;\ 
 
 
 .<.^/ 
 
COMMENTARY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, 
 
COMMENTARY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BOOK OF ISAIAH 
 
 CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND PROPHETICAL; 
 
 INCLUDING A 
 
 REVISED ENGLISH TRANSLATION 
 
 Wiiti) hxtvotantion antr Slpprntiices; 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF SCRIPTURE PROPHECY, THE LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OF ISAIAH, THE GENUINENESS OF THE LATER PROPHECIES, 
 
 THE STRUCTURE AND HISTORY OF THE WHOLE BOOK, 
 
 THE ASSYRIAN HISTORY IN ISAIAH'S DAYS, 
 
 AND VARIOUS DIFFICULT PASSAGES. ^___ 
 
 
 BY THE V ,• • 
 
 ^:. 
 
 REV. T. R."bIRKS "'' 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL THEOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 
 
 Hontron : 
 
 MACMILLAN & Co. 
 
 1878. 
 
 \^AU Rights reserved.'\ 
 
CDambritigc : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
' PRIITCETCIT ^^ 
 rttC. MAHlbai 
 
 THSOLOGIOi.Li 
 PREFAG 
 
 The following Commentary needs a few words of preface, to 
 explain how it arose, and the form in which it appears, with 
 some further and fuller remarks on its distinguishing features, 
 and the objects which have been chiefly kept in view in its 
 preparation. 
 
 In the spring of 1864, on the lamented death of Dr M'Caul, 
 I received an earnest request from the Editor of the Speaker's 
 Commentary, and also from the Archbishop of York, to under- 
 take the Book of Isaiah, which had been allotted to that 
 eminent scholar. An earlier request, to undertake some book or 
 other of the Old Testament still unoccupied, had been declined by 
 me a few months before. But tills fell in so much with my own 
 previous studies, and was so attractive in its own nature, from my 
 strong hope that I could throw some fresh light on the internal 
 harmony of the whole book, that I felt it my duty to accept 
 the task. From April, 1864 to June, 1865 was devoted almost 
 exclusively to its fulfilment. The MS. notes were then com- 
 mitted to the publisher and editor, as there was a delay I had 
 not expected in the progress of the general work. I intended 
 to give them a last revision, when the time drew near, and 
 then to complete the introduction, and add some Appendices. 
 Meanwhile I was called to other duties, and occupied partly 
 with publishing three other works, designed for tlie defence of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 • In the spring of 1869 the Editor sent me a copy of his Ex- 
 cursus on Exodus for private criticism, and at the same time said 
 that the first part of the Commentary would be ready at the 
 close of that year. Soon after I applied to the Publisher for 
 my MS., to give the notes a last revision, and conform them to 
 some rules laid down by the conductors of the Commentary 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 since they were written. In a few weeks I received a brief 
 note from the Editor, proposing to return it to me, as he did 
 not think it suitable for the intended Commentary, because 
 the notes were too much mingled with the text, and too homi- 
 letic. The engagement, in consequence of which, to my great 
 regret, the labour of fifteen months had lain idle four years 
 in his hands, thus came very suddenly to an end. 
 
 The disappointment, however, has been attended with a 
 partial gain. I have been at liberty to mould the work, and 
 complete it more freely, according to my own plan, in a form 
 which I think more desirable than would have been permitted 
 me before. There has been no change in the homiletic charac- 
 ter of the notes, of which I am quite unconscious. But their 
 mixture with revised renderings, which was difficult to avoid 
 under the condition prescribed in the Speaker's Commentary, 
 that no revision should appear in the text, has been easily 
 remedied, the cause having ceased out of which it mainly 
 arose, and the text itself being now given in a carefully revised 
 form. The church, I trust, will have a double benefit, from the 
 commentary of Dr Kay, my intended successor in the general 
 scheme, as well as from my own. I feel deeply thankful to 
 the Archbishop of York, whose kind urgency led me at first to 
 accept a task, in the fulfilment of which I have found both profit 
 and pleasure, and hope to be some help to the faith and know- 
 ledge of many Christian readers ; while I cannot but regret the 
 long delay of the Editor in forming his own decision, and 
 thereby freeing me from the restraint of an engagement, entered 
 into at his own earnest request, which had shut me out from 
 any use of fifteen months' labour for four whole years. 
 
 I turn now to a more important subject than this brief 
 explanation how the work arose, a statement of its plan and 
 main features, and the objects chiefly kept in view in its pre- 
 paration. 
 
 I. The work contains, first, the text of Isaiaii in a carefully 
 Revised Translation, as the natural anti prt^ipcr basis of e\cry 
 critical and exact exposition. 
 
PREFACE. ;vii 
 
 Our Authorized English Version of the Bible is doubtless 
 one of the best ever made in any tongue. A wealth of associa- 
 tions has gathered round it in the course of three centuries, and 
 its circulation has been wider than of any other book or version 
 of the Bible in the history of the world. It leaves little to be 
 desired for ordinary practical use by English Christians, and 
 there can be no urgent need for a public change. No revision by 
 one or more individuals, or by a single group of revisers, like 
 those appointed by the Southern Convocation, can displace it, 
 or ought to displace it in general use, till sifted and tried, 
 revised, and perhaps re-revised, by a wider range of scholars 
 and English readers. These last, as well as learned scholars, 
 have a full right to be heard on all questions connected with 
 the force, clearness, rhythm, and style, of an English version. 
 Wide departure from the one actually in use would be a change 
 for the worse, and no real improvement. 
 
 On the other hand, our Authorized Version, beyond doubt, 
 is human, imperfect, and capable of being improved. It is 
 the plain duty of those, who have learfting and ability for 
 the task, to give less learned Christians as correct, clear, and 
 forcible a version of Scripture as possible, in their own 
 tongue. A Critical Commentary is the natural occasion for 
 such attempts at improvement. Such works are designed for 
 those readers, who are not content with a loose and general 
 knowledge of the word of God, but who seek to attain a clear 
 view of the true scope and exact meaning of each part of the 
 Divine message. The slightness of the total change, in a wise 
 revision, will tend to strengthen, not to destroy, confidence in 
 the substantial accuracy and excellency of the received version. 
 But the effect will be like the removal of small spots and 
 weather-stains from a window, through which we look out 
 on some wide and goodly landscape. No feature of the 
 prospect will be changed, but the view of every part will be 
 clearer, and of some few, very perceptibly clearer than before. 
 
 Marginal readings alone, or the mention of a few changes 
 in distinct type in foot-notes, cannot at all fulfil the chief object 
 of such a revision. They leave all the spots and weather-stains 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 on the glass, to distract the eye, and obscure the view, and 
 merely add a notice that they exist at such and such points, 
 and that we can only sec quite clearly when they are removed. 
 The true aim should be that the translation may be a trans- 
 parent medium, through which an English reader may perceive, 
 as far as possible, the exact meaning of the original Scripture. 
 But a few changes in the foot-notes alone, with nine-tenths of 
 the readers, are practically the same as the absence of all revi- 
 sion ; while for those who consult them, and try to replace the old 
 rendering by the new, there is a maximum of distracting atten- 
 tion fixed on the change, and a minimum of real improvement. 
 Those slighter touches, which make up by their number for 
 their separate minuteness, must, on such a plan, be passed by, 
 and wholly sacrificed. 
 
 The plan, then, prescribed in the Speaker's Commentary, 
 of keeping an unrevised translation in the text, and pointing 
 out a few proposed changes, in conspicuous type, in the notes 
 only, seems to me to sacrifice one main part of the benefit 
 attainable in such a work. A version, made as good and faith- 
 ful as the skill of the expositor can attain, is the proper and 
 natural basis of every critical and exact exposition. And this 
 should be presented at once to the eye of the reader, as the 
 basis of the work ; and any notice of the changes, whether 
 slight or more important, should be given separately, so as not 
 to mar the simple impression of the inspired Scripture, when 
 presented in a clear and accurate form. 
 
 The Revised Translation is here given in paragraphs, to 
 follow as closely as possible the real transitions of thought ; but, 
 for easier reference, its number is still prefixed immediately to 
 each verse, and not placed at the side. The so-called metrical 
 arrangement, often introduced, has been rejected, in the full 
 conviction that it is a change for the worse, and no improve- 
 ment. It introduces a number of unequal pauses to the eye, 
 which have no counterpart in the sense, and no real warrant in 
 the practice of Hebrew writing. The censure of Dr Alexander 
 is very just, that "far from enhancing the effect of Isaiah's sen- 
 tences, it greatly mars it, and converts a numerous prose into 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 the blankest of all blank verse, exciting expectations that are 
 not realized, suggesting the idea of poetical metre in the strictest 
 sense, and thwarting it by sequences inconsistent with the first 
 principles of prosody." The system, in short, is the creation of 
 false pauses to the eye, which involve by association pauses equally 
 false to the ear also, and are enough to outweigh, in my opinion, 
 the gain derivable from all possible improvements, in detail, on 
 our noble version as it now stands. Let the reader take any 
 page, for instance, of Dr Henderson's version, and read it with 
 the pauses unavoidably suggested by this pseudo-metrical ar- 
 rangement, and I think he will be convinced of the truth of 
 these remarks. The plan is intolerable, unless the voice of the 
 reader reverses the work of the editor, and restores the passage 
 to its natural form. 
 
 Reasons for the Varied Renderings are given in many cases, 
 but in others are omitted, since they would have added to the 
 size of the work, without an equivalent gain to the reader. The 
 departure from the Authorized Version is much less than in 
 every purely critical version which I have compared ; but I have 
 omitted no change, however slight, which appeared to me, 
 in the best exercise of my judgment, a sensible improvement, 
 when accuracy, terseness, and rhythm or euphony, are all 
 considered, which sometimes weigh in opposite scales. A 
 seeming gain in accuracy may often be outweighed by a 
 sensible loss in force of expression, or flow and freedom of 
 style. 
 
 II. The second aim of the work is Direct Exposition. The 
 works I have chiefly consulted and compared for this end 
 are, among earlier writers, the learned and massive folios of 
 Vitringa, and of the more recent, the Latin Scholia and Com- 
 mentary of Rosenmiiller, the German works of Drechsler, 
 Hahn, Knobel, Stier, and Delitzsch, and in our own lan- 
 guage, of Drs Henderson and Alexander. The last of these 
 gives also very fully the views of other German writers, Gese- 
 nius, Ewald, Umbreit, Maurer, De Wette, and many others, in dis- 
 puted passages. Several other works, of course, have been used 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 for occasional reference. My aim has been to j^ivc, in all cases, 
 the results of a careful examination and comparison of the views 
 of these different critics, which are sometimes widely divergent, 
 but in the simplest form for the use of general readers. In more 
 important cases of divergence the chief opinions have been given, 
 with the names of their advocates, and the reasons of the view 
 preferred. 
 
 The object I have sought to keep steadily in view is to make 
 the direct meaning of the text, and the series and connection 
 of the thoughts, plain to the attentive reader, I have for- 
 borne merely homiletic applications of the prophecy, except 
 here and there in a passing sentence. On the other hand, I have 
 aimed at continuous commentary, approaching so far to the 
 nature of paraphrase ; rather than at a series of unconnected 
 critical remarks, which would leave one most important element 
 of exposition, the sequence and structure of the prophecy, 
 and the nature of its transitions, wholly unexplained. Thus, 
 in some cases, results given in a few lines may be the fruit 
 of hours and days of careful study ; having been written out at 
 first at greater length, and then compressed in one or two 
 revisions, so as to meet the limit reasonably imposed at first 
 on the scale and extent of the general commentary. In two 
 cases only a conjectural change of reading has been preferred, 
 from the authority of the LXX., or from internal evidence 
 alone, Isaiah ix. 3, xxix. 13, involving the omission of Vau in 
 one case, and the change of Yod to Vau in the other. With 
 these exceptions the Masoretic reading, and generally the 
 Masoretic punctuation, has been strictly followed. 
 
 III. A third main object of the work has been to unfold 
 the structure of this Book of Isaiah, and the mutual relation 
 of its parts, and thus to confirm the genuineness and unity 
 of the whole prophecy, which have lately been so much 
 assailed. Two Appendices of some length have been devoted to 
 this topic, and condense, I think, an amount of internal as well 
 as external evidence in confirmation of the constant faith of 
 Jews and Christians for more than two thousand years, which 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 ought abundantly to satisfy every reasonable mind. The same 
 subject enters largely into the headings of the different sections, 
 and is kept in view continually in the notes themselves. The 
 direct testimony of our Lord and his Apostles, in the New 
 Testament, ought alone, with every Christian, to settle the ques- 
 tion, and outweigh a thousand subtle fancies and guesses of 
 modern sceptics, however eminent in Hebrew learning. But 
 closer study, and the analysis of their objections, have greatly 
 deepened these first impressions ; and have revealed an amount 
 of internal evidence for the Isaian authorship of the whole, which 
 scarcely admits of sensible increase, from the variety of the 
 elements of which it is composed. 
 
 There are some passages, on which I hope that new light 
 will especially have been thrown in the present volume ; the pro- 
 phecy of Immanuel, the course of Assyrian progress, x, 27 — 34, 
 the Burdens of Philistia and Moab, the Burdens of the South, 
 and of the Valley of Vision, the main features of Sennacherib's 
 campaign, and the whole structure of the Later Prophecies, in 
 their relation to the peaceful close of Hezekiah's reign, and 
 to the shades that gathered anew towards its close, and in 
 the first years of Manasseh. The whole series of predictions 
 is rooted firmly in the history of Isaiah's time, and throws a 
 clear and strong light on that history in its turn. 
 
 IV. A fourth and last object has been to unfold this rela- 
 tion between Isaiah's successive Visions and the circumstances 
 out of which they arose. The wonderful discoveries of the last 
 thirty years at Nimroud, Kouyunjik and Khorsabad, and the 
 progress of cuneiform interpretation, have given this subject a 
 deep and growing interest. Striking confirmations of several 
 main facts in the Bible history have thus been brought to 
 light, and new vividness has been given to their portraiture of 
 the conquests, pride, and arrogance of the Assyrian kings. 
 On the other hand new difficulties have appeared. The con- 
 clusions drawn, by some of the ablest Syrologists, from the 
 slabs and cylinders lately disentombed, clash, in some import- 
 ant particulars, with our present text of Scripture, and also, as 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 I think, with some vital and essential features of the Book of 
 Isaiah, inwrouL^ht into the texture of its whole message. 
 
 It may seem bold to dispute the conclusions of such writers 
 as Dr Hincks and Sir H. and Professor Rawlinson, in a field of 
 research where the two former have won such deserved honour, 
 and the last has the merit of digesting their conclusions, and 
 presenting them in a clear and popular form. It is with sincere 
 reluctance that I have felt compelled to renounce their supposed 
 improvements in the chronology of those days ; and, even 
 on the ground of the evidence adduced by themselves, and on 
 which they build, to vindicate the superior historical con- 
 sistency of the Scripture narrative, as it now stands. But a 
 scepticism is both allowable and wise with regard to recent 
 inferences from half-deciphered remains of oriental despots, and 
 from their boastful bulletins, engraven in stone, and buried in 
 long oblivion along with the idol gods they so zealously wor- 
 shipped, which is neither wise nor safe, Avhcn applied to the 
 sacred oracles of the true and only God. All experience proves 
 the wide contrast, remarked by Plato long ago, between the 
 power of collecting new materials in any department of know- 
 ledge, and of drawing correct inferences from the materials so 
 obtained. The very labour and skill involved in these recent 
 discoveries, the learning they require, and the fascination of 
 each successive step, in surmounting hindrances that seemed 
 insuperable, tend to distort the view of their historical value, 
 as compared with the clear, distinct, and truthful evidence that 
 lies before us in this Book of Isaiah, and the sacred histories. 
 When Sargon informs us, in his inscriptions, that three hundred 
 and fifty kings of Assyria had reigned before him, and that 
 not one of them had achieved Avhat he had done, we are taught 
 a lesson of wholesome distrust as to the truthfulness of other 
 statements in these royal records. 
 
 The view adopted by Professor Rawlinson and others, in 
 deference to the supposed authority of the Assyrian canon 
 (which Dr Mincks himself does not hesitate to call the work of 
 a blunderer, disproved in some main particulars by weightier 
 evidence), distorts and reverses, in my opinion, that main feature 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 in the history of Hezckiah's reign, on which the whole structure 
 of the Book of Isaiah really depends. I think I have shown 
 that it is opposed to the plain laws of history, as well as to the 
 text of Isaiah, and the Books of Kings and Chronicles. A 
 different view, in full harmony with Scripture, agrees better, I 
 believe, with the substantial testimony of the monuments them- 
 selves ; and only requires us to admit such a partial disguise and 
 falsification in Sennacherib's cylinders, as we may be quite 
 certain, even from recent examples, so terrible a reverse 
 would occasion in ancient days, no less than in our own. These' 
 bulletins of the kings of Assyria, though engraven on stone, 
 were subject to no correction from a free press, and newspaper 
 correspondence. They are steeped throughout in the spirit of 
 idolatrous delusion and vainglorious pride. They are panegyrics 
 rather than annals ; and reliance on the perfect accuracy of 
 their statements, when they come into conflict with the words 
 of Scripture, and with the drift and scope of its most central 
 book of prophecy, seems to me a serious error in the comparative 
 estimate of different sources of historical evidence. 
 
 I now commend this work to the blessing of the great Head 
 of the Church, and to the thoughtful and reverent students of 
 the word of God. They will find in it, I trust, some real help to- 
 wards full insight into this wonderful book, and certainly the fruit 
 of earnest and careful thought, with the simple aim to unfold 
 clearly, to English readers, the direct and primary meaning of 
 those sacred visions. Other works, especially that of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln, which has been published while the present 
 notes lay dormant in other hands, have their peculiar excellen- 
 cies, but I hope that this volume may also occupy, with some 
 benefit to the Church, a place of its own. May He, who 
 touched the lips of the prophet with fire from the heavenly 
 altar, fill the minds of all its readers with light, and their hearts 
 with love. 
 
 Trinity Parsonage, Cambridge, 
 Dec. 28, 1870, 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The author is thankful for the intimations he has received from 
 many correspondents of the benefit they have derived from the 
 perusal of his work. 
 
 This Edition is revised throughout. It differs from the first 
 by the omission of the detailed notice of the minute variations 
 from the Authorized Version, and the introduction in its stead 
 in the general series of the notes, of the reasons for the more 
 important changes, and other minor corrections. The First ap- 
 pendix has been further enlarged. An Eighth has been added 
 on the Internal Evidence of the Isaian authorship of chh. Iv — Ixvi. 
 on the two latest divisions of the whole prophecy. A Ninth on 
 ch. Ixvi. and the events of the Last Times. A Tenth and last on 
 the three closing verses of the Book, and the Doctrine of Eternal 
 Judgment. 
 
 Cambridge, 
 IV/iii Tuesday, June wth, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction : 
 
 PAOR 
 
 §1. The Nature of Scripture Prophecy . . . . i 
 
 § 2. The Books of the Prophets .... 6 
 
 § 3. The Life and Times of Isaiah .... 8 
 
 § 4. Structure of the Book of Isaiah .... 10 
 
 §5. First Series of Visions ..... 17 
 
 Commentary: 
 
 I. Earliest Prophecies, Chh. I. — XII. ... rg 
 
 II. The Burdens on the Nations, Chh. XIII.— XXVII. . . 75 
 
 III. Woes on Israel and the Nations, Chh. XXVIII.— XXXV. 138 
 
 IV. Historical Episode, Chh. XXXVL— XXXIX. . . 176 
 V. Later Prophecies, First Series, Chh. XL. — XLVIII. . 195 
 
 VI. Later Prophecies, Second Series, Chh. XLIX. — LX. . 243 
 
 VII. Latest Prophecies, Chh. LXL— LXVI. ... 297 
 
 Appendices: 
 
 I. On the Genuineness of the Later Prophecies . . 327 
 
 II. Structure of the Later Prophecies . . . . 360 
 
 III. The Assyrian Reigns in Isaiah .... 368 
 
 IV. The Prophecy of Immanuel .... 394 
 V. The Historical Groundwork of the Burdens . . . 397 
 
 VI. The Assyrian Overthrow . . . . . 401 
 
 VII. The Controversy with Gentile Idolatry . . . 408 
 
 VIII. The Internal Evidence of the Isaian authorship of Chh. 
 
 LV.— LXVI 411 
 
 IX. On Ch. LXVI., and the events of the Last Times. . .416 
 
 X. On Ch. LXVI. 22—24, and the Doctrine of Eternal Judgment 420 
 
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 § I. The Nature of ScRirxuRE Prophecy. 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 
 These opening words of the Bible are a key to the true nature 
 of all Divine revelation. Pantheism makes revelation impossi- 
 ble, since the Revealer and the persons to whom He reveals 
 himself are then confounded together. It mingles together an 
 unholy Deity and a deified creation, in a self-originated, self- 
 developing universe. But the fact of creation establishes a deep 
 contrast between the holy and almighty Creator, and the 
 creatures He has made. It becomes the first premise in every 
 just view of Divine Revelation. 
 
 The doctrine of the Fall comes next in order. This includes 
 the great fact that men, in every age, are conscious of guilt and 
 shame ; that they shrink from the presence and voice of a holy 
 God ; and need to be recalled from their hiding-places by His 
 powerful voice, before they can hold intercourse with their un- 
 seen Creator. These truths have first of all to be received, 
 before the soul of man can find access to that sanctuary, where 
 God reveals his work and ways to the humble and pure in 
 heart. 
 
 A revelation from the holy God to sinful man must bring 
 with it some clear marks of its Divine origin, before it can 
 rightly claim to be received and obeyed. His power, wisdom 
 Ilf7 B. I. I 
 
2 ISAIAH. 
 
 and goodness cannot indeed be fully revealed in every message ; 
 but enough must be revealed to prove that its true source is not 
 from men, but from God. Hence arise three kinds of evidence ; 
 Miracles, or works of superhuman power ; Prophecy, or marks 
 of superhuman foresight ; and Moral Beauty, or signs of a good- 
 ness, holiness, and moral excellence, truly Divine. 
 
 These three elements cannot indeed be wholly separated in 
 any message of God. The attributes on which they depend all 
 coexist in the fountain itself, and cannot be parted in the 
 streams that flow from it. Yet still there is a natural order in 
 their distinct and successive exhibition. For Divine Power is ^ 
 an attribute, of which the actings are open even to the senses 
 of the ignorant and profane. Foreknowledge, that its evidence 
 may be seen, requires some previous intelligence, some culture 
 of the understanding, if not of the heart. But Moral Goodness, 
 though it must make some impression, wherever the conscience 
 is not wholly deadened and debased, exercises its chief influence 
 and power of conviction on the good alone. Thus Miracles 
 are first in order, but lowest in dignity, among the proofs of 
 Divine Revelation. The prediction of things to come holds a 
 middle place. The last in order, but the fullest and most con- 
 clusive to hearts prepared to discern it aright, is the evidence of 
 Moral and Spiritual Goodness. For the moral recovery of sinful 
 men is the main object of all Divine Revelation. And this 
 recovery must have begun, and made some progress, before 
 men can be competent to discern clearly the real harmony 
 between the actual contents of God's messages, and the moral 
 perfections of Almighty God, whose messages they are. 
 
 This order, which results from the nature of Revelation, is 
 the same which meets us actually in the word of God. Sacred 
 Histories, in which one main feature is the record of acts of 
 almighty power, and of signal wonders wrought to confirm the 
 authority of God's messages, come first in order. The Books of 
 Prophecy come much later, where the record of miracles is 
 replaced by a large revelation of things to come. At length, 
 in the Gospels, we arrive at the full manifestation of Divine 
 Love and Goodness in the person and work of the sinless 
 Redeemer of mankind. And even here the same order reap- 
 pears, and is repeated once more. Miracles of power, fulfilled 
 prophecies, and the witness of the Spirit, revealing the moral 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 excellency of the Saviour, are three successive elements of that 
 evidence, upon which Christianity itself is founded, and to which 
 the appeal is made by the Apostles and first teachers of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 These three forms of evidence, essential in all true revela- 
 tion, are also closely interwoven, like the glorious attributes on 
 which they depend. The miracles of Scripture, from the typical 
 character which prevails in them, are virtual prophecies. They 
 also consist mainly in acts of judgment or of mercy, and thus 
 convey moral lessons of the most weighty and impressive kind. 
 The Earlier Histories, though not directly predictive, still in- 
 clude many prophecies, the germs which blossom out in the later 
 books of Scripture. They also abound in moral examples and 
 warnings, the fertile seeds of every variety of moral teaching 
 and spiritual truth. Again, the prophetic era begins with 
 Elijah and Elisha, who have left no written work, but whose 
 miracles almost rival those of the Exodus, which sealed and 
 attested the earlier messages of God. Miraculous history is 
 one integral part of the books of Isaiah and Daniel ; while that 
 of Ezekiel begins with a supernatural sign to the prophet him- 
 self, and contains another addressed to the children of the cap- 
 tivity. A high moral tone, it is no less evident, pervades this 
 whole series of prophetic messages from first to last. 
 
 We have thus a plain and simple answer to the question, — 
 what is the vital distinction of Scripture Prophecy .■• A high 
 spiritual purpose it shares with all the messages of God ; but 
 its own especial feature, in contrast with other parts of Scrip- 
 ture, is the revelation of things to come. It does not consist of 
 dim guesses at the future, made by good and holy, but fallible 
 and dimsighted men, in the exercise of their own spiritual 
 faculties alone. It consists of predictions, which claim for their 
 true Author the living God, "declaring the end from the 
 beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not 
 yet done." Is. xlvi. lo. 
 
 This view of Sacred Prophecy results necessarily from the 
 nature of God the Revealer, and also of man himself, to whom 
 the revelation is made. It is also confirmed by many plain 
 statements of the word of God. It is distinctly affirmed, at 
 least a dozen times, in this one book of Isaiah alone. The later 
 prophets resume the message of the earlier ones with this same 
 
 1 — 2 
 
4 ISAIAH. 
 
 truth. Daniel "understood by books" the fulfilment of Jere- 
 miah's prediction, that the captivity would last seventy years. 
 Zcchariah appeals to the double fact, that the fathers and the 
 prophets were dead, but that the predictions to the fathers by those 
 prophets had been fulfilled. Zech. i. 5, 6. An appeal to the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament, as fulfilled in Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, and forming a clear proof that He was the Messiah, is one 
 conspicuous feature of the Gospels. It be^^ins with their first 
 sentences, and reaches, in Acts xxviii., to the very close of the 
 sacred history. It begins and closes the two main Epistles of 
 the great Apostle of the Gentiles, to the Roman Christians, and 
 to his own believing countrymen. Rom. i. 2, xvi. 26, Heb. i. i, 
 xii. 26. And St Peter repeats and condenses the same truth in 
 his Divine aphorism, that " prophecy came not in old time by 
 the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost." It stands out in clear relief at the open- 
 ing and close of the great prophetic book of the New Testa- 
 ment, the crown and completion of all the rest. Rev. i. i, xxii. 
 6, 10. All this magnificent array of seers and prophets, of 
 heavenly dreams, extatic visions, and angelic messages, was 
 never devised to give currency to imperfect and mistaken 
 guesses of mere fallible men. The true aim was far higher 
 and nobler, worthy of the sublime agency employed, when 
 " the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew 
 unto his ser\'ants things which must shortly be done." 
 
 The criticism which starts from a denial of this essential 
 character of Scripture prophecy, as it begins with unbelief, can 
 end only in confusion and darkness. No secondary appliances 
 of human learning can save it from a double sentence of barren- 
 ness and blindness. It wearies itself in vain, like the stricken 
 Sodomites, to find the door. With a starting point so false, real 
 insight into the contents and structure of the prophecies must 
 be impossible. The dishonour done to the majesty of God's 
 word recoils upon those who offer it. They seek to degrade it 
 from its true dignity into the mere guess-work of man ; and a 
 chaos of hypotheses that exclude, and of guesses that contra- 
 dict each other, is usually the final result of their most diligent 
 and persevering labours. 
 
 Our knowledge of the manner in ^hich truth was revealed 
 to the })rophcts must be drawn, simply and entire!)-, from the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 statements of the word of God. We are told that God spake 
 " by them;' Heb. i. i, so that their message is stamped in every 
 part with His authority ; that they were "holy men of God," and 
 "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Pet. 1. 21. 
 A higher Power controlled and guided their human faculties, as 
 the horse is guided by its rider ; and yet they were not passive, 
 unconscious instruments. Their natural gifts and powers were 
 used, not superseded or extinguished, in the messages they were 
 chosen to convey. These messages were given TroXu/aepcS? kuI 
 TToA-UTpoTTCt)?, in various portions, and different methods or styles. 
 The varied occasions when they were given, and the diverse 
 character of the seers or prophets, had their full reflection in the 
 messages themselves. And yet the prophet's own knowledge 
 did not measure the real extent and meaning of his prophecy : 
 c)ii the contrary, they often desired to gain fuller insight into 
 their own predictions, and the nature of the visions they re- 
 ceived, I Pet. i. 10 — 12. There were varieties, also, in the mode 
 of revelation. Moses conversed with the Lord " face to face, as 
 a man speaketh with his friend," but dreams and visions were 
 the more usual mode of Divine communication, Nu. xii. 6 — 8. 
 The words of the message were sometimes given by express 
 dictation, Jer. vii. i — 16, but at other times prompted by an 
 impulse from within, like a burning fire, Jer. xx. 9. At other 
 times visions were presented to the eye of their mind, which 
 they were simply to record as faithful witnesses and historians. 
 But in every case they were "the Lord's messengers, speaking 
 in the Lord's message to the people," Hag. i. 13. God's instru- 
 ments were living men, with their natural gifts unimpaired ; and 
 they were "holy men of God," trained and fitted by spiritual 
 discipline and experience for their high ofiice. But also they 
 were "borne along by the Holy Ghost;" and His perfect and 
 prescient wisdom extended its control throughout the whole 
 message. Thus it became that Scripture, which "cannot be 
 broken." Even the Eternal Son of God would pour out His 
 soul unto death, submit to the worst reproach and deepest 
 agony, and be " numbered with the transgressors," rather than 
 one single jot or tittle should prove mistaken, and remain unful- 
 filled, in these lively oracles, these true sayings of God. 
 
ISAIAH. 
 
 § 2. The Books of the Prophets. 
 
 The Books of the Old Testament from Isaiah to Malachi 
 (except the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Book of Daniel) 
 arc styled in the Jewish Canon "the Later Prophets," in contrast 
 to the histories of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which are 
 called "the Earlier Prophets." The twelve Minor Prophets, 
 from Hosea to Malachi, are reckoned in the same canon as 
 one single book. The Book of Isaiah, as the earliest of the 
 four greater Prophets, comes first in order in this prophetic 
 division of the Old Testament, and takes precedence of the 
 rest. It is desirable, then, to offer a few remarks on the com- 
 mon purpose and mutual relation of these books of Old Testa- | 
 ment prophecy. 
 
 Sacred Prophecy, from Abraham to Christ, has four distinct 
 and successive stages. Its main root and source is the promise, 
 with which the New Testament begins, of the Seed of Abra- 
 ham, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. 
 In the first stage, from Abraham to Moses and Joshua, this 
 promise was unfolded in its lower and outward sense, the his- 
 torical pledge of what was deeper, and lay beyond. The seed 
 of Abraham after the flesh, but still in the sacred line of the 
 covenant, grew from a family into a nation, until all the tribes 
 had come to ocupy their predicted inheritance. 
 
 The second stage, reaching from Joshua to David and 
 Solomon, was marked by the advance of the nation into a king- 
 dom. Internal discord, and the strength of heathen adversaries, 
 proved their need of a further gift beyond the inheritance 
 of the land ; a righteous King, who might be the Shepherd of 
 the chosen people, and execute justice and judgment in the 
 earth. The main subject of prediction, in this period, was the 
 trials and deliverances of Israel, until the promotion of David, and 
 the promise made to his line, and the reign of Solomon, in whom 
 the typical kingdom reached its highest point of worldly great- 
 ness. The prophecies of the more distant future, during this 
 second period, seem to have been in types alone. This typical 
 character may be traced clearly in Moses and Joshua, in Barak 
 and Gideon, and in Samson the Nazarite, whose victories, great 
 in his life, were still greater in the hour of his death. But its 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 fullest exhibition is in David, the king after God's own heart, 
 triumphant through bitter conflict ; and in Solomon, the Prince 
 of peace, of surpassing wisdom, the Builder of the Temple of 
 God. 
 
 The third period reaches from the death of Solomon to the 
 Captivity, and the fall of the first temple. Here the type and 
 antitype diverged, and began to stand in evident contrast. The 
 typical kingdom was rent by the great schism of Jeroboam, and 
 gradually declined, till the tabernacle of David was broken 
 down, and became a ruin. But the promise of Messiah, the Son 
 of David, and of the redemption of Zion and Israel, and of all 
 nations through Him, came out into full relief. A new covenant 
 was announced, and the first covenant, waxing old, was ready 
 to pass away. The first prophecy of this period, given to Solo- 
 mon as soon as the temple was complete, announced its future 
 overthrow, and the fall of the kingdom. A second message, given 
 by Ahijah to Jeroboam, foretold the division of the kingdom, 
 the first main step in its downward progress. A third, in its 
 mention of Josiah, and of his reformation shortly before the 
 kingdom fell, limited and defined the platform on which a new 
 and glorious structure of prophetic hope was to be reared. The 
 miracles of Elijah and Elisha form an historical basis of this 
 prophetic period, just as those of Moses are the foundation of 
 the whole legal covenant. 
 
 At length, in the later times of the declining kingdom, 
 almost midway between Moses and Christ, from Jonah to the 
 Captivity, during a space of more than two hundred years, we 
 enter on the main period of Old Testament prophecy. It be- 
 gins, in the Book of Jonah, with a typical prophecy like those 
 of the earlier period. Amidst repeated warnings of judgment 
 coming upon the chosen people for their sins, the type withers 
 and fades, that the antitype may shine out more clearly. At 
 every step in the decay of the kingdom, the voice of promise 
 grows fuller and louder, announcing Immanuel, the King from 
 the stem of David, who would reign and prosper, and execute 
 judgment and righteousness in the earth. 
 
 The fourth and last stage reaches from the Return to the 
 close of the Canon, and onward to the Birth of Christ. In the 
 Book of Daniel, which links the two periods, three new features 
 appear ; a comprehensive view of the future history of the world, 
 
8 ISAIAH. 
 
 great minuteness of historical detail, and a distinct definition 
 of the time of Messiah's coming. Here the predictive character 
 of God's message reaches its height, and forms the basis of all 
 the later prophecies of the New Testament. The two prophets, 
 Haggai and Zechariah, revive the messages of the earlier pro- 
 phets, renew the promise of the coming Messiah, and add fresh 
 touches to the grand outlines of a picture already given, which 
 revealed the humiliation and sufferings of Christ, and the glory 
 that should follow. Malachi sums up the controversy of God 
 with his rebellious people, renews the promise implied in the 
 name, Jehovah, and proclaims the rising of the Sun of righteous- 
 ness, the coming of the Angel of the Covenant, and of the 
 messenger who would prepare His way. Then prophecy is silent, 
 as stars wane before the sunrise, and revives only in the Song of 
 Zacharias, which announces at length the bright dawning of the 
 promised Dayspring from on high. 
 
 § 3. The Life and Times of Isaiah. 
 
 The family of Isaiah is unknown. A Rabbinical tradition 
 makes his father, Amoz, a brother of king Amaziah. But this 
 seems like a guess from some resemblance of the names, and 
 contradicts the chronology, since the difference of age is not 
 less than eighty years. Kimchi states more honestly that we 
 know not his race, nor to what tribe he belonged. Our know- 
 ledge must be gained entirely from the book itself, and the 
 brief notices in Chronicles and Kings. 
 
 According to the inscription, he prophesied under Uzziah, 
 Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The total length of these four 
 reigns is 113 years. The three last alone amount to sixty-one 
 years. The dates in the book extend from the last year of 
 Uzziah to the fourteenth of Hezekiah, a space, including the 
 extremes, of forty-seven years. Beyond these limits we are left 
 to inference alone. Assuming the whole work to be genuine, 
 he must probably have survived the events of ch. xxxvi, — xxxix. 
 several years, and have lived at least till very near the close of 
 Hezekiah's reign, A Jewish tradition makes him survive that 
 king several years, and suffer martyrdom under Manasseh by 
 being sawn to death. This is rather unlikely, from the absence 
 of Manasseh's name in the fu'st verse, and from the length to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 which his ministry would then extend, but we have no certain 
 proof of its falsehood. It seems highly probable that the reign 
 of Hezekiah and the life of the great prophet ended nearly 
 together. In this case his ministry, if ch. vi. describes his first 
 commission, must have lasted sixty-two years. This is a chrono- 
 logical reason for the opinion, held perhaps by the majority 
 of commentators and critics, that the message in the last year 
 of Uzziah was really his first prophetic mission. Supposing 
 him to be then twenty-four years old, he would be eighty-six 
 at the close of Hezekiah's reign, and about seventy at the time 
 of Sennacherib's siege, and the deliverance of Jerusalem. Hosea, 
 Amos, and Micah, and probably Nahum, were contemporary 
 prophets. Of these Micah alone prophesied in Judah, the rest 
 in Israel. 
 
 The Decline of the kingdom has three main periods. The 
 first reaches from the Schism of Jeroboam to the judgment on 
 the house of Ahab ; the second, from the accession of Jehu to 
 the fall of Samaria and the great overthrow of the Assyrian 
 army ; and the third, from that overthrow to the Fall of the 
 Temple, B.C. 588. The public ministry of Isaiah, so far as it is 
 clearly defined in his book, occupies forty-seven years, at the 
 close of the second period ; but probably continued about fifteen 
 years into the third period, though the exact interval is un- 
 known. 
 
 The reign of Uzziah was long and prosperous. But this 
 prosperity brought with it great evils. Idolatry abounded even 
 in Judah, and pride, worldliness, and selfish luxury, made fatal 
 inroads. Under Jotham open symptoms of decay began ; and 
 when Ahaz succeeded, at an early age, there was an almost 
 entire defection from sound morals and true religion. Heathen 
 alliances were formed, heathenish rites were practised, and new 
 forms of idolatry introduced under royal patronage. At length he 
 sacrificed openly to the gods of Damascus, and closed the doors 
 of the house of God. 2 Chron. xxviii, 24. In his reign Judah 
 was brought very low, and invaded successively by Syria and 
 Ephraim, by Edom and the Philistines, on every side. 
 
 Early in Hezekiah's reign, the Assyrians, having subdued 
 the bordering lands, invaded Israel, and besieged Samaria. The 
 help sought from Egypt proved wholly vain, and the city fell 
 after a siege of three years. Sargon, under whose reign it fell, 
 
lo ISAIAH. 
 
 afterwards invaded Egypt, and seems, both from Is. xx. and his 
 
 own inscriptions, to have gained some decisive victories in the 
 south. At length, in the fourteenth of Ilezekiah, Sennaclierib 
 strove to complete the overthrow of Judah. He took Lachish, 
 assaulted Libnah, and tried to terrify Jerusalem into surrender 
 by the presence of a powerful host, and by mingled threats and 
 promises. In their distress both the king and his people turned 
 to God with hearty prayer. Isaiah, now in the height of his 
 influence as a prophet, whose warnings, thirty years earlier, were 
 being visibly fulfilled, was besought to intercede for them with 
 God. A speedy answer was given. Before Sennacherib had 
 rejoined the besiegers with the rest of his forces, the greater part 
 of his army were destroyed in one night by the visitation of 
 heaven. He fled hastily to Nineveh, where he perished, some 
 years later, by the hand of his own sons. A message to Heze- 
 kiah, promising recovery from his mortal sickness, and a pro- 
 phecy of the Captivity in Babylon after his death, are the last 
 events of Isaiah's life distinctly revealed to us in the Sacred 
 History. 
 
 § 4. Structure of the Book of Isaiah. 
 
 On this subject many controversies have been raised. The 
 earliest view is that of Jerome, adopted by Michaclis and others, 
 that the visions are placed almost or altogether in the order of 
 time. Five notes of time occur : the last year of Uzziah, vi. i ; 
 the expedition of Rezin early in the reign of Ahaz, vii. i ; the 
 year of the death of Ahaz, xiv. 28 ; the expedition of Tartan, xx. 
 I — 6; and the fourteenth of Hezekiah, xxxvi. i. All these are 
 in direct sequence, without any inversion. 
 
 But serious difficulties remain. The first chapter seems to 
 speak of a present, actual desolation of the country by strangers, 
 which does not agree with the reign of Uzziah. The account in 
 ch. vi. reads like the prophet's first commission, and still five 
 whole chapters come before it. In xvii. i, the fall of Damascus 
 seems still future, though it follows a mention, in xiv. 28, of 
 the year of the death of Ahaz. Yet Tiglath Pilcser slew Rezin, 
 and led Damascus captive, early in the reign of that king. The 
 vision, xxviii. i, predicts the fall of Samaria, and yet it comes 
 eight chapters after the mention of Sargon's expedition, when 
 
INTRODUCTION. ii 
 
 Samaria had already fallen. The arrangement by time, then, 
 must at least have some weighty exceptions, even if it does 
 not need to be wholly set aside. 
 
 Others, again, have held that the arrangement is not by time, 
 but by kindred subjects. This is open to equal difficulties in 
 its turn, and is also far more vague in its own nature. A still 
 larger class of modern critics have adopted what Drechsler calls 
 " the theory of despair." They affirm that, from various causes, 
 from interpolations, or the ignorance of transcribers, it has be- 
 come impossible to trace in the book any consistent arrange- 
 ment whatever. So Bertholdt, Koppe, Augusti, Knobel, Ewald, 
 Davidson, and others. On the other hand, some of the latest 
 and ablest German writers, Drechsler, Stier, Hahn, Delitzsch, 
 maintain that a clear and consistent plan may be traced 
 throughout the whole work. The following view, in the main, 
 had been independently formed by the direct study of the pro- 
 phecy, before acquaintance with their kindred solutions, though 
 slightly modified by later comparison with their statements 
 in some secondary details. It is in substantial harmony with 
 the views of Drechsler, Stier, and Delitzsch ; while it presents 
 the subject, I believe, in a simpler form, and discloses more 
 fully the connexion of the prophecies with the history to which 
 they belong. 
 
 The life-time of Isaiah, then, is the first key to the true 
 arrangement of his prophecies. During its course the Assyrian 
 power rose to its height, scourged and wasted the nations, led 
 Ephraim captive, afflicted Judah, dashed itself against the rock 
 of God's promise to Zion and the house of David, and then 
 began to decay, its chief mission being fulfilled. The prophet 
 lived through the gathering of this thundercloud. He saw it 
 burst over his country, was chosen to announce the fall of the 
 destroyer, and survived till just before or after the peaceful close 
 of Hezekiah's reign. Thus his prophecies fall naturally into two 
 main divisions, contrasted in their character and tone, Assyrian 
 and Post-Assyrian. To make this contrast plainer, and show the 
 historical basis on which it rests, four chapters of direct history 
 are interposed between them ; which recount the Assyrian over- 
 throw, the reprieve of the kingdom, and the Babylonian em- 
 bassy. The Assyrian prophecies all converge on the great crisis 
 of Sennacherib's overthrow. The Post-Assyrian diverge from 
 
12 ISAIAH. 
 
 the brief warning of Judah's exile, occasioned by the message of 
 Merodach, when all the royal treasures, and the royal seed of 
 David, would be carried away to Babylon, xxxix. 6, 7. 
 
 Again, Isaiah's ministry before Sennacherib's fall includes 
 three periods, marked by diverse characters. Twenty years, 
 from the last of Uzziah to the third of Ahaz, saw the gradual 
 advance of the Assyrian, through the reign of Pekah, till a first 
 crisis, when Pekah was slain by Hoshea, and Rezin by Tiglath 
 Pileser, and Damascus was sacked and almost ruined. To 
 this corresponds a first series of visions, ch. i. — xii. Its main 
 features are a stern warning, to Israel and Judah, of troubles at 
 hand from the Assyrian; mingled with prophecies of Immanuel, 
 the Prince of peace, the Rod from the stem of Jesse, in whom 
 the Gentiles were to trust, and Zion was to rejoice for ever, 
 
 A second period of sixteen years reaches from the fourth 
 year of Ahaz to the fourth of Hezekiah, when the siege of 
 Samaria began. During its course Ephraim barely survived, 
 and Judah was brought very low through the sin of Ahaz. The 
 Assyrian went on confirming and extending his dominion in all 
 the border lands, but had not resumed any direct aggression on 
 the land of Israel. The Burdens on the Nations, a second series 
 of visions, belong to this period, with a sequel in which warnings 
 of judgment are followed by new messages of grace, ch xiii. — 
 xxvii. This series closes, like the first, with a full promise of 
 the gathering of Israel, ch. xi. 11 — 16, xxvii. 12, 13. 
 
 The third period reaches from the siege of Samaria to the 
 overthrow of the Assyrian host. It is marked by the fall of 
 Israel, and the sore distress of Judah, followed by the speedy 
 destruction of the Assyrian army. The visions begin with four 
 Woes on Israel and Judah, mingled with promises of a signal 
 deliverance. They continue with a Woe on the Assyrian spoiler, 
 a message of judgment to all the nations, and a glorious pro- 
 phecy of the good things to come, ch. xxviii. — xxxv. 
 
 The Later, or Post-Assyrian Prophecies, belong to the peace- 
 ful close of Hezekiah's reign. Hence their order and succession 
 is fixed by no historical changes, but by the nature of that future 
 to which the predictions belong. The Prophet, whose lips had 
 so early been touched with heavenly fire, attains in his old age 
 to a peaceful and lofty elevation, like that of Moses on Pisgah, 
 whence his c)-c ranges far and w ide over the landscai)e of ages 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 to come. Here also are three divisions, which, with the inter- 
 posed history, complete a sevenfold structure of the whole book. 
 Nine chapters, ch. xl. — xlviii., belong to the nearer future, and 
 predict conjointly the Return from Babylon under Cyrus and 
 the Time of Messiah. A second part, ch. xlix. — Ix., unfolds the 
 Person, Work, and Times of Messiah, from his first Advent in 
 humility and suffering to the full redemption of Zion, A third 
 portion chiefly expands the closing events of this series ; and 
 refers conjointly to the times of Messiah, and the final redemp- 
 tion of Israel, when the branches, long broken off, are to be 
 grafted into their own olive-tree once more. 
 
 Let us now return to the Earlier Prophecies, and the diffi- 
 culties in their arrangement. 
 
 The Temple Vision, ch. vi., has usually been held to describe 
 the first call of Isaiah to his public work. Its date, the last year 
 of Uzziah, is the earliest given. We learn, from ch. i. I, that 
 Isaiah began to prophesy in that reign, and since he survived it 
 full sixty years, its last year is a more probable date for his 
 prophetic calling than any much earlier year. The first mission 
 of Jeremiah was marked by the touching of his lips in vision, 
 and that of Ezekiel by an appearance of the cherubim. Here 
 both features are combined. The analogy confirms the view 
 that the words recount the first calling of Isaiah ; and the 
 question. Whom shall I send .'' further implies that he was now 
 first set apart as the chosen messenger of God. 
 
 How, then, shall we explain the fact that five chapters come 
 before it .-' The answer is quite simple. The voice, " Whom shall 
 I send .-• and who will go for us .''" implies a much fuller message 
 than the two short verses that follow. These were only a pri- 
 vate instruction to the prophet, to prepare* him for the general 
 neglect of his more public message. The words, " hear ye indeed, 
 but understand not," point to the same conclusion. 
 
 Again, ch. ii. — v. describe a state of prosperous ease, which 
 agrees well with Uzziah's reign. We may infer that they formed 
 Isaiah's first public message, given in the year when his com- 
 mission was received. The words "I saw also" will thus retain 
 their most natural sense, and will imply that this Temple Vision 
 dates in the same year with the previous chapters, though the 
 event itself was slightly earlier. The prophet first gives his 
 public message. He then records the solemn wa}' in which his 
 
14 ISAIAH. 
 
 commission was given, and the caution which had prepared him 
 to expect the general unbelief with which it would be received. 
 
 The first chapter raises a question of still greater difficulty. 
 Grotius, Cocceius, and Hengstenberg refer it to the reign of 
 Uzziah ; Calvin, Lowth, and Hendewerk, to Jotham : Hensler, 
 Gesenius, Maurer, Knobel, and Havernick, to Ahaz ; and Jarchi, 
 Vitringa, Michaelis, Paulus, Eichhorn, Umbreit, Bleek, Ewald, 
 and Alexander, to the reign of Hezckiah. The description of the 
 country as desolate, and the cities as burned with fire, could apply 
 to the reign of Uzziah only by prophetic anticipation. This is 
 Hcngstenberg's solution, but the reasoning of Vitringa against 
 it seems decisive. This earnest call to repentance, at the very 
 opening of the book, must surely be based on present facts, 
 and not on a vision of the future. And besides, however 
 frequent may be the use of the prophetic present, its intro- 
 duction here would set aside that law of progress, from history 
 to prophecy, from the real to the ideal, from the present with 
 its actual sins, to the future with its bright and glorious visions, 
 which marks the whole book. The reason for this view from the 
 place of the chapter loses all force, if we suppose it to resemble 
 the preface of a modern work, and to have been prefixed by 
 the prophet to a partial collection of the messages already given. 
 Its date would then be that of the collection, and not of the 
 earliest vision or message which the collection might include. 
 
 The real choice seems thus to lie between the reigns of 
 Ahaz and Hezekiah. The stern rebukes of prevailing wicked- 
 ness, and the picture of national distress, agree best with the 
 former, but the mention of zealous temple-worship would rather 
 suggest a date after Hezekiah's reformation. If the chapter 
 were a preface to the whole book, it must be referred to the 
 close of Hezekiah's reign, if not rather to the first years of 
 Manasseh. But if prefixed at first to one portion only, then it 
 will belong to the reign of Ahaz. The public ministry of Isaiah 
 lasted more than sixty years. Is it likely that he would make no 
 collection of his public messages till the close of his life .-* An 
 opposite view is much more probable. The first series alone, 
 ch. i. — xii., is longer than any one of the twelve minor prophets, 
 and includes twenty years of his ministry. The Second Series is 
 quite distinct in character, containing the Burdens of the Nations. 
 It would be natural for the prophet to combine this first series in 
 
INTRODUCTION. i5 
 
 a book, with their own preface, when once they were complete ; 
 and this would be in the third or fourth year of Ahaz. The 
 land had then been desolated by Syria and Ephraim, and by 
 the inroads of the Philistines, Arabians, and Edomites, 2 Chr. 
 xxviii. 5, i6 — 20. The moral corruption was deep and inveterate. 
 The king and princes were openly profane. The faithful city 
 might well be called a harlot, and a home of murderers. One 
 feature alone, at first sight, seems hardly to agree, that the 
 people are reproved for the number of their worthless temple- 
 offerings. It is plain, however, from 2 Ki. xvi. 4, 13 — 15, that 
 even after the conquest of Damascus Ahaz offered public burnt- 
 offerings in the temple ; and the closing of its doors, 2 Chr. 
 xxviii. 24, 25 ; xxix. 7, 19, must have been later in the reign. 
 It is conceivable that Isaiah's stern and public rebuke of these 
 formal services, as belied by their whole conduct, might lead 
 Ahaz, in sullenness and pride, to close the temple altogether. 
 It is plain, from Mic. iii. 9 — 11, that even in the days of Heze- 
 kiah there were grievous public sins. But when the king himself 
 was eminently pious, when Eliakim had been raised to power 
 in fulfilment of God's own promise, and a great outward reform- 
 ation had been made, it is unlikely that so sev^ere a message 
 would be given, with scarcely an allusion to the marked revival 
 of piety in the faithful remnant. But every feature in the chapter 
 is satisfied, if it were the preface to a collection, in the third 
 or fourth year of Ahaz, containing this first series of Isaiah's 
 predictions alone. It would then, of course, include the names of 
 three kings only, and that of Hezekiah would be added when 
 the whole book, some forty years later, was committed to the 
 custody of the faithful in its actual form. 
 
 The First Series, then, will include this opening chapter, 
 and falls naturally, like the whole book of which it is part, into 
 a sevenfold division : ist, The Preface or General Introduction, 
 ch, i. 2 — 3 1 : 2nd, The Earliest Prophecy, ch. ii. — iv. ; 3rd, The 
 Parable of the Vineyard, ch. v. ; 4th, The Prophet's Call, ch. vi. ; 
 5th, The Prophecy of Immanuel, ch. vii. — ix. 7 ; 6th, The Warn- 
 ing of Assyrian conquests, ch. ix. 8 — x. ; 7th, The Times of 
 Messiah, ch. xi. xii. Of these the second, third and fourth 
 will belong to the last year of Uzziah ; and the rest will be con- 
 siderably later, in the second and third years of Ahaz. A com- 
 plete message of warning and promise would thus be given to 
 
i6 ISAIAH. 
 
 the people, almost thirty years before the great overthrow of 
 the oppressing power. 
 
 The Second Series, ch. xiii. — xxvii., has only two express 
 marks of time, xiv. 28, xx. i — 6. The former agrees well 
 with the law of regular sequence. It would imply that one 
 burden only, that of Babylon, had been revealed between the 
 third and last years of Ahaz. Now since Babylon was the 
 power ordained for the final overthrow of Judah, this burden 
 would naturally take precedence of the rest. It might be given 
 about the time of Shalmaneser's accession, when the Assyrio- 
 Babylonian power resumed its career of conquest. The Burdens 
 of ]\Ioab, Damascus, and Egypt, seem to have followed that on 
 Philistia in quick succession. The opening of ch. xvii. need not 
 refer back to the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, but may relate 
 to a completion of the ruin of Damascus by Shalmaneser, 
 and not to the earlier calamity at the death of Rezin. Again, 
 there is no need, from ch. xx., to refer ch. xxi. — xxiii. to 
 Sennacherib's reign, a view forbidden by several marks of time, 
 xxi. 16, xxii. For ch. xx. is a natural supplement of the burden 
 on Egypt, and may be placed after it for this reason only, 
 though its proper date lies midway in the third series. 
 
 This second Series appears to be sevenfold, like the first, 
 and may be thus arranged : ist. The Burden of Babylon, ch. 
 xiii. — xiv. 27 ; 2nd, The Northern Burdens on Philistia, Moab, 
 and Damascus, ch. xiv. 28 — xviii. ; 3rd, The Burden of Egypt 
 and its sequel, ch. xix. xx.; 4th, The Southern Burdens, ch. xxi.; 
 5th, The Burden of the Valley of Vision, ch. xxii. ; 6th, The 
 Burden of Tyre, ch. xxiii. ; 7th, The Sequel of the Burdens, 
 ch. xxiv. — xxvii. A marked unity of arrangement will be found 
 to prevail throughout the series. It begins with a renewed 
 statement of the authorship, " The Burden of Babylon, which 
 Isaiah the son of Amoz did see ;" and closes with promises of 
 victory over death, the abasement of all worldly powers, and the 
 blessedness and fruitfulness of that vineyard of the Lord, which 
 forms one central figure in the former series. 
 
 The Third Scries, ch. xxviii. — xxx\^, has its date plainly 
 marked by internal evidence. Its first message seems to have 
 been about the third year of Hezekiah, when the siege of Samaria 
 was ready to begin. The next chapters answer to the time of 
 that siege; while ch. xxxiii. may be placed rather later, when Sen- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 nacherib's invasion was just at hand, or had already begun. 
 The whole will thus lie between the third and the fourteenth 
 of Hezekiah. It begins with denouncing woes on Ephraim, 
 Judah, and Jerusalem. Still there is a marked contrast with 
 the first series in the time of Ahaz, from the greater fulness of 
 hope and comfort which mingles with its warnings. The Woe 
 on Ariel changes into a direct Woe on the mighty spoiler, with 
 a promise of lasting peace and security to the people of God. 
 
 This series, again, falls easily into a sevenfold division : ist, 
 The Woe on Ephraim, ch. xxviii.; 2nd, The Woe on Ariel, 
 ch. xxix.; 3rd, The First Woe on the Egyptian League, ch. 
 XXX.; 4th, The Second Woe and its Sequel, ch. xxxi. xxxii. ; 
 5th, The Woe on the Assyrian, ch. xxxiii. ; 6th, The Judgment 
 of the Nations, ch. xxxiv. ; 7th, The deliverance of Zion, 
 ch. XXXV. 
 
 § 5. First Series of Visions, Chapters I — XII. 
 
 These twelve chapters, though composed of an earlier portion, 
 ch. ii. — vi., in the reign of Uzziah, and of a later, ch. i. vii. — xii., 
 in the reign of Ahaz, still form one connected whole, distinct in 
 character from the Burdens and Woes that follow. Its key-note 
 is given, ch. v. 25, in the earlier message: "Therefore is the anger 
 of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath smitten 
 them.... For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is 
 stretched out still." When the message is resumed early in the 
 reign of Ahaz, after the great promise of the birth of Im- 
 manuel has been given, this warning is referred to, ch. ix. 8, and 
 repeated four times, ix. 12, 17, 21, x. 4, till it issues in the full 
 warning of the Assyrian desolation. Then follows the promise, 
 X. 25: "The indignation shall cease, and mine anger, in their 
 destruction." And now at length, after the full promise of the 
 Rod from the stem of Jesse, the series closes with that song of 
 triumph, xii. i : "In that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will 
 praise thee : though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is 
 turned away, and thou comfortedst me." Thus the second and 
 later part of this series completes a message of warning and 
 hope, left unfinished under Uzziah. In the earlier part the 
 promise, ii. i — 5, takes precedence of the warnings ; and in the 
 later part the warnings, more fully developed, of the sore judg- 
 E. I. 2 
 
i8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mcnts near at hand, vii. 17 — x. 34, issue in an enlarged prophecy 
 of Zion's deliverance, ch. xi., xii. 
 
 This Prefatory vision, ch. i., is best explained as a description 
 of the kingdom under the reign of Ahaz, introducing an early 
 publication, by the prophet himself, of the first series alone. This 
 may have been the fulfilment of the charge, viii. 16, 17, that 
 Isaiah should commit his visions, in a written and collective 
 form, to the faithful, during that interval of unbelief, which was 
 to close in Hezekiah's reformation, and Sennacherib's overthrow. 
 Its words, on this view, receive their fullest emphasis, as a 
 picture of present rebellion and political trouble ; while the 
 chapter serves to unite more closely the two subdivisions of the 
 series, revealed to the prophet at nearly twenty years' interval, 
 at the close of the reign of Uzziah, and under the first years of 
 Ahaz. At the same time the words of threatening, in the open- 
 ing verses, correspond plainly to the promise which alludes to 
 them and reverses them, near the close of the whole book, 
 ch. Ixii. 4. Thus all the successive visions of the prophet are 
 linked together, like the loops of the tabernacle, by marks of 
 internal unity and progress, which reveal themselves more and 
 more clearly to thoughtful eyes, in proportion to the minute- 
 ness with which the comparison is made. 
 
 From all these remarks it appears how little weight is due to 
 the assertion some critics have made, that 'the parts of the book 
 are not arranged in chronological succession,' that 'they proceed 
 from prophets of different times, and do not show the hand of 
 one editor,' that 'no principle has guided the arrangement, and 
 no definite, well-ordered plan can possibly be discovered.' Those 
 whose first principle is unbelief in all genuine prophecy, or in 
 anything higher than clever human guess-work, cannot be ex- 
 pected to discover for themselves, and perhaps hardly even to 
 see, when pointed out by others, the real harmony and beautiful 
 order in the messages of God. But, in reality, the Books of 
 Euclid have scarcely clearer marks of unity and successive de- 
 pendence than will be found, on patient search, in the prophecies 
 revealed to this Divine messenger, when his lips had first been 
 touched with fire from heaven. 
 
FIRST SERIES. CH. I-XII. 
 
 § I. Chap. I. The Prefatory Vision. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ; my people 
 
 V. I. The first verse is plainly a com- 
 mon title of the whole book. It implies 
 that its earliest prophecies were under 
 Uzziah, and the latest under Hezekiah. 
 It is probable (Intr. p. 15) that Isaiah 
 made a first collection of his messages 
 about the third year of Ahaz, when this 
 chapter was prefixed, with its severe re- 
 buke of the national blindness and guilt. 
 The title would then be simply "The 
 vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz," or 
 else include the names of three kings only. 
 ^Vhen the larger collection was made, 
 forty years later, the title would naturally 
 be enlarged to its present form. It now 
 includes both the Earlier and the Later 
 Prophecies. 
 
 This Title implies the Divine authority 
 of the whole book. It answers to the 
 promise Numb. xii. 6, "If there be a 
 prophet among you, I the Lord will make 
 myself known to him in a vision." It 
 implies, further, the Unity of the whole 
 work. These are no fragments, thrown 
 fortuitously together. They form a Gos- 
 pel of the Old Testament, midway in 
 time between Moses and Christ, between 
 the first Passover of the Exodus, and 
 the finished and all-perfect Sacrifice of the 
 Son of God. 
 
 This vision, like all Scripture, contains 
 "doctrine, reproof, correction, and in- 
 struction in righteousness." First, it 
 teaches the people their true state in the 
 sight of God, vv. 2 — 9. Next, it re- 
 proves their grievous sins, and their 
 formal worship, vv. 10 — 15. It ministers 
 correction, by a call to repentance and 
 newness of life, vv. 16 — 20. Then, after 
 a special exposure of the guilt of Jeru- 
 salem and its rulers, vv. 21 — 23, it in- 
 stnicts them in God's righteous purpose, 
 to purge out transgression by judgment, 
 and give full redemption to a faithful 
 remnant, vv. 24 — 31. 
 
 vv. 2, 3. The message of the prophet 
 begins with an echo to the sublime appeal 
 in the song of Moses, the parting voice 
 of the Law — "Give ear, O ye heavens, 
 and I will speak ; and hear, O earth, the 
 wordsof my mouth," Deut. xxxii. i. The 
 subject of each appeal is the same. Moses 
 predicts the perverseness and rebellion of 
 Israel. Isaiah, the foremost of the pro- 
 phets, opens his message by proclaiming 
 that the warning, given seven hundred 
 years before by Moses, is now fulfilled. The 
 same witnesses, summoned before to give 
 solemnity to the warning, must now attest 
 its fulfilment. All angels above, and all 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 
 
 ISAIAH, I. 4—6. 
 
 (loth not consider. 4 Ah ! sinful nation ! a people laden with 
 iniquity! a seed of evil doers, children that arc corrupters! 
 They have forsaken the Lord ; they have despised the Holy 
 One of Israel ; they are gone away backward. 
 
 5 Why should ye be stricken any more ? ye will 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 open 
 sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither 
 
 men below, and all the visil^le works of 
 ( iod, are to give ear with reverence, while 
 Jehovah, the Lord of heaven and earth, 
 ])leads with His rebellious people. When 
 the Creator speaks, all creatures are 
 bound to give ear. 
 
 ' ' The Lord hath spoken. " Even before 
 Ilis words reach His people on earth, they 
 are settled for ever and ratified in heaven. 
 
 The controversy proceeds in the au- 
 dience of the whole universe. (The word 
 they, V. 2 fj' is emphatic.) The most favoured 
 and beloved have been the most perverse. 
 The chosen people have become brutish, 
 and debased themselves below the beasts 
 of the field. Mere animal instinct is a 
 safer guide than reason, perverted by 
 pride and sensual vice. Contempt for 
 God renders men more senseless than 
 bnites themselves. 
 
 V. 4, The Son of God, at Nazareth, 
 "marvelled because of their unbelief," 
 Mark vi. 6. The Holy Spirit begins His 
 review of Israel's guilt with like tones of 
 wonder and shame. They were not sinful 
 only, but deeply 'laden with guilt,' not in 
 act alone, but in nature and heart, by 
 general consent as 'a people,' and by in- 
 heritance from their fathers, 'a seed of 
 evil-doers.' They were not only sinful, 
 but sources of infection to others. Their 
 sin was not only against men, but against 
 (jod, and with every aggravation. They 
 had forsaken Him by haljitual disobe- 
 ilience, added contempt and insult to 
 transgression, and deliberately renounced 
 His service for vain idols. "Niatzu," de- 
 spised, denotes one form of their sin, and 
 not its result in God's anger. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. The Great Physician, in a 
 case so desperate, considers what course 
 He must pursue. Chastisements, though 
 icvere, seem to have failed, and what 
 
 remedy remains? The Divine medicines 
 appear only to aggravate the disease. 
 It is no spot on the surface, but a deep- 
 seated infection, poisoning the springs of 
 life. Their afflictions have been followed 
 by deeper sin. " In the time of his dis- 
 tress did he trespass yet more against 
 the Lord — this king Ahaz," 2 Chr. 
 xxviii. 22. As it was with their king, 
 so with the people. The furnace, in 
 which wax and silver are melted or re- 
 fined, only hardens clay. 
 
 [v. 5. Several translate (Jerome, 
 Lowth, Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, Knobel, 
 Alexander, &c. ) "On what part shall 
 ye be smitten ?" But this is disproved 
 by the next clause, which Knobel calls 
 " loosely strung on," when it is the 
 key-note of the whole passage. Others 
 (Drechsler, Henderson) make it a double 
 question. "Why will ye be further smit- 
 ten? why will ye increase revolt?" But 
 the authorized version, preferred by Cal- 
 vin, Vitringa, and others, is far more 
 emphatic. When God's afflictions only 
 harden, the case of the sinner seems al- 
 most hopeless. The mention of revolt, 
 and the nature of the metaphors, indi- 
 cate a reference to moral and social cor- 
 niption, and not, as Calvin and Hen- 
 derson, &c., to outward calamities only.] 
 
 V. 6. "Sin, when it is finislied, bring- 
 eth forth death." This inward corrup- 
 tion, intellectual and moral disease, sick- 
 ness of head, and faintness of heart, re- 
 vealed itself on the surface in social dis- 
 order and confusion. All classes, higli and 
 low, shared in the calamity. The body 
 politic was full of sores and 'wounds' 
 from open wrong-doing; of 'bruises,' in 
 the discontent anil revengeful i)assions of 
 those who smarteil under oppression; and 
 of 'open sores,' in the open profligacy 
 
ISAIAH, I. 7— ir. 
 
 21 
 
 mollified with ointment. 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 as a booth 
 in a vineyard, as a lodge in a field of melons, as a besieged 
 city. 9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small 
 remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and become like unto 
 Gomorrah. 
 
 10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom ; give 
 ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah ! 1 1 What 
 
 among princes and people. The word, 
 open, or putn/ying, occurs only in Jud. 
 XV. 15, "a new jawbone," and denotes a 
 fresh or still open sore, where no sign of 
 healing has begun. Worst of all, there 
 were none to apply healing medicines, 
 and stay the foul disease. There were no 
 loving and tender hearts, like the good 
 Samaritan, to soothe the afflicted, and 
 lighten their sorrows; and no witnesses 
 for truth and righteousness, to stay the 
 progress of corruption, and stanch the 
 wounds by which society was bleeding to 
 death. 
 
 V. 7. These evils within, the direct 
 fruit of their rebellion, were now joined 
 with sore inflictions from the hand of 
 God. How changed from the times of 
 Solomon, when Judah and Israel dwelt 
 safely, every man under his vine and 
 fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba ! i Kings 
 iv. 25. A dark and cloudy day has 
 settled down on the land of promise. 
 Ephraim has smarted under anarchy and 
 violence, and Assyrian invasion. Judah 
 has been scourged by Syria and Ephraim, 
 by Edomites and Philistines. i Chr. xxviii. 
 Jerusalem is almost left alone in the 
 midst of a ravaged and desolated land. It 
 is a metropolis without a kingdom, a 
 widowed relict of happier times. Com- 
 pared with the reigns of David and Solo- 
 mon, the words are already true — "How 
 doth the city sit solitary, ...that was great 
 among the nations, and princess among 
 the provinces!" Lam. i. i. 
 
 V. 9. A faithful remnant still survived. 
 The covenant of God could not fail, and a 
 holy seed was kept alive in the land. But 
 it was small and feeble, and the general 
 corruption rivalled the cities of the plain. 
 
 Like Sodom and Gomorrah in sin and 
 guilt, they would, except for these righte- 
 ous ones in their midst, have been made 
 like them also in sudden and entire de- 
 struction, [v. 8. Srtccah is a booth, or hut, 
 for watchers to protect the grapes from 
 thieves or foxes. The second word, ntiq- 
 shah, denotes a place or field for Egyptian 
 melons, Num. xi. 5, a fruit highly prized. 
 The last phrase has been rendered, a 
 watch-tower (Hitzig), a captured city 
 (Lowth), or "so is the besieged city" 
 (Gesen., Maur.), or the comparison is ex- 
 plained by making the daughter of Zion 
 the people, as distinct from the city 
 (Alexander). But the true sense seems 
 very clear (Ewald). Zion was not actually 
 besieged; but her isolation, solitude, and 
 distress, through the public calamities, 
 were just the same as if a siege had 
 begun.] 
 
 w. 10—14. The Spirit of God now 
 reproves them sternly as a heathenized 
 and apostate race. "He is not a Jew 
 which is one outwardly." Jerusalem had 
 sunk into a spiritual Sodom, Rev. xi. 8. 
 He, who once called Israel His first-born 
 son, now puts them on a level with the 
 guiltiest of the heathen. The law of God, 
 which ordained sacrifices and solemn 
 fasts, only condemned their heartless and 
 hollow services. Their presence in the 
 temple profaned it. In treading its courts 
 they trod them down, being really heathens 
 in God's sight. Crimes were only made 
 worse by their union with religious hypo- 
 crisy, and God's holy places were profaned 
 by the presence of thieves and murderers. 
 Such services and prayei-s, however mul- 
 tiplied, only increased God's holy displea- 
 sure and aversion. Far from turning 
 
22 
 
 ISAIAH, I. 12—17. 
 
 avail with mc the multitude of your sacrifices, saith the Lord? 
 I am sated with burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed 
 beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, and of 
 lambs, and of he-goats. 12 When ye come to appear before 
 me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread down my 
 courts.'' 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an 
 abomination unto me : the new moons and sabbaths, the calling 
 of assemblies, I cannot endure, iniquity and solemn meeting. 
 
 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth ; 
 they are a burden unto me, I am wearied with bearing t/iem. 
 
 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes 
 from you ; yea, because ye multiply prayers, I \x\\\ not hearken : 
 your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean ; 
 put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes : 
 17 Cease to do evil, learn to do well: seek judgment, redress 
 violence ; judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 
 
 aside His anger, they increased it. Every 
 fresh act of worship, from hearts steeped 
 in sin, and hands that were defiled by 
 blood, only filled up the cup of their guilt, 
 and was really a fresh insult against the 
 majesty of heaven. 
 
 [The inquiry, v. ii, is not what could 
 be the intention of their offerings, but 
 what would they avail with a holy God. 
 The words, "I have no delight," have a 
 fuller emphasis, as in the Hebrew, at the 
 close. The meaning of the reproof is 
 that, in treading God's courts, they pro- 
 faned them, or trod them down, like the 
 Gentiles in St John's temple vision. 
 Again, it is not that the solemn meeting 
 was sinful in itself, but that this union of 
 iniquity with a solemn service was doubly 
 hateful in the eyes of a holy God. Their 
 multiplied prayers were not only the oc- 
 casion, but even the cause, why God re- 
 fused to hearken, because they were acts 
 of mockery and profaneness. ] 
 
 V. 15. "Because ye multiply." More 
 exact and emphatic. Their prayers, being 
 hollow mockeries, were even one main 
 cause of God's holy anger. 
 
 vv. 16 — 20. The reproof of their sin 
 (2 Tim. iii. i6) is followed by "correc- 
 tion," or God's earnest call to repentance 
 and public reformation, (hiilt must lie 
 washed away by pardon, and their souls 
 cleansed by a thorough change of heart 
 
 and life, deep and entire, as under the 
 holy eyes of God. No outward amend- 
 ment is enough. It is the voice of the 
 Son of God, whose "eyes are as a flame 
 of fire;" and "all things are naked and 
 opened unto the eyes of Him with whom 
 we have to do." Rev. ii. i8, Heb. iv. 13. 
 
 Six short precepts unfold the nature of 
 this repentance. "Abstain at once from 
 all acts of oppression, and open injustice. 
 Strive, with persevering efTort, to attain 
 habits of truth, justice, and kindness to 
 your fellowmen. Be upright yourselves, 
 and set your faces against the wrong-doing 
 of others. Be upright as judges, zealous 
 as advocates, in maintaining the cause of 
 the helpless, whom the proud and selfish 
 would trample in the dust." 
 
 v. 18. Whenever the stern rebuke of 
 God has brought his guilt home to the 
 conscience of the sinner, it is needful to 
 guard him against the dark whispers of 
 despair. Tiie sullen excuse will easily 
 rise to the lips, or be secretly cherished 
 in the heart — "If our iniquities be upon 
 us, and we pine away in them, how 
 should we then live?" Ez. xxxiii. 10. The 
 Spirit of God, by the prophet, now sets 
 aside this last and most dangerous excuse 
 for transgression. The way of life was still 
 open. The mercy of God was still ready 
 to welcome each returning prodigal. How- 
 ever deep their guilt, only obstinate per- 
 
ISAIAH, I. 18—25. 
 
 23 
 
 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: 
 though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; 
 though they were red as 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. 
 
 21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full 
 of judgment ; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. 
 
 22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. 
 
 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and partners with thieves ; every 
 one loveth gifts, and followeth after bribes : they judge not the 
 fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come before 
 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 will purely purge away thy dross, and take 
 
 severance in sin could make their condi- 
 tion hopeless. No past sins could close 
 the door of mercy against them, but only 
 their present refusal to return to God. 
 
 vv. 21 — 23. The prophet dwells a 
 moment on the special guilt of Jerusalem 
 and its rulers, before he utters God's sen- 
 tence of judgment. The city, once faith- 
 ful, had now, like a harlot, forsaken the 
 covenant of her God. In the times of 
 David and Solomon it was full of judg- 
 ment, and justice was wisely executed. 
 But now the heads of Jacob and princes 
 of Israel "built up Zion with blood, and 
 Jerusalem with iniquity," Mic. iii. 9, 10. 
 All that once was precious was debased, 
 what was strong and pure had become 
 cornipt, fraudulent, and feeble. Those 
 who should be fountains of justice were 
 fountains of iniquity, the patrons of fraud 
 and crime. Princes may become "part- 
 ners with thieves," not only by direct 
 companionship, but by practising robbery 
 themselves under other forms. 
 
 vv. 24 — 31. After doctrine, reproof, 
 and correction, the righteous purpose of 
 God is now proclaimed. He was about 
 to purge away these transgressors and 
 their sins by still heavier judgments. 
 "That breadth" says Lord Bacon "is 
 proper and usual in Divine prophecies, 
 that their fulfilments take place con- 
 tinuously, and also at fixed times {conti- 
 
 nenter et piinctualiter). For they reflect 
 the nature of their Author, to whom one 
 day is as a thousand years, and a thou- 
 sand years as one day. And although 
 the fulness and topstone of their comple- 
 tion is commonly assigned to some certain 
 age, or certain moment of time, yet they 
 have meanwhile some steps and degrees 
 of fulfilment, through different ages of 
 the world." The present passage, in like 
 manner, belongs to the whole course of 
 Jewish history, until the restoration of 
 the broken olive branches to the stem of 
 God's covenant in days to come. Yet 
 three gradual fulfilments are past, in the 
 Assyrian desolations, the Captivity of 
 Babylon and the Return, and in the 
 Apostolic age. A fourth will complete 
 and crown both the warning and the 
 promise, when the branches are grafted 
 for ever into their own olive tree. Rom. 
 xi. 15, 23. 
 
 The three-fold title of God implies the 
 solemn earnestness of the message. He 
 who speaks is the Governor of the world, 
 unchangeable in His counsels, whose word 
 cannot fail, mighty to subdue and destroy 
 the proudest rebels. Since His lighter 
 strokes have led to no repentance. His 
 coming judgments shall be more severe ; 
 and only genuine faith and holiness will 
 endure the visitation. But the effect shall 
 be blessed and glorious. The harlot city 
 
24 
 
 ISAIAH, I. 26—31. 
 
 away all thy tin. 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 righteousness, The Faithful City. 
 27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts 
 with righteousness. 28 And the destruction of the apostates 
 and the sinners shall be together; and they that forsake the 
 Lord shall be consumed. 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 their work sJiall be as a spark ; 
 and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench tJicm. 
 
 shall be betrothed once more to the 
 Heavenly Bridegroom with "loving-kind- 
 ness and mercies," IIos. ii. 19. This 
 home of murderers shall deserve the 
 benediction, " The Lord bless thee, O 
 habitation of justice, and mountain of 
 holiness," Jer. xxxi. 13. When the dead 
 branches have been taken away from 
 God's olive tree, the living ones pruned 
 by sore affliction, and retribution has light- 
 ed on the oppressors, then Zion will be 
 'redeemed by judgment,' and those who 
 turn to Him with the heart will be com- 
 forted by His mighty and righteous acts 
 of mercy to His suffering people. 
 
 w. 28 — 30. These blessings, in store 
 for contrite mourners in Zion, are joined 
 with a solemn curse on the stubborn and 
 unbelieving. Sinners high and low, rich 
 and poor, the idolatrous, the covetous, 
 and the profane shall all meet in one com- 
 mon ruin. Idolatry and luxurious ease 
 are singled out for special condemnation. 
 We are told that Ahaz "sacrificed and 
 burnt incense in the high places and on 
 the hills, and under every green tree," 
 
 2 Kin. xvi. 4. The reproof, by a sudden 
 change, is applied to these idolaters them- 
 selves, "They who have forsaken the 
 Lord, and you who have thus forsaken 
 him, shall be ashamed, &c." The chosen 
 scenes of their forbidden worship should 
 become a parable of the doom of the 
 worshippers. They should be like trees 
 which not only have lost their verdure, 
 but whose dry stems are fuel to the fire. 
 The haughty and luxurious idolaters, 
 strong as the oak or terebinth, shall be 
 like tow ; and the idols, the work of 
 which they boasted, like a spark. Their 
 sin should be their curse, and light up 
 the flame that consumes them. Vain 
 are all the strength and beauty of man, 
 when once the door is shut, and the 
 great Master rises to His work of judg- 
 ment. 
 
 V. 31. "Their work shall be as a 
 spark. " It is the idol itself, and not its 
 maker, which is compared to a spark, 
 kindling a fire to consume its own wor- 
 shippers. 
 
ISAIAH, II. 25 
 
 § 2. The Prophet's First Message. 
 Chap. II.— IV. 
 
 These three chapters appear to be the earliest message of Isaiah to the 
 people in the exercise of his prophetic mission, and thus belong to the 
 year of Uzziah's death. The first verse is their common title. The message 
 has five parts: (i) the Vision of Zion's Future Glory, ii. i — 5 ; (2) The Sin and 
 Judgment of Judah, ii. 6 — 22; (3) Their Political Downfall, iii. i — 15; 
 (4) The Sentence on Zion's daughters, iii. 16 — iv. i; and lastly, (5) The 
 Promise of coming Deliverance, iv. 2 — 6. 
 
 The same opening words occur also in Micah iv. l — 4, with very slight 
 variations. Hence three views have been held, (i) that Isaiah borrowed them 
 from Micah (Michaelis, Gesenius, Hendewerk, Hengstenberg, Hoffman, 
 Drechsler); (2) that Micah borrowed them from Isaiah (Vitringa, Calmet, 
 Lowth, Beckhaus, Umbreit) ; or (3) that both derived it from some older 
 prophet (Koppe, Rosenmuller, Maurer, De Wette, Knobel). Vogel, Hitzig, 
 and Ewald add the conjecture that the prophet was Joel. 
 
 This last opinion seems wholly fanciful and groundless. The presence 
 of the words in two prophets who lived at the same time is a strange reason 
 for assigning them to a third and earlier one, without one grain of direct 
 evidence. But there is a decisive reason for the second view, which ascribes I 
 the first publication to Isaiah. The warning in Micah iii. 9 — 12, which intro- ' 
 duces this promise in his book, was given, as we are told, Jer. xxvi. 18, in the 
 reign of Hezekiah. But these chapters of Isaiah, as they come first, are na- 
 turally referred to the end of Uzziah's reign, and by comparing chh. v. 25 — 30, 
 ix. 8— 17, must at least have been as early as the second year of Ahaz. Hence 
 Isaiah, not Micah, must have been the first to receive this message, which is 
 indeed the groundwork of all his later visions. 
 
 The one reason for assigning the first authorship to Micah, against the 
 chronology, is the closeness of the connexion between Mic. iii. 9 — 12 and 
 iv. I — 4. But this may be easily explained on the other view. His short 
 book is ascribed to three reigns, and still the passage iii. 9 — 12 is fixed to 
 the reign of Hezekiah. The book, then, is probably a selection from his 
 oral messages in three reigns, given in a final recension or arrangement. 
 This foremost of Isaiah's prophecies, who was a prophet still more honoured 
 and widely known, might purposely be made the pivot and centre of the 
 later prediction, on which is made to depend the change from stern reproof 
 to promise and encouragement. The slight verbal differences are quite con- 
 sistent with either view. 
 
26 ISAIAH, II. 
 
 The prediction has often been supposed to refer to the first days of the 
 (iospel. There can be no doubt that a signal earnest of the blessing was 
 then given. The two main features, however, are the flowing of whole 
 nations to Zion as the great centre of religious light, and the entire cessa- 
 tion of mutual warfare. But our Lord Himself has given this description of 
 the times of the Gospel, that " nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
 against kingdom," and that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, 
 until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled," Matt. xxiv. 7, Luke xxi. 24. 
 Thus the past state of things is a direct contrast to the prophecy, not its 
 fulfilment. St Paul defines both in the words, " For if the casting away 
 of them be the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of them 
 be, but life from the dead?" Rom. xi. 15. 
 
 The words of the first subsection, ii. I — 5, may be viewed as the main 
 text, which is expounded and varied in all the later visions. Its substance 
 is repeated in the close of each series of the earlier prophecies, xii., xxvii., 
 XXXV., and marks a pause and recommencement in the order of the visions. 
 Again, it meets us, varied and enlarged, in the opening of the three series of 
 the later prophecies, xl. i — 5, xlix. 14 — 26, Ixi., and once more at the close of 
 the whole book. Israel's long trials and final deliverance are the main 
 historical subject of the whole message, answering to that which forms its 
 internal character, as a witness of the " sufferings of Christ, and the glories 
 that shall follow." 
 
 The three subsections that follow describe the approaching judgment 
 through the Assyrian, but so as to include a later stage of decay, from 
 Hezekiah to Zedekiah, when the captivity and desolation were complete. 
 The first of them announces the punishment of their degrading idol-worship 
 by sore and humbling judgments from the hand of God. The season for 
 this visitation was fixed in the Divine decrees, and was near at hand. No 
 part of the nation, high or low, would escape from the calamity, in which the 
 power and greatness of God would be signally revealed. The next section 
 describes the downward progress of political decay, as fulfilled, first in the 
 reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and then of Manasseh, Amon, and the sons of 
 Josiah. There follows a separate warning on the proud, thoughtless, and 
 luxurious daughters of Zion. 
 
 The last subsection is the first prediction of Messiah in the book, under 
 the expressive title, the Branch of the Lord. There seems here to be also 
 a typical reference to Joshua, the son of Jozcdcc, whom Zechariah, in the 
 days of the Return, was taught to set before the people as the type of a more 
 glorious King and Priest who was still to come. 
 
ISAIAH, II. 1—4. 
 
 27 
 
 • Ch. II. I. The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz 
 
 SAW CONCERNING JUDAH AND JERUSALEM. 
 
 2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the 
 mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top 
 of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills ; and 
 all nations shall flow unto it. 3 And many people 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 will judge among the nations, and will rebuke many people : 
 
 § I. Chap. H. 1—6. The Vision of 
 Zion's Glory. 
 
 V. r. The title belongs to the three 
 chapters that follow. The prophet speaks 
 of himself in the first person, ch. vi. i, 
 and his name recurs in the history that 
 follows, vii. 3 ; viii. i — 4. A similar 
 title opens the second series of Burdens on 
 the nations ; while the Historical Episode, 
 ch. xxxvi. — xxxix., supplies the place of a 
 title to the rest of the Later Visions. 
 Judah and Jerusalem are the direct object 
 of this first message, and directly or in- 
 directly of all the rest. However wide 
 the prophetic landscape, its centre is al- 
 ways the chosen land and people of God. 
 
 V. 2 . " The last days, " literally, the after- 
 time of the days, may denote any future 
 time not close at hand, but more usually 
 the times of Messiah, the great subject 
 of sacred prophecy. In a more limited 
 sense, it often denotes the latter times 
 of the Gospel, or the kingdom of the 
 mountain and of the Son of Man in 
 Daniel, answering to the times of the 
 Seventh Trumpet, and the latest visions in 
 the Apocalypse. Such is the meaning 
 here, for the reason just assigned. The 
 mountain of the Lord's house is no ab- 
 stract emblem for the Church (Vitringa, 
 Alexander, &c. ), but Jerusalem and its 
 temple site. This is plain from the con- 
 trast, Mic. iii. 9, iv. 4, between the 
 warning and the promise. Zion, long 
 trodden down by the Gentiles for her 
 sins, is to become once more a public 
 centre of heavenly light and holy wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Some think the vision represents other 
 
 mountains as transported to the precincts 
 of Zion, which seemed to rest upon and 
 rise above them. But the word, rosh, is 
 often used for the chief or foremost in any 
 sense, as in vii. 8, 9. The words will 
 thus mean, more simply, that Zion will 
 be firmly established as foremost in 
 honour among the mountain eminences 
 of earth, and be exalted in fame above all 
 other hills. 
 
 v. 3. This return of God's favour to 
 Zion, after long desolation, will be life 
 from the dead to the nations of the earth, 
 Rom. xi. 15. The great redemption, 
 which began with the rejection of Mes- 
 siah by Israel, and Israel by Messiah, 
 will be completed in their recovery. Not 
 a few scattered converts alone, but "all 
 nations " shall flow to one common centre 
 of holy truth. Their desire to learn the 
 ways of God shall be satisfied. War and 
 bloodshed shall be no more. The Prince 
 of Peace will enforce his great law of 
 love with such Divine authority, so stem 
 will be his rebuke, by solemn judgments, 
 of human selfishness and ambition, that a 
 new era of peace will dawn upon the 
 earth, and all study of the arts of war be 
 laid aside. The words form a contrast to 
 Joel iii. 9, 10, of which the fulfilment 
 must have first come. Filled with this 
 glorious hope, the prophet invites his 
 countrymen to walk in its light, and to 
 mould their hearts and lives by the vision 
 of these good things to come. 
 
 v. 4, and ii. 18, iii. 5. Where Divine 
 acts are named, or human choice of good 
 or evil is prominent, tlie use of shall for 
 'coill obscures the real thought. 
 
;8 
 
 ISAIAH. IT. 5— II. 
 
 and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their 
 spears into pruning hooks : nation shall not lift 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. 
 
 6 For thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob ; 
 because they are replenished from the east, and are soothsayers 
 like the Philistines, and exult in the children of strangers. 
 7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, and tJiere is no end 
 of their treasures : their land also is full of horses, and tJicrc is 
 no 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 boweth down, and 
 the great man stoopeth low : therefore forgive them not ! 
 
 10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, from the 
 terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. 11 The 
 
 § 2. Chap. ii. 6—22. The Sin and Judg- 
 ment OF THE House of Jacob. 
 
 V. 6. F07; more exact than therefore. 
 The future troubles were one motive for 
 dwelling in the light of God's promise. 
 
 vv. 6 — 9. From the people the prophet 
 turns to God, with a sudden cry of sorrow. 
 Their actual condition stands in mournful 
 contrast with the brightness of the pro- 
 mise. There was the greater need to urge 
 the faithful to dwell on the future hope, 
 because of the present evils. Instead of 
 walking in the light of the Lord, the peo- 
 ple were going aslray blindly in the ways 
 of the heathen. The cloud now hanging 
 over them was the exact reverse of the 
 more distant promise. They were reple- 
 nished, like a market stocked to over- 
 flowing, with diviners and vain super- 
 stitions. They had borrowed forbidden 
 rites from their neighbours, from Chaldea 
 on the east, and Philistia on the west, 
 and forgotten their calling as the chosen 
 people. Instead of all nations flowing to 
 Zion, to learn the ways of God, the house 
 of Jacob had forsaken His law for 
 heathen marriages and Chaldean sorceries. 
 They wasted their admiration on the 
 children of strangers, in whom there was 
 no trace of real holiness, aliens from the 
 covenant of their God. Their riches had 
 increased greatly under Uzziah's prosper- 
 ous reign, and now their pride gave 
 warning that judgment was near. Even 
 
 Uzziah, though a pious king, had yielded 
 to the temptation. "His heart was lifted 
 up to his destniction," when he entered 
 the temple to bum incense, and was 
 smitten with sudden leprosy. The like 
 sin of pride now reigned and triumphed 
 among the people ; and, with their heathen 
 alliances, hurried them into open idolatry. 
 The spirit of the prophet is stirred within 
 him, like St Paul's at Athens, and his 
 mention of their sin turns abruptly into a 
 prayer for righteous judgment — "there- 
 fore forgive them not." 
 
 V. 10. From their present state the 
 scene changes to a future near at hand ; 
 from a careless, idolatrous nation, exult- 
 ing in its wealth, to the same people, trem- 
 bling and dismayed beneath the manifested 
 anger and judgment of God. The words 
 apply directly to the Syrian and Assyrian 
 invasions ; but more remotely to the Chal- 
 dean scourge, to the Roman "days of 
 vengeance," Luke xxi. 22, to the sixth seal 
 of the Apocalypse, and judgments on 
 idolatry in the last days. The judgment 
 will answer to the sin. The shameful 
 prostration of those who stoop low to 
 idols of silver and gold will be replaced 
 by real and deep abasement under the 
 hand of God. Proud and stubborn to- 
 wards the Lord, they were abject before 
 their senseless idols. Soon all would be 
 reversed ; God exalted, the haughtiness of 
 these idolators abased, their jiride and 
 luxury punished, their idols swept away. 
 
ISAIAH, 11. 12—17. 
 
 29 
 
 lofty looks of man shall be made low, and the haughtiness of 
 men shall be bowed down ; and the Lord alone shall be exalted 
 in that day. 12 For tJici'e sJiall be a day from the Lord of 
 hosts upon all that is proud and lofty, 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 lifted up, and upon all the 
 oaks of Bashan ; 14 And upon all the lofty mountains, and 
 upon all the stately hills; 15 And upon every high tower, 
 and upon every fenced wall ; 16 And upon all ships of Tar- 
 shish, and upon all merchandize of beauty. 17 And the lofti- 
 ness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men 
 shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that 
 
 A fixed time was already appointed, by 
 the Lord of hosts himself, for the execu- 
 tion of this great work of judgment. 
 
 V. 12. "A day." The day of the 
 Lord of hosts is an incorrect version. 
 The real force of the phrase is, that a 
 fixed time is appointed by God for this 
 great work of humiliation and judg- 
 ment. 
 
 [vv. 12 — ry. The general scope of these 
 verses is plain, but opinions have been 
 much divided as to their exact meaning. 
 Many take them literally throughout, others 
 figuratively, the cedars, oaks, and moun- 
 tains denoting the great and noble of the 
 land, or cities and kingdoms. Others hold 
 that, by synecdoche, certain high and 
 stately things are chosen specimens of a 
 wide-reaching judgment. Some apply it 
 to the Assyrian invasion, others to the 
 Babylonian, and others, as Alexander 
 and Drechsler, to the whole series of 
 Divine judgment in later times. But the 
 mention of an appointed day proves that 
 a special season is meant, and not the 
 whole course of providence for 2, 500 years. 
 Next, ch. iii. i, and the whole context, 
 prove that the direct, immediate refer- 
 ence is to those Assyrian troubles which 
 began under Ahaz, and reached their 
 height in Sennacherib's overthrow. Slill 
 the words, iii. 25, 26, prove a further 
 reference to the later time of the Baby- 
 lonian captivity. 
 
 Again, the main idea is man's abase- 
 ment. But the cutting down of literal 
 oaks and cedars, the works of God, could 
 have a very slight bearing on this main 
 object. The view of Knobel, who refers 
 
 it to oak and cedar buildings or palaces, 
 is not even literal, and is most prosaic. 
 This First Series, ch. i. — xii., closes with a 
 mention of the Assyrian overthrow under 
 this very image, the cutting down of the 
 cedars of Lebanon, x. 33, 34. Hence vv. 
 13, 14, where natural objects are named, 
 must be figuratively taken. The cedars 
 of Lebanon, and the oaks of Bashan, will 
 denote the great, mighty, and noble, first 
 of Judah and Israel; and next of the As- 
 syrians, their proud oppressors, soon to 
 be abased and cut down in their turn, 
 when God's work was done. The moun- 
 tains and hills will describe all that is 
 politically firm, conspicuous, and noble, 
 the high places of worldly power. Where 
 artificial objects are named, vv. 15, 16, 
 the figures are mixed, a part representing 
 the whole. Whatever is strong, stately, 
 and beautiful in the works of men, the 
 high tower, the fenced wall, the ships of 
 Tarshish, the pleasant merchandise, or the 
 choicest products of human art, will share 
 in the judgment. For this is not aimed 
 against the works of God, which reveal 
 His glory ; but against the pride, the 
 haughtiness, the luxury, and the vain 
 confidences of men.] 
 
 v. 16. "Merchandize of beauty, " R. V, 
 "pleasant pictures." Sckiyoth haclieindah is 
 explained variously, of statues (Michael. 
 Rosenm. ), lofty images or obelisks ( Ewald ), 
 palaces (Targ. ), tapestry, or every lovely 
 work of art (Lowth), or "works of curi- 
 osity" (Delitzsch). It seems to include 
 all beautiful works of art, viewed in con- 
 nection with ships, as being the imports 
 of a luxurious commerce. 
 
30 
 
 ISAIAH, II. i8— III. 3. 
 
 day. 18 And the idols he will utterly abolish. 19 And they 
 shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the 
 earth, from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
 majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 20 In 
 that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, 
 which they have made cacJi for himself to worship, to the moles 
 and to the bats; 21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and 
 into the tops of the ragged rocks, from the terror of the Lord, 
 and from the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake 
 terribly the earth. 22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in 
 his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of .-• 
 
 Chap. hi. i. For behold the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth 
 take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the 
 staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, 
 2 The mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the pro- 
 phet, and the diviner and the ancient, 3 The captain of fifty 
 
 v\'. 18— 22. The idolatries of the peo- 
 ple, no less than their luxurious pride, 
 shall meet with signal judgment. The 
 rejection of the idols, the shame of their 
 worshippers, shall be complete. The 
 vain pomp of the world will be rebuked 
 by the terrors of the Lord, and an awful 
 glimpse of His glorious majesty. "They 
 shall seek to escape, as unarmed peasants 
 or women fly into the nearest cave or 
 hole, when they hear the hoof of some 
 plundering tribe from the desert. And 
 as such fugitives carry in their hands their 
 most precious goods, but are glad, in 
 their extremity, to abandon them to the 
 moles and bats of the caves, that they 
 may use their hands to clamber into the 
 safest recesses ; so the idolatrous nation 
 will be obliged to abandon its false gods" 
 (Strachey, Hcb. Pol. p. 40). One great 
 lesson runs through the whole passage. 
 How weak is the strength of man, how 
 worthless his grandeur, in the presence 
 of the Almiglity ! How do the shadows 
 of the world fade away, when the unseen 
 King of Olory once reveals His presence 
 to the children of men ! The prophet 
 recalls the people, v. 22, from vain con- 
 fidence in their own prosperity, their 
 statesmen and warriors, by the prospect 
 of a visitation so intensely solemn. What 
 is man, the child of the dust, whose 
 breath is in his nostrils, in the presence of 
 
 the great and infinite God ! [The trans- 
 fer of v. 22 to the next chapter robs the 
 passage of half its force. Yox this verse 
 plainly condenses the whole message of 
 judgment into one great practical lesson, 
 the fitting close of the whole. It is 
 wanting in the LXX. but present in the 
 Targum, the Syriac, Jerome, and Aquila. as 
 well as in all Hebrew MSS. The a]iplica- 
 tion of it to Christ by some of the Fathers 
 almost inverts the true sense. The ren- 
 dering "in whose nostrils is a breath" 
 (Henderson) loses the real emphasis, which 
 lies in the secret reference to man's crea- 
 tion from the dust, Gen. ii. 7, and the 
 feeble tenure on which his mortal life 
 ever depends.] 
 
 §3. Chap. III. I— 15. The Political 
 Downfall of Judah. 
 
 From the grand moral features of the 
 judgment the prophet turns to describe 
 those great evils in the state, which would 
 prepare its way. The bulwarks of the 
 kingdom would be withdrawn, and the 
 whole fabric sink into min. The direct 
 reference is to the disastrous reign of 
 Ahaz, who came early to the throne, and 
 died in his prime ; and still later, to the first 
 years of Manasseh, when Jerusalem was 
 filled with blood, and to the reigns of 
 Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, 
 and Zedekiali, all alike young, foolish. 
 
ISAIAH, III. 4—7. 
 
 31 
 
 and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the skilful 
 artificer, and the persuasive orator. 4 And I will give children 
 to be their princes, and foolish ones shall rule over them. 5 And 
 the people shall be oppressed, man by man, and neighbour by- 
 neighbour ; the child will behave himself insolently against the 
 ancient, and the base against the honourable. 6 For a man shall 
 take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, saying. Thou 
 hast a robe, thou shalt be our ruler, and this ruin shall be under 
 thy hand. 7 He will lift up Ids voice in that day, saying, I 
 will not be a healer ; also in my house is neither bread nor 
 clothing : thou shalt not make me a ruler of the people. 
 
 and wicked, under whom the state hur- 
 ried downhill to its ruin. Ungodliness 
 bred anarchy. Democratic licence then 
 scorned the bonds of God's national cove- 
 nant, and brought on the people a swift 
 destruction. 
 
 In the year that Uzziah died, vi. i, 
 when Isaiah received his first messages, 
 this judgment was near at hand. The 
 first drops of the shower were under 
 Jotham, 2 Ki. xv. 37, but his personal 
 piety delayed it for a few years. But 
 under Ahaz the full tide of trouble set in. 
 The message resumes with a direct an- 
 nouncement of the coming decay and ruin. 
 There is a slight pause after, and not 
 before, the preceding verse. A vision of 
 the power and glory of God has brought 
 the weakness and littleness of man into 
 full relief. This is now further shown, in 
 detail, by a reference to the various 
 classes which would share in the judg- 
 ment. What was always true to the eye of 
 faith would soon be proved true in the 
 actual experience of the people. 
 
 v. I. "The stay and the staff" denote 
 here every main bulwark, and every 
 secondary support of the kingdom. Not 
 luxuries alone, but even the necessaries of 
 life would be removed. Along with these, 
 all the pillars and ornaments of the state. 
 Besides their mighty men and warriors, 
 judges and prophets, the honourable men, 
 of noble and commanding aspect, the 
 counsellor, noted for prudence in affairs, 
 the skilful artificer, like Bezaleel, Aholiab, 
 and Hiram, and the "persuasive orator," 
 able with gentle words to soothe the 
 passions of an excited people, would be 
 taken away. With .young rulers, of child- 
 
 ish understanding, all respect for authority 
 would die out from the land. 
 
 [Some render nebon lachash v. 3, 'expert 
 enchanter' (Henderson, Alexander, &c.). 
 But this departs from the scope of the 
 passage, since the loss of false deceivers 
 would be a gain. But the word refers, 
 not to loud oratory, but soft, persuasive 
 speech. The word t/ia'ahilim v. 4, ' follies' 
 or 'childishness,' is put contemptuously, 
 for frivolous childish persons.] 
 
 V. 4. Ahaz came to the throne at 
 twenty, Manasseh at twelve, and the 
 reigns of Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, 
 Jeconiah, Zedekiah, ended at the ages of 
 24, 23, 36, 18 and 32 years. The want 
 of all wisdom in the rulers would cause a 
 rank growth of lawlessness and oppres- 
 sion. The first commandment with pro- 
 mise being thus despised, a curse must 
 follow. Young children disobedient to 
 parents, arrogant and rude to their elders, 
 are one of the plainest portents of na- 
 tional ruin near at hand. 
 
 v. 6. Amidst this rapid decay offices 
 of trust would no longer be coveted, but 
 prove an unwelcome burden. Men of 
 character or substance would shrink, with 
 selfish cowardice, from taking any part in 
 public affairs. The honour of headship 
 in the subfamilies of Judah, eagerly of- 
 fered, will be as eagerly declined. ["Of 
 the house of his father," that is, of the 
 same subfamily, not an own brother, but 
 one in a more general sense. " Thou hast 
 a robe," a spare garment, costly, and 
 suitable for the robe of office. Comp. 
 Prov. xxxi. 22, 23. "He will lift up," 
 not his hand, in an oath, but his voice, 
 with a loud and eager refusal. First, he 
 
32 
 
 ISAIAH, III. 8—15. 
 
 8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen ; because their 
 tongue and their doings arc against the LORD, to provoke the 
 eyes of his glory. 9 The show of their countenance doth wit- 
 ness 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 to the righteous, that // shall be 
 well with him : for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 
 1 1 Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill ivith Jiini ; for the reward 
 of his hands shall be given him. 12 My people! children are 
 their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people ! 
 they which call thee blessed cause tJice to err, and destroy the 
 way of thy paths. 13 The Lord standeth up to plead, and 
 standeth to judge the people. 14 The LORD will enter into 
 judgment with the ancients of his people, and their princes : 
 ye, even ye, have eaten up the vineyard ; the spoil of the poor 
 man is in your houses. 15 What mean ye, that ye crush my 
 people, and grind the faces of the poor t saith the Lord GOD of 
 hosts. 
 
 gives his prompt resolution, then adds his 
 reasons, and closes with a protest, as 
 against a serious wrong. 
 
 [The particle v. 6, has had six or seven 
 renderings. But the conditional "Should 
 one take hold, &c." (Henderson) is weak- 
 er than the received version, "when," 
 wliich is that of Vitringa, Hitzig, Ewald, 
 and Drechsler. " For, " the usual mean- 
 ing, seems better still. The progress 
 downward, in three stages, is noted by 
 the same word vv. i — 5 ; 6, 7, 8, 9, in 
 its width, its extent, and its moral ground, 
 I'atent even to the senses. The refusal is 
 that of an offer to be one of the heads of 
 thousands, or one of the lesser chiefs and 
 princes of Judah.] 
 
 vv. 8 — 1 r. A fall so deep and shame- 
 fid cannot be due to second causes alone. 
 ']"he sins of the people, like those of 
 Sodom, are bringing down the fierce anger 
 of God, and to the prophet's eye their 
 ruin seems as if already come. Pride 
 and lust are written on their very faces, 
 and cannot be concealed. Nay, so shame- 
 less are they grov\Ti, they do not even try 
 to conceal them. Effrontery doubles 
 tlicir guilt, and makes judgment inevita- 
 ble. When vice grows bold and shame- 
 less, woe to the guilty land. 
 
 V. 10. But even in sorest judgment, 
 God will remember mercy. As Lot was 
 rescued even from Sodom, a blessing 
 shall be given to the faithful, side by side 
 with the heavy curse on these stubborn 
 sinners. The Holy Spirit invites all wise 
 and thoughtful observers to echo and 
 proclaim this blessing on the righteous. 
 The woe upon the wicked, a more 
 solemn message. He reserves for his own 
 lips alone. 
 
 vv. 12 — 15. In the dearth of wise 
 nders, the upstarts who replace them will 
 be cruel oppressors, or else selfish flatter- 
 ers of the people. But God will require 
 from them a strict account for their deeds 
 of violence. The leaders of the state, 
 childisli in counsel, feel^le and effeminate 
 in war, will only seek to enrich them- 
 selves by tributes levied on those beneath 
 them. The priests and the prophets, by 
 adtling vain superstitions to the law and 
 worship of God, will delude the people, 
 till they wander on the dark mountains of 
 unbelief. But their sin shall soon be 
 punished. Jehovah will be the Mighty 
 Advocate of the afflicted against their 
 oppressors and deceivers. How stern is 
 the rebuke, v. 15, "You trample down 
 my people by contempt and oppression. 
 
ISAIAH, III. 16—26. 
 
 33 
 
 16 And the Lord said, Because the daughters of ZIon are 
 haughty, and walk with stretched out necks, and wanton eyes, 
 walking and tripping delicately as they go, and making a tink- 
 ling with their feet; 17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a 
 scab the crown of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will dis- 
 cover their nakedness. 18 In that day the Lord will take 
 away the finery of their tinkling ankle-bands, and the caps of 
 lace, and the crescents ; 19 The eardrops, and the bracelets, 
 and the veils for the face ; 20 The head dresses, and the 
 ankle chains, and the girdles, and the scent-bottles, and the 
 amulets; 21 The rings, and the nose jewels, 22 The state- 
 dresses, and the mantles, and the shawls, and the reticules ; 
 23 The mirrors, and the tunics, and the turbans, and the long- 
 flowing veils. 24 And it shall come to pass, instead of choice 
 perfumes there shall be a stench ; and instead of a girdle, rags ; 
 and instead of richly plaited hair, baldness ; and instead of 
 a flowing robe, girding with sackcloth ; and burning instead of 
 beauty. 25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy strength 
 in the war. 26 And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she 
 will sit desolate on the ground. 
 
 You grind their faces, when you deprive 
 them even of the necessaries of life, to 
 secure some pitiful increase of your own 
 superfluities, and try to make dishonest 
 gain from the very flesh and blood of your 
 fellowmen." 
 
 § 4. Chap. ni. 16— IV. i. The Sen- 
 tence ON THE Daughters of 
 Zion. 
 
 The women of Judah next receive 
 a message of severe rebuke. Their 
 luxury, pride, and wantonness, would 
 have a large share in hastening the nation- 
 al ruin. Their costly apparel, their trip- 
 ping, affected gait, and wanton glances, 
 should soon be followed by most dis- 
 graceful exposure. 
 
 It is hard to decide certainly on the 
 exact sense of some terms in this cata- 
 logue of their luxuries. But this only 
 adds to the force of the lesson. The in- 
 ventions and devices of fashion, whether 
 in modern Paris or ancient Jerusalem, 
 however trivial or transitory, are all noted 
 in God's book of remembrance, and have 
 moral results, for good or evil, that en- 
 
 B. I. 
 
 dure for ever. In the history of Abra- 
 ham, the thread and shoe-latchet stand 
 close beside that glorious title, " the Most 
 High God, the Possessor of heaven and 
 earth." Nothing is trivial, by which God 
 may be glorified, or by which His name 
 is blasphemed, and souls endangered and 
 ruined. A sad and humbling change 
 would soon come over this scene of wan- 
 ton pride and costly extravagance. 
 
 V. 25. The prophet now "turns ab- 
 ruptly from the daughtei-s to the Daugh- 
 ter of Zion, gathering them together in 
 their representative, the licentious and 
 rebellious nation, the faithless Bride of 
 the Holy One of Israel" (Strachey, Hebr. 
 Pol.). All the previous warnings are 
 combined in one picture of desolation. 
 By the depth of the calamity, the strength 
 of manhood would be wasted, and the 
 deepest instincts of womanhood reversed. 
 " Thy strength " denotes here the strong- 
 est warriors. The military prowess of 
 the land would be wasted and destroyed. 
 
 Ch. iv. r. This last stroke completes 
 the picture of desolation. The fire will 
 have consumed the youth of the land, 
 
34 
 
 ISAIAH, IV. I, 2. 
 
 Chap. IV. I And seven women will seize hold of one man 
 in that day, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our 
 own apparel ; only let us be called by thy name, to take away 
 our reproach. 
 
 CiiAr. IV. 2 — 6. The Promise of Deliverance. 
 
 In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and 
 glorious ; and the fruit of the earth sJiall be excellent and 
 
 and the maidens will no more be sought 
 in marriage. The promises and threaten- 
 ings of the Law, Deut. vii. xxviii. &c. 
 would add a tenfold force to this part of 
 the warning. The Hebrew order, when 
 restored, brings out into clearer light the 
 connexion of this verse with those before 
 it, the pause being at its close. It is not 
 parted off from them, but joined with 
 them, by the words " in that day " and 
 completes the picture of desolation. The 
 verse, though a severe threatening, forms 
 a transition to the promise that follows, 
 in which One Man is revealed as the 
 Stay and Hope of all His suffering peo- 
 ple, in a higher union than of earthly 
 marriage. 
 
 Chap. iv. ^ — 6. The opening message 
 now unfolds itself in the first of many 
 visions of hope and promise. A Person 
 is announced, the Branch of the Lord, 
 who will be the honour and glory of a 
 restored remnant. Holiness, peace, secu- 
 rity, and honour are then to follow. In the 
 perspective of prophecy llie type is often 
 projected on the antitype, till some later 
 prophecy, or the course of events, opens 
 out the valley between them. Here the 
 prophet Zechariah seems to give a key to 
 the interpretation. After the Return, 
 crowns were ordered to be j:)laced on the 
 head of Joshua the high priest, \\\\\\ this 
 message, — "Thus speaketh the Lord of 
 hosts. Behold, the man whose name is 
 the Branch {tsemach)...\\e. shall build the 
 temple of the Lord, and he shall bear 
 the glory," Zech. vi. n, 13. In this 
 vision Joshua was "a man of sign," iii. 8. 
 He represented One greater than him- 
 self, of whom it had been written, " Be- 
 hold, I will raise unto David a Righte- 
 ous Branch ; and a King shall reign and 
 
 prosper, ...and this is the name whereby 
 he shall be called. The Lord our Riglite- 
 ousness," Jer. xxiii. 6. 
 
 vv. 1 — 4. "In that day" the time that 
 follows the widowhood and desolation of 
 Zion, the Branch of the Lord shall be 'for 
 beauty and for glory.' Especial tokens of 
 God's favour, in the Return from Babylon, 
 were given to Joshua, " the man whose 
 name was the Branch," when by God's 
 command he was clothed with beautiful 
 apparel, and a crown of pure gold was 
 placed on his head. This was an earnest 
 of the nobler fulfilment, when Messiah, 
 the Branch and Day-spring appeared, "a 
 light to lighten the Gentiles, and the 
 glory of his people Israel." 
 
 Again, it was one part of the judgment 
 that the whole stay of bread and of 
 water M'ould be removed. In the land, 
 once flowing with milk and honey, the 
 land of vines and fig-trees and pome- 
 granates, even the necessaries of life 
 would fail. But this curse would be re- 
 versed. When Joshua had received the 
 crowns of gold, the signs of beauty and 
 glory, the message followed, — "The seed 
 shall be prosperous, the vine shall give 
 her fi-uit, and the ground shall give her 
 increase, and the heaven shall give their 
 dew, and I will cause the remnant 
 (s/iecrit/i) of this people to po.ssess all 
 these things," Zech. viii. 12. So hero 
 "the fruit of the earth shall be excellent 
 and comely to the escaped in Israel," the 
 remnant in Zion. There was a still 
 higher fulfilment when the true Branch 
 of the Lord appeared. In a nobler sense 
 the earth began to 'yield its increase,' 
 when the church was "filled with the 
 fruits of righteousness, by Jesus CInist, to 
 tlie glory and praise of God." Phil. i. 11, 
 
ISAIAH, IV. 3—6. 
 
 35 
 
 comely for the escaped of Israel. 3 And it shall come to 
 pass, that the remnant in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jeru- 
 salem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written 
 unto life 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 spirit of 
 judgment, and by the spirit of burning. 5 And the Lord will 
 create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her 
 assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day, and the shining of a 
 flaming fire by night ; for upon all the glory shall be a defence. 
 6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time 
 from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from 
 storm and from rain. 
 
 V. 3. The name of ' holy ones, ' and the 
 writing to life at Jerusalem, had a typical 
 fulfilment in the Return. The list of the 
 names of the restored remnant is twice 
 recorded in God's word, as the second 
 founders of the nation, in whom the cove- 
 nant was to blossom out once more. But 
 the correspondence in the days of the 
 Apostles is fuller and more complete. 
 Saints or 'holy ones' is the constant title, 
 and true character, of the first Jewish 
 believers. 
 
 But these blessings might not come, 
 until the prophet's warnings had first been 
 fulfilled. Sore judgments, like the burn- 
 ing of fire, must purge away the blood- 
 guiltiness and idolatry of the people, and 
 also the pride and luxury of the daughters 
 of Zion, which made them, in spite of all 
 their costly apparel, vile and loathsome 
 in the eyes of a holy God. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. These verses allude to the 
 Exodus, when the fiery pillar not only 
 
 guided the people, but shielded them from 
 the Egyptian armies, Ex. xiii. 21 ; xiv. 19. 
 The same allusion meets us in the pro- 
 mise to the Exiles on their return to Zion, 
 " For I, saith the Lord, will be a wall of 
 fire round about her, and a glory in the 
 midst of her." Zech. ii. 5. 
 
 The history of the Apostolic church, 
 in the judgments on open persecutors, 
 and in the glorious gifts of the Spirit, 
 fulfilled the words of this promise still 
 more abundantly. A refuge was pro- 
 vided in Bella, when the storm of wrath 
 fell on the guilty nation. But the pro- 
 mise, it is likely, awaits a still more 
 complete fulfilment, when the times of 
 restitution, the kingdom of the moun- 
 tain, shall begin. The Saviour, the Branch 
 from the stem of Jesse, who has long been 
 "a light of the Gentiles," will then be- 
 come once more " the glory of his people 
 Israel." 
 
 1—2 
 
36 ISAIAH, V. 
 
 § 3. CiiAr. V. The Parable of the Vineyard. 
 
 In the prophet's first message the charge, "ye have eaten up the vine- 
 yard," is brought by the Holy Spirit against the rulers of Judah. He now 
 unfolds this figure, and makes a further appeal thereby to the conscience 
 of the whole people. The opening verse seems purposely left ambiguous, 
 that the parable may be completed, and the answer of the people given, like 
 David's to Nathan, before the real meaning comes fully to light. A com- 
 parison vk'ith the Gospels removes this ambiguity. The Well-beloved, and 
 the Beloved, are two slightly differing names for the same Person. He is the 
 Owner of the vineyard, v. i, and it is also "the vineyard of the Lord of 
 hosts," v. 7. He is also the same of whom we read in His own parable : — 
 "Having yet one only Son, his Well-beloved, he sent him last unto them;" 
 and to whom there came that voice in the holy mount, "This is my Beloved 
 Son : hear ye him." These later words of the Gospels are like a Divine 
 key to the prophet's earlier parable. 
 
 This same figure of the vineyard is resumed at the close of the second 
 series, the Burdens on the Nations, ch. xxvii. 2—6, where the present 
 threatening is reversed by a gracious promise. In the latest series we have 
 two closely related metaphors, the winepress of judgment, Ixiii. i — 6, and the 
 blessing found in the vine-cluster, for which the message is given, "Destroy 
 it not," Ixv. 8—10. 
 
 The theories which interpose ch. ix. 5— x. 4, between vv. 25, 26 of this 
 chapter (Ewald) or join it with vii. i — 9 and xvii. as one prophecy (Hende- 
 werk) are equally opposed to the internal and to all the external evidence. 
 Such arbitrary dislocations have their only source in an entire failure to 
 discern the unity of each vision, and the true relation of the successive 
 visions to each other, and to the actual course of the history. 
 
ISAIAH, V. 1—7. 37 
 
 Chap. V. i I will now sing for my Well-beloved a song of 
 my Beloved touching his vineyard. My Well-beloved hath a 
 vineyard in a very fruitful hill : 2 And he fenced it, and gathered 
 out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and 
 built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein : 
 and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought 
 forth wild grapes. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and 
 men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 
 4 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 ? 
 
 5 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 ; ami break down the wall thereof, and it shall be 
 trodden down : 6 And I will lay it waste, it shall not be pruned 
 nor digged ; but there shall come up briers and thorns : I will 
 also command the clouds, that they rain no rain upon it. 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 judgment, 
 but behold, oppression ! for righteousness, and behold, a cry ! 
 
 V. I. The parable Is uttered by the receive of the fraits in solemn rites of 
 
 prophet, for the Well-beloved, in his worship and thanksgiving, 
 
 name, or in his behalf ; but it is addressed The word "looked" implies mingled 
 
 to the men of Judah themselves. The expectation and desire, Gen. xlix. i8, 
 
 very fruitful hill is literally "a horn, the Job vi. 19, Ps. xxv. 5, xl. i, Isai. viii. 17, 
 
 son of oil." Its double allusion is to the Jer. xiii. 16. The "wild grapes" (labrus- 
 
 long mountain range of Palestine, and to cas, Jerome) are not nightshade or poison 
 
 its great fertility. berries, which the metaphor excludes, but 
 
 V. 2. The Lord, the Owner of this grapes of a sour and unwholesome kind, 
 
 vineyard, fenced it round, when he as- " Their grapes are grapes of gall, the 
 
 signed the bounds of Israel's inheritance, clusters are bitter," Deut. xxxii. 32. The 
 
 Num. xxxiv., Deut. ii. iii., and by the owner looked for grapes, as the Lord, 
 
 terror of His mighty acts, under Moses at Nazareth, " marvelled at their unbe- 
 
 and Joshua, restrained the heathen from lief." 
 
 assailing them. He gathered out its v. 5. Since all culture seems wasted 
 
 stones, when the Canaanites were ex- on this vineyard, the owner resolves to 
 
 pelled. He planted it with the choicest change his course, and abandon it to 
 
 vine, when a generation, disciplined to sterility. Its fences shall be removed, 
 
 faith and piety, entered and took posses- and the wild boar of the forest, and the 
 
 sion, Ps. Ixxx., Jer. ii. He "built a tower beast of the field, be let in to waste and 
 
 in it," when Jerusalem, under David, be- devour. The showers of blessing shall 
 
 came the royal city and fortress. He be withdrawn. The meaning of the 
 
 "made a winepress therein," when the parable, and the cause of these threaten- 
 
 templeof Solomon became the fixed public ings, are then explained together. The 
 
 centre of national worship ; where the vineyard is the house of Israel and the 
 
 grapes might be crushed, and the owner men of Judah ; and the reason of these 
 
38 ISAIAH, V. 8—18. 
 
 8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field 
 to field, till there be no place, that ye may be placed alone 
 in the midst of the earth. 9 In mine ears, said the Lord of 
 hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great 
 and fair, ^vithout inhabitant. 10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard 
 shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an 
 ephah. 1 1 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, 
 tJiat they may follow strong drink ; that continue until night, 
 //■// wine inflame them! 12 And the harp and the viol, the 
 tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts ; but they regard 
 not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of 
 his hands. 13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, be- 
 cause tJicy have no knowledge ; and their honourable men are 
 famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. 14 There- 
 fore hell hath enlarged her desire, and opened her mouth with- 
 out measure ; and their glory, and their multitude, and their 
 pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. 1 5 And the 
 mean man is brought down, and the mighty man is humbled ; 
 and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: 16 But the LoRD 
 of hosts shall be exalted in judgment ; and God, the Holy, 
 shall be sanctified in righteousness. 17 Then shall the lambs 
 feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fatlings 
 shall strangers eat. 
 
 18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity; 
 
 judgments is the crime and violence that vellei's themselves, in the midst of their 
 fill their land. wine and music, shall descend into it. 
 vv. 8 — 23. .Six Woes are now uttered Thus the opening message will be fulfilled, 
 against the guilty nation. Its covetous- man will be abased, and God exalted. 
 n«ss shall be punished by poverty and v. 8. The change of person makes the 
 desolation, its shameless riot by captivity warning more vivid and impressive. 
 and destruction. Those who make vain v. 17. When the luxurious and cove- 
 excuses for sin. scoff at God's messages, tous, who have lived in pleasure, and 
 confound the great landmarks of right been wanton, nourishing their hearts in a 
 and wrong, boast of their wisdom, and day of slaughter, are exiled or destroyed, 
 abandon themselves to riot and oppres- the meek and the lowly, or even strangers 
 sion, shall fall in one common judgment. from afar, like lambs in a wide sheep 
 The goodly houses shall be desolate, walk, shall come to occupy their ample 
 without an inhabitant. The crop, instead fields joining to fields, their spacious 
 of thirty-fold, shall be only a tithe of the mansions and deserted palaces. "As in 
 seed. To the eye of the seer in vision their pasture." Not, after their manner, 
 the doom of the proud revellers seems Dobram is the sheepdrive, or place of 
 already come. Hell, the great receptacle pastumge for lambs. The cultivated fields 
 of the souls of the dead, hath enlarged of Judah were to be waste and desolate. 
 her desire, and opened her mouth, like v. 18. The figure in this verse is 
 some ravenous monster ; and their glory, striking, but rather obscure. The second 
 and their multitude, and the profane re- word seems more emphatic than the first 
 
ISAIAH, V. 19—25. 
 
 39 
 
 and crime, as it were with a cartrope : 19 That say, Let him 
 make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it : and let 
 the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, and 
 we shall know it. 20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and 
 good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that 
 put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto tJiem 
 tJiat are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight ! 
 22 Woe unto tJieni that are mighty to drink wine, and men of 
 strength, to mingle strong drink ; 23 Which justify the wicked 
 for reward ; and take away the righteousness of the righteous 
 from him ! 
 
 24 Therefore, as fire devoureth the stubble, and flame 
 consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and 
 their blossom shall go up as dust. Because they have cast 
 away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the 
 Holy One of Israel, 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 zvcre as dung in the midst of the streets. 
 For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is 
 stretched out still. 
 
 and means here "crime" or open and 
 public sin. The woe is aimed against 
 those who reconcile themselves, by vain 
 and tortuous excuses, to the practice of 
 what is plainly evil, and carry their per- 
 verse reasonings further and further, till 
 they are emboldened to commit without 
 scruple enormous crimes. Such moral 
 blindness is constantly joined with scorn- 
 ful contempt for warnings of judgment. 
 They profanely invite God to let them 
 see some specimen of these judgments at 
 once fulfilled. 
 
 The title, the Holy One of Israel, is 
 characteristic of Isaiah, both in his earlier 
 and later visions. It meets us in the Pre- 
 face to this First Series, i. 3, and near 
 the close of the Sixth, in that vision of 
 hope, Ix. 14, "Thou shalt be called the 
 City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy 
 One of Israel." It thus fomis one out 
 of many signs of the unity of the whole 
 work. 
 
 vv. 24—30. After these six solemn 
 woes there follows a direct prediction of 
 
 judgment. The first act, the Syrian inva- 
 sion of Judah, is described as if already 
 past, the others as still to come. This 
 noward passage into the midst of the 
 predicted changes, forming a new narra- 
 tive present in the future, marks Isaiah's 
 visions from first to last. "And the hills 
 did tremble, and their carcases were as 
 dung in the midst of the streets." The 
 event predicted is that described 1 Chr. 
 xxviii. 6 : " For Pekah the son of Rema- 
 liah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty 
 thousand in one day, all valiant men, be- 
 cause they had forsaken the Lord God 
 of their fathers." 
 
 V. 25. " For all this, &c. " This sore 
 stroke would only prepare the way for 
 heavier judgments. Since there were no 
 signs of trae repentance, nothing would 
 arrest the further strokes of God's ven- 
 geance. A solemn burden, five times 
 repeated, here begins, ix. 12 — x. 4, and 
 lasts till it is exchanged for a blessing, 
 xii. I. Fierce invaders from the north 
 would soon darken the whole land with 
 
40 ISAIAH, V. 26—30. 
 
 26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, 
 and will hiss unto 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 broken : 28 Whose arrows arc sharp, 
 and all their bows bent : their horses' hoofs shall be counted 
 like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. 29 Their roar- 
 ing is like a lion, they shall roar like young lions : yea, they 
 shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away 
 safe, and none shall deliver it. 30 And they shall roar against 
 him in that day like the roaring of the sea: and <?//^ shall look 
 to the land, and behold darkness ! even the light is anguish ; it 
 is darkened in the heavens thereof. 
 
 mouming and sorrow. The vision reaches favour the Masoretic pointing, and perhaps 
 
 into the farther distance, when the Lord's the best rendering is as above. All is like 
 
 vineyard would be utterly wasted by the the gloom of night, joined with a terrible 
 
 Chaldean armies; and even to a still later thunderstorm, when the fitful flashes of 
 
 period, when the legions of Rome would lightning only render the gloom, desola- 
 
 bring in "the days of vengeance, that all tion, and sorrow, more vivid, which have 
 
 things may be fulfilled," and completed settled down upon the land, 
 the work of desolation. "Against him." The plural has a 
 
 V. 30. The construction and exact sense collective reference to the whole Jewish 
 
 of the last clause are rather obscure. people, and hence the singular, in the 
 
 Many critics, and our received version, translation, is preferable to avoid am- 
 
 depart from the Masoretic pointing and biguity. The Hebrew order is also pre- 
 
 accents, which group the middle words ferable. 
 
 together. But several retain it, Cocceius, The message reaches a grand and sub- 
 
 Kosenmiiller, Gesenius, Maurer, Alexan- lime climax of most indignant and solemn 
 
 der, Drechsler. The last renders tsar, warning. Darkness, moral and political, 
 
 hailstone, and or, light, for lightning, so like that of midnight, or a tropical thun- 
 
 as to continue the figure of a thunder- derstomi, would settle down upon the 
 
 storm. The Hebrew rhythm seems to guilty land. 
 
ISAIAH, VI. 41 
 
 § 4. Chap. VI. The Temple Vision. 
 
 This Vision begins with the earliest date in the Book of Isaiah, the 
 year of Uzziah's death. It seems thus to mark Isaiah's first call to the pro- 
 phetic office ; which, even on this view, he must have held for sixty years, 
 until near, and perhaps after, the close of Hezekiah's reign. The three 
 reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, alone amount to sixty-one years. 
 
 When Jeremiah was first called to be a prophet, his lips were touched 
 in vision by the Lord, as a sign of that mission. Ezekiel, at his first call, 
 had a glorious vision of the Cherubim. In this call of a still greater prophet 
 both of these features are combined. The whole account agrees with this 
 view. The vision was suited to impress Isaiah with the dignity of his 
 prophetic call, and to sustain him under the seeming ill success of his 
 message. The known length of his ministry makes any earlier date for 
 its opening rather less probable. The words, "Whom shall I send?" lose 
 much of their force, if he had been sent already. No era could be more suit- 
 able for this chief of the prophets to enter on his public testimony than the 
 last year of Uzziah. It closed a long and prosperous reign, in which was 
 seen a last reflection of the early glories of the kingdom. After it the sha- 
 dows began to lengthen. The reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah were only imper- 
 fect pauses, and times of suspense, in a downward course of spiritual apo- 
 stasy and political decay. 
 
 Two reasons have been offered (Vitringa, Hengstenberg, Alexander, 
 Drechsler) for supposing this to be a renewed commission. First, that this 
 year was a crisis in the history. But this is a still stronger reason why it 
 should have been chosen for sending the prophet to his great work. Next, 
 that the message here assumes a new character. But the warnings in ch. v. 
 5, 6, and in vi. 11, 12, are in substance the very same, and almost in form. 
 There is a close resemblance to the former message, and not a contrast. 
 Again, the order is simply explained, if ch. ii. — v. are the public message 
 given to Isaiah for the people at the time of this first commission. The 
 message would be uttered, publicly and orally, in the year when Uzziah died, 
 but before his death. But when the whole series ch. i. — xii. was published 
 in a written form (comp. viii. 16) early in the reign of Ahaz, it would be 
 natural to preface the whole with a direct and earnest appeal and warning to 
 the guilty nation ; next, to place on record the earliest public message, in the 
 last year of Uzziah ; then to append the account of the prophet's commis- 
 sion, with the more private warning to him of the ill reception of his public 
 message ; and, last of all, to add the later message, when the first act of 
 judgment had begun in the reign of Ahaz. The words of God, which the 
 people were condemned for refusing to lay to heart, could not consist of 
 two verses, vi. 10, 11, alone. This view of the relation of the parts in ch. 
 i.— xii. had been earlier and independently formed, but it agrees perfectly 
 with the conclusions of Uelitzsch in his latest work. 
 
42 ISAIAH, VI. 
 
 Some explain the date of the year before, and others of the year after, 
 Uzziah's death. The Chaldee and a few others apply it strangely to the year 
 of his civil death, when he was smitten with leprosy. But the plain reference 
 is to the Jewish year, from Nisan to Nisan, in which he died. The regnal 
 years of the kings of Judah and Israel are all really numbered in this way, 
 and not as the Roman emperors, from the day of their accession. In the 
 collateral line of Israel the death-year is usually counted to both reigns. 
 In the line of Judah, on which the reckoning of time depends, it is given 
 to one only. Ahaz plainly died towards the close of the Jewish year. The 
 same was probably true of Uzziah, and the vision might be several months 
 earlier, so that the prophet's first message would belong fully to that reign. 
 The same year was the first in Pekah's reign of twenty years, and was thus 
 a marked era in both kingdoms. 
 
 On the meaning of the Seraphim many volumes have been written. 
 They answer plainly to the Cherubim in Ezekiel, and to the C^oa, or Living 
 Ones of St John's Visions. The differences in Ezekiel are easily explained 
 from the different circumstances. Though the persons be real, the visual form 
 is symbolical, and may thus be varied in its details, to express some new idea. 
 The name here has a kindred sense, "burning ones," or creatures of fire, 
 from their appearance. So in Ezekiel, "Their appearance was like burning 
 coals of fire, like the appearance of lamps : it went up and down among 
 the living creatures ; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went 
 forth lightning," i. 13. They are no mere symbols, but living, intelligent 
 creatures, who perform acts of unceasing worship. They are creatures, not 
 emblems of the Godhead, as some have held, for they stand before the 
 Lord, and offer praise to Him as the Thrice Holy. They are not redeemed 
 men ; for they were stationed at the east of Paradise, to keep the way of the 
 tree of life, before the work of redemption had begun ; and they appear in 
 God's presence in these visions, when the souls of Abraham and the faithful 
 were still in Sheol or the grave. Even in the Apocalypse, they offer worship to 
 God the Creator, before the Lamb, the Redeemer, has been introduced into 
 the scene. The chief reason for holding them to represent the church, or some 
 chosen part of it, from Rev. v. 9, 10, is removed, when we adopt the best 
 supported reading of the text (see Wordsw. /n loco), " Thou wast slain, and 
 hast redeemed by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and 
 nation ; and hast made them unto our God kings and priests, and they shall 
 reign over the earth." This difficulty removed, all the marks concur in the 
 primitive view, still expressed in the Te Deum, that they are the highest 
 rank of heavenly spirits, nearest the throne of God and the foremost leaders 
 of the worship of the whole universe. They are four in number in Ezekiel 
 and the Apocalypse, and probably in this vision also. The phrase, "one 
 from the Seraphim," could hardly be used if there were two only. The 
 attitude of the Cherubim, depicted in the tabernacle, with their faces towards 
 the mercyseat, seems referred to by St Peter, when he remarks, of the 
 wonders of redemption, "which things the angels desire to look into 
 {napaKvylfai}," I Pet. i. 12. 
 
ISAIAH, VI. 1—4. 
 
 43 
 
 Chap. VI, i In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the 
 Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled 
 the temple. 2 Aloft in it 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 did fly. 3 And one cried unto an- 
 other, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts : the whole 
 earth is full of his glory. 4 And the posts of the door moved 
 at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with 
 
 V. I. "In the year, &c." This com- 
 mission answers very nearly to the usual 
 Varronian date for the founding of Rome. 
 The times of the Gentiles, and the pre- 
 dicted judgments on Israel, run side by 
 side. "The national glory of Israel died 
 out with king Uzziah, and has never 
 revived to this day." (Delitzsch.) 
 
 "I saw also." This version is the 
 simplest, and retains its full emphasis by 
 the present view. [Others (Gesen., Hend., 
 Alex.) make the I'au a Hebrew pleo- 
 nasm.] In the same year, assumed to 
 be the well-known date of the prophet's 
 public message, ch. ii. — v., he now re- 
 counts that he received this temple vision ; 
 and was not only called solemnly to his 
 office, but had a warning of the heedless 
 unconcern with which his words would 
 be received by the people. 
 
 "The temple." Some refer this to the 
 outward temple, seen in a trance or 
 ecstasy, others to the heavenly antitype. 
 Rather, the type is here made ideal, and 
 loses itself in the antitype. It is still 
 God's own dwelling in the midst of His 
 rebellious people. The temple is seen 
 with the altar of burnt-offering ; but the 
 veil is removed, and the prophet's eye 
 reaches to the inner shrine. The lofty 
 throne answers to the mercyseat in the 
 Holy of holies. There He sat in kingly 
 majesty, who "covereth himself with light 
 as with a garment :" and the skirts of this 
 robe of dazzling light "filled the temple," 
 or reached throughout the holy place. 
 
 The Person seen, as St John declares, 
 is the Son of God, the Eternal Word, by 
 whom alone the Father is revealed, 
 "These things said Esaias, when he saw 
 His glory, and wrote of Him." Joh. 
 xii. 41. 
 
 v. 2. "Aloft in it." The Hebrew 
 
 preposition must here be taken adverbi- 
 ally, in the sense "the upper part of it." 
 The Seraphim, it clearly means, stood in 
 the upper part of the temple, not above 
 it. So tachath is used for dcnan or 
 Imo, instead of beneath, Gen. xlix. 25 ; 
 Is. X. 4, see note. The Seraphim stood, 
 not above the throne itself, or Him 
 who sat thereon, which would ill agree 
 with the scope of the passage, or with the 
 parallel visions of Ezekiel and St John ; 
 but in the upper part of the temple that 
 was filled with glory. They stood thus 
 in the holy of holies, in the immediate 
 presence of the King. "Each one had 
 six wings" as in the Apocalypse. The 
 covering of the face was a sign of the 
 deepest reverence. In the East, covering 
 of the feet has often a like significance. 
 But here they seem to be put for all the 
 lower part of the body. "They cover 
 their faces, lest they should see, their 
 feet, lest they should be seen." Or per- 
 haps with this meaning ; that while full 
 of awe and reverence towards the King 
 of heaven, before all others they are self- 
 clothed with marvellous dignity and hon- 
 our. Their own wings are their celestial 
 garments. Near the throne, in the highest 
 part of the temple, perhaps self-poised 
 in the air, they stood ready to obey, 
 with the speed of the lightning flash 
 (Ez. i. 14), the commands of the LORD 
 of hosts, the King of heaven. 
 
 v. 3. Tbe Seraphim sing responsive- 
 ly to God, as thrice holy, supremely holy, 
 and persevere without weariness in their 
 adoration. But the words allude further 
 to the Three Persons of the Godhead, 
 Joh. xvii. 11; Heb. vii. 26; i Joh. ii. 20, 
 and to the Sacred Name, including past, 
 present, future time, as in their Apoca- 
 lyptic song "Holy, holy, holy Lord God 
 
44 
 
 ISAIAH, VI. 5—8. 
 
 smoke. 5 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, and a live 
 coal was in his hand, zu/iich he had taken with the tongs from 
 off the altar. 7 And he laid // upon my mouth, and said, Lo! this 
 hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy 
 sin is purged. 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 
 
 Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
 come." Rev. iv. 8. 
 
 "The whole earth." To sinful men, 
 dwelling in the mist and darkness, this is 
 a promise for days still to come, Num. 
 xiv. 11. But it is a present truth to the 
 glorious spirits who stand before God, 
 and see all His works, and all His provi- 
 dence, in the light of heaven. Every 
 step of spiritual advance brings us nearer 
 to those Pisgah heights, from which the 
 earth is seen to be full, even now, of the 
 goodness of the Lord. 
 
 v. 4. ''With smoke." Some refer 
 this to smoke from the incense altar 
 (Michael., Koppe, Ewald, Drechsler), as 
 if parallel in sense with Rev. viii. 4. But 
 the true parallel, retained by most, is 
 with I Ki. viii. 10 — 12; 2 Chr. v. 13; 
 Rev. XV. 8. There is no allusion to the 
 prayers of saints, but simply an emblem 
 of the Divine majesty. In the Dedication 
 by Solomon, the song of praise was the 
 signal for the cloud of glory to fill the 
 house, and so also in the Apocalypse. 
 As fire from heaven was the sign of His 
 acceptance of earthly sacrifice, so here 
 this cloud, "dark with excessive bright" is 
 the sublime response to the worship of the 
 Serajjhim. What nobler answer could 
 be given to their adoration than fresh 
 tokens of the unsearchableness of His 
 glory ? 
 
 vv. 5 — 7. This bright vision over- 
 powers the prophet with fear and shame. 
 The pure worship of the Seraphim re- 
 veals his own sin, and the sin of his 
 ])eople, in their vain speech and unholy 
 services. A glimpse of God's majesty, as 
 with Job, Daniel, and St John, over- 
 whelms him with awe. And here also, 
 as with them, deep humiliation leads to 
 signal honour and blessing. Pieces of 
 wood were laid upon the altar of burnt- 
 
 offering, to keep up the fire. Lev. vi. 12. 
 One of these pieces of burning wood, 
 living sources of heat and flame, was 
 taken with tongs, in vision, by one of the 
 Seraphim, and made to touch his lips. 
 It was thus part of the same fire, which 
 consumed the sacrifices, whereby the 
 prophet's lips were purged in the vision 
 for the fulfilment of his high calling. The 
 altar is plainly not the incense altar 
 (Drechsler), which would now be con- 
 cealed in the smoke of the glory. His 
 own place, in vision, was without in the 
 altar-court. The mention of the tongs is 
 a further sign. The atonement was made 
 by the sacrifices on the altar of burnt- 
 offering. The act of the seraph denoted 
 the pardon of sin, because the wood was 
 from this altar, where the blood of the 
 sin-offerings was poured out. But it also 
 implied the conveyance of prophetic in- 
 spiration, since his lips were now con- 
 secrated to God's service with heavenly 
 fire. 
 
 V. 8. The prophet now hears the 
 voice of the Lord out of the thick dark- 
 ness, seeking for some messenger to con- 
 vey His words to a rebellious people. 
 
 The voice. Who will go for us? teaches 
 the jilurality of Persons in the Divine 
 Essence. St John xii. 41, refers the 
 vision to Christ, and St Paul (Acts 
 xxviii. 25), the message that follows to 
 the Holy Ghost. The prophet eagerly 
 accepts the call. His heart, with his lips, 
 has been touched with fire from the altar, 
 and he longs to share with the seraphim 
 in showing forth the high praises of God. 
 The message is like that to Moses, Ex. 
 iii. 10; to Jeremiah i. 7, to Ezekiel ii. 3. 
 In all these cases it marks their first 
 public consecration to be God's in- 
 sjjircd messengers. Their messages came 
 not from their own will, 2 Pet. i, 21, 
 
ISAIAH, VI. 9— 11. 
 
 45 
 
 Whom shall I send .'' and who will go for us } Then said I, Here 
 ain I : send me. g And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear- 
 ing hear ye, and understand not ; and seeing see ye, but per- 
 ceive 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 
 return, and be healed. 1 1 Then said I, Lord, how long ? And 
 he answered, until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and 
 
 but the hand of the Lord was strong 
 upon them, Is. viii. ii ; Ez. iii. 14. God 
 called them, and they obeyed His voice ; 
 and they were "borne along," 2 Pet. 
 iv. 2 1, to their work, and sustained in 
 it, by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 w. 9, 10. "This people." Their sins 
 had made them unworthy of the name, 
 "my people," "the people of God." 
 These words could not be the whole of 
 Isaiah's first message. Rather they are a 
 supplement, for his own guidance, to the 
 vision revealed at the same time " concern- 
 ing Judah and Jerusalem," ii. i. Though 
 his lips have been touched with fire from 
 God's altar, he is not to expect the 
 general repentance of the people. His 
 burning words would kindle no worthy 
 response in their hearts. They would 
 hear, constantly and repeatedly, and not 
 understand. They would see his warn- 
 ings fulfilling themselves before their 
 eyes, and be blind to that fulfilment. 
 With stern irony, they are told to perse- 
 vere in this deafness and blindness. In 
 the same way the prophet is taught what 
 would be the direct result of his own 
 labours. His words would leave the 
 people, in general, more hardened ; yet 
 knowing this, he was to teach them 
 and to warn them still. The foreseen 
 abuse of God's messages is not always a 
 reason why they should be withheld. 
 Even the Gospel itself is "unto God a 
 sweet savour of Christ, in them that are 
 saved, and in them that perish." And 
 though God, who cannot be tempted of 
 evil, himself tempts no man, yet the 
 perverseness of the ungodly can never 
 disappoint His counsel ; and their fore- 
 seen guilt and folly will minister at length 
 to the brighter display of His infinite 
 holiness, and perfect love. 
 
 vv. II, I a. The prophet's words are 
 
 no mere curious inquiry, but a sorrow- 
 ful complaint. So Jeremiah xii. 4, "How 
 long shall the land mourn for the wicked- 
 ness of them that dwell therein?" And 
 the beloved Daniel, "How long shall 
 be the vision of the transgression of deso- 
 lation?" Dan. viii. 13. And the souls 
 under the altar, "How long, O Lord, 
 faithful and true, dost thou not judge and 
 avenge our blood on them that dwell 
 on the earth?" It is the longing of the 
 faithful, in every age, to look beyond the 
 dark clouds of sin and sorrow to the 
 close of the mystery of God, the times of 
 restitution of all things, and to the full 
 victory of redeeming power and love. 
 
 The answer declares how complete the 
 judgment will be. Not the cities only, 
 but their separate houses ; not only the 
 town, but the country, will be dispeopled. 
 They shall be exiled, not to near dis- 
 tricts, whence they might soon return, 
 but far away ; and there would be a long- 
 lasting desolation. The warning plainly 
 extends beyond the nearer Assyrian trou- 
 bles to the captivity of Babylon. And 
 as the reproof was applied anew by St 
 Paul to the Jews at Rome, so the words 
 have been fulfilled, even more strikingly, 
 in the wars of Vespasian and Titus, and 
 the dispersion and desolation which lasts 
 even to tlae present time. So wide in their 
 range are His messages, with whom a 
 thousand years are as a single day. 
 
 V. 13. But this judgment, though 
 most severe, will be tempered with 
 mercy. The covenant to Abraham and 
 to his seed cannot fail. The exact mean- 
 ing of the verse is disputed, and rather 
 obscure. Most modern critics, as Vi- 
 tringa, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Ewald, 
 Alexander, Henderson, Drechsler, render 
 nearly thus: "And should a tenth re- 
 main in it, it shall once more be con- 
 
46 
 
 ISAIAH, VI. 12. 13. 
 
 the houses without a man, and the land be utterly desolate : 
 12 And the Lord have removed men far away, and t Jure be a 
 great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13 And still tJicre 
 shall be a tenth therein, that shall return : and there shall be 
 wasting ; but as a teil tree and as an oak, whose life is in them 
 when they are cut down : the holy seed shall be the life 
 thereof. 
 
 sumcd ; yet as a teil tree and an oak, 
 whose substance is in them when they 
 are felled (or, cast their leaves), the holy 
 seed is the substance thereof." The word 
 "returns" is thus taken, by a frequent 
 idiom, to denote that the main action is 
 repeated. But there are weighty rea- 
 sons for giving it its primary sense. It 
 has been used just before in the threat- 
 ening, "lest they return, and be healed." 
 It forms the name of Isaiah's son, Shear- 
 jashub, "a remnant shall return," alluding 
 to the promise couched in this first mes- 
 sage. That name seems to have been bor- 
 rowed from the words in this very text, 
 which relieve its severe and solemn threat- 
 ening. Also the allusion seems rather to 
 the life which remains in the stock of 
 a tree when felled and cut down, than 
 to the annual fall of the leaves only. 
 The rendering above seems to give the 
 
 real meaning. The consumption shall not 
 be total; but like that of a tree which 
 retains vital power in the stock, when 
 its branches are lopt, or even its stem 
 cut down. See Jobxiv. 7,9. The same 
 figure recurs a little later in the promise 
 of Messiah, xi. i, as a lowly sucker or 
 shoot arising from the stem of Jesse, after 
 it has been brought low. 
 
 "The holy seed shall be the life there- 
 of." There shall be a remnant according 
 to the election of grace. The covenant 
 to Abraham and to his seed after him 
 cannot be broken. The Apostle repeats 
 the truth in its latest form. "As con- 
 cerning the Gospel, they are enemies for 
 your sakes ; but as touching their election, 
 they are beloved for the fathers. For 
 the gifts and calling of God are without 
 repentance." Rom. xi. 29. 
 
 The Promise to the Remnant, Chap. VI. 13. 
 
 Three critical questions arise on this verse. First, does veshabah 
 vehayethah leba'cr denote a repeated destruction, or does shabah retain its 
 proper meaning, as a promise that the tenth, 'asiriyah, shall return, either to 
 the land, or from sin to God? The former view is more usual (LXX., Symm., 
 Rosenm., Gesen., Hend., Alex., Drcchsler, Delitzsch). But the latter view 
 (Chald., Jarch., Calv., A.V., De Dieu, &;c.) is confirmed by the use of the same 
 root, i. 27, shabciyah, " her converts," in the first promise to Zion ; by the 
 name shcarjashub, "a remnant shall return," given to the prophet's first- 
 born ; by the warning v. lo "and shall return {vas/idb) and be healed ;" by 
 its renewal ix. 13 (12) "the people turneth not {lo s/iab) to him that smiteth 
 them ;" and by the promise x. 23 shear jashub bo, "a remnant of them shall 
 return." Besides, the idiomatic use elsewhere is before a simple verb, and 
 not, as here, before a complex phrase, "it shall be for a consuming." These 
 reasons seem decisive in favour of the proper sense, so that vesJiabah is to 
 be joined, as a relative clause, to the tenth or remnant named just before. 
 
ISAIAH, VII. 47 
 
 The return, however, is to God himself, i. 27, 28, x. 21. The idea of exile, 
 and return to the land, has only a secondary place even elsewhere, and here 
 it cannot apply, for this remnant are described as if still in the land. 
 
 Next, does shalleketh denote the shedding of the leaves only (Targ., Kim- 
 chi) or of their fruit (LXX.) or the felling of the trunk itself (Rosenm., Hend., 
 Alex., Knobel, Drechsler, Delitzsch)? The last observes, "These trees were 
 selected (the terebinth or teil-tree, and the oak)... on account of their readily 
 springing up again from the root, like the beech or nut, even when completely 
 felled. As the forms yabbeshcth^ dryness, dallikcth, fever, &c. are used to 
 denote certain qualities, and for the most part faulty ones, so shalleketh 
 does not refer to the act, but the condition of a tree, that has been hewn down ; 
 yet not of the trunk, but of the root still left in the earth." (Delitsch Trans. 
 I. 202.) The customary fall of the leaf seems quite short of the force of the 
 word, which applies to a violent casting down. So 2 Ki. vii. 15, xxiii. 12 ; 
 Neh. ix. II ; Ez. xxviii. 17 ; Ex. iv. 3, xxii. 31, xxxii. 19 ; Deut. ix. 17 ; Jon. ii. 
 3 ; Dan. viii. 1 1. On the other hand the growth of a sucker from the stump 
 of Jesse's family, and of a Branch from his roots, is the figure used presently, 
 xi. I, to describe the birth of Messiah. 
 
 Thirdly, does matzebeth denote the root, stock, or stump (Rosenm., De 
 Wette, Gesen., Hend., Drechsler, Delitzsch), or the sap, life, or young shoot 
 (Targ., Hitz., Knob., Alex.).? The word is used elsewhere for a pillar, from 
 the root natzab, to stand fast, set upright, or establish. This, however, can 
 hardly apply, literally, to a stump level with the ground. But it applies, by 
 an easy metaphor, to that which gives permanence to the tree, when appa- 
 rently destroyed, that is, to the seminal or vital power. Nor could the stump 
 be said to be in the tree, being the only part left. But the vital power, the 
 life, remains in it, and enables it to sprout up anew. So, in the lowest state of 
 the Jewish people, there would be "a remnant according to the election 
 of grace," Rom. xi. 5, to whom the promise is sure, and through whom the 
 olive-tree of Israel will survive its greatest calamity and revive in full beauty 
 once more. 
 
 FIRST SERIES, LATER DIVISION. 
 
 Second Year of Ahaz. 
 
 § 5. Chap. VII. — IX. 7. The Promise of Immanuel. 
 
 The six chapters, ch. vii.— xii., which complete the First Series of Isaiah's 
 vision, and which Delitzsch calls their Second Cycle, are parted from those 
 before them by an interval of nineteen years. But they are closely linked 
 with them by the common preface, ch. i., which applies to the calamities in 
 the later reign, and also by the burden, ch. v. 25, which is repeated four 
 times in the Assyrian Woe, ix. 12, 17, 21, x. 4, is arrested by the promise, 
 x. 25, "Yet a little while, and mine anger shall cease in their destruction," 
 
48 ISAIAH, VII. 
 
 and is finally reversed by the promise at the close, xii. i, "Thine anger is 
 turned away, and thou hast comforted me." This link firmly binds together 
 the whole series, begun in the last year of Uzziah, and renewed and com- 
 pleted in the second year of Ahaz. We have no prophecy that seems to date 
 from the reign of Jotham. Isaiah prophesied, however, through its course, by 
 the message already given and then unfulfilled. 
 
 This latter part of the series admits easily of a threefold division, (i) The 
 Promise of Immanuel, vii. I— ix. 7, closing with a glorious promise ; (2) The 
 Assyrian scourge, ix. 8— x. 34, a burden of warning and sorrow, and (3) The 
 Promise of the Son of David, ch. xi., xii , a message of unmingled hope and 
 brightness. The first separates into distinct portions, but the promise of 
 Immanuel runs throughout the whole. 
 
 Different views have been taken of the most natural division in these 
 later chapters vii.— xii. of the First Series. Vitringa parts the whole series 
 into five sections, ch. i., ch. ii. — iv., ch. v., ch. vi., ch. vii. — xii. The fifth, one 
 half of the whole, he divides into five subsections. Drechsler, more simply, 
 adds these as five sections to the other four, a little varied, making a 
 ninefold division. Thus we have three partitions of the later part. 
 
 Vitringa. 
 I. vii. 7. viii. i-ix. 7. 3. ix, 8-x. 4. 4. x. 5-34. 5. xi. & xii. 
 
 Drechsler. 
 I. vii. t. viii. i-viii. 4. 3. viii. 5-ix. 7. 4. ix. 8-x. 4 5. x. 5-34 & xi, xii. 
 
 Stier. 
 I. vii-viii. 8. 2. viii. 9-22. 3. ix. 1-7. 4. ix. 8-x. 4. 5. x. 5-34. 6. xi & xii. 
 
 The present division varies from that of Vitringa in making three 
 sections, where he makes one with five subsections ; his first and second, 
 and his third and fourth subdivisions, being joined in one. Thus i.— xii. 
 is viewed as having seven parts, well defined, and not very unequal in 
 length, i., ii. — iv., v., vi., vii. — ix. 7, ix. 8 — x. 34, xi. and xii. The Promise 
 of Immanuel, ch. vii. is distinctly resumed in viii. 8, 9, and culminates in 
 ix. 6, 7, so that this part has a dramatic unity. It is hardly less plain, 
 though overlooked by many, that the warnings, ix. 8 — x. 4, have their direct 
 issue in the summons to the Assyrian, x. 5 — 34, to fulfil God's threaten- 
 ings. No sensible pause can be admitted at x. 5 without obscuring the 
 whole message. The opinion of those critics, from Lightfoot to Ewald and 
 Henderson, who make x. 5 — 34 a later prophecy after the fall of Samaria, 
 rests on a wholly false view of x. 11, and does violence to all the internal 
 evidence, which links this part with the previous verses in the clearest way. 
 The sins of Israel and Judah are first described ix. 8 — x. 4, and then the 
 avenger, the rod of God's anger, is summoned to execute the decreed judg- 
 ment. This whole message of warning is preceded by a full prediction of 
 Messiah, as Immanuel, and is followed by another, which reveals Him as 
 the Branch from the root of Jesse, and announces more fully His glorious 
 and triumphant reign. 
 
ISAIAH, VII. 1—3. 
 
 49 
 
 VII. I. 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 RemaHah, king of Israel, went 
 up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail 
 against it. 2 And it was told the house of David, saying, 
 Syria is resting upon Ephraim ; and his heart was moved, and 
 the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved 
 with the wind. 3 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 highway of the fuller's 
 
 V. I. This passage, vii. i — 9, with 
 viii. I — 4, is the historical pedestal of the 
 great prophecy of Immanuel, as ch. 
 xxxvi. — xxxix., is in like manner for the 
 later visions, from ch. xl. to the close. 
 God's predictions of the future are always 
 fast rooted in the soil of present history. 
 No part of this book seems to belong 
 directly to the reign of Jotham. But in 
 that reign Isaiah's record of "the acts of 
 Uzziah, first and last," 1 Chr. xxyi. 22, 
 was most probably written; and his 
 earlier messages, ch. ii. — vi., were a con- 
 stant warning of judgments near at hand. 
 
 " Pekah, the son of Remaliah." This, 
 the last prosperous reign in Israel, began 
 in the last year of Uzziah, when Isaiah 
 received his commission. It seems most 
 probable that this campaign was not the 
 same, nor earlier, but later than the one in 
 1 Chr. xxviii. 6 (Jerome, Theodoret, Jar- 
 chi, Vitringa, Rosenmiiller, Drechsler). 
 The inroads had begun under Jotham, 
 1 Kin. XV. 37. They would be at once 
 renewed on the accession of Ahaz, who 
 was young and unpopular. His apostasy 
 began from the first, and the campaign 
 in Chronicles followed, when Rezin took 
 Elath, and Pekah defeated Judah with 
 great slaughter. "This success carried 
 their hopes further, so that they thought 
 to dethrone Ahaz, displace the house of 
 David, and set up one of their own 
 creatures king of Judah. This is the 
 expedition, 2 Kin. xvi. 5; Is. vii., and 
 would fall in the next military season, 
 the second year of Ahaz" (Drechsler). 
 This answers probably to B.C. 741, and 
 the nineteenth year of Isaiah's ministry. 
 
 "But could not prevail." Their first 
 success was great, when fulfilling God's 
 
 B. I. 
 
 threatened judgment against Judah. But 
 when they sought to depose the line of 
 David, they fought against God, and 
 wholly failed. 
 
 v. 2. "Is resting upon" A. V. "confe- 
 derate with" "Ephraim." Some refer the. 
 phrase to alliance, others to the place of 
 encampment. But this latter sense is 
 opposed to the context, which implies 
 that -these forces were in the land of 
 Judah, noi of Ephraim. The meaning 
 is rather that there was a league, in 
 which Syria had the chief control. The 
 restoration of the captives after Oded's 
 rebuke, 2 Chr. xxviii. 9 — 15, would a- 
 waken the hope that Ephraim had now 
 returned to a brotherly policy. This hope 
 proved vain. Syria, the constant foe of 
 the house of David, had regained its for- 
 mer influence. The professed aim of the 
 renewed confederacy was not bloody war, 
 but a friendly revolution to remove an 
 unpopular king. Their real aim was to 
 make Judah a vassal of Syria and Eph- 
 raim. There was thus great cause for 
 dismay. The people feared the renewal 
 of former bloodshed, and the house of 
 David were aware of deep discontent 
 among the people. Faith alone could 
 have made them bold, and this faith was 
 wholly wanting. 
 
 V. 3. Hosea's mission began with the 
 birth of two sons and a daughter, whose 
 names announced the coming judgments 
 of God. The two sons of Isaiah had 
 the same character of "signs from the 
 Lord," viii. 18. The name of the 
 younger was given by express command, 
 viii. 1 — 4, and announced the speedy 
 advent of the Assyrian spoiler. Of 
 Shear-jashub no such details are given, 
 
50 
 
 ISAIAH, VII. 4—8. 
 
 field : 4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet : fear not, 
 neither be fainthearted, for these two tails of smoking fire- 
 brands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son 
 of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Rema- 
 liah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6 Let us go 
 up against Judah, and vex it ; and let us make a breach therein 
 for us, and set a king in the midst of it, the son of Tabcal : 
 7 Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, and it shall not 
 come to pass. 8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the 
 
 hut his name must have heen either from 
 a. prophetic impulse or direct revelation, 
 "a remnant shall return." It is derived 
 from the promise, vi. 13. "And still 
 there shall be a remnant therein, that 
 shall return." This key-note of promise 
 recurs, x. 21. If Shear-jashub was born 
 in the first year of Jotham, he would 
 now be seventeen years old, and have 
 been a sign of judgment and deliverance 
 throughout that reign. 
 
 "The upper pool." Its exact position 
 is not quite certain. The most current 
 view places it to the west, near the Jaffa 
 gate. But some strong reasons may be 
 urged for placing it on the north side, 
 (Lightfoot, Hitzig) where is the tradi- 
 tional "Camp of the Assyrians." The 
 interview was clearly in the same spot 
 with Rabshakeh's insults and blasphe- 
 mies, ch. xxxvi. 2, which were like a 
 repetition of the message to Ahab, "I 
 will requite thee in this plat, saith the 
 Lord," 2 Ki. ix. 26. 
 
 V. 4. They were tempted, not only 
 to terror and alarm, but to a heathen 
 alliance with Assyria. The caution ap- 
 plies to these dangers, rather than the 
 armies of Ephraim and Syria. The 
 title given to Rezin and Pekah alludes to 
 the terrible fire they had so lately kindled 
 in Judah, and to the fact that their course 
 was nearly run. The name "son of 
 Remaliah " is repeated in contempt. lie 
 was an usurper, who had gained the 
 throne by the murder of the previous 
 king, 2 Ki. xv. 25. 
 
 v. 6. Some think that Tabeal is put 
 for Remaliah by a kind of Hebrew or 
 Cabbalistic anagram; others that it is .a 
 Hebrew substitute for Tab-rimmon, the 
 name of Benhadad's father, in which case 
 his son would be some Syrian noble. 
 
 The view of Calvin seems to agree better 
 with the context, that he was the head 
 of the disaffected party in Judah. By 
 promoting a Jewish nolile or popular 
 favourite, the confederates would be most 
 likely to secure their object of making 
 Judah a vassal and dependent power. 
 The presence of a stranger, a Syrian 
 noble, would have been a constant mo- 
 tive for revolt, and sign of degradation. 
 
 vv. 8, 9. This prediction renews chrono- 
 logical prophecy, which has not occurred 
 since the days of Joshua. It is followed 
 by the 15 years of Hezekiah, the seventy 
 years of Tyre's oblivion and Judah's 
 captivity, the seventy weeks of Daniel 
 and their three subdivisions, Is. xxxviii. ; 
 xxiii. 15. Jer xxv. n, 12 ; xxix. 10. Dan. 
 ix. 24 — 27. These 65 years reach beyond 
 the fall of Samaria to the latest exile of 
 Israel, and their replacement by heathen 
 colonists under Esarhaddon, Ezr. iv. 2. 
 The Scripture data, so far as they exist, 
 agree. From the second of Ahaz B.C. 
 741, they would reach to B.C. 676; and 
 the Seder Olam assigns Manasseh's cap- 
 tivity to his 22nd year, or B.C. 676 — 5. 
 By Ptolemy's Canon the reign of Asara- 
 dinus at Babylon was B. c. 680 — 667, 
 after an interregnum. But a recent re- 
 covery of Babylon, after a revolt, would 
 naturally suggest the plan of transporting 
 colonists from .Samaria to Babylon, and 
 from Babylon to .Samaria. There are also 
 65 years from the death of Jeroboam II., 
 in whom the jnomise to Jehu expired, 
 to the fall of Samaria. The 70 years of 
 Judah's captivity had likewise a double 
 date B.C. 606—536, 588 — 518. 
 
 The rest of these two verses is obscure. 
 Most critics explain them to mean that 
 each king and kingdom was shut within 
 its own bounds, and therefore might not 
 
ISAIAH, VII. 9— 13. 
 
 5t 
 
 head of Damascus is Rezin ; and within threescore and five 
 years Ephraim shall be broken, and be no more a people. 
 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Sa- 
 maria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye will 
 not be established. 
 
 lo Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 
 II Ask thee a sign from the Lord thy God: make thy petition 
 deep, or in the height above. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not 
 ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye 
 
 enlarge itself by the conquest of Jerusalem. 
 But there is no sign that either king, in 
 case of success, would have transferred 
 his seat of government to that city, which 
 this interpretation seems to require. 
 Several others have been proposed. In 
 each verse a plain warning is prefaced by 
 one more obscure, which the event would 
 make clear. The whole may be thus 
 paraphrased. "Ephraim i-elies on Syria, 
 Judah is afraid of Ephraim ; their confi- 
 dence and their fear are equally vain. 
 For the head of Syria is Damascus, soon 
 to be spoiled ; and the head of Damascus, 
 Rezin, the tail of a firebrand soon to be 
 quenched ; and in spite of their worthless 
 help, the doom of Ephraim is certain ; 
 within 65 years it shall cease to be. And 
 the head of Ephraim is Samaria, feeble 
 and luxurious, a chaplet soon to be 
 trodden down ; and the head of Samaria 
 a mere usurper, a murderer soon to be 
 murdered in his turn. It is not such a 
 foe, but your own cowardice, which is 
 the real danger. If ye will not believe, 
 surely ye will not be established." Their 
 unbelief was the true source of their con- 
 fusion and sorrow. 
 
 w. 10 — 15. The previous verses are 
 the historical preface to this wonderful 
 prophecy. Two or three remarks will 
 guide us to its true meaning. 
 
 First, the birth of Immanuel was to be 
 a sign directly to the house of David, and 
 more indirectly to Judah and Israel. It 
 was to be a pledge that the oath to 
 David, of a kingdom never to be diverted 
 from his offspring, could not fail. The 
 promised child was to be owner of the 
 land, viii. 8, and also heir of David's 
 throne, ix. 6, 7. Hence the promise can- 
 not refer to a son of Isaiah, or any child 
 not conspicuously of David's line. Next, 
 
 this child was not yet born, and Hezekiah 
 was now about ten years old. Also the 
 birth of Manasseh, the next successor, 
 was thirty years later. Thus the birth 
 of no heir to the throne could be really 
 a sign, in the chronological sense, so as 
 to define a very short period when the 
 actual invasion would have failed. Third- 
 ly, another child, a son of the prophet, 
 and no heir of the throne, plainly fulfils 
 this purpose of limiting a time for the 
 fall of the two invaders. Before this 
 child can cry, "My father," and "My 
 mother," the spoil of Damascus and Sa- 
 maria would be carried away. The birth 
 of Immanuel, then, could not be a useless 
 duplicate, a second limit of time to the 
 present invasion, but must be a sign in 
 some other sense. His name clearly 
 towers above both the Syrian and As- 
 syrian calamities, announcing a Ruler in 
 the line of David, of whose kingdom 
 there would be no end, ix. 6, 7. 
 
 V. ro. The sign offered was to be a 
 pledge of God's enduring favour to the 
 house of David, now threatened at home 
 and abroad, by the disaffected in Judah, 
 and by the confederate kings. The title 
 "thy God" reminds Ahaz of the sure 
 covenant to David, on which he was 
 bound to rest. The sign might be a 
 present wonder, like the change of the 
 I'od of Moses, and the dew on Gideon's 
 fleece ; or a prediction, sustaining hope 
 by details of a future blessing, like tlie 
 message to Moses, Ex. iii. 12, or like the 
 warning to Eli of the death of his sons in 
 one day, i Sam. ii. 34. 
 
 v. II. The answer of Ahaz alludes to 
 Deut. vi. 16. He wrests the command of 
 God into an excuse for rejecting God's 
 own offer. He did not wish to be bound 
 to God's service by any fresh tie, and 
 
 4—2 
 
52 
 
 ISAIAH, VII. 14—17. 
 
 now, O house of David : Is it a small thing for you to weary 
 men, but will ye weary my God also ? 14 Therefore the Lord 
 himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive 
 and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanucl. 
 
 15 Curds and honey shall he eat, that he may know to 
 refuse evil, and to choose the good. 16 For before the child 
 shall know to refuse evil, and to choose the good, the land 
 shall be forsaken, in the presence of whose two kings thou art 
 dismayed. 17 The Lord will bring upon thee, and upon thy 
 people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, 
 from the day when Ephraim broke away from Judah, even the 
 
 clung to his politic scheme of hiring the 
 king of Assyria. 
 
 V. 13. "To weary men." The con- 
 trast is usually held to lie between the 
 projjhet himself, whose message had 
 gained no credit, and the Lord, whose 
 ofTered sign was refused. But the pro- 
 phet, from the first, had spoken in God's 
 name, and this reply is the voice of 
 the Lord himself through his lips. The 
 need for a sign arose from the danger to 
 the house of David through the general 
 discontent of the people. Their claim to 
 Divine right, coupled with their luxury, 
 selfishness, and oppression, had exhaust- 
 ed the patience of many in Judah, and 
 made them ready to welcome this rival, 
 the son of Taheal. Thus the house of 
 David, having lost the favour of the 
 people by abusing the honour divinely 
 given, were now provoking God, if it 
 were possible, to revoke His own pro- 
 mise. By pride and oppression, in the 
 confidence of their descent from David, 
 they had wearied men. And now they 
 wearied the Lord himself, by rejecting 
 His message, and refusing the offered help 
 and succour of heaven. 
 
 V. 14. A sign had been offered, in 
 the depth below, or in the height above. 
 If given at all, it should answer to the 
 Divine proposal, and be some surprising 
 wonder. Such is this sign, as expounded 
 by the Holy Spirit in the Gospel, the 
 miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, 
 the Son of the Most High, from a virgin 
 mother. This is truly a sign in the depth 
 of unspeakable condescension, and in the 
 height of God's unsearchable glorj'. The 
 birth of a child in the usual course of 
 nature would hardly be a sign at all, and 
 
 plainly neither in the depth nor in the 
 height al)ove. The article, "the Virgin," 
 is significant. It can refer to no wife of 
 the prophet, since this was to be a royal 
 child ; nor of Ahaz, of whom no younger 
 son came to the throne ; nor of Hezekiah, 
 still a mere child. The allusion is to 
 the first promise, that the Seed of the 
 woman should bruise the head of the 
 serpent. This promise had been limited, 
 first to the race of Abraham, and next, to 
 the seed of David ; and "the Virgin" 
 must thus mean that damsel of the race 
 of David, for whom the high honour was 
 reser\'ed, in God's secret counsel, to give 
 birth in due season to the long promised 
 King of Israel, the Saviour of the world. 
 
 V. 15. "Curds" rather than butter, 
 milk curdled and thickened being a usual 
 kind of food in the East. The reason 
 for this mention of the food of the infant 
 Immanuel is shewn, v. 1^. 
 
 The connective has been rendered 
 "before," "when" and "until". But 
 the received version is the most simple, 
 and agrees best with the real scope. It is 
 in the use of food that every infant attains 
 the full exercise of its human faculties. 
 But this child, unlike other infants, from 
 the first dawn of reason, will know to 
 refuse evil and to choose the good. The 
 jihrase, like the fact, is unique, and never 
 used in Scripture of any other child. 
 Three wonders would meet in Him whose 
 name is "Wonderful," — a miraculous 
 birth, a Divine nature, and sinless choice 
 of the good alone. 
 
 v. 16. The altered rendering is pre- 
 ferred by most critics, and confirmed by 
 the order of the Hebrew words. Ahn/, 
 and his people were now dismayed by 
 
ISAIAH, VII. 18—22. 
 
 55 
 
 king of Assyria. 18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that 
 the Lord will hiss for the fly that is in the borders 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 deso- 
 late valleys, and in the clefts of the rocks, and upon all thorn- 
 bushes, and in all pastures. 20 In the same day the Lord will 
 shave with a razor, hired from beyond the river, 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 tJiat they shall 
 
 the presence of the two kings of Ephraim 
 and Syria, with their warlike array. But 
 very soon these boastful powers would be 
 brought to ruin, and their land become a 
 desolation. This would be the first step 
 in a series of judgments. 
 
 V. 17—25. The difficulty often felt in 
 V. 16 will be removed, when the true 
 nature of its connection with these follow- 
 ing verses is clearly seen. That there is 
 a close connexion is plain from v. 22, 
 where we have mention once more of 
 "curds and honey," as the key-note of 
 the passage. 
 
 The promise of Immanuel was to be a 
 sign of God's unchanging favour to the 
 house of David, and to Israel his people. 
 The food of his infancy was a pledge of 
 the sorrows that must first come, and the 
 thorough wasting of the land by the 
 Assyrian and Babylonian armies. The 
 sign was not to assure Ahaz or the people 
 of escape from calamity, for this was not 
 God's purpose, and a prophecy of the exact 
 opposite had been given. It was to assure 
 them that, in spite of severe, extreme, and 
 almost hopeless troubles, the covenant of 
 God would be firm to the end, and at 
 length achieve a signal triumph. The 
 sign, then, included two elements, the 
 wonderful and glorious character of the 
 Child hereafter to be born, shewn by the 
 name Immanuel, and the later titles, ix. 6, 
 which unfold it ; and the food of his in- 
 fancy, implying a previous desolation that 
 would come upon the whole land of pro- 
 mise. 
 
 Thus V. 17, by the absence of the 
 copula, is to be joined more closely, not 
 less closely, with the previous verse, 
 without a pause, and forms part of the 
 
 same warning. "Before the infancy of 
 Immanuel, not only Syria and Ephraim 
 shall be forsaken, but the land of Judah 
 shall be desolated also, and such wasting 
 come to pass, that the land of vineyards 
 and oliveyards shall be changed into mere 
 jungle, or become wide pastures for 
 cows and sheep." This mention of the 
 food of the infant Immanuel does not 
 prove that the desolation would still con- 
 tinue at his birth. It is meant to teach 
 only that this great desolation would first 
 have come. Any further delay of his 
 birth, or previous return of culture and 
 fertility, was no part of the actual mes- 
 sage, and was left at present unrevealed. 
 The land to be forsaken, v. i6, is Syria 
 and Ephraim. But their ravaging by 
 Tiglath-pileser would be only the first 
 step in a series of coming troubles. 
 
 V. 17. Judah had suffered much since 
 the revolt of the ten tribes under Jero- 
 boam. But now still heavier calamities 
 were coming on the house of David and 
 the whole people. A clearer, nobler 
 promise of Immanuel was to strengthen 
 the faithful in the prospect of these sore 
 afflictions. 
 
 V. 18. The fly from the river of Egypt, 
 and the bee from Assyria, denote the 
 numerous swarms of heathen soldiery 
 from the rival empires, that would soon 
 overrun the land of Israel. "The bor- 
 ders" seem meant, rather than "the utter- 
 most parts." These insects are bred in 
 immense numbers in the marshy banks or 
 borders of the Nile and tropical rivers. 
 A fit emblem of the population of Egypt, 
 chiefly dwelling on the two sides of the 
 long course of the Nile. The flies are 
 described as resting in the desolate valleys 
 
54 
 
 ISAIAH, VII. 23—25. 
 
 give, that he will eat curds : for curds 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, tJiat every place shall be, where there 
 were a thousand vines for a thousand pieces of silver, it shall 
 even be briers and thorns. 24 With arrows and with bows 
 shall men go thither, for all the land shall be briers and thorns. 
 25 And on all hills that are digged with the hoe, there shall 
 not come thither the fear of briers and thorns ; but it shall be 
 for the sending forth of oxen, and places for sheep to tread. 
 
 and in all the thorn-bushes; and the bees in 
 the clefts of the rocks, and in all pastures. 
 
 V. 10. "A razor, hired from beyond 
 the river." Ahaz, in spite of God's warn- 
 ing, was bent on hiring the king of 
 •Assyria to crush his present rivals, Rezin 
 and Pekah, i Kin. xvi. 8 — lo. Proud of 
 this stroke of policy, he despised the 
 warnings and the promises, sent to him 
 by the prophet. It succeeded for the 
 moment, as faithless expediency often 
 seems to do, but it would be bitterness in 
 the end. His sin would lead to his own 
 l)unishment, and that of Plis people. God 
 himself would hire this king of Assyria, 
 by the hope of ample spoil, to waste 
 Judah as well as Ephraim. Not only the 
 hair of the head, the luxury and wealth 
 of the king and his nobles, but even the 
 hair of the feet, the scanty necessaries of 
 the poorest classes, would be scraped and 
 shorn away. It would consume " even the 
 beard," the symbol in the east of all that 
 was sacred and venerable. The treasures 
 of God's own temple, the honour and 
 dignity of the priesthood, would also be 
 swept away by this fierce spoiler. 
 
 V. 11. "The description is, of set 
 purpose, thoroughly tautological and pleo- 
 nastic, heavy and slow in movement, and is 
 intended to give the impression of tedious 
 monotony, of a wasted heath" (l)elilzsch). 
 It forms the dreary background to a most 
 bright and glorious promise. 
 
 V. 22. "For curds and honey, &c." 
 Here comes to light the connexion with 
 I the promise of Immanuel. The land was 
 to pass through a change from tillage to 
 pasture, when curds and honey should 
 l)e the more usual food, and not until 
 then should its Deliverer appear. The 
 ]-irophet, in vision, sees him growing up 
 from infancy to manhood amidst the 
 shadows and ruins of a desolated land. 
 
 vv. 23, 24. The most fertile districts, 
 when culture ceases, are most liable in 
 tropical countries to degenerate into dan- 
 gerous jungle, the haunts of beasts of 
 prey. Such was to be the doom of the vine 
 and olive districts of Palestine. Whoever 
 visited them at all would need bow and 
 arrows, to protect him from the dangers 
 to which he would there be exposed. 
 
 V. 25. Most modern critics here pre- 
 fer the rendering "Thou shalt not go 
 thither for fear of briers and thorns" 
 (Henderson, Alexander, Drechsler, De- 
 litzsch, &c.). This verse will then simply 
 continue the previous description. But 
 the received version seems better, when 
 rightly explained. A careful husband- 
 man would scarcely send out oxen and 
 sheep to graze in a jungle, where he has 
 to go with bow and arrows, to protect 
 himself from the wild beasts. The true 
 meaning seems to be that, while parts 
 once the most fertile would become mere 
 jungle, briers and thorns, other parts, once 
 tilled with more labour, \vould become a 
 scanty pasture, suited for the grazing of 
 sheep and oxen. Thus there would still 
 be pasture land, though all tillage of 
 vines and olives and wheat would nearly 
 cease. 
 
 The fulfilment of this warning had 
 three stages. The first was in the Assy- 
 rian ravages till the overthrow of Sen- 
 nacherib, when all the North was wasted. 
 The second was the deportation of the 
 remains of the ten tribes under Esar- 
 haddon, referred to above, v. 8. The 
 third and last is the Chaldean desolation 
 under Nebuchadnezzar. This is afresh 
 predicted in chh. xxvii. xxxix. and its 
 assumed fulfilment is the starting-point of 
 nearly all the later visions ch. xl. — Ixvi. 
 The darkness of the captivity was to be lit 
 uj) with the hope of the coming Saviour. 
 
ISAIAH, VIII. 1—4. 
 
 55 
 
 Chap. VIII. I, And the Lord said unto me, Take thee a large 
 tablet, and write in it with plain writing concerning Maher- 
 shalal-hash-baz. 2 And I was to take to me faithful witnesses, 
 Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 3 And 
 I went unto the prophetess, and she conceived, and bare a son. 
 Then said the Lord unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash- 
 baz. 4 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. 
 
 Ch. VIII. 1—4. The Birth of 
 Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 
 
 These verses are plainly a sequel to 
 the former message. The promise of 
 Immanuel was a pledge of God's un- 
 changing mercy to the house of David, 
 though long and sore judgments were 
 first coming on tlie land. This birth of 
 Isaiah's son, and his name, were a pledge 
 of the speedy fall of Pekah and Rezin 
 by the Assyrian. Not only the name, 
 but the family is different. This message 
 would be useless, if Immanuel were pro- 
 mised as a mark of time, to pi"ove, by his 
 immediate birth, that in two or three 
 years Syria would be overthrown. These 
 verses, then, contain a promise for the 
 moment, which the fuller and nobler 
 promise did not supply. Their date is 
 the second year of Ahaz. His third 
 year was the last of Pekah, and towards 
 its close the prediction was fulfilled. 
 2 Ki. XV. 30; xvi. 8 — 10. 
 
 The prophet is to take a large tablet, 
 like the tables of the law ; not a mere 
 roll, since the message was for public ex- 
 hibition ; large, compared with the con- 
 tents, that it might Ije read more easily, 
 and "a man's pen" or style is named 
 for the same reason. The writing was to 
 be plain and legible, no mystery for the 
 learned, but a witness to all the people 
 (Hab. ii. 2). The preposition applies to 
 the compound name, and shows the sub- 
 ject of the inscription. To take the 
 name for the sole inscription (Alexander, 
 Drechsler, &c.) as if it were a mere 
 enigma, seems without reason. The 
 tablet would announce that the prophet- 
 ess would bear a son to be so named, 
 in less than a year; and that before this 
 child could utter its first articulate speech, 
 the judgment on Ephraim and Syria 
 
 would have come. For nine months the 
 witness was to be in words, and then for 
 a year in act, by the birth of a son, not 
 a daugliter, and by his expressive name. 
 
 V. 2. The versions, "I took," referring 
 to the prophet, "I will take," as if part 
 of the message itself, or "and that I 
 should take," are either harsh in sense or 
 less exact. "I was to take" expresses 
 Divine instructions that were given, and 
 implies their fulfilment. Uriah was the 
 high-priest under Ahaz. The word ' ' faith- 
 ful" refers to the public character and 
 position of these chosen witnesses, not to 
 their moral worth. The compliance of 
 Uriah with Ahaz in his idolatry would only 
 make his testimony to Isaiah's message 
 more full and striking. These two wit- 
 nesses, like notaries, were to attest Isaiah's 
 handwriting, and the date of his message, 
 which might be placed at the entrance of 
 the temple. Their signatures would not 
 only guard against all suspicion of for- 
 gery, but prove the confidence of the seer 
 in the result, as a public seal to all his 
 later prophecies. 
 
 v. 3. The general sense of the name 
 is clear, though critics have differed on 
 its exact construction. The marginal 
 rendering, slightly varied, seems the best. 
 The whole is a short sentence, and refers 
 to the Assyrian foe. Its brevity and its 
 form, two dissyllables followed by two 
 monosyllables of like sense, gives a striking 
 effect of swift onward motion. "Hasting 
 to plunder, he speeds to the prey." The 
 mighty invader would soon come, like a 
 cataract, upon the guilty land. 
 
 V. 4. The interval meant is about one 
 year from the birth, or twenty-one months 
 from the message. The event strictly 
 corresponds. In the next year, the third 
 of Ahaz, Damascus was sacked and led 
 captive, and Rezin slain. The message 
 
56 
 
 ISAIAH, VIII. 5—10. 
 
 5 And the Lord spake still further unto me, saying, 6 For- 
 asmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah, that go 
 softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Rcmaliah's son, 7 Now there- 
 fore, behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the 
 river, strong and many, evc7i the king of Assyria, and all his 
 glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and overflow 
 all his banks : 8 And he shall pass through Judah ; he shall 
 overflow and pass over ; he shall reach even to the neck ; and the 
 stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O 
 Immanuel ! 
 
 9 Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be bro- 
 ken in pieces: and give ear, all ye of far countries; gird your- 
 selves, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; gird yourselves, and 
 ye shall be broken in pieces. 10 Take counsel together, and 
 
 of Ahaz, to Urijah, ■z Kings xvi. lo, was 
 a practical seal to the truth of this pro- 
 phecy, which the latter had been called to 
 attest. The final capture of Samaria, it is 
 true, was twenty years later. But the his- 
 tory implies that it escaped from Tiglath- 
 pileser only by a costly ransom. The 
 conspiracy against Pekah, and his murder, 
 in the third year of Ahaz, are bes-t explain- 
 ed by his loss of power, and the public 
 discontent, because of the spoil which the 
 Assyrian had just exacted and carried 
 away. This was one part of the hire of 
 this unconscious hireling of God. 
 
 vv. 5 — 10. The warning here passes 
 from Ahaz and the house of David to 
 the discontented and rebellious people. 
 They had despised God's covenant with 
 David, and the grace and holiness which 
 flowed in streams of living water from 
 the sanctuary of God. Their heathenish 
 tastes and heathen alliances were now 
 to be punished by heathen oppression. 
 These men of Judah and Kphraim, faith- 
 less to God's covenant, who admired the 
 prowess of Rezin and Pekah, and longed 
 for the son of Tabeal to reign, should 
 soon reap the bitter fruit of their folly. 
 The Assyrian hosts, like the floods of the 
 Euphrates, would sweep through the land, 
 and Jerusalem alone would escape from 
 the inundation. 
 
 V. 5. "Still further." Lit. "added and 
 spake." 
 
 The figure changes sufldenly, v. 8, from 
 a river flood to the fierce hovering of a 
 ravenous bird over its prey. But when 
 
 the judgment is at its height the voice 
 of promise is heard once more — "thy land, 
 O Immanuel." This child Immanuel is 
 the Owner of the land, the heir of David's 
 throne. Against this rock the flood of the 
 destroyers will dash itself in vain. Bars 
 and doors have been set to this stormy 
 sea, and a voice from heaven has said to 
 it: "Hitherto shalt thou come but no 
 further, and here shall thy proud waves 
 be stayed." 
 
 v. 6. Some think Ephraim alone to 
 be meant in this rebuke, others, only the 
 disaffected in Judah. But in the view of 
 the covenant both kingdoms were still 
 one people. Both shared the sin, Ephraim 
 more completely, Judah in large measure. 
 The threatening, in like manner, would 
 apply fully to the northern kingdom. In 
 Judah it would reach to the neck, but 
 would then be stayed. 
 
 vv. 9, lo. A challenge is now given 
 to the heathen invaders to use their ut- 
 most eflTorts, and see whether they can 
 reverse the promise, and wrest the land 
 from Immanuel, its Owner and King. 
 " For God is with us (/in man n El).''' 
 His name, Immanuel, begins and closes 
 this defiance, and is the bow of hope in 
 the darkness of the coming storm. 
 
 vv. ti — 15. The prophet's bold de- 
 fiance of the powers of the heathen world 
 would seem strange and wild to these 
 faithless princes and people, whose hearts 
 were moved "as the trees of the wood are 
 moved by the wind." He now tells them 
 whence his confidence arose. The Spirit 
 
ISAIAH, VIII. II— 17. 
 
 57 
 
 it shall come to nought : speak the word, and it shall not 
 stand, for GOD is WITH US. 
 
 1 1 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, saying, 12 Say ye not, A confederacy, whensoever this 
 people may say, A confederacy ; and fear not their fear, neither 
 be afraid. 13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; 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 stumbling, and for a rock of 
 offence, to both the houses of Israel ; for a gin and for a snare to 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many among them shall 
 stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. 
 
 16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples : 
 17 And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from 
 
 of God laid His hand on him with power, 
 lest the cuiTents of worldly policy and 
 coward fear should carry him away. So 
 Ezekiel writes that "the hand of the 
 Lord was strong upon him,"iii. 14. The 
 message was not to the prophet alone, 
 but through him to all the faithful rem- 
 nant in Judah. 
 
 V. 12. " Say ye not, &c. " Some refer 
 this caution to the alliance between 
 Ephraim and Syria, the present source of 
 alarm ; others, to domestic conspiracies ; 
 others, to charges of treason and disaffec- 
 tion against the prophets of God. The 
 word might be used either as an invitation 
 to conspire, or as an utterance of alarm. 
 The phrase comprehends all parties by 
 whom, or times when, this cry might be 
 raised, whether leagues without, or secret 
 plotters at home. There is no need to 
 exclude any of these applications, and 
 all forms and devices of worldly fear 
 may be condemned together. "Dread 
 not, like this people, the league of 
 Ephraim and Syria. Devise no counter 
 league with the Assyrian king. Make no 
 secret terms with these invaders. Form 
 no conspiracy to set up this son of Tabeal. 
 Bring no false charges of treason against 
 the prophets of God. Be not terrified 
 with rumours of new alliances abroad, 
 or treacherous plots at home. Fear only 
 God's anger, and rest simply on his pro- 
 mise. Set him high in your thoughts 
 above every earthly power. Sanctify the 
 Lord of hosts himself, and let Him be 
 
 your fear, and let Him be your dread." 
 
 v. 14. The promise answers to the 
 command. Sanctify God in your hearts, 
 and He will be your sanctuar}', to which 
 you may resort for refuge. But this re- 
 fuge will avail for the faithful alone. The 
 pillar of fire was light to Israel, but dark- 
 ness to Egypt. He who is the Sanctuary 
 of the faithful is a Rock of offence to the 
 disobedient, who stumble at His word, 
 I Pet. ii. 8. 
 
 w. 14, 15. This warning is often quoted 
 in the New Testament. "This child is set 
 for the fall and rising again [dvaaTacnv, over- 
 throw?) of many in Israel, and for a sign 
 that shall be spoken against," Luke ii. 34. 
 "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall 
 be broken," Matt. xxi. 44. "For they 
 stumbled at the stumblingstone, &c.". 
 Rom. ix. 32, 33, and by St Peter as above. 
 In all these texts the title is directly ap- 
 plied to the Lord Jesus, while here it is 
 plainly "the Lord of hosts himself." 
 There is thus a fourfold witness to our 
 Lord's true Divinity. And this is plainer 
 still by comparing i Pet. ii. 8 and iii. 14, 
 15, quoted from this same passage. 
 
 The promise of Immanuel, first, and 
 then still more its fulfilment, would have 
 opposite effects on the people at large, 
 and on a faithful remnant. The figures 
 imply something placed low on the ground, 
 against which the foot may stumble. 
 They cannot apply to Jehovah in His 
 celestial majesty, but only in some special 
 form of condescension and grace. He 
 
58 
 
 ISAIAH, VIII. i8. 
 
 the house of Jacob, and I will look unto him. i8 Behold, I and 
 the children whom the LoRU hath t^iven me, arc for siijns and 
 
 must stoop to earth, before lie can thus 
 be a stumblingstonc and rock of oiTcnce, a 
 gin and a snare. This was done, first, by 
 the promise of this unborn cliild, on 
 which they were to rest amidst thiclvcning 
 perils ; and at length by its fulfilment in 
 Jesus, the despised Nazarene. Already, 
 in the days of Ahaz, this promise of the 
 coming Redeemer of Israel was the source 
 of a deep and real moral separation, 
 
 viii. 1 6 — 1 8. Some refer these words 
 wholly to Isaiah and his two sons, others 
 exclusively to Messiah and His disciples; 
 others to both, the prophet in type, and 
 Messiah as the antitype. As to the 
 speaker there is the same diversity, 
 whether the prophet, the prophet and 
 Messiah, or Messiah alone. Many take 
 V. 1 6 to be the words of God himself, 
 either to the prophet (Calv., Gesen., 
 Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Knobel) or to 
 Messiah, and vv. 17, 18 a reply; while 
 some (Luther, Drechsler) take v. 16 as 
 the prophet's address to God. 
 
 The reasons for a double reference to 
 Isaiah and his two sons, and to Messiah, 
 seem quite decisive. The allusion to 
 Shear-jashub and his brother is plain, 
 while the application to Christ, Heb. ii. 
 13, is plain also, and confirmed by the 
 sequel. The typical correspondence is 
 full and clear. Isaiah not only spake by 
 the Spirit of Christ, but had just given a 
 signal prophecy of His birth. In his per- 
 son this promise was now exposed to con- 
 tempt and opposition, as Messiah, the 
 fulfiller of it, would be when He came. 
 The message and the messenger were 
 now a moral test, parting the faithful 
 from the bulk of the people, and exposing 
 them to reproach until the predicted time 
 of deliverance. These words of Isaiah, 
 like those of Christ, were treasured in the 
 hearts of true Israelites, a feeble remnant 
 in the midst of general unbelief. The 
 two sons of Isaiah, like Isaac, were 
 "children of promise," born to fulfd a 
 Divine message; and thus represent those 
 who are "born not of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God," Joh. i. 13, Rom. ix. 7, 8, Gal. iv. 
 23, 28. Their names were a double wit- 
 ness of grace to the jnenitent, and of judg- 
 
 ment on the ungodly. The brief space, 
 also, from this promise of Immanuel to 
 the overthrow of the Assyrian is a minia- 
 ture of the Providence of God to Israel 
 from the birth of our Lord to their pre- 
 dicted recovei7 in the last days. 
 
 V. 16. These are the words of Isaiah, 
 occasioned by the unbelief of his mes- 
 sage; but also of Christ, speaking by His 
 Spirit through him, and predicting His 
 own work, in giving the oracles of God 
 in trust to His own disciples after the re- 
 surrection. Isaiah speaks to his helpers 
 or companions, such as Baruch was to 
 Jeremiah, and instructs them to give co- 
 pies of his message to the faithful alone, 
 the disciples of the prophet, who had 
 heard it with docility and reverence. It 
 probably refers to the whole series, ch. i. 
 — xii., and implies that it was written and 
 copied for the use of the faithful, from 
 the date of its oral delivery in the second 
 year of Ahaz. The meaning in the anti- 
 type corresponds. When the Jews re- 
 jected our Saviour, and His gospel. He 
 taught the Apostles not only to preach it 
 in the world, but, in sacred writings to 
 consign it to the lasting custody of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 V. 17. The message being thus intrusted 
 to those whoalone were prepared to receive 
 it, the prophet expected that the rest of 
 the people would be obdurate and pro- 
 fane. He would wait patiently on the 
 Lord until the time, when "in their af- 
 fliction they would seek Him early," and 
 a remnant would return in true repent- 
 ance to the God of their fathers. In the 
 antitype the words, like Ixii. r, predict 
 the ceaseless intercession of our Lord for 
 the final recovery of Israel, all through 
 the ages when Jerusalem would be trod- 
 den down of the Gentiles, and while the 
 branches remain broken off from their 
 olive tree. 
 
 V. 18. Isaiah was now "a sign and 
 a wonder" from his strange confidence in 
 the hour of deep alarm, and from his 
 stern opposition to the fatal policy of 
 Ahaz. His children were signs and won- 
 ders, from their names, denoting the sure 
 approach of God's judgments ; and the 
 younger, from the public prediction of his 
 
ISAIAH, VIII. 19— IX. I. 
 
 59 
 
 for wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts which dwelleth in 
 mount Zion. 19 And whereas they will say unto you, Inquire 
 of them that have familiar spirits, and of the wizards that chirp 
 and mutter ; should not a people inquire of their God ? for the 
 living should they inquire of the dead ? 20 To the law, and to 
 the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, tJic7'e 
 shall be no morning unto them. 21 And they shall pass 
 through it, hardly bestead, and hungry : and it shall come to 
 pass, when they are hungry, that they will fret themselves, and 
 curse their king and their God, and will look upward. 22 And 
 one shall look unto the earth; and behold, trouble and gloomi- 
 ness, dimness of anguish, and utter darkness of desolation. 
 IX. I. For the dimness shall not be such as in her anguish, 
 when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and 
 the land of Naphthali ; and afterward more grievously afflicted 
 the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 
 
 birth, and after his first year, from his 
 being a constant memorial of a warning 
 already fulfilled. 
 
 "Which dwelleth in Mount Zion." A 
 prophetic allusion to the scene of coming 
 deliverance. The head of Damascus was 
 Rezin, soon to be slain ; and of Samaria, 
 Remaliah's son, soon to be slain also ; 
 but the head of Judah was Mount 'Zion, 
 the city of Immanuel, the dwelling of the 
 Lord of hosts. The flood might reach to 
 the neck, but the head was safe from its 
 power. For there "the Lord of hosts 
 would be for a crown of glory, and for a 
 diadem of beauty, unto the residue of His 
 people," xxviii. 5. The fulfilment in the 
 antitype, Heb. ii. 13, is not less clear. 
 The first Jewish believers, the spiritual 
 children of Messiah, would in the days of 
 the Apostles be a sign and wonder to 
 the unbelieving people. 
 
 viii. 18 — ix. I. These verses refer di- 
 rectly to the coming Assyrian troubles. 
 More remotely, they include the two cri- 
 ses of Chaldean and Roman desolation, 
 and also a predicted time of trouble to 
 Israel, still to come. The first verse of 
 ch. ix. belongs to those before it, in the 
 Hebrew division ; but many Christian in- 
 terpreters give it a different meaning, so 
 as to include it in the following promise. 
 Israel are here described as having recourse 
 to sorcery, in despair of help from God. 
 
 But the result would be to aggravate their 
 distress and misery. 
 
 v. 19. "And whereas, &c." The 
 words may be viewed either as the pro- 
 phet's own, or as the voice of God speaking 
 by his lips. The parties addressed are 
 the faithful in Jerusalem, who will be in- 
 vited by others to consult charmers and 
 wizards. A double reply to this wicked 
 counsel is put into their lips. Should not 
 a people, most of all, the chosen people, 
 inquire of their God, and not of those 
 who deal in forbidden sorcery? Should 
 they hope to obtain from the dead guid- 
 ance for the living, and look down to 
 Sheol for counsel, instead of looking up- 
 ward to the mercy seat of God? The spi- 
 ritualism of those days, as well as of the 
 last times, turned its back on the living 
 God, and was in direct opposition to His 
 revealed will. 
 
 v. 20. The refusal of the people to 
 take counsel from the word of God, their 
 perverse devotion to forbidden alliances, 
 and to hateful heathen sorceries, were the 
 true cause why their sorrow would be so 
 lasting, and no morning of joy and de- 
 liverance break early on the gloom. 
 Those who reject the true Light have to 
 walk on still in darkness. 
 
 V. 21 — ix. I. These three verses have 
 caused much discussion, and received 
 many diverse expositions. The following 
 
6o 
 
 ISAIAH, IX. 2, 3. 
 
 Chap. IX. 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a 
 great light : they that dwell in a land of the shadow of death, 
 upon them light hath shined. 3 Thou hast multijDlied the glad- 
 
 paraphrase, I believe, gives their true 
 meaning. 
 
 "And they shall pass through it," this 
 j)atli\vay of trouble, where no light dawns, 
 "hartlly bestead and hungry," not only 
 with bodily hunger, Ijut with deep craving 
 of heart for help that fails them, and relief 
 that never comes. Lam. iv. 17. Their 
 sufferings and distress will stir up feelings 
 of rage and vexation, that find vent in 
 open blasphemies. They will do what 
 Naboth was falsely said to do, blaspheme 
 alike their earthly and their heavenly 
 king, and look upward with the vain 
 longing of despair. "And one shall look 
 to the earth, and behold, trouble and 
 gloominess, dimness of anguish, and utter 
 darkness of desolation." There will not 
 only, throughout the land of promise, be a 
 twilight of fear and perplexity, but hope- 
 less sorrow, entire expulsion, and mid- 
 night gloom. "For the dimness shall 
 not be" merely "such as in her anguish, 
 when at the first he lightly afflicted," &c. 
 The "former time" is when Ben-hadad, 
 in the reign of Baasha, "smote Ijon, and 
 Dan, and Abel-beth-maachah, and all 
 Cinneroth, and all the land of Naphthali," 
 
 1 Ki. XV. 20. The latter time, or after- 
 ward, is that heavier scourge, when 
 Hazael "smote all the coasts of Israel ; 
 from Jordan eastward, all the land of 
 Gilead, from Aroer, Gilead and Bashan," 
 
 2 Ki. X. 33. These two earlier stages of 
 trouble and captivity exactly answer to 
 the description. But the trouble now in 
 prospect would be still more severe, so as 
 to account for the predicted despair of the 
 people, and the deep gloom and darkness 
 that would cover the land. See App. iv. 
 
 ix. 2 —7. Here the message changes, 
 with a striking abruptness, from the mid- 
 night of sorrow to a daybreak of hope 
 and joy ; from the Assyrian and Chaldean 
 desolations to the times of Immanuel, the 
 great Hope of Israel, and the heir of 
 David's throne. The same region, the 
 borders of the sea of Galilee, where the 
 sorrow of captivity had begun, was to wit- 
 ness the first dawn of the joyful change. 
 
 V. 2. This promise is quoted Matt, iv, 
 14 — 16, and is given as the reason why 
 
 our Tord chose CajDernaum by the sea of 
 Cialilee, for the main seat of His earthly 
 ministry. Hence many separate this 
 verse from those before it, as if a direct 
 prediction of the scene of Messiah's la- 
 bours. But the wonls in St Matthew do 
 not at all require this construction. "The 
 land of Zebulun," &c., is not there in 
 grammatical apposition with the words 
 that follow. The local reference results 
 simply from the succession of the two 
 verses, and will be the same whether v. i 
 be threatening or promise. Again, the 
 change from warning to promise is sim- 
 j)Iest and most emphatic at ix. 2, where it 
 is placed in the Hebrew Bible. It is 
 harsh and strained to place it in the last 
 clause of V. 22 (Hitzig, Alex., Drechsler), 
 or to make the particle one of contrast, 
 (A. v., Gesen., Rosenm., Ewald, Hen- 
 derson), or to refer back to viii. 13, 14 
 (Vitringa), or to make a complete pause 
 in the middle of ix. i, where the Hebrew 
 has only a secondaiy pause. The corre- 
 lative, ezvn so, which the emphasis would 
 then require, is wanting. Both verbs 
 have the same tense, while the rendering 
 of Mede, &c. requires a strong contrast of 
 past and future. The opening of a new 
 subject with a double comparison has no 
 parallel in the book, and is quite unlike 
 the terseness of Isaiah ; while the sudden 
 promise in v. 2, after the threatening has 
 reached its height, is emphatic and strik- 
 ing in the highest degree. The usual 
 sense of cahad is retained, while the 
 contrast suggests at once the meaning, in 
 hrqal, of a lighter afiliction. The history 
 too corresponds, and shews two successive 
 stages of wasting and exile, under Ben- 
 hadad and Hazael, which answer pre- 
 cisely to the description. 
 
 The force of the quotation, on this 
 view, is plain. That same district of the 
 Holy Land, marked by the first step of 
 national downfall, was also chosen for the 
 first dawn of light, when it w.as made the 
 scene of our Lord's personal ministry. 
 He, who was despised and rejected of 
 men, would choose his Apostles, and 
 dawn upon the benighted people, in 
 despised Galilee, 
 
ISAIAH, IX. 4-7. 
 
 61 
 
 ness, thou hast increased the joy : they joy before thee accord- 
 ing to the joy in harvest : and as men are glad when they divide 
 the spoil. 4 For the yoke of hi^ burden, and the staff upon his 
 shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, hast thou broken as in the 
 day of Midian. 5 For every greave of the fierce warrior, and 
 every warcloak rolled in blood, shall be utterly burned, it 
 shall be fuel of the fire. 6 For unto us a Child is born, unto us 
 a Son is given, and the government is on his shoulder : and his 
 name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
 the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. 7 Of the increase 
 of /lis government and peace t/iere sJiall be no end, upon the 
 throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to esta- 
 blish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even 
 for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. 
 
 V. 2. "Light hath shined." The ab- 
 sence of the article adds to the force of the 
 promise, which has thus its most compre- 
 hensive form. 
 
 V. 3. This is one of ver}' few cases 
 where a conjectural change of reading 
 gilah for go'i lo or lah (see App. IV.), 
 seems justified by the variations, and the 
 internal evidence. The parallelism thus 
 becomes complete, and the sense, obscure 
 in the received version, emphatic and 
 clear. So Luke i. 14, "And thou shalt 
 have joy and gladness, and many shall 
 rejoice at His birth." The birth of our 
 Lord would be "glad tidings of great 
 joy to all the people," Luke ii. 10. 
 
 vv. 4, 5. Of V. 5 many renderings 
 have been proposed. The word seon 
 occurs here only. Some render it as a 
 measure, some the stir and noise of battle ; 
 but most moderns, from the Syriac, Chal- 
 dee and Ethiopic, as a greave or military 
 boot (J. Kimchi, Rosenm.,Gesen., Maurer, 
 Hengst., Henderson, Ewald, Selwyn, 
 Drechsler). The sense of armour in 
 general is preferred by others (De Wette, 
 Hitzig, Umbreit, Knobel, Alexander). 
 Again, raas is referred by most to the din 
 of battle, by some to the sound of greaves. 
 It seems best to take it as modifying the 
 previous word. The greave and war-cloak 
 complete the picture of the warrior; the 
 tumult or war-cries, and the bloodstained 
 vesture, are the signs of battle to the eye 
 and ear. 
 
 The last clause alludes to the custom 
 of burning hostile or useless weapons on 
 
 the field of victory. The words them- 
 selves predict the overthrow of Senna- 
 cherib. But there seems to be a further 
 remote allusion to the more remote event in 
 Ez. xxxix. and to the scattering, in the last 
 days, of the people that delight in war. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The vision ends with the 
 same key-note with which it begun, — Im- 
 manuel, God with us, the Son of the 
 virgin mother, who knows from his child- 
 hood to refuse evil and choose the good, 
 the heir of David's throne, the Mighty 
 God, to whom the faithful remnant will 
 return, ix. 6 — x. 21, the Prince of Peace, 
 to reign for evermore. He is the bright 
 morning-star of hope and comfort in every 
 storm of adversity and hour of soitow. 
 He is Wonderful in the mystery of his 
 person, the Incarnate Son of God. He 
 is Counsellor, when He ascended on high, 
 and received with sevenfold wisdom the 
 book of the Divine decrees, to govern our 
 sinful world. He is the Mighty God, 
 the champion and avenger of his people, 
 who will in righteousness judge and make 
 war, and subdue his enemies. He is the 
 Father of Eternity, who will reign for 
 ever; and the Prince of Peace, who will 
 make wars to cease to the end of the 
 world, and reign in righteousness and 
 peace for evermore. In Him will be ful- 
 filled the later promise, " And the Lord 
 God will give unto him the throne of 
 his father David, and he shall reign over 
 the house of Jacob for ever, and of his 
 kingdom there shall be no end," Luke 
 i- 32. II- 
 
62 ISAIAH, IX. 8—12. 
 
 § 6. CiLvr. IX. 8— X. 34.— The Assyrian Scourge. 
 
 The whole of this section is closely connected in itself, and with those 
 which precede and follow. After the completed promise of the coming 
 Immanuel, the destined heir of David's throne, it resumes the warning of 
 ch. V. 24 — 30, describes the » first stage of it as already fulfilled in the 
 Syrian invasion of Rezin and Pekah, denounces the unrepenting stubborn- 
 ness both of Ephraim and Judah, and goes on to predict more fully 
 the coming Assyrian desolation. The prophecy includes the fall of Samaria, 
 an attempt to surprise Jerusalem, and terrify it into surrender, and the 
 sudden overthrow of the invading army by the hand of God. The call 
 to the Assyrian x. 5, to execute the Divine anger, is the immediate result of 
 the woes on Israel's iniquity, which form the opening portion. The sins of 
 God's people would bring upon them the heathen spoiler, and ensure his 
 success, till God's discipline was accomplished. Then the pride awakened 
 by his success, and his ignorance of its true cause, would ensure a terrible 
 retribution, like the sudden hewing down of a mighty forest. 
 
 The Lord sent a word unto Jacob, and it hath h'ghtcd 
 down upon Israel : 9 And all the people shall know, even 
 Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say, in pride and 
 stoutness of heart, 10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will 
 build with hewn stones ; the sycamores are cut down, but we will 
 change them into cedars : 1 1 Therefore the LORD will set up 
 against him Rezin's adversaries, and will join his enemies to- 
 gether ; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; 
 and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this 
 his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out 
 still. 
 
 Chap. ix. 8. The earliest waming of The Lord would set up against Ephraim 
 
 the prophet to "the house of Jacol)," ii. 6, the Assyrians, Rezin's dreaded adversa- 
 
 had now began to be fuUilled. The ries, and his own accustomed foes, the 
 
 slaughterin Judah, Is. V. -25, 2 Clir. xxviii. Syrians and Philistines, from ojjposite 
 
 6—8, had been like a sudden thunderbolt sides, to waste and destroy. And still 
 
 from lieaven. The renewed voice of there are no signs of repentance, and 
 
 waming begins with an allusion to this the judgment must be the more se- 
 
 great calamity. But the first stroke, vere. 
 
 which filled Judah with dismay, had only v. 11. "Rezin's adversaries." The ori- 
 
 inflamed the i>ride of E]ihraim. Vain of ginal order being restored makes the sense 
 
 their late success, they hoped to recover clearer. "Against him" means against 
 
 more than their former greatness. They Ephraim, not Rezin. The Assyrians, 
 
 would repair every loss of four disastrous the foes of Rezin, would aggravate the 
 
 reigns, changing bricks into hewn stone, jilagiie from the Syrians and Philistines, 
 
 and sycamores into cedars. Hut their The burden, v. 12, links this with the 
 
 pride would only hasten their punishment. earlier message, v. 25. 
 
ISAIAH, IX. 13— X. I. 63 
 
 13 For this people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, 
 neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. 14 Therefore the LORD 
 will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm-branch and rush, in 
 one day. 1 5 The ancient and honourable, he is the head ; and 
 the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. 16 Also the 
 guides of this people cause them to wander ; and tJuy that are 
 led by them are destroyed. 17 Therefore the Lord will have 
 no joy in their young men, neither will have mercy on their 
 fatherless and widows : for every one is a hypocrite and evildoer, 
 and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not 
 turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 18 For wickedness burnetii as the fire: it shall devour the 
 briers and the thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the 
 forest ; and they shall mount up like the eddies of smoke. 
 19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, 
 and the people shall be as fuel of the fire : no man shall spare 
 his brother. 20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be 
 hungry; and shall eat on the left hand, and not be satisfied: 
 they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21 ]\Ianas- 
 seh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh ; and they together will 
 be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but 
 his hand is stretched out still. 
 
 Chap. X. Woe unto them that decree decrees of falsehood, 
 
 w. 13 — 17. Intestine confusion and faithful messengers, none are baser in 
 
 broils would aggravate the course of these His sight than those who sacrifice God's 
 
 foreign inroads. Head and tail, palm- truth to secure the favour of an ungodly 
 
 branch and rush, would be taken away and idolatrous people, 
 
 together. The charge, brought earlier vv. i8 — 21. The picture of guilt grows 
 
 against Judah, is now applied to Ephraim darker still. It is like destroying fire in 
 
 in its turn, iii. 12, ix. 16. The people the jungle of a forest. The confusion 
 
 would be flattered by those who ought to and misery thus caused are like the 
 
 be their guides ; and blind subservience to volumes of smoke that mount up in 
 
 popular caprice would overturn God's whirling eddies from such a conflagration, 
 
 covenant, and bring them unto ruin. The skies over them are dark with the 
 
 Democratic license is the sign of a decay- frown of God. Unbridled selfishness 
 
 ing state, and its boast of progress and wastes their strength, and hurries them to 
 
 light prepare the way for political ruin. ruin. The interests of all are so closely 
 
 The infection had spread through all entwined that this is a partial suicide, 
 
 classes, and all alike must be visited with "No man shall spare his brother." The 
 
 judgment. discord and hatred will extend to the 
 
 V. 14. "Palm-branch and rush." A separate tribes as well as the rival king- 
 fit emblem of the highest and lowest doms. And the burden lasts, and judg- 
 classes. "The tail," as the emblem of ment grows deeper still, 
 "the prophet that speaketh lies," may Ch. x. i — 4. A direct Woe is now pro- 
 be compared with Rev. ix. 10, 19. As nounced against their various acts of social 
 none are more honourable than God's oppression. Wherever faith and true 
 
64 
 
 ISAIAH. X. 2—5. 
 
 and register oppression they have written ! 2 To turn aside the 
 needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor 
 of my people, that widows may be their prey, and they rob the 
 fatherless ! 3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and 
 in the storm tJiat shall come from afar ? to whom will ye flee for 
 help, and where will ye leave your glory ? 4 Without me it 
 shall bow down captive, and they shall fall down slain. For all 
 this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out 
 still. 
 
 5 Ho, Assyrian ! the rod of mine anger ! and this is the staff 
 
 piety decay, there social virtue declines 
 also. Manasseh, Ephraim, and Judah, 
 the whole house of Jacob, are included 
 in the solemn warning. 
 
 V. I. The second clause has been va- 
 riously rendered. But one word seems to 
 refer to loose draughts, or private copies, 
 of unrighteous laws or judgments, and 
 the other to their publication in due legal 
 form. Flagrant wrong, when it is cloaked 
 by the forms of law, becomes still more 
 hateful, and brings down speedy ven- 
 geance from God. The last clause reverts 
 to a direct assertion of the fact itself, 
 and thus adds to the force of the descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 V. 2. Their sin is their folly. What 
 stronghold can they possibly find, where 
 their wealth and honour will be safe from 
 the cruel spoiler? Their God has aban- 
 doned them, and their only true defence 
 is gone. Forsaken by }iim, their glory 
 will soon fall under the yoke of bond- 
 age ; and these oppressors of the poor 
 by fraud and legal chicanery will perish 
 with the sword, and lie amidst heaps of 
 the slain. 
 
 Two words here have caused much 
 variety of judgment. The first, bilti, 
 has been rendered, making the verse de- 
 pend on the other, "so that ye should 
 not, &c." (LXX., Vulg., Luther, Castalio, 
 Dathe, Knobel). Or, again, as an alter- 
 native, "except they bow as captives, 
 they shall fall, &c.," (Syr., De Dieu, 
 Gesen., Rosenm., Hend., Alex.). Or 
 "without me," that is, when God-aban- 
 doned (A. V., Kimchi, Noldius, Vitringa, 
 Lowth, Gescn., Mich., Ewald, Maurcr). 
 Since this verse forms the climax of the 
 warning, the most emphatic lawful ren- 
 dering is the best. To make this verse 
 
 only modify the last weakens the force of 
 both. And it is feebler still to make it 
 a mere alternative, that they will be slain 
 unless they are made captive. But the 
 brief allusion to the true source of their 
 calamities, that they were God-abandoned, 
 is impressive in the highest degree. 
 
 Again, tachath has been rendered "in 
 the place of" (Kimchi, Rosenmr., Ewald), 
 (2) "under" {A.V., Junius, Piscator, 
 Maurer, Knobel, Alexr., Drechsler), (3) 
 "among" (Aben Ezra, Abarb., Vitringa, 
 Rosenmr., Henderson), or (4) adverbially, 
 "down" or "low" (De Dieu, Gen. xlix. 
 25). This last, though a rare usage, has 
 one clear precedent, and the analogy of 
 most other languages in its favour, re- 
 moves all obscurity, and gives an em- 
 phatic meaning. The word "captive" 
 being singular, seems to exclude the other 
 constructions. To fall down under cap- 
 tives is harsh, but to fall "under a cap- 
 tive" is a phrase quite unnatural. 
 
 vv. 5 — II. The controversy of God 
 with his rebellious people now reaches its 
 height. They had been warned already, 
 in Uzziah's reign, that He would "lift 
 up an ensign to the nations from afar, 
 and hiss unto them from the ends of the 
 earth," and that they would "come with 
 speed, swiftly." The hour is now come. 
 The Assyrian armies are called to fulfil 
 their task, and execute the decreed judg- 
 ment. The moral blindness of the in- 
 strument employed gives double power 
 to the warning. 
 
 V. 5. Many render the opening words 
 "Woe to the Assyrian," (LXX., Jerome, 
 Luther, Vitr., Cocceius, Gesen., Rosenmr., 
 Umbreit, Knobel, iSLaurer, Jenour, Hend., 
 Alexr., Drechsler). Alexander thinks the 
 analogy of v. i and the later ihreatenings 
 
ISAIAH, X. 6— II. 
 
 65 
 
 in their hand, even mine indignation. 6 I will send him against 
 an impious nation, and against the people of my wrath will I 
 give him a charge ; to take a spoil, and to take a prey, and to 
 tread them down like mire of the streets, 7 Howbeit he indeed 
 meaneth not so, neither will his heart so intend : for 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 1 10 As my hand hath found the idol kingdoms, 
 whose gods surpass those tf/ Jerusalem and Samaria, 11 Shall 
 I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jeru- 
 i salem and her idols "i 
 
 decisive in its favour. It seems plain, 
 however, that it is not a woe, but a Divine 
 summons to the Assyrian (Calv., Munster, 
 Pagnin., Montanus, Lowth, De Wette, 
 Hitzig, Ewald). This appears, first by 
 the reference to ch. v. 25, "he shall hiss to 
 them from the ends of the earth." Next, 
 from the title, "the rod of mine anger," 
 the moral ground of this summons to do 
 God's work. Thirdly, because his blind- 
 ness is first mentioned v. 7, after his 
 commission. Lastly, because the Woe 
 comes much later, indirectly in xvii. 12, 
 and directly in xxxiii. i, after the latest 
 woes on Ephralm and Judah. The use 
 of the same word, in warning and invita- 
 tion, follows a kind of law of alternation 
 and progress from judgment to mercy. 
 First, seven Woes on guilty Israel, v. 8, 
 II, 18, 20, 21, 22, X. I. Next, this Call 
 to the Assyrian, the rod of God's anger, 
 to do His work, x. 5. When this work 
 is half done, a Woe on his army, xvii. 1 2, 
 and a second Call to the rival kingdom, 
 to own the hand of God. Next, five 
 Woes on Israel and Zion, xxviii. i ; xxix. i, 
 15 ; XXX. I ; xxxi. 1, followed by a Woe 
 to the oppressor, when his work is done, 
 xxxiii. I ; two more Woes, after an 
 interval, on faithless Israelites, xlv. 9, 
 10, and a final Call of Gospel invit .tion, 
 Iv. I. 
 
 The double metaphor vv. 5, 6 has led 
 Hitzig and Ewald to alter the text, and 
 others to distort or enfeeble it. But it is 
 beautiful and expressive. The Assyrian 
 is a mere tool, wholly under the control 
 of God. His weapons also and forces are 
 powerless to injure, except by the strength 
 
 B. I. 
 
 they receive through God's indignation 
 against Israel. 
 
 V. 5. The Woes on Ephralm and 
 Judah are here followed by a Call to the 
 Assyrians to fulfil the judgment. But all 
 their power to waste and destroy arises 
 solely from the appointment of God. 
 They are a tool in His hand, unconscious- 
 ly doing His work ; and His indignation 
 is like a staff in their hand, securing that 
 the work shall be effectually done. 
 
 "To take a spoil," &c. The warning 
 in the name of the prophet's child, Maher- 
 shalal-hash-baz, is now to be fulfilled. 
 
 V. 7. Such a commission from God, 
 however, is far from the thoughts of the 
 Assyrian king. He will ascribe the 
 whole series of his conquests to his own 
 prowess and wisdom alone. Carche- 
 mish and Calno on the Euphrates and 
 Tigris, Arpad and Hamath on the 
 Grontes, Damascus and Samaria on the 
 route southward towards Jerusalem, would 
 fall in succession, and some had already 
 fallen. His pride would grow with every 
 victory. Each past conquest would be 
 viewed as a pledge of further triumphs. 
 His ambition, blind to God's secret pur- 
 pose, would thus set up an inductive phi- 
 losophy of its own. 
 
 V. II . Many infer from this verse that 
 the prophecy dates after the fall of 
 Samaria, (Rosenm., Gesen., Knobel, 
 Ewald). But this is quite groundless, 
 and destroys the force of the passage. 
 In V. 6 even the sending is still future, 
 while its object, ix. 9, 17, 22, is plainly 
 Ephraim as well as Judah. The passage 
 does not fix one point of time, but predicts 
 
66 
 
 ISAIAH, X. 12—16. 
 
 12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, when once the Lord shall 
 have performed his whole work on mount Zion and on Jeru- 
 salem, t/iatl will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of 
 Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. 13 For he saith, By 
 the strength of my hand I have done //, and by my wisdom, for 
 I am prudent : and I have removed the bounds of the people, 
 and have robbed their treasures ; and I have put down, like a 
 mighty hero, their princes : 14 And my hand hath found, as a 
 nest, the riches of the nations ; and as one gathereth eggs a bird 
 hath left, so 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 there- 
 with.!" or shall the saw magnify itself against him that moveth 
 it .'' As if the rod should brandish them that lift it up ! as if the 
 staff should lift up hivi zvho is not wood ! 16 Therefore will 
 the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness ; 
 and under his glory he will kindle a burning like the burning 
 
 and explains the growth of the Assyrian's 
 proud confidence. The prophetic present 
 shifts onward from the siege of Cahio to 
 that of Hamath, and again to that of 
 Samaria, till it culminates in his boasts of 
 speedy triumph before the walls of Jeru- 
 salem. Thus V. 10 answers to a point of 
 time before, and v. ii after, the fall of 
 Samaria. The whole is a prophetic pic- 
 ture, a sequel to the briefer warning, ch. 
 V. 25—30. 
 
 vv. 12 — 19, The doom of the Assyrian 
 is now foretold. No sooner shall his ap- 
 pointed work be done, than his boastings 
 shall end in utter shame. Wicked actions 
 are the natural "fruit" of pride of heart. 
 He may boast for a time of his triumplis, 
 while all is unresisting submission. Dut 
 as his pride increases, so the rebukes of 
 God grow more contemptuous and severe. 
 The "whole work" means here the pre- 
 dicted judgment upon the sins of Lsrael ; 
 and "the fruit," the wicked actions of the 
 Assyrian, and perhaps especially his direct 
 blasphemies against Jehovah. The word, 
 ahbir, v. 13, sometimes denotes a bull, 
 and may be used with reference to the 
 winged bull in the Assyrian niytholog)', 
 but is rather to be taken here in its kindred 
 sense of a mighty hero. The Assyrian 
 thus claims for himself to be the ideal of 
 
 a mighty and valiant conqueror. The 
 "seated ones," v. 13, seems to denote 
 here the sitters upon thrones, the rulers 
 and princes of the vanquished nations. 
 The cruelties of eastern conquest might 
 well strike extreme terror into the people 
 who were subdued. 
 
 V. 15. The figure here denotes, not 
 mere opposition, but a ridiculous reversal 
 of the true relation between the heathen 
 king, the mere tool, and Jehovah who 
 employs him. It is just as if the rod or 
 staff of wood should pretend to lift up or 
 to brandish the man who holds it, and who 
 is not a mere piece of wood, like itself, 
 but far higher and nobler. "There is no 
 wisdom, nor counsel, nor understanding 
 against the Lord." 
 
 vv. 16 — 19. The Assyrian overthrow 
 is now foretold under the figure of a vast 
 forest conflagration. It would come di- 
 rect from God himself, and be terrible 
 and complete. Not only the rank and 
 file of his soldiers, but the mighty and 
 the noble would perish. Though he would 
 boast of entering into God's Lebanon, and 
 his Cannel or fruitful field, xxxvii. 24, 
 it is his own Lebanon and Carmel that 
 will be destroyed. It will be like the 
 sudden panic of soldiers, when a stand- 
 ard is taken, and its bearer falls down 
 
ISAIAH, X. 17—24. 
 
 67 
 
 of a fire. 17 And the Light of Israel shall be a fire, and his 
 Holy One a flame ; and shall burn and devour his thorns and his 
 briers in one day: 18 And it shall consume the glory of his 
 forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body ; and they 
 shall be as when a standard bearer fainteth. 19 And the rem- 
 nant of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may 
 reckon them. 20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that 
 the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of 
 Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them ; but 
 shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 
 21 A remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, unto the 
 Mighty God. 22 For though thy people Israel were as the 
 sand of the sea, a remnant only of them shall return : a consump- 
 tion is decreed, it shall overflow with righteousness. 23 For 
 the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth make a consummation, and 
 that determined, in the midst of all the land. 
 
 24 Therefore thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts : Fear 
 not, O my people, that dwellest in Zion, because of the Assy- 
 rian : he will smite thee indeed with a rod, and lift up his staff 
 
 and is slain. The remnant will be so few, 
 that they may be counted by a child. 
 How striking was the fulfilment, when 
 the angel of the Lord, in one night, slew 
 one hundred fourscore and five thousand 
 in the camp of the Assyrians ! 
 
 V. 10. From the scanty relics of the 
 Assyrian host the message turns now to 
 the sacred remnant in Israel. The name 
 of the prophet's son, Shear-jashub, "a 
 remnant shall return," after being a sign 
 and wonder in Israel more than forty 
 years, will at length be fulfilled. After 
 the great Assyrian overthrow, this rem- 
 nant will cleave to the Lord with true 
 repentance and living faith. Judgments, 
 in which multitudes will be consumed, are 
 decreed and sure ; but not less certainly this 
 remnant will be spared, and will return, 
 in faith and humility, to the God of Is- 
 rael. And, however numerous the people 
 may be, it will be a remnant only ; while 
 sore vengeance will light on all the apo- 
 states throughout the land of promise. 
 
 The direct reference is plainly to the 
 time of Hezekiah, when those who were 
 spared were weaned, by bitter sufferings, 
 from the senseless trust of Ahaz and his 
 counsellors in the Assyrian power, and 
 
 learned to rely with simpler faith on 
 the covenant of their God. But this was 
 the earnest of a later fulfilment in the re- 
 turn from Babylon, iv. 3, in the times of 
 the Gospel, Rom. ix. 27, 28, and in the 
 final restoration of Israel. See Dan. ix. 
 27, where the phrase recurs. 
 
 vv. 24 — -27. An exhortation now is 
 given to the faithful in Jerusalem, where 
 the scourge would be stayed, and suddenly 
 followed by a joyful deliverance. The 
 command, "Fear not," to give it more 
 emphasis, begins the message. A double 
 ground of confidence is then given. Israel 
 are the people of the Lord, and Zion is 
 the place He has chosen. The Assyrian, 
 like Egypt and its task-masters, may op- 
 press them for a moment, but for a mo- 
 ment only. The indignation of God against 
 His people, that staff in the Assyrian's 
 hand, giving force to his strokes, would 
 soon cease. Then the rod would be 
 broken, and thrown away. Samaria, like 
 Damascus, may fall, the fenced cities of 
 Judah be taken, and a heavy yoke and 
 tribute, like the yoke of Egypt, may be 
 imposed. The blows may be grievous, 
 but the city of God is safe. The oppres- 
 sor's time is short, and the wrath he is to 
 
 5—2 
 
63 
 
 ISAIAH, X. 25—29. 
 
 against thee, after the manner of Egypt. 25 For yet a very 
 little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger, in 
 their destruction. 26 And the LORD of hosts will stir up a 
 scourge for him, like the slaughter of Midian at the rock Oreb ; 
 and his rod s/m// be on the sea, and he will lift it up after the 
 manner of Egypt. 27 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, 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 to Migron : at Mich- 
 mash he hath laid up his baggage. 29 They are gone beyond 
 
 execute will soon turn on himself, and 
 cause his own destruction. His fall will 
 be like that of Midian, when overthrown 
 by Ciideon and the sons of Ephraim ; or 
 like that of Egj'pt, when the rod of Moses 
 was lifted up over the sea, and it returned 
 to its strength when the morning ap- 
 peared, lix. xiv. 27. 
 
 V. 27. The burden and yoke of the As- 
 syrian, however firm and strong, should 
 soon be destroyed in answer to the prayers 
 of the faithful remnant. On them would 
 rest the Spirit of grace and supplication, 
 the holy anointing of God. And this 
 would be an earnest of lasting deliver- 
 ance through the promised Messiah, on 
 whom the anointing Spirit would rest in 
 fullest measure, xi. i — 3. 
 
 This verse has been obscured, and 
 strained constructions or various readings 
 have been proposed, from seeking a rela- 
 tion in the emblems which belongs to the 
 things figured alone. The seeming para- 
 dox forces our thoughts deeper, when the 
 hidden meaning comes to light. Oint- 
 ment has no power whatever to destroy 
 yokes either of wood or iron ; but the 
 anointing of the Spirit has power to re- 
 move the yoke of sin, and to set free 
 from the bondage of all worldly violence 
 and oppression. 
 
 vv. 28 — 34. On these verses Knobel 
 remarks, "The description is prophecy, 
 not an oracle after the events, since no 
 Assyrian king made tlie march described." 
 In the view of critics of this school, if true, 
 it is history after the event, but if false, 
 then only a prophecy. Comp. Is. xxix. 10, 
 II. No distinct record remains, it is true, 
 of this march ; but nothing in the history 
 
 excludes it, and there is everything to 
 make it probable. When Sennacherib 
 "came up against all the fenced cities of 
 Judah, and took them," his first effort 
 would naturally be to take Jerusalem by 
 surprise. For this end the proper course 
 would be to assemble part of his army 
 near Bethel, the southern limit of previous 
 conquests, and of Ephraim, and then to 
 make a forced march southward against 
 Jerusalem. The difficulties of this route 
 for a large force, while it is clearly the short- 
 est, would be a strong reason for choosing 
 it with such an object in view. When the 
 surprise failed, the enemy would prose- 
 cute the campaign by the siege of the 
 other fenced cities, which were weaker, 
 straitening Jerusalem by blockade, or 
 striving to terrify it into surrender ; and 
 only when these threats proved to be vain, 
 an attempt would be made, last of all, to 
 take it by storm in a regular siege. 
 
 V. 28. Aiath is Ai, near Bethel, the 
 natural starting-point in a forced march 
 to surprise Jerusalem. ^ligron, near Mich- 
 mash, is the place where Saul tarried 
 under a pomegranate before Jonathan's 
 victory. The narrow pass between Mich- 
 mash and Gibeah, and between the sharp 
 rocks, Bozez and Sineh, i Sam. xiv. 4, 
 made it needful to leave the baggage 
 behind. Ramah lies west of the route, 
 Gibeah in its track : one is alarmed, the 
 other takes to flight. Gebim, used here 
 only, seems merely a name for the heights 
 nortliward of Jerusalem. Nob is "a low 
 peaked hill to the right of the north road, 
 opposite Shafat, from which Mount Zion 
 is seen." Porter, Handb. 11. § 24. 
 
 V. 29. Several (Knobel, Barnes, Drech- 
 
ISAIAH, X. 30— XI. 2. 
 
 69 
 
 the passage, they have lodged at Geba ; Ramah is afraid, Gibeah 
 of Saul is fled. 30 Cry with shrill voice, O daughter of Gallim : 
 hearken, Laishah ; answer her, O Anathoth. 31 Madmenah is 
 removed ; the dwellers on the heights flee in haste. 32 As yet 
 the same day he will stand in Nob ; he will shake his hand 
 against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. 
 33 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will lop the bough 
 with terror, and the high ones of stature are hewn down, and 
 the lofty shall be brought low. 34 And he will cut down the 
 thickets of the forest wath iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a 
 mighty one. 
 
 § 7. The Promise of the Son of David. 
 
 Chap, XI. And there shall come forth a Rod out of the stem 
 of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots : 2 And the 
 Spirit of the LoRD shall rest upon him ; the Spirit of wisdom 
 
 sler) take lami for the pronoun, "Geba is 
 a lodging for us." But tliis abrupt change 
 of person is harsh and strange ; and the 
 sense "they have lodged a lodging" an- 
 swers to the other clause, "they have pass- 
 ed the passage." Also from Josh, xviii., 
 I Ki. XV. 22, Geba and Gibeah were dis- 
 tinct places, though near together. 
 
 V. 30. This verse admits of several 
 renderings. Some render Laishah, "to- 
 ward Laish," or northward, in the direc- 
 tion of Dan-Laish. Some make aniyah, 
 as in A. V., an epithet of Anathoth. 
 Others (Hitzig, Henderson) take it as a 
 proper name, the same as in Beth-any ; 
 others as a verb. The version "hearken 
 towards Laish, O poor Anathoth," is not 
 impossible. But i Sam. xxv. 44 makes it 
 likely that some site near Gallim was 
 named from Laish, a chief man of the 
 place in Saul's days. The version above 
 seems thus to be the best both for rhythm 
 and sense. Laishah listens to the cry of 
 fear from Gallim, and Anathoth takes it 
 up with a responsive shriek of terror. 
 
 "^'^^ 33' 34- The picture of the forced 
 march is complete. But now the scene 
 suddenly changes. The middle steps of 
 the campaign are omitted, and the pro- 
 phet describes the catastrophe. The proud 
 king vaunted that he had put down 
 princes like a mighty hero ; and by one 
 
 far mightier than himself he must be sud- 
 denly brought low, by the destroying 
 angel of God, and the fierce anger of 
 the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 § 7. Promise of the Son of David, 
 Ch. XI., XII. 
 
 The prophecy of Immanuel, vii. — ix. 7, 
 has two subjects interlaced together, the 
 coming trouble of Ephraim and Judah 
 from the Assyrian, and the promise of the 
 Child, who is the Mighty God, and whose 
 reign will endure for ever. The two 
 portions that follow unfold separately the 
 warning and the promise. The vision here 
 passes on from the fall of the Assyrian 
 to the promised reign of Immanuel. The 
 short reprieve under Hezekiah is a hill- 
 top in the prophetic landscape, whence 
 the eye is carried over dark valleys of sor- 
 row to the times of Messiah. 
 
 v. [. The stem, gczaJi, is the stump left 
 in the ground when a tree has been felled. 
 The mention of Jesse, and not David, im- 
 plies the same fact. The birth of Mes- 
 siah is thus refeiTed to a time when the 
 royalty of David's house would have 
 passed away, as Jesse was only a private 
 person ; just as before it was referred to a 
 time when the land would have suffered 
 an utter desolation. In Messiah David's 
 line would flourish after seeming extinc- 
 
;o 
 
 ISAIAH, XI. 2>—<^. 
 
 and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of 
 knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord : 3 And shall make 
 him of quick scent in the fear of the LORD : and he will not 
 judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hear- 
 ing of his ears: 4 But with righteousness will 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, and with the 
 breath of his lips will he slay the wicked. 5 And righteousness 
 shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his 
 reins. 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the 
 leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young 
 lion, and the fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. 
 
 tion. Messiah is the Branch of Jehovah, 
 Is. iv. 2, the Branch of righteousness that 
 wouhl grow up to David, Jer. xxiii. 5, the 
 highest Branch of the young cedar, to be 
 planted on the height of Israel, Ez. xvii. 
 22, 23, the Man whose name is the Branch, 
 a Priest on his throne, Zech. vi. 12. In 
 His person truth would flourish out of the 
 earth, and rigliteousness look down from 
 heaven, Ps. Ixxxv. 11. In moral contrast 
 to the sudden fall of the mighty Assyrian 
 forest, this lowly Branch was to grow up 
 from the root of Jesse, when the noble 
 tree of David's house had been cut down 
 to the ground. When pride has been 
 abased, the Meek and Lowly One must 
 be exalted. 
 
 V. 2. This sevenfold name of the Spirit 
 answers to the seven branches of the can- 
 dlestick in the tabernacle, and to the 
 "seven lamps of fire before the throne" 
 in St John's vision. Rev. iv. 5. He is 
 "the Spirit of Jehovah," a Divine Person, 
 proceeding from the Father and the Son. 
 lie is the Spirit of wisdom, or insight 
 into all Divine truth ; and of understand- 
 ing, to choose in practice the things which 
 are excellent. He is the Spirit of coun- 
 sel, to whom the whole scheme of Provi- 
 dence lies open ; and of might, by whom 
 are executed the decrees of the Father. 
 He is the Spirit of knowledge, enabling 
 us to understand what the will of the 
 Lord is; and of the fear of the Lord, dis- 
 posing the hearts of men to obey that 
 will with reverence. And in all these 
 divine characters He was to rest on Mes- 
 siah without measure. 
 
 V. 3. "Of quick scent." Our bodily 
 
 senses have their counterparts in the 
 higher faculties of the soul. Here smell, 
 in its higher meaning, is contrasted with 
 the outward faculties of sight and hearing. 
 Messiah is to share that Divine attribute, 
 announced at the choice of David, — "Man 
 looketh on the outward appearance, but 
 the Lord looketh on the heart," i Sa. 
 xvi. 7. 
 
 v. 4. St Paul and St John, in their 
 prophecies, seem to allude to this verse, 
 2 Thess. ii. and Rev. xix. 15, 21. The 
 three prophets all announce a time of 
 judgment in the last days, to follow after 
 times of patient long-suffering. The word 
 "wicked," having no article, means na- 
 turally each and all of those who are 
 eminently wicked. The reference to one 
 single person, or one corporate body, 
 like the Man of Sin in Thessalonians, is 
 neither required nor excluded. But the 
 wortls seem best explained in the distri- 
 butive sense. 
 
 V. 5. The figure does not mean, sim- 
 ply, that Messiah will be righteous and 
 faithful ; but that by the fulness of these 
 moral perfections He will be strengthened 
 for the great work He fulfils. In this 
 the disciple is called upon to copy his 
 Divine RIaster, to be girt with truth, and 
 have on "the breastplate of righteous- 
 ness," Fph. vi. 14. 
 
 vv. 6 — 9. It has been a great contro- 
 versy, whether these words predict (Ire- 
 naeus, Tertullian, al.) a literal change, a 
 control or reversal of animal instincts, as 
 in Paradise; or are simply (Jerome, &c. ) 
 an allegory of moral changes wrought by 
 the Gospel. The objection of Jerome 
 
ISAIAH, XI. 7—9 
 
 71 
 
 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall 
 lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 
 
 8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp ; and 
 the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. 
 
 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; for 
 the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the 
 waters cover the sea. 
 
 and others to the earlier view, that the 
 rod, branch, girdle, must then be literal, 
 is plainly worthless. It confounds two 
 things wholly distinct, the metaphors com- 
 mon in all poetic writing, and continuous 
 allegory. 
 
 Taken simply as an allegory, it is hard 
 to give the words a consistent meaning. 
 The change of wolves and lions into 
 lambs is the natural emblem for conver- 
 sion, not the dwelling of both side 
 by side. If the wolf, lion, leopard, lamb, 
 kid, serpent, little child, alike denote re- 
 generate and holy men, all distinctness in 
 the allegory is lost. If the figures, as 
 mere figures, are beautiful and expressive, 
 why should their actual fulfilment be less 
 beautiful, whenever "the creature shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
 ruption into the glorious liberty of the 
 children of God"? Rom. viii. 21. Taken 
 in the letter, the words will answer to a 
 mysterious notice in the opening of God's 
 Law, Gen. i. 30, and to one of the noblest 
 promises of the Gospel. The creatures 
 will be subject to man, when man is sub- 
 ject to God. 
 
 There are two objections to this view, 
 one theological, one scientific. Why 
 should so large a space be given to a 
 change in the animal creation in this brief 
 prophecy? Doth God care for oxen ? 
 It may be replied that the description 
 is given, not for its own sake, but as a 
 pledge how complete will be the re- 
 demption Messiah will bring to pass. If 
 peace will so reign in this outmost and 
 more unlikely sphere, how much more in 
 the higher sphere of redeemed humanity ! 
 
 The scientific objection has its strength 
 in the plain fact, that carnivorous ani- 
 mals are adapted, by their whole struc- 
 ture, to prey upon the flesh of others. 
 This fact, however, is implied, and not 
 contradicted, in the vision. Its whole em- 
 phasis consists in the reversal or suspense 
 
 of the strong instincts of thesebeastsof prey 
 by a mightier power. If it were natural 
 for the lion to eat straw like the ox, the 
 promise would lose all meaning. He, 
 whom the fishes obeyed when on earth, 
 can subdue the fiercest instincts of the 
 wolf and lion, and turn them into para- 
 bles of His own moral victories. 
 
 V. 9. "The holy mountain of God" 
 usually denotes Zion alone. But the 
 phrase here is peculiar, and occurs only 
 elsewhere in Is. Ixv. 25, "All my holy 
 mountain," or literally "the whole moun- 
 tain," or ' 'every mountain of my holiness." 
 The local features, so marked in this chap- 
 ter, disprove a reference to the church 
 throughout the world (Hend. , Alex.); 
 and a double allegory, which makes this 
 mountain the same with the wolf, lion, 
 bear, and leopard, is most harsh and vio- 
 lent. On the other hand, it would be 
 strange to predict that none will hurt or 
 destroy in Jerusalem, because piety is 
 spread through the world. 
 
 The "whole mountain," then, seems 
 to be here the mountain-range of Pales- 
 tine, the "very fruitful hill" in the former 
 parable, ch. v. i, the mountain of God's 
 inheritance, Ex. xv. 17, Is. Ivii. 13. All 
 its heights and mountains, Zion, Moriah, 
 Gerizim, Olivet, Tabor, Hermon, Carmel 
 and Lebanon, were hallowed by special 
 memorials of Divine love. The keeping 
 of the whole picture needs a reference to 
 such mountains as had once contained 
 the haunts of these beasts of prey. 
 
 "For the earth, &c." The context 
 would here point to the narrower sense 
 of "the land," that is, the land of pro- 
 mise, Palestine. Comp. ii. 7, 8, v. 30, 
 vi. II, 12, vii. 24, viii. 8, ix, 2, x. 23. 
 The correspondence of the two clauses 
 would then be perfect. But the mention 
 of the earth, v. 4, and the repetition of 
 the same promise, Hab. ii. 13, in the 
 wider sense, confirms the received ver- 
 
72 
 
 ISAIAH, XI. 10— I, 
 
 10 And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, which shall 
 stand for an ensign to the nations : to him shall the Gentiles 
 seek, and his resting-place shall be glorious. 
 
 1 1 And it shall come to pass in that day, tJiat the Lord will 
 set his hand again, the second time, to recover the remnant of 
 his people which shall be left, 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 will set up an ensign for the nations, and will 
 assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dis- 
 persed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. 13 The 
 envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the vexers of Judah 
 shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall 
 
 sion. There will then be a climax in the 
 promise. There will he peace, first of all, 
 throughout all the "fruitful hill" of God's 
 own vineyard ; and even more widely 
 still, "for the earth shall be full of the 
 knowledge of the Lord," that knowledge 
 which is life eternal, and the cure of all 
 ill doing. And this knowledge shall be 
 wide and deep, as the waters fill the bed 
 of the mighty ocean. 
 
 V. 10. The Vision returns, from a pic- 
 ture of the completed redemption, to 
 mark two main steps in its progress. The 
 first is the reconciling of the world, when 
 Israel were cast away; and the second 
 that recovery of them again, which will 
 be 'life from the dead," Rom. xi. 15. 
 
 The day here is the future times of 
 Messiah. He is called the Root of Jesse, 
 as one growing up from the roots of 
 David's family, when cut down and de- 
 prived of its royal grandeur. The peoples 
 or nations {aminiiii) are not the tribes of 
 Israel (Hend., al.) but the Gentiles, as 
 ii. 4, viii. 9, X. 13, 14. The ensign is the 
 standard of a captain or military leader. 
 .St Paul, Rom. xv. 12, quotes the words 
 as predicting the call of the Gentiles. 
 They shall "seek unto Christ," consult 
 Him as their oracle, and resort to Him 
 as their heavenly Guide. The resting- 
 place is often referred to the church, where 
 Christ dwells by his Spirit. But, i Tim. 
 iii. 16 supplies a simpler and more em- 
 phatic meaning. Immanuel, God mani- 
 fest in the flesh, would first be "preached 
 unto the Gentiles," set up before their 
 eyes as the standard whereto they should 
 
 resort ; then "believed on in the world," 
 or widely accepted as their Oracle and 
 Teacher; and lastly, "received up into 
 glory." His resting-place would thus in- 
 deed be glorious, "the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high," Heb. i. 3, viii. i. 
 
 V. 1 1. A return of Israel from previous 
 captivity and dispersion is here one pre- 
 dicted feature of Messiah's reign. Does 
 this refer to the Return from Babylon, or 
 to a recovery slill future? The order, and 
 the close connexion with the victories of 
 Messiah, point to the second or wider 
 view. Yet even then the former must 
 be included, as a signal earnest of a 
 fuller recovery, more complete and glori- 
 ous. 
 
 This Return is compared with the Exo- 
 dus, as a still brighter display of God's 
 favour to Israel. "The remnant of his 
 people which shall be left." Here the 
 name of Shear-jashub, the prophet's first- 
 born, and his watchword when his mission 
 began, carries forward its double voice of 
 warning and of hope into the last days. 
 Pathros is the Thebais, or Upper Egypt, 
 nie islands of the sea refer to all Europe, 
 represented by its maritime tracts that Kay 
 ■westward from Palestine. Elam and Shinar 
 are Persia and Babylon ; and the "isles of 
 the sea," or Greece and Rome, come last 
 in this catalogue of the lands of Israel's 
 dispersion, just as in Daniel's series of the 
 Four Empires. 
 
 v. 13. Three different rentlerings of 
 this verse have been proposed to make the 
 parallelism complete. The first clause 
 may be rendered "the envy against E- 
 
ISAIAH, XL 14—16. 
 
 '3 
 
 not vex Ephraim. 14 And they shall alight on the border of 
 the Philistines toward the west ; they shall spoil the sons of the 
 east together ; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, 
 and the children of Amnion shall obey them. 15 And the 
 Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea ; 
 and with his mighty wind will he shake his hand over the 
 river, and will smite it into seven streams, and make dicu go 
 over dryshod. 16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant 
 of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria ; like as it was to 
 Israel, in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 phraim," as Is. xxvi. ri, (Liuher). Next, 
 the second may be explained ' the adver- 
 saries (of Ephraim) in Judah" (Kimchi, 
 Schult., Rosenm.jGesen., Hengst., Ewald 
 and Henderson). Thirdly, the word may 
 be taken as an abstract noun "the en- 
 mity of Judah," (Lowth). Or, fourthly, 
 the rendering of the received version 
 may be retained, though the parallelism 
 seems left imperfect (Umbreit, Alex., 
 Drechsler, Delitzsch). This simplest ver- 
 sion is the best, and even the parallel 
 is complete in reality, though not in 
 appearance. The envy of Ephraim re- 
 vealed itself in two stages ; first, as an 
 internal feud in the nation of Israel ; and 
 next, as bitter and open hostility against 
 the Zion of God. Under David and 
 Solomon we see the first, but under 
 Pekah and Hoshea this second and 
 worse stage. The first half of the verse 
 predicts the end of foreign hostility and 
 hatred ; the second, that of internal strife 
 and discord. That bitter envy of Ephraim 
 shall depart, which made it rank foremost 
 among the open adversaries of Zion, vii. 
 I — 8, and the vexers of Judah "shall be 
 cut off," all those heathen powers, Syria, 
 Philistia, and Asshur, which had found 
 their willing ally in envious and apostate 
 Ephraim. But the internal strife shall also 
 cease. Here Ephraim and Judah were 
 guilty alike, and both needed a moral con- 
 version. Ephraim, restored to the covenant 
 of God, "shall not envy Judah," as it had 
 done in the times of Gideon, David, and 
 Solomon ; and Judah, humbled by afflic- 
 tions, "shall not vex Ephraim." The pro- 
 minence here doubly given to the cure of 
 Ephraim's jealousy refers us back to ch. 
 vii. I- — 18, and shows the striking moral 
 
 unity of these later messages in the time 
 of Ahaz. 
 
 V. 14. The figure here is thought by 
 many to be the pouncing of a hawk or 
 eagle upon the shoulders of an antelope, 
 and thus to denote military conquest. 
 Some explain it that the Jews were to be 
 conveyed swiftly by ships of the Philistines 
 back to their own land (LXX., Jerome, 
 Abarbanel). Others refer it to the con- 
 quests of Jonathan the Maccabee. But 
 this agi'ees neither with the singidar form 
 of the word "shoulder," nor with the 
 order of the prophecy. The word is 
 used Josh. xv. 8, lo, ii for the border of 
 Judah towards Philistia ; and many justly 
 prefer this meaning (Rosenm., Hitzig, 
 Hend., Ewald, Drechsler, Delitzsch). 
 The verb occurs Ix. 8, in reference to the 
 same or a similar event, and does not 
 there allude to birds of prey. Such 
 seems, then, to be the true sense. The 
 returning Jews shall alight, as doves that 
 flock to their windows, on the Philistines' 
 border, to the west ; and shall lay their 
 hand, in restored supremacy, on all the 
 eastern regions of the land of promise. 
 
 vv. 15, 16. Signal acts of Divine 
 power, as in the Exodus, are to attend 
 this restoration. So Micah predicts, 
 "According to the days of thy coming 
 out of the land of Egypt will I show 
 unto him marvellous things," Mic. vii. 
 15 — 17. The tongue of the Egyptian 
 sea is that arm of the Gulf of Suez, 
 which M'as parted in the Exodus, and 
 to which attention is now turned by a 
 recent triumph of human labour and 
 skill ; but hereafter, that man may be 
 humbled in the dust, and the Lord alone 
 may be exalted. The river is the Eu- 
 
74 
 
 ISAIAH, XII. 1—6. 
 
 Chap. XII. And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will 
 praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned 
 away, and thou hast comforted me. 2 Behold, God is my sal- 
 vation ; I will trust, and not be afraid : for the LORD Jeiiovah 
 is my strength, and juj song : he also is become my salvation. 
 3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of 
 salvation. 4 And in that day ye shall say, Praise the Lord, 
 call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make 
 mention that his name is exalted. 5 Sing unto the Lord, for 
 he hath done excellent things : this is known in all the earth. 
 6 Cry out, and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the 
 Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee ! 
 
 phrates. The "mighty wind" is a peculiar 
 word which may denote "hot, burning 
 breath." The mighty stream will be so 
 wasted, as to leave in its bed only seven 
 fordable rivulets. Comp. Rev. xvi. 12, 
 whether the same or only a kindred event. 
 The message closes with a double allusion 
 to the threatening in viii. 5—10 under the 
 figure of an Euphratean overflow, and to 
 the promise in Shear-jashub'sname. "And 
 there shall be an highway for the remnant 
 of his people, which shall be left, like as 
 it was to Israel, in the day he came up 
 from the land of Egypt." 
 Chap. XII. The Song of Restored 
 Israel. 
 The Prophecy closes fitly with a song 
 
 of praise, the utterance of restored Israel. 
 And this links itself with the fivefold bur- 
 den of the previous vision ch. v. 25, ix. 
 12, 17, 21 ; X. 4 in a most impressive con- 
 trast. The hand of God, once stretched 
 out in judgment, is now extended in 
 mercy. His anger, once sore and heavy, 
 is now turned away. The ceremony of 
 drawing water from the pool of Siloam 
 on the last great day of the Feast of 
 Tabernacles would now receive a glorious 
 antitype. Blessed themselves, the house 
 of Israel shall be a blessing to others. 
 All the nations of the earth are loudly 
 invited to share in Zion's gladness, and 
 in the joy of their long-delayed and full 
 redemption. 
 
ISAIAH, XIII. 75 
 
 II. THE BURDENS ON THE NATIONS. 
 Chap. XIII.— XXVII. 
 
 § I. The Burden of Babylon. Ch. XIII.— XIV. 27. 
 
 The First Series of Isaiah's Prophecies, chh. i. — xii. is followed by a 
 Second, composed of Burdens on the Gentile nations, chh. xiii. — xxiii., and 
 summed up in a common sequel of judgment and blessing, chh. xxiv. — xxvii. 
 The two subjects of the first series are the impending Assyrian Woe, and 
 the coming and reign of Immanuel, the Branch of the Lord. The former 
 is unfolded anew in these Burdens themselves, and their sequel points again 
 to the times of Messiah. 
 
 The date of this Second Series lies between the third year of Ahaz and 
 the third of Hezckiah, or between the fulfilment of the warning, ch. viii. i — 4, 
 and the opening of the siege of Samaria, predicted ch. xxviii. 2. During 
 these sixteen years there seem to have been no direct inroads of Assyria on 
 Ephraim or Judah, but it was extending and confirming its dominion over 
 the surrounding heathen powers. The form of the prophecy corresponds. 
 Burdens on the Gentile nations are successively revealed ; and the message 
 returns to Israel and to Judah, when the northern kingdom was ready to 
 suffer once more under the Assyrian scourge. The arrangement has thus 
 a clear basis in the history ; so that the visions were probably revealed, 
 almost or altogether, in the same order in which they now stand. 
 
 The Burden on Babylon takes precedence of the rest, since this was the 
 Gentile power ordained to complete the predicted judgment of God on the 
 chosen people. Next are the Burdens of Philistia, Moab, and Damascus, the 
 neighbours of Israel on the west, the east, and the north, with a brief Sequel of 
 their own. Next is the Burden on Egypt and Ethiopia, the southern rival 
 of Assyria. Then follow, as before, three secondary Burdens on the border 
 lands of the southern side. The message then returns to Palestine, in the 
 Burden of the Valley of Vision ; and the series ends with Tyre, the great 
 maritime power of the ancient world. So also in ch. ii. the woe ends with 
 "all ships of Tarshish, and all merchandize of beauty"; and in ch. xi. the 
 lands of dispersion close with "the islands of the sea." 
 
 The name, burden, denotes a prophetic warning. This is proved by the 
 constant use of the same word for a literal burden, and from the contents of 
 the visions which have this title. Also by the severe rebuke addressed to 
 those who borrowed this word, to convey the charge of a burdensome, 
 severe, and repulsive character against all the messages of God, Jer. xxiii. 
 33 — 40. Its use in Lam. ii. 14, Zech. xii. i, quoted in proof of a wider sense, 
 forms no exception. The "burdens of falsehood" will fitly express mes- 
 sages of judgment against the foes of Israel, when the people ought to 
 have been warned of judgment coming on themselves ; and the prediction in 
 Zech. xii. is that Jerusalem would be "a burdensome stone to all the nations." 
 
;6 ISAIAH, XIII. 
 
 The name of Isaiah has occurred before in the Preface, ch. i. I, in the 
 Opening Vision, ch. ii. i, and in the introduction to the Prophecy of 
 Immanuel, vii. 3; and occurs again, ch. xx. 2, 3, and in the Historical 
 Episode. It thus appears three limes in the First, and three times in the 
 Second Series, but not once in the Third ; which is linked, however, more 
 closely with the Second than the Second with the First, the Burdens 
 passing, almost without pause, into the Woes that follow. There is a plain 
 correspondence between ch. xiii. 19 and xxxii. 19, between xiii. 19 — 22 and ch. 
 xxxiv., between xiv. i — 3 and ch. xxxv. Hence the present title, xiii. i, links 
 the name of the prophet with the Burdens, the Woes, and the concluding 
 Promise. On the other hand, the peroration of the first Burden, xiv. 24 — 27, 
 refers back to the double prediction of the Assyrian's fall, ix. 4, 5, xx. 16 — 19, 
 and also to the key-note of the still earlier message, ch. v. 25, xiv. 26, 27. 
 The mention of the Medes, ch. xiii. 17, is completed by that of Cyrus in the 
 Later Prophecies, xliv. 28, xiv. i. The title, then, of this first Burden forms 
 an essential link in the structure of the whole book. In the four historical 
 chapters, which constitute the Fourth Series, Isaiah's personal dignity and 
 honour, as God's messenger, reaches its height. These are the historical basis 
 and pedestal of all the Later Visions. And now the person of the prophet 
 almost disappears from view; and, like the Baptist of whom he speaks, he 
 becomes a mouth and a voice alone. The Word of God, the coming Messiah, 
 speaks through him in those later visions, to proclaim comfort to His 
 people, and bids all the islands keep silence and listen to the voice of their 
 Lord and King, chh. xl. i, xli. i, xlix. i. 
 
 Babylon reached its height of grandeur under Nabopolassar, and his son 
 Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 623 — 561, more than a hundred years after the death 
 of Ahaz. One generation later, B.C. 53"^, it was captured by Cyrus the 
 Persian and Darius the Mede. In the fourth or fifth year of Darius Hys- 
 taspes, in consequence of a rebellion, he ordered its gates of brass to be 
 taken away, and its walls lowered. Still later, Xerxes, B.C. 477, plundered and 
 destroyed the temple of Belus, and carried away its golden tables and statues. 
 Alexander tried to restore its greatness, but in vain. It was conquered by 
 Selcucus Nicator, B.C. 312, and on his building his new capital, Selcucia 
 on the Tigris, fell more rapidly into decay. In llie time of Strabo and 
 Diodorus it was almost a desert, and Pausanias, in the first part of the 
 second century after Christ, says that nothing remained but the walls. These 
 were partly repaired in the fourth century, to make a hunting-ground for 
 wild beasts to the Persian king. Since then, for more than a thousand 
 years, it has been a scene of solitude, horror, and desolation. Of Birs 
 Nimroud, Rich writes in his Memoir on Babylon, "It burst at once on 
 our sight, in the midst of rolling masses of thick black clouds, obscured by a 
 haze, of which the indistinctness added to the sublimity; whilst a few strong 
 catches of light, thrown upon the desert in the background, served to give 
 some idea of the immense extent and dreary solitude of the wastes in which 
 this venerable ruin stands," p. 74. 
 
 The genuineness of the title, and the Isaian authorship of this first 
 Burden, have been denied by several modern critics (Justi, Gesen., Rosenm., 
 
ISAIAH, XIII. 'J7 
 
 Hitzlg, Knobel, Ewald, Davidson, &c.) on such grounds as these: (i) "The 
 standpoint of the writer is in the time of the captivity, when the Chaldean 
 Empire was flourishing." On the contrary, it begins with the mustering of 
 Median armies, and reaches on to a completed desolation, which has lasted 
 to the present day.. Or if the actual date be meant, that is fixed by the 
 close, xiv. 25, before the fall of Sennacherib. (2) "Isaiah could not transfer 
 his position into the distinct future, disregarding the horizon of his own 
 day." This merely affirms that the Holy Spirit may predict events twenty 
 or thirty, but not two hundred years beforehand. Besides, the political 
 horizon of the time is kept in view, for a solemn oath of the Assyrian's fall 
 closes the prophecy. (3) " The tone and spirit are bitter, revengeful, taunt- 
 ing, sarcastic. It is intelligible from one who had suffered under the Chal- 
 deans, not from Isaiah." This is like one of the predicted "hard speeches" 
 against the Lord of Hosts, whose message it is. The Burden is not "bitter," 
 but most solemn and sublime. It breathes, not the feeble malice of Jewish 
 exiles, but the holy anger of the Most High, against the oppressors of His 
 people, and blasphemers of His great name. It is sarcastic, because it is 
 the voice of Him who "scorneth the scorners, but giveth grace to the 
 lowly." The vengeance is the same as in Rev. xviii., given through the 
 Apostle of love. (4) "There are imitations of Ezekiel and Joel, and traces 
 of acquaintance with Zephaniah." Between Jer. 1., li., and Isai. xiii. there 
 is considerable likeness. There is here a strong proof of the genuineness, 
 and no argument against it. It is easy to conceive that these later 
 prophets might borrow phrases or images from one earlier and greater ; 
 but incredible that a Vision so earnest and sublime, full of seraphic fire, 
 should be a cento from three or four sources, turned into a forgery by 
 prefixing a false name. (5) "The style and diction are unlike Isaiah's." 
 On the contrary^, there is no passage more characteristic of his style in the 
 whole book. (6) "The prophecy was not fulfilled, as announced. The 
 desolation did not take place by the Medes, as the prophecy asserts." 
 The statement, and not the prediction, is untrue. To the Medes is assigned 
 a fierce slaughter of the men of Babylon, when the city is captured ; but 
 how soon, or how slowly, or by what steps the total desolation would follow, 
 of this the text says not a single word. The mention of shepherds and 
 their flocks, and of tents of the Arabians, points to a time beyond the 
 age of the Medo-Persian Empire. The reasons thus alleged from internal 
 evidence, to disprove the genuineness, are all worthless. All the external 
 evidence, and decisive reasons from the structure of the book, combine still 
 further to prove that the vision is Isaiah's, and stands here in its proper 
 place. 
 
7^ 
 
 ISAIAH, XIII. 1—8. 
 
 Chap. XIII. The Burden of Babylon, which Isaiah 
 THE SON OF Amoz DID SEE. 2 Lift ye up a banner upon the 
 high mountain : exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that 
 they may go into the gates of the nobles. 3 I, even I, have com- 
 manded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for 
 mine anger, my proudly rejoicing ones ! 4 The noise of a multi- 
 tude in the mountains, like as of a great people ; a tumultuous 
 noise of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! the LORD 
 of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. 5 They come from a 
 far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the wea- 
 pons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. 6 Howl ye ! 
 for the day of the Lord is at hand : it shall come as a destruc- 
 tion from the Almighty. 7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, 
 and every man's heart shall melt : 8 And they shall be afraid ; 
 pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them : they shall be in pain 
 as a woman that travaileth ; they shall be amazed one at an- 
 
 V. I. The promise to Zion, ii. i — 5, 
 and this Burden of Babylon, are the two 
 portions of the book where the prophet's 
 name is expressly given. They contain 
 the two poles, in judgment and mercy, 
 of his whole message. And the same law 
 of arrangement is seen in each case. The 
 promise to Zion in the last days is placed 
 before the long series of troubles and 
 woes coming on her for her sin ; and 
 the Burden of Babylon, the scourge of 
 God, introduces the burdens of the other 
 states and kingdoms, soon to be scourged 
 by the Assyrio- Chaldean power. 
 
 V. 2. The Vision begins with a mes- 
 sage of the Lord of hosts to the confede- 
 rate princes. They are to set up a 
 standard on a lofty mountain, bare and 
 woodless, that it may be seen from afar, 
 and to gather their armies, that they may 
 fulfil His decreed judgment, and enter 
 the gates of the palaces of Baljylon. The 
 commission is not from man, but from 
 God himself. The armies of the Medes 
 and Persians are His "sanctified ones," set 
 apart by the Lord himself for this great 
 work. They are His "proudly rejoicing 
 ones," warriors that exult in the conscious 
 pride of their own strength and prowess. 
 The call is obeyed, the warriors throng 
 to their standards. The ear catches the 
 sound of their voices, the tramping of 
 
 their feet, the hum and murmur and 
 growing tumult of their immense array. 
 
 V. 3. "My proudly rejoicing ones." 
 The Hebrew suffix modifies the whole 
 phrase. The idea is not religious reve- 
 rence, but the military exultation of con- 
 querors, used as God's instruments of 
 vengeance. 
 
 vv. 6 — 9. The scene changes suddenly 
 to the land and people of Babylon. They 
 are called to tremble at the approach of 
 the hostile armies, when the judgment is 
 near. But presently they are seen as if 
 already crushed under the stroke of this 
 terrible judgment. "Behold! the day of 
 the Lord is come." 
 
 vv. II — 18. The ruin is compared to 
 a total and sudden eclipse of all the lights 
 of heaven. The stars are darkened 
 above, the earth trembles below, antl all 
 nature mourns together "in the wrath of 
 the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his 
 fierce anger." 
 
 v. 8. "Their faces shall be as flames." 
 Some expound this of the fierceness ot 
 the conquerors, but it clearly refers to the 
 men of Babylon. Others take lehabim 
 for the proper name of Lehabim, son of 
 Mizraim, Gen. x. 13, and explain it 
 "black with horror; "while others, again, 
 take it for the redness of shame and con- 
 fusion. But it seems rather to refer to 
 
ISAIAH, XIII. 9—14. 
 
 79 
 
 other: their faces sJiall be as flames. 9 Behold! the day of the 
 Lord is come, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay 
 the land desolate ; and he will destroy the sinners thereof out of 
 it. 10 For the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, 
 shall not give their light : the sun shall be darkened in his going 
 forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. 1 1 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 precious than fine gold ; even a man than the 
 golden wedge of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, 
 and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the w-rath of the 
 Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. 14 And it 
 shall be as the chased roe, and as a flock that no man gathereth : 
 they shall turn every one to his own people, and flee every one 
 
 the flickering of flames, as a figure of 
 sudden, fitful, and violent ennotions, writ- 
 ten on the countenance. So the variable 
 play of the moonbeams has been applied 
 (Rokeby, i. 9 — 14). But for such sudden 
 and rapid changes of countenance through 
 violent emotions, no emblem could be 
 more expressive than flames of fire. 
 
 V. 9. "Is come." The change of 
 tense marks the progress of the vision. 
 The judgment, described first as near, is 
 next seen as already come. 
 
 V. 10. The figure is not of the total 
 extinction of the stars (Alex.), but that of 
 a sky suddenly darkened by a terrible 
 storm (Vitr., Mich.) when murky gloom 
 overspreads the whole firmament, v. 13 
 describes the reverberation of the thunder, 
 joined with earthquake. The same figure 
 runs through all the earlier prophecies of 
 Isaiah, ch. v. 30; viii. 22; ix. 19; xiii. 10; 
 xxxiv. 4, from their first to their latest 
 message. It is a most striking emblem of 
 those political convulsions, reaching to 
 the highest classes, which attend the 
 downfall of a mighty Empire. 
 
 V. 10. "Their constellations." Their 
 Orions, this bright constellation being 
 made a generic term. The name, kesil, 
 seems to mean "foolhardy, arrogant;" 
 and answers to the Persian view of 
 Orion, as Nimrod, and the Arabic name 
 of the constellation, the Giant. The 
 Targum here renders "their giants." 
 Even the brightest and most conspicu- 
 
 ous stars were to be darkened in this 
 judgment. 
 
 V. II. "The world." Used, like a 
 proper name, for the full extent of the 
 earth, and in allusion to the world-wide 
 dominion elsewhere ascribed to Babylon. 
 So the Roman empire and the world are 
 often confounded together, as nearly equi- 
 valent terms. The threatening in ch. ii. 
 9 — ^19, which applies first to guilty Israel, 
 is here extended and applied to Israel's 
 fierce oppressors. 
 
 V. 12. "Precious" because scarce, 
 when "few men are left," xxiv. 6. The 
 truth implied is that which forms the 
 basis of political economy. Price depends 
 not so much on intrinsic worth, as on the 
 scarceness of the article, and the difficulty 
 of procuring it. Ophir has been referred 
 to the east coast of Africa, "Sofala, 
 thought Ophir;" to Ind, or the west coast 
 of India, near the mouth of the Indus 
 (Delitzsch); or to Ceylon (Bochart). But 
 it seems more likely that it was on the 
 east coast of Arabia, in the Persian Gulf 
 (Foster, Henderson), where is a town 
 Ofor, and where Ptolemy places a gold 
 coast. These early gold districts have been 
 worked out long ago; and when richest, 
 the yield of Peru, California and Aus- 
 tralia throws their wealth into the shade. 
 
 V. 1 4. The terror of the men of Baby- 
 Ion is compared to the fright of the roe 
 or timid gazelle ; and the dispersion of its 
 mixed population, its visitors and mer- 
 
8o 
 
 ISAIAH, XIII. 15—20. 
 
 into his own land. 15 Every one that is found shall be thrust 
 through ; and every one that is overtaken shall fall by the sword. 
 16 Their children also shall be dashed to 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 will not delight therein. 
 18 Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and 
 they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb : their eye will 
 not spare children. 19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, 
 the excellent beauty of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God 
 overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20 It shall never be in- 
 
 chants, to a flock scattered by an alarm, 
 which no shepherd cares to gather again. 
 
 V. 15. Those who are found in the 
 city, and those overtaken in flight (Hend., 
 Gesen., Ewald, Delitzsch), shall alike be 
 destroyed. Xenophon says that Cyras 
 sent out his cavalry into the roads when 
 the city was taken, and ordered them to 
 put to death all that were found outside 
 the houses. 
 
 V. 17. The name, Medes, is that of 
 Madai, the son of Japheth, Gen. x. 2. 
 Their country lay along the south and 
 west of the Caspian, including the present 
 provinces of Shervan, Azerbijan, Ghilin, 
 Mazanderin and Irak Ajemi, celebrated for 
 the number and bravery of their warriors. 
 It was the first horn of the Ram in Dan. 
 viii., and Persia, thehigher horn which came 
 up last. "The prophecy takes a fresh turn, 
 and the veil is completely broken through. 
 We now learn the name of the conquer- 
 ors" (Delitzsch). The kings of Media, 
 or the rulers in their villages, were to 
 drink the cup of God's anger through the 
 Chaldeans, Jer. xxv. 25, and revenge would 
 render them doubly fierce and cruel. 
 
 Shall in one clause, and will in the 
 other, best expresses the double fact of 
 the Divine decree, and its fulfilment 
 through the free agency of man. 
 
 These words shew the gradual steps of 
 prophetic revelation. In this earliest mes- 
 sage against Babylon, the Medes only are 
 named. In a second, ch. xxi. 2, both 
 Persians and Medes, in the order they 
 would thenceforth assume. " Go up, O 
 Elam ! besiege, O Media !" In a third 
 prediction Cyrus, the Persian leader, is 
 mentioned by name, xlv. i. There is here 
 
 a further sign that all three visions are 
 placed in their original order, are given by 
 the same prophet, and form one harmo- 
 nious whole. 
 
 "And as for gold, they shall not delight 
 therein." Their chief aim in the conquest 
 will not be mere booty, but a cruel revenge 
 on masters, by whom they had been op- 
 pressed before. Sin recoils on the sinner. 
 
 v. 19. What the temple was to Judah, 
 "the beauty of ornament," and "the 
 excellency of their strength," Ez. vii. 20, 
 xxiv. 2r, Babylon, with its stately walls, 
 palaces, and hanging gardens, was to the 
 Chaldeans. It was their boast and pride. 
 The temple was to be burnt, but restored, 
 but this excellent beauty of the Chaldeans 
 was to suffer a final overthrow. 
 
 "As when God overthrew Sodom and 
 Gomorrah." The repeated mention of 
 this fact, i. 9, 10, iii. 9, xiii. 19, Jer. xxiii. 
 14, xlix. 18, 1. 40, Lam. iv. 6, Ez. xvi. 
 48, 56, Amos iv. II, Zeph. ii. 9, shews 
 how familiar the people were with the 
 narrative in Genesis. The present Bur- 
 den is thus linked with the first chapters 
 of the book, i. 9, iii. 9. The comparison 
 lies in the completeness of the desolation. 
 In one case the fulfdment was sudden, in 
 the other gradual, but this only deepens 
 the lesson of Divine foreknowledge. The 
 work of fire and brimstone from heaven 
 was here wrought by sword, pestilence, 
 inundation, and complex revolutions, 
 through six hun<lred years. But the ful- 
 filment was at length complete ; and the 
 wild Arab, for long ages, has shrunk with 
 superstitious terror from the ruins of an- 
 cient Babylon. 
 
ISAIAH, XIII. 21— XIV. 2. 
 
 8i 
 
 habited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to genera- 
 tion ; neither shall Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall shep- 
 herds make their fold 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. 
 22 And jackals shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons 
 in tJicir pleasant palaces : and her time is near to come, and her 
 days shall not be prolonged. 
 
 Chap. XIV. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will 
 yet choose Israel, and will make them rest in their own land : and 
 strangers shall join themselves with them, and they will cleave 
 to the house of Jacob. 2 And the people shall take them, and 
 bring them to their own place : and the house of Israel shall 
 possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and hand- 
 maids : and they shall take them captive, whose captives they 
 were, and they shall rule over their oppressors. 
 
 vv. i\, 12. Most of the terms are de- 
 bated, and rather obscure. They reflect the 
 gloom that was to brood over the doomed 
 city. Tsiim, according to Bochart, is 
 "wild cats," but seems rather to be a ge- 
 neral term. Ockiin, which some render 
 "doleful cries," perhaps denotes horned 
 owls, or more generally "doleful crea- 
 tures." Beiioth-yaaneh, as most nowagree, 
 is a name of ostriches, rather than of owls. 
 " Wild beasts of the islands" are jackals, 
 so named from their cry. Aliiienoth for 
 armenoth, "palaces," probably has one 
 letter changed, to include the further idea 
 of widowhood and entire desolation. 
 
 The word seirim, "satyrs," has caused 
 the chief doubt as to its exact meaning. 
 V>y derivation it means "hairy creatures." 
 Twice it is applied to Esau, forty times to 
 goats used in sacrifice, twice it is rendered 
 "devils," and twice "satyrs," where the 
 I.XX. translate it "demons." But a 
 different word is used elsewhere for wild 
 goats, and flocks of any kind are excluded 
 by the context. From xxxiv. 14, "the 
 satyr shall cry to his fellow," it seems to 
 denote some creature of shrill and discor- 
 dant cry. The word "satyr, "when rightly 
 explained, seems the best version, and 
 helps to indicate the vague, gloomy, mys- 
 terious character of the judgment. Crea- 
 tures of the ape, baboon, or monkey kind, 
 resembling the human form, but with 
 
 B. I. 
 
 wild cry or howl, grotesque and hideous, 
 were to haunt the forsaken site of the 
 once glorious city, and to sport hideously 
 among its ruins. 
 
 vv. 19 — 22. The result of this predict- 
 ed capture would be long lasting and 
 utter desolation. No shepherd will make 
 his flock to lie down there, no wandering 
 Arab of the desert pitch his tent, where 
 once stood the fair and stately city, the 
 mistress of the world, the beauty and 
 pride of the Chaldeans. Wild beasts and 
 doleful creatures will haunt its forsaken 
 palaces, and people the dreary and awful 
 solitude. The name, Arabian, first oc- 
 curs in this place, and seems to point to 
 a fulfilment in the later times. 
 
 Ch. XIV. 
 
 The Song of the Re- 
 stored. 
 
 vv. I — 4. The effects of this great 
 overthrow are next described. Israel will 
 return from their exile, and break forth 
 into a triumphal song. The source of the 
 great change is the free mercy and love of 
 God. The promise refers to the Return 
 from Babylon, and to the Gentile servants 
 who accompanied the returning exiles. 
 But it was fulfilled, still further, in the 
 rule of the Maccabean princes, and in 
 the moral victories over Gentile super- 
 stition in the times of the Gospel. The 
 words look forward even to days still 
 
82 
 
 ISAIAH, XIV. 3—7. 
 
 3 And it shall come to pass in the clay that the LORD 
 shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and 
 from the hard bondage, wherein thou wast made to serve ; 
 4 That thou shalt take up this song against the king of Baby- 
 lon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased ! the exactress of 
 gold ceased ! 5 The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, 
 the rod of the tyrants ; 6 That smote the people in wrath with 
 a continual stroke, that trampled the nations in anger ; perse- 
 cuting, and no man hindered. 7 The whole earth is at rest, it 
 
 future, ^vhen the nations shall learn war 
 no more, and Zion's glory shall be fully 
 come, ch. ii. i — 5. 
 
 w. 4 — 23. The transitions in this sub- 
 lime Song or Parable are not plainly 
 marked, and this adds to the power and 
 vividness of the whole. The restored 
 exiles, the cedars of Lebanon, the kings 
 in Hades, the dwellers on earth, the pro- 
 phet himself, and the Lord who sends 
 him, all lend their voices to the chorus, 
 and make the warning more terribly sub- 
 lime. Some refer V. 11 to the departed 
 kings, others to the exiles who begin 
 the Ode. Some make it close at v. 20, 
 others at v. 21, others at v. 23. But in 
 V. II the exiles join the greeting of the 
 kings, and in v. 12 the prophet shares in 
 the antistrophe of these exiles; and then 
 carries it forward w. 15, 16, as a vision 
 of the future, not of the past, in his own 
 person. The Ode closes v. 20, and is fol- 
 lowed by a warning, directly from the 
 prophet, of the utter extinction of the 
 royal race. The LoRD himself, last of all, 
 confirms the message of His sen-ant, and 
 adds to it a still more solemn oath of the 
 destruction of the Assyrian. 
 
 V. 4. Who is the king to whom the 
 Song refers? His conquests, pride, and 
 boasting, suit with Sennacherib or Nebu- 
 chadnezzar ; but his sudden fall, at the 
 time when the city is taken and the exiles 
 return, answers to Rclshazzar alone. Hence 
 a variety of interpretations. But the tnie 
 reference is to the dynasty, viewed as one 
 collective person, just as in Dan. 1. 44, 
 vii. I — 17, 24, viii. 20—23. Babylon and 
 Assyria are also viewed, in this prophecy, 
 as one and the same power. For Baby- 
 lon, even then, was the second city of the 
 Assyrian empire, and Esarhaddon reigned 
 alternately there and at Nineveh, and 
 
 peopled Samaria from its revolted in- 
 habitants. Nabo]")olassar was probably 
 linked, either collaterally or by marriage, 
 with the Assyrian line of kings. Even the 
 successors of Cyrus are styled, in Ezr. vi. 
 22, kings of Assyria. The kingdom fell, 
 when the handwriting appeared to Bel- 
 shazzar, "God hath numbered thy king- 
 dom, and finished it." "That same night 
 was Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, 
 slain," Dan. v. 30. His corpse was left 
 unburied in the storming of the city, and 
 after him no shoot or offspring of the old 
 Chaldean line ever came to the throne. 
 
 "The exactress of gold." Some, 
 by a slight change of text (inarhcbah, 
 I\Iich., Doderlein, Knobel, Drechsler), 
 render "haughty, violent treatment." 
 Others find the like meaning {place of 
 torture, Delitzsch) in the actual text ; 
 while most derive from the root "gold," 
 and render either "the golden city" or 
 "the gold-exacting city." The last is 
 probably the true sense (LXX., Vitr. , 
 Lowth, Rosenmr., Winer, Henderson). 
 The heavy imposts of gold, laid by As- 
 syria and Babylon on Ephraim and Judah, 
 are a very prominent feature of the his- 
 tory. They were shorn by this razor, 
 vii. 20, till not only their wealth and 
 glory, but even the necessaries of life 
 were removed. The taxation of cruel 
 conquerors wasted hardly less than the 
 sword. Perhaps both ideas are combined, 
 that the city was enriched and adorned by 
 exacted tributes of gold. 
 
 v. 6. This verse continues and unfolds 
 the words of the former one, to shew how 
 oppressive was this sceptre and rod of 
 Babylon. The last clause relates, not to 
 God's vengeance, but to the severity of 
 Chaldean oppression. None had power to 
 rescue its victims in the days of its pride. 
 
ISAIAH, XIV. 8-12. 
 
 83 
 
 is quiet, they break forth into singing; 8 Yea, the cypresses 
 rejoice, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid 
 low, no woodman cometh up against us. 
 
 9 Hell from beneath is disquieted for thee, to meet thee at 
 thy coming : it stirreth up the dead for thee, all the leaders of 
 the earth ; it raiseth up from their thrones all the kings of the 
 nations. 10 All these shall answer and say unto thee, Art 
 thou also become weak as we } art thou made like unto us .? 
 1 1 Thy pomp is brought down to hell, and the loud mirth of 
 thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover 
 thee ! 
 
 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O bright one, son of 
 the morning ! Jioiv art thou cut down to the ground, that didst 
 
 V. 7. The phrase, to break forth into 
 singing, recurs xUv. 23, lii. 9, Iv. 12, and 
 is one mark of common authorship in the 
 Earlier and Later Visions. 
 
 V. 8. The tree {be rush), named with 
 the cedar, is probably the cypress, xxxvii. 
 24, xli. 19, Iv. 13, Ix. 13 (Gesen., Ewd., 
 Knob., Alex., Hendn., Drechsler, De- 
 litzsch). The words may be explained 
 with reference to the actual use of the 
 trees of Lebanon by the Assyrian or Chal- 
 dean conquerors ; or as a general figtu'e, to 
 express the wide range of the oppression 
 (Calv., Alex., Drechsler); or as a meta- 
 phor and allegory (Aben-Ezra, Grot., 
 Delitzsch) for princes and rulers of the 
 heathen world. So the terms are used 
 X. 17, 18, 34, XXX. 24; Ez. XXX. I, 8. 
 (Targ., Cocc, Vitr., Jerome, Rosenm., 
 llend. &c. ). Both ideas may well be 
 combined. All outward nature rejoices, so 
 that the lofty cedars, on heights of Leba- 
 non almost inaccessible, share with the 
 lowly and fertile valleys in relief from the 
 wasting hand of the mighty spoiler. But 
 close behind this poetical figure, based on 
 the physical desolations of war, lies the 
 further application to those princes and 
 rulers, whom the prophet so often de- 
 scribes as the lofty forest-trees of Le- 
 banon. 
 
 "Cometh up." The tense denotes a 
 continued act, both past and future. 
 
 V. 9. "Hell from beneath." Sheol, 
 sometimes rendered hell, sometimes the 
 grave, denotes the under world of the 
 dead, viewed as a hidden, lower region, 
 
 below the earth's surface, answering to 
 the hemisphere of the skies above. The 
 Rephaim, "giants" (LXX., Targ., Syr., 
 Vulg., Alex.), are rather simply "the 
 dead" or "the shades," from a root ex- 
 pressing weakness (Ges., Ewd., Rosenm., 
 Hend., Drechsler, Delitzsch). The figure 
 is that of all the departed and their 
 leaders rising in astonishment, to see the 
 proud king of Babylon brought down so 
 low, 
 
 V. 12. The word heilel, rendered Lit- 
 cifei- in A.V., from the root halal, to 
 shine, here describes the king of Babylon 
 as a shining morning star, to be cast down 
 suddenly from the height of worldly splen- 
 dour. The frequent application of the 
 words to Satan, and his fall from heaven, 
 is certainly not the direct and proper 
 meaning of the passage. But the analogy 
 is so close between the character of the 
 proud king of Babylon and the lost arch- 
 angel, the king over all the children of 
 pride, between this political judgment 
 and the revealed warning of our Lord 
 himself, Lu. x. 18, as fully to vindicate 
 this frequent use of the words from the 
 cliarge of being a gross perversion of the 
 text. The resemblance is very full and 
 complete, both in sin and punishment, 
 between the human and angelic leaders 
 in pride and rebellion, and is fully con- 
 firmed by the later prophecies of the 
 New Testament, Rev. xii. 9 — 12, xx. 3, 
 10. 
 
 The rendering, "Howl, son of the 
 morning" (Aquila, Syr., Jerome, Mich., 
 
 6—2 
 
84 
 
 ISAIAH, XIV. 13—17. 
 
 overshadow the nations! 13 And thou saidst in thy heart, I 
 will mount up to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars 
 of God ; and I will sit on the mount of the congregation, on the 
 sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the 
 clouds, I will be like the Most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be 
 brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit! 16 They that 
 see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee. Is 
 this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake 
 kingdoms.-* 17 That made the world as a wilderness, and de- 
 stroyed the cities thereof .-* his prisoners he set not free for their 
 homes. 18 All the kings of the nations, yea, all of them, lie 
 in glory, every one in his own burial house. 19 But thou art 
 cast out unburied, like an abominable branch, like the raiment 
 
 Ges.), is plainly at variance with the 
 whole drift and scope of the passage. 
 This proud king is compared, first, to 
 the bright morning star, and then to a 
 lofty tree, like the one in Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's vision, shadowing all the nations. 
 "The morning star derives its name from 
 its brilliancy in other languages also, 
 and is here called 'son of the dawn,' as 
 in Greek mythology 'son of Eos,' because 
 it rises before the sun, and swims in the 
 morning light as if that were the source 
 of its birth." Delitzsch. 
 
 V. 1 3. "The mount of the congregation" 
 earlier writers apply to the Jewish temple, 
 or mount Zion ; but most moderns explain 
 it by the Zend mythology, and refer it 
 to a mountain, Elborz, the supposed seat 
 of the gods towards the arctic pole of the 
 sky. "While the Greeks had their 
 Olympus, and the Hindoos their Meru, 
 the ancient Persians had their Elborz or 
 Elborj, a name still given to the highest 
 mountain in the Caucasian range, 16,000 
 feet above the level of the sea. Accord- 
 ing to the Bundesheh, this mountain rose, 
 when the world was created, during the 
 first two hundred years, to the starry 
 heavens; during the next two, to the 
 sphere of the moon ; during the third, to 
 tliat of the sun; and during the fourth, to 
 that of primeval light. Here is the throne 
 of Ormuzd, the congregation of the living, 
 where there is neitlier enemy, darkness, 
 nor death." (Hend.) 
 
 Either view is open to grave objec- 
 tion. Jenisalem and its temple would be 
 
 strangely interposed between the words, 
 "I will ascend above the stars of God," 
 and "I will ascend above the heights of 
 the clouds." They were really occupied, 
 and the temple burnt, by the Chaldeans. 
 On the other hand, the whole Song is re- 
 ferred to Jewish exiles ; and the force of 
 the rebuke lies in the claim of this king to 
 ri\ al the Most High in His own dwelling- 
 place. But the temple of Zion, and the 
 mount where it stood, were earthly types 
 of heavenly realities. The Olympus of 
 the (keeks, the Mount Meru of the Hin- 
 dus, the Elborz of the Zend mythology, 
 were distortions of the same tnith. Apo- 
 theosis after death was the constant form 
 of pride and ambition in the despots of 
 the East, and even in those of Macedon 
 and Rome. The claim, then, of this 
 proud king was to be exalted, after death, 
 above the inferior deities, the idol gods of 
 the vanquished cities and provinces, and 
 to sit by the side of the Most High in His 
 holy and heavenly dwelling. 
 
 The sides of the north will thus have no 
 special reference to Zend mytliology. But 
 the starry region around the north pole, 
 high above the earth, always visible and 
 luminous, is a natural type of the heaven 
 of glory, the special abode of the Most 
 High. The rebuke refers, not to the 
 phrases under which this king might veil 
 his ambitious hopes, but to the real nature 
 of his claim, which was to have a glorious 
 seat, after death, side by side with the 
 throne of the Almighty. And the con- 
 trast is his descent to "the sides of the 
 
ISAIAH, XIV. 18—23. 
 
 85 
 
 of the slain, zuJiich are thrust through with the sword, and 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, and slain thy people : the seed of evil- 
 doers shall be named nevermore. 
 
 21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of 
 their fathers ; lest they rise up, and possess the earth, and fill 
 the face of the world with cities. 22 I will rise up against 
 them, saith the Lord of hosts, and will cut off from Babylon 
 name and remnant, and issue and offspring, saith the Lord. 
 23 And I will make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools 
 of water : and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, 
 saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 pit," the deep recesses of this lower world 
 of Sheol, the region of the dead. 
 
 V. 17. The marginal version of the 
 last clause, "he did not let his prisoners 
 loose homewards," seems to give the true 
 construction, and is made rather more 
 terse by the slight change above. The 
 refusal to exchange prisoners of war has 
 been one of the most cmel forms of over- 
 bearing ambition. The masculine affix to 
 "cities" has been referred to "the world," 
 a feminine noun, or to "the king," a 
 harsh constmction, since the hostile cities 
 destroyed could scarcely be called his 
 own. It refers rather to "the wilderness," 
 that is, the Avorld as wasted by his cruel 
 ambition, and thus adds to the emphasis 
 of the description. 
 
 v. 18. "In accordance to the Oriental 
 custom of erecting splendid mausoleums 
 for kings and other great men, in the 
 sides of which were cells for the reception 
 of the dead bodies. ..all the other kings of 
 the earth are represented as occupying in 
 silent state the chambers allotted to them ; 
 whereas to this king of Babylon the rites 
 of sepulture are denied. No royal mauso- 
 leum receives his corpse, nor even a com- 
 mon grave, but it is left to putrefy on 
 the ground" (Hend. ). "Unburied," lit. 
 "away from thy grave," that is, the se- 
 pulchre that had been appointed before- 
 hand to receive him after death. 
 
 V. 20. " Shall be named nevermore." 
 The version "shall never be renowned" 
 falls short of the tme meaning. Not only 
 shall they fail of conspicuous renown, but 
 
 shall be sentenced to shame and lasting 
 oblivion; while "the righteous shall be 
 had in everlasting remembrance." 
 
 v. 21. "The dramatic form of the 
 prediction is repeatedly shifted, so that 
 the words of the triumphant Jews, of the 
 dead, of the prophet, and of God himself, 
 succeed each other insensiblj', without 
 any attempt to make the points of transi- 
 tion prominent" (Alex.). Here the pro- 
 phet lays aside the dramatic figures of the 
 Song, and speaks in his own person, de- 
 nouncing the utter extinction of the guilty 
 dynasty. " After the storming of Baby- 
 lon by the Medes, the kingdom and royal 
 house, established by Nabopolassar, va- 
 nished entirely from history. The last 
 shoot of the royal family was slain as a 
 child of conspirators. The second Nebu- 
 chadnezzar deceived the people, says 
 Darius in the inscription of Behistan, de- 
 claring, I am Nabukudracara, the son of 
 Nabunita" (Drech. ). There is no need 
 to correct "cities" into "ruins," "ty- 
 rants," "wicked men," or "conflicts," as 
 others propose (Hitz., Ewald, Knob., 
 Meier, Maurer). Newly founded cities 
 were, in the East, the signs of strength 
 in a rising or reviving kingdom, as Alex- 
 andria, Antioch, Seleucia, &c., and were 
 often named after their royal founders. 
 But there was to be no such cure for the 
 ruined race of old Nineveh and Babylon. 
 V. 22. The abrupt form of the origi- 
 nal, and the change of person, seem best 
 rendered by omitting any connective. 
 The Lord suddenly seals the warning of 
 
S6 
 
 ISAIAH, XIV. 24—27. 
 
 24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have 
 thought, so hath 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 will I tread him down ; and his yoke 
 shall depart from off them, and his burden depart from off 
 their shoulders. 26 This ts the purpose that is purposed upon 
 all the 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 it is that is stretched 
 out, and who shall turn it away ? 
 
 the prophet by a direct address in Ilis 
 own person. The kippod, since Bochart, 
 is usually admitted to be the porcupine or 
 hedgehog. All the artificial defences 
 being neglected, and falling into rain, the 
 once fertile Babylon becomes a marshy 
 waste. So complete will be the desolation, 
 that it would seem as if it had been s\\ept, 
 as with a besom, by destruction itself. 
 
 vv. 24 — 27. These verses are parted 
 from the rest of the prophecy by those 
 who deny its genuineness, and are referred, 
 as a sequel of ch. xii., to the previous 
 vision. But that chapter is a natural and 
 perfect close to the first series of prophe- 
 cies ; and these verses, so transferred, 
 would be wholly intrusive and out of 
 place. Here they are in their fit place, 
 the topstone of the burden, and its direct 
 practical application. They link this mes- 
 sage with the Parable of the Vineyard, 
 v. 25, xiv. 26, with the Prophecy of Im- 
 manuel, viii. 8, 9, ix. 4, xiv. 25, with the 
 warnings to Ephraim, or the Assyrian 
 Woe, ix. 12, 17, 21, X. 4, and with the 
 double prediction of the Assyrian over- 
 throw, X. 27, 33, 
 
 There is also here a climax, which 
 marks strongly the unity of the whole. 
 For in v. 21 we have a prophetic warning, 
 in vv. 22, 23 its confirmation by the LuKU 
 
 of hosts himself; and here, in vv. 24, 28, 
 not only the voice of the Lord of hosts, 
 but His solemn oath predictive of coming 
 judgment. All creatures are challenged 
 to show whether they can reverse His firm 
 decree, or turn back His almighty hand. 
 The warnings and burdens of the more dis- 
 tant future are used to deepen and confirm 
 the certainty of that great visitation, which 
 was nearer at hand, and forms the main 
 central thought in these earlier prophecies. 
 The sore judgment on the Assyrian ^^'ould 
 also be a gracious reprieve to the king- 
 dom of Judah before its fall, a typical 
 redemption, a pledge of the full and final 
 deliverance in days to come. 
 
 V. 24. The change of tense is striking, 
 and implies the absolute certainty of the 
 still future vengeance. It seems taught 
 here, as in the later prophecies and the 
 history, that sudden destraction would 
 fall on the mighty Assyrian host, while 
 encamped on the hills around Jerusalem, 
 ch. xxix. 3 — 8, xxxi. 4, 5. 
 
 V. 27. "His hand ?? w." The exact 
 force of the original is restored by this 
 slight change. The emphasis is that the 
 hand stretched out is that of no mere 
 creature, however powerful, but of the 
 Almighty Creator. 
 
ISAIAH, XIV. 28—32. 87 
 
 § 2 (i). Chap. XIV. 28—32. The Burden of Philistia. 
 
 This short prophecy is very usually referred to the victories of Uzziah over 
 the Philistines, the reverses under Ahaz, and the recovery of Judah under 
 Hezekiah (Jerome, Kinichi, Abarb., Calvin, Vitr., Rosenm., Gesenius, Hen- 
 derson, Drechsler, Delitzsch). The Chaldee, Drechsler, and Delitzsch, even 
 apply the fiery flying serpent to Messiah. But there are weighty objections 
 to this view in every part. The death of Uzziah was thirty years, and his 
 victories perhaps sixty years, before the date of this burden. The Philistines 
 had causes of joy much more recent than Uzziah's death. A serpent, 
 basilisk, and flying serpent, are figures ill suited to express the line of David, 
 Hezekiah, and most of all, the Messiah. The basilisk and fiery serpent, 
 also, seem distinct ; while on this view most refer them both to Hezekiah, but 
 the Chaldee and Drechsler to the Messiah. In the two next burdens, with 
 which this forms a trilogy, the chief reference is clearly to troubles from 
 Assyria; and the close refers to a time when Zion would be a sure refuge, as 
 in Sennacherib's campaign. The date is the first of fifteen years, which 
 were eminently marked by Assyrian inroads and conquest. 
 
 Now if Tiglath-pileser, when hired by Ahaz for that purpose, after taking 
 the spoil of Samaria and Damascus, viii. 4, imposed a heavy ransom on 
 Philistia, or inflicted on it some heavy blow, the prophecy will receive a 
 consistent and easy explanation. His death, from the Assyrian remains, lay 
 within three years before the date of this burden, and might have been just 
 before it, so that tidings of it had only lately come to Palestine. The last 
 year of Ahaz would be B.C. 727, and the Assyrian limits for Shalmaneser's 
 accession are B.C. 730 — 725. The Philistines might think their troubles at an 
 end, when they heard of the death of their late oppressor. The rod that 
 smote them, and also "the serpent," will be Tiglath-pileser. The basilisk will 
 be Shalmaneser or Sargon, see App. III., by whom Samaria was besieged, 
 and the kingdom of Ephraim ruined. The "fiery serpent" will refer to his son 
 Sennacherib. The smoke from the north will signify the invasion and con- 
 quest of Philistia by these powerful kings. 
 
 The date belongs to this burden, not the last, and is mentioned from its 
 close connexion with the meaning of the prediction. The Burden on Babylon, 
 as it takes precedence of all the rest, was probably rather earlier, in the last 
 years of Ahaz. The present date may be common to several of those which 
 follow, since ch. xxviii. seems to precede the third of Hezekiah. He began 
 his reformation in the first month of his first year. His accession, then, and 
 the death of Ahaz, were towards the close of the last year of Ahaz, the year 
 of this prophecy. It could thus probably have no historical reference to 
 the death of Ahaz himself, but only to that of Tiglath-pileser, the dreaded 
 Assyrian king. 
 
88 
 
 ISAIAH, XIV. 29-33. 
 
 Chap. XIV. In the year that king Ahaz died was 
 THIS burden. 29 Rejoice not, all Philistia, because the rod that 
 smote thee is broken : for out of the serpent's root shall come 
 forth a basilisk ; and its fruit s/ia// be a fiery flying serpent. 
 30 And the poorest of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall 
 lie down in safety : and I will kill thy root with famine, and he 
 shall slay thy remnant. 31 Howl, O gate! cry, O city! thou, 
 Philistia, all of thee, art dissolved : for there shall come a smoke 
 from the north, and there sJiall be no straggler in his armies. 
 32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation .'' 
 That the LORD hath founded Zion, and in her the poor of his 
 people shall find refuge. 
 
 V. 29. " All Philistia." Tliis word, in 
 Scripture, always means the land of the 
 Philistines, not Palestine in the wider 
 sense, or the whole land of Canaan. This 
 whole region is here described as rejoicing 
 in the recent death of the Assyrian king, 
 and in the weakness of Judah, which 
 left them in possession of the recovered 
 cities. 
 
 "The rod that smote thee is broken." 
 Not Ahaz, who was still alive, and \\h()m 
 the Philistines had smitten, but Tiglath- 
 pileser. The Assyrian has already been 
 styled "the rod of God's anger," x. 5. 
 This might now seem broken. In the 
 P^ast very much depends on the personal 
 character of the despot who reigns. But 
 the hope of the Philistines would prove 
 groundless. The kings who reigned next 
 would prove more formidable still. Shal- 
 maneser is the basilisk, under whom Sa- 
 maria fell ; Sennacherib the son of Sar- 
 gon, whose campaign shews that Philistia 
 was wholly subdued, is the "fiery flying 
 serpent." 
 
 V. 30. "The poorest of the poor." 
 The "first-bom" is here a Hebrew idiom 
 for the foremost of the class ; and, in this 
 case, those whose poverty is extreme. 
 Tlie promise refers to the freedom of 
 Judah from Philistian inroads under the 
 peaceful reign of Hezekiah, 2 Ki. xviii. 
 8, who recovered the cities Ahaz had 
 lost. 
 
 "Thy remnant." Those who escaped 
 from the Assyrian would suffer further 
 
 reverses, after his fall, from the recovered 
 power of Judah. 
 
 v. 31. The gate and the city are distri- 
 butive terms for all the towns of Philistia. 
 Instead of triumph they would have bitter 
 mourning through the Assyrian invaders. 
 The smoke is either clouds of dust raised 
 by the army on its march, or that of 
 flames they have kindled. It is from the 
 north, not the east ; or in the direction of 
 the Assyrian invasion, not of assaults from 
 Judea. Their army would be unbroken 
 and complete, vv. •27, 28, and none would 
 loiter in their march, being eager for spoil 
 and conquest. 
 
 v. 32. "The messengers of the nation" 
 are the Assyrian ambassadors, with their 
 insulting demands, made to Hezekiah 
 and his people, of instant submission 
 to the irresistible power of the great 
 Assyrian king. In the hour of common 
 dismay to Philistia and Judah, what reply 
 shall be made, when this mighty foe 
 mocks at the weakness of the people of 
 God? The same which the history has 
 soon to record, ' ' That the Lord hath 
 founded Zion, and in her the poor of his 
 people shall find refuge." So we read, 
 ch. xxxvii. 32 — 35, "For I will defend this 
 city to save it for mine own sake, and for 
 my servant David's sake." This short 
 burden predicts thus the progress of the 
 Assyrian from the death of Ahaz till 
 Rabshakeh's message of defiance, when 
 the flood of heathen invasion dashed 
 itself vainly ag.unsl the Zion of God. 
 
ISAIAH, XV. XVI. 89 
 
 § 2 (2). Chap. XV. XVI. The Burden of Moab. 
 
 The Moabites, the descendants of Lot, expelled the Emim, and occupied 
 the land east of the Dead Sea, and of the lower Jordan, from Zoar at the 
 south to Jazer and the brook Jabbok. In the days of Moses the Amorites 
 expelled them from all the district north of Arnon. The Israelites, in turn, 
 conquered Sihon ; and the land north of Arnon, to Jabbok, was given partly 
 to Gad, and mainly to Reuben. In the days of Ehud the Moabites subdued 
 southern Palestine. They were themselves subdued and made tributaries in 
 the time of David. After the schism ihey transferred their srbnission to 
 Jeroboam, and brought a yearly tribute till the death of Ahab. When 
 Hazael had I'avaged the eastern tribes, 2 Ki. x. 32, 33, the Moabites seem to 
 have reoccupied the ten-itory of Reuben, and held it in the days of Isaiah. 
 We have no indication that they were invaded by Tiglath-pileser. But the 
 history and prophecy, compared, show that Shalmaneser, before his long and 
 tedious siege of Samaria, spoiled all the open country both east and west of 
 Jordan, when Moab suffered an almost entire devastation. To this time the 
 prophecy must refer. 
 
 This burden has been ascribed by some moderns to Jonah or Jeremiah, or 
 to some unknown writer. Their chief reason is drawn from the two verses 
 at the close, which they assume to have a different date from the rest of the 
 burden. But its genuineness is proved by all the external evidence, and not 
 less by the internal structure of these visions. The Burden of Babylon, 
 the main adversary of Judah, is followed by three against the border states 
 on three sides of Palestine ; and all these have a common character, agree- 
 ing with the date prefixed to the first of them. Sore judgment from Assyrian 
 spoilers was at hand, but Zion was to prove a safe and sure refuge. 
 
 The inscription lately discovered, of Mesha, a king of Moab, probably 
 the same who is mentioned in 2 Ki. iii. 4, gives some promise of further light 
 on the early history of the tribe. But it is too short, and too imperfectly 
 preserved, to supply much information alone. The transfer of ch. xvi. 6 — 12 
 from the prophet himself to the Jewish people, as expressing their rejection 
 of Moab's entreaties for succour, though accepted by several modern critics, 
 has no warrant in the words of the text, and wholly distorts its natural 
 meaning. 
 
 These three Burdens, of Philistia, Moab, and Damascus, form a kind of 
 trilogy ; and answer to a second trilogy in ch. xxi., which contains three 
 burdens on the Desert of the sea, on Dumah, and Arabia, lying south 
 of Judah. The prophecy, ch. xviii., is a common sequel of the former three 
 Burdens, though connected most closely with the Burden on Damascus, the 
 ally of Ephraim. 
 
90 
 
 ISAIAH, XV. 1—5. 
 
 Chap. XV. Thk Burden of Moab! Because in a night Ar- 
 Moab is wasted, is destroyed : because in a night Kir-Moab is 
 wasted, is destroyed. 2 He is gone up to Bajith and Dibon, to 
 tlie high places, to weep : Moab shall howl upon Nebo and on 
 Medeba : on all their heads sJiall be baldness, and every beard 
 cut off. 3 In their streets they shall gird themselves with sack- 
 cloth : on the tops of their houses, and in the broad places they 
 all shall howl, and come down with weeping. 4 And Heshbon 
 shall cry, and Elealeh ; their voice shall be heard unto Jahaz : 
 therefore the warriors of Moab shall shriek ; his soul is sore 
 vexed within him. 5 My heart crieth out for Moab : his fugi- 
 tives, even unto Zoar, are as a young heifer : for by the ascent 
 
 V. I. The Title implies a sorro\\-fiil 
 message. The cause of sorrow is ab- 
 ruptly explained, the desolation of the 
 metropolis of Moab, and of its chief 
 fortress. Ar-Moab or Rabbath-Moab is 
 the Areopolis of the Greeks ; and Kir- 
 Moab, called presently Kirhareseth and 
 Kirhares, is the Karaka of 2 Mace. xii. 17, 
 and the Charak-moba of Ptolemy, still 
 called Kerek or Karak. It is a strong 
 fortress seven or eight miles south of Ar, 
 at the head of a deep valley. The words 
 imply a sudden and unexpected invasion. 
 
 The construction has been variously 
 explained. But the ki retains its causal 
 force. The word burden implies a mes- 
 sage of judgiTient, and the reason for the 
 warning is given at once, which deepens 
 the impressive tone of the prophecy. 
 Again, the word sintddad may be joined 
 with U'il, "a night of desolation." But, 
 xxiii. I is a reason for viewing it as a 
 participle, not a verbal noun. The re- 
 doubling in the phrase, and the repetition 
 of the phrase itself, give fuller emphasis 
 to the warning. 
 
 V. 2. The Moabites, in their distress 
 and confusion, would resort to their liigh 
 places for the worship of Chemosli, near 
 Bajith or Beth-baalmeon, towards tlie 
 south east ; at Dibon on mount Nebo, 
 noted in the history of Moses, and on the 
 rocky hill of Medeba, Nu. xxxii. 34, 38. 
 This last was the scene of the capture and 
 death of Jolin Maccaba?us, avenged soon 
 after by Jonathan and Simon, i Mac. ix. 
 36, Jos. Ant. XIII. I, 4. 
 
 v. 3. Tlicy will go up to their high 
 
 places to consult their idols, but in vain ; 
 for no help will be found in them. They 
 will go up to their housetops for wor- 
 ship, or to look out for the foe ; but they 
 will find no comfort, and will come down 
 to hasten their flight, weeping in hopeless 
 sorrow. 
 
 V. 4. Heshbon, the capital of Sihon, 
 and of the Reubenites, had been recovered 
 by Moab. Jahaz lay on the border to- 
 ward the eastern desert, where Sihon 
 came out to fight with Israel, and was 
 overthrown, Deut. ii. 32, 34. The cry of 
 grief would be so loud as to reach this 
 outmost border. Even the warriors of 
 Moab would become like women, and 
 shriek out with panic terror. The nation 
 are spoken of as one man, filled with 
 terror and dismay. 
 
 V. 5. The prophet shares in the sor- 
 row he describes, so vividly is he possess- 
 ed by the awful picture the Spirit sets 
 before his eyes. In their alarm at the 
 fierce invader, the Moabites are seen 
 hurrying towards Zoar, their extreme 
 soutliern border. They mount up to Lu- 
 liith across a mountain-ridge, and then go 
 down to Horonaim on the further side, 
 Jer. xlviii. 5. Tiieirloud wailings, as they 
 hurry southward, will be like the lowing 
 of a yoimg heifer tliat has lost her way 
 and her companions, and so renews at 
 every step her loud plaintive cry. 
 
 Some, for fugitives, render berichiin, 
 bars or posts, its more usual sense. But the 
 other suits the derivation, and is required 
 by tlie wliole drift of the passage. The 
 words "young licifcr," eglah shelishiyah. 
 
ISAIAH, XV. 6— XVI. I, 2. 
 
 91 
 
 of Luhith with weeping will they go up ; for in the way of 
 Horonaim will they lift up a wail of destruction. 6 For the 
 waters of Nimrim shall be desolation : for the herb is withered 
 away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing. 7 Therefore the 
 remnant they have kept, and their store, will they carry away to 
 the brook of the willows. 8 For the cry is gone round to the 
 borders of Moab : his wailing is unto Eglaim, and his wailing 
 unto the well of the nobles. 9 For the waters of Dimon are full 
 of blood : for I will bring more troubles upon Dimon, upon the 
 escaped of Moab a lion, and upon the remnant of the land. 
 
 Chap. XVI. Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land, from 
 Sela toward the wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of 
 Zion. 2 For it shall be, that as a wandering bird, and as a 
 
 are taken by several as a proper name 
 (Gesen., Hend. , Rosenm., Knob., Drech. , 
 Meier). Others apply them as an epithet 
 of Zoar (Hitzig, Delitzsch). But the re- 
 ceived version, slightly varied as above, 
 to make the emphasis plain, seems to 
 give the true sense. It is the lowing cry 
 of a young solitary heifer, to which the 
 prophet, in passing, compares the lament- 
 ation of the fugitives. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The cause of their hurried 
 flight is now explained. The fertile and 
 well-watered district in the north has been 
 ravaged by the foe, and they have no re- 
 source but to hurry out of his reach to the 
 edge of the southern desert. Past tenses 
 are mixed with the future to express the 
 certainty of the judgment. The waters of 
 Nimrim are put for the district they ferti- 
 lize. " The brook of the willows" some 
 render "the brook of the ravens," or 
 "valley of the Arabians," and others have 
 even referred it to Babylon. But it is the 
 Wady-el-Ahsy, which parts Kerek from 
 Djebal, or the brook Zered of Israel's 
 desert journey. " The remnant they have 
 kept," rather than "the abundance they 
 have gotten," denotes here all their port- 
 able goods that were not consumed before. 
 
 V. 8. This flight is further explained by 
 the wide extent of their calamity. Eglaim 
 lay to the south of the Dead Sea, not far 
 from Zoar, and Beer-elim or "the well of 
 the nobles," named Nu. xxi. i6 — 18, lay to 
 the north east, in the edge of the wilder- 
 ness. These were then the limits of 
 
 Moab, like Dan and Beersheba to Israel. 
 The mention of Beer-elim, "the well of 
 
 the nobles," refers back plainly to the 
 narrative in the Book of Numbers. It 
 was here that the trials of Israel's desert 
 journey began to find their close. 
 
 V. 9. Dimon is another form of Dibon, 
 and both forms were in use in the days of 
 Jerome. It seems chosen to point the 
 warning that its waters should be full of 
 ddm, blood. The " more troubles " and 
 the lion, may perhaps allude to the later 
 troubles from the Chaldeans, whom Jere- 
 miah describes by this figure, Jer. iv. 7. 
 Thus the vision travels on for a moment 
 to the more complete desolation, chh. 
 xxiv., XXV. 
 
 Chap. XVI. The Woe continued. 
 
 vv. 1—5. This passage has been very 
 diversely explained. Many moderns take 
 it for a consultation of the Moabites to 
 renew their tribute to Judah, followed in 
 V. 6 by the reasons of the men of Judah 
 for rejecting their prayer. But this 
 wholly distorts it, and destroys its real 
 force. It is a voice of the Spirit of God 
 to Moab, through the prophet, exhorting 
 them, in their distress, to take shelter 
 within God's covenant, by renewing their 
 allegiance to the house of David, and 
 lending shelter to the Israelites who might 
 suffer from this Assyrian foe. They would 
 then share with Judah in the deliverance 
 near at hand. 
 
 V. I. "The lamb" is here a collective 
 term for the lambs of sacrifice, of which 
 Moab supplied an ample tribute under 
 David and Solomon. The ruler is Heze- 
 kiah, whose accession was close at hand. 
 Sela is Petra, the rock, the capital of 
 
92 
 
 ISAIAH, XVI. 3—8. 
 
 forsaken nest, so shall be the daughters of Moab, afid the fords of 
 Arnon. 3 Take counsel, execute judgment ; make thy shadow 
 as the night in the midst of the noonday : hide the outcasts, 
 betray not him that wandereth. 4 Let mine outcasts dwell with 
 thee, Moab ; be thou a covert to them from the face of the 
 spoiler : for the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the 
 oppressors are consumed out of the land, 5 And in mercy shall 
 the throne be established : and he shall sit upon it in truth in 
 the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and 
 hasting righteousness. 
 
 6 We have heard of the pride of Moab ; /ie is very proud : 
 of his pride, and his haughtiness, and his wrath : of no worth are 
 his vain boastings. 7 Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, all 
 of them shall howl : for the clusters of Kir-hareseth shall ye 
 mourn ; surely ^/uy are stricken. 8 For the fields of Heshbon 
 
 Edom. The wilderness is that of which 
 Strabo writes, that beyond the enclosure 
 of Pctra "most is desert, especially to- 
 ward Judea." The messengers of Moab, 
 like Israel of old, must pass through a 
 desert, before they can procure a share in 
 Israel's blessing. 
 
 V. 2. This is usually taken for a single 
 comparison between the Moabite women, 
 crowding to the fords of Arnon in flight, 
 and a bird driven out from its nest. But 
 the vision has already pictured their flight 
 to Zoar, while Arnon was the northern 
 limit of Moab's proper territory. The 
 literal rendering gives a double parallel, 
 in full harmony with the context. The 
 daughters of Moab, chased beyond the 
 southern border, are like the wandering 
 bird, deprived of its nest. The fords of 
 Arnon, once thronged by the dwellers in 
 Aroer, "the city in the midst of the 
 river," Josh. xiii. i6, will be like the 
 forsaken nest itself. The once busy re- 
 sort of commerce and pleasure, the centre 
 of Moabite travel and commerce, will 
 become a silent and dreary solitude. 
 
 V. 3. The prophet next advises the 
 remnant of Moab to reverse their former 
 pride and cruelty to Israel in times of 
 affliction, and to lend them friendly 
 shelter, such as a former king of Moab 
 had shewn to David in the time of his 
 distress. The judgment hanging over 
 them would also involve both Israel and 
 
 Judah. From the fourth year to the 
 sixteenth after the previous date, xiv. 28, 
 was a time of great distress and sorrow. 
 The remnant of Moab, when their own 
 trouble abated by the siege of Samaria, 
 would have special opportunities for shew- 
 ing kindness to outcasts of Israel and 
 Judah, now to be afflicted as they them- 
 selves had lately been. By this means re- 
 pentant Moab might share in the covenant 
 blessings of repentant Judah. The Assy- 
 rian flood should soon cease, the throne 
 be established in mercy, and Hezekiah 
 sit on it in peace, "judging, and seeking 
 judgment, and hasting righteousness." In 
 all this there would be a very speedy 
 earnest of higher blessings, "the sure 
 mercies of David," when the promised 
 Immanuel should appear, take the king- 
 dom, sit on David's throne, and reign in 
 righteousness for ever, 
 
 vv. 6 — 12. These words are no excuse 
 of the Jews for a heartless rejection of the 
 prayer of Moab's outcasts (Gesen., Ewd., 
 Ilitzig, Knobel), nor even an explanation 
 why the jnophet's earnest counsel would 
 be given in vain. I Ie reverts from counsels 
 that may yet avail them, when their i)ride 
 has been humbled by sore affliction, to 
 their actual condition, so wholly unlike 
 what he desires, and to the secret moral 
 cause of their approaching calamity, 
 "The prophecy enters here on a new 
 stage, commencing with Moab's sin, and 
 
ISAIAH, XVL 9—12. 
 
 93 
 
 languish. The vnie of Sibmah ! the lords of the nations have 
 broken down its choicest shoots, that came unto Jazer, and 
 strayed into the wilderness : her tendrils were stretched out, they 
 passed beyond the sea. 9 Therefore I will bewail with the 
 weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah : I will make thee drunk 
 with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh ; for on thy summer fruits 
 and thy harvest a warshout hath fallen. 10 And gladness is 
 taken away, and joy, out of the fruitful field ; and in the vine- 
 yards there shall be no song nor shouting : the treader shall tread 
 out no wine in the presses ; their vintage shouting I have made 
 to cease. 1 1 Therefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for 
 Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh. 12 And it shall 
 come to pass that Moab will present himself, and will weary 
 himself in the high places, and he will come to his sanctuary 
 to pray, but he shall not prevail. 
 
 depicting their fate in still more elegiac 
 strains" (Delitzsch). The warning is half 
 literal, half figurative, and refers not only 
 to the vines, but to the men themselves 
 (Jer. xlviii. 32), viewed as the rich grape- 
 clusters of the great Vine of Moab. 
 
 V. 6. "Of no worth are his vain 
 boastings." Ken is here an adjective, 
 not an adverb, sure, firm, of value. The 
 proud speeches and pretensions of IMoab 
 are of no value, empty, and without 
 solid foundation. 
 
 vv. 8 — 10. The people of Moab are 
 here described by a beautiful and expres- 
 sive figure, taken from the vine, for the 
 culture of which they were famous, and 
 which had ministered to their habits of 
 sensual indulgence. This "Vine of Sib- 
 mah, " a chief seat of the vine culture, 
 spreads its choice tendrils on all sides to- 
 wards the borders of the land, to Jazer 
 northward, into the wilderness on the 
 east and south, and across the Dead Sea 
 westward. But the Assyrian princes and 
 captains, "the lords of the nations," would 
 break down and destroy its flourishing 
 branches. Their vintage mirth would be 
 exchanged for the warshout of victorious 
 enemies, and loud wailings of distress. 
 The prophet ends by recording his deep 
 grief for these sorrows of Moab, and de- 
 scribes their vain resort to senseless idols 
 for help in their time of calamity. 
 
 vv, 13, 14. These two verses are very 
 
 generally supposed to be a later addition 
 to the rest. Several refer the burden to 
 Jonah (Hitzig, Knobel, Maurer, Baur, 
 Thenius) or to some prophet before Isaiah 
 (De Wette, Ewald, Havernick, Drechsler, 
 &c.). Others refer the prophecy itself to 
 Isaiah, but these verses to Jeremiah or 
 one of his time (Hendn.); or suppose 
 that Isaiah added these verses to the rest 
 after some interval (Delitzsch). 
 
 The contents of the whole burden, how- 
 ever, and this sentence at the close, point 
 equally to the same date in the year of 
 the death of Ahaz. The difficulty has 
 arisen simply from the word mcaz, or 
 "aforetime," and is removed by one 
 simple reflection. The words of God 
 are settled in heaven, before they are 
 published by his prophets on earth. This 
 message, except the date, was not of 
 yesterday. It was a fixed purpose and 
 decree of God to bring these judgments 
 upon Moab, even from of old. But the 
 limitation of the time, as a message to be 
 fulfilled within three years, became true, 
 first of all, in the year in which it was 
 revealed. When this contrast is once 
 borne in mind, the message is plain ; 
 and a very slight change in the received 
 version, as proposed above, brings out 
 the real emphasis. 
 
 Only three years elapsed from the ac- 
 cession of Hezekiah to the beginning of 
 the siege of Samaria, which itself also 
 
94 ISAIAH, XVI. 13, 14— XVII. 
 
 13 This is the word which the LoRi) hath pronounced 
 against Moab from aforetime. 14 And now the LORD hath 
 further spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a 
 hireling, and the glory of Moab in all his great multitude shall 
 be brought low, and the remnant shall be few and small, and 
 of no strenfrth. 
 
 lasted for three years. The Assyrian would close, to some other prophet, or even to 
 naturally complete his spoiling of the open separate these from the rest by an in- 
 country of Israel, Syria, and Moab, the terval in their publication. The doom 
 country east and west of Jordan, before of Moab, the prophet here tells us, had 
 entering on this long and laborious siege, been decreed long ago, before the message 
 which was to put the keystone on his was revealed to him ; but the fulfilment 
 northern conquests, and complete the of this doom within three years was a 
 overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. present addition to the burden, which was 
 There is no need, then, against all ex- true, for the first time, when the vision 
 ternal and internal evidence, to assign was thus revealed, 
 either the main part of this burden, or its 
 
 § 2 (3). CiiAP. XVII. The Burden of Damascus. 
 
 The Burdens of Philistia, Moab, and Damascus, have a common sequel 
 in xvii. 12 — 14, xviii., but which is most closely connected with the third. All 
 three alike may be probably referred to the last year of Ahaz. Syria and 
 Ephraim had been so linked together in close alliance, that the sentence 
 on Damascus implies the coming fall of Samaria. This, again, leads to 
 a fresh prediction of the Assyrian overthrow. The voice of Woe on the 
 Assyrian introduces an invitation to the rival empire, Egypt and Ethiopia, 
 to befriend and honour Israel, with a call to distant lands to adore the 
 wonderful work of God. 
 
 This Burden is referred by many to the first years of Ahaz, as a pre- 
 diction of the capture of Damascus by Tiglath-pilcser, 2 Ki. xvi. 9, (Calv., 
 Vitr., Lowth, Doderlein, Roscnm., Gesen., Hendewerk, Hitzig, Umbrcit, 
 Knobel, Ewald, Meier, Maurer, Henderson). On this view the prophecy 
 is out of its true place, and would really be earlier than ch. vii. But the 
 reason for this view, Drechsler has shewn, is of no real strength. The 
 words of 2 Ki. xvi. 9 do not imply a complete destruction. The spoil of 
 Damascus, as of Samaria, was then taken away, ch. viii. 4, but neither city 
 was destroyed. Captives were led away from Damascus to Kir, as they were 
 from Babylon to Samaria by Esarhaddon, or with Jeconiah from Jerusalem, 
 while Zedekiah remained there as a tributary king. Some successor to 
 Rezin would most probably be set up by Tiglath, like Hoshea in Samaria, 
 or Zedekiah in Jerusalem. His later rebellion against the power which had 
 promoted him would bring upon Damascus, as theirs did on Samaria and 
 Jerusalem, a more complete destruction. 
 
ISAIAH, XVII. 1—5. 
 
 95 
 
 Chap. XVII, The Burden of Damascus. Behold, Damas- 
 cus is taken away from being a. city, and shall be a ruinous heap. 
 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken : they shall be for flocks, 
 which shall lie 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. 
 
 4 And in that day it shall come to pass, t/iat 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 
 corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he 
 
 V. I. The riches of Damascus and the 
 spoil of Samaria were carried away by 
 Tiglath at the close of the third, or be- 
 ginning of the fourth, year of Ahaz. He 
 died perhaps a year before Ahaz, and all 
 Philistia rejoiced, because the rod that 
 had so lately smitten them was broken, 
 xiv. 2g. Hoshea soon after made a con- 
 spiracy with So, king of Egypt, which 
 led to Samaria's fall. The Syrians pro- 
 bably seized the same occasion for an 
 attempt to throw off the hated Assyrian 
 yoke. Such a revolt, after conquest and 
 submission, meets with more severity from 
 conquerors than the first resistance. Shal- 
 maneser, then, seems at the outset of his 
 reign to have inflicted on Damascus a 
 heavier and final blow. In the time of 
 Ezekiel and Daniel the city had revived, 
 and was again subdued by the Chaldeans. 
 But it had received no threatening, like 
 Babylon, of final desolation. It revived 
 imder the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, 
 and not least under the Saracens, and be- 
 came one of the chief cities of the East. 
 In sacred history it is linked with the 
 early victory of Abraham over the con- 
 federate kings, and with the latest tri- 
 umphs of the gospel, in the sudden and 
 miraculous call of the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. The first capture of Damascus 
 by Tiglath-pileser, predicted viii. 4, was 
 about B. c. 740, at the close of the third 
 or beginning of the fourth of Ahaz. But 
 the more complete ruin here described 
 seems to have occurred B.C. 726 — 724, 
 in the three first years of Hezekiah, xiv. 
 29; xvi. [4; 2 Ki. xvii. 3, 5; xviii. 9. 
 
 v. 2. There were two Aroers, Josh, 
 xiii. 0, 25, one on the river Arnon, the 
 
 border of Moab, the other more northerly, 
 near Jazer. The latter is here meant. 
 The "cities of Aroer" are the district of 
 Gilead and Bashan, the portion of Gad 
 and Manasseh. These had been part of 
 the Syrian kingdom for many years. 
 Even under Ahab Ramoth-gilead, at the 
 southern limit, was in the hands of 
 Syria. Under Jehu Hazael smote all 
 the countiy east of Jordan, as far as the 
 Arnon. Moab reclaimed the land of 
 Reuben, which had been theirs before 
 its conquest by Sihon, Num. xxi. 26, 
 and tlie rest was attached to Syria. Je- 
 roboam II. recovered it for a short time; 
 but it reverted to Syria on his death, 
 forty years before the reign of Ahaz. It 
 was ravaged by Tiglath-pileser before 
 Pekah's death, 2 Ki. xv. 29, i Chr. v. 
 26. Shalmaneser seems to have com- 
 pleted the ruin of Damascus, and further 
 ravaged the cities of Aroer, Gilead and 
 Bashan ; and then to have made a sudden 
 inroad on Moab before the long siege 
 and ruin of Samaria. 
 
 v. 3. The word "glory" is not ironi- 
 cal (Jerome), nor does it mean what was 
 left of former glory. The words admit 
 a simple explanation. The glory of 
 Ephraim was already gone at the death 
 of Ahaz ; but Samaria and other strong- 
 holds remained, and the kingdom of 
 Syria had not wholly ceased. But now 
 the fortress of Ephraim, and the kingdom 
 of the remnant of Syria, would pass away 
 and disappear like this departed glory of 
 Israel. 
 
 vv. 4 — 6. "Jacob" refers here chiefly 
 to the northern kingdom, which was 
 called the kingdom of Israel. Their 
 
96 
 
 ISAIAH, XVII. 6—10. 
 
 that gathereth cars in the valley of Rephaim. 6 Yet gleanhig 
 grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or 
 three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in 
 the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of 
 Israel. 
 
 7 At that day shall a man look to 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 
 respect what his fingers have made, either the grove-idols, or 
 the sun-images. 9 In that day shall his strong cities be as the 
 forsaken ruins of the woods and of the hills, which they forsook 
 before the face of the children of Israel ; and there shall be de- 
 solation. 
 
 10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and 
 hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength: therefore 
 
 state would be like a man wasted away 
 with pining sickness, like the few scanty 
 ears left by the com-reaper in a rich har- 
 vest-field, like gleaning grapes of the 
 vine, or the shaking of the olive-tree. 
 All these are striking figures for a very 
 scanty remnant. "In Novemljer conies 
 the final summons, which calls forth all 
 Hasbeiya. Everywhere the people are 
 in the trees shaking them with all their 
 might. But in spite of their shaking and 
 beating, there is always a gleaning left, 
 and these are gleaned up by the poor, 
 who have no trees of their own." (Thom- 
 son, Land and Book.) Very few Israel- 
 ites, but still a few, were left in the 
 northern kingdom. 2 Chr. xxxiv. 21. 
 
 V. 7. "The Ashtoreths or sun-images." 
 The former word, often rendered grove, 
 means the idols of Ashtoreth or Astarte, 
 the Syrian Venus, worshipped with im- 
 pure rites, and often in groves, whence 
 the other version of the name. It seems 
 to mean "goddess of luck or fortune." 
 The other word, chamvt&nim, refers to 
 images of the Sun, the Syrian Baal. These 
 two forms of idolatry had a special fasci- 
 nation for the people of Israel. One was 
 the sentimental, but impure worship of 
 a "Queen of Heaven;" and the other the 
 worship of power without holiness or 
 moral perfections, like the abstract Deity 
 of worldly science. The result of Israel's 
 afflictions, and of the overthrow of the 
 
 Assyrian, would be a revival of genuine 
 worship offered to the true God alone. 
 
 V. 9. "The forsaken ruins of the 
 woods and the hills." This verse, from 
 early times, has been felt obscure, and has 
 received many versions or conjectural 
 changes. But the version above, in sub- 
 stance that preferred by Drechsler and 
 Delitzsch, is simple and expressive. The 
 allusion is to strongholds of the Canaan- 
 ites, in the thick forest, or on some hill-top 
 of Palestine, which they had forsaken or 
 been driven from in the days of Joshua, 
 and of which ruins still remained, the 
 fading memorials of a race long since 
 passed away. The fortresses of Ephraim, 
 in their turn, were to become such neg- 
 lected ruins as these. 
 
 vv. 10, II. The prophet now turns 
 his voice of warning directly against 
 Israel, whose league with Syria had led 
 them so far astray. He names the true 
 source of their troubles, and denounces 
 the sure failure of all their schemes to 
 recover political greatness, while forsak- 
 ing the covenant of their God. The 
 pleasant plants and strange slips are 
 tliose worldly alliancies and expedients, 
 whereby they hoped to regain their lost 
 honour and greatness. They miglit water 
 their old plans with ever new expedients, 
 but all would be vain, and the harvest 
 be only a heap in the day of trial. 
 
 Many translate "the harvest fees 
 
ISAIAH, XVII. II— 14. 
 
 97 
 
 shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange 
 slips : II In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and 
 in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish : biU the 
 harvest sJiall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate 
 sorrow. 
 
 12 Woe to the multitude of many people, wJiich make a noise 
 like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, tJiat 
 make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! 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 like a rolling 
 thing before the whirlwind! 14 At eventide, behold, trouble! 
 before the morning he is no more ! This is the portion of them 
 that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us. 
 
 away." But the usual rendering of ned 
 as a noun, not a participle, is the best 
 here also, and more emphatic. The al- 
 lusion is not to a wheat harvest lessened to 
 a single heap, but rather, as v. lo shews, 
 to the fruit-harvest. Instead of the pleasant 
 crop, so diligently tended, being safely 
 housed, the trees themselves should wither 
 and be cut down, and then be piled into 
 a heap, to be burned up with fire. 
 
 vv. 12 — 1 4. These verses, and the 
 next chapter, are a common close of the 
 three previous burdens. The Assyrian, 
 the scourge alike of Philistia, Moab, 
 Damascus, and of the cities of Aroer and 
 Ephraim, will be suddenly overthrown. 
 The messages of hope in xiv. 32, xvi. 4, 
 xvii. 7, 8, are here combined together; 
 and distant lands are called upon, along 
 with rescued Judah, to see and adore the 
 mighty hand of God. 
 
 The connexion with the previous verses, 
 though denied by many, is clear and 
 plain. The Assyrian campaigns, already 
 announced, viii. 5, 8, as an overwhelming 
 flood, will be to Damascus and Ephraim 
 their day of grief and desperate sorrow. 
 The Burden, having thus introduced the 
 destroyers of the pleasant plants of Eph- 
 raim, now predicts their tumult and rage, 
 and then their sudden overthrow. The 
 first clause of v. 13, which a few MS.S. 
 and several critics omit, adds much to 
 the energy of the description. 
 
 V. 13. "But he shall rebuke them." 
 
 The name of God seems purposely with- 
 held, as in Ps. cxiv. i — 6, to give great- 
 er force to the warning. The work would 
 be conspicuous, but the Worker shrouds 
 himself in a veil of mysterious darkness. 
 
 "Like a rolling thing." The wild 
 artichoke, which Dr Thomson has gra- 
 phically described {Land and Book, p. 
 564). "Once north of Hamath my eyes 
 were half blinded with the stubble and 
 chaff which filled the air, but it was this 
 'rolling thing' which rivetted my atten- 
 tion. Hundreds of them, bounding like 
 gazelles over the desert, would suddenly 
 wheel short round, and dash off with 
 equal speed on a new course. An Arab 
 proverb addresses it thus — Ho ! akkub, 
 where do you put up to-night? to which 
 it answers as it flies — Where the wind 
 puts up." So the remnant of the mighty 
 Assyrian host, smitten with panic terror, 
 would flee away, and be like this "roll- 
 ing thing" before the whirlwind. 
 
 v. 14. The abrupt form of the sen- 
 tence adds to the force of the description. 
 At eventide there was trouble in the 
 mighty camp of Assyria, when the com- 
 mission of the destroying angel began. 
 Before the morning "he is no more," 
 the work is done. "When they arose in 
 the morning, behold, they were all dead 
 corpses." "Great and marvellous are 
 thy works. Lord God Almighty! just 
 and true are thy ways, thou King of 
 nations!" 
 
 B. L 
 
98 ISAIAH, XVIII. 
 
 § 2 (4). CiiAr. XVIII. Sequel of the Three Burdens. 
 
 This chapter, from the various interpretations which the whole predic- 
 tion and its separate phrases have received, is a kind of sacred enigma. 
 Besides many secondary variations, and proposed appHcations to Rome, 
 England, or America, expositors have been chiefly divided on two main 
 questions ; whether the land of v. i is Egypt or Ethiopia, and whether the 
 same people, or Israel, are described in the second and seventh verses. 
 The first word many take as a Woe, others as a Call or Invitation. The 
 descriptive phrase in v. i, tsiltsal kennpliim, has received seven or eight 
 versions and expositions, "shadowing with wings," "of rustling wings," "of 
 winged locusts," "of tinkling armour," "of the sistrum or w-inged cymbal," 
 and "of the god Kneph." With the first of these versions the mention of shadows 
 has been applied to the opposite direction of shadows between the tropics, 
 to the eastern and western ranges of hills in Egypt, to the sails of ships, or to 
 military protection. The epithets in vv. 2, 7, some explain in an active, 
 others in a passive sense. Thus also qavqav, line, line, has been referred 
 to the superstitious usages of Egypt, to conquests, to partitions of conquered 
 lands, to the Egyptian plant kiki, and to an Arabic root, meaning poivet-ful. 
 The people, vv. 2, 7, are Israel according to the Chaldee Targum and vSyriac 
 version, Saadias, Kimchi, Jarchi, and most Jewish writers, Jerome, Calvin, 
 Horsley, Faber. But most moderns, from Bochart and Vitringa to Gese- 
 nius, Ewald, Knobel, Henderson, Drechsler, Delitzsch, think that the same 
 people are meant as in the former verse. This is Egypt according to 
 Jerome, Cyril, Liranus, Bochart, Grotius, Vitringa, Huet, Clericus and 
 Lowth ; Meroe or Seba according to Knobel; but Ethiopia according to 
 Calvin, Piscator, Sanctius, Mich., Rosenm., Gesen., Ewald, Henderson, 
 Drechsler, Delitzsch. Other differences occur in the construction of almost 
 every verse. 
 
 The version and paraphrase here given are the result of a careful and 
 repeated comparison of these various criticisms and expositions. They 
 involve these main conclusions: (i) The power addressed is neither Egypt 
 nor Ethiopia separately, but the conjoint Egypto-Ethiopian empire. (2) The 
 first word is not a Woe, or denunciation of calamity, but a Divine Call to 
 honour God and assist His people, because of His power to be displayed in 
 the sudden overthrow of the Assyrian army. (3) The people to whom the 
 messengers are to go, the scattered and peeled, are not the Egyptians or 
 Ethiopians, but the Israelites, whether dwelling in Palestine or exiled in 
 Egypt. (4) The main drift of the whole is to form a contrast and joyful 
 sequel to the three previous burdens, by predicting the honour to Zion 
 and its temple, under Hezekiah, through the signal display of God's power 
 for the protection of His chosen people. 
 
ISAIAH, XVIII. I, 2. 
 
 99 
 
 Chap. XVIII. Ho ! land that shadowest with whigs, from 
 beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: 2 That sendest ambassadors by 
 the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the face of the waters ; 
 Go, ye swift messengers, to the people scattered and shorn, 
 a people terrible now and henceforth, a nation meted out 
 
 Ch. xviir. § 7 (4), Call to Egypt 
 AND Ethiopia. The same Hebrew word 
 which begins ch. xviii. occurs in ch. 
 V. 8, 22, X. I, xvii. X2, and also x. 5, Iv. i. 
 In the former places it is a voice of Woe; 
 in the last it is plainly a call or summons 
 of God. This has been shewn to be its 
 force also x. 5, and the present is a third 
 instance of the same use. The Call of the 
 Assyrian x. 5, to execute God's judg- 
 ments, is changed xvii. 12, into a direct 
 Woe on his armies, when that judgment 
 is finished ; and is here followed by a 
 Call to the lands of the south, to listen 
 to God's voice, and be willing messengers 
 of His mercy to Israel. We have thus, in 
 these earlier visions, an earnest of the 
 fuller gospel invitation, Iv. i, in the later 
 prophecies. 
 
 V. I. "That shadowest with wings." The 
 versions, "of winged locusts," "of the 
 sistrum or winged cymbal," or "of rust- 
 ling wings," refer to things either too 
 trivial, too vague, or too little distinctive, 
 to be the probable sense. The words 
 cannot refer to literal shadows, since in 
 those countries "a shade is not easily 
 found," (Kitto, Egypt). The masculine 
 shews that "land" is here used for the 
 people, and the character should be 
 distinctive and emphatic. The phrase 
 "shadow of wings" is of frequent use in 
 Scripture, and the doubling of the form, 
 in Hebrew, often serves to add further 
 emphasis. Soon afterwards, the men of 
 Judah are solemnly warned of their sin, 
 for "trusting in the shadow of Egypt," 
 XXX. 2, 3. The wings, a dual word, are a 
 natural figure for Egypt and Ethiopia, 
 united at this very time, under So and 
 Tirhakah, into a double power, protect- 
 ing or overshadowing with its greatness 
 the lands on either side. 
 
 "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." 
 The word "beyond" is the main reason 
 why many writers restrict the chapter to 
 Ethiopia ; while the vessels of bulrushes, 
 
 V. 2, are one of equal weight for assigning 
 it to Egypt. But the phrase "from 
 beyond" removes the difficulty. The 
 words may thus refer to the farther, 
 not the nearer limit. So Zeph. iii. 10. 
 "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my 
 suppliants shall bring my offering." The 
 land, shadowing with double wing from 
 beyond the rivers of Cush, will thus be 
 neither Egypt not Ethiopia alone, but 
 the whole region of the Nile, from beyond 
 its remote river-sources to the northern 
 sea. This was ruled by Sabacho, So or 
 Sevechus, and Tirhakah, in the days of 
 Isaiah. This Ethiopian dynasty in E- 
 gypt was a rare exception to its long 
 series of native Pharaohs. It lasted 
 (Herod., Manetho) about fifty years, and 
 began seven or eight years only before 
 the date of these burdens. The use of 
 an unusual and peculiar phrase has thus 
 its explanation in the history. 
 
 V. 2. In the first clause the Red Sea 
 and the Mediterranean are meant, in the 
 second the Nile and its branches, where 
 alone the light barks of papyrus could 
 be safely used. The fact is attested by 
 Plutarch and Theophrastus, Pliny and 
 Lucan. Classic authors mention mes- 
 sages by sea from Egypt to Byblus, and 
 the monuments record others to Mesopo- 
 tamia. The description answers in all 
 points to the compound Empire of Egypt 
 and Ethiopia, the actual new-formed rival 
 of the Assyrian power. 
 
 "Go, ye swift messengers." The word 
 may be rendered either "go" or "come," 
 and in Isaiah the latter sense is much 
 more frequent. The received version, 
 however, gives the correct view, of a 
 message from Egypt towards Palestine, 
 as shewn by the last verse. The voice 
 is first addressed to the far land, that 
 is, to its people, and calls them to 
 attention and obedience. They are de- 
 fined by their practice of sending mes- 
 sages by sea, and also from district to 
 
 7—2 
 
lOO 
 
 ISAIAH, XVIII. 3—5. 
 
 and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled. 3 All 
 ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers in the earth, when he 
 lifteth up an ensign on the mountains, behold ! and when he 
 bloweth the trumpet, hearken ! 4 For thus said the LORD unto 
 me, I will rest calmly, and look down, in my dwelling place, like 
 a clear heat after rain, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of 
 harvest. 5 For before the harvest, when the bud is finished, 
 and the flower is become a ripening grape, he will both cut ofif 
 the sprigs with pruning hooks, and will take away and cut down 
 
 district, by light barks on the Nile. 
 The messengers themselves are then 
 addressed, and sent on a swift voyage 
 to a people more fully described. Since 
 the land of the messengers has been al- 
 ready defined, both in position, and by its 
 political eminence, the further description 
 must belong to the objects of the message, 
 as viewed by the foreign messengers them- 
 selves. On this view of the connexion, 
 which is the simplest, every term is ap- 
 propriate to Israel at the time of Senna- 
 cherib's overthrow. 
 
 "To the people scattered and shorn." 
 The multiplied epithets supply the place 
 of the definite article, and limit the mes- 
 sage to one well-known nation. The first 
 occurs only once beside: "Hope de- 
 ferred maketh the heart sick." The word 
 means to beat out, and spread over a 
 wide surface. In the time of Hezekiah 
 Israel had been partly led captive by 
 Syria, Edom, Tyre, Egypt, and above 
 all, by Assyria. 
 
 The next epithet is expounded by the 
 prophet himself, vii. 20. "In that day 
 will the Lord shave with a razor, hired 
 beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, 
 the head and the hair of the feet, it shall 
 consume also the beard." At the time 
 of fulfilment of this later message, the 
 earlier one would be already fulfilled. 
 The other applications, to the Ethio- 
 pians, as of tall stature, or "drawn out" 
 for military service; or to the Egyptians, as 
 dwelling in a long strip of narrow valley, 
 or from the habit of close shaving in their 
 priests, are all strained and unnatural, in 
 words addressed to the messengers them- 
 selves. 
 
 "Terrible now and henceforth." Lite- 
 rally, "from this and onward." The 
 Chaldee renders "olim ac deinceps" or 
 
 "long ago and thenceforward," and so 
 A. v., Jarchi, Vitringa, Rosenm., Hen- 
 derson. But Saadias "dehinc" "hence- 
 forth," and so Drechsler, and many 
 others. In the lips of the messengers 
 this seems the more natural. These 
 words fitly describe the impression of 
 awe on Egypt and other nations, when 
 the sudden destruction of the Assyrian 
 army was made known. Israel would 
 indeed seem "a people terrible now and 
 henceforth," after these wonderful signs 
 of God's mighty presence in the midst of 
 them. Comp. Is. xix. 16, 17, Ps. Ixxvi. 
 
 5—9- 
 
 "Meted out, and trodden down." Lit. 
 "Of line, line, and treading down." The 
 last word occurs once only beside, ch. 
 xxii. 5, and in a passive sense, which 
 confirms the received version. The 
 other phrase also occurs ch. xxvii. 10, 
 13. This makes it very unnatural, with 
 some modern critics, to resort to an 
 Arabic root, and treat qai'qaz' as a single 
 word. David "smote Moab, and mea- 
 sured them with a line, casting them 
 down to the ground: with two lines mea- 
 sured he to put to death, and with one 
 full line to keep alive." 2 Sam. viii. 2. 
 Hence the words fitly express a series of 
 captivities, defined by local limits. In 
 this sense the fulfilment in Israel's history 
 is most conspicuous i Ki. xv. 20, 2 Ki. 
 X. 32, XV. 29, 2 Chr. xxviii. 18, 2 Ki. 
 xvii. 5—41. The Assyrian has been 
 already commissioned, x. 6, "to tread 
 them down like mire of the streets." 
 
 "Whose land the rivers have spoiled." 
 The version, "Whose land the rivers 
 divide," is exact neither in tense nor 
 meaning, and is less appropriate to Y.- 
 gjqit and Ethiopia than to several other 
 countries. Egypt is not spoiled, but 
 
ISAIAH, XVIII. 6, 7. 
 
 lOI 
 
 the branches. 6 They shall be left together to the fowls of the 
 mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall 
 summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter 
 upon them. 7 In that time shall a present be brought to the 
 Lord of hosts, the people scattered and shorn, and from the 
 people terrible now and henceforth, the nation meted out and 
 trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place 
 of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion. 
 
 enriched by the Nile, nor Ethiopia spoiled 
 by the transport of alluvial soil by its 
 waters. A mere mark of geography would 
 here be out of place. Isaiah himself ex- 
 pounds the phrase in its reference to 
 Israel, viii. 5 — 8, and compares the course 
 of the Assyrians to a mighty overflowing 
 flood, sweeping through the land. The 
 prophet Amos has the same figure, viii. 8. 
 Palestine, in the middle of Hezekiah's 
 reign, had been thus spoiled by many 
 successive floods of Philistine, Edomite, 
 Syrian, and Assyrian armies. 
 
 The people, then, of the land which 
 reaches to the northern sea from beyond 
 the rivers of Cush, accustomed to send 
 messages in papyrus barks along the 
 Kile, are here invited to send swift mes- 
 sengers. The message is to a people, 
 scattered and made bare by sore calamities, 
 yet terrible through mighty acts of God in 
 their behalf, a people visited by successive 
 conquests, ravaged throughout their land 
 by floods of hostile invasion. Every term 
 is striking and emphatic, as applied in 
 Eg}^pt to Israel, when there arrived the 
 first tidings of the Assyrian overthrow. 
 The message is either by sea to Palestine, 
 or along the Nile to exiles in Egypt. 
 
 v. 3. The words, from their order, are 
 a command, not a prediction. The voice 
 to Egypt and Ethiopia is extended now 
 to all other nations. The ensign and 
 trumpet are neither those of the Ethio- 
 pians, mustering their forces, nor yet of 
 the Assyrians, encamped near Jerusalem. 
 For the overthrow is looked upon as 
 already past xvii. 12 — 14, and is itself 
 God's own ensign, lifted up on the moun- 
 tains of Judah, and I lis loud trumpet 
 call to nations of the eartk Here, as 
 
 xvii. 10, for greater emphasis, the name 
 of God is implied, not expressed. 
 
 V. 4. This verse describes God's calm 
 forbearance towards His enemies, the 
 sure progress of His counsels, and the 
 blessing to His people during the aiilic- 
 tion and at its close. His favour will be 
 to them like "clear shining after rain," 
 or the refreshment of a dewy cloud in 
 the heat of harvest. So the Chaldee 
 paraphrase. "I will make my people 
 Israel to rest, and it will please me, in 
 my holy dwelling-place, to bless them : 
 I will quickly bring them blessings and 
 consolations, like a clear heat, and as a 
 cloud of dew in the burning heat of har- 
 vest." 
 
 vv. 5, 6. The allusion here is to the 
 grape-harvest, or vintage. When the 
 bud is finished, or is passing into fruit, and 
 the flower is become a grape; ripening, 
 but not yet fully ripe, the vines shall be 
 suddenly cut down, and their branches be 
 left like weeds on the sides of the moun- 
 tains. The mighty Assyrian host would 
 be cut down, when its schemes of con- 
 quest were almost fulfilled, and God's 
 mercies to His people be wholly undis- 
 turbed by all the rage and malice of 
 their enemies. After this judgment, hom- 
 age would be rendered to the Lord by 
 Israel, the down-trodden people, in His 
 temple at Jerusalem. They would bring 
 a present, and be a present themselves. 
 Compare 2 Chr. xxxii. 23, Zeph. iii. 10, 
 and Is. Ixvi. 19, 20. This promise is a 
 glimpse of hope in the midst of the bur- 
 dens, and its counterpart and antitype 
 is the latest utterance of those lips which 
 had been touched with celestial fire. 
 
102 ISAIAH, XIX. 1—3. 
 
 § 3. Chap. XIX. The Burden of Egypt. 
 
 This Burden of Egypt contains, first, a warning of political downfall and 
 decay ; and next, a promise of conversion to God's service in later times. 
 Its date was before the expedition of Sargon, ch. xx. i, which thus forms its 
 foreground. The priests in Herodotus traced the old monarchy down to 
 Sethos in the time of Sennacherib, and reported that a time of great division 
 and anarchy followed. Such exactly is the picture in the second verse. 
 Again, the last verse has never yet been strictly fulfilled. But the earlier 
 vision, ch. ii. i — 5, leads us to look for such an issue in the final glory of 
 Israel and of Zion. Thus the Burden has a wide range, from the time when 
 it was published to an age still to come. 
 
 The main subject of the prophecy is the great change soon to pass over 
 Egypt, when the ancient glory of the Pharaohs would completely die away, 
 and be followed, first by a time of anarchy, next by the severe oppression of 
 the Persian dynasty ; and finally, by the renewed prosperity under the 
 Ptolemies, and the dawnings of a purer faith, to be completed by the perfect 
 triumphs of the gospel in later days. 
 
 Chap. XIX. The Burden of Egypt. Behold, the Lord 
 rideth upon a swift cloud, and will come into 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 set Egypt 
 against Egypt ; and they shall fight every one against his 
 brother, and every one against his neighbour, city against city, 
 kingdom against kingdom. 3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail 
 in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof; and 
 they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them 
 
 V. I. God is said to come with power, v. 2. The Ethiopian dynasty, the 
 when He reveals His presence by signal •zjth of Manetho, ending with Tirhakah, 
 and especial acts of grace and rigliteous Taracus, or Taharuka Saen Ra, was 
 judgment. "The idea is that of a king, followed by anarchy and confusion before 
 who, knowing that in some remote part Psammetichus. Egypt was then parted into 
 of his dominions there are enormous twelve uomcs or kingdoms, at variance 
 crimes, travels thither in a very swift with each other; and from this period 
 chariot, that he may punish the guilty." dates the complete decline of the old 
 (Rosenm. II. 4.) So in Ps. civ. 3, God Pharaonic power. It was by the help of 
 is said to "make the clouds his chariot." Greek mercenaries that Psammetichus 
 The moving of the idols at His presence subdued his rivals, and reunited the 
 may be simply a figure, to predict the kingdom. The verse is thus an exact 
 weakening or fall of the Egyptian idola- picture of the next main event of Egypt's 
 tries. Perhaps, in a deei)er sense, it history after the date of the vision, 
 refers to those spirits of evil, by which v. 4. A plural noun is here joined 
 the immense fabric of the idol-worship with a singular adjective, "a cruel lords." 
 of Egypt, through long ages, had been ".Since the prophet is everywhere em- 
 reared and upheld. Comp. Jas. ii. 19; phatic," Vitringa remarks, "this construc- 
 Matt. viii. 29. tiun teaches that several lords arc to be 
 
ISAIAH, XIX. 4-9. 
 
 103 
 
 that have famih'ar spirits, and to the wizards. 4 And I will 
 shut up Egypt into the hand of cruel lords, and a fierce king 
 shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 5 And the waters shall fail from the flood, and the river shall 
 be wasted and dried up. 6 And the streams shall stink, the 
 rivers of defence shall be emptied and dried up, the reed and 
 the rush shall wither. 7 The green things by the river, by the 
 mouth of the river, and every thing sown by the river, shall be 
 dried up, driven away, and be no more. 8 And the fishermen 
 shall mourn, and all that cast hook into the river shall lament, 
 and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. 
 9 And they that dress choice flax, and that weave fine linen, 
 
 understood, who would form one body 
 of rulers, and be one in that sense, but 
 not one person. In v. 20, these are 
 called oppressors." 
 
 A king, in predictions of wide range, 
 often denotes a series or dynasty of 
 rulers ; as the king of Babylon, Is. xiv., 
 of Persia and of Javan, Dan. viii., and the 
 four kings in Dan. vii. 17. Every fea- 
 ture in this verse answers to the Persian 
 dynasty, which began with Cambyses, a 
 stern and cruel king, and ended with 
 Ochus, one of equal or greater cruelty. It 
 was abhorred, from first to last, by the 
 natives of Egypt ; who strove, in four or 
 five rebellions, to escape from the yoke, 
 but were shut up in hopeless subjection 
 by the hand of God. 
 
 vv. 5 — 10. The decay of Egypt is 
 described under the figure of a failing 
 inundation of the Nile. In ch. xvi. 8, 9 
 the Vine of Sibmah represents Moab 
 itself, a country famous for its vineyards. 
 Here, in like manner, the Nile, with its pas- 
 tures, fisheries, and manufactures, is made 
 to represent the whole national life and 
 prosperity of Egypt. The things named 
 were main elements of the national 
 wealth and power. But oppression and 
 anarchy would lessen the benefit of pro- 
 sperous seasons, and double the loss in 
 years of scanty inundation. Thus an 
 excessive and extreme wasting of the Nile 
 becomes a striking emblem for the whole 
 course of national decay. This explains 
 the repeated mention, nine times in suc- 
 cession, of the flood, the waters, and the 
 river. 
 
 v. 5. "The flood." The term sea, 
 
 ydm, is often applied to the Nile in the 
 Delta during the inundation, when its 
 appearance is that of an inland sea. 
 Such is plainly the meaning here. The 
 inundation would fail, and with it the 
 national prosperity, of which it was at 
 once the source and natural emblem. 
 
 v. 6. "The rivers of defence." The 
 word is the singular, of which Mizraim, 
 Egypt, is the plural ; and hence many 
 moderns render it "the canals of Egypt." 
 But the word occurs elsewhere forty 
 times, and once in Isaiah, always in 
 the meaning of a defence or fortress. 
 The other version is feeble, since no 
 other rivers than those of Egypt could 
 possibly be meant in this context. It 
 was also one main effect of the Pelusiac 
 or Eastern channels of the Nile, to pro- 
 tect the land from Asiatic invaders. The 
 meaning is thus clear. All branches of 
 the river, whether for culture or defence, 
 were alike to fail. 
 
 V. 7. "The green things by the river." 
 Most moderns apply the first word to 
 meadows, and the second to produce 
 generally, or to sown lands, in contrast 
 v.'ith pasture. But it is harsh to speak 
 of the meadows and sown lands them- 
 selves as driven away. The best version 
 seems to be that of Kimchi, who applies 
 one word to grass or pasture, and the 
 other to garden produce. In extreme 
 drought these would first be withered, 
 and then be driven away like dust. 
 
 V. 10. This verse sums up the whole 
 description of Egypt's political decay. 
 The pillars or foundations, a word used 
 once only beside, Ps. xi. 3, may denote 
 
104 
 
 ISAIAH, XIX. 10—14. 
 
 shall be confounded. 10 And her pillars shall be broken down, 
 and all her workers for hire shall be grieved at heart. 
 
 II Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the 
 wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish : how ascribe ye 
 the speech to Pharaoh, I avi the son of the wise, the son of 
 ancient kings ? 1 2 Where arc they ? where arc thy wise 7?icn ? and 
 let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LoRD of hosts 
 hath purposed upon Egypt. 13 The princes of Zoan are become 
 fools, the princes of Memphis are deceiv^ed: they have even 
 seduced Egypt, that were the cornerstone of her tribes. 14 The 
 Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof, and 
 
 the princes or nobles ; but perhaps rather 
 those pursuits of industry, which were 
 the mainstay and strength of the nation. 
 I'hese would be broken down, and all 
 the traders and workmen, whose means 
 of livelihood were gone, would grieve in 
 soul at the affliction and ruin of the 
 land. 
 
 vv. ir — 15. This utter decay, so im- 
 like the fame of Eg>'pt and its counsellors 
 for political wisdom, leads to a further 
 picture of their infatuation and folly. 
 The last clause of v. 1 1 is referred by 
 most moderns to the counsellors them- 
 selves, as boasting of their noble ances- 
 try. But this would rather require the 
 plural, "we are wise, &c." and the reply is 
 addressed to Pharaoh, not his counsellors. 
 Hence the passive usage in iv. 3, xix. 18, 
 Ixi. 6, seems here to give birth to a second- 
 ary meaning of the word, as above. "How 
 ascribe ye this saying to Pharaoh?" This 
 is nearly Kimchi's version, "How say ye, 
 in the person, or in the behalf, of Pha- 
 raoh?" How can Pharaoh make the 
 boast any longer, and that boast become 
 a proverb, that he inherits both wisdom 
 and honour from a long line of wise and 
 mighty kings? Where are the wise 
 counsellors, who should form one main 
 part of this noble heritage? The mourn- 
 ful change from world-famous wisdom to 
 folly would be God's own judgment on 
 an idolatrous land. When nations reject 
 the words of God, their wisdom soon dies 
 out, and turns to utter foolishness. The 
 warning v. 15, answers to ix. 14 — 16, 
 where the same words are used of 
 Ephraim, and thus marks the unity of 
 the whole series of visions. The palm 
 
 branch denotes the noble and the honour- 
 able, and the rush persons of mean and 
 low estate. 
 
 vv. 16, 17. These verses complete the 
 warning; and their preface, "in that 
 day," links it with the promises that 
 follow. There would be secret awe on 
 the conscience of the Egyptians in these 
 times of calamity; and many would come 
 to feel that the anger of Jehovah, the 
 God of Israel, the same who had exe- 
 cuted judgment on the idols of Eg)'pt 
 long before, was the true source of their 
 heavy troubles. Conviction of sin is the 
 first step toward true conversion. 
 
 From Cambyses to Ochus, more than 
 a hundred and eighty years, the abase- 
 ment of Egypt went on side by side with 
 Israel's return and recovery. The growth 
 of Greek literature, and the number of 
 Jews who resorted to Egypt, would sjiread 
 the knowledge of these and similar pro- 
 phecies, especially since the name of Cyrus 
 is so conspicuous in Isaiah's later visions. 
 A race highly superstitious, in seasons of 
 deep distress, would be prone to ascribe 
 their calamities to Divine displeasure, 
 and thus to be "afraid of the shaking of 
 the hand of the Lord of hosts." Predic- 
 tions of calamity, even from sources not 
 usually credited, have often a strange 
 fascination over the minds of men. 
 
 V. 18. This verse has caused an un- 
 usual amount of controversy and discus- 
 s'on. The present text, Ir-ha-heres, "city 
 overthrow" by the veiy slight change 
 of n for n, becomes Ir-ha-cheres, "city 
 of the sun," or Heliopolis, the Greek 
 name of On, one of the most famous 
 cities of Egypt, and the first named in 
 
ISAIAH, XIX. 15— iS. 
 
 105 
 
 they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a 
 drunkard staggereth in his vomit. 1 5 Neither shall there 
 be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, 
 may do. 
 
 16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women; and it shall 
 be afraid 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 be a terror unto Egypt: every one that maketh 
 mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the coun- 
 sel of the Lord of hosts, which he hath determined against it, 
 
 18 In that day shall tJicfe be five cities in the land of Egypt, 
 
 the sacred histoiy. Sixteen I\ISS. and 
 several editions have this reading, which 
 is followed by the LXX., the Complu- 
 tensian, Symmachus, the Vulgate, the 
 Arabic, and Saadias. The Chaldee 
 combines both. Coverdale, Vitringa, 
 Lowth, Jenour, Henderson, adopt this 
 marginal version, derived from the vari- 
 ous readings, and render "city of the 
 sun." But many others, with Caspari 
 and Drechsler, prefer the received text, 
 and suppose a double allusion to the 
 name of Heliopolis and to the political 
 and spiritual catastrophe here foretold. 
 
 The true reading seems to be Heres 
 from the general consent of Hebrew 
 IMSS. , and also from the difficulty which 
 makes it a less likely corruption or 
 change than the other reading. Yet the 
 allusion is to On or Heliopolis, the city 
 named so early in the history of Joseph, 
 and well known to signify the City of 
 Light, or of the Sun. The phrase "shall 
 be called" is seldom used for the usual 
 name, but for some significant title, as in 
 Is. i. 26 ; iv. 3 ; Ixii. 4. Again, the root 
 heres is chiefly applied to the casting 
 down of walls, alfars, or fenced cities. 
 Kow the two parts of the prophecy, 
 between which this verse is the transition, 
 announce the weakening and decay of the 
 old idolatrous empire, and a later con- 
 version of Egypt to the service of God. 
 On or Heliopolis had the name Ha-ra, 
 the abode of the sun, its chief temple was 
 dedicated to Athom, the setting sun, and 
 it was one main centre of Egyptian idola- 
 try. The prediction of Jeremiah refers 
 either to the city or its temple. "He 
 (Nebuchadnezzar) shall break also the 
 
 pillars of Bethshemesh (i.e. house of the 
 sun) which is in the land of Egypt, and 
 the houses of the gods of the Egyptians 
 shall he burn with fire," xliii. 13. The 
 word, one, in Hebrew often means "the 
 first," and may here signify the most 
 conspicuous of these five cities. The 
 Chaldee Targum here alludes directly to 
 the words of Jeremiah, and expounds — 
 " One of them shall be called. City of the 
 house of the Sun, which is to be destroy- 
 ed." 
 
 The title, then, may be explained, 
 City of the Overthrow, i.e. of sun-wor- 
 ship destroyed. The name Ir-ha-heres, 
 ■will have a double meaning, and alludes 
 to Ha-ra, the Egyptian name of On, and 
 to its Hebrew equivalent, Ir-ha-cheres, 
 city of the sun, or Heliopolis. As On, 
 light, in Ezekiel becomes Aven, vanity ; 
 so here the slight change, heres, for 
 cheres, inverting the sense, serves to an- 
 nounce the coming overthrow of the old 
 sun-worship in the presence of a purer 
 and nobler faith. The same word occurs 
 in the charge to Gideon to throw down 
 the altar of Baal, the sun-god of Syria. 
 
 The fulfilment is striking. "Onias, son 
 of Onias the high-priest, asked permis- 
 sion from Ptolemy and Cleopatra to build 
 a temple in Egypt like that in Jerusalem, 
 and to appoint for it priests and Levites 
 of his own nation. This he devised, 
 relying chiefly on the prophet Isaiah, 
 who six hundred years before predicted 
 that a temple must be builded in Egypt 
 by a Jew to the supreme God. He there- 
 fore wrote to Ptolemy and Cleopatra the 
 following epistle : ' Having come with the 
 Jews to Leontopolis of the Heliopolite 
 
io5 
 
 ISAIAH, XIX. 19 — 21. 
 
 that speak the language of Canaan and that swear to the 
 Lord of hosts : one shall be called, City of the Overthrow. 
 19 In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD of hosts in 
 the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border 
 thereof to the Lord. 20 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 will 
 send them a saviour, even a great one, and he shall deliver 
 them. 21 And the LoRD shall be known to Egypt, and the 
 Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacri- 
 fice and oblation ; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, 
 
 district, and other abodes of my nation, 
 and finding that many had sacred rites, 
 not as was due, and were thus hostile to 
 each other, which has befallen the Egyp- 
 tians also through the variety of their 
 religions, and disagreeing in their ser- 
 vices, I found a most convenient place in 
 the fore-mentioned stronghold, abounding 
 with wood and the sacred animals. I 
 ask leave, then, clearing aivay an idol 
 temple not muned, that has fallen do^vn, 
 to build a temple to the supreme God, 
 that the Jews dwelling in Egypt, har- 
 moniously coming thither, may minister 
 to thy benefit. For Isaiah the prophet 
 has predicted this; — ^There shall be an 
 altar in Egypt to the Lord God, and he 
 prophesied many other such things con- 
 cerning the place.' The king and queen 
 replied : We have read thy request, 
 asking leave to clear away the fallen 
 temple in Leontopolis of the Heliopolite 
 nome. We are surprised that a temple 
 should be pleasing to God, settled in an 
 impure place, and one full of the sacred 
 animals. But since you say that Isaiah 
 the prophet so long ago foretold it, we 
 grant thee leave, if according to the law, 
 that we may not seem to have offended 
 against God." (Joseph. Ant. xiii. 6.) 
 
 The place of this temple for the wor- 
 ship of God in Egypt, in the district of 
 On, or Ila-ra, in Hebrew Ir-ha-cheres, 
 on the site of a ruined idol temple, might 
 well be called Irha-heres, City of the 
 Overthrow. It was a signal pledge and 
 earnest of the overthrow of the old 
 idolatries of Egypt by a purer and higlier 
 worship. 
 
 The prediction that five cities should 
 "speak the language of Canaan," was 
 
 fulfilled by the large influx of Jews under 
 the Ptolemies. Philo must exaggerate, 
 but he reckons that there were nearly a 
 million of Jews in Egypt. The meaning is 
 neither five out of six (Calv.), nor out of 
 20,000, the extravagant estimate of He- 
 rodotus ; but five of note, out of a 
 much larger, but still moderate number. 
 They are probably Heliopolis, Leonto- 
 polis, Daphne, Migdol, and Memphis 
 (Clericus, Newton, Hitzig). The truth 
 implied is by no means a total conver- 
 sion of Egypt, but a firm footing gained 
 by the people and faith of Israel, even in 
 this land of the old Pharaohs. 
 
 V. 19. The altar in the midst of Eg}'pt 
 •was remarkably fulfilled in the temple of 
 Onias. The Book of Isaiah stands here 
 midway between the Law and the Gospel. 
 The change foretold, though hateful to 
 the Pharisaism of the Jews of Palestine, 
 was a step from the strict confinement of 
 sacrifice to Jemsalem only, towards the 
 wider change our Lord announced to the 
 woman of Samaria, when local restric- 
 tions on God's worship would be fully 
 done away. 
 
 The pillar at the border of Egypt is 
 clearly distinct from the altar in the 
 midst of the land. We read in Josephus 
 (Ant. XIV. 6. 2) that in the century be- 
 fore Christ the Jews at Pelusium were 
 so numerous and powerful, as to be ap- 
 pointed "guardians of the entrances 
 of Egypt." The erection, then, of some 
 memorial pillar, on their part, is as natu- 
 ral and likely as the Reubenite altar at 
 the brink of Jordan. 
 
 V. 20. This verse refers plainly, not 
 to any and every trouble (Alex.), but to 
 some special season of Egyptian calamity, 
 
ISAIAH, XIX. 22—25. 
 
 107 
 
 and shall perform it. 22 And the Lord will smite Egypt ; he 
 will smite and heal it : and they shall return to the LORD ; and 
 he will be entreated of them, and will heal them, 23 In that 
 day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria ; and the 
 Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into As- 
 syria ; and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. 24 In 
 that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, 
 a blessing in the midst of the land ; 25 Whom the LORD of 
 hosts will bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and As- 
 syria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. 
 
 followed by a special deliverance. The 
 oppressors are the Persian rulers of Egypt, 
 especially Ochus and his satraps. The 
 "saviour, even a great one" is Alexander 
 the Great, the horn of the he-goat in 
 Daniel, whom the Egyptians hailed as 
 their deliverer from a hated yoke with 
 excessive joy. The first Ptolemy, who 
 succeeded him, bore this name, Soter, or 
 Saviour. Under him Egypt entered on 
 a new era of prosperity. The mild and 
 wise reign of the Ptolemies led to a 
 large increase of Jewish immigrants, and 
 a growing respect for their worship, and 
 thus paved the way for the accession of 
 many proselytes to a purer faith. "No 
 small number of Jews came into Egypt, 
 attracted by the excellence of the sites, 
 and the liberality of Ptolemy" (Jos. Ant. 
 XII. I. i). 
 
 v. 21. "The third Ptolemy, when 
 
 he had occupied all Syria by force, did 
 not sacrifice thank-offerings to the gods 
 in Egypt, but came to Jerusalem, and 
 made votive offerings" (Jos. Ap. ii. 5). 
 Thus all Egypt, under the Ptolemies, 
 may be said to have paid vows to the 
 true God in the person of its kings. 
 
 vv. 23 — 25. These verses complete the 
 prophetic outline. Earnests of this pro- 
 mise were seen largely even before the 
 Christian Era, and also in the times of the 
 Apostles. The dwellers in Mesopotamia 
 and Egypt, on the day of Pentecost, the 
 Ethiopian eunuch, the converts, like 
 Apollos, from Alexandria, Acts vi. 9, 
 xviii. 24, were its partial fulfilment. But 
 its fullness seems reserved for the day 
 when "nation shall not lift up sword 
 against nation," Is. ii. 4, and when the 
 recovery of Israel shall be life from the 
 dead to the Gentile world. Rom. xi. 15. 
 
 § 3 (2). Chap. XX. The Sequel of the Burden. 
 
 This chapter is a Sequel of the previous Burden. Between the death 
 of Ahaz, xiv. 28, and the fourteenth of Hezekiah, the Jews, alarmed by 
 the growing power of Assyria, and faithless towards God, were eager in 
 their desire to gain help from Ethiopia and Egypt. This sin is sternly 
 reproved in a later message, ch. xxxi. i — 6. After the fall of Samaria, and 
 when the burden on Philistia was fulfilling in the siege of Ashdod, a new 
 message was therefore given, to warn them against their vain trust in "the 
 shadow of Egypt." In ch. xxviii. i, the fall of Samaria is still future, and 
 the message, xxii. 15, 16, seems also to belong to the reign of Ahaz. Hence 
 the date here given must be one which specially belongs to this chapter, 
 and does not apply to the Burdens that follow, all of which appear to 
 belong either to the last year of Ahaz, or the two first of Hezekiah. 
 
io8 
 
 ISAIAH, XX. 1—4. 
 
 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, when Sargon the 
 king of Assyria sent him, and fou<^ht against Ashdod, and took it ; 
 2 At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, 
 saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off 
 thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and bare- 
 foot. 3 And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath 
 w^alked naked and barefoot, a three years* sign and wonder 
 against Egypt and against Ethiopia ; 4 So shall the king of 
 
 Ch. XX. Sign against Egypt and 
 Ethiopia. 
 
 V. I. Sargon is never once named in 
 classic writers, and only here in the Scrip- 
 tures themselves. Hence most writers, 
 before the late Assyrian discoveries, took 
 him for Shalmaneser or Sennacherib ; 
 though Rosenmuller, Gcsenius, and others, 
 on internal grounds, held him to be some 
 intermediate king. The latter view is 
 held by most Syrologists to be confirmed 
 by the monuments, but, I think, on in- 
 sufficient grounds, and that the chro- 
 nology in this prophecy confirms the 
 usual view of earlier writers, that Shal- 
 maneser and Sargon are two names of 
 the same king. His annals on the monu- 
 ments seem to assign him fifteen cam- 
 paigns; while the interval, in Kings, 
 Chronicles, and Isaiah alike, from the fall 
 of .Samaria to .Sennacherib's campaign, 
 is only eight years. See Appendix iii. 
 on the Assyrian reigns. 
 
 V. 2. "The Lord spake by Isaiah." 
 He spoke to the prophet, but by the 
 actions of the prophet He spoke to the 
 people. The view that the whole oc- 
 curred in vision only (Maimon., Kimchi, 
 Staudler, Hendewerk) does open vio- 
 lence to the words of the text — "and he 
 did so." The very object of the message 
 was to make a deep impression on the 
 senses of a careless people. 
 
 "Naked and barefoot." This means, 
 without shoes or sandals on his feet, and 
 also without his usual coat or tunic of 
 sackcloth. The word, barefoot, is alone 
 a proof that absolute nakedness is not 
 meant, since otherwise this addition would 
 be quite unnatural. It completes a de- 
 scription of undress, not of absolute 
 nudity. The term, naked, is often so 
 used in Scripture and classic authors. 
 
 vv. 3, 4. Many think that the sym- 
 bolical action lasted three years, during 
 
 which, either constantly or at intervals, 
 Isaiah walked stripped and barefoot. 
 But the Ilcljrew accents, the connexion 
 of the verses, and even moral congruity, 
 point to the varied rendering above. The 
 symbolic act must have been already 
 finished, when the exposition in v. 3 was 
 given ; and this could scarcely have been 
 delayed till three years after the first 
 date. The act, also, if continuous for 
 three years, would be out of proportion 
 with the object; and if at intervals only, 
 then its meaning, as a prediction of time, 
 would be quite obscured and destroyed. 
 The three years naturally denote a pe- 
 riod, throughout which the humiliation of 
 Egypt would last. The chief doubt is 
 whether this period were simply pre- 
 dicted in words, or also represented in 
 the symbolic act. The former is the 
 view of Hitzig and Alexander, but the lat- 
 ter is that of Vitringa, and every way more 
 probable. In Num. xiv. 33, Ez. iv. i — 6, 
 a day is made the type or historic symbol 
 of a year. The prophet's walking stripped 
 and barefoot before all the people for 
 three successive days, would fix their 
 attention, and be a definite act, capable 
 of a definite meaning. This the same 
 act, spread over a space of three years, 
 at indefinite intervals, could not be. It 
 was to be "a three years' sign and won- 
 der," a direct sign of the appro.iching 
 shame of Egypt and Ethiopia in three 
 campaigns. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. A strong party in Judah 
 eagerly sought the help of Egypt, as 
 their only defence against the Assyrian. 
 The aim of the previous burden, and of 
 this message, is to wean the people from 
 this deceitful hope, and to lead them to 
 rest simply on the covenant of the God of 
 Israel. How should those be their de- 
 liverers, who could not even deliver them- 
 selves? 
 
ISAIAH, XX. 5, 6. 109 
 
 Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians 
 captives, young and old; naked and barefoot, even with their 
 body uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5 And they shall be 
 afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt 
 their glorj'. 6 And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that 
 day, Behold, such is our expectation, to whom we have fled for 
 help, to be delivered from the king of Assyria ; and how shall 
 we escape ourselves } 
 
 "This isle." The word, in Hebrew common warning. When worldly helps 
 
 use, is not limited to islands only, but are most needed, their failure is most 
 
 includes all the borders of the sea. It is conspicuous. No sooner had Egypt 
 
 here applied to Palestine ; and the Philis- ceased to wield the rod of an oppressor, 
 
 tines and Tyrus, and other dwellers by than it became a treacherous friend, the 
 
 the sea, who were looking to Egypt for staff of a broken reed, to the church and 
 
 help, are joined with the Jews in one people of God. 
 
 § 4. Chap. XXI. Tpie Burdens of the South. 
 
 This chapter contains three Burdens, on the Desert of the Sea, Dumah, 
 and Arabia. The watchman of the first burden reappears in the second, 
 and Dumah and Seir belong to Arabia. But while the close relation of the 
 three seems thus to be proved, a serious difficulty lies in the way. The siege 
 and fall of Babylon are so clearly described in vv. 3, 4, that sceptical critics 
 deny Isaiah to be the author of the first burden, and ascribe it to the days 
 of Cyrus. Hence also most critics take the Desert of the Sea for a name 
 of Babylonia, whether so called from the marshes and floods of the 
 Euphrates, or figuratively, as a wilderness of nations. 
 
 This usual view is open to weighty objections. A burden of Babylon 
 has begun this series, and it is not likely that it would be the subject of a 
 second, under an obscure and mystic name. The Desert of the Sea, in Scrip- 
 ture, denotes "the district bordering on the Red Sea, near the gulf of 
 Elah," and cannot without violence be applied to the fruitful land of Babylon. 
 The mention that follows, of Dumah, Seir, and Arabia, confirms this meaning 
 of the term. It results, also, from the order of the whole series. The Burden 
 of Babylon is followed by those of Philistia, Moab, and Syria, on the west, 
 east, and north of Palestine, or on its Chaldean side. The Burden of Egypt, 
 the rival empire, is followed naturally by those on the southern side. The 
 treacherous dealer is named again, xxxiii. i, and plainly refers to the As- 
 syrian. The previous burdens of Moab and Damascus include a prediction 
 of judgment on the oppressing power. For these reasons the Desert of the 
 Sea must be taken here, with Grotius, in its proper sense, so that the direct 
 subject of all the three burdens is the region south of Judea, 
 
no 
 
 ISAIAH, XXI. 1—4. 
 
 The Burden of the Desert of the Sea. As whirl- 
 winds in the south sweep through, so it cometh from the wilder- 
 ness, from a terrible land. 2 A grievous vision is made known 
 to me: the treacherous one dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler 
 spoileth. Go up, O Elam! besiege, O Media! all the sighing 
 have I made to cease. 3 Therefore are my loins filled with pain : 
 pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in 
 travail ; I am bowed down with hearing it ; I am dismayed at 
 seeing it. 4 My heart is bewildered, fearfulness hath affrighted 
 
 V. I. The Sea, in connection with the 
 desert, means the Red Sea, especially its 
 northern part. Ex. xiii. i8; Dent. i. i. 
 Elath, at the head of the gulf, became the 
 southern limit of Edom, i Ki. ix. 26. 
 It was occupied by Solomon and his 
 successors as a naval station, was con- 
 quered by the Syrians under Rezin, 1 Ki. 
 xvi. 6, and retained by a Syrian colony 
 even after the fall of Damascus. The 
 burdens, returning from Egypt, and fol- 
 lowing the route of Israel, light first on 
 this region. The inscriptions of Sargon 
 state that "he penetrated deep into the 
 Araljian peninsula." But these Assyrian 
 inroads would supply few materials for 
 detailed prediction ; and the burden hur- 
 ries on to a more weighty event, the sore 
 judgment that was to light upon the 
 violent and treacherous invaders in days 
 to come. 
 
 These inroads of the Assyrian forces 
 are described by a metaphor, suitable to 
 the scene, the southern whirlwinds of the 
 Arabian desert, Zech. ix. 14. Like these 
 whirlwinds the fierce marauders would 
 sweep over the cultured districts of that 
 "terrible land," the peninsula of Sinai, 
 and the wilderness of Paran, the scene of 
 God's wonders in days of old. 
 
 V. 2. The abruptness is here increased 
 by a grammatical discord. The style 
 reflects the wildness of the terrible desert 
 whence the vision comes. Contempt for 
 treaties was a marked feature of the As- 
 syrian power, ch. xxxiii. 8. Sargon's 
 invasion of Egypt is the starting-point of 
 the last burden. An agreement was 
 probably then made by him with the 
 dwellers in the wilderness, and violated. 
 These inroads on the southern desert seem 
 to have been the farthest limit of the As- 
 syrian triumphs, while the prophet has 
 
 already linked Assyria and Babylon as 
 one compound empire, xiii — xiv. 27. The 
 Spirit, then, hurries us forward, as with 
 the speed of the southern whirlwinds, from 
 the scene of crime to that of retribution ; 
 from the dwellers in the desert, treache- 
 rously surprised by the Assyrians, to the 
 surprise of Babylon in its might of 
 drunken revelry. As even the Desert of 
 the Sea has smarted under the treachery 
 and ambition of fhe northern spoiler, so 
 would Babylonia be turned into a "desert 
 of the sea," a waste of sand-heaps and 
 marshes, by the righteous judgment of 
 God. All the sighing of the exiles and 
 captives would cease in the fall of the 
 great oppressor. Elam here comes before 
 Media; a transition from xiii. 17, where 
 the Medes only are named, to the later 
 visions ch. xlv., where Cyrus, the Persian, 
 is twice mentioned by name as fulfilling 
 the Divine judgment. 
 
 vv. 3, 4. There is no need to suppose 
 here any change of speaker. The pro- 
 phet, in vision, by the sympathy of a 
 holy love, feels and suffers along with the 
 objects of his warning. He is transported 
 in spirit into the royal palace, while the 
 great feast is going on, sees the hand- 
 writing on the wall, and shares in the 
 dismay of Belshazzar himself, and of his 
 careless revellers. 
 
 v. 5. The Hebrew tense is different 
 in the two clauses, but the imperative in 
 English alone gives the true emphasis 
 of both. The table of the royal banquet 
 is prepared. "Belshazzar the king made 
 ,a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, 
 and drank wine before the thousand." 
 The guests are ready to sit down, when 
 the watch, after the custom, is set at the 
 gates of the city. The feast begins, they 
 eat, they drink, in unsuspecting revelry. 
 
ISAIAH, XXI. 5-ir. 
 
 Ill 
 
 me; the night of my pleasure hath he turned for me into 
 shuddering. 5 Prepare ye the table, set the watch ; eat, drink : 
 arise, tJien, ye princes, anoint the shield. 6 For thus hath the 
 Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him tell whatever 
 he shall see. 7 And should he see riders, a pair of horsemen, 
 riders on asses, riders on camels, let him hearken diligently 
 with great heed. 8 And he cried as a lion, My lord, I stand 
 upon my watchtower continually in the daytime, and I am set 
 in my watch all the night ; 9 And, behold ! here come riders, 
 a couple of horsemen. And he spake again, and said, Babylon 
 is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods hath 
 he broken and flung to the ground. 10 O my threshing, and 
 the corn of my floor ; that which I have heard of the Lord of 
 hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you. 
 
 II The Burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, 
 Watchman ! what of the night ^. Watchman ! what of the nie^ht .'* 
 
 "They drank wine, and praised the gods 
 of gold and silver, of brass and iron, of 
 wood and stone." And now the call of 
 God goes forth to the Persian leaders, 
 "Arise, ye princes, anoint the shield." In 
 the same night the handwriting appears 
 on the wall. The kingdom is numbered 
 and finished, and the night of pleasure 
 turned into shuddering and utter dismay. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The prophet is charged 
 next, in vision, to set a watchman on a 
 tower, who is to look out in the eastern 
 horizon for Persian horsemen, or riders 
 on asses and camels, to learn the result 
 of the siege ; and when these appear, he 
 is taught to listen eagerly for their tidings. 
 Xenophon describes the Persian cavalry 
 as advancing in double rank or file 
 (Cyi-op. vii. 5, 8). The Caramanians, 
 one part of his forces, used asses for war 
 (Strab. XV. ■2.) That rekeb means here 
 mounted men, not chariots, seems proved 
 by the double mention of camels and 
 asses. Horsemen, parashim, is here 
 the same word from which the name, 
 Persian, was afterwards derived. The con- 
 ditional rendering of vv. 6, 7 (Ewald) 
 makes the connexion clear, which our 
 version leaves obscure. The charge or 
 instructions are first given, and then the 
 watchman's report follows. 
 
 vv. 8, 9. The watchman is described as 
 reporting his care to fulfil his wearisome 
 
 task, when suddenly he catches a glimpse 
 of horsemen in the horizon, for whom he 
 had looked out so long. A pause is im- 
 plied, till they reach his watchtower, and 
 give in their tidings ; that Babylon is 
 fallen, and the conquerors have dashed 
 her idols ignominiously to the ground. 
 Since the Persians thought it unlawful to 
 make images (Herod. I. 131) they would 
 without scruple break the idols in pieces, 
 that fell in their way. The vision ends 
 with a direct address to the people of 
 Israel, long threshed by the blows of the 
 heathen oppressor, and they are assured 
 solemnly that all these are "the ti^ue 
 sayings of God." 
 
 vv. II, 12. The short burden of 
 Dumah has been variously explained. 
 Michaelis, Doderlein, Hitzig and Maurer 
 refer it to the Ishmaelite tribe of Du- 
 mah, the Dumcetha of Ptolemy. But a 
 majority of critics (LXX., Jarchi, Vitringa, 
 Lowth,Koppe, Dathe, Rosenmr., Knobel, 
 Drechsler, Alexr.) apply the title to 
 Edom or Idumrea, with a secondary- idea 
 of solitude or silence, the meaning of the 
 word. The two views may be combined. 
 A voice from Seir, nearly south of Jerusa- 
 lem, could not refer to Ptolemy's Du- 
 mstha, distant 300 miles nearly due east. 
 But the Ishmaelites and Edomites were 
 much intermingled, and Petra itself is 
 constantly assigned to the Nabathasans, 
 
112 
 
 ISAIAH, XXI. 12—17. 
 
 12 The watchman said, Morning cometh, and also night. If ye 
 will inquire, inquire jr, return, a?id coirvQ. 
 
 13 The Burden in Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia 
 shall ye lodge, ye caravans of Dedanites. 14 Bring water to 
 meet the thirsty, O inhabitants of the land of Tema, meet the 
 fugitive with bread. 15 For they have fled from swords, from 
 the brandished 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 a hireling, and all the 
 glory of Kedar shall fail : 17 And the residue of the number of 
 the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be 
 diminished : for JEIIOVAH, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. 
 
 or sons of Nebaioth, as their capital. If 
 the Desert of the Sea includes the 
 southernmost part of Edom, Dumah may 
 refer to the northern portion, and to the 
 adjoining tribes, Ishmaelite as well as 
 Edomite. This agrees with the natural 
 order, since the visions are here returning 
 from Egypt to Palestine again. 
 
 The voice from Seir is to the watch- 
 man, seen in the last vision as placed 
 on his watchlower. It is night, and he 
 is asked how far the night has gone, 
 and when the day will break. The figure 
 implies that the land of Seir is visited 
 by a great calamity, so as to stir up 
 intense desire for happier times. In their 
 heavy affliction they would gladly learn, 
 even from the prophets of Israel, God's 
 watchmen to the nations, how soon their 
 trouble will pass away. The answer is 
 mysterious. It seems to tell them that 
 the present trouble is near its close, but 
 that a fresh calamity woukl follow. Some 
 think that the morning refers to Israel, 
 the night to Edom. But the first night is 
 implied to be common to both. The 
 whole admits rather of this paraphrase. 
 "A morning is near, of relief from your 
 present troubles through the Assyrian. 
 But while you remain far from God, a 
 second night, the Chaldean desolation, is 
 sure to follow. Would you learn the 
 future from God's .prophets, let your 
 inquiry be earnest and sincere ; return 
 from crooked ways of idolatry and pride, 
 and join yourselves to the covenant of the 
 God of Abraham." 
 
 vv. 13 — 15. The slight change in the 
 form of the title answers to the fact that 
 
 Arabia was a lodging-place rather than 
 a home for its wandering tribes. The 
 caravans of Dedanites are the companies 
 of trading Arabs, descended from Dedan, 
 son of Midian, whose route lay from 
 Damascus to the south of Arabia. Thus 
 we read of Tyre, Ez. xxvii. 15, "The 
 men of Dedan were thy merchants. ..they 
 brought thee for a present horns of ivory 
 and ebony." This implies trade with 
 Africa through the east of the Red Sea, 
 .So Jeremiah xlix. 8. "Flee ye, turn 
 back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of 
 Dedan, for I will bring the calamity of 
 Edom upon him." This confirms the 
 reference here to Seir and the land of 
 Edom. The scourge of war was to reach 
 even the traders who coasted Idumaa, like 
 the Ishmaelites who brought Joseph into 
 Egypt. They would have to forsake their 
 usual route, and "dwell deep" in thickets 
 far inland, to avoid the enemy. 
 
 The companies of Tema are named 
 Job vi. 19. Their land lay east from 
 Moab in the great desert ( Foster's A7-al)ia, 
 I. 289 — 304). The fugitives from the cara- 
 vans, from Kedar, and perhaps from 
 Moab and Edom, would have to seek 
 refuge in these inland regions of the 
 desert. The men of Tema are called 
 upon to supply them with bread and 
 water, when exhausted by their sudden 
 and hasty flight. 
 
 vv. 16, 17. The warning here extends 
 from the trading Arabs to the warlike 
 Kedarites, the modern Beni Harb, who 
 dwelt on the upper part of the east of the 
 Red Sea. A single year is made the 
 limit of the fulfilment. This is a weighty 
 
ISAIAH, XXII. 113 
 
 objection to the view which refers the Isaiah's mission, so as to strengthen and 
 
 previous burdens to the Chaldeans, while sustain the faith of the men of Judah 
 
 it confirms the reference to Sargon's cam- during that great crisis of trouble, which 
 
 paigns, of which the Nineveh sculp- was so near at hand. The triumphs of 
 
 tures, so long buried, contain the record. the Assyrian spoilers would be like the 
 
 The Kedarites dwelt near the sea in the sweeping of the whirlwinds of the south 
 
 gieat desert, so that the three burdens over those parts of the Arabian desert, 
 
 seem to unite in one common warning to which had usually escaped the evils of 
 
 the dwellers in the wilderness between invasion and conquest, when affliction 
 
 Egypt and Palestine. Their speedy ful- came on the more settled and populous 
 
 fikuent would be one pledge more of regions of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria. 
 
 § 5. Chat. XXII. The Burden of the Valley of Vision. 
 
 This Vision is one of peculiar difficulty, and bears a title of which the 
 meaning is obscure. The Valley of Vision, according to most writers, ancient 
 and modern, here denotes Jerusalem. But the explanations offered are very 
 diverse. The name has been referred to the actual degradation of the city 
 (Kimchi), to the meaning of the name Moriah (Michaelis), to the school 
 of the prophets in the Tyropoeon (Vitringa), to the neighbourhood of the 
 valley of Hinnom (Wachner), to the intersection of the city by ravines 
 (Rosenm., Hend.), or to its being overlooked by higher hills (Drechsler) ; or 
 further, to the fact of its being hidden and shut off by God's covenant from 
 the rest of the world (Delitzsch). 
 
 The chapter has three parts. The first agrees with the account of the 
 capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, vv. i — 7 ; the second with Hezekiah's 
 measures of defence against Sennacherib, vv. 8 — 14; while the third con- 
 tains a promise to Eliakim, already fulfilled at the time of Sennacherib's 
 campaign. On this view, however, the order of time is completely reversed, 
 while there is no sign or trace of a transition from a later to an earlier period. 
 Three expositions have latterly been proposed. First, that Isaiah begins 
 by predicting the final capture of the city, and then suddenly reverts to the 
 much earlier Assyrian siege, as a kind of earnest (Vitringa, Jackson, Vogel, 
 Calvin, Drechsler). Secondly, that the first verses refer to the Assyrian siege, 
 and describe, not the capture of the city, but only its confusion and dismay 
 (Piscator, Dathe, Henderson). Thirdly, that the prophet "merely uttered 
 what he expected to happen, so that the prediction has partly failed" 
 (Knobel, Davidson). A fourth view has been held, that the whole may 
 refer to a siege in the reign of Manasseh (Alex.). Calvin applies the title to 
 all Judea ; while Grotius refers it, unlike most others, to the city of Samaria. 
 This last view, though opposed to the usual tradition of interpreters, is con- 
 firmed by the following reasons. 
 
 The previous Burdens are a series geographically complete. They all 
 converge around one central region, the weakened remnant of Ephraim and 
 
 B. I. 8 
 
114 ISAIAH, XXII. 
 
 Judah. To these the message now returns from the lands of the south. In 
 the view of God's prophets, Israel, though divided, are still one people. 
 The rivalry and hatred of the two kingdoms could not undo their original 
 calling, and the Assyrian was their common scourge, because of their com- 
 mon sin. At the date of this Burden, as fixed by the whole context, two 
 main acts of judgment were still future, the siege and fall of Samaria, and 
 the siege and extreme peril of Jerusalem. Even in xxviii. i, Samaria's 
 overthrow has not yet come. Now Samaria was only fifty miles from 
 Jerusalem, and its fall took place only eight years before Sennacherib's 
 campaign. The connexion of the two events, in place, time, and moral 
 features, is of the very closest kind. They have also been included before, in 
 ch. viii. 5 — 14, under one common figure of a desolating Euphratcan flood. 
 It is thus most natural that they should be here grouped together in one 
 vision. 
 
 Again, the word gci, valley, occurs in Isaiah only in three other places, 
 xxviii. I, 4, xl. 4. The last is quite general, but in the two others the 
 reference is clearly to Samaria. Jerusalem is never elsewhere called a 
 valley. Its whole site is on a very high level, and the hill and mountain of 
 Zion are terms of constant use. But Samaria "is situated in the midst of a 
 broad deep valley, which expands into a breadth of five or six miles. Be- 
 yond this valley, which completely isolates the hill of Samaria, the mountains 
 rise again on every side," (Kitto, Bib. Diet). The features of vv. i — 5, which 
 answer to the capture of Jerusalem, are simply those of a luxurious city, 
 taken by famine, not by storm ; and this was equally true in the fall of 
 Samaria. Either city fell after a siege of three years, 2 Ki. xxviii. 10, xxv. i — 3. 
 But there is one decisive contrast. The siege and capture of Jerusalem was 
 125 years later than the events next described, while that of Samaria was 
 eight years, at most, before them. If the title be referred to prophetic visions 
 in general, these were nearly as frequent in Samaria as Jerusalem, and the 
 name valley is far more appropriate. But the simplest meaning of the 
 title is, that it refers to some valley brought under the prophet's eye in 
 this vision itself. Now this agrees much better with the beautiful vale of 
 Samaria, which he might never have visited, than with the hills of Jeru- 
 salem, which were his constant home. 
 
 The Vision on this view, like the Burden of Philistia, will belong to the 
 last months of the reign of Ahaz, before Hczekiah's reformation had begun. 
 It will predict, in regular order, the approaching overthrow of Kphraim and 
 Samaria; its direct consequence, in the political exposure and peril of 
 Judah, and the sensual blindness and worldly policy of the people; and 
 also the abasement of the worldly and prosperous Shebna, and the promotion 
 of the faithful Eliakim, which would become a sure pledge to Jerusalem of 
 rescue and deliverance in the coming hour of need. 
 
ISAIAH, XXII. I- 7. 
 
 115 
 
 Chap. XXII. The Burden of the Valley of Vision. 
 What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the 
 housetops ? 2 That thou art filled with outcries, the tumultuous 
 city, the joyous city: thy slain are not slain with the sword, 
 nor dead in battle. 3 All thy rulers are fled together, they 
 are bound by the archers : all that are found of thee are bound 
 together, that have fled afar. 4 Therefore said I, Look away 
 from me, I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, be- 
 cause of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. 5 For zV 
 is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity, by 
 the Lord, the LORD of hosts, in the valley of vision, breaking 
 down the walls, and crying to the mountains. 6 And Elam 
 bare the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir 
 uncovered the shield. 7 And it is come to pass, //la^ thy 
 choicest valleys are full of chariots, and the horsemen set them- 
 selves in array toward the gate. 
 
 V. I. The scene of these opening 
 verses, from the reasons just given, is the 
 valley of Samaria at the close of its three 
 years' siege by the Assyrians. The bus- 
 tling and noisy city of the drunkards of 
 Ephraim, whose palaces had been full of 
 tumultuous revels (xxviii. i, and Amos iii. 
 9), is now filled with outcries of the 
 famished, with fear and confusion. Its 
 people have gone up to the housetops, to 
 gaze on the host of enemies, or to escape 
 from the fierce soldiers, bursting into the 
 town. Its slain are wasted by the three 
 years' siege and famine. The rulers, like 
 Zedekiah and his princes afterwards, flee 
 away by night, when the famine is in- 
 tolerable, but are chased by the light 
 archers, and become an easy prey. The 
 common people, who have fled far off", 
 are captured by "pursuers swifter than 
 the eagles of heaven. " Lam. iv. 19. 
 
 v. 4. The attempt to comfort the pro- 
 phet would be less easy to explain, if the 
 vision referred to the still remote downfall 
 of Jerusalem. But on the present view 
 it is full of deep meaning. The selfish 
 and the short-sighted in Judah would care 
 little for the fall of the rival kingdom, or 
 might even be senseless enough to exult 
 in its ruin. Not so the prophet of God. 
 He knew that Israel were still one people. 
 
 and the ruin of Ephraim the herald of 
 sorest trial to Judah. The siege and fall 
 of Samaria were an image of the doom of 
 Zion, though in days more remote; and 
 he refuses all comfort, when the vision 
 reveals to him, with mournful vividness, 
 the "spoiling of the daughter of his 
 people." 
 
 V. 5. There is here no trace of a 
 change in the objects of the vision, which 
 the common view compels many inter- 
 preters to assume. The prophet only 
 amplifies the grounds of his sorrow. A 
 grievous vision is before him. The fruit- 
 ful and lovely vale of Samaria is seen 
 filled with woe and clamour, and loud 
 wailings of the fugitives and the captives 
 are echoed back from the hills. 
 
 v. 6. The Elamite soldiers were chief- 
 ly archers (Strabo xv. 3). Kir is Kuros, 
 a river that rises in the Caucasus, and 
 runs into the Caspian, and from which 
 Georgia, or Girgestan, derives its name. 
 The natives of the Caucasus still wear 
 shields (Hend. p. 195). The prophet first 
 describes the army, and then pursues the 
 course of its campaigns. 
 
 V. 7. The Assyrian army, released 
 from the long and weary siege, is now 
 seen pouring southward through the 
 choicest valleys of Palestine. The horse- 
 
ii6 
 
 ISAIAH, XXII. 8—12. 
 
 8 He hath also removed the covering of Judah, and thou 
 didst look in that day to the armour of the house of the forest. 
 9 Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they 
 are many ; and ye have gathered together the waters of the 
 lower pool : lo And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusa- 
 lem, and ye have broken down the houses to fortify the wall. 
 1 1 And ye have made a reservoir between the two walls for the 
 water of the old pool : but ye looked not unto the Doer of this, 
 and have not seen him that appointed it long ago. I2 And the 
 
 men appear at the gate of each fenced 
 city, in succession, and summon it to 
 yield to the mighty conqueror. The pro- 
 phet's words are here addressed to "the 
 daughter of his people," whose calamity 
 he deplores. 
 
 V. 8. The vision now passes on, from 
 the completetl ruin of Ephraim, to the 
 fear and danger of Judah. The words 
 may refer to CJod himself, or to the Assy- 
 rian, the rod who executes His judgment. 
 The "coveringof Judah" has been explain- 
 ed in many different ways. It may be a 
 figure, frequent in Arabic, derived from 
 the veil of a virgin, and the outrages of 
 war. But it seems to have a striking 
 historical force. Ephraim, in a military 
 view, was the covering or sheltering 
 veil of Judah against northern invaders. 
 By the fall of Samaria this shelter was 
 removed, and thus Judah was left bare 
 and naked for the next inroad of the 
 Assyrians. When their army march- 
 ed on through Aiath, Michmash, and 
 Gibeah, x. 28, 29, this covering was 
 wholly taken away. The men of Judah 
 would then "look to the armour of the 
 house of the forest," or the arsenal and 
 stores of the city of David, as their last 
 human resource against the mighty op- 
 pressor. 
 
 vv. 9 — 12. The Prophet notes, in 
 vision, the eager efforts of the pcoiile to 
 secure the city against the terrible in- 
 vaders. In itself, their diligence was to 
 be praised ; but they were lilind to the 
 hand of God, who had ordained, long 
 ago, this sore judgment upon them for 
 their national sins. The same phrases 
 recur in the severe rebuke of Sennacherib, 
 xxxvii. 26. This whole judgment had 
 been planned, and was controlled, l)y the 
 firm decree of the God of Israel. The 
 
 steps taken by Hezekiah answer closely 
 to this prediction. But that pious king 
 used his utmost efforts to avert the warn- 
 ing, and to persuade his people to rest on 
 the covenant of their God. His faith, 
 and that of a believing remnant, received 
 a signal blessing ; while the secret or 
 open unbelief of the rest brought sore and 
 heavy judgments upon the land. 
 
 vv. 12 — 14. The sensual blindness of 
 the men of Judah, in these years of 
 Assyrian triumph, is further reproved. The 
 words "in that day" may refer to the 
 whole interval from the fall of Samaria to 
 the overthrow of Sennacherib. The ruin 
 of Epliraim called loudly upon Judah for 
 repentance and godly sorrow. The effect 
 was veiy different. Most of them in- 
 dulged in selfish exultation, or resolved 
 to enjoy the brief respite by giving the 
 reins to their sensual appetites. This re- 
 fusal to learn the lesson God would teach 
 them by Ephraim's fall was their own 
 death-warrant. Their own political ruin, 
 though delayed by two pious kings, was 
 then sealed and ratified ; and when the 
 time of respite was over, the judgment on 
 Samaria became an exact picture of the 
 fall of Jerusalem. See Jer. iii. 7— 11; 
 vii. r2 — 16. 
 
 vv. 15 — 25. This message to Shebna 
 forms one part of the Burden, which is thus 
 relieved and tempered at its close by a 
 gracious promise. The double name, the 
 Eord, the Lord of hosts, with which it 
 begins, has been used twice in the previous 
 verse, and thus connects this third part 
 with the rest of the vision. The promo- 
 tion of Eliakim had taken place before 
 the message of Raljshakeh, xxxvi. 2, 3, 
 which is a further proof of the unity of 
 the whole chapter. 
 
 On the view taken above, the succcs- 
 
ISAIAH, XXII. 13—15. 117 
 
 Lord, the LoRD of hosts, did call in that day 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 die. 14 And the Lord of hosts revealed it in 
 mine ears. Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till 
 ye die, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. 
 
 15 Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, Go, get thee 
 unto this treasurer, unto Shebna, which 2s over the house. 
 
 sion of the parts in time, and the moral 
 unity, are complete. In the beautiful 
 valley of Samaria the scene is first laid, 
 and exhibits the ruin of that once festive 
 and luxurious city, when its three years' 
 siege came to an end. Next is revealed 
 the peril of Judah, left naked and exposed 
 to the Assyrian ; and a stern warning is 
 uttered against their unbelief and luxury, 
 which threatens them with a catastrophe 
 not less complete. But here light breaks 
 in upon the darkness : Shebna, the royal 
 steward, whose care in building himself 
 a costly tomb presents him to us as a 
 type of the national pride and unbelief, 
 the prophet here announces, will be de- 
 posed, and a man of faith and piety will 
 be exalted in his stead. The result of 
 this change will be safety and deliverance. 
 Eliakim will become "a father to the in- 
 habitants of Jerusalem, and to the house 
 of Judah." The suggestion of some critics, 
 that the prophet merely uttered his own 
 erroneous calculations, is not less super- 
 ficial than profane. The actual fall of 
 Samaria, the speedy and extreme peril of 
 Judah, the moral conflict in the bosom of 
 the state, the coming triumph of faith 
 over worldliness, of piety over pride, and 
 the resulting safety of Jerusalem, form the 
 main outlines of the vision, and are in 
 exact accordance with the course of events 
 in the actual history. 
 
 V. 15. The phrase "this treasurer" 
 implies here a strong rebuke. "This 
 man, so imworthy of high rank and 
 honour among the chosen people." Some 
 take him for a heathen and foreigner, but 
 on very slender grounds. Others (Vitr.) 
 think him a different person from Shebna 
 the scribe, xxxvi. 3, 11, xxxvii. 2, who 
 takes part in the messages to Isaiah. But 
 the name never occurs elsewhere ; and 
 
 the connexion with Eliakim is so marked 
 in either case, as to make it clear that he 
 is one and the same person. Some think 
 he was first deposed to a lower ofiice, 
 and then exiled at a later period. A 
 direct message, however, of this kind is 
 not simple prediction, but warning, and 
 is open, on repentance, to a partial or 
 total change, Jer, xviii. i — 10 ; Jon. iii. 
 4 — 10. The only mention of Shebna in 
 the history is fourteen years later, when 
 he was the royal scribe, and was sent in 
 sackcloth by Hezekiah, along with Elia- 
 kim, to ask the prayers of Isaiah himself. 
 Their united message had then a signal 
 and gracious answer. It is very natural 
 to conclude that the sentence here pro- 
 nounced against him had been already 
 fulfilled, and that one clause was repealed 
 through his repentance ; rather than that 
 all was unfulfilled, and impending over 
 him, when he took part in that message 
 of earnest faith and piety. 
 
 The followmg, then, seems a probable 
 solution of the difficulty. This warning 
 was given in the reign of Ahaz, probably 
 in the year of his death, xiv. 28. That 
 death, at the age of 37, came suddenly, 
 and led to great political changes, along 
 with Hezekiah's reformation. Eliakim 
 was at once promoted, and Shebna de- 
 posed. He was then sent, either by 
 choice in an embassy, or as a hostage, 
 to Assyria, and was there detained a 
 prisoner, when ' ' Hezekiah relielled against 
 the king of Assyi-ia, and served him not."' 
 In the time of his disgrace and trouble 
 we may suppose that he humbled him- 
 self, like Manasseh ; and then that the 
 last clause of this warning was repealed, 
 which threatened him with death in the 
 foreign land of his captivity. He might 
 then, on his return, be placed in a lower 
 
ii8 
 
 ISAIAH, XXII. 16—21. 
 
 16 What hast thou here .^ and whom hast thou here.-' that thou 
 hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here.'' hewing him out a sepul- 
 chre on high ! graving for himself a habitation in the rock ! 
 
 17 Behold! the Lord will mightily cast thee down, and will 
 firmly seize upon thee. 18 He will violently whirl and toss 
 thee, like a ball, into a wide country : there shalt thou die, and 
 there sJiall the chariots of thy glory be the shame of thy lord's 
 house. 19 And I will drive thee from thy station, and from 
 thy state 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 : 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 
 
 office, and accounted by the pious Heze- 
 kiah a fit messenger to be joined with 
 Eliakim, in seeking, througli the prophet, 
 a gracious answer from God in the time 
 of trouble. So Sosthenes is joined with 
 St Paul in the heading of his letter to 
 Corinth. 
 
 V. 16. The absence of the usual pre- 
 face, and the abrupt change from direct 
 address to indignant soliloquy, add to the 
 force of this rebuke. The Egyptians, says 
 Diodorus, "call the homes of the living 
 lodgings, since we dwell in them but a 
 little while, but the tombs of the dead 
 everlasting habitations, since they are to 
 spend an unlimited time in Hades," I. 51. 
 This care of Shebna about a costly tomb 
 implied carnal security, and an ambitious 
 desire to rival the royal sepulchres ; per- 
 haps also a heathenish creed, as if the 
 grave were an eternal home. 
 
 vv. 17 — 19. The threatening is one of 
 sudden downfall, and of removal to a 
 foreign land. Its fulfilment is not directly 
 recorded, and various conjectures have 
 thus been made. The view just proposed 
 seems to agree best with the course of the 
 history. The last clause is often taken as 
 a direct address, "O shame of thy lord's 
 house !" But the construction is simpler, 
 and the contrast more full, with the re- 
 ceived version. The presence of these 
 chariots in Assyria, on the view suggested 
 before, would be an open sign of Judah's 
 vassalage and tributary contiition. 
 
 vv. 20, 21. The title "my servant" 
 implies the faith and piety of Eliakim, in 
 contrast to Shcbna's pride and unbelief. 
 
 His promotion was to be a pledge of 
 God's blessing, and of His favour return- 
 ing to Jerusalem. This verse is like the 
 turning point, where the dark clouds of 
 these successive Burdens begin to be 
 lighted up with the bow of promise, and 
 hopes of a great deliverance. 
 
 v. 22. The promise to Eliakim is 
 adopted by our Lord himself in His 
 message to the Philadelphian church — 
 "These things saith he that is holy, he 
 that is true, he that hath the key of 
 David, that openeth, and no man shutteth, 
 and shutteth, and no man openeth." 
 It is strange, then, how Calvin can say 
 confidently that Eliakim is no type of 
 Christ. Shebna and Eliakim plainly re- 
 present two parties in Zion, one marked 
 by pride and worldliness, the other by 
 faith and true godliness. A typical 
 character shines out in the whole mes- 
 sage, and is plainly confirmed by the 
 risen Saviour himself in His use of the 
 words. The fall of Shebna is a picture 
 of the judgment on those Jewish rulers 
 and builders, who rejected the true 
 Cornerstone, and received a sentence of 
 degradation and lasting exile. This, 
 again, adds to the presumption that 
 Shebna was no foreigner, as some have 
 fancied, but a heathenized Jew ; while 
 his reappearance in a friendly relation to 
 Hczckiah and Isaiah, but in a lower 
 office, may point onward to the time 
 when, after long and sore afthction, Judah, 
 so long outcast, shall be restored to the 
 favour of God. 
 
 V. 25. This last verse repeats the 
 
ISAIAH, XXII. 22-25. 119 
 
 to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. 
 22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his 
 shoulder : 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 glorious throne to his father's 
 house. 24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his 
 father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small 
 quantity, from vessels of cups even to all vessels of flagons. 
 25 In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is 
 fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and 
 fall; and the burden that zuas upon it shall be cut off; for the 
 Lord hath spoken //. 
 
 warning to Sliebna, no longer as a so much zeal in the first month of his 
 
 threatening to himself, but as direct pre- first year, would not fail to attend at 
 
 diction, sealed by the words, "for the once to Isaiah's solemn message. The 
 
 Lord hath spoken it." Here there is no deposition of Shebna and the promotion 
 
 mention of his death in the foreign land, of Eliakim were thus probably among the 
 
 but of his degradation from his high office first acts of the new reign, a public pledge 
 
 alone. The death of Ahaz at 37 might of the religious reformation; and the first 
 
 be quite sudden, and Shebna may have dawn of hope and promise returning to 
 
 thought himself secure for many years, Zion in the midst of the Assyrian troubles, 
 
 when the message was given. But Heze- So too when Christ reigns, Antichrist 
 
 kiah, who began a religious reform with must fall. 
 
I20 ISAIAH, XXIII. I- 
 
 §6. Chap. XXIII. The Burden of Tyre. 
 
 This Burden, from its clear prediction of a distant future, has had its 
 genuineness denied by some modern critics (Eichhorn, Rosenmiillcr, Movers, 
 Hitzig, Davidson). But all the internal evidence of connexion and style, as 
 well as all the external, proves it to be Isaiah's. The Burdens are a series, 
 of which this of Tyre, the one great maritime power of those days, is the 
 last. So also in ii. i6, the objects of judgment last named are "all ships of 
 Tarshish, and all desirable merchandise," while in xi. ii, "the isles of the 
 sea" close the list of places from which Israel are to return. 
 
 This Burden has also many internal links with those before it. Its 
 opening and closing sentences begin the burden of Moab. The howling 
 of Moab is mentioned six times, and the same word is found three times 
 in this message to Tyre. The form of the phrase, "so that there is no 
 house, no entering in," is the same as in the Burden of Damascus, "so that it 
 is no city." The repetition, "the sea, the strength of the sea," is like xix. 7, 
 "by the river, by the mouth of the river." The title "joyous city" is 
 common with the last Burden, and the phrase in v. 11 is the keynote of three 
 earlier visions, v. 25, ix. 12, x. 4, xiv. 24, 27. The last words of v. 13 answer 
 to the sentence on Damascus, "it shall be a heap, a ruin." The promise at 
 the close resembles those in the Burdens of Damascus, Egypt, and the 
 Valley of Vision. The language is "terse, highly figurative, and sublime," 
 quite in the style of Isaiah, and unlike any later writer. (Hend.). The charge 
 that it is "weak, tiresome, lame, loosely strung together," involves an equal 
 want of taste and of reverence. 
 
 The Burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish ; for it is 
 laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in : from the 
 land of Chittim it is revealed unto them. 2 Be dumb, ye in- 
 habitants of the isle, which the merchants of Zidon, that cross 
 the sea, have replenished. 3 And her revenue in great waters 
 is as the sowing of the Nile, as the harvest of the river ; and she 
 
 V. I. The message begins with a call denotes a maritime district ; there Pales- 
 
 to the Tyrian mercliants and sailors, far tine, here Phoenicia. The people would be 
 
 away from their home, to mourn over the dumb with fear and sorrow. "Merchants 
 
 ruin of their city. Tarshish is Tartessus of Zidon" is a generic term for those of 
 
 in Spain, one chief emporium of Tyrian I'luenicia ; since either Tyre or Zidon 
 
 commerce. Ships of Tarshish thus be- fitly represents the wliole nation. The 
 
 came a title for all vessels used for long rich revenues from their commerce are 
 
 voyages. Chittim is Cyprus, and the sea- compared to the plentiful harvests of the 
 
 coasts of the east of Europe. The man- Nile. What its river was to Egypt, the 
 
 ners, returning homeward, mourn at the same to Tyre was the great sea itself, a 
 
 tidings of Tyre's calamity. source of most abundant riches. 
 
 vv. 2, 3. The word "isle, "as in xx. 6, 
 
ISAIAH, XXIII. 4—9. 
 
 121 
 
 hath been the mart of nations. 4 Be thou ashamed, O Zidon ; 
 for the sea hath spoken, the strength of the sea, saying, I travail 
 not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, 
 iior bring up virgins. 5 As at the report concerning Egypt, 
 so shall they be sorely pained at the report concerning Tyre. 
 
 6 Pass over to Tarshish ; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle. 
 7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days } 
 her own feet shall carry her far away to sojourn. 8 Who hath 
 taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose mer- 
 chants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the 
 earth } 9 The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the 
 pride of all glory, ajid to bring into contempt all the honourable 
 of the earth. 
 
 V. 4. "The strength of the sea" is 
 usually referred to Tyre or Zidon, as if 
 the cities were lamenting the loss of their 
 former children. But the true emphasis 
 is different. The sea itself, on which they 
 relied, disclaims, as beyond its power, the 
 task of supplying them with children, to 
 repair the loss of men, and the desolation 
 they had suffered. It could enrich and 
 beautify Tyre in her prosperity, but could 
 not breed or rear up children, young 
 men, or virgins, for her desolated homes. 
 The sea, her fortress and strength, and 
 her refuge in danger, mourns over a cala- 
 mity quite beyond its power to repair. 
 
 V. 5. Of this verse there are three 
 expositions : that the Sidonians v/ould 
 grieve no less than if they had heard of 
 the fall of Egypt ; that the Egyptians, on 
 hearing, would mourn themselves; or 
 that the pain and grief would be like 
 that once caused by the plagues on Egj'pt. 
 This last view (Chaldee, Jarchi, Luther, 
 Hendn., A.V. ) is much the most empha- 
 tic. There is nothing farfetched (Rosenm.) 
 in such an allusion, by the Hebrew pro- 
 phet, to the most striking event in the 
 history of his own people. The same com- 
 parison has been already once made in 
 predicting the Assyrian overthrow, x. 27. 
 It is no less suitable to express the general 
 dismay which the fall of Tyre would cause 
 through the Gentile world. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The Tyrians, in this hour of 
 trouble, would flee to their distant colo- 
 nies for refuge. A parallel has been found 
 (Michael.) in the resolution of the Dutch 
 merchants, in 167 J, to remove to Batavia, 
 
 if their country were subdued by the 
 French armies. The actual flight of the 
 Portuguese Court and Regent to Brazil in 
 1806, to escape from Napoleon, is a still 
 more complete parallel. 
 
 The people of Tyre boasted of their 
 high antiquity. Their priests told Hero- 
 dotus that their temple of Hercules had 
 lasted 2300 years. These proud boastings 
 would give double force to the prophet's 
 warning. Where all had been pride and 
 vain security, there would soon be trem- 
 bling flight, silence, and desolation. The 
 Tyrians would escape to remote settle- 
 ments. "Her own feet" is an expressive 
 figure for the Tyrian navy, by which this 
 merchant city was accustomed to travel 
 swiftly to distant lands. 
 
 vv. 8, 9. Tyre might well be called 
 "the crowning city," or giver of crowns, 
 because of the many kings she set up 
 in the various Phoenician colonies. And 
 there may be a further reason for the 
 epithet. By her commerce and wealth 
 she might be said to supply garlands of 
 grace and beauty to all the other nations. 
 The fall of a city so ancient and noble 
 must have some very weighty cause. 
 " The Lord of hosts purposed it," in 
 order to accomplish a great end in His 
 moral government of the world. That 
 purpose, here announced, is an echo of 
 the opening message — "The loftiness of 
 men shall be humbled, and the haughti- 
 ness of men be bowed down, and the 
 Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." 
 ii. 11,17. That day was to light in judg- 
 ment on all the ships of Tarshish, and 
 
1 "^2 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIII. 10-14. 
 
 10 Pass through thy land Hke the river, O daughter of Tar- 
 shish ! tJicrc is no defence any more. 1 1 He hath stretched out 
 his hand over the sea ; he hath shaken the kingdoms : the LORD 
 hath given commandment against the merchant city, to destroy 
 the strong holds thereof. 12 And he said, Thou shalt no more 
 rejoice, O oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon : arise, pass over 
 to Chittim ; there also shalt thou have no rest. 13 Behold the 
 land of the Chaldeans ; a people that were no people, luhich the 
 Assyrian founded for dwellers in the wilderness : they have 
 reared their war-towers, they have wasted her palaces, they 
 have made her a ruin ! 14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for your 
 strong hold is laid waste. 
 
 on all merchandize of beauty. In this 
 Burden on Tyre and the ships of Tarshish 
 we see the last sentence of the prophet's 
 earliest warning fulfilled. 
 
 vv. 10 — 11. These verses have been 
 explained by many as announcing the 
 release of Tarshish and other colonies 
 from the irksome control of the mother 
 city. But this view, that "the daughter of 
 Tarshish" means natives of .Spain, in con- 
 trast to the Tyrians, has no solid ground. 
 The ships of Tarshish, vv. i, 14, are 
 plainly those of Tyre and Zidon, trading 
 with that colony. The same people, 
 called the daughter of Tyre from their 
 capital, and daughter of Zidon from their 
 chief early site, may also be called the 
 daughter of Tarshish, because they were 
 dependent on these long sea-voyages for 
 their greatness and renown. The ships 
 of Tarshish, the isle, the merchants of 
 Zidon, the daughter of Tarshish, the 
 daughter of Zidon, are names of the same 
 Tyrian or Phoenician power, though each 
 presents it in a different aspect. This 
 name pictures them as driven out from 
 their home, and forced to seek for shelter 
 in their distant colonies. 
 
 "Like the river," that is, the Nile, in 
 its steady onward progress. The figure is 
 taken from the river Nile, not in its annual 
 overflow, but in its steady onward course, 
 without winding, from Ethiopia to the 
 sea. HhewonX tnczach, "defence," else- 
 where a girdle, seems here to mean "re- 
 straint," or barrier to this current of the 
 figurative river. There would be no bul- 
 wark to stay the flight of the Tyrians and 
 arrest the enemy. All the strongliolds of 
 
 the merchant-country would be destroyed. 
 One steady current of forced migration, 
 like the flow of the Nile, would carry 
 them away to distant shores. Yet even 
 there, in those remote colonies, they would 
 be followed by new troubles. 
 
 vv. 13, 14. The instrument of this 
 judgment is next foretold. The received 
 version is rather ambiguous and obscure. 
 The rendering above seems to give the 
 true sense, and may be thus paraphrased : 
 
 "Fix your eyes on lower Mesopotamia, 
 the land of the Chaldeans. This people 
 had no place among the powers of the 
 earth, till the Assyrian transplanted thither 
 some of the dwellers in the wilderness, 
 who had before led a wandering life in 
 the mountains or deserts. This people, 
 once not a people, and still obscure, are 
 the destined leaders in this work of judg- 
 ment, and by them luxurious, haughty 
 Tyre will be overthrown. They will set 
 up their war-towers against her, demolish 
 her stately palaces, and make her a ruin." 
 The successful siege of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 and not the fruitless attempt of Shalma- 
 neser or of Sargon, is thus the main object 
 of the prophecy. The emphasis lies in 
 the contrast between the past and present 
 obscurity of the Chaldeans, when the 
 message was given, and their destined 
 power and greatness when the vision 
 should be fulfilled. 
 
 v. 14. Stronghold, not strength in tlie 
 abstract. 
 
 v. 15. "One king." The explana- 
 tions here are various. Vitringa takes tlic 
 seventy years strictly ; Gesenius and the 
 later Germans make it a round number ; 
 
ISAIAH, XXIII. 15—18. 
 
 12^ 
 
 1 5 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 shall Tyre sing as a harlot. 16 Take 
 a harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten : 
 make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be 
 remembered. 17 And it shall come to pass, after the end of 
 seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will turn 
 to her hire, and commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the 
 world upon the face of the earth. 18 And her merchandize and 
 her hire shall be holiness to the LORD : it shall not be treasured 
 nor laid up ; for her merchandize shall be for them that dwell 
 before the Lord, to eat abundantly, and for durable clothing. 
 
 Michaelis and Paulus read "IPIX^ another, 
 
 for "inijt one; Grotius reads seven for 
 
 seventy, and assumes that Shalmaneser 
 reigned seven years; Jarchi understands 
 David by the "one king," who died at 
 that age; Kimchi suggests an allusion to 
 the treaty between David and Hiram; 
 Hitzig thinks the phrase borrowed from 
 Jei-emiah's expectation, that Zedekiah 
 would be restored at the end of seventy 
 years; Movers supposes the comparison 
 to be of two cases of oblivion, and the 
 king to be Jehoahaz, with his three months' 
 reign ; Henderson explains that Tyre 
 would be forgotten as completely as a 
 king when he is dead; Knobel, that the 
 oblivion would be as fixed as the decrees 
 of an oriental monarch during his own 
 reign ; Eichhorn and Ewald suppose the 
 phrase to mean, in contrast with the days 
 of a hireling, days computed freely. The 
 true sense of this debated passage seems 
 clear on a comparison with later prophe- 
 
 cies. The "one king" is the first of the 
 four kings of Dan. vii. 17, or the Chaldean 
 sovereignty. Comp. Dan. ii. 38, 39, 44; 
 vii. 23, 24; viii. 20, 21; Is. xiv. 4; Jer. 
 XXV. II, 12. The seventy years of this 
 "king" reach from the first of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar to the first of Cyms. The 
 political oblivion of Tyre was to be of 
 the same length. The time of Chaldean 
 power was to be that also of Tyre's 
 political oblivion. Its land was first con- 
 quered, and later the old city was over- 
 thrown, after a long siege, Ezek. xxix. 17 — 
 20 ; but in the first of Cyrus it reappears 
 as ministering help once more to Israel. 
 
 Y. 16. These words are not the quota- 
 tion of a popular song, but the prophet's 
 own address to Tyre, using his own 
 figure, to predict the restoration of her 
 commerce after a season of judgment, 
 but with no return of her former great- 
 ness. The last verses point forward to a 
 time when heathen rites would be replaced 
 by a purer and holier faith. 
 
124 ISAIAH, XXIV.— XXVII. 
 
 § 7. Sequel of the Burdens. 
 Chap. XXIV.— XXVII. 
 
 These four chapters combine the previous Burdens in a general picture 
 of coming judgment. But they also point forward to the days of Messiah, 
 including the final deliverance of Israel, and the resurrection of the just. 
 
 The proposed applications are most various. The older Jews refer the 
 first part of ch. xxiv. to the Assyrian invasions, the last to the wars of Gog 
 and Magog in the days of Messiah ; while Moses Haccohen applies the whole 
 to the first subject, Kimchi and Abarbanel to the second. Cyril makes it, 
 in the primary sense, a summary of the foregoing messages ; in a secondary 
 sense he applies it to the end of the world. Eusebius, Jerome, CEcolam- 
 padius, take this latter view only. Luther applies it to the Roman desola- 
 tion of Judea; Calvin to the Assyrian, and denies any reference to the final 
 judgment. Grotius refers it to Assyrian troubles, Clericus to the Babylonian, 
 Vitringa to Antiochus and the times of the Maccabees. Eichhorn and 
 Umbreit think it written after the fall of Babylon, Bertholdt and Knobel 
 after that of Jerusalem. Gesenius refers it to a Jewish exile before the fall 
 of Babylon, Hitzig to an Ephraimite before that of Nineveh, Ewald to a Jew 
 of the restoration, in Palestine, during the campaign of Cambyses in Egypt. 
 Henderson apphes it mainly to the Chaldean troubles, and denies any 
 reference to times yet future. On the other hand, Alexander, as usual, 
 makes it generic and quite indefinite. 
 
 The true construction seems to be that three crises, or special seasons of 
 trial and deliverance, are here grouped in perspective, like hill-tops in a 
 landscape, so that the eye passes rapidly from the nearer to the more 
 remote. These are the Assyrian troubles to the overthrow of Sennacherib ; 
 the Chaldean desolation, followed by the Return, and by the times of the 
 Gospel in the further distance ; and the Roman desolation, to be renewed 
 in the last days, and then to issue in the final redemption of Israel. 
 
 These chapters hold thus a middle place between the previous Burdens 
 and those later visions, ch. xl. — Ixvi., where the prophet seems almost wholly 
 transported into the distant future. Though they are connected v^cry closely 
 with the Burdens and their local prophecies, the point of sight moves swiftly 
 forward, and in three of them is just the same as in the later visions. 
 Hence the critics who hold these last to be spurious, and the work of an 
 unknown writer in the days of Cyrus, find here an enigma they cannot solve, 
 and offer most discordant explanations. The stream of prophecy, emerging 
 here from the narrow channel of the local messages, unfolds the widest aspects 
 of judgment and of mercy, to Israel and to the world, reaching from the times 
 of the prophet through long ages then to come. 
 
ISAIAH, XXIV. 1—5. 
 
 125 
 
 Chap. XXIV. The Desolations of the Land. 
 
 Behold ! the Lord maketh the land empty, and maketh 
 it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the 
 inhabitants thereof. 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 
 land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled, for the LoRD 
 hath spoken this word. 
 
 4 The earth mourneth, and fadeth away ; the world languish- 
 cth, and fadeth away ; the lofty people of the earth do languish. 
 5 The land also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; be- 
 cause they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance. 
 
 V. 1. The previous Burdens are here 
 condensed into one message of coming 
 judgment, especially in its bearing on the 
 land and people of Israel. The Lord, the 
 Unchangeable and Almighty, "maketh 
 the land empty, and maketh it waste." 
 The first reference is to the Assyrian 
 woe, when Palestine and the border 
 lands were wasted and made captive, and 
 the flood reached to the neck even in 
 Judah, and covered the whole breadth of 
 the land of Immanuel, viii. 7. There is 
 a further reference to the Chaldean cap- 
 tivity, when the warning, iii. 25, 26, would 
 be fulfilled — "Thy men shall fall by the 
 sword, and thy mighty in war. And her 
 gates shall lament and mourn, and she 
 will sit desolate on the ground." The 
 judgment will include high and low, rich 
 and poor together. The Lord had 
 "spoken this word" even in Isaiah's first 
 commission (vi. 11), thirty-two years ear- 
 lier; but now the first stage of its fulfil- 
 ment upon Ephraim, and in part on Judah 
 also, was drawing very near. 
 
 "The land," that is, of Israel. So too 
 vv. 5, 6, 17. 
 
 vv. 4 — 6. The sentence of doom is 
 seen taking effect, like the curse on the 
 barren fig-tree. The vision is inexpres- 
 sibly grand, solemn, and mournful. Sin 
 against God's everlasting laws is bearing 
 its natural and certain fruits of sorrow 
 and death. The whole frame of nature 
 is polluted by the transgression of men. 
 The rainbow had been given as the sign 
 
 of a covenant for ever between God and 
 "every living creature of all flesh upon 
 the earth." This covenant was now 
 broken by the gross idolatiy of the Gen- 
 tiles, and even of Israel, the chosen people. 
 Instead of seed-time and harvest, and joy- 
 ful increase, there would thus be a curse 
 of barrenness, M'asting, and desolation. 
 
 vv. 7 — 9. All festive mirth is changed 
 into silence and sorrow. Men have been 
 lovers of pleasure more than lovers of 
 God. And now pleasure, their idol, will 
 be abolished. Wine and song will cease 
 together, and those who still cling to 
 their worldly delights will find them turn 
 to bitterness and sorrow. Past and future 
 tenses are intermingled, to denote the 
 inevitableness of the coming judgment. 
 
 vv. 10 — \i. The cities, the natural 
 centres of wealth and pleasure, would be 
 specially visited by the judgment of God. 
 [The viewofthe LXX., Rosenm., Drechs- 
 ler, who make the word city distributive, 
 seems more correct than that of Knobel, 
 Alexander, Stier, and many others, who 
 confine it to Jerusalem, or of Delitzsch, 
 who makes it the "city of the world".] 
 Each city of the land, being a scene of 
 moral confusion, will be emptied, and then 
 demolished, and its houses left without 
 inhabitant. The description is the same 
 as vi. II. A shadow broods over worldly 
 hearts, like the shadow of the grave. 
 In V. II the earlier warning of ch. v. 29 is 
 fulfilled — "And if one look unto the land, 
 behold! darkness, even the light is sor- 
 
126 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIV. 6—1 
 
 brokch the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore hath the curse 
 devoured the land, and they that dwell therein are desolate ; 
 therefore the inhabitants of the land are burned, and few men 
 are left. 7 The new wine mourncth, the vine languisheth, all 
 the merryhearted do sigh, 8 The mirth of tabrets ceascth, 
 the noise of the revellers endeth, the mirth of the harp ceaseth. 
 9 They shall not drink wine with song ; strong drink is become 
 bitter to them that drink it. 10 The city of confusion is broken 
 down : every house is shut up, that no man may come in. 
 1 1 TJiere is a crying for wine in the streets : all joy is darkened, 
 the mirth of the land is gone. 12 In the city is left desolation, 
 and the gate is battered down into ruin. 
 
 13 For thus shall it be in the midst of the land, and among 
 the nations, even as the shaking of an olive-tree, as gleaning 
 
 row, it is darkened in the heavens there- 
 of." The like sentence is pronaiinced 
 afterwards on the great "city of con- 
 fusion," the Babel of the New Testament 
 — "And the fruits thy soul lusteth after are 
 departed from thee, and all things dainty 
 and goodly are departed from thee, and 
 thou shalt find them no more at all." Rev. 
 xviii. 14. Joy and mirth from tabret and 
 harp have vanished, and what remains? 
 "In the city is left desolation, and the 
 gate is battered down into ruin." But 
 this disappointment of vain desires, this 
 darkening of all worldly joy, prepares the 
 way, by contrast, for the heavenly ban- 
 quet, XXV. 6, and the unfading joy of the 
 people of God, xxv. 8, 9. 
 
 vv. 13 — 15. To portray this calamity, 
 the imagery of the former Burdens is com- 
 l)ined with singular force and beaut)'. 
 The worldlings of Judah have been de- 
 nounced — "And the harp, and the viol, 
 and the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in 
 their feasts, but they regard not the work 
 of the Lord, nor consider the operation of 
 his hands," v. 12. But now "they shall 
 not drink wine with song, the mirth of 
 tabrets ceaseth, the noise of the revellers 
 (v. 1 4) endeth, the joy of the harp ceas- 
 eth." It was said of Tyre, "It is laid 
 waste, that there is no house, no entering 
 in ; " and here the picture is the same, 
 "every house is shut up, that no man 
 may enter in." Of Moab it was said that 
 "joy is taken away, and gladness, from 
 the fruitful field." Here the picture is 
 
 enriched and varied. "There is a crying 
 for wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, 
 the mirth of the land is gone." It was 
 threatened long before that "the cities 
 would be wasted without inhabitant, and 
 the land with desolation." The fulfil- 
 ment is now shewn. Desolation abides 
 in the city, and the gate is battered down 
 with wasting ruin. Thus the threads of 
 four previous warnings are entwined to- 
 gether. And now a figure is resumed 
 from the Burden of Damascus to express 
 the care of God for a faithful remnant in 
 the time of calamity. The description 
 already given, xvii. 6, is to be verified by 
 a desolation almost, but not wholly com- 
 plete. The name of Shearjashub will 
 be realized, and a remnant will return, 
 through affliction, to the God of Israel. 
 
 v. 13. The connexion is not one of 
 time, as in the received version, but of 
 direct consequence. The certainty of the 
 judgment is again affirmed, but a limita- 
 tion is assigned. Thus it shall come to 
 pass that only a small remnant will be 
 left, but still that remnant shall be pre- 
 served in the hour of trial. These, in 
 the midst of the desolation of the land 
 and of the surrounding heathen, stand out 
 now in full relief, and are seen triumj)hing 
 in God in the midst of all the sc^rrow. 
 The figure, xvii. 6, is enriched with new 
 features of hope and joy. 
 
 V. 15. The word urim has lieen vari- 
 ously explained ; as valleys (Vitringa), 
 the regions of fire, Etna and Vesuvius 
 
ISAIAH, XXIV. 14—18. 
 
 127 
 
 grapes, when the vintage is done. 14 They shall lift up their 
 voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall 
 cry aloud from the sea. 15 Therefore glorify ye the Lord 
 in the fires, and in the isles of the sea the name of JEHOVAH, 
 the God of Israel. 
 
 16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard 
 songs, a glory to the righteous. But I said, Misery ! misery ! 
 woe is me ! the treacherous ones have dealt treacherously, yea, 
 the treacherous ones have dealt very treacherously. 17 Fear, and 
 the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the land. 
 iS And it shall be, tJiat whoso 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 
 from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do 
 
 (Hendn.), the east or region of sunrise 
 (SchelIing,Rosenm.,Drechsler, Delitzsch), 
 the nortla (Doderlein), and even Ur of the 
 Chaldees, the northern lights (Barnes), 
 or the rivers of Eg)'pt (Hensler). But 
 Isaiah's own use of tlie word seems the 
 safest guide, xxxi. 9, xliv. 16, xlvii. 14, 
 1. II. It means, in these i^laces, neither 
 the east, nor the north, tlie region of 
 volcanos, nor the lights of heaven, but 
 fire, ox fire-light alone. The two phrases 
 will thus answer to the two-fold descrip- 
 tion, "in the midst of the land, among 
 the nations." The faithful remnant, both 
 in the land itself, in the fires of affliction, 
 and as exiles, even in the farthest isles 
 of the sea, Avill glorify Jehovah, the God 
 of Israel. The bush may burn with fire, 
 but it shall not be consumed. The order 
 of the original shews the true emphasis. 
 In deepest trial the sure ground of hope 
 to the faithful is the name of the Lord 
 their God. 
 
 V. 16. The wing, or uttermost part of 
 the earth, seems to refer, not to the 
 bounds of Judea, but to the furthest limit 
 of Jewish dispersion among the heathen. 
 Faith and hope shall triumph over the 
 sorrows of their distant exile, when driven 
 out from the home of their fathers. ' ' The 
 righteous" some suppose here to be a 
 Divine title, others apply it to Cyrus, and 
 take the words to denote the substance of 
 the songs of praise. But the word tsebi 
 denotes ornament or beauty. The other 
 term, then, should be taken in its general 
 
 and wider sense, for the upright or faith- 
 ful man. The songs of praise uttered by 
 these in the fires of trial, or in their farthest 
 exile, will be their beautiful ornament, 
 the signs of a faith which glories in tribu- 
 lation, pierces through clouds, and tri- 
 umphs over sorrow. 
 
 The prophet returns from this bright 
 vision, as of a few stirs in, a stormy sk}', 
 to lament once more the calamities near 
 at hand. Heathen spoilers, treacherous 
 and false, are bringing ruin and desolation 
 on Israel and Judah. The words may 
 apply equally to the apostasies and re- 
 bellions of Israel, the true cause of the 
 coming judgments. 
 
 vv. 17 — 20. The figure is borrowed 
 from the chase, when deer or antelopes 
 are terrified, till in their flight they nm 
 into pitfalls ; or, .escaping these, are caught 
 in nets or snares. The next figure is that 
 of an earthquake, and of the motion of a 
 couch or hammock, slung between trees, 
 to secure the sleeper from beasts of prey. 
 But the chief allusion is to the flood of 
 Noah, when "the windows of heaven 
 were opened, and the fountains of the 
 great deep broken up." Gen. vii, ir. 
 Because God's everlasting covenant had 
 been profaned and broken, judgments, 
 like that of the flood, were coming upon 
 the earth. We seem here to be carried 
 beyond the Assyrian, and even the Baby- 
 lonian troubles, onward to the times of 
 great tribulation, which herald the last 
 triumphs of the kingdom of God. 
 
128 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIV. 19—23. 
 
 shake. 19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is 
 utterly dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. 20 The 
 earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed 
 like a hammock ; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy 
 upon it, and it shall fall, and shall rise no more. 
 
 21 And it shall come to pass in that day, tJiat the LORD will 
 punish the host of the high ones tJiat are 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 ; and after many days shall they be visited. 
 23 And the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed : 
 for the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jeru- 
 salem, and before his ancient ones, gloriously. 
 
 w. 21, 22. Here the transition to the 
 last times seems complete. The host of 
 the high ones that are on high, in con- 
 trast to "the kings of the earth upon the 
 earth," naturally denotes those powers of 
 darkness, or spiritual wickednesses, more 
 plainly revealed in the New Testament 
 as the constant adversaries of the king- 
 dom of Christ. The leaders of rebellion, 
 both the visible and the invisible, are to 
 be gathered in the pit, shut up in prison, 
 and visited after many days, or brought 
 forth, after a time of reprieve, for their 
 final sentence. The prophecy, obscure in 
 itself, seems to find its clear key in the 
 latest prophecies of the New Testament. 
 We see there a twofold time of judgment, 
 separated by a long season of delay. 
 
 V. 23. "Before his ancient ones, glori- 
 ously." There were some earnests of this 
 promise in the days of Hezekiah, and 
 again in the return from Babylon. But 
 its proper fulfilment, as of the opening 
 vision, ii. i — 4, must be sought in days 
 to come, when nations shall cease to learn 
 war any more; in the times of restitution, 
 spoken of by all the i^ophets since the 
 world began. The "ancient ones" are 
 probably the same with the ancients or 
 elders of St John ; whether these are 
 redeemed saints, as many believe, or 
 "thrones and dominions," the leaders 
 among those morning stars, older than 
 mankind, who celebrated man's first birtli- 
 day witli high songs of praise. 
 
 In the anthem that follows Isaiah takes 
 his stand in that future, bright with hope, 
 which has been announced in his earlier 
 
 messages. Nineveh has fallen ; Babylon, 
 its heir in the work of oppression, has been 
 sacked and ravaged by its destined aven- 
 gers, fulfilling the sentence of God. He 
 gazes in spirit on the work of retribution, 
 and celebrates the greatness of the deliver- 
 ance. The strain of praise and hope is con- 
 tinued in the two chapters that follow. 
 Ch. XXV. The Song of Praise. 
 vv. I, 2. The counsels of God for 
 the fall of Nineveh and Babylon had 
 been announced in the early visions, ch. 
 xiii. xiv. The prophet, in spirit, sees 
 them now fulfilled. There is a double 
 climax, a city, a fenced city, a stately 
 palace ; a heap, a ruin, a ruin never to be 
 repaired. The word strangers constantly 
 denotes aliens from God's covenant, and 
 adversaries of His people. The word in 
 Ex. xxii. 21; Deut. x. 18, &c., is quite 
 distinct. The ruins of Koyunjik, Nim- 
 roud, Ilillah, in our own days, have fur- 
 nislied a practical commentary on these 
 words of the song. "Were the traveller 
 to cross the Euphrates, to seek for such 
 niins as he left behind him in Asia Minor, 
 his search would be vain. The stem, 
 shapeless mound rises like a hill from 
 the scorched plain, fragments of potteiy 
 and a stupendous mass of brick-work are 
 occasionally laid bare by the winter rains. 
 He is at a loss to give any form to the 
 rude heap on which he is gazing. Tliose 
 of whom they are the remains have left 
 no visible traces of their civilization or 
 their arts. The more he conjectures, the 
 more vague the results appear. The 
 scene around is worthy of the niin. Deso- 
 
ISAIAH, XXV. 1—5. 
 
 129 
 
 Chap. XXV. The Prophet's Song of Praise. 
 
 O Lord, thou art my God ; I will exalt thee, I will praise 
 thy name : for thou hast done wonderful tilings, tJiy counsels of 
 old are faithfulness and truth. 2 For thou hast made of a city 
 a heap, of a dcfenced 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 strength to the poor, a strength to the 
 needy in his distress ; a refuge from the storm, a shadow from 
 the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones zvas as a storm 
 against a wall, 5 Thou wilt bring down the noise of the strangers 
 as heat in a dry place, even as the heat by the shadow of a cloud : 
 
 lation meets desolation, a feeling of awe 
 succeeds to wonder, for there is nothing 
 to relieve the mound, or tell of what has 
 gone by. These huge mounds of Assyria 
 make a deeper impression than the tem- 
 ples of Balbec or theatres of Ionia." 
 "The lofty cone and broad mountain of 
 Nimroud broke like a distant mountain 
 on the morning sky. No signs of habita- 
 tion were seen on the plain. The eye 
 wandered over a parched and barren 
 waste, over which swept the whirlwind, 
 dragging with it a cloud of sand. About 
 a mile from us was the small village of 
 Nimroud, a heap of ruins." "The great 
 mound (Kalah Sherghet) could be distin- 
 guished through the gloom, rising like a 
 distant mountain against the dark sky. 
 From all sides arose the melancholy wail 
 of the jackals, who had issued from their 
 dwellings in the ruins, as soon as the last 
 gleam of twilight faded in the western 
 horizon. The owl sent forth its mournful 
 note. It was desolation such as those 
 alone who have witnessed such scenes can 
 know; greater than the desolation of the 
 sandy waste of Africa, for it was the 
 wreck of man, as well as nature." (Layard, 
 Kin. pp. 5, 16, 274.) 
 
 V. 3. These judgments will make a 
 deep impression on the conquerors them- 
 selves, and on the whole heathen world. 
 A strong people, the Persian destroyers of 
 Babylon, will glorify the God of Israel. 
 The decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Ar- 
 taxerxes bear witness to the fulfilment. 
 The city of the terrible nations, Susa, 
 Ecbalana, Persepolis, or else the whole 
 (ientile commonwealth unrlcr Persian 
 
 15. I. 
 
 rule, shall fear Him because of the gi-eat 
 deliverance wrought for His people. 
 
 V. 4. "The storm of a wall" is neither 
 "so powerful as to beat down a wall," 
 nor "weak as a storm against a wall," 
 but a storm which seems more violent be- 
 cause it beats against a wall, and then 
 rages the more. By such a storm weak re- 
 sistance would be overthrown, but not the 
 stronghold of the people of God. The 
 description will apply to the days of 
 Hezekiah, to the Return from Babylon, 
 and again to the time of the Maccabees, 
 when signal help was given in a time of 
 severe persecution. 
 
 V. s. A fierce tempest fitly denotes a 
 season of sudden calamity. Scorching, 
 sultry heat is an equally appropriate em- 
 blem of enduring oppression. Such burn- 
 ing heat is often assuaged by what seems 
 the feeblest thing, the shadow of a cloud. 
 By means no less gentle and silent will 
 the Lord save His people from the fierce 
 ojipression of their heathen conquerors. 
 The words denote that secret and power- 
 ful work of the Holy .Spirit, by which 
 Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, Alexander, 
 Ptolemy, were successively led to show 
 especial favour to the people of God. 
 
 "The song of the terrible shall be 
 brought low." Those who had once re- 
 quired songs from the captives of Zion in 
 their heaviness, shall now have the noise 
 of their revelling silenced, and their own 
 songs turned into heaviness and mourn- 
 ing. One signal fulfilment was in the 
 night of Belshazzar's feast, when riotous 
 mirth was turned into terror and dis- 
 may. 
 
130 
 
 ISAIAH, XXV. 6— II, 
 
 tlic sonj^ of the terrible shall be brought low. 6 And the Lord of 
 hosts will make for all nations, in this mountain, a feast of fat 
 things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, 
 of wines on the lees well rehned. 7 And he will destroy in this 
 mountain the face of the covering that covereth all the people, 
 and the veil that is spread over all the nations. 8 He will 
 swallow up death in victory, and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away 
 tears from off all faces : and the reproach of his people will he 
 take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 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. lo For in this mountain will the hand of 
 the Lord rest ; and Moab shall be trodden down under him, 
 as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. 1 1 And he will 
 
 V. 6. The song of praise now passes 
 on to the days of Messiah. I'he blessings 
 of the Gospel are described under the 
 figure of an ample feast, as Is. Iv. i — 6 ; 
 Matt. xxii. i — 4; Lu. xiv. 15 — 20. The Au- 
 thor of this feast is first named, the Lord 
 of hosts. Next, its subjects, or the invited 
 guests, \vho are "all nations." Thirdly, 
 the place of the entertainment, "in this 
 mountain ;" or Jerusalem, where the Son 
 of God began and closed His public 
 ministry, and suffered without the gate. 
 Lastly, the nature of the banquet, the 
 meat of fallings, and choicest wine, free 
 from dregs, but with the strength and 
 richness of long fermentation. Ihis feast 
 is expounded in the CJospel, and is the 
 full provision of mercy in the atoning 
 sacrifice and resurrection of the Son of 
 God. 
 
 V. 7. The Gospel is divine food for 
 the hunger of the soul. l!ut it also re- 
 moves guilt and condemnation. \V'hen 
 ] laman was sentenced, "as the word went 
 out of the king's mouth, tiiey covered 
 Haman's face," Est. vii. 8. But in tliis 
 (lay of mercy, the covering vail of death 
 will be destroyed. So St I'aul, 2 Cor. v. 
 19, without a figure. 
 
 V. 8. The Spirit, having borne witness 
 of the sufferings of Christ, iiow sjieaks of 
 tiie glory that shall follow. The word 
 iiiuich may be rendered "in victory" or 
 "forever," and may include boih ideas. 
 'I'he Apostle (piolc^ the words as a pro- 
 
 mise of the resurrection, i Cor. xv. 54, 
 Death, the great devourer, will be swal- 
 lowed up. Death, the mighty conqueror, 
 will be swallowed up in victory. The 
 next words are twice quoted in the Apo- 
 calypse, and applied to the gathering of 
 the Church, after great tribulation, in the 
 everlasting kingdom of God. The shame 
 of the Jew, the reproach of the faithful 
 Christian, will then have ceased for ever. 
 
 V. 9. Here we pass from the song of 
 the projihet to a briefer utterance of the 
 people of God. The words may refer to 
 the joy of the wise men and the shep- 
 herds, and of the aged Simeon and Anna, 
 at the first Advent. But they answer 
 more fully to the glad welcome of the 
 faithful, when their Lord "shall appear the 
 second time, without sin, unto salvation." 
 
 vv. 10 — 12. Most modern critics ap- 
 ply v. 1 1 to Moab himself, as a swimmer 
 striving vainly to support himself by the 
 use of his hands. But since the Lord 
 himself is jilainly the subject of the next 
 clause, the transition would be abrupt and 
 strange. The difficulty felt in the earlier 
 \iew, that of the received version and 
 older writers, arises only from not seizing 
 the exact force of the comparison. Agiin, 
 tlie city has been referred to Heshbon, 
 Ar-Moab, Kir-Moab, Nineveh or Baby- 
 lon. But since the words are a sequel to 
 vv. 6 — 9, and a contrast to the stiong 
 city of God, xxvi. i, whose walls are 
 salvation, this city of Moab, the children 
 
ISAIAH, XXV. 12— XXVI. 5. 
 
 ^31 
 
 spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as the swimmer 
 spreadeth forth Jiis hands to swim : and he will bring down 
 their pride, together with the plots of their hands. 12 And the 
 fortress of the high fort of thy walls will he bring down, lay low, 
 and bring to the ground, even to the dust. 
 
 Chap. XXVI. The Song in Judah. 
 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah ; 
 We have a strong city; salvation he will appoint for walls 
 and bulwarks. 2 Open ye the gates, and a righteous nation, 
 that keepeth the truth, shall enter in. 3 Thou wilt keep Imn 
 in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he 
 trusteth in thee. 4 Trust ye in the LORD for ever and ever ; 
 for in the LoRD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength. 5 For he 
 bringeth down them that dwell on high : the lofty city, he 
 
 of pride, Is. xvi. 6, seems to be moral, not 
 geographical, in its true meaning. We 
 may tiierefore paraphase as follows. 
 
 " For in this mountain, Jerusalem, the 
 hand of the Lord will rest, like a father's 
 on the head of his child, with protection 
 and love. But the sons of riot and pride 
 shall be trampled under His feet, as straw 
 is trodden down for the dunghill. They 
 will not only be subdued, but condemned 
 to lasting shame, Ixiii. 6. He will spread 
 forth his hands amidst them, and over- 
 come their resistance, as easily as the 
 swimmer parts the yielding waves with 
 his hands. All the plots they have la- 
 boriously framed against the people of 
 God shall be swept away, and brought to 
 nothing. The city of pride, the mystic 
 Moab and Babylon in one, shall be 
 brought low, and its walls overthrown, 
 to usher in the triumph of that better city 
 of peace and righteousness, whose walls 
 are salvation, and her gates praise, xxvi. 
 i; Ix. i8." 
 
 Ch. XXVI. The Song in Judah. 
 
 This chapter is devotional meditation 
 rather than prophecy, a review of the 
 works and ways of God. Some verses 
 will apply to the Return from Babylon. 
 But the whole receives its full emphasis, 
 vhen viewed as a sequel of xxv. 6 — 12, 
 or as the prayers and praises of Israel on 
 their final restoration. 
 
 vv. I — 4. When the reproach of Israel 
 shall cease, and the City of Pride l)e over- 
 
 thrown, a song will be sung in the land 
 of Judah by repentant Israel, the olive- 
 branches grafted once more into their 
 own olive-tre . The name of God is with- 
 held, as in Ps. cxiv., and this adds to the 
 emphasis. Jerusalem will need no out- 
 ward defence. The Lord himself will be 
 "a wail of fire round about her, and the 
 glory in the midst of her," Zech. ii. 5. 
 When Babylon, the City of Pride, is a 
 heap and a ruin, the strength of the City 
 of Righteousness, i. 26, will be gloriously 
 revealed. 
 
 '•And a righteous nation... shall enter 
 in." The words are less a command 
 than a promise. The gates are to be set 
 open, because a righteous and holy people 
 are waiting for admission. No fear of 
 violence can assail those who dwell with- 
 in its walls : they are safe mider the 
 shadow of the Almighty. 
 
 V. 4. The double name Jah Jehovah 
 is most emphatic, to denote God's un- 
 changeableness in His love to His people. 
 ''Everlasting Strength" is literally "a 
 rock of ages." But the preposition, and the 
 absence of the article, show that it is here 
 an attribute, not a name of God. In Him 
 a sure and eternal support, firm as a rock, 
 lasting as eternit}', will be found by His 
 people. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. The description here will 
 apply to Nineveh, or to old Babylon ; but 
 still more fully to the mystic Babylon, the 
 seven-hilltd city of the New Testament. 
 
 Q— 2 
 
132 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVI. 6— II. 
 
 laycth it low ; he laj'-eth it low, even to the ground ; he bring- 
 eth it to the dust. 6 The foot shall tread it down, the feet of 
 the poor, aiui the steps of the needy. 
 
 7 The way of the just is a perfect ivay : thou wilt make 
 plain and straight the path of the just. 8 Yea, in the way of 
 thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee : the desire 
 of o//r souls is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. 
 9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night ; yea, with my 
 spirit within me will I seek thee in the morning : for when thy 
 judgments a7'e in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn 
 ricrhteousness. lo Let favour be shewed to the wicked, ir/ will 
 he not learn righteousness : in the land of uprightness will he 
 deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. 
 1 1 Lord, thy hand is lifted up, jv/ they do not see : d?^t they 
 
 A like promise closes the Old Testament, 
 Mai. iv. 2, 3, and meets us again at the 
 close of the New, Rev. xvii., xviii. 
 
 vv. 7 — 9. The Song now records the 
 experience of the faithful, their sense of 
 God's equity, even in their heaviest trials, 
 and the moral effects of His righteous 
 judgments. 
 
 In V. 7, the plural "straight things" is 
 put for the abstract, or the superlative. 
 The reference is not to the moral ex- 
 cellency of the just, but to the wisdom of 
 the path appointed for him by the Lord. 
 The pathway He assigns them is alto- 
 gether good and wise. The -wordj^'as/iar, 
 is not an address to God, or a Divine 
 title (A. v., Rosenm., Alex., Hend., &c.), 
 but an intensive addition to the verb 
 (Drechsler, Delitzsch). In the perplexities 
 of the just, God makes their pathway 
 thoroughly straight and plain for them. 
 Their hearts respond to the promise, and 
 look, in darkest hours, for His help and 
 guidance. "Vea, in the way of thy 
 judgments, O Lord, we have waited for 
 thee ! " They wait, with longing desire, 
 even for the display of His justice, be- 
 cause they know that blessed fruits of 
 righteousness must soon follow. 
 
 V. 9, Night and morning are named, 
 as day and night in Ps. i. ■2, to express 
 the constancy and earnestness of their 
 desire. The words "with my soul" and 
 "with my spirit within me" denote its 
 depth and reality. Experience teaches 
 the faithful how needful are God's most 
 solemn acts of judgment. 
 
 vv. 10, II. The course of the ungodly 
 is a total contrast. Too often they are 
 hardened, not melted, by God's forbear- 
 ance and His messages of grace. Like 
 tiie unbelievers of Israel in the land of 
 promise, though surrounded by tokens of 
 (iod's power and holiness, they continue 
 blind to the works and ways of the Most 
 High. The judgments of God are "far 
 above out of their sight." The faithful 
 repeat the truth, and join it with an act 
 of holy adoration. The moral blindness 
 of those who refuse to see the uplifted 
 hand of God shall be subdued by decisive 
 proofs of His power in the punishment of 
 their sin. The slight change in the first 
 clause of v. 1 1 is more literal, and also 
 more emphatic. The phrase CJ^"n^>^P 
 many refer to the jealousy of God on 
 behalf of His people. But the received 
 version is not less grammatical, and suits 
 tlie whole context better. Comp. xi. 13 ; 
 Ez. xxxv. II, and Eccles. iv. 4, "the envy 
 of a man from his neighbour." Tiie 
 jealousy of God for His people would 
 naturally require a personal suthx. The 
 "fire of thine enemies" is often taken for 
 tlie Divine anger of whicli they are the 
 objects. But the construction is easier, 
 and the sense more emphatic, that their 
 own guilty passions shall bring on their 
 destruction. 
 
 This law of God's moral government 
 applies equally to the Return from Baby- 
 lon, the times of the Maccabees, the 
 Jewish rejection of the Gospel, and all 
 later seasons of Divine judgment. 
 
ISAIAH, XXVI. 12—17. 
 
 133 
 
 shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at thy people : yea, 
 the fire of thine enemies shall devour them. 
 
 12 Jehovah ! thou wilt ordain peace for us, for even all our 
 works hast thou wrought for us. 13 O LORD our God ! otJier 
 lords beside thee have ruled over us, but by thee only will we 
 make mention of thy name. 14 TJicy are dead, they shall not 
 live ; shadows, they shall not rise : therefore hast thou visited 
 and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. 
 15 Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast increased 
 the nation, thou art glorified : thou hast removed it far away to 
 all the ends of the earth. 16 LORD, in trouble they have visited 
 thee ; they poured out a prayer, wJien 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 
 
 vv. 12 — 15. From the doom of adver- 
 saries the Song now returns to the people 
 of God. It speaks of their present hopes, 
 their former sins, their vows of future ser- 
 vice, and the blessings they have received. 
 ''Our works" mean here the works 
 needful for their deliverance. The sen- 
 tence refers, first, to the Return from 
 Babylon, and then to similar mercies to 
 the Church in later times. In their fullest 
 sense the words link themselves with the 
 (jospel promises just before. What sin- 
 ful man could not do has been wrought 
 on his behalf by the Son of God. 
 
 V. 13. The title Adonim, lords, had 
 been applied to their idols and false gods, 
 and they had sworn by Ashtaroth and 
 Baalim. But henceforth the name Adoiiai, 
 Lord, should be kept sacred and pure for 
 Jehovah, the true God alone. No other 
 should have the allegiance either of lip 
 or heart. 
 
 V. 14. The false gods of the heathen 
 and of the apostate Jews were chiefly dead 
 men, deified ancestors and kings. But 
 now their worship should die out and 
 expire, like the shadowy divinities them- 
 selves, and the memory of them pass away 
 from the earth. How true especially of 
 the gods of Nineveh, Babylon, and Egypt! 
 The word "therefore," wrongly rendered 
 by some "because," is most emphatic. 
 The God of truth will deal with these 
 idol gods after their true character. They 
 are dead men, ghosts, and shadows ; 
 and like shadows their worship shall flit 
 away and disappear. 
 
 V. 15. The last clause many moderns 
 render : ' ' thou hast enlarged all the 
 boundaries of the land." But the usual 
 phrase for removing a bound or landmark 
 is quite different, Deut. xix. 14, xxvii. 17 ; 
 Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10 ; Hos. v. 10, and 
 the "ends of the earth" has naturally a 
 wider sense than the limits of Palestine. 
 Nor is it true that the bounds of the land 
 of promise, fixed by God himself, would 
 be changed by an overflow of the people 
 into the border lands. The word occurs 
 twice beside, vi. 12, xxix. 13, and refers 
 to the exile of Israel, or their moral 
 estrangement from God. On the other 
 hand the pluperfect is used in the A.V. 
 without cause. Two great facts of Pro- 
 vidence, fulfilled through long ages on the 
 largest scale, are here combined together. 
 The numbers of the Jewish people have 
 been sustained amidst heaviest trials ; and 
 still they have been dispersed in exile to 
 the furthest regions of the earth. Comp. 
 Amos ix. 9. 
 
 vv. 16, 17. The Song passes now from 
 the past to the future. Israel's national re- 
 jection of idols, their increase in number, 
 and their wide dispersion, are followed by 
 sore troubles, that prepare the way, in 
 the last times, for their full and final re- 
 covery to the covenant and favour of God. 
 Their own efforts will wholly fail. God 
 himself will then mightily interfere ; and 
 Zion, according to the later promise, Ixvi. 
 y — g^ will travail not in vain, and will 
 iaring forth children. 
 
134 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVI. 1 8— 2 1. 
 
 have wc been in thy sight, O Lord. i8 Wc have been with 
 child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth 
 wind ; wc have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, 
 neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 
 
 19 Tnv dead shall live ; my corpses shall arise. Awake, and 
 sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is like a dew 
 upon herbs, and the earth shall let go Jier dead. 20 Come, 
 my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors 
 about thee : hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until 
 the indignation be overpast, 21 For behold, the Lord cometh 
 out of his place, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 
 
 V. iS. "Neither have the inhabitants which will summon the dead from their 
 of the world fallen." vSome render " are 
 not bom" or "were not brought forth." 
 But this use of the Helirew word has no 
 example, and the meaning that results is 
 unsuilcd to the context. The use of the 
 word is the same asliv. 15, only the event 
 here is opposite. Instead of signal victory, 
 their attempts to save themselves led only 
 to disappointment and shame. 
 
 v. 19. Most explain this verse as the 
 prophet's own address to God. But strong 
 reasons prove that it begins the answer 
 of God to the confession of His people. 
 The two next verses clearly have this 
 character. This, being included, will form 
 a seventh triplet, answering to six others, 
 of song, prayer, confession, and promise. 
 A promise of resurrection implies naturally 
 that the speaker is the Lord. The con- 
 trast with v. 14 is thus more striking. 
 Israel disown their idols with the words, 
 "They are dead, they shall not live; sha- 
 dows, they shall not rise." The Lord 
 answers by the promise, "Thy dead shall 
 live, my corpses shall arise." The transi- 
 tion in the rest of the verse is thus easier 
 and more natural. There is only a change 
 of number, not a voice to sleepers, sepa- 
 rating a double address to Ciod. 
 
 The prayer of penitent Israel is here 
 answered by a gracious promise from the 
 Lord himself, confirmed by His right of 
 ownership in the buried corpses of His 
 people. The word vebclah has no plural, 
 and is here a collective. The .Speaker 
 is the Word, the Son of God, whose 
 rising again assures the resurrection of 
 His people. This address to the sleep- 
 ers is an earnest, in prophecy, of that 
 voice of the Son of God (loh. v. j?) 
 
 graves. The gracious promises to Is- 
 rael shall have a quickening power, like 
 natural dew on parched fields, Hos. xiv, 
 5 ; Deut. xxxii. 2, The earth will let 
 go her dead, like a prey that can be 
 detained no longer, when they are re- 
 claimed by a mightier power. The words, 
 in themselves and their context, answer 
 very closely to Rev. xx. i — 6, the vision 
 of the first resurrection. 
 
 vv. 10, 2 1. A solemn close of a glorious 
 meditation and prophecy. The chambers 
 may denote either some retreat of safety, 
 like Bella, upon earth, or removal by trans- 
 lation to th& Saviour's presence. The 
 Lord comes out of His place, when His 
 silent forbearance is succeeded by open 
 judgments on the workers of evil. The 
 words answer very nearly to Rev. xi. rS, 
 and seem to announce the very same 
 season of judgment on angry and rebel- 
 lious nations, when Jerusalem ceases to 
 be trodden down, and light dawns on 
 Israel once more in the last days. 
 
 Ch. XXVII. The Vineyard Re- 
 stored. 
 
 This chapter completes the Sequel of 
 the Burdens, before those Woes and 
 Bromises to Israel, which form the third 
 main division of the Book, and reach 
 from the 3rd to the 14th year of Heze- 
 kiah. The prophet closes by a review of 
 God's dealings with His people through 
 long ages to their final deliverance. 
 
 V. I. Some think that two, others that 
 three evil powers are here meant ; Egypt 
 and Babylon, or Egj'pt, Babylon, and 
 Assyria, or many other varieties. But 
 Leviathan seems never the name of a class, 
 so that the lirst two clauses ha\ c tlic same 
 
ISAIAH, XXVII. 1—4. 
 
 135 
 
 iniquity : the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no 
 more cover her slain. 
 
 Chap. XXVII. The Vinf.yard Restored. 
 In that day the LoRD, with his firm, and great, and strong 
 sword, will punish leviathan the flying serpent, even leviathan 
 the crooked serpent, and will slay the monster that is in the 
 sea. 2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of choice wine ! 
 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 : 
 who will set against me briars ajid thorns in battle } I would 
 
 subject. And his home is always de- 
 scribed as the sea, or the deep, so as to 
 confirm the reference to him in the last 
 clause. The power thus described seems 
 to be no earthly empire or king, but the 
 leader of the host of "the high ones that 
 are on high," xxiv. 21 ; the old serpent, 
 who beguiled Eve by his subtlety. Gen. 
 iii. i; 2 Cor. xi. 3; Rev. xii. 9, 15 ; the 
 "king over all the children of pride," 
 Job xli. 34. Here, and also in the Apo- 
 calypse, the overthrow of this great Adver- 
 sary attends the full triumph of the king- 
 dom of God. It is joined there also 
 with visitation for the blood of martyrs, 
 and the waking up to life of sleepers in 
 the dust, 
 
 vv. 2, 6. These verses are a contrast 
 to vv. 1 — 7, which denounce the sin of 
 God's vineyard, and predict its long and 
 sore desolation. The harmonies are strik- 
 ing and beautiful. The burden ran before, 
 ch. V. 25: "For all this his anger is not 
 turned away, but his hand is stretched 
 out still." The former series closed with 
 its reversal: "Though thou wast angry 
 with me, thine anger is turned away, and 
 thou hast comforted me," xii. i. In ch. v. 
 6 the woe lights on the vineyard: "I will 
 lay it waste, it shall not be pruned or 
 digged. I will also command the clouds, 
 that they rain no rain upon it." Here, at 
 the close of the second series, we find the 
 contrasted promise : " I the Lord do keep 
 it, I will water it eveiy moment : lest any 
 luirt it, I will keep it night and day." In 
 ch. V. 30 was the warning : " If one look to 
 the land, behold darkness, the light is 
 anguish, it is darkened in the heavens 
 thereof" The third series ends with the 
 promise : " They shall obtain joy and 
 gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
 flee away," xxxv. 10. 
 
 The day is that of the ingrafting of the 
 olive branches of Israel, Rom. xi. 24, 26. 
 The "choice wine," c/ioncr, rich, red wine, 
 is a contrast to the "wild grapes" in the 
 earlier warning, ch. v. 2, 4. The reading of 
 several MSS. and editions is cJuined, "a 
 vineyard of deliglit;" which would mark 
 a contrast with God's former displeasure. 
 But the common reading seems more ex- 
 pressive. The rendering "in that day 
 afflict her as a vineyard" (Alex.), is un- 
 natural, and destroys the parallel with 
 ch. v. I. So also is the view of Lowth, 
 Dathe, and others, who turn the passage 
 into a responsive dialogue. The idea of 
 "answering" will be simply retained by 
 supposing the song to be the response 
 of angels to the confession and penitence 
 of Israel, Lu. xv. 7, 10; Zech. xii. 10. 
 The words that follow are not the song, 
 but the reasons for that heavenly glad- 
 ness, of wliich the song is to be the utter- 
 ance. They are a picture of safety, pro- 
 sperity, and holy peace, a contrast to the 
 curse, w. 5, 6, under which this vineyard 
 had lain for ages. But now it will be a 
 vineyard of choice wine, the Lord's delight, 
 watered each moment with dews of heaven. 
 
 v. 4. The first clause is often explained, 
 that God has no fury against His people, 
 but against their adversaries alone. This, 
 however, would be a feeble bathos, after 
 those strong declarations of His favour. 
 It would be no less strange that fury 
 should be disclaimed and affirmed in the 
 same verse, and the contrast of its objects 
 be only implied, not expressed. Others 
 make the latter clause also apply to chas- 
 tisement on the vineyard, as overrun with 
 thorns. But this is still more i-emote 
 from the general scope. 
 
 The true sense lies deeper. There can 
 lie no fury where there is the consciousness 
 
I -.6 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVII. 5— lo. 
 
 march against them, I would burn them togetlicr. 5 Or let 
 him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with 
 me ; and he shall make peace with me. 6 Jacob shall take root 
 in days to come : Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face 
 of the world with fruit. 
 
 7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote them that smote him } 
 or is he slain like the slaughter of those that are slain for him ? 
 8 In measure only, when thou sendcst it, thou wilt strive with 
 her : he hath taken it away with his strong blast in the day of 
 the east wind. 9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob shall 
 be purged ; and this shall be all the fruit, to take away his sin ; 
 when he maketh all tJieir altar-stones as chalkstones beaten 
 asunder : the grove-idols and sun-images shall rise up no more. 
 10 For the defenced city sJiall be desolate, the habitation for- 
 saken, and left like a wilderness : there shall the calf feed, and 
 
 of Almighty power, and of a love which 
 invites continually to repentance. Fury 
 elsewhere is ascribed to God, to express 
 the intensity of His holy averseness from 
 all evil. Here He disclaims it, to teach 
 how far He is above the fierce excitement 
 of human passions. Contempt and pity 
 akme would be felt, if briars and thorns had 
 feeling, and were seen to set themselves 
 in array against a fiery furnace. Those 
 who fight against their Maker may be so 
 guilty as to deserve holy anger, but their 
 folly is so great as to call still more for 
 pity and compassionate warning. 
 
 V. 6. The parable here issues in open 
 prophecy. The result of the afflictions 
 on Israel, and of the judgments on their 
 oppressors, will be a signal blessing to 
 the whole earth. The receiving of them 
 "into God's favour" again, will be "life 
 from the dead," Rom. xi. 15. The first 
 word in Hebrew, "the coming," is an 
 ellipsis for "the coming days." The world 
 is not to be limited to Palestine (Hend.), 
 but includes the whole earth. In Christ, 
 the true Israel, and next through the na- 
 tion Ism el, blessed in Him as their Mes- 
 siah, all other nations are finally to be 
 blessed. 
 
 V. 7. A contrast is here drawn be- 
 tween the trials of Israel and the severe 
 judgments on their adversaries. Their 
 afflictions have been meted out in thought- 
 ful wisdom and love, as mc<licine to cure 
 tlieir sins. Their suffering has been great, 
 who fell on the stuinl)ling-stonc and were 
 
 broken; but those on whom it falls it will 
 grind to powder. Matt. xxi. 44. 
 
 v. 8. These words are obscure, and have 
 received many versions. "In measure, 
 when thou sentest it, thou hast striven with 
 her ; when he blew with his violent wind 
 in the day of the east wind" (Vitringa). 
 "Very moderately, when she was put 
 away, didst thou contend with her; he 
 took her away with his rough blast, &c. " 
 (Henderson). "In measure, by sending 
 her away, thou dost contend with her; 
 he removes her by his hard wind, &c." 
 (Alexander). ^^ Scah for sc-ah by her 
 divorce thou quarrelest with her; he hath 
 carried her away with his mighty wind, 
 &c." (Drechsler). "Thou didst punish 
 it with measure, when thou didst thrust 
 it away, sifting with violent breath in the 
 day of the east wind" (Delitzsch). All 
 these agree in referring the last words to 
 the exile of Israel. But Vitringa, after 
 Kimchi, explains the first clause of God's 
 plague on the vineyard, the others of a 
 wife's divorce. The taking away, how- 
 ever, either of a wife or a vineyard by a 
 strong wind is a harsh figure ; and still 
 more that an eastward exile should be as- 
 signed to a violent east wind, of which the 
 effect would jiroperly be just the reverse. 
 A clearer and more consistent meaning 
 will be found by combining two figures, of 
 the vineyard, and of the locust-plague of 
 Egypt. It may be thus paraphrased: 
 
 "In measure only," each part of the 
 jud^;iuent meted out slowly and with 
 
ISAIAH, XXVII. II— 13. 
 
 137 
 
 there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof. 
 1 1 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 mercy on them, and he that formed them will show 
 them no favour. 
 
 12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord will 
 beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, 
 and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel. 
 13 And it shall come to pass in that day, tJiat the great trumpet 
 shall be blown ; and they shall come which were ready to perish 
 in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, 
 and they shall worship the LORD in the holy mountain, in 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 care, "when thou sendest it," the locust- 
 plague on the vineyard, "thou wilt strive 
 ■with her." The judgment shall be wisely 
 restrained and tempered. "He hath 
 taken it away with his strong blast in the 
 day of the east wind." When the east 
 wind from Babylon has brought the locust 
 destroyers, as soon as the measured judg- 
 ment is complete, his strong blast, the 
 mighty west wind of his power (Ex. x. 19), 
 will sweep them away. The metaphor 
 on this view is consistent and beautifully 
 complete. The change of person answers 
 to a change of subject, from the vineyard 
 to the agents in its desolation. 
 
 v. 9. Israel, by these judgments, will 
 be weaned from their idolatries. Their 
 altar-stones will be beaten down in the 
 time of their exile, and never replaced. 
 
 vv. 10, II. Most recent critics apply 
 tliese verses to Babylon. But there are 
 decisive reasons for the earlier view, which 
 refers them to the desolations of Pales- 
 tine. The figures resemble vii. 24, 25, 
 vi. II, 12, xvii. 9, and are a contrast to 
 tlie warning, xiii. 20 — 22. The descrip- 
 tion is borrowed from Deut. xxxii. 28, 
 where it belongs to Israel. The breaking 
 off of withered branches is a symbol for 
 judgment on the vineyard or vine of God, 
 Ps. Ixxx. ; John xv. The connexion fa- 
 vours the same view. Isaiah here reviews 
 the whole course of God's dealings with 
 His people. His chastisements, like the 
 locusts of Egypt, all pass away when their 
 work is done. All had one aim, that the 
 idolatrous images might be broken, and 
 rise no more. The trial must last till the 
 
 end is gained ; and from the blindness of 
 Israel this would need a lasting desola- 
 tion. Less would not suffice, but the issue 
 would be a glorious recovery. Ver. 10 
 describes the solitariness of the towns of 
 Palestine : cattle browse amidst their de- 
 serted sites. In v. 1 1 there is a transition 
 to figure. Israel would be like one of the 
 trees in the ruins, whose withered boughs 
 are fit only for firewood, gathered, and 
 burned, Joh. xv. 4 ; Rom. xi. 17. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. The beating out is like the 
 severing of corn from chaff or husks. 
 The brook of Egypt is the southern limit, 
 named Num. xxxiv. 5 ; i Ki. viii. 65. The 
 remnant would be gathered " one by 
 one," and also "one to another," as 
 grains mixed with chaff are separated and 
 brought together. The stream is El Arish, 
 the river is Euphrates. The land, in its 
 whole extent, will be freed from aliens. 
 
 V. 13. God's providence in this great 
 work will be loud and clear, like a trum- 
 pet's voice. Assyria and Egypt are named 
 as the two chief powers of the world in 
 Isaiah's days. There is an allusion to 
 Deut. xxvi. 5, " A Syrian ready to perish 
 was my father." The children, like the 
 patriarch, shall at length have a full share 
 in the blessing of God. The words have 
 a first fulfilment in the return under Cyrus 
 and Zerubbabel. But their full reference 
 is to the time when the Old Serpent is 
 sentenced, and when Israel, after slaying 
 the Well-beloved, the Owner of the vine- 
 yard, shall look on Him whom their 
 fathers pierced, and become a vineyard of 
 deliglit, a moral Paradise, in the last days. 
 
138 ISAIAH, XXVIII.— XXXV. 
 
 III. THE WOES ON ISRAEL AND THE NATIONS. 
 CiiAP. XXVIII.— XXXV. 
 
 After the Burdens on the Gentile nations, and their sequel, the prophecy 
 returns more directly to the chosen people. Four successive Woes are 
 denounced on Samaria, Jerusalem, and on all those in Israel who resorted 
 to Egypt for help, instead of resting in faith on the promise of God. These 
 are followed by another prediction of the times of Messiah, a direct Woe on 
 the Assyrian, a more general warning of judgment on the heathen, and a 
 closing prophecy of Messiah's coming, and the full redemption of Israel. 
 
 The first Woe; ch. xxviii., announces the fall of Samaria as near at hand. 
 It is therefore earlier than the sixth year of Hezekiah, and probably even 
 than his third year, when the siege began. This whole series to ch. xxxiii. 
 may be referred to the same period, the first year of Hezckiah's reign, 
 while ch. xxxiii. implies that the campaign of Sennacherib was either close 
 at hand or already begun. In the reign of Hezekiah the vis'ons of the 
 prophet, as was natural, assume a more hopeful tone, even amidst their 
 severest warnings. A daybreak is seen to be near at hand. 
 
 § I. CiiAP. XXVIII. The Woe on Samaria. 
 
 Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, here called the proud 
 crown or garland of the drunkards of Ephraim, was built by Omri, after the 
 civil war, in which his rival was overthrown, and became a place of great 
 wealth and luxury under the following kings. It was besieged by Bcnhadad, 
 2 Ki. vi., vii., and reduced to great extremity, but signally delivered. After 
 a three years' siege it was taken by Shalmaneser or Sargon, and reduced to 
 a heap of ruins, Mic. i. 6. This event followed very soon after the present 
 prophecy, which was probably just at the opening of Hezekiah's reign. It 
 afterwards revived, and was restored by Herod the Great, who gave it the 
 name Sebaste in honour of Augustus Cjesar, and this name, slightly varied, 
 is retained by a small village, which still occupies its site. 
 
 The warning passes on, as before, from Ephraim to Judah, and denounces 
 the sensual blindness and pride of the rulers, when the judgment of God, 
 after lighting on Israel, was just ready to visit the southern kingdom. The 
 scourge of the Assyrian armies would soon pass over to Judah, and all their 
 false hopes of deliverance from Egypt would perish. But the promise of 
 Messiah would secure the preservation of a faitliful remnant ; and the holy 
 discipline of God, however severe, would issue in a harvest of righteousness 
 and praise. The last verses unfold this truth in a striking parable, drawn 
 from the various processes of natural husbandry. 
 
ISAIAH, XXVIII. 1—4. 
 
 139 
 
 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 rich valley of them that are stricken down with 
 wine. 2 Behold, a mighty and strong one of the LORD, like a 
 tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty 
 overflowing waters, shall cast it down to the earth with his hand. 
 3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be 
 trodden under foot. 4 And his glorious beauty, which is on the 
 head of the rich valley, shall be a fading flower ; even like the 
 
 V. r. The cro\\Ti of pride, or proud 
 crown, of the drunkards of Ephraim is 
 Samaria, the metropolis of the kingdom. 
 It stood on a hill in the midst of a rich 
 and fruitful valley. "It would be diffi- 
 cult," says Dr Robinson, "to find in all 
 Palestine a situation of equal strength, 
 fertility, and beauty combined." The 
 figure alludes doubly to the elevated site 
 of Samaria, and to the chaplet or garland 
 of flowers, often worn by revellers in their 
 joyous banquets. The word gei, valley, 
 occurs in Isaiah only here and in xxii. i, 
 a presumption for the reference of the 
 former prediction also to Samaria. It 
 is compared not only to a crown, but to a 
 fading flower, a chaplet or wreath already 
 withering, because its fall was so near. 
 The sensuality and drunkenness of the city 
 are denounced by other prophets. Some 
 take drunkards literally, others for those 
 drunk with worldly pride. Both ideas 
 may well be included in the warning. 
 Revelling and drunkenness imply spiri- 
 tual blindness and stupor, and increase it, 
 and make men senseless to the approach 
 of the Divine judgments. 
 
 v. 2. The mighty and strong one of 
 the Lord, or appointed by Ilim for the 
 work of judgment, is the king of Assyria, 
 Shalmaneser or Sargon, who completed 
 the overthrow. He is described, as in 
 ch. X., as the tool or instnnnent to 
 execute the warnings of God. He would 
 soon pluck this proud and beautiful gar- 
 land from the head of the drunkards of 
 Ephraim, and cast it down to the earth 
 with his hand, as a fierce tempest or flood 
 sweeps everything away licfore it. The 
 
 union of two metaphors, each separately 
 striking, adds double force to the prophet's 
 warning. 
 
 vv. 3, 4. The figures in the first verse 
 are here carried further. The proud 
 crown or garland of the drunkards, when 
 the spoiler has torn it from their brows, 
 and cast it on the ground, will be trodden 
 under his feet. Samaria, the glorious 
 beauty or ornament of Ephraim, would 
 be indeed like a fading flower, a wreath 
 withering away ; and also like the early 
 fig, which drops when the tree is shaken, 
 and which he who sees it no sooner sets 
 his eyes upon than he devours it with 
 greedy haste. "Which he that seeth it, 
 seeth, &c." The repetition of the same 
 word in the same form increases the force 
 of the description, and hurries us onward 
 from the sight of the fruit to its speedy 
 consumption. The meaning is not that 
 "a three years' siege was reckoned short 
 in ancient times" (Henderson), which is 
 clearly untrue ; but that, on the scale of 
 a nation's lifetime, Ephraim was now 
 quite ripe for the hand of the spoiler, and 
 would veiy soon be brought to utter ruin. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. In this mournful hour of Sa- 
 maria's fall and treading down, the Lord 
 himself would be the ornament and honour 
 of Judah, the residue of the chosen peo- 
 ple. Wisdom would be given to their 
 judges, and prowess to those who turn 
 back the war to the gate of the enemy. 
 Theirdeliverance from Sennacherib would 
 form a signal contrast to Samaria's over- 
 throw, and honour be given to Judah and 
 her king in the sight of all the nations. 
 The last clauf«e has a secret emphasis. 
 
I40 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVIII. 5—10. 
 
 hasty fruit before the summer, which he that seeth it, secth, and 
 while it is yet in his hand he will eat it up. 
 
 5 In that day will 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 judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, 
 and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate. 7 But 
 even these have erred through wine, and through strong drink 
 are gone astray : priest and prophet have erred through strong 
 drink, they are swallowed up by wine, they are gone astray 
 through strong drink ; they err in vision, they have stumbled in 
 judgment. 8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness ; no 
 place is clean. 9 Whom shall he teach knowledge .'' and whom 
 shall he make to understand the tidings } TJian that are weaned 
 from the milk, ajid removed from the breasts. 10 F'or it must 
 
 often overlooked. For Judah had then 
 no mighty warriors, no armies in the field. 
 The prowess intended was the believing 
 prayers of Ilezekiah and Isaiah, and the 
 faithful in Zion, and answers to the mes- 
 sage to their forefather at Penuel. Like 
 princes they had power with God and 
 with men, and mightily prevailed. 
 
 vv. 7, 8. Judah and Zion, although 
 they receive this gracious promise, were 
 deeply guilty of the very same sins which 
 doomed Samaria to speedy ruin. With 
 the bulk of the people and princes the 
 reformation of Hezekiah, when he came 
 to the throne, was a surface-change alone. 
 Apostasy, idolatry, and sensuality had 
 spread widely under Ahaz ; and only by 
 the stern rebukes of Isaiah and Micah a 
 remnant were brought to sincere repent- 
 ance, for whose sake a century's reprieve 
 of judgment was given. Literal excesses 
 are here included ; but along with the 
 more subtle intoxication of spiritual pride, 
 by which so many were "drunk, but not 
 with wine." Thus both priest and prophet 
 were blinded, and looked to Egypt for 
 help, instead of resting in faith on the 
 messages of their God. 
 
 vv. 9 — 13. "It can hardly be told," 
 says Rosenmuller, "how much these 
 verses have exercised both ancient and 
 modern interpreters." The view he pre- 
 fers ascribes vv. 9, 10 to the scorners of 
 Judah, not to the prophet. So Jerome, 
 Lowlh, Gesenius, Ewald, Maurer, Hitzig, 
 Umbreit, Knobel, Henderson, Alexan- 
 
 der. But this Vitringa has justly called 
 farfetched and unnatural. It is highly 
 artificial, and destroys the unity and force 
 of the passage. Vitringa, Drechsler, and 
 others refer vv. 10, 13 to the ritualism of 
 the Pharisees in later times. But this too 
 agrees ill with the actual context. The 
 received version needs only two or three 
 very slight changes, and a clear para- 
 phrase ; and is then far superior to at- 
 tempted modern improvements. 
 
 V. 7. " Swallowed up by wine." A 
 forcible contrast. While they swallowed 
 down the wine literally, it swallowed them 
 up. The figure is not of a maelstrom 
 (Barnes), but rather of a marsh or quick- 
 sand. Sensual indulgence is a quagmire, 
 where there is no standing, but its victims 
 sink lower and lower, till reason, con- 
 science, and modesty, are lost and buried. 
 The word "even" is emphatic. Comp. 
 Hos. iv. 15, "No place is clean." The 
 connectives, in the received version, 
 weaken the force of the brief addition. 
 
 V. 9. "The tidings." The reference 
 here is not to doctrine in the abstract, 
 but to the prophet's message or tidings 
 from God of the speedy Assyrian triumphs, 
 and of the great deliverance to ensue, 
 through no help from Egypt, but from 
 the mighty hand of God. The word re- 
 curs, V. 19, for the actual tidings, when 
 the enemy had overrun the land. 
 
 When all tables are full of sensual 
 excess, and priest and prophet are sense- 
 less through wine and strong drink, to 
 
ISAIAH, XXVIII. II— 15. 
 
 141 
 
 be word on word, word on word, line on line, line on line, here a 
 little, there a little. 1 1 For with stammering lips, and with a 
 strange speech, will he speak to this people ; 12 To whom he 
 said, This is the rest, give ye rest to the weary, and this is the 
 refreshing; and they would not hear. 13 And the message of 
 the Lord shall be unto them, word by word, word by word, line 
 by line, line by line, here a little, there a little ; that they may 
 go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared and taken. 
 
 14 Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful 
 men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem : 1 5 Be- 
 cause ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, 
 and with the grave have we made agreement : the overflow- 
 ing scourge, when it passeth through, shall not come upon us ; 
 for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood have we 
 
 whom shall the Lord turn, and direct 
 His prophet to go, that they may under- 
 stand and receive His message ? He 
 must turn to the children just weaned 
 from their mother's breast. To these 
 infants the prophet must adapt his teach- 
 ing, since the men are too proud or too 
 senseless to be disciples of God. God's 
 school must be an infant-school, when 
 those who are fullgrown have abandoned 
 themselves to worldliness and folly. The 
 transfer of these and the next words to 
 the scoffers is harsh and abrupt, while they 
 are most expressive as the prophet's own 
 complaint. The description is literal, not 
 figurative of spiritual sucklings, i Pet. 
 \\.2, or of those too proud to be suckled 
 with heavenly doctrine (Mich.) ; but of 
 children lately weaned, in the earliest 
 stage at which infant teaching can begin. 
 vv. 10 — 12. The teaching of such dis- 
 ciples must be suited to their infant years, 
 in monosyllables, in short words, and 
 brief lessons often repeated ; word by 
 word, and line by line, or stroke by stroke ; 
 also word upon word, line upon line, like 
 food to a sick patient. Teaching, thus 
 \\isely suited to these infant learners, 
 would seem like the words of a stammerer, 
 or a strange dialect, to the proud and 
 worldly-wise. They had forfeited all 
 claim to be considered in the style of the 
 message, and the very form required by 
 these infants and weanlings would be a 
 stumbling-block to the wise in their own 
 conceit. So our Lord's own parables, 
 
 while they have made His doctrine plainer 
 to children, veiled it from the proud and 
 careless, Matt. xiii. ir — 13. 
 
 V. 1 1. The strange speech many refer 
 to the Assyrians or Chaldeans (Rosenm., 
 Hend.). But this agrees neither with the 
 context nor St Paul's use of the words 
 (i Cor. xiv. 21). The meaning is still 
 the same. The style of God's instruction 
 to infant learners would seem like the 
 needless repetition of stammerers, or a 
 foreign and barbarous dialect, to the 
 proud in heart. Thus the analogy with 
 St Paul's application of the words is full 
 and clear. 
 
 V. 13. That form of God's messages, 
 whereby they were suited to infants, be- 
 cause the men were not willing disciples, 
 is now described as a direct judgment on 
 the profane. Their table would thus be 
 turned into a stumbling-block and a snare. 
 Even through the very style of His mes- 
 sages God would destroy the wisdom of 
 the wise, and bring to nothing the under- 
 standing of the prudent. The Vau is 
 conversive, because of the close connexion 
 with the future, "will he speak," before 
 the relative sentence. 
 
 vv. 14, 15. The warning is nowdirectly 
 given to the scornful rulers of Judah, who 
 fancied themselves safe from the flood of 
 the Assyrian armies, even when Ephraim 
 fell, and indulged in festive merriment, 
 when the voice of God called them to 
 mourning and sorrow. The words, "lies" 
 and "falsehood," are C!od's description 
 
142 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVIII. 16—20. 
 
 hid ourselves. 16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GoD ; Behold ! 
 I lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone for 
 a firm foundation : he that bclieveth shall not be in haste. 
 17 And I will make judgment a line, and righteousness a plum- 
 met ; and hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters 
 shall overflow the hiding place. 18 And your covenant with 
 death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with the grave 
 shall not stand : the overflowing scourge, assuredly it shall pass 
 through, and ye shall be a thing for it to trample down. 19 As 
 soon as it passeth through, it shall seize upon you ; for morning 
 by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night: and it 
 shall be nothiner but sorrow to understand the tidings. 20 For 
 
 of what they themselves woukl call by 
 other names, prudent expediency, and 
 wise state policy. 
 
 V. 16. The words of God are here 
 placed in full contrast to the flattering 
 hopes of these scornful rulers, His gracious 
 design to their dreams of worldly peace. 
 The stone is Immanuel, the promised 
 Son of the Virgin, and Rod from tlie 
 stem of Jesse, ch. vii., ix., xi. Laid first in 
 the counsel of God from eternity. He 
 was laid anew, as the promised Heir of 
 David's throne, and Possessor of the land, 
 in Isaiah's earlier visions. This stone is 
 a tried stone, tested and proved. The 
 chief reference is to that sinless life and 
 death, in which Immanuel would be 
 proved and tested by God's perfect law, 
 and found able to bear up the weight of 
 a sinking world. He is "a precious cor- 
 ner-stone" uniting the whole church, and 
 of unspeakable worth in the eyes of His 
 people, "a sure foundation," on whom 
 they build their hope of complete salva- 
 tion. In steadfast hope, without impati- 
 ence, believing Israelites would await the 
 birth of this promised Saviour. Mean- 
 while all the false hopes of the scoffing 
 rulers should be swept away, when the 
 armies of Assyria, the fierce and overflow- 
 ing scourge, should pass through the land. 
 Because of their j^ride, therefore sore 
 judgment was at hand. Hut the mercy 
 and love of God ensured a firm support 
 for the faith of His servants, before the 
 scourge would be suffered to pass through. 
 Vain hopes of worldly peace would be 
 replaced by a work of searching moral 
 contrast and separation. 
 
 V. 1 7. Judgment and righteousness are 
 the line and plummet, or plumb-line, 
 whereby the needful separation would be 
 made, and no hypocrite would be able to 
 endure in the solemn visitation. 
 
 V. 18. Hell, or the grave, is not the 
 place or state of final punishment, but the 
 receptacle of the dead. The warning is 
 that their lives should not escape from 
 the sword of the Assyrian by all their 
 alliances with Eg\'pt, and schemes of 
 worldly policy. The figure is resumed 
 from V. 14. They fancied that they had 
 made a league with this mighty, ravening 
 monster, so that it would devour no more. 
 The particle ki, in its peculiar position, 
 seems here emphatic: "certainly it shall 
 pass through." "And ye shall be to it 
 for a treading down." The form of the 
 phrase is contemptuous. 
 
 V. 19. The two figures, of a scourge, 
 and a flood or sweeping torrent, are 
 perhaps here completed by a third, a 
 wild beast seizing on its prey. The last 
 clause admits of two or three meanings; 
 that the mere report would be vexation, 
 that sorrow alone would lead them to 
 understand, or that the tidings would 
 bring unmixed vexation and sorrow. The 
 last seems the true sense. The word, 
 message, or tidings, is the same as in v. 9, 
 There it referred to the whole message of 
 God by the prophet, and here to the con- 
 firmation of his warnings by the actual 
 report of the Assyrian desolations of the 
 land. 
 
 V. 20. The allusion here is to their 
 perverse confidence in an Egyptian alli- 
 ance, 'i'licir wnrldlv. uidDelievinij devices 
 
ISAIAH, XXVIII 21-25. 
 
 143 
 
 the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself on it ; and the 
 covering too narrow for one to wrap himself in it. 21 For the 
 Lord will rise up as in mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in 
 the valley of Gibeon ; that he may do his work, his strange 
 work, and perform his task, his strange task. 22 Now therefore 
 scoff ye not, lest your bands be made strong : for I have heard 
 of a consumption, firmly decreed, from the Lord God of hosts 
 upon the whole land. 
 
 23 Give ear, and hear my voice ; hearken, and hear my 
 speech. 24 Will the plowman ever be plowing in order to sow .-* 
 •"lvH I he for ever \zi.y o'^^w and level his ground.'' 25 Will he not, 
 when he hath made plain the face of it, also cast abroad the dill, 
 
 for averting the troubles which threatened 
 them would be wholly in vain, and end 
 in disappointment and sorrow. The con- 
 nexion with the former verse, which some 
 have mistaken, is clear and simple. The 
 disappointment and vexation of the scom- 
 ers would be complete, because their de- 
 \ices would be proved utterly worthless 
 to avert the sore calamity. 
 
 V. 21. Ewald refers the first clause to 
 Joshua's victory over the Canaanites ; 
 Ilendewerk, to the breach of Uzzah, 
 2 Sam. vi. and the last to the history of 
 Achan, Josh. vii. But the usual view 
 justly applies both to the victories of 
 David over the Philistines, 2 Sam. v. 
 17 — 25. The fact that these were judg- 
 ments on heathen enemies of Israel only 
 adds to the force of the warning to these 
 rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomor- 
 rah, ch. i. 10. Their covenant privileges, 
 for a time, were forfeited by their sin. 
 
 "His strange task." The word usually 
 denotes a laborious service. Judgment is 
 (lod's strange work, because His especial 
 delight is in mercy. It is even His 
 '•strange task," because He doth not wil- 
 lingly afflict nor grieve the children of men. 
 
 V. 22. The verb is intensive, "give 
 not yourselves up to scoffing." The 
 bands may be afflictions in general, espe- 
 cially those of captives in war. The pro- 
 phet, as God's messenger, had learned 
 from Him the tidings of a consuming, 
 wasting judgment, fixed and firmly de- 
 creed, which was soon coming on the 
 land. The phrase is resumed from x. 23, 
 where again, by the name of Sliearjashub, 
 '•a renmant shall return," it islinked with 
 Isaiah's fir>t commission, vi. i.',. ll occurs 
 
 once more in the prophecy of the Seventy 
 Weeks, and thus unites a whole series of 
 prophetic warnings. The Apostle, Rom. 
 ix. 28, quotes and applies it to the times 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 vv. 23 — 29. Here the solemn warning 
 has a striking close. A parable is drawn 
 from the various processes of husbandry, 
 to teach us the deep and hidden wisdom 
 of God in His moral government of the 
 church and of the world. However 
 strange some of those processes to the 
 inexperienced, they all concur in securing 
 one main result, the harvest. So too all 
 the ways of God in His holy providence 
 conspire to one great end, a blessed har- 
 vest of purified and ransomed souls. 
 
 V. 23. Our Lord's parable begins like 
 the prophet's — "Hearken! behold, there 
 went out a sower to sow." This preface 
 fixes our attention on what follows, as a 
 parable, that we may look below the sur- 
 face, and not rest in the literal sense. 
 This figure of extreme simplicity conceals 
 a most weighty truth, which forms the 
 Divine key to all the previous messages. 
 The same analogy had been presented 
 before in another form, in the parable 
 of the vineyard, chh. v., xxvii. 
 
 vv. 24, 25. " Ever be plowing." The 
 phrase "all the day" is here used, not in 
 contrast to the night, but in reference to 
 the year-day of the natural season, "ever" 
 or without limit, when sowing time has 
 come. The future also has the continuous 
 sense, "ever go on plowing." Will he al- 
 ways continue in that stage of plowing, of 
 which the sole use is to prepare for the 
 seed-time that follows? So too of the har- 
 rowing, tliat lays open and levels the 
 
144 
 
 ISAIAH, XXVIII. 26—29. 
 
 and scatter the cummin, and set the wheat in rows, and the 
 barley in its due place, and the spelt in his border? 26 And he 
 chasteneth it in the due order his God doth teach him. 27 For 
 the dill is not threshed with the sledtje, neither is the cartwheel 
 rolled upon the cummin ; but the dill is beaten out with a staff, 
 and the cummin with a rod. 28 Bread corn is bruised : yet with 
 threshing he will not for ever be threshing it, nor drive over // 
 the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it zvith his horses. 29 This 
 also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, %i'ho is wonderful in 
 counsel, and excellent in wisdom. 
 
 ground. The severest dealings of God 
 with Israel were meant, in like manner, to 
 prepare the entrance of His heavenly mes- 
 sages into the hearts of His people. The 
 truths, from which the moral hars'est will 
 spring, are various as the kinds of grain 
 sown by husbandmen in the fields. P'ach 
 work has its fitting season, and each kind 
 of seed its own place. In the moral til- 
 lage, all is ordered with equal or still 
 deeper wisdom. The skill of the farmer 
 is God's own gift, and a reflection from 
 the higher wisdom of the True Husband- 
 man in heaven. 
 
 " Will he not :" The order of words 
 in the original adds to the emphasis, and 
 reflects the incompleteness of the plowing 
 and harrowing, till the seed is sown. 
 "The dill," A. V. "the fitches," H. 
 "getzach," Vulg. g?//i,i.xx. mclanthiiiin, 
 the black poppy, its seeds being used both 
 for food and medicine, Plin. XIX. 8; XX. 
 17. "The cummin," ciimimiin cymiiwm, 
 with larger aromatic seeds. "And set 
 the wheat in rows." He does not scatter 
 it, like the other two, but sets or dibbles 
 it with care in the furrows. "In its due 
 place," a portion of ground set apart for 
 the crop of barley. "And the spelt," 
 Cir. fea, H. f//jA'w^///, mentioned, Od. iv. 
 604, between wheat and barley. " In his 
 border," the border of the husbandman, 
 that is, of his field. 
 
 V. ■26. This ver.se has caused much 
 variety of judgment as to its exact mean- 
 ing. Most suppose the subject of the first 
 verb, as well as the second, to lie (Jod 
 himself, who teaches and instructs the 
 husbandman in his work. But the order 
 of the words, and the simple connective, 
 point rather to the construction above, 
 of Vitringa, Kocher, Hahn, and many 
 others, the relative being omitted in the 
 Hebrew as in our l'"iiglisli idiom. The 
 
 •woxA yasar, to chasrise, or train by disci- 
 pline, is here very fitly applied to the 
 whole process of agriculture ; and tiiishpaf, 
 judgment, refers to the wise, orderly me- 
 thod, in which the whole work needs to 
 be carried on. The verse refers alike to 
 V hat has gone before, and to that which 
 follows ; and thus connects the whole by 
 the common lesson of man's dependence 
 on a wisdom that comes from God. 
 
 vv. 27 — 29. Four methods were used 
 in the east for threshing grain, the rod 
 or staff, for the lightest grains, the feet of 
 horses or oxen, the threshing instrument, 
 or tribula, with teeth, and the wain, or 
 cart with wheels on which a driver sat, 
 drawn by oxen or horses. 
 
 The harvest, like the seed-time, is a 
 parable. In severing grain from the husks 
 or chafl", the farmer deals difi"erently with 
 the small and the great, the weak and the 
 strong. The smaller kinds, or those easi- 
 est to separate, are beaten by a stafl" or 
 rod with the hand ; but the sledge or 
 cart wheel, or the feet of oxen and horses, 
 are used in treading out wheat or barley. 
 And even here there is a wise limit. The 
 corn of which bread is made bears a 
 stronger thresliing than dill or cummin ; 
 but even in this case the husbandman will 
 not go on threshing, when once his object 
 is attained ; for his aim is to separate the 
 chaff, and not to destroy the grain. This 
 skill of his, in harvest as well as in seed- 
 time, is a reflection from the higher skill 
 of the great Husbandman above. It is 
 a gift from jKHOVAir, the Lord of the 
 hosts of heaven, who is wonderful in the 
 deptli of His counsels, and vast and un- 
 searchable in the wisdom with which He 
 tills the soil of man's stubborn and barren 
 heart, and carries on, both by judgment 
 and mercy, the government of His own 
 IHoplc and of a sinful world. 
 
ISAIAH, XXIX. I, 2. 
 
 145 
 
 § 2. Chap. XXIX. The Woe on Jerusalem. 
 
 The Woe on Samaria, the proud crown of Ephraim, like the Burden of 
 the Valley of Vision, serves chiefly to introduce a message to the people 
 and rulers of Judah, the direct objects of Isaiah's ministry. But now the 
 message turns directly to Jerusalem. It announces the overflowing scourge 
 of the Assyrian campaigns, and the sudden overthrow of the fierce invaders. 
 A stern reproof of the rulers of Judah for their sensual blindness, when the 
 judgment was so near, is followed by the promise of a great moral revolution. 
 The idea that the first part has no express reference to Sennacherib's cam- 
 paign, but is only "a figurative expression of the truth that the Church shall 
 suffer, but not perish," (Alex.) exchanges a clear and definite sense, con- 
 firmed by the whole series and order of the visions, for one which is wholly 
 vague, misty, and undefined. The Woe on Ariel is addressed to Jerusalem 
 under its double character, as at once a sacred and a royal city, the lion and 
 the altar-place of God. 
 
 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David encamped ! add 
 year to year, let the festivals go round. 2 Yet will I distress 
 Ariel, and there shall be sore grief and sorrow, and it shall be 
 
 V. r. The name Ariel has two differ- 
 ent meanings. In 2 Sa. xxiii. io it means 
 "lion of God," or a mighty warlike cham- 
 pion. Benaiah slew two Ariels, or "lion- 
 like men" of Moab. In Ez. xliii. 15 
 it means the "fire or fireplace of God," 
 and is applied to the altar of bumt-offer- 
 ing. The first sense is here preferred by 
 Vitringa, Dathe, Doderlein, Eichhorn, 
 Gesenius, Mam"er, Scholz, Hendewerk, 
 Ewald, Hahn, Drechsler; the second by 
 the Targum, Sanctiiis, Giotius, Michaelis, 
 Lowth, Rosenm., Hensler, Hitzig, Kno- 
 bel, Henderson, and DeUtzsch. Each has 
 a text in its favour, and an apparent 
 ground in the context, which refers alike 
 to the wars of David and to the approach 
 of a fiery judgment. The repetition, then, 
 seems not only to be for emphasis, but 
 also to include the double meaning. " Woe 
 to the lion of God, warlike and invincible ! 
 to the altar-place of God, where the fire of 
 sacrifice burns continually ! " 
 
 "Where David encamped." In the 
 LXX. "which David warred against." 
 The main idea is that it was the residence 
 of the great warrior king, the encamp- 
 ment from which he went forth to repeat- 
 ed victories. But there seems also, from 
 v. 3, to be an intended allusion to his 
 siege and capture of the strongliold from 
 
 B. I. 
 
 the Jebusites. He first encamped against 
 it, then within it ; and it became the lion- 
 like city, the Ariel of God. So the Lord 
 would first encamp against it for its ini- 
 quity; and then within it, to defeat and 
 destroy its enemies. 
 
 The next words are a severe irony: 
 "Continue year by year to dream of un- 
 broken peace and safety, and that by 
 your diligence in your formal services you 
 have secured the blessing of God." 
 
 The word chaggitn may denote either 
 victims or festivals. But the verb means 
 constantly to compass or go round, and the 
 verbal noun is thrice used for the revolu- 
 tion of time or seasons, Ex. xxxiv. 22 ; 
 I Sam. i. 20; 2 Chr. xxiv. 23. The irony 
 and the warning is thus more full and 
 complete. "Keep for a while your strict 
 routine of all the yearly feasts. They 
 shall be merely like God's milestones in 
 the path to speedy judgment." 
 
 V. 2. There is a close resemblance of 
 sound in the two words thaaniyah and 
 aniyah, '■^ sore grief and sorroTv'' which 
 deepens the emphasis of the warning. 
 "And it shall be to me as Ariel, "that is, 
 "the hearth of God," or the scene of a 
 fiery and sifting judgment on His sinful 
 people. The connective has here an ad- 
 versative sense, as in the received version. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIX. 3—7. 
 
 unto me as Ariel. 3 And I will camp against thee round 
 about, and will lay siege against thee with a mound, and will 
 raise forts 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 a wizard, out of the 
 ground, and thy speech shall mutter out of the dust. 
 
 5 And the multitude of thine adversaries shall be like fine 
 dust, and the multitude of the terrible as chaff that fleeth away : 
 it shall even be at an instant, suddenly. 6 From the LORD of 
 hosts shall they be visited with thunder and earthquake, and with 
 a mighty noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devour- 
 ing fire. 7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against 
 
 The rendering of Delitzsch, "then," with 
 the idea that one revokition only of the 
 feasts would occur before the siege fore- 
 told, contradicts the sequence of the vi- 
 sions, and weakens the force of the texi, 
 which rather implies that the circle of 
 festivals would go on for several years 
 to come. The true interval was probably 
 nine or ten years. The application, also, 
 of the last clause to the judgment on the 
 enemies, not on Ariel itself (Hend., De- 
 litzsch), disturbs the order of the mes- 
 sage. Four verses contain the warning 
 and woe to Ariel, and four others tlie 
 prediction of judgment on her enemies. 
 The present clause predicts the fiery trial 
 of the city, and xxxi. 9 the fiery judgment 
 on the Assyrian foe. 
 
 V. 3. This verse has been thought to dis- 
 prove the reference to Sennacherib; or else, 
 by negative critics, to prove a failure of the 
 prophecy, on the ground that there was 
 then no actual siege, ch. xxxvii. 33. But 
 the conclusion seems hasty and ground- 
 less. The king "sent Tartan and Rab- 
 saris and Ralishakeh from Lachish to 
 Hezekiah with a great army against Jeru- 
 salem." They could not be sent to re- 
 main idle, and for mere display. The first 
 aim was by their appearance alone to 
 frighten Hezekiah into submission. This 
 failing, they would of course cut off the 
 city from its supplies, and form a strict 
 blockade, until the king came with the 
 rest of his forces to press the siege, and 
 get the honour of the triumph. Comp. 
 2 Sam. xii. 27, 28. Though Rabshakcli 
 the spokesman returned to Lachish, and 
 brought back a second message, Tartan, 
 
 the warrior general, ch. xx. i, and Rab- 
 saius remained. They encamped against 
 the city "in the highway of the fuller's 
 field" where the interview of Isaiah and 
 Ahaz took place thirty years before. 
 They would of course, by all military usage 
 of those days, raise forts at a little dis- 
 tance, and erect fl mound to intercept the 
 supplies. The king himself was not to 
 come into the city, nor shoot an arrow 
 there, nor to come against it with the 
 shield (or tcstiido), nor to raise a rampart 
 against its walls, xxxvii. 33. But these all 
 belong to the later stages of a siege, when 
 it is endeavoured to take a city by storm. 
 There is no reason, then, to doubt that 
 the warning was strictly fulfilled. All is 
 ascribed to God, because the Assyrian 
 was only like a tool in His hand. 
 
 V. 4. "The dejection and fear would 
 be such that they would give utterance to 
 it in feeble and scarcely articulate sounds, 
 like those of the necromancer or ventri- 
 loquist, when personating the spirit he 
 professed to evoke" (Hend.). It is a 
 vivid picture of the deepest humiliation. 
 
 v. 5. The prophecy of Ariel's trouble 
 is here followed by one of judgment on 
 her adversaries. The absence of contrast 
 in the phrase makes the real contrast 
 more impressive. Easily and without an 
 effort, deliverance will follow close on the 
 deepest sorrow. It is natural and inevit- 
 able, in the sight of God, that the seeming 
 triumph of God's enemies, and the height 
 of their pride, should lead at once to 
 their overthrow. 
 
 V. 6. "Shall they be visited." The 
 subject is not Ariel, but the multitude of 
 
ISAIAH, XXIX. 8—10. 
 
 147 
 
 Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that 
 distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. 8 It shall 
 even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold, he eateth; 
 but he awaketh ; and his soul is empty : and 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 mul- 
 titude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion. 
 
 9 Be astonished, and wonder ! take your pleasure, and riot ! 
 They are drunken, but not with wine ; they stagger, but not 
 with strong drink. lo For the Lord hath poured out upon 
 you a spirit of deep sleep : and he hath closed your eyes, the 
 prophets, and your heads, even the seers, hath he covered. 
 
 the aliens or adversaries. The words are 
 commonly held to be figurative. Yet since 
 no details are given elsewhere, the view of 
 Vitringa seems more probable. "We 
 learn," he says, " from this very passage, 
 that a tempest was raised by the angel of 
 the Lord, and that he thundered on the 
 Assyrian camp with lightning, and storm, 
 and hailstones, like the arrows of heaven." 
 No form of judgment would seem more 
 adapted to mark it as the immediate work 
 of the God of heaven. 
 
 vv. 7, 8. The reference to the night 
 when the Assyrian host were slain by the 
 destroying angel, xxxvii. 36, is clear, like 
 history itself. The plans of ambitious 
 conquest would be utterly scattered to 
 the winds, in the moment when they 
 seemed certain to be fulfilled. 
 
 vv. 9 — II. The message turns here, 
 from prediction of the coming woe, to 
 severe reproof of the stupor and blind- 
 ness of the people. The words in v. 1 3 are 
 quoted by our Lord, and applied to the 
 Pharisees of His day. But this is quite 
 consistent with their truth in the time of 
 Hezekiah, when the open idolatry of the 
 reign of Ahaz had been succeeded once 
 more, in the main body of the people, by 
 a superstitious worship of God. 
 
 V. 9. "Start back and wonder! take 
 your pleasure and riot !" These words 
 have received many versions, since each 
 pair corresponds, and still the same parts, 
 in two of the words, rarely occur. The 
 two in each pair being from a kindred 
 root, and alike in sound, seem to have a 
 kindred meaning. The first in each pair 
 is reflexive, and seems to relate more 
 
 to momentaiy feelings, the second to a 
 course of action that follows. " Stay 
 yourselves" or start back, like one who 
 suddenly pauses in deep surprise at an 
 object in his path, "and wonder." The 
 words refer to their stupid surprise, first 
 at the prophet's message, and then at 
 the judgment that fulfilled it. The second 
 clause is an ironical command, like Eccl. 
 xi. 9, and predicts their foolish merri- 
 ment and revelry when the desolator was 
 near at hand. So ch. xxii. 13, 14. The 
 marginal version of the second clause 
 is more expressive, and keeps closer to 
 the natural force of the words than 
 the other modern varieties, "take your 
 pleasure and be blinded," Hend. "Be 
 merry and blind, " Alex. " Act as blind, 
 and be blinded," Rosenm. "Blind your- 
 selves and grow blind," Delitzsch. Star- 
 ing, vacant wonder, alternating with 
 mirth and riot, is a more vivid picture, 
 and a more expressive irony. Comp. Ps. 
 cxix. 16, 47, 70, xciv. 19 J Is. xi. 8, Ixvi. 
 12. 
 
 v. 10. The first figure is that of a 
 stupefying liquor poured out from a ves- 
 sel, and steeping thoroughly that on 
 which it falls. The rest of the verse ad- 
 mits of two or three slight variations as 
 to the exact sense. But there seems to be 
 a double figure, from eyes that are closed, 
 and a head wrapped round with a thick 
 covering, so that the man cannot see his 
 way. The prophets, the eyes of the peo- 
 ple, were blinded. The seers, the heads 
 of the people, were covered, and unable 
 to guide them. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIX. II— 14. 
 
 1 1 And the vision altogether is become unto you as the words 
 of a writing that is sealed, which men give to one that can read, 
 saying, Read this, I pray thee ; and he saith, I cannot, for it is 
 sealed. 12 And the writing is given to one that cannot read, 
 saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I cannot read. 
 1 3 And the LoRD said. Forasmuch as this people draw near to 
 me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but 
 have removed their heart far from me, and their fear towards 
 me is a vain thing, taught by the precept of men; 14 There- 
 fore, behold ! I will proceed to do a marvellous work among 
 this people, a marvel and a wonder : even the wisdom of their 
 wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent 
 men shall be hid. 
 
 V. II. The words refer to a written 
 paper or letter, not to a book in the 
 modern sense. The contrast does not 
 refer to learning and want of learning in 
 general, but the power to read only. The 
 common feature in both cases is the care- 
 less unconcern or aversion with which 
 the writing is received. He who can 
 read will not take the trouble to break 
 the seal, and he who cannot read will not 
 take the least pains to secure the help of 
 another. It is implied that the request 
 is for his own sake, not for the instruction 
 of him by whom the writing is given. 
 Thus, with various and opposite excuses, 
 the learned and ignorant were agreed in 
 despising the messages of God. Some 
 were not scholars enough to understand 
 the prophecies ; and the scholars said they 
 were mysteries, not meant to be under- 
 stood. 
 
 V, 13. The LXX. translate " In vain 
 do they worship me, teaching doctrines 
 the commandments of men. " Their ver- 
 sion is adopted by St Matthew and St 
 Mark in their report of our Lord's dis- 
 course against tlie Pharisees. The He- 
 brew gives the same sense by the change 
 ofone letter, Vau for Yod (-"inni for *nril). 
 And this renders the sentence so much 
 more emphatic, that it may claim to be 
 received as tlie true reading, having the 
 sanction of our Lord, or at least of His 
 two evangelists. "And there is their 
 fear toward me taught, &c." is weak, 
 compared with the other reading, where 
 the expressive word, thohu, holds the em- 
 phatic place. Their religious service is 
 
 tJiohu, a thing of nought , vain and worth- 
 less, being taught by the precept of 
 men, and no real obedience to the will 
 of God. When human traditions are 
 placed on a level with God's own mes- 
 sages, and in practice even set above 
 them, obedience is removed from its true 
 foundation. A form of barren orthodoxy 
 may be retained, but it becomes worth- 
 less in the sight of God. The Pharisaism 
 of every later age has its type and pattern 
 in those whom the prophet here con- 
 demns. 
 
 vv. 15, 16. The prophecy belongs to 
 the time when the Ephraimites were 
 forming their alliance, and sending their 
 embassy to Egj'pt ; or else to a season 
 rather later, when the princes of Judah 
 may have tried the same experiment. 
 These too, like Ephraim, clung fondly 
 to the hope of Egyptian succour. The 
 piety of Hezekiah seems only to have 
 made them ilegociate, in spite of Isaiah's 
 warnings, in a more secret way. Their 
 perverse schemes would be baffled by Him 
 whose words they despised, just as a lump 
 of clay is moulded by the potter into some 
 wholly unexpected form. The per\'erse- 
 ness refers chiefly to their stubborn cling- 
 ing to heathen alliances, even when God 
 was using the heathen to scourge them 
 for their breaches of His covenant. The 
 figure resembles those used before con- 
 cerning the Assyrian. Man is weak as 
 potter's clay, when he strives against 
 the purpose of God. The render- 
 ing of several moderns is, "O your 
 pervcrseness ! shall the potter be es- 
 
ISAIAH, XXIX. 15—20. 
 
 149 
 
 15 Woe unto them that go 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? 16 Your perverseness, surely 
 it shall be esteemed like potter's clay ! for shall the work say of 
 him that made it, He made me not ? or the thing formed say 
 of him that formed it. He hath no understanding? 17 Is it 
 not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a 
 planted field, and the planted field shall be counted as a forest ? 
 18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, 
 and the eyes of the blind shall see, out of obscurity, and out of 
 darkness. 19 The meek also shall increase t//eir joy in the 
 Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One 
 of Israel. 20 For the terrible one is brought to nought, and 
 
 teemed as the clay?" But this introduces 
 a tautology. It is also abrupt and want- 
 ing in dignity, and sets aside the con- 
 trast, in the Hebrew, between direct 
 statement,, and questions that follow in 
 the usual form. 
 
 V. 17. This verse is obscure, and has 
 received very diverse expositions. Some 
 apply it to the rejection of the Jews and 
 call of the Gentiles, while others make it 
 only a general promise of increased fer- 
 tility. The first doubt is whether carmel 
 is a proper name, or a common one, 
 to be rendered fruitful field, tree-gar- 
 den, or orchard. Some refer Lebanon 
 to the Assyrians, Carmel, or the fruitful 
 field, to the Jews ; others Lebanon to the 
 princes of Judah, and Carmel to the 
 people. Others apply Lebanon to Judah 
 itself, as to be reclaimed from desolation, 
 and Carmel to the Assyrians, as soon to 
 be made desolate. Most view the words 
 as strictly parallel with ch. xxxii. 15. 
 But Lebanon, elsewhere in Isaiah (ii. 
 13; X. 34 ; xiv. 8 ; xxxiii. 9 ; xxxv. 1 ; 
 xxxvii. 24 ; xl. 16; Ix. 13), always de- 
 notes what is noble, lofty and magnifi- 
 cent, and never a mere waste or desola- 
 tion. Thus the day of the Lord was to 
 be "on all the cedars of Lebanon, that 
 are high and lifted up," and the glory of 
 Lebanon is a leading subject of promise. 
 In x. 18, 34 the sudden cutting down of 
 its cedars is a figure for the overthrow of 
 the mighty Assyrian princes. Again, 
 Carmel, when used as a common noun, 
 does not refer to fields of wheat, barley, 
 &c., but to a shrubbery or orchard, or a 
 
 tract of fig-trees, vines, and olives. Its 
 contrast with the wilderness is one of 
 fruitfulness with barrenness, but with Le- 
 banon it is one of glory or sublimity with 
 beauty, xxxv. 2, or else of smaller and 
 greater height, as of shrubs compared with 
 forest-trees or cedars. 
 
 The figure here is not the cutting down 
 of Lebanon, nor the change of vineyards 
 into a wilderness, but an exchange of cha- 
 racter, by which Lebanon is turned into 
 a Carmel, and the Carmel into a forest 
 of cedar-trees. This fitly describes a poli- 
 tical revolution in the Jewish state, by 
 which the high and noble would be abased, 
 and the meek and lowly exalted. The 
 words may therefore be thus paraphrased : 
 "Is it not yet a very little while, and 
 the proud and haughty princes of Judah 
 shall be abased, when all their hopes 
 from Egypt have failed, and their schemes 
 of worldly policy end in confusion and 
 sorrow? But then the faithful, the de- 
 spised remnant, who rest on God's pro- 
 mise, shall be promoted to signal ho- 
 nour." Comp. 2 Chr. xxxii. 23. Yet 
 the abasement would be in mercy, not 
 for utter ruin, which is expressed by 
 another figure, Jer. xxii. 6, "Thou art 
 Gilead unto me, the head of Lebanon ; 
 yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, 
 cities not inhabited." 
 
 vv. 18, 19. The signal fulfilment of 
 God's messages, first in the siege of Je- 
 rusalem, and then in the sudden over- 
 throw of its enemies, would open many 
 eyes, and unstop many ears, which had 
 been blind and deaf to the words of God, 
 
ISO 
 
 ISAIAH, XXIX. 21—24. 
 
 the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut 
 off: 21 That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a 
 snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and by falsehood defraud 
 the righteous. 
 
 22 Therefore thus saith the Lord to the house of Jacob, 
 even he who redeemed Abraham, Jacob shall not now be 
 ashamed, and his face shall not now wax pale. 23 For when 
 his children see it, even the work of my hands in the midst 
 of him, they shall sanctify my name, and shall sanctify the 
 Holy One of Jacob, and shall reverence the God of Israel. 
 24 They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, 
 and they that murmured shall learn wisdom. 
 
 The humble, who had rested on His 
 promise in the hour of trouble, would 
 eKult and rejoice, and "the poor among 
 men" would own with gladness that Je- 
 hovah is the Refuge and Protector of his 
 servants, the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 w. 20, 21. The general meaning of 
 these verses is plain, though some clauses 
 are variously explained. The terrible one, 
 the Assyrian spoiler, is brought to nought, 
 and has passed away like a dream. The 
 scorner in Judah is come to an end, has 
 either perished in the judgment, and been 
 brought to repentance, or else is mute 
 with shame. Their scoffs at God's pro- 
 phets will be turned to wonder and silence. 
 The proud and worldly, who have brought 
 the state to the brink of ruin, will be 
 deposed, and the hands of Hezekiah be 
 strengthened to execute righteous judg- 
 ment. The last clause refers to the per- 
 version of justice, so as to defraud the 
 righteous, either by false testimony, or 
 by direct wrong in those who occupy 
 the judgment-seat. 
 
 w. 22 — 24. Many constructions of 
 V. 23 have been proposed, and also some 
 conjectural changes of the text. But the 
 above seems to be the true meaning. 
 "Therefore," not "nevertheless." This 
 abasement of the proud is no hindrance to 
 the promise that follows, but one condi- 
 tion of its fulfilment. The message is to 
 the house of Jacob, and also concerning 
 them. The title of God "He that re- 
 deemed Abraham" carries back their 
 thoughts to the original promise and 
 covenant. Jacob means here the patriarch 
 
 himself, viewed as gazing on these acts 
 of God's providence, ashamed when his 
 children rebel, and rejoicing in their re- 
 pentance. "The work of my hands" is 
 here the wonderful act of God in rescuing 
 Zion, and scattering her enemies. " In 
 the midst of him," that is, of the land 
 which bears his name, the land of Israel. 
 They who erred in spirit, and the mur- 
 murers, are those who had despised the 
 messages before their fulfilment. 
 
 In this time of mercy the Patriarch 
 will no longer be ashamed for his de- 
 generate children, but be cheered by the 
 sight of a faithful remnant. A striking 
 revival of true piety will gladden his 
 heart. Believing Israelites will render a 
 full tribute of praise to the God of their 
 fathers ; and many, who before had mur- 
 mured at the words of the prophet, would 
 now discern the truth of all his messages, 
 and listen with reverence to the words of 
 heavenly wisdom. 
 
 The whole chapter has thus a direct 
 and plain reference to the crisis impend- 
 ing over Jerusalem about the time of the 
 siege of Samaria, to its siege by the host 
 of Tartan and Rabsaris, and to their sud- 
 den overthrow by the hand of God. But 
 the stupor and blindness here described 
 rested mainly on the Jewish rulers and 
 people, except a faithful remnant, till the 
 coming of our Lord, and was the cause 
 of His rejection and their own long deso- 
 lation. The abasement of the proud, and 
 the exaltation of the lowly, is the standing 
 and eternal law of God's moral govern- 
 ment. 
 
ISAIAH, XXX. 1—4. 151 
 
 § 3. Chap. XXX. The Woe on the Egyptian League. 
 
 This chapter, like the last, plainly belongs to the earlier years of Heze- 
 kiah's reign. Ephraim, we are told, 2 Kings xvii. 4, formed a league or 
 conspiracy with the king of Egypt. The worldly party in Judah clung to 
 the same alliance as their chief hope ; and either shared in the same mission, 
 or else copied it a few years later, without Hezekiah's consent, after the fall 
 of Samaria. Their unbelief is here sternly reproved, their embassy itself 
 derided and condemned, and its utter failure foretold ; but there follows at 
 once a promise of succour and deliverance, when they have repented of their 
 sin, while the message closes with a solemn and impressive warning of the 
 great Assyrian overthrow. The whole has a plain and direct reference 
 to that impending crisis of judgment; whatever counterparts, in still mightier 
 foes and a more lasting deliverance, may await the church, the world, and 
 the people of Israel, in days to come. 
 
 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that frame 
 a counsel, but not by me, and that mould an image, but not by 
 my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin ; 2 That walk to 
 go down to Egypt, and have not inquired at my mouth, to 
 strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust 
 in the shadow of Egypt. 3 So the strength of Pharaoh shall 
 be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your con- 
 fusion. 4 For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors 
 
 V. I. The figure in the first verse has phets. Their senseless "trust in the 
 
 received four different explanations, to shadow of Egypt" was a hateful contrast 
 
 cover with a covering, to weave a net, to to the vow of the Psalmist, — "I will 
 
 pour out a libation, or to pour out and abide in thy tabernacle for ever, I will 
 
 mould a molten image. The last of trust under the shadow of thy wings." 
 
 these seems the most expressive. It is v. 3. The connective is rendered 
 
 confirmed by the use of the same noun, variously; "therefore" A. V. "but" 
 
 v. 22 {masskak), and of the same verb (Rosenm., Hend.), "and" (Alex. , Drechs- 
 
 (K(7jfl/i) in ch. xliv. 10, "who hath wti/^7j ler, Delitzsch). The first makes the 
 
 a graven image?" causal relation too prominent, which has 
 
 The standing national sin of Ephraim its proper Hebrew word, xxix. 14, 22 ; 
 
 had been the calves at Dan and Bethel. xxx. 7, 12, 13, 18. The main thought is 
 
 And now this scheme of an Egyptian al- that disappointment would be the natural 
 
 liance was another idol, one of the heart, and speedy result of their sin, and the 
 
 which they formed and moulded with causal relation is only implied. The 
 
 equal care, poured into it, as a mould, word "so" is thus the best rendering, 
 
 costly sacrifices and efforts, and thereby v. 4. "His princes and ambassadors" 
 
 "added sin to sin." To inquire at the some take to be those of Pharaoh lum- 
 
 mouth of God, v. 2, is to consult Him in self, sent to meet the Israelite messengeiT. 
 
 the appointed way, either by Urim and Others refer the word "his" to Judah, 
 
 Thummim, or by the voice of His pro- implied, though not expressed (Rosenm. 
 
152' 
 
 ISAIAH, XXX. 5-7. 
 
 arrived at Hancs. 5 They were all ashamed of a people that 
 will not profit them, nor be a help nor profit, but a shame, and 
 also a reproach. 
 
 6 The Burden of the beasts of the south. Into the 
 land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and 
 the old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, on the shoulders 
 of young asses they will carry their riches, and upon the bunches 
 of camels their treasures, to a people tJtat shall not profit tJicm. 
 7 As for the Egyptians, they shall help in vain, and to no pur- 
 pose : therefore have I cried concerning this, they are PRIDE 
 sitting still. 
 
 Delitzsch). Others to Hoshea, the last 
 king of Israel (Vitr. ). Some, again, take 
 the phrase for a statement of the weak- 
 ness of Egypt (Hitzig), others of its 
 strength and greatness (Ewald). The 
 difficulty from the pronoun may be thus 
 explained, that the princes and ambassa- 
 dors are those of Judah, but are called 
 Pharaoh's by an expressive irony. "His 
 princes," those who are degrading them- 
 selves into vassals of Egypt, "were at Zoan, " 
 and "his ambassadors," those who so 
 eagerly court his aid, "arrived at Hanes." 
 Some take this for Dajihne or Tah- 
 pahnes, near Polusium (Targ. , Grot., 
 Champoll., Poole) ; othe. for a place 
 more distant than Zoan or Tanis, Hera- 
 cleopolis in middle Egypt, the Ehnes, or 
 H'nes of Edrisi the Arabian geographer ; 
 perhaps too the city Anysis of Herodotus 
 (Vitr., Gesen. , Hendewerk, Hend., De- 
 litzsch). The latter is more probable. 
 The embassy may have found the Tanite 
 rule displaced by the Ethiopian, and thus 
 have had to proceed further. Anysis, in 
 Herodotus, is the city of that Pharaoh 
 who was driven into exile by Sabaco the 
 Ethiopian. 
 
 The embassy, with toil and danger, 
 would reach Zoan, near the entrance of 
 Egypt. It would arrive still further, at 
 the southern capital of the Ethiopian 
 king of Egypt. But its expectations of 
 any effectual succour would wholly fail. 
 
 V. 6. "The Burden of the beasts of 
 the south," Many take this for the dis- 
 tinct heading of a short prophecy, like 
 those in ch. xiii — xxiii. (LXX., Kimchi, 
 Hend., Drcchsler, Delitzsch) ; others re- 
 fer it simply to the load of the asses and 
 camels, which carried the presents of tlie 
 
 ambassadors (Vitr., Rosenm., Alex.). 
 Delitzsch, after Clenius, takes "the beasts 
 of the south" for the river-horse, used as 
 an emblem of Egypt from its huge, un- 
 wieldy strength. But this is every way 
 unnatural, makes the plural form unmean- 
 ing, and separates the words wholly from 
 the context which explains them. The 
 burden, also, is clearly not on Egypt itself, 
 but on Judah, for their vain reliance on 
 heathen succour. The "land of trouble 
 and anguish " some also apply to Egj'pt 
 (Vitr., Rosenm., Clericus, &c.). But its 
 more natural reference is to the desert 
 through which the envoys must pass. 
 
 Each view of the Burden has a partial 
 truth. It refers clearly to the asses and 
 camels, travelling through the south coun- 
 try, loaded heavily with presents for the 
 Egyptians. But it stands here in the form 
 of the title of a vision, to bring out, with 
 severe irony, the folly of this Jewish em- 
 bassy. They had loaded their beasts of 
 burden, their asses and camels, with rich 
 gifts, to secure an Egyptian alliance ; but 
 the only result would be a burden from 
 God himself, a sentence of disappointment 
 and sorrow on their vain expedition. The 
 description of the desert alludes to Deut. 
 viii. 1 5. They were reversing the steps 
 of their great national deliverance. They 
 were trusting in the shadow of that oj)- 
 pressor, from whose cruel yoke God had 
 rescued their fathers. On this vain er- 
 rand they were journeying south through 
 that terrible wilderness, where their fore- 
 fathers had been sustained by water from 
 the rock, and manna from heaven. There 
 was danger in the journey itself, and 
 would be notliing at its close but shame 
 and sorrow. 
 
ISAIAH, XXX. 8—13. 
 
 153 
 
 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 for evermore ; 9 That this 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. See 
 not for us right things, speak to us smooth things, give us 
 visions of deceit. 1 1 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 
 
 V. 7. "Rahab," Ps.lxxxix. lo, "strength," 
 A. v., "pride," R. V., is a name given to 
 Eg}^pt from their national haughtiness, 
 and contempt for strangers. But now the 
 weakness and forced inaction of these 
 boasters would make a strange compound 
 of pride and childish feebleness. The 
 staff would prove a broken reed. 
 
 V. 8. What was the prophet to write, 
 and how was it to be written? Some 
 think the "book" to be the same with 
 the "tablet," the word, inscribe, an- 
 swering rather to a graving tool, than a 
 pen (Gesenius, Hitzig, Scholz, Alex., 
 Drechsler, Delitzsch). Others infer a 
 tablet writing, as Hab. ii. 2, for present 
 use, and in a book or on parchment for 
 posterity (Vitr., Rosenm., Maurer, Ewald, 
 Hend.). The latter view is confirmed by 
 the fulfilment. No such tablet has been 
 preserved, but in the written prophecy 
 the words are verified to this day. The 
 word, "grave" or "inscribe," may be 
 used to express strongly the enduring 
 nature of this written record, however 
 perishable in its outward form. But this 
 view may be carried still further, and the 
 tablet be named at all, only to signify the 
 fixed and lasting nature of the record. 
 "Write down this warning message, and 
 let the inscription be enduring, as if 
 written on tables of stone, and inscribed 
 by the graver's hand." The conjectural 
 reading la-Cd, "for a witness for ever," 
 scarcely adds to the thought, and the 
 climax is less impressive. 
 
 V. 9. Most moderns render "For this 
 &c." and suppose a reason to be given 
 for writing down, either vv. 6, 7, or 
 the whole previous message. - But the 
 other version (LXX., A.V., Vitr., &c.) 
 
 seems on the whole preferable. What 
 needed so lasting a record was rather the 
 engrained perverseness of the people, out 
 of which all their acts of sin arose, than 
 the details of this Egyptian embassy. Its 
 failure was rather a lesson for the mo- 
 ment ; but the perverseness of the Jewish 
 people in despising God's word, and 
 rejecting His prophets, was a weighty 
 and solemn lesson for every age. They 
 continually urged the prophets to give 
 answers that would encourage them in 
 their worldly schemes, instead of report- 
 ing truly the messages of God. 
 
 V. 12. The title they so much dis- 
 liked, the Holy One of Israel, is chosen 
 to introduce the new message of solemn 
 warning. They despised His word, which 
 denounced the worthlessness of their pro- 
 posed alliance, and the punishment of 
 their sin would be swift and sure. The 
 league of the Ephraimites with Eg}-pt 
 was the direct occasion of Samaria's ruin. 
 The later campaigns of Sargon seem, 
 from the monuments, to have completed 
 Egypt's humiliation. No sherd was to 
 be left of this broken vessel, their much 
 coveted alliance. 
 
 vv. 15—17. These titles of God have 
 here a special force. Their resorting to 
 Egj'pt for help was a direct affront to the 
 unchangeable Jehovah, the Holy One of 
 Israel. It was a denial of every lesson 
 taught by the plagues of Egj^pt, the 
 Passover and Exodus, when that name 
 was more fully revealed. Distrust of God 
 had caused a feverish restlessness. Their 
 punishment would resemble their sin. 
 By rejecting the prophet's warning they 
 virtually claimed to be wiser than God, 
 and tliev would now be filled with their 
 
154 
 
 ISAIAH, XXX. 14—17. 
 
 as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose crash 
 Cometh suddenly, at an instant. 14 And he will break it as the 
 breaking of a potter's vessel ; he will shatter it, and will not 
 spare: so that in its shattering there shall not be found a sherd, 
 to take up fire from the hearth, or to skim up water from the 
 pool. 15 For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, 
 In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confi- 
 dence shall be your strength : and ye would not. 16 And ye 
 said, No ! for we will flee upon horses ; therefore shall ye flee : 
 and, We will ride upon the swift ; therefore shall your pursuers 
 be swift. 17 A thousand sJiallflcc from the rebuke of one, from 
 the rebuke of five shall ye flee ; till ye be left like a beacon on 
 the top of a mountain, and like an ensign on a hill. 
 
 own devices. Schemes of worldly policy, 
 in which God's word is despised, recoil 
 swiftly on their own authors, and hasten 
 national decay and ruin. 
 
 V. 17, Some have thought that the 
 word "ten thousand" has dropped out of 
 the second clause (Lowth, Gesen.). But 
 this mistakes the real force of the passage, 
 and destroys the connexion with the close 
 of the verse. 
 
 The law contained two promises. Lev. 
 xxvi. 8; Deut. xxxii. 30. "P^ive of you 
 shall chase a hundred, and a hundred 
 shall put ten thousand to flight." "How 
 should one chase a thousand, and two put 
 ten thousand to flight." These promises 
 would not only be forfeited but reversed. 
 The first clause in each is inverted, only 
 the "hundred" is not expressed. But the 
 thought remains implied that the thou- 
 sand would dwindle away, till only solitary 
 stragglers remain, "like an ensign on a 
 hill." The word, beacon, is to be taken 
 in its primary sense for a signal, like a 
 flagstaff, on a pole or turret, that could be 
 seen afar. The message points to the 
 time of Rabshakeh's insulting defiance. 
 
 There is here a sudden transition from 
 stern and repeated threaten ings against 
 the worldly party in Judjh to the promise 
 of gracious help in the time of distress, 
 and of a sudden and mighty deliverance. 
 The prayers of Isaiah, Hezekiah, and a 
 faithful remnant, should not be in vain, 
 but a signal answer of mercy be given 
 them in their hour of need. 
 
 vv. 18 — 26. These verses, from the 
 whole context, refer to the Assyrian de- 
 
 liverance. The connexion is direct and 
 forcible, though some have thought it 
 obscure. However severe God's disci- 
 pline, its design was gracious. His 
 dealings are full of wisdom, like our 
 Lord's absence during the sickness of 
 Lazarus, to make the blessing afterward 
 more glorious and Divine. There is, on 
 His part, no slackness or indifference, but 
 the calm waiting of an ever-patient love. 
 Even in the hour of judgment, God will 
 be exalted, not to crush His people with 
 the terrors of His majesty, but only "that 
 He may have mercy" upon them. He 
 knows how to temper their afflictions, that 
 they may yield the peaceable fruits of 
 righteousness. Since He waits in patient 
 love, to shew them favour at the last, they 
 also are bound to wait, in faith and pa- 
 tience, until the blessing shall come. 
 
 v. 19. "In Zion, in Jerusalem." Other 
 versions have been proposed, from over- 
 looking the real emphasis. The aim of 
 the Assyrian was to remove the people 
 wholly from the land of promise, xxxvi. 
 16, 17. The carrying away of Ephraim 
 followed the fall of Samaria, and was 
 doubtless followed by that of many cap- 
 tives from the villages and fenced cities 
 of Judah. But as to Zion, the hopes of 
 the enemy would wholly fail, when they 
 seemed certain to be fulfilled. The flood 
 mentioned in viii. 8 might reach to the 
 neck, but then a voice would be heard — 
 "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no fur- 
 ther, and here shall thy proud waves be 
 stayed." 
 
 The next promise is distinct from Is. 
 
ISAIAH, XXX. 18—22. 
 
 155 
 
 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 judgment ; blessed are 
 all they that wait for him. 19 For the people shall dwell in Zion, 
 in Jerusalem ; thou shalt weep bitterly no more : he will be very 
 gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry ; as soon as he heareth 
 it, he will answer thee. 20 And the Lord will give you bread 
 /;/ your adversity, and water hi yoiir affliction ; and thy teachers 
 shall be removed into a corner no more, but thine eyes shall 
 observe thy teachers. 21 And thine ears shall hear a voice 
 from 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 Ye shall defile also the coverings of thine idols of silver, and 
 
 XXV. 8, Rev. xxi. 4, and alludes to that 
 season of bitter weeping and anguish 
 through which they were soon to pass. 
 This would suddenly cease, and be re- 
 placed by the joy of prayers most won- 
 derfully and speedily answered. The 
 past tense, "he answered thee" (Heb.), 
 is here used to denote the swiftness of 
 the answer their prayers would receive. 
 
 vv. 10 —22. The opening words of 
 vv. 20, 23 are the same, and introduce 
 two triplets of promise, the first to Zion, 
 the second to the country at large. Though 
 distressed and afflicted, they would be 
 saved from utter famine. Bread would 
 be given them, and their water would 
 be sure. The prophets of God, scorned 
 and slighted in their days of carnal se- 
 curity and pride, would rise into public 
 honour, xxxvi. i — 7. The eyes of the 
 people would be eagerly fixed on them, 
 to receive some message of hope and 
 comfort, xxxvii. 8, 38. They should thus 
 be guided in a right path to a joyful 
 issue. 
 
 "Bread /« j/c??/;- adversity, &c." These 
 words form a part of the promise, not its 
 limitation. The affliction has been fully 
 denounced before. Here they are as- 
 sured that, althongh besieged, they will 
 not be given over to famine. The path 
 of duty will be made plain by God's pro- 
 phets, and speedy deliverance be given. 
 
 v. 21. The voice is "from behind," 
 not as if they had turned their back on 
 guides before them (Hend., Alex.), for 
 the allusion is to deceitful byepaths, that 
 seem to lead forward, and not to a course 
 
 directly backward. The meaning is that 
 they would be doubly guided, by the ear 
 and the eye, by a guide before and a 
 voice from behind, that they might be 
 kept without fail in the narrow way. 
 
 v. 22. The cases or coverings of hea- 
 then idols were often more costly than the 
 idols themselves. But these, even though 
 made of gold and silver, should be cast 
 away with shame and loathing, when 
 the power of the God of Israel had been 
 signally revealed once more. This in- 
 tense, though transient loathing of 
 idolatry, was the earnest of a more last- 
 ing change after the Return from Baby- 
 lon, and in all the later times of Jewish 
 history. A pledge would thus be given, 
 under Hezekiah, of this marked change 
 in the character of the Jewish people in 
 the latter times. 
 
 vv. 23 — 25. The promise passes here 
 from the city to the country. The rem- 
 nant of Zion, escaped from the spoiler, 
 will re-occupy the ravaged and deserted 
 fields. The former rain would accom- 
 pany the seedtime, and in due season 
 they would reap an abundant harvest. 
 The cattle would feed in spacious pasture 
 grounds, and the produce of tillage would 
 be so plenteous, that the cattle employed 
 in it need no longer be confined to coarse 
 provender, but should partake freely of 
 the grain procured through their own 
 labours. The phrase "seasoned proven- 
 der," refers to an eastern practice of adding 
 salt or acid herbs to the food of cattle, 
 to make it more pleasant to them. There 
 is an Arabian proverb (Hend.), "Sweet 
 
156 
 
 ISAIAH, XXX. 23—26. 
 
 the cases of thine images of gold ; thou shalt cast them away 
 as a loathsome thing ; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence ! 
 
 23 Then shall he give rain for thy seed, wherewith thou shalt 
 sow the ground ; and bread, the increase of the earth, and it 
 shall be rich and plenteous : thy cattle shall feed that day in a 
 large pasture. 24 The oxen likewise, and the young asses that 
 ear the ground, shall eat seasoned provender, winnowed with the 
 sieve and with the fan. 25 And there shall be upon every high 
 mountain, and upon every lofty hill, rivers and streams of water, 
 in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers shall fall. 
 26 Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the 
 sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of 
 seven days, in the day when the LORD bindeth up the breach 
 of his people, and healeth the stroke of his wound. 
 
 provender is the food of camels, salted 
 provender their dessert." 
 
 vv. 25, 26. These verses have caused 
 some perplexity as to their true meaning. 
 Some who think the rest literal take them 
 as purely figiu-ative. Others infer from 
 them that w. 20 — 24 are also figures 
 only. Vitringa applies them to the time 
 of the Maccabees, Henderson and many 
 others to the Return from Babylon. 
 Dr Alexander looks on it as a vague 
 prediction of prosperity after war and 
 carnage, with no proper reference to one 
 period above another. But the whole 
 context proves a direct reference to the 
 great crisis of Sennacherib's invasion 
 and overthrow. The fulness and strength 
 of the language, as applied to the days 
 of Hezekiah, only proves that these are 
 designedly made the type of larger spi- 
 ritual blessings to follow in later times. 
 
 V. 25. "The towers," like the cedars 
 of Lel^anon, x. 19, are a figure for the 
 warlike captains and princes of Assyria, 
 to be suddenly destroyed; and "the day 
 of the great slaughter" is the time of 
 their overthrow. 
 
 It has been usual to suppose that a 
 simoom or sirocco, the stifling wind of 
 the desert, was the instrument of this 
 great destruction. But for this there is 
 no direct warrant On the contrary, it 
 is announced, xxix. 6, that their overtlirow 
 would be "with thunder and eartliquakc, 
 and a miglity noise, with storm and tem- 
 pest, with flame of devouring fire. " Here, 
 
 also, we find mention of "scattering" 
 or a driving storm, and of tempest and 
 hailstones. Both passages thus point to 
 a thunderstorm and electric tempest of un- 
 usual violence, as the chief outward agency 
 by which the task of the destroying angel 
 of the Lord was fulfilled. Such a stonn 
 usually implies a previous time of drouglit, 
 which it closes, and which is then usu- 
 ally followed by tropical and abundant 
 rains. There would be literally, on this 
 view, " on eveiy high mountain, and on 
 every lofty hill, rivulets and streams of 
 water," at the very time of this great 
 calamity of the Assyrian host. Such a 
 storm, also, would change a season of 
 dark and cloudy days, in which the day- 
 light is dim and lurid, and the nigiits 
 are gloomy and starless, into one of bril- 
 liant and cloudless skies, when the puri- 
 fied atmosphere is unusually clear, so that 
 the moonlight seems almost to be light as 
 day, and the sun shines out by day with 
 unwonted splendour and brightness. 
 
 v. 26. "The stroke of his wound" is 
 the wound which God himself has made, 
 in the sore afiliction of His own people. 
 The same thought appears in Hos. vi. i, 
 "He hath torn, and he will heal us, 
 hath broken and will bind us up." 
 
 This literal fulfilment, however, at the 
 fall of Sennacherib's army, seems clearly 
 to be a type of wider and deeper mercies, 
 that would range through long ages after 
 the Captivity. After the Return, and in 
 the time of the Maccabees, the Jewish 
 
ISAIAH, XXX. 27—32. 
 
 157 
 
 27 Behold ! the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning 
 ivith his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy : his Hps are full 
 of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire : 28 And his 
 breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the 
 neck, to sift the nations with a sieve of vanity ; and a bridle, 
 causing to err, sJiall be in the jaws of the people. 29 Ye shall 
 have a song, as in the night zvJieJi a holy solemnity is kept ; 
 and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe, to come 
 to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. 30 And 
 the Lord will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will 
 show the lighting down of his arm, with fury of anger, and zvith 
 flame of devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hail- 
 stones. 31 For through the voice of the Lord shall the As- 
 syrian, which smote with the rod, be beaten down. 32 And 
 
 teachers of the law rose to signal honour. 
 Instruction in the word of God spread 
 widely, and open idolatry was earnestly 
 rejected and cast away. In the first days 
 of the Gospel the seed of the word was 
 sown abundantly by our Lord and His 
 Apostles, attended with the "former rain" 
 of the Spirit of God, and yielded, in large 
 measure, the fruits of righteousness. The 
 words of St Paul — "Doth God care for 
 oxen?" must apply to v. 21 no less than 
 to the law, Deut. xxv. 4, and prove that 
 it must include a higher reference to the 
 preachers of the Gospel. These were nou- 
 rished in those days with the truth of God, 
 seasoned with the salt of God's covenant, 
 and winnowed from the chaff of Rab- 
 binical traditions. 
 
 Again, in v. if, we have a striking em- 
 blematic picture of the overflowingof truth 
 in the high places of the earth, when 
 heathenism was overthrown, and its bul- 
 warks laid in the dust ; while v. 26, the 
 close of the whole, points forward to that 
 glorious change, even in the lower crea- 
 tion, which seems, from other prophecies, 
 to attend the promised times of "the 
 restitution of all things." Thus, while 
 there was a complete and literal fulfil- 
 ment in Isaiah's days, at Sennacherib's 
 overthrow, the same words of promise, in 
 their fuller and deeper meaning, form a 
 comprehensive outline of God's mercies 
 to Israel and to the Church of Christ, 
 reachhig onward from the time of Cyrus 
 to the full recovery of repentant Israel 
 
 in days to come. 
 
 vv. 27 — 34. The fall of the Assyrian 
 is here foretold in words most impressive 
 and sublime. They strongly confirm the 
 view of Vitringa, that a violent thunder- 
 storm was the chief agency by which the 
 commission of the destroying angel was 
 fulfilled. 
 
 v. 27. "The burden thereof is heavy." 
 Some would render, "the smoke is dense." 
 But the other version is to be preferred, 
 and implies that a heavier burden would 
 alight on the oppressor than those on the 
 people he had oppressed. In the next 
 verse, compared with viii. 8, there is the 
 same parallel between the judgment he 
 has inflicted, as a flood reaching to the 
 neck, and that which he himself under- 
 goes from the justice of God. The "sieve 
 of vanity" means plainly that searching 
 power of God's Spirit, which severs the 
 chaff from the wheat in the Church and 
 the world, and reserves the latter, and 
 the latter only, for fiery judgment. 
 
 V. 30. The joy in Zion at the down- 
 fall of the Assyrian would be like the 
 gladness of the Passover and other solemn 
 feasts, in which the bands of worshippers 
 drew near with loud songs to the temple 
 of God. The title "the Rock of Israel" 
 refers to the sure defence which God 
 would afford His servants, when this blast 
 of the terrible ones should assail them. 
 The pronoun is emphatic. "The song" 
 or "singing shall be yours," the privilege 
 secured to you, as the people of God, 
 
158 ISAIAH, XXX. 33. 
 
 ev^ery stroke of the staff of doom, which the LORD shall cause 
 to hght upon him, shall be with tabrcts and harps ; and in bat- 
 tles of tumult he will fight against them. 33 For Tophet is 
 ordained of old ; yea, for the king it is prepared : he hath made 
 it deep and large ; the pile thereof is fire, and much wood : the 
 breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. 
 
 V. 32. The Hebrew order is more the "great host" of Tartan, who had 
 
 emphatic than when the words are trans- encamped near Jerusalem. Many of their 
 
 posed. The fierce oppressions of the As- corpses would probably be carried to To- 
 
 syrian are first named, and return upon phet, and there burned. This issue of their 
 
 his own head. The reference is to x. 5, 15, fierce hostility serves here as the type of 
 
 xiv. 6, where the same description is given. an event still more awful in other pro- 
 
 V. 33. Tophet, in the valley of the phecies. Rev. xix. 20, xx. 10, the over- 
 son of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, was throw and fiery judgment of Antichristian 
 a receptacle of filth and ordure, where ungodliness in the last days. The whole 
 also the idolatrous Jews offered their picture is a most solemn warning of 
 children in fire to Moloch. The slain judgments to alight hereafter on the open 
 Assyrians were mainly, it is probable, enemies of the true Church of God. 
 
 § 4. Second Woe on Apostates, and its Sequel. 
 Chaps. XXXL XXXII. 
 
 The warning of the last chapter is here repeated and confirmed. The 
 former seems to have been uttered, when the envoys of Judah were setting 
 out for Egypt, and the present one when they returned. It passes on 
 quickly, as the danger comes near, into a bright promise of Messiah's reign, 
 followed by further statements of the years of trial and desolation that must 
 first arrive. 
 
 Chapter xxxii. continues this last Woe on Judah, so as to form a common 
 sequel of all the four Woes, ch. xxviii. — xxxi. ; just as ch. xviii. forms a sequel 
 of three Burdens, though linked most closely with the last. 
 
 The words at its opening have been referred to Hezekiah, or to Messiah, 
 or else to one in type and the other in antitype. But Hezekiah was now 
 actually on the throne, while the prophecy of Micah, given in his reign, 
 Mic. iii. 9— II, Jer. xxvi. 18, 19, shews that it fell very short of this descrip- 
 tion. The indefinite form, "a king," is ill-suited for an actual monarch, 
 and the whole promise is too full and large for those fifteen years of reprieve, 
 given in answer to Hezckiah's prayer, which were soon to be followed by 
 heavier troubles. The peace of his later years may suggest the form of the 
 prediction, but they can hardly be viewed as even a typical fulfilment. The 
 main reference is to Messiah, the Eternal King. 
 
ISAIAH, XXXI. 1—5. 
 
 159 
 
 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help ; and stay on 
 horses, and trust in chariots, because they m'e 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 evildoers, 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. 
 When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth 
 shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all 
 shall fail together. 
 
 4 For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion, 
 and the young lion, growling over his prey, when a multitude of 
 shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of 
 their voice, nor abase himself for the noise gf them : so will the 
 Lord of hosts come down to fight over mount Zion, and over 
 the hill thereof. 5 As birds hovering, so will the LORD of hosts 
 defend Jerusalem : defending he will also deliver, and passing 
 
 V. I. Egypt was noted for chariots and 
 horses from the earliest times, and tliey 
 are the most marked feature in its monu- 
 mental remains. Diodorus says of Thebes, 
 "Some report that twenty thousand 
 chariots went forth from it to battle, 
 and that there were a huncked stables by 
 the river side from Memphis to Libyan 
 Thebes, each receiving two hundred 
 horses, and their foundations are shewn 
 to this day." The law of God had an 
 express warning against trust in these 
 horses and chariots of Egypt, Deut. xvii. 
 16 ; Ps. XX. 7. 
 
 V. 1. The words here are strongly 
 ironical. Those who are wise in their 
 own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, 
 really impute folly to the warnings of 
 God. It is not here said that their wis- 
 dom is folly, but that the All-wise has at 
 least a share in the wisdom they claim so 
 proudly. "The house of the evil-doers" 
 denotes the unbelievers in Israel, and 
 "the help of them that work iniquity," 
 those Egyptian allies in whom they so 
 fondly put their trust. 
 
 V. 4. The same figure of the lion and 
 shepherds occurs in Homer, II. IV. 22 — 
 26, but is here much grander and more 
 impressive. The true meaning of the 
 
 connective is not that resort to heathen 
 was unlawful, because God's own help 
 was at hand, but is of a still deeper 
 kind. These worldly helps must be tried 
 and fail, in order that the power of the 
 Most High may be more fully displayed. 
 The words are no threatening that God 
 would fight against mount Zion (Hitzig, 
 Hend., Hahn, Delitzsch), which had at 
 this time no such multitude of defenders. 
 But the cause why heathen helpers were 
 so utterly to fail was to reveal more 
 clearly the mighty help they would re- 
 , ceive from the God of Israel. Jerusalem 
 would be at once the scene and the ob- 
 ject of this protecting care of the Al- 
 mighty. Each of the two figures is sepa- 
 rately imperfect, and supplies the defect 
 of the other. One expresses the mighty 
 power of God, whom no enemies can 
 overcome ; and the other the affectionate 
 care He exercises, like the mother-bird, 
 when she strives to rescue her young 
 brood from the hand of the spoiler. 
 
 V. 5. "As birds hovering." The figure 
 here is drawn from a mother-bird, flutter- 
 ing over her nest when some one assails 
 it. But this expresses strong desire and 
 affection alone. The bird may be unable 
 to preserve her nestlings. Hence a fur- 
 
i6o 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXI. 6— XXXII. 2. 
 
 over he will also save. 6 Turn ye unto Jiini from whom the 
 children of Israel have deeply revolted. 7 For in that day 
 every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of 
 gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin. 
 
 8 And the Assyrian shall fall by the sword, not of a mighty 
 man, and a sword, not of men, shall devour him ; but he shall 
 flee from the sword, and his young men shall be made captive. 
 
 9 And he shall hasten to his stronghold for fear, and his princes 
 shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the LORD, who hath a fire in 
 Zion, and a furnace in Jerusalem. 
 
 Chap. XXXII. Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, 
 and princes shall rule in judgment. 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 
 
 ther promise that God's protection shall 
 be effectual and complete. This is ren- 
 dered more impressive by an allusion to 
 the first Passover, of which the mercy 
 would be renewed in this fresh deliver- 
 ance. The absence of pronouns adds to the 
 force. The Lord will pass over Zion, to 
 defend and save, when He passes through 
 the Assyrian hosts to smite and destroy. 
 
 V. 6. This call to repentance comes in 
 suddenly after the warning and the pro- 
 mise. It is like the bridge from the four 
 woes in Israel which have gone before, 
 to the Promise of Messiah, and the Woe 
 on the Assyrian, which presently follow. 
 It alludes also to the early promise in the 
 name Shear-Jashub, a remnant shall re- 
 turn. 
 
 V. 7. Shame and abhorrence for their 
 former idolatries would be awakened in 
 the men of Judah by the signal display of 
 the power and protecting care of God. 
 Once more, as in the days of the Pass- 
 over, they would learn that the Lord was 
 God, and He alone. 
 
 vv. 8, Q. All the main features of the 
 coming judgment are here given. The 
 enemies would be overthrown by the 
 sword of no mighty captain or numerous 
 army, but by the direct visitation of the 
 Lord of hosts. Their king would seek 
 his safety by inglorious flight. The sur- 
 vivors, panic-struck and dismayed, would 
 many of them be made captive ; and those 
 become a spoil and prey to others, who 
 exacted tribute before. Tiie crestfallen 
 
 monarch would not pause in his flight 
 till he reached Nineveh, his stronghold, 
 "the dwelling-place of the lions, and the 
 feeding-place of the young lions," Nah. 
 ii. II. His princes would also be terrified 
 at the display of God's mighty power. 
 Jerusalem would prove to be indeed an 
 Ariel, a fireplace of God; where His 
 presence would be like a fiery furnace, 
 to consume and destroy the mighty op- 
 pressors of His people, and put out their 
 name for ever and ever. 
 Chap. XXXII. Sequel of the Woes 
 
 ON Israel. 
 V. r. Immanuel, the heir of David's 
 throne, has been twice revealed as a 
 Righteous King, in contrast to the Assy- 
 rian oppressor, ch. vii. ix. xi. When the 
 greaves and war-cloaks of the warriors 
 have become fuel of the fire, the song is 
 heard, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a 
 Son is given, and the government is on 
 his shoulder," ix. 6. When the thickets 
 of the Assyrian forest are cut down, x. 34, 
 the message follows of the Rod from the 
 stem of Jesse. The transition here is the 
 very same. When the Assyrian has fled 
 to his stronghold for fear, the promise 
 reveals a blessed contrast. "Behold, a 
 King shall reign in righteousness, and 
 princes shall rule in judgment," xxxii. i. 
 There is a further key to this perspective 
 of the prophecy, which travels on at once 
 from the fall of the Assyrian to the times 
 of Messiah. It seems to be after a similar 
 and still more solemn judgment on a 
 
ISAIAH, XXXII. 3—9. 
 
 i6r 
 
 in a weary land. 3 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 be no more called liberal, nor the covetous said to 
 be bountiful. 6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his 
 heart will devise iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter 
 error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry ; 
 and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. 7 The instru- 
 ments also of the covetous are evil : he deviseth wicked devices 
 to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy 
 speaketh right. 8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things, and 
 by liberal things shall he rise. 
 
 9 Ye women that are at ease, rise up ! hear my voice, ye care- 
 
 mighty confederacy of evil, that our Lord 
 will "take to himself his great power and 
 reign," Rev. xi. 19. The great and final 
 hope of the Church is often held up to 
 the view of faith, without unfolding clearly 
 the long previous delay. 
 
 V. 2. This Man is the King, Messiah. 
 So Zech. vi. 1 7, "Behold the Man ! whose 
 name is the Branch." The distributive 
 sense, preferred by many modem critics, 
 is less natural in itself, and wholly un- 
 suited to the context. "To interpret this 
 imagery of a mere human being, would 
 be quite repugnant to the spirit of the 
 sacred writers, by whom Jehovah alone is 
 represented as the source of protection 
 and refreshment to His people, and all 
 trust in creatures is solemnly forbidden" 
 (Hend.). Comp. Ps. xxiii. ; xxxii. 7 ; Ivii. 
 I ; Ixi. 4; Prov. xviii. 10; Is. xxxiii. 21. 
 
 vv. 3, 4. The main feature of these 
 promises is the perfecting of faculties, 
 previously defective and imperfect. Eyes 
 that were dim shall see clearly, listless 
 ears shall hearken, the rash and hasty 
 become thoughtful, and understand know- 
 ledge ; and tongues, that stammered be- 
 fore, shall utter clearly the praises of 
 (iod. The promise, then, does not refer 
 to the conversion of open sinners, but to 
 that spiritual growth, whereby babes be- 
 come fully grown, and those M'ho have 
 served God very feebly attain to the full 
 maturity of faith, holiness and wisdom. 
 
 vv. 5 — 8. This reign of the promised 
 Messiah is to be marked by a liigher and 
 
 B. I. 
 
 purer standard of moral uprightness and 
 benevolence. Hateful sins shall no longer 
 be disguised under specious titles. The 
 flatteries of the world shall cease. When 
 vice and folly are on the throne, men call 
 evil good, and good evil. The moral 
 perceptions of the multitude may then be 
 not only confused, but almost reversed. 
 Profligates without a conscience are called 
 free and generous spirits, and the selfish 
 and covetous are praised for their course 
 of self-indulgent luxury. But in these 
 days of Messiah counterfeits of goodness 
 will be exposed, and sin be seen in its 
 true light. 
 
 "For the vile person will speak vil- 
 lany." Sins of heart and tongue against 
 God breed sins of the outward life 
 against the peace and comfort of men. 
 Social morality, to be firm and lasting, 
 needs to have its secret foundation in the 
 religion of the heart. 
 
 V. 7. The word, rendered variously 
 "jewels," "vessels," "weapons," "in- 
 struments," denotes the outward means 
 or furniture, required for any object, 
 whether warfare, song, or sacrifice. 
 
 V. 8. The last clause of this verse has 
 received different versions. Most moderns 
 prefer, "in liberal things he will perse- 
 vere;" or if we adhere to an English 
 idiom, like the Hebrew, "/o liberal things 
 he will stand." The most usual sense of 
 the same phrase, "to rise against," is 
 clearly inapplicable. The received ver- 
 sion, however, seems better than the 
 
 II 
 
1 62 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXII. 10—15. 
 
 less daughters! give ear unto my speech. 10 Year upon year 
 shall yc be troubled, ye careless ones ; for the vintage hath 
 failed, the gathering will not come. 1 1 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 lament for their teats, for the pleasant field, for the fruitful 
 vine. 13 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns 
 and briers ; yea, even on all the houses of joy /;/ the joyous city : 
 14 Because the palace is forsaken, the peopled city is left : 
 stronghold and tower are become dens for ever, a joy of wild 
 asses, a pasture of flocks; 15 Until the Spirit be poured upon 
 
 modern alternative, and the slight change 
 here proposed better still. The place of 
 the pronoun marks a stronger contrast in 
 the clauses than simply between a plan 
 and its persevering execution. It is rather 
 between an upright course and its sure 
 reward. This also suits much better the 
 close of a distinct paragraph. It will thus 
 end with a gracious promise of blessing 
 on God's true servants. The exact idea 
 seems to be that his liberal thoughts ai'e 
 a kind of moral jiedestal, upon which the 
 liberal man shall rise from comparative 
 obscurity to dignity and honour. Comp. 
 Ps. cxii. 9. 
 
 The promise of Messiah's kingdom, in 
 these verses, is like a gleam of bright sun- 
 shine in a stormy sky. But the Prophet 
 reverts at once to his office of a watch- 
 man, to warn his people of the coming 
 evils. How many blessings are set be- 
 fore us in few words, righteous govern- 
 ment, safety from all danger, refresh- 
 ment for the weary, the removal of spiri- 
 tual dimness, moral sight and hearing 
 made perfect, the melody of praise, the 
 end of all hypocrisy, covetousness and 
 falsehood replaced by the love of men 
 and the love of God ! 
 
 vv. 9 — 20. Long desolations are here 
 foretold, to cease only by a large out- 
 pouring of the Spirit of God. The women 
 of Israel are first addressed, as sharing 
 largely in the sin of the people. The 
 address is not to the cities (Chald., Kim- 
 chi, Vitr.), nor to be confined to Jerusa- 
 lem and Judah alone. The warning is 
 general, and reaches from Isaiah's days 
 till the wasting is complete. Those who 
 are seated in luxurious case are called 
 
 abruptly to rise up, and listen to the pro- 
 phet's report of coming troubles. 
 
 V. 10. "Year upon year." The phrase 
 is literally "days beyond a year," and 
 may allude to a secret feeling of the care- 
 less women, that trouble, if it came, 
 would be for a single year only. But the 
 year of Sennacherib's invasion would be 
 followed by more lasting trials. Or "days" 
 may be used, as elsewhere, for a year. 
 The phrase will then be nearly as ch. 
 xxix. I. Through many successive years 
 luxuries would be withheld, and the 
 autumn gathering of fniit be looked for in 
 vain. 
 
 v. 12. Many translate, "They beat 
 upon their breasts." But the received ver- 
 sion (Kimchi, Sanctius, Vitring., Hitzig, 
 Hend.) is confirmed by the use of the 
 word in thirty passages, and of the pre- 
 position in the next clause, and the mas- 
 culine participle. The deep sorrow was 
 to arise from a double cause, decay of 
 population, and failure of the fruits of 
 the earth. Both were fulfilled in the 
 later reigns. The people, before the cajv 
 tivity, had become few in number ; while 
 the blessing of Gcn.«xlix. 25 seemed with- 
 drawn alike from Ephraim and from the 
 whole nation. 
 
 V. 13. This verse answers to the 
 earlier prophecy, vii. 23 — 25. Tliornsand 
 briers would overspread not only the 
 fields, but the cities themselves. The 
 houses, once devoted to careless mirth, 
 would become a desolation, ch. v. 9 — 12. 
 The words apply to the whole land of 
 promise. The "joyous city" applies to all 
 the towns of Ephraim and Judah, and is 
 not to be limited to Jerusalem alone. The 
 
ISAIAH, XXXII. 16—20. 
 
 163 
 
 us from on high, and the wilderness become a planted field, 
 and the planted field be counted a fiarest. 16 Then judgment 
 shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the 
 planted field. 17 And the work of righteousness shall be 
 peace ; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance 
 for ever. 18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habita- 
 tion, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places ; 19 And 
 it shall hail in the downfall of the forest, and the city shall be 
 utterly made low. 20 Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, 
 that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass ! 
 
 causal pai-ticle may be rendered, " j^ea, 
 even," with this meaning, that the deso- 
 lation of the land must needs be com- 
 plete, since even the cities themselves 
 are forsaken and desolate. 
 
 vv. 14, 15. Past tenses are here used 
 to mark the certainty of the coming deso- 
 lation. The contrasts are most impres- 
 sive. The palace, once the scene of feast- 
 ing and merriment, is forsaken and lonely. 
 The peopled city, once filled with the 
 hum and murmur of thronging multitudes, 
 is a deserted solitude. Fortress and 
 tower, once garrisoned by the strength of 
 the land, are to be dens for the beasts of 
 the field. The careless mirth of luxurious 
 women is to be replaced by the joy of wild 
 asses, that rove carelessly amidst deserted 
 ruins. These desolations, caused by na- 
 tional sin, will cease only when true re- 
 pentance has followed the promised out- 
 pouring of the Holy Spirit. Then the 
 wilderness will become a planted field, 
 like the vineyard and oliveyard ; and the 
 planted field like the forest of Lebanon, 
 with its glorious clothing of lofty pines 
 and stately cedars. The barren will be- 
 come beautiful, and the beautiful majestic 
 and sublime. Such a Pentecostal bless- 
 ing still awaits the land of promise at the 
 final recovery and ingathering of Israel. 
 
 w. 16, 17. These words prove the last 
 verse to be a climax, not a contrast. 
 Judgment will dwell in the wilderness, 
 once ban'en, but now become fertile ; and 
 righteousness in the planted field, which 
 will thenceforth shine in all the glory of 
 the cedar-crowned Lebanon. Among all 
 classes, high and low, righteousness will 
 prevail and flourish through the promised 
 outpouring of the Spirit of God. 
 
 v. 18. The same words, used l^cfore 
 
 to describe the false ease of the care- 
 less women, are here applied to the true 
 security of the faithful. The promise had 
 partial fulfilments upon the fall of the 
 Assyrian, and after the Return from Ba- 
 bylon. But its full emphasis seems re- 
 served for the last days of the Church 
 of Christ, and the times of the last vial. 
 Rev. xvi., xix., when the fall of the mys- 
 tical Babylon prepares the way for the 
 grafting of Israel into their own olive-tree. 
 
 V. 19. The hail, and the downfall of 
 the forest, would apply to the great As- 
 syrian overthrow, and the abasement of 
 the city to the ruin of Nineveh, or of 
 Babylon. But all the features, which 
 enter together into this sublime picture, 
 answer more clearly to the later predic- 
 tions in the New Testament, Rev. xvi. 
 19, 21 ; xviii., xix. The forest has been 
 used already, x. 19, 34, as a natural sym- 
 bol for the Assyrian army, and the cutting 
 down of Lebanon for their sudden over- 
 throw. 
 
 v. 20. The last verse, in its literal 
 sense, is an encouragement to the Israel- 
 ites, rescued from the spoiler, to use their 
 new freedom from fear, and till once again 
 the deserted fields. It will thus answer to 
 the promise, xxxvii. 30, that in the third 
 year the land should yield its full harvests 
 once more. But the parable, ch. xxviii. 
 23 — 29, and also the reasoning of tlie 
 Apostle, I Cor. ix. 9, prove that the 
 words are meant to convey some deeper 
 meaning. It may be thus paraphrased in 
 its higher sense : "Blessed are those fel- 
 low-workers with the Great Plusband- 
 man, who sow everywhere the seed of the 
 word, in that day when the Spirit of God 
 shall be poured out from on high, and 
 when the liarren wastes shall begin to 
 
 I I 
 
164 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXIII. 1—4. 
 
 yield abundantly the fruits of righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 The prophecy has licgun by pronounc- 
 ing a woe on tliose false Israelites, who 
 forsake their God for heathen alliances, 
 and thus reverse His early mercies to 
 their fathers, by trusting in the shadow of 
 
 ^''g)P'- It closes here with a contrasted 
 blessing on those who are "Israelites in- 
 deed;" and who are ready to fulfil the 
 high calling of the chosen people, by 
 sowing the word of life, wherever the 
 soil will receive it, throughout the moral 
 wastes of the heathen world. 
 
 § 5. Chap. XXXIII. The Woe on the Assyrian Spoiler. 
 
 This Woe refers plainly to the overthrow of the Assyrians, on which all 
 these earlier predictions converge, while the later ones diverge from the con- 
 trasted event of the Babylonian Captivity. It seems to have been written 
 rather later than the previous Chapters, and possibly when the invasion 
 of Judahhad already begun. Its abrupt style reflects the emotions of the 
 Prophet, when the crisis he had first announced, almost fifty years earlier, 
 is seen to be close at hand. 
 
 Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou %vast not spoiled ; and 
 dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with 
 thee ! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled ; and 
 when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall 
 deal treacherously wdth 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. 3 At the noise of the 
 tumult the people fled ; at the lifting up of thyself the nations 
 were scattered. 4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the 
 gathering up of locusts : as the running to and fro of locusts 
 
 V. 1. Violence and falsehood have 
 twice before been charged on the Assy- 
 rian king, xxi. 2, xxiv. 16. Here the 
 prediction turns to a solemn woe. The 
 last clause refers to no willing forbearance, 
 but to a limit of time this oppressor can- 
 not pass, fixed by the decree of God. This 
 wild beast from the great sea of the na- 
 tions, has a cliain, and cannot go beyond 
 it. The moment this limit is reached, 
 the just vengeance of God will alight on 
 him, after his career of deceit and vio- 
 lence. 
 
 V. 2. Tlie Prophet here prays yiv the 
 people, and 7oith tlie people. Morning is 
 ihe time when assaults are often made 
 on the besieged. The abrupt change of 
 person reflects the depth of his own emo- 
 tions. 
 
 v. 3. The "noise of the tumult" or 
 
 tumultuous noise is the same described 
 in xxix. 6, XXX. 30, 31. It would seem 
 from these three predictions that a terrific 
 thunderstorm attended this Assyrian 
 catastrophe. The words of ch. xxxvii. 
 36 refer to the men of Jerusalem, and 
 arc no proof that the surs'iving Assyrians 
 were ignorant of the desolation till the 
 morning. The "lifting up" of the Lord 
 denotes the signal display of His Almighty 
 power, after a time of patient long-suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 v. 4. The first clause is referred by 
 some to the depredations of locusts (Vitr., 
 Hathe, Rosenm., Gesen., Hend.), but by 
 others to the gathering up of the locusts 
 themselves by husbandmen, (Kimchi, 
 Jerome, Capellus, Doderlein, Drechsler). 
 The latter view is the more natural and 
 expressive. In Joel and clscwlicrc, the 
 
ISAIAH, XXXIII. 5— lo. 
 
 165 
 
 shall they run upon it. 5 The Lord is exalted ; for he dwelleth 
 on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. 
 6 And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy 
 times, and strength of salvation : the fear of the Lord shall be 
 its treasure. 
 
 7 Behold ! their valiant ones shall cry without ; the ambas- 
 sadors of peace shall weep bitterly. 8 The highways lie waste, 
 the wayfarer ceaseth : he hath broken the covenant, he hath de- 
 spised the cities, he regardeth no man. 9 The earth mourneth 
 and languisheth ; Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down ; Sharon 
 is like a wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off tJicir 
 fruits. 10 Now will I arise, saith the LoRD ; now will I be ex- 
 
 Assyrian and Chaldean invaders are com- 
 pared to clouds of locusts. As these are 
 gathered for food in immense numbers, 
 easily and without opposition, so would 
 the vast booty of the proud Assyrian host 
 be collected without let or hindrance. 
 The figure is then varied, and the eager 
 haste with which their camp would be 
 plundered by the men of Judah is com- 
 pared to the voracity with which locusts 
 devour every green thing. 
 
 w. 5, 6. Before completing his de- 
 scription of the judgment, the prophet 
 proclaims the glory that will redound to 
 Jehovah, the God of Israel, and the 
 blessing to His people. "The Lord is 
 exalted, for He dwelleth on high." He 
 has revealed Himself in a glorious work, 
 because He is supremely and essentially 
 glorious. " The perfection which God is 
 giveth the perfection to that He doeth." 
 He has made Zion a theatre for the dis- 
 play of His moral jxjrfections, and a flood 
 of spiritual sunlight has been poured 
 around the holy city. The words that 
 follow are addressed either to Hezekiah, 
 or to Judah under his reign, and answer 
 to the later promise, that there should be 
 jieace and truth in his days. The wisdom 
 and knowledge of Isaiah, Hezekiah, and 
 the pious Israelites, when they renounced 
 vain confidences, and put their trust in 
 the Lord alone, would give political sta- 
 bility and security, and ensure them 
 "strength of salvation," or mighty and 
 effectual deliverance from the hand of 
 God himself. This fear of the Lord 
 would be a treasure to them, far more 
 
 precious than those of which they had 
 been despoiled by the Assyrian, and even 
 outward abundance would follow in its 
 train. 
 
 vv. 7 — 9. The Prophet returns to 
 the impending calamity. Their Ariels, 
 or valiant captains, would "cry without." 
 Some refer this to the boastful threats of 
 the Assyrian leaders. But it means rather 
 the mighty men of Judah, who lament 
 their want of power to cope with a 
 mightier and most unscrupulous enemy. 
 The ambassadors of peace, sent to secure 
 a treaty by the offer of tribute, would 
 weep bitterly because their message had 
 wholly failed. Through the destructive 
 ravages of the spoiler, all peaceful traffic 
 and intercourse would be at an end. 
 
 Sennacherib seems first to have im- 
 posed a heavy tribute, and when Heze- 
 kiah was impoverished by the payment, 
 to have resumed hostilities, as if no agree- 
 ment had been made. He cast his own 
 promises to the winds, despised the 
 fenced cities, of which he soon gained 
 possession, made his own ambition his 
 supreme law, and was wholly reckless of 
 the complaints of tlie king he had deceiv- 
 ed, and of the [people plundered by his 
 forces. Thus Lebanon, Sharon, Bashan, 
 Carmel, the whole land of promise, was 
 ready to sink in one common ruin. 
 
 vv. 10 — 12. In this crisis the arm of 
 the Almighty would be made bare, "In 
 the iNIount the Lord shall be seen." The 
 word, notv, three times repeated, sets 
 this truth in fullest relief. That earlier 
 message must now be verified — "And 
 
i66 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXIII. ri — 18. 
 
 alted ; now will I lift up myself, ii Ye shall conceive chaff; 
 ye shall bring forth stubble : your breath, as fire, shall devour 
 you. 12 And the people shall be as the burnings of lime; as 
 thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire. 
 
 13 H]!:ar, ye t/u7i arc far off, what I have done; and ye that 
 are near, acknowledge my might. 14 The sinners in Zion are 
 afraid ; fearfulncss hath surprised the hypocrites : Who among 
 us shall dwell with the devouring fire ? who among us shall 
 dwell with everlasting burnings t 
 
 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 eyes from seeing evil : 16 He shall dwell 
 on high : his place of defence sJiall be the munitions of rocks ; 
 bread shall be given him, his water sJiall be sure. 17 Thine 
 eyes shall see the King in his beauty : they shall behold the 
 land that is very far off 18 Thine heart shall reflect on the 
 
 the loftiness of man shall be humbled, 
 and the hauglitiness of men shall be made 
 low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted 
 in that day." That day is now come, 
 the type of one still more solemn, when 
 the world of sinners shall be arraigned 
 before the judgment-seat of Christ. 
 
 V. ir. "Your breath." The threats, 
 in which they breathed out destruction 
 against God's people, would recoil on 
 themselves. As they had sought to do, 
 so God would requite them. The punish- 
 ment would answer to the sin. The 
 boasts and blasphemies of Rabshakeh 
 made keen and sharp the sword of the 
 destroying angel. Tiiorns cut up were 
 used as fuel in the lime-kilns of Palestine. 
 
 vv. 13, 14. The heathen afar, and 
 the men of Judah, are called to own the 
 power of the God of Israel. Above all, 
 the hypocrites and the profane in Zion, of 
 whom there were so many, would reflect 
 with fear on the majesty of God, and how 
 unfit they were to stand before Ilim in 
 His final judgment. His holy anger, dis- 
 played before their eyes, would prick 
 their conscience. The words refer back 
 to the saying of the Law, "For the 
 Lord your God is a consuming fire, even 
 a jealous God." 
 
 vv. 15, 16. This solemn warning to 
 the sinners in Zion brings to the faithful 
 
 a new pledge of God's favour and pro- 
 tecting care. The words are not an 
 answer to the previous questions, but a 
 transition from the deep alarm of one 
 class to the peaceful security of the other. 
 How safe are they whom His favour en- 
 compasses like a shield ! Their wants, 
 even in this life, will be provided for. 
 But above all they will cat of that Bread 
 of life, and drink of that Water of life, 
 which satisfy for ever, 
 
 v. 17. The King must be the same as 
 in xxxii. i, and again in v. 22, "The 
 Lord is our King, He will save us." It 
 is thus "Immanuel, God with us," the 
 Child whose name shall be called "the 
 Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the 
 Prince of peace." He is the same of 
 whom the Psalmist writes, "Thou art 
 fairer than the children of men." The 
 faithful will see this King in his heavenly 
 beauty, and seeing Him, be transformed 
 into his image. They will be like Him, 
 for they will see Him as He is. 
 
 The last clause some refer to an en- 
 largement of the bounds of Judah, and 
 others, to the new liberty of visiting foreign 
 lands, when the invasion was at an end. 
 But the true meaning must be deeper, 
 and answer to the warning and the rest of 
 the promise. Those who sluit their eyes 
 from seeing evil shall sec the King in his 
 
ISAIAH, XXXIII. 19—24. 
 
 167 
 
 terror : Where is the scribe ? where is the receiver ? where is he 
 that counted the towers? 19 The fierce people thou shalt see 
 no more, the people of a deeper speech than thou canst per- 
 ceive, of a stammering tongue that thoit canst not understand. 
 
 20 Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities : thine eyes 
 shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle tJiat shall 
 not be taken down : not one of the stakes thereof shall be re- 
 moved for ever, and none of the cords thereof shall be broken. 
 21 But there the Lord %vill he our glory, a place of rivers and 
 wide-spreading streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars, 
 neither shall stately ship pass thereby. 22 For the LORD is 
 our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king : 
 he will save us. 23 Thy ropes are cast loose, they could not 
 strengthen the foot of their mast ; they could not spread the 
 sail ; then w^as the booty of a great spoil divided ; the lame 
 take the prey, 24 And the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick : 
 the people that dwell therein sJiall be forgiven their iniquity. 
 
 beauty of perfect holiness. The "land 
 that is very far off" is likewise a contrast 
 to the everlasting burnings. It is the 
 same the patriarchs desired, Heb. xi. i6, 
 the far country to vi'hich this King went 
 away, and whence He will return, Mat. 
 XXV. 14. 
 
 vv. 18, 19. Freed from danger, the 
 faithful will reflect with wonder on their 
 deliverance. The scribe or secretary is 
 the officer who received and noted the 
 submission of captured cities ; the re- 
 ceiver, he who weighed the tribute of the 
 vassals; the counter of the towers, the 
 military engineer, who directed the siege. 
 All these would pass away like a dream 
 in the common ruin. The words of St 
 Paul, I Cor. i. ■20, are neither strict quota- 
 lion nor a paraphrase, but a similar out- 
 burst of triumphant joy. The false wisdom 
 of the world would fail before the cross of 
 Christ, like the Assyrian host under the 
 sword of the destroying angel. 
 
 V. 19. A foreign tongue adds mystery 
 and terror to deeds of violence, and shuts 
 out all appeals for mercy. Hence it is 
 named in the Law as one chief aggrava- 
 tion of heathen conquest, Deut. xxviii. 49. 
 
 vv. 20 — 24. Though weak and mutable 
 in itself, like an Arabian tent, Zion should 
 be firm and stable through God's covenant. 
 Its peace and security should be complete. 
 
 The figure next changes to a city, seated 
 by some noble river, which fertilizes the 
 land and brings to it a world-wide com- 
 merce. Other capitals may borrow great- 
 ness from such a river ; but Zion claims a 
 far higher privilege, the presence of the 
 Most High, with more than all its benefits, 
 and free from all its dangers. The streams 
 of His grace refresh and fertilize, but no 
 hostile ship can gain access thereby. 
 
 The enemy are next described as a 
 pirate vessel, loaded with plunder, which 
 seeks to force the defences of this well- 
 watered city of God. The Assyrian would 
 soon become like a wreck, abandoned in 
 the storm by its own sailors. Even the 
 lame would be able, without fear or oppo- 
 sition, to share in its spoils. The promise 
 then passes on to the times of restitution, 
 spoken of by all the prophets. The 
 bright and glorious hope in the Prophet's 
 first message, ii. i — 4, struggles here, 
 through stormy skies, into the full, un- 
 clouded brightness of an eternal day. 
 
i68 ISAIAH, XXXIV. i. 
 
 § 6. Chap. XXXIV. The Judgment on the Nations. 
 
 Two different views have been taken of this chapter, and each has some 
 arguments in its favour. Most moderns explain it simply as a local pro- 
 phecy against Idumiea. Others give Edom here a moral sense, and refer 
 the chapter to the judgment, called elsewhere the Vintage of God's anger. 
 Rev. xiv. This is the view of the Rabbis, Eusebius, Jerome, Cyril, Theo- 
 doret, Luther, Pellican, Vitringa, and J. H. Michaelis. The reasons for their 
 view are these. Ten local prophecies have their titles prefixed, which is 
 here wanting. The object is defined from the. first to be "all nations and 
 their armies." All people of the earth are summoned to behold a wonderful 
 work of God. Its place is not in the series of local Burdens, but at the close 
 of these Earlier Visions. Also a Burden on Mount Seir has been given before 
 ill its natural place, xxi. ii — 13. The language answers to Is. Ixiii. and 
 Rev. xviii., xix., both of which refer to the last days of the Church of Christ. 
 The time is called "the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." 
 This points naturally to the period when Jerusalem shall cease to be trodden 
 down, and when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, Lu. xxi. 24. Nothing 
 seems plainer than the specific nature of the prophecy, whether a burden 
 un Idumaja, or on all nations, and that it is to be marked by a lasting 
 desolation of the main theatre of the judgment. The reasons above seem 
 to be decisive in favour of the vv'ider application to a solemn judgment on 
 Gentile apostates or rebels in the last days. The desolation of Petra and 
 Iduma^a is directly predicted by Amos and Jeremiah. But here it seems 
 only, in one or two verses, to supply a language for events more extensive 
 and solemn. 
 
 Come near, ye nations^ to hear ; and hearken, ye people : 
 let the earth hear, and all that is therein ; the world, and all 
 
 vv. I, 2. Heaven and earth have been v. 4. The language here, as in all 
 
 invited before to listen to God's contio- such passages, is optical, or is referred to 
 
 versy with Israel. Here, at the close of the senses of mankind. In violent dis- 
 
 the earlier visions, ail dwellers in the turbances of the atmosphere or lower 
 
 world are to contemplate His further heavens, the sun is darkened, the moon is 
 
 controversy with Gentile nations. The blood-red or ceases to shine, and the stars 
 
 words answer to Deut. xxxii. 40 — 42 ; may seem either to be blotted from view, 
 
 I .Sam. ii. 10; 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7; Is. or dashed violently from their places. 
 
 Ixiii. I — 6; Ezek. xxxvii. 21 — 23; Zeph. The words, if metaphors, will denote 
 
 iii. 8. Thus applied, they retain their clianges by which princes and rulers are 
 
 jjroper force. Rejection of the Gosjiel, violeiUly overthrown. Rut the proper 
 
 all Scripture teaches, will be followed by sense of the words is to be preferred, 
 
 sure judgments. that all nature will mourn and be troubled, 
 
 V. 3. The number of the slain is to in strange accordance with God's work 
 
 l)e very great, and their bodies left witli- of jud^m.ent. 
 
 out burial. The descriptions in EzeUiel, v. 5. "Bathed in heaven." Steeped 
 
 .ind those of the vintage inthcApocaiyiJse, and tempered in Divine anger, as in liquid 
 
 are equally strong. hrc, to execute Ili^ judgments. Edom 
 
ISAIAH, XXXIV. 2—7. 
 
 169 
 
 things that come forth of it. 2 For the indignation of the 
 Lord is upon all nations, and Ids fury upon all their armies : 
 he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the 
 slaughter. 3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink 
 shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountain shall be 
 melted with their blood. 4 And all the hosts of heaven shall 
 be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a 
 scroll ; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off 
 from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. 5 For my 
 sword shall be bathed in heaven : behold, it shall come down 
 upon Edom, even upon the people of my curse, to judgment. 
 
 6 The sword of the Lord is filled with blood ; it is made fat 
 ^vith 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 uni- 
 corns shall come down along with them, and the bullocks with 
 the bulls; and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their 
 
 is here not a country, IduniEea, but a 
 people, the people of God's chere7n or 
 curse. In v. 2 the literal rendering is — 
 "he hath devoted them to a chere?)i," or 
 curse of utter destruction. He is not an 
 Edomite, just as he is not a Jew, which 
 is one outwardly. The Edom of this 
 place are the profane and apostate, who 
 "bear perpetual hatred" against God's 
 Israel, and plan their destruction. 
 
 V. 6. These strong figures express the 
 great severity of the judgment. The 
 lambs, goats, and rams, denote ungodly 
 men, small and great, as victims for a 
 strange sacrifice. 
 
 "In Bozrah." Here is the first sign 
 of a local reference. There was a Boz- 
 rah in Hauran, east of Jordan, and ano- 
 ther, the modern Buseirah, in Arabia 
 I'etrrea, an early capital of the Edomites, 
 Gen. xxxvi. 33. It is named by Amos 
 and Jeremiah: Am. i. 12, Jer. xlix. 13. 
 But the name occurs also, Is. Ixiii. i, 
 where the reasons against its being taken 
 literally are strong. The name denotes 
 "a fortress," and seems to be the same 
 with Byrsa, that of the citadel of Car- 
 thage. The ruin of the Edomite Bozrah, 
 probably by the Chaldeans, has no plain 
 historic record. We cannot suppose that 
 "all nations" and "the whole world" 
 are charged to conlcmphitc with awe and 
 
 ■wonder an obscure event, which has left 
 no trace at all in profane history. The 
 word must rather refer to the stronghold 
 of the mystic Edom, or Rome, the great 
 city that was to reign, in later days, over 
 the kingdoms of the earth. 
 
 V. 7. The word reem, rendered "uni- 
 corn" by the LXX., occurs also Nu. xxiii. 
 22; xxiv. 8; Deut. xxxiii. 17; Job xxxix. 
 9, 10; Ps. xxii. 21; xxix. 6; xcii. 10. 
 It has been referred to several animals: 
 (i) the Tsopo, or some other now un- 
 known ; (2) the Oryx leucoryx, an antelope 
 (Bochart); (3) the Rhinoceros; (4) the 
 Buffalo, Bison, or Urus; or (5) an animal 
 purely fabulous. It is named only in 
 Balaam's prophecy and the poetical 
 books, never in the Levitical precepts, 
 or the history. This favours the view 
 that it was known in Palestine by report 
 alone. Its strength is implied in the 
 words of Balaam, its wildness in Job, 
 its agility in the Psalms, and also the 
 height of its horn or horns. The men- 
 tion here agrees best with the idea of 
 a clean animal, fit for sacrifice, Ps. xcii. 
 10 is no sufficient proof that it was one- 
 horned, still less Deut. xxxii. 17 that it 
 was two-horned, since it is there a col- 
 lective term. The view of Bochart seems 
 the most probable ; the least likely that 
 which applies it to the rhinoceros. 
 
I/O 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXIV. 8—13. 
 
 dust made fat with fatness. 8 For it is the day of the Lord's 
 vengeance, the year of recompences for 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: from generation to genera- 
 tion it shall lie Avaste: none shall pass through it for ever and 
 ever. 1 1 But the pelican and the porcupine shall inherit it, the 
 great owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he will stretch 
 out upon it the line of confusion, and the plummet of desolation. 
 12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none 
 .$■7/^// ^6' there, and all her princes shall be at an end. 13 And 
 
 V. 8. This note of time confirms tlie 
 wider application. The Chaldean inroads 
 in Iduniiea were during Israel's cap- 
 tivity, not at its close. The words recur 
 Ixiii. 4, where the context assigns them 
 to the last days. 
 
 vv. 9, 10. These words would be a 
 strange hyperbole, if applied to Idumcea 
 in the age before Cyrus. They describe no 
 desertion of a rocky district through mili- 
 tary inroads, but a bituminous conflagra- 
 tion. Of such a change Petra and its neigh- 
 bourhood offer no trace ; while the words 
 answer strictly to the account, in the 
 Apocalypse, of the fall of that mystic 
 Babylon, which is also the mystic Edom. 
 "None shall pass through it, &c. " The 
 state of Petra and Mount Seir from the 
 times of Mahomet, though a partial 
 fulfilment, comes very short of the full 
 emphasis of these words. "In the fifth 
 century Palestina Tertia embraced Edom 
 and some neighbouring provinces; and 
 when it became an ecclesiastical division, 
 its metropolis was Petra. In the seventh 
 century the Saracen conquest gave a 
 death-blow to the commerce and pros- 
 perity of Edom. Under Mahometan 
 rule the great cities fell to ruin, and the 
 country became a desert. The Crusaders 
 made several expeditions into Edom, 
 penetrating as far as Petra, to which they 
 gave the name it still bears, Wady Musa, 
 the valley of Moses. About twelve miles 
 north of Petra they built a strong fortress, 
 now Shobek. From that time to the pre- 
 sent century Edom remained an un- 
 known land. In i8i 2 Kurckhardt entered 
 
 it from the north, and discovered the 
 wonderful ruins of Petra. Many have 
 since followed, and a trip to Petra is now 
 part of the eastern traveller's grand tour." 
 (Porter, Smith's Dictionary.) 
 
 However striking this desertion of 
 Edom for eight centuries, yet its com- 
 mencement, seventeen centuries after Ne- 
 buchadnezzar, suits ill with the context. 
 The words seem to predict a desolation 
 more sudden in its origin, more awful in 
 its features, and also more lasting and 
 complete. 
 
 v. II. "The line of confusion." 
 Such wisdom as the architect uses in 
 building with line and plummet, the 
 I,ord would use, in this case, to make 
 the desolation complete. 
 
 v. 12. The race of nobles were to be 
 extinct in the common ruin. None would 
 be found, when required, to assume the 
 kingdom. The word horiiii may allude 
 to the Ilorites, the old inhabitants of 
 Idumnea. 
 
 V. 13. "Dragons" some render wolves 
 (Alex., Ilend. ), othersjackals(Drechsler); 
 but the change is a doubtful improvement. 
 Bciioth yaanah, "owls" A.V., are now 
 taken rather to be ostriches ; but as the 
 name is derived from their harsh note or 
 cry, it seems best to retain in the version 
 a more general phrase. Kippoz, "the 
 porcupine" in several early versions, "the 
 great owl," A.V., is shown by Bochart to 
 be the arrow-snake, an adder noted for 
 its venom and its sudden spring, and his 
 conclusion is accepted by most recent 
 authorities. "Its shadow" may refer to 
 
ISAIAH, XXXIV. 14—17. 
 
 171 
 
 thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in her 
 fortresses; and it shall be a habitation for dragons, rt'Wfa? a court 
 for birds of wailing. 14 And wild beasts shall meet with dole- 
 ful creatures, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow: the night-owl 
 also shall lodge there, and find for herself a place of rest, 
 15 There shall the arrow-snake make its nest, and lay, and 
 hatch, and gather under its shadow: there shall the vultures 
 also be gathered, every one with her mate. 16 Seek ye out 
 of the book of the LoRD, and read: no one of these shall fail; 
 none shall want its fellow: for my 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 
 line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation 
 they shall dwell therein. 
 
 the dark and obscure spot chosen for 
 incubation. The whole picture is of a 
 land made unfit for men, and given up to 
 unclean beasts and doleful birds. The like 
 words recur, Rev. xviii. 1, where Babylon 
 is said to become "a hold of every foul 
 spirit, and a lodge of every unclean and 
 hateful bird." 
 
 vv. 16, 17. "The book" some refer to 
 the books of Moses, some to the prophets 
 in general, others to this chapter alone. 
 Drechsler says with truth — -"It is plain 
 that the prophet notes his own prophecy 
 as part of a greater whole, to which it 
 belonged beforehand, and in which it 
 would be reckoned." The words thus 
 apply to the Law, as enlarged in succes- 
 sion by all the later Scriptures. So our 
 Lord gives the title "your law" to the 
 Psalms as well as the writings of Moses. 
 We have here a striking witness to the 
 
 high early estimation and sacred authority 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 "None shall want its fellow." This 
 alludes, not to pairs of the same kind, but 
 to the presence of all the kinds of birds and 
 beasts here named. No tribe should fail 
 in this commonwealth of unclean animals. 
 
 V. 16. "My mouth," "his Spirit." 
 The doctrine of the plurality of Divine 
 Persons dawns already in the Prophets, 
 though more plainly revealed in the Gos- 
 pel. Comp. Is. xlviii. i6. The Word of 
 God declares His own decree, whose 
 sword would be bathed in heaven, v. 5 ; 
 the decree also of the Father, whose 
 indignation is upon all nations, and 
 whose day of vengeance is come, vv. 2, 8 ; 
 and a decree to be executed by the Spirit 
 of God. The last verse implies that a 
 lasting brand is fixed on the theatre of 
 these desolating judgments. 
 
1/2 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXV. 1—6. 
 
 § 7. Chap. XXXV. Tiik Times of Restitution. 
 
 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
 them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. 
 2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and 
 singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excel- 
 lency of Carmel and Sharon: they shall see the glory of the 
 Lord, the excellent beauty of our God. 3 Strengthen ye the 
 weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 4 Say unto them 
 tJiat arc of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God 
 will come zvitJi vengeance, with the recompence of God: he will 
 come, and save you. 
 
 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears 
 of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then shall the lame vimi 
 
 V. I. The figures liere are mixed, the 
 land and its inhabiters being joined in 
 the promise. The wilderness shall blos- 
 som and be fruitful, in figure it will re- 
 joice. The people shall rejoice with joy 
 and singing; in a figure they too will 
 blossom, and their souls become like a 
 garden of the Lord. 
 
 The pronoun "for them" refers to the 
 unclean things just named. These venom- 
 ous or doleful creatures are tokens that 
 severe vengeance has been inflicted on 
 the open enemies of God's people. They 
 are signs, on the dial-plate of Providence, 
 tliat the jubilee of the earth is come. 
 
 The flower has been supposed to be the 
 lily (Anc. V., Luther, Calvin), the narcis- 
 sus (Saadias, Gesen.), and the meadow- 
 saffron (Rosenm., Gesen., Thesaur., &c.). 
 But the version, rose (Kimchi, Jerome, 
 Junius, Vitr., Lowth, Augustus, Alex., 
 Henderson) is certainly as probable in 
 itself, and more beautiful and expressive. 
 The ol)jection that the derivation implies 
 a bulbous plant is answered by referring 
 it to the unopened rose-bud. This adds 
 still more to the beauty of the figure, "as 
 the opening rose." 
 
 V. 2. "Shall be given to it." Lit. 
 "hath been given." In Hebrew the past 
 tense is often mixed with futures, to ex- 
 press the certainty of the prediction. The 
 promise is full of beauty. In ch. xxxiii. 9, 
 the Assyrian ravages are described by 
 the wasting of Lebanon, Sharon, Bashan, 
 
 and Cannel. Here the picture is re- 
 versed. Lebanon, Carmel, Sharon, re- 
 sume their excellency and glory; and it 
 will be shared by the wilderness, the 
 desert, and the solitary place. The bless- 
 ing mounts higher. They shall see the 
 glory of the Lord, the excellent beauty of 
 God. His uncreated goodness will be 
 displayed, a glory higher than that of 
 Lebanon, a grace fairer and more lovely 
 than of Carmel and Sharon. The words 
 are expounded by St John; — "And the 
 Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
 us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as 
 of the Only Begotten of the Father." 
 
 V. 3. Here the message reverts to 
 the days of the Prophet, so as to include 
 every later day until the promise was ful- 
 filled. The teachers and guides of the 
 faithful are chai"ged to encourage them by 
 a sure hope of good things to come. The 
 Apostle, Heb. xii. 12, quotes the words 
 and applies them anew. His mention of 
 Esau, xii. 16, perhaps alludes to ch. xxxiv., 
 which precetles; while the charge in 
 V. 14 to follow after holiness alludes to 
 the highway named in this same pro- 
 mise. 
 
 V. 4. " Of a fearful heart." The word 
 is the same as in xxxii. 4. Fear and pre- 
 cijiitance are near allied. True Christian 
 courage arises from calm reflection on the 
 promises of God, while a weak faith is 
 soon discouraged by seasons of delay. 
 
 Some render, against the accents, "Be- 
 
ISAIAH, XXXV. 7— lo. 
 
 ^73 
 
 leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in 
 the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. 
 7 And the looming sand-waste shall become a lake, and the 
 thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation, the lair of 
 dragons, s/m// be a place for reeds and rushes. 8 And a highway- 
 shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of 
 holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be 
 theirs alone: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not go 
 astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall 
 go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed 
 shall walk tJicre. 10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall 
 return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy shall 
 be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and 
 sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 hold your God ! vengeance will come, 
 the retribution of God, etc." But the 
 received version is preferable, with one 
 slight change, which adds to the empha- 
 sis. The sacred name, in the first clause, 
 refers to Messiah, Immanuel, " He that 
 shall come," the Mighty God, Is. ix. 6. 
 He will come "with the recompence of 
 God," or to do the will of his Father in 
 rewarding and punishing. The pronoun 
 is emphatic. He, your God himself, will 
 come and save you. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. The miracles of our Lord are 
 here foretold, including His higher mer- 
 cies to the souls of men. The words 
 spoken to our Lord by the messengers of 
 John, and His answer, point alike to this 
 passage. These wonders were the revealed 
 tokens of Him that was to come. 
 
 This reference, however plain, has been 
 denied, notonly byneologians, butbysome 
 orthodox expositors (Vitr., Alex., Hand.). 
 But their reasons have no force. Our 
 Lord, it is true, does not use the form of 
 a quotation. But since the Baptist had 
 
 based his own claims on Is. xl. 3, while 
 these verses are the exact parallel of xl. 10, 
 II, the Baptist's question must have been 
 a direct allusion to these two passages; 
 and the miracles were wrought before the 
 messengers, to convince them that He was 
 indeed "The Coming One." The words 
 cannot denote merely some "sudden, ex- 
 traordinary change" (Alex.), because the 
 changes mentioned are of the most de- 
 finite kind. After a general announcement 
 of blessings to follow after the judgment, 
 the Prophet mentions the sources from 
 which they will flow. Literal "streams 
 in the desert" could not open blind eyes, 
 or unstop deaf ears. This does not prove 
 that both are figurative, but warrants us 
 to include both natural and spiritual cures. 
 V. 7. The word sharib, "parched 
 ground," A.V., more exactly "looming 
 sand-waste," refers to the mirage, of 
 which it is the Arabic name. The vain 
 shadows of the world, which deceive and 
 never satisfy, are to be replaced by the 
 enduring joys of the kingdom of God. 
 
1/4 ISAIAH, XXXV. 
 
 CLOSE OF THE EARLIER VISIONS. 
 
 The Earlier Visions of Isaiah, chli. i. — xxxv., in their three distinct 
 series, point throughout to the approaching crisis of Assyrian conquest, and 
 to the dehverance of Jerusalem by the sudden overthrow of the invading 
 host. Already, in ch. ii., a day of solemn visitation is announced against 
 all the splendour and beauty of the land of promise. In ch. v. the invading 
 power is more clearly foreshown, and summoned by the voice of God him- 
 self from a distant land, to execute His judgment. In the Second Cycle 
 of the First Series, chh. vii. — xii., the warning grows more distinct, being 
 prefaced by the promise of Immanuel, the heir of David's throne, whose 
 kingdom should never fail. The invasion is to be a flood, reaching to the 
 neck ; and Zion alone, the head, would escape from the wide-reaching 
 desolation. The Assyrian would reach the heights on the north of Jeru- 
 salem, and threaten it with captivity, but then be suddenly cut down ; and 
 the vista closes with a picture of Messiah's happy reign. 
 
 The Burdens begin with one on Babylon, to be last fulfilled, just as the 
 First Series began with predicting the final glory of Zion. Then follow 
 judgments to be inflicted by Assyria, the rod of God's anger, on Philistia, 
 Moab, Syria, Ephraim, Egypt and Ethiopia, and the Arabian tribes ; and 
 then on Samaria and the northern kingdom, with a promise of Jerusalem's 
 deliverance through her recovery from sensual blindness to faith in the God 
 of Israel. The last Burden on Tyre reaches onward to the times of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar and Cyrus; and the series closes with a general warning, and 
 renewed prom.ises of the good things to come. 
 
 The Woes, dating from the first years of Hezekiah, first denounce the 
 speedy downfall of Samaria, the utter failure of the worldly hopes of the 
 scornful in Judah, and the investment of Jerusalem by the alien armies ; and 
 then reveal, more clearly than before, the overthrow of the Assyrian spoiler 
 by the hand of God. 
 
 The closing section of these Visions, ch. xxxv., has been referred to 
 Judah under Hezekiah, to the Return from Babylon, to the call of the Gen- 
 tiles, to the whole Christian Dispensation, and to the last days of the Church 
 of Christ. Others infer that all these alike are included in its meaning. 
 The conclusion, however, is very groundless, that of differing expositions 
 all must equally be false or ec^ually true. If ch. xxxiv. refers locally to 
 Iduma:a, the next must belong to the Return from Babylon. But the 
 objection of Vitringa has great force: "The Idum^ans were not so terrible 
 that the safety of the Jewish state depended on them ; nay, they were, and 
 were accounted, in strength, size, and fertility of their land, far inferior to 
 the Jews. The wasting of Iduma^a could not give life, vigour, beauty, and 
 honour, to the Jewish state. Nor do ^he joyful and prosperous things here 
 announced at all agree with the state of those who returned from Babylon." 
 
ISAIAH, XXXV. 175 
 
 On the other hand, if ch. xxxiv. refers to the vintage of Is. Ixiii. and 
 Rev. xiv., xix., its sequel must also refer to a season still future, or the pro- 
 mised "times of restitution." On this view the connexion is plain. Open 
 judgment on Gentile apostates is the preface, in many Scriptures, to the 
 predicted gloiy of the last days. Again, chh. xxviii.— xxxv. form a complete 
 series, beginning with the fall of Samaria, the crown of pride, and closing 
 with a promise of crowns of everlasting joy to the Israel of God. The 
 interval constitutes that long course of Gentile laile, which is to cease Avhen 
 Jerusalem is no longer trodden down, and the times of the Gentiles are 
 fulfilled. Thus all these Earlier Prophecies will form a larger series, which 
 begins and closes with mention of a time when nations shall learn war no 
 more, but flow to Zion as the centre of holy worship. 
 
 On this view xxxv. i, 2 answers to ch. ii. i — 4, and describes the joy of 
 Israel's final recovery. The next verses announce that Coming of Messiah 
 which was to precede, and through which alone their recovery could be ful- 
 filled. The rest of the chapter unfolds the blessings that are to follow, or 
 the glorious reign of the promised Immanuel, the Prince of Peace. There 
 seems no reason for confining the words in the opening verse to Palestine, 
 and the absence of the article justifies us in giving them the widest sense. 
 Ever)'where, except in that doomed region of judgment, the Avildernesses 
 are to rejoice. The creation will be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
 ruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, Rom. viii. 21. 
 
 The four chapters of history, xxxvi. — xxxix., are the natural sequel of these 
 prophecies, and the. preparation for the Later Visions that follow. They 
 occur also in 2 Ki. xviii. — xx., with a few slight variations, and the omis- 
 sion of the writing of Hezekiah. But there are many internal signs that 
 their original place is in this book of Isaiah. The changes in the Book 
 of Kings consist chiefly in the replacement of more dramatic by simply his- 
 torical expressions, as in xxxix. 2, "was glad of them" becomes "hearkened 
 to them." Also the historical order is restored in the last verses of ch, xxxviii., 
 with other alterations suited to a book of simple history. 
 
 Their connexion with the structure of the whole book is most intimate 
 and vital. The Earlier Prophecies all converge on that coming Assyrian 
 overthrow, of which chh. xxxvi., xxxvii. are the historical record ; while the 
 illness and recovery of Hezekiah, ch. xxxviii., marks the transition from 
 times of peril and danger to a gracious reprieve in years of peace and 
 truth. Lastly, the message of Merodach, king of Babylon, ch. xxxix., and 
 the weakness of Hezekiah, occasion a warning of that future captivity, from 
 which all the later Prophecies diverge; passing onward into a prediction 
 of the days of Cyrus, the times of Messiah, and the full and final deliver- 
 ance of Zion from her long sorrows. 
 
176 ISAIAH, XXXVI. 
 
 IV. HISTORICAL EPISODE. 
 Chaps. XXXVI.— XXXIX. 
 
 This Historical Episode is the Fourth Series of Isaiah's Prophecies, 
 and forms a key to the structure of the whole book. It contains, first, the 
 record of the Assyrian invasion, and of that sudden overthrow, towards 
 which all the foregoing prophecies converge, as their central though not 
 their final object. It is predicted in chh. v., vi., vii. 17 — 25; viii, 7 — 15; 
 X. 5 — 34; xiv. 24 — 27, 31, 32 ; xvii. 11 — 14; xviii. 3 ; xx. ; xxii. I — 14 ; xxiv. ; 
 xxviii. I — 22; xxix.- — xxxiii. Here is the turning point, from which Assyria 
 begins to decline, its main work being fulfilled, and Babylon comes forward 
 on the scene. The Prophet himself, also, reaches here the highest point 
 of historical elevation. To him the nation resorts in the extremity of 
 danger, and from his lips proceeds the sentence of doom on the Assyrian, 
 in tones of stern and majestic sublimity. 
 
 We have, next, the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah. His reign is thus 
 parted into a cloudy and troubled morning, a noonday suddenly echpsed, 
 with the eclipse as suddenly removed, and an eventide of truth and peace, 
 during which his faith and piety availed to suspend the downward course 
 of national decline, just as the shadow was turned back on the dial of Ahaz. 
 Thirdly, in the message of Merodach Baladan, and the warning that ensued, 
 there is revealed, both in its moral and political cause, the source and 
 character of all the later troubles. 
 
 The Prophet has thus fulfilled his first great work, and been like a tower 
 and a bulwark to his people, as God's faithful messenger and witness, when 
 the blast of the terrible was as a storm against the wall. And now he is 
 called to a still higher office in his old age, as the messenger of bright and 
 blessed hope to all later generations. The rod of prophecy, which has 
 already, like the rod of Aaron in Egypt, smitten down the pride of the 
 Assyrian, must now in like manner, "bud, and bring forth buds, and bloom 
 blossoms, and yield almonds," Num. xvii. 8. A new starting point is given 
 for all his future messages by his parting words to Hezekiah, and their 
 warning of the coming Babylonish captivity. From this lofty watch-tower, 
 taught by the Holy Spirit, his eye ranges far onward into the good things 
 to come; and, with his lips newly touched with fire from the heavenly 
 altar, he becomes a glorious messenger of hope and comfort to every later 
 generation of the church of God. 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVI. 1—5. 
 
 177 
 
 § I. Chap. XXXVI. The Assyrian Defiance. 
 
 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Heze- 
 kiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the 
 defenced cities of Judah, and took them. 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 highway of the fuller's field. 3 Then 
 came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the 
 house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the re- 
 corder. 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 trustest.^ 5 I aver, sayest thoti, 
 what vain words! / have counsel and strength for war: now on 
 
 V. I. From bright and glorious pro- 
 phecy of the times of Messiah tliere is 
 here a sudden return to plain, unadorned 
 narrative. The word of God combines 
 thorough historical reality with an ideal 
 nobler than all human poetry. The same 
 contrast is found Lu. i. 68, 79, ii. i; Joh. 
 xvii. xviii. i ; i Cor. xv. xvi. i. 
 
 " And took them." The final result. 
 Lachish and Libnah were not taken at the 
 time of the first message. This cam- 
 paign is noted in the prism inscription. 
 "In my third campaign I marched to- 
 wards Syria." The capture of Lachish 
 seems recorded on the slabs found in the 
 palace at Kouyunjik. "Sennacherib, the 
 mighty king, sitting on the throne of judg- 
 ment before the city of Lachisha : I give 
 permission for its slaughter." A site, 
 Um-lakes, with some remains, still exists, 
 and plainly derives its name from the old 
 city, though some think the true site lies 
 rather more to the south. 
 
 Lachish and Libnah fell also in Jo- 
 shua's first campaign. The punishment, 
 as well as the sin of Judah, was like that 
 of the Amorites, 2 Ki. xvii. 8, i r ; xxi. 2, 
 9, II. The flood was to reach "even 
 to the neck," viii. 8, and Jerusalem, the 
 head of the kingdom, alone escaped the 
 fierce inundation. 
 
 "Rabshakeh." Three names are given 
 in Kings, Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabsha- 
 keh. .Some infer from the inscriptions 
 
 B. I. 
 
 that these are titles of office rather than 
 pi'oper names ; the commander-in-chief, 
 the chief eunuch, and the chief cup-bearer. 
 But the mention of Tartan in this book, 
 Is. XX. I, and of Rabsaris in Jeremiah, as 
 one of seven Chaldean princes, where the 
 names are clearly of persons, since Nebu- 
 zaradan has his office adjoined in the same 
 chapter, is strongly adverse to this view. 
 From the siege of Ashdod by Tartan 
 under Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, 
 there were only a very few years to the 
 present campaign. The same general, 
 who had brought the siege of Ashdod 
 to a successful end, might well be chosen 
 to lead the forces against Jerusalem. 
 
 V. 1. "With a great army." These 
 words agree with xxix. i — 6, and the 
 Assyrian remains, to show that there was 
 an actual investment of Jerusalem. The 
 king had some hope to frighten them into 
 instant surrender. Failing this, his aim 
 would be to reduce them by famine, so 
 that, when he appeared before the city 
 in person, it might be like a ripe fig, Nah. 
 ii. 12, and drop at once into the mouth 
 of the destroyer. Comp. 2 Sam. xii. 
 26, 28. The spot of this interview was 
 the very same where Ahaz had despised 
 God's message by the prophet, thirty 
 years before, vii. i — 20. The threat to 
 Ahab was fulfilled anew to the house of 
 David — "I will requite thee in this plat, 
 saith the Lord." 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVI. 6— 11. 
 
 whom dost thou trust, that thou rebcllcst against me? 6 Lo, 
 thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on 
 which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so 
 is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. 7 But if 
 thou say to me, We trust in the LoRD our God : is it not he, 
 whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, 
 and said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this 
 altar.'' 8 Now therefore wager, I pray thee, with 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 wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of 
 my master's servants.^ so thou puttest thy trust in Egypt for 
 chariots and horsemen! 10 And am I now come up without 
 the Lord against this land, to destroy it } The LORD said unto 
 me. Go up against this land, and destroy it. 1 1 Then said Elia- 
 kim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakch, Speak, I pray thee. 
 
 V. 3. The promise to Eliakim, xxii. 
 20, i\, was already fulfilled. His pre- 
 sence, to those who believed the words of 
 the prophet, was one pledge of coming 
 deliverance. On this mention of Shebna 
 remark has been made before. His depo- 
 sition had been absolutely foretold, and 
 here another is seen holding his former 
 cfTice. His exile for a time, as a hostage 
 to Assyria, was probably fulfilled at once 
 on Hezekiah's accession. But it is not 
 unlikely that, upon his repentance in that 
 affliction, like Manasseh, the threatening 
 of his death in exile had been graciously 
 withdrawn. His union with Eliakim 
 in this crisis, like that of Sosthenes with 
 St Paul, I Cor. i. i, will thus imply a 
 secret history of repentance and recovery. 
 
 V. 4. The pride of Rabshakeh sho\\s 
 itself in every word. He refuses Heze- 
 kiah the name of king. A report of He- 
 zekiah's words, 2 Chr. xxxii. 6 — 8, must 
 have reached him from Assyrian parti- 
 zans among the men of Judah. The words 
 are not an inquiry, but a haughty defiance. 
 What simpletons you must be to trust in 
 the help of your God against so mighty a 
 king ! 
 
 V. 5. Insteadof the first person, in Kings 
 the third person is used. Here we have 
 probably the exact words of Rabshakch, 
 mimicking the speech of Hezekiah, and 
 putting in as a parenthesis, What empty 
 trash ! But in Kings Isaiah, or the later 
 
 compiler, changes them to a less dramatic 
 form. 
 
 V. 6. "This broken reed." An allu- 
 sion to the recent victories of Sargon, 
 predicted xx. 5, 7, and now confirmed by 
 his own inscription, which states that he 
 carried his arms into Eg}pt. The weak- 
 ness of that ancient power is the one 
 j)oint of agreement between this proud 
 blasphemer and the prophets of God. 
 See ch. xix. 
 
 V. 7. Another reference to Hezekiah's 
 words, 2 Chr. xxxii. 8, which allude in 
 their turn to the promised Immanuel. 
 Rabshakeh knew that the reform, which 
 put down the high places in Judah, was 
 odious to a strong heathenizing party. He 
 represents it, then, as a double offence 
 against the honour of God and the reli- 
 gious tastes of the people. In his view of 
 royal duty, as with many in these days, 
 to please the people is far more important 
 than to obey the commands of God. 
 Ceremonial laws may be set aside either 
 from above or from below. Rabshakeh 
 here mimics the sublime truth taught later 
 by our I.ord to the woman of Samaria, 
 Joh. iv. 21. 
 
 V. 10. Isaiah, thirty years before, 
 X. 6 — 8, had summoned the Assyrian, in 
 God's name, to tread down Israel "as the 
 mire of the street." Rabshakeh knew 
 the Jewish language, and this prediction 
 may easily have come to his cars. But 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVI. 12—16. 
 
 179 
 
 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 
 people that are on the wall. 12 But Rabshakeh said, Hath my 
 master sent me to thy master and to thee, to speak these 
 words } JiatJi Jic not scut me to the men that sit on the wall, that 
 they may eat their own dung, and drink their own water, along 
 with you? 13 Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud 
 voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear ye the words of the 
 great king, the king of Assyria. 14 Thus saith the king, Let 
 not Hezekiah deceive you ; for he will not be able to deliver 
 you. 15 Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, 
 saying. The LoRD will surely deliver us; this city shall not be 
 delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 16 Hearken 
 not to Hezekiah; for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make 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 every one the waters 
 
 the half truth became practically an utter 
 falsehood. The pride of the Assyrian 
 wrested these words of the living God to 
 his own destruction. 
 
 V. II. "The Jews' language." This 
 phrase is no sign whatever of later author- 
 ship. From Moses to Malachi, Hebrew 
 is never once used as a title of the lan- 
 guage. It may have been first so used, 
 in contrast to Greek, by the dispersion in 
 the time of the Macedonians. Also "the 
 speech of Israel" never occurs, but in 
 Is. xix. "the language of Canaan," and 
 here, and in Kings, Chronicles, and Ne- 
 hemiah, the Jews' language only. So 
 English, not British, is used to describe our 
 own tongue, both before and long after the 
 Union with Scotland. "Aramcean was 
 even then, as at a later period, Ezr. iv. 7, 
 the language of intercourse between the 
 Empire of Eastern' Asia and the people 
 west of the Tigris, and educated Judttans 
 not only understood it, but were able to 
 speak it, especially those who were in 
 the service of the state. Assyrian, on the 
 contrary, was unintelligible to the Jews ; 
 .wxiii. 19, though this might apply 
 less to the true Assyrian dialect, which 
 was Semitic, than to the motley lan- 
 guage of the Assyrian army, a com- 
 pound of Aiyan and Turanian elements. 
 The name Sennacherib, ' Sin, i. e. the 
 Moon-god, has multiplied the brethren,' 
 is Semitic ; while Tartan, which cannot 
 
 be explained from the .Semitic or Arj^an, 
 may be an example of the other element, 
 so utterly strange to a Jewish ear." 
 (Delitzsch). 
 
 V. 12. The vulgar insolence of Rab- 
 shakeh's reply is full of instruction. The 
 decencies of society soon perish, when the 
 fear of God is openly cast aside. Famine 
 and thirst of the worst kind would natu- 
 rally follow on that investment which 
 was now just begun, the first step of an 
 Assyrian siege. 
 
 v. 16. "Make peace with me." Lit. 
 "Make with me a blessing." Some ex- 
 plain this to mean " make me a present." 
 But "blessing" seems used here for the 
 oriental salutations of those who meet 
 on the most friendly terms. The promise 
 is meant as a contrast to the revolting 
 threat just before. It was the constant 
 policy of the Assyrians to interchange the 
 population of the lands they conquered, 
 in order to bring them into more complete 
 dependence. But the policy of their am- 
 bition, in this case, was flatly opposed 
 to the promises and covenant of the 
 God of Israel. Besides, such promises, 
 from cruel, selfish conquerors, are often 
 made only to be broken. Possession of 
 Canaan, the land of promise, was sealed 
 to Israel by the covenant of God ; and 
 the attempt wholly to set aside these pro- 
 mises, in the pride of supposed triumph, 
 was one main part of Sennacherib's sin. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o ISAIAH, XXXVI. 17—22. 
 
 of his own cistern ; 17 Until I come and take you away unto a 
 land like 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 As- 
 syria ! 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad } where 
 are the gods of Sepharvaim ? and have they delivered Samaria 
 out of my hand .-• 20 Who are they among all the gods of these 
 lands, which have delivered their country out of my hand, that 
 the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand .-' 21 But 
 they held their peace, and answered him not a word, for the 
 king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not. 22 Then 
 came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, 
 and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder, 
 to Llezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words 
 of Rabshakeh. 
 
 V. 19. Hamath, and Arpad, north of word of God from his lips in this crisis 
 
 Aleppo, and distinct from Arvad or of fear and danger. 
 
 Arad, have been mentioned before in v. 21. The three were silent because 
 
 the prophecy, x. 9, now fulfilled. Sephar- of the charge the king had given them, and 
 
 vaim, a dual form, is the Sippora of Pto- their one transgression of it had only led 
 
 lemy, the southernmost city of Meso- to gross insult. llezekiah had ceased to 
 
 potamia on the left of the Euphrates, have any faith in the skill of negotiators, 
 
 the Ilipparenum of Pliny, and probably and rested only on the promise of Ood. 
 the same as the sun-city, Sippara, where v. 22. Some regard the rending of 
 
 Xisuthros was said to have concealed their garments as a sign of horror at the 
 
 sacred books before the great flood blasphemies of Rabshakeh ; others as a 
 
 (Delitzsch). The correspondence with token of fear and alarm. Both feelings 
 
 ch. X. is very close. The prophet, after would naturally be combined. The crisis, 
 
 thirty years, is spared to take part in, long predicted by the prophet, ch. v. 30, 
 
 and to record, the fulfilment of his own had now come. But the roaring of this 
 
 warning. The very form of Ral)shakeh's fierce lion was soon to be broken, and the 
 
 vaunting was a fresh proof of Isaiah's prey to be delivered by One far mightier 
 
 mission, and a direct call to seek the than he, Job iv. 10, Lu. xi. 22. 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVII. 1—6. 
 
 I8i 
 
 § 2. Chap. XXXVII. The Assyrian Overthrow. 
 
 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he 
 rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went 
 into the house of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim, 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 blasphemy : 
 for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength 
 to bring forth. 4 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 reprove the words 
 which the Lord thy God hath heard : Vv'herefore lift up thy 
 prayer for the remnant that is left. 5 So the servants of king 
 Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus 
 shall ye say unto your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not 
 
 V. I. "And went into the house 
 of the Lord." Hezekiah thus appealed 
 to God's own promise; — -"Now mine 
 eyes shall be open, and mine ears atten- 
 tive unto the prayer made in this place... 
 and mine eyes and mine heart shall be 
 there perpetually." 2 Chr. vii. 15, 16. 
 His prayer, v. 17, alludes to this pro- 
 mise. This was no act of superstition 
 ((jesen.), no sign of want of energy 
 (Hend.), but an act of earnest faith, to 
 be followed soon by its triumphant 
 victory. 
 
 V. 1. Joah seems to have been detained 
 by the king ; but the elders of the priests 
 are added to the embassy, to make it more 
 honourable and complete. The king and 
 the chief officers of the kingdom, both 
 civil and ecclesiastical, wait on the prophet 
 to learn the will of God. Thus the words 
 were fulfilled, " Thine eyes shall observe 
 thy teachers." Thirty years before, the 
 prophet had been sent to Ahaz and the 
 nders, and his words were despised. Now 
 the king and the rulers send to Isaiah ; and 
 he seems instructed to remain at home, 
 and to give them an audience there, as 
 humble suppliants to the King of kings. 
 
 V. 4. Faith gives confidence in prayer, 
 humility tempers it with submission if a 
 present answer is withheld. The men- 
 tion of the remnant left alludes to the 
 
 promise in Shear-jashub's name, "A rem- 
 nant shall return." The figure used im- 
 plies strong hope of a speedy deliver- 
 ance, but also the need of especial help, 
 when the danger seemed almost despe- 
 rate, to bring it to pass. 
 
 w. 6, 7. The calmness and brevity of 
 this first message are a contrast to the 
 fervid irony of the second, when the 
 taunts of Rabshakeh had been followed 
 by his master's still more open and de- 
 liberate blasphemy. But in both Heze- 
 kiah's faith is tried. Deliverance is pro- 
 mised, but its mode is concealed. 
 
 "The youths." This word, lads or 
 striplings, instead of "servants," is used 
 in contempt for these boastful warriors. 
 They were but of yesterday, children of 
 the dust ,' and still they dared to despise 
 the Holy One of Israel, the Ancient 
 of days, who is from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 v. 7. "Behold, I will send a blast 
 upon him." This has been variously ex- 
 plained as a simoom, a thunderstorm, a 
 spirit of courage (Hendn. ), a panic terror 
 (Hendk.), or a simple change of purpose 
 (Rosenm., Gesen., Hitz. ). But the received 
 version (implying a figurative wind, as in 
 xvii. 13) gives a truer sense than these 
 modern substitutes. The parallel is not 
 with xix. 14, xxix. 10, xlii. i, Nu. xi. 29, 
 
I82 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVII. 7—12. 
 
 afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the youths 
 of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Behold, I will 
 send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return 
 to 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 he was departed 
 from Lachish. 9 And he heard say concerning Tirhakah, king 
 of Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee ; and when 
 he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 Thus 
 shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy 
 God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest, saying, Jerusalem shall 
 not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 1 1 Behold, 
 thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all 
 lands, by destroying them utterly, and shalt thou be delivered ^ 
 12 Have the gods of the nations, which my fathers destroyed, 
 delivered them; Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the chil- 
 
 either in thought or phrase. But the al- 
 lusion is direct to xvii. 13, and indirectly 
 to xxviii. 2. This fierce monarch, though 
 himself like a tempest of hail and a 
 destroying storm, shall be driven away 
 like chaff before the blast of the Almighty. 
 Ex. XV. 10, Nu. xvi. 38. The nnnour is 
 not that of Tirhakah's approach (Hahn, 
 Delitzsch), which led only to fresh blas- 
 jjhemies, but of the stroke under which 
 his own warriors have fallen (Hend., 
 Alex.). At the same tinve God's message 
 leaves the nature of this rumour in the 
 dark till its fulfilment, to exercise Heze- 
 kiah's faith still further. 
 
 The course of events seems ta have 
 been as follows. Tlie king sent "a great 
 army" with Tartan and Rabsaris to 
 blockade Jerusalem, and terrify it, if pos- 
 sible, into instant surrender. When their 
 threats failed, they built forts of circum- 
 vallation, xxix. 3, to weaken it by thirst 
 and famine before the direct assault was 
 made. Sennacherib, in royal state, but 
 with only a part of his forces, carried on 
 the sieges of Lachish and Libnali, which 
 he expected to fall speedily. He would 
 thus have the first tidings from the side 
 of Eg)'pt, and the honour of rapid suc- 
 cess where he was present in person. 
 When Rabshakeh returned, Larhisli jiad 
 tallen, an<l Libnali was besieged; but 
 
 there is no hint that Tartan and his army 
 were ever withdrawn from Jerusalem. 
 Other troops might return with Rab- 
 shakeh ; and the king might intend soon 
 to follow, to receive the submission of 
 Hezekiah, or to storm the city before 
 Tirliakah arrived in Judea, or at least 
 to reunite his forces when Libnah had 
 fallen. But the sudden destruction of 
 Tartan's host, and the terror of the Di- 
 vine presence, increased by the nearness 
 of a dangerous adversai"y, compelled him 
 to flee with the remnant of his forces to 
 his own land. The report or rumour, 
 though not yet explained clearly, is the 
 tidings of this sudden destruction. 
 
 V. 8. The text does not say plainly 
 that Lachish had fallen. But the slabs 
 of Kouyunjik agree with the natural 
 course of events in the history, and the 
 brief notice, v. r, to prove the success of 
 the Assyrian. The tide was turned back 
 before Zion alone. 
 
 V. 9. Tirhakah is the Taracus of the 
 Lists, the third and last king of Mane- 
 tho's ■26th Dynasty, whose reign is vari- 
 ously reckoned at 20 or 28 years. This 
 Ethiopian dynasty in Egypt is one distin- 
 guishing feature of Isaiah's times. 
 
 V. 10. The words of Rabshakeh \vere 
 aimed lathcr to destroy the people's trust 
 ill Hezekiah ; but the message of the 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVII. 13—20. 
 
 183 
 
 dren of Eden which ivere in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of 
 Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of 
 Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah ? 
 
 14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the 
 messengers, and read it : and Hezekiah went up into the house 
 of the Lord, and spread it before the LoRD. 15 And Heze- 
 kiah prayed unto the LORD, saying ; 16 O LORD of hosts, God 
 of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, 
 even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast 
 made heaven and earth. 17 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 living God. 
 18 Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all 
 the nations and their countries, 19 And have cast their gods 
 into the fire : for they were no gods, but the work of men's 
 hands, wood and stone : therefore they have destroye(;J them. 
 20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that 
 
 king more immediately to destroy Ileze- 
 kiah's faith in God. The blasphemy is 
 more direct, and the challenge is met by 
 a stern and most severe reply. But the 
 words of the letter are like an extract 
 from Isaiah's own prophecy thirty years 
 before, x. 7 — 11. Its blasphemies, like 
 those uttered later around the cross, had 
 all been foreseen and foretold. The truth 
 of God's word is confirmed even by those 
 who blasphemously fight against it, 
 
 V. 13. "Hena and Ivah." It seems 
 hardly possible to trace the names of 
 these two cities. But their mention here 
 so briefly, as being well known at the 
 time, gives still greater vividness and 
 reality to the whole account. Haran, 
 mentioned in Genesis, is the Carrse of 
 the Greeks and Romans, M'here Crassus 
 was overthrown. Abulfeda gives nine 
 towns with the name of Rezeph. The one 
 here is probably his Resapha Hespurni, a 
 day west of the Euphrates, in Palmyrene 
 Syria. Telassar is probably the same as 
 Ellasar, Gen. xiv. ; and the Eden not that 
 of Damascus, but more to the east, whose 
 sons are named by Ezekiel, xxvii. 23, 
 after Haran and Canneh. "The names 
 describe a curve north-westerly through 
 Hamath and Arpad, and a return in Se- 
 pharvaim to the south of Babylonia." 
 (Delitzsch.) Ivah may perhaps be the 
 
 same with Ava in Kings, whence Avites 
 were brought to colonize Samaria. 
 
 v. 1 4. "And spread it before the 
 Lord." The natural sign of a direct 
 appeal to the living God, who had caused 
 His name to dwell there. Heathen Sad- 
 duceism degrades the Almighty and His 
 everlasting truth to a level Mdth vain 
 idols, and the idle fancies of superstition. 
 Hence it cannot understand the prayer of 
 Hezekiah, or that genuine faith which re- 
 moves mountains,and overcomes the world. 
 
 "The letter." A plural in form (like 
 lifcrac) but with a singular sense. Blas- 
 phemies, when written, are more delibe- 
 rate than when only spoken, and thus be- 
 come a still more aggravated sin. 
 
 V. 18. "The nations and their coun- 
 tries." Lit. " the lands and their land," 
 and in Kings "the nations and their land." 
 The same word is used, in direct succes- 
 sion, for the people who dwelt in the 
 lands, and the land where they dwelt. 
 The later account, in Kings, uses g6ini, 
 nations, for aratsotk, lands, and thus re- 
 moves a verbal harshness. 
 
 V. 21. The prophet, when younger, 
 had been sent by Divine command to 
 meet Ahaz and his princes, and the 
 message of God by his lips had been 
 rudely rejected and despised. Now He- 
 zekiah and the princes intreat his help in 
 
1 84 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVII. 21-25. 
 
 all the kingdoms of the earth may know thou art the LoRD, 
 even thou only! 
 
 21 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent unto Hezekiah, 
 saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, As for that which 
 thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, 
 22 This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning 
 him : The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and 
 laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken 
 her head at thee. 23 Whom hast thou reproached and blas- 
 phemed ? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and 
 lifted up thine eyes on high ? cve?i against the Holy One of 
 Israel, 24 By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and 
 hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the 
 height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut 
 down the tallest of his cedars, and the choicest of his cypresses ; 
 and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of 
 his Carmel. 25 I have digged and drunk waters ; and with the 
 soles of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of besieged places. 
 
 their sore perplexity ; and, as Elislia had 
 done to Naaman, he contents himself 
 with sending a message in reply. By 
 messengers Sennacherib had sent to re- 
 proach the Lord, and by the messenger 
 of a messenger the King of kings sends 
 a reply to his haughty defiance. lie 
 does not permit His prophet, now about 
 seventy years old, to wait in person on 
 Hezekiah, still less on the Assyrian en- 
 voys. Having long been despised by an 
 ungodly people, even now, in the time 
 of their distress and repentance, the dig- 
 nity of God's messenger must be main- 
 tained in his person. 
 
 V. 22. "Hath shaken her head at 
 thee." Comp. Matt, xxvii. 39, Mark xv. 
 29. No gesture of mere dissent (Hitzig), 
 but rather of mock obeisance, the strongest 
 expression of derision and scorn. Lit. 
 "after thee," in allusion to the ignomin- 
 ious flight of the king in the panic of the 
 great overthrow. The past tense is em- 
 phatic, to show the certainty of the 
 coming defeat, and how surely it was an- 
 ticipated by the prophet and the faithful 
 in Zion. 
 
 vv. 23 — 25. Some refer these boasts 
 of the Assyrians to the past, some to the 
 future, and others partly to both, ."^o 
 
 also of their literal or figurative meaning. 
 Most moderns translate the last clause 
 "the rivers of Egypt," the word matzor 
 being the singular of Mizraim. Drechslcr 
 applies the whole to past conquests in 
 Lebanon and Phenicia to the north, and 
 by the Nile in Lower Egypt; with this 
 further idea, that mountains, wastes, and 
 rivers, had all submitted to his resistless 
 power. But this view, though ingenious, 
 is open to weighty objections. \\\ Hebrew 
 both tenses are used ; and the blasphemy 
 lay rather in false reasonings, from the 
 past to the future, from actual successes 
 against heathen idols to a sure and 
 speedy triumph over the God of Israel. 
 A literal march over Lebanon with chariots 
 is improbable, almost impossible, and any 
 mention of it would be wholly out of place. 
 Besides, Lebanon and Carmel have al- 
 ready been used as figines both for the 
 Assyrian army and for the kingdom of 
 Judah. To boast of having actually dried 
 \\\i the Nile itself with his feet would be 
 far more ridiculous than luud vauntings 
 of his expected success against Hezekiah. 
 Again, viatsor is a common noun for 
 siege or defence in more than twenty 
 places. Both here, and xix. 6, this render- 
 ing is much more appropriate than the 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVII. 26—29. 
 
 185 
 
 26 Hast thou not heard Jiow that long ago I have done it, and 
 that from ancient times I have planned it ? now have I brought 
 it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities 
 into ruinous heaps. 27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small 
 power, they were dismayed and confounded : they were grass of 
 the field, and as the green herb, grass of the housetops, and cotvi 
 blasted before it be grown up. 28 But I know thy abode, and 
 thy going out, and thy coming in, yea, thy rage against me. 
 29 Because thy rage against me, and thy haughtiness, is come 
 up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and 
 
 modem version of it as a proper name. 
 The suffixes, again, are usually referred 
 to Lebanon. But the whole force of the 
 passage consists in a charge of arrogant 
 blasphemy. And this is both plainer and 
 stronger, if we refer them to Adonai, the 
 Lord himself, who claimed the land and 
 people of Israel for His own. 
 
 V. 24. It was Adonai, the true King 
 and Governor of the chosen land and 
 people, whom Sennacherib had reproach- 
 ed and blasphemed. "Thou hast said" 
 in thy heart, if not in words, "by the 
 multitude of my chariots," my own irre- 
 sistible warlike prowess alone, am I 
 come up, etc. The boast refers to his 
 actual position, as now occupying the 
 fenced cities of Judah, and confidently 
 hoping soon to seize on its capital, and to 
 pillage its temple and all its royal trea- 
 sures. 
 
 "The tallest of his cedars, and the 
 choicest of his cypresses." The figurative 
 cedars and cypresses, not only of this 
 Lebanon, the royal kingdom of Judah, 
 but of the God of Israel, who claims 
 it for His portion. Its kings, princes, 
 priests, nobles, all that is highest and 
 most stately, must fall down and be- 
 come a prey to his conquering sword. 
 "And I will enter into the height of his 
 border, and the forest of his Carmel." I 
 will occupy mount Zion, the seat of 
 royalty and worship, the most honoured 
 place within the border of Israel's God, 
 and will seize upon all that is fairest and 
 goodliest in the Lord's choice vine- 
 yard. "All that once was His shall very 
 soon be mine. Shall I not, as I have 
 done to Samaria and her idols, so do to 
 Jerusalem and her idols, her Elohim, in 
 whom this Hezekiah so vainly puts his 
 
 trust?" This construction retains the 
 keeping of the figure, and brings out the 
 hateful arrogance of these Assyrian blas- 
 phemies. 
 
 V. 25. " And drunk waters." In Kings, 
 briefly expounded, "strange waters." 
 He had dug wells to supply his armies in 
 dry places, where water before was al- 
 most unknown. 
 
 "And with the soles of my feet, &c." 
 The change of tense (fut.) clearly implies, 
 "As I have done already so shall I still 
 continue to do. My past successes, so 
 unbroken, are the sure pledge of victories 
 still to come. So numerous are my 
 armies that at the tramp of their march 
 rivers and moats disappear." The idea 
 is neither simply "drunk up to su]5ply 
 their thirst," nor "drained and diverted 
 by their labour" (Vitr. ), nor choked with 
 tlie dust of their march (Boch.), but all 
 combined at once in a vague and boastful 
 hyperbole. "I can open streams in dry 
 places, and dry them up where they now 
 exist, and nature strives vainly to set a 
 limit to my power." There seems to be 
 a sarcastic allusion to the pains Hezekiah 
 had taken, before this invasion, to divert 
 the fountains near Jerusalem, 2 Chron. 
 xxxii. The boast is that such efforts are 
 in vain against a conqueror so mighty. So 
 Juvenal — Credimus altos Defecisse am- 
 nes, epotaque flumina Medo, Sat. X. 176. 
 And Claudian puts the same into the 
 lips of Alaric — Subsidere nostris Sub pe- 
 diljus monies, arescere vidimus amnes... 
 Gallisque Padum victricibus hausi." 
 
 V. 26. Here begins Jehovah's stern 
 rebuke of these hateful blasphemies. The 
 earliest predictions of the Assyrian vic- 
 tories by Isaiah were forty years old, 
 those of Ilosea and Amos still earlier, 
 
1 86 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVII. 30—34. 
 
 my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by 
 which thou earnest. 30 And this sJiall be the sign for thee : 
 Eating tJiis year such as groweth of itself, and next year that 
 which springeth of the same, then in the third year sow and 
 reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 31 And 
 the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again 
 take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 32 For out of 
 Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and an escaping from 
 mount Zion : the zeal of the LoRD of hosts shall do this. 
 
 33 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of 
 Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow 
 there, nor come before it wath shield, nor cast up a mound 
 against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he 
 
 and earliest of all were the -words of 
 Balaam, recorded in the Book of Num- 
 bers. But the irony lies still deeper. 
 "So wise and so almighty in your own 
 esteem, are you, after all, a poor ignorant 
 mortal, wholly in the dark on what it 
 most becomes you to know, and blind to 
 the counsels of the Most High, while 
 unconsciously fulfilling them ? Strange 
 contrast ! such boasts of superhuman 
 power, and such blind and brutish igno- 
 rance of the purposes of God ! His de- 
 cree, not thy own prowess, is the true and 
 secret cause of thy past success." 
 
 V. 27. "Therefore." The historical 
 theories of Divine faith and of human 
 pride may agree almost wholly up to a 
 certain point. But when once they begin 
 to diverge, the contrast is extreme. 
 
 vv. 28, 29. Forbearance is not for- 
 giveness, and patient long-suffering is not 
 oblivion. The same great lesson runs 
 through the whole course of human his- 
 tory, from the rout of Chedorlaomer to 
 the Moscow campaign. No leviathan is 
 so powerful, but the King of nations can 
 put a hook in his nose and a bridle in 
 his lips at the most fitting season. 
 
 V. 30. This verse is obscure, and not 
 easy to explain with certainty. It has 
 often been supposed to mean that the 
 next year was sabbatic, and that on this 
 account the land was still to remain un- 
 tilled. Drcchsler says, probably \\ith 
 truth, that "as a pure hypothesis it is im- 
 probable, and as the result of calculation 
 not proveablc. "' He accounts for the 
 
 words by the fact that "many had perish- 
 ed, many fled to other lands, while the 
 territory of the ten tribes also lay un- 
 occupied ; so that it might be some time 
 before there was an urgent motive or 
 favourable occasion for resuming the 
 settled culture of the fields." This is 
 probable. But it hardly meets the two 
 difficulties, why a sign reaching to the 
 third year should be given, when the 
 overthrow was so near at hand ; or why 
 this delay of culture, even if unavoidable, 
 should be a pledge and token of Divine 
 mercy. But the sudden flight of Senna- 
 cherib to Nineveh could not, of itself, 
 put an end to all fear of a fresh invasion, 
 not even when the terrible extent of the 
 judgment was known. It might seem 
 unlikely that a single check should wholly 
 turn back a tide of conquest and plunder 
 which had set in for thirty years. 
 
 Again, the true meaning seems to be 
 that there would be only a single year's 
 delay before the re-occujjation of the land. 
 The years spoken of must be civil years 
 from Tisri or October, beginning with the 
 seed-time late in autumn. "This year" 
 will mean, this summer, now near its 
 close, since the invasion would probably 
 be in the early spring, and the overthrow 
 late in the summer. Since the seed-time, 
 then, was close at hand, there would not 
 be time before it to occupy the deserted 
 land, and resume regular tillage. 
 
 The first clauses, then, are concessive. 
 The main stress of the promise lies here, 
 that though for one whole year, througli 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVII. 35—38. 
 
 187 
 
 return, and shall not come to this city, saith the Lord, 35 For 
 I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant 
 David's sake. 
 
 36 Then an 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, 
 these were all of them dead corpses. 37 And he decamped, 
 and departed, and returned, even Sennacherib the king of As- 
 syria ; and he dwelt at Nineveh. 38 And it came to pass, while 
 he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adram- 
 melech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword ; and 
 they escaped into the land of Armenia : and Esarhaddon his 
 son reis'ned in his stead. 
 
 the wasting and confusion, and the near- 
 ness of the next seed-time, they must still 
 depend upon the chance harvest of nature, 
 yet that with the very next seed-time but 
 one, or within fourteen or fifteen months, 
 such peace and order would be restored, 
 along with freedom from the fear of 
 enemies, that they might not only sow 
 and reap corn, but safely plant vineyards 
 that would last for years to come. 
 
 But in what sense could this promise 
 be a sign or pledge of God's faithfulness? 
 First, because the course of His Provi- 
 dence would thus be cast in the mould of 
 the Sabbatic law they had so long for- 
 gotten, revealing their sin in the mercy 
 which put a close to the judgment. And, 
 next, because the time was now fixed, 
 after only one year's delay, for the ful- 
 filment of the earlier and fuller promise, 
 XXX. 23—25. 
 
 V. 36. The camp of the Assyrians, 
 from the whole context, must be that of 
 
 Tartan and Rabsaris before Jerusalem, 
 not that of the king himself before Lib- 
 nah. Hence the tidings came on him as 
 a blast and a rumour, v. 7, and caused his 
 hurried return to Nineveh. 
 
 V. 38. The death of Sennacherib, by 
 the inscriptions, was some years after his 
 return, but still this parricide is named 
 at once, in order to complete the picture 
 of Divine judgnrent. 
 
 The name Nisroch is variously ex- 
 plained, but probably is derived from 
 Nesher Heb., Nisr Arab., an eagle, and 
 refers to the eagle-headed idol of Nineveh. 
 Esarhaddon reigned both at Nineveh and 
 Babylon. He subdued the sons of Mero- 
 dach Baladan, and built a palace at 
 Babylon, from which bricks have been 
 recovered bearing his name. In one in- 
 scription he mentions his having built 
 thirty temples. The south-west palace 
 at Nimroud is the best preserved of his 
 works. 
 
iS8 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVIII. 1—5. 
 
 § 3. Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery. 
 Chap. XXXVIII. 
 
 In those days was Hezckiah sick unto death. And Isaiah 
 the prophet, the son of Amoz, came unto him, and said unto 
 him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order, for thou 
 shalt die, and not hve. 2 And Hezekiah turned his face toward 
 the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, 3 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 ivhich is good 
 in thy sight : and Hezekiah wept sore. 4 Then came the word 
 of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, 5 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 
 
 V. I. "In those days." The time of 
 this illness must have been during Heze- 
 kiah's fourteenth year, that of the As- 
 syrian invasion, since fifteen years were 
 added to his life, and his reign is reckoned 
 at twenty-nine years. It seems most likely 
 that it was very soon after the sudden 
 overthrow of the Assyrians, an une.x- 
 pected lesson of weakness and mortality 
 in the very hour of exultation, when he 
 incurred the great danger of secret pride. 
 
 " Thou shalt die, and not live." Here 
 we see the difference between a simple 
 prediction, and a prophetic warning. A 
 message, tlnis addressed to a person, not 
 spoken of him to others, is a call to re- 
 pentance and prayer, not the revelation 
 of a fixed, unalterable decree. Such was 
 the message of Jonah to Nineveh ; and 
 such is the address to Shebna, xxii. 15 — 19. 
 The last mention of him as a suppliant 
 before Isaiah in sackcloth, side by side 
 with Eliakim, makes it likely that the 
 sentence on him, while in part fulfdled, 
 was in part repealed, as the whole is here 
 in the case of Hezekiah. In Jer. xviii. 
 7 — 9, the law of such conditional warn- 
 ings, in form resembling prophecies, is 
 clearly laid down. 
 
 V. 6. This verse is no proof that the 
 sickness was before the Assyrian calamity. 
 For Hezekiah would need this assurance 
 against the risk of renewed invasion, 
 when rage and vexation had succeeded to 
 panic terror, and the Assyrian armies were 
 
 recruited once more. The momentary 
 deliver-ance is here enlarged into a pro- 
 mise for the fifteen years of Hezekiah's 
 lifetime. But the shortness of this period, 
 the unexpected form of the promise, and 
 the judgment still impending, show clear- 
 ly that this period could not be the pro^jer 
 fulfilment of those bright and glowing 
 prophecies which Isaiah had already 
 given. 
 
 v. 8. The fact here announced is an 
 optical or sensible miracle, the reversed 
 motion of the sun's shadow in the sun-dial 
 of Ahaz. The words themselves leave it 
 open, \\hether there was a change in the 
 sun's apparent and earth's real motion, a 
 general change by unusual refraction, or 
 one local only. But the last seems more 
 likely for several reasons. First, the spe- 
 cial mention that it was " in the sun- 
 dial of Ahaz." Next, the envoys from 
 Babylon had heard of it as a local sign, 
 2 Chr. xxxii. 31. It could not, then, have 
 extended to Babylon. It results, further, 
 from the true emphasis in this mention 
 of the sun-dial of Ahaz. That wicked 
 king had set up this sun-dial, after re- 
 fusing a sign " in the height above," and 
 now it was made to supply a parable to 
 the house of David. The noon-day of 
 the kingdom was far past, and the shadows 
 of evening had begun to be stretched out. 
 But the reformation of Hezekiah, his 
 faith and prayer, and the general turning 
 of the nation, outwardly, to God, would 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVIII. 6—12. 
 
 189 
 
 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. 
 7 And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the 
 Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken. 8 Behold ! I will 
 bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in 
 the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned 
 ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. 
 
 9 The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he 
 had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. lO I said, in 
 the still noontide of my days I shall go down into the gates of 
 the grave : I am deprived of the residue of my years. 1 1 I said, 
 I shall not see Jah, the Living One, in the land of the living : 
 I shall behold man no longer, with the inhabitants of the world. 
 12 My lifetime is plucked up, and removed from me, as a 
 shepherd's tent : I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life : he will 
 
 be allowed to arrest and reverse this 
 downward course of the kingdom, and to 
 give it a reprieve for a little season, after 
 which the shadows would lengthen and 
 deepen once more. The suggestion that 
 the return of the shadow was due to a 
 solar eclipse (Bosanq.), satisfies no condi- 
 tion of the history ; and Chaldean envoys 
 are the last persons who could have seen 
 any cause for surprize in such a slight 
 change, as a wonder done in the land. 
 On the other hand, a world-wide dis- 
 turbance of the sun's motion in the 
 heavens, changing the length of the day 
 everywhere, could never be described as 
 a local sign at Jerusalem in the dial of 
 Ahaz. 
 
 V. 9. This meditation and psalm of 
 praise is inserted here, by the prophet, 
 from its close connexion with the history, 
 and with the scope of the earlier and 
 later visions. The sickness and recovery 
 of the king, like the troubles of Jonah, 
 were a typical prophecy. The two halves 
 of Hezekiah's reign, the first vexed with 
 deep and sore trial, the second a kind 
 of resurrection from death and despair, 
 answer closely to the two main divisions 
 of the whole book, and also to the double 
 subject of all prophecy, the sufferings of 
 Christ and the glory that should follow. 
 Hezekiah, like David, was a psalmist as 
 well as a king. The song is retrospective, 
 written after his recovery. 
 
 v. 10. Three renderings have been 
 
 given of the term dcmi ; "cutting off" 
 (Kimch., A. v.); "stillness, calm, or 
 pause" (Ges., Umbr., Alex., Drechsler) ; 
 and "noonday," when the sun appears 
 to rest before he begins to decline (LXX. 
 Vulg., Schmidt, Hend.). The last two 
 may be combined. The allusion to the 
 sign is thus retained, and adds force to 
 the king's plaintive recollection. Midway 
 in life, when his troubled morning might 
 hope to be followed by the brightness 
 of a calm noonday, he was now to be 
 cut down. 
 
 V. II. The sacred name Jah, here re- 
 peated with emphasis, is full of meaning. 
 It is a simpler form of Jehovah, meaning 
 simply, HE IS, or, I AM. Its repetition is 
 meant to place in full relief the relation 
 between the Living God and living men. 
 Hence it seems best to translate it in its 
 second occurrence. The last word some 
 render ' ' the under-world, " i. e. the state 
 of the departed. But the structure and 
 parallelism confirm the received version. 
 The afflicted king made a double com- 
 plaint ; that he would be cut off from the 
 presence of the Living God, who had 
 placed His name in His temple among 
 living men ; and also that he would be 
 shut out from the society of all that dwell 
 upon earth. The word "no longer" 
 implies that these things for the present 
 would cease, but neither excludes con- 
 tinued being in Hades, nor the sure hope 
 of a resurrection. 
 
igo 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXVIII. 13— iS. 
 
 cut me off from the loom ; between daybreak and night wilt 
 thou make an end of me. 13 Till morning I counted ///;// as a 
 lion, so doth he break all my bones : between daybreak and 
 night thou wilt make an end of me. 14 Like a swallow and a 
 crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail 
 ^vith looking upward : O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for 
 me. 15 What shall I say? He hath both spoken to me, and 
 himself hath done it : I will walk softly all my years for the 
 bitterness of my soul. 16 O Lord! by these tilings men live; 
 even in all of these is the life of my spirit : and thou wilt recover 
 me, and make me to live. 17 Behold ! for my peace had I this 
 great bitterness : and thou in love hast rescued my soul from 
 the pit of destruction ; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy 
 back. 18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot 
 
 V. 12. The word, dor, usually "gene- 
 ration," is here '"age" or "lifetime," 
 and not as some, " my habitation," ap- 
 plying it to the mortal body, a less 
 usual sense, and a less natural figure. As 
 the nails of a tent are plucked up, and 
 its covering removed, so the residue of 
 his life was suddenly taken away. As a 
 weaver rolls up his web when he reaches 
 its limit, so he had to renounce the hope 
 of longer years. The hand of God him- 
 self seemed to be cutting him off from 
 the loom. The illness was so severe, 
 he looked for death in a single day. 
 
 V. 13. All night through, his suffer- 
 ings, and the sense of God's anger, made 
 him feel as if his bones were crushed by 
 a fierce lion, and he expected death ere 
 the next day was ended. The idea of a 
 lion-like patience (Jarchi, Drechsler) suits 
 neither the figure nor the context. Nor 
 can it mean that he composed himself 
 through the night, to find fresh sufferings 
 with the day (Vitr., Gesen. , Rosenm., 
 Hend.). The main thought is that his 
 suffering was unintermitted, as well as 
 severe. The future "he will break" has 
 the force of a continuous present. 
 
 V. 14. "Like a swallow or a crane." 
 Bochart has shown that siis is the swal- 
 low, and agur the crane, which our trans- 
 lators reverse. The shrill twittering of 
 one, the doleful note of the other, are 
 combined to express his lamentation. 
 
 vv. 15 — 20. The words may be thus 
 paraphrased: "How can I worthily ex- 
 
 press my thanks to Him for such mer- 
 cies ! Speedily the promise of healing 
 was given, when He heard my prayer, 
 and swiftly has He fulfilled it. The 
 memory of this trial shall remain with 
 me all the years of my life, and lead me 
 to walk before God in grateful humility 
 and loving obedience. By such words 
 and acts of mingled mercy and judgment 
 'men live.' The warning and the ill- 
 ness, the promise and the recovery, are 
 all parts of that holy discipline on which 
 the higher life of the spirit depends." 
 
 v. 16. "And thou wilt recover me." 
 The past tense (Rosenm., Hend.) is less 
 exact, and obscures the true connexion; 
 since the true object of God's discipline 
 was ' the life of the spirit. ' From the gift 
 of bodily health, now restored, Hezekiah 
 drew the sure hope of a higher blessing. 
 "Thou wilt heal my spirit also, and 
 raise me to the higher life of prayer, 
 gratitude, and fer\ent praise." 
 
 v. 17. The clause here admits of 
 three constructions, (i) "After former 
 peace came on this great affliction." 
 
 (2) "My afiliction is turned to peace." 
 
 (3) "Peace is the end for which my 
 trouble was sent." On the first view the 
 words refer back to v. lo. Instead of a 
 calm noontide, and the rest he looked 
 for on esca])ing from the Assyrian, came 
 this sore trial. But the two others, com- 
 bined, agree better with the course of 
 thought. "Behold!" observe in my case 
 the merciful issue of God's chastening. 
 
ISAIAH, XXXVIII. 19—22. 
 
 191 
 
 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 ivas near to save me ; and we will sing 
 my harp-songs all the days of our life in the house of the Lord. 
 
 21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay 
 // for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover. 22 Heze- 
 kiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the 
 house of the Lord .-' 
 
 "For my peace had I this great bitter- 
 ness." Such was its gracious design, 
 and such shall be the real issue. "And 
 thou in love etc." There is no contrast, 
 but an expansion of the same thought. 
 Comp. Job xxxiii. 23 — 30 ; Heb. xii. 
 9 — IX. Mercy was the end of the trial, 
 and that merciful issue had begun to be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 V. 18. Some, from this verse, would 
 degrade Hezekiah into a Sadducee, who 
 took death for a complete end of thought 
 and being. Others have diluted or strain- 
 ed it, to make it agree with the view that 
 dying believers, in every age, passed 
 at once into the heaven of glory. But 
 the words are not those of " extreme 
 agitation and distress" (Calv., Vitr.), 
 since they are part of Hezekiah's song of 
 praise after his recovery. They mean 
 more than the truism, that "those who 
 have entered the invisible world no longer 
 enjoy opportunities of glorifying God on 
 earth" (Hend.). They mean rather that 
 the state of the dead, as such, is one in 
 which God is dishonoured, being a present 
 triumph of God's enemy, for He "is not 
 the God of the dead, but of the living." 
 Their harmony with the New Testament 
 lies in the truth, that Christ's resurrection 
 has made light and life to reach down 
 even to the gates of the grave. 
 
 V. 10. Hezekiah had confident hope 
 that this and other songs of praise, his 
 utterances of deep thanksgiving, would be 
 used in tlie solemn assemblies of the Jews 
 for temple-worship, and become part in 
 
 the service of the people of God. Such 
 a hope is the fitting close for this royal 
 Psalm, simple in its pathos, and exquisite 
 in its beauty. 
 
 vv. 21, 22. These verses at first sight 
 seem out of place. Neologists have as- 
 cribed them to the carelessness of some 
 compiler. Others, as Hahn and Delitzsch, 
 take them for a marginal addition whicli 
 has crept into the text. Drechsler offers 
 an elaborate defence of their position; 
 but his view, that they are part of Heze- 
 kiah's writing, is very unnatural. 
 
 The key is really simple. The main 
 object of the chapter is this psalm of 
 praise, which does not appear in Kings. 
 Hence the opening states the sickness, 
 the warning, the prayer, and the promise, 
 as briefly as possible, hastening to give 
 this "writing of Hezekiah." Two de- 
 tails, omitted before, are then added, to 
 fasten and root the whole in the soil of 
 actual history. In v. 9 a question may 
 arise, how was he recovered? and the 
 answer is given: "Isaiah said, &c." A 
 second question must arise, how came a 
 sign to be thus promised ? And the 
 answer is that the king had asked for this 
 help to his faith, and alludes to it at the 
 close of his song. But when the account 
 is given afterwards in Kings, without the 
 song or writing, these two details are 
 fitly transposed to their historical order. 
 Thus their position here is a very clear 
 sign that the recension in this book is 
 earlier than the one in the Book of 
 Kinsfs, 
 
192 
 
 ISAIAH, XXXIX. 1—4. 
 
 § 4. Chap. XXXIX. The Message from Babylon. 
 
 At that time Mcrodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king 
 of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah : for he had 
 heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 2 And Heze- 
 kiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his pre- 
 cious things, the silver, and th- gold, and the spices, and the 
 precious ointment, 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 showed 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, They are come from a far 
 country unto me, even from Babylon. 4 Then said he, What 
 have they seen in thine house .'' And Hezekiah answered, All 
 
 Ch. XXXIX. The Message of 
 Merodach. 
 
 V. I. "At that time." The sacred 
 narrative, on the face of it, implies that 
 this embassy was after the sickness and 
 recovery of Hezekiah, and after the de- 
 feat of Sennacherib, and was occasioned 
 by the double wonder wrought in the 
 land. It was a first overt sign of Babylon 
 breaking loose from subjection to As- 
 syria, and rising in its stead as the chief 
 Gentile power. The inscriptions, which 
 shew that Esarhaddon resided alter- 
 nately at Nineveh and Babylon, throw 
 thus a further light on this transition, 
 which is partly a key to the structure of 
 this Book of Isaiah. See Appendix III. 
 on the Assyrian Reigns. 
 
 V. 2. "And Hezekiah was glad of 
 them." In Kings "he hearkened to 
 them," the words being nearly alike in 
 form and sound. One is the dramatical 
 and personal, the other the historical 
 aspect, of the same event. His personal 
 sin was that he rejoiced with a secret 
 elation of heart; his political error, the 
 first step in a downward course, was 
 that he welcomed eagerly their proffers 
 of friendship and alliance. 
 
 v. 3. The king answers directly the 
 second question only, and some infer an 
 intentional concealment. But this seems 
 a groundless suspicion. The order of the 
 questions requires them to be joined in 
 one. What was the business of these 
 men ? whence did they come ? were they 
 
 come as strangers, or envoys from a near 
 or distant land ? Both questions receive 
 a virtual answer, that they were a friendly 
 embassy from a distant land, from Baby- 
 lon. The view of Calvin seems just, that 
 the mention of the distance betrays some 
 degree of vainglory in the wide extent of 
 his own fame, 
 
 vv. 4 — 8. "We are reminded," says 
 Calvin, "that men judge amiss of words 
 and actions, and that God alone is a com- 
 petent judge of them. Hezekiah shewed 
 his treasures. Had they been heaped 
 up, that they might always lie hidden in 
 the earth ? He received the messengers 
 kindly : should he have driven them 
 away ? He lent an ear to their instruc- 
 tions. But that was when the rival of 
 the Assyrian voluntarily desired his friend- 
 ship. Ought he to have rejected so great 
 an advantage? So far as appearances go, 
 there is nothing for which an apology 
 may not be offered. But God, from 
 whom nothing is hid, saw in his joy, first, 
 ingratitude, because he was unmindful of 
 the distress which lately pressed him 
 down ; next, pride, that he sought to gain 
 reputation by magnificence and riches. 
 But his chief fault was ambition, which 
 almost entirely banishes the fear of God 
 from the hearts of men." In his distress 
 he had sent messengers to the prophet, 
 covered with sackcloth ; but now, in his 
 prosperity, Isaiah has to bring to him, 
 unsought and uncalled, the Lord's mes- 
 sage. Herein was seen the weakness of 
 
ISAIAH, XXXIX. 5—8. 193 
 
 that is in mine house have they seen : there is nothing among 
 my treasures that I have not shewed them. 5 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 t/iai which 
 thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried 
 to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith the LoRD, 7 And of 
 the sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall 
 they take away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the 
 king of Babylon. 8 Then said Hezekiah to 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. 
 
 his faith. But the way in which he His faith, prayers, and zeal, in spite of 
 
 receives it, compared with the conduct of his sin, had availed to turn back for his 
 
 Ahaz, vii. i — 12, illustrates the wide con- lifetime the deepening shadow on the 
 
 trast between faith and unbelief. dial-plate of the kingdom of Judah; and 
 
 V. 7. "Which thou shalt beget." One he saw in this suspense of coming judg- 
 
 of the minute coincidences of real history. nients, long deserved by the nation, a 
 
 Hezekiah had at present no sons, since clear token of the goodness of the Lord. 
 Manasseh, fifteen years later, succeeded The faith and submission of Abraham, 
 
 him at the age of only twelve years. It in the sacrifice of Isaac, had a most 
 
 seems probable that Daniel and his three abundant reward in a covenant of bless- 
 
 companions, of the seed-royal, Dan. i. 3, ing to a thousand generations. So here 
 
 were descended from Hezekiah. the faith and submission of Hezekiah, 
 
 V. 8. "He said moreover. For there under this humbling message of the pro- 
 shall be peace and truth in my days." phet, are like the stem from which there 
 It is strange blindness in some modern blossom forth all the abundant promises 
 critics, to see in this reply only a selfish of the Later Visions. He owned the 
 egotism. Two feelings are plainly ex- goodness of the Lord in a threatening 
 pressed, humble submission to the justice which might have seemed severe ; and 
 of God's sentence, and thankfulness for there follows presently a glorious series 
 the merciful limitation. His sinful pride, of fuller promises than ever before, with 
 of which he was now made conscious, was their gracious preface — "Comfort ye, corn- 
 not suffered to reverse the earlier promise. fort ye my people, saith your God." 
 
 Close of the Historical Episode. 
 
 Three views have been taken of these four historical chapters, and their 
 relation to the answering passage 2 Ki. xviii. 13 — xx. 18, which is almost 
 identical, with the exception of the writing of Hezekiah, and a few slight 
 verbal variations. First, that the text in Isaiah is the original and source of 
 the history in Kings (Grotius,Vitringa, Paulus, Hendewerk). 2°, The history 
 in Kings is the source of the other (Eichhorn, Gesen., Maurer). 3", That 
 neither is original, but both drawn from some third source (Koppe, Rosen- 
 miiller, Hitzig, Umbreit, Ewald, Hiivernick, Keil, Knobel, De Wette, 
 Davidson). The last affirms dogmatically that this is the true view, and 
 that it needs little knowledge of Hebrew to see that the first is erroneous. 
 It is remarkable, however, that Vitringa, a first-rate Hebrew scholar, after 
 discussing the third view, and shewing probable reasons in its favour, closes 
 
 B. I. 13 
 
194 ISAIAH, XXXIX. 
 
 with these words: "When I came to the text itself, and weighed each part 
 more accurately, I saw and recognized most clearly what is now my fixed 
 judgment, that this whole section is from the hand of Isaiah, and that the 
 historian of Kings has had this aim, everywhere to follow its lead in necessary 
 things, and to explain it when too brief, as in the history of Hezekiah's 
 sickness and cure, so that what more is found in the history of Kings is to 
 be taken as explanations and illustrations of this history. In whichjudgment 
 I now confidently rest." 
 
 The reasons for this view are clear and decisive. First, Isaiah was an 
 historian from the first, as well as a prophet. "The rest of the acts of 
 Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write (2 Chr. 
 xxvi. 22). The acts of Jotham and Ahaz, we are told, were written in the 
 books of the Chronicles and of the Kings, but the writer is not named. But 
 again, it is said "the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness, behold, 
 they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in 
 the book of the Kings of Judah and Israel." Thus the double record is 
 named, just as we have it now, and the precedence is given to that in the 
 vision or book of prophecy. Now since Isaiah had prophesied from the 
 last year of Uzziah to the fourteenth of Hezekiah, and written the acts of 
 Uzziah, while the whole of his predictions converged on the Assyrian con- 
 quests and overthrow, of which the crisis was in the last year, it would be a 
 natural instinct to append at once the fulfilment of his warnings as the seal 
 and crown of the previous messages. But when he came to continue the 
 national annals, some slight changes would be natural, to suit the history to 
 its new context. 
 
 Now all the differences answer punctually to this view of the relation 
 between the two narratives. The three verses, 2 Ki. xviii. 14 — 16, are inter- 
 posed. They relate the submission of Hezekiah, and the present he sent to 
 secure a treaty of peace, and the treacherous requital, when the present was 
 retained, and the peace was refused. This was implied in the prophetic 
 warning. Is. xxxiii. i, but, as notorious at the time, did not need to be 
 specified in the prophet's first brief record of the catastrophe. 
 
 But the chief proof that in Kings we have a later recension is the account 
 of Hezekiah's sickness, ch. xx. The main object in Isaiah is to record the 
 writing of the king, and hence two details are deferred to its close, and 
 there added as supplemental explanations ; but in Kings these are restored 
 to their historical order, the request for a sign and the mode of cure. 
 
 These chapters, then, were added at this place in the series of visions by 
 the prophet himself, and form one organic part of the whole book of prophecy. 
 They are the historical seal of the earlier visions, and contain also three 
 definite predictions, of which two were fulfilled at the time, the blast and 
 rumour to Sennacherib, and the fifteen years of added life to Hezekiah, 
 while the third had to await its fulfilment after two hundred years. The 
 account in Kings is the same, probably from Isaiah also, but omitting 
 the writing of Hezekiah, with a few changes to suit its purely historical 
 purpose. 
 
ISAIAH, XL.— XLVIII. 195 
 
 THE LATER PROPHECIES. 
 Ch. XL.— LXVI. 
 
 V. THE TIMES OF CYRUS AND MESSIAH, 
 
 OR 
 
 First Series of the Later Visions. 
 Ch. XL.— XLVIII. 
 
 The Earlier Prophecies have closed with the message, "Say to them of a 
 fearful heart, Be strong, fear not ! behold, your God will come with venge- 
 ance, with the recompence of God, He will come and save you.'' These 
 Later Visions open here with a prediction of the fulfilment of this Divine 
 command. Their first chapter is a voice of comfort to the fearful-hearted, 
 because the Lord is at hand, as the Good Shepherd, to save and bless 
 His people. The threatenings of the Law are replaced by the promises of 
 the Gospel. The key-note of all these later prophecies is Divine con- 
 solation to the mourners in Zion. 
 
 The questions connected with the genuineness of these Later Visions, 
 and their internal arrangement and divisions, will be treated fully in the 
 Appendix, But that they are the continuation of Isaiah's prophecies, and 
 no independent work of some later unknown author, is clear from the internal 
 evidence alone. They grow immediately out of the warning of the coming 
 Captivity, when Judah would be carried away to Babylon, in fulfilment of 
 the message recorded just before. Who can believe that the parting voice 
 of this greatest of the Prophets is to be found in the words, xxxix. 7, "and 
 they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon".'' On the other 
 hand, what could be a more fitting sequel of that warning voice to the 
 pious monarch, than new words of consolation to the mourners in Zion ? 
 And how could the unity of the Earlier and Later Visions be more clearly 
 shewn, than by taking the central promise, xxxv. 4, of the parting message 
 of comfort with which the former close, for the text and key-note of the 
 first opening of these later visions ? This Divine garment is without seam, 
 woven throughout with consummate wisdom, not by the hand of man, but 
 by "the Lord God of the holy prophets;" and no efforts of man can tear 
 it asunder, or impair the sacred unity of the whole message. 
 
igO 
 
 ISAIAH, XL. 1—3. 
 
 § I. CiiAP. XL. Comfort to the Fearful in heart. 
 
 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your GOD. 2 Speak 
 ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare 
 is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath 
 received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. 3 The 
 voice of one that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way 
 
 V. I. The redoubling of this charge 
 which the Prophet receives is designed 
 to shew the earnestness and depth of 
 God's love to His people. The future 
 (Hebr. ) means, "saith, and will continue 
 to say," till the whole promise is fulfilled. 
 It occurs only here, and in Is. i. ii, i8, 
 xxxiii. 10, xl. 25, xli. 21, Iviii. 9, and Ps. 
 xii. 6 ; and it is thus an internal sign, in 
 the first verse, of the common authorship 
 of the Earlier and Later Visions. 
 
 The voice is addressed to the Prophet 
 and his partners and successors in the 
 prophetic office. It announces, not that 
 "the Jewish nation would soon cease to 
 be identified with the Church" (Alex.); 
 but rather their sure recovery, after 
 grievous sins and sore judgments, to the 
 enjoyment of the lasting favour of the 
 God of Israel. 
 
 V. 2. "That she hath received, &c. " 
 This clause admits a double variety of ex- 
 position. It may assign a reason for the 
 promise (A. V., Drechsler) or form a part 
 of it (Hend., Ilahn, .Stier); and the word 
 "double" may refer to punishment or to 
 pardon and blessing. But the threefold 
 charge to speak comfort, and the repeti- 
 tion of the same particle three times, 
 favour the second view. The words will 
 thus answer to the three series that 
 follow. The first of these, ch. xl. — xlviii., 
 dwells mainly on Israel's warfare in the 
 midst of heathen idolatry. The second, ch. 
 xlix. — Ix., reveals the great Sin-offering, 
 by which all the sins of God's people are 
 pardoned ; and the third, ch. Ixi. — Ixvi., 
 opens with a promise, that for shame 
 they shall have double, and possess the 
 double with everlasting joy, ch. Ixi. 7. 
 
 The past tense is prophetic, to denote 
 the certainty of still future blessings. So 
 in the Early Prophecies, ii. 1—4, tiie final 
 
 glory of Zion stands first, before predic- 
 tions of that course of judgments through 
 which alone it was to be attained. Tlie 
 voice is to Jerasalem, not during the 
 Exile alone, but throughout the whole 
 course of her earlier and later warfare. 
 The bow of hope is to gleam brightly 
 through every storm. 
 
 V. 3. Most moderns connect "in the 
 wilderness" with the words that follow. 
 But their order, the keeping of the pic- 
 ture, and the Hebrew accents, confirm 
 the rendering in the Gospels (LXX., Vitr., 
 Hend., Alex., Stier). The mention of a 
 herald in the wilderness is much more 
 impressive than a direction to unnamed 
 parties, telling them where to prepare the 
 way. The context makes no allusion to 
 the desert between Babylon and Palestine. 
 In xvi. I, 8, the desert is the one south 
 of Judah and east of Moab ; but in ch. 
 xxvii., xxxii., xxxv. the desolate places of 
 Judea itself, the last passage including 
 those of the heathen world. Hence the 
 most natural reference here is to the de- 
 solations of the land of promise ; and 
 also, by analogy, to the moral state of 
 a sinful people. 
 
 The voice is not Isaiah's own, but 
 one heard by him in vision, the dawn 
 of a new era of hope and comfort. The 
 way has to be prepared, not for the 
 people to come from Babylon, but for 
 the Lord himself to revisit His people, 
 from whom His presence had been with- 
 drawn through their sin. The angel, Lu. 
 i. 17, expounds the true object of the 
 voice, "to make ready a people prepared 
 for the Lord." The pathway is to be in 
 the hearts of a waiting people. It is a 
 voice, not a worker, who is announced. 
 John the Baptist "did no miracle," but 
 all tilings that he spake of a coming 
 
ISAIAH, XL. 4—9. 
 
 197 
 
 of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway 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 A VOICE that saith, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry } 
 AH flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower 
 of the field. 7 The grass is withered, the flower is faded, be- 
 cause the Spirit of the LoRD hath blown upon it: surely the 
 people is grass. 8 The grass is withered, the flower faded, but 
 the word of our God shall stand for ever. 
 
 9 O THOU that bringest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into 
 the high mountain ! lift up thy voice with strength, O thou that 
 bringest good tidings to Jerusalem : lift it up, be not afraid : say 
 
 Messiah were true. Joli. x. 41. This 
 voice is a first step towards a fulfilment 
 of the promise, that the desert should 
 rejoice and blossom as the opening rose, 
 XXXV. I. 
 
 w. 4, 5. The words are quoted by 
 St. Luke iii. 4 — 6 as those of Isaiah, and 
 a prediction of the Gospel. Some render, 
 "All flesh shall see together that the 
 mouth, &c." (Luth., Gesen., Stier). But 
 the constant use of this phrase, Is. i. 2, 20, 
 xxii. 25, Iviii. 14, is to ratify a previous 
 message. This sense is the most appro- 
 priate here. The glory to be revealed is 
 tlie character and work of the promised 
 Immanuel, and the revelation is to be for 
 the whole Gentile world, and not for the 
 Jews alone. So great a work needs a 
 solemn voucher for its fulfilment, which is 
 here given. "The mouth of the Lord 
 hath spoken it." The words are not 
 those of some unknown forger, but true 
 sayings of Almighty God. 
 
 vv. 6—8. The Prophet hears next a 
 second voice, that of God himself to the 
 herald in the wilderness, charging him to 
 proclaim a heavenly message. The herald 
 asks, What message? and thevoice replies, 
 The mortality of man, the emptiness of 
 human glory, and the abiding excellence 
 of the word of God. The past tense vv. 
 7, 8 adds vividness to the message. " One 
 voice is the absolute Preacher, the other 
 His messenger; and the sublime answer, 
 V. 8, is the word of the Lord in the mouth 
 
 of His servant" (Stier). It was the es- 
 pecial work of the Baptist, the predicted 
 Voice, to lay the axe to the root of all 
 human pride, and of the false glory of 
 the flesh ; and thus to prepare the way 
 for the Gospel, that word of God, which 
 endures for ever. These verses represent 
 that first stage of Divine teaching, in 
 which a sense of the vanity of the creature, 
 and knowledge of sin by the law, pre- 
 pare the soul to welcome the grace of 
 Christ. 
 
 V. 7. "vSurely the people is grass." 
 l^his clause is full of emphasis. In v. 6, 
 is a direct comparison. In v. 7, the 
 resemblance is unfolded and confirmed. 
 The flower fades as soon as the wind, the 
 breath of God, has blown upon it. So 
 quickly does all flesh fade away. The 
 words are then reaflirmed in their higher 
 sense. 
 
 V. 9, The construction here is am- 
 biguous. Zion, Jerusalem, may be either 
 the messenger (A.V., Aquila, Theodoret, 
 Symm., Calv., Vitr., Ewald, Umbreit, 
 Alex., Drechsler, Stier) or the object of 
 the message (Marg. A.V., LXX., Chald., 
 Vulg, Grotius, Lowth, Gesen., Rosenm., 
 Hitzig, Maurer, Knobel, Hend.). But 
 the former view is opposed by the order 
 of the words, and the incongruity of the 
 figure ; since Zion is itself a mountain, and 
 there is no other instance of such a con- 
 trast between Jerusalem and the other 
 cilics of Judah. On the second view, the 
 
198 
 
 ISAIAH, XL. 10—12. 
 
 unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 10 Behold, the 
 Lord God will come with might, and his arm shall rule for him : 
 behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. 
 1 1 He will feed his flock like a shepherd : he will gather the 
 lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and will 
 gently lead those that are with young. 
 
 12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, 
 and meted out the heaven with the span, and comprehended the 
 dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in 
 
 feminine participle has been explained 
 three ways ; that it is usual in official 
 titles (Grot.) ; that it alludes to the trium- 
 phal songs of women (Michael., Lowth); 
 and that it is a feminine collective (Gesen.). 
 But a simpler explanation will refer it at 
 once to the Pentecostal Church, as suc- 
 ceeding the lonely voice of the Baptist in 
 the wilderness by a more joyful pro- 
 clamation of the kingdom of God. 
 
 "Lift it up, be not afraid." This is 
 usually referred, not to danger and oppo- 
 sition, but to doubts of the truth of the 
 message. Both ideas may be combined. 
 Neither doubts within, nor fears and 
 dangers without, were to keep back " the 
 glorious company of the Apostles " from 
 proclaiming that the Lord was indeed 
 come, the true Shepherd and King of 
 Israel. 
 
 vv. 10, II. The message itself now 
 follows, the coming of the Lord, with all 
 power and deepest tenderness, to sa\-e and 
 bless His people. The arm is that where- 
 by a man exerts his power. So Christ is 
 "the power of God, and the wisdom of 
 God." In the coming Messiah God's 
 almightiness was to be signally displayed. 
 
 The reward of Jehovah is that which 
 He bestows. The view which refers it to 
 Christ's own recompence (Alex., Hend.) 
 disagrees with the choice of the Divine 
 name here used. He receives as the Son 
 of Man; but as Jehovah He bestows, as 
 in that latest prophecy, "Behold, I come 
 quickly, and my reward is with me, to 
 render to every one as his work shall be," 
 Rev. xxii. 11. "His work" is often ex- 
 plained to mean the recompence of his 
 work (Vitr., Roscnm., Alexr., Hend., 
 Stier, Hahn). But there is no reason 
 for departing from the proper sense of the 
 word, wiiich gives a more emphatic 
 
 meaning, and the connection is clear. 
 " His work" which He comes to fulfil, is 
 to be the Good Shepherd, the Guide and 
 Comforter of His people. He conies to 
 bless, for His reward is with Him ; He 
 comes also to labour in great humility, 
 for "His work is before Him." 
 
 V. ir. Our Lord himself expounds and 
 applies this prediction, Joh. x. 11 — 16, 
 xxi. 15. "Them that are with young" 
 (LXX. , Vulg., Aben Ezra, &c.), most 
 moderns render "nursing, or milk-giving 
 ewes "(Alex., Hend., Stier, Hahn). But 
 Ps. Ixxviii. 71 justifies the received ver- 
 sion as much as i Sam. vi. 7 the other, 
 and the plain scope of the passage favours 
 it. The ewes would need gentle leading 
 before, rather than after, their lambs were 
 born. The figure is thus more complete. 
 The Good Shepherd will use double 
 tenderness to those weak in faith, the 
 lambs of the flock, and to all who are 
 under special burdens of temptation and 
 sorrow. 
 
 The sudden transition is most heart- 
 stirring and impressive. How great! how 
 wise ! how thoughtful and constant in 
 love is the Lord, the Good Shepherd, 
 who is to come ! The message opens 
 with a charge to comfort, and ends with 
 a promise of strength restored, and com- 
 fort attained. 
 
 v. 12. This is neither a mere state- 
 ment of the grandeur of creation, — Who? 
 that is, no one : nor a simple contrast, 
 Who beside God alone? It is the voice 
 of adoring awe, when the soul of the 
 prophet dwells on God's unsearchable 
 majesty. How inconceivably great the 
 Being of whom these things are true ! 
 The hollow of his hand alludes to the 
 ocean waters, and the vast bed that con- 
 tains them. The figures convey a further 
 
ISAIAH, XL. 13—20. 
 
 199 
 
 scales, and the hills in a balance! 13 Who hath measured the 
 spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath enlightened 
 him ! 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, 
 and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him know- 
 ledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? 15 Be- 
 hold ! nations are as a drop from a bucket, and are counted as 
 the small dust of the balance : behold, he taketh up the isles as 
 a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, 
 nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All 
 the nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to 
 him less than nothing, and vanity. 
 
 18 To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye 
 compare unto him } 19 The workman melteth a graven image, 
 and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth 
 silver chains. 20 He that is so impoverished that he hath no 
 
 of which the weight is insensible, and can- 
 not even turn the scale. If Lebanon were 
 the altar, its pine-forests and cedar-groves 
 the pile, and its countless beasts the sacri- 
 fice, all would be far unworthy of His 
 greatness. The legal sacrifices not only 
 might be rendered worthless through the 
 guilt of the offerers, i. ii — 13, but were 
 in themselves wholly disproportioned to 
 the majesty of God. Thus the very first 
 message of these Later Prophecies pre- 
 pares the way for their central truth, the 
 true Sacrifice and great Sin-offering of 
 the Son of God, ch. liii. 5 — n. 
 
 V. 17. The contrast is carried further. 
 " All the nations," the whole of mankind, 
 are not merely like a drop from a bucket, 
 but even as nothing, and less than 
 nothing, before God. They can add 
 nothing to His perfection, and need His 
 bounty to raise them from worse than 
 nothingness into true life and being. The 
 digression on idolatry is like a text to 
 that great controversy with heathenism 
 which presently follows. 
 
 V. 21. " From the foundations of the 
 earth." Ever since the earth was founded, 
 and also through reflecting on the won- 
 ders of creation. The version, Will ye 
 not know? will ye not hear? (Ewald, 
 Alex.) perverts and obscures the true 
 sense. The Hebrew tense denotes what 
 is prolonged and continuous. The lesson 
 is one which ought to have been learned, 
 and was to be learned still afresh, everyday 
 
 truth. Skies, seas, and mountains, thus 
 meted and weighed, all fulfil a Divine 
 purpose. No drop, no grain, is in excess 
 or defect, when compared with the secret 
 plan of the great Ruler and Architect of 
 the universe. 
 
 V. 13. Here the unsearchableness of 
 God is more directly affirmed. None can 
 add to His wisdom, no created mind can 
 explore or fathom it. He measures and 
 comprehends all His own works, and is 
 immeasurable and incomprehensible. The 
 spirit is here the mind or intelligence of 
 God, and the distinctness of the Divine 
 Persons is scarcely a part of the message. 
 So St Paul tv/ice explains it, Rom. xi. 34, 
 I Cor. ii. 16. None can search out the 
 wisdom of God, none can be a counsellor, 
 from whom He may habitually receive 
 instruction ; nay, there is no one from 
 whom He can ever gain the least in- 
 crease of knowledge. In Him alone are 
 hidden all the treasures of infinite wisdom. 
 The object is not "to vindicate the Gos- 
 pel from the reproaches of human folly" 
 (Vitr.), but to cheer the faithful, by pro- 
 claiming the power and wisdom of their 
 Almighty Friend. 
 
 v. 15. There is a progress and climax 
 in the figures. To Llim who measures 
 the ocean in the hollow of His hand, 
 nations are less than a handful, even as 
 a single drop spilt from a vessel ; and He 
 who weighs the hills in a balance, counts 
 the people as the small dust of the balance, 
 
200 
 
 ISAIAH, XL. 21—26. 
 
 oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot : he seeketh unto him 
 a skilful workman, to prepare 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 under- 
 stood from the foundations of the earth ? 22 It is He that 
 sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
 are as grasshoppers : that stretcheth out the heavens as a cur- 
 tain, and sprcadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ; 2^ That 
 bringeth the princes to nothing: he maketh the judges of the 
 earth as vanity. 24 Yea, they shall not be planted ; yea, they 
 shall not be sown ; yea, their stock shall not take root in the 
 earth : and he hath also blown upon them, and they are wither- 
 ed ; and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 
 
 25 To whom, then, will ye liken me, or shall I be equal ? 
 saith the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and 
 
 and every hour. The received version of 
 the last clause is also the best (Calv., Jun., 
 Kimchi, Ewald, Hend., Slier), and not 
 " have ye not considered the foundations 
 of the earth?" (Ges. , Rosenm. ) It is 
 confirmed by the accents, the structure, 
 and St Paul's comment, Rom. i. 20. 
 
 v. 22. The sentence is neither a con- 
 tinuation of the last verse (Alex.) nor a 
 reply to the question of v. 18 (Vitr., 
 Rosenm.). The Absolute Being is named 
 absolutely, as the great and sublime 
 object for adoring contemplation. The 
 circle of the earth is that vv-hich is bounded 
 by the visible horizon ; over which, to our 
 senses, the sky seems spread out, "like 
 a tent to dwell in," but so lofty and un- 
 approachable as to bespeak an Almighty 
 Creator. 
 
 V. 24. "Yea." The rendering "scarce- 
 ly" (Gesen., Hend., Hahn, Stier), or "not 
 even" (Alex.), is much less forcible, and 
 probably less correct. The meaning is 
 not that their planting would soon be 
 followed by their overthrow, but that the 
 planting and rooting was in appearance 
 only, deceptive and unreal. "And he 
 hath also blown upon them." The pic- 
 ture is more vivid, by describing this 
 result as already accomplished. These 
 idolatrous powers are seen as if already 
 withered by the breath of the Lord, and 
 only awaiting a whirlwind that will sw|^ 
 them away. 
 
 V. 25. The emphasis is here on the 
 
 verbs, not the pronouns. The attempt is 
 wholly vain to find any being equal to 
 God, or even who approaches near to 
 Him in glory. The title, Holy One, 
 marks the contrast between the great 
 I AM, and all creatures whatsoever. Pan- 
 theism is the creed of unholy hearts, on 
 whom has never dawned the light of 
 God's infinite holiness. 
 
 V. 26. If the earth, the seas, and the 
 mountains, are not enough to convince 
 thoughtless men of the majesty of their 
 Creator, let them lift up their eyes to the 
 starry heavens. " Who hath made all 
 these ?" not, which out of rival claimants 
 of the honour ; but, what kind of being, 
 an Architect how great, how glorious, 
 how unsearchable ! The question passes 
 then into a direct description of His 
 power and wisdom. As a general reviews 
 a numerous army, so "He bringeth out 
 their host ;" and by number, so that each 
 one in their vast array is separately known. 
 He discerns the character and the place 
 of every star, and the part it has to fulfil 
 in His vast scheme of creation. Night 
 after night each one keeps its place, for 
 thousands of years, and performs its own 
 circuit in the heavens. The constancy of 
 the laws of nature illustrates and con- 
 firms, but can never set aside, the domi- 
 nion of God. 
 
 The last clauses neither continue the 
 question, nor form a direct reply. They 
 continue and amplify the ascription of 
 
ISAIAH, XL. 27—31. 
 
 201 
 
 behold : Who hath created these .'* that bringeth out their host by 
 number: he calleth them all by their names, by the greatness 
 of his might, for that he is strong in power ; not one faileth. 
 27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way 
 is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my 
 God .'' 28 Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard .-' that the 
 everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, 
 fainteth not, neither is weary.'' tJicre is no searching of his under- 
 standing. 29 He giveth power to the faint ; and to them that 
 have 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 ; they shall run, and 
 not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint. 
 
 glory to the Creator, contained in the 
 previous exclamation of awe and wonder. 
 How great and glorious is He, who not only 
 created them, but knows them so intimate- 
 ly, and orders their courses with unerring 
 wisdom, and a might that never fails. 
 
 V. 27. This wonderful greatness of the 
 Most High, revealed in His works, is 
 now applied to strengthen and comfort 
 His fearful-hearted people. However 
 dark the clouds around them, one glimpse 
 of His majesty, when joined with His 
 promises, ought to banish all their fears. 
 The repetition implies the frequency of 
 their complaints, and the question itself, 
 their folly. The birth-name, Jacob, and 
 the covenant-name, Israel, are a secret 
 appeal to the love of the Creator and the 
 grace of the Redeemer. The tense (Heb. 
 fut.) implies the pertinacity of their unbe- 
 lieving fears, while they complain that 
 their cause is left unheard, and has been 
 wholly forgotten. 
 
 v. -28. The words here refer to some- 
 thing heard or learnt once for all. " Hast 
 tliou not known," even by one glance at 
 the starry sky? "Hast thou not heard," 
 from that silent and awful voice where- 
 with night unto night sheweth knowledge ? 
 that He who created these countless hosts 
 and still sustains them, "fainteth not, 
 neither is weary." Hast thou not learned 
 from this glorious vision, nightly renewed 
 before thine eyes, that there is no search- 
 ing of His understanding? 
 
 This Almighty Lord, incapable of 
 weariness Himself, is also the stay of His 
 wearied people. All besides, however 
 strong they may appear, are liable to 
 exhaustion and decay. But the weakest, 
 who resort to Him who is the Fountain 
 of life, shall receive new life and vigour 
 from His Divine fulness; shall run 
 swiftly onward in their journey as pil- 
 grims to a better land, and mount up- 
 ward, in holy aspirations, towards heaven. 
 The poor in spirit will be satisfied for 
 ever from the fulness of God. 
 
 This opening section, which combines 
 with its message of comfort a sublime 
 description of the majesty of God, pre- 
 pares the way for His double controversy, 
 in the two sections that follow, first, with 
 the open idolatry of the heathen, and 
 next, with the relapses into idolatry on 
 the part of Israel, His chosen people. It 
 links itself with ch. xxxv. , as fulfilling the 
 charge vv. 3, 4 ; with chh. xxxvi., xxxvii., 
 since the sudden destruction of the As- 
 syrian host was a marvellous illustration 
 of the truth xl. 23, 24; with ch. xxxviii. , 
 as opening a bright eventide of promise 
 in Hezekiah's days, after the sudden noon- 
 tide eclipse had been removed ; and with 
 ch. xxxix., as following severe rebuke and 
 a solemn warning of the captivity of Ba- 
 bylon, by this peace-giving assurance of 
 brighter days of blessing and deliverance 
 tliat lay beyond the times of exile and 
 sorrow. 
 
202 ISAIAH, XLI.— XLV. 
 
 § 2. God's Controversy with the Heathen. 
 
 The five chapters, xli. — xlv., seem to part into three sections, with a break 
 at xlii. i6, and another at xYiv. 5, so as to complete a sevenfold division of 
 the first series of the Later Prophecies, chh. xl. — xlviii. Their three subjects 
 are God's controversy, first with the heathen, and next with Israel, and the 
 cause and method of Israel's coming deliverance. 
 
 The opening verses of ch. xli. are referred, by most modern critics, to the 
 victories of Cyrus (Abcn Ezra, Estius, Vitr., Gescn., Rosenm., Hitzig, IMaurcr, 
 Ewald, Knobel, Hend., Alex., Stier, Hahn, Delitzsch) ; but by the Jewish ex- 
 positors, and many Christians also, to Abraham, and his victory over the kings 
 (Chaldec, Kimchi, Abarb., Liran., Calv., Oecolamp., Piscator, Grotius, Lowth, 
 Bengel). But among the former class there is one main contrast, which 
 greatly lessens the weight of their seeming harmony. The neologians all 
 view it as a history of the past, not a prophecy of the future. Still Drs 
 Henderson and Alexander think the reference to Cyrus "beyond all doubt." 
 and Stier agrees with Gesenius that the older view "no longer even deserves 
 refutation." In spite of these assertions, the reasons for the older view, thus 
 condemned, are really decisive ; and all the objections, when fully examined, 
 become arguments in its favour. On this view alone every phrase receives 
 its full emphasis, and the whole chapter becomes a firm and magnificent 
 basis for the predictions that follow. 
 
 The opening verses of ch. xlii. are applied to our Lord by St Matthew, 
 so that this interpretation is one integral part of the Christian faith. They 
 are also referred to Messiah by the earliest Jewish traditions (Chald., Kimchi, 
 Abarb.). Some Jewish writers, however, and many modern critics, have 
 rejected this view. The words have been applied to the people of Israel, 
 or at least the better part of them (Jarchi, Rosenm., Hitzig, Maurer, Knobel, 
 Koster, Ewald), to Cyrus (Saadias, Koppe, Hensler), to Isaiah (Aben Ezra, 
 Grot., Dathe, Doderlein), to the prophets collectively (De Wette, Gesen.), or 
 to Messiah conjointly with Israel or the Christian Church (Alex-)- In con- 
 trast to all these, the inspired comment of St Matthew, agreeing with the 
 earliest Jewish exposition, alone satisfies the terms of the prediction. 
 
 The title "servant of God" is given elsewhere to Abraham, Moses, 
 David, Solomom, and Hezekiah, and in this book to Isaiah and Eliakim. In 
 itself it is plainly a description, rather than a definition. There is thus no 
 reason why it should not be applied, in the course of these Later Visions, 
 to Isaiah, to the nation of Israel, and to the coming Immanuel, according 
 to the context of each passage ; or why, because of this title alone, three 
 distinct, and even incompatible subjects, should be confounded together into 
 one. The mixed view creates difficulties instead of removing them, since the 
 characters of the people of Israel, xliii. 21 — xliv. 2, and those of Messiah, 
 ch. liii., are contradictory, and exclude each other. 
 
ISAIAH, XLI. 1—6. 
 
 203 
 
 Chap. XLI. 
 
 Keep silence before me, O islands ! and let the people re- 
 new their strength : let them come near, then let them speak ; 
 let us come near together to judgment. 2 Who raised up the 
 righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the 
 nations before him, and made Jiiin rule over kings .'' he gave 
 them as dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. 
 3 He pursued them, he passed safely ; the way he travelled not 
 with his feet. 4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling to the 
 generations from the beginning .'' I the LORD, the first, and 
 with the last : I am He. 
 
 5 The isles saw it, and feared : the ends of the earth were 
 afraid, drew near, and came. 6 They helped every one his 
 
 V. I. The "Creator of the ends of 
 the earth" here gives a challenge to all 
 the people and islands of the heathen 
 world. They are called to meet with 
 the God of Israel in a solemn assize. 
 The cause in debate is, on one side, the 
 power, wisdom, and goodness of the tnie 
 God ; and on the other, the ignorance, 
 worthlessness, and folly of their sense- 
 less idols. The power of God, xli. i — 8, 
 His foreseeing wisdom, xli. 21 — 29, and 
 His victorious grace, xlii. i — 8, are suc- 
 cessively contrasted with these "molten 
 images" which are only "wind and con- 
 fusion." 
 
 The first words are an echo of the pro- 
 mise just before. Strength may be renew- 
 ed not only by waiting on God, but in an 
 opposite way, when sinners harden them- 
 selves in their sin, and band together 
 against the Lord and His Anointed. 
 The heathen nations, with a stern irony, 
 are invited thus to renew their strength, 
 and to gird themselves (viii. 9) for their 
 dangerous and hopeless conflict with the 
 God of heaven. 
 
 V. 2. This great controversy dates 
 from the first ages of the world. A clear 
 pledge of its final issue had been given 
 long before. No sooner had the nations 
 begun to plunge themselves into open 
 idolatry, than God raised up a public 
 witness for His own dominion and holi- 
 ness against their sin and folly. The God 
 of glory appeared to Abraham in Chaldea, 
 stirred up his spirit to forsake his coun- 
 
 try's idols, and made him heir of the 
 righteousness of faith. The name " righte- 
 ousness" is thus signally appropriate in 
 his case, but could hardly be applied to 
 a heathen conqueror. God "called him 
 to his foot," when He brought him into 
 the land of promise. He "gave nations 
 before him, and made him rule over 
 kings," when he achieved that signal 
 victory, the earliest recorded in the world's 
 history, Gen. xiv. 15. Their discomfiture 
 was complete and marvellous. They were 
 "as dust to his sword, and as driven 
 stubble to his bow." 
 
 v. 3. "He pursued them, and passed 
 safely." The same word is used in the 
 narrative — "he pursued them unto Dan, 
 &c." The Hebrew tenses are imperfects, 
 and may be rendered by the past, but 
 perhaps more vividly by the historic 
 present. "The way he travelled not 
 with his feet." It is too common for 
 special notice that a conqueror's route 
 has not been trodden by him before. The 
 true meaning seems then to be (Ewald, 
 Drechsler, &c.) that swiftly, as if on wings, 
 rather than with feet, and by Divine 
 help, this conqueror hasted to victory. 
 .So the He-goat "touched not the ground," 
 Dan. viii. 5. 
 
 v. 4. Some translate " He who call- 
 eth, &c." But this confuses the persons, 
 and destroys the balance between the 
 question and the reply. Some expound 
 it, "calling them into being" or "an- 
 nouncing them before their birth." But the 
 
204 
 
 ISAIAH, XLI. 7— II. 
 
 neighbour, and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. 
 7 So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, aiid he that 
 smootheth unth the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, 
 It is ready for soldering : and he fastened it with nails, tJiat 
 it should not be moved. 8 But thou, Israel, art my sei-vant, 
 Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend : 
 9 Thoti, whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and 
 called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, 
 Thou art my servant ; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee 
 away. 
 
 lo Fear thou not, for I am with thee : 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. 
 
 I I Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be 
 
 simplest sense of the words is to address 
 loudly, as in vi. 4, xx. 1 1. This is here the 
 most forcible, and confirms the reference 
 to Abraham's victory. The last clause, 
 by the Hebrew accents, should be, "I 
 the Lord, the First, and with the last I 
 am He," that is, the same. But the re- 
 ceived version agrees better with xliii. 10, 
 xlviii. 12. In v. 7 some translate "say- 
 ing of the solder, It is good." But the 
 received version is preferable. \Vhy 
 should the smoother with the anvil praise 
 the solder, to be applied by another 
 workman? The finishing of the idol, 
 the soldering of its case, the fastening 
 with nails, would be successive stages of 
 the work. When one is ended, another 
 begins, and the workman who has finished 
 his own part naturally calls on another to 
 succeed him. 
 
 vv. 4 — 7. The Call of Abraham, and 
 his later triumph, were a voice of God 
 to those early generations of mankind, 
 recalling them from their ungodliness and 
 growing idolatry. lie who thus revealed 
 His Divine power is Jehovah, the Un- 
 changeable, the First, and with the last, 
 whose counsel endures throughout all 
 ages. Thus the history of Abraham was 
 the pledge of every later deliverance of 
 the people of God. But, instead of 
 hearkening to this voice, the nations, with 
 one consent, plunged still deeper into 
 idolatry and superstition. Like Adam 
 in the garden, they strove to shield them- 
 selves from the unwelcome sense of God's 
 
 holy presence by redoubled zeal in idol- 
 worship. Its universal spread was one 
 main plea, by which every family and 
 tribe hardened itself against the warnings 
 of God. How could that be hateful folly, 
 in which all nations were agreed ? Thus 
 from Abraham to the days of Isaiah and 
 Cyrus, the heathen world became one 
 vast workshop for the zealous manufac- 
 ture of countless idols. The words are a 
 severe irony. So many workmen busied 
 in making a helpless thing for their wor- 
 ship, which cannot hold together without 
 solder, or stand upright without nails ! 
 
 The alann of the nations, v. 5, and 
 their added zeal in idolatry, have been 
 thought to favour the reference to Cyrus, 
 not to Abraham (Vitr.). But there is no 
 likelihood that idolatry became more ac- 
 tive through the victories of Cyrus. Their 
 whole tendency was the exact reverse. 
 But the steady growth of idolatry from 
 Abraham to the days of the prophet is 
 one of the most patent facts in the history 
 of the world. Whenever miracles of 
 Divine power do not reclaim, they may 
 occasion an aggravation of the evil. 
 
 vv. 8 — 10. The blind zeal of the hea- 
 then, mad upon their idols, is now con- 
 trasted with the sureness of God's covenant 
 to Abraham and his Seed, in whom all 
 nations were to be blessed. The voice is 
 to the chosen peojile, taken from Chaldea 
 in their forefather, called out of Egypt by 
 Moses; to the natural seed of Abraham, 
 whose victory was the jjicdgc of iheir own 
 
ISAIAH, XLI. 12— 16. 
 
 205 
 
 ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they 
 that strive with thee shall perish. 12 Thou shalt seek them, 
 and shalt not find them, the men that contended with thee : 
 they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing 
 of nought, 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 mortals of Israel : I will help thee, 
 saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. 
 15 Behold, I have made thee as a new sharp threshing wain, 
 having teeth : thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat thcni 
 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, aiid 
 shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 deliverance. Once more they had been 
 chosen in the wilderness; and, though 
 withered branches might be broken off, 
 were never to be wholly cast away. The 
 massive strength of heathen idolatry, 
 increasing through long ages, is set side 
 by side with Israel's weakness, when 
 Ephraim were in captivity, and Judah a 
 feeble remnant, with exile and desolation 
 near at hand. Still, the holy seed would 
 be the substance or life thereof, vi. 13. 
 In darkest hours the covenant with Abra- 
 ham would be sure. Omnipotence is the 
 arm and right hand of infinite holiness, 
 whereby the Righteous King executes His 
 decrees of love. 
 
 vv. 14 — 16. "Ye mortals of Israel." 
 The title is no mere allusion to the con- 
 tempt of the heathen for Jewish exiles, 
 but is a picture of man's real weakness 
 in the sight of God. The word is rendered 
 "dead men" (Aquila, Theod., Jerome), or 
 "a few men" (LXX., Vitr., Hitzig). 
 But since the letters are the same as for 
 "dead men," and only the points differ- 
 ent, and the context requires some ex- 
 pression of Israel's weakness, "mortals" 
 (Hand.) is the most natural sense. The 
 Lord will be their Redeemer both from 
 affliction and death. 
 
 "The Holy One of Israel." This title 
 occurs fourteen times in the Earlier, 
 fifteen times in these Later Prophecies, 
 elsevi'here only twice in Jeremiah, and 
 also in Ps. Ixxi. 22, Ixxviii. 41. It is 
 here the seal, first of God's threatenings. 
 
 i. 4, V. 24, and next, of His glorious 
 promises. The title is both emphatic, 
 and inwrought into the texture of the 
 prophecy, xli. 14, 16, 20, xliii. 3, 14, xlv. 
 II, Iv. 5, Ix. 14. 
 
 v. 15. The figure here is resumed from 
 ch. xxviii. 27, 28. The people of Israel, 
 described before as the corn of God's 
 threshing-floor, are now compared to a 
 wain, by which nations that oppose the 
 kingdom of God will be broken to pieces. 
 The past tense is used to denote the 
 certainty of the future triumph. Jacob, 
 though a worm, will thresh the mountains, 
 and make the hills as chaff, through the 
 mighty power of the God of Israel. 
 
 The whole passage, thus applied, is a 
 grand and simple review of the world's 
 past and future history. In vv. 5 — 7, is 
 depicted the fatal growth of Gentile idol- 
 atiy, from the days of Abraham to the 
 height of the Chaldean Empire, when 
 they were "mad upon their idols," Jer. 1. 
 38. Meanwhile Israel, God's chosen wit- 
 nesses, were brought through their sin to 
 utter weakness, their bones dried and their 
 hope lost, Ezek. xxxvii. ir. Then the 
 covenant of God with Abraham His friend 
 revealed its full power. This worm must 
 prevail over all the banded strength of 
 idolatrous kingdoms. This dying rem- 
 nant shall beat into dust the confedera- 
 cies of the world's ungodliness. The pro- 
 mise includes all the main steps in this 
 conflict, the times of Cyrus and the Mac- 
 cabees, and the triumphs of the true Israel 
 
206 
 
 ISAIAH, XLI. 17—22. 
 
 17 lV/f£.v the poor and needy seek water, and f//cre is none, 
 and their ton<juc failcth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, 
 I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 18 I will open rivers 
 in high places, 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 shittah 
 tree, and the myrtle, and the olive-tree : I will set in the desert 
 the cypress, the pine-tree, and the larch, 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 Bring near your cause, saith the LORD ; bring forth your 
 strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring 
 forth, and shew to us the things that shall happen : let them 
 
 over heathen Rome; but above all, the 
 time when the Stone shall smite the di- 
 vided kingdoms of the fourth and latest 
 empire. Dan. ii. 34. Then all rule and 
 authority that resists the dominion of 
 Christ will be as the chaff of the summer 
 threshing-floor, and the wind of judg- 
 ment will carry it away for ever. 
 
 vv. 17 — 20. God's covenant with Israel 
 assures to them, not victory alone, but 
 comfort and refreshment, and the largest 
 spiritual blessings. As before there was a 
 double allusion to the Call of Abraham 
 and the Exodus, so here to the journey 
 through the desert, when the rock was 
 smitten, and rivers ran in dry places. 
 The promise, xxxv. i, 7, is resumed and 
 repeated. The words may include mer- 
 cies shewn to the exiles on their Return ; 
 but their chief reference must be to the 
 outpouring of the Spirit on the day of 
 Pentecost, and also in times to come. 
 
 vv. 19, 20. The shittah is generally 
 supposed to be the acacia, and the olive 
 mentioned is the oleaster or wild olive- 
 tree. The pine-tree some take to be the 
 ilex or holm, and the last species {/v.r, 
 A. V.) is either the larch, or a variety of 
 the cedar. The like figures recur Iv. 13, 
 with reference to spiritual blessings. The 
 Divine purpose includes not only the in- 
 struction of the Jews, but of the idolatrous 
 heathen themselves. 
 
 vv. 21 — 23. The controversy with the 
 nations is resumed again, under the same 
 figure of a trial or assize. The idolaters 
 
 are called to state their o\\m case, and 
 bring forward their strongest reasons, to 
 disprove God's charge against them of 
 blindness and folly. The appeal turns 
 from God's power to His prescient wis- 
 dom, in which these idols, their priests, 
 and their worshippers, have no share. 
 
 The exact force of each clause is open 
 to various interpretations. The "former 
 things" have been explained, ( i ) asheathen 
 prophecies, to be compared with their ful- 
 filment (Gesen., Ewald, Knobel, Maurer, 
 Hitzig, Ilend., Alex.); (2) past things, 
 viewed in a prophetic light (Meyer) ; or 
 (3) the earliest things still future (Vitr. , 
 Rosenm., Sticr, Hahn). Like varieties 
 occur as "to the latter end," "the things 
 to come," and "things that shall come 
 hereafter." 
 
 The following view seems the simplest 
 and clearest. The former things, their 
 latter end, and the things to come, are a 
 sequence, of which the first are past, 
 the two others future; yet so that the 
 latter end of the former things, in this 
 place, may be included in the " former 
 things," whenever the subject refers to 
 the more distant future. "Let them 
 shew things that shall happen," contin- 
 gent future events. The challenge then 
 has two parts. First, let them so unfold 
 past history, as to make it a pledge and 
 sign of the events near at hand, the more 
 immediate future. This is what in this 
 chapter God himself has done. The 
 raising up of Abraham from the east, and 
 
ISAIAH, XLI. 23—26. 
 
 207 
 
 shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider 
 them, and know the latter end of them ; or declare us the things 
 to come. 23 Shew the things that will come hereafter, and 
 we shall know that ye are gods : yea, do good, and do evil, that 
 we may be dismayed, and behold it together. 24 Behold, ye 
 are of nothing, and your work worse than nought : an abomi- 
 nation is he that chooseth you. 25 I have raised up ojie from 
 the north, and he is come ; from the rising of the sun he shall 
 call upon my name : and he shall come upon princes as on 
 mortar, and as a potter treadeth clay. 26 Who hath declared 
 it from the beginning, that we may know ? and beforetime, that 
 we may say, He has right .-* yea, t/iere is none that sheweth ; 
 
 his victoiy over the kings, are made the 
 pledge of a similar work, when Cyrus 
 would be raised from the east to tread 
 down princes, as the potter treadeth clay, 
 and to deliver Israel, just as Lot was de- 
 livered of old. Sacred history is prophetic 
 of its own "latter end." "Or declare us 
 the things which are to come." Reveal, 
 if you can, those greater changes, when 
 Messiah shall appear, and all the strong- 
 holds of heathen idolatry shall totter and 
 fall to the ground before Him. "Shew 
 us the things coming hereafter," whether 
 near or remote, "and we shall know that 
 ye are gods." Again, shew godlike power, 
 as in the ancient miracles of Jehovah ; 
 reward your servants, and punish your 
 adversaries, "that we may be dismayed 
 and. behold it together." A sublime 
 irony ! The living and eternal God, as 
 well as His worshippers, is to be dismayed 
 and confounded by the proofs these stocks 
 and stones are to give of their own 
 superior power and wisdom. 
 
 vv. 24 — -16. The challenge is heard in 
 silence. The Lord himself gives the 
 reply, since the idolaters are speechless, 
 and the cause has gone against them by 
 default. 
 
 "Worse than nought." The change of 
 one letter seems here significant (for DQX 
 nothing, TSX^ when nV??!J> is a viper) to 
 express that they are not only worthless, 
 but venomous and mischievous. The 
 LoED then proclaims His purpose to 
 renew once more His former mercies to 
 Abraham, by raising up Cyrus to be the 
 deliverer of His captive people. 
 
 V. 25. The change from the past to 
 the future tense is not to fix a middle 
 point of time for the picture (Alex.), but 
 to teach that this coming of Cyrus, though 
 future, is as sure as if already past. The 
 promise "he shall call upon my name" 
 is the counterpart to xlv. 3, 4, "I have 
 called thee by thy name." The two 
 wonders would correspond. The All- 
 wise God here calls Cyrus by his name, 
 long before his birth; and Cyrus owns, in 
 his turn, the Power which has exalted and 
 honoured him. In his decree he calls Him 
 by His own proper name, "Jehovah, 
 the God of Israel, He is the God, M'hose 
 house is in Jerusalem." The north and 
 east describe the position of Media and 
 Persia with regard to Babylon, the great 
 centre of heathen idolatry. 
 
 The word sagdni7ii, princes, used here 
 for the first time, occurs three times in 
 Jeremiah, three times in Ezekiel, with 
 reference to Assyrian or Babylonian 
 rulers, and nine times in Ezra and Nehe- 
 miah after the Return, as applied to 
 Jewish rulers or leaders. It here fixes 
 the application of the message to the 
 coming overthrow of the Babylonian Em- 
 pire. 
 
 V. 26. "That we may say. He has 
 right." Such predictions as God here 
 gives would justify the claim of the idol 
 to be a god, and of the idol prophet to be 
 the sei-vant of some power truly divine. 
 But, far from this, they cannot even un- 
 derstand or receive the true predictions 
 which God himself has given. "Your 
 words" refers, not to the idols, but to 
 
20S 
 
 ISAIAH, XLI. 27— XLII. I. 
 
 yea, there is none that declareth ; yea, tJicre is none that hcareth 
 your words. 27 From the first / have said to Zion, Behold, 
 behold them; and to Jerusalem I will give one that bringeth 
 good tidings. 28 For I look, and there is no man : even for 
 one among them, and there is no counsellor, when I question 
 them, that can answer a word. 29 Behold ! they are all 
 vanity ; their works are nought : their molten images are wind 
 and confusion. 
 
 CiiAP. XLII. Messiah's Work and Victory. 
 
 Behold my Servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, in whom 
 my soul delighteth : I have put my Spirit upon him ; he shall 
 
 Isaiah and his fellows, the prophets of 
 God. The whole description is true, not 
 only in reference to these old heathen 
 idolaters, but to heathenized critics in 
 modern times, who see only forgeries after 
 the event in these Divine prophecies. 
 
 vv. 27 — 29. The received version is 
 here very obscure, and admits of much 
 improvement. The verb has to be sup- 
 plied in the first clause from the second ; 
 and in the past tense, because the past 
 and future tenses alternate, and also from 
 the force of the word, rishoii, "from the 
 first." The last verbs are clearly de- 
 pendent. 
 
 Not only now by these words of Isaiah, 
 but from earlier times, those of David 
 and onward, God had encouraged Zion 
 to look for blessings in store for her by 
 His covenant. He promises that He 
 ■will continue to give Jerusalem such mes- 
 sengers of good tidings. No one beside 
 can either comfort or foresee. It is vain 
 to look among idols and their wor- 
 shippers for any knowledge of these good 
 things to come. But Divine prophecies 
 of a blessed future have never ceased to 
 resound in the ears of the Zion of God. 
 
 Here a second stage of the great con- 
 troversy with heathenism is closed. In 
 the Call and Victory of Abraham the 
 power of the Most High had been re- 
 vealed from the beginning ; and the 
 nations of the earth had been recalled, by 
 a loud voice from heaven, from their 
 foul idolatries to the service and worship 
 of the True and Eternal King. But man- 
 kind refused to hear, and sank deeper 
 and deeper in the gulf of vain suj)er- 
 
 stilion. Their strength and pride in- 
 creased, while Israel, God's witnesses, 
 were brought low through their sin. 
 
 Now therefore, in these visions of Isaiah, 
 God's fore-knowledge was to be revealed 
 as brightly as His power had been in the 
 days of old. His mercies to Abraham 
 and Israel, "the former things," are here 
 made a pledge of their own "latter end," 
 that is, of the victories of Cyrus, and the 
 Return of exiled Israel. The type and 
 earnest in Abraham's victory is first res- 
 cued from the ignorance and neglect of 
 the heathen, and fully set forth anew, that 
 men may consider and learn its latter 
 end, the raising up of Cyrus. This would 
 be like a crown to the series of God's 
 mighty acts for the preservation of the 
 chosen race, till the tnie Seed of Abraham, 
 the predicted Immanuel, should appear. 
 
 Thus the plain announcement of Cy- 
 rus, even by name, xliv. 28, xlv. r, the 
 stumblingblock of sceptical critics, is the 
 very ground and basis of this solemn and 
 majestic appeal. Those who seek to 
 degrade these chapters into forgeries after 
 Cyrus had arisen and prospered, only 
 range themselves, in this great contro- 
 versy, side by side with the idolatrous 
 heathen of Isaiah's days. 
 
 Ch. XLII. I — 16. 
 
 V. I. The great controversy of God 
 with the whole heathen world is here 
 continued, and passes into a higher stage. 
 His power and dominion, from the earliest 
 ages ; His foreknowledge, wherein idol 
 gods have no share, confirmed anew by 
 the prediction of Cyrus and his conquests ; 
 and lastly, His goodness and mercy in 
 
ISAIAH, XLII. 2—6. 
 
 209 
 
 bring- forth judgment to the Gentiles. 2 He will not cry, nor 
 lift up Jiis voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 
 3 A bruised reed will he not break, and the smoking flax he will 
 not quench ; he will bring forth judgment unto truth. 4 He 
 will not fail nor be discouraged, until he have set judgment 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 out ; he that spread forth the earth, and that 
 which cometh 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 thine hand, and 
 Avill keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for 
 
 the gift of the promised Redeemer, are a 
 threefold ground of appeal to the rebel- 
 lious nations. The idols had been chal- 
 lenged to shew, either the latter end of 
 the former things, or the more distant 
 future, things still later in time. The chal- 
 lenge they could not meet is here answered 
 in God's own message. As xli. 25 an- 
 nounced the victories of Cyrus, so here 
 the promise of Messiah is a revelation of 
 still later marvels of Divine Providence. 
 
 "Behold!" This word is a contrast to 
 vv. 24, 29, where God proclaims the 
 heathen idols to be worthless. But here 
 He sets before the islands and nations an 
 object worthy of all admiration and 
 reverence, the Seed of the woman, pro- 
 mised so long, and more lately by Isaiah 
 himself, cli, vii., the Divine Saviour and 
 Redeemer of a guilty world. The favour 
 of the Lord, resting largely on this His 
 Servant, is the ground of an appeal to all 
 mankind. So the Baptist in the Gospel : 
 "Behold the Lamb of God !" The Son of 
 God, from His birth, was His Father's 
 delight and good pleasure in the midst of 
 sinful men (Lu. ii. 14). "Judgment" here 
 denotes true righteousness, or "the end 
 of the commandment, love out of a pure 
 heart, and of a good conscience, and of 
 faith unfeigned." 
 
 vv. 2 — 4. This coming Saviour is de- 
 scribed, first, in His personal character; 
 next, in His tender care for the weak of 
 the flock ; then, in the completeness of 
 His work of mercy, and its final triumph. 
 In Him the utmost gentleness will be 
 joined with unwearied energy of patient 
 love. He cares for the weak, but in Him 
 
 B. I 
 
 there is no weakness. He will not be dim 
 or faint, like the smoking flax, nor crushed 
 or feeble, like the bruised reed. The He- 
 brev/ words correspond in the two verses. 
 With more than a woman's tenderness 
 He will unite more than manly strength 
 and firmness in His great work of love. 
 
 "Unto truth." Truth is not named as 
 the instrument, but the object of His 
 work. So in the LXX, "unto victory." 
 To plant truth in the hearts and lives 
 of the Gentiles will be the object of Mes- 
 siah's labour; and it will not cease, till 
 this truth has its full victory in the hearts 
 of His servants. The fruit of the Spirit 
 is "in all goodness, righteousness, and 
 truth." The work will be as wide as 
 deep, and shall never cease till "all the 
 ends of the earth shall see the salvation of 
 God." The "waiting" of the isles may 
 include their longing for the Gospel be- 
 fore its publication ; but refers chiefly to 
 the reverent acceptance of the words of 
 Christ by Gentile nations, as theirground of 
 hope for present peace and eternal glory. 
 
 vv. 5 — 8. The great Creator, the 
 Mighty One, here proclaims Himself to 
 be also the mighty Redeemer. It is the 
 God of the spirits of all flesh, who has 
 ordained Messiah to be the life and sal- 
 vation of a fallen world. The people, 
 in V. 5, are mankind; but in v. 6 the 
 word seems to denote Israel, in contrast 
 to the Gentiles. Jesus was to "die for 
 that nation," though not for that nation 
 only. The Gospel is the power of God 
 "to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." 
 
 v. 7. "To open the blind eyes." This 
 renews the promise, xxxv. 5, where it is 
 
 14 
 
lO 
 
 ISAIAH, XLTI. 7— II. 
 
 a light of the Gentiles ; 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out 
 the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out 
 of the prison house. 8 I am JEIIOVAII, that is my name: and 
 my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven 
 images. 
 
 9 The former things, behold ! they arc come to pass : and 
 new things do I now declare ; before they spring forth I tell 
 you of them. 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. 
 1 1 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, 
 the villafres that Kedar doth inhabit : let the dwellers on the 
 
 equally joined with the coming of the 
 Lord to save His people. This Servant 
 of the Lord is Immanuel, the Mighty 
 God, no less than the Prince of peace. 
 Our Lord's outward miracles must be 
 included in the promise. But the main 
 reference is to the removal of spiritual 
 blindness, and release from the prison- 
 house of sin and the grave. It forms the 
 ground of St Paul's commission — "De- 
 livering thee from the people, and from 
 the Gentiles to whom now I send thee, 
 to open their eyes, and to turn them 
 from darkness to light, from the power 
 of Satan unto God." The world, and 
 also the soul of man, is a dark place till 
 the Gospel comes ; and, whenever the 
 Gospel is rejected, sinks rapidly into 
 moral darkness again. 
 
 v. 8. The name Jehovah is here em- 
 phatic, as in Ex. vi. 2—8, Mai. iii. 6. 
 This name of God, as the Self-existent, 
 the Unchangeable, stands out thus in full 
 relief at the beginning, middle, and close, 
 of the times of the Law. There is also an 
 allusion to ch. xli. 4. He, who made 
 known His power in the days of Abra- 
 ham, abides the same even to the end. 
 He will never cease from His works of 
 power, till every idol is abolished, and 
 all nations are made subject to the Son 
 of His love. Christ is no rival, but a 
 sharer, in His Father's glory, whose will 
 is "that all men should honour the Son, 
 even as they honour the Father." 
 
 v. 9. The true order of the words, 
 as restored above, adds to the vividness 
 of this striking prophecy. 
 
 "'Ihc former things" have been variously 
 
 explained, as the promise of the Exodus 
 to Abraham (Jarchi) ; Isaiah's predic- 
 tions of the fall of the Assyrian (Kim- 
 chi, Hend.) ; the earlier, in contrast 
 with the later, victories of Cynis (Kno- 
 bel) ; the times of Cyrus, in contrast 
 with those of INIessiah (Vitr., Rosenm., 
 Stier, Hahn) ; or indefinitely, all earlier 
 prophecies then fulfilled (Calv., Alex.). 
 The meaning, as before expounded, 
 will include the times of the Law 
 and the Prophets, filled up by their 
 latter end, the times of restored Judah 
 after the Captivity. The new things an- 
 nounced are the days of Messiah and 
 the New Covenant. The events foretold 
 in this chapter were thus to form a wholly 
 new era in the history of the world. 
 
 vv. 10 — 16. This "new song" answers 
 to the mention of new things in the 
 former verse. The reference to the days 
 of Cyrus is thus excluded, and also by 
 the grandeur of the whole description. 
 In xli. ?5 was predicted the latter end of 
 the former things, but here the latter end 
 of the new things, the things to come. 
 
 All the prophets bear witness that ages 
 of forbearance are to issue in signal jutig- 
 nient on Messiah's adversaries, who 
 "obey not the Gospel," 2 Thess. i. S. 
 In Ps. xcvii. all creation are called on, 
 in like manner, to rejoice because the 
 Lord is coming to judge the earth. 
 In V. 14 a contrast is drawn between 
 God's long-suffering during the times of 
 the Gospel, and His holy anger to be 
 at last revealed. In v. 15 we read the 
 effect of the Lord's presence, when He 
 comes in flaming fire; and in v. 16 His 
 
ISAIAH, XLII. 12— 16. 
 
 211 
 
 rock 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 will go forth as a mighty man, he 
 will stir up jealousy like a man of war: he will cry, yea, roar; he 
 will prevail against his enemies. 14 I have a long time holden 
 my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself; now will I cry 
 like a travailing woman ; I will destroy and devour at once. 
 1 5 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their 
 herbs ; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the 
 pools. 16 And I will bring the blind by a way they knew not ; 
 in paths zvhich they knew not will I lead them : I will make 
 darkness light before them, and crooked things straight : even 
 these things will I do unto them, and I will not forsake them. 
 
 unchanging love and care towards His 
 ransomed people in this hour of solemn 
 judgment. Then, at length, that great 
 controversy of the Most High with re- 
 bellious nations, which began with the 
 Call of Abraham, will reach a triumphant 
 and solemn close. In v. 16 we have 
 the true goal, just as in xxxv. 10, when 
 the ransomed of the Lord, guided by His 
 watchful love, return with singing to Zion, 
 and sorrow and sighing flee away. 
 
 v. 10. The new song is to celebrate 
 new acts of God's power in the last days, 
 when His redemption shall be complete. 
 "From the ends of the earth" does not 
 mean "at the extremities" (Gesen., Hend.), 
 which is much less expressive. The 
 streams of joy are to flow together from 
 these ends of the earth to their common 
 source and centre. " Ye that go down to 
 the sea" means, those who embark in thek 
 vessels on the sea, including all who pass 
 over it. The isles include the maritime 
 lands (Hend.), but the received version is 
 more simple and expressive. 
 
 V. II. Our version gives the true 
 force of the Hebrew future. The sea 
 and the islands may represent the lands 
 of the west; tlie wilderness, and tlie tent- 
 villages of Jvedar, those of the east. The 
 troubled sea and lonely desert complete 
 a moral picture of the heathen world. 
 
 "The dwellers on the rock." Some 
 take Sela here for a proper name referring 
 to Petra, the capital of Edom (Vitr., 
 Mich , Hend.). But even if there be such 
 an allusion, the received version is much 
 to be preferred. The earth, the sea, the 
 
 islands, the desert, the rock, and the 
 mountain, all parts of creation alike, are 
 to yield their united tribute of praise to 
 these works of God. Some translate 
 v. 14 "I will pant and gasp at once." 
 But the usual version (Kimchi, Calv., 
 Grot, Hitzig, Hend.) agrees better with 
 the grandeur of the description. The 
 figure of a travailing woman is confined 
 to one point only, the loud outcry. The 
 main thought is that the righteous anger 
 of God is in course of swift execution. 
 
 V. 16. The emphasis is improved hy 
 retaining the Hebrew order. Some trans- 
 late, "These are the words, I have done 
 them, and not left them," i.e. undone. 
 But this is not more exact, and the thought 
 feebler. The future tense (Heb.) is simply 
 to denote the sureness of the promise, 
 and answers nearly to our emphatic fu- 
 ture, with the stress on the auxiliary; — 
 I WILL do them, as surely as if already 
 done. 
 
 The close of this section answers to 
 its opening. The true Lord, who had 
 guided Abraham of old by a way that he 
 knew not, so that he pursued his enemies, 
 and passed safely, will also guide His 
 people in the last generations of the 
 world, and bring them, even through 
 dark and rugged pathways, to a home 
 of perfect rest. This beautiful promise 
 completes and crowns the whole mes- 
 sage. All the dark mysteries of Provi- 
 dence, which may seem now, even to 
 God's servants, utterly inscrutable, will 
 find a blessed solution in the coming king- 
 dom of Christ and of God. 
 
 14—2 
 
2 12 ISAIAH, XLII. 17—19. 
 
 § 3. God's Controversy with Israel. 
 Chap. XLII. 17— XLIV. 5. 
 
 The controversy between Jehovah and the heathen idolaters has been 
 brought to a close. It reaches from the call and victory of Abraham, the friend 
 of God, to the triumph of Messiah's kingdom in the last days. The message 
 now returns to Israel. The plea against them had begun in the earlier 
 Prophecies, and heaven and earth were called as witnesses of their guilt, i. 2. 
 It is now resumed in a gentler tone, like the calm expostulation of a loving 
 friend. A great law of God's moral government is announced, the certain 
 shame of all idolaters. This truth no favour to the chosen people can set 
 aside. Israel have shared in this sin of the heathen, and it has been aggra- 
 vated by their clearer knowledge and greater mercies. Their guilt is further 
 revealed by contrast with the Messiah, in whom the calling they had pro- 
 faned would be truly fulfilled. There are next foretold, in succession, their 
 deliverance from Babylon, their stubborn ingratitude, and the final outpour- 
 ing on them of the Spirit of God. 
 
 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, 
 that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye 
 arc our gods. 18 Ye deaf, hear! and ye blind, look that ye 
 may see ! 19 Who is blind but my Servant .-' or deaf, as my 
 messenger tJiat I shall send } who is blind as the perfect one, 
 
 Ch. xlu. 17 — 25. righteous pride. He too is blind and 
 vv. 18 — 21. These words are commonly deaf, but in a sense wholly opposite, by 
 applied to the Jewish people. Of recent unspeakable forbearance and grace. vSo 
 critics Dr Henderson, almost alone, refers Ps. xxxviii. 13, "I as a deaf man heard 
 them to the Messiah. But his exposition not, and I was as one dumb, that open- 
 of them as ironical, or the language of the eth not his mouth." The Gospels renew 
 Jews, is open to very weighty objection. the same picture, Joh. viii. 6 — ir. It is 
 On the usual view the title "the servant the same witii the Divine perfection in 
 of God" would be used twice emphati- Balaam's message; — "He hath not be- 
 cally, and in close succession, in two dif- held iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he 
 ferent senses. This objection is only seen perverseness in Israel." The per- 
 strengthcned by the fruitless attempt to son named is that Messenger whom the 
 join Messiah and the nation together, in Lord was about to send, Joh. x. 36. He 
 l)oth places, as the common subject. The is the Perfect One, alone pure and sin- 
 title, perfect, cannot be applied, without less; the Lord's Servant, whose gentle- 
 great violence, to those whose sin is de- ness and patience have been described 
 nounced in the same context, and belongs before, and who is to set judgment in 
 naturally to our Lord alone. the earth. On this view the repeated 
 The guilt and shame of the people is question, Who is blind as He? has a deep 
 here enforced by direct contrast with the significance. Where sin has abounded, 
 true Israel, the Prince wlio has power grace still more abounds. The marvel 
 with God. Blind and deaf in spirit, not of Israel's blind idolatry and unbelief is 
 in their outward senses, they are to fix to be surjjassed by a greater marvel of 
 their eyes on Him, that sight and hear- love and grace in Israel's Redeemer, who 
 ing may be restored. Theirs was the blind- sees as though He saw not, and hears as 
 ness and deafness of idolatry and self- though He lieard not, when He visits His 
 
ISAIAH, XLII. 20—25. 
 
 213 
 
 and blind as the Lord's servant ? 20 Seeing many things, and 
 thou wilt not observe ; opening the ears, and yd he will not 
 hear. 21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake : 
 he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. 
 
 22 But this is a people plundered and spoiled ; they are all 
 of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses : they 
 are for a prey, and none delivereth ; for a spoil, and none saith, 
 Restore. 23 Who among you will give ear to this .-' zuho will 
 hearken, and hear for the time to come .'' 24 Who gave Jacob 
 for a spoil, and Israel to the plunderers .-' did not the LORD, 
 he against whom we have sinned .'' and they would not walk in 
 his ways, and did not hearken to his law. 25 Therefore he 
 hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of 
 battle : and it hath burned him round about, yet he knew it not; 
 and it hath set him on fire, yet he will not lay it to heart. 
 
 people in great mercy, to pity and to save. 
 
 V. 20. The blindness of this Servant 
 of the Lord is now explained, with allu- 
 sion to the promise, xxxv. 5, "Then the 
 eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the 
 ears of the deaf unstopped," It is the 
 free choice of patient love. He can open 
 the ears of the deaf, but refuses to hear 
 the sounds of strife and violence. Every 
 sense is awake for mercy. He gives voice, 
 hearing, sight, to the dumb, the deaf, and 
 the blind ; but is deaf and blind Himself 
 in refusing to judge when He comes to 
 save. Thus men are blessed, God is glo- 
 rified, and the excellence of God's righte- 
 ous law of perfect love is for ever revealed. 
 
 V. 22. "Plundered." The word is the 
 same as x. 6, and refers to military vio- 
 lence and heathen conquest, rather than 
 accidental robberies. The contrast is the 
 same as in ii. i — 5, 6 — 22. The glorious 
 vision of Messiah's patient love is fol- 
 lowed by a sorrowful prophecy of Is- 
 rael's degradation. The warning, x. 6, 
 there applied to the Assyiian, is here 
 extended to the Chaldean desolations. 
 Spiritual blindness is the procuring cause, 
 the effects ai^e outward calamity and j)0- 
 litical ruin. The words apply to the 
 whole series of changes from the first 
 deportation of Ephraim to the completed 
 captivity of Judah. 
 
 ■ V. 23. Some explain this verse as a 
 reproachful exclamation — Who among 
 
 you hearkens to this ? marks and hears 
 what is to come? (Calv., Stier). But it 
 is rather a wondering search for the small 
 remnant, who will lay the message to 
 heart amidst the general unbelief. These 
 are invited to lay up the prophecy in 
 their memories, until its truth shall be 
 triumphantly revealed. 
 
 V. 24. The truth all are invited, but few 
 of them are willing to learn, is that dis- 
 obedience to God's voice is the real 
 source of all their troubles. Their exile 
 and captivity, their hiding in holes and 
 corners, was no work of mere chance, 
 but the direct result of their persevering 
 idolatry, and contempt for the messages 
 of God. The implied affirmation changes, 
 in the last clause, to a direct assertion of 
 their guilt. The words are either those 
 of the prophet ; or of the Word of God, 
 condescending to antedate the time when 
 He would actually take upon Himself 
 the iniquities of His people. 
 
 V. 25. These words announce the gross 
 blindness of Israel down to the comple- 
 tion of the Captivity, and their refusal to 
 learn the true cause of their national sor- 
 row. The future (Heb.) in the last clause 
 implies the lasting nature of the blind- 
 ness. The two words for burning, in the 
 received version, are correctly given xliii. 
 2, but their force is transposed in this 
 verse. Israel were scorched or burned 
 round about, as a body may be by sur- 
 
214 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIII. 1—5. 
 
 CiiAr. XLIII. The Controversy continued. 
 
 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, 
 and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not : for I have re- 
 deemed thee, I have called thee by thy name : thou art mine. 
 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 JEIIOVAH 
 am thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I have 
 given Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead. 
 4 Because thou hast been precious in my sight, thou hast been 
 honoured, and I have loved thee ; and I will give men instead 
 of thee, and people for thy life. 5 Fear not, for I mn with thee : 
 I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the 
 
 rounding flames, and even set on fire, 
 like dry fuel, itself inflammable. The 
 double promise corresponds, " Thou shalt 
 not be burned, neither shall the flame 
 kindle upon thee." 
 
 Ch. XLIII. 
 
 vv. I, 2. The dark picture of Israel's 
 shame is here followed by gracious pro- 
 mises, sealed by the most glorious titles 
 of Israel's God. The direct reference 
 is to the Return from the Captivity of 
 Babylon. But there is a double allusion 
 to the iron furnace of Eg)'pt, and to 
 the passage of the Red Sea and of the 
 Jordan at the Exodus. 
 
 V. 3. The above translation seems the 
 best (Hend.). Others render in the pre- 
 sent, "I give Egypt for thy ransom" 
 (Stier, Hahn). But this, admitting the 
 future reference of the promise, is less 
 vivid and exact. The name, Jehovah, is 
 here emphatic. The Unchangeable God 
 proclaims Mis threefold relation to His 
 own people. He is their God, theirs by 
 covenant. He is their Holy One, in 
 contrast to the unholy vanities of the 
 heathen idols. I le is also their Saviour, 
 pledged by promise to deliver them. 
 
 V. 4. The word here used is not a limit 
 of time, as if once it had been otherwise, 
 but assigns the reason of all the beneflts 
 that follow, Israel had been precious, 
 not from yesterday, but in God's eternal 
 counsel of love. The first effect of this 
 
 cause was the honour Israel had received. 
 The words "I have loved thee" are a 
 second and further effect of the same 
 kind, and not merely the cause of what 
 follows. Love is here used for those 
 visible acts in which it finds expression. 
 The two main consequences of God's 
 favour were the honour of Elis people, 
 and the outgoings of His love to them. 
 One special form in which these would 
 be seen was the appointment of other na- 
 tions as their ransom, through whose hu- 
 miliation and judgment they were to be 
 delivered. 
 
 The statement has been variously re- 
 ferred to the Exodus (Jarchi), the cam- 
 paigns of Sargon or Sennacherib (Kimchi, 
 Calv., Grot.), the later conquest of Egypt 
 and Meroe or Seba by Cambyses (Gesen., 
 Hend., Stier, Hahn), or else taken as a 
 general expression, like a proverb, with 
 no precise application (Rosenm. , Jahn, 
 Alex.). 15ut when we compare xlv. 14, 
 and remember that in the time of Isaiah 
 Egypt, Cush, and Seba were united under 
 one dynasty, this last view must seem 
 highly improbable. 
 
 An earlier vision, ch. xix. has foretold 
 that Egypt would be given over to cruel 
 lords, and a fierce king rule over them ; 
 when the name of Judah would become a 
 terror from the manifested power of the 
 God of Israel. Thus its future humilia- 
 tion was to run side by side wilh Judah's 
 
ISAIAH, XLIII. 6-IO. 
 
 215 
 
 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 ends of the earth : 7 Even every one that is called by 
 my name, ivhom I have created for my glory : I have formed 
 him ; yea, I have made him. 
 
 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 people 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. 
 10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LoRD, and my Servant whom 
 I have chosen ; that ye may know and believe me, and may 
 
 deliverance. The words, here also, seem 
 to announce some main fact of God's 
 Providence, wherein the abasement of 
 Egypt and Ethiopia would form a kind 
 of political contrast to the redemption of 
 Israel. Mercy and judgment run parallel 
 in the moral history of the world. In the 
 days of the Gospel the rejection of the 
 Jews accompanied the call of the Gentiles. 
 So also the mercy to Israel, on the return 
 from Babylon, was to be attended with 
 a lasting abasement of Egypt and its 
 border lands by the very same power of 
 Persia, which was God's instrument for 
 that deliverance. The more general pro- 
 mise, v. 4, does not set aside, but rather 
 confirm, the historical reference of the 
 previous verse. 
 
 vv. 5- — 7. Some apply these verses 
 strictly to the Call of the Gentiles (Vitr., 
 Alex.). But the passage, Matt. viii. 11, 
 is no warrant for this view, since Israel 
 and the Gentiles are there plainly con- 
 trasted. Matt. viii. lo, Isa. xliii. i. The 
 direct promise is made to Israel in vv. 5, 
 6 ; while v. 7 is not a separate sentence, 
 (Hahn), but defines and enlarges the pro- 
 mise just given. The people of Israel 
 were called by the name of God, and 
 His glory was involved in their deliver- 
 ance. They were created, formed, and 
 made, to be His witnesses. He was dis- 
 honoured among the heathen by their 
 captivity, and for His name's sake He 
 would gather them once more. Only not 
 all who were of Israel would be gathered, 
 but only those who were called by the 
 Divine name; and not the natural seed 
 only, but also those who were of the faith 
 
 of Abraham, the Gentile proselytes, who 
 were to be grafted in. 
 
 v. 8. Many take this verse as an affir- 
 mation, and render variously, "I will 
 bring forth" (Calv. Ewald), or "he hath 
 brought forth" (Hitz. , Knob., Alex., 
 Hahn). Also in different senses, as a 
 promise of Jewish restoration (Hitzig, 
 &c.), a warning of their dispersion (Hahn), 
 or a prediction of the Call of the Gen- 
 tiles (Calv., Alex.). But the Hebrew 
 form is imperative. Gen. xix. 12, while 
 this rendering alone suits the context 
 (A. v., Rabbis, Luth., Vitr., Gesen., 
 Hend., Stier). The clause "that have 
 eyes," lit. "and they have eyes," has been 
 expounded, "that they may see," (Calv.), 
 or "that now see" and "that now hear" 
 (Stier, Alex.). But there is a plain con- 
 trast between eyes and ears and the senses 
 of sight and hearing. 
 
 The trae meaning is that cleai-ly im- 
 plied in the received version. The un- 
 believing Jews, and all the Gentiles, who 
 have indeed eyes and ears, but still are 
 spiritually deaf and blind, are called upon 
 to contemplate the foreknowledge of God, 
 as displayed in these predictions. The 
 raising up of Cyrus from the sunrise, the 
 sudden overthrow of Babylon, the prompt 
 deliverance and return of captive Israel, 
 the living God alone could reveal so long 
 before. The main appeal had been once 
 to the Almighty power of God. But in 
 these predictions of Isaiah we reach a 
 second stage of the same controversy with 
 Jewish and heathen idolatry, in which the 
 main appeal is to God's foreknowledge. 
 
 V. 10. The Jews were God's witnesses. 
 
2l6 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIII. II— 15. 
 
 understand that I am He: before me there was no God formed, 
 neither shall there be after me. 1 1 I, even I, am the LOKl) ; 
 and beside me there is no saviour. 12 I have shewn, and I 
 have saved, and have declared, and no strange god that is 
 among you : and ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am 
 God. 13 Yea, since time luas, I am He ; and there is none that 
 can deliver out of my hand : I work, and who shall reverse it ? 
 
 14 Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of 
 Israel : For your sakes I have sent to Babylon, and I have 
 brought down all of them in flight ; and the Chaldeans, their cry 
 shall be \n their ships. 15 I am the Lord, your Holy One, the 
 Creator of Israel, your King. 
 
 both by the facts of their history, and as 
 the guardians of these prophecies, till One 
 greater, the Faithful and True \Yitness, 
 should appear. 
 
 "And my Servant whom I have 
 chosen." The two titles of Messiah, xlii. 
 I, are here joined in one. This applica- 
 tion of the words (liahn, Stier, &c.) 
 agrees with the latter passage, Iv. 3, "Be- 
 hold ! I have given him for a witness to 
 the people." So Rev. iii. 14. The other 
 construction (Rosenm., Alex., Hahn), "Ye 
 are my witnesses, and ye are my servant," 
 is harsh and unnatural. There is the 
 same contrast here as in xlii. 19 — 21, and 
 v. 22, between the people generally, and 
 the Messiah they would disown. 
 
 "That ye may know, &c." The object 
 of these testimonies is here defined. The 
 Jews were to know God's promise, be- 
 lieve in Him who gave it, and under- 
 stand God's unchanging love to Israel. 
 The last clause is a lofty irony. Jehovah 
 proclaims that there was no manufacture 
 of idol gods in the past eternity, and that 
 there shall be none in the ages to come. 
 
 w. II — 13. The pronoun, thrice re- 
 peated, is emphatic. It marks the entire 
 contrast between the true God and all 
 creatures, and still more, vain idols and 
 shadows. The words that follow are a 
 strong, indirect proof of our Lord's true 
 Divinity. God had shewn the former 
 things, the deliverance from Babylon, xli. 
 12 a. He had saved, or fulfdled the pro- 
 mise by actually delivering them ; and 
 He had also "declared the things to 
 come," xli. ^2 b, the later mercies of 
 Messiah. "And no strange gnd that is 
 
 among you," lit. "and there is no strange 
 god among you" (who hath done or can 
 do it). To give such prophecies, and 
 fulfil them, is beyond the power of 
 heathen idols. Their history as Jews 
 was a series of testimonies to the power 
 and goodness of God. 
 
 "And I a?>t God." This simpler ren- 
 dering is the most emphatic. This great 
 truth is much more than merely the ob- 
 ject of their testimony. It is the fountain 
 from which all their testimony proceeds, 
 and the ocean into which their whole 
 history returns. 
 
 v. 13. "I am that I am" is the name 
 and description of the true God from the 
 beginning. With Him is no variable- 
 ness, or shadow of turning. His power 
 also is irresistible. There is a double 
 reference to xiv. 27, "who shall turn it 
 away?" and to the message of Balaam, 
 "Yea, and he hath blessed, and I cannot 
 reverse it." 
 
 vv. 14, 15. The Chaldeans are speci- 
 ally mentioned, as the ruling or dominant 
 race. These, the most warlike, would 
 not only flee, but utter cries of distress, 
 in the ships where they would seek re- 
 fuge. Their ships would resound with out- 
 cries, not their palaces with festal songs. 
 This is no fresh section of the pro- 
 phecy (Delitzsch &c.). The pronouns 
 alone shew that it continues the previous 
 address to the Jewish people. The 
 word barichiiii, "nobles" A. V., has 
 been rendered "fugitives" (LXX.) or 
 "bars" (Vulg. ). The fugitives, again, 
 have been taken for the same with the 
 Chaldeans, or distinct ; and the bars, 
 
ISAIAH, XLIII. 16—23. 
 
 217 
 
 16 Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way hi the sea, 
 and a path in the mighty waters; 17 Which bringeth forth the 
 chariot and the horse, the army and the power; They shall lie 
 down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are 
 quenched as tow: 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.-* 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 This people have 
 I formed for myself: they shall shew forth my praise. 
 
 22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob : but thou hast 
 been weary of me, O Israel. 23 Thou hast not brought me the 
 
 literal, as xlv. 3, or figurative, nobles or 
 soldiers (Hend.). The last clause has 
 been rendered " in their ships of plea- 
 sure," "whose song is in their ships," or 
 "whose cry (^i.e. of distress) is in their 
 ships." The true sense seems to be "as 
 fugitives" or more tersely "in flight." 
 
 vv. 16—21. The fall of Babylon has 
 been foretold with the preface, " Thus 
 saith the Lord." With the same preface, 
 the Israelites are now reminded of the 
 mighty power of God at the Exodus, 
 where chariot and horse, army and power, 
 fell under the stroke of His hand. Those 
 earlier acts of judgment are to be follow- 
 ed by new things, works of mercy more 
 excellent than "the former things," the 
 Return from Babylon, or than "the things 
 of old," the deliverance from Egypt. The 
 Branch of the Lord {Tsemach) shall grow 
 up to David, Is. iv. 1 ; Jer. xxiii. 5, "now 
 shall it spring forth (fitzmach), shall ye 
 not know it?" The fulfilment was to be 
 sure, and would not disappoint them. 
 The Lord, the Shepherd of His people, 
 would appear, according to the earlier 
 promise, xxxv. 6, when rivers should 
 break out in the desert. The "new 
 thing" most moderns apply to the Re- 
 turn, but the Christian Fathers and Jewish 
 Talmudists to the times of Messiah 
 (Kimchi, Abarb., Jarchi, Vitr. , Stier, &c.). 
 The event predicted is some greater anti- 
 type of the desert journey in the days of 
 Moses. But the Return from Babylon, 
 Ezra ix. 8, fell very greatly short of the 
 
 wonders of the Exodus, however striking 
 as a fulfilment of express prophecies. This 
 seems a strong proof of the Messianic 
 reference. 
 
 V. 2a "The jackals and the ostriches" 
 (Hahn, Stier, &c.). This seems probably 
 the true meaning of the names. But the 
 main idea is that of beasts and birds, 
 accustomed to haunt dry, solitaiy, and 
 desolate places. Some expound the words, 
 that these creatures will honour God, as 
 sharing in the benefit of the streams 
 (Rosenm., Knobel) ; others, that it is a 
 figure for the conversion of the Gentiles 
 (Hahn), or else relates to the share of 
 the animal world in the coming re- 
 demption (Stier). The meaning is ra- 
 ther that they would forsake haunts no 
 longer dry and solitary, and thereby ren- 
 dered unsuitable for their home. It 
 seems thus an emblem of a deeper truth. 
 God will be glorified in the expulsion of 
 those unclean spirits, which have haunted 
 so long the moral wastes of a sinful 
 world, when, by the outpouring of His 
 Spirit, the desert shall rejoice and blos- 
 som as the rose. The next verse is a 
 keystone to the whole arch of promise. 
 God must without fail be glorified in 
 those whom He has formed for Himself, 
 to shew forth His praise. 
 
 vv. 22 — 25. The Israelites are here 
 condemned for their failure in the duties 
 of holy worship. Their sin was partly of 
 omission, partly that of idol ofterings, and 
 worship in high places, instead of God's 
 
2l8 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIII. 24— 28. 
 
 small cattle of tliy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured 
 me with thy sacrifices: I have not caused thee to serve with an 
 offering, nor wearied thee with incense. 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 will not remember thy sins. 26 Put me in remem- 
 brance, let us plead together: recount thy works, that thou 
 maycst be justified. 27 Thy chief father hath sinned, and thy 
 teachers have transgressed against me. 28 So I have profaned 
 the princes of the sanctuary, and I will give Jacob to the curse, 
 and Israel to reproaches. 
 
 own temple, partly weariness and reluct- 
 ance, and partly also their self-righteous 
 pride. Even the law of sacrifices, when 
 seen and used aright, was "holy and just 
 and good." It was a wise discipline for 
 their infant faith, and its neglect or per- 
 version formed one main part of their 
 national guilt. Their sin is here exposed 
 in its deejj ingratitude, that the pardoning 
 grace of God, by contrast, might be more 
 clearly and fully revealed. 
 
 V. 12. The renderings, "thou hast 
 not called me" (Luth., Mich., Alex., 
 Stier) and "thou hast been a weariness 
 to me" (Hahn) are less natural than the 
 received version, and unsuited to the 
 context. God's people may choose Him 
 who has first chosen them, but cannot 
 call Him, as He calls them: they only 
 call upon Him. Also the weariness of 
 God with the sins of His people forms 
 the climax and crown, not the opening, 
 of this rebuke. 
 
 The complaint has been referred to, 
 ist, Jewish idolatry, "not to me, but to 
 idols." But here idols are not once 
 named. 2nd, The cessation of sacrifices 
 in the exile. But this could be no sin, 
 and no reason for so stern a rebuke, no 
 proof of their weariness in God's service. 
 3rd, The reign of Ahaz or Manasseh, 
 when the temple was closed. This is more 
 reasonable, but seems too limited to 
 account for the form of the censure. 
 4lh, The worthlessness of the sacrifices 
 in themselves (Stier). "Thou hast not 
 called on me, while thou hast wearied 
 thyself in serving me." But the render- 
 
 ing is harsh, and does not agree with the 
 verses that follow. There is nothing 
 Judaical (Stier) in the doctrine that the 
 Jews were guilty before God for their 
 neglect of the sacrifices He had ordained, 
 or for so offering them as to make them 
 an abomination. The law of sacrifice was 
 burdensome through the carnal mind of 
 the worshippers, and every precept be- 
 comes a burden without faith and love. 
 Else it might have yielded them constant 
 lessons of Divine grace and of spiritual 
 wisdom. 
 
 v. 24. The sweet cane, calamus aro- 
 maticus, is in high esteem in India, West- 
 ern Asia, and Africa. It was an article 
 of traffic often brought from a distance, 
 Jer. vi. 20, and a main ingredient in 
 the holy anointing oil, Ex. xxx. 23. The 
 structure of the three verses is peculiar. 
 The first part of each recounts the sins of 
 the Jewish people. The second half has 
 three kindred statements. "Thou hast 
 been weary of me, O Israel." "I have 
 not wearied thee with incense." "Thou 
 hast wearied me with thine iniquities." 
 The ways of (iod were equal, theirs most 
 uneiiual and ungrateful. 
 
 V. 26. A complaint of the people is 
 implied, that their sins were harshly re- 
 membered, and their good works and 
 merits forgotten. They are called upon to 
 state their own case, and to remind God of 
 their good works, if they have any to pro- 
 duce that can justify them. On the con- 
 trary, their religious teachers and guides 
 had been foremost in sin. 
 
 V. 27. "Thy chief father hath sinned." 
 
ISAIAH, XLIV. 1—5. 
 
 219 
 
 Chap, XLIV. i — 5. The Controversy closed. 
 
 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, which 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 floods upon the 
 dry ground : I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my 
 blessing upon thine offspring. 4 And they shall spring up as 
 among the grass, as willows by the water courses. 5 One shall 
 say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the 
 name of Jacob: and another shall subscribe with his hand unto 
 the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. 
 
 This title has received most diverse ex- 
 planations. It has been referred to A- 
 dam (Kimchi, Criisius, Kurtz, Hitzig, 
 Umbreit, Knobel), to Abraham (Jerome, 
 Jarchi, ]\Iich., Hahn, Stier), to Jacob 
 (Beck, Ewald), to Saul (Kimchi), Jero- 
 boam (Aben Ezra), to Manasseh (Grot.), 
 and to Uriah the high-priest (Vitr.), to 
 their ancestors collectively (Pauli, Gesen., 
 IMaurer), to their leaders (Hensler, Ro- 
 senm.), and to the series of high-priests 
 (Hend.). 
 
 A reference to Adam seems out of 
 place in a special charge against the cho- 
 sen people. Unmentioned sins of Abra- 
 ham could hardly be a cause of the Baby- 
 lonian Captivity. If the epithet, "first," 
 relates to time, the most natural i-eference 
 will be to Jacob, the first father of the 
 nation, from whom they were named, 
 whose sin occasioned an exile like that 
 awaiting his children. But it may be a 
 term of rank, as when Michael is called 
 "one of the chief princes." The whole 
 context refers to those Levitical services, 
 in which the Jews were so ready to trust. 
 Hence the High-priest seems really meant, 
 not one person, but the series from Aaron 
 onward, as forming one political person, 
 the chief head of the whole system of 
 Jewish worship. Aaron had eminently 
 sinned in that worship of the golden 
 calf, which is expressly said to be one 
 cause of the later captivity, Ex. xxiii. 
 34; Ez. XX. 23. Eli, Abiathar, Uriah, 
 
 and Seraiah, are all marked in the sacred 
 history for public sins in the high-priest- 
 hood. Still later, it was the high-priest 
 who chiefly filled up the cup of national 
 guilt in the murder of our Lord, the 
 martyrdom of Stephen, and the attempt- 
 ed assassination of the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, when the wrath came upon 
 them to the uttermost. The tense "I 
 will give," naturally implies a date of the 
 prophecy before the fall of the temple 
 and the deportation of Judali. 
 
 Ch. XLIV. 
 
 vv. I — 5. In contrast to this dark pic- 
 ture of guilt, the promises of mercy shine 
 out once more. The previous titles of 
 Messiah are now applied to the whole 
 people, when rescued from their rebellion 
 by the outpouring of the Spirit of God. 
 Instead of Pharisaic services, or Saddu- 
 cean ungodliness, they would dedicate 
 themselves wholly' and heartily to the 
 God of Israel. 
 
 The name, Jeshuran, alludes to the 
 Pentateuch, where alone it occurs Deut. 
 xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 26. Out of many ren- 
 derings that which suits best the context 
 of these three places is the passive sense, 
 "rightly guided," the people whom God 
 was leading by a right way to some blessed 
 issue. The controversy with Israel, like 
 that with the heathen, closes here with a 
 prophecy of the full victory of redeeming 
 love. 
 
220 ISAIAH, XLIV. 6— XLV. 25. 
 
 § 4. The Redemption of Israel. 
 Chap. XLIV. 6— XLV. 25. 
 
 The message here reverts from "the new things," the future outpourrng of 
 the Spirit on all the people of Israel, to the controversy with idolatry in 
 Isaiah's days. The King of Israel, his Redeemer, the First and the Last, are 
 all titles given expressly to our Lord in the New Testament, Joh. i. 49; Luk. 
 xxiv. 21 ; Gal. iv. 5; Rev. i. 11, ii. 8, xxii. 13. The main subject, then, is 
 Israel's redemption from first to last, and the words "beside me there is no 
 God," are the text of that stern condemnation of idolatry with which this 
 new division of the prophecy begins. 
 
 Ch. xlv. continues the message by a direct voice of the LORD, ad- 
 dressed to Cyrus himself. There is no real confusion between the words of 
 the Lord and those of the Prophet. Throughout these later visions the 
 Prophet rarely, if ever, speaks distinctly in his own person. The word of 
 God, or the Spirit of God, speaks by His servant; and this occasions and 
 explains the frequent and striking interchange of persons in the message. 
 
 The title, anointed, is always applied elsewhere to Jewish priests and 
 kings. Only Elijah was told to anoint Hazael, to execute God's judgment 
 on Israel. So Cyrus is here the Lord's anointed for their deliverance. The 
 name, Koresh, is probably from the Persian Khor, the sun. He was to 
 be raised up from the sun-rise, xli. 25, as our Lord is called the Day-spring. 
 In the three titles, the Lord's shepherd, the Lord's anointed, the Redeemer 
 of Israel, the typical character of this monarch stands out in clear relief. 
 
 One parallel only occurs to this mention of the name so long before. 
 King Josiah was also named three centuries before his birth. That pro- 
 phecy spans the whole range of the divided kingdom, from Jeroboam, who 
 set up the calves, to the last days of Judah before their captivity. In like 
 manner the last event named before this vision is the embassy of Merodach, 
 which was the first public contact of Judah with Babylon ; while its fulfil- 
 ment was at the death of Belshazzar, the last Chaldean king. Thus it 
 ranges over the whole period of temptation and oppression from heathen 
 Babylon. Josiah was God's appointed instrument of judgment, after more 
 than three centuries, on the public idolatry of Israel, the calves of Bethel 
 and of Dan; and Cyrus had just the same office towards the oppressive 
 and idolatrous power of Babylon. In each case the warning ranges over 
 a whole period of national sin. 
 
 The heathen testimonies to the character of Cyrus are very striking. 
 Herodotus writes of him : " He was gentle, and planned for his people 
 all good things." "In whatever direction Cyrus might march, it was im- 
 possible for that nation to escape." Yet Plutarch thinks him too niggardly 
 in his praise, and says of Cyrus that "in wisdom and valour and greatness 
 of soul he seems to have been by far the foremost of all kings." Thus no 
 other heathen monarch could be more suited to be a type of that greater 
 and nobler King, the True Shepherd, and the Anointed of the Lord. 
 
ISAIAH, XLIV. 6—9. 
 
 221 
 
 §4(1). Chap. XLIV. 6— 28. The Folly of Idols. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, 
 the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, and be- 
 side me tJiere is no God. 7 And who, as I, can ordain, and 
 announce it, and set it in order for me, ever since I appointed 
 the ancient people? and coming things, and those which shall 
 come, can they shew unto them.'' 8 Fear ye not, neither be 
 afraid : have not I told thee from that time, and have declared 
 it? and are not ye my witnesses? Is there a Rock beside me? 
 yea, tlicre is no God ; I know not any. 
 
 9 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity, 
 and their costly things cannot profit; and their witnesses are 
 these things, ivJiich see not and know not, that they may be 
 
 V. 6. "Thus saith the Lord." This 
 weighty preface occurs twelve times in 
 the first division of these later prophecies. 
 Here, as in ch. 1. and Ivi. , it begins a new 
 section or subdivision. The two contro- 
 versies against heathen and Jewish idola- 
 try are here combined in one, against all 
 idols, their makers, and their worshippers. 
 
 V. 7. The word "call" seems here to 
 mean "call into being," or ordain, future 
 things. Next comes their announcement 
 in prophecy, and last, their actual fulfil- 
 ment. The limit named is either "ever 
 since the first generations of the world," 
 or "ever since the covenant with Abra- 
 ham," which was for a thousand genera- 
 tions. The predictions of mercy to Irrael 
 had begun so long before, and must con- 
 tinue in force till their redemption is com- 
 plete. "Coming things" are the nearer 
 future, and "those which shall come" 
 the more remote ; or the deliverance by 
 Cyrus, and the days of Messiah, one of 
 whose titles was "He that is to come," 
 Mat. xi. ■2. In these prophecies eveiy 
 reader is summoned to observe and re- 
 cognize a foresight, superhuman and truly 
 Divine. 
 
 V. 8. The servants of a God so wise 
 and so mighty have no need to fear. His 
 promises to Israel are not of yesterday, 
 but from the days of their fathers. The 
 pronoun, ye, is emphatic. The whole 
 history of the Jews is one public testi- 
 
 mony to the reality and nature of God's 
 moral government of the world. The 
 true God is the only foundation of solid 
 hope, a Rock to His people. There is 
 no help whatever in idols, but in Him 
 alone. 
 
 V. 9, These words have received five 
 or six versions and expositions. The ti^ue 
 sense is that the idols are witnesses a- 
 gainst the idolaters (Chald., Jarchi, Kim- 
 chi, Belg. , Hend.) rather than the idola- 
 ters against the idols or themselves (Calv., 
 Vitr., Ewald, Alex., Hahn, Stier). For 
 this is both simpler in grammar, and more 
 forcible in thought. The helplessness of 
 the idols is still plainer than the folly of 
 their worshippers, and is the proof of 
 it. The word their refers to the makers 
 and worshippers, and these to the objects 
 of their worship. These neither see nor 
 know, and the stupidity of the idols is 
 the disgrace of those who adore them. 
 The contrast with the previous verse is 
 no reason against this construction, but 
 makes in its favour. The rebuke is thus 
 more severe. The true God has His 
 people for His witnesses, being far above 
 them. The false gods, the idols, on the 
 contrary, are witnesses against their de- 
 votees, being still more worthless, utterly 
 without sense or power. 
 
 V. 10. Some take this verse for an in- 
 quiry, which has its answer vv. 12, 13. 
 But it is rather the voire of just surprise 
 
222 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIV. 10—14. 
 
 ashamed. 10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven 
 image, that is profitable for nothing! 11 Behold! all its part- 
 ners shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they too arc of men : 
 let them all be gathered together, let them stand up ; yet they 
 shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together. 12 The maker 
 of the iron axe both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it 
 with hammers, and worketh it with his powerful arm : also he 
 is hungry, and his strength faileth ; he drinketh no water, and 
 is faint. 13 The carpenter stretcheth out Jiis line, he marketh 
 it out with pencil, he shapeth it with adzes, and he roundeth it 
 off with a chisel, till he hath made it after the figure of a man, 
 and the beauty of a man, to remain in the house. 14 He 
 heweth him down cedars, and taketh the holm-tree and the 
 oak, which he strengthencth for himself among the trees of 
 the forest; he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. 
 
 and lofty indignation. Who and what 
 are these parties, so mad and senseless, 
 as to manufacture gods for their own 
 worship ! But since such madmen are to 
 be found, let them hear their sentence 
 from God. In ancient or modern times 
 the practice, Qtum creant adoi-ant, be- 
 tokens the lowest depth of superstitious 
 folly. The doom of all such is inevitable 
 shame. 
 
 V. ir. The partners are those who 
 share in this senseless worship. The god 
 ought to be above its worshippers, the 
 maker above what he makes. Here maker 
 and worshipper are both on the same 
 level. The god is made, the thing made 
 is worshipped. Whatever their numbers 
 or strength, these idols and idolaters lie 
 all under one common sentence of utter 
 confusion. 
 
 v. 12. The folly of the idols is doubly 
 «hewn, from the process of their manu- 
 facture, and the perishable materials of 
 ■^vhich they are made. They are fashioned 
 by the carpenter with his tools, and tliose 
 itools themselves by other workmen. Tlicse 
 itools are made with wearisome labour. 
 The trees are planted and watered, to 
 provide materials. The idol is then cut 
 out with toil and care, and all the rest of 
 the tree serves for fuel, by which bread 
 is baked, and meat is roasted. What 
 ignominy and disgrace, to worship such a 
 god as this! Tlie malcer of the axe. the 
 
 adze, and the chisel, hungers and faints 
 over his work. Still feebler and more 
 worthless is the tool he makes, most 
 worthless of all the idol, which that tool 
 fashions in its turn. 
 
 V. 13. The word, sej-ed, some explain 
 chalk, or minium, rubbed upon the line 
 in order to leave a trace. Perhaps it is 
 rather the pencil, by which a trace is di- 
 rectly made (Aquil., Talm., Hend.). The 
 word "compass" A. V., is from a root 
 "to go round." But here, from the con- 
 nexion, it must denote a finishing tool, a 
 curved chisel, by which the shape is 
 rounded off at the last. The idol, when 
 made, is helpless. It "remains in the 
 house," because it cannot stir from the 
 spot where its owner has placed it. 
 
 vv. r4 — 17. The tree from which the 
 idol is made must be planted and grow, 
 and nectis the rain of heaven to nourish 
 it. When it has been cut down, it is 
 only fuel. The idolater uses half of it to 
 warm himself; or to bake bread, and 
 roast flesh, by which he strengthens him- 
 self for the task of turning the other half 
 into a god to which he may pray. Thus 
 the making of the tools; the fashioning 
 of the idol, the growth of the tree out of 
 which it is made, and the use of the wood 
 for fuel, are a fourfold condemnation of the 
 senseless worshipper. 
 
 "Which he strengthencth for himself." 
 ."^ome render, "which he deemclh finn" 
 
ISAIAH, XLIV. 15— r 
 
 223 
 
 1 5 Then shall it be for a man to burn : for he will take thereof, 
 and warm himself; yea, he kindleth //, and baketh bread; yea, 
 he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven 
 image, and falleth 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 Jiimsclf, 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 have not known nor under- 
 stood ; for their eyes are smeared, that they cannot see, and 
 their hearts, that they cannot perceive. 19 And none considereth 
 in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to 
 say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea also, I have baked 
 
 (Hend.), or "lets grow strong'' (Hahn, 
 Stier). In this case there would be a 
 gradation of full-grown cedars, half-grown 
 cypress and oak, and ash newly planted. 
 But the meaning is rather that he chooses 
 out a strong one (Kimchi). The nature 
 of the case excludes the strictly causative 
 sense, and selection is its nearest equiva- 
 lent. The "cypress" is perhaps strictly 
 the "ilex" or holm-oak, but the exact 
 species is quite secondary to the main 
 thought. The Hebrew tenses cannot be 
 retained without sacrifice of our own 
 idiom, and the received version seems 
 judicious in using the present only. The 
 real contrast between the planting and 
 the nourishing is not of past and I'uture, 
 but of a momentaiy act and a continuous 
 process. 
 
 w. 16, 17. The repetition in these 
 two verses, slightly varied from those be- 
 fore them, and their structure, serves to 
 express more vividly the assiduity and 
 zeal of these idolaters in their senseless 
 worship. Earnestness alone is no proof 
 whatever that worship is even lawful, 
 much less acceptable to God. 
 
 V. 18. The received version, "he hath 
 shut their eyes," or modified, "he hath 
 smeared their eyes" (Hitzig, Knobel, 
 Alex., Hahn), seems less correct in reality 
 than the passive form, "their eyes are 
 smeared," &c. (LXX., Chald., Jerome, 
 Vitr., Gesen., Hend., Stier, Delitzscii). 
 However usual, in Scripture, the ascrip- 
 tion to God of a judici.1l blinding of 
 
 sinners, it is here out of place, where 
 God is himself the Speaker, and has not 
 been named in the whole context. The 
 force of the rebuke is thus greatly ob- 
 scured. The active form may be re- 
 tained, "it hath smeared their eyes," and 
 the subject implied will be their practice 
 of idolatry. The longer such corrapt 
 worship is followed, the darker the under- 
 standing of the worshipper becomes. 
 
 v. 19. The whole force of this verse 
 depends on the question at its close, in 
 which the idolater is supposed to recog- 
 nize and renounce indignantly his own 
 folly. This indignant rejection of idols is 
 what they have not the understanding to 
 practise. The version, "I will make 
 the residue.. T will fall down to the stock; 
 of the tree" (Alex.), is wholly erroneous. 
 Words of grossest folly could never be 
 the sign of a restored understanding. 
 The version, "I am making...! am falling 
 down, &c." is allowable, but less emphatic 
 than the interrogative form. The root 
 sagad is used only in these four places of 
 Isaiah, and in Daniel, with reference iii 
 both to Chaldean, idolatrous worship. 
 Some render hid, produce (Knob., De- 
 litzsch, al.). But the version, log or 
 stock, (A. v., Rosemn., Hend., Ewald,) 
 seems more natural. 
 
 V. 20. The lie in the right hand is not 
 the idol itself, but the vain fancy, leading 
 to a course of action wholly unreasonable, 
 that a stock or stone can help and de- 
 liver. As soon as the light of truth 
 
224 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIV. 20—23. 
 
 bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and have 
 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 
 deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? 
 
 21 Remember these, O Jacob; and Israel, for thou art my 
 scrv^ant: I have formed me, thou art a servant for me: 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, O ye 
 heavens, for the Lord hath done //,• shout, ye lower parts of the 
 earth, break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and 
 every tree therein : for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and will 
 glorify himself in Israel. 
 
 enters the heart, what before had been 
 worshipped as a god becomes a hateful 
 abomination. Worship may be sincere 
 and earnest, and still most abominable in 
 the sight of God. 
 
 vv. 21 — 28. This mo)-al hatefulness of 
 heathen idolatry is also one main ground 
 of Israel's redemption. The true God 
 will not give His gloiy to another, nor 
 His praise to graven images. His honour 
 is engaged for the deliverance of those 
 who are His own appointed witnesses 
 against all idols. Creation would be a 
 failure, and Providence a chaos without 
 light or hope, if Israel were wholly for- 
 saken, and not restored. The message, 
 then, returns to them with hope and pro- 
 mise. They were to remember these 
 idol practices of the heathen, and to learn 
 from them, by contrast, the greatness of 
 their own mercies. 
 
 The mention of Israel, v. 21, is here 
 emphatic. The new name of the patri- 
 arch was given him on that night of 
 wrestling, when as a prince he had power 
 with God, and prevailed. 
 
 "Thou art a servant for me." The 
 slight change of phrase conveys a distinct 
 idea. Israel was the servant of God, not 
 only in office, but in reality ; a people 
 whom He had created for His own glory, 
 and was resolved to use for this end. 
 The promise anticipates the unbelieving 
 complaint, xlix. 14. The Assyrian Woe, 
 the Chaldean Exile, were no real proof 
 that God was unniindful of Ihcm. They 
 
 were only steps, by which they were to 
 be cleansed from their idols, and made 
 witnesses to the trath of God far and 
 W'ide through the heathen world. 
 
 Many render, "thou shalt not forget 
 me" (LXX., Syr., Vulg., Chald., Jarchi, 
 Diiderlein, Hitzig, Hend.). But the re- 
 ceived version (Aben Ezra, Vitr., Lowth, 
 Ewald, Knobel, Alex., Stier, Hahn, 
 Delitzsch) is much more appropriate. 
 
 V. 22. The close of the captivity was 
 to be a season of forgiving mercy and 
 grace. As first the thick, dark cloud, and 
 then the lighter cloud, are swept away by 
 the wind, and tliere follows bright sun- 
 shine, and clear blue sky, so the tender 
 mercy of God, like the dayspring, would 
 shine brightly once more upon His people. 
 Like the prodigal. He welcomes them 
 back with gladness to the arms of His 
 love, Zech. iii. 3 — 9. 
 
 V. 23. The lower parts of the earth 
 may denote valleys in contrast to the 
 mountains, but rather the more hidden 
 depths in contrast to the heavens above. 
 All nature is described as rejoicing to- 
 gether in Israel's promised deliverance. 
 
 "And will glorify himself." The future, 
 alternating with the past, is used here and 
 elsewhere to express the certainty of 
 mercies or judgments still to come. 
 
 The return from Babylon was not only 
 the type of a greater deliverance, but an 
 essential step in the whole plan of re- 
 demption. Had it failed, the covenant 
 with Abraham, the truth to Jacob, and 
 
ISAIAH, XLIV. 24-28. 
 
 225 
 
 24 Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed 
 thee from the womb : I am the Lord that maketh all tilings : 
 that stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad 
 the earth by myself; 25 That frustrateth the signs of the 
 boasters, and maketh diviners mad ; that turneth wise men 
 backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish: 26 That 
 confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel 
 of his messengers ; that saith of Jerusalem, She shall be in- 
 habited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built: and I 
 will raise up the ruins 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 
 
 the promises of Messiah, would have 
 failed together. Hence the whole universe 
 is called upon to rejoice. It was a pledge 
 of that stage of redemption, still future, 
 when creation shall be delivered from the 
 bondage of corruption into the glorious 
 liberty of the children of God. 
 
 V. 24. The general promise of mercy 
 to Israel is here followed by a clear and 
 full prediction of their deliverance. And 
 this, from its importance, is opened by a 
 solemn rehearsal of the attributes and 
 perfections of God. The form of the 
 address proves the intimate connexion 
 with the verses just before, as the men- 
 tion of Cyrus links the paragraph with the 
 chapter that follows. The sentence, "Thus 
 saith the Lord," refers to the five following 
 verses. The Redeemer of Israel was also 
 the Almighty Creator, and all his attri- 
 butes would seal the prediction here 
 about to be given. There is an allusion 
 to the account of Jacob's birth, Gen. xxv. 
 22 — 26, Hos. xii. 3 — 5, Rom. ix. 11 — 13. 
 The Exodus, also, was like a birth to the 
 whole nation. The study of God's works 
 of creation, in the spirit of humble reve- 
 rence, is a help to His people, to confirm 
 their trust in all the promises of His holy 
 word. 
 
 V. 25. "The signs of the boasters." 
 The word has been rendered, liars, pro- 
 phets, impostors, babblers. By comparing 
 xvi. 6 it appears to mean vain boasters, 
 and to be used here with reference to 
 false claims to prophetic foresight. The 
 Chaldeans were famous for their astrology, 
 and the arts of divination. The vanity of 
 their pretended wisdom would be exposed, 
 
 B. I, 
 
 when they could neither foresee nor avert 
 the fall of their proud empire. This 
 scattering of all delusion and falsehood, 
 however subtle and pretentious, is one 
 glorious prerogative of the God of truth. 
 
 v. 26. The servant here is plainly 
 Isaiah himself, by whom this prediction 
 was given. The "messengers" are the 
 other prophets, by whom this message 
 would be renewed and confirmed, or its 
 truth publicly attested (Kimchi, Vitr., 
 Alex., Hend., Stier, Hahn). Thus the 
 display of God's foreknowledge in these 
 visions of Isaiah is placed by God himself 
 on the same level with the exhibition of 
 His almighty power in the creation of 
 the world. The idol gods of old heathen- 
 ism, or the deified humanity of modern 
 Pantheism, whose messengers cannot pos- 
 sibly declare anything beyond the reach of 
 mere human foresight, have no claim to 
 be rivals of the True and Living God, the 
 Maker of heaven and earth. 
 
 v. 27. The last clause in this and 
 the former verse may be viewed as a 
 direct statement, depending on the open- 
 ing words, I am the Lord. This sudden 
 reversion deepens the emphasis of the 
 passage. There is also a double allusion, 
 one backward, to the passage of the 
 Jordan and the Red Sea: and the other 
 prophetic, to the parting of the Euphrates 
 and Gyndes by Cyrus, as mentioned in 
 the history of Herodotus. Taken in a 
 deeper sense, the words predict the en- 
 tire exhaustion of the strength and re- 
 sources of the Chaldean Empire ; in con- 
 trast to the earlier figure, viii. 8, of the 
 Assyrian campaigns as a great Euphra- 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 ISAIAH, XLV. 1—3. 
 
 of Jerusalem, She shall be built ; and to the temple, Thy 
 foundation shall be laid. 
 
 § 4 (2). CiiAr. XLV. The Times of Cyrus and Messiah. 
 
 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 before him the two-leaved 
 gates, and the gates shall not be shut : 2 I will go before 
 thee, and will make the crooked places straight : I will break 
 in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron : 
 3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden 
 
 tear) overflow. So, in Rev. xvi. 12, a sym- 
 bolical drying up of the Euphrates pre- 
 cedes the fall of the mystic Babylon. 
 
 V. 28. The mention of Cyrus by name 
 is here the seal to the truth and consist- 
 ency of the whole message. A dim or 
 trivial prediction would be a strange and 
 unnatural sequel to such a glorious array 
 of the Divine titles and perfections. The 
 preface, in its solemnity, and the pro- 
 phecy, in its clearness and importance, 
 now agree together. The fulfilment was 
 minutely true. The Second Temple was 
 founded under Cyrus, and through his 
 decree, but founded only. Its completion 
 and dedication were under Darius after 
 twenty years' delay. 
 
 Ch. XLV. Cyrus and Messiah. 
 
 V. I. The loosing is a contrast to the 
 girding of the loins. It denotes the weak- 
 ening of every adverse power, so that 
 resistance would be vain. There is a 
 special allusion to the night when the 
 handwriting appeared on the wall, when 
 "the king's countenance changed, and 
 his thoughts troubled him, so that the 
 joints of his loins were loosed, and his 
 knees smote together one against ano- 
 ther." Dan. v. 6. The opening of the 
 doors and gates has a similar reference to 
 that night of revelry, when the river-gates 
 were carelessly left unclosed. 
 
 V. 1. Sin infatuates, before it destroys. 
 While Belshazzar and his nobles scoffed 
 in their feasting, and drank wine, in scorn, 
 in the vessels of God's temple, the warn- 
 ing of God, published so long before, was 
 fulfilled, first in their folly, and then in 
 their speedy ruin. " If now the Baby- 
 
 lonians had perceived beforehand, or 
 learned what Cyrus was doing, they 
 would, overlooking the entrance of the 
 Persians, have destroyed them utterly. 
 For by fastening all the gates towards 
 the river, and themselves mounting on 
 the walls along the river sides, they 
 would have caught them as in a net. 
 Now, however, the Persians come upon 
 them unawares. Also from the size of 
 the city, as those who live there report, 
 when one end of it was taken, the Baby- 
 lonians who lived in the middle did not 
 know it ; but as it happened to be a feast 
 with them, they were dancing at the 
 hour, and making merry, until indeed 
 they knew it too well. And thus Baby- 
 lon was taken for the first time." Herod. 
 I. 191. 
 
 v. 3. The treasures which Cyrus took 
 from Croesus, according to Pliny (Hist. 
 Nat. xxxiii. 1. 15) were more than a 
 hundred millions of our money. To these 
 were afterwards added all the immense 
 resources of Babylon, "the cxactress of 
 gold," of which the wealth was pro- 
 verbial. But "riches profit not in the 
 day of wrath." 
 
 A double lesson was to be taught this 
 great Conqueror by the prophecy and its 
 fulfilment. First, that He who gave the 
 promise, and fulfilled it, calling him by 
 his name, was Jehovah, the one true and 
 eternal God. And next, that He was 
 also the CJod of Israel, who had especial 
 favour to this chosen people. Both lessons 
 have been learned when the decree, Ezr. 
 i. I — 4, was published, and are embodied 
 therein. Tlie next verse unfolds tlie 
 
ISAIAH, XLV. 4—8. 
 
 227 
 
 riches of secret places ; that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, 
 am he which call tJicc by thy name, the God of Israel. 4 For 
 Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even 
 called thee by thy name : I surname thee, though thou hast not 
 known me. 5 I am the Lord, and there is none else ; tJiere is 
 no God beside me: 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 tJicrc is none beside me : I am the Lord, 
 and tJicre is none else. 7 I form the light, and create darkness ; 
 I make peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these 
 tJiings. 
 
 8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour 
 
 second, and the three that follow, the 
 first, of these weighty truths. Great 
 clearness in the prediction was almost 
 essential, that one main purpose of its 
 delivery, the moral effect upon Cyrus 
 himself, might be fulfilled. 
 
 V. 4. One clause of this verse refei^s to 
 the mention of his name, Cyrus, and the 
 other to the titles of honour he receives, 
 "my Shepherd," "my Anointed, whose 
 right hand I have holden. " The honour 
 would be more striking, because Cyrus was 
 a heathen, and knew not of the prophecy 
 while he was fulfilling it. When Babylon 
 had been taken, and not before, this pro- 
 phecy would reach him through Daniel 
 and the other exiles. The decrees in 
 Ezra prove clearly how deep an im- 
 pression it had made. 
 
 V. 5. The former verse taught that it 
 was the God of Israel, who, for Israel's 
 sake, led Cyrus to victory. Here the 
 further truth is taught, that He is no 
 mere tutelary, national God, like those 
 of the heathen ; but Jehovah, the un- 
 changeable I AM, who claims justly the 
 reverence and worship of all creation. To 
 make this truth more impressive, the 
 victories of Cyrus would be complete, 
 before he knew their secret Author. 
 
 ["I will gird thee." The Hebrew 
 future seems best retained, since the words 
 are a prediction. The prophetic past is 
 usual, but not constant. To introduce it 
 needlessly in the version smooths the way 
 fot the sceptical theory of prophecy 
 written after the event. The present "I 
 surname thee" suits better in the previous 
 verse, to denote a continuous act. These 
 
 honourable titles have lasted from the 
 time of the prophet onward to this day.] 
 
 vv. 6, 7. One main result of this great 
 work would be a wide extension of the 
 knowledge of God among the heathen. 
 A new religious era began with the 
 Return from Babylon. The downfall of 
 the tabernacle of David was attended by 
 a fuller testimony for the tioie God in 
 the midst of the idolatrous Gentiles. In 
 V. 7 there is a further protest against the 
 dualism of the old Zend or Persian Creed. 
 Light and darkness, joy and sorrow, 
 peace and calamity, are due alike to the 
 sovereign rule of Jehovah alone. 
 
 V. 8. The figure is varied and com- 
 plete. The heavens are to distil right- 
 eousness, like dew, and the skies to pour 
 it down in copious showers. The earth 
 is to open her bosom, and to receive these 
 gifts of heaven. Both, in concert, are 
 thus to yield the fruit of salvation ; and 
 the earth is to bring forth righteousness 
 {tscdaqa, fern.) in response to the floods 
 of righteousness {tsedeq, masc.) from on 
 high. 
 
 There is here the first sign of transition, 
 in this prophecy, from Cyrus to the days 
 of Messiah. The Lord, having been re- 
 vealed as the true God, in contrast to 
 idols and Persian dualism, and also as the 
 God of Israel, is further revealed as the 
 God of all grace, righteousness, and sal- 
 vation. The mercies to the returning 
 exiles were an earnest of this promise. 
 But its main fulfilment is in the Incar- 
 nation and Atonement of our Lord, and 
 the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit. Thm 
 "truth flourished out of the earth, and 
 
 15—2 
 
228 
 
 ISAIAH, XLV. 9— i: 
 
 down righteousness ; let the earth open, and let them be fruit- 
 ful in salvation, and let it bring forth righteousness together : 
 I the Lord have created it. 9 Woe unto him that strivcth with 
 his Maker ! a potsherd, of the potsherds of the earth ! Shall the 
 clay say to its fashioner, What makest thou ? or thy work, He 
 hath no hands? 10 Woe unto him that saith to his father, 
 What begettest thou ? or to the woman, What dost thou bring 
 forth ? 1 1 Thus saith the LoRD, the Holy One of Israel, and 
 his Maker ; Ask from me the coming things : concerning my 
 sons, even 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 com- 
 
 righteousness looked down from heaven." 
 Ps. Ixxxv. 11; Dan. ix. 24, and floods 
 were poured on the thirsty, and streams 
 upon the dry ground. 
 
 The stiiicture here has caused much 
 critical debate. Five or six constnictions 
 have been proposed ; but the above, hardly 
 varying from the received version, seems 
 the best. The verb tatzmiach is active as 
 in Ixi. 1 1, and has the earth for its subject, 
 righteousness for its object. The other is 
 neuter as elsewhere, and has heaven and 
 earth for its conjoint subject, and salva- 
 tion for its indirect object. The verb, 
 open, is neuter, as in Ps. cvi. 17, where 
 the subject is the same. The clauses are 
 thus alternately parallel. 
 
 vv. 9, 10. The truth here taught is 
 the folly of all those who fret and murmur 
 against the ways of God, but with s])ecial 
 reference to the Jews during the Captivity 
 and at the Return. 
 
 There was nuich, in those days, to ex- 
 ercise the faith of God's people. The 
 theocracy, built up with such care, by so 
 many mars'els, was sinking into ruin. 
 The Old Covenant was dying out under 
 heathen violence, and the New was not 
 yet revealed. There was a strange con- 
 trast between the hopes of Israel and the 
 actual trouble and desolation. Wiien 
 their hopes were revived by the decree of 
 Cyrus, they were dashed again to the 
 ground, and the remnant were "in great 
 affliction and reproach," Neh. i. 3. The 
 complaint was likely often to arise, "The 
 Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the 
 Lord seeth not," Ez. ix. 9. Hence this 
 stern woe follows close upon the promise. 
 
 Israel is like clay in the hands of the 
 Divine Potter, but His work is far from 
 complete. They were lilind and foolish, 
 because of their present troubles, to doubt 
 His love and wisdom, who is "holy in all 
 His ways, and righteous in all His 
 works." 
 
 v. 10. The figure here is neither the 
 contempt of a firstborn for an infant 
 brother, nor the complaint of a sickly or 
 deformed child against its parents, which 
 the tense (Heb. fut.) excludes. Nor, again, 
 the impossible complaint of a child, before 
 it has any being (Aben Ezra, Alex.). But 
 the embryo is conceived as reproaching 
 its parents for its weak and imperfect 
 being. The tense here denotes an act 
 not strictly future, but incomplete and in 
 progress. The allusion is to God's work 
 towards Israel in the times of Isaiah and 
 the Captivity. Its wisdom would only be 
 seen much later, when Zion should tra- 
 vail, and bring forth her children. 
 
 v. II. This verse is often taken as a 
 question, implying stern rebuke. But this 
 is against the grammar, since the first 
 verb is imperative, and also against the 
 connexion. The preface. Thus saith the 
 Lord, marks the change from severe re- 
 buke to the promises that follow. The 
 imperative (A.V., LXX., Vulg., Rosenm., 
 Alex., Slier, Hahn, Del.) ought certainly 
 to be retained; but the words "con- 
 cerning my sons " are referred by tlie 
 accents to the second clause. The more 
 usual rendering of the first is, " Question 
 me concerning the things to come." But 
 the above construction is equally correct 
 in grammar (I's. ii. 8) and more exjues- 
 
ISAIAH, XLV. 13—16. 
 
 229 
 
 manded. 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 go my captives, not for price or reward, saith the LORD of 
 hosts. 
 
 14 Thus saith the Lord, The toil of Egypt, and the traffic of 
 Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto 
 thee, and shall be thine ; they shall come after thee : in chains 
 shall they come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, and 
 they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in 
 thee, and there is none else, no other God. 15 Verily thou art 
 a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour ! 
 
 16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them ; 
 
 sive. The command will thus be, not 
 to pry into the future, but to pray for 
 blessings already promised. ' ' The coming 
 things," here and xli. 7, xliv. 7, are the 
 nearer future, or the deliverance under 
 Cyrus, so plainly announced just before. 
 Instead of mumiuring under the trials of 
 the Exile, they should pray for the mercies 
 which will assuredly follow. All these 
 titles of God combine to make such 
 prayers a duty and a privilege. Nay, 
 when once His people are humbled before 
 Him, like clay in the hand of a potter, they 
 rise to the dignity of favoured children, 
 and their earnest prayers are like com- 
 mands, which the heavenly Father, in 
 wondrous condescension, delights to obey. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. How wonderful the ex- 
 hortation, to command Him who com- 
 mands the host of heaven. All the 
 discoveries of modern science should only 
 enlarge our sense of the excellency of 
 believing prayer. The deliverance from 
 Babylon without price was a type of the 
 Gospel to follow. The words of Herodo- 
 tus illustrate the promise, "I will make 
 straight all his ways." "Whithersoever 
 Cyrus guided his course, it was impossi- 
 ble for that nation to escape. " 
 
 V. 14. The toil of Egypt and traffic of 
 Ethiopia are, by a common figure, the 
 Egyptians who toil, and the Ethiopians 
 who traffic, since the sequel refers to 
 persons, and the Sabeans are directly 
 named. The remnant of Israel were to 
 eat the riches of the Gentiles, and receive 
 a kind of tribute from those lands of the 
 South, where their fathers had once been 
 held in bondage. 
 
 The abasement of Egj-pt by Cambyses 
 was one main result of the victories of 
 Cyrus ; and another was the signal honour 
 put on the temple of Jerusalem, rebuilt 
 under royal decrees. Hence there follow- 
 ed a large resort of proselytes from Egypt 
 and its border lands. This fact was 
 doubly conspicuous after the time of the 
 Maccabees, and was like a dawn, before 
 the coming sunrise, of the Call of the 
 Gentiles. St. Paul, then, applies and ex- 
 tends this promise to the conversion of 
 Gentile strangers by witnessing the gifts 
 of the Spirit in the church i Cor. xiv. 24, 
 25. The word "chains" occurs also in 
 Job xxxvi. 8, in a figurative sense, "pri- 
 soners in chains, holden with cords of 
 affliction. " The phrase "they shall come 
 over," not "they shall be brought, "an- 
 swers to the name proselytes (TrpocrXjyuTot). 
 The chains are those bonds of deep con- 
 viction, by which these Eg)'ptian prose- 
 lytes would be firmly attached to a purer 
 faith. The homage is that of religious 
 disciples, not of military captives. No 
 chains of iron are so strong as those of 
 living faith. 
 
 v. 15. Some take this verse for an 
 exclamation of the prophet (Ges., IMaurer, 
 Umbreit, Knobel, Alex.), others of the 
 captives or proselytes (Hitzig, Ewald, 
 Stier), others of a chorus, or of the church 
 (Vitr., Hend. ). Hahn refers it to the 
 proselytes, but in part as an address to 
 their idol. "Truly thou art a god hiding 
 thyself; it is the God of Israel that saves. " 
 But this is unnatural, since no idol god 
 has been mentioned, and destroys the 
 main thought. The confession of the 
 
230 
 
 ISAIAH, XLV. 17—20. 
 
 they shall go to confusion together, that are makers of idols. 
 17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting 
 salvation : ye shall not be ashamed or confounded, world with- 
 out end. 18 For thus saith the LORI), that created the heavens; 
 he is the God : that formed the earth, and made it ; he hath 
 established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be 
 inhabited : I am the Lord, and there is none else. 19 I have 
 not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth : I have not 
 said unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain, I the LORD 
 speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. 
 
 20 Assemble yourselves, and come : draw near together, ye 
 tJiat arc escaped of the nations : they have no knowledge that 
 
 converts has been already given, and is 
 much simpler. The words are an ab- 
 rupt reflection of the prophet in the 
 midst of the messages he has to deliver. 
 They allude to the strange work of God, 
 in breaking down what he had built, the 
 tabernacle of David, and plucking up 
 what He had planted, the vineyard of 
 Israel. Yet the way was thus prepared 
 for the knowledge of His great name in 
 distant lands. Israel's history was a 
 Divine enigma, and its key, the Messiah, 
 was hidden, but soon to appear. 
 
 vv. 16, 17. These two verses are an 
 antithesis, and the text of those which 
 follow. The former answers closely to 
 xlii. 17, which opens the third section, or 
 God's controversy with Israel. There it 
 is followed by a prophetic description of 
 Messiah, and here by a promise of the 
 salvation He would bring. 
 
 V. 18. Several other constructions have 
 been proposed, but are disproved by the 
 absence of the article, and the weakened 
 emphasis. The first part consists of 
 Divine titles, and the direct adilress 
 begins, I am Jehovah. The words, "he is 
 God, " "he hath established it," where the 
 pronoun is emphatic, expand and confirm 
 those before them. The clause that fol- 
 lows is a further expansion, and the 
 words created, and formed, maintain the 
 parallelism. "In vain" might be ren- 
 dered "as a waste or desert." It is im- 
 plied that the chief design of the earth 
 was to be the dwelling of intelligent 
 rational creatures, the servants of God. 
 He created the heavens, and is Jehovah, 
 the only true God. He made the earth, 
 
 not in vain, but to be inhabited; and has 
 therefore revealed Himself in clear and 
 just messages to mankind. He made not 
 the earth to be a waste ; but, M'hen void 
 and empty. He filled it with life and 
 beauty ; He made it not in vain, to be a 
 moral waste, a home of idolaters, a 
 spiritual graveyard, but to be the home 
 of holy worshippers, liv. 3. 
 
 v. 19. The words of God were no 
 ambiguous oracles, like those of the 
 heathen, given from the dark recesses and 
 secret caves of the earth. There is an 
 allusion also to v. 15. The God of Israel 
 hides himself by the depth of His mysteri- 
 ous counsels, whose ways are "past finding 
 out." But He reveals himself, and al- 
 ways has revealed himself to His people, 
 by clear declarations of His holy will. 
 The two verses are the ground of the 
 invitation that follows. The Creator of 
 heaven and earth, and no vain idol, the 
 God who has made known His will from 
 the first by public messages, and no lying 
 oracle, here invites the whole heathen 
 world. 
 
 The middle clause has been explained, 
 to seek without finding (Gesen., Ewald, 
 &c. ), without a reward (Hitzig), to seek a 
 vain God (Stier) or in emptiness, with no 
 revelation (Halm). It refers back to the 
 previous verse, and admits equally of a 
 double sense. It was no vain god, whom 
 they were to seek, nor without assurance 
 of blessing. Unlike the worship of idols, 
 the service of God is perfect freedom^ 
 and in listening to His voice there is a 
 sure reward. 
 
 vv. 20, 2r. The controversy, xli. i,here 
 
ISAIAH, XLV. 21—25. 
 
 231 
 
 set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that 
 cannot save. 21 Tell ye tJiis^ and bring it forth ! yea, let them 
 take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time, 
 or told it from the former time ? have not I, the LORD ? and there 
 2s no other God 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 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth 
 in righteousness, and it shall not return, That unto me every 
 knee shall bow, a/^d every tongue shall swear. 24 Surely, shall 
 o//e say, in the LoRD have I righteousness and strength: even 
 to him shall thej/ come: and all that are incensed against him 
 shall be ashamed. 25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel 
 be justified, and shall glory. 
 
 passes into another stage, in which mercy 
 rejoices against judgment. The exposure 
 ^ of tlie folly of idols is now joined with a 
 proclamation of God to the Gentiles, that 
 He is not only a just God, but also a 
 Saviour. The message is not so much to 
 those already converted (Vitr., Stier) as 
 to survivors of the judgment (Ges., Umbr., 
 Ewald, Alex., Hend., Delitzsch. , Hahn), 
 that they may abandon their idols, and 
 turn to God. The meaning is not, that 
 "carry with them in flight," which in- 
 troduces a foreign idea, but that "set 
 up" in their temples, or carry solemnly 
 in religious processions. A God that can 
 be carried by priests in a procession is a 
 heathenish idol. 
 
 v. 21. The address is not to the idols 
 (Hahn), but to the escaped of the Gentiles. 
 Once more they are challenged whether 
 any one of themselves has revealed this 
 deliverance. The change of persons, _jv, 
 and them, distinguishes between those 
 who listen to the message, and a larger 
 class who persevere in their folly. The 
 foreknowledge of God, displayed in these 
 prophecies of Cyrus and the Return, is 
 made a pledge of the richer grace to 
 follow. 
 
 V. 22. The full force of the word is to 
 turn the face to an object, and the mean- 
 ing, — "Turn, that you may look, and 
 look, with a face no longer averted." 
 Man's duty and God's grace are both 
 implied. The lesson of v. i8 is here 
 applied by the Gospel. The only Creator 
 
 is also the only Saviour. 
 
 w. 23 — 25. The oath, that all nations 
 should be blessed in the seed of Abraham, 
 is here renewed, the same in substance, 
 and only varied in its form. The Word 
 made flesh, one with the Father, is the 
 promised Seed. The rendering "in right- 
 eousness " is substantially correct. But the 
 exact force seems to be, a word all right- 
 eousness, the message and righteousness 
 being one and the same thing. It is 
 most just and right that the true and 
 living God should have the worship of all 
 His creatures. The decree is irreversible, 
 "that to me," to the Father, revealed 
 through the Son, and to the Word the 
 Revealer, or "in the name of Jesus," 
 "every knee shall bow, and every tongue 
 shall swear." 
 
 V. 24. The word "come" is singular, 
 and refers to each of the penitents thus 
 described, in contrast to heathen idolaters, 
 Jewish unbelievers, or Christian apostates. 
 The word "surely" may be rendered 
 "only," and both ideas seem combined. 
 The truth is emphatic *nd exclusive. In 
 Him assuredly, and in none beside, these 
 blessings are to be found. The seed of 
 Israel are, first, the faithful Jewish rem- 
 nant, next, the engrafted Gentile olive- 
 branches, and finally, the whole recovered 
 nation. The words are a striking pre- 
 diction of the spiritual blessings to be 
 found in the promised Emmanuel. 
 
 The two constructions "In the Lord, 
 he saith of me, &c." and " In the Lord 
 
232 
 
 ISAIAH, XLVI. 1—5. 
 
 § 5. CiiAP. XLVI. The Idols Overthrown. 
 
 Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopcth; their images have been 
 given to the beasts and the cattle : your loads are heavy loaden, 
 a burden to the weary beast. 2 They stoop, they bow down 
 together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are 
 gone into captivity. 3 Hearken unto mc, O house of Jacob, 
 and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by 
 me from the bell}', which are carried from the womb. 4 And 
 even io your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will 
 I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, 
 and will deliver jf//. 
 
 5 To whom will ye liken mc, and equal and compare me, 
 
 unto me, he saith, are righteousness," are 
 equally grammatical. The first is preferred 
 by Vitringa, Rosenm. , Ewald, Delitzsch, 
 Stier, Hahn, the other in the received 
 version, by Jlend., Alex., and others. 
 And this seems slightly preferable, as 
 avoiding the abrupt change of person, 
 involved in the other construction. The 
 sense is just the same. 
 
 The transition is easy and natural, from 
 the deliverance of Israel by Cyrus, and 
 the richer blessings to follow in the days 
 of the promised Messiah, to the downfall 
 of Babylon and its idols. The prophecy, 
 then, continues with a vivid picture of the 
 images of the gods of Babylon, turned 
 into packages on the backs of weary 
 beasts, instead of being carried aloft in 
 stately procession, and unable to free 
 themselves or their owners from the power 
 of the conquerors. 
 
 w. I, 2. Bel answers to the Tyrian 
 Baal, and to Zeus and Jupiter ; and Nebo 
 to Anubis, Hermes, or Mercurius. These 
 are named as the two chief idol gods of 
 Babylon. In like manner Zeus and Her- 
 mes are joined in the veneration of the 
 men of Lystra, Acts xiv. 12. In the ruin 
 of the empire these idol gods bow down, 
 like those wounded, or decrepit with age. 
 Their images, once raised aloft for wor- 
 ship, are placed on beasts of burden, and 
 carried away in disgrace. The gods stoop, 
 like the beasts that pant under their idols ; 
 and "their souls," an ironical phrase, the 
 divinilic-s t^pmselves. are gone into cap- 
 
 tivity. 
 
 "Their images" is clearer than "their 
 idols," since the pronoun refers to the 
 gods themselves. " Your carriages," A. V., 
 is an address to the men of Babylon, and 
 describes these same images or idols, as 
 ■wont to be carried by their votaries in 
 solemn procession ; but now consigned 
 with ignominy by the Persian conquer- 
 ors to beasts of burden, to be carried 
 away as the spoil of conquest. Since the 
 time of our translation the word "car- 
 riage" has changed its meaning. 
 
 "Themselves," lit. "their soul." "The 
 gods... have been unable to save their 
 images, which were packed on the cattle, 
 out of the hands of the conquerors. In 
 \. 2 b he destroys the delusion of any real 
 contrast; since the self of these beingless 
 beings consists of nothing more than the 
 wood and metal of which their images are 
 composed." (Delitzsch.) 
 
 vv. 3, 4. The nation had its birth at 
 the Exodus, its infancy in the desert, its 
 manhood under David and Solomon, 
 and an old age under the later prophets, 
 when the first covenant was ready to 
 decay. There is here a striking contrast 
 between the idols, borne aloft by their 
 votaries, or carried helplessly away ; and 
 the true God, who bears and sustains His 
 people from infancy to old age, and in 
 hours of sickness and sorrow. 
 
 vv. 5 — 7. The brief statement xl. 18 — 
 20, has been expounded in ch. xliv. with 
 reference to wooden idols, but hcrr. ps 
 
ISAIAH, XLVI. 6—1, 
 
 233 
 
 that we may be like? 6 They lavish gold out of the bag, and 
 weigh silver in the balance, and 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, O ye transgressors. 
 
 9 Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and 
 tJicrc is none else. I am God, and there is none like me; 10 
 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times 
 tilings that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, 
 and I will do all my pleasure: ii Calling an eagle from the 
 east, the man of my purpose from a far country: yea, I have 
 spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I also 
 will do it. 12 Hearken unto me, ye stout-hearted, 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 
 place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. 
 
 to more costly ones of gold and silver. 
 Expense alone is in religion no pledge at 
 all of a reasonable or acceptable service. 
 These idols of Babylon were very costly 
 and very worthless. 
 
 V. 8. Those who frame gods for their 
 own worship from bars of silver and bags 
 of gold, are not only childish, but brutish. 
 Reflection on the folly of idolatry in others 
 is one means to keep the servants of God 
 from going astray. 
 
 The word hithshashu, derived from 
 '/>/?, a man, occurs here only. It answers 
 thus to the Apostolic charge, di'dpl^effde, 
 "quit you like men," i Cor. xvi. 13. In 
 one place the reference is to manly under- 
 standing, in the other to manly courage. 
 But the two thoughts are very near akin. 
 All superstition and idol worship is men- 
 tal cowardice, while true faith and right 
 worship are a manly and reasonable 
 thing. 
 
 V. 9. The appeal xliii. 8 is repeated 
 once more: God's works of old ought to 
 be kept in mind. There is also a direct 
 contrast with xliii. 18. Hope for the 
 future, even more than memories of the 
 past, is the duty and privilege of the 
 faithful. 
 
 V. 1 1 . Cyrus is one of the first who is 
 known to have used the eagle for his 
 military standard. So Xenophon writes 
 of him : "He had for ensign a golden 
 eagle, stretched upon a long spear; and 
 this even still continues to be the ensign 
 of the Persian king." (Cyrop. XLVII.) 
 The word t3^y ayU, seems to be the 
 same root as the Greek deros, and denotes 
 the impetuous rush of this bird of prey. 
 The "man of my purpose" means one 
 set apart by God's decree for a special 
 service. The futurity of the campaigns 
 of Cyrus, when this message was given, 
 can alone make it intelligible. There 
 could be no proof or sign of God's fore- 
 knowledge in a record after the event. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. Here, once more, the 
 message passes on to the times of Messiah. 
 The first, "hearken," v. 3, meets the earlier 
 temptation of the Jews to open idolatry. 
 The second voice applies to their later 
 temptations after the Return ; to that stout- 
 ness of heart, by which the Pharisees 
 went about to establish their own righte- 
 ousness, and did not submit to the righte- 
 ousness revealed in the Gospel. They 
 were far from it, and still it was not far 
 off, but near at hand. When the previous 
 
234 
 
 ISAIAH, XLVII. 1—7. 
 
 § 6. Chap. XLVII. The Downfall of Babylon. 
 
 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of 
 l^abylon : sit on the ground, tJicre is no throne, O daughter of 
 the Chaldeans : for thou shalt no more be called tender and 
 delicate. 2 Take the millstones, and grind meal : uncover thy 
 veil, lift up the skirt, uncover the thigh, wade through the rivers. 
 
 3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be 
 seen: I will take vengeance, I will meet t/iee, not as man. 
 
 4 As for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the 
 Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into dark- 
 ness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be 
 called the mistress of kingdoms. 6 I was wroth with my 
 people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thy 
 hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast 
 thou very heavily laid the yoke. 7 And thou saidst, I shall be 
 a lady for ever, so that thou didst not lay these things to thine 
 heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. 
 
 verses were fulfilled, the old covenant was 
 ready to vanish away, and Messiah, the 
 Lord our Righteousness, was near to be 
 revealed. 
 
 The shame of the idols is here follow- 
 ed by a picture of the downfall of the 
 Empire. The proud city is figured as a 
 royal damsel, to be stripped of her rich 
 clothing, degraded from her lofty rank, 
 and made a gazing-stock of shame. The 
 stout-hearted in Israel, whose pride kept 
 them far from God, might read here a 
 lesson of their own guilt and danger. 
 
 v. I. The title of Babylon resembles 
 one given to Tyre, " O oppressed virgin, 
 daughter of Zidon," xxiii. 12. The word is 
 used in its looser sense ; for this daughter 
 is given up to sensual pleasure, a wife and 
 a mother, unchaste and impure. High 
 in rank, beautiful in attire, but haughty 
 and prolligate, she is threatened with 
 degradation and utter shame. 
 
 V. 2. Some refer these words to the 
 crossing of rivers by captives in their 
 march, others to the exposure of their 
 person by eastern women in menial occu- 
 pations. Both allusions may be com- 
 bined. The daughter of Babylon, this 
 royal damsel, must suffer both abasement 
 
 and captivity. She must pass through 
 deep waters, and her pride be replaced by 
 a painful and repulsive exposure, both of . 
 her political weakness, and her moral 
 shame and guilt. 
 
 V. 3. All pride is abominable before 
 God, and its vain disguises will sooner 
 or later be stripped away. There is here 
 a contrast to the precept — "Be clothed 
 with humility." The figure is not the 
 encounter of warriors, but that of a harlot 
 or adulteress, brought before a judge for 
 her crimes, and openly disgraced in the 
 view of others. 
 
 The last clause has had many versions. 
 "I will suffer no man to intercede" 
 (Aben Ezra, Grot. , Lowth). "I will ask no 
 man," i.e. to avenge (Jarchi). "I will 
 strike a league with no man" (Gesen. 
 Maurer). "I will spare no man" (Gesen., 
 Hend.). "Though I should meet with no 
 man " {\'itr.). "I shall encounter no man," 
 /. e. able to resist (Rosenm., Alex,, Stier). 
 "I shall not meet a man," i.e. it shall 
 be wholly desolate (Hahn). "I shall not 
 pardon anyman" (Hitz., Ewd , Delitzsch). 
 But all seem inferior in simjilicity and 
 force to the received version (Chald., 
 Kimchi, Bclg., Piscator, Meyer) made 
 
ISAIAH, XLVII. 8— II. 
 
 235 
 
 8 Now then hear this, O abandoned to pleasure, that sittest 
 at ease; that sayest in thine heart, I am, and all beside me is 
 nothing ; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the 
 loss of children; 9 Yet these two tilings shall come to thee in 
 a moment, in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood : they 
 shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy 
 sorceries, and for 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 per- 
 verted thee : and thou hast said in thine heart, I ani, and none 
 else beside me. 11 Therefore evil is come upon thee; thou 
 shalt not know its dawn: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou 
 shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon 
 
 slightly more terse as above. The verb 
 thus retains its usual sense, to meet or 
 encounter. Man (Adam) placed last, has 
 its full emphatic contrast with God, and 
 its proper meaning as the kind or race, 
 not a class or individual. The ellipsis of 
 the pronoun is common with the previous 
 clause, and adds to the force, when the 
 object is plain. The absence of the parti- 
 cle of comparison makes the thought still 
 more expressive. "It is not man thou 
 wilt meet, when I meet thee. Thou 
 shalt suffer no common, or merely human 
 retribution." 
 
 v. 4. The Word, who has spoken with 
 Divine authority, denouncing vengeance, 
 here speaks in condescending love, as 
 one with His people. The doctrine of 
 a Daysman and Mediator comes to light 
 repeatedly in these visions. Babylon will 
 experience no human vengeance, and 
 Israel's Redeemer also is not man, but 
 the Lord of Hosts. Superhuman judg- 
 ment and mercy run side by side. 
 
 v. 5. Babylon, in the time of her dis- 
 grace, will seek to hide herself from the 
 eyes of the woi'ld. A veil of oblivion 
 must fall over the city, once so proud and 
 haughty, the "excellent beauty of the 
 Chaldeans." The political headship would 
 pass away, and never return. 
 
 V. 6. There is here an allusion to the 
 prophecy, xliii. 28; "Therefore have I 
 profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and 
 will give Jacob to the curse, and Israel to 
 reproaches." The Chaldeans had no 
 compassion, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 17. But now 
 the judgment on Israel is to be reversed, 
 
 and the oppressions of Babylon are to 
 return on her own head. 
 
 V. 7. This boast of old Babylon is re- 
 peated in the description of Rome, as 
 "the great city that ruleth over the kings 
 of the earth," and in the description of 
 her favourite poet, "Imperium sine fine 
 dedi." The term, ad, is not one of time 
 (Hitzig), but of moral result {adco uf) 
 (Rosenm., Hend., Delitzsch). Her pride 
 would reach so far as to cause entire 
 neglect of the clearest warnings. Future 
 things may be said to be remembered, 
 when linked with the past by some in- 
 separable law of connexion. 
 
 V. 8. The sin is first described, and 
 then God's sentence on it proclaimed. 
 The children denote a rich and numerous 
 population. Widowhood refers, not simply 
 to the death of the king (Rabbis), but to 
 all the patrons and supports of the Em- 
 pire and its idols. Loss of children is 
 the ruin of those whom she nourishes, 
 and widowhood, of those by whom she 
 is nourished. The phrase in the second 
 clause has caused some perplexity. It is 
 l.iterally, "I am, and the absence of me 
 beside." All beside me, says the proud 
 city, is so worthless in comparison, that 
 "it is not Babylon, no part of her em- 
 pire, " is description enough. The words 
 are a profane parody of the Divine 
 saying, "I am the Lord, and there is none 
 else," xliii. 10, ri; xliv. 6, 8; xlv. 5, 
 6, 14, 18, 21; xlvi. 9. These chapters 
 are full of the contrast between the false 
 pride of Babylon and the true glory of 
 the living God. 
 
236 
 
 ISAIAH, XLVII. 12—15. 
 
 thcc suddenly, li'Jiich thou slialt not know. 12 Stand now with 
 thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, 
 with all wlierein thou hast laboured from thy youth; 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 
 them stand up now and save thee, the astrologers, the stargazcrs, 
 and the monthly prophcsicrs, from the tilings that shall come 
 upon thee. 14 Behold! they are as stubble; the fire hath 
 burned them : they shall not deliver their soul from the power 
 of the flame; // is no coal to warm them, no fwQ for than to 
 sit before it. 15 Thus shall be unto thee all with whom thou 
 hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall 
 wander every one to his quarter, none shall save thee. 
 
 V. II. Heavy, unforeseen calamity was 
 at hand ; and their boasts of wisdom 
 would be made foolish by their want of 
 knowledge to prepare for it, and of power 
 to escape from it. The word shachrah, 
 "whence it riseth" A. V., has caused much 
 critical debate. Some, thinking a dawn not 
 applicable to the first rise of evil, render 
 "after which there is no dawn." Others 
 take it as a verb in a peculiar sense, 
 "which thou wilt not charm away" (Stier, 
 &c.). But there may be a day of judg- 
 ment or calamity, as well as of joy and 
 deliverance, and the event which was 
 judgment to Babylon was hope and joy to 
 Israel- Sodom and Gomorrah were de- 
 stroyed at sunrise, and the Egyptians 
 were overthrown "when the morning 
 appeared. " Day, in contrast to night, may 
 denote a time of action as opposed to one 
 of rest. The victories of Cyrus, also, are 
 twice in this prophecy connected with the 
 sunrise, xli. 25, xlvi. 11. Thus the day 
 of Babel's calamity had its dawn, like 
 natural days. It was an aggravation of 
 her sorrow, that, with all her false wisdom, 
 she knew not how or when this judgment 
 would begin. 
 
 v. 12. "Wherein thou hast laboured, 
 &c." This alludes to the previous warn- 
 ing. Babylon might try by her sorceries 
 to reverse God's sentence, but ail her 
 efforts would be vain. 
 
 v. 13. These words describe the ha- 
 bitual state and character of Babylon 
 before her calamity. She has abounded 
 in wise men, diviners, interpreters of 
 dreams, observers of the heavens, and has 
 
 consulted them even to satiety. Such 
 has been her wealth in counsellors, that to 
 use them all has been even a toil and 
 weariness. The clause is not a con- 
 ditional promise, "if thou art wearied," 
 nor a question (Hahn), nor a reference to 
 schemes of defence in the hour of danger 
 (Alex.), nor to their being worn out with 
 these consultations (Stier). It portrays 
 the character of the people in days of 
 prosperity, full of expedients of human 
 science and worldly wisdom. 
 
 "Astrologers, &c. " A threefold de- 
 scription of the same class, who divide 
 the heavens into houses of the sun, moon, 
 and planets, gaze into them to obtain 
 horoscopes, and ever)' month publish new 
 predictions from the heavens. The order 
 is contemptuous. Their titles of honour 
 are added, like an afterthought, in the 
 midst of a challenge to a work quite 
 beyond their power. So pretentious are 
 they, and still so worthless in the hour 
 of trouble ! The construction of our 
 version (Aben Ezra, V'itr., Hend., Stier, 
 Hahn) is far preferable to that of many 
 moderns, "those that predict monthly 
 what shall come upon thee," which is op- 
 posed to the accents, and robs the closing 
 words of all their emphasis. The "things 
 that shall come upon thee," in this con- 
 nexion, are not future things in the 
 abstract, but the coming judgments. 
 
 v. 14. "The fire hath burned them." 
 The past tense (Heb. ) makes the warn- 
 ing more vivid, as if the judgment were 
 already come, while the meaning as a 
 prophecy is equally plain. The last 
 
ISAIAH, XLVIII. I. 
 
 237 
 
 § 7. Chap. XLVIII. The Former TrnNGS and the New. 
 
 The First Cycle of the Later Prophecies, after announcing the victories of 
 Cyrus and the fall of Babylon, closes in this chapter with a fresh voice of 
 rebuke and encouragement to Israel. The wisdom of God, revealed in the 
 fulfilment of the "former things," was to prepare them for "new things," or 
 those times of Messiah, of which fuller predictions are now to follow. The 
 chapter has two equal divisions, each opening with a call to listen to the 
 voice of God, The first is mainly rebuke, the second encouragement. The 
 former, again, applies chiefly to the times from Isaiah till the Return, and 
 the latter from the Return to the coming of Messiah ; while the whole 
 makes a transition from the days of the prophecy to the times of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the 
 name of Israel, and are come forth from the waters of Judah; 
 
 clause describes the consuming nature of 
 the judgment, and does not mean simply 
 that no remnant shall be left. These 
 astrologers, by their rules of lucky and 
 unlucky days, pretended to avert smaller 
 evils, and even to turn them to account. 
 Future evil was to be like a gentle fire 
 under their control, whereby to increase 
 their own reputation and comfort. But 
 the reality would be far different. A 
 wasting conflagration was at hand, in 
 which they would be consumed. 
 
 V. 23. Some refer this verse to the 
 diviners only, others to the merchants and 
 traders. The most correct view (Stier) 
 seems to include both. Not only the 
 astrologers of Babylon, but all her mer- 
 chants, all her science and commerce, on 
 which she had laboured from the first 
 dawn of her greatness, would flee from her 
 in dismay in the hour of calamity, and be 
 helpless to avert her ruin. 
 
 Chap, xlviii. 
 
 V. I. This Call refers mainly to the 
 three previous chapters, in which the mis- 
 sion and work of Cyrus, and the doom of 
 Babylon, have been so clearly foretold. 
 The appeal is to the whole nation, viewed 
 as mainly faithless to the covenant of 
 their God. His goodness, by all these 
 messages, was leading them to repent- 
 ance. The phrase, "called by the name 
 of Israel," reminds them that they had 
 no proper claihi to this higher title, which 
 Jacob received as the reward of earnest 
 
 faith and prayer. "The waters of Judah." 
 They were descended from that patriarch, 
 like streams from a fountain. When 
 Isaiah wrote these later visions, the ten 
 tribes had been wholly carried away. 
 These men of Judah made mention of 
 God's name in vows, oaths, prayers and 
 sacrifices, but not in truth or righteous- 
 ness, for their services were heartless and 
 insincere. 
 
 V. 2. The Divine Speaker here as- 
 signs the reason why He still pleads with 
 a people, so insincere and rebellious, and 
 why they were bound to listen to His 
 appeal. Sinful as they were, by their 
 own profession they were the covenant 
 people of God. This is the reason why 
 the Word of God perseveres in His invi- 
 tations, and why they ought to lay up 
 His messages in their heart. The trans- 
 lations "although," "nevertheless," "yea 
 even," arise from not perceiving the true 
 connexion, just explained. Others take 
 the words as ironical (Stier). But the 
 sudden change of person confirms the 
 view here taken, as if the .Speaker were 
 reflecting with himself, and justifying His 
 own course in continuing a task which 
 seemed so thankless. Comp. Hos. xi. 8. 
 
 V. 3. Two things are here affirmed, the 
 prediction of these former things before- 
 hand, and the suddenness of their fulfil- 
 ment. The title may belong either to 
 the earlier prophecies of Isaiah against As- 
 syria (Rosenm., Vitr., Ilend.), or to these. 
 
238 
 
 ISAIAH, XLVIII. 2—7. 
 
 which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the 
 God of Israel, /;/// 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. 
 
 3 TiiK former things I told from the beginning; yea, from my 
 mouth they went forth, and I declared them: I did tJicm sud- 
 denly, and they are come to pass: 4 Because I knew that thou 
 art obstinate, and thy neck an iron sinew, and thy brow brass, 
 5 I have even told thee from the beginning ; before they come 
 to pass I have declared thcui unto thee : lest thou shouldcst sa)', 
 Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image and my 
 molten image hath commanded them. 6 Thou hast heard, tlien 
 consider all this; and will not ye announce it? I have made 
 thee to hear new things from this time, even hidden things, and 
 thou didst not know them : 7 They are created now, and not 
 
 just given, of Cyrus and Babylon (Cocc. , 
 Stier, Hahn). Plainly they are events 
 taking place suddenly in the time of some 
 of the parties addressed. The fall of the 
 Assyrian, and the related events, had 
 thus been effected suddenly, as in a 
 moment, within the memory of those who 
 lived in the later half of Hezekiah's reign. 
 To these, in the first place, the words 
 naturally apply. But as time moved on, 
 the second series of predictions concern- 
 ing Cyrus and Babylon, the latter end of 
 the former things, were added to the 
 predictions thus suddenly fulfilled, and 
 became fresh earnests of still fuller and 
 later promises. 
 
 V. 4. "Because I knew." The fore- 
 seen stubbornness of Israel was one 
 reason why the predictions were made so 
 clear, in order to shame them into the 
 acknowledgment of God's hand. Those 
 who treat them as mere guesses, or for- 
 geries after the event, share in the blind- 
 ness here so strongly condemned. 
 
 V. 5. Inspired proi^hecies are the 
 proof of God's real dominion, in contrast 
 to the reign of mere chance, or of vain 
 idols. The chief "molten image" of 
 modern times is the self-developing force 
 of human intellect. "Before they come 
 to pass" seems more exact, since the 
 Hebrew tense here jjoints rather to a 
 time before the actual fulfilment. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The duty of the Church is to 
 consider God's prophecies, to mark their 
 
 fulfilment, and then, as God's witnesses, 
 to announce it to the world. Also to 
 study those yet unfulfilled, and thereby 
 to gain an insight into coming things, 
 which no idol-god or mere human wisdom 
 can bestow. "All this" refers to the 
 whole course of prediction respecting 
 Cyrus and Babylon. The;i'^ is emphatic, 
 " Israel, God's chosen witnesses, why 
 desert your appointed office?" 
 
 The contrast here is either between 
 earlier predictions of Isaiah, fulfilled when 
 these were written, and all these later 
 ones themselves ; or between the Return 
 from exile, and the later times of Messiah. 
 In one case the point of sight is actual, 
 in the other ideal. Since vv. 14, 20 
 still speak of the Return as future, the 
 former is the simpler view. But it does 
 not exclude the other. When the pro- 
 phecy was given, the messages, already 
 fulfilled suddenly in the Assyrian over- 
 throw, xxix. 5, xxxvii. ^fi, would be a 
 contrast to the new and hidden things 
 foretold to all these later visions. But 
 when Babylon too had suddenly fallen, 
 the decree of Cyrus gone forth, and the 
 latter end of the former things came to 
 pass in the Return of the Exiles, then 
 these prophecies, xliii.-xlvii., for the Jews 
 after Cyrus, would be transferred to the 
 class of things already fulfilled. All these 
 together would then be a contrast to the 
 direct and clear prophecies of Messiah 
 that follow. 
 
ISAIAH, XLVIII. 8—12. 
 
 239 
 
 from the beginning ; and before to day thou hast not even heard 
 them, lest thou shouldest say, Behold I knew them. 8 Yea, 
 thou hast not heard, yea, thou hast not known, yea, from the 
 beginning thine ear hath not been open : for I knew that thou 
 wouldest deal very treacherously, and that thy name is, A trans- 
 gressor 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. 1 1 For mine 
 own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it; for how should 
 viy name be polluted } and I will not give my glory unto 
 another. 
 
 12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called : I ant 
 
 The view which admits these prophe- 
 cies to be Isaiah's own, and still denies 
 any reference at all in their course to the 
 times before the Return (Delitzsch), is 
 strained and unnatural, especially in re- 
 ference to the practical addresses in the 
 course of these visions, chh. xlviii, Ivi, Ivii. 
 The same prophetic spirit, which enabled 
 the seer to place himself among events 
 two centuries distant, must surely in- 
 clude a power of reverting to his own 
 and intervening days for practical warn- 
 ing and instruction. A transfer into 
 ideal time, so complete as to exclude any 
 reference to the actual time, would defeat 
 one main purpose of the predictions, and 
 render the constant appeal to God's fore- 
 seeing wisdom unmeaning. Also to ex- 
 tend the "former things" to all the times 
 from the Exodus (Stier) makes the refer- 
 ence to their sudden fulfilment almost 
 impossible to explain. 
 
 V. 8. Some view this as a fresh asser- 
 tion that these new things had not been 
 revealed before (Calv., Belg.), or as a 
 reason why more had not been earlier 
 revealed (Alex.) ; others, more justly, as a 
 description of the stupor of the Israelites 
 (Chald., Kimch., Vitr. , Rosenm., Hend., 
 Stier, Hahn). Of these some look on it 
 as an aggravation, "even still thou hearest 
 not" (Stier); others as a hindrance over- 
 come by grace, "yea, though thou hearest 
 not" (Hahn); or simply as a review of 
 their whole course of guilt (Vitr., Hend.). 
 The last seems the simple and true sense. 
 But the force lies in the transfer of the 
 words from the withholding, on God's 
 
 part, of these new predictions, to the 
 blindness of the people to messages al- 
 ready given. From the days of' Egypt 
 they had sinned and been rebellious, as 
 foretold in the Song of Moses. The con- 
 nexion is not that God's foresight of their 
 rebellion was the cause why more had 
 not been revealed (Alex.), but that their 
 sinful abuse of His gifts did not take him 
 by surprise, and had been also foreseen 
 before its actual occurrence. The perfect 
 tense "thou hast not heard" &c., is here 
 better than the aorist, because the purpose 
 is to describe a long-continued state of 
 the people, "Fi-om the beginning," vieds, 
 means, onward from the first rise of the 
 nation. 
 
 v. 10. The resemblance of affliction to 
 the refining of silver, often affirmed else- 
 where, seems here denied. But the next 
 clause supplies an explanation. Silver is 
 silver, though mixed with dross, before it 
 enters the furnace. But guilty sinners, 
 who are as dross, may through God's 
 grace become like silver, being chosen in 
 the furnace of affliction itself. Calamities 
 not only purify the faithful, but are 
 used to bring the faithless to repentance. 
 "Not with silver" will thus mean, not in 
 the character of silver, as if they were 
 silver already when the process of trial 
 begins. The work would be wrought 
 wholly for His name's sake, in spite of 
 the sore demerit of Israel. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. The second, and brighter 
 part of the message begins here. In v. 
 12 there is an allusion to xli. i — lo, and 
 in v. 13 to xl., with its revelation of God's 
 
240 
 
 ISAIAH, XLVIII. 13-17- 
 
 lie. I a])i the first, I also am the last. 13 My hand also hath 
 laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath 
 spanned the heavens : ivJicn I call unto them, they stand up to- 
 gether, 14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hearken ! Who 
 among them hath declared these tilings? The Lord hath loved 
 him : he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his mighty work 
 on the Chaldeans. 15 I, even I, have spoken, yea, I have called 
 him : I have brought him, and he shall prosper in his way. 
 16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this: I have not spoken in 
 secret from the beginning, from the time it came to be, there 
 am I : and now the LORD God and his Spirit hath sent me. 
 
 17 Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of 
 Israel; I am the LORD thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, 
 
 almightincss. Thus the opening and close 
 of this first scries of visions are closely 
 linked together. God's power and wisdom 
 are both pledged to deliver His people. 
 
 V. 14. This verse is obscure from its 
 condensed brevity. Its general reference 
 to Cyrus is plain, but eight or ten con- 
 structions have been proposed. It may 
 be paraphrased thus. "All ye sons of 
 Israel, assemble yourselves, and hearken 
 with reverence to the voice of your God. 
 Who among the heathen and their idols 
 has announced beforehand this great work, 
 the fall of Babylon, and restoration of 
 Israel? But the Lord hath loved Cyrus, 
 His chosen and appointed instrument. 
 He will do the pleasure of God, and his 
 arm, or mighty work, on Babylon and the 
 Chaldeans." The sore judgment, called 
 the Lord's pleasure in one clause, is called 
 "his arm," that is "his work or proof of 
 power ;" in the other, as one of the plagues 
 was called by the magicians "the finger 
 of God," Ex. viii. 19. 
 
 v. 15. The Speaker claims Divine 
 perfections, and yet distinguishes Himself 
 from the Lord of whom He speaks. The 
 Logos, the Divine Word, here proclaims 
 himself to be the true Author of the suc- 
 cess of Cyrus, than whom no one had ever 
 a more unbroken career of victory. 
 
 v. 16. Some refer this whole verse to 
 Isaiah (Kimchi, Hitzig, Knobel), and 
 many the second clause of it alone (Calv., 
 Zuingl.,iMusculus,Gesen., Meyer, Hengst., 
 Umbr., Hahn). Others think there is a 
 confusion of style (Jarchi, Rosenm.). But 
 the only consistent view makes the Son of 
 
 God the Speaker here, as in the last verse 
 (Augustine, Basil, Jerome, Oecolamp., 
 Vitr., Alex., Ilend., Stitr). The same 
 is true throughout the chapter, though 
 the distinctness of Divine Persons comes 
 into full relief only here at the close. He 
 is the First and the Last, Rev. xxii. 13, 
 of whom it is written, "All things were 
 made by Him, and without Him was 
 nothing made that is made," Joh. i. 3. 
 
 The voice of love is here the same as 
 in the appeal to Jerusalem in the Gospel, 
 "How often would I have gathered thy 
 children together!" Matt, xxiii. 37. The 
 Word of God "has not spoken in secret 
 from the beginning," but from the hour of 
 creation has been the Revealer of his Fa- 
 ther's will. The limit, "from the time it 
 came to be," is the same as in Prov. viii. 
 23, 27, "from the beginning, or ever the 
 earth was," when creation came into being. 
 The construction, "the Lord hath sent 
 me and his Spirit" (Orig., Vitr., Knob., 
 Gesen., Mend., Alex., Hahn) is disproved 
 by the loss of emphasis, the last clause 
 having thus neither the same subject nor 
 object with the rest of the verse, by the 
 harshness of the construction, and the 
 want of the objective sign. The Word, 
 who speaks, is the mental object of the 
 whole statement, first, as the Divine Re- 
 vealer, and next, as Divinely sent and 
 revealed. The mission here is not the 
 Incarnation, but the signal providence of 
 the Return from Babylon. So in Zeclia- 
 riah, " After the glory hath he sent me to 
 the nations that spoiled you; for he that 
 toucheth you toucheth the apple of his 
 
ISAIAH, XLVIII. 18—22. 
 
 241 
 
 which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. 18 O 
 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 off- 
 spring of thy bowels as the gravel thereof : their name should 
 not have been cut off, nor destroyed from before me. 
 
 20 Go forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans ; with a 
 voice of singing tell yc, declare ye this, utter it even unto the 
 end of the earth : say ye. The LORD hath redeemed his servant 
 Jacob. 21 And they thirsted not in the deserts through which 
 he led them : he caused waters to flow out of the rock for them ; 
 he clave the rock, and waters gushed out. 22 There is no 
 peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked. 
 
 eye... and ye shall know that the Lord of 
 hosts hath sent me," Zech. ii. 7—9. This 
 mission of the Word to deliver captive 
 Israel was an earnest of that fuller and 
 later message, when "the Father sent 
 the .Son to be the Saviour of the world." 
 
 vv. 17 — 19. After severe rebuke thei^e 
 is here a wonderful utterance of Divine 
 compassion towards rebellious Israel. It 
 is the sequel of the message, Deut. v. 29, 
 and Ps Ixxxi. 13, and finds its echo in 
 those later words of the same Divine 
 Person, tabernacling in mortal flesh, "O 
 that thou hadst known, even thou, at 
 least in this thy day, the things that be- 
 long to thy peace ! " Lu. xix. 42. The Son 
 of God, in every age, is the Redeemer, 
 Teacher, Guide, and Shepherd of Israel. 
 
 V. 17. "To profit." To do what is 
 profitable, and leads to real happiness. 
 The voice is that of the heavenly Wisdom, 
 whose "ways are ways of pleasantness, 
 and all her paths are peace." 
 
 V. iQ. "Their name" is the name of 
 the seed of Jacob. The singular is collec- 
 tive, and for clearness seems to require a 
 plural rendering. The Lord takes de- 
 light in the increase of the numbers of 
 His holy worshippers. Judgment is His 
 strange work, and He delights in mercy. 
 
 VV. 20 — 22. The message closes with 
 a direct command to the exiles of Israel 
 to set out joyfully on their way to Zion. 
 This exhortation puis the keystone on all 
 the previous promises of deliverance. And 
 liere too the visions enter on a new stage. 
 Cyrus, Babylon, and the Chaldeans, are 
 never mentioned again. The message 
 
 B. I. 
 
 travels onward to the times of Messiah. 
 The former things are seen, in spirit, as 
 fulfilled; and the new things begin their 
 course, all centering in the person and 
 work of the promised Immanuel, the 
 Messiah of God. 
 
 V. 20. The word "fiee,"isused here 
 with no reference to alarm, but to the 
 speed and joy of the coming deliverance. 
 Or perhaps the thought in Jer. li. 45, 
 Rev. xviii. 4, may be included in this 
 earlier instruction to the people of God. 
 
 v. 21. This verse may be explained 
 either as a memorial of the mercies of the 
 Exodus, called afresh to mind by the later 
 deliverance, or as a prediction of blessings 
 in that later redemption. In this case the 
 words must be figurative. The former view 
 is perhaps the simpler, and the connexion 
 will be very easy to explain. The re- 
 turning exiles, while they celebrate their 
 recent redemption, are to call to mind 
 the wonders wrought for their fathers in 
 the days of old. The whole series of 
 mercies, from the Exodus onward, are thus 
 summed up in one song of triumphant 
 praise. The God of Israel was the same 
 through every age, the unfailing Friend 
 and Deliverer of His people. His earlier 
 mercies might be varied in their form, 
 but their substance would be the same in 
 every successive age. He opens evermore 
 '■streams in the wilderness, and rivers in 
 the desert." But these blessings belong 
 to the faithful alone. The wicked are 
 like the troubled sea, restless and devoid 
 of peace, a gift which belongs only to 
 the true Israel of God. 
 
 16 
 
242 ISAIAH, XLVIII. 
 
 Close of the First Series. 
 
 This First Series or Cycle of the Later Prophecies, has a marked 
 internal unity, and a striking termination. It begins by taking up the 
 charge, which closes the Earlier Prophecies, and giving a message of com- 
 fort to the fearful-hearted ; a promise of strength to the weak hands and 
 the failing knees, in the prospect of that captivity which the prophet has 
 announced to Hezckiah in the hour of his vainglorious display to the envoys 
 from Babylon. It announces, in its opening, three great mercies to Israel; 
 a victory in its hard and long warfare with heathen idolatry, forgiveness of 
 iniquity through the great sin-offering, on whom the LORD would lay the 
 iniquity of His people; and a double recompence of blessing at last, after 
 ages of conflict and sorrow. 
 
 The first of these promises has been unfolded in the present series. Its 
 first section, after the advent of the LORD, Israel's Sliepherd, to feed the 
 flock of His people, gives a sublime portraiture of His greatness as the 
 Maker of all things, and the Preserver of Israel, in contrast to all the idols 
 of the heathen. The second is a direct controversy with the nations for 
 their idolatry, carried on with such persevering zeal from the days of Abra- 
 ham; and predicts coming things, which the idols and their worshippers 
 could not foresee, the raising up of Cyrus from the north and east, to tread 
 down the idols of Babylon ; and then the coming of Messiah, full of grace 
 and truth, to open the blind eyes, and set up a purer worship throughout 
 the heathen world. 
 
 In the third section the controversy passes on to Israel. First, a picture 
 is set before them of the grace and forbearance of the coming Deliverer; 
 and then their sins are denounced, their spiritual blindness and deafness, and 
 formal worship, leading to sore and long affliction, but still to be followed 
 by a final outpouring of the Spirit of God. 
 
 The double controversy is then renewed in a most earnest and graphic 
 sketch of the folly of idol worship, with an appeal to Israel to turn heartily 
 to the true God, who alone can foresee, protect, and deliver. The promise 
 of deliverance from Babylon is placed in a still clearer light, and Cyrus, 
 its appointed instrument, is mentioned by name. The message passes on 
 once more into the later and fuller promises of the Gospel. 
 
 This first trilogy is followed by a second, aimed expressly against the 
 idols of Babylon, and the proud luxurious city itself, with a last appeal to 
 Israel on their hardness of heart, which led to predictions so plain and clear, 
 in order to convince them of the power and foreknowledge of the God of 
 Israel. The Word, the Logos, then proclaims his own commission, in the 
 counsels of God, to be the Deliverer of Israel, and a renewal of the mercies 
 of the Exodus in like blessings to the faithful Israelites in days to come. 
 
ISAIAH, XLIX.— LX. 243 
 
 THE TIMES OF MESSIAH. 
 Chap. XLIX.— LX. 
 
 In this Second Series of the Later Prophecies, the Spirit of God carries 
 tlie. prophet beyond the Captivity and the times of Cyrus, the main subject of 
 tlic former series, to the coming of the promised Immanuel, and the times 
 of the Gospel. The main subject here is " the sufferings of Christ, and the 
 glories that should follow," ranging from the birth of our Lord to the final 
 redemption of Zion, when He will be "the glory of His people Israel," 
 ch. xlix — Ix. The Third Series unfolds still further the times of the Gospel, in 
 connexion with the last days, and the new creation of God, ch. Ixi. — Ixvi- 
 Many moderns (Ruckert, Hengstenberg, Hitzig, Havernick, Hahn, Delitzsch) 
 make the chief division at Ivii. 21, where the sentence which closes the first 
 series recurs once more. But this is no sufficient proof of the real division. 
 The promise, xxxv. 10, which closes the Earlier Prophecies, recurs li. 1 1, where 
 it is plainly in the middle of a continuous prediction, and does not mark the 
 close even of a subdivision. It is also plain that chh. Iviii., lix. are very 
 closely related to ch. Ivii. and continue the same controversy. They are 
 parts of the same series, which others (Ewald, Stier) with greater reason 
 make to close with ch. Ix., so that ch. Ixi. begins a third and last division. 
 
 This Series, like the last, seems to be sevenfold, and includes, ist, 
 Messiah's Invitation to the Gentiles, ch. xlix. ; 2nd, His Message to Israel, 
 ch. 1. — lii. 10; 3rd, His Sufferings and Exaltation, Hi. 11 — Iv. ; 4th, The con- 
 troversy with Idolatry, ch. IvL, Ivii. ; 5th, The Reproof of Pharisaism, ch. Iviii. ; 
 6th, The Warning of Sadducean Apostasy, ch. lix.; and 7th, Zion's Restoration 
 and Glory, ch. Ix. The first three answer to the second, third, and fourth of 
 the former series. To the three messages against idols, Babylon, and the 
 perverse in Israel, answer the three warnings against idolatry, Pharisaism, 
 and open ungodliness ; while the Preface, ch. xl., with its promises of comfort 
 to Zion, is replaced by a glorious peroration, ch. Ix., in which those promises 
 are seen largely fulfilled. 
 
 The First Section in this Series, ch. xlix., is a direct address of Messiah, 
 first to the isles of the Gentiles, and then afterwards to Zion, announcing His 
 own incarnation and ministry, when He would come as the LORD God, in 
 great humility, to be the Shepherd of Israel, to gather His people, and 
 bring them back, after their wanderings, to His fold. Here the contro- 
 versy, ch. xli., of God, the Righteous Governor of nations, with stubborn 
 heathen idolatry, passes into a gracious invitation to all the isles of the 
 Gentiles, to obey the voice, and accept the mercy, of the Incarnate and 
 glorified Son of God. This is followed by an intimation that Zion, after 
 seeming to be long forgotten, would receive at length, through the coming 
 Messiah, a joyful deliverance. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIX. 1-4. 
 
 § I. Chap. XLIX. Messiah's Message to the Genth.es 
 
 Listen, O isles, unto mc ! and hearken, ye people, from 
 afar : The LORD hath called me from the womb ; from the 
 bowels of my mother hath he made mention 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 made me a polished 
 shaft ; in his quiver hath he hid me ; 3 And hath said unto 
 me, Thou art my servant, thoii art Israel in whom I will be 
 glorified. 4 Then I said, I have toiled in vain, I have spent 
 
 V. I. The Speaker, in this sublime 
 appeal, is the same who has already 
 called on the islands and the people to 
 keep silence before Him, the First and 
 with the last, xli. i, 4, Rev. ii. 8; and 
 who has just announced that the Lord 
 (Jod and his Spirit have sent Him on a 
 message of love, to restore the captives 
 from Babylon. He now announces His 
 approaching fulfilment of a still higher 
 mission, as the Word made flesh, bom of 
 a human mother, to be the light of the 
 (jentiles, and the glory of His people 
 Israel. The isles, invited before to hear 
 of His coming judgment on their idols, 
 are now to hearken to His gentler accents 
 of redeeming love. 
 
 The prediction was fulfilled in the 
 double message to Joseph and Mary, 
 Mat. i. 18, Lu. i. 28. The mother here 
 named is the same with the Virgin, men- 
 tioned before, vii. 14, and plainly confines 
 tlie words to one definite Person. Thus 
 neither "the prophetic order," nor the 
 nation of Israel, nor "the better part of 
 them," nor "the Church of Christ," can 
 be here intended; but one Person alone, 
 marked off from every other by features 
 which none can share, the Son of the 
 Virgin, the Messiah of God. 
 
 v. 2. The figure of the sword is un- 
 folded, Ileb. iv. 12, Rev. i. 16, ii. 12, 16, 
 xix. 15, and that of arrows in Ps. xlv. 
 Here, however, they refer to the force of 
 our Lord's words during His earthly 
 ministry, Mat. vii. 28; Mar. i. 22, 27; 
 Joh. vii. 46. Tiie hiding of the polished 
 shaft in the hand of God is a striking 
 figure of the thirty years of humility and 
 silence, before the Son of God began His 
 prophetic ministry. 
 
 V. 3. The Speaker is not Isaiah 
 
 (Kimch., Abarb., Jarchi, (}rot., Koppe), 
 who was neither named before his birth, 
 nor could be called "Israel, "nor an object 
 of worship to kings; nor "the prophetic 
 order" (Gesen.), which could have no 
 mother ; nor the Jewish nation ( Doderl. , 
 Paul., Rosenm. , Hitzig), wliom he is to 
 gather, but first to be despised by them, 
 vv. 5, 7 ; nor the better part of them 
 (Maurer, Knobel), for the like reason, 
 that every verse points to a single person. 
 Nor can the subject be "a complex per- 
 son, Messiah and the Christian Church" 
 (Alex.), a view as opposed to the plain 
 words of the text as any of these others. 
 For the Church is no single person, has no 
 mother, was not named by prophecy be- 
 fore birth, does not restore Israel, is the 
 receiver, not the giver of salvation. 
 
 One Person only, the Divine Speaker, 
 born of a woman, named before His birth, 
 despised by the Jews, the Salvation of 
 sinners, is here foretold. The word, 
 Israel, applied to Him, has caused some 
 perplexity. It is not, however, strictly a 
 name, but part of a compound, descriptive 
 epithet, to be joined closely with the 
 words that follow. The house of Jacob, 
 though "called by the name of Israel," 
 the patriarch, did not satisfy the true 
 meaning of the name. "All are not 
 Israel, who are of Israel." They were 
 formed to shew forth God's praise, but 
 had been faithless to their high calling. 
 Messiah is that Servant of God, in whom 
 He delights, xlii. i ; and He is that 
 Israel, that Prince having power with 
 God and man, in whom the LORD will 
 indeed be glorified. Joh. xii. 28, xiii.3r, 
 xvii. 4 — 6. He is placed here in con- 
 trast to the false Israel, by whose sins the 
 name of their God had been blasi)hemed 
 
ISAIAH, XLIX. 5—7. 
 
 24s 
 
 my strength for nought, and in vain : yet surely my judgment 
 is with the LORD, and my work with my God. 5 And now 
 hath the LORD said, he that formed me from the womb to be 
 his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel are 
 not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, 
 and my God shall be my strength. 6 And he said. It is a 
 light 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 light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be 
 my salvation unto the end of the earth. 
 7 Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his 
 
 follow in another way. The double van. 
 links the result with an apparent obstacle, 
 turned by Divine wisdom into the means 
 for that result being attained. The first is 
 thus midway between though and since, 
 and the second between yet and therefore. 
 Through their fall, as well as in spite of 
 it, salvation would come to the Gentiles. 
 "Are not gathered," seems slightly better, 
 to express not merely a probable, but an 
 actual result. The work of Messiah is 
 too precious to be left, even for a time, 
 without a reward. 
 
 ' ' My God shall be my strength. " The 
 Hebrew past is here used, to denote the 
 absolute certainty of the promise. The 
 words refer to the mighty signs and won- 
 ders, which accompanied the first preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, and made it "the 
 power of God unto salvation, " Rom. i. 
 16, XV. 19. 
 
 V. 6. This verse is expounded by Paul 
 and Barnabas, Acts xiii. 46, 47, in full 
 agreement with its own context. It pre- 
 dicts the spread of the Gospel among the 
 Gentiles, after Messiah's rejection by the 
 Jewish people. The prediction is so clear 
 and precise, that it was looked upon as a 
 direct command by these Apostles, who 
 were put in trust with the Gospel. "For 
 so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, 
 &c," This is no proof that Messiah and 
 the Church make here one complex per- 
 son (Alex.), but just the reverse. This 
 message of God, that Christ should be the 
 salvation of the Gentiles, when rejected 
 by the Jews, was a virtual command to 
 the Apostles when the Jews contradicted 
 and blasphemed. The commission of St 
 Paul alludes to the same promise, Acts 
 xxvi. 17, 18. 
 
 among the Gentiles, Rom. ii. 24. The 
 great work, in which the sinful nation had 
 failed, the true Messiah would fulfil. 
 
 V. 4. The pronoun here is emphatic. 
 God speaks in words of promise. Messiah 
 replies by a complaint of the seeming 
 failure even of his own work, and still is 
 confident of its final success because of 
 this Divine promise. The word "toiled" 
 denotes wearisome and exhausting labour, 
 Joh. iv. 6 ; Lu. xxiii. 26. The seeming 
 fruit of our Lord's ministry, in His own 
 lifetime, was strangely small. But when 
 the Spirit was poured out from on high, 
 the converts were multiplied fivefold in 
 a single day. 
 
 "My work." Often explained to mean 
 the reward of work (Vitr., Alex., Hend., 
 Stier, Hahn), but with some loss of sim- 
 plicity and force. Messiah's whole work 
 of obedience and sacrifice was with his 
 Father, as the Righteous Judge, to be 
 approved, delighted in, and fully rewarded. 
 It was the central fact in the mind of the 
 Infinite Wisdom, the great object of holy 
 complacency to the Infinite Goodness. 
 How, then, could it fail, in due season, of 
 its glorious recompence ? The seeming 
 failure, for a time, should only enhance 
 the wonders of its final triumph. 
 
 V. 5. The received version seems to 
 give the true sense, though several others, 
 divergent and discordant, have been pro- 
 posed. Though the direct object of His 
 ministry might seem to fail, and would be 
 long delayed, Messiah should have a re- 
 ward at once in mercies to the Gentiles. 
 
 "Though Israel are not gathered." 
 These words begin God's answer to Mes- 
 siah's complaint. Though his toil might 
 seem fruitless, most abundant fruit should 
 
246 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIX. 8—10. 
 
 Holy One, to him whom their soul dcspiseth, to him whom the 
 nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers ; Kings shall sec and 
 arise, princes also shall worship; because of the LORD that 
 is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. 
 8 Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard 
 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 earth, to cause to inherit desolate heritages ; 9 That 
 thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth ; to them that arc 
 in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and 
 their pastures shall be in all high places. 10 They shall not 
 hunger nor thirst ; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them : 
 
 V. 7. This promise has been verified 
 through fifteen centuries, and on the 
 largest scale, from Constantine down to 
 our own days. It enshrines the duty of 
 national allegiance to Christ in the very 
 heart of the divine counsel. The votes 
 of millions, when they seek to banish all 
 religious truth from the counsels of states, 
 are as dust in the balance against this firm 
 decree of God. 
 
 "Whom their soul despiseth." A sin- 
 gular phrase, to express the deep aversion 
 of heart, in the Jewish people and their 
 rulers, to Jesus the Nazarene. "Whom 
 the nation abhorreth. " In rejecting Mes- 
 siah, Israel receive the name goi, applied 
 by themselves as a name of reproach to 
 the Gentiles. The honour will be a con- 
 trast to the shame. Kings and princes 
 among the Gentiles will bow with rever- 
 ence to the once despised Nazarene, and 
 offer the song, "Thou art the King of 
 glory, O Christ ! Thou art the everlasting 
 •Son of the Father!" 
 
 The rest of the chapter has received 
 three different expositions. The first ap- 
 l^lies it mainly to the return from ISabylon ; 
 the second, to a Jewish restoration, still 
 future; and the third, to the Christian 
 Church, the figurative Zion. But since 
 vv. I — 7 are plainly fulfilled in our Lord, 
 it is unnatural, and destroys the con- 
 nexion, to suppose that all the rest revert 
 to earlier times. Again, the address, v. i, 
 is to the (jcntilcs, who on the second \ icw 
 would be named only in tw(j clauses, and 
 2 Cor. vi. 2 seems to require a more direct 
 application to Gospel limes. Against the 
 third it mnv be urged that Zion is con- 
 
 trasted plainly with the Gentiles, de- 
 scribed as long desolate, and a captive, 
 and that these seem clear allusions to two 
 opposite states of the land of promise. 
 The truth seems, then, to lie midway 
 between these last interpretations ; so 
 that vv. 8 — 13 apply generally to the 
 times of the Gospel, and the mention of 
 Zion, V. 14, begins a promise of Israel's 
 final recovery and blessing. Thus the 
 sequence is unbroken and complete. 
 
 V. 8. The acceptable time is a " time 
 of favour," to INIessiah himself, who re- 
 ceives the gifts of the Spirit to bestow on 
 His people; and to a guilty world, recon- 
 ciled to God by Christ, to whom He sends 
 a public message of reconciliation, 2 Cor. 
 v. 1 8, vi. 2. "I have heard thee." All 
 the blessings of the Gospel are in answer 
 to the intercession of the risen .Saviour. 
 The spread of the Gospel is through the 
 glorious lielp and power of God. 
 
 "A covenant of the people." In v. 7 
 Israel has the name, got, of Gentiles not 
 in God's covenant ; and here the Church, 
 though composed mainly of Gentile con- 
 verts, have the name, am, people, usually 
 given to Israel. They who once were 
 not a people, shall become the people of 
 God, Rom. ix. 24 — 26; i Pet.ii. 10. With 
 this newly adopted people Messiah is to 
 seal Ilisnew covenant. "The next verse 
 shews that the desolate places are not 
 waste places in Judea, but the moral 
 waNlesof the heathen world. Comp. xlii. 
 (\ 7 (Ilend.)." 
 
 v. 9. This promise is expounded in 
 Is. xlii. 7, and Acts xxvi. 17, 18. Souls 
 untler the j^owcr of sin, on \\hom the 
 
ISAIAH, XLIX. II— 15. 
 
 247 
 
 for he that hath mercy on them will lead them ; even by the 
 springs of water will he guide them. 1 1 And I will make all 
 my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. 
 
 12 Behold! these shall come from afar; and lo ! these from the 
 north and from the west ; and these from the land of Sinim. 
 
 1 3 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 mercy on his afflicted. 
 
 14 And Zion hath said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and 
 my God hath forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her 
 sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son 
 of her womb } Yea, should these forget, yet will I not for- 
 
 curse still rests, are the prisoners in dark- 
 ness, whom the Gospel sets free and 
 enlightens. The way of the Lord, and 
 the ways of Christ, are constant descrip- 
 tions of Christianity as a practical re- 
 ligion, Joh. xxi. 15 — 17 ; Acts xx. •zS ; 
 I Cor. iv. 17 ; i Pet. v. i — 4. "In all high 
 places." The teaching of Christ, and the 
 spiritual provision for His people, would 
 be placed on the highest eminence, and 
 linked with all the public and national 
 institutions of the heathen world. 
 
 V. 10. These figures are applied, Rev. 
 vii. 16, 17, to the gathering of the re- 
 deemed at last before the throne of God. 
 Here they describe the guidance of Chris- 
 tians during their earthly pilgrimage. 
 Manna and streams of living water shall 
 be theirs, even in the wilderness. The 
 promise of Ps. xxiii. is here made univer- 
 sal to Christian believers. ' ' My highways 
 shall be exalted." The ordinances of 
 Christ, the ways of faith and obedience, 
 are to stand out conspicuous on the emi- 
 nences of the world's history, and have 
 so done from the times of the Apostles 
 until now. 
 
 v. 12. "From afar." From the south, 
 like the queen of Sheba, who came from 
 the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom 
 of Solomon. " From the north and the 
 west," from Asia Minor and Europe, 
 the chief nursery, for long ages, of the 
 Christian Church. "And these from the 
 land of Sinim," from China and all the 
 lands of the farthest East. Sin or Chin, 
 as the name of China, is common to the 
 Arabic, Turkish, Syrian, and Sanskrit 
 tongues. This view of "Sinim" is held 
 
 by Manasseh Ben Israel, Montanus, Gese- 
 nius, Winer, ]\Iaurer, Hitzig, Umbreit, 
 Hendewerk, Knobel, Lassen, Alexander, 
 Hend., Stier, Hahn, Delitzsch, "The 
 name QTvai, Strabo, 2?rat, PtoL, Tfmrfa, 
 Kosmas, did not obtain currency first 
 from the founder of the dynasty Tsin ; 
 but, long before this, Tsin was the name 
 of a feudal kingdom in Shensi, one of 
 the western provinces of the Sinese land, 
 and Feitsa, the first feudal king of Tsin, 
 began to reign as early as B.C. 897." 
 Newmann, in Delitzsch. 
 
 v. 13. This song applies most fully to 
 the perfected redemption of God's people. 
 But the past and the future are joined in 
 the promise. They have comfort during 
 their pilgrimage, but their richest mercies 
 at its close, and in the resurrection. The 
 verse sums up the blessings of the Gospel 
 in every age, until the fulness of the 
 Gentiles be come in. 
 
 vv. 14 — 21. Three or four views may 
 be taken of these verses, ist. That the 
 message reverts to the first captivity. 
 2nd. That Zion denotes the true Church, 
 and the complaint refers to her bairenness 
 before the day of Pentecost. But this is 
 hard to reconcile with the many signs of 
 local reference to Palestine vv. 19 — 21. 
 3rd. That even the previous verses refer 
 to a future Jewish restoration. But then 
 there would be no clear explanation of 
 the complaint itself. But if vv. 6 — 13 
 state the fulfilment of the promise, that 
 Messiah would be the light of the Gen- 
 tiles, even while Israel arc not gathered, 
 and the promise here returns to Zion, 
 when the words have their fullest em- 
 
248 
 
 ISAIAH, XLIX. 16-2 1, 
 
 get thee. 1 6 Behold ! I have graven thee upon the palms of 
 my hands, thy walls arc continually before me. 17 Thy chil- 
 dren shall 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, ajui 
 come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely 
 clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them 
 on i/icc, as a bride doctJi. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate 
 places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too 
 narrow by reason of the inhabitants ; and they that swallowed 
 thee up shall be far away. 20 The sons of thy childlessness 
 shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me ; give 
 place to me that I may dwell. 21 And thou shalt say in thine 
 heart, Who hath begotten me these } seeing I was bereaved and 
 desolate! a captive, and one removed: who then hath brought up 
 these.'' Behold, I was left solitary, and these, where zverc they .^ 
 
 phasis. While kings and princes have 
 arisen, and been- worshippers of the Son 
 of David, Zion has been trodden down, 
 and the Jew forgotten and despised. 
 Other lands have been made fertile with 
 the streams of grace, and Palestine has 
 become a desolation. The triumphs of the 
 Gospel, from the western ocean to Sinim 
 in the far East, have gone on side by 
 side with the sufferings and dispersion of 
 God's ancient people. 
 
 V. 15. He who wept over Jerusalem 
 is unchanging in His love to Israel, and 
 not that of a mother to her infant suckling 
 is so deep and unfailing. " Should these 
 forget." The words are a climax, rather 
 than a concession. Human affection, 
 however strong, may be conceived to fail 
 under some strong temptation, but the 
 love of the LOKD to Zion is unquenchable 
 and Divine. 
 
 vv. 16 — 19. Dtrring the times of the 
 Gentiles, Jerusalem has been trodden 
 down. Here, at their close, the land is 
 described as fully peopled once more. 
 
 V. 20. "The sons of thy childlessness" 
 are those bom to Zion during her time of 
 desolation, while put away from God's 
 covenant. Israel, destroyed as a nation 
 and a church, has still survived and 
 flourished as a race. Also Gentile be- 
 lievers belong, by adoption, to the Jewish 
 olive tree. The word "give place to me" 
 is strictly "come near for me," as persons 
 
 have to crowd and come nearer together, 
 to receive fresh visitors into a narrow room. 
 
 V. 21. The birth, the growth, and the 
 presence of these children, are the com- 
 mon subjects of Zion's wonder and sur- 
 prise. Her inquiry is not. What un- 
 known or rival mother has borne them? 
 but how she comes to be surrounded by 
 the richest fruits of a husband's love, 
 when, in her own consciousness, she has 
 been only a bereaved and desolate widow. 
 Before she had said, "My Lord, my 
 Husband, hath forgotten me." But now 
 her cry will be, "How wonderful are His 
 power and love ! How else could I be 
 provided with such a progeny, even in 
 the time of my sore bereavement." 
 
 The phrase is not, "Who hath borne me 
 these?" (Rosenm., Hitz., Knob., Hend., 
 Ilahn), or "Who hath produced these for 
 me?" (Alex.), but correctly as in the 
 received version (Vitr., Lowth, Gesen., 
 MauT. , Ewald, Umbreit, Stier). 
 
 vv. 22, 23. The same promise recurs 
 more fully Ix. 9, 10, Ixvi. 20. The 
 children of Zion are here plainly con- 
 trasted with the Gentiles. The word 
 "nourishers" some prefer to render 
 "bearers," the frequent name, in India 
 and the East, for men who attend to 
 young or infant children. There is here 
 no confusion of figures, as if Zion herself 
 were an infant. to be nursed (Alex.). The 
 queens are called nursing mothers, as 
 
ISAIAH, XLIX. 22—26. 
 
 249 
 
 22 Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine 
 hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people : 
 and they shall bring thy sons in tJieir arms, and thy daughters 
 shall be carried on their shoulders. 23 And kings shall be thy 
 nourishers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall 
 bow down to thee with tJieir face toward the earth, and lick up 
 the dust of thy feet : and thou shalt know that I am the LORD, 
 aJid that they shall not be ashamed who wait for me. 24 Shall 
 the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be de- 
 livered.-' 25 For thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the 
 mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall 
 be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with 
 thee, and I Vv'ill .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 : and all flesh 
 shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, 
 the Mighty One of Jacob. 
 
 fulfilling this office to Zion's children. She 
 herself is the royal queen, before whom 
 both the kings and queens of the Gentiles 
 do homage. The last clause is part of 
 the truth which Zion is to learn by her 
 own happy experience. It is also a con- 
 trast to the warnings, xlii. 17, xliv. 9, 
 xlv. 16, 17, that all the worshippers of 
 idols shall be covered with lasting shame. 
 The double truth will have been learned, 
 that God is, and that He is the rewarder 
 of them that diligently seek Him. 
 
 V. 24. The " lawful captive" has been 
 rendered "the captive of the strong" 
 (Hend. ), of the stern or severe (Schult. , 
 Rosemn.), of the victorious (]\Iich.,Beck), 
 of the terrible, by a conjectural change 
 of reading (Hitz., Lowth, Knob., Ewald), 
 righteous captives, that is, exiled Jews 
 (Symm., Jarch. , Aben Ezra, Hitz., Hahn), 
 the plunder of the righteous, i.e. taken 
 from them (Ges. , Maurer, Umbreit). 
 But the received verson (Stier) gives the 
 true meaning, " the captive of one M'ho 
 has a rightful claim to keep another in 
 bondage." There is a climax, seldom 
 noticed, in the reply ; and a threefold 
 gradation, of a simply rightful, a power- 
 ful, and a terrible conqueror ; of one who 
 has a just claim, one who has also power 
 to maintain it, and one whose power is 
 so terrible that resistance seems hopeleis. 
 
 Shall the prey of the mighty be taken 
 away, or even a captive justly claimed, 
 though by one less mighty, be delivered? 
 Not in the common course of things, or 
 by human justice alone. But God's grace 
 has a higher law, and even more than 
 this shall be done : the prey of the most 
 terrible among Zion's adversaries shall be 
 delivered. 
 
 The order of the prophecy points here 
 to something nobler in itself, and later 
 in time, than the Return from Babylon, 
 when Israel had "a little reviving in their 
 bondage." It announces the final de- 
 liverance of God's ancient people from 
 sin and Satan, from death and the grave. 
 Those who had become, through impeni- 
 tence "the synagogue of Satan," Rev. 
 ii. 9, iii. 9, will at length be a people 
 "all righteousness," the chosen inherit- 
 ance of the king of Israel. 
 
 V. 26. These strong figures must de- 
 scribe the sore judgment which is called 
 elsewhere "the vintage," or the treading 
 of the wine-press of God's anger. Solemn 
 warnings are given continually of His 
 holy vengeance which will visit, in the last 
 days, the oppressors and persecutors of 
 Zion. The vision closes by repeating the 
 grand hope of the Gospel, that all flesh 
 shall see the salvation of the Lord." 
 Is. xl. 5 ; Lu. iii. i — 6. 
 
250 
 
 ISAIAH, L. I. 
 
 §^- 
 
 Chaps. L. — LI I. lo. Messiah's Message to Israel. 
 
 The message or voice of Messiah to the Gentiles, ch. xlix., closes with an 
 answer to Zion's complaint that she had been forsaken and forgotten. This 
 subject is now resumed in a direct appeal to Israel and Zion. The true 
 cause of their rejection is explained, with allusion to the law of divorce and 
 the sale of captives, under the same figure of a marriage separation. The 
 warning and reproof are then followed by promises of the richest blessings 
 still to come. Some transfer vv. i — 3 to the close of the last chapter 
 (Jerome, Vitr., Roscnm.). But this obscures the true connexion. In those 
 verses a second message to Israel begins, a sequel to the voice to the islands, 
 just as in ch. xli. and xlii. 17 in the former series. 
 
 § 2 (i). Chap. L. The First Advent. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, Where is your mother's bill of di- 
 vorce, wherewith I have put her away.-* or who is my creditor, 
 to whom I have sold you.^ Behold, by your iniquities ye have 
 sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put 
 
 V. I. The Bill of Divorce is a, well- 
 known ordinance of the law of Moses, 
 Deut. xxiv. I — 4. Here it is not asked 
 for to be cancelled (Hitz.), or that the 
 justice of the act may be proved (Grot., 
 Hend. , Alex.). On the contrary, the 
 question implies a strong denial of its ex- 
 istence; just as it is denied that God has 
 sold them to any creditor, since He is 
 debtor to none (Jerome, Isimchi, Abarb., 
 Aben Ezra, Gesen , Hahn, Stier). The 
 words of Jer. iii. 8 are no solid objection 
 to this view. The same figure may be 
 used diversely according to the object 
 proposed. The bill of divorce there ex- 
 presses simply the fact of Israel's rejec- 
 tion and captivity. But here the two 
 things denied are causeless, capricious 
 dislike on the part of the aggrieved Hus- 
 band, and any prohibition of the wife's 
 return. She had neither been put away 
 without a weighty cause, nor divorced for 
 ever. The law was permissive, for the 
 hardness of their hearts, to prevent greater 
 evils, but it was not the rule of God's 
 dealings with His sinful people. His 
 sternest warnings had been followed, 
 from the first, by promises of final re- 
 storation. See Rom. xi. i, 2, 11, 25. 
 
 "Ve have sold yourselves." The re- 
 flexive sense (A. V,, Stier) is required by 
 the denial, that God had sold them, im- 
 plied in the question. He had put their 
 mother away through no caprice, and for 
 no light offence, nor yet for final separa- 
 tion. Her adulteries, of which death 
 was the just punishment, had led only to 
 a temporary expulsion from her home; 
 and there was a promise, on repentance, 
 of her being welcomed back once more. 
 The first main feature of the times of 
 Messiah is the Call of the Gentiles, when 
 He was rejected by His own people, xlix. 
 4 — 7, and the next is this divorce of 
 Israel for unbelief. 
 
 v. 1. The cause of this partial divorce 
 is here explained. "He came unto his 
 own, and his own received him not." The 
 application of the verse to the times of the 
 prophets (Chakl., Kimchi, Rosemn., Ge- 
 sen.), destroys the sequence, and weakens 
 the force. Our Lord himself expounds it, 
 Joh. v. 43, "I am come in my Father's 
 name, and yc receive me not." (So Vitr., 
 Stier, Hahn.) The word "man" in "no 
 man," is often used for men of note. 
 Comp. Joh. vii. 48. There was "none 
 to answer," when Messiah graciously in- 
 
ISAIAH, L. 2—9. 
 
 251 
 
 away, 2 Wherefore, when I came, tivw tJicre no man ? when I 
 called, zvas there none to answer? Is my hand wholly shortened, 
 that it cannot save? or have I no power to deliver? behold! 
 at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: 
 their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for 
 thirst. 3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sack- 
 cloth their covering. 
 
 4 The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, 
 that I should know how to speak a word in season to hhn that 
 is weary : he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine 
 ear to hear as the learned. 5 The Lord GoD hath opened 
 mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away. 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 shall I not be con- 
 founded; therefore have I set my race like a flint, and I know 
 that I shall not be ashamed. 8 He is near that justifieth me : 
 who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine 
 adversary? let him come near to me. 9 Behold, the Lord GOD 
 
 vited ; — "How often would I have ga- 
 thered your children . . . and ye would 
 not." 
 
 " Wholly shortened." This is the true 
 force of the question, to shew their aggra- 
 vated sin. They received Him as if He 
 had no power, not as if it were slightly 
 diminished, but as if He were quite un- 
 equal to the task of redeeming them, 
 Joh. xi. 48. But His power, though veiled 
 in the flesh, was not really diminished. He 
 was still the same Lord, who rebuked 
 the sea, and it was dry, and who led them 
 through the deep as through a wilderness. 
 
 V. 3. The tense (Heb. fut. ) here de- 
 notes not a future, but a repeated or 
 habitual act. There seems also to be a 
 special allusion to the miraculous dark- 
 ness at the Crucifixion. 
 
 V. 4. After His voice as Jehovah, 
 the mighty Creator, Messiah now predicts 
 His own humiliation, M'hen "the Word 
 was made flesh, and dwelt among us," 
 Joh. i. 14. The earthly life of our Lord 
 was one of unbroken communion with 
 liis Heavenly Father. "To hear as tlie 
 learned" answers to "the tongue of the 
 learned," not as one who is taught merely, 
 but as one well instructed. A double con- 
 
 trast is implied, between the deaf and those 
 who hear, between those dull of hearing 
 and those of quick spiritual discernment, 
 Heb. v. 1 1 ; Is. xi. 3. One Lord is the 
 Pattern, and also the Giver, of this 
 heavenly grace. 
 
 vv. 5, 6. The voice, to which the Son 
 of God hearkens, calls Him to lay down 
 His life for the sheep. And He does not 
 turn away from it, but ever replies, "The 
 cup which my Father hath given me, shall 
 I not drink it?" He endured shame and 
 spitting in loving obedience to His Fa- 
 ther's will. The words are neither figura- 
 tive (Vitr.), nor include the Church (Alex.), 
 but are a distinct prophecy of our Lord's 
 patient sufferings, recorded in the Gospels, 
 and of these alone. He who suffers is 
 the same Lord, who clothes the heavens 
 with blackness, and makes sackcloth their 
 covei-ing. 
 
 vv. 7 — 9. The outward "adversary" 
 was the Jewish Sanhedrim ; but in a deeper 
 sense it is the Prince of this world, who 
 assailed our Lord in the hour of dark- 
 ness, and found nothing in which he could 
 prevail. Our Lord "endured the cross, 
 despising the shame," in firm reliance on 
 the love and wisdom of the Father. 
 
ISAIAH, L. 10, II. 
 
 will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo! they all 
 shall wax old as a garment, the moth shall eat them up. 
 lO Who is tJicrc among you that feareth the Lord, that heark- 
 eneth to the voice of his Servant? that walketh in darkness, and 
 hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay 
 upon his God. 1 1 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, and compass 
 yourselves about with sparks : walk in the light of your fire, and 
 in the sparks ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine 
 hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. 
 
 proudly rejected and opposed Him. These 
 were suffered, for one generation, to per- 
 severe in their fatal course of unbelieving 
 pride, and to flatter themselves with vain 
 hopes of national greatness, and of the 
 special favour of God. Then the sparks 
 they had kindled went out, their hopes 
 expired in thick darkness ; and they lay 
 down in sorrow, when the city fell, and 
 the temple was mined, and the wrath of 
 God came upon them to the uttermost. 
 This separation and contrast of the true 
 disciples of Christ, and of the nation at 
 large, is the natural sequel to the pro- 
 phecy of Messiah's suff"erings, and the key 
 of the voices to the true Israel which 
 next follow. 
 
 The last verse has been variously ex- 
 plained. Some render, ziqkh, torches, 
 matches, or fiery darts. Some refer 
 them to Jewish attempts at rebellion 
 (Ges., MauT., Hengst. ); others to pre- 
 parations to assail the faithful (Hitz., 
 Ewald, Umbr., Knobel); others to their 
 kindling by their devices the anger of 
 God (Rosenm., Stier) ; others to blas- 
 phemies and curses against the Servant of 
 the Lord (Delitzsch). But Hahn justly 
 observes that the enlightening, not the 
 consuming nature, of the fire and sparks is 
 here chielly intended. Instead of walk- 
 ing in the light of the heavenly Dayspring, 
 they kindled an earthly light, transient 
 and feeble. The true reference, then, is 
 to Pharisaic righteousnesses and human 
 traditions, or to vain, worldly philosophy, 
 by which the unbelieving strive to light 
 up the darkness of the soul. The humble 
 may walk in darkness for a time, but 
 heavenly light will soon dawn on them. 
 The proud may comfort themselves, by 
 false, self-righteous zeal or worldly wis- 
 dom, with a seeming light, but it will end 
 in darkness and sorrow. 
 
 V. lo. This prophecy of Messiah's 
 sufferings, and of His fidelity to the great 
 work assigned to Him, introduces a double 
 lesson of comfort to the faithful, and of 
 warning to His self-righteous adversaries. 
 The Servant here is our Lord himself, 
 and the address is to His true and humble 
 followers. The question implies that, 
 among the Jewish people, only a small 
 remnant would be found, Is. i. 9, to whom 
 this description would apply. The latter 
 clauses, parted from the rest by the 
 relative, describe a temporary, special ex- 
 perience of the same parties, whose abid- 
 ing character has been already given. 
 The words are addressed, first of all, to 
 the disciples in that hour of darkness 
 between the betrayal and the resurrection, 
 and then in every similar time of special 
 temptation and conflict. They are charged 
 to walk on confidently in that pathway of 
 patient suffering, and faith in God's pro- 
 tection, in which their Divine Master has 
 gone before them. 
 
 V. II. A warning to the proud and 
 self-righteous follows the advice to the 
 faithful. The sparks and fire-light here 
 denote the vain, transitory confidences of 
 Pharisaic and worldly men. They are 
 permitted, and even ironically invited, to 
 deceive themselves for a little time with 
 their vain hopes, and proud, self-rigliteous 
 fancies. But these sparks must soon go 
 out, and leave them in the double dark- 
 ness of a guilty conscience, and of hope- 
 less despair. Their perverse folly would 
 expose them to the danger that an eternal 
 night would settle down upon their souls. 
 
 The historical application of these two 
 verses is plain. They refer directly to 
 the little company of Messiah's true dis- 
 ciples, called to tread in their Master's 
 steps amidst sorrows and temptations ; 
 and to the Pharisees and Sadducees, who 
 
ISAIAH, LI. 1—3. 
 
 253 
 
 § 2 (2). Chap. LI. The Message continued. 
 
 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that 
 seek the LORD : look unto the rock ivJicncc ye are hewn, and 
 to the hole of the pit %vhence ye are digged. 2 Look unto 
 Abraham your father, and unto Sarah tJiat bare you ; for I called 
 him, one alone, and blessed him, and increased him. 3 For the 
 Lord will comfort Zion ; he will comfort all her waste places : 
 
 The address. Hearken, thrice repeated, 
 and the summons, Awake, awake, also 
 thri.-e times, H. 9, 17, lii. i, mark the 
 unity of this division of the prophecy, 
 nearly to its close, lii. 10. But these words 
 also refer back to ch. 1. 10, just befoie. 
 
 The Servant of the Lord here gives 
 messages of truth and wisdom to the en- 
 larging company of those disciples, who 
 fear the Lord, and hearken to his own 
 voice. The speaker is Messiah, as before. 
 He now turns himself from the branches 
 to be cut off, who say they are Jews, and 
 are not, Rom. xi. 17, Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9, 
 who compass themselves with an earthly, 
 dying light of sparks they have them- 
 selves kindled, to His true Israel, now 
 enlarged by converts from the Gentiles. 
 
 The succession in the chapter is moral 
 ratlier than historical. Three addresses 
 are given to those in the infancy, youth, 
 and ripeness of Christian experience, in 
 each successive age. The first verse 
 answers to the description of " babes in 
 Christ," and to the promise, "Blessed 
 are they that hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, for they shall be filled." 
 To this class, like Nicodemus, the 
 Greeks in the fourth Gospel, the Ethio- 
 pian eunuch, and the Berean Jews, a les- 
 son is here given how they are to attain 
 to settled faith and solid peace. 
 
 v. I. The rock, and the hole of the 
 pit, are usually applied to Abraham and 
 Sarah, either conjointly, or else distinc- 
 tively (Vitr., Rosenm., Ges., Ew. , Knob., 
 Hend., Alex., Hahn, Stier), but with 
 great diversity in the further explanation. 
 Many refer it to the sti^ong faith of Abra- 
 ham, like a rock, others to his obtaining 
 a son when as one dead ; and most to the 
 figure of stones cut out for a building, but 
 some to the smitten rock, and streams 
 issuing from it. But the second figure, 
 
 that of the pit, is quite adverse to this 
 usual view. Though Abraham might be 
 likened to a rock, the comparison of Sarah 
 to tlie hole of a pit is very unnatural. The 
 rock is here named, not for its firmness as 
 a foundation, but for the hardness which 
 resists the tool of the mason, and the pit 
 denotes what is mean and low. These are 
 two striking figures for the moral hard- 
 ness and debasement of men, unrenewed 
 by Divine grace. The separation of souls 
 from this rock and pit needs the power of 
 God, and can be effected by this alone. 
 Hence they must here allude to that 
 Chaldean idolatry, in which Abraham and 
 Sarah once lived, and from which they 
 had b_en brought out by the Call of God 
 alone. The God of glory had hewn them 
 out of this rock of stubborn heathenism, 
 and digged them out of its pit of idola- 
 trous debasement; so that they became 
 the foundation-stones of a living temple, 
 the root of that tree or stock to which 
 the faithful of all times belong. 
 
 V. 2. "One alone." Abraham received 
 the promise \\hen he had no child. Acts 
 vii. 5, far less a numerous offspring. The 
 force of these words is obscured, when the 
 rock is supposed to be the patriarch him- 
 self The choice of many rocks is a wholly 
 incongruous figure. But all agrees with 
 the construction given above. Hev/n by 
 Divine power from the liard rock of 
 Chaldean idolatry, one single stone, by 
 the same power, was multiplied into many 
 living stones, builded by degrees into a 
 temple of God. The first hev\ing out of 
 this stone, and its later increase, were 
 wholly of God's mercy, and human merit 
 had no place in the change. The tense 
 used (Heb. fut.) implies the continuous 
 nature of this Divine work, ever since the 
 Call of Abraham. "I went on, from year 
 to year, blessing and increasing him." 
 
254 
 
 ISAIAH, LI. 4—6. 
 
 and he will make her wilderness like ICden, and her desert like 
 the garden of the LORD: joy and gladness shall be fcnnid 
 therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. 
 
 4 Hearken unto mc, O my people, and give ear unto me, O 
 my nation : for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my 
 judgment to rest for a light of the people. 5 My righteousness 
 is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge 
 the people: the isles shall wait upon 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 like a garment ; and they that dwell 
 therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for 
 ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. 
 
 V. 3. The victories of Abraham, and 
 the blessing he received, were a pledge of 
 the later conquests of Cynis, by whom 
 the Lord purposed to deliver His cap- 
 tives once more, ch. xli. So Abraham's 
 call and blessing were the sure earnest of 
 Zion's recovered beauty and glory. The 
 former things are here declared, xli. 22, 
 that Israel may consider them, and know 
 their latter end. Three lessons are given 
 to infant disciples ; to remember their 
 natural corruption, like the rock and the 
 \>\i, as shewn in the state of the heathen 
 world ; to discern the sovereign grace of 
 Cjod in the history of Abraham and 
 Sarah ; and to gather, from God's past 
 mercies, the assurance of still fuller bless- 
 ings to come. The melody of our version 
 here reflects worthily the beauty and ful- 
 ness of the promise. 
 
 The esjiecial objects of this message 
 are the first Jewish believers, when Mes- 
 siah had been rejected by His own people 
 with shame and spitting. The lesson of 
 Ciod's sovereignty was then brought to 
 light with greater clearness than before. 
 But they will apply also to the exiles on 
 their return ftom Rabylon, and to tlie 
 weak in faith in eveiy age. 
 
 V.4. The word " people," is one usually 
 applied to the Jews, and " nation " to the 
 Gentiles. Their union here will fitly de- 
 note the Christian Church, the peculiar 
 people, not of the Jews only, but also of 
 the Gentiles, Rom. ix. 24, who became 
 the covenant people of Ciod upon Mes- 
 siah's rejection by the Jewish nation. 'Ihe 
 message is not now to those who are only 
 
 seeking after the Lord, but to believers 
 established in the faith of Christ. The 
 law is the perfect law of liberty, Jas. i. 
 25, ii. 12; or the Gospel, viewed as a 
 practical message of holiness, to be made 
 known to all nations for the obedience 
 of faith, Rom. xvi. 26. "Judgment" con- 
 sists in the wise and holy decisions of the 
 great Lawgiver on all that concerns the 
 faith and practice of His people, and the 
 duty of all mankind. This is to rest or 
 abide for a source of trath and heavenly 
 wisdom to the heathen world. 
 
 V. 5. The isles wait on Messiah, when 
 they look to Him as the gi-eat Prophet, 
 giving oracles of wisdom; and trust in His 
 arm, by depending on Him alone as the 
 all-sufficient .Saviour and Redeemer. 
 
 V. 6. This verse does not refer to the 
 passing away of the Old Testament eco- 
 nomy (Vitr.), but rather to the visible 
 heavens and earth. The changeableness 
 of the outward frame of nature is con- 
 trasted with the firm and enduring nature 
 of the covenant of grace. The moral laws 
 of God are firmer than the jihysical laws 
 of nature, because these are only hand- 
 maids to those, depend upon them, and 
 minister to them. "The things which are 
 seen are temporal, but the things which 
 are not seen are eternal." The waxing 
 old of the earth, like a garment, plainly 
 refers to the habitable surface, rather 
 than to the solid globe. It implies no 
 destraction of the planet, but a ch.ange 
 affecting its whole condition as the home 
 and dwelling-place of mankind. 
 
 "In like manner." Like a smoke or 
 
ISAIAH, LI. 7— iL 
 
 255 
 
 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 afraid of their revilings. 8 For the moth shall 
 eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like 
 wool : but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation 
 shall be from generation to generation. 
 
 9 Awake, awake! put on strength, O arm *of the Lord: 
 
 awake, as in tlie ancient days, in the generations of old. Art 
 
 thou not it that cut Rahab in pieces, that wounded the dragon .'' 
 
 10 Art thou not it which dried the sea, the waters of the great 
 
 deep.^ that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed 
 
 to pass over.? ii So the ransomed of the LORD shall return, 
 
 and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be 
 
 from the earliest stage of seeking after 
 God, and learning to depend wholly on 
 
 away, Job vii. 9 ; 
 ihteousness and sal- 
 
 cloud that vanishes 
 
 Jas. iv. 14. The ri^ 
 
 vation of Christ will outlast all the changes, 
 
 however great, of the visible universe. 
 
 Some render, "like a gnat" or "in- 
 sect," taking Zv'« as a noun (Vitr., Lowth, 
 Gesen. , Hitz., Knobel, Jenour, Stier, 
 Hahn). But the authorised version is the 
 same with the early ones (LXX., Syr., 
 Aquil. , Vulg. ), and is preferred by many 
 critics (Koster, Rosenm. , Riickert, Hend., 
 Alex.). The phrase then answers exactly 
 to the Greek (^aavrws. Either rendering 
 is very emphatic. But it is an objection 
 to the former that the singular of liinnivi 
 is kinndh and not ken (Delitzsch), as ap- 
 pears from the Talmud. 
 
 vv. 7, 8. This third appeal answers, 
 in its description of those addressed, to 
 the last beatitudes. — "Blessed are they 
 which are pei^secuted for righteousness' 
 sake." Thus it belongs to those of manly 
 stature in the faith, whose hearts are 
 already "established with grace," Heb. 
 xiii. 9. They are here encouraged under 
 the persecutions of the world by the pro- 
 mise of a sure deliverance. The per- 
 secutors of the faithful will become like a 
 moth-eaten garment, but these confessors 
 shall "receive a crown of righteousness 
 that fadeth not away." 
 
 The close of the last chapter contrasts 
 the feeble genns of the Christian Church, 
 the little company of disciples, who re- 
 ceived our Lord when he came, with the 
 self-righteous Pharisees, and the rest of 
 the unbelieving nation. These nine verses 
 reveal the main steps of spiritual progress, 
 
 His grace, to that full ripeness of faith, 
 which enables martyrs and confessors to 
 contend, even to death, against the un- 
 believing world, and makes them moi-e 
 than conquerors in the midst of reproach 
 and persecution. 
 
 vv. 9 — II. This call, Awake, awake, 
 like the voice. Hearken ! is three times 
 repeated, and thus marks the unbroken 
 unity of the whole message, li. i — lii. 10. 
 The Son of God sj^eaks here as the great 
 Intercessor, and pleads with God the 
 Father for the renewal of His mighty 
 works in the days of old. He next turns 
 to Jerusalem, speaks to her with authority, 
 as her King, and bids her to wake up 
 from her spiritual stupor, and receive the 
 promised blessing. 
 
 v. 9. Rahab, "pride" or "haughti- 
 ness" is here a name of Egypt, from their 
 national contempt for all foreigners. The 
 dragon alludes to the crocodile, as an 
 emblem of Pharaoh. The earlier won- 
 ders of the Exodus are made the pledge 
 of a still greater deliverance. 
 
 vv. 10, II. The miracle, once wrought 
 in the letter, will be repeated in spirit, 
 and in a deeper sense, in the latter dayr. 
 Providence, in a sinful world, is a mighty 
 deep, where all seems confusion and dis- 
 order to the outward eye ; but through all 
 this confusion and turmoil, and floods of 
 temptation, the Redeemer will guide His 
 ransomed to their inheritance. In v. 11 
 we have a verbal repetition of ch. xxxv. 
 10. It completes a series of allusions, by 
 
256 
 
 ISAIAH, LI. 12—17. 
 
 upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sor- 
 row and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that 
 thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the 
 son of man, ^vJdcJi shall be made as grass? 13 And forgettest 
 the Lord thy maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and 
 laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually, 
 every day, because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were 
 ready to destroy .-* and where is the fury of the oppressor } 
 14 The captive exile hasteneth to be loosed, and that he should 
 not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. 15 But I am 
 the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: 
 The Lord of hosts is his name. 16 And I have put my words 
 in thy mouth, and I 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. 
 
 17 Awake, awake! stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk 
 at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury: thou hast drunk 
 
 which the closing chapter of the Earlier 
 Prophecies is inwrought into the texture 
 of these later visions. To ascribe these 
 words to Isaiah in his own person, or to 
 a chorus, or make them simply an appeal 
 by God to His own omnipotence, more 
 or less obscures their real force. Their 
 key can only be found in the truth that 
 Messiah is one with the Father, the true 
 God and eternal life. 
 
 vv. 12 — 16. This Divine Intercessor, 
 the Word of God, is also the Comforter 
 of his people, John xiv. i6. When they 
 are crushed by their afHictions, He re- 
 minds them of His Jove in earlier days, 
 and encourages them to hope for greater 
 wonders still to come. The mention here 
 of the new heavens and earth is a strong 
 reason against the application of the latter 
 part of this chapter to the return ixoxw 
 Babylon, and tends to confirm its refer- 
 ence to' the second, longer dispersion of 
 Israel after our Lord's first coming, and 
 to their deliverance in the last days. 
 
 V. 17. After the power of God has 
 been invoked to renew the wonders of 
 the Exodus, Jerusalem is urged to rouse 
 herself from long stupor, to review her 
 own sins, and then to receive words of 
 hope and comfort. In a third address. 
 
 she is invited to enter into the full inhe- 
 ritance of her promised glory. 
 
 "Thou hast drunk deep." The word 
 rendered "dregs," A. V., means rather 
 the bowl or the lowest part of the cup 
 (Alexr., Hahn, Stier, Delitzsch). Thus 
 it implies either the large size of the 
 cup, or the thoroughness with which it 
 has been drunk to tlie very bottom. 
 There is anger, we are taught, as well as 
 mercy, in the afllictions which God sends 
 upon His people for their sins. But the 
 words imply a promise. Since the cup 
 has been drained, there is no more afflic- 
 tion to come. 
 
 v. 18. The want of wise counsellors, 
 in times of extreme danger, is a sore ag- 
 gravation of national calamity. Sin in- 
 fatuates, before it destroys. The de- 
 scription apphcs fully to the days of the 
 fall both of the first and the second 
 temple. 
 
 v. 19. "These two things." Since 
 four are named, pairs are clearly grouped 
 together. Some make the contrast to be, 
 " wasting and destruction" of the land, 
 "famine and sword" to the inhabitants 
 (Vitr., Gcsen., Hahn). But the contrast 
 is rather between slow and gradual, and 
 sudden calamities, wasting and famine on 
 
ISAIAH, LI. 18—23. 
 
 257 
 
 deep the cup of trembling, and hast drained it out. 18 There 
 is none to guide her among all the sons wJiom she hath brought 
 forth ; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand, of all 
 the sons she hath brought up. 19 These two things are come 
 unto thee ; who shall bemoan thee ^ wasting and destruction, 
 and famine and the sword : how shall I comfort thee } 20 Thy 
 sons have fainted ; they lie at the head of all the streets, like 
 a wild deer in the 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 trem- 
 bling, the full cup of my fury : thou shalt no more drink it 
 again. 23 But I will put it into the hand of them which afflict 
 thee ; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go 
 over : and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the 
 street, to them that went over. 
 
 one side, and on the other, destruction 
 and the sword (Aben Ezra, Kimch., Gro- 
 tius, Stier, etc.). This is confirmed by 
 Ezek. vii. 15. After the slow wasting of 
 famine, the destroying sword of the enemy 
 would complete their sorrow. 
 
 The construction in the last clause is 
 peculiar — Quis te coiisolaho7-1 To make 
 the verb a reply to an unfinished question 
 (Targ., Hend. ) is harsh and unnatural. 
 The constructions — Who but I ? Who 
 am I that I should, etc. ? or, By whom 
 (A. V. , Hitzig) do not seem justified by the 
 form of the phrase. " How?" is the near- 
 est approach to the exact sense — Under 
 what character, and by what titles being 
 named, shall I comfort thee? As if it 
 were needful for the Lord to single out 
 His most expressive words of mercy and 
 promises of grace, to comfort His people 
 in so deep an affliction. 
 
 V. 20. "Like a wild deer in the net." 
 The animal (//i^'), it is shown by Bochart, 
 is the oryx, a kind of wild antelope, and 
 not the buffalo. It is swift and graceful, 
 nearly resembling the stag or deer. The 
 figure is that of strength and speed made 
 useless and hopeless for deliverance. 
 
 V. 11. The same phrase, xxix. 10, 
 describes the pride and spiritual intoxica- 
 tion of the Jewish rulers. Here it de- 
 
 B. L 
 
 scribes the sorrow by which their sin 
 would be punished. They had drained 
 the cup of God's anger, until they were 
 dizzy and stupefied with the greatness of 
 their calamity. The words answer to 
 their state, not only at the first Captivity, 
 but through long ages of persecution, 
 exile, and desolation. One last draught 
 of this cup has still to be drunk, and then 
 it will be removed from them for ever. 
 
 v. 23. This verse answers to our 
 Lord's warning, Matt. xxi. 44 — 6. Judg- 
 ment has lighted heavily on the Jews, 
 who stumbled at the stumbling-stone; 
 but the judgment on those Gentile perse- 
 cutors, M'ho have despised or perverted 
 the Gospel, will be heavier still. The 
 Christian nation, which renounces Christ, 
 builds its house on the sand; and when 
 the floods arise, and the winds blow 
 fiercely, it must fall, and great will be the 
 fall of it. 
 
 " Which have said to thy soul." The 
 phrase is peculiar and striking. It means 
 rather more than "distressed thy soul, by 
 saying" (Alex.), and implies the thorough- 
 ness of the humiliation, as in Ps. cv. iS, 
 "his soul came into iron." In the case 
 of the Jewish exiles, the spirit itself has 
 often seemed crushed and degraded by 
 their deep sorrows. 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 ISAIAH, LII. 1—3. 
 
 § 2 (3). CiLvr. LII. I — 10. Zion's Final Deliverance. 
 
 Awake, awake ! put on thy strength, O Zion ! put on thy 
 beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city : for henceforth 
 there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised, and 
 the unclean. 2 Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, and sit 
 down, O Jerusalem : loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 
 O captive daughter of Zion! 3 For thus saith the LORD, 
 
 This passage has been referred to the 
 Return from Babylon (Pise, Grotius, 
 Rosenm., Gescn., Ewald, Knob., Hend.), 
 to the first rise of the Christian Church 
 (Vitr., Alex.), or as a call to repentance 
 addressed to the Jews by whom our Lord 
 was crucified (Euseb. , Jerome). The last 
 view is plainly unnatural. The first agrees 
 ill with the promise v. i6, since to re- 
 strict its words to Chaldean strangers 
 only (Hend., etc.) is an arbitrary limita- 
 tion. Even the reference to the early 
 church, as called out of the bondage of 
 Rabbinism into the liberty of the Gospel, 
 answers ill to the natural force of the 
 words. The fulness of the promise, and 
 the order in the vision, confirm the ap- 
 plication to a time still future, when 
 Jerusalem will cease to be "trodden 
 down of the Gentiles," and to a deliver- 
 ance of which the Return from Babylon 
 was a pledge and partial earnest only. 
 
 V. I. The first call to Jerusalem, 
 Awake, awake ! begins a review of her 
 long and sore afflictions, at their close. 
 This second opens out a vista of blessing 
 and prosperity without end. The Return, 
 and the first days of Gospel light, were 
 steps towards this final issue, but come 
 short of the brightness of the promise. 
 
 "Thy strength." Not "splendour" 
 (Gesen.), a meaning foreign to the word. 
 Zion, weak in herself, is now to become 
 strong, because the power of the Lord is 
 to rest upon her. A promise is couched 
 in the command. The gannents are the 
 clothing of heavenly gifts and graces, or 
 else the ransomed children of Zion, xlix. 
 18, viewed as her precious jewels and 
 bridal attire. 
 
 v. ■2. There is here a contrast to the 
 sentence on Babylon, xlvii. i, i. Zion, a 
 captive seated on the ground, with dust on 
 her head, in token of deep sorrow. Job ii. 
 n, is called to shake off the dust, to rise 
 
 from the ground where she was seated. 
 Job ii. 13, Lam. ii. lo, and to sit down 
 on a royal throne. The reading of the 
 Keri, hithpatchi, that of several MSS. 
 and editions, is followed by the LXX., 
 A. v., Rosenmuller, Gesen., Ewald, Kno- 
 bel, Hendn., Delitzsch. Others retain 
 the textual reading (Hahn, Stier, etc.), 
 which also gives an expressive sense. 
 "Loosed are the bands of thy neck." 
 On this view the release which God has 
 wrought for Zion is the ground of an 
 appeal to her to arise from the dust. 
 God's acts of grace should be motives for 
 earnest effort. 
 
 V. 3. "Not with silver." The re- 
 ceived version gives the main thought, 
 and is simpler in style, but obscures an 
 important allusion, i Pet. i. i8, 19. The 
 folly of their sin is placed here in con- 
 trast with the freeness of that grace by 
 which they will be delivered. But while 
 the redemption on their part, is "without 
 money and without price," the next chap- 
 ter, in which Messiah is said to be an 
 offering for sin, reveals a further truth. 
 The Apostle alludes to both, and com- 
 bines them in a most impressive contrast. 
 God's people are redeemed "not with 
 silver or gold,... but with the precious 
 blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without 
 blemish and without spot." The more 
 literal version, though less free, is more 
 emphatic ; and seems preferable, as mak- 
 ing the allusion of the Apostle more 
 distinct. One truth is expressed, that 
 Zion would pay nothing for her own re- 
 demption. Another is implied, that it 
 would be by the precious blood of the 
 sin-offering of her own Messiah. The 
 reflexive sense "ye liave sold yourselves," 
 seems required by the whole context, as 
 in 1. I. 
 
 vv. 4 — 6. The exact scope of these 
 verses is open to various constnictions. 
 
ISAIAH, LIT. 4—6. 
 
 259 
 
 Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and not with silver shall ye 
 be redeemed. 
 
 4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down 
 aforetime into Egypt, to sojourn there ; and the Assyrian 
 oppressed them without cause. 5 And now what have I here, 
 saith the LORD, that my people are taken away for nought ? 
 Their rulers howl, saith the LORD ; and my name continually 
 every day is blasphemed. 6 Therefore my people shall know 
 
 Some think a contrast is drawn between 
 the Egyptian sojourn and the Assyrian 
 troubles; others, between both of these 
 and the Babylonian captivity. Some 
 render the word be-ephes, "at the 
 last," in contrast with "aforetime." 
 Some think there is a contrast of time 
 only, others between lighter and heavier 
 troubles; others, that there is a simple 
 historical enumeration, to show how long 
 and various had been Israel's sufferings. 
 Some refer "here" to heaven, others to 
 Babylon, others to the whole state of af- 
 fliction. The general sense is plain, but 
 the exact force of each phrase is open to 
 rival constructions, nearly balanced in 
 authority and internal evidence. 
 
 V. 4. The word, Egypt, comes first in 
 the original, and shows that the main 
 thought is the enumeration of the past 
 trials of Israel, as a ground for their 
 deliverance at last. "Aforetime." Not 
 a general term for O. T. times (Stier), but 
 a special mark of the Egyptian, as their 
 earliest, period of sorrow. Their troubles 
 began long ago. "To sojourn there," and 
 yet they were enslaved "without cause." 
 Their causeless bondage, when they went 
 only to sojourn, is implied from the rest 
 of the verse. Their bondage there was 
 notorious. This heathen violence was 
 aggravated by breach of faith, since they 
 were invited down to sojourn as honoured 
 friends. 
 
 "Without cause." Not "at the last" 
 (Saad., Lowth, Hend., Havern.),but "for 
 nothing," with no just reason. The op- 
 pression was causeless on the side of the 
 heathen invaders, though deserved by 
 their sins. 
 
 V. 5. "And now." The contrast is, 
 first, between these two earlier, and the 
 later Babylonian oppression; and next, 
 between all their earlier sorrows, and 
 their afflictions in the last days. But the 
 
 stress of the appeal consists, not in the 
 contrast of lighter and heavier troubles, 
 but in the long continuance of these suc- 
 cessive woes. 
 
 "What have I here?" Not "in hea- 
 ven" (Hitz., Hend.), nor in Babylon 
 (Chald., &c.), but "in the present state of 
 things" (Rosenm., Gesen., Maur., Stier). 
 The question is not, What have I to do? 
 (Gesen., Maurer, Stier, Delitzsch) ; nor, 
 What hinders me, in heaven, from coming 
 down to succour them (Hitz., Hend.); 
 nor exactly, "What do I gain? only loss" 
 (Knobel). But rather this: "How can 
 I be glorified in suffering My people to 
 continue in such heavy affliction, when 
 their trials have been so severe, and have 
 lasted so long?" In the shame and 
 degradation of His people God is dis- 
 honoured, and thus for His name's sake 
 He will deliver them. 
 
 "Their rulers howl." These words 
 have received at least five constructions : 
 Their heathen rulers make them to howl 
 (A. v., Kimchi) ; they exult or shriek in 
 triumph (Kocher, Gesen. Lex., Rosenm., 
 Maurer, Ewald, Knob., Umbr., Stier, 
 Delitzsch) ; their singers lament (Aben 
 Ezra, Luzzato) ; their rulers, the Jewish 
 leaders, howl with grief (Vitr. , Hitzig, 
 Klein., Ges. Comm., Hend., Havemick), 
 or with wild, lawless passion (Hahn). But 
 though the kindred words, in Greek and 
 Latin, are sometimes used for the cries of 
 noisy triumph, this verb, yalal, in Hebrew 
 occurs thirty times, and always to express 
 a cry of intense alarm or sorrow. The 
 causative sense, also, is against usage ; 
 and the same word is used, xxviii. 14, for 
 the Jewish rulers. The meaning seems 
 to be that the leaders of the people, in- 
 stead of believing prayers, or temple- 
 songs of praise, Hos. vii. 14, Am. viii. 3, 
 offer only piercing cries and complaints, 
 like the bowlings of those who are in ex- 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o 
 
 ISAIAH, LII. 7—10. 
 
 my name ; therefore they shall know in that day, that I am he 
 which saith ntito tJian, Behold, here am I ! 
 
 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
 bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace ; that bringeth glad 
 tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ; that saith unto Zion, 
 Thy God rcigneth. 8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice ; with 
 the voice together shall they sing : for they shall see eye to eye, 
 when the LORD shall bring again Zion. 9 Break" forth into joy, 
 sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem : for the LORD hath 
 comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The 
 Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the na- 
 tions ; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of 
 our God. 
 
 treme and hopeless anguish. Thus God's 
 name was continually blasphenned by the 
 'unbelief and deep sorrows, both of the 
 Jewish rulers and of the people over 
 whom they nded. 
 
 The Apostle quotes these words, Rom. 
 ii. 24, with reference to sins and lawless- 
 ness of the Jews in their dispersion. God 
 is dishonoured alike by the sins and the 
 calamities of the people who are called 
 by His name. 
 
 V. 6. In contrast to this state of 
 intense sorrow, God's people shall learn 
 the truth, that He is "a very present help 
 in the time of trouble." The words "in 
 that day," prove that the time of de- 
 liverance was actually future when the 
 prophet wrote, and had been made pre- 
 sent in prophetic vision alone. 
 
 v. 7. This apostrophe is not confined 
 to any one period. At all times the pro- 
 clamation of God's promises by His own 
 messengers is a source of comfort and 
 joy. The meaning is plainly, "How 
 beautiful is the swift arrival of the joyful 
 tidings ! how welcome should be the 
 messengers themselves ! " 
 
 V. 8. " Eye to eye." Some explain it 
 to mean that their watch-towers will be 
 so near, that they can signal from one to 
 another; or that each will see the eyes 
 of the next, elated with joy; or that 
 they shall attain full harmony of judg- 
 ment. But the same jihrase occurs Nu. 
 xiv. 14, "that thou, Lord, art seen face 
 
 to face," and this seems to fix the real 
 meaning. Zion's watchmen shall see their 
 God no longer as one afar off, or through 
 a glass, darkly, but face to face, and eye 
 to eye. He will be revealed to them, as 
 once in the pillar of fire, by clear and 
 manifest tokens of His favour and im- 
 mediate presence. Some translate, as an 
 exclamation, "The voice of thy watch- 
 men ! they lift up the voice : together 
 will they shout" (Vitr., Ewald, Alex., 
 Stier, Delitzsch). But the received ver- 
 sion is superior in simplicity and energy. 
 The other form woukl only be suitable, 
 if an address of the watchers immediately 
 followed. The words answer to the 
 former verse. The figure is of messengers 
 of glad tidings, whose feet are seen on 
 the distant hills, and of watchmen on 
 the walls of the city, who look out for 
 their approach, and welcome it with 
 songs of joy. 
 
 vv. 9, 10. This section of the prophecy 
 closes here with a glorious promise. It 
 is rehearsed at the opening of the Bap- 
 tist's message, Lu. iii. 6, but remains to 
 be more fully realized in the last days. 
 The two verses that follow are usually 
 joined with what precedes. But on the 
 view of their connexion here preferred, the 
 controversy with Israel, which began li. i, 
 by a solemn appeal of Messiah himself, 
 receives in these verses, in exact agreement 
 with a similar conclusion, ch. xii. xxxv., 
 its emphatic and glorious peroration. 
 
ISAIAH, LII. 261 
 
 § 3. Messiah's Sufferings and Reward. 
 Chap. LII. 11— LV. 
 
 This Second Series of the Later Prophecies, like the first, completes two 
 successive messages to the Gentiles and the Jews by a third, more distinctly 
 historical. The clear prediction, where Cyrus is mentioned by name, with 
 the opening of the gates of Babylon to the Persian conquerors, has its 
 counterpart in this picture of the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that 
 should follow. The God of Israel, who there announced the latter end of the 
 former things, here fulfils the rest of His challenge to the idols, and declares 
 new things, more remotely to come. The Section has three parts, which 
 reveal the sufferings of Messiah and His victory, the fruitfulness of the true 
 Church, the spiritual Sarah, and the glorious invitations and promises of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 The former series had contained the invitation, near its close, xlviii. i6, 
 "Come near unto me, hear ye this!" This appeal next unfolds itself into 
 two prophecies, which Messiah addresses, first to the isles of the Gentiles, 
 and then to rebellious Israel. A command, xlviii. 20, followed close on the 
 invitation, "Go ye out of Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans." This links 
 itself, in like manner, with the opening of the third section. The words 
 "from thence," "from the midst of her," refer plainly to Babylon, whither 
 Isaiah had foretold, ch. xxxix., that Judah and all its treasures would be 
 carried away. After that parting charge, Babylon and the Chaldeans are 
 never named again. The sentence of perpetual oblivion begins to be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 The clear prediction of the sufferings of Christ, with which this section 
 begins, forms the centre and heart of these later prophecies. It reveals the 
 Divine method for accomplishing the second part of the opening promise 
 to Zion, "that her iniquity is pardoned;" while it sets before the Church, 
 in plainest outlines, the great Sacrifice and Divine Sin-offering of the 
 Incarnate Son of God. It also prepares the way for a glorious promise 
 of the fruitfulness of the true Church, delivered at length from the reproach 
 of long ages of barrenness, and later signs of desertion and neglect, and of 
 her growth into a beautiful city of God ; with an appeal to all the Gentiles 
 once more, to come and partake freely of the sure mercies provided for them 
 in the Son of David, the promised Immanuel, the Lamb of God, appointed 
 to take away the sin of the world. 
 
262 
 
 ISAIAH, LII. II— 14. 
 
 § 3 (i). The Sufferings of Messiah. 
 Chap. LII. 11— LIII. 
 
 1 1 Depart ye, depart ye ! go out from thence, touch no 
 unclean tJi'mg: go out from the midst of her; be clean, ye that 
 bear the vessels of the LORD. 1 2 For ye shall not go out with 
 haste, nor go by flight: for the LoRD will go before you, and 
 the God of Israel will be your rereward. 
 
 13 Behold, my Servant will deal prudently: he shall be 
 exalted and extolled, and be very high. 14 As many were 
 astonished at thee ; his visage was so marred more than any 
 
 V. II. The restoration of the tem- 
 ple-service is the main feature in the 
 sacred narratives of the Return from 
 Captivity, 2 Ki. xxv. 13—17; Jer. xxvii. 
 16 — 22; Dan. i. 2, v. 3; Ezra i. 5 — 11, 
 vii. 19, viii. 24 — 33; Neh. x. 32 — 39. 
 Those who "bear the vessels of the 
 Lord" are the priests and Levites, so 
 prominent in the same history. This 
 restoration of the Jewish polity, and its 
 temple-service, was the needful prepara- 
 tion for Messiah's appearing; whose pre- 
 sence was to be the glory of the latter 
 house, and until whose coming the sceptre 
 of Judah was to continue. These two 
 verses, then, referring to the history in 
 the time of Zerubbabel and Joshua, form 
 a natural background to the portraiture of 
 Messiah's sufferings. 
 
 V. 12. In the Exodus Israel went forth 
 "in haste," Ex. xii. 11, and Pharaoh 
 "heard that the people fled," xiv. 5; 
 but the pillar of cloud went before them, 
 and when Pharaoh pursued, it became 
 their rearguard, xiv. 19, 20. It is here 
 promised that the Return of the Exiles 
 shall be more deliberate, but with like 
 tokens of God's gracious presence. The 
 connexion of the two verses is not that 
 there would be full leisure for their ablu- 
 tions (Knobel), but that God's signal mer- 
 cies were a powerful motive to especial 
 holiness and reverence on the part of His 
 servants. It would be like a call from 
 heaven — Be ye holy, for I am very 
 gracious. 
 
 v. 13. Here the vision passes on 
 from the restoration of the temple-service, 
 Is. xliv. 28, Dan. ix. 25, to the things to 
 come, or those times of Messiah the 
 Prince, when He would make reconcilia- 
 
 tion for iniquity. The Servant of the 
 Lord is the title given him five times be- 
 fore, xlii. I, 19, xliii. 10, xlix. 3, 6, 1. 10, 
 with the same characters of meekness and 
 patience. He will "deal prudently," for 
 His name is Counsellor, ix. 6; and He 
 is filled with the Spirit of wisdom and 
 understanding, xi. 2. He will "be exalted 
 and extolled, and be very high," for His 
 name is Immanuel, the Mighty God. 
 The call. Behold ! is echoed first by the 
 words of the angel, Lu. ii. 10; and next 
 by the voice of the Baptist — "Behold 
 the Lamb of God, which taketh away 
 the sin of the world." 
 
 V. 14. The appearance and character 
 of Messiah would be a marvel and cause 
 of astonishment to the Jewish people. He 
 would wholly disappoint the expectation 
 of carnal minds, who looked for all out- 
 ward signs of royalty and worldly great- 
 ness. The rest of the verse explains the 
 source of their astonishment, the appear- 
 ance of a sorrowful and suffering Messiah. 
 The next verse foretells his later exalta- 
 tion. Humbled before many persons. 
 He would be exalted in the eyes of many 
 nations. 
 
 V. 15. When the first covenant was 
 confirmed at Sinai, Moses sprinkled the 
 people with the blood of sacrifice, Ex. 
 xxiv. 8. But this Prophet, like unto Moses, 
 will sprinkle not one, but many nations, 
 with the blood, not of oxen or rams, but 
 of His own perfect sacrifice, and thus will 
 bring them within the pale of a new and 
 better covenant. Their kings shall shut 
 their mouths at Ilim in mute wonder and 
 reverence. 
 
 The last clause, in grammar, admits 
 equally the received version, or that of 
 
ISAIAH, LII. 15— LIII. 3. 
 
 263 
 
 man, and his form more than the sons of men ; 1 5 So shall he 
 sprinkle many nations, kings shall shut their mouths at him : 
 for they to whom it had not been told shall see, and they which 
 had not heard shall consider. 
 
 Chap. LIII. Who hath believed our report.'' and to whom 
 hath the arm of the LORD been revealed ? 2 For he hath grown 
 up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground : 
 he hath no form, and no comeliness ; and when we see him, 
 tJiere is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised 
 and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and well acquainted 
 with grief: and they hid as it were their faces from him: he 
 
 vv. 2 — 6. The double question may be 
 explained thus : — Who has believed the 
 report of the prophets, who have spoken 
 before, by the Holy Spirit, of the coming 
 of this Just One ? Who has perceived 
 the greatness and excellence of this work 
 of God's power, when the Word actually 
 was made flesh, and dwelt among men? 
 
 V. 2. The point of sight is at the time 
 when Messiah's sufferings are finished, 
 and He is entering into glory. Hence the 
 past tense is used, vv. 2 — 10, and the 
 future at the close. The Servant of the 
 Lord, named before, is still the subject, 
 and the previous message is continued. 
 The two verses seem to form an inverse 
 parallel. God's mighty power is present 
 in the work of Messiah, but veiled and in 
 a mystery ; for He will grow up as a root 
 out of a dry ground. Few will be found 
 who have believed the prophet's report ; 
 for, when the people look upon Messiah, 
 He has no beauty in their eyes. The 
 figures of the tender plant or sucker, and 
 the root or shoot, are resumed from xi. 1, 
 and express the low estate of the house of 
 David when He appeared. The dry 
 ground is expounded by the question 
 of Nathanael, "Can any good thing come 
 out of Nazareth?" 
 
 This Servant of the Lord grew up before 
 the Lord himself. Every step in His life 
 was by the appointment and under the 
 eye of his Heavenly Father. He had ' ' no 
 form and no comeliness" in the eyes of 
 carnal observers, though in the sight of 
 God and the holy angels He is "fairer 
 than the children of men." 
 
 v. 3. The word "men" is one com- 
 monly applied to those of rank or note. 
 The common people heard the Lord Jesus 
 
 the LXX., given above. But St Paul's 
 quotation, Rom. xv. 20, 21, where this 
 very promise, as rendered above, is made 
 the rule and law of his own conduct as 
 the Apostle of the Gentiles, seems decisive 
 in favour of the latter meaning (LXX., 
 Vulg. , Luth. , Crusius, Stier). Besides 
 the authority of an inspired comment, the 
 context favours this construction. That 
 wide publication of the gospel, to which 
 St Paul applies the words, and in which 
 he was the chief instrument, explains how 
 it would be that many nations and kings 
 should come to do homage to Messiah. 
 The words answer closely to Ixv. i. Na- 
 tions that sat in heathen darkness were 
 to see a great light, and heathen kings 
 to learn and understand the truth of a 
 new and better covenant. 
 
 Chap. liii. 
 
 "Who hath believed our report?" 
 The question. Who speaks in this chap- 
 ter? has received various answers. Some 
 have even turned the whole into a 
 dramatic dialogue. The view which 
 alone explains the whole, without requir- 
 ing any abrupt change of person, is that 
 it is "the Spirit of Christ, which was in" 
 the prophet, who here speaks by his lips. 
 He is a Divine Person, vv. 8, 11, 12, dis- 
 tinct from the Father, of whom and to 
 whom He speaks vv. 6, 10; and also 
 from Messiah, the Word and Son of God, 
 of whom He bears witness Joh. xv. 26, 
 xvi. 14; I Pet. i. II. He speaks by the 
 prophets, and associates Himself with 
 them, as God's messengers, liii. i ; Zech. 
 vii. 12; Joh. XV. 27; Acts xv. 32. But 
 He also, by a Divine condescension, as- 
 sociates Himself with sinners in general, 
 and especially with the Jewish people, 
 
264 
 
 ISAIAH, LIII. 4—7. 
 
 was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath 
 borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ; yet we did esteem 
 him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he ivas 
 pierced for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities : 
 the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes 
 we are healed. 6 All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we have 
 turned every one to his own way ; and the LORD hath made to 
 light on him the iniquity of us all. 
 
 7 He was oppressed, and still he abased himself, and opened 
 not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and 
 
 gladly, at least for a time ; but the ques- 
 tion could be asked by enemies, Have any 
 of the nilers believed on him? He was 
 "well acquainted with grief," no casual 
 acquaintance, but its familiar friend. 
 
 "And they hid," &c. The impersonal 
 form refers to the men just named, or all 
 those of note and influence. Their faces 
 were averted from Him, as a lunatic, be- 
 side himself, or one possessed, as a de- 
 ceiver and a blasphemer. The repetition 
 implies that this contemptuous rejection 
 by men of note spread at length among 
 the whole people. Their hosannas turned 
 to the cry, Crucify him ! crucify him ! 
 
 V. 4. The pronoun here is expressed, 
 and most emphatic. The exact force 
 would be shown by a varied order — 
 "Surely it is our griefs which He hath 
 borne, our sorrows which He hath 
 carried." Yet they, whose sorrows He 
 bore, knew it not, and ascribed His suf- 
 ferings to His own guilt. We, for whom 
 He suffered, mistook the cause of His 
 griefs, and reckoned Him as one who 
 lay, for His own sake, under the just dis- 
 pleasure of God. 
 
 V. 5. Here, too, the pronouns are em- 
 phatic, and the substitution of the Just 
 for the unjust is affirmed in the strongest 
 way. "We are healed," or "healing is 
 ours." The pronoun comes last, to give 
 it the utmost force. 
 
 V. 6. Here the sentence cannot be 
 confined, as in v. i, to the prophets. 
 This "we" must be coextensive with the 
 actual wandering. Comp. Rom. iii. 23; 
 Joh. i. 2^. Selfishness is the common 
 root and essence of sin, but its forms are 
 countless. It brings in a moral chaos. 
 All wander, but "every one to his own 
 way." The word "laid," A. V., means 
 
 to light, in hostile encounter, whether as 
 many burdens on one shoukler, or many 
 shafts aimed at one common target. Each 
 sin of every sinner would be like a sepa- 
 rate wound in the heart of this Man of 
 sorrows. 
 
 V. 7. Messiah was the Lamb, whom 
 God provided for a spotless offering. Gen. 
 xxii. 8. In the second clause the word is 
 the same as in xxxi. 4, "he will not abase 
 himself for the noise of them." The 
 structure connects the words with those 
 which follow. The parallelism also con- 
 firms this rendering. He was oppressed, 
 like a lamb that is led away to the 
 slaughter ; and yet he abased himself, re- 
 fusing all self-defence in word or act, and 
 otTering himself up "as a sheep before 
 her shearers is dumb." There was a 
 strange, mysterious silence of willing self- 
 abasement. "He answered never a word, 
 insomuch that the governor marvelled 
 greatly." Matt, xxvii. 14; Joh. xix. 9 — 12. 
 V. 8. This verse has been much de- 
 bated and variously expounded, almost in 
 every word. The following paraphrase, 
 founded on the above version, gives, I 
 think, the true meaning. 
 
 " By violent hands he was seized upon, 
 and hurried to trial, and by a sentence of 
 unrighteous judgment carried off" to execu- 
 tion. And who can reckon up his de- 
 scendants? since he was cut off" as one 
 wholly childless, and his name doomed 
 by his enemies to perish from the memory 
 of men. Not, however for his own fault, 
 but as a representative, a substitute for 
 the sins of God's people, of guilty Israel, 
 this Holy One was stricken." The word 
 Luiio is usually plural. Yet in its first oc- 
 currence in Scripture it is separately appli- 
 ed to Shem and Japhet, though single per- 
 
ISAIAH, LIII. 8— lo. 
 
 265 
 
 as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his 
 mouth. 8 By violence and by judgment he was taken away : 
 and who shall recount his posterity ? for he was cut off out of 
 the land of the living ; for the transgression of my people HE 
 was stricken. 9 And they appointed his grave among the 
 wicked, and with the rich man, after he was slain ; when he had 
 done no violence, and no deceit ivas in his mouth. 10 Yea, 
 the Lord was pleased to bruise him, and hath put him to grief. 
 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall 
 behold a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of 
 
 sons, being those from whom a large pos- 
 terity was to succeed, Gen. ix. 26, 27. In 
 this book, at its last previous occurrence, 
 ch. xliv. 15, it applies to a single idol, 
 made out of half a single tree, — " he falleth 
 down thereto" {lamo). Thus its use here 
 in reference to our Lord is fully justified ; 
 being a representative, like that idol, and 
 a federal head, like those patriarchs. 
 This is confirmed by the contrast with 
 V. 6, the order being just the same. "By 
 his stripes there is healing TO us" (lanii); 
 "for the sins of my people was the stroke 
 TO HiM"(/a;;w). The conjectural reading 
 lamitth, to death, is without authority, 
 and greatly weakens the emphasis. That 
 the stroke is mortal, is clearly implied, 
 without being expressed ; but the whole 
 force lies in the contrast of persons, the 
 guilty many and the Stricken One, which 
 is destroyed by the change. 
 
 V. 9. The verb is impersonal. Its sub- 
 ject must be supplied from the previous 
 verse. Having been taken away by a 
 sentence of judgment, the judge or judges 
 gave orders for his burial. There is no 
 need to feign a contrast, not shown in the 
 text, between appointment and execution 
 (Hengst. ). Our Lord's burial did not 
 cease to be that of a criminal, because of 
 Joseph's service of love. It was a hurried 
 burial, on the evening of His crucifixion, 
 under instructions that included the two 
 malefactors, and under a law* that applied 
 to criminals only, Deut. xxi. 22. The part 
 performed by Joseph, the rich man of this 
 prophecy, was by the appointment of the 
 same judge who condemned Him, namely, 
 Pilate, Matt, xxvii. 58. The Sanhedrim, 
 by setting their watch, shared in the public 
 sanction Pilate had given to His burial in 
 the rich man's tomb. Our Lord was 
 
 buried among malefactors, a class, but 
 with the rich man, a single person, by the 
 appointment of the judges who condemned 
 Him, in minute agreement with the pro- 
 phecy. "After he was slain," lit. "in 
 his deaths." The plural, Ezek. xxviii. 10, 
 is used to denote a violent death. The 
 phrase refers, not to the act of dying, but 
 to the after- state of the dead, and belongs 
 to both clauses alike. He was slain, 
 and then buried, as a criminal, yet strik- 
 ing tokens of honour mingled with the 
 shame. The last words are neither the 
 cause, nor the impediment, "though," or 
 "because." They seem to note simply 
 the fact of the strange contrast between 
 His spotless innocence, and His dis- 
 honourable death. 
 
 V. 10. The statement here is a climax, 
 rather than a contrast. It was not unjust 
 judges alone, but the Lord himself, who 
 laid on Messiah this heavy burden. He 
 was "well-pleased for his righteousness' 
 sake,"xlii. i, 2i,in bruising that Beloved 
 Son, in whom He took delight ; since by 
 these sufferings the law was magnified, 
 and made honourable. But the recom- 
 pense would be sure and speedy. 
 
 The "soul" here expresses the offering 
 (A.V., De Dieu, Koppe, Hitzig, Hend.), 
 rather than, as most moderns translate 
 it, the offerer. The construction is thus 
 simpler, and the nature of the offering 
 is expressed, which must otherwise be 
 supplied. The words, also, have a 
 signal emphasis as the voice of the 
 Holy Spirit to God the Father, concerning 
 the great Sin-offering of the Son of God, 
 Here, alone, in laying the great corner- 
 stone of redemption, in passing from 
 the finished sacrifice of Christ to His 
 reward, the consent is implied of three 
 
266 
 
 ISAIAH, LIII. II, 12. 
 
 the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 1 1 From the travail of 
 his soul he shall behold, and be satisfied : by his knowledge 
 shall the Righteous One, my servant, make many righteous, 
 and himself shall bear away their iniquities. 12 Therefore will 
 I divide him a portion from the many, and he shall divide the 
 mighty for a spoil ; because he poured out his soul unto death, 
 and was numbered with the transgressors ; and himself bare the 
 sin of many, and will make intercession for the transgressors. 
 
 Divine Persons; and the Spirit not only 
 spealvs <y"the Son, but to the Father. 
 
 The history of the sacrifice is finished, 
 and its blessed fruits begin at once to be 
 proclaimed. The question, Who shall re- 
 count his posterity? is answered by the 
 promise — "lie shall behold a seed." 
 So Ps. xxii. 30, another prophecy of the 
 same event. Childless in the eyes of 
 man, and cut off by violence, still a large 
 posterity is assigned Him, of whom He 
 will say with joy, — "Behold I, and the 
 children whom God hath given me," Heb. 
 ii. 13, 14. His days, which seemed to 
 be brought to an end prematurely, shall 
 be prolonged by a joyful resurrection, 
 Ps. xxi. 4. The Lord, who had been 
 pleased to bruise Him, will now take 
 pleasure to give Him a name above every 
 name, and to make Him the fountain- 
 head of countless blessings for the sons 
 of men. 
 
 V. II. The toil or travail is the suffer- 
 ing of Christ, when His soul was made a 
 sin-offering. It is here promised that he 
 shall behold the blessed effects of those 
 sufferings, and be satisfied with them. 
 
 "His knowledge" is commonly taken 
 in a passive sense, for knowledge of which 
 He is the object (Vitr., Hend., Alex., 
 Stier, Ilahn). But, however true and 
 weighty the doctrine thus conveyed, the 
 connexion points to anotlier truth no less 
 weighty, which does not involve so harsh 
 a construction. A pronoun with "know- 
 ledge" always denotes the subject, not 
 the object, of the knowledge. It has 
 been said before that on Messiah would 
 rest "the Spirit of knowledge," and that 
 hereby His ear would be open to His 
 Father's voice, which called Him to His 
 great work of suffering, xi. 2, 1. 4, 5. His 
 own words in the Gospel correspond, 
 Joh. X. 15. It was our Lord's own 
 
 knowledge of His Father's wisdom and 
 goodness which sustained Him in drink- 
 ing the cup of anguish, and thus provided 
 for sinners a justifying righteousness in 
 His all-perfect sacrifice. Righteous him- 
 self. He has thus procured righteousness 
 for many. 
 
 v. 12. The word "great," A. V., is 
 rendered "many" both before, and in 
 the close of this verse, and must plainly 
 have the same meaning here also. It refers 
 back to lii. 14, 15, and binds together the 
 whole prophecy. The construction is 
 the same as in Job xxxix. 17, and the 
 "many" are those who form the portion, 
 by or from whom it is provided, not those 
 who share in it. So the mighty are those 
 who constitute the spoil, and not, as in 
 Prov. xvi. 19, where the order is different, 
 those who seize on it. Here the word 
 comes first, as the main object; there 
 it follows as a supplemental idea at 
 the close. Messiah pours out His soul 
 on behalf of many, and therefore many 
 souls shall be His portion. He was 
 numbered with the transgressors, and 
 therefore even the mighty, kings, lii. 15, 
 and strong nations, Mic. iv. 3, shall be- 
 come His inheritance, Ps. ii. 8, The 
 word, therefore, refers to what precedes, 
 and the cause of this honour is amplified 
 in the rest of the verse. 
 
 The end of this section answers to the 
 beginning. Messiah shall sprinkle many 
 nations; and kings, the noble and the 
 mighty, shall shut their mouths before 
 Him in deepest homage. The future 
 tense, in the last clause, either denotes 
 that the whole was still to come, though 
 the prophetic past has been chiefly used ; 
 or else that our Lord's intercession would 
 not be finished, like His sacrifice, but go 
 on for ages to come, seeing He ever liveth 
 to make intercession for His people. 
 
ISAIAH, LIV. 1—4. 
 
 267 
 
 § 3 (2). Chap. LIV. Messiah's Reward. 
 
 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 thy habitations : 
 spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. 3 For 
 thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ; and 
 thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities 
 to be inhabited. 4 Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed ; 
 
 V. I. The figurative woman has been 
 applied to the Jews of the Return, to the 
 Jews of tlie last days, to the Gentiles 
 brought in by the Gospel, or to the spiritual 
 Church under the Old Testament, and in 
 the Apostolic age. This last exposition 
 has the direct sanction of St Paul, Gal. 
 iv. 26, 27, and alone agrees with the con- 
 text, and gives a consistent meaning to 
 the whole figure. The barren one is the 
 true, spiritual Church, from Abraham on- 
 ward, or the Covenant of Promise, under 
 which Isaac and all the faithful are born. 
 The married wife is the Covenant of 
 Sinai, bringing forth to bondage, and 
 answering to Hagar and Peninnah. Her 
 children are "Israel after the flesh" from 
 Moses to Christ, or the spiritual Ishmael. 
 The season, here announced, of fruitful- 
 ness and joy, is the first days of the 
 Gospel after our Lord's sacrifice and re- 
 surrection. 
 
 The true Church is described as barren 
 from Moses to Christ, because the faith- 
 ful were comparatively few; and even 
 these were "kept under the law," and 
 shut up to the hope of a promise not yet 
 revealed. In Isaiah's time, as in the 
 Psalmist's and Elijah's, they were "a 
 very small remnant," i. 9. Out of the 
 millions of Jews in Palestine, the whole 
 fruit of our Lord's ministry was about six 
 hundred disciples. Acts i. 15 ; i Con xv. 
 6 ; Is. xlix. 4. But when once His soul 
 had been made an offering for sin, three 
 thousand were added in one day, and 
 there were numerous accessions to the 
 enlarging company of true believers. 
 
 V. 2, The Church, like an Eastern 
 tent, was to be enlarged to receive her 
 
 growing family. Its foundations were 
 to be confirmed by the fuller and clearer 
 promises of the New Testament, and her 
 cords lengthened by the direct provision 
 for the free reception of the Gentiles, 
 Acts XV. 19 — 29. The command, "spare 
 not," seems an allusion to the backward- 
 ness of the Apostles and first disciples to 
 learn the freeness of this new economy 
 of grace, Acts xi. i — 18, xv., xxi. 
 
 V. 3. The desolate cities are those of 
 the heathen world. To "inherit the 
 Gentiles " is here not to dispossess them 
 by violence (Gesen., Alex.), but rather to 
 replenish the places with new inhabit- 
 ants. Cities, fiill only of idolatry, are, in 
 the sight of heaven, like graveyards of 
 the dead. These desolate places, by the 
 spread of the gospel, are now to be peo- 
 pled with living worshippers. 
 
 V. 4. This promise refers back to xliv. 
 16, 17. The shame and confusion of 
 idolaters is there contrasted with the 
 honour and salvation of the true Israel. 
 Here shame, in both clauses, refers to 
 the time of youth, and reproach to that 
 of widowhood. This distinction is re- 
 quired by the context. One refers either 
 to the delay of marriage, or barrenness af- 
 ter early marriage, and the other to seem- 
 ing rejection and divorce. The key, as 
 Vitringa well observes, is given by Jere- 
 miah, Ezekiel, and Hosea, Jer. iii. 24, 25, 
 ii. 2, li. 5; Ezek. xvi. 60; Hos. ii. 14, iii. 
 3,4. The waiting time is divided, IMatt. i. 
 I — 16, into three periods, from Abraham 
 to David, from David to the Captivity, and 
 then to Christ. The fij-st answers to the 
 "shame of youth," including the bondage 
 in Egypt, the rebellions and wandering 
 
268 
 
 ISAIAH, LIV. 5—8. 
 
 neither be confounded, for thou shalt not be put to reproach: 
 for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and the reproach 
 of thy widowhood thou shalt remember no more, 5 For thy 
 Maker is thy husband ; the LORD of hosts is his name : and thy 
 Redeemer the Holy One of Israel ; the God of the whole earth 
 shall he be called. 6 For the LORD hath called thee as a 
 woman forsaken and grieved in spirit ; even as a wife of youth, 
 grieving because she is rejected, saith thy God. 7 P^'or a small 
 moment I forsook thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. 
 8 In sudden wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; 
 but with everlasting kindness have I pitied thee, saith JEIIOVAII, 
 thy Redeemer. 
 
 in the desert, and the conflicts and spi- 
 ritual barrenness under the Judges. The 
 third period, onward from the Captivity, 
 brought with it the reproach of widow- 
 hood. First in the Exile, and the rule 
 of Gentiles, and then by the total with- 
 drawal of prophecy, the Church seemed 
 forsaken by her heavenly Spouse. 
 
 V. 5. The double plural (Heb.), often 
 called the plural of majesty, seems to al- 
 lude here to the Three Persons, who in 
 liii. 10 are the Divine Speaker, the 
 Sovereign addressed, and the Divine Sin- 
 offering. The thought may be either, 
 "Thy Maker hath become thy husband, 
 and hath betrothed thee once more after 
 a seeming divorce" (Gesen., Stier, Hahn); 
 or "thy Husband is thy maker" (Umbr., 
 Alex.), one who will not forsake thee, 
 but has all power to deliver. But the 
 fonder seems the sense which agrees best 
 with the structure. "It is thy Maker 
 who is become thy husband, even He 
 whose name is the Lord of hosts. It is 
 the Holy One of Israel, who is become 
 thy Redeemer, even He who shall now 
 be called the God of the whole earth." 
 The Redeemer hoped for, and almost de- 
 spaired of, docs e.vist. The Holy One of 
 Israel has now made himself the near 
 kinsman, Heb. ii. i6, Lev. xxv. 48 ; and 
 He it is that will ransom His people from 
 their bondage. The last clause alludes 
 to one main feature of the Gospel era, 
 the wide and rapid spread of Divine 
 truth throughout the world. 
 
 V. 6. Many versions of the latter 
 clause of this verse have been proposed. 
 But the alcove is the most literal, and 
 quite clear and simple, the word "griev- 
 
 ing" being supplied from the first clause. 
 The main thought is thus rendered more 
 definite and exact. The figure is that of 
 a wife under double grief, not only as 
 barren, but as rejected and disowned by 
 her husband. Such was the state of the 
 true Israel, when the theocracy was in 
 ruins, and still the promised Messiah de- 
 layed to appear. 
 
 vv. 7, 8. This moment has been 
 referred to the whole time of the Law 
 (Cocc), to the Babylonian Captivity and 
 the persecutions of Antiochus (Vitr.), to 
 the present rejection of the Jews (De- 
 litzsch), or to the "momentary casting 
 off of Israel which seemed to accompany 
 the change of dispensation" (Alex.). This 
 last, of all views, is the most unnatural. 
 It turns a most solemn statement into 
 an illusive semblance only, and makes the 
 time of rejection and of recovery one and 
 the same. The first view is too wide, the 
 second rather too narrow ; but both hold, 
 with strong reason, that some definite 
 time is here intended. The imaginary 
 improvement of referring such statements 
 to all times alike turns the Divine pro- 
 phecies into a sea of mist. 
 
 The small moment here is the whole 
 time of widowhood, from the fall of the 
 theocracy till the birth of Christ, when 
 the Lord once more "visited and re- 
 deemed His people." It is the third 
 period of waiting in the opening of the 
 Gospels, until Messiah, the Son of 
 Abraham and of David, should appear. 
 The Captivity and the days of Antiochus 
 were alike seasons of wrath, when God's 
 face seemed to be hidden from His 
 people. 
 
ISAIAH, LIV. 9-13. 
 
 269 
 
 9 For this is as the waters of Noah unto me, when I sware 
 that the waters of Noah should no more cover the earth : so 
 have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke 
 thee. 10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be re- 
 moved ; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither 
 shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD 
 that hath mercy on thee. 
 
 II O THOU afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not com- 
 forted, behold, I am laying thy stones with fair adornment, 
 and I will lay thy foundations with sapphires. 12 And I will 
 make thy pinnacles of rubies, and thy gates of carbuncles, and 
 all thy circuit to be of pleasant stones. 13 And all thy children 
 
 V. 9. The word "this" refers to the 
 whole event, mercy following after judg- 
 ment (Rosenm., Alex.), and not to either 
 separately (Jarch., Kimchi, Knob., Hend., 
 Stier). The middle clause, by the ac- 
 cents, belongs to what precedes. The 
 waters of Noah, when named the second 
 time, are to be taken strictly, but the 
 first time for the whole event. Hence 
 the relative may be rendered "whereof," 
 or else simply as a mark of time (Vitr., 
 Lowth). God's dealings with His people 
 should resemble those in the time of 
 Noah, when He promised solemnly that 
 no such flood should ever return. The 
 mercies of the Gospel should be both 
 world-wide and irrevocable. Their sym- 
 bol is the same, the rainbow around the 
 throne, Rev. iv. 2. 
 
 V. 10. The rendering "may depart" 
 (Vitr., Knob.) or "should the mountains 
 depart" (Hend.), is grammatically lawful. 
 But the simpler version is confirmed by 
 the words of our Lord himself, — "Heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, but my words 
 shall not pass away." The firmest things 
 in the natural world are not so firm, so 
 free from change, as God's covenant of 
 grace. Here, as in v. 8, the sacred name 
 stands with emphasis at the very close. 
 
 v. II. The figure now changes, from 
 a wife restored to favour and blessed 
 with children, to a city after storms and 
 ruin rebuilt in magnificence and beauty. 
 The Apostle clearly applies it to "the 
 Jerusalem above," the mother city of all 
 true believers. But it is here viewed at 
 an earlier period than in the visions of 
 Apocalypse, while its foundations are 
 
 being laid, which are "the twelve Apos- 
 tles of the Lamb," Rev. xxi. 14. The 
 first days of the Gospel have a like ex- 
 cellence, compared with those of the 
 Law, as the future glory will have, com- 
 pared with themselves. 
 
 The word pi^ik (fair colours A. V.) is 
 rendered by many, stibium, or antimony, 
 used for eye-paint by eastern women 
 (Rosenm., Gesen., Knob., Hend., Alex., 
 Hahn). But in i Chron. xxix. 2, stones 
 of phuk (glistering stones, A. V.) mean 
 plainly either gems or sculptured stones ; 
 so that the word had passed into a figura- 
 tive use. Hence Stier renders " I lay thy 
 stones with ornament" (mit Schmuck), 
 and justly condemns the tasteless notion 
 that antimony is described as the cement. 
 The true meaning is that the stones would 
 not be coarse and rude, but costly and 
 beautiful, like the sapphire foundations. 
 The mingled present and future tenses 
 imply that the work, at the time of the 
 vision, has been lately begun, and is still 
 in progress. The great Corner-stone has 
 been laid. Is. xxviii. 16, liii. i — 12, the 
 twelve foundations, the Apostles, Rev. xxi. 
 14, bright like sapphires with heavenly 
 wisdom, are just being laid also, but later 
 courses are to be added still upon them. 
 V. 12. The word "windows" A. V., 
 or "battlements" LXX, is literally "suns," 
 and here is a contrast to the deep foun- 
 dations of the city. It seems, then, to 
 denote those spires or pinnacles, which 
 catch and reflect the beams of sunlight. 
 So Milton, "With glistening spires and 
 pinnacles adorned, Which now the rising 
 sun gilds with his beams." 
 
2/0 
 
 ISAIAH, LIV. 14—17. 
 
 sJiall be taught of the LORD, and great sJiall be the peace of 
 thy children. 
 
 14 In righteousness shalt thou be estabHshed : be far from 
 oppression, for thou shalt not fear it; and from terror, for it 
 shall not come near thee. 1 5 Behold ! they shall surely gath'er 
 together, but not by me : whosoever shall gather against thee, 
 against thee shall he fall. 16 Behold ! it is I who have created 
 the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth 
 forth an instrument for his work : 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 judg- 
 ment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants 
 of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD. 
 
 The border or circuit is not the neigh- 
 bouring cities, nor boundary stones (Meyer, 
 Stier), but the circuit of the city itself 
 (LXX., Kimch., Ewald, Rosenm., Hitz., 
 Knob. ). The whole is a complete picture 
 of grandeur and beauty, and still each part 
 has its symbolic meaning. The poetry is 
 only enhanced, when the resemblance 
 between the sign and the reality is full and 
 various. Thus the pinnacles of ruby, in 
 contrast with the foundations, may pro- 
 bably denote those Christians of the last 
 times, who "accomplish the number of 
 God's elect, "and catch thedawning beams 
 of the returning Sun of righteousness. 
 
 V. 13. This promise is quoted by our 
 Lord, Joh. vi. 45, and applied to the 
 Divine teaching enjoyed by all His true 
 disciples. This further confirms the inter- 
 pretation of the chapter here given. 
 
 V. 14. The spiritual peace of the faith- 
 ful is attended by righteousness of heart 
 and life, and this brings also safety from 
 outward dangers. To be "established 
 in righteousness" is nearly the same with 
 the Apostle's description, "It is a good 
 thing that the heart be established with 
 grace," Heb. xiii. 9. It implies a calm 
 rest of soul on the sure protection of 
 God, Is. xxvi. 3, 4. The imperative, Be 
 far from oppression, conveys a promise in 
 the most emphatic form. He who said, 
 "Let there be light," and there was light, 
 says to His people, "Be far from oppres- 
 sion and destruction," because these shall 
 never be suffered to vex them again. 
 
 V. 15. The word means to gather, 
 to sojourn, or to fear. But here the 
 whole scope points to a hostile gathering, 
 asinPs. Ivi. 7, lix. 4. The last clause many 
 expound, "shall fall unto thee," or come 
 to thy side, as i Chr. xii. 19, 10. But it 
 is plain, from Jer. xlvi. i6, i Sam. xxxi, 
 4, 5, that the Hebrew phrase may also be 
 used for falling against an obstacle or im- 
 pediment. This meaning is here con- 
 firmed by the scope of the verse, and the 
 order of the words. The idea is that 
 of stumbling against some obstacle, fall- 
 ing, and being overthrown. Is. viii. 14; 
 Rom. xi. I ; Zech. xii. 3. All enemies, 
 however mighty, who fight against this 
 city of God, shall "stumble, and fall, and 
 not be found," Dan. xi. 19. There seems 
 a special reference to the last revealed 
 gathering of God's enemies, Rev. xx. 
 7 — 9, and to the solemn issue which is 
 there foretold. 
 
 v. 16. The pronouns are emphatic. 
 The great Creator permits the plots of 
 evil men to prosper for a season, but 
 condemns them at last to disappointment 
 and utter shame. 
 
 v. 17. A glorious topstone to these 
 blessed promises to the true Church of 
 Christ. The great Accuser shall be cast 
 down, and accuse no more, nay, shall be 
 judged by those whom once he accused. 
 The saints shall "judge angels," i Cor. 
 vi. 2, and sit with Christ himself on His 
 throne. 
 
ISAIAH, LV. 1—5. 
 
 271 
 
 § 3 is)- Chap. LV. The Promises of the Gospel. 
 
 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. 2 Wherefore 
 do ye spend money for t/iat wJiich is not bread ? and your 
 labour for that zvJuch satisfieth not ? Hearken diligently unto 
 me, and eat ye tJiat wJiicJi is good, and let your soul delight 
 itself in fatness. 3 Incline your ear, and come unto me ; hear, 
 and your soul shall live : and I will seal with you an everlasting 
 covenant, the mercies of David, the sure mercies. 4 Behold ! 
 I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and a 
 commander to the people. 5 Behold ! thou shalt call a nation 
 thou knowest not ; and a nation tliat knew thee not shall run 
 
 V. I . The great central prophecy of the 
 sufferings of Christ, ch. liii., and of the 
 blessings to the Church through His death 
 and resurrection, ch. liv., is here followed 
 by an earnest call to receive the heavenly 
 gift. 
 
 The first word, in the Early Prophe- 
 cies, has often been used as a voice of 
 woe to Israel and the Gentiles, Is. iii. 9, 1 1. 
 Once, also, it has been used to summon 
 the Assyrian spoiler to his work of judg- 
 ment, X. 5 ; once as a voice of woe to him 
 when his work is done, xxxiii. i ; and 
 once, after a prediction of his fall, to call 
 the nations to do homage to the God 
 of Israel, xviii. i. That invitation was 
 an earnest of the call of the Gentiles. 
 Here it is renewed, and blossoms out into 
 the full message of the Gospel. All are 
 invited, without difference, Rom. iii. 22, 
 who are hungry and thirsty, and need 
 the bread of life, and the waters of salva- 
 tion, Rom. x. 12; Joh. vii. 37, vi. 35. 
 The phrase, to "buy without money," 
 teaches at once the freeness and precious- 
 ness of the offered blessings. These are 
 such as not only to quench the thirst, like 
 water, but also to delight the taste, and 
 satisfy the purified instincts of the renewed 
 heart. Man's natural desire for happi- 
 ness is here made the starting-point of 
 the heavenly invitation. 
 
 v. 2. All the pursuits of the world are 
 "vanity and vexation of spirit." The eye 
 is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear 
 with hearing. Nothing less than God's 
 love, revealed in the cross of Christ, can 
 
 meet the deep craving of the immortal 
 soul. " Hearken diligently," lit. " hearken, 
 yea, hearken." The word is repeated to 
 express the urgency of the invitation, and 
 to enforce a double measure of attention. 
 
 v. 3. The promised blessings are now 
 more plainly defined. They consist in 
 the New Covenant of grace, to last for 
 ever; and in the fulfilment of the oath, 
 sworn to David, that God would raise up 
 to him a Son, greater than himself, his 
 own Lord, to sit on his throne. These are 
 the mercies which, in his last words, are 
 said to be "all his salvation and all his 
 desire." This feature of the Gospel, as 
 fulfilling the promise to David, meets us 
 in the first verse of the New Testament. 
 
 v. 4. The pronouns, in this verse and 
 the next, refer neither to David, nor to 
 Messiah as intended under that name; 
 but rather as the great, well-known Object 
 of these well-assured mercieSj which are 
 all summed up in the person of "Him who 
 was to come." 
 
 V. 5. The address is not to the Church 
 (Grot., Vitr., Rosenmr., Gesen., Hitz., 
 Scholz). The word is singular and mas- 
 culine, while the plural is used here for 
 the receivers of the Gospel, and the 
 Church has been figured as a woman just 
 before. It refers to Messiah, who has just 
 been mentioned as the great Witness of 
 Divine truth to all the nations (Jer., IMusc, 
 Calv., Sanct., Mich., Jenr., Hend.). The 
 word, "nation" denotes, not the Gentiles 
 at large, but the Christian Church, called 
 mainly from among them, the holy nation 
 
2'J2 
 
 ISAIAH, LV. 6— II. 
 
 unto thee ; because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy- 
 One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. 
 
 6 Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found ; call ye upon 
 him, while he is near. 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 arc not as your 
 thoughts, neither my ways as your 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 re- 
 turneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring 
 forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread 
 to the eater ; 1 1 So shall my word be, that goeth forth out 
 of my mouth : it shall not return unto me void ; but it shall 
 
 and peculiar people, to whom the kingdom 
 of God would now be given, Matt. xxi. 4, 
 Rom. ix. 2 — 4. It is a nation which 
 Messiah, at the date of the prophecy, did 
 not own as within His covenant, and who 
 had been ignorant of the salvation of God. 
 1 Cor. xii. 2, Gal. iv. 8. The last clause 
 repeats the earlier promise, ch. xlix. 5, 
 "Yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of 
 the Lord." 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The first appeal is to that 
 deep craving of man's heart for happiness, 
 which the Gospel alone can satisfy. A 
 second follows, drawn from the danger of 
 unrepented sin, since the long forbearance 
 of God will be followed by a time of 
 solemn judgment. Abundant mercy is now 
 within reach ; but the Master of the house 
 will soon rise up, and shut the door, Luke 
 xiii. 2^. 
 
 V. 8. The contrast here is not between 
 the holiness of God's ways, and the un- 
 holiness of the thoughts and ways of 
 sinners; but between the largeness of His 
 ways of grace, the vastness of his thoughts 
 of mercy, and the selfishness of the sinner, 
 or the low conceptions of the penitent, 
 when first he turns to God. This is the 
 earliest and simplest exposition (Cyril, 
 Jerome, Aben Ezra, Kimch., Oecolamp., 
 Piscator, Hendk., Slier). "Let the sinner 
 forsake his evil ways, and turn to the 
 Lord," not as to one who is a hard Mas- 
 ter, but one who is rich in mercy, whose 
 name is Love. As the depths of His 
 
 wisdom, so the heights of His grace are 
 unsearchable. 
 
 vv. lo, II. The thoughts and ways of 
 God are wonderful, even in the works of 
 nature, but far more in the kingdom of 
 grace. The rain, the snow, the fniitful 
 soil, the herbs and fruit that clothe the 
 earth with beauty, and sustain the life of 
 men, are emblems of deeper truths that 
 affect the soul, and types of the powerful 
 operation of the word of God. The 
 Gospel will never cease its mighty work 
 in the hearts of sinful men, until the 
 Divine Redeemer, the Man of Sorrows, 
 shall be satisfied with the fruits of His 
 atoning sacrifice, and reap a full harvest 
 of ransomed souls. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. These verses cannot be 
 limited to the returning exiles, without 
 severing them from their context, and 
 obscuring their true force. They express 
 rather the joyful experience of the first 
 Christians, who heard the word of life 
 from the lips of the Apostles, and that of 
 Christian believers in every later age. 
 But they also look forward to those days 
 of restitution, when "the creation itself 
 shall be delivered from the bondage of 
 corruption into the glorious liberty of the 
 children of God." The chapter thus re- 
 veals the moral laws, the later progress, 
 and the glorious results of the Gospel, and 
 completes a wonderful outline of "the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the gloiy that 
 should follow." 
 
ISAIAH, LV. 12, 13. 273 
 
 accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in that 
 whereunto I send 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 tJicir hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up 
 the cypress, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle : 
 and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign, 
 that shall not be cut off. 
 
 The Sure Mercies of David. Chap. LV. 3. 
 
 The sure mercies of David {ja oaia Aavlb ra Trta-ra, LXX.) have received 
 three interpretations. Some refer them to favours like those enjoyed by David 
 (Rabbis, Grot.); others take David here as a name of Messiah (Cocc, Stier, 
 Hend.) ; while most explain them of the mercies promised to David, with 
 reference to 2 Sam. vii. 8—16 (Alex., Jen., Delitzsch). Again, some refer 
 V, 4 to Messiah as a greater David (Hend., Cocc, Stier, &c.), others to 
 Messiah, as imphed in these sure mercies (Vitr., &c.), but Delitzsch retro- 
 spectively to David himself. But the sudden use of the name David for 
 Messiah, with no added or distinctive epithet, when it has been used nine 
 times in the book for the Jewish king himself, would be very unnatural. 
 Still more so, when the phrase ''Ipn is found elsewhere, Ps. Ixxxix., with 
 such a prominent notice of David himself, as receiving an eternal covenant 
 of mercy. " The mercies of David, the well-assured," are the same spoken 
 of in Nathan's message, and in the last words of David ; that is, Messiah, 
 with all the blessings He would bring to His people. Hence the transition 
 to the mention of a person in the next verse has no real difficulty. The 
 work, the sufferings, and the triumph of this greater Son of David, have been 
 described just before at length. Hence the words, "Behold, I have given 
 him for a witness to the people," refer back to the double promise, "Bthold 
 my Servant, whom I uphold," xUi. i. "Behold, my Servant shall deal pru- 
 dently," lii. 13. Also the emphasis in the original is not on the name, 
 David, but on the word D''jpN3nj the sure, or well-assured, which closes the 
 former verse. 
 
 Still further, this mention of Messiah, as the fulfiller of the sure covenant 
 sworn to David, here links the Later with the Earlier Prophecies. For the 
 promise of Immanuel had been given to Ahaz and the house of David in 
 their hour of alarm, as a renewal and expansion of that earlier covenant. It 
 had been repeated, ch. xi., with further reference to the previous decay of the 
 royal line. Hezekiah's reign had been announced as a pledge and earnest 
 in the deliverance then to be given, xvi. 5 ; and again, the exaltation of 
 Eliakim, xxii. 22, In the warning to Jerusalem, xxix. i, the promise of the 
 Assyrian overthrow, xxxvii. 35, and the recovery of Hezekiah, xxxviii. 5, there 
 is the same reference to this Davidical covenant. Thus the mention here of 
 Messiah, as that Person in whom all the sure mercies of David would centre 
 and be fulfilled, binds together the whole series of Isaiah's messages. 
 B. I. 18 
 
274 ISAIAH, LVI— LIX. 
 
 § 4 — 6. The Middle Ages of Delay. 
 Chap. LVI— LIX. 
 
 The Prophets, while announcing a distant future, never cease to be 
 watchmen for their own time. These Later Visions, where Isaiah seems 
 transported onward, first to the days of Cyrus, and then to those of Messiah, 
 would seem wholly parted from the rest, and their common origin be seriously 
 obscured, if they had no marks of internal connection with Isaiah's own days. 
 But these chapters are a clear proof that the prophet, in the Later as well 
 as the Earlier Visions, is commissioned with warnings to Judah for times 
 before, as well as after the Captivity. 
 
 The resemblance in ch. Ivi. 9 — Ivii. to the features of Manasseh's reign is 
 very striking. Hence some of those critics, who refer the later visions to the 
 time of Cyrus, take this part for a fragment from Isaiah himself or some pro- 
 phet of his age. Their place, on the other hand, between ch. Iv. and ch. Ix., 
 would lead us, if the prophecy is at all continuous, to refer their subject to 
 the middle times of the New Testament. The union of these two principles 
 is the best key to their interpretation. To turn them into moral aphorisms, 
 applying equally to all ages, does away with prediction altogether. Their 
 definite application to special events, instead of lessening their moral use for 
 all ages, adds double force to every warning and promise. 
 
 The Earlier Prophecies had been based on the events of Isaiah's times, 
 from the last year of Uzziah until Hezekiah's recovery, and the message from 
 Babylon. The years of peace and truth that followed, were the fit occasion 
 for his later visions of hope and comfort to Zion. But before his death the 
 shadows were growing dark once more, and the reign of Manasseh was 
 infamous for rebellion and idolatry. Its main features, also, answered closely 
 to the evils predicted elsewhere of the latter times of the Gospel, i Tim. iv. i. 
 Hence, when the prophecy reaches the middle passage from the first rise of 
 the Gospel to its final victories, a warning against the sins and idolatries of 
 Manasseh's reign is made the vehicle for a prediction of similar evils in the 
 middle and later ages of the Church of Christ. On this view the whole is 
 consistent and harmonious. These chapters are a direct voice of Isaiah 
 to Israel in the prospect of idolatrous corruptions, already reviving, about 
 the close of Hezekiah's reign. But they also fill up the prophetic outline 
 between the first days of the Gospel, and the bright and joyful time of 
 Israel's recovery in the last days. 
 
 In ch. Ivi. 8, a promise is given, which is an earnest and pledge of the 
 future call of the Gentiles. The message then passes, Ivi. 9, into a direct 
 warning of the judgments coming upon Judah, because of the idolatries of 
 the king and people, under Manasseh and the following reigns; while the 
 same language applies, in the series of the Visions, to the corruptions which 
 followed the large and rapid extension of the visible church of Christ. 
 
ISAIAH, LVI. 1—6. 
 
 275 
 
 §4(1). Chap. LVI. Message of Hope and Warning. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment, and do justice ; 
 for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be 
 revealed. 2 Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of 
 man that layeth hold on it ; that keepeth the sabbath from pol- 
 luting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. 3 Neither 
 let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the 
 Lord, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from 
 his people ; neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. 
 4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my 
 sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold 
 of my covenant ; 5 Even unto them will I give in my house, 
 and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and 
 of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not 
 be cut off. 6 Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves 
 to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, 
 
 V. I. This new section of advice and 
 warning belongs to tlie wliole period from 
 Isaiah to Christ; but its emphasis would 
 deepen, as the time of Messiah's advent 
 drew nigh. The faithful Jews, in dark 
 times, are tauglit to wait on God in the 
 way of His judgments, in faith and obe- 
 dience, and are assured that fullerlightand 
 mercy are soon to dawn. The like mes- 
 sage applies now to the Church of Christ, 
 and its prospect of the Second Advent. 
 
 V. 2. "This" denotes judgment and 
 righteousness. The truth, on which it is 
 blessed to lay hold, is the promised near 
 approach of the salvation of God. Comp. 
 Tit. ii. II — 13. The Sabbath is here 
 singled out, as the earliest of God's re- 
 vealed commands, representing the first 
 table of the Law. The next clause in- 
 cludes the second table, or the whole 
 range of social duty. The great worth of 
 the Sabbath is plainly implied, as form- 
 ing by its observance a test and mark of 
 the truly pious. 
 
 vv. 3 — 5. The Old Covenant gave no 
 clear and full pi^omise of immortality. 
 The laws of inheritance and promises 
 of posterity were a provisional substitute. 
 Each Israelite thus survived in his chil- 
 dren, and his name was not cut off. But 
 here there dawns the light of the new 
 
 Covenant, through Him who seemed to 
 die wholly childless, but who received 
 the promise of a glorious spiritual seed 
 through His victory over the grave. 
 Through Him the eunuch, hopeless of 
 sons and daughters, shall receive an ever- 
 lasting issue ; while the sons of the 
 stranger shall share in Israel's blessing. 
 
 This promise to eunuchs, of a special 
 share in the "salvation near to come," 
 refers back to Isaiah's warning to Heze- 
 kiah, xxxix. 7. It may probably include 
 a special reference to the beloved Daniel, 
 and the signal honour given to him 
 through all later generations. The warn- 
 ing and the promise answer to each other 
 and confirm their common origin. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The influx of proselytes, from 
 Cyrus and the Maccabees to the birth of 
 Christ, was an earnest of the later Call of 
 the Gentiles. The words of v. 7 were 
 quoted by our Lord, when He drove out 
 the buyers and sellers from the temple, 
 and have a secret emphasis not always 
 noticed. It was the court of the Gen- 
 tiles which these traffickers profaned. 
 Now these words had given it a Divine 
 consecration. After this message, even 
 this court of the Gentiles justly claimed a 
 full share in the sacredness of the whole 
 temple. (Mede, on Mark xi. 17.) 
 
 18—2 
 
276 
 
 ISAIAH, LVI. 7— II. 
 
 to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from pol- 
 luting it, and takcth hold of 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 sJiall be ac- 
 cepted upon mine altar ; for mine house shall be called a house 
 of prayer for all people. 
 
 8 The Lord GOD, which gathcrcth the outcasts of Israel, 
 saith, Yet will I gather others unto him, beside those that are 
 gathered unto him. 
 
 9 All ye beasts of the field ! yea, come to devour, all ye 
 beasts in the forest. 10 His watchmen are blind, they are all 
 ignorant: they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark ; dreamers, 
 lying down, loving to slumber. 1 1 Yea, tJicy are greedy dogs 
 which can never have enough, and they are shepherds tJiat can- 
 
 V. 8. This promise svims up the mes- 
 sage of the previous verses. A partial 
 gathering, it is implied, is past, but a 
 greater is to come. The influx of prose- 
 lytes, before the coming of Messiah, was 
 thus to be followed, on a far wider scale, 
 by the conversion of Gentiles to the faith 
 of Christ. 
 
 V. 9. This verse has received diverse, and 
 even opposite, interpretations. Some view 
 it as a Call, like Iv. r, to enjoy the bless- 
 ings of the Gospel (Cyr., Jerome, Stier, 
 Hahn). But the next verses make it 
 strange that able and thoughtful men 
 could so invert the natural sense of the 
 passage. The flock, the watchmen, the 
 dogs, the shepherds, and the wild beasts, 
 form a picture in which all the emblems 
 define one another. The construction is 
 not less strange, which makes it a call on 
 the beasts of the field to prey on other 
 beasts of the forest (Rabbis, Cocc). 
 
 The words are plainly a Divine sum- 
 mons to hostile powers, in judgment upon 
 the sins of the people and the sensuality 
 of their shepherds, to ravage and lay waste 
 the flock of God. They apply forcibly to 
 the state of Judah from the accession of 
 Manasseh to the fall of the first temple. 
 But they are not less expressive of the his- 
 tory of the Church, the flock once tended 
 by the apostles, from the fourth and fifth 
 centuries onward, when hordes of fierce 
 northern barbarians and Saracenic in- 
 vaders ravaged all Christendom with de- 
 solating judgments. This application 
 
 (Vitr.) has nothing arbitrary (Alex.), but 
 results naturally from the order and se- 
 quence of the visions. Gradual corruption 
 of the Church was followed by desolating 
 judgments ; and the medieval state of the 
 Church resembled closely the reign of 
 Manasseh, with its persecution of a faith- 
 ful remnant, and its widespread worship 
 of the host and the queen of heaven, 
 1 Kings xxi. 3, 16; 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3. 
 
 vv. 10—12. This Call to execute judg- 
 ment, like that to the Assyrian, x. 5, is 
 joined with a portraiture of the sins which 
 are its cause. The watchmen and shep- 
 herds, who ought to feed and tend the 
 flock, are greedy, selfish, and insatiable, 
 given up to sensual pleasures. The words 
 apply, first of all, to the Jewish leaders 
 and teachers under the reign of Manasseh, 
 when Jerusalem was filled with idolatries 
 and innocent blood ; and then further, to 
 like evils on a far larger scale, after the 
 first times of the Gospel, which have been 
 mournfully realized in many generations 
 of church histoiy. 
 
 Ch. i.vii. v. I. The word "righteous" 
 may refer to some one eminent person ; 
 or be distributive, with the thought im- 
 plied that the number is only small. The 
 past tense (Heb.) is often rendered by the 
 present, which turns the passage into a 
 kind of moral proverb. But the word 
 refers more naturally to a fact realized in 
 prophetic vision. Thus it points naturally, 
 in the first place, to Ilezekiah, whose 
 faith and prayer turned back the shadow 
 
ISAIAH, LVI. 12— LVII. 4. 
 
 277 
 
 not understand ; they all look to their own way, every one for 
 his gain from his quarter. 12 Come, I will fetch wine, say they, 
 and we will make ourselves drunk with strong drink ; and to- 
 morrow shall be as this day : there is very great abundance. 
 
 § 4 (2). Chap. LVII. Jewish Idolatry. 
 
 The righteous hath perished, 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 shall 
 enter into peace ; they shall rest in their beds, each one walk- 
 ing iti his uprightness. 3 But as for you, draw near hither, 
 ye sons of the sorceress, the adulterous seed of the whore. 
 4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves ? against whom make 
 
 on the dial, and arrested the decline of the 
 guilty kingdom. The short reprieve was 
 made to depend on his life. With Ma- 
 nasseh's accession those times of truth and 
 peace ended, and new calamities began. 
 
 The picture that follows corresponds 
 in every point to known features of Manas- 
 seh's reign. Viewed in its later and ^\•ider 
 application, the removal of leaders emi- 
 nent for piety has always been one sign 
 of trouble near at hand. "It is ill when 
 there is no sense, no feeling, in a land 
 for the worth of the righteous, when 
 none sighs for him, and his name decays 
 before his body. The Lord takes him 
 away before the calamity, whose approach 
 was for him a sufficient grief" (G. Miiller). 
 
 "From the evil to come." Before the 
 face of the evil, that is, before its arrival, 
 and that he may be spared its actual en- 
 durance. The idea is not that of martyr- 
 dom by the strength of dominant evil 
 (Hitz., Ewald, Hahn), but of a gracious 
 removal by the hand of God, which 
 should be a warning to the survivors, if 
 they were wise to understand the ways of 
 Providence. The exact sense is "while 
 yet there is none that considereth." So 
 strange, it means, is the blindness of the 
 sensual to God's warning. 
 
 V. 2. "He" and "they" answer to 
 the righteous man, and the merciful, of the 
 former verse, and fix their common refer- 
 ence. When he perishes, or disappears 
 from the eye of sense, the righteous shall 
 enter into peace, and his soul be kept 
 safe in the hand of the Lord ; and merci- 
 
 ful men shall rest peacefully in the 
 Paradise of the departed, awaiting a joy- 
 ful resurrection. The last clause is a 
 weighty caution, restricting this blessed 
 promise to the upright alone. 
 
 V. 3. The pronoun here is emphatic. 
 It marks a strong contrast between the 
 righteous and merciful who have been 
 taken from the evil, and the corrupt and 
 sensual survivors who have to fear the 
 stroke of coming judgment. Like the 
 islands and nations, xli. r, these are called 
 to draw near, that God may plead against 
 them. Not as to the grave of the right- 
 eous (Umbr.), but to the presence of the 
 Most High ; from whom they would strive 
 in vain, like Adam, to hide themselves in 
 guilty concealment. 
 
 The sorceress, the mystic Jezebel, is 
 the company of the idolaters, the apostate 
 church or synagogue. Her children are 
 the corrupt and sensual among the people 
 of God's covenant, whether of the Old or 
 New Testament. They are called "an 
 evil and adulterous generation." In the 
 old age of Isaiah this idolatry and pro- 
 fligacy must have been ready to break 
 forth anew. The description cannot ap- 
 ply especially to the Exile, the time, not 
 of God's forbearance, but when His heavy 
 judgment on their idolatries had al- 
 ready come. The words are a picture, 
 equally exact and truthful, of the times 
 of prevailing saint and image worship, 
 joined with bloody persecution, in the 
 visible Church of Christ. 
 
 vv. 4, 5. Two sins are here described, 
 
2/8 
 
 ISAIAH, LVII. 5—9. 
 
 ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue ? arc yc not children 
 of transgression, a seed of falsehood? 5 Inflaming yourselves 
 with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the 
 valleys under the clefts of the rocks ? 
 
 6 Among the smooth stones of the brook is thy portion ; 
 they, they are thy lot : even to them hast thou poured a drink- 
 offering, thou hast offered a meat-offering : shall I by these 
 things be appeased ? 7 Upon a lofty and high mountain hast 
 thou set thy bed : even thither hast thou gone up to offer 
 sacrifice. 8 Also behind the door and the posts hast thou 
 set up thy memorial ; for away from me thou hast discovered 
 thyself, and gone up : thou hast enlarged thy bed, and exacted 
 for thee an agreement from them : thou hast loved their lying 
 with thee, and hast sought occasion. 9 And thou wentest to 
 the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and 
 
 contempt for the true servants of God, 
 and zeal for idolatrous rites in groves and 
 valleys, and especially for Moloch worship. 
 Comp. -i Chr. xxxiii. 5, 6. The counter- 
 part is exact in the persecutions of the 
 Church of Rome, and the religious mur- 
 ders in the Alpine valleys. 
 
 V. 6. The received version (Chald., 
 Aben Ezra, Kimch., Grot., Rosenm., 
 Maurer, Knob., Hend., Stier) seems to 
 agree best with the context. Some, in- 
 stead of "smooth stones," render "open 
 tracts," as being one scene of idolatry; 
 others take it as a prediction of the idol- 
 aters' punishment. They chose out idols 
 from among the smooth stones of the 
 "brooks," the wadys, or dry water- 
 courses, where they carried on their wor- 
 ship. These, in contrast to "the Portion 
 of Jacob," Jer. x. 16, were their self- 
 chosen portion ; their inheritance, instead 
 of the Psalmist's, Ps. xvi. 5. 
 
 The last clause is an indignant irony. 
 Could they hope that the anger of God 
 for their social iniquities would be ap- 
 peased by these idol offerings, which only 
 doubled and heightened their sin? "From 
 tree-worship with its orgies the prophet 
 passes to the leading Canaanilish abomi- 
 nation, human sacrifices. Judging from 
 the localities named, the reference is to 
 children offered to Baal on his Bamoth or 
 
 high-places The stones are those which 
 
 the stream in the valley has washed 
 smooth with time, and rounded. The 
 
 mode of worship confirms this view. In 
 Carthage such stones were called rt/'^i(//Vfj, 
 and among the ancient Arabs, the asndnt, 
 or idols, consisted of rude blocks of this 
 kind. Herodotus, III. 8, speaks of seven 
 stones the Arabs anointed, calling upon 
 the god Orotal. Suidas states that the 
 idol of Ares in Petra was a black stone; 
 and that of the Kaaba was, according 
 to a very inconvenient tradition for the 
 Mahometans, an idol of Saturn. Stone 
 worship of this kind was practised by the 
 Israelites before the Captivity. In the 
 East Indies we find stone worship among 
 the Vendya tribes, and also among the 
 Vaishnans, who worship Vishnu in the 
 form of a stone from the river Gandak" 
 (Delitzsch p. 373). 
 
 v. 7. Mountain-tops and high-places 
 were the favourite scenes of Jewish idola- 
 try. The words descrilie their bigoted 
 zeal and shameless publicity in the service 
 of their idols. 
 
 v. 8. Besides public, shameless idola- 
 try in high-places and on mountains, 
 there was private idol-worship in their 
 houses. Where God had commanded 
 His words to be written for a memorial, 
 they set up the memorial of their own 
 shame. Their zeal in false worship was 
 like the course of an adulteress, who not 
 only prepares her bed for lovers who 
 visit her, but solicits their presence, exacts 
 their visits as a favour, and looks out 
 for occasions to multiply her hateful sin. 
 
ISAIAH, LVII. 10—14. 
 
 279 
 
 didst send thy messengers even far away, and hast debased 
 thyself even unto hell. 10 Thou art wearied with thy much 
 journeying ; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope : thou hast 
 found the life of thy hand, therefore thou wast not grieved. 
 1 1 And whom hast thou been afraid of, or feared ? that thou 
 hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor cared for me in thy 
 heart ? Have I not been holding my peace, even from of old, 
 and thou fearest me not? 12 I will declare thy righteousness; 
 and thy works, that they shall not profit thee. 1 3 When thou 
 criest, let thy companies deliver thee : but the wind shall carry 
 them all away, a breath shall scatter them: and he that putteth 
 his trust in me shall inherit the land, and shall possess my holy 
 mountain ; 14 And one shall say. Cast ye up, cast ye up, pre- 
 pare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of 
 my people. 
 
 Some expound that God's memorial, 
 tlie words of the Law, Deut. vi. 9, was 
 put out of sight (Delitzsch). But the 
 whole account plainly refers to private, 
 in contrast with public idolatry; and the 
 memorial is the idol image, by which 
 their false worship to the god it repre- 
 sented was to be kept always in their mind. 
 The word j'(Zc/, hand, is used nearly as in 
 Ivi. 5, for "opportunity." The shameless 
 one seeks out times and occasions for 
 inviting her lovers, and renewing her sin. 
 
 V. 9. Two questions here arise ; whether 
 "the king" refers to Moloch and idol gods, 
 or to the heathen kings of Assyria, Egypt 
 or Babylon; and whether the ointment 
 and perfumes are presents, or the means 
 of personal adornment. A third may be 
 raised, whether the messengers are sent 
 to procure these ointments, or directly to 
 the king. But the resort to heathen al- 
 liances is so constantly joined with idola- 
 try in other places, and its growth under 
 Manasseh answers so plainly to the warn- 
 ing to Hezekiah, ch. xxxix., as to establish 
 this for the true meaning. The worship 
 of idols, and slavish adulation of heathen 
 despots, were two kindred forms of the 
 same evil. But the idols were stocks and 
 stones, and mere shadows, while the king 
 of Assyria or Babylon was the central 
 reality in a vast system of ungodliness. 
 
 This harlot sorceress, then, is described 
 as decking herself with ointment and 
 costly perfumes, to solicit adulterous love 
 
 from a foreign king, who has the place in 
 her heart due to the King of Israel alone, 
 Is. xliii. 15; Joh. i. 49. The figure then 
 passes into the reality. The messengers 
 were sent "even far away," to Nineveh 
 or Babylon, the royal residence of the 
 idol-king. "Even to hell." They had 
 submitted to the lowest degradation, as if 
 courting eagerly their own shame. As 
 true religion is most ennobling, so super- 
 stition and idolatry sink men below the 
 level of the beasts of the field. 
 
 V. 10. "With thy much journeying." 
 Their strength had been well nigh ex- 
 hausted with their sedulous idol- worship, 
 their search after lovers, and messages to 
 the king. They were wearied with sin, 
 but not weary of^xw. 
 
 "Yet saidst thou not, There is no hope." 
 Superstition blinds and infatuates. "The 
 life of thy hand" is either the life of the 
 moment, when men live from hand to 
 mouth ; or else, alluding to v. 8, the life of 
 the place sought out for sensual vice, her 
 pleasure in the momentary success of her 
 disgraceful assignations with her lovers. 
 
 The exact force of v. 11 is rather 
 obscure. Vitringa translates, "Whom... 
 that thou liest? certainly me thou fear- 
 est not, nor callest to mind. Do not I 
 keep silence, even from long ago, so that 
 thou hast not feared me?" It is thus 
 viewed as an ironical charge to lay aside 
 the pretence of fearing God, when the 
 reality is wanting. De Wctte explains 
 
2«0 
 
 ISAIAH, LVII. 15—20. 
 
 15 For thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth 
 eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy 
 place, with him also that is contrite, and humble in spirit, to 
 revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the 
 contrite ones. 16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will 
 I be angry for evermore : for the spirit would fail from before 
 me, and the souls which I have made. 17 For the iniquity of 
 his covetousness I was wroth, and went on smiting him : I hid 
 me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his 
 heart. 18 I have seen his ways, and I will heal him : I will also 
 lead him, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners. 
 19 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. 20 But the wicked air like the troubled sea, that cannot 
 
 the last clause, "I have held my peace, so 
 that thou needest not have feared me." 
 Stier paraphrases, ' ' Before whom art thou 
 afraid and terrified, that thou so liest? 
 Before me? No! for thou thinkest not of 
 me, nor layest it to heart, go then en- 
 tirely away from me. My long-suffering 
 has occasioned thy ungodliness. Am not 
 I he that keep silence, and that for long 
 time, and thou fearest me not?" Hahn 
 takes the last clause oppositely, "And 
 dost thou not fear me? a God of such 
 goodness and long-suffering?" 
 
 The following seems to give the real 
 force and scope of this appeal. 
 
 "And who, then, are these rivals, of 
 whom thou hast been afraid, forsaking 
 the fear of thy true King? Men that shall 
 die, sons of men that are as grass, and idols 
 still more worthless, wind and confusion. 
 Through fear of these thou hast lied, and 
 been wholly false to my covenant, hast 
 forgotten God, and ceased to care for 
 Him. Am I then so little to be feared? 
 My great long-suffering, hadst thou a 
 heart to feel, would only deepen thy 
 reverence. But I have long held my 
 peace, and refrained myself, and still 
 thou fearest me not. The goodness, which 
 should have brought thee to repentance, 
 has been abused to embolden thee in sin." 
 
 vv. 12 — 14. The folly of these vain 
 and wearying superstitions should soon 
 be exposed. "Thy righteousness" is a 
 direct contrast to "the righteousness of 
 
 God," Phil. iii. 9, or the righteousness of 
 faith. " Thy companies" are either the 
 gathered troops of idols, or all the variety 
 of human succours. All these would 
 prove worthless in the hour of need. 
 
 ' ' And he that trusteth, &c." The simple 
 connective is here the most forcible ren- 
 dering. The threatening and promise are 
 not so much contrasted, as made the com- 
 mon proof of God's righteous dominion. 
 The rebuke refers directly to Judah under 
 Manasseh and the later kings, and the 
 promise, to the Exiles at the Return. But 
 the words have also a wider range in the 
 times of the Gospel. The word in v. [4 
 is impersonal — A voice shall say — in di- 
 rect reference, first to the days of Cyrus, 
 next to those of the Baptist, and then to 
 the final deliverance of Israel, Rom. xi. 
 15. 26, 31. 
 
 V. 15. Here the light and hope of the 
 Gospel dawns once more amidst the 
 threatenings. Mercy and grace to the 
 humble and contrite foiTns the message 
 in the first beatitudes, and the great law 
 of gospel promise. 
 
 V. 17. Covetousness is near akin to 
 open idolatry. One was the besetting sin 
 of the Jews before the Captivity, the other 
 of their chiefs and rulers after tlie Return, 
 Nell. V. I — 15 ; Mat. xxiii. I4 ; Lu. xvi. 24. 
 The presence of God had been veiled, 
 while the heathen ruled over them, and 
 the light of prophecy was withdrawn. 
 But, far from wholly forsaking them, God 
 
ISAIAH, LVII. 21— LVIII. 2. 
 
 28r 
 
 rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 21 TJicre is no 
 peace, saith my God, to the wicked. 
 
 § 5. Chap. LVIII. Jewish Pharisaism. 
 
 SELF-righteous formalism is one main evil which grew up among the 
 Jewish people along with open idolatry, and survived it in the times after the 
 Return from Babylon. Direct idol-worship then almost wholly disappeared. 
 But the other evil, more subtle in its nature, though present from the first, 
 became conspicuous under the Second Temple, and reached its height when 
 our Lord began His ministry. After rejecting the Gospel, it hardened into 
 the Talmudical Rabbinism of later times. In the visible Church of Christ 
 the succession has been almost the same. The open prevalence of saint 
 and image worship has been followed by a wide prevalence of various 
 forms of lifeless orthodoxy, or zealotry, near akin to the Pharisaism of the 
 Jews in the days of Isaiah. In ch. Iviii, we have a distinct warning against 
 this second great evil in the Jewish and Christian Churches. 
 
 Cry aloud, spare not ; lift up thy voice like a trumpet ; and 
 shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob 
 their sins. 2 And yet they seek me daily, and delight to know 
 
 would speedily send to them a new mes- 
 sage of richer grace than before. 
 
 V. 19. This promise is repeatedly re- 
 ferred to in the New Testament, and 
 taken for an express warrant, Divinely 
 given, for preaching the Gospel to the 
 Gentiles, Acts ii. 39; Eph. ii. 13, 17. 
 
 § 5. Ch. LVIII. 
 
 V. I. The Call is addressed to Isaiah 
 himself. This verse, andch. xliv. 26, seem 
 almost the only places where he is dis- 
 tinctly addressed, or comes forward in his 
 own person, in these Later Visions. Like 
 the Baptist of whom he speaks, xl. 3, he 
 becomes simply a voice, to utter the mes- 
 sages of the Word of God, and of the 
 Spirit, who speak by his lips. But here, 
 in his old age, he receives a charge to 
 raise his voice once more against the sins 
 that were spreading, like a dark cloud, 
 over the land. The limitation to the 
 exiles (Delilzsch) is a faulty concession 
 to the theory of a later origin at that 
 date. For here the prophet is not com- 
 manded to write, as for a distant time, 
 but to rebuke with loud voice the men of 
 his own day. Yet this direct address to 
 
 his contemporaries (Rabbis, Grot., Pis- 
 cator) includes an implied prophecy of 
 the Pharisaism, which would succeed 
 idolatry as the master evil among the 
 Jews, and also of the prevalence of like 
 evils in the later times of the Gos- 
 pel. 
 
 V. 2. The pronoun, in Hebrew, comes 
 first, and is emphatic, and the connective 
 has thus an adversative sense. It is God 
 himself, and not heathen idols to whom 
 the objects of this rebuke seem to offer 
 their devoted service. The prayer or 
 boast of the Pharisee is to the Lord 
 himself "God, I thank thee, &c " The 
 character described is one of vain pride 
 in religious services, without humility, 
 faith, or love. 
 
 "That do righteousness, &c." The 
 present tense (Hend.) seems here to give 
 the force of the Hebrew past, as simply 
 defining the act without reference to time. 
 The main feature is a pretended eager- 
 ness to learn the commands and will of 
 God, as shewn in ceremonial details, and 
 still a neglect of the weightier matters of 
 the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. 
 
282 
 
 ISAIAH, LVIII. 3—7. 
 
 my ways, as a nation that do righteousness, and forsake not the 
 ordinance of their God : they ask of me the ordinances of jus- 
 tice, they take delight in approaching to God. 3 Wherefore 
 have we fasted, say they, and thou hast not seen it? afflicted 
 our souls, and thou takest no knowledge ? Behold, in the day 
 of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 
 4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the 
 fist of wickedness : ye shall not fast as ye do now, to make your 
 outcry be heard on high. 
 
 5 Is it like this, the fast which I choose, the day of man's 
 afflicting his soul .-' is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, 
 and spread for his couch sackcloth and ashes .-' wilt thou call 
 this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? 6 Is not this 
 the fast which I choose, to loose the bands of wickedness, to 
 undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that 
 ye break every yoke.'' 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the 
 hungry, and to bring the poor, the homeless, to thine house .'' 
 when thou seest the naked, that thou clothe him, and that thou 
 hide not thyself from thine own flesh .'' 
 
 V. 3. The complaint is that they had 
 made God largely their debtor, and that 
 the debt was unpaid. Religious pride 
 breeds discontent, and discontent open 
 blasphemy. Their religion left them 
 selfish and contentious. Their heart was 
 full of passion, their lips of strife, their 
 hands of violence. 
 
 " Hast not seen it." The past and 
 future (Ileb.) are combined, to express 
 that they complained of God's past neg- 
 lect, and of its continuance still. The ren- 
 dering "pleasure" (A. V., Vitr., Alex., 
 Hahn, Stier), rather than "business" (Ge- 
 sen., Hend., Knobel, Delitzsch), is con- 
 firmed by the scope of the passage, and 
 the constant use of the term. 
 
 V. 4. "Ye shall not." The form is 
 the same as in the Decalogue, and the 
 words are an emphatic prohibition of 
 their false and immoral worship. The 
 phrase "on high" refers back to God's 
 title, "the high and lofty One, that in- 
 habiteth eternity," and to His dwelling in 
 "the high and holy place." Their out- 
 cries of passion and violence on their fast- 
 days, like the cry of Sodom, went up 
 to heaven continually, to bring down 
 judgment. 
 
 V. 5. "The fast I choose." The future 
 (Heb.) denotes here what is habitual, 
 the kind of fast in which alone God can 
 take delight. The words that follow refer 
 directly to the charge given them as to 
 the day of atonement, — "Ye shall afflict 
 your souls by a statute for ever," Lev. 
 xvi. 31. That mere outward fasting, in 
 which they indulged their spiritual pride, 
 was far different. Even a bulrush might 
 rival such heartless worship. 
 
 V. 6. Some refer this to judicial oppres- 
 sion (Grot.), others to impositions on the 
 conscience (Cocc), or of burdensome for- 
 mularies (Vitr.), or to the detention of 
 Jewish servants after the seventh year. 
 But the words are quite general, and 
 refer to oppression of every kind (Alex.). 
 "And that ye break." Lit. "And ye 
 shall break." The definition of the fast, 
 which alone is acceptable to God, passes 
 thus into a direct command, implied in 
 all the previous clauses. Outward fast- 
 ing is not forbidden; but its worth is 
 affirmed to be wholly dependent on the 
 faith and humility of the worshipper, and 
 on its leading to practical humanity in all 
 the relations of life. "He that loveth not 
 his brother, whom he hath seen, how 
 
ISAIAH, LVIII. 8—12. 
 
 283 
 
 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy 
 health shall spring forth speedily : and thy righteousness shall 
 go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. 
 9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord will answer : thou shalt 
 cry, and he will say, Here I am ! If thou take away from the 
 midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and 
 speaking vanity ; 10 And z/thou wilt draw out thy soul to the 
 hungry, and wilt satisfy the afflicted soul ; then shall thy light 
 arise in obscurity, and thy darkness shall be as the noon day: 
 1 1 And the Lord will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy 
 soul in drought, and he will strengthen thy bones : and thou 
 shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose 
 waters fail not. 12 And thy children shall build the ancient 
 ruins ; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations : 
 
 can he love God, whom he hath not 
 seen?" 
 
 V. 8. "Before thee," not "before God," 
 where the truth of Rom. iv. 2 would apply, 
 but in the sight of men. These works of 
 love would be joyful heralds, preparing 
 the way for Israel's acceptance and honour 
 in the sight of the nations. "Thy rere- 
 ward." Both before and behind, and on 
 eitherside, the favour of God would encom- 
 pass His true worshippers like a shield. 
 The figure is borrowed from the history of 
 the Exodus and the journey through the 
 wilderness. No outward pillar of cloud 
 could be so sure a pledge of blessing as 
 the moral elevation of the whole people 
 to sincere, heartfelt worship, the love of 
 God and the love of man. A holy people 
 must be a blessed and a glorious people. 
 v. 9. "The putting forth of the finger." 
 A gesture of contempt, common to the 
 East and the West. A scornful temper, 
 whether the object be piety or poverty, 
 is equally opposed to the Law and the 
 Gospel. A mocking, cynical spirit is one 
 of the special dangers of the last times. 
 
 V. 10. To " draw out the soul," denotes 
 the cordiality of a cheerful giver (Vitr.). 
 Comp. 2 Cor. ix. 7. The clauses form a 
 climax, "darkness" being here a stronger 
 term than "obscurity" (the usual Heb. word 
 for darkness), and noon-day brightness 
 than light. There seems an allusion, not 
 commonly observed, to V. 2. A pretended 
 desire for religious knowledge, when join- 
 ed with the practice of sin, never can 
 
 attain its object. But "if any man be 
 willing to do His will, he shall know the 
 doctrine." Sincerity of heart is a condi- 
 tion for the real growth of spiritual life. 
 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God." 
 
 V. II. "In drought." A plural, of 
 which the singular occurs, Ps. Ixviii. 6, 
 "a dry land." Here "in diy places," 
 but in a figurative sense. There are three 
 stages in the promise ; blessing in circum- 
 stances the most unfavourable ; one that 
 makes fraitful, like a well-watered garden ; 
 and one that makes the soul a source of 
 blessing and fruitfulness to others, " like 
 a spring of water, whose waters fail 
 not." 
 
 v. 12. "Thy children." This is the true 
 force of the elliptical phrase, not "some 
 among you," nor descendants (Hitz.). The 
 singular has passed into a collective sense, 
 to express the whole people, and here the 
 promise returns to the individuals who 
 compose it. "Ancient ruins" expresses 
 the sense more clearly than "old waste 
 places ;" since the reference is to houses 
 and cities long deserted, and fallen into 
 ruin. The " many generations " refer to 
 the past, and not the future. There is 
 nothing to restrict the words to the Exile 
 at Babylon. In the days of Isaiah de- 
 solation had already come to a large part 
 of the land of promise ; while the earlier 
 calamities have been succeeded, through 
 long ages, by those of Romish, Saracenic, 
 and Turkish desolations of Palestine. 
 
284 
 
 ISAIAH, LVIII. 13, 14. 
 
 and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The re- 
 storer of paths for habitation. 13 If thou turn away thy foot 
 from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 
 and call the sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the LoRD 
 honourable ; and shalt honour it, not doing thine own ways, not 
 finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking idle talk: 14 Then 
 shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause 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. 
 
 "For habitation." Dwellings require 
 paths to lead to them, not to be dwelt in 
 themselves. The meaning is, "the re- 
 storer of paths," needful or desirable for 
 the dwellers in the newly peopled cities. 
 Tropical lands, dispeopled, become arid 
 wastes, or pathless jungles. 
 
 V. 13. "The holy day of the Lord." 
 God'sown title of the Sabbath. His people 
 are to account it a delight, and honourable; 
 in contrast both to the weariness of a for- 
 mal, heartless observance, and to open, 
 careless profanation. The same message, 
 which exalts moral duties in contrast to 
 mere ceremonies, also exalts sabbath-keep- 
 ing as the crown of true morality. In the 
 fifth commandment religion stoops into 
 the sphere of social morality, and in the 
 fourth, morality rises into the sphere of 
 religious faith. 
 
 There is nothing, in this whole pas- 
 
 sage, to fix its reference, as some suppose, 
 to the exiles in Babylon. On the con- 
 trary, the ap])eal to the prophet, to lift 
 his voice aloud, supposes the first apjilica- 
 tion to be to the generation then alive; 
 and all the features agree with evils at 
 the close of Hezekiah's, or the opening 
 of Manasseh's reign. Oppression of the 
 poor, side by side with public fasting, 
 often took place before the Exile, and 
 was one of the chief sins which caused 
 it. Afterward the people were oppressed 
 themselves, and had fewer temptations 
 to oppress others. But the Pharisaism 
 here condemned, after open idolatry had 
 been rooted out by heavy judgments, be- 
 came the leading sin of the Jewish leaders 
 till the days of our Lord. Viewed in its 
 connection, the chapter predicts like evils, 
 and warns against them, in the later 
 times of the Christian Church. 
 
 § 6. Chap. LIX. The Eve of Judgment. 
 
 The Pharisaism of the Jews in the time of our Lord was followed by 
 a time of singular depravity and social violence (Joseph. Bell. Jtui. v. 13. 16). 
 The New Testament predicts a similar corruption of Christendom in the last 
 days, 2 Tim. iii. 1 — 7; Jude 11, 18; 2 Pet. ii. 10, 22, iii. 3, 4, The judgment 
 on Israel was to light afterward on the Gentiles. So also ch. lix. describes 
 a Sadduccan apostasy, a state of moral degeneracy, preparing the way for 
 some sore and heavy judgment. 
 
 The evils here described were already conspicuous at the beginning of 
 Manasseh's reign ; and, though restrained by Josiah's reformation, continued 
 and increased until the wrath of God came without remedy in the Chaldean 
 
ISAIAH, LIX. 1—5. 28s 
 
 desolation. The state of the people at that time was repeated, more fully, 
 before the Fall of the Second Temple. The place of the next chapter in the 
 series of visions confirms the apphcation of ch. lix., finally, to the apostasy 
 of the last days, when iniquity shall abound, and love wax cold, before 
 that redemption of Zion, and recovery of Israel, which are to be life from 
 the dead to the whole Gentile world. 
 
 It must be plain, on a perusal of this chapter, how little it can naturally 
 apply to the season of the Exile, when the captive Jews were subject to 
 heathen rule. It must belong, either to the days when a complete Jewish 
 pohty existed in Palestine, whether before or after the Captivity, or to a 
 similar stage in the history of Christendom in the latter days. With this 
 chapter ends a second Trilogy of the Middle Series of the Later Pro- 
 phecies. 
 
 Behold ! the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot 
 save ; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 2 But your 
 iniquities have been separating between you and your God, and 
 your sins have hid Jiis face from you, that he will not hear. 
 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with 
 iniquity ; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth per- 
 verseness. 4 None calleth on me in righteousness, and none 
 pleadeth in truth : they trust in vanity, and speak lies ; they 
 conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 5 They hatch eggs 
 of the basilisk, and weave spider's webs : he that eateth of their 
 eggs dieth, and that which is hatched cometh forth a viper. 
 
 § 6. Ch. lix. eluded. The Lord will not hear, for 
 
 V. I. Rich promises have just been no one calleth on Him in uprightness, 
 
 given, to be fulfilled through Israel's faith whether in prayer or praise; and none 
 
 and repentance. It is now shewn why pleadeth in truth, for their dealings with 
 
 their fulfilment is so long delayed. It is each other, in all social questions, are 
 
 from no want of power in God, but from without truth or equity. Their plans and 
 
 their own obstinate perseverance in sin. their actions alike are steeped in evil. 
 
 Their transgressions are like a thick wall v. 5. The basilisk, a venomous serpent, 
 
 between them and their God, so that and the spider, a venomous insect, are a 
 
 their prayers cannot pass through. Evil, double emblem for these plans of iniquity, 
 
 so long as it prevails, must breed ques- hatched or woven with pains and care, 
 
 tionings of the Divine power or goodness. only to ensnare and destroy. "He that 
 
 But both will be cleared at last from all eateth of their eggs dieth." Their schemes 
 
 the reproaches of sinners, who claim that work mischief, like moral poison, even 
 
 God shall deny himself, and work moral before they are ripe for execution. "And 
 
 contradictions, in order to throw on the that which is hatched cometh forth a 
 
 All-wise Creator the blame of their own viper." The word "crushed," A. V., 
 
 sin. denotes the chipping of the shell, the last 
 
 V. 4. Most refer both clauses to sins stage of incubation. When their schemes 
 
 against men, but others (Hahn) to sins are ripe, they only cause mischief and 
 
 against God. But both kinds seem in- destruction. 
 
286 
 
 ISAIAH, LIX. 6— II. 
 
 6 Their webs shall not become a garment, and they shall not 
 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 ; wasting and destruction arc 
 in their paths. 8 The way of peace they know not, and tJiere 
 is no judgment in their roads: they have made their paths 
 crooked ; whosoever walketh therein doth not know peace. 
 
 9 Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice doth not 
 overtake us : we wait for light, but behold obscurity ; for bright- 
 ness, but we walk in darkness. 10 We grope for the wall like 
 the blind ; yea, we grope as if ive had no eyes : we stumble at 
 noon day as in the night, amid rich abundance are like the 
 dead. 1 1 We roar, all of us, like bears, and mourn mournfully 
 like doves : we look for judgment, but there is none ; for salva- 
 
 V. 6. The spider's web is now made 
 to yield a further lesson. These subtle 
 schemes, whereby they ensnare and de- 
 stroy others, shall be worthless to them- 
 selves, as the spider's web is too flimsy to 
 form a garment. The second clause re- 
 sembles ch. xxviii. 20, but the figure here 
 is still more expressive. 
 
 V. 7. St Paul quotes from these verses, 
 to prove the common guilt of Jews and 
 Gentiles. The actual state in times of 
 abounding crime shews the tendency of 
 sinful nature at all times, without restrain- 
 ing or converting grace. "Thoughts" 
 means plans or devices. " Wasting and 
 destruction," as in li. 19, seem to denote 
 gradual desolation as of famine, and 
 sudden calamity, like the slaughter in 
 a city taken by storm. The words refer 
 mainly, not to the evil they inflict on 
 others, but to the sure judgment that 
 must follow on their sin. 
 
 V. 8. "The way of peace" is the way 
 of holiness, xxxv. 8 ; of life, Prov. iii. 17, 
 X. 17; and of true wisdom, into which 
 the Son of God came to guide the feet of 
 sinners, Luke i. 79. Sinners know it 
 not, their course leads only to trouble and 
 sorrow. Judgment means here sound 
 reason. Sin is a moral madness, infatu- 
 ates, and then destroys. The last figure 
 is that of a tortuous or winding footpath. 
 Contempt of right and wrong is often 
 joined with a perverse ingenuity and 
 
 cleverness, that seems to prosper awhile, 
 but is fatal to peace of conscience, and 
 leads to misery. 
 
 v. 9. Judgment and justice here denote 
 the gracious work of God in delivering 
 from outward troubles. Each sinner is 
 plagued through the sins of many. While 
 God forbears to judge, they become more 
 and more a source of mutual torment, 
 hopeless of cure, and their hopes of better 
 times end in bitter disappointment. 
 
 v. 10. The word "grope, " repeated, is 
 not inelegant (Iloubig., Lowth), but most 
 emphatic, and forms a climax. The dim- 
 sighted, in a mist, might grope like the 
 blind, and yet give some signs of actual 
 eyesight. But the groping here is that of 
 utter blindness, when the eyes are gone. 
 There is a threefold allusion, to the men 
 of Sodom, Gen. xix. 11, the threatening 
 of the law, Deut. xxviii. 28, and the case 
 of Samson, Jud. xvi. 1 1 — 26. The picture 
 is of those, like faithless Jews under the 
 Law, or Christians under the Gospel, 
 who have light, and will not use it. 
 
 The last clause has had many versions, 
 "desolate places" (A. V., J. Kimchi), 
 "the tombs" (Targ., Saad., D. Kimchi, 
 Grot.), "darkness" or "thick darkness" 
 (Vulg., Luth., Michael., Riickert, Kno- 
 bel, Alexr. ), "the fat or wealthy" (Alien 
 I'^zra, Rosenmr., Ewald, Umbreit). But 
 the above (Vitr., Lowth, Koppe, Gesen., 
 Hitz., Maurer, Hend., Stier) seems to 
 
ISAIAH, LIX. 12—16. 
 
 287 
 
 tion, dutlt is far from us. 12 For our transgressions are mul- 
 tiplied before thee, and our sins, each of them, testify against 
 us ; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, 
 we know them: 13 In transgressing and lying against the 
 Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression 
 and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of 
 falsehood. 14 And judgment is turned backward, and justice 
 standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity 
 cannot enter. 1 5 Yea, truth faileth ; and he tJiat departeth 
 from evil maketh himself a prey : and the LORD saw, and it 
 displeased him that tJicre tvas no judgment. 16 And he saw 
 that tlicre zvas no man, and was astonished that there was none 
 to interpose : so his own arm brought salvation for him, and his 
 righteousness, it sustained him. 17 And he put on righteous- 
 
 give the true emphasis. As dead coi^pses, 
 that can see and use nothing even in the 
 richest banquets, so these sinners, though 
 ample provision for their wants is around 
 them, are too senseless to profit by it. 
 There seems to be an allusion to Iv. 2, 
 ' ' let your soul delight itself in fatness. " 
 The riches, promises, and hopes of the 
 Gospel may surround the profane ; but 
 they fail to see or taste them, being 
 "dead in trespasses and sins." 
 
 The attempt to confine the description 
 to "the last decade of the Captivity" 
 (Delitzsch) has no ground in the text, 
 which refers to a state of great moral 
 corruption before heavy judgment, and 
 not to a time of sore judgment, like the 
 Exile. There is no ground for the view 
 that the real time of the prophet is com- 
 pletely lost by prophetic rapture, least of 
 all in passages of direct exhortation. The 
 words suit the first days of Manasseh 
 much more than those of the Exile. 
 
 V. II. Two kinds of complaint are 
 described ; fierce murmurs of discontent 
 in those wholly profane, and plaintive 
 undertones. Who will shew us any good? 
 in those who share dimly the sighing of 
 all creation for deliverance. 
 
 vv. 12, 13. "Each of them." The 
 singular verb has a distributive force. 
 Their sins were not merely two or three, 
 but countless witnesses. 
 
 Many take these words as a hearty con- 
 fession, and the last clause as denoting 
 the knowledge which implies true repent- 
 
 ance and faith; others (Calvin), as the 
 voice of reluctant conviction. But the 
 confession is offered on behalf of the peo- 
 ple by the prophet, or by the Divine 
 Word, and is a picture of guilt and unbe- 
 lief. Thus the true meaning will be — 
 Our transgressions are with us in their 
 fatal consequences; and "our iniquities, 
 we know them," as if married to them in 
 close, inseparable union. The confession 
 is not made by these sinners, but for 
 them, and against them, to prove the 
 need for Divine judgment. 
 
 vv. 14, 15. When not even ten right- 
 eous were found in Sodom, its hour was 
 come. So when truth faileth, and up- 
 rightness only leads to persecuting vio- 
 lence, the Righteous King must appear in 
 judgment. 
 
 v. 16. The words describe no work 
 of simple grace (Stier), but one of severe 
 judgment; yet so displayed that rich 
 mercies follow. Here, towards the close, 
 the typical reference almost loses itself in 
 the application to the last times, before 
 the recovery of Israel, ch. Ixiii. i — 5 ; 
 Rev. xiv. 17 — 20, xvi. 19, xix. 15. 
 
 The mention only of weapons of de- 
 fence belongs to the keeping of the figure. 
 This Heavenly Warrior needs no spear, 
 and His own mouth is like a sharp sword. 
 Salvation, when man is the subject, is 
 put for the hope or expectation of it, but 
 in God himself, for His purpose and high 
 decree to save. The meaning is that the 
 aim of God's sorest judgments is salva- 
 
288 
 
 ISAIAH, LIX. 18—21. 
 
 ness as a coat of mail, and a helmet of salvation upon his head, 
 and he put on garments of vengeance /<?r clothing, and was clad 
 with jealousy as %vith 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. When the enemy shall come 
 in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard in 
 the midst thereof. 20 And there shall come for Zion the Re- 
 deemer, even for than that turn from transgression in Jacob, 
 saith the LORD. 21 As for me, this is my covenant zvith 
 them, saith the Lord ; My spirit that is upon thee, and my 
 words which I have put in thy mouth, 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. 
 
 tion, not destruction. As the helmet and 
 its crest are most conspicuous in the 
 warrior's equipment, so this purpose of 
 God's sore judgments shall be clearly re- 
 vealed in the sight of men. 
 
 V. 17. "With jealousy." True love 
 is jealous of all unworthy rivals. So the 
 Holy God is jealous for the dishonour 
 done to his Name through the continu- 
 ance and seeming triumph of the world's 
 ungodliness. 
 
 V. 18. The passage clearly relates to 
 a solemn retribution on open enemies of 
 God. It is the contrast of the promise, 
 Iv. 1 — 5, and not its repetition. The 
 mention of the islands, " the isles of the 
 Gentiles," Gen. x. 5, peopled by the sons 
 of Japhet, who were to dwell in the tents 
 of Shem, implies a reference to the 
 Western or European kingdoms. The 
 event is thus the same with that of 
 the Stone smiting the toes of the great 
 image. 
 
 V. 19. This judgment of God will pro- 
 duce awe and reverence, both in western 
 lands, and those of the rising sun. That 
 deep reverence for God's majesty, which 
 dies out in times of long-suffering, will 
 revive once more. 
 
 The received version seems mainly the 
 best, though various others have been 
 proposed (Vitr., Belg., Alting, Hend., 
 Rosenm., Stier, Hahn). But in the last 
 
 clause the pronoun seems better rendered 
 as above. Even in the midst of the raging 
 flood of hostile violence will the Spirit 
 of God lift up His banner, Ps. xciii. 3 — 5, 
 and those proud waves will dash them- 
 selves against it in vain. [Other versions 
 are (1) "the breath of Jehovah shall 
 raise a standard against him" (Hend.). 
 (2) "When the enemy cometh like a flood, 
 he will put him to flight by blowing upon 
 him" (Rosenm.). (3) "For it shall come 
 like a straitened stream, the .Spirit of 
 Jehovah raising a banner in it" (Alex.). 
 (4) "For the adversary shall come down 
 as a stream, the Spirit of the Lord sets a 
 standard against him" (Hahn). (5) "For 
 he will come like a stream dried up, 
 which a tempest of Jehovah drives away" 
 (Delitzsch)]. 
 
 V. 20. "And there shall come for 
 Zion." The renderings "unto Zion," 
 A. v., "for the sake of Zion," LXX., 
 "out of Zion," Rom. xi. 26, are not in- 
 consistent. The Hebrew is "for" in the 
 sense, "on behalf of," which "unto" 
 nearly expresses, only not being under- 
 stood in its local sense. The Apostle's 
 version "out of" seems an allusion to 
 Vs. xiv. 7. That this Redeemer will "turn 
 away ungodliness from Jacob" is imj)lied, 
 though not clearly expressed. After the 
 dark description in vv. 11 — 15, the fact 
 that so many converts are found is a proof 
 
ISAIAH, LVI— LX. 289 
 
 that this Redeemer has been exalted "to be raised at length to their high calling 
 
 give repentance to Israel." as God's royal priesthood ; and the oath 
 
 V. 21. The plural refers to the con- to Abraham, and the truth to Jacob, be 
 
 verts, but the singular to Israel, the people fulfilled through successive generations, 
 
 among whom they were found. From the as it had been sworn to the fathers from 
 
 true Israel, xlix. 3, righteousness will now the days of old. 
 overflow to the whole people. They will 
 
 § 7. Chap. LX. The Full Redemption of Zion. 
 
 This glorious prophecy has been referred to the Return from Babylon, to 
 the first rise of the Christian Church, to its whole course, or to a still future 
 restoration of Israel. 
 
 The first view (Grot., Gesen., Ewald &c.) is opposed by the sequence of 
 the prophecy from ch. xlix. onward, and by the fulness of the promise. The 
 second has stronger reasons in its favour. The Gentiles were then in thick 
 darkness, and light dawned on them from Zion. But in other respects 
 there is a striking contrast. For then Jerusalem was visited with wrath, and 
 trodden down by the Gentiles, and her children led captive into all nations. 
 .Still less can the vision apply to the middle ages, when the Church was 
 covered with superstition, and gross darkness settled on the nations once 
 more. 
 
 The fourth view has many reasons to confirm its truth. First, the place 
 and order of the vision, which completes a division of the prophecy, com- 
 mencing with Messiah's birth, xlix. i, and reaching to the full triumph of His 
 kingdom. This last section of it, then, must naturally belong to the last 
 days of the Gospel. Secondly, the immediate context. It follows a prediction 
 of the coming of Zion's Redeemer, which St Paul clearly applies to a still 
 future recovery of Israel, when the broken olive branches shall be grafted in 
 once more. Thirdly, a comparison with the Apocalypse. The descriptions, 
 Rev. XX., xxii., are partly borrowed from this chapter, and plainly belong to 
 a time of blessing still future. Fourthly, the nature of its contents. These 
 are too bright and glorious to be satisfied by any past event; and predict a 
 gathering of nations to one centre for holy worship, such as never yet has 
 occurred. Fifthly, the contrast to our Lord's own warning prophecy, — "Jeru- 
 salem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles 
 be fulfilled." Lastly, the chapter plainly refers to the land of promise, and 
 to its occupation by the children of Zion in spiritual blessing and outward 
 honour. Zion, described before as "a booth in a vineyard, and a besieged 
 city," is to be "redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteous- 
 ness." When the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, Jerusalem will cease 
 to be trodden down, the dispersed of Judah will return, and Divine comfort 
 be given to the mourners in Zion. 
 
 This close of the second cycle of the Later Prophecies has clearly a most 
 intimate relation with the opening chapters of each earlier series. The 
 charge to comfort Zion, xl. i, 2, is here gloriously fulfilled, and her sorrowful 
 complaints, xlix. 14, 21, are silenced by a rich abundance of Divine blessing. 
 But there is also a relation, no less intimate, with the opening and close of 
 B. L 19 
 
290 
 
 ISAIAH, LX. I- 
 
 the Earlier Visions, i. 26, 27, ii. i — 5, xxxv. i — 10. The same key-note of 
 mercy to Zion, after sore judgment, resounds from the beginning to the close 
 of the whole book. And indeed the whole series of these Later Visions 
 may be viewed as an expansion of that opening promise, ch. ii. i — 5, which 
 seems to have been Isaiah's first public message; and which refers to a 
 time plainly not yet arrived, when "nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn war any more ! " 
 
 Arise, shine ! for thy light is come, and the glory of the 
 Lord is risen upon thee. 2 For behold ! the darkness shall 
 cover the earth, and gross darkness the people : but the LORD 
 shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 
 3 And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright- 
 ness of thy rising. 4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see : 
 all they gather themselves together, they come to thee : thy 
 sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be borne at 
 tJiy side. 5 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine 
 
 § 7. Ch. i.x. 
 
 V. I. This sudden call is a contrast to 
 xlvii. I, where Babylon is told to come 
 down, and sit in dust and in darkness. 
 It repeats the voice, lii. 1, that bids 
 Jerusalem awake and arise. Here Mes- 
 siah calls on her to arouse herself once 
 more from her long sleep, and to shine 
 with brightness reflected on her from the 
 Lord her glory. The command was given 
 at our Lord's first coming, but His own 
 were rebellious, and refused to obey. 
 In the last times it will be given once 
 more, and joyfully obeyed ; when He 
 who has been so long " the light of the 
 Gentiles" will become manifestly "the 
 glory of His people Israel." The figure 
 is that of a bright sunrise. A morning 
 without clouds, 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, will then 
 dawn on a sinful world. 
 
 V. 1. "The people" (Lit. peoples, le- 
 ummim) refers to the Gentiles in contrast 
 with Zion. In spite of real progress in 
 art and science, spiritual darkness, blind- 
 ness in the things of God, will before 
 Israel's recovery have settled down on the 
 nations once more in the last days. The 
 recovery of Israel will thus be "life from 
 the dead," Rom. xi. 15. Death and life, 
 darkness and light, describe the same 
 moral contrast. 
 
 V. 3. This promise differs from the first 
 
 Call of the Gentiles, as the full harvest 
 from the first-fruits. Pentecost was the 
 feast of first-fruits, when, around a hand- 
 ful of believers in Zion, there began to be 
 gathered a first-fruits of the nations, Ps. 
 Ixxii. 16. But in this day of " ingathering 
 at the year's end," around Israel, become 
 a people all righteous, are to be gathered 
 many and strong nations, Mic. iv. 3, and 
 the riches and the kings of the Gentiles, 
 vv. 3, 5, II. They will come to the light 
 of Zion, as those who are attracted sud- 
 denly by a light that breaks on thickest 
 gloom. The phrase, Rev. xxi. 24, ex- 
 tends and enlarges the figure. 
 
 V. 4. The sons and daughters are not 
 Cientile converts (Alex.), but Zion's own 
 children returning from their former dis- 
 persion (Hend., Hahn, Delitzsch, Stier), 
 when "he that scattered Israel will 
 gather him," Jer. xxxi. 10. Their cap- 
 tivity in all nations, and the treading 
 down of Jerusalem, Lu. xxi. 24, began 
 and must cease together. One clause re- 
 verses the long and sad separation ; the 
 other opens a bright future, when Zion's 
 daughters shall be tended with greatest 
 care in her own presence, in the land 
 whose name is Beulah. 
 
 V. 5. The resources of the Gentile 
 world, and specially the maritime nations, 
 tlie isles of the Gentiles, will minister to 
 
ISAIAH, LX. 6—9. 
 
 291 
 
 heart shall tremble, and be enlarged : because the abundance of 
 the sea shall be converted unto thee ; the wealth of the Gentiles 
 shall come unto thee. 6 A stream of camels shall cover thee, 
 the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah ; all they from Sheba 
 shall come : they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall 
 shew forth 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 doves to their 
 windows ? 9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of 
 Tarshish, from the first ; to bring thy sons from far, their silver 
 
 the greatness of restored Israel. The 
 hf art of the nation will throb with wonder 
 and exultation, when they see the rich 
 blessings procured to them through Him 
 whom their fathers crucified. 
 
 V. 6. "'A stream of camels." A lively 
 figure to describe their constant succes- 
 sion, laden with Eastern treasures. Not 
 the Queen of the South alone, as in the 
 days of Solomon, nor a few, like the wise 
 men, but "all they from Sheba shall 
 come" with tributes of which these were 
 only dim earnests. Midian, Ephah, Sheba, 
 Kedar, Nebaioth, all children of Abra- 
 ham after the flesh, the sons of Keturah 
 {i.e. incense) and of Ishmael (God shall 
 h^ar), will have a main share in the pro- 
 mise, when the words are fulfilled ; — " In 
 thy seed shall all the families of the earth 
 be blessed," Gen. x,xii. i8 ; Acts iii. 25. 
 
 V. 7. Some take the flocks and rams 
 as a figure for the men of Kedar and 
 Nebaioth ; and it has even been held that 
 they are described, by a bold metaphor, 
 as mounting the altar of their own accord. 
 But these flocks, with the camels and 
 dromedaries and their burdens, are named 
 here as the "riches of the Gentiles," which 
 shall minister to Zion. The version, 
 ''with acceptance," is simplest and best, 
 for another preposition is used to express 
 the free will of the offerer, Lev. i. 3. 
 The exact meaning is that God's accept- 
 ance is the ground, not the effect of the 
 offering. They are not sin offerings, but 
 sacrifices of thanksgiving. The Gentiles 
 will first be accepted themselves, and 
 then their gifts also. The word bcliLi- 
 some render a young camel (Bochart, 
 
 Ilend., Hahn, Delitzsch). But the idea 
 of "foals" is here plainly out of place ; 
 and the word "dromedary" as a variety 
 of the camel of finer breed, seems to 
 agree best with the scope of the pas- 
 sage (Rosenmr., Bochart.) The tribe of 
 Midian had its seat on the east of the 
 /Elanitic Gulf, where is a town, Madyan, 
 five days south of Aila. Sheba is the 
 land of the Sabseans (Strabo), "in which 
 myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon grow." 
 Nebaioth, the Nabatasans, rose into a 
 cultured nation in the centuries before 
 Christ, and had a kingdom from the 
 .i^lanitic Gulf to the land east of Jor- 
 dan, and across Belka to Hauran. The 
 question of the bearing of this passage on 
 the revival of animal sacrifice is too wide 
 for a brief and passing notice. 
 
 vv. 8, 9. The ships of Tarshish, with 
 their outspread sails, crowding the seas to 
 restore the wanderers, are compared to 
 a fleecy cloud before the wind, or doves 
 flocking home to their young. The isles 
 include the sea-coasts and maritime coun- 
 tries. These have been rebuked, ch. xli. 21, 
 and pleaded with for their gross idolatry, 
 and have been urged by Messiah to listen 
 to His voice, xlix. i — 6. They will now 
 wait on God, in readiness to fulfil their 
 appointed task in His great work of final 
 mercy to Israel. 
 
 V. 9. "And the ships of Tarshish, 
 from the first." In this compound phrase 
 Tarshish loses its local sense, i Ki. xxii. 
 48, and the meaning is ships suited for 
 long and distant voyages. They are not 
 put in contrast with the isles, as one place 
 with many, but are the means by which 
 
 19 — 2 
 
292 
 
 ISAIAH, LX. 10—13. 
 
 and their gold with them, unto the name of the LoRD thy Goi), 
 and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. 
 10 And the sons of the stranger shall build up thy walls, and 
 their kings shall minister unto thee : for in my wrath I smote 
 thee, and in my favour I have had mercy on thee. 1 1 Thy 
 gates also shall be open continually ; they shall not be shut 
 day nor night ; that men may bring unto thee the w^ealth of 
 the Gentiles, and their kings shall be brought. 12 For the nation 
 and the 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 cypress, the plane tree, and the cedar to- 
 
 the islands fulfil their task. Tlic judg- 
 ment, ii. 16, on "the ships of Tarshish" 
 and "all their pleasant merchandise," is 
 here exchanged for a blessing, and their 
 merchandise will become "holiness to the 
 i^ord," xxiii. 14, 18. The word " first" has 
 been rendered "as at the first" (Kimchi, 
 Jarchi), or as Tyre in the days of Solo- 
 mon; "among the first" (LXX., CJrot., 
 J<osen. ); "in the foremost place "(Gesen., 
 I'Avald, Umbr.) ; or "from their origin" 
 (Stier); that is, in the secret appointment 
 of God. But the simplest sense is "from 
 or at the first" (Ilahn), from the very 
 opening of this work of Israel's restora- 
 tion. Britain and America, the great 
 maritime powers, will probably take pre- 
 cedence in the steps which minister to 
 Israel's final recovery. The title, "Holy 
 One of Israel," is almost peculiar to 
 Isaiah. It is used here in v. 14 for the 
 last time, with fullest emphasis, to an- 
 nounce that the people of this Holy One 
 are to become for ever a holy people. 
 
 V. 10. The walls are not those of 
 Jerusalem only, but of the cities of Pales- 
 tine, "the ruins of many generations," 
 Ixi. 4. A very strange reason is urged 
 by Vitringa against the literal fulfilment, 
 that the site of Jerusalem is unknown, 
 and the modern has nothing in common 
 \\ ith the ancient city. The zealous efforts 
 lately made to rediscover the really lost 
 sites of Palestine, are like an earnest of 
 the full j)romise here given. "I have had 
 mercy on thee," not "I will pity thee" 
 (l,owth, Hend.), which is less exact and 
 fi)rcible. The blessing is described as if 
 already come. 
 
 V. 1 1. A double blessing is here pro- 
 
 mised, perfect freedom from danger, and 
 the daily influx of wealth and honour. 
 The commerce of the world must become 
 "holiness unto the Lord," xxiii. 18. "And 
 their kings shall be brought," not as 
 reluctant captives, but willing trophies of 
 the love and grace of the King of Zion. 
 The statement of the reason why the 
 gates are open passes here into direct 
 promise. The description is transferred , 
 Rev. xxi. 25, to the heavenly Jerusalem. 
 But the addition, "there shall be no night 
 there," marks the contrast of a still higher 
 glory. 
 
 V. 12. This promise, applied literally to 
 Zion and the people of Israel, has no- 
 thing strange and unaccountable (Alex.). 
 It results naturally from the whole tenour 
 of sacred history. The first promise to 
 Abraham contains the germ of this 
 threatening, "I will curse him that 
 rurseth thee." Subordination, in heaven 
 and earth, is the great law of the kingdom 
 of God. 'J"o refuse honour to those whom 
 (iud has honoured, is rebellion against 
 His authority. When "the Holy One of 
 Israel" crowns His ancient people with 
 signal honour after ages of judgment and 
 sorrow, the sons of pride alone will find it 
 strange or irksome to honour God him- 
 self in the people of His choice; and 
 them that walk in pride He is able to 
 abase. 
 
 v. 13. The trees here named are the 
 three last named in xli. 19. The first, it 
 is now commonly agreed, is tlie cypress. 
 'l"he second is either the plane-tree (plata' 
 iiHS itidiciis, .Saad., Kimch., Stier, De- 
 jitzsch), the holm-tree {ilex, Gesen., &c.), 
 or the pine-tree (f'inus sj-hrsOis, Rosenm., 
 
ISAIAH, LX. 14—16. 
 
 293 
 
 gather, to beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I will make 
 the place of my feet glorious. 14 The sons also of them that 
 afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee ; and all that de- 
 spised 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, and no 
 man hath gone through thee, I will even make thee an eternal 
 excellency, a joy of many generations. 16 And thou shalt 
 suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of 
 kings ; and shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour, and 
 
 Hend.). The third, by several, the box- 
 tree (A. v., Bochart, Vulg., Rosenm., 
 Hahn), seems rather to be the sherbiii, 
 a kind or variety of cedar. 
 
 The place of God's feet denotes some- 
 times the ark of the covenant, i Chr. 
 xxviii. 2, Ps. xcix. 5 ; sometimes the 
 temple, Ezek. xliii. 7 ; or even the whole 
 earth, Is. Ixvi. i. According to the con- 
 text, it may be taken in a wider or 
 narrower sense. Here Jerusalem is "the 
 place of the sanctuary." The spot of 
 earth, where the heel of the promised Seed 
 was bruised, is consecrated by this title of 
 honour; though all earth, in a wider 
 sense, is the footstool of the Most High. 
 "The Lord will again adorn and beautify 
 His kingdom in Israel, which through 
 judgment had been turned into a waste, 
 by transforming the same into a delight- 
 ful garden" (Hahn). The prediction is 
 here renewed, that "He will make her 
 wilderness as Eden, and her desert as the 
 garden of the Lord," li. 3. There is an 
 allusion also to the promise xxxv. i, 2. 
 But the words will apply to the earth, 
 God's footstool, in a wider sense. "Many 
 a Lebanon on earth, many a beauty of 
 nature, has its own glory, wherein the 
 glory of God in days to come will shine 
 out once more, that a requital may follow 
 for its long abuse through sin ; and that 
 the beautiful creation, not having been 
 made in vain, may receive at length its 
 due honour" (Stier). 
 
 V. 14. The promise here refers to the 
 first threatening anddescription,i. 7, 8, vi. 12, 
 vii. 16, and the message of hope, i. 21, 26, 
 27, thus binding together the whole course 
 of the visions. The objection which leads 
 
 some to explain it away, or transfer it to 
 the Gentile Church (Alex.), has no real 
 force. Jerusalem had never a monopoly, 
 but only a preeminence of blessing. Since 
 then it has had a double measure of 
 shame and desolation. There can be 
 no moral reason, then, why it should not 
 be restored once again to peculiar honour. 
 On the contrarj', this hope agrees with 
 the fixed laws of God's moral govern- 
 ment, for "the gifts and calling of God 
 are without repentance," Rom. xi. 29. 
 
 .Some render "the pillar of the Holy 
 One of Israel" (Hitz.), or "Zion, the holy 
 place of Israel" (Maur., Alex.). But the 
 usual version is confirmed by the parallel- 
 ism, and is the simplest and best. This 
 title of God, "the Holy One of Israel," 
 almost peculiar to Isaiah, comes here for 
 the last time, with especial force. It has 
 been forgotten or denied by Zion's op- 
 pressors in the ages of her degradation ; 
 but will shine out at length with re- 
 doubled brightness, when He, who has 
 been " the light of the Gentiles," reveals 
 Himself as "the glory of His people 
 Israel." 
 
 v. 15. Jerusalem was "forsaken and 
 hated" during the seventy years of the 
 Captivity; and a long treading down 
 during the times of the Gentiles was 
 again foretold by our Lord, and has been 
 since fulfilled. The future glory of Zion, 
 here foretold, will be a contrast to these 
 earlier times of desolation. The reason 
 assigned by Vitringa against a literal ful- 
 filment, that it would need a miracle to 
 rediscover the lost site of ancient Jeru- 
 salem, is strange indeed, and rather il- 
 lustrates the truth that Zion has been 
 
!94 
 
 ISAIAH, LX. 17—19. 
 
 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 : I will also make thy rulers peace, and 
 thine exactors righteousness. 18 Violence shall no more be 
 heard in thy land, w^asting nor destruction w-ithin thy borders : 
 but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 
 19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for 
 brightness shall the moon give light unto thee : but the LORD 
 
 forsaken and hated, even by Christians 
 themselves. But squalid tilth and long 
 treading down shall be exchanged for 
 signal honour and preeminent beauty. 
 
 V. 16. To suck the breast of kings 
 means the full enjoyment of all which 
 Gentile kings can contribute to enhance 
 her splendour. The title "the Mighty 
 One of Jacob" occurs near the beginning 
 of this middle series of the Later Visions, 
 xlix. ■26, as here at its close. The parallel 
 of the verses is complete. At the opening 
 of the Earlier Visions, i. 24, the similar 
 title, "the Mighty One of Israel," marks 
 the opening of that controversy with re- 
 bellious Israel, which is here brought to 
 its close. 
 
 V. 17. Here we have another corre- 
 spondence with the opening of the book. 
 The structure of this verse is the same as 
 in iii. 24, and the subject also, only re- 
 versed. There the deep shame of Zion 
 and her daughters is foretold, and here 
 her honour and exaltation. There is a 
 further contrast with i. 23 — 25. The silver 
 become dross is a figure of social degra- 
 dation, when princes are the partners of 
 thieves. But now there will be outward 
 wealth and honour, and also moral eleva- 
 tion. The rulers of Zion will be peace, 
 that is, peaceful and peacemakers ; and 
 her exactors (used elsewhere only in a bad 
 sense) will be righteousness, that is, 
 eminently and excellently righteous. The 
 series of metals here is the same as in the 
 Great Image, and the main idea is that of 
 abounding wealth even beyond the days 
 of Solomon, who "made silver to be in 
 Jerusalem as stones, and cedars as syca- 
 more trees," i Ki. x. 27. One half of this 
 description has been borrowed, in the 
 Earlier Prophecies, to describe the vain 
 boasts of the Ephraimites, ix. 10; and the 
 other is here enlarged and varied (2 Chr. 
 ix. 20) to express the final glory of Zion. 
 
 Some invert the construction, and ren- 
 der, "I will make peace to be instead of 
 magistrates, righteousness thy exactors" 
 (Gesen. , Ewald, Umbr. , Stier, Delitzsch). 
 But this is most harsh, especially in the 
 second clause. "Exactors" is a personal 
 plural, and ch. i. 26 confirms the usual 
 construction (Vitr., Grot., Rosenm., 
 Knob., Alex., Hend., Hahn, &-c.). The 
 promise is not that all government shall 
 cease, but that its sinful defects shall be 
 replaced by the pure and perfect ideal of 
 peace-loving, upright rulers. 
 
 v. 18. The cause of judgment had been 
 assigned ch. v. 7, that God "looked for 
 righteousness, and behold ! a cry. " Again 
 the effect of their sin had been announced, 
 li. 19, "wasting and destruction, famine 
 and the sword." Now this sentence will 
 be reversed, and the later promises, xxvi. 
 I, xxvii. 2, 3, be verified, and even en- 
 larged and made richer than before. The 
 budded walls of Zion, v. 10, will be visible 
 symbols of a higher truth, her deliverance 
 from all enemies, and her full salvation 
 by the hand of God. Her gates will now 
 be open continually, that a full tide of 
 praise may flow in from all the sons of 
 Zion, and flow out unto all lands. 
 
 vv. 19, 20. From these verses it has 
 been inferred (Stier) that a time is meant 
 "when there will be no more turning 
 into the shadow, when the whole planet- 
 ar)^ system, including the earth, will be 
 changed, and the earth itself become a 
 sun, &c." But this travels beyond the 
 natural force of the passage, which im- 
 plies that the sun and moon, and their 
 natural light, still exist, v. 11 (Hoffmann, 
 Delitzsch). The words are comparative, 
 not absolute, as Lu. xiv. 26 comp. Mat. 
 X. 37. The spiritual light of God's pre- 
 sence shall be so full, bright, and constant, 
 as to make the changes of sunlight and 
 moonlight, of day and night, seem insig- 
 
ISAIAH, LX. 20—22. 
 
 295 
 
 shall be unto thee an everlasting light, 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 
 also shall be all righteous : they shall inherit the land for ever ; 
 the branch of his planting, the work of my hands, that I may 
 be glorified. 22 The little one shall become a thousand, and the 
 small one a stroncf nation : I the LORD will hasten it in its time. 
 
 nificant. Then, in v. 10, "thy sun" and 
 "thy moon" denote this higher light it- 
 self, which is never to set, but to pour its 
 ever-increasing radiance on the Zion of 
 God. The promise is carried still further 
 in Rev. xxi. 23, 25, and applied to the 
 state of resurrection glory, where depend- 
 ence on created, inferior luminaries wholly 
 disappears, and the ransomed see light in 
 the light of God. 
 
 V. i\. This promise has never been 
 fulfilled, in the Jewish people or any 
 Christian nation, in any past age. Ap- 
 plied to the spiritual church, defined by 
 the righteousness of its members, it would 
 be a mere truism. It belongs, then, to 
 restored Israel, when the branches have 
 been grafted once more into their own 
 olive-tree. The words answer to the 
 earlier promise, xxvi. 1, and supply a 
 glorious hope of good things to come. 
 
 The Keri, "my planting," is followed 
 by most critics and versions. The other 
 reading, if referred to the land (Rosenm.) 
 or to the people (Grot., De Dieu), is weak 
 and strained. But a simpler explanation 
 results from a review of the chapter; 
 since the first person is used seven times 
 vv. 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, and the third 
 person also seven times vv. i, 2, 6, 9, 14, 
 19, 20. Messiah, the Word, the promised 
 
 Immanuel, is the true .Speaker. It is 
 natural, then, after this sevenfold mention 
 of each Person, that both should here be 
 joined together at the close. So God 
 and the Lamb are joined in the similar 
 prophecy. Rev. xxi. The last word is 
 impersonal, and might be referred to 
 either Person, or to both, Joh. xiv. 23, 
 xvii. 4, 5. 
 
 V. 22. The promise is either that Is- 
 rael or the Church shall be enlarged to a 
 powerful nation, (Vitr., Hend., Alex., 
 Stier, Hahn), or to the separate children 
 of Zion in this time of blessing (Cocc, 
 Gesen., Ewald, Knob., Delitzsch). The 
 latter gives the more natural meaning 
 of the words. The original blessing to 
 Abraham himself, Gen. xxii. 17, will 
 now apply to all the restored remnant 
 of Israel. 
 
 These last words remind us that there 
 is no slackness in God's fulfilment of His 
 promises, even in ages of long delay. All 
 the past is preparing the way for that 
 final triumph of the Redeemer's love, 
 when "Israel shall blossom and bud, and 
 fill the face of the world with fruit;" after 
 they have welcomed their once despised 
 Messiah with that exulting voice of glad- 
 ness, — "Blessed is He that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord." Matt, xxiii. 39. 
 
296 ISAIAH, LX. 
 
 Close of the Second Series. 
 
 This Second Series of the Later Visions is distinguished from the first 
 by one striking contrast. It contains no mention of Babylon and her idols, 
 of the Chaldeans, or of Cyrus, by whom the two-barred gates were to be 
 opened, and the mighty city overthrown. Its only distinct allusion to the 
 return from Babylon is in the charge, lii. ii, 12, to those who should restore 
 the temple vessels to Jerusalem. On the other hand, it begins with a voice 
 to the isles of the Gentiles, from One whose words agree with no other than 
 the promised Immanuel, the great Messiah of God. As the former series 
 resoWed itself into a Preface of comfort, and two successive trilogies, the 
 present consists of two similar trilogies, one chiefly of promise, ch. xlix. — Iv., 
 one chiefly of warning, ch. Ivi. — lix., and a sublime peroration. And as the 
 third section of the First Trilogy in the former series, ch. xliv. 6 — xlv., was 
 remarkable for the clearness with which it predicted Cyrus by name, and his 
 great work as the rebuilder of God's temple, and the executioner of God's 
 judgment on Babylon ; so also the third section, which closes the First 
 Trilogy in this second series, ch. lii. 1 1 — Iv., is no less remarkable for a pre- 
 diction of our Lord's life, death, and resurrection, and of the sudden en- 
 largement of the true Church after His resurrection, which almost rivals 
 the Gospel history itself in the clearness with which all the main outlines 
 are revealed. 
 
 The Second Trilogy of the former series contained solemn warnings of 
 judgment on Babylon and her idols, crowned with a charge to Israel, to escape 
 from their bondage, and return with gladness to their own land. But here the 
 Second Trilogy consists of direct denunciation against the sins of Israel, 
 as they revived and flourished in the reigns after the death of Hezekiah. 
 These national sins of Israel, under Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah, also re- 
 present accurately the kindred evils in the middle times of the Church of 
 Christ, when there appeared in succession, first, idolatrous corruptions ; 
 next, various forms of Pharisaic and lifeless orthodoxy; and lastly, a 
 grievous Sadducean apostasy of the last days; till the sad declensions of the 
 Jewish and the Christian Church are to be closed at length by the promised 
 Coming of the Redeemer, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, to ingraft 
 the broken branches once more into their own olive-tree, and thus to bring 
 in the promised "times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken 
 by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." 
 
ISAIAH, LXI— LXVI. 297 
 
 VII. MESSIAH THE GLORY OF ISRAEL. 
 Chap. LXI— LXVI. 
 
 The six chapters which remain form the Third Series of the Later 
 Prophecies, or the seventh and last division of the whole book. Their subject 
 is the work of Messiah, chiefly in connection with the last times, and the 
 final ingrafting of Israel into their own olive-tree. But they contain also 
 internal marks of their close relation to the last years of Hezekiah, and 
 the first opening of Manasseh's reign. 
 
 This Closing Series is more brief than those before it, but seems to admit 
 easily, in like manner, a threefold, and virtually a sevenfold division. It con- 
 sists of three sections, and the first and the second each of three subsections. 
 The First Section, ch. Ixi. — Ixiii. 6, announces Messiah's Work of Mercy and 
 Judgment: ist, His Earthly Ministry and Resurrection, ch. Ixi.; 2nd, His 
 Heavenly Intercession, ch. Ixii. ; 3rd, His Judgment on the Nations, ch. 
 Ixiii. I — 6. The Second contains Messiah's Last Controversy with Israel : 
 1st, The Review of Israel's Mercies and Sins, ch. Ixiii. 7 — 19; 2nd, Israel's 
 Confession and Prayer, ch. Ixiv. ; 3rd, Messiah's Answer of Reproof and 
 Promise, ch. Ixv. The Third and Last Section, ch. Ixvi., announces Zion's 
 last conflict and full redemption. 
 
 The opening of the first chapter has its application fixed, by our Lord 
 himself, to His own personal ministry; while it blossoms out into a promise 
 of double blessing to Zion for ages of sorrow and shame, which formed the 
 third promise in the first message of these Later Visions, ch. xl. 2, and has not 
 yet been fulfilled. The second chapter applies with equal clearness to our 
 Lord's intercession in heaven, of which a promise had been given before, 
 ch. viii. 16, 17, in the heart of the earlier prophecy of the coming Iinmanuel. 
 
 The opening of chapter Ixiii. is referred by many of the Fathers to the 
 crucifixion, by others to the Maccabean victories (Grot., Hend.), or to some 
 undefined judgment on ancient Edom (Calv., Alex.), or to the vintage of the 
 last days, so named. Rev. xiv., xix. (Jarchi, Piscat., Vitr., Stier). This last 
 view alone agrees with its place in the series of visions, and with the grandeur 
 of the whole description. There is a marked resemblance to ch. xxxiv. at the 
 close of the earlier prophecies, where the subject is "all nations," as here it 
 is " the peoples." That Edom is used figuratively appears from the next 
 verse : "Wherefore art thou red {adorn) in thine apparel.?" Esau received that 
 name, when he sold his birthright for the red pottage. The name, Bozrah, 
 means "a stronghold," and admits of a similar explanation. 
 
 In the Earlier Prophecies the Burden of Babylon is the first of ten bur- 
 dens of different heathen powers. When the last is complete, including a 
 warning voice against Seir, there follow woes on Ephraim, Judah, and the 
 Assyrian; then a final sentence on all nations, where alone these two names 
 
298 ISAIAH, LXI— LXVI. 
 
 of Edom and Bozrah appear, and then is announced the full redemption of 
 Zion. In the first series of these Later Visions, Babylon and the Chaldeans 
 alone are named; the second mentions no heathen power by name, but only 
 an enemy who comes in like a flood; while the third describes the same 
 conflict of Zion's Redeemer with her adversaries, and names only Edom 
 and Bozrah once more. The mystic Babylon is also the mystic Edom. 
 
 In ch. l.\iii. 7 — 19, which begins the Second Section, we have a review 
 of God's mercies to the chosen people, from the days of Moses onward, with 
 a penitent confession of their folly and shame, and that hardness of heart, 
 which has caused their troubles to last so long, and made them seem like 
 utter outcasts from God's covenant. The confession passes into an earnest 
 prayer for speedy deliverance. 
 
 There follows, in ch. Ixv., the reply of Messiah to these complaints of 
 Israel. The first verses of this chapter are quoted by St Paul, to shew that 
 the Call of the Gentiles had been foretold to the Jews in their own Scriptures. 
 So far, their sense is fixed by Divine authority, in full agreement with the 
 natural force of the words. The Rabbinical reference of v. i to the Jews 
 is excluded by the words, "a people not called by my name." To turn the 
 whole into a question (Hahn) not only contradicts the Apostle, but the whole 
 current of Scripture, as if God would never invite those who had before 
 neglected Him. 
 
 What is the relation between this statement of the Call of the Gentiles, 
 the preceding prayer of repentant Israel, and the glorious promises that 
 follow? In the former chapters Messiah pleads with God, in the name, and 
 on behalf of Israel. He now answers in God's behalf, and first of all in 
 conviction and rebuke, vv. i — 7, afterward in gracious promises, w. 8 — 25. 
 The rebuke answers to the prayer, and is no less comprehensive. As th^ 
 former called to mind God's early mercies to Israel from Moses onward, 
 and contrasted these with their later sorrows and long desolation ; so the 
 latter proclaims God's rich grace to the Gentiles, while Israel were cast off, 
 and the greatness of those sins, which caused the long divorce of Israel, till 
 a fixed measure of punishment was complete. The next section then pro- 
 ceeds to promise the richest blessings, when Zion's warfare is accomplished, 
 xl. 2, and the year of God's redeemed is come, Ixiii. 4. Its closing verses 
 bear a fresh witness to the unity of the whole book, since they renew, in 
 the same words, the promise which closes the First Series of the Earlier 
 Visions, ch. xi. 6—9. 
 
 The last section begins with a message of reproof to Israel, while re- 
 building the temple at Jerusalem in a spirit of self-righteous pride. The 
 words may have had partial fulfilments in reference to the Second Temple 
 of Zerubbabel, and the third of Herod. But they seem only to be fully 
 satisfied, when we refer them to an event still future, that will attend the 
 close of the long treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles. 
 
ISAIAH, LXI. I, 2. 
 
 299 
 
 § I. Messiah's Work of Mercy and Judgment. 
 Chap. LXI— LX III. 6. 
 
 (i). Messiah's Ministry on Earth. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord GoD is upon me ; because the 
 Lord hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor : 
 he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted ; to proclaim 
 liberty to the captives, and full deliverance to t/mn that are 
 bound : 2 To proclaim an acceptable year of the LORD, and 
 
 V. I. These opening words were chosen 
 out by our Lord at Nazareth for the 
 solemn introduction of His publicministr}', 
 Lu. iv. 16, 17. He opened the book of 
 Isaiah, found this passage, read the first 
 six clauses, and then added: "This day 
 is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 
 That Messiah himself speaks in these 
 words rests on His own Divine authority. 
 But it results no less plainly from the 
 context. No mere prophet could appoint 
 and give to all Zion's mourners the oil of 
 joy, and the garment of praise, or assume 
 the title in v. 8, "I Jehovah love judg- 
 ment." ''There is no need,"saj's Cocceius, 
 "of long controversy. He, in whom these 
 characters are found, is He of whom Isaiah 
 speaks." Our Lord claimed to be the great 
 Prophet, as attested by His mighty mira- 
 cles, vv. 21, 23, to whom this promise 
 refers. Not only is He this Anointed 
 One, but His work of mercy, in preach- 
 ing glad tidings to the poor, was then 
 actually begun. 
 
 In ch. xlix. there is a direct address of 
 Messiah to the Gentiles. In ch. 1. there 
 is one to the Jews, but it begins with 
 rebuke, not with comfort, and his Divine 
 title, Jehovah, stands at the opening. 
 Here alone is a direct voice of comfort, 
 in which the human character of our Lord 
 comes first, and is only followed later by 
 the mention of his Divine glory. The 
 messages, ch. xi. 2, xlii. i, are here con- 
 tinued and confirmed. 
 
 "Because," not "therefore." The Spirit 
 rested on Messiah, that He might accom- 
 plish His appointed work as the Preacher 
 of righteousness and grace. The pronoun 
 "me" is emphatic, being no suffix, but 
 
 a separate word. Messiah is thus set in 
 contrast with the earlier prophets, who 
 told before of His coming, but who could 
 not share in His work as the great Pro- 
 phet of grace, any more than in His 
 priestly atonement. 
 
 "To preach glad tidings to the poor." 
 (So the LXX., St Luke, Rosenm., Hitz., 
 Hend., Stier, &c. ). The context shews 
 that not meekness as a grace or virtue, but 
 poverty or affliction, defines the especial 
 class to whom this message comes. The 
 previous messages to Zion from the first, 
 xli. 27, were to be crowned by one still 
 nobler, xl. 9, the Gospel of the Son of 
 God, Mark i. i. The first blessing of our 
 Lord is to "the poor in spirit," Mat. 
 
 V- .=5- 
 
 "He hath sent me." So the Divine 
 Word had announced before, xlviii. 16. 
 Hence the name Apostle, Heb. iii. 1. 
 "To bind up the brokenhearted." So 
 His second blessing is on them "that 
 mourn," Mat. v. 4. 
 
 "Full deliverance." The word, "open- 
 ing of the prison," A. V., is used elsewhere 
 only for the opening of the eyes, and has 
 here an intensive form. Hence the double 
 version of the LXX., used in the Gospel, 
 probably gives its true force : "and re- 
 covering of sight to the blind, to set at 
 liberty the bruised." The work of our 
 Lord was to raise up all who were crush- 
 ed by the bitter effects of their own sin. 
 So the woman, whom Satan "had bound 
 eighteen years," Lu. xiii. 16, was loosed 
 from her bonds by the voice of Christ, 
 and the eyes of the blind were opened. 
 
 V. 2. "An acceptable year of the 
 Lord." A season of grace and mercy to 
 
300 
 
 ISAIAH, LXI. 3—5. 
 
 a day of vengeance for our God ; to comfort all that mourn : 
 3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them 
 beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of 
 praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they may be called 
 trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may 
 be glorified. 4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall 
 raise up the desolations of former days : and they shall repair 
 the wasted cities, the desolations of many generations. 
 
 5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the 
 
 the lost and guilty, which the Lord has 
 set apart for Himself, the more brightly 
 to reveal His grace. The absence of the 
 article (Alex., Delitzsch) adds to the 
 force. It was not to announce a period 
 well known before, but to proclaim that 
 such a year of mercy, a great antitype 
 of the year of jubilee, was now begun. 
 Here our Lord paused at the opening of 
 His message, and only added much later 
 the warning of "the days of vengeance," 
 Lu. xxi. 20 — 24, when this mercy had 
 been despised. 
 
 The title belongs to the whole time of 
 the Gospel, till the day of vengeance be- 
 gins, 2 Cor. vi. 2 ; Is. Iv. 6, But this set 
 in to the Jewish people long ago, Lu. xxi. 
 2 2, though to individual Jews and Gen- 
 tiles the acceptable year still continues. 
 
 "A day of vengeance for our God." 
 One which He has set apart for the dis- 
 play of His anger against the oppressors 
 of His people. A longer period, a year 
 of mercy, is to be followed by a shorter, 
 a day of judgment and severity. So 
 Dan. xii. predicts "a time of trouble, 
 such as never was since there was a 
 nation." "To comfort all that mourn." 
 After this day of vengeance, the promise 
 blossoms out once more into still fuller 
 beauty. The opening message, xl. i, is 
 renewed, enlarged, and confirmed. 
 
 V. 3. Here Zion is first named. The 
 message, as quoted at Nazareth, and then 
 fulfilled, was of mercy to the Jews ; but, 
 on their rejection, equally to the Gentiles 
 also. So St Paul was sent to the Gen- 
 tiles, "to open their eyes, &c." Here 
 the promise includes the actual bestow- 
 mcnt of these rich blessings on all the 
 mourners in Zion. They are to become, 
 thenceforward, trees laden with the fruits 
 of righteousness, Phil. i. 11; Gal. v. 22. 
 
 "The planting of the Lord, that he 
 may be glorified." Here is a direct re- 
 ference to the promise which ends the 
 former series, Ix. 21. The last word, in 
 each, is impersonal, and applies equally 
 to the Speaker, the Word of God, and to 
 the Lord God, of whom He speaks as a 
 distinct Person. The song of the ran- 
 somed in the New Testament corresponds, 
 Rev. vii. 10. 
 
 V. 4. The threatening of the Law had 
 been, "I will make your cities waste, and 
 bring your sanctuaries into desolation... 
 and your land shall be desolate, and your 
 cities waste," Lev. xxvi. 31, 33. So too 
 Isaiah's own commission began, in the 
 last year of Uzziah. "Until the cities 
 be wasted without inhabitants... and the 
 land be utterly desolate," vi. 11. The 
 warning, which thus begins Isaiah's 
 message, is graciously reversed by this 
 promise near its close. " Of former 
 days" (Umbr., .Stier), seems more exact 
 than " former desolations," which the 
 grammar hardly allows, and more expres- 
 sive than "of the ancestors" (Gesen., 
 Ewald, Delitzsch). The reference is to 
 cities and sites, which have long been 
 brought to ruin and desertion, and of 
 which Palestine and its border lands have 
 been full for ages. 
 
 "The wasted cities." The word is often 
 used for desolation caused by drought. 
 Comp. V. 6. The last clause refers to 
 i. 7, vi. II, xvii. 9, where the same de- 
 scription is given. The "many genera- 
 tions" imply naturally a longer period 
 than the Exile of Babylon, and most fitly 
 apply to the long series of Zion's times 
 of desolation, from the days of the pro- 
 phet to the end of the treading down of 
 Jerusalem announced by our Lord. 
 
 V. 5. The word, strangers, commonly 
 
ISAIAH, LXI. 6—S. 
 
 301 
 
 sons of the alien s/ia// he your plowmen and your vinedressers. 
 6 But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, men shall 
 call you the ministers of our God : ye shall eat the riches of the 
 Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 7 For 
 your shame shall be double Jwnour^ and for confusion, rejoicing- 
 sJiall be their portion : therefore in their land they shall possess 
 the double ; everlasting joy shall be unto them„ 8 For I the 
 Lord love judgment, I hate robbery in burnt-offering : and 
 I have appointed their recompence in truth, and will seal to 
 
 refers to hostile oppressors, i. 7, xxv. 2, 5, 
 xxix. 5; Jer. V. 19; Ezek. vii. 21. But the 
 survivors of nations, once hostile, shall do 
 Zion willing service. The words denote 
 neither degrading servitude (Cler.), nor 
 mere amity and friendship (Alex.) ; still 
 less that Gentiles will replace Jews as 
 Christian pastors (Jerome, Procop. ) ; but 
 honourable subordination, like that of 
 Israel to the Levites, or the Levites to 
 the sons of Aaron. The employments of 
 ploughmen and shepherds were honoured 
 ill Israel, but inferior to the priesthood of 
 those who ministered before God. The 
 view which makes Israel and Zion here not 
 mean the Jewish people and Jerusalem, 
 but the Christian Church (Alex.), does 
 violence to the natural sense of every 
 ■verse, and destroys the clear contrast with 
 the Gentiles which marks the whole. The 
 objections to the literal view arise from 
 confounding accidental figures, which enter 
 into all prophecy, with systematic allegory, 
 which is wholly different. Or else they 
 ari .e from the inconsistency, which accepts 
 the main idea of the promise to Israel, 
 and shrinks from details, clearly revealed, 
 such as the subordinate place to be held 
 by Gentiles in the land of promise. 
 
 V. 6. The promise to be "a kingdom 
 of priests," Ex. xix. 6, given to the whole 
 nation of Israel in the Old Covenant, has 
 been forfeited by their sin. It is now to 
 be fulfilled under tl at New Covenant to 
 "the house of Israel and the house of 
 Judah," which pardons all sins, imparts 
 inward holiness, and crowns the double 
 gift with outward honour. "In their 
 glory shall ye boast yourselves." This 
 version (A.V., Chald., Syr., LXX., Je- 
 rome, Kimchi, Aben Ezra, Vitr., De- 
 litzsch) is less harsh and more em- 
 phatic than that of many moderns, "in 
 
 the possession of their glory shall ye sub- 
 stitute yourselves" (Rosenm. , Ges., Ew., 
 Hitz., Alex., Stier, Plahn). Comp. Ps. 
 xciv. 4, Delitzsch, tr. II. p. 430. The words 
 express a holy exultation of restored Israel 
 in the abundance of the gifts of God. 
 
 V. 7. The third promise of the opening 
 message is here resumed, xl. 2, that Zion 
 should "receive at the Lord's hand double 
 for all her sins." The text of this third 
 series is thus "abundant recompence to 
 Zion" for her long shame and desolation. 
 It sums up, in contrast, all the threaten- 
 ings of the early prophecies. Before it 
 was said: "The strength of Pharaoh 
 shall be your shame, the trust in the 
 shadow of Egypt your confusion." But 
 for shame there shall be double honour, 
 and for confusion, rejoicing. This decree 
 of the God of Israel shall be followed by 
 its sure execution. The last words allude 
 to the closing promise of the Early Pro- 
 phecies, — "and everlasting joy shall be 
 upon their heads," xxxv. 10, li. 11. 
 
 V. 8. The Speaker here is the same 
 as before, the Messiah of God. In 
 ch. 1., He first, as Jehovah, complains 
 that when He comes, His people refuse 
 to hearken; and then describes himself as 
 learning from God to comfort those in 
 sorrow. Here He first speaks of His 
 mission from the Father to comfort the 
 mourners, and then assumes His title as 
 Jehovah once more. He of whom it is 
 written, Ps. xlv., "Thou hast loved 
 righteousness and hated iniquity," here 
 proclaims in like manner, "I the Lord 
 love judgment." 
 
 "Robbery for burnt offering." So 
 A. v., Vulg., Luth., Calv., Vitr., Jarchi, 
 Kimchi, Aben Ezra, &c. Most modems 
 render "rapine of wickedness" (Hend., 
 Delitzsch), or some kindred phrase (sub- 
 
302 
 
 ISAIAH, LXI. 9-II. 
 
 them an everlasting covenant. 9 And their seed shall be known 
 among the Gentiles, and their offspring amidst the nations : all 
 that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are a seed 
 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 garments of 
 salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, 
 as a bridegroom putteth on priestly array, and as a bride 
 adorneth kei'se If -with, her jewels. Ii For as the earth bringeth 
 forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things sown in 
 it to spring forth ; so the Lord God will cause righteousness 
 and praise to spring forth before all the nations. 
 
 stituting a'c'In/i {or olak). But this general 
 departure from the natural sense of the 
 text has arisen solely from the failure to 
 see in it any appropriate meaning. So 
 Delitzsch : "What object could there 
 be in mentioning sacrifices, since only 
 heathen sacrifices could be intended?" 
 But a key is found, by comparing i. lo — 15. 
 The charge against Israel, at the opening 
 of the whole book, is criminal profaneness 
 amidst their burnt offerings, "iniquity and 
 solemn meeting," which God would not 
 endure, a service saCred in name and 
 form, polluted by flagrant wrong. Here, 
 ■where the promise returns to Israel, after 
 ages of sorrow, this charge is brought 
 against the Gentiles, the nominal Chris- 
 tians, who have been foremost among 
 their despisers and oppressors. Their 
 burnt offerings and acts of worship have 
 been joined with flagrant oppression and 
 persecution of the Jewish people. They 
 have, robbed them of their goods ; and 
 even of God's promises, applying the 
 curses to the Jews, and taking the bless- 
 ings to themselves. This crime of the 
 Gentiles is here reproved, a counterpart 
 to the rebuke of Israel at the opening of 
 the whole prophecy. 
 
 The promise has a double reference. 
 The sin of the Jewish people, in whom 
 great religious zeal had been joined with 
 habits of iniquity, should be wholly done 
 away ; and the wrongs of the Gentiles, 
 who have turned the wresting of the 
 promises from the Jews into a supposed 
 burnt offering to God, shall be one further 
 reason why richest and fullest blessings 
 shall be given to long despised Israel. 
 
 Their recompence in double honour shall 
 compensate for their long enduring shame. 
 It is appointed in truth by the God of 
 truth, and by that Messiah whose name 
 is "The Truth;" whose gifts and calling 
 are without repentance. 
 
 V. 9. The contrast between restored 
 Israel and the Gentiles is here most plain. 
 The words allude to xlviii. 19. Those 
 breathings of Divine love shall now be 
 fulfilled, and the Gentiles shall see the 
 reality of God's special favour to the seed 
 of Israel, so long obscured, and seem- 
 ingly reversed, by their stubborn unbelief. 
 See Rom. xi. 28. 
 
 v. 10. The Speaker is not Jerusalem, 
 the Church, or the prophet, but still Mes- 
 siah as before. Hence the figure of the 
 bridegroom takes the lead, not that of the 
 bride. It is a prediction of His joyful 
 resurrection, and a glad anticipation of 
 the rich fruits of His great work of love. 
 So Ps. xvi. 11: "Thou wilt shew me 
 the path of life: in thy presence is fulness 
 of joy. " And Ps. xxi. 6: "Thou hast 
 made him most blessed for ever : thou 
 hast made him exceeding glad with thy 
 countenance." The risen Saviour, the 
 King of righteousness, crowned with glory 
 and honour, stands in glorious priestly 
 apparel before the Majesty on high. He 
 is both the Bridegroom and High Priest 
 of the church. But the figure of the bride, 
 adorned with her jewels, is added; be- 
 cause Messiah accounts the glory promised 
 through Him to His church as a part of 
 His own. 
 
 V. ii. The title "the Lord God" 
 refers bark to v. r, and links the whole 
 
ISAIAH, LXII. 1—4. 
 
 303 
 
 (2). Chap. LXII. Messiah's Heavenly Intercession. 
 
 For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jeru- 
 salem's sake I will not rest, until her righteousness shall go 
 forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burnetii. 
 2 And nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy 
 glory : and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the 
 mouth of the Lord will 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 
 
 been referred to the practice of wearing 
 wreaths on the arm (Aben Ezra), to the 
 admiration of him who holds it (Brent., 
 Ewd.), as for exhibition to others (Cocc ), 
 or denoting that it is at God's disposal 
 (Mich.) or under His protection (Vitr., 
 Ges., Maur.), or as the crown of redeemed 
 humanity (Stier). All these ideas, except 
 the first, may be included, but do not 
 fully account for the figure. It implies 
 ownership and powerful protection, and 
 delight in its beauty ; but also Divine 
 workmanship, and a higher distinction 
 still to come. Redeemed Zion will be 
 the work of the Lord, the crown and dia- 
 dem framed and woven by His hand. 
 The flowers of the garland, the jewels of 
 the diadem, belong to that earth which is 
 God's footstool ; and, though now raised 
 to eminent honour, will not have received 
 their final destination of heavenly glorj'. 
 Then only will the blessed company of 
 the ransomed become, to the Lord him- 
 self, His diadem of beauty, as if to en- 
 circle His brows for ever and ever. 
 
 v. 4. The book opens with the charge 
 against Israel, " They have forsaken the 
 Lord," i. 4; and the sentence corresponds, 
 vii. 16, that the land should be forsaken, 
 and its strong cities be "as forsaken 
 ruins," xvii. 9, their habitation "for- 
 saken like a wilderness," and "the peo- 
 pled city left," xxvii. lo, xxxii. 14. But 
 now this double sentence on Zion and 
 Palestine, of desertion and ruin, shall be 
 wholly repealed. The common version 
 preserves the beauty of the passage, as 
 far as it seems possible for a translation 
 to do. Whether we translate Hephzi-bah 
 and Beulah, or retain all four names in 
 
 together. The Lord God has sent his 
 Anointed on this great errand of mercy, 
 and it shall not be in vain. The phrase 
 "spring forth" [tsamach) alludes to the 
 earliest title of Messiah in this book, the 
 Branch {tsemacJi) of the Lord, iv. 2. The 
 promise refers also to xxxv. i, Iv. 10 — 13, 
 and includes all the fruits of the Gospel, 
 from Pentecost onward to days still to 
 come. 
 
 § I (2). CH. LXII. 
 
 V. I. From the work of Messiah on 
 earth, the message passes on to His 
 heavenly intercession. It renews and en- 
 larges the previous statement, viii. 17 ; "I 
 will wait for the Lord, who hideth His 
 face from the house of Jacob, and I will 
 look for Him." He who wept over Jeru- 
 salem, when on earth, has not ceased to 
 pity them and plead for them, when ex- 
 alted in heaven. He is the true Joseph, 
 the loving and compassionate Elder Bro- 
 ther of His guilty brethren, even while 
 tlieir eyes are holden in unbehef, and 
 they know Him not. 
 
 V. 2. The righteousness and glory of 
 Zion are to be a reflection from the glory 
 of the Lord, who will rise upon her. The 
 new name denotes a new character, openly 
 recognized. Hephzi-bah, Beulah, Sought 
 out, A city not forsaken, are like letters 
 composing this new name of honour. 
 " \Vhich the mouth of the Lord shall 
 name." The word here means to express, 
 mark out, or define. The future glory of 
 Israel will be, in all things, by the decree 
 and determinate foreknowledge of God. 
 
 V. 3. The figure here is still bolder 
 than in xxviii. 5, where a similar promise 
 occurs. The crown "in the hand" has 
 
304 
 
 ISAIAH, LXII. 5— S. 
 
 shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Bculah ; for the Lord 
 delightcth 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 rcjoiceth over the bride, so shall thy 
 God rejoice over thee. 
 
 6 Over thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchers ; 
 all day and all night they shall never hold their peace : ye 
 remembrancers of the LORD, keep not silence ; 7 And give 
 him no rest, until he establish, and till he make Jerusalem 
 a praise in the earth. 8 The Lord hath sworn by his right 
 hand, and by his mighty arm, Surely I will no more give thy 
 corn to be meat for thine enemies ; and the sons of the stranger 
 
 by the plural verb (Hahn), and leaves the 
 difficulty the same. But the parallel 
 supplies a simple key. In the first clause 
 "thee" is put for "thy land." The sons 
 of Zion marry the land, when it is pos- 
 sessed, tilled, and made fruitful, by their 
 renewed occupation. But Zion herself, 
 the whole people, is married to her God, 
 when He betroths her with lovingkind- 
 ness and great mercies. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The figure here is commonly 
 taken for that of watchmen actually 
 stationed on the walls of the city. But 
 the promise really belongs to the time of 
 desolation, and watchmen are not station- 
 ed upon heaps of ruins. The word is 
 quite general for keepers and overseers of 
 any kind, and the words, over thee, over 
 thy walls, answer to each other. The 
 figure seems thus to be not, as usually 
 explained, of watchmen placed on the 
 walls when rebuilt, but of watchers or 
 overseers, to whom a charge is given 
 to help on the rebuilding of Zion out of 
 its ruins. The words may apply to an- 
 gels (Chald., Kimchi, Jarchi, Rosenm. , 
 Kwd., Hahn), or to men, especially Chris- 
 tian believers (Vitr., Lowth, Hitz., Umbr., 
 Hend., Stier). There is no need to ex- 
 clude either view. Angel watchers on 
 high, and human intercessors on earth 
 below, are provided by Messiah, who 
 shall echo constantly His own Divine 
 intercession, plead for God's ancient 
 people, and favour the dust of Zion, while 
 still in ruins. So Zech. i. 12: "The 
 angel of the Lord answered and said, 
 O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not 
 liave mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of 
 Judah?" As the pleading of Christ, so 
 
 Hebrew, and append a version to each, 
 there is a sensible loss of grace and power. 
 The two first names are transient, and 
 pass away, and therefore are best given 
 in their English meaning. But the others 
 are abiding titles of honour, of which an 
 exposition is given, and their Hebrew 
 form is best retained. 
 
 Hephzi-bah was the name of Hezekiah's 
 wife, the mother of Manasseh, 2 Kin. 
 xxi. r. And since her son was only 
 twelve at his accession, her marriage was 
 probably after Hezekiah's recovery from 
 sickness, that figurative resurrection of the 
 king of Israel, when he went up after 
 three days to the house of God. Isaiah 
 would probably be present at these royal 
 espousals, when the watch-words of joy 
 were Hephzi-bah and Beulah. We have 
 thus a delicate, indirect sign of the date 
 and authorship of these chapters. A very 
 beautiful picture is borrowed from this 
 recent marriage of Hezekiah, and the 
 name and honour of the actual queen, or 
 queen-mother, in the old age of Isaiah, 
 to foreshadow the espousal of Zion, in the 
 last days, to the risen and glorified Mes- 
 siah, the true and exalted King of Israel. 
 
 V. 5. Various suggestions have been 
 made, to remove the harshness of the 
 metaphor in the words, " So shall thy 
 sons marry thee." ist, " By a change of 
 vowel points, " So shall thy Builder, or 
 builders, marry thee " (Lowth, Koppe, 
 Doderlein, Miiller, Hend.). 2nd, By a 
 change in the sense of the verb, "So shall 
 thy sons inhabit thee" (Alex.). But this 
 destroys the correspondence of the clauses. 
 3rd, "So shall thy Son (i.e. Messiah) 
 marry thee" (Stier). But this is disproved 
 
ISAIAH, LXII. 9—12. 
 
 305 
 
 shall not drink thy wine, for which thou hast laboured : 9 But 
 they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD : 
 and they that have brought it in shall drink it in the courts of 
 my holiness, 
 
 10 Go through, go through the gates ; prepare ye the way of 
 the people : cast up, cast up the highway ; gather out every 
 stone ; lift up a standard over the nations. 1 1 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 work 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 prayers of His people, will never 
 cease, till the veil of Israel is taken away. 
 
 vv, 8, 9. This oath refers directly to 
 the freedom of Palestine, the land of 
 promise, from the power of oppressing 
 strangers. Zion shall have abiding plenty 
 and peace. There may also be a further 
 and deeper sense. Believers of the Gen- 
 tiles have long feasted on the histories, 
 promises, and messages of Divine grace, 
 made through Jewish prophets and apos- 
 tles, while the Jews themselves have pined 
 for ages in spiritual famine. This con- 
 trast shall now cease. The stores of 
 heavenly nourishment in the word of God 
 shall henceforward be erjjoyed, first of all 
 and chiefly, by the people of Israel, and 
 by Gentiles only as grafted into the stock 
 of Abraham, to whom God's mercy over- 
 flows, after satisfying the wants of His 
 chosen and peculiar people. 
 
 vv. 10—12. Some think the speaker 
 is Isaiah, others a prophetic choras, others 
 the watchers of v. 6. But there is no rea- 
 son to suppose a change, and the Messiah 
 speaks as before. Again, those addressed 
 have been said to be Jews remaining in 
 Jerusalem after the temple was burnt, or 
 exiles in Babylon, or the Gentiles, or re- 
 turning Jews of the last days. But in 
 the first clause the message is to repent- 
 ant Israel, and in the rest, to the Chris- 
 tian Church, or Gentile believers, before 
 their return. The passage has been ex- 
 plained of entering in or going out ; and 
 the gates referred to the temple, to Jeru- 
 salem, the cities of Judah, or Gentile 
 cities in the route of those who return. 
 But ch. xxvi. '2 seems to supply the true 
 sense. That charge, to open the gates 
 B. I. 
 
 for returning Israel, is completed by a 
 second command to the outcasts, now be- 
 come a righteous and truthful people, to 
 enter in. A charge follows, to remove 
 the stumblingl^locks caused by the idola- 
 try and persecution of nominal Christians, 
 which have very grievously hindered the 
 recovery of Israel to the faith of Christ, 
 and thus delayed their attainment of the 
 promised blessings. 
 
 v. ri. These words answer nearly to 
 ch. xl. lO, where they relate to the First 
 Advent. But they are also repeated, with 
 little change. Rev. xxii. 12, where their 
 subject is plainly the Second Coming. 
 The context fixes them here to this later 
 application, after the law of progress and 
 development in all inspired prophecies, 
 especially in those of Isaiah. Four succes- 
 sive predictions of our Lord's first Advent 
 separate the earlier from the later promise : 
 ch. xlii. I — 7, 18 — 21; xlix. i — 6 ; 1. i — 
 S; liii. I — 12. 
 
 V. 12. The message closes with a two- 
 fold promise to the people, and also to 
 the city, the Zion of God. The people 
 shall now be holy, all of them, and 
 righteous, because the Spirit has been 
 poured upon them, Isai. Ix. 21 ; Ezek. 
 xxxix. 29, and will be the "redeemed 
 of the Lord" rescued from every foe, 
 Luke i. 68, 74. Zion, once left like a 
 booth in a vineyard, i. 8, and her palaces 
 forsaken, xxxii. 14, " whom no man sought 
 after," Jer. xxx. 17, will have double 
 honour instead of former shame, and be 
 called. Sought out, A city not forsaken. 
 Where sin hath abounded, grace will 
 much more abound, and sorrow be swal- 
 lowed up in joy. 
 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 ISAIAH, LXIII. 1—5. 
 
 (3). CiiAr. LXIII. 1—6. The Vintage of Judgment. 
 
 Who is this that comcth from Edom, with dyed garments 
 from Bozrah ? this tJiat is glorious in his apparel, stately 
 moving in the greatness of his strength } I that speak in right- 
 eousness, mighty to save. 2 Wherefore art tJiou red in thine 
 apparel, and thy garments like one that treadeth the wine-press .-' 
 3 The wine-trough I have trodden alone, and of the nations tlicrc 
 7uas no man with me : and I will tread them in mine anger, 
 and trample them in my fury ; and their life-blood is sprinkled 
 upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. 4 For 
 the day of vengeance ivas in my heart, and the year of my 
 redeemed is come. 5 And I looked, and there zuas none to 
 help ; and I was astonished that there teas none to uphold : so 
 
 V. I. The two questions here corre- 
 spond, as sin with its punishment. Edom, 
 the i-ed, is the people and land of him who 
 sold his birthright, and in heart shed his 
 brother's blood. But " wherefore art thou 
 red in thine apparel?" refers to garments 
 dyed with blood by judgment on Edom's 
 sin. 
 
 "This Edom is plainly a typical, pro- 
 phetic, mystic name for the hostile, 
 iiaughty, heathen world in general, to 
 be judged, and certainly the same with 
 Babel in the horizon of the prophet. 
 From the first type until now it is used 
 with various allusions (the red, the earthly, 
 Adam), the natural humanity, in contrast 
 with Israel, the people of God. The 
 chief point of resemblance is the state of 
 mind, profane, contemptuous, despising 
 salvation" (Stier). This application is 
 so far from being purely fanciful (Alex.) 
 that it results most plainly from a com- 
 parison of the related prophecies. The 
 word fSih-A "travelling" A. V. is rather 
 "bending," used, ch. li. 14, of the crouch- 
 ing of a captive, but here of the head in- 
 clined backward with a stately gesture. 
 
 "I that speak in righteousness." The 
 question is from the prophet when the 
 vision appears. He who answers is the 
 Divine Word, Rev. xix. 13, the same who 
 has spoken through the previous chapters. 
 His words arc acts of Divine power. 
 'J'his clause answers thus to Rev. xix. u, 
 "In righteousness he doth judge and 
 
 make war." But even in judgment He 
 is "mighty to save," and salvation is the 
 final aim of His war with the powers of 
 evil. 
 
 vv. 2, 3. This glorious Person, seen 
 first afar, has drawn near and made an- 
 swer, and the question is addressed to 
 Him as now present. The past and 
 future tenses express the certainty of the 
 event, the real and ideal point of sight 
 being assumed in turn. In vision the 
 treading is past, but in the exposition 
 remotely future. The blood, v. 3, and 
 "strength," v. 6 (A. V.), is the same, and 
 seems here to mean the life-blood, as the 
 source of strength. 
 
 v. 3. "The nations." The Gentile 
 nations, in contrast to the Zion of God. 
 A time seems implied, when the faithful 
 in once Christian lands have been re- 
 moved, and there are left ungodly men 
 alone for a season. This agrees with St 
 Paul's words, that the recovery of Israel 
 will be "life from the dead," Rom. xi. 15. 
 A contrast also to the promise, Hi. 15. 
 In the day of grace " Alessiah sjirinkles 
 many nations" with the life-blootl of His 
 atoning sacrifice. In thisday of vengeance 
 His own garments are to be sprinkled 
 with the life-blood of the presumptuous 
 despisers of His grace. 
 
 V. 4. This "day of vengeance" was 
 announced before, Ixi. 2. It was to fol- 
 low the acceptable year, the long season 
 of Divine grace, and usher in the full 
 
ISAIAH, LXIII. 6~S. 
 
 307 
 
 mine own arm brought salvation for me, and my fury, it sus- 
 tained me. 6 And I will tread down the nations in mine 
 anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring 
 down their life-blood to the earth. 
 
 § 2. The Last Controversy with Israel. 
 
 :i). 
 
 Chap. LXIII. 7— LXV. 
 
 Israel's Former Mercies and Sins. 
 
 7 I will recall to mind the lovingkindness of tlie LORD, 
 a;/d the praises of the Lord, according to all that the LORD 
 hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house 
 of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his 
 mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. 
 8 And he said, Surely these a^r my own people, children //m^ 
 
 gift of beauty, joy, and praise, to the 
 mourners in Zion. 
 
 V. 5. This verse is the same as lix. i6, 
 with a change of person only. Messiah, 
 the Lord's Anointed, claims here for His 
 own work what is there ascribed to Je- 
 hovah. The words "I that speak in 
 righteousness, mighty to save," unfold 
 that earlier message, "I, even I, am Je- 
 hovah, and beside me ther^e is no Sa- 
 viour," xliii. II. 
 
 "I was astonished." Rebellion so 
 wide and deep, after such riches of grace, 
 is marvellous even to the All-wise Re- 
 deemer. He is the same who, at Nazareth, 
 "marvelled because of their unbelief," 
 Mark vi. 6. 
 
 § 2 (i). Ch. LXIII. 7 — 19. 
 
 V. 7. That the confession which begins 
 here is that of the Jewish people, or of the 
 faithful among them, or one made in their 
 behalf, is plain, and denied by few. That 
 the period is just before their future and 
 final conversion results from the order of 
 the visions. As to the speaker or speak- 
 ers there is more room for varieties of 
 judgment. The simplest view, however, 
 is that Messiah is still the Speaker, as 
 before ; but now as the great Intercessor 
 for Israel, joining them with Himself, 
 and speaking and pleading with God in 
 their name. The opening words allude to 
 the command He has given to the Lord's 
 remembrancers not to keep silence, and 
 to give Him no rest, till Jerusalem be 
 
 a praise in the earth. He now fulfils 
 this same work, and recalls to the mind 
 of God His mercies to Israel in the days 
 of old. The transition in v. 11, which is 
 commonly felt to be obscure, thus re- 
 ceives a simple explanation. He pleads 
 here for Israel, as once for Himself on 
 the Cross, — "Our fathers trusted in thee, 
 and thou didst deliver them," Ps. xxii. 
 
 3—5- 
 
 V. 8. The simpler version of the con- 
 nective is more exact. He shewed them 
 great mercies, not through a confidence 
 in their fidelity, which was disappointed ; 
 but rather this hopeful, loving expecta- 
 tion, repaid only by ingratitude, was one 
 link in a long, connected chain of un- 
 deserved blessings. 
 
 "Surely these are my own people." 
 The rendering "only" (Hahn, Alex.) ob- 
 scures the true sense, both here and xvi. 
 7, xix. II, xlv. 14, 24. It has here "its 
 primary affirmative sense" (Delitzsch, 
 Rosenm., Hend., Stier). So Gen. ix. 5, 
 xxvi. 5, xxix. 14 ; Ex. xxxi. 13 ; Jer. x. 19; 
 Lam. ii. 16. The second is also plainly 
 a relative clause, and not a command 
 (Alex.). The force of the particle rests 
 on the word "my people" and hence 
 "my own people," (Hend.), gives the real 
 emphasis. 
 
 The statement answers to v. c!— "And 
 he looked that it should bring forth 
 grapes;" or to the words in the parable, 
 "These three years I come seeking fruit 
 
 20 — 2 
 
3o8 
 
 ISAIAH, LXIII. 9— II. 
 
 will not lie : and he was unto them a Saviour. 9 In all their 
 affliction, his zvas the conflict, and the Angel of his presence 
 saved them : in his love and in his pity He redeemed them; and 
 he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. 10 Yet did 
 they rebel, and grieve his holy Spirit ; so he was turned to be 
 their enemy, and himself fought against them. 1 1 But he hath 
 called to mind the days of old, Moees and his people — Where 
 is he that brought them up from the sea with the shepherd 
 of his flock "i where is he that put in the midst of them his holy 
 
 on this fig-tree," Lu. xiii. 7 ; or again, 
 Zeph. iii. 7, "I said, Surely thou wilt fear 
 me, thou wilt receive instruction." Love 
 "hopeth all things," and "God is Love." 
 Omniscience does not blot out or destroy 
 this hopefulness, one essential element of 
 His all-perfect love. It only blends with 
 it, in mysterious union, in this verse and 
 its contrast, xlviii. 8, — "I knew that thou 
 wouldest deal very treacherously, and 
 that thy name is, A transgressor from the 
 womb." His love kept out of sight His 
 foreknowledge, and He dealt with them 
 as a father with children, whom he would 
 win by love to grateful obedience. 
 
 V. 9. The received version, based on 
 the Keri, seems here in substance the 
 best, and yields a most emphatic sense 
 (Luth., Vitr., Cler., Hitz., Ewald, Knob., 
 Umbr., Hendk., Alex., Stier, Delitzsch). 
 The order of the words, which has been 
 made an objection (Ges.), confirms this 
 reading, since the stress lies on the pro- 
 noun. But the slight change "his was 
 the conflict" seems to give the sense more 
 exactly, the reference being to controversy 
 rather than suffering. The allusion is to 
 the promise, Ex. xxiii. 22 : "Then will 
 I be an enemy to thine enemies, and an 
 adversary to thine adversaries," (z'etsarti 
 eth tsorercika). The last clause corre- 
 sponds exactly to this passage. In no 
 conflict were they abandoned, but God 
 undertook their cause, and fought against 
 their enemies. 
 
 "He redeemed them." The pronoun 
 is emphatic, and some refer it directly to 
 "the Angel of his presence," (Vitr., Stier). 
 But it refers directly to Jehovah. His 
 was the conflict, and He redeemed them. 
 The mention of the Presence Angel, "the 
 Messenger of the Covenant" in Mala- 
 chi, alludes in passing to Ex. xxiii. ■23, 
 
 as the former clause does to the verse just 
 before. The Word, the Presence Angel, 
 is here the Speaker, and bears witness to 
 the love of the Father even more than 
 to His own. So the Spirit is named sub- 
 ordinately in the next verse. 
 
 v. 10. The pronouns here mark an 
 emphatic contrast. He redeemed them, 
 yet did they rebel, therefore He fought 
 against them. His dealings were changed, 
 through their sin, to a holy severity, and 
 their Redeemer himself became their ad- 
 versary. So ch. V. 6, "I will lay it 
 waste;" and Judg. ii. 15, "Whither- 
 soever they went out, the hand of the 
 Lord was against them for evil,... as he 
 had sworn unto them." 
 
 V. II. The difficulty of this verse may 
 be seen by the following summarj' of 
 opinions: Grotius and others (A.V. , <S:c.) 
 make Jehovah the subject of the first 
 verb, which avoids an abrupt change of 
 person without sign of it in the text. 
 But since what follows can only be the 
 language of the people, most refer this 
 clause to the people also. Cyril ami 
 Jerome combine both, referring "he re- 
 membered," to the Lord, and what fol- 
 lows to the people. So abrupt a transi- 
 tion should not be assumed without 
 necessity. The Targum supplies 'lest 
 they say' before the second clause, as the 
 voice of the enemies of Israel. Vitringa's 
 is a fatal objection, that the essential idea 
 has then to be supplied. The Dutch 
 Bible makes it the complaint of the peo- 
 ple: "Once he remembered it, but now 
 where is he? &c." Here again the main 
 tliought has to be supplied without au- 
 thority. Moderns, since Vitringa, agree 
 that the first clause describes the repent- 
 ance of the people, and that the second 
 gives their words, but still var}- as to the 
 
ISAIAH, LXIII. 12—15. 
 
 309 
 
 Spirit? 12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with 
 his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make him- 
 self an everlasting name ? 13 That led them through the deeps, 
 like a horse in the wilderness? they did not stumble. 14 As 
 a herd tliat goeth down into a valley, the Spirit of the LORD 
 caused them to rest : even so didst thou lead thy people, to 
 make thyself a glorious name. 15 Look down from heaven, 
 and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and thy glory : 
 where is thy zeal and thy strength ? the sounding of thy bowels. 
 
 constniction. Rosenm. and most follow 
 Jarchi in making his people the subject 
 (Ges. , Hitz., Ewald, Umbr., Knobel, 
 Hahn, Delitz., Scholz). Gesenius ren- 
 ders "the ancient days of Moses." This 
 harsh construction has been adopted by 
 later writers, except Maurer, who revives 
 the construction of A,V. and Vitringa as 
 a new discovery. Henderson differs from 
 A.V. in the second clause only, and ren- 
 ders it thus, "Where is he that brought 
 up from the sea the shepherds of his 
 flock?" (Alex., p. 91). 
 
 Again, Hahn renders "And his peo- 
 ple will remember the days of old, and 
 Moses : where is he (Moses) that hath 
 brought them up from the sea with the 
 Shepherd of his flock (the Presence An- 
 gel)? Where is he, who hath put in 
 the midst of them his Holy Spirit (also 
 the Presence Angel)?" Stier otherwise : 
 "And one remembered the days of old, 
 the Moses (drawer forth) of his people: 
 where is he (Moses) that brought them 
 forth from the sea (of affliction) with the 
 Shepherd of his flock? Where is He (the 
 Angel) who put in them the Spirit of his 
 holiness?" This is harsh throughout, in 
 the change of subject in the first clause, 
 the use of Moses as an appellative, and 
 the reference of each question to a distinct 
 person. 
 
 The key to this passage will be found 
 by referring back to v. 7, and the further 
 thought that here, as from Ixi. i onward, 
 Messiah is the Speaker. He first declares 
 His purpose, as the great Intercessor, to 
 remind the Lord of His former mercies 
 to Israel. This purpose is now fulfilled. 
 In contrast to the years and ages of re- 
 jection and shame, the Lord has remem- 
 bered the days of old, Moses and his 
 people; so that now, according to those 
 
 earlier days, He is about to shew to them 
 marvellous things, Mic. vii. 15. In this 
 confidence that Jehovah has now called 
 to mind the days of old, Messiah con- 
 tinues His intercession by a direct appeal 
 to the Father for the renewal of His 
 wonderful works: "Where is He, Je- 
 hovah, i.e. the present display of His 
 power, who brought them up from the 
 sea with the Shepherd of His flock, the 
 promised Presence Angel? Where is He 
 that put his Holy Spirit in the midst of 
 them, by the gift of prophecy in Moses, 
 Aaron, Miriam, and the seventy elders? 
 Neh. ix. 20." The facts of the Exodus, 
 in their deeper aspect, are brought to 
 light, and reveal distinctly the love of the 
 Father, of the Word, the Angel of God's 
 presence, and of the Holy Spirit, towards 
 the people of Israel. 
 
 vv. 13, 14. The question here passes 
 into a direct averment of God's merciful 
 care. They passed the Red Sea safely, 
 as a horse crosses a level plain. The 
 tense at the close (Heb. fut.) denotes 
 their continued actual preservation. Their 
 journey through the desert, toilsome and 
 dangerous in itself, became like the 
 peaceful descent of a herd into the val- 
 ley where they pasture. The last words 
 plead with God to renew these wonders 
 of love. 
 
 v. 15. Some take the last clause for 
 an exclamation of affirmation (Ges., Ewd., 
 Alex., Delitzsch), or as a relative clause, 
 "which are restrained" (Vitr., Hitz., 
 Knob. , Hahn, Stier), or as a further ques- 
 tion. Are the sounding, &c." (Hendn.). 
 The last seems the best, but is better 
 expressed by the received version, the 
 pointing only being changed, as above. 
 The complaint is like the Psalmist's: . 
 " Hath God forgotten to be gracious? etc. " 
 
310 
 
 ISAIAH, LXIII. 16—19. 
 
 and thy mercies towards mc, arc they rcstrahicd ? 16 For 
 thou art our Father, though Abraham hath not owned us, and 
 Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art owx Father; our 
 Redeemer is thy name from of old. 17 Why wilt thou make 
 us to err, O Lord, from thy ways, and harden our hearts from 
 thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine 
 inheritance. 18 Thy holy people have possessed it but a little 
 while : our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 19 We 
 are become long ago as those over whom thou dost not rule, 
 which have not been called by thy name. 
 
 V. 16. The nnme of God, as the 
 Father of His people, and their Redeemer, 
 is the ground of this earnest prayer that 
 He will look dowii on them in mercy 
 from heaven. Their earthly forefathers 
 cannot avail them. They cease not to 
 say in their pride, "We have Abraham to 
 our father," and learn to depend wholly, 
 like stones or clay, on the new-creating 
 power and grace of God. The transfer 
 of the words to Gentiles (Alex.), as if it 
 denied a natural descent from Abraham, 
 destroys the chief emphasis of the confes- 
 sion. The words mean rather, "We are 
 too remote in time, too unlike in character 
 and conduct, to hope that Abraham or 
 Israel will own us as their children. It 
 is vain to look to these fathers after the 
 flesh in our present need." The last 
 clause, by the points, requires the varied 
 rendering above (Vitr., Rosenmr., Knobel, 
 Stier, Hahn, Delitzsch), and is thus still 
 more expressive. In His love and pity 
 He redeemed them from Egypt ; and 
 therefore, even from the days of old. His 
 name had ever been. The Redeemer of 
 Israel. 
 
 V. 17. The confession gi-ows deeper 
 still. By the change of number, the 
 great Intercessor links Himself still more 
 closely with the cries of His people. 
 Their strange blindness is owned with 
 shame and sorrow ; yet so as to read in 
 it a just sentence of God. The question 
 
 answers to that early sentence on God's 
 vineyard, "I will command the clouds, 
 that they rain no rain upon it," ch. v. 6. 
 .Strange indeed is the hardness of man's 
 heart, when the strivings of the .Spirit 
 are wholly withdrawn. They plead on 
 the ground of their high calling, not re- 
 pealed, "as the tribes of his inheritance." 
 vv. i8, 19. The received version of 
 V. 18, with one slight change, seems the 
 best ; but in the other the relative con- 
 slraction gives the true sense (Vitr., 
 Hendn., Rosenm., Knob., Stier, Hahn). 
 " From of old " is not a Divine title 
 (Del.), but expresses the length of Is- 
 rael's sad rejection. The confession of 
 Israel's sin and shame here finds its 
 climax, before the eager supplication that 
 follows. Their whole possession of the 
 land of promise had been short, a little 
 while, compared with the terms of the 
 covenant to Abraham, or even with their 
 own times of exile and oppression. The 
 temple is in ruin, not one stone left, 
 a dream of past ages. Instead of the 
 signs of God's chosen people, they have 
 long been .as if He had never marked 
 them out for His own. The verses, thus 
 rendered, fix their own reference, in agree- 
 ment with the context, to the Roman 
 dispersion, and to a future date, when the 
 times of the Gentiles and the treading 
 down of Jerusalem are almost at an 
 end. 
 
ISAIAH, LXIV. 1—4. 
 
 311 
 
 (2). Chap. LXIV. Israel's Prayer for Mercy. 
 
 Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, and come down, 
 that mountains might flow down at thy presence ! 2 As fire 
 kindleth brushwood, and waters boil with the fire, to make 
 thy name known to thine adversaries, and at thy presence 
 nations shall tremble. 3 When thou didst terrible things, zuJiich 
 we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down 
 at thy presence. 4 Even from of old men have not heard, nor 
 perceived by the ear ; no eye hath seen, O God, beside thee ; 
 
 V. I. The Masoretic pointing joins the 
 first verse of this chapter to the verses 
 before. But the other division (LXX., 
 Syr., Vulg., A. v., Ges., Ew., Maurer, 
 Hendn.) is plainly required by the con- 
 struction of the verses that follow, and 
 also by the change from deep confession 
 to earnest and intense prayer. Still the 
 two passages, as a whole, are very closely 
 linked together. Out of the depth of 
 their shame rises this piercing cry. 
 
 V. 2. The word rendered "melting," 
 A. v., occurs here only, and is now com- 
 monly held to mean diy twigs or brush- 
 wood. The rendering above, though not 
 quite literal, retains the emphatic mention 
 of fire first and last in the double clause. 
 One figure is of swift, rapid, noisy con- 
 sumption by the flames ; the other of 
 violent agitation and tumult, like water 
 that boils over a glowing fire. The former 
 has occurred before, xxvii. ii. The na- 
 tions, with all their might, will be agitated, 
 dismayed, confounded, when the mighty 
 King of nations reveals His presence. 
 
 V. 3. This verse may be taken as 
 a retrospective statement (Kimchi, Jarchi, 
 A. v., Gesen., Hendn.) ; an historical 
 comparison, "O that thou wouldest do, 
 as when thou camest down" (Rosenm.); 
 or as a prayer for the future, "Doing 
 fearful things we expect not, O that thou 
 wouldest," etc. (Hitz., Ewald, Knob., 
 Alex., Stier). Or quite otherwise (Hahn), 
 "From thy doing terrible things, should 
 we not hope that thou wilt come down?" 
 But the received version is the earliest 
 and the best. In agreement with the 
 whole context, their hopes and prayers for 
 
 future deliverance are based on their me- 
 mories of the past, Ixiii. 7, 9, 11. The 
 allusion here is to the giving of the Law 
 on Sinai, and completes those already 
 made to the passing of the Red Sea, and 
 the journey through the wilderness. This 
 is no needless repetition (Stier), but a 
 most forcible appeal from what the Lord 
 has already done to what He has pro- 
 mised still to do. The tense (Heb. fut.) of 
 the relative clause is no difficulty (Alex.), 
 but has its frequent force of denoting 
 actions not momentary, but continuous, 
 " which we were not looking for." Israel 
 could not anticipate that glorious theo- 
 phany of Sinai, which forms the subject 
 of the later appeal, Deut. iv. 32, 33. 
 The parallel reappears, Heb. xii. 18, 22, 
 26 — 29. 
 
 v. 4. Many render the last clause 
 "No eye hath seen a God beside thee, 
 who will so work for him that waitelh for 
 him" (Chald., Kimchi, Grot., Cocc, 
 Gesen., Ewd., Maurer, Umbr., Knob., 
 Alex., Hendn.). But seeing and observ- 
 ing God is a harsh construction, and the 
 meaning thus given varies widely from 
 that assigned by the Apostle. Hahn 
 strangely refers it to the idolatiy of the 
 Jews: "They have not heard nor under- 
 stood ; their eye hath not seen : he makes 
 a god beside thee, to wait thereon." 
 This turns upside down a glorious pro- 
 mise. The received version (Vitr., Ro- 
 senm., Jarchi, Stier, &c.) seems alone 
 correct ; but the first word is more exactly 
 "even from of old." Again, "he will 
 do" is more literal, though nearly the 
 same in force as "he hath prepared;" 
 
312 
 
 ISAIAH, LXIV. 5—8. 
 
 wJuit he will do for every one that waiteth for him. 5 Thou 
 meetcst him that rcjoiceth and worketh righteousness, eveti 
 those that remember thee in thy ways : yea, thou hast been 
 wroth, and we have sinned, and still by these we are pre- 
 served from of old. 6 And we are all as an unclean thiJtg, 
 and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags : and we all do 
 fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried 
 us away. 7 And the7'e 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 the hand of our 
 iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, thou art our Father ; we are 
 the clay, and thou our potter ; and we all are the work of thy 
 
 and the rendering, "every one," makes 
 the distinction of persons more plain. 
 The last pronoun is emphatic. The ab- 
 rupt apostrophe, in the midst of the state- 
 ment, reflects vividly the deep earnestness 
 of the whole confession and prayer. 
 
 The connection of this verse is rather 
 obscure, and has been variously explained. 
 But the words "even from of old" are a 
 key to its meaning. The wonders of 
 Sinai had been terrible things, unlooked 
 for by the people. The grandeur of that 
 display of God's power took them wholly 
 by surprise. As it had been from the 
 first, so would it be to tlie last. Fresh 
 wonders of God's providence and grace 
 had surpassed, and would still surpass, 
 the feeble, dimsighted expectations of 
 His servants. So Jer. xxxiii. 3, "Call 
 unto me, and I will answer thee, and 
 shew thee great and mighty things which 
 thou knowest not." The Apostle quotes 
 this verse, i Cor. ii. 9, varying it slightly 
 in construction, to link it with the new 
 context. The waiting on God, in the 
 O. T. promise, becomes the love of God 
 in the New. 
 
 V. 5. Few texts have caused inter- 
 preters more perplexity than this, and 
 twenty or thirty renderings have been 
 proposed. Without staying to enumerate 
 them, the following seems to me the true 
 construction and paraphrase. 
 
 The words of this verse are a brief 
 exposition of the ways of God towards 
 men; of Ilis delight in the righteous, 
 and His forbearance and mercy to sin- 
 ners. "Thou meetcst," art accustomed 
 (Heb. fut.) to meet suddenly, Thy faith- 
 
 ful servants, and then to bestow on them 
 unexpected favours. Sudden, not always 
 hostile encounter, is the proper force of 
 the word. The allusion is to Gen. xxxii. 
 I, "And Jacob went on his way, and the 
 angels of God met him." It was a sud- 
 den and joyful surprise. "That rejoic- 
 eth, &c." Joy in God is one mark of a 
 true faith, a contrast to the impenitence 
 that only frets and murmurs under the 
 hand of God, viii. 21, ix. 3. The next 
 words are a further description of the 
 faitliful, alluding to xxvi. 8, "In the 
 way of thy judgments have we waited 
 for thee." In these ways there is not 
 only love to the upright, but forbear- 
 ance and grace to the guilty, as made 
 known in the words to Moses, " for- 
 giving iniquity, transgression and sin." 
 The next word {hoi) is used to place this 
 view of God's character in clearer relief. 
 "The dark background of our guilt has 
 only rendered thy mercy more con- 
 spicuous;" "and still," in spite of our 
 many sins and thy just displeasure, " by 
 these," the ways of rich forgiving mercy, 
 "we are preserved from of old." The 
 word olain must here be adverbial, and 
 used in the same sense as in Ixiii. 9, ir, 
 16, 19, Ixiv. 4. The last three words 
 form one clause, as the points indicate. 
 The closing wotds do not express a hope 
 of future salvation, which would quite dis- 
 turb the order of thought in this deepen- 
 ing confession; but are an ap])eal to the 
 fact of Israel's continual preservation, 
 from the Exodus onward through more 
 than three thousand years, in spile of 
 their aggravated sins. The tense implies 
 
ISAIAH, LXIV. 9— LXV. i. 
 
 313 
 
 hand. 9 Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remembft- 
 iniquity for ever : behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy 
 people, 10 Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is become 
 a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation, 1 1 Our holy and our 
 beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, hath been burned 
 up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste, 12 Wilt 
 thou refrain thyself for these tilings, O LORD ,-' wilt thou hold 
 thy peace, and afflict us very sore .-' 
 
 (3). Chap. LXV. The Answer of Reproof and Promise. 
 
 I have answered them that did not ask ; I have been 
 found by them that sought me not : I have said. Behold me. 
 
 here a long-continued, not a future salva- 
 tion. 
 
 V. 6. God's ways of rich mercy through 
 past ages, and the actual guilt and shame 
 of Israel, are here put side by side, and 
 a plea is founded on this comparison of 
 rich grace and extreme need, for the work 
 of the Divine Potter in creating His 
 people anew. The simple connective 
 gives the true force of the appeal. 
 
 "As filthy rags." The works of the 
 flesh and of Pharisaic pride are here 
 meant, not those fruits of the Spirit, 
 which are "an odour of a sweet smell, 
 acceptable to God through Christ." So 
 Vitringa well remarks; — "This saying, 
 against the scope of the prophet, is often 
 applied by unskilful interpreters to the 
 acts of the faithful through the grace of 
 the Spirit, because of some adherent im- 
 perfection, and even in public prayer 
 they most absurdly obtrude this upon 
 God. It is far otherwise. The acts of 
 the regenerate, done in faith through the 
 Spirit, are sacrifices well-pleasing to God. 
 How have those who so interpret de- 
 stroyed the true aspect of Christianity ! 
 The utmost humility becomes us before 
 God, and to renounce our own strength 
 is deserving; but the work of God in us 
 ought to receive its own due praise." 
 (Vitr. in Es. ii. 1030.) 
 
 V. 7. This is a present confession, not 
 simply a review of the past, and com- 
 pletes their abasement before God. They 
 had been asleep in sin. The figure is the 
 same as xxvii. 5, where Israel are ex- 
 horted to lay hold on the strength of 
 
 their God. 
 
 v. 8. The "now" is not a mark of 
 time, but of transition from deep confes- 
 sion, and guilty sleep in sin, to earnest 
 cries for deliverance. They appeal to 
 God's love as their Father, to His power 
 as of a potter over the clay. 
 
 vv. 10, 12. The holy cities are those 
 of Palestine, not Jerusalem only (Vitr.). 
 The words will apply to the exile in 
 Babylon. But they apply, even more 
 forcibly still, to the later and longer 
 Roman desolation, in which one stone 
 of the temple has not been left on another, 
 and Jerusalem has been trodden down 
 for long ages. 
 
 § 2 (3). Ch. LXV. 
 
 v. I. The first clause refers to the 
 consultation of a religious oracle, the se- 
 cond to a search as for a lost friend or 
 treasure. "I have been inquired of" 
 means not "consulted" only, but with 
 success, so as to give a gracious answer. 
 Those, who once did not inquire at all 
 into the will of God, had now been visited 
 in mercy, and received from the Son of 
 God the lively oracles. Those who had 
 not sought after God had found the 
 "pearl of great price," the hidden trea- 
 sures of the Gospel (Mat. xiii. 44; Col. ii. 
 3), and been enriched by the "unspeak- 
 able gift" of redeeming love. The re- 
 peated "behold me," shews the urgency 
 of the .invitation, God himself beseech- 
 ing these Gentile strangers to receive the 
 blessing. This had been promised to 
 Messiah, Iv. 5, as one main part of His 
 reward. Here He proclaims it fulfilled. 
 
314 
 
 ISAIAH, LXV. 2—7. 
 
 behold mc ! to a nation tJiat were not called by mj' name. 2 I 
 have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, 
 which walk in a way tJiat is not good, after their own devices ; 
 
 3 The people that provoke me to anger continually to my face, 
 that sacrifice in the gardens, and burn incense upon the bricks ; 
 
 4 Which dwell among the tombs, and lodge in the caves ; 
 which eat swine's flesh, and broth of unclean tJiings is in their 
 vessels. 5 Which say, Stand off by thyself, come not near to 
 me, for I am holier than thou : these ai'c a smoke in my nostrils, 
 a fire that burnetii all the day. 6 Behold ! // is written before 
 mc; I will not keep silence, until I have recompensed, even 
 recompensed into their bosom, 7 Your iniquities, and the ini- 
 quities of your fathers together, saith the LoRD, which have 
 
 There is also a deep undertone of rebuke 
 in reply to Israel's complaint. He who 
 had shewn such rich grace to strangers 
 would never have cast off His own 
 people, unless their guilt and perverse- 
 ness had been extreme. 
 
 vv. 2 — 5. The two sins denounced are 
 idolatry and Pharisaism, as in ch. Ivii., 
 Iviii. One prevailed most before, the 
 other after the Captivity ; and they fomied 
 together the moral ground of God's long 
 rejection of them, of which they com- 
 plained, and under which they mourned. 
 The latter reached its height in the days 
 of our Lord, and was the main object of 
 His sternest rebukes. Spreading out the 
 hands is tlie gesture of earnest expostula- 
 tion, and "all the day" refers to the 
 long series of prophetic wai-nings, crown- 
 ed by the voice of the Lord and His 
 Apostles. 
 
 "Which walk." The plural is more 
 exact. Each one walks in his own way, 
 but all in a way that is not good. 
 
 V. 3. "The people." The article has 
 much force. Once defined as the holy 
 people, the Lord has now to define them 
 by their sins. The warning in the song 
 Deut. xxxii. i6, had been verified, "With 
 abominations provoked they him to an- 
 ger." "To my face" refers to the first 
 commandment. "Thou shalt have none 
 other gods before my face." Idol wor- 
 ship is an open affront to the Divine 
 majesty. 
 
 "In the gardens." The former clause 
 referred to the last threatenings of the 
 Law. This resumes Isaiah's earliest 
 
 warning, — ' ' Ye shall be confounded for 
 the gardens ye have chosen," i. 29. Their 
 idolatries, in the days of the kings, were 
 "under every green tree," Jer. ii. 10. 
 "Upon the bricks" has been referred to 
 the tiles of houses, where they offered 
 incense to the queen of heaven, or to 
 heathen inscriptions on the bricks of 
 Babylon. But the more probable refer- 
 ence is to altars of forbidden worship in 
 the garden (Alex., Hahn, Stler). As Ahaz 
 corrupted God's worship by a heathen 
 altar of burnt offering, so the people 
 are charged with offering incense to their 
 idols on base and unworthy suljstitutes 
 for the golden incense altar, which God 
 had ordained. 
 
 V. 4. The words refer to necromancy 
 and offerings to the dead. There is here 
 a close resemblance to the man possessed 
 with the legion in the Gospels. Eating 
 swine's flesh, and drinking their broth 
 in sacrifice, would be a contemptuous 
 rejection of the law of God. Perhaps 
 the charge is to be explained by Ixvi. 3, 
 that their pride and rebellion made even 
 their legal sacrifices like illegal abomina- 
 tions. 
 
 V. 5. A striking picture of the pride 
 of the Pharisees. The meaning is not 
 that they were like a smoke from without, 
 which enters the nostrils and causes an- 
 noyance; but that their sin awakened 
 the fierce displeasure of a holy God, 
 and made His jealousy burn like fire. 
 
 vv. 6, 7. The heavy judgment on Is- 
 rael was not only fixed in God's decree, 
 but announced in His lav/ from of old, 
 
ISAIAH, LXV. 8— II. 
 
 31S 
 
 burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon 
 the hills ; so I will measure their work, first of all, into their 
 bosom. 
 
 8 Thus saith the Lord, As new wine is found in the 
 cluster, and one saith. Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so 
 will I do for my servants' sakes, that I will not destroy the 
 whole. 9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, even 
 out of Judah to inherit my mountains ; and mine elect shall 
 inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. 10 And Sharon 
 shall become a fold for flocks, and the valley of Achor a place 
 for herds to lie down in, for my people which have sought me. 
 1 1 But as for you that forsake the Lord, which forget my 
 holy mountain ; yoit, that prepare a table for the troop, and 
 
 Ex. xxxii. 34; Lev. xxvi. ; Deut. xxxii. 
 "I will not keep silence" is a severe 
 irony, virith reference to the prayer — 
 "Wilt thou hold thy peace (the same 
 word), and afflict us very sore?" The 
 judgments of which they complained were 
 a loud voice of God to His guilty people. 
 "But have recompensed." The past 
 tense marks the transition from actual to 
 ideal time. The retribution would be in 
 full measure, Lu. vi. 38. The sudden 
 change of person is a summons to each 
 successive generation to hear their own 
 sentence. 
 
 V. 7. The word rishonah, by the ac- 
 cents and position, seems here to be ad- 
 verbial, and the sense as in Jer. xvi. 18. 
 A Divine key is here given to Israel's 
 long desolation. The judgment on their 
 sin must come first, and not until after 
 long ages of shame and sorrow would 
 the measure of their chastisement be com- 
 plete. Then times of refreshing and resti- 
 tution, and wonderful blessings, should 
 follow. 
 
 This passage thus resumes and reviews 
 the whole course of Israel's guilt from 
 the days of the Prophet to their final re- 
 covery. But its pictures are taken from 
 the days of Ahaz and JNIanasseh, rather 
 than those of the Exile, Is. i. 29, viii. 19, 
 xvii. 8, XXX. 22, 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3, 5,6, 19, 
 and confirm the genuineness and unity of 
 the whole book. Its earliest and latest 
 descriptions of national sin agree closely 
 together. 
 
 v. 8. "Thus saith the Lord." This 
 weighty preface occurs more than tv/enty 
 
 times in the Later prophecies, and first, 
 ch. xlii. 5, in predicting the Call of the 
 Gentiles. Here it occurs four times, to 
 seal and confirm the recovery of Israel in 
 the last days. The figure has been ex- 
 plained of the contrast between the juice, 
 and useless skins and seeds, or between 
 one or two good grapes and the rest of 
 the cluster, or one. good cluster and 
 others bad or rotten, or else (Stier) be- 
 tween the vine and less honoured fruits. 
 The contrast lies, perhaps, rather between 
 an unripe cluster, and the same when 
 fully ripened. New wine "is found in 
 the cluster," belongs to it as the usual 
 result, when the vintage comes. "And 
 one saith," even while it is unripe, and the 
 grapes are sour and worthless, "Destroy 
 it not, for a blessing is in it." The wise 
 vinedresser restrains every rash hand 
 that would destroy the cluster, because at 
 present worthless, by reminding them of 
 the blessing when the full ripeness is 
 come. So God would deal with His 
 people, still beloved for their fathers' 
 sakes. With such rich promises of future 
 blessing in store, they should be sorely 
 chastened, but not crushed or utterly de- 
 stroyed. At length, like the clusters of 
 Eshcol, they should yield, in a righteous 
 generation, the precious new wine of the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 VV.-9, 10. This seed from Jacob and 
 Judah, who are to inherit the land once 
 more, are the ripe vine-clusters of the 
 previous figure. The titles of Messiah, 
 the Servant of God, and his Chosen, 
 xlii. I, are here applied to the whole 
 
3i6 
 
 ISAIAH, LXV. 12—15. 
 
 fill out a drink-offering to the multitude; 12 I have even 
 numbered you for the sword, and ye shall all bow down for 
 slaughter : because I called, and ye did not answer, I spake, 
 and ye did not hearken ; but did evil before mine eyes, and 
 chose tJiat wherein I delighted not. 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 a curse unto 
 my chosen ; and the Lord GOD will slay thee, and will call 
 
 people. It is the true Joshua, who will 
 bring these grapes of Eshcol, this rich 
 vine-cluster, and present them as an of- 
 fering to God. Sharon and Achor are 
 named as the western and eastern limits 
 of Palestine, connected with their first 
 entrance, and the fullest beauty and bless- 
 ing, Josh. vii. 24 — 26; Hos. ii. 15; Is. 
 XXXV. 2; Cant. ii. i. The words "my 
 people who have sought me" alludes to 
 the promise v. i, and the eager prayer 
 of ch. Ixiv. Since the Lord has shewn 
 rich grace even to Gentiles who had not 
 sought Him, how much more will He 
 bless His ancient people, whose are the 
 fathers and the covenants, when they 
 turn to Him in godly sorrow ! Comp. 
 Rom. xi. 24. 
 
 v. II. The pronoun, placed first, 
 makes a strong contrast between the peni- 
 tent remnant and the transgressors here 
 condemned. The construction runs on 
 to the twelfth verse. 
 
 Of Gad and Meni, the idol names in 
 v. II, there have been various explana- 
 tions, (i) That they denote Baal and 
 Astarte, or the Sun and Moon, or Bel 
 and perhaps Nebo. (2) Jupiter and Venus, 
 as stars of luck or fortune. (3) That they 
 denote Fortune or Chance, and Fate or 
 Destiny; but with these varieties, Gad 
 •=Fate, Meni = Fortune, or the reverse; 
 or both one and the same power. The 
 reference of Mcni to the Moon has been 
 sustained by the likeness to the Greek 
 names ii.y\v and it.r\vt], common to many 
 Japhetic languages. In this obscurity it 
 is safest to take the Scriptures, if possi- 
 ble, for their own key. We may assume 
 
 that they refer to actual forms of idolatry 
 in the days of the prophet, representing 
 some kindred evils of the last days. 
 
 The chief form of Jewish idolatry in 
 the old age of Isaiah, or under Manasseh, 
 was the worship of the host of heaven, 
 2 Ki. xxi. 5. The word, Gad, is the name 
 of the patriarch, expounded in the bless- 
 ing, "A troop shall overcome him, but 
 he shall overcome at last." A troop, in- 
 stead of "host," as a diminutive, may be 
 used in contempt to describe the object of 
 this popular idolatry. The mention here 
 of a table answers to tho mention, in Jere- 
 miah, of cakes to the queen of heaven. 
 Again, Mcni is from the root, to count, 
 and its sense is fixed by the threatening, 
 "I have numbered you (niditithi) to the 
 sword." It may thus be rendered, "the 
 multitude," and refer to the same idolatry, 
 the difference being that between leaders 
 and an army, or a troop and a confused 
 throng. The words will thus serve to 
 describe that Christian idolatry, in which 
 the host of heaven, angels, martyrs, and 
 saints, became the objects of forbidden 
 worship ; and perhaps a later, Sadducean 
 apostasy, where military power and the 
 voice of the multitude are held supreme, 
 and practically worshipped, while the 
 living God is forgotten or despised, and 
 His promises to Israel are scorned and 
 cast away. The sentence answers to the 
 sin. The worshippers of more number 
 shall be numbered to the sword, and 
 those who bow down to forbidden wor- 
 ship shall bow down for slaughter. 
 
 V. 1 2. The warning here answers closely 
 to ch. 1. 2. One refers to the First, the other 
 
ISAIAH, LXV. 16—20. 
 
 317 
 
 his servants by another name : 16 So that he who blesseth 
 himself in the earth shall bless himself by the God of truth, 
 and he who 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. 
 
 17 For behold ! I create new heavens, and a new earth : 
 and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into 
 mind. 18 Yea, be glad and rejoice for ever and ever in that 
 which I create : for behold ! I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, 
 and her people a joy. 19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, 
 and joy in my people ; and the voice of weeping shall be no 
 more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. 20 There shall 
 
 to the approach of the Second Advent, 
 and the great apostasy before the re- 
 covery of Israel. 
 
 vv. 13 — 15. A solemn contrast between 
 the impenitent, and the contrite and peni- 
 tent, is here drawn. The name turned to 
 a curse, and the new name given, are 
 often applied to the titles, Jew and Chris- 
 tian. And not without reason, since the 
 message includes the sins of Israel from 
 the reign of Manasseh and earlier, and 
 also those later days of vengeance, when 
 thesecond Temple fell. But the chief refer- 
 ence, from the whole context, is to a time 
 still future, and to sins and crimes before 
 Israel's final gathering. The name, Chris- 
 tian, has now been profaned by millions 
 as much as that of Jew ever was by the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees, and may once 
 more have to be replaced by some new 
 title of the faithful ; though to be a Jew 
 inwardly, and a Christian inwardly, 
 must remain titles of high honour for 
 evermore. 
 
 v. 16. "So that." The effect of the 
 solemn judgment predicted will be deep 
 reverence for God, as the God of truth. 
 The restoration of Israel, the ingrafting 
 of the olive branches after ages of unbelief, 
 will put an open seal to the truth of all 
 God's prophecies, and the word of God 
 be shewn to be "settled for ever in 
 heaven." Appeal to God by oath is not 
 only lawful, but one main fonn of Divine 
 worship. Duties and privileges will alike 
 be sanctified, in days to come, by this 
 solemn appeal to the God of truth. 
 
 v. 1 7. The new heavens and new earth 
 include both ideas, of moral renewal and 
 
 physical change. Outward nature, since 
 the Fall, has been made to reflect higher 
 moral truth. These heavens and earth 
 will be new, as the present are new com- 
 pared with those before the Deluge, 2 Pet. 
 iii. 5 — 7- There is meant no change of 
 our planet, or of the solid globe, but of 
 the earth and its atmosphere, so far as 
 respects the senses of men, and their 
 dwelling upon it. It will be wrought by 
 the mighty, new creating power of God. 
 
 "And the former things shall not be 
 remembered." The dwellers in the new 
 earth will look back on the past history 
 of our world, almost as we now look back 
 on the world before the Flood, the me- 
 morials of which have passed away. The 
 long night of sin will be like a dream, 
 when the daybreak has come. 
 
 vv. 18, 19. The City of the Great King, 
 Mat. V. 35, so long trodden down, yet 
 dear to the hearts of Christians, even in its 
 ruins, from the sacred memories of earlier 
 days, will be made once more "a praise 
 in the earth," and a fountain whence liv- 
 ing waters flow forth on every side, Zech. 
 xiv. 8; Isa. xxxv. 10, Iii. 8. 
 
 V. 20. The prophecy grows fuller as it 
 proceeds. Here it links itself with the 
 first chapters of Genesis. The length of 
 life will be restored to a patriarchal 
 standard. "There shall be no more from 
 thence," from the land of promise, and its 
 Achor and Sharon, v. 10, growing up like 
 plants from the soil, "an infant of days," 
 one who dies in his infancy, whose life- 
 time is an infant's only ; "nor an old man, 
 who doth not fill up his days," feeble and 
 decrepit with age, before he has reached 
 
3i8 
 
 ISAIAH, LXV. 21—2 
 
 be no more from thence an infant of days, nor an old man 
 who doth not fill up his days : for the youth will die a hun- 
 dred years old, and the sinner, a hundred years old, shall be 
 accursed. 
 
 21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit tJicm ; and they 
 shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them, 22 They shall 
 not build, and another inhabit ; they shall not plant, and ano- 
 ther eat : for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and 
 mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They 
 shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for calamity ; for they 
 
 an ample term of years. There shall 
 neither be early death nor premature de- 
 cay. "For the youth will die a hundred 
 years old." Since none die as infiints, 
 and a hundred years are those of child- 
 hood and youth only, those who die 
 earliest will attain this limit. "And the 
 sinner, a hundred years old, shall be ac- 
 cursed." Though the rebellious may come 
 under the sentence of prematui^e decay, 
 even this curse, like the death of the 
 righteous, shall not begin until he has 
 reached the term of a hundred years. 
 
 w. 21, 12, To length of days will be 
 added other signs of an earthly life en- 
 riched and ennobled by the blessing of 
 God. Creation, free from the bondage of 
 coniiption, shall minister largely to man's 
 comfort and honour, as in the days of 
 Paradise. "As the days of a tree," of 
 which many kinds last more than a hun- 
 dred, and some more than a thousand 
 years. Length of days, even on earth, 
 may be a rich blessing, when this earthly 
 life is the continual preparation for still 
 higher and heavenly glory. The main 
 idea is that the earth will not be destroyed, 
 but delivered from the curse of sin, re- 
 newed and repaired ; and the chosen seed, 
 and the land of promise, will be tlie first- 
 fruits of this promised "restitution of all 
 things." 
 
 V. 23. There is an allusion to the legal 
 threatening, Lev. xxvi. i6, which is now 
 to be reversed. These righteous dwellers 
 in the land will not " bring forth for terror," 
 or calamity. Their children will never 
 be exposed to sudden alarm, hurried into 
 captivity, or cut off by the sword ; but 
 fathers, children, and children's children, 
 shall abitle secure under tlie protecting 
 
 care of the King of Israel. 
 
 v. 24. An allusion again to the earlier 
 promise, xxx. 19, — "He will be very gra- 
 cious to thee at the voice of thy cry: 
 when he shall hear it, he will answer 
 thee." But even this promise shall now 
 be exceeded in the largeness of God's 
 mercy. The promise made to Messiah 
 the King shall now be extended to His 
 ransomed people, — "Thou preventest 
 him with the blessing of goodness," Ps. 
 xxi. 3. 
 
 V. 25. An allusion, once more, to the 
 earlier prophecy, ch. xi. 6, 7, 9. Thus 
 the whole book is knit together by many 
 secret links, and reveals, from first to last, 
 the unity of design which marks the 
 whole. But here there is an addition, 
 which refers back to the sentence, Gen. 
 iii. 14, and thus links the close of the 
 book with the opening of the Law, as it is 
 linked by its very first words with the mes- 
 sage near its close, Deut. xxxii. i . " And 
 the serpent, dust shall be his meat." The 
 Vision of Immanuel, and this closing 
 message, allude thus to the two main 
 features of the earliest promise, the gift of 
 the Seed of Woman, and the sentence 
 upon the old sequent. All his devices 
 for evil will be so defeated and overcome, 
 tliat the only fruit he will gain, from his 
 persevering malice, will be disappoint- 
 ment, and utter and perpetual shame. 
 
 "All my holy mountain," as in xi. 9, 
 seems to denote the whole extent of Pa- 
 lestine, the chosen mountain-range of the 
 Lord's inheritance. Butwhen Israelshall 
 thus blossom and bud, and the chosen 
 vine yiekl its richest clusters, the face of 
 the whole world will also be filled with 
 fruit, xxvii. 6. 
 
ISAIAH, LXV. 24, 25. 319 
 
 arc 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 lion 
 shall eat straw like the bullock ; and the serpent, dust sJiall be 
 his meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy moun- 
 tain, saith the Lord. 
 
 § 3. The Full Redemption of Zion, 
 
 The historical scope of the opening verses of ch. Ixvi. has been the 
 subject of much debate. The principle there laid down is a grand, universal 
 truth, and condemns the ceremonial superstition of all times and all nations ; 
 but specially of the Jews from the days of the prophets, onward through the 
 times of the First Temple of Solomon, the Exile, the successive rebuilding by 
 Zerubbabel and by Herod, and in every later age. The special features, 
 however, of a temple actually being rebuilded, and sacrifices offered in pride 
 and unbelief, belong chiefly to the days of our Lord and his Apostles; and 
 to a future time, when Pharisaic zeal may revive among the Jews of the last 
 days, after they have been in part restored to their own land, and before they 
 have been sifted and purified by the predicted season of Jacob's trouble. 
 
 This last application of the message seems alone to maintain the order of 
 the prophecy, and the closeness of relation between the first opening of the 
 chapter and the message of bright hope which presently follows. Three 
 main features, however, of the times of the Gospel, the actual rebuilding and 
 adornment of the temple by Herod the Great and his successors, the perse- 
 cution of the faithful, the infant Church of Christ, by the Pharisees and the 
 main body of the nation, and the judgment on and around the temple in the 
 days of Titus, agree very closely with the description here given. But in 
 that case the sequel was a contrast to the issue here foretold. History often 
 seems to repeat itself in part, but never wholly, or without some important 
 variations. The prophecy suddenly stopped short in its partial fulfilment in 
 those early days, and the warning, xxvi. 17, 18, instead of the promise, Ixvi. 
 7 — 10, followed close on the persecutions of the Pharisees, in the judg- 
 ments by the Roman armies on the city and the temple. 
 
 In the last times we are taught here to expect an opposite issue. A time 
 of sorest trouble will light on the self-righteous Israelites in Palestine, who 
 will persecute the faithful remnant, and then be crushed by Gentile armies 
 in their turn. But its issue will be a national repentance, deep, solemn, 
 earnest, and sincere ; and a birth of the whole nation, who survive the judg- 
 ment, into newness of spiritual hfe, and a fulness of dignity, blessing, and 
 honour, unknown before. 
 
320 
 
 ISAIAH, LXVI. 1—3. 
 
 Chap. LXVI. 
 
 The Last Conflict and Deliverance. 
 
 Thus saith the LORD, The heavens arc my throne, and the 
 earth is my footstool : where is this house that ye build unto 
 me ? and where is this place of my rest ? 2 Yea, all these 
 tilings my hand hath made, and all these tilings have begun to 
 be, saith the LORD : but to this will I look, ei'cn to Jmn that is 
 poor, and contrite in spirit, and tremblcth at my word. 3 He 
 that killeth an ox slayeth a man ; he that sacrificeth a lamb 
 breaketh a dog's neck ; he that offereth an oblation ojfcrcth 
 swine's blood ; he that burnetii incense blesseth an idol : yea, 
 
 I. The same weighty preface is used 
 once more, as in Ixv. 8, 13, and still 
 earlier xliii. 14, 16; xliv. 6, 24; xlv. i, 
 II, 14; xlviii. 17; xlix. 7, 8, 22 ; 1. i; 
 Ivi. I, to introduce this crown and top- 
 stone of the whole series of visions. The 
 prophecy began, i. 10 — 15, by denounc- 
 ing the sin of formal worship, with espe- 
 cial reference to the time of Ahaz. And 
 here a similar warning and reproof is 
 repeated at the very close. Through 
 twenty-six intervening centuries this has 
 been one grand snare and temptation of 
 the Jewish people. 
 
 "The heavens, &c." There is an allu- 
 sion to Solomon's prayer at the consecra- 
 tion of the temple. Four times in succes- 
 sion heaven is there called the dwelling- 
 place of God. Here, however, not the 
 ark of the covenant, as in i Chr. xxviii. 2, 
 but the whole earth, is called God's foot- 
 stool. There is an advance from the 
 special and ceremonial to the wider and 
 larger view of the Divine presence and 
 majesty. There is a further allusion to 
 ch. xl. 22 at the opening of these later 
 prophecies. The unspeakable grandeur 
 of the Creator condemns every form of 
 barren, mechanical, and superstitious wor- 
 ship. 
 
 "Where is this house that ye build 
 unto me?" A speck, a mote, lost in the 
 immensity of God's creation, it needs an 
 effort of Divine condescension that it 
 may not be wholly overlooked by that 
 glorious Being who is the Owner of 
 countless worlds. How unmeet, then, to 
 
 be viewed, strictly and properly, as a 
 place M'herein the Most High God can 
 dwell and take His rest ! It may be a 
 help to weak faith to realize His gracious 
 presence, but can be no real home or 
 dwelling-place of that God, whom the 
 heaven of heavens cannot contain, who 
 inhabiteth eternity. 
 
 v. 2. Heaven and earth are the work 
 of God's hand, and came into being, or 
 began to be, through His power alone. 
 The two clauses resemble Rev. iv. 11, 
 " Thou hast created all things, and for 
 thy pleasure they are, and were created." 
 The word, this, without addition, is em- 
 phatic. One object in creation, amidst 
 suns and stars, and plants and animals of 
 countless kinds and varieties, secures the 
 complacent gaze of the great Creator. 
 Not stones and wood, not gold and silver, 
 the materials of any outward temple, but 
 the living spirit of man, when moulded 
 into true obedience to the will of CJod, so 
 as to welcome in faith the gifts of His 
 love. There seems a double allusion to 
 Ivii. 15 and Ixiii. 15 before. 
 
 V 3. Each ceremonial sacrifice is here 
 identified with some kindred act, most 
 impure and hateful under the Levitical 
 law. Comp. Ex. xiii. 13. The sin of 
 their formalism is shewn to be increased 
 by the eager zeal with which they pursued 
 these self-righteous and unprofitable ser- 
 vices. 
 
 These verses, by their context, seem 
 clearly to predict a rebuilding of their 
 temple by restored Jews in the last days. 
 
ISAIAH, LXVI. 4-8. 
 
 321 
 
 they have chosen their own ways, and their soul hath delighted 
 in their abominations. 4 I also will choose their delusions, and 
 will bring upon them their terrors : because I called, and none 
 did answer ; I spake, and they did not hearken : but they did 
 evil before mine eyes, and chose tliat wherein I delighted not. 
 
 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 : but he shall appear 
 to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. 6 A voice of noise 
 from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord 
 that rendereth recompence to his enemies. 7 Before she tra- 
 vailed, she hath brought forth ; before her pains came on, she is 
 delivered of a man child. 8 Who hath heard such a thing > 
 
 with a revival of animal sacrifices, and 
 of the Pharisaism of earlier times. It 
 has been objected to the doctrine of fu- 
 ture Jewish restoration, that their pride 
 would be aggravated by the means in- 
 tended to work a final cure. But this 
 revival of Jewish pride, still chastened by 
 a time of heaviest affliction, is the key of 
 the whole prediction. It points to a race 
 of Jews, still strangers to Christ, restored 
 to Palestine, and bent eagerly on restor- 
 ing the temple-worship and sacrifices on 
 the pattern of Solomon or Ezekiel, as in 
 the days of their national greatness. This 
 revival of blind Jewish zeal will be the 
 preface to Israel's last and sorest hour of 
 trouble. Jer. xxx. 7; Dan. xii. r. 
 
 V. 4. This verse and Ixv. 3 throw 
 light on each other, and reveal the double 
 leaven of the Sadducee and the Pharisee 
 at work in the last days of the Gospel, 
 and both equally condemned, and hateful 
 to God. Those who forsake God, and for- 
 get His holy mountain, transferring their 
 worship to the army and the multitude, 
 and those who seek to revive all the 
 legal ceremonies and ritual in blind su- 
 perstition, fall under a like sentence of 
 condemnation and shame. The delusions 
 and terrors refer to a disappointment of 
 their hopes of prosperity, after their long 
 dispersion has seemed ready to close, by 
 some new stroke of sudden and surprising 
 calamity. 
 
 V. 5. The faithful remnant, the poor 
 and contrite, in whom God takes de- 
 light, now receive words of encourage- 
 
 B. I. 
 
 ment. They are to expect persecution 
 for a little season from their unbelieving 
 countrymen ; but a speedy judgment on 
 the persecutors will follow, while the 
 sufferers shall receive a marvellous de- 
 liverance. So far, the vision answers 
 alike to the times of the Apostles, and to 
 the predicted features, elsewhere, of the 
 last times of the Gospel. What follows 
 marks the contrast between the two pe- 
 riods. The first was followed by the 
 long dispersion of the people, and the 
 treading down of Jerusalem ; but the last 
 by the full redemption of Zion, when the 
 recovery of Israel shall be life from the 
 dead to the Gentile world. 
 
 v. 6. This verse answers closely to 
 Zech. xii. 3 — 6 ; xiv. 3, announcing an 
 appearance of the Lord in a time of 
 Gentile apostasy, and of sore distress to 
 Israel already in part restored, to ac- 
 complish the long delayed redemption of 
 Zion. The "voice of noise" is the war- 
 cry, used here, as in xlii. 14, for the terri- 
 ble display of Divine anger. A type of 
 it may be seen 2 Ki. vii. 6. The sudden 
 change from threatening to promise is 
 very impressive. Once more, as of old, 
 " in the mount the Lord will be seen." 
 
 vv. 7, 8. Zion is here compared to a 
 woman, whose travail is scarcely begun 
 when her child is born. In other pas- 
 sages the severity of the trial is taught, 
 here its exceeding shortness, so as scarcely 
 to deserve the name of travail. The 
 questions revert from the figure to the 
 reality. The wonder is that a whole 
 
 21 
 
322 
 
 ISAIAH, LXVI. 9-12. 
 
 who hath seen such things ? shall a land be made to bring forth 
 in one day ? or shall a nation be born at once ? for Zion hath 
 travailed, and at once hath brought forth her children, 9 Shall 
 
 I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth, saith the 
 Lord ? I which cause to bring forth, shall I tlicn shut the 
 ^voviby saith thy God ? 
 
 10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye 
 that love her : exult with joy for her, all ye that mourn for her ; 
 
 I I That ye may suck, and be satisfied, with the breasts of her 
 consolations ; that ye may milk out, and be delighted, from 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 Gen- 
 tiles like a flowing stream : then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne 
 
 land shall bring forth, and a whole na- 
 tion be brought forth, in one such brief 
 hour of suffering. The man-child here 
 is the "righteous nation, keeping the 
 tmth," xxvi. 2, redeemed Israel, born to 
 a new and manly faith in the true Mes- 
 siah through bitterest sorrow for their 
 own and their father's unbelief, Ixii. 12; 
 Zech. xii. 9— 14. The gradual conver- 
 sion of the Gentiles in the days of the 
 Apostles (Vitr. , Alex., &c.) answers in 
 no respect to this especial figure, which 
 points to a great change suddenly com- 
 pleted in a very short time. The perse- 
 cution of Diocletian, and the national 
 triumph of the Gospel that followed (Rev. 
 xii. 5, 10), is the fullest earnest, in past 
 history, of this still unfulfilled triumph of 
 Divine grace and judgment. 
 
 v. 9. This is God's answer to the 
 whispers of unbelief. The event, even 
 to those who witness it, will be so strange, 
 as to seem almost past belief, Ps. cxxvi. 
 I. But still the power, wisdom, and 
 truth of God are engaged for its fulfil- 
 ment. The whole history of the Jewish 
 people, through long ages, has been like 
 a slow and tedious gestation for this joy- 
 ful birth at the last. "Shall I preserve 
 through long ages to this crisis of trouble, 
 and then not pour out the Spirit of grace 
 and supplication, to stir the heart of re- 
 pentant Israel with godly sorrow? I, 
 which cause to bring forth, divinely an- 
 nounced as 'exalted to give repentance 
 to Israel,' shall I then refuse to my 
 sorely chastened and contrite people the 
 
 great deliverance promised long ages be- 
 before?" Deut. xxx. r — 9. 
 
 The future here used {yoniar Yehoz>ah), 
 and peculiar to Isaiah, links this parting 
 promise with the first threatening, ch. 
 i. 1 1, and also with the key-note of these 
 Later Visions, ch. xl. i. The figure itself 
 alludes to the sad complaint of Israel, 
 ch. xxvi. 18, and to the contrasted pro- 
 mise, ch. xlix. 18 — 21, where Zion is de- 
 scribed as rejoicing suddenly in the multi- 
 tude of her children. 
 
 w. 10 — 12. The opening promises, 
 ch. i. 27, ii. I — 5, are now at length to 
 be fulfilled, and also the later words of 
 the Apostle, Rom. xi. 15. Zion, while 
 she receives honour from the Gentiles 
 and their kings, ch. Ix. 16, shall bestow 
 in spiritual blessings more than she re- 
 ceives. Comp. ch. xxxiii. 21, ii. 2. All 
 nations are now to flow to Zion. The 
 last clause renews the promise of ch. Ix. 
 4, "Thy sons shall come from far, and 
 thy daughters shall be nursed at thy 
 side." 
 
 v. 13. The threefold charge, ch. xl. i, 
 "Comfort ye my people," implies a pre- 
 diction, now to be largely fulfilled. A 
 man is named, not an infant. The pre- 
 vious figure is completed here by a loving 
 mother's welcome to a returning prodigal, 
 or her tender sympathy with a son worn 
 and fretted by the busy cares of life ; ten- 
 derness, complacency, honour, all being 
 mingled together. But the title of mo- 
 ther is never directly applied in Scripture 
 to a Divine Person. The Lord, the Holy 
 
ISAIAH, LXVI. 13—17. 
 
 323 
 
 upon her side, and be dandled upon her knees. 13 As a man 
 whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall 
 be comforted in Jerusalem. 14 And when ye see this, your 
 heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the green 
 herb ; and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his ser- 
 vants, and his indignation, even against his enemies. 
 
 15 For behold! the LORD will come with fire, and with his 
 chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his 
 rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For 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 and purify themselves for the 
 gardens, after one in the midst, they that eat swine's flesh and 
 the abomination and the mouse, shall be consumed together, 
 
 One, has all the tenderness, but none of 
 the impulsive weakness, of a mother's 
 love. 
 
 V. 14. Every main stage in God's w^ork 
 of mercy involves a passage through sharp 
 and sore trial to abiding joy. Comp. 
 Joh. xvi. 22. This is true alike of the 
 gathering of the early Church, at the cast- 
 ing away of Israel after crucifying their 
 own Messiah, and of the main subject of 
 this ch ipter, their receiving back into 
 God's covenant in the last days. 
 
 "And his indignation, &c." Nearly 
 all the moderns, after Aben Ezra, trans- 
 late "and he will be wroth against his 
 enemies." The points are those of the 
 verb, or of the noun only before a pause. 
 I'ut the version as a noun (A.V., Luth., 
 &c.) seems plainly more emphatic. The 
 noun occurs in this form ch. xxvi. 20. 
 The parallelism favours the received ver- 
 sion, and a pause, which removes the 
 grammatical objection, adds further to 
 the emphasis: "And the hand of the 
 Lord shall be known, towards his ser- 
 vants, and his indignation — but the indig- 
 nation against his enemies alone." Both 
 alike shall now be revealed and made 
 known. 
 
 vv. 15, 16. It was said before of the 
 Assyrians, ch. v. 28, that "their wheels 
 shall be like a whiidwind." The same 
 figure is here transferred to a Higher 
 Power, the Redeemer of Israel. Comp. 
 2 Thess. i. 8, Ps. Ixviii. 17. "To render 
 his anger with fury." The phrase used, 
 ch. xlii. 25, for God's judgments on 
 
 Israel, is here applied to the work of 
 judgment on their Gentile oppressors. 
 The following clauses may be compared 
 with ch. xvii. 13: Rev. xix. 20, 21 ; Dan. 
 vi. 11; Is. xi. 4. The double controversy, 
 with Israel's ungodliness in the Earlier, 
 and with Gentile idolatry in the Later 
 Prophecies, chh. i., xli., is here com- 
 bined in one common, final judgment 
 both on Jewish and Gentile unbelief. 
 "And the slain of the Lord shall be 
 many." Comp. ch. xxxiv., Ixiii. i — 6; 
 Ezek. xxxix., xix. 17—21. 
 
 V. 17. This verse has been much de- 
 bated as to its exact reference. Some 
 refer it to Adad or Achad, to Achath, or 
 Hecate, as a proper name of some heathen 
 god or goddess. Others supply "one 
 tree, grove, pool, priest, or idol." Others, 
 varying the text slightly, would translate 
 "one after another," or "far back" 
 (Ewald), or "crowd after crowd" (Peshit., 
 Targ.). The applications are as various, 
 to the days of Manasseh, to the Exile, 
 to the Jews in the days of Titus, and 
 again by Jewish writers to Mohammedans 
 and Christians of later times. 
 
 A comparison with Ixv. 3 seems to 
 shew that the historical groundwork of 
 the rebuke is taken from actual forms of 
 idolatry under Manasseh. But the con- 
 text implies that these represent certain 
 marked features of ungodliness in the last 
 days. Also the words favour the con- 
 struction that two classes, of which one is 
 marked by falsely pretended sanctity, the 
 other by open impurities, are denounced 
 21 — 2 
 
324 
 
 ISAIAH, LXVI. iS— 20. 
 
 saith the LORD. 18 Yea, 1 kiioiu their works and their devices: 
 tJie time is come to gather all nations and tongues ; and they 
 shall come, and see my glory. 19 And I will set a sign among 
 them, and will send those that escape of them unto the nations, 
 to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and 
 Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard the report of me, 
 neither have seen my glory ; and they shall declare my glory 
 among the Gentiles. 20 And they shall bring all your brethren 
 for a meat-offering unto the LORD, out of all nations, upon 
 
 for a common destruction. 
 
 Constant ablutions, and ceremonial 
 purifications, are one striking feature in 
 the creed and worship of Islam. The 
 words "for the gardens," compared with 
 i. 29, will refer directly to idol feasts in 
 the days of Manasseh, held in groves or 
 pleasant gardens. But, in the wider and 
 later application, no words could more 
 fitly describe the zealous, ceremonial wor- 
 ship of Islam, of which the aim is to gain 
 the worshipper admittance to a sensual 
 Paradise. To go after strange gods, is 
 the usual phrase for any false worship. 
 "The word, Jehad, One, is that which 
 Mohammedans have constantly on their 
 lips, to express the object of their wor- 
 ship. The ii2th Surah of the Koran 
 teaches: 'Say, God is Achad (One), the 
 Eternal God; He begetteth not, nor is 
 begotten, and he is without an equal.' 
 This Surah is entitled the chapter of sal- 
 vation, and repeating it is reckoned equal 
 in value to one-third part of the Koran " 
 (Hend.). There is no need, however, to 
 alter the pointing of the next word 
 (Hend.), and render "among those that 
 eat, &c.," which denotes rather a distinct 
 class, to be sharers in the same judgment. 
 "One in the midst," an object of wor- 
 ship, not the God and Father of our 
 Lord, nor the Only Begotten Son of 
 God ; a Being to whom Fatherhood and 
 Sonship are wholly denied, but whose 
 metaphysical Oneness is extolled, dwell- 
 ing in gardens of sensual delight to 
 which He admits His worshippers, is the 
 false centre of worship to nearly one- 
 fourth of the world's population, and 
 those, from their pride, the least accessible 
 to the Gospel of Cluist. The other clause 
 will describe, with equal exactness, those 
 heathens, or apostate Christians, w I:o cast 
 
 off all restraints of religious law, and give 
 the reins to depraved and sensual appe- 
 tite. "The abomination," between the 
 swine and the mouse, may signify those 
 unclean fowls, which come in the law 
 between unclean beasts and creeping 
 things, to which class the weasel and 
 mouse are referred. 
 
 These three forms of pollution will thus 
 correspond, by a close analogy, with the 
 three features in .St Paul's description of 
 ungodly men : " Whose god is their belly 
 (sensuality) ; whose glory is in their 
 shame (selfish, ambitious pride, like the 
 unclean birds of prey) ; and who mind 
 earthly things" (low, sordid worldliness, 
 like the creeping things). 
 
 v. 18. The construction is elliptical 
 and rather obscure. A double supple- 
 ment, " I know and will destroy," seems 
 required by the clause itself, and the 
 words just before. So Ezek. xi. 5, " I 
 know the thoughts that come into your 
 mind, every one of them," and Zeph. iii. 8. 
 The Vau is intensive, not a term of infer- 
 ence, "yea" not "for," and the pronoun 
 emphatic, Messiah's answer to the scof- 
 fers of the last days — when they say, 
 "Where is the promise of his coming?" 
 They shall see His glory in judgment on 
 the profane, and long-delayed mercy to 
 Zion. 
 
 vv. 19, 70. Many refer the escaped 
 to Jews (Vitr., Rosenm., Gesen., Jenour, 
 Stier, Hahn), but others, more justly, to 
 the Gentiles (Ewald, Hitz., Umbr. , Knob., 
 Ilend.). The first thinks, very strangely, 
 that no one with a clear conscience can 
 dissent from his view, which contrasts 
 Gentiles to be gathered with the objects 
 of the judgment. Henderson, more truly, 
 calls the application of the pronouns here 
 to Jews, "a violent supposition." 
 
ISAIAH, LXVI. 21—23. 
 
 32s 
 
 horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon 
 dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD ', 
 as the children of Israel bring an ofifering in a clean vessel to the 
 house of the Lord. 21 And I will also take of them for priests 
 aud for Levites, saith the Lord. 22 For as the new heavens 
 and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, 
 saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. 
 23 And it shall come to pass, t/iai from one new moon to 
 another, and from one sabbath to another, all flesh shall come 
 
 • The sequence is clear, if many had not 
 striven, against the context, to apply it 
 to past events, which bear a striking 
 resemblance to this prophecy, but with 
 contrasts no less striking. The judgment 
 is on "all flesh," which includes the Jews, 
 but must refer mainly to the Gentiles. Two 
 classes of sinners are specified, the self- 
 righteous and the profane. The Lord de- 
 clares His knowledge of their thoughts, 
 and His decree to gather them for judg- 
 ment. SoZeph. iii. 8; Ezek. xxxviii. 23, 
 xxxix. 13. "I will set a sign among 
 them" refers plainly to this gathering of 
 the nations. "The escaped ones," who 
 are to be sent, must be some who have 
 escaped the threatened fire and sword of 
 the Lord, who are afterwards to bring the 
 still dispersed of Judah to Jerusalem, "as 
 the children of Israel bring an ofifering in a 
 clean vessel to the house of the Lord." 
 
 V. 19. Tarshish, Tartessus in Spain, 
 will here denote the lands of the West. 
 Pul, hardly Phylae in Egypt (Boch., 
 Vitr. ), or Apulia (Hahn), is either to be 
 corrected Phitt, for North Africa, or else 
 taken for Eastern Assyria, being the name 
 of the first Assyrian king mentioned in the 
 sacred history. Lud, or the Ludim, Gen. 
 X., will be Ethiopia, or the farthest South ; 
 Tubal = Tobolsk, northern Asia or Sibe- 
 ria. Javan will denote Greece and South- 
 Western Europe; and the isles afar off, 
 the maritime lands of the farthest east and 
 west. 
 
 V. 20. Awe-struck by the mighty hand 
 of God, the Gentiles who receive tidings 
 of the judgment in Palestine, like that 
 which lighted on the Assyrian army in 
 Isaiah's own days, will bring back the 
 dispersed Jews to their brethren, the 
 Jews in the holy land who survive the 
 affliction. In every part there is a re- 
 
 semblance and a gradation, the Gen- 
 tiles, and the children of Israel ; dispersed 
 Israelites, and a clean meat-offering ; Je- 
 rusalem, and the holy altar and temple 
 of God. The Gentiles, by this act of 
 submission, are consecrated themselves, 
 and enter anew within a covenant of 
 blessing. 
 
 The word, kirkaroth, "swift beasts," 
 A. v., by others, "dromedaries," may be 
 from the same root as atrro, currus, cir- 
 ciilo, and denote thus "rolling carriages." 
 One striking characteristic of modern 
 times consists in the rapidity of distant 
 journeys, and the new inventions by 
 which men "run to and fro" through 
 the earth. 
 
 vv. 2 1, 22. That Jews are here meant 
 (Kimchi, Aben Ezra, Grot., Hitz., Knob., 
 Hend.), and not Gentiles (Vitr., Gesen., 
 Ewald, Umbr., Alex., Stier, Hahn), re- 
 sults directly from the next verse. A 
 choice of Gentiles for priests and Levites, 
 would be no proof that the seed and 
 name of Israel would remain. See Jer. 
 xxxiii. 19 — 21; Ezek. xliv. 9 — 15. 
 
 The difficulties raised against this natu- 
 ral construction of the words are an argu- 
 ment in its favour. Doubtless the economy 
 predicted must differ nearly as much from 
 the present as the present does from the 
 past. The former change was hardly 
 credible even to the faithful among the 
 Jews. It is not surprising that the later, 
 beforehand, should perplex even believing 
 Gentiles. Hence the solemn confirma- 
 tion of the promise in the 22nd verse. 
 
 vv. 23, 24. The whole prophecy closes 
 with a solemn contrast between the bless- 
 ings to the righteous, and the shame and 
 miseryof the rebellious and profane. Earth, 
 redeemed from the curse, will become 
 the scene of holy and perpetual worship. 
 
326 
 
 ISAIAH, LXVI. 24. 
 
 to worship before mc, saith the LORI). 24 And they shall go 
 forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have trans- 
 gressed against me : for their worm shall not die, neither shall 
 their fire be quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring unto 
 all flesh. 
 
 The mention of "all flesh" in both 
 clauses is emphatic. When the Lord 
 God has pleaded with all flesh in judg- 
 ment on open and flagrant iniquity, v. i6, 
 the result will be, that "all flesh" shall 
 come and worship before Him. The de- 
 struction of the sinners, that solemn con- 
 trast in a scene where righteousness and 
 peace are to prevail, shall only deepen in 
 upon "all flesh" the impression of God's 
 holiness and majesty. In some mysteri- 
 ous way the sentence on the profane 
 shall be visible to the Jews and Gentiles 
 who have been spared, the blissful and 
 holy inhabitants of "the new earth, where- 
 in dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 The words of this last verse are borrowed 
 by our Lord to announce the irreversible 
 doom of the unfaithful. It does not fol- 
 low that they directly refer to the judg- 
 ment of the ungodly in the life to come, 
 but rather that a solemn outward judg- 
 ment on a confederate host, like that of 
 Sennacherib, in Palestine, issuing in a ter- 
 rible and visible destruction, is taken to 
 represent another tnith still more solemn. 
 Most of the predictions in these closing 
 
 chapters of Isaiah are resumed in the Apo- 
 calypse, and pass there into a still higher 
 and nobler stage. Israel is to be restored, 
 the earth is to be redeemed, and earthly 
 blessings, most rich and various, are lo 
 be enjoyed, in the promised restitution of 
 all things. But these earthly blessings of 
 Israel, when the wilderness of Zion be- 
 comes as Eden, and her desert as the 
 garden of the Lord, though glorious in 
 the extreme, point onward and upward 
 to the higher glories of the New Jeru- 
 salem, where the children of the resur- 
 rection, made equal to the angels, will 
 abide for ever. 
 
 The key-note of these Later Visions is 
 comfort to the mourners, but their last 
 words return into the severe majesty of 
 the Old Covenant. The warnings of New 
 Testament prophecy are no less solemn, 
 but it closes with accents of overflowing 
 grace. " He which testifieth these things 
 saith. Surely I come quickly : Amen ! even 
 so, come. Lord Jesus. The grace of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. 
 Amen." 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE LATER PROPHECIES. 
 
 The Prophecies of Isaiah chh. xl. — xlvi., which follow the Historical Epi- 
 sode, have been received as genuine, and one main part of Isaiah's writings, 
 by the common faith of Jews and Christians for more than two thousand 
 years. During the last century, however, a school of critics arose in Ger- 
 many, who ascribe them to one or more unknown writers near the close of 
 the captivity. So Koppe, Eichhorn, Doderlein, Justi, Paulus, Bauer, Ber- 
 tholdt, De Wette, Gramberg, Vatke, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, Hitzig, Maurer, 
 Knobel, Ewald, Hendewerk, and Umbreit, and others. In some circles the 
 modern theory has even been turned into an axiom, and a test of critical 
 learning. 
 
 Their authenticity, however, has been upheld in Germany by many 
 able writers; as Hensler, Piper, Beckhaus, Jahn, Dereser, Greve; MoUer, 
 Kleinert, Schleier, Hengstenberg, Havernick, and Keil. More recently Stier 
 has vindicated and expounded these chapters in his Esaias, nicht Pseudo- 
 Esaias, a learned work of a thousand pages. Drechsler, also, in his com- 
 mentary on the earlier visions, Hahn and Dehtzsch in their continuation, 
 and the last in his own complete and able commentary, share the same view, 
 and maintain strongly the organic unity of the whole work. In our own 
 country Dr Davidson's Introduction contains a zealous defence of the nega- 
 tive theory, and Dean Stanley, in his Lectures on Jewish history, lends his 
 name to the same view ; while the commentaries of Dr Henderson and Alex- 
 ander, with Hengstenberg's article in Kitto's Bible Dictionary, give some of 
 the chief arguments to confirm the usual faith of the Church of Christ. 
 Without entering further on the history of this important controversy, I shall 
 proceed to sum up the arguments under four heads, the External Evidence, 
 the Negative Internal Evidence, the Positive Internal Evidence, and the 
 Alleged Objections to the Authenticity. 
 
 I. External Evidence. 
 
 All the external evidence, which is various, weighty, and decisive, proves 
 that these chapters are the writings of Isaiah, and no other. The following 
 are some of the chief testimonies, given in order of time. 
 
 I. Cyrus himself is the first witness, in his well-known decree in Chro- 
 nicles and Ezra. 
 
 "Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given 
 me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and hath charged me to build him a house 
 at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? 
 
328 ISAIAH. 
 
 his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, 
 and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, (he is the God,) which 
 is in Jerusalem." Ezra i. 2, 3. Compare Is. xliv. 28: "That saith of 
 Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall do all my pleasure: even saying 
 of Jerusalem, She shall be built ; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall 
 be laid." 
 
 Here the decree alludes to the prophecy, and the prophecy accounts for 
 the language of the decree. Each alone is an enigma, to which the other 
 supplies a key. Why the prediction should be so plain, even mentioning 
 the name of this great conqueror, is shown by the historical result thus 
 secured. Why a heathen monarch should own so fully and strongly the 
 hand of the God of Israel in his own victories, and even say that he had 
 received a charge, from God himself, to build the temple in Jerusalem, is 
 explained by the earlier existence of this prophecy. And this conclusion, 
 plain in itself, is confirmed by the direct evidence of Josephus, who professes 
 111 these words to give an undisputed tradition of the Jews. 
 
 "Now Cyrus learned this by reading the book Isaiah had left of his own 
 prophecies, 210 years before... These things Isaiah foretold 140 years before 
 the temple was destroyed. When Cyrus, therefore, had read them, and had 
 admired their divine character, an impulse and emulation seized him to do 
 what was written. CalHng together the chief of the Jews in Babylon, he said 
 they were at liberty to go to their own country, and restore the city of Jeru- 
 salem, and the temple of God," &c. Anf. xi. i. i, 2. 
 
 The genuineness, then, of these prophecies, so that Cyrus himself was 
 satisfied of their earlier existence and Divine character, is inwrought into the 
 very texture of the whole Jewish history, and is the secret mainspring of that 
 great event, the Return from Babylon. 
 
 2. Jesus the son of Sirach, the writer of Ecclesiasticus, about B.C. 270, 
 is a second witness. His words prove how early and deep seated was the 
 conviction that these chapters are Isaiah's own writing. He calls him "great 
 and faithful in his vision ;" and then adds this brief description : 
 
 "In his time the sun went back, and he lengthened the days of the king. 
 He saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass at the last, and he 
 comforted the mourners in Zion. He shewed what should come to pass for 
 ever, and hidden things before they came." 
 
 There is here a distinct reference to ch. xxxviii. 5, 8, 22, xlii. 9, Ixvi., xl. i, 
 2, xlix. 13, li. 3, Ixi. 2, 3, Ixvi. 13, xli. 23, xlviii. 6. All these texts, to which 
 allusion is made, to fix the main characters of Isaiah as a prophet, are found 
 in the Later Prophecies, These chapters, then, were not only ascribed to 
 Isaiah without any shadow of doubt, three centuries before Christ, but were 
 those by which he was chiefly known, and because of which, even more than 
 the rest, he was styled "great and faithful in his vision." 
 
 3. The Baptist, our Lord's forerunner, is a third witness, later in time, 
 but still higher in authority. None surpassed him in real dignity among the 
 1 rophets, and he was filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb. Of him 
 our Lord says to the Jews, "Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness to the 
 truth." To what truth did he thus bear witness, and in what words.? The 
 truth, so styled emphatically by our Lord, is contained in his public reply, as 
 
APPENDIX I. 329 
 
 a prophet, to the inquiries of the Pharisees, Why baptizest thou ? What 
 sayest thou of thyself? "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord, AS said the prophet Esaias." 
 
 The Baptist thus bore witness to a double truth ; that he was truly fulfilling 
 an office assigned to him in God's message by Isaiah, xl. 3; and that the 
 office thus Divinely given him was to go before the face of the Lord, the good 
 Shepherd of Israel, who was now at hand. If these words were not Isaiah's, 
 and do not really refer to the Baptist, then he must have borne witness to a 
 double falsehood in those very words, in which our Lord solemnly declares 
 that "he bare witness to the truth." In this case he offered false credentials 
 to the Pharisees, and must have been either a blind fanatic, or a wilful 
 deceiver. Our blessed Lord would also then be a sharer in his guilt, and have 
 put light for darkness, and darkness for light, in the testimony he has given. 
 
 4. St Luke, in his Gospel, thus records the opening of our Lord's 
 ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth. 
 
 "And there was given him the book of the prophet Esaias, and he found 
 the place where it is written : The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," &c. 
 Is. Ixi. I — 3. " And he closed the book and sat down ; and the eyes of all in 
 the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say. This day is 
 this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 
 
 Here the Evangelist himself plainly affirms that ch. Ixi. is part of the 
 work of Isaiah. But our blessed Lord evidently, by His conduct, affirms the 
 same. The whole roll was given to him as "the book of Isaiah the pro- 
 phet." As such He receives it. He then turns to a part, according to 
 modern sceptics wholly spurious, and chooses its words as a sacred and 
 solemn witness to His Divine mission. He claims to be received and 
 honoured as God's messenger, nay, as the long-expected Messiah, because 
 His work was fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. If the words were not those of 
 Isaiah, but of some unknown party in the days of Cyrus, whose horizon was 
 bounded by his own days, and could not possibly reach forward through five 
 centuries to come, what conclusion must follow? Plainly, that the Lord of 
 glory was a public deceiver of the people, as the Pharisees affirmed Him to 
 be ; that He opened His public ministry by an act of deceit, or at least by 
 confirming a great delusion by which He too was deceived ; and that He 
 publicly appealed to a false interpretation of a spurious writing, as one first 
 and chief ground why He should be received and welcomed, by the men of 
 Nazareth and the whole nation, as the Great Physician of souls, the true 
 Messiah of God. 
 
 5. Our Lord, in the course of His ministry, often charged those whom 
 He healed not to make him known. Whence arose this strange prohibition ? 
 St Matthew assures us that it was to fulfil an inspired prophecy : "That it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet. Behold, my 
 servant whom I uphold, &c." Is. xlii. i — 5. Did, then, our blessed Lord 
 mould and regulate His own ministry, in its most vital element, by a spurious 
 prophecy, that refers to a different subject, in order to procure a seemmg 
 fulfilment, which was a mere illusion? Did the Holy One of God thus join 
 himself to those seducers, who "wax worse and worse, deceiving and being 
 deceived"? Such is the plain and inevitable consequence, if the sceptical 
 
330 ISAIAH. 
 
 hypothesis about these chapters were true. Every Christian is bound to 
 reject a supposition so blasphemous with loathing and indignation. 
 
 6. St John thus describes our Lord's rejection by the Jewish Rulers. 
 "But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they 
 
 believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be ful- 
 filled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report?. ..Therefore they 
 could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, 
 &c., &c. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of 
 him." Joh. xii. 37 — 41. 
 
 The beloved disciple, the great Prophet of the New Testament, here testi- 
 fies that the Early and the Later Prophecies of this book belong equally 
 to Isaiah. In one of the two passages cited he received his first commission, 
 and in the other he reached its crowning honour. In one he saw the glory 
 of Christ, and in the other he spake of His sufferings with clearest voice. 
 But the testimony of the Apostle goes further, since he assures us that the 
 central fact of our Lord's ministry was a direct fulfilment of Isaiah's warning 
 message. 
 
 7. Our Lord's own testimony, at the very close of His ministry, is, if pos- 
 sible, even still more striking: "For I say unto you, that this which is 
 written must yet be fulfilled in me. And he was numbered among the trans- 
 gressors ; for the things concerning me have an end." The exact force of 
 the words is rather, "For even the things which concern me have their 
 fulfilment." 
 
 The gloss, "that the subject is not himself, but another of whom He 
 was the antitype," is an open contradiction of the text. For the reason our 
 Lord assigns why these words needed to be fulfilled in Him is this, that they 
 were part of to. mpX fftov, the things of which He was the proper subject. 
 The whole force of His declaration turns on this point, that the words refer to 
 Him alone. On this ground, they must come to pass, or the Scripture would 
 be broken, however strange the exposure of the Son of God to such extreme 
 indignity and utter shame. Let us accept the theory of negative critics, and 
 His words assume this strange meaning, that the Lord of heaven and earth 
 must endure a humiliation almost incredible, rather than a spurious prophecy 
 should fail of a fulfilment, which after all entirely pei-verts its true mean- 
 ing ! Surely the rashness of immoral paradox can hardly be carried to a 
 worse extreme. 
 
 8. The Gospel of Christ was to have its first entrance to a distant 
 nation through the Ethiopian eunuch ; and Philip the evangelist, for this 
 great end, receives a miraculous commission. "The angel of the Lord 
 spake unto him. Arise, and go toward the south, &c." He finds the eunuch 
 reading "Esaias the Prophet." "Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, 
 and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard 
 him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou 
 readest? And he said. How can I, except some one should guide me? And 
 he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the 
 Scripture which he read was this, ' He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,' 
 &c., &c. (Is. liii. 7, 8.) And the eunuch answered and said, I pray thee, 
 of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then 
 
APPENDIX I. 331 
 
 Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, and preached 
 unto him Jesus." 
 
 If these verses, which the eunuch was reading, are not Isaiah's, and do 
 not really predict the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, but are a doubtful guess at 
 the sufferings of Israel or of the prophets by a nameless writer in the days of 
 Cyrus, or the history of "some other man," what conclusion will follow? 
 The eunuch would have been deceived, and taught a double falsehood, by a 
 conspiracy of no less than three parties, the evangelist Philip, an angel of 
 the Lord, and the Holy Spirit of God ! This grand religious fraud would 
 then have been the first step in the conversion of Ethiopia to the Christian 
 faith. Thus the modern theory compels its disciples to renounce the Book of 
 Acts as a spurious history, if they would avoid the sin of open blasphemy 
 against the Holy Spirit. 
 
 9. St Paul, in his Epistle to Rome, the Gentile metropolis, has for one 
 main object to prove the Divine call of the Gentiles, that doctrinal and histo- 
 rical foundation of the Church of Christ. He uses for this end five main 
 Scriptural arguments. The first is taken from these Later Prophecies, without 
 naming their author, Rom. x. 15. The next is from these same prophecies, 
 ascribing them expressly to Isaiah, x. 16. His third proof is that the Jews 
 had a prediction of this fact in the Law of Moses itself, x. 19. His fourth is 
 that Isaiah had anounced it still more plainly; and his fifth and last, that 
 Isaiah, once more, had placed it side by side with a warning of Jewish un- 
 belief, Rom. X. 20, 21 ; Is. Ixv. i, 2. 
 
 Thus, in this main argument of the Apostle of the Gentiles, to confirm a 
 great doctrine of Christianity, the chief warrant for his own manifold labours, 
 three proofs out of five directly involve the genuineness of these Later Pro- 
 phecies, as Isaiah's own, while a fourth rests on their character as inspired 
 messages of God. The theory, which ascribes them to some unknown 
 hand in the days of Cyrus, turns his whole reasoning into a heap of mis- 
 chievous errors, a tissue of deceptive and worthless fallacies. And thus, 
 before the spuriousness of these chapters can be received, the Gospels, the 
 Acts, and the Epistles, St Matthew, St Luke, St John, Philip the Evangelist, 
 St Paul, the angel of the Lord ; nay, worse still, the Son of God himself, and 
 the Holy Spirit, must be condemned together. All of them, on this hypo- 
 thesis, must have practically conspired, either in hateful frauds, or ignorant 
 and blundering falsehoods on the largest scale. 
 
 The question is thus settled, by an authority from which there is no 
 lawful appeal, for every Christian who does not affect to be wiser than our 
 Lord and His Apostles on a vital question of religious faith. But on account 
 of the confidence with which the unbelieving theory has been proposed, it 
 seems right to carry the inquiry still further, and shew how the internal 
 evidence conspires with these testimonies, human and Divine, to establish 
 the Isaian authorship of these Later visions. 
 
 II. Negative Internal Evidence. 
 
 The modern hypothesis, that Is. xl. — Ixvi. was written by some nameless 
 writer or writers near the close of the seventy years' Exile, is disproved by 
 
Z},2 ISAIAH. 
 
 the internal evidence, both negative and positive ; by the entire absence of 
 the features which such an origin requires, and by the presence of many 
 which prove a common authorship with the Earlier Visions. This is no 
 esoteric inquiry. It docs not depend on the guesses of a few clever Hebraists 
 of the last century or the present, who contradict each other in nearly ev^ery 
 detail, on the tone and Hebrew style. It is an inductive inquiry, depending 
 on plain, definite laws of historic evidence, that lie within the reach of the 
 plain English reader. Have these chapters, they may ask, the proper marks 
 of a distinct work, either of prophecy or history, near the close of the 
 Captivity? And the true answer is, Not one. 
 
 I. First, the Prophet is wanting, and cannot be found. Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel lived almost to the first years of Cyrus in Persia. Daniel survived 
 throughout his conquests, and Zechariah and Haggai began to prophesy 
 within fifteen years after the Return. Their works exist entire, and arc 
 wholly unlike Isaiah's Later Prophecies. These, indeed, are brightest and 
 noblest among the prophetic messages of the Old Testament. The Holy 
 Spirit has placed His seal on their peculiar excellence and dignity ; for, in 
 the New Testament, these twenty-seven chapters are quoted more frequently 
 than all the succeeding books together from Jeremiah to Malachi. 
 
 To whom, then, on the new hypothesis, shall we ascribe them? One 
 critic only, Baron Bunsen in his Bibekoerke, has been bold enough to 
 answer — to Baruch ! To Baruch, of whom two things only are on record. 
 First, that he was asked how he copied Jeremiah's words, and said: "He 
 pronounced all these words with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in 
 the book." And next, that he was charged not to seek great things for him- 
 self in the troubles of the Captivity ; a charge strangely reversed and dis- 
 obeyed, if he became then, by his writings, the greatest of all the prophets, 
 or in modern phrase, "the Great Unknown!" 
 
 Dismissing this wild freak of fancy, we are thrown on the other alter- 
 native. This Deutero-Isaiah must be also a Deutero-Melchizedec, "without 
 father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, 
 nor end of life." Still of Melchizedec, though the account is made brief for 
 a special purpose, the name and the home, the royal and priestly rank, and 
 his public interview with Abraham, are all on record. But this author of 
 the noblest and most sublime of all the prophecies is to be a shadow and 
 nothing more, his name, birth, residence, commission, reception, and death, 
 all totally concealed from our eyes. One critic places him in Palestine, 
 another in Egypt, and a third in Babylon. 
 
 One guess alone has been offered by one of the latest English opponents 
 of their genuineness, to explain this total disappearance of the author. 
 " The Great Unknown," it is said, " seems to have been more a writer than 
 an actor. Had he been a man of less genius and divine inspiration, we 
 should probably have known his name and history as fully as those of any 
 prophet of the exile. But his peculiar inspiration isolated him from his own 
 countrymen, and led him into a region where the multitude lost sight of the 
 sublime prophet." 
 
 It seems, then, that poets of great genius, like Dante, Milton, and 
 Shakspeare, are likely to have their name and age forgotten, while second- 
 
APPENDIX I. 333 
 
 rate authors are remembered with care ; that prophets of threatening would 
 be studied and cherished, while one whose words breathe mainly hope and 
 comfort would naturally be left to drop into oblivion ; and that a prediction 
 of Cyrus, so plain as to be a stumblingblock to modern infidels, was too 
 abstract, ideal, and sublime, too remote from their own present interests, for 
 the exiles in Babylon at the close of the Captivity to care about its author! 
 
 But besides these outrageous paradoxes, the explanation offered is con- 
 sistent in an atheist alone. Once believe in a Providence, and what does it 
 assume? That the more weighty and important a Divine message may be, 
 the more likely it is that it will be sent into the world, like a mere foundling, 
 without any test or pledge of its claim to be received as a message from 
 God. With minds accustomed to the laws of moral evidence, this one 
 objection alone should be fatal to the theory. No known prophet of the 
 exile could be the author. But the Only Wise, the Lord God of the holy 
 prophets, would never permit the writer of these glorious visions to have 
 lived and died without a trace or a name. 
 
 2. The Title and Name are also wanting. The Old Testament contains 
 sixteen books of prophecy from as many different authors. But in every 
 case, without exception, the name of the prophet meets us at the opening of 
 his work. Had these chapters proceeded, then, from some prophet near the 
 close of the Exile, his name, without doubt, would have stood at their open- 
 ing. This results, not only from these sixteen precedents, but even from the 
 laws of common sense. No king would commit a royal message, claiming 
 the obedience of his subjects, to nameless hands, or to parties left without any 
 proof or sign of their royal commission. How much less could these noblest 
 prophecies form a solitary exception to this universal rule! The Only Wise 
 God would never suffer one of His choicest gifts to be flung into the world in 
 the dark, and then to pass current under false pretences for 2,500 years. 
 
 3. The Date and Place are wanting, as well as the Prophet himself, and 
 his Name. 
 
 All the four leading Prophets, and seven of the other twelve, have dates 
 given, besides their name, to fix their historical standpoint. Joel, Obadiah, 
 Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, in whom alone this is wanting, are assigned to 
 persons historically defined ; and besides, their writings are together less 
 than one half the length of these Later Prophecies. In books of greater 
 length this second anchorhold is constantly given, to fix their place in the 
 series of Divine messages. The reason is plain. The date has much to do 
 with the right construction of their visions, and is needful to decide where 
 history ends, and prophecy begins. The disputes of modern critics prove 
 that such marks of date are nowhere more desirable than in these very 
 chapters, to remove obscurity and ambiguity, and to help us in under- 
 standing their true force and meaning. And yet on the sceptical hypothesis, 
 this will be the solitary instance of a long prophecy, where the place and 
 date, as well as name, are withheld. 
 
 4. The Prophetic Call and Commission is wanting. 
 
 This marks all the other leading books of prophecy. It occupies the 
 sixth chapter of Isaiah, the first of Jeremiah, the first and second both of 
 Ezekiel and Daniel, the first of Hosea, several verses of Amos, one half of 
 
334 ISAIAH. 
 
 Jonah, and is present both in Haggai and Zechariah. Had these chapters 
 been from a prophet at the close of the Exile, they would doubtless have 
 contained some account, however brief, of his public commission. This 
 would have been essential to their reception, by the whole Jewish Church, as 
 of Divine authority. 
 
 5. Contemporary Persons and Names are also wanting. 
 
 These form one striking feature of all the more important books of pro- 
 phecy, whereby their intimate connexion with the actual course of God's 
 Providence and of the sacred history is maintained. Seventeen persons are 
 thus named in Isaiah, fifty in Jeremiah, eight or ten in Ezekiel, besides 
 definite groups, like the elders and the sun-worshippers ; about the same 
 number in Daniel, and thirty in the books of the Minor Prophets. But in 
 these Later Prophecies, written, by the hypothesis, in stirring times, and at 
 a most critical season of Israel's history, not a single personal or historical 
 name, except that of Cyrus only, can be found. There is no mention of 
 Jeconiah, Shealtiel, or Zerubbabel ; of Josedech or Joshua; of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 Evil-Merodach, Neriglassar, or Belshazzar ; of Ezekiel or Daniel, of Nehemiah, 
 Seraiah or Mordecai, or the other companions of Zerubbabel ; of Amasis or 
 Croesus, or Darius the Mede. Viewed as prediction, the solitary mention 
 of Cyrus gives reality and vividness to a picture of bright and distant 
 hope, which would else combine a misty vagueness with its rainbow-like 
 brilliancy of colouring. But, when deposed from its rank by sceptical critics, 
 and turned into mere history, the total absence of places and names reduces 
 these chapters to the plight of the stricken sorcerer. A mist of darkness 
 comes over them, and they seem to grope about for some one to lead them 
 by the hand. 
 
 6. The Prophetic Structure, also, is wholly absent. 
 
 The Early Prophecies of Isaiah, and every other book from Jeremiah to 
 Malachi, have one common feature. They begin with history or prophetic 
 warning, and then pass on to the utterance of bright hopes and gracious 
 promises. There is one slight exception, because Haggai and Zechariah 
 prophesied together, and Haggai's earlier voice, mainly of rebuke and warn- 
 ing, was continued at once, by his brother prophet, in words of comfort and 
 promise. In every other case this order is observed, and thus forms a kind 
 of law in every complete prophetic message. The warnings of the law 
 constantly prepare the way for the hopes of the Gospel. 
 
 This rule is fully observed on the usual view of these Chapters, that they 
 are later portions of Isaiah's own work. But the moment they are referred 
 to a different and unknown author, it is contradicted and reversed. This 
 message, unlike the voice of every known prophet, would then hurry at once, 
 without a word of caution or rebuke, into utterances of fullest and brightest 
 promise. 
 
 7. The strong assertions of Divine foreknowledge in reference to the 
 victories of Cyrus are a further disproof of the later date. This appeal is 
 made strongly and repeatedly. Is. xli. 23, 25, 26, xlii. 9, xliii. 9, xliv. 25, 26, 
 xlv. 3, 4, xlvi. 10, II. The transfer of these predictions to the days of Cyrus 
 himself robs them of all their force, and contradicts their plain meaning. It 
 degrades a series of striking prophecies into profane falsehoods, the work of 
 
APPENDIX I. 335 
 
 some reckless and unscrupulous forger, who habitually takes the holy name 
 of God in vain, to disguise his forgeries. Instead of proving the Divine 
 wisdom and foreknowledge, they could in this case prove nothing but the 
 shameless effrontery of him who ventured to compose them. 
 
 Thus every feature of name, title, structure, and internal contents, which 
 would naturally belong to a prophetic writing near the close of the Exile, so 
 far as these can be inferred by strict induction from existing prophecies, is 
 wholly wanting in these Later Visions of Isaiah. 
 
 III. Positive Internal Evidence. 
 
 That Isaiah himself is the true author of these last chapters of the book 
 which bears his name, according to the constant faith both of the Jewish 
 nation and the Christian Church, may be directly proved by a large variety 
 of internal evidence. 
 
 1. The Structure of the Book confirms its real unity. It consists of two 
 parts, separated by four historical chapters. Each of these parts is a trilogy, 
 or falls naturally into three divisions. We have one close at ch. xii. ; a 
 second, after the Burdens and their Sequel, in ch. xxvii. ; and a third in 
 ch. XXXV., completing the Earlier Prophecies. The Later are also composed 
 of three portions, the first closing at ch. xlviii,, and the second at ch. Ix. The 
 whole book thus falls naturally, and without effort, into a sevenfold division. 
 And the intimate relation of these tv/o parts to the life of Isaiah shews their 
 common authorship. From the last of Uzziah to the fourteenth of Hezekiah 
 he prophesied in troublous times, when there brooded over the land a dark 
 cloud of Assyrian conquest and desolation. But when the crisis came, Isaiah 
 had reached the height of influence and honour. Events had fully proved 
 the truth of his earher warnings. The scourge was then removed, and in 
 answer to his own and Hezekiah's prayers, days of peace and truth, for a 
 little season, were given to the land. The Earlier Prophecies, in which 
 burdens and warnings chiefly abound, answer to the first period ; and the 
 Later, in which bright hopes and joyful promises abound, answer to the 
 second. Each part corresponds to the life and circumstances of the prophet 
 in the answering period. The first was chequered with many changes in 
 times of fear and sorrow ; but the other was spent chiefly in those years of 
 brief sunshine, in which God's promise gave an assurance of days of peace 
 and truth. 
 
 The Earlier Prophecies, as was natural from this contrast in the history, 
 are interspersed with many historical details and marks of separation. But 
 these Later Visions, in a period of the prophet's life marked by few external 
 changes, flow on in one unbroken stream of hope and comfort, chequered 
 only by a few chapters of renewed warning, from their opening to their 
 close. 
 
 2. The two portions of the book have also a close and intimate relation 
 to the history which is interposed between them. The main subject of the 
 first part is the progress and triumphs of the Assyrian power, which was to 
 reach even to the neck, and cover the whole land ; but then to dash itself 
 vainly against the rock of God's covenant, and the bulwarks of Zion. These 
 
336 ISAIAH. 
 
 WMrninjs begin ch. v., and reach their climax in ch. xxxiii., when the last 
 invasion seems to have been actually begun. The history, chh. xxxvi. xxxvii., 
 fust recounts this very crisis, and Sennacherib's overthrow. Next, in the 
 narrative, ch. xxxvi ii., of Hezckiah's sickness and recovery, and the reversed 
 decline of the shadow in the dial of Ahaz, it marks the transition to a 
 gracious though short reprieve in the decline of the kingdom. This Episode 
 of history closes, in ch. xxxix., with a clear announcement of the coming 
 Captivity of Babylon. The Earlier Prophecies all converge on the first of 
 these three events, and the Later ones all diverge from the last. They assume 
 the fulfilment of this predicted captivity, and open out the fulness of those 
 hopes of Israel which lay beyond it. The middle event, which parts the reign 
 of Hezekiah into a morning of cloud and tempest, and an eventide of peace 
 and truth, is also represented by the plain contrast of warning and promise 
 in the two main portions of the book which precede and follow. 
 
 3. These two portions correspond also with the position and character 
 of Isaiah, the chief of the prophets, and with the moral object of the pro- 
 phetic word, as the Divine bridge between the Law of Moses and the Gospel 
 of Christ. 
 
 In the usual chronology, the year of Hezekiah's recovery is just midway 
 between the Song and Death of Moses, the last year of Israel in the wilder- 
 ness, and the preaching of the Baptist, the first dawn of the Gospel. Now 
 the Earlier Prophecies answer to the warnings of the Law, to which they 
 allude in their first sentence. Is. i. 2 ; Deut. xxxii. i ; while it is from the 
 Later that Isaiah has received his title of the Evangelical Prophet, because 
 they contain such clear and full anticipations of the Gospel. And this rela- 
 tion is still more complete. For while the first portion begins with a direct 
 reference to the warnings in the Song of Moses, which it proclaims as ful- 
 filled, the second portion opens with a direct prophecy of the Baptist, the 
 forerunner of our Lord. Thus the two parts link themselves, in their open- 
 ing sentences, with the latest warnings of the Law, and the earliest notes of 
 Gospel promise. 
 
 4. These Later Prophecies, also, on close examination, will be found to 
 have their text in ch. xxxv., the close of the earlier ones, which they amplify 
 and unfold. 
 
 (i) The first charge to the prophet and his fellows, in ch. xxxv., begins 
 with the words : "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 
 Say unto them of a fearful heart. Be strong, fear not." Now this is the very 
 subject of the first and opening section, ch. xl., of the Later Prophecies. It 
 begins with a message of comfort to the fearful in heart, and ends with a 
 renewal of it under the same figure, the reversal of weak hands and failing 
 knees: "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall 
 mount up on wings as eagles : they shall run, and not be weary ; they shall 
 walk, and not faint." The ground of comfort is the same in both, and 
 expressed nearly in the same words: "Behold, your God will come with 
 vengeance, with the recompense of God : he will come and save you," 
 xxxv. 4. "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God ! Behold, the 
 Lord God will come with might, and his arm shall rule for him : behold, 
 his reward is with him, and his work before him,'' xl. 9, 10. 
 
APPENDIX I. 337 
 
 (2) The next promise follows, xxxv. 5 : "Then the eyes of the blind 
 shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped." 
 
 This promise is renewed and unfolded in the three next sections, ch. xli. 
 — xlv. It meets us at the close of the second section in the double promise : 
 ''I will give thee... for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes ;" and 
 again, "I will bring the blind by a way they knew not. ..I will make darkness 
 light before them," xlii. 6, 7, 16. It meets us in the beginning and middle of 
 the third section, in a double appeal to the spiritually blind and deaf to 
 listen and understand : "Ye deaf, hear! and ye blind, look that ye may see," 
 xlii. 18; "Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that 
 have ears," xliii. 8. The whole of the fourth section, xliv. 6 — xlv. 25, is 
 based on the same figure. The idolatries of the heathen are denounced as 
 utter deafness and blindness, xliv. 18, 19 ; and Israel first, and next the 
 heathen, are called to gaze, with recovered hearing and opened eyes, on the 
 coming salvation of God, xlv. 6, 22. 
 
 (3) " For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the 
 desert," xxxv, 6. 
 
 This aspect of promise is joined with the last, and reaches beyond it, the 
 order in ch. xxxv. and in chh. xl. — li. being the same. We find it repeated, 
 first, in xli. 18 — 20, almost in the same words: "I will open rivers in high 
 places, and fountains in the midst of valleys : I will make the wilderness a 
 pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." It recurs in xliii. 19, 20 : 
 " I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." " I give 
 waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, 
 my chosen." And, once more, it marks the close of the third section, xliv. 
 3 — 5, and also of the seventh and last of the first main division, xlviii. 21. 
 The special thought is twice repeated, xliii. 18 — 20, xliv. 3, 4, that the parched 
 ground, the lair of dragons, shall become a pool, and a fertile pasture. 
 
 (4) "And a highway shall be there, and a way ; and it shall be called 
 the way of holiness," xxxv. 8. 
 
 This same idea of a Divine pathway, which God provides for His people, 
 meets us at the close of the second section, xlii. 16 : "I will bring the blind 
 by a way they knew not : in paths they have not known will I lead them." 
 It recurs in xliii. 19 : "I will even make a way in the wilderness." But it 
 forms one main, central thought in the first chapter of the second division, 
 xlix. 8 — 13, where we have the release of the prisoners, to enter upon their 
 journey, the nature of the pathway provided, and then the joyful issue. 
 
 (5) "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with 
 songs, and everlasting joy shall be on their heads : they shall obtain gladness 
 and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away," xxxv. 10. 
 
 These words are the parting promise of the earlier visions, like the key- 
 note of their sacred melody. And we find them repeated, without change, in 
 li. II, in the middle of the second section of the middle portion of the Later 
 Prophecies. They are woven into the texture of this prophecy, and do 
 not form a separate sentence, added at its close. It is thus shown, in a sim- 
 ple and striking manner, that these later visions are really an expansion of 
 the brief text, full of bright and cheering hope, which formed the close of 
 Israel's Earlier Prophecies. All the main promises in ch. xxxv. are found 
 B. L 22 
 
338 ISAIAH. 
 
 ramified and expanded throughout the first twelve chapters of these later 
 visions. 
 
 5. The third and last division of the Later is full of allusions to the 
 Early Prophecies, which prove the organic unity of the whole work. Some 
 of the chief, in succession, are these. 
 
 (i) "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, &c., &c.," Ixi. i, a pro- 
 phecy of Messiah, speaking in His own person. So in xi. 2 it is written : 
 "The Spirit of the Lcjrd shall rest upon him." 
 
 (2) "To preach good tidings to the poor." So in xi. 4 : "With righte- 
 ousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the 
 earth." 
 
 (3) " To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of venge- 
 ance of our God," Ixi. 2. Also in Ixiii. 4: "For the day of vengeance is in 
 mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." There is here, apparently, 
 a direct reference to ch. xxxiv. 8 : " For it is the day of the Lord's venge- 
 ance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." 
 
 (4) "The oil of joy for mourning." This sums up the earlier warning 
 and promises, iii. 26, ix. 3, xii. 3 : "Her gates shall lament and mourn, and 
 she will sit desolate on the ground :" "They joy before thee according to the 
 joy in harvest : " " With joy shall ye draw water from the wells of salvation." 
 
 (5) " The planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified." The same 
 figure appears ch. iv. 2. 
 
 (6) "And they shall build the old wastes... the former desolations... the 
 waste cities, &c.," Ixi. 4. 
 
 So we read i. 7 : "Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire." 
 And vi. II : "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the land be 
 utterly desolate." And again, xvii. 9, xxiv. 12 : "In the city is left desola- 
 tion, and the gate is battered down into ruin." 
 
 (7) "And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks," v. 5. So in 
 xiv. 2 : "And the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD 
 for servants and handmaids." 
 
 (8) " For your shame jv shall h'^xc double, and for confusion they shall 
 rejoice in their portion," v. 7. 
 
 A plain contrast to the early warning, i. 29 : " For they shall be ashamed 
 of the oaks ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye 
 have chosen." The similar change from the third to the first, and from the 
 first to the third person, in the clauses of the threatening and the promise, 
 makes the correspondence more complete. 
 
 (9) " Everlasting joy shall be unto them." So xxxv. 10, li. 11: " Ever- 
 lasting joy shall be upon their heads." 
 
 (10) " I hate robbery in burnt offering." This seems an allusion to 
 one of the earliest threatenings, i. 11 — 15 : "The calling of assemblies I 
 cannot endure, iniquity and solemn meeting." 
 
 (11) "For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace," Ixii. i. The inter- 
 cession of Messiah, announced in these words, has been foretold before, 
 viii. 16, 17: "Seal the law among my disciples: and I will wait upon the 
 Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him." 
 Compare viii. 18, Hcb. ii. 13. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 339 
 
 (12) "Thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a 
 royal diadem in the hand of thy God." So conversely we read, xxviii. 5 : 
 " In that day will the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and a diadem 
 of beauty, unto the residue of his people." 
 
 (13) "Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, nor thy land any more 
 be termed Desolate," v. 4. 
 
 The former title is applied to the land, ch. vii. 16, and to its cities, xvii. 2, 
 9, xxxii. 14, xxvii. 10; and the latter to the country, i. 7, vi. 11, xvii. 9 ; to 
 which threatenings this promise clearly alludes. 
 
 (14) " I have set watchers over thy walls," v. 6. The same picture is 
 found, in the Early Prophecies, of watchers for the tidings of deliverance, 
 xxi. 6 ; "Thus hath the LORD said unto me. Go, set a watchman, let him 
 declare what he seeth." 
 
 (15) "Go through, go through the gates," v. 10. This instruction an- 
 swers to the earlier promise, xxvi. 2 : " Open ye the gates, and a righteous 
 nation, that keepeth the truth, shall enter in." The main thought is the 
 same in both passages, and the phrase is similar. 
 
 (16) "Cast up, cast up the highway." So xxxv. 8: "And a highway 
 shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness." 
 
 (17) " Lift up a standard for the people." So xi. 10 : " There shall be a 
 root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people." And v. 12, in 
 connexion with Israel's return : " He shall set up an ensign for the nations." 
 Also xiii. 2, xviii. 3, xxxi. 9, where the same figure recurs. 
 
 (18) "Thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken." So again 
 i. 26 : "Afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness. The 
 faithful city." 
 
 (19) "Who is this that Cometh from Edom.'' with dyed garments from 
 Bozrah?" Ixiii. i. The same apposition of these names, in connexion with a 
 time of solemn judgment, is found ch. xxxi v. 6 : " The Lord hath a sacrifice 
 in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom." Compare xxxiv. 8, 
 Ixiii. 4. 
 
 (20) "Look down from heaven, and behold from thy habitation," v. 15. 
 •So in xviii. 4 : " I will rest calmly, and look down in my dwellingplace." 
 The Hebrew word is different ; but the form of the phrase, and the con- 
 ception, are the same. 
 
 (21) "Why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our 
 hearts from thy fear.''" v. 17. 
 
 There seems here a direct allusion to the charge the prophet had re- 
 ceived in his first commission, vi. 10, denouncing the hardness of heart 
 under which the people would lie, and to the passages, xxix. 10, xxx. 28 : 
 "And there shall be a bridle, causing to err, in the jaws of the people." 
 
 (22) "And all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," Ixiv. 6. The same 
 figure as xxx. 22. So also the clay and the potter, and the phrase, "the 
 work of thy hand," v. 8, have occurred, xxix. 16, 23. 
 
 (23) "That sacrifice in gardens," Ixv. 3. This message of warning 
 and rebuke, near the close of the whole book, answers to the threatening in 
 the first chapter, v. 29 : "Ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have 
 
 22 — 2 
 
340 ISAIAH. 
 
 chosen." In both cases there is the same allusion to forms of Jewish idol- 
 atrous worship. 
 
 (24) "A smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burneth all the day," v. 5. 
 The same figure to express God's anger occurs before, xxx. 27: "His lips 
 arc full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire." 
 
 (25) "And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks," v. 10. Sharon is named 
 by no other prophet, but twice by Isaiah in the Earlier Prophecies, once in 
 connexion with the Assyrian curse, and once in connexion with a blessing, 
 xxxiii. 9, XXXV. 2. 
 
 (26) " The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the 
 voice of crying," v. 19. 
 
 In ch. XXX. 19, we have a kindred promise: "Thou shall weep bitterly no 
 longer : he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy crying." The 
 Hebrew word is the same, with a slight difference in the grammatical form. 
 
 (27) " The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat 
 straw like the bullock... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy moun- 
 tain, saith the LORD," v. 25. 
 
 In xi. 6, 7, 9, we have exactly the same prediction : " The wolf also shall 
 dwell with the lamb... and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock... they 
 shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." The correspondence 
 here is very plain. 
 
 (28) " Before she travailed, she brought forth," Ixvi. 7 — 9. There is 
 here a double contrast, first to the sorrowful complaint of Israel, xxvi. 17, 18 ; 
 and next, to the confession of Hezekiah in the time of the Assyrian distress, 
 xxxvii. 3, 
 
 (29) " For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots 
 like a whirlwind," v. 15. There is here, again, a close resemblance to the 
 warning and promise, xxx. 27 — 3;^. 
 
 (30) "And I will set a sign among them, &c.," vv. 19, 20. This is like 
 an expansion and repetition of three earlier promises, xviii. 3, 7, xxvii. 13, 
 xxxi. 9. 
 
 6. There are two warnings, especially, which run through the main 
 course of the Earlier Prophecies, and give their colouring to the whole, for- 
 saking and desolation. Thus we read in the prophet's commission, vi. 12, 
 that there would be "a great forsaking (n^^iy) '" ^^^^ midst of the land;" 
 and in vii. 16, and the message to Ahaz, that "the land shall be forsaken 
 Oiyri) before whose two kings thou art afraid." In xvii. 2, "the cities of 
 
 Aroer are forsaken (ni^Ti?)-" Again xvii. 9, "In that day shall his strong 
 cities be as forsaken nans {T\'D,')])2^), which they forsook (^^fj?) because of 
 the children of Israel." In xxvii. 10, "the habitation shall be forsaken, and 
 left (2Tyi) ^^^^ ^ wilderness;" and in xxxii. 14, "the peopled city shall be 
 left Qty)-" So in like manner we read the repeated warning or description, 
 i. 7, "Your country is desolate {'r\f2f2^) • ' •^^^'-^ 't is desolate (H/b/b^) ^s 
 overthrown by strangers ;" vi. 1 1, "and the land be utterly desolate (^^{£^'n 
 
APPENDIX I. 341 
 
 H/^D/b^);" ^vii. 9, "there shall be desolation;" xxxiii. 8, "the highways he 
 waste OJ^i^y)." 
 
 ~ T 
 
 In the Later Prophecies we have a sevenfold reversal of each of these 
 threatenings. First, that of Divine forsaking and abandonment : " I the 
 Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them," xli. 17; 
 "These things will I do unto them, and will not forsake them," xlii. 16; 
 "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I 
 gather thee," liv. 7; "The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and 
 grieved in spirit, &c.," liv. 6; "Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, 
 so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a 
 joy of many generations," Ix. 15 ; "Thou shalt no more be termed. Forsaken," 
 Ixii. 4; "And thou shalt be called. Sought out, A city not forsaken," Ixii. 12. 
 And, secondly, that of desolation : "I will give thee for a covenant of the 
 people... to cause to inherit the desolate heritages," xlix. 8; "Thy waste and 
 desolate places shall be too narrow by reason of the multitude of inhabit- 
 ants," xlix. 19; "The children of the desolate shall be more than the chil- 
 dren of the married wife, saith the LORD," liv. i ; "And thy seed shall make 
 the desolate cities to be inhabited," liv. 3 ; " They shall raise up the former 
 desolations ; and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many 
 generations," Ixi. 4 ; "Neither shall thy land anymore be called Desolate; 
 but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah," Ixii. 4. 
 
 Thus a double curse of abandonment and desolation, repeated fourfold 
 and fivefold, runs through the Earlier Prophecies from their opening chapter 
 almost to their very close. And a sevenfold reversal of this double curse 
 runs in like manner through the Later Prophecies, in strict verbal corre- 
 spondence with the threatenings, from their second chapter to the height 
 and crown of the promise, ch. Ixii. 4 ; where they are replaced together by 
 the new names of Hephzibah and Beulah, "for the Lord delighteth in thee, 
 and thy land shall be married." 
 
 7. Still further, there is a special connexion of these Later Prophecies 
 with a message of comfort, which marks the close of each of the three main 
 series of the Earlier Visions. Thus we read in xi. 6—9, at the close of the 
 first series: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall 
 lie down with the kid... and the lion shall eat straw hke the ox: they shall 
 not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." In the Sequel of the Bur- 
 dens, ch. XXV. 8, we read among other blessings : "And the LORD God will 
 wipe away tears from off all faces." Once more, at the very close of the third 
 series, xxxv. 10, we meet with the words, "And everlasting joy s/ur// be on 
 their heads : they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall 
 * flee away." 
 
 Now in the Later Prophecies, towards their close, these golden threads 
 of earlier promise are inwoven together, and in the inverse order, mounting 
 up to the first and earliest. The promise xxxv. 10 recurs in the same words, 
 li. II, and completes a first series of allusions to that closing chapter of the 
 earlier division. But it is resumed, Ixi. 7, in the words : "In their land they 
 shall possess the double ; everlasting joy shall be to them," a double reference 
 to xl. 2, xxxv. 10. Next, the promise of xxv. 8 is repeated Ixv. 19: "And I 
 
342 ISAIAH. 
 
 will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping 
 shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying." And lastly, the 
 promise, xi. 6—9, finds an exact repetition in Ixv. 25, at the close of the whole 
 book, if we except the one chapter which answers to the Preface as a glorious 
 peroration of the whole prophecy. 
 
 The organic unity, then, of the Later with the Earlier Prophecies is con- 
 firmed by direct and positive internal evidence of the strongest kind. They 
 correspond to each other like the curtains of the tabernacle. Some of the 
 evidence lies plainly on the surface ; and the rest reveals itself on patient and 
 close examination, in a way which bespeaks, not only the genuineness and 
 Isaian authorship, but the inspired wisdom and Divine authority of the 
 whole. 
 
 IV. Hebrew Diction and Style. 
 
 The difference of style in these chapters, on which great stress has been 
 laid by some modern critics to prove their later authorship, is not explained 
 in the least by referring them to an unknown writer near the close of the 
 Exile. They are unlike all the known writings of that period. On the other 
 hand, the difference is just what we might expect, if they were written by 
 Isaiah during those later days of "truth and peace," xxxix. 8. For here, in 
 agreement with that temporary and merciful change, the details of the earlier 
 Prophecies, the stern rebukes with which they begin, their Woes and Bur- 
 dens, blossom out into rich and beautiful promise, like the opening rose. 
 Just as the rose-bud, then, differs from its parent stem, so do these chapters 
 of promise and hope differ from that stem of earlier Isaian Prophecies, on 
 which they grow. New subjects demand some new words and phrases. A 
 denial of the genuineness on this ground must be simply puerile, unless the 
 contrast were extreme. It would require us to infer that hardly one book of 
 considerable size is throughout from the same author. But many of the 
 alleged contrasts, when examined, prove erroneous and illusive ; while the 
 resemblances, which attest the common origin of both parts, are various 
 and important, and cannot be referred to chance alone. 
 
 (I). Alleged Negative Evidence of Style. 
 
 I. "The titles, Israel's Creator, Father, Redeemer, Saviour, He that 
 hath mercy, He that comforteth, arc applied to God here only." 
 
 This is true of the formal epithets. But all the facts on which they 
 repose have been plainly affirmed in these Earlier Prophecies: "Therefore 
 he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them 
 will shew them no favour," xxvii. 11 ; "Zion shall be redeemed with judg- 
 ment," i. 27; "Thus saith the Lord, even he that redeemed Abraham," 
 xxix. 22; "The redeemed of the Lord shall return," xxxv. 10; "Behold, God 
 is my salvation. ..he also is become my salvation," xii. 2 ; "The God of thy 
 salvation," xvii. 10; "We have waited for him, and he will save us," xxv. 9 : 
 
APPENDIX I. 343 
 
 "The Lord is our King, and he will save us," xxxiii. 22. Also xiv. i ; xxx. 18 ; 
 xii. I. 
 
 2. "It is peculiar to the writer to represent the Lord as the Father 
 of the Israelites." 
 
 A very strange oversight. The Early Visions, on the contrary, set forth 
 this truth from the outset, as the ground of all their severe expostulations. 
 *'I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against 
 me," i. 2. The appeal once more to this relationship at the very close, Ixiii. 
 16, Ixiv. 8, is a strong sign of the internal and essential unity of the whole 
 work. 
 
 3. "He doubles the same word for emphasis, as. Behold, behold!" 
 Just so we find in the Early Prophecies : "Misery, misery ! the treacherous 
 
 ones have dealt treacherously ; yea, the treacherous ones have dealt very 
 treacherously," xxiv. 16; "Thou wilt keep him in peace, in peace, whose 
 mind is stayed on thee," xxvi. 3 ; "The lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth 
 it low, to the ground," v. 5; "Precept on precept, precept on precept, &c." 
 xxviii. 10, 13; "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel!" xxix. i. 
 
 4. "He often uses personification and prosopopoeia, xl. 9; xliii. 6, 20; 
 xliv. 23; xlix. 13; Iv. 12; Ixiii. 5." 
 
 Their larger use would be a natural result of the freedom, largeness, and 
 range of these later Messianic visions. But similar instances, though slightly 
 less frequent, occur before, from the very opening onward, as in i. 2 ; x. 30; 
 xiii. 2 ; xiv. 8, 9, 12, 31 ; xvi. 9 ; xxiii. 14, 16. 
 
 5. "t03^*J!p is used for true religion, xlii. i, 3, 4 ; li. 4 ; and p'^'^^ for 
 deliverance, prosperity, and happiness, xli. 2, 10; xiv. 8, &c." 
 
 On the contrary, these words have their true and proper sense through- 
 out, judgment and righteousness, as truly given in the received version. 
 The assertion that they have a different and peculiar meaning in these 
 passages is wholly gratuitous. It is no fault of the prophet if these two 
 grand ideas recur too often to suit the taste of some modern grammarians, 
 so that they strive to replace them by others less intensely moral, and more 
 earthly, 
 
 6- "H/b^j to sprout or germinate, is applied to the origin of events, 
 xlii. 9; xliii. 19; Iviii. 8." 
 
 This argument may with much reason be reversed. For these are Mes- 
 sianic passages, and it is Isaiah by whom the name H/b^j the Branch, is first 
 
 applied to the promised Messiah, iv. 2. 
 
 7. "5<{'np is used in the sense of preaching or prophesying here only, 
 xl. 2, 6 ; xliv. 7 ; Iviii." 
 
 This word is another mark of identity, not of contrast. It m.eans to cry 
 aloud or to proclaim, vi. 3; xxx. 7; viii. 4; xii. 4; xxi, 8; xxxiv. 14; and 
 again, xl. 2, 6; Iviii. i ; Ixi. i, 2; &c. Also to summon or invite, xiii. 3; xxii. 
 12, 20; xxxiv. 12; and again, xH. 9; xlii. 6; xlviii. 15; 1. 2; li. 2; &c. 
 Thus in each of these two main senses it is used alike in the Earlier and 
 Later Prophecies, and with similar frequency. 
 
344 ISAIAH. 
 
 8. "To break forth into joy occurs here only, xli\^ 23; xlix. 13; liv. i; 
 Iv. 12." 
 
 This very same phrase is found, xiv. 7, in one of the six chapters of the 
 earHer portion, to which alone the name of Isaiah expressly belongs. It is 
 thus a distinct reason to prove that chh, xl. — Iv. have the same author with 
 "the Burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see," since the 
 phrase occurs in no other book of Scripture. 
 
 9. "*l^ti^"| liy, wasting and destruction, occurs here only, li. 19; lix. 7 ; 
 
 Ix. 18 ; and once in Jeremiah, not in Isaiah," i.e. not in chh. i.— xxxv. But *1^ 
 
 alone occurs three times, xiii. 6 ; xvi. 4 ; xxii. 4 ; the last time with the same 
 reference to Israel's calamity. Also *n^^ occurs five times, i. 28; xv. 5; 
 
 XXX. 13, 14, 26, in the same connexion. Thus the Later Prophecies only 
 combine repeatedly the two elements, which have been supplied by eight 
 passages of the earlier visions. 
 
 ^°' "ni3> to address soothingly, xliv. 5; xlv. 5; is found beside only 
 
 in Job, ch. xxxii. 21, 22." 
 
 Its meaning in these two passages, plainly fixed by their context, is "to 
 surname." The book of Job only proves the early use of the word, but the 
 idea which requires its use does not occur in the Earlier Prophecies. 
 
 II. "i^^X to kindle, xliv. 15, is found only in Ezek. xxxix. 9, and Ps. 
 
 Ixxviii. 21, which is of later origin." 
 
 Yet this Psalm bears the name of Asaph, and closes its historical sum- 
 mary with David's accession to the throne ; and even those who deny it to 
 be Asaph's own have ascribed it to the reign of Asa, long before Isaiah. 
 What a strange proof of the spuriousness of these later chapters, that this 
 word, used so much earlier, occurs in them in one verse ! 
 
 12'. "D^JJDj Babylonian prefects, xli. 25, is from the Persian, and found 
 
 also in Jeremiah and Ezekiel." 
 
 The word is not exclusively "Babylonian prefects," for Ezekiel applies it 
 to Assyrian, and Nehemiah to Jewish princes. There is no proof of its 
 Persian origin. Max Miiller says that the etymology is not clear. It is a 
 title of princes, borrowed probably from the Chaldeans, with which Isaiah 
 must have been familiar, even from the embassy of the Sagans whom 
 Merodach sent to Hezckiah, if not much earlier. It is used once only, in 
 immediate sequence to that history, and in connexion with the predicted 
 overthrow of Babylon. It links ch. xli. with ch. xxxix., and thus tends to 
 confirm the common origin of the whole. 
 
 13- ""iriil) to prove, try, purify, xlviii. 10, is used only in 2 Chron. and 
 
 Job." 
 
 There is no proof of any peculiar sense, either in that verse, or in Job or 
 Chronicles. The word occurs four times, ch. i. 29; vii. 14, 15 ; xiv. i, in the 
 Earlier, and si.xteen times in the Later Prophecies, and in all ages of Old 
 Testament writing, from Genesis to Zechariah. 
 
 14. "tJ'nri} to rebuild or repair, Ixi. 4, as in 2 Chron." It means, in 
 
 agreement with its derivation, to renew, which is of course equivalent to the 
 
APPENDIX I. 345 
 
 other term, when the subject is ruined cities. It is so used in I Sam., Job, 
 and Ps. h., ciii., civ., or from before the time of David. 
 
 15. "D** //^ri) to bring forth, l.xvi. 7," is another alleged sign of diverse 
 
 authorship. It is really the e.xact reverse. For the same part of the verb 
 occurs besides only in ch. xxxi. 5, and the same sense in xxxiv. 15, while it 
 appears also xxxvii. 38; xx. 6, and xlvi. 2, 4; xlix. 24, 25; and five times 
 oftener, among the other prophets, in those of early than in those of later 
 date. 
 
 16. "T'l^n, affair, business, xliv. 28; liii. 10; Iviii. 3, 13," is simply a 
 
 false version, and the word has plainly its usual sense, "pleasure, wish, or 
 desire." So also " tj^, if" ch. liv. 1 5, is only a mistranslation which weakens 
 
 the force of a striking passage. 
 
 ^7- "*nn'') abundantly, Ivi. 12, as in Dan. viii. 9." The word is used 
 
 alike in xxxviii. 10, and again in xliv. 19; Ivi. 22, and in each as "residue.' 
 In the same sense it occurs in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 
 the First and Second of Samuel, in Job, Psalms and Proverbs, and both in 
 the Earlier and Later portions of Isaiah, but once only in the Prophets after 
 the Exile. 
 
 The only other arguments of the same kind (Davidson, Introd.) are drawn 
 from ten or twenty words, which occur only in these later chapters. But 
 such evidence is clearly neutral, and can have no tendency to prove or dis- 
 prove the Isaian authorship. The whole proof of diversity, when thus 
 examined in detail, disappears ; while some of the words or phrases are a 
 direct confirmation of the common origin of the whole book. 
 
 (II). Positive Evidence. 
 
 The Positive Evidence, tending to prove the Isaian authorship, consists 
 of words or phrases, which these Later Prophecies have in common with the 
 Earlier, but which are not found in the writings of the prophets at the close 
 of the Exile, in Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the length of which, 
 when taken together, is nearly the same as that of the Earlier Visions. The 
 comparison extends only to the first letter Aleph, or includes probably not 
 more than one-fifth of the whole. 
 
 I. nHX) to be willing, i. 19; xxviii. 12; xxx. 9, 15, and also xhi. 24. 
 
 Never in the later prophets. 
 
 2- |V55<> needy, xiv. 30; xxv. 4; xxix. 19; xxxii. 7, and also xli. 17. 
 
 Never in the later prophets. , 
 
 3. 1"'5^' "'^'o'^ty, strong, x, 13 ; xