast offered ^ an oblation. 
 Shall I be appeased for these things ? 
 
 7. Upon a high and lofty mountain 
 
 Hast thou set thy bed : 
 Thither also wentest thou up 
 To offer sacrifice. 
 
 8. And behind the doors and the posts 
 
 Hast thou set up thy memorial : 
 For 2 thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, 
 and art gone up ; 
 Thou hast enlarged thy bed, 
 
 And made thee a covenant with them ; 
 Thou lovedst their bed 
 Where ^ thou sawest it. 
 
 9. And ^ thou wentest to the king with ointment, 
 
 And didst increase ^ thy perfumes, 
 
 1 m. a meal ofering. 2 Gr. thou didst expect to gain by departing from me. ^ SV m 
 thou providedst room for it. * Gr. thou didst multiply thy harlotry with them. ^ Gr. those 
 who were far from thee. 
 
 (very emphatic) that were the people's lot and portion, whereas 
 Jehovah should have been their portion (Ps. 16:5). The last 
 clause appears to be a later addition. 
 
 7. Idolatry upon the hills: described in terms of adultery (cf. 
 vs. 3). , , , 
 
 8. Idolatry in the home. On the doors and posts, where the law 
 ordained that a text should be inscribed (Deut. 6:9; 11 : 20), had 
 been set up a memorial, or more probably, male emblem, symboHc 
 of fertility. The rest of the verse should read : for, kindled by it 
 (i.e. by this emblem), thou hast uncovered, ascended, and enlarged 
 thy bed, and didst buy for thyself some whose bed thou lovest, and 
 didst multiply thy harlotry with them (Gr. rightly adds this clause), 
 and didst look upon the emblem. 
 
 9. Thou wentest to the king : read. Thou didst anoint thyself for 
 
 2B 369 
 
57: 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And didst send thine ambassadors far off, 
 And didst debase thyself even unto ^ hell. 
 
 ID. Thou wast wearied with the length of thy way ; 
 Yet saidst thou not, "There is no hope." 
 Thou didst find ^ a quickening of thy strength ; 
 Therefore thou wast not ^ faint. 
 
 11. And of whom hast thou been afraid and in fear, 
 
 That thou Hest, 
 And hast not remembered me. 
 Nor laid it to thy heart ? 
 
 ^ Have not I held my peace even of long time, 
 And thou f earest me not ? 
 
 12. I will declare thy "righteousness" ; 
 
 And as for thy works, 
 
 1 Heb. Sheol. 2 Heb. the life of thine hand. 3 Heb. sick. * Gr. when I see thee, I 
 ignore thee. 
 
 Melech, i.e. Milcom, god of the Ammonites ; an appropriate 
 allusion, as Tobiah, who was hostile to the reformers, was an 
 Ammonite (Neh. 2 : 10). The ointment and perfumes, as among 
 the " harlot's " devices, belong to the symbolism of the passage. 
 The meaning becomes more plain in the next clause, where 
 ambassadors are sent to the shrines of foreign gods, and even the 
 gods of Sheol (so margin), the oracles of the nether world, are 
 consulted. There may here be an allusion to necromantic prac- 
 tices. 
 
 10. Though tired of it all, the people did not abandon hope. 
 
 11. Of whom? — brazen-faced apostates, afraid of nobody. 
 Liest, hast played the traitor. Have not I held my peace even of 
 long time? read, Is it not so? I indeed kept silence, and hid 
 (mine eyes). The divine silence had encouraged the apostates 
 in their audacity. 
 
 12 f. / will expose thy " righteousness," forsooth (this is ironical), 
 and thy works — the false worship described in vss. 6-10. The 
 
 370 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 13. They shall not profit thee. When thou criest, 
 
 ^ Let 2 them which thou hast gathered deliver thee ; 
 
 But the wind shall take them, 
 
 A breath shall carry them all away : 
 But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the 
 land, 
 
 And shall inherit my holy mountain. 
 
 Blessings in Store for the Faithful (57 : 14-21) 
 
 14. And ^he shall say, 
 
 Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, 
 Take up the stumbhng-block out of the way of my 
 people. 
 
 15. For thus saith the high and lofty One 
 
 That inhabiteth eternity, ^ whose name is Holy : 
 
 1 Gr. let them deliver thee in thine affliction. 2 m. thy rabble of idols. ^ m. it shall 
 be said; Vg. I (Or. they) will say. * Gr. Holy among holy ones is his name, the most 
 High resting among holy ones. 
 
 rest of vs. 12 should be taken with vs. 13, and them which thou 
 hast gathered read as thine abominations {i.e. the idols). Thus: 
 and, when thou criest, thine abominations shall neither profit nor save 
 thee. The faithful Jews, on the other hand, were to possess the 
 holy mountain, i.e. not Zion, but the mountain land (Judah). 
 
 57: 14-21. This picture of the fellowship of the faithful with 
 God and the prosperity in store for them is the counterpart of the 
 last — the doom of the idolaters, 
 
 14. And he (one, or perhaps Jehovah) shall say: the clause, 
 suggested by 40 : 6, is unsatisfactory, and should probably be 
 deleted. Cast up, i.e. a highway. The verse is modelled on 40 : 3. 
 The way of the Lord is to be prepared by the removal of all so- 
 cial, political, and especially spiritual impediments (vss. 15, 18) — 
 stumbling-blocks. 
 
 15. In the high and holy place : rather, on high as the Holy one 
 (cf. 6 : 1,3). The exaltation of God is one aspect of his holiness (cf. 
 6:1, 3). To believing men who are weighted with a load of 
 affliction or sorrow the thought of the exaltation and the eternity 
 
 371 
 
57:i6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 "I will dwell in the high and holy place, 
 With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, 
 
 To revive the spirit of the humble, 
 
 And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. 
 
 1 6. For I will not contend for ever. 
 
 Neither will I be always wroth : 
 For the spirit should ^ fail before me. 
 And the souls which I have made. 
 
 17. For the iniquity ^ of his covetousness was I wroth 
 
 And smote him, I hid my face and was wroth : 
 And he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. 
 
 18. I have seen his ways. 
 
 And will heal him : I will lead him also, 
 And ^ restore comforts unto him 
 
 19. And to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips : 
 
 Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that 
 
 is near," 
 Saith the Lord ; and I will heal him. 
 
 im. faint away ; SV. faint. 2 Qj-. ^ uttle while. 3 Heb. recompense. 
 
 of God comes as a consolation. For of a contrite and humble 
 spirit, read crushed and lowly in spirit : crushed by such affliction 
 and misery as Nehemiah (i : 3) found on his arrival at Jerusalem. 
 It is precisely with such lowly people that the lofty God makes his 
 home. The afflicted were, speaking broadly, the faithful ; hav- 
 ing nothing, they had yet patience, hope, and God, and he put 
 new heart, courage, into these crushed (rather than contrite) ones. 
 
 16. Spirit = souls = persons : the faithful Jews are specially in 
 view. To abandon them to destruction would be for Jehovah to 
 defeat his object in creating them. 
 
 17-19. For the iniquity . . . wroth: read, with Gr., because of 
 his guilt (idolatry, 6 £f.) / was wroth for a moment (cf. 54: 7). 
 I have seen his ways, i.e. seen to purpose and chastised. The text 
 of the next few words is in some disorder. / will heal him occurs 
 twice, and should probably be dropped from vs. 19, whose saith the 
 
 372 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 20. But the wicked are like the troubled sea ; 
 
 For it cannot rest, 
 And its waters cast up mire and dirt. 
 
 2 1 . There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. 
 
 The True and the False Worship (Chap. 58) 
 
 Fasting (58 : 1-12) 
 
 58. Cry 1 aloud, spare not ; 
 
 Lift up thy voice like a trumpet. 
 And declare unto my people their transgression, 
 And to the house of Jacob their sins. 
 
 1 Heb. with the throat. 
 
 Lord should be transferred to vs. i8 — after ways. Instead of I 
 will lead him, read, by a change of pointing, / will give him rest. 
 And to his mourners should be transferred to vs. 19. The whole 
 will then read as follows : 
 
 His ways have I seen, saith Jehovah, 
 And I will heal him, and give him rest, 
 
 And I will requite him with comfort. 
 And for his mourners do I create the fruit of the lips, 
 
 Peace, peace, to the far and the near. 
 
 The fruit of the lips, praise and thanksgiving. Peace = prosper- 
 ity. The far and the near are the Jews dispersed far from, or 
 hving near, Jerusalem. 
 
 20 f. In contrast with this bright destiny of the faithful is the 
 doom of the wicked, who are forever stirring up foul strife in the 
 community, restless like the waves of the sea (cf. 48 : 22). 
 
 Chap. 58. The people are wondering why, in spite of their 
 punctilious observance of certain fast-days, the final salvation 
 for which they look is still delayed. The prophet replies that the 
 only fast acceptable to Jehovah is a fast from oppression and social 
 injustice, or rather that there must be the positive exercise of 
 kindness and generosity towards the needy and destitute. Their 
 conception of worship was ceremonial, his was moral ; the true 
 worship of God is the service of man, — a much- needed lesson, but 
 by no means new in Israel (cf. i : 10-17). 
 
 I. Cry aloud : this is the prophet's commission from God; and 
 
 373 
 
58:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. Yet they seek me daily, 
 
 And delight to know my ways : 
 As a nation that did righteousness, 
 And forsook not the ordinance of their God, 
 
 They ask of me righteous ordinances, 
 They delight to draw near unto God. 
 
 3. "Wherefore have we fasted," say they, "and thou seest 
 
 not? 
 Wherefore have we affiicted our soul, and thou takest 
 no knowledge ? " 
 
 Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, 
 And 1 exact all your labours. 
 
 4. Behold, ye fast for strife and contention. 
 
 And 2 to smite with the fist of wickedness. 
 
 1 m. oppress all your labourers. 2 Gr. if ye smite with fists the lowly, wherefore do ve 
 fast unto me, as ye do to-day, that your voice may be heard in crying? 
 
 one important function of the true prophet is to bring sin home to 
 the public conscience, to declare unto my people their transgres- 
 sion (cf. Mic. 3:8). 
 
 2 f. The people have all the appearance of piety, they ask 
 through their priests and prophets (Zech. 7 : 3) about the righteous 
 ordinances, i.e. the correct forms of worship, but it is questions 
 oi fasting {a,s in Zech. 7), rather than conduct, that interest them. 
 
 3. During and after the exile, four great fast-days were cele- 
 brated to commemorate specially tragic incidents in connection 
 with the_ siege and fate of Jerusalem. The people wish to know 
 why their God took no notice of all this fasting; i.e. why the 
 Messianic salvation was still delayed. The prophet begins his 
 answer with the word Behold. The religious exercise was accom- 
 panied by a worldly spirit ; you find opportunity for your own 
 business (rather than pleasure). The margin of the last clause 
 is more correct than the text; rest day though it is for you, you 
 drive all your laborers like taskmasters. The last (English) word, 
 however, is very uncertain; and some emend the t-est in a way 
 which shows the particular form their business took — and all 
 money lent on pledge you e.xact. 
 
 374 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Ye fast not this day so 
 
 As to make your voice to be heard on high. 
 
 5. Is such the fast that I have chosen? 
 
 The day for a man to afllict his soul ? 
 
 Is it to bow down his head as a rush, 
 
 And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? 
 
 Wilt thou call this a fast, 
 And an acceptable day to the Lord ? 
 
 6. Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? ^ 
 To loose the bonds of wickedness. 
 
 To undo the bands of the yoke, 
 And to let the oppressed go free, 
 And that ^ ye break every yoke ? 
 
 1 Gr. adds saith the Lord. 2 Gr. Vg. thou. 
 
 4. Strife : the fasting made them quarrelsome and violent, so 
 that they actually smite the poor (as, with Gr., we should prob- 
 ably read) with the fist, and such fasting as yours to-day will not 
 cause your voice to he heard on high by the God who cares for con- 
 duct, not ceremony. 
 
 5. The fasting was regarded as an affliction of the soul, i.e. a 
 discipline of the sensuous impulses. But the fasting acceptable 
 to Jehovah has nothing to do with hanging heads and beds of 
 sackcloth and ashes. By omitting Is it, the meaning is more 
 clear and vigorous : To how the head . . . is this what thou call est 
 a fast ? 
 
 6. In opposition to the false fast is the true, which consists in 
 abstinence of another kind — from social injustice ; or which 
 consists rather in the positive and generous rehef of every kind 
 of social distress. The verse almost seems to reflect the situation 
 so graphically described in Neh. 5 : 1-13, where the poor had been 
 driven to mortgage their property to their wealthier brethren, 
 and even to sell their children. The bonds of wickedness, 
 "unjust and oppressive obligations" (Skinner). Every galHng 
 yoke must be broken ; this is the divine demand — the fast that I 
 choose. 
 
 375 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, 
 
 And that thou bring the poor ^ that are cast out to 
 thy house ? 
 
 When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; 
 And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? 
 
 8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning. 
 
 And thy heahng shall spring forth speedily : 
 
 And thy righteousness shall go before thee ; 
 The glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. 
 
 9. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer ; 
 
 Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, "Here I am." 
 
 If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, 
 The putting forth of the finger, and speaking 
 wickedly ; 
 10. And if thou ^ draw out thy soul to the hungry, 
 And satisfy the afflicted soul ; 
 
 1 Gr. roofless. 2 Qr. givest bread from thy soul to the hungry. 
 
 7. The touches in this verse are more concrete than in the ast ; 
 both may well be drawn from life. Nehemiah (5 : 17) had himself 
 dealt his bread to the hungry. Omit the poor, and for that are 
 cast out read wanderers, vagrants. Thine own flesh, fellow- 
 Israelites. 
 
 8 f. Then: this is the conduct that will bring the blessing — 
 healing, i.e. recovery, restoration; light, prosperity, salvation; 
 and an answer (vs. 9) to the yet unanswered prayer (vs. 3). 
 What light and healing involved on the material side is elaborated 
 in vs. 12. If righteousness of the kind just described went before, 
 salvation and the glory of Jehovah would follow after ; this sen- 
 tence, which summarizes the prophet's message in this chapter, is 
 modelled on 52 : 12b. The putting forth of the finger — in scorn. 
 
 The general thought of vss. d-ga is again expressed somewhat 
 similarly in vss. 9b-i2. 
 
 10 f. For draw out thy soul to, read bestow thy bread on (so in 
 part, Gr.) ; and for make strong thy bones, perhaps renew thy 
 strength, judah, if she worshipped her God by serving the needy, 
 
 376 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 58: 13 
 
 Then shall thy Hght rise in darkness, 
 And thine obscurity be as the noonday : 
 
 11. And the Lord shall ^ guide thee continually, 
 
 And 2 satisfy thy soul in dry places. 
 
 And make ^ strong thy bones ; 
 And thou shalt be Hke a watered garden, 
 
 And Hke a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 
 
 12. And ^they that shall be of thee shall build the old 
 
 waste places : 
 
 Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many genera- 
 tions ; 
 And thou shalt be called, The Repairer of the Breach, 
 
 The Restorer of Paths to dwell in. 
 
 The Sabbath (58 : 13, 14) 
 
 13. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath. 
 
 From doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 
 
 1 Gr. be with. ^ Gr. thou shalt be satisfied according as thy soul desireth. ^ Gr. fat. 
 * Gr. thine old waste places shall be built. 
 
 would be perennially fresh, fair, and secure, enjoying his unceasing 
 guidance and protection. 
 
 12. This verse shows that one very important element in the 
 salvation contemplated would be the rebuilding of the ruins of 
 Jerusalem, which were old enough to be described in the terms of 
 this verse, as the city had been destroyed about a century and a 
 quarter before (b.c. 586-450?). For they that shall be of thee, 
 read perhaps thy sons. Great would be the glory of the genera- 
 tion that repaired the ruined walls (cf. Neh. 6) and restored the 
 city. 
 
 58 : 13 f. These verses, emphasizing the scrupulous and cheerful 
 observance of the sabbath (cf. 56 : 2) as a test of fidelity to Je- 
 hovah, form an interesting counterpart to the emphasis on ethical 
 obligations in vss. 1-12. Structurally they closely resemble 
 vss. 7-9. 
 
 13. The sabbath is Jehovah's, is is holy ground (hence tiim 
 
 377 
 
58: 14 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And call the sabbath a delight, . 
 
 ^And the holy of the Lord honourable ; 
 And shalt honour it, not doing tliine own ways, 
 Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine 
 own words : 
 14. Then shalt thou ^ delight thyself in the Lord ; 
 
 And I will make thee to ride upon the ^ high places 
 of the earth ; 
 And I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy 
 father : 
 For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 The Sintul People and the Divine Deliverance 
 (Chap. 59) 
 
 The Sins (59 : 1-8) 
 
 59. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it can- 
 not save ; 
 Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear : 
 
 1 Gr. holy unto God; and shalt not lift up thy foot to work, nor speak a word in anger 
 out of thy mouth. 2 Gr. trust. 3 Gr. good. 
 
 away thy foot ; cf . Ex. 3:5); and it must not be profaned by 
 doing thy business (rather than pleasure) on it, for it is the holy of 
 Jehovah — a remarkable phrase (unless we read for "holy" 
 new moon, as Duhm has proposed). Nor speaking words, i.e. 
 idle words ; the Hebrew was always keenly conscious of the perils 
 of speech (cf. Eccl. 5:2; Jas 3:8). 
 
 14. To ride triumphantly over the high places, etc. I will feed 
 thee, cause thee to eat, enjoy. The promise is one of " triumph 
 over all difficulties, and undisturbed enjoyment of the products of 
 the land" (Marti). 
 
 Chap. 59. The people, whose punctilious observance of fasting 
 was satirized in the last chapter, are here represented — signifi- 
 cantly enough — as an immoral people, whose civic life was corrupt 
 to the core. Their apostasy took the form, not only of idolatry, 
 (Chap. 57), but of immorality (vss. 1-8). In the name of the 
 
 378 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 59 
 
 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and 
 
 your God, 
 And ^ your sins have hid his face from you, that he 
 will not hear. 
 
 3. For your hands are defiled with blood, 
 
 And your fingers with iniquity ; 
 Your Ups have spoken Ues, 
 
 Your tongue muttereth wickedness. 
 
 4. None sueth in righteousness, 
 
 And none pleadeth in truth : 
 They trust in vanity, and speak Ues ; 
 
 They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 
 
 5. They hatch ^basihsks' eggs. 
 
 And weave the spider's web : 
 He that eateth of their eggs dieth. 
 
 And that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. 
 
 1 Gr. because of your sins he Jias turned away his face from you so as not to have 
 compassion. ^ m. SV. adders'. 
 
 people, however, the prophet confesses their sins (yss. 9-15); 
 and, to deliver them from their desperate case, Jehovah himself is 
 pictured as coming like a warrior fully armed (vss. 16-21). 
 
 I f. If the long-looked for salvation was still delayed (cf. 58 : 3), 
 it was not because of Jehovah's impotence, but because of the 
 sins which are described in the following verses. 
 
 3 f. Deeds (cf. i : 15) and words are alike immoral; in particu- 
 lar, justice is travestied in the courts, where arguments are 
 specious and mischievous, and honesty is unknown. 
 
 5-8. Several recent scholars believe these verses to be an inter- 
 polation. In any case, as Skinner remarks, " the description can only 
 apply to a Hmited class of utter reprobates, and there is some diflS- 
 culty in conceiving that it can be the continuation of vss. 3, 4, 
 which contain perfectly definite and intelligible accusations against 
 a whole community." 
 
 5 f . The basilisks' eggs, symbolic of the schemes hatched by the 
 wicked, are fatal alike to those who eat them (cherish them), and 
 
 379 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 6. Their webs shall not become garments, 
 
 Neither shall they cover themselves with their 
 works : 
 Their works are works of iniquity, 
 
 And the act of violence is in their hands. 
 
 7. Their feet run to evil, 
 
 And they make haste to shed innocent blood : 
 Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity ; 
 Desolation and destruction are in their paths. 
 
 8. The way of peace they know not ; 
 
 And there is no ^ judgement in their goings : 
 They have made them crooked paths ; 
 Whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace. 
 
 The Confession (59 : 9-15) 
 
 9. Therefore is judgement far from us, 
 
 Neither doth righteousness overtake us : 
 We look for light, but behold darkness ; 
 For brightness, but we walk in obscurity. 
 
 right ; SV. justice. 
 
 to those who attempt to crush them. As this figure brings out the 
 deadly nature of those schemes, the other figure of the spider's 
 web, which is amplified in vs. 6, brings out their futility. The 
 plots they weave are fraught with no good to the body politic; 
 they are not as a garment, with which men can cover themselves. 
 There is a play on the word works, which moves from the sense 
 of "handiwork," in the first half of the verse, to ''deed" in the 
 second half. 
 
 8. Judgment, right, justice. Goings, tracks. 
 
 59 : 9-15. The lament (vss. 9-1 1) passes into a confession (12 fif.) 
 — both in the first person plural, as the prophet speaks for the 
 people. 
 
 9 f. Therefore : because of the sins just described (cf. vss. 1,2). 
 Judgment and righteousness, i.e., the divine vindication of Israel, 
 
 380 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 59:14 
 
 10. We grope for the wall like the bUnd, 
 
 Yea, we grope as they that have no eyes: 
 We stumble at noonday as in the twihght ; 
 ^ Among them that are lusty we are as dead men. 
 
 11. We roar all like bears, 
 
 And mourn sore like doves : 
 We look for judgement, but there is none ; 
 For salvation, but it is far from us. 
 
 12. For our transgressions are multipUed before thee, 
 
 And our sins testify against us : 
 For our transgressions are with us, 
 And as for our iniquities, we know them : 
 
 13. In transgressing and denying the Lord, 
 
 And turning away from following our God, 
 Speaking oppression and revolt. 
 
 Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of 
 falsehood. 
 
 14. And judgement is turned away backward, 
 
 And righteousness standeth afar off : 
 For truth is fallen in the street, 
 And uprightness cannot enter. 
 
 1 Gr. they shall groan as dying men. 
 
 "^xdiCticaWy = salvation, as vs. 11 and 56:1 make clear. Among 
 them that are lusty, etc., in place of this obscure and uncertain 
 phrase, Cheyne has suggested, We dwell in darkness as the dead. 
 
 II. Like hungry bears. Judgment, y«5^/ce = salvation. 
 
 12-14. Our transgressions are with us — we are conscious of 
 them. It is interesting to find apostasy, turning away from our 
 God, which in Chap. 57 took the form of idolatry, here expressed 
 in terms of morality. The great apostasy is the ignoring of moral 
 principles in the conduct of civic life — its legal {justice and right- 
 
 381 
 
59:15 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 15. Yea, truth is lacking ; 
 
 And he that departeth from evil maketh himself a 
 prey : 
 And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him 
 That there was no ^judgement. 
 
 The Deliverance (59 : 16-21) 
 
 16. And he saw that there was no man. 
 
 And wondered that there was ^ no intercessor : 
 Therefore his own arm brought salvation unto him ; 
 And his righteousness, it upheld him. 
 
 Eph. 6:14, 17. And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, 
 J ^^^g . And an helmet of salvation upon his head ; 
 
 1 SV justice. ' m. none to interpose. 
 
 eousness; cf. vs. 4), commercial, and social relations; these are 
 the transgressions which have deferred the great salvation. The 
 personifications in vs. 14 are vivid and powerful, and the gravity of 
 sins of the tongue is suggested by vs. 13, as so frequently in both 
 Old and New Testaments. In vs. 13, for oppression, read per- 
 verseness, and omit conceiving and. 
 
 15. The meaning of the second sentence is far from certain. 
 Marti's emendation, which rests in part upon the Greek version 
 and maintains the parallelism well, seems the most plausible. 
 Truth is missing, and insight departs from the city (or the gate or the 
 rulers). Judgment, justice. 
 
 59: 16-21. The situation is desperate, and, as there is no man 
 to relieve it, Jehovah himself comes fully armed, to punish those 
 opposed to him, and to effect for the penitent a deliverance which 
 will be the wonder of the whole world. Vss. 18-20 make it plain 
 that the picture of Jehovah's interposition is a vision of the future, 
 consequently vss. 16 f., which describe his arming, refer to the 
 future too — the past tenses indicating, as frequently, prophetic 
 certitude. 
 
 16. This verse appears to be modelled on 63 : 5. For no inter- 
 cessor, read with the margin none to interpose. Apparently the 
 pious and energetic Nehemiah was not yet on the scene. 
 
 17. The fullest description in the Old Testament of Jehovah as a 
 
 382 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And he put on garments of vengeance ^for clothing, 
 And was clad with zeal as a cloke. 
 
 i8. According to their ^ deeds, accordingly he will repay, 
 Fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies ; 
 ^ To the islands he will repay recompence. 
 
 19. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, 
 
 And his glory from the rising of the sun. 
 
 *For he shall come as ^a rushing stream, 
 Which the breath of the Lord driveth. 
 
 20. And *^a redeemer shall come to Zion, Rom n: 
 
 And unto them that turn from transgression in ^^ *• 
 Jacob, saith the Lord. 
 
 21. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, 
 
 Saith the Lord : 
 My spirit that is upon thee. 
 And my words which I have put in thy mouth, 
 
 1 Gr. Vg. om. 2 JJeb. recompences. ^ Gr. om. this clause. ■* m. AV when the adver- 
 sary (AV enemy) shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard 
 against him. ^ Heb. a stream pent in. ^ Gr. for Zion's sake the deliverer shall come 
 and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 
 
 "man of war" (Exod. 15 : 3), and the model for the New Testa- 
 ment descriptions of the Christian's armor (i Thess. 5:8; Eph. 
 6 : 14-17). Omit, with Gr., for clothing. 
 
 18. Read : in proportion to (their) deserts, will he render a recom- 
 pense, etc., and delete the last clause, which erroneously explains 
 the adversaries as the islands, i.e. the heathen, whereas they are 
 in reality apostates within the Jewish community (vss. 1-15). 
 
 19. This terrible judgment will carry the fear and fame of 
 Jehovah throughout the whole world — this judgment which will 
 come rushing on impetuously as a stream pent within its banks, 
 which the breath of Jehovah {i.e. a mighty wind) driveth. 
 
 20. He shall come to the wicked as an impetuous stream of 
 destruction, but as Redeemer to Zion, and to the penitent. 
 
 21. This verse, guaranteeing the perpetuity of the happy rela- 
 tions now established between Jehovah and Zion, is in the nature 
 
 383 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Shall not depart out of thy mouth, 
 
 Nor out of the mouth of thy seed, 
 Nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the 
 Lord, 
 
 From henceforth and for ever. 
 
 The Glory of the New Jerusalem (Chap. 60) 
 
 Rev. 21: II, 60. ^ Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, 
 ^^ ^ And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 
 
 1 Gr. shine, shine, Jerusalem. 
 
 of a somewhat prosaic appendix. Them and thee alike refer to 
 Israel. The chief elements in the new covenant are my spirit — 
 the divine spirit of instruction (Neh. 9 : 20, Ps. 32 : 8) ; — and my 
 words, no doubt the words of the law, which, as in Ps. 1:2, are 
 to be perpetually in Israel's mind. This description is highly 
 characteristic of post-exilic Judaism. 
 
 Chap. 60. Chapter 59 closed with a vision of Jehovah coming to 
 Zion as redeemer (vs. 20) ; Chaps. 60-62 together form a magnifi- 
 cent picture of Zion Redeemed. Here, as everywhere in the Old 
 Testament, material elements play a not inconsiderable part in 
 the idea of salvation. Through the eyes of faith and imagination, 
 the prophet sees a brilliant future for the city that is now despised 
 and detested (60:19), dilapidated and forlorn, suffering from 
 poverty and exposed to raids (60: 18; 62 : 8). He sees this city 
 crowded again with her own children from distant lands, through 
 her gates tribute ceaselessly pouring from the ends of the earth 
 with which temple and city will be worthily adorned, all her area 
 illuminated continually by the glorious light of her own God, and 
 foreign peoples streaming to her to share this wonderful light. A 
 splendid flight for a prophet whose environment was so meagre 
 and unpromising as Jerusalem in the middle of the fifth century 
 
 B.C. 
 
 Jerusalem, illumined by Jehovah, will be the Light of the World 
 (vss. 1-3) 
 
 I. Arise: the city is addressed as a prostrate woman (52: i). 
 The light — i.e. of salvation — which will dawn for her, when the 
 glory of Jehovah, who will come as Redeemer (59 : 20), rises, like 
 the sun, upon her; vss. 19 f., however, show that the light is 
 
 384 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 60:5 
 
 2. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, 
 
 And gross darkness the peoples ; 
 But the LoBX) shall arise upon thee, 
 And his glory shall be seen upon thee. 
 
 3. And nations shall come to thy Hght, 
 
 And kings to the brightness of thy rising. 
 
 4. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see : 
 
 They all gather themselves together, they come to 
 thee : 
 Thy sons shall come from far, 
 
 And thy daughters shall be ^ carried ^ in the arms. 
 
 5. Then thou shalt see and ^be lightened, 
 
 And thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged ; 
 Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto 
 thee. 
 The wealth of the nations shall come unto thee. 
 
 1 Heb. nursed upon the side. * Gr. on shoulders. ^ AY flow together; SV be radiant; 
 Gr. fear. 
 
 conceived in part physically. The whole chapter is really a vi- 
 sion of the future (cf. vs. 22), but to the eye of faith, it is already 
 as good as come. 
 
 2 f. The earth, the peoples, being without Israel's God, are in 
 darkness; but upon thee (emphatic), Jehovah shall arise — con- 
 sequently nations desirous of that light must come to Jerusalem 
 for it. 
 
 To Jerusalem the Jews will come from the Lands where they are scat- 
 tered, and the Heathen from East and West with their Treasures 
 (vss. 4-9) 
 
 4 f . The Jews^ return. In the arms, rather upon the side, i.e. the 
 hip — a mode of carrying children in the East. The meaning is 
 that they will be brought home (by the heathen, cf. 49 : 22) with 
 as much care as children are carried by nurses ; and, at the sight, 
 thou shalt he radiant, and thy heart shall tremble for very joy, and 
 he enlarged (opposite of distressed). Besides her own sons and 
 daughters, there comes to Jerusalem the wealth of the nations, 
 also called the abundance of the sea, i.e. of products of other 
 2C 385 
 
6o:6 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 6. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, 
 
 The ^ dromedaries of Midian and Ephah ; 
 They shall all come from Sheba : 
 
 They shall bring gold and frankincense,^ 
 And shall proclaim the praises of the Lord. 
 
 7. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto 
 
 thee. 
 The rams of Nebaioth ^ shall minister unto thee : 
 They shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, 
 And ^ I will glorify the house of my glory. 
 
 8. Who are these that fly as a cloud. 
 
 And as the doves ^ to their windows ? 
 
 9. Surely the isles shall wait for me. 
 
 And the ships of Tarshish first, 
 
 1 m. young camels. 2 Two Gr. MSS. add and precious stones. 3 Gr. shall come. ^ Gr. 
 my house oj prayer shall be glorified. ^ Gr. with their young ones. 
 
 lands carried upon the sea. Post-exilic Judaism loved to think of 
 the heathen world as contributing to the glory of Jerusalem and 
 its temple (cf. Hag. 2:7). 
 6 f. Tribtde from the East. 
 
 6. Midian in north Arabia, Ephah a Midianite tribe (Gen. 
 25 : 4), Sheba in southwestern Arabia. Omit they shall bring 
 gold and frankincense, and read all (and not merely the queen, as in 
 Solomon's time, i Kings 10) those of Sheba shall come, and proclaim 
 the praises of Jehovah. 
 
 7. Kedar, Nebaioth : nomads of north Arabia, rich in flocks. 
 For minister, which appears to come from vs. 10, read, by a sHght 
 change, shall earnestly seek thee {i.e. Zion) : these animals would 
 be offered in scarifice. The house of my glory : Gr. reads, per- 
 haps correctly, my house of prayer (cf. 56 : 7). 
 
 8 f. Tribute from the west. Flying swiftly, like clouds or like 
 doves to their cotes (cf . Gen. 8: 9), are descried ships bearing exiles 
 and treasure. This fine picture is somewhat obscured by the first 
 clause of vs. 9, whose reading, affected by 42:4; 51:5, should 
 almost certainly be : 
 
 For to me the ships gather, 
 
 The vessels of Tarshish — cf. 2 : 16 — in the van. 
 386 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 60:13 
 
 To bring thy sons from far, 
 
 Their silver and their gold with them, 
 
 For the name of the Lord thy God, 
 And for the Holy One of Israel, because he hath 
 glorified thee. 
 
 10. And strangers shall build up thy walls. 
 
 And their kings shall minister unto thee. 
 For in my wrath I smote thee, 
 
 But in my favour have I had mercy on thee. 
 
 11. Thy gates also shall be open continually; 
 
 They shall not be shut day nor night ; 
 That men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations. 
 And their kings led with them. 
 
 12. For that nation and kingdom that will not serve 
 
 thee shall perish : yea, those nations shall be 
 utterly wasted. 
 
 13. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee. 
 
 The fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together ; 
 To beautify the place of my sanctuary, 
 
 ^ And I will make the place of my feet glorious. 
 
 1 Gr. om. this clause. 
 
 Jerusalem will he rebuilt by Foreign Hands and at Foreign Cost, 
 and supplicated by her Former Tyrants (vss. 10-16) 
 
 10-12. Strangers: many of the later Jews thought with pleas- 
 ure of other nations as their menials (cf. vs. 5) ; in point of fact, 
 the walls were built by Nehemiah, cf. Neh. 6. The gates are to 
 be continually open to receive the endless stream of treasure. 
 Their kings leading the train (better than led). Recent scholars 
 regard vs. 12, which spoils the metre, as an intrusion, based on 
 Zech. 14 : i6-ig. 
 
 13. The glory of Lebanon, etc. : the temple buildings demand 
 the choicest wood. The place of my feet : Jerusalem, especially 
 
 387 
 
6o;i4 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 14. And the sons of them that afflicted thee shall come 
 
 bending unto thee ; 
 And all they that despised thee ^ shall bow themselves 
 
 down at the soles of thy feet ; 
 And they shall call thee the City of the Lord, 
 The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 15. Whereas thou hast been forsaken 
 
 And hated, so that no man ^ passed through thee, 
 I will make thee an eternal excellency, 
 A joy of many generations. 
 
 16. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the nations, 
 
 And shalt ^ suck the breast of kings ; 
 And thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy saviour, 
 And thy redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 
 
 17. For brass I will bring gold, 
 
 And for iron I will bring silver. 
 And for wood brass, 
 And for stones iron : 
 
 1 Gr. om. this clause. 2 Gr. helped thee. ^ Gr. consume the wealth of kings. 
 
 the temple, was, as it were, the place where Jehovah, who dwells 
 on high (57 : 15), touches the earth. 
 
 14. Obeisance is now paid to Zion by those who formerly- 
 crushed and despised her. Read afflicted and despised thee; and 
 omit, with Gr., all shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet. 
 
 16. For suck the breast, Gr. reads consume the wealth (of kings). 
 The thought is similar to that of vss. 5, 10. This control of Gentile 
 resources is the proof to the Jew of Jehovah's redemptive power 
 (cf. 49: 26). 
 
 This Outward Glory of Jerusalem will he matched by an Inner Glory 
 (vs. 17-22) 
 
 17. Beauty and order everywhere. The plain metals will be 
 replaced by the precious ; and I will make Peace thy governor, and 
 
 388 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 60:21 
 
 I will also make thy officers peace, 
 And ^ thine exactors righteousness. 
 
 18. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, 
 
 Desolation nor destruction within thy borders ; 
 But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, 
 And thy gates Praise. 
 
 19. The sun shall be no more thy Ught by day ; 
 
 Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto 
 thee.2 
 But the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting Hght, Rev. 21:11; 
 And thy God thy glory. ^^ • ^ 
 
 20. Thy sun shall no more go down. 
 
 Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself : 
 For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, 
 And the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 
 
 21. Thy people shall be all righteous. 
 
 They shall inherit the land for ever ; 
 
 ^ m. thy taskmasters. 2 q^. adds by night. 
 
 Righteousness thy lord — these to replace the Persian ofificials 
 and the rapacious Jewish "pastors" (56: 11). The clause and 
 for wood brass, and for stones iron, which, besides contradicting 
 vs. 13 with its various woods, itself involves a somewhat futile 
 thought, is omitted by some. 
 
 18. Violence, whether from the neighboring peoples (62 : 8) or 
 from Jews themselves (58 : 4). The walls were to be called Salva- 
 tion, because they guarantee the safety of the city ; and the gates 
 Praise, because through them stream the heathen with their gifts. 
 
 19 f. The sun, etc. These two verses clearly show that the light 
 of Jehovah is more than a symbol for the blessings of redemption ; 
 there comes from it a real illumination of the city. The poem 
 strikingly ends, as it began (vss. 1-3), with this vision of the illu- 
 mined city. 
 
 21 f. Now the righteous are disappearing (57 : i), then they shall 
 be all righteous. Besides character, numbers and permanent 
 possession of the land are essential elements in the salvation con- 
 
 389 
 
6o:22 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 ^ The branch of ^ my planting, 
 
 The work of ^ my hands, that I may be glorified. 
 22. The httle one shall become a thousand. 
 
 And the small one a strong nation : 
 I the Lord 
 
 Will hasten it in its time. 
 
 The Proclamation of Zion's Redemption (6i : 1-62 : 12) 
 
 Lk. 4: 18 f. 61. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; 
 Acts 10: 38 Because the Lord hath anointed me 
 
 To preach good tidings unto the ^ meek ; he hath sent 
 me 
 To bind up the brokenhearted, 
 To proclaim liberty to the captives, 
 
 ^ Gr. preserving the plant. 2 jjeb. variant, his. ^ Gr. his. ^ m. Gr. poor. 
 
 templated by Judaism. A thousand should perhaps be trans- 
 lated a clan. I will hasten it, the brilliant programme sketched 
 in this chapter. 
 
 Chaps. 61 and 62. Of these chapters, as of the last (Chap. 60), 
 the theme is the glory and security of Zion in the coming year of 
 grace which the prophet is commissioned to proclaim. The pecu- 
 liarity of the section is the remarkable statement in the opening 
 verses (61 : 1-3) of the terms of the prophet's commission, or at 
 least of his interpretation of that commission. Some suppose that 
 the speaker here is the Servant of Jehovah, the same or a similar 
 figure to that which played so great a part in the prophecies of 
 Deutero-Isaiah. But there the Servant was the mediator of 
 salvation, here the speaker simply proclaims it ; there the salvation 
 was for the whole world, here it is only for Zion — for her enemies 
 (63 : 3, 6) a day of vengeance (61:2; 63 : 4) is declared. On the 
 whole, it is probable that the prophet himself is the speaker. 
 
 I f . The spirit : the prophet is inspired, because anointed, i.e. 
 consecrated. Here the prophet's task is to console, encourage, 
 and inspire with hope; in 58: i, it was to convict of sin. The 
 meek and brokenhearted, to whom the good news comes, are the 
 victims of the social wrongs alluded to in 58:6, 9 ; the captives 
 are those who were sold into slavery for debt (Neh. 5 : 5-8) — 
 
 390 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 61:4 
 
 And the ^ opening of the prison to ^ them that are 
 bound ; 
 
 2. To proclaim ^the acceptable year of the Lord, 
 
 And the day of vengeance of our God ; 
 
 To comfort all that mourn ; 
 
 3. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, 
 To give unto them a garland for ashes, 
 
 The oil of joy for mourning, 
 
 The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; 
 That they might be called trees of righteousness. 
 
 The planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. 
 
 4. And they shall build the old wastes, 
 
 They shall raise up the former desolations. 
 
 And they shall repair the waste cities, 
 The desolations of many generations. 
 
 ^ m. Gr. opening of the eyes. 2 Gr. the blind. ^ m. the year of the Lord's good pleas- 
 ure; SV the year of Jehovah's favor. 
 
 though these three words may not impossibly be taken in a wider 
 sense. In associating the liberty and release with the year of 
 Jehovah's favor (see margin and SV), the writer is thinking per- 
 haps of the law prescribing the emancipation of slaves in the 
 seventh year, or of some law akin to that of the jubilee. The day 
 of favor to Zion will be a day of vengeance upon the enemies of 
 Zion (63 : 1-6). 
 
 In claiming to fulfil this prophecy, Jesus significantly omits the 
 clause announcing vengeance (Lk. 4: 17-21). 
 
 3. Delete unto them that mourn in Zion, to give, which spoils the 
 metre, and needlessly explains who the mourners are of vs. 2. 
 The words for mourning and garment should be transposed, 
 reading : 
 
 Oil of joy for the garment of mourning, 
 A song of praise for a spirit dimmed. 
 
 Garland, turban, headdress; ashes on the head were a sign of 
 mourning. For that they might be, read and they shall be. Trees, 
 oaks; evergreen trees were emblems of the life of the righteous 
 (Ps. 1:3). Planting of Jehovah, cf. 60 : 21. 
 
 391 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, 
 
 And aliens shall be your plowmen and your vine- 
 dressers. 
 
 6. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord : 
 
 Men shall call you the ministers of our God : 
 Ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, 
 And ^ in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 
 
 7. 2 For your shame ye shall have double ; 
 
 And for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion : 
 Therefore in their land they shall possess double ; 
 Everlasting joy shall be unto them. 
 
 8. For I the Lord love ^ judgement, 
 
 I hate robbery ^ with iniquity ; 
 
 1 m. to their glory shall ye succeed ; Gr. in their wealth ye shall he admired. ^ Gr. thus 
 a second time shall they inherit the land, and everlasting joy, etc. ^ SV justice. < m. 
 for (or with) a burnt offering ; AV for burnt offering. 
 
 4. The restoration of the dilapidated city was an object of 
 passionate longing ; cf. 58:12; 60:10. 
 
 5 f. Strangers, i.e. the heathen, are to be the servants of the 
 Jews — a frequently expressed hope (60 : 10) — and their wealth 
 at the disposal of the Jews (cf. 60: 11; Hag. 2:7). The Jews 
 themselves are to be the priests of Jehovah, i.e. they will have to 
 teach the heathen, regarded as the uninitiated laity, how to wor- 
 ship the true God (cf. 2 Kings 17 : 27). Boast, the word is very 
 uncertain. Cheyne happily proposes, " and with their splendor 
 ye shall adorn yourselves." 
 
 7. The first two clauses, when emended, connect admirably with 
 the rest of the verse. Thus : 
 
 Because shame was theirs in double measure, 
 
 And mockery and spitting {i.e. scorn, 50 : 6) was their lot, 
 Therefore, etc. 
 
 8. Judgment, justice. It is Jehovah's love of justice that will 
 lead him to reverse the present position of the Jews and the 
 heathen, who have vexed and robbed them. Robbery with in- 
 iquity, unjust robbery, such as heathen oppressors had perpetrated 
 upon the Jews (cf. Neh. 5: 15). In truth, i.e. faithfully. The 
 
 392 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 62 : I 
 
 And I will ^give them their recompence in truth, 
 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 
 
 9. And their seed shall be known among the nations, 
 And their offspring among the peoples : 
 All that see them shall acknowledge them, 
 
 That they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. 
 
 10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, 
 
 My soul shall be joyful in my God ; 
 For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. 
 
 He hath covered me with the robe of ^ righteousness, 
 As a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland, 
 
 And as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Rev. 21 : 2 
 
 11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud. 
 
 And as the garden causeth the things that are sown 
 in it to spring forth : 
 So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise 
 To spring forth before all the nations. 
 
 62. For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace. 
 And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, 
 
 1 AV direct their work in truth. 2 Gr. joy. 
 
 security and the reward are guaranteed by the everlasting cove- 
 nant (cf. 55: 3)- 
 
 9. Known, i.e. famous. The prosperity of the Jews will be so 
 conspicuous that it can only be accounted for as Jehovah's own 
 blessing. 
 
 10. This verse seems to be a glad shout of joy raised by the 
 people in response to the description of their salvation. Righteous- 
 ness = salvation (cf. 62: i). Read, as a bridegroom who fixes his 
 turban (same word as in vs. 3). The joy of the bridegroom and the 
 bride was proverbial (62 : 5 ; Jer. 2>Z'- n)- 
 
 11. For explains vs. 9, not vs. 10. The divine purpose to exalt 
 Israel before the world (cf. 62 : 2) will be as surely fulfilled as are 
 the great processes of nature. 
 
 62:1. I, the prophet ; he will not be silent until Zion's righteous- 
 
 393 
 
6212 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Until her righteousness go forth as brightness, 
 And her salvation as a lamp that burneth. 
 
 2. And the nations shall see thy righteousness, 
 
 And all kings thy glory : 
 Rev. 2 : 17 And thou shalt be called by a new name, 
 
 Which the mouth of the Lord shall name. 
 
 3. Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the 
 
 Lord, 
 And a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 
 
 4. Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken ; 
 
 Neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate : 
 But thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, 
 
 And thy land Beulah : 
 For the Lord delighteth in thee. 
 
 And thy land shall be married. 
 
 5. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, 
 
 So shall thy sons marry thee : 
 And as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride. 
 So shall thy God rejoice over thee. 
 
 ness, i.e. the vindication effected by her salvation, will be clear 
 as noonday. 
 
 2. Nations shall see, etc. This vindication (vs. i) must be 
 visible and conspicuous to all the world. The new name, indica- 
 tive of a new nature and character, is a mystery. The fact of 
 the name being given in vs. 4 has led many scholars to regard the 
 last half of vs. 2 as an interpolation. 
 
 3. Tutelary deities of cities are frequently depicted wearing 
 a mural crown on the head ; here the crown is in Jehovah's hand. 
 "Jerusalem is the seat of Jehovah's world-wide sovereignty." 
 
 4 f. Hephzi-bah = my dehght is in her, and Beulah = married 
 (i.e. to Jehovah) : for explains and justifies the preceding names. 
 Azubah, which means Forsaken, and Hephzi-bah are actual names 
 of women (Jehoshaphat's mother, i Kings 22 : 42, and Manasseh's 
 mother, 2 Kings 21 : i). The sons do not marry the mother, 
 therefore thy sons should no doubt be pointed to read thy builder, 
 i.e. he who builds up Jerusalem, Jehovah (cf. Ps. 147 : 2). 
 
 394 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 52 : 10 
 
 6. I have set watchmen 
 
 Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem ; 
 They shall never hold their peace 
 
 Day nor night : 
 Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers, 
 
 ^ Take ye no rest, 
 
 7. And give him no ^ rest, 
 
 Till he estabhsh. 
 And till he make Jerusalem 
 A praise in the earth. 
 
 8. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand. 
 
 And by the arm of his strength, 
 ''Surely I will no more give thy ^corn 
 
 To be meat for thine enemies ; 
 And strangers shall not drink thy wine, 
 
 For the which thou hast laboured : 
 
 9. But they that have garnered it shall eat it, 
 
 And praise the Lord ; 
 And they that have gathered it shall drink it 
 In the courts of my sanctuary." 
 
 10. Go through, go through the gates ; 
 
 Prepare ye the way of the people ; 
 
 1 m. keep not silence. 2 Heb. silence. SV grain. 
 
 6 f. The watchmen are the angelic ministers of Jehovah, his 
 remembrancers, whose duty it is to put and keep him in mind of 
 the ruined walls of Jerusalem (cf. 60 : 10), until he again makes the 
 city conspicuous and honorable. 
 
 8 f . Judah's territory is no more to be raided by the enemies — 
 the Samaritans and their confederates (Neh. 4:9). Garnered it, 
 i.e. the corn; gathered it, i.e. grapes, wine. The Jews would 
 praise Jehovah at the three great festivals (Deut. 16) in the temple 
 courts. 
 
 395 
 
62: II THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Cast up, cast up the high way ; 
 
 Gather out the stones ; 
 Lift up an ensign for the peoples. 
 
 11. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed 
 
 Unto the end of the earth, 
 Say ye to the daughter of Zion, 
 
 Behold, thy salvation cometh ; 
 Behold, his reward is with him, 
 
 And his recompence before him. 
 
 12. And they shall call them. The Holy People, 
 
 The Redeemed of the Lord ; 
 And thou shalt be called Sought Out, 
 A City not Forsaken. 
 
 The Destruction of the Foes of Zion (63 : 1-6) 
 
 63. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, 
 
 With ^ dyed garments from Bozrah ? 
 
 1 m. crimsoned. 
 
 An Appeal to the Jews at Home to prepare the Way for the Return 
 of their Fellow-countrymen (vss. 10-12) 
 
 This passage, brief as it is, is strongly reminiscent of Deutero- 
 Isaiah. 
 
 10. The people are urged to go out through the gates of Jerusa- 
 lem, to prepare the way (cf . 40 : 3) for the rest of the people yet in 
 exile. An ensign — to which they may rally (cf. 49 : 22). 
 
 II f. Jehovah hath proclaimed the coming salvation (cf. 48 : 20). 
 His reward, etc., cf. 40: 10. The holy people, the world's priests 
 (61 : 6). Sought out, much frequented — other than in the days 
 when no man passed through thee (60: 15). 
 
 63 : 1-6. The counterpart of Zion's glory (Chap. 60-62) is the 
 annihilation of all her enemies (63 14). In this striking passage 
 Jehovah, clad in a garment stained red with the blood of his foes, 
 is seen returning from a victory which he had won over them single- 
 handed — a victory which meant for Zion that the year of her 
 complete redemption had come. 
 
 396 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 63:3 
 
 This that is glorious in his apparel, 
 
 2 Marching in the greatness of his strength ?" 
 
 " I that speak in righteousness, 
 Mighty to save." 
 
 2. "Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, 
 
 And thy garments hke him that treadeth in the 
 winefat?" 
 
 3. ''I have trodden the wine press alone ; 
 
 And of the peoples there was no man with me : 
 Yea, I trod them in mine anger. 
 And* trampled them in my fury ; 
 
 2Gr. om. 
 
 Our present Hebrew text represents the victory as won over 
 Edom, and, considering how deep was the hatred of Judah for 
 Edom after the exile (cf. Chap. 34), this fierce delight in the defeat 
 of Edom is only too intelligible (cf. Ps. 137: 7). On the other 
 hand, we should rather expect, as the counterpart and guarantee 
 of Zion's glory, the destruction of all her enemies, and this expecta- 
 tion is confirmed by vss. 3, 6. When to this it is added that, by 
 exceedingly slight changes, the references to Edom and Bozrah 
 disappear, the high probability must be admitted that the pas- 
 sage had originally the larger outlook upon all the nations and 
 contemplated their destruction. 
 
 I. Who is this? the question and answer are finely dramatic. 
 Edom and Bozrah (a chief city of Edom) may be original, but very 
 probably we should translate : 
 
 Who is this that cometh all red, 
 
 With garments more brilliant than those of a vintager? 
 
 I : Jehovah himself answers the question, though the detail of the 
 answer is by no means certain. Perhaps it means that he not 
 only speaks of righteousness, i.e. promises to vindicate his people 
 by punishing their adversaries, but has power to carry his promise 
 into effect. 
 
 2 f. Again the dramatic question and answer. The bloody 
 slaughter is compared to the treading of grapes. No man, like 
 
 397 
 
63 : 4 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 And their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, 
 And I have stained all my raiment. 
 
 4. For the day of vengeance was in mine heart, 
 
 And Hhe year of my redeemed is come. 
 
 5. And I looked, and there was none to help ; 
 
 And I wondered that there was none to uphold : 
 Therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me ; 
 And my ^ fury, it upheld me. 
 
 6. And I trod down the peoples in mine anger, 
 
 And ^ made them drunk in my fury, 
 And I poured out their hfeblood on the earth." 
 
 Passionate Prayer for the Divine Favor 
 
 (63:7-64:12) 
 
 Thanksgiving for Ancient Mercies (63 : 7-14) 
 
 7. I will make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the 
 
 Lord, 
 And the praises of the Lord, 
 
 i_m. my year of redemption. 2 Many Heb. MSS. righteousness (cf. 59; 16). 3 Heb. 
 variant^ brake them in pieces. 
 
 Cyrus, for example : Jehovah destroyed Zion's enemies without 
 human agency. The vision, though described throughout in past 
 tenses (read ''was sprinkled"), is really of the future. 
 
 4. Vengeance for Zion's enemies, redemption for Zion (cf. 61 : 2). 
 
 5 f. Cf. 59: 16. Made them drunk, read with margin, brake 
 them in pieces. The fierce attitude of this prophet to the nations 
 is very unlike that of Deutero-Isaiah, who looks for their salva- 
 tion (45: 22). 
 
 63 : 7-64 : 1 2. This impassioned prayer is one of the most striking 
 passages in the whole of the Old Testament. Beginning with a 
 grateful recognition of the divine goodness to Israel in the days 
 gone by, it sorrowfully asks where the great Benefactor is now, and 
 entreats him, in words of tremendous passion, to return and mani- 
 fest his ancient power. The sin of the people has indeed been 
 great and grievous, but here it is frankly confessed, and an appeal 
 
 398 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 63: 7 
 
 According to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us ; 
 ^ And the great goodness toward the house of Israel, 
 
 1 Gr. The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel. 
 
 is lifted to God in heaven to forgive and forget it, and to look down 
 in pity upon his sorely afficted people. 
 
 The misery which the prayer so vividly reflects may well be 
 that of the period covered by the earlier chapters of this prophecy 
 (56 ff.) — the period of Malachi. The only really concrete verses 
 in the passage, however (63: 18 and 64: 10 f.) create a not in- 
 considerable difficulty. Little stress, perhaps, ought to be laid 
 on 63 : 1 8a, as the Hebrew words of our present text are ambiguous, 
 the Greek version is quite different, and a plausible emendation 
 has been proposed, which would seriously modify the meaning of 
 both Greek and Hebrew; and the case of vs. i8b is complicated 
 by the difficulty of determining whether trodden down has to be 
 taken literally or figuratively — in other words, whether the 
 sanctuary has really been destroyed or only her ordinances and 
 worship treated with contempt (cf. MaU i : 12). The other 
 reference (64 : 10 f .) is unambiguous, but there is difficulty in fitting 
 it into our period. Judah in general and Jerusalem in particular 
 are a desolation, and the beautiful temple has been burned with 
 fire. 
 
 Of what period could this be said? It is not likely that Zerub- 
 babel's temple, built by the disappointed and poverty-stricken 
 hands of the returned exiles (cf. Hag. 2:3), could be described as 
 the " holy and beautiful house " ; in any case, we have no positive 
 information that that temple was destroyed — that is only an 
 inference from such passages as Neh. i : 3. The beautiful house 
 destroyed must either, then, be Solomon's temple, or the second 
 temple at some date later than the middle of the fifth century. 
 If the reference be to Solomon's temple, then two explanations are 
 possible : either the whole passage comes (if not from the exile) 
 from some period soon after the return, and before the second 
 temple was built (say about 525 b.c.) — the objection to that 
 being that, in point of date, this prayer then falls out of line with 
 the preceding chapters of the prophecy (56 ff.) ; or, if the date be 
 the same, the insignificant second temple is simply ignored, and 
 the speaker's imagination sorrowfully dwells on the destruction 
 of the glorious temple seventy years or so before — though this 
 explanation is distinctly artificial, and out of harmony with the 
 vivid passion of the words. There remains, however, the possi- 
 bility that vss. 10-12 are later than their context, and that the 
 
 399 
 
63:8 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Which he hath bestowed on ^ them according to his 
 mercies, 
 And according to the multitude of his lovingkind- 
 nesses. 
 
 8. For he said, "Surely, they are my people, 
 
 Children that will not deal falsely " : 
 So he was their Saviour. 
 
 9. 2 In all their affliction 
 
 He was afflicted, and the angel 
 
 Of his presence saved them : 
 In his love and in his pity 
 
 He redeemed them ; 
 
 1 Gr. us. 2 m. in all their adversity he was no adversary ; Gr. He became to them 
 a saviour from all their distress; it was no messenger, or angel, but himself wlw saved them. 
 
 beautiful house is the temple of a later century. Cheyne thinks of 
 its destruction — probable but not proved — by the Persians, 
 about 350 B.C., Marti, of its devastation by Antiochus in 170 B.C. 
 These verses may easily have been added, to make the passage 
 applicable to a later situation ; and without them the poem reaches 
 an artistic climax — behold look (64 : 9), pointing back to the be- 
 ginning of the prayer, look down from heaven, and behold (63 : 15). 
 This explanation, though not perhaps completely satisfactory, 
 appears to be the most plausible, and has at least the merit of re- 
 taining the passage, as a whole, within the period of the rest of the 
 prophecy. 
 
 63 : 7-14. These verses look wistfully back to Jehovah's good- 
 ness to Israel in the past, especially in the days of Moses. 
 
 7. Make mention of, i.e. gratefully celebrate. Praises, 
 praiseworthy deeds. Bestowed on, wrought for. Read : in accord- 
 ance with all that Jehovah, (so) rich in goodness, has wrought for us. 
 Omit toward the house of Israel; and for bestowed on them, read 
 wrought for us (so Gr.). 
 
 8 f . For he said : this carries us back to the origin of the people, 
 whom Jehovah launched upon their national career with high 
 hopes of their fidelity. In all their affliction should go with vs. 8 ; 
 so he became to them a saviour from all their distress (so Gr.) . He was 
 aMcted, etc. : the Greek version supports another and practically 
 certain translation of the Hebrew consonants — it was no envoy or 
 angel, hut his own presence that saved them. The presence, or face 
 
 400 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 63 : 12 
 
 And he bore them, and carried them 
 All the days of old. 
 
 10. But they rebelled, and grieved 
 
 His holy spirit : 
 Therefore he was turned to be their enemy, 
 And himself fought against them. 
 
 11. Then he remembered the days of old, 
 
 ^ Moses, and his people, saying, 
 " Where is he that ^ brought them up out of the sea 
 
 With the ^ shepherds of his flock ? 
 Where is he that put his holy spirit 
 
 In the midst of them ? 
 
 12. That caused his glorious arm to go 
 
 At the right hand of Moses ? 
 That divided the water before them, 
 
 1 Gr. om. this line. ^ Gr. brought up from the sea the shepherd of the sheep. 3 Some 
 MSS. sliepherd. 
 
 (cf. 59 : 2), of Jehovah, though not quite identical with himself, is a 
 visible manifestation of him ; and the meaning practically is that, 
 in the days of old, i.e. the days of Moses, Jehovah came to save 
 them in person, not by proxy. 
 
 ID. His holy spirit, here conceived almost personally (note 
 grieved) — the spirit of divine leadership and direction, mani- 
 fested supremely through Moses, but also through others (Num. 
 11: 16 f.). 
 
 II. He, i.e. Israel, remembered. Omit, vWth Gr., Moses and 
 his people, words which were probably added to explain shepherd 
 and flock respectively ; in their place may originally have stood 
 something like the years of many generations (cf. Deut. 32 : 7). 
 The next sentence, which should read Where is he that brought up 
 (so Gr.) from the sea the shepherd of his flock? {i.e. Moses), refers 
 either to the divine protection of the infant Moses (in which case 
 the sea = t\it Nile, cf. 18:2; 19 : 5), or to deliverance from the per- 
 ils of the Red Sea. The holy spirit (cf. vs. 10) was present in the 
 midst of them chiefly in the person of Moses. 
 
 12-14. His glorious arm, etc. : the reference is to the wonderful 
 power with which Moses was endowed, symboHzed by his rod 
 (Exod. 17:9). Divided the water of the Red Sea, through whose 
 2D 401 
 
63 : 13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 To make himself an everlasting name? 
 
 13. That led them through the depths, 
 
 As an horse in the wilderness, 
 That they stumbled not ? 
 
 14. As the cattle that go down into the valley, 
 The spirit of the Lord ^ caused them to rest : 
 
 So didst thou lead thy people, 
 To make thyself a glorious name." 
 
 Passionate Entreaty for the Divine Forgiveness and Pity 
 (63:15-64:12) 
 
 15. Look down from heaven, and behold 
 
 From the habitation of thy hoHness and of thy glory : 
 Where is thy zeal and thy mighty acts ? 
 The yearning of thy bowels and thy compassions 
 are restrained ^ toward me. 
 
 16. For thou art our father, though Abraham knoweth 
 
 us not, 
 And Israel doth not acknowledge us : 
 
 1 Gr. guided them. 2 q^. from us. 
 
 depths they walked as firmly as a horse on the pasture-land, and 
 down whose banks (regarded as steep, like the Dead Sea) they 
 wandered as securely as the cattle that go down from the uplands to 
 the valley (this clause goes better with vs. 13), the spirit of Jehovah 
 guiding them (rather than caused them to rest). 
 
 15 f. In the light of the divine leadership and love shown to the 
 people in the old days of Moses (vss. 7-14) where is thy zeal 
 now? Instead of are restrained toward me, read do not refrain 
 (cf. 64: 12). But this clause and the next, — for thou art our 
 father, — which awkwardly anticipates the third clause of vs. 16, 
 are probably later insertions. Abraham and Israel, i.e. Jacob, 
 may have been regarded by the prophet's contemporaries as semi- 
 divine, capable of sympathizing with and helping them in their 
 distress. The prophet, in dispelling this illusion, indirectly re- 
 minds the people that their real help and redemption are to be 
 
 402 
 
THE BOOK OF ISMAH 64:1 
 
 Thou, O Lord, art our father ; 
 
 Our redeemer from everlasting is thy name. 
 
 17. O Lord, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, 
 
 And hardenest our heart from thy fear ? 
 Return for thy servants' sake, 
 ^The tribes of thine inheritance. 
 
 18. 2 Thy holy people possessed it but a Httle while : 
 
 Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 
 
 19. ^We are become as they over whom thou never barest 
 
 rule : 
 As they that were not called by thy name. 
 
 64. "^Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou 
 wouldest come down, 
 
 1 Gr. for the sake of the tribes, etc. 2 Gr. that we may inherit a little of thy holy moun- 
 tain. 3 Gr. we are become as of old, when thou didst not rule over us, neither was thy 
 name called upon us. * Gr. if thou shouldst open the heaven, trembling at thee will take 
 the mountains, and they shall melt as wax melts before fire, and fire shall burn up the ad- 
 versaries, and thy name shall be manifest among the adversaries. 
 
 found in their God, for he is their Father, i.e. the Father of the 
 nation (cf. Exod. 4: 22). 
 
 17. Before the tribes, insert, with Gr., for the sake of. 
 
 18. Possessed it: what? perhaps the sanctuary — but the word 
 is unrepresented in the Hebrew, and the text may be doubted. 
 Adopting two hints of the Greek version, we may translate : 
 but a little while have we had possession of thy holy hill — i.e. the 
 temple hill. The reference could not be to Solomon's temple, as 
 that had stood for nearly four hundred years. Even if we sup- 
 pose the little while to describe the seventy years between the 
 building of the second temple and the probable date of this proph- 
 ecy, we have no positive proof that that temple was destroyed, 
 trodden on, during this period. These considerations lend some 
 plausibility to the brilliant conjectural reading : 
 
 Why do the ungodly make light of thy holy place, 
 Our adversaries desecrate thy sanctuary? 
 and the reference would be to the Samaritan party with their ad- 
 herents in Jerusalem and the neighborhood (so Marti). 
 
 19 f. The fortunes of the Jews have fallen so low that for long 
 it has not seemed as if they were the subjects of such a king as 
 
 403 
 
64:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 That the mountains might ^ flow down at thy pres- 
 ence ; 
 
 2. As when fire kindleth the brushwood, 
 
 And the fire causeth the waters to boil : 
 To make thy name known to thine adversaries, 
 That the nations may tremble at thy presence ! 
 
 3. When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for. 
 
 Thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at 
 thy presence. 
 
 4. For from of old men have not heard, 
 
 I Cor. 2 : 9 Nor perceived by the ear, 
 
 Neither hath the eye seen 
 A God beside thee, 
 
 2 Which worketh for him that waiteth for him. 
 
 5. ^Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh right- 
 
 eousness, 
 Those that remember thee in thy ways : 
 Behold, thou wast wroth, and we sinned : 
 ^ In them have we been of long time, and shall we be 
 saved ? 
 
 1 m. SV quake. 2 Gr. and thy works which thou wilt perform for those who wait for 
 thy mercy. ^ Gr. For these things shall befall those who work righteousness, and they shall 
 remember thy ways. * Gr. therefore we have erred ; m. AY in those is continttance, and we 
 shall be saved. 
 
 Jehovah at all, and some divine intervention is necessary — a 
 descent through the rent heavens which would make the mountains 
 quake (see margin). 
 
 2. This verse describes the manner and the object of the the- 
 ophany. 
 
 3, 4a. Omit thou camest down . . . presence (an erroneous repe- 
 tition of the latter half of vs. i), and read : 
 
 When thou didst terrible things {i.e. to the enemy) which we looked 
 not for, 
 And whereof from of old men had not heard. 
 
 4b, 5. With hints from the Greek version, and conjectural 
 404 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 64:9 
 
 6. For we are all become as one that is unclean, 
 
 And all our righteousnesses are as a polluted garment : 
 And we all do fade as a leaf ; 
 
 And our iniquities, hke the wind, take us away. 
 
 7. And there is none that calleth upon thy name. 
 
 That stirreth up himself to take hold of thee ; 
 For thou hast hid thy face from us. 
 And hast ^ consumed us by means of our iniquities. 
 
 8. But now, O Lord, thou art our father ; 
 
 We are the clay. 
 And thou our potter ; 
 
 And we are all the work of thy hand. 
 
 9. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, 
 
 Neither remember iniquity for ever : 
 Behold, look, we beseech thee. 
 We are all thy people. 
 
 1 m. melted; Gr. Syr. Tar. delivered us into the hand of, etc. 
 
 emendation, this somewhat difficult passage may be provisionally- 
 rendered as follows : 
 
 Ear hath not heard, 
 
 Eye hath not seen, 
 Thy deeds and mighty acts which thou wilt do 
 
 For those who wait for thee. 
 Oh that thou wotdd'st meet those who work righteousness, 
 
 Who remember thy ways {i.e., thy commandments). 
 But, behold! thou wast wroth, and we sinned, 
 {Wroth) at our deeds, and we became guilty. 
 
 6 f . Everywhere is corruption and decay, and religion is as good 
 as dead. Hast consumed, etc., read, with margin, hast delivered 
 us into the power of. 
 
 8 f. Prayer for pity. Father, cf. 63 : 16. The potter will 
 surely care for the clay which he has so skilfully and lovingly 
 fashioned. Behold, look points back to 63 : 15, and perhaps 
 originally closed the poem (see p. 396). 
 
 405 
 
64 : 10 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 10. Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, 
 
 Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 
 
 11. Our holy and our beautiful house, 
 
 Where our fathers praised thee, 
 Is burned with fire ; 
 
 And all our pleasant things are laid waste. 
 
 12. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? 
 
 Wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore ? 
 
 The Blessedness of the Faithful and the Doom of 
 THE Apostates (65 : 1-66 : 24) 
 
 The Fate oj the Apostates (65 : 1-7) 
 
 Rom. 10: 65. I lam inquired of by them that asked not for me; 
 I ^ am found of them that sought me not : 
 I said, "Behold me, behold me," 
 
 Unto a nation that ^ was not called by my name. 
 
 2. I have spread out my hands all the day 
 Unto a rebellious ^people, 
 
 1 m. was. 2 Qr. gyj-. Vg. Tar. called not on. ^ Gr. and disobedient people. 
 
 10-12. The historical setting of these verses is hard to deter- 
 mine; see p. 395. Cities, i.e. of Judah. The temple is the house 
 of praise, as of prayer (56 : 7). Pleasant tilings, places with hal- 
 lowed associations. 
 
 Chaps. 65 and 66. Earlier chapters (cf. 57) have revealed the 
 Jewish community of the period as sharply divided into two classes 
 — the strict legal party, representing generally the religious 
 ideals and practices of the returned exiles, and the pro-Samaritan 
 party, whose religion, perpetuating ancient superstitions and in- 
 fected by the rehgions of the neighboring peoples, was of a dis- 
 tinctly pagan and degraded type. In the closing chapters of the 
 book, the prophet vividly portrays the respective destinies in 
 store for both these classes — for the one, long and happy life 
 in a renovated world ; for the other, a fearful and accursed doom. 
 
 I, 2. These verses describe the indifference of the rebellious 
 406 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 65:4 
 
 Which walketh in a way that is not good, 
 After their own thoughts ; 
 
 3. A people that provoketh me 
 
 To my face continually, 
 Sacrificing in gardens, 
 
 And burning incense upon bricks ; 
 
 4. * Which sit among the graves, 
 
 And lodge in the ^ secret places ; ^ 
 Which eat swine's flesh. 
 
 And broth of abominable things is in their vessels ; 
 
 1 Gr. To the demons which do not exist. 2 Gr. caves. ' Gr. adds for the sake of 
 securing dreams. 
 
 people — i.e. the Jews whose practices are described in vss. 3-5 — 
 to the divine appeal. We may reasonably infer from these verses 
 that the attitude of the stricter party was at first not so exclusive 
 as it afterwards became ; they had been forced into their exclusive 
 policy by the refusal of their idolatrous and rebellious brethren to 
 accept the stricter ideals they had sought to impose. The out- 
 stretched hands had been rejected. 
 
 I am inquired of . . . : / allowed myself to he inquired of, i.e. 
 was ready to answer, those who asked me (so Gr.) not, and to let 
 myself he found, etc. A nation, not a foreign nation, but the re- 
 bellious Jewish people that did not call upon my name (so Gr. and 
 margin) — described in the following verses. A rebellious 
 people : an unruly and disobedient people (so Gr. and Rom. 10 : 21), 
 which refused to walk in the good way of the law. 
 
 3, 4. These verses aflford an interesting glimpse into the religious 
 usages which persisted even in post-exilic Judaism, and provoked 
 Jehovah to his face. Gardens, sacred groves (cf. i : 29). Bricks, 
 whether of roofs (cf. Zeph. i : 5) or altars ; the allusion is very ob- 
 scure, and may not impossibly be, by a change in the pointing, to 
 some form of tree-worship. 
 
 4. The sitting in the graves was no doubt intended to secure an 
 oracle from the dead, who were supposed, like the dead Samuel 
 (i Sam. 28), to have a knowledge of the future. Similarly they 
 lodged, i.e. passed the night, in secret places, as Gr. correctly 
 explains, for the sake of obtaining dreams, i.e. dream-oracles. 
 They eat swine's flesh — forbidden by law (Deut. 14:8) — in 
 
 407 
 
65:5 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 5. Which say, *' Stand by thyself, 
 
 Come not near to me, for ^I am hoUer than thou" ; 
 These are a smoke in my nose, 
 A fire that burneth all the day. 
 
 6. Behold, it is written before me : 
 
 I will not keep silence, ^ but will recompense, 
 Yea, I will recompense into their bosom, 
 
 7. ^ Your own iniquities, and the iniquities of ^ your 
 
 fathers together, 
 Saith the Lord, 
 
 Which have burned incense upon the mountains, 
 
 And ^ blasphemed me upon the hills : 
 Therefore will I ^ first measure 
 
 Their work into their bosom. 
 
 The Destiny of the Faithful in the Impending Judgment 
 (65:8-12) 
 
 8. Thus saith the Lord, 
 
 As the new wine is found in the cluster, 
 
 1 Gr. / am pure. 2 Gr. till I have recompensed into, etc. ^ Gr. Syr. their. * m. 
 defied. ^ Gr. om. 
 
 mystic rites. Abominable things, probably unclean animals, like 
 mice (cf. 66 : 17). 
 
 5. I am holier than thou: rather, or else I shall sanctify thee. 
 Any one who ventures within the circle of the initiated during these 
 strange and superstitious performances will be infected with the 
 holiness of the whole group — hohness here being purely physical, 
 not ethical, and practically = taboo. These idolaters provoke 
 the anger of Jehovah, which will issue in smoke and flame. 
 
 6 f . It, i.e. the record of their sin, is written in the memorials of 
 heaven. Transfer yea, I will recompense in vs. 6 (omitting into 
 their bosom) to the end of vs. 7, after work. Read their iniquities 
 and their fathers. Mountains . . . hills : the reference is to the 
 illegitimate worship upon the high places. For work read 
 recompense. I will first measure their recompense and requite it 
 (see vs. 6) into their bosom. 
 
 408 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 65; 12 
 
 And one saith, "Destroy it not, 
 
 For a blessing is in it" : 
 So will I do for my ^ servants' sakes, 
 
 That I may not destroy them all. 
 9. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, 
 
 And out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains : 
 And my chosen shall inherit it. 
 
 And my servants shall dwell there. 
 
 10. And Sharon shall be a ^ fold of flocks. 
 
 And the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down 
 
 in, 
 For my people that have sought me. 
 
 11. But ye that forsake the Lord, 
 
 That forget my holy mountain, 
 That prepare a table for ^ Fortune, 
 
 And that fill up mingled wine unto ^ Destiny ; 
 
 12. I will destine you to the sword. 
 
 And ye shall all bow down to the slaughter : 
 
 1 Gr. and some Heb. MSS. servant's, ^m. pasture. ^Heb. Gad ; Gt. the demon. 
 Heb. Meni; Gr. Fortune. 
 
 8-10. Just as the cluster is not destroyed, if there be some good 
 grapes upon it, so, for the sake of Jehovah's faithful servants, 
 neither will the whole nation be exterminated. Throughout this 
 chapter the faithful are frequently called my servants, and they 
 are rewarded with secure possession of the motmtain land of Pales- 
 tine, in its length and breadth — from Sharon, the plain between 
 Carmel and Joppa, to the valley of Achor near Jericho. Probably 
 the last sentence of vs. 10, which is metrically superfluous, is a 
 later insertion. 
 
 II, 12. In contrast with this happy destiny of the faithful will 
 be the bloody doom of the idolaters who forget my holy mountain, 
 ignoring the exclusive claims of Jerusalem, and worshipping else- 
 where (vss. 3f.). Fortune {Gad) and Destiny {Meni) were West- 
 Semitic deities, in whose cult these apostate Jews participated. 
 Tables were spread for the gods (cf. i Cor. 10: 21), with bread 
 (cf. Exod. 25 : 30) and wine in accordance with a fashion common 
 
 409 
 
65 : 13 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 Because when I called, ye did not answer ; 
 
 When I spake, ye did not hear ; 
 But ye did that which was evil in mine eyes, 
 
 And chose that wherein I deUghted not. 
 
 The Great Contrast (65 : 13-16) 
 
 13. Therefore thus saith 
 
 The Lord God, 
 Behold, my servants shall eat, 
 But ye shall be hungry : 
 
 Behold, my servants shall drink, 
 
 But ye shall be thirsty : 
 Behold, my servants shall rejoice, 
 
 But ye shall be ashamed : 
 
 14. Behold, my servants shall sing 
 
 For joy of heart. 
 But ye shall cry for sorrow of heart. 
 And shall howl for ^ vexation of spirit. 
 
 15. And ye shall leave your name 
 
 For 2 a curse unto my chosen, 
 
 iHeb. breaking. 2 jjeb. an oath; Gr. satiety (loathing?). 
 
 in the ancient world. The last sentence of vs. 12, hut ye did . . . 
 not, has probably been inserted from 66 : 4. 
 
 This deliberate worship of foreign gods, coupled with the prac- 
 tice of necromancy and the other mystic, superstitious, and illegal 
 rites alluded to in vss. 3 f., sheds a very lurid light on the religious 
 conditions which Ezra, Nehemiah, and the reforming party had 
 to face, and goes a long way to justify their severe and exclusive 
 policy. 
 
 13 f. The fourfold contrast beginning Behold, my servants, is 
 very impressive. Ye, apostates, whose conduct has just been de- 
 scribed. 
 
 15. A curse, i.e. a formula of imprecation, a specimen of which 
 410 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 65 : 18 
 
 And the Lord God shall slay ^ thee ; 
 And he shall call his servants 
 By another name : 
 
 16. So that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless 
 
 himself 
 In the God of truth ; 
 And he that sweareth in the earth shall swear 
 By the God of truth ; 
 
 Because the former troubles are forgotten, 
 And because they are hid from mine eyes. 
 
 The Glorious Future (65 : 17-25) 
 
 17. For, behold, I create new heavens 2 Pet. 3 : 13 
 
 A J • i.i_ Rev. 21 : 1 
 
 And a new earth : 
 
 And the former things shall not be remembered, Rev. 21 : 4 
 
 Nor come into mind. 
 
 18. But 2 be ye glad and rejoice for ever 
 
 In that which I create. 
 
 For, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, 
 And her people a joy. 
 
 1 Gr. you. 2 q^. they shall find gladness and rejoicing in her. 
 
 is given in the next clause (read May the Lord Jehovah slay thee). 
 Another name, corresponding to their high blessedness. 
 
 16. The meaning is that Jehovah will have shown himself to 
 be a God of truth, i.e. of faithfulness, fulfilling alike his promises 
 and threats, so that he who invokes a blessing for himself in the 
 land shall invoke it by the god of truth; i.e. shall say, " May the God 
 of truth bless me." 
 
 17 f. New heavens and a new earth, i.e. a new universe; and 
 this will be the guarantee that the former thmgs, i.e. troubles 
 (vs. 16), will be remembered no more. Be ye glad should be they 
 shall be glad. 
 
 411 
 
65 : 19 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 19. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, 
 
 And joy in my people. 
 
 Rev. 21 : 4 And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in 
 
 her, 
 Nor the voice of cr3dng. 
 
 20. There shall be no more thence 
 
 An infant of days, 
 
 Nor an old man that hath not filled 
 
 His days : 
 For the child shall die an hundred years old, 
 
 And the sinner being an hundred years old shall be 
 accursed, 
 
 21. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them ; 
 
 And they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of 
 them. 
 
 22. They shall not build, and another inhabit ; 
 
 They shall not plant, and another eat : 
 
 For as the days of ^ a tree shall be the days of my people, 
 And my chosen shall ^long enjoy the work of their 
 hands. 
 
 1 Gr. Tar. the tree of life. 2 Heb. wear out. 
 
 20. Human life shall be prolonged to an age that will recall the 
 patriarchal days. Infant of a few days. For the child, read the 
 youngest: a hundred years would be a short life. The sinner 
 (omit being an hundred years) shall be accursed, i.e. cut off by 
 the curse. In those days there will be no sinners : the people shall 
 he all righteous (60 : 21). 
 
 21 f. Those days would be marked by material prosperity and 
 security; and, human life being so long, men would enjoy the 
 fruits of their toil. 
 
 412 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 66 : I 
 
 23. They shall not labour in vain, 
 
 Nor bring forth for ^ calamity ; 
 
 For they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, 
 And their offspring ^ with them. 
 
 24. And it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will 
 
 answer ; 
 And while they are yet speaking, I will hear. 
 
 25. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, 
 
 And the Hon shall eat straw Uke the ox : 
 And dust shall be the serpent's meat. 
 They shall not hurt nor destroy 
 
 In all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. 
 
 Doom pronounced upon those who purpose to Build a Rival 
 Temple (66 : 1-4) 
 
 66. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne. 
 
 And the earth is my footstool : Mat. 5: 34!. 
 
 ^ What manner of house will ye build unto me ? ^*^*^ ^ • ^^ 
 * And what place shall be my rest ? 
 
 1 m. sudden terror. 2 m. shall be with them. ^ AY where is the house, etc. < AV 
 where is the place, etc. 
 
 23. Bring forth children for calamity, i.e. sudden destruction. 
 Life being so long, many generations of their offspring would be 
 with them (see margin) . 
 
 24 f. Prayer will be instantly answered, prosperity will every- 
 where reign, and even in the animal world there will be peace 
 (cf . 1 1 : 6-8) . Omit and dust shall he the serpent's meat, a, clause 
 added to show that the serpent was not to be exempted from its 
 ancient curse (Gen. 3 : 14). 
 
 66: 1-4. The schismatic Jews — "rebels against Jehovah," as 
 they are called in vs. 24 — whose conduct was so vividly portrayed 
 in the preceding chapter (65 : 3-5, 11), as also in this (66 : 3, 17 f.), 
 appear to have cherished the design of building a rival temple to 
 that of Jerusalem — a design later accomplished by the Samaritans 
 
 413 
 
66:2 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 2. For all these things hath mine hand made, 
 
 ^ And so all these things came to be, saith the Lord : 
 
 But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor 
 
 And of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word. 
 
 3. He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man ; 
 
 He that sacrificeth a lamb, as he that breaketh a 
 
 dog's neck ; 
 He that offereth ^ an oblation, as he that ofereth swine's 
 
 blood ; 
 He that ^ burneth frankincense, as he that blesseth 
 
 an idol. 
 
 1 Gr. Syr. all these things are mine. 2 m. meal offering. ^ Heb. maketh a memorial of. 
 
 on mount Gerizim. This section embodies the prophet's protest. 
 The striking language of the first two verses might easily and natu- 
 rally be interpreted as a challenge to all sacred buildings, and a 
 plea for a purely spiritual worship (cf. Jn. 4: 21); the infinite 
 God needs no house made with hands, therefore not even the Je- 
 rusalem temple. But other verses of the chapter show that the 
 temple is not only respected, but is presupposed, with its ritual 
 and its officers, as an eternal element in the Jerusalem of the 
 regenerated world (66:6, 20-23). The passage can therefore 
 only be interpreted as a protest against the proposed schismatic 
 temple. 
 
 1 . The earth is my footstool : in particular the Jerusalem sanc- 
 tuary was the "place of his feet" (60: 13), and no other house 
 for him could be tolerated. 
 
 2. Poor, afflicted; contrite, crushed; my word, the law. This 
 clause describes the strict Jews, who respect the law and worship 
 at the temple. 
 
 3 f . Render : 
 
 He who slaughters an ox is also the slayer of a man, 
 
 He who sacrifices a sheep is also the strangler of dogs, 
 He who brings an oblation is also one who pours out swine's blood, 
 
 He who offers memorial incense is also one who blesses idols : 
 As these have chosen their own ways, 
 
 And their soul delights in their abominations. 
 So will I also choose wanton insults for them. 
 
 And bring what they dread upon them. 
 414 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 66:6 
 
 Yea, they have chosen their own ways, 
 
 And their soul deUghteth in their abominations ; 
 
 4. I also will choose their ^ delusions. 
 
 And will bring their fears upon them ; 
 
 Because when I called, none did answer ; 
 
 When I spake, they did not hear : 
 But they did that which was evil in mine eyes, 
 
 And chose that wherein I delighted not. 
 
 The Faithful Cheered by the Promise of Zioti's Prosperity 
 (66 : 5-14) 
 
 5. Hear the word of the Lord, 
 
 Ye that tremble at his word : 
 Your brethren that hate you. 
 That cast you out for my name's sake, have said, 
 
 ''Let the Lord be glorified, 
 That we may see your joy" ; 
 
 But they shall be ashamed. 
 
 6. A voice of tumult from the city, 
 
 A voice from the temple. Rev. 16: x 
 
 1 m. mockings. 
 
 The meaning is that their affected worship of Jehovah goes hand 
 in hand with rank idolatry ; the men who offer — legitimately 
 enough — oxen, sheep, and meal offerings with incense (cf . Lev. 
 2 : 2) are guilty of human sacrifice, and of participation in idola- 
 trous and abominable rites which involved the recognition of the 
 sacredness of the dog and the swine (cf. 65:4). when I called, 
 etc. : cf. 65 : 12. 
 
 5. Tremble, etc. ; cf. vs. 2. Your brethren, the idolatrous Jews 
 of vs. 3. For my name's sake: the hostility was religious in its 
 origin. These apostates mock the hopes of their pious "breth- 
 ren," and their words are sarcastic, Let Jehovah manifest his glory, 
 etc. 
 
 6. Jehovah hears their sarcastic challenge, and renders them 
 
 415 
 
66:7 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 A voice of the Lord that rendereth 
 Recompence to his enemies. 
 
 7. Before she travailed, 
 
 She brought forth ; 
 Before her pain came, 
 
 She was deUvered of a man child. 
 
 8. Who hath heard such a thing ? 
 
 Who hath seen such things ? 
 Shall a land be born 
 
 In one day ? 
 Shall a nation be brought forth 
 
 At once ? 
 For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth 
 
 Her children. 
 
 9. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth ? 
 
 Saith the Lord : 
 Shall I that cause to bring forth shut the womb? 
 Saith thy God. 
 10. ^ Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, 
 All ye that love her : 
 
 ^ Gr. rejoice, Jerusalem, and hold in her a festal assembly all ye who love her. 
 
 fearful recompense. Hark! a tumult from the city — "the city 
 where they had mockingly cried for God's glory to appear" 
 (G. A. Smith) — hark! from the temple: hark! it is Jehovah 
 himself issuing forth to punish his enemies. 
 
 7-9. These verses describe the speedy and miraculous increase 
 of Zion, no doubt through the return of her scattered children 
 (49 : 17-21) — a picture that appropriately follows the destruction 
 of her enemies. 
 
 She (vs. 7), Zion. For a land (vs. 8) read the people of a land. 
 Vs. 9 means that the great work of restoration would assuredly 
 be brought to complete fruition. 
 
 10 f. Read Rejoice, Jerusalem. For that ye may milk out, etc., 
 416 
 
THE BOOK OF ISMAH 
 
 Rejoice for joy with her, 
 All ye that mourn over her : 
 
 11. That ye may suck and be satisfied 
 
 With the breasts of her consolations ; 
 That ye milk out, and be dehghted 
 With the abundance of her glory. 
 
 12. For thus saith the Lord, 
 
 Behold, I will extend 
 Peace to her like a river. 
 And the glory of the nations like an overflowing 
 stream, 
 ^ And ye shall suck thereof ; ye shall be borne upon the 
 side. 
 And shall be dandled upon the knees. 
 
 13. As one whom his mother comforteth, 
 
 So will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted 
 in Jerusalem. 
 
 14. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, 
 
 And your bones shall flourish Hke the tender grass : 
 And the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his 
 serA^ants, 
 And he will have indignation against his enemies. 
 
 1 Gr. their children shall be borne upon the shoulders. 
 
 read, that ye may drain with delight her rich mother-hosom. As a 
 mother her sucking child, so one day would Zion soothe and com- 
 fort her faithful children. 
 
 12. Here, as in 60 : 5 ; 61 : 6, the resources of the Gentiles are to 
 be made contributory to the welfare of Israel. Peace, almost = 
 prosperity. Like a river, cf. 48 : 18. For and ye shall suck, etc., 
 read, with Gr., and your children shall he home upon the side, i.e. 
 of the Gentiles (cf. 49 : 22 ; 60 : 4), and dandled upon their knees. 
 
 13. Whom his mother comforteth : a fine glimpse into Hebrew 
 family life. 
 
 14. Your bones shall flourish, etc. : this figure for the recovery 
 
 2E 417 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 The Judgment (66 : 1 5-1 8a) 
 
 15. For, behold, the Lord will come ^with fire, 
 
 And his chariots shall be Uke the whirlwind ; 
 To render his anger with fury. 
 And his rebuke with flames of fire. 
 
 16. For 2 by fire will the Lord plead, 
 
 And by his sword, with all flesh : 
 
 And the slain of the Lord shall be many. 
 
 17. They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves 
 
 To go unto the gardens, ^ behind one in the midst, 
 
 1 m. in; Gr. as. 2 Gr. with the fire of the Lord shall all the earth he judged and with 
 his sword all flesh. ^ Gr. om. this clause. A Heb. variant reads one in the feminine. 
 Syr. Tar. and two Greek versions otie after another. 
 
 of strength, joy, beauty, may seem forced to us, but not to the 
 Oriental, who frequently mentions the bones when alluding to the 
 welfare of the body (cf. Ps. 32:3). For hand, perhaps loving- 
 kindness. 
 
 66:i5-i8a. The judgment, announced in the last clause of 
 vs. 14, is here elaborated. It is to be universal — upon all flesh 
 (vs. 16) — but more particularly will it fall upon the idolatrous 
 Jews (vs. 17). 
 
 15. With, or rather in fire (cf. Deut. 5 : 22 f.) : Gr. has /i^e fire. 
 Whirlwind : Jehovah rides on the storm-cloud (Hab. 3:8). 
 
 16. Plead, enter into judgment. And the slain, etc. : this clause, 
 which is metrically superfluous, should perhaps be deleted. It 
 may have been suggested by Jer. 25 : 33 ; Zeph. 2:12, and added to 
 indicate the deadly effect of the divine judgment. 
 
 17. The judgment which falls upon all Jehovah's enemies, 
 singles out especially the Jewish apostates, who sanctify and purify 
 themselves for the unlawful rites celebrated in the gardens (cf. 65 : 
 3 ; 1 : 29), and partake of sacrificial meals involving the recognition 
 of the swine (cf. vs. 3), the mouse, and vermin (lit. swarming 
 creatures, as we should read, rather than abomination) as sacred 
 animals. Cf. the somewhat similar description in 65 : 3 f. These 
 rites were performed behind one in the midst, — that is, the mem- 
 bers of the group taking their cue from the leader, who " stood in 
 the midst of them" (cf. Ezek. 8 : 11), and regulated the ceremony 
 
 418 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 66: 19 
 
 Eating swine's flesh, 
 
 And the abomination, and the mouse ; 
 They shall come to an end together, saith the Lord. 
 
 18. For I know their works and their thoughts. 
 
 Jehovah's Glory announced throughout the World: the Com- 
 plete Restoration and Perpetuity of Israel (66 : i8b-22) 
 
 ^ The time cometh, that I will gather 
 
 All nations and tongues ; 
 And they shall come, and shall see my glory. 
 
 19. And I will set a sign among them, 
 
 And I will send such as escape of them 
 
 Unto the nations, to Tarshish, ^ Pul and Lud, ^ that 
 draw the bow, to Tubal and ^ Javan, 
 
 1 Gr. / am coming to gather. 2 Gr. Ptd. 3 Qr. Meshech. * Gr. Greece. 
 
 of purification. In vs. 18, the words know and the time are unrep- 
 resented in the Hebrew ; Duhm happily suggests that their works 
 and their thoughts {i.e. their idolatry and their hostility to the 
 faithful) really belong to vs. 17; thus — the idolaters, who eat 
 swine's flesh, etc., they, their works and their thoughts, shall come 
 to an end together, saith Jehovah. 
 
 66: i8b-22. The nations are gathered together for judgment. 
 Those who survive go to the ends of the earth to declare Jehovah's 
 power and glory. Moved by the message, the distant peoples 
 among whom the Jews have been dispersed bring them back 
 voluntarily to Jerusalem, where some of them are appointed to the 
 office of priest ; and the assurance is given that the Jewish name 
 and race will be eternal. 
 
 18. After the transference of their words and their thoughts to 
 vs. 17, we are justified in rendering vs. 18 as follows: and I am 
 coming to gather all nations, etc., i.e. for judgment. The glory 
 which they are to see (Exod. 14 : 4), and the sign which is to be set 
 among them (Exod. 10:2), is apparently some mighty act of 
 judgment. 
 
 19. The survivors are to be sent throughout the world to declare 
 Jehovah's glory, thus manifested in judgment. There is little 
 
 419 
 
66 : 20 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 To the isles afar off, 
 That have not heard my ^ fame, 
 Neither have seen my glory. 
 
 And they shall declare my glory among the nations. 
 
 20. And they shall bring all your brethren out of all 
 
 the nations 
 For an offering unto the Lord, 
 
 Upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and 
 upon mules, and upon ^ swift beasts, to my holy 
 mountain, 
 Jerusalem, saith the Lord, 
 
 As the children of Israel bring their offering 
 In a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. 
 
 21. And of them also will I take 
 
 ^ For priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. 
 
 2 Pet. 3: 13 22. For as the new heavens 
 
 Rev. 21 : 1 ^^^ ^Yie new earth, which I will make, 
 
 1 Gr. name. ^ m. SV dromedaries. ^Yith. for priests, for Levites; all the versions 
 and some Heb. MSB. for priests and for Levites. 
 
 doubt, however, that the names of the countries to which they go are 
 later insertions (based upon Ezek. 29:10, i2f. ; 38:2; 39:1). 
 Tarshish, in Spain; Put (rather than Put) and Lud in north 
 Africa ; Meshech and Rosh (as we should probably read for that 
 draw the how; cf. Gr.) and Tubal, in northeastern Asia Minor; 
 Javan, Greece. 
 
 20. Your brethren : the Jews scattered in those distant foreign 
 lands are to be restored to Jerusalem by the heathen themselves, 
 who present them gratefully as an ofering to Jehovah. The clause 
 describing the means of transport — upon horses . . . swift 
 beasts — interrupts the metre and is apparently an interpolation. 
 
 21. Some of them, i.e. of the restored Jews, would be made 
 Levitical priests (as we should probably read instead of priests and 
 Levites). The temple will be a permanent feature of the new 
 Jerusalem (vs. 23), and it will need its sacrifices (60 : 7) and priests. 
 
 420 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH 66 : 24 
 
 Shall remain before me, saith the Lord, 
 So shall your seed and your name remain. 
 
 The Fearful Fate of the Apostates (66 : 23 f.) 
 
 23. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to 
 
 another, 
 And from one sabbath to another. 
 Shall all flesh come to worship 
 Before me, saith the Lord. 
 
 24. And they shall go forth, and look 
 
 Upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed 
 against me : 
 For their worm shall not die, ^^- ^ '' ^^ 
 
 Neither shall their fire be quenched ; 
 And they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. 
 
 22. The Jewish race and name will be as eternal as the new 
 heavens and the new earth. 
 
 23. All flesh : probably all (faithful) Jews, as in Joel 2:28. A 
 weekly or monthly pilgrimage to Jerusalem from the ends of the 
 earth is manifestly impossible. 
 
 24. It is no doubt in the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, the 
 earthly antitype of Gehenna (hell), that the faithful are to be con- 
 ceived as going out to view the burning carcases of their apostate 
 brethren, whose torment appears to be regarded as eternal. The 
 carcases are an object of abhorrence to all flesh, but, in accordance 
 with the general temper of the Old Testament, the faithful no doubt 
 look upon them with a certain satisfaction, finding in them a vivid 
 confirmation of their sorely tried faith in the divine government of 
 the world (cf. Mai. 3 : 18) . " It is sad," remarks Duhm, " that the 
 book which contains much of what is most glorious, exalted, 
 significant, and pious in the Old Testament, should now end with 
 such a demonic discord." There is much to suggest that the pas- 
 sage is later than its context — perhaps indeed very late. 
 
 421 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adonis, 130. 
 Agriculture, 186 f. 
 Ahaz, 9. 
 Ariel, 188. 
 
 Ashdod, capture of, 4. 
 Asherim, 129. 
 Assyria, 2 flf. 
 
 Babylon, 108 ff., 143 ff., 247 fi. 
 Beltis, 93. 
 
 Cornerstone, 184. 
 Cyrus, 248, 296, 
 
 Damascus, 127: 
 Deutero-Isaiah, 247 flf. 
 
 message of, 249 f. 
 
 style of, 256 f. 
 Dew of lights, 174. 
 Dragon, 175. 
 
 Edom, 218. 
 Egypt, 133, 195, 204. 
 Eliakim, 153 f. 
 Ethiopia, 131. 
 
 Fasting, 373. 
 
 Gressmann, 74. 
 Guthe, 10. 
 
 Heliopolis, 138. 
 Hezekiah, 225 flf. 
 Holiness, 65. 
 
 Isaiah, arrangement of book, i f . 
 call of, 64. 
 faith of, 10, 72, 199. 
 literary problems of, 13. 
 style of, 12, 55. 
 
 Isaiah, times of, 2 flf. 
 
 LeontopoHs, 138 f., 140. 
 Leviathan, 175, 
 
 Merodach-baladan, 243. ' 
 
 Moab, 121 flf. 
 
 Nebuchadrezzar, 247. 
 
 Necromancy, 83. 
 
 New Jerusalem, 346, 384 ff. 
 
 Osiris, 93. 
 
 Play upon words, 57, 77. 
 
 Rahab, 333. 
 
 Sabbath, 361, 377. 
 
 Sacrifice, 28. 
 
 Samaria, 180. 
 
 Sargon, 4 f . 
 
 Sennacherib, 5 f., 225 ff. 
 
 Servant of Jehovah, 251 ff., 339, 345 f. 
 
 Shalmaneser IV, 4. 
 
 Shebna, 152. 
 
 Shiloah, 78. 
 
 Tiglath Pileser, 3 f. 
 Trito-Isaiah, 355 ff. 
 
 message of, 359. 
 
 style of, 361. 
 Tyre, 155 ff. 
 
 Uzziah, 6, 40. 
 
 Virgin, 73 f. 
 
 World-judgment, 160 ff. 
 
 423 
 
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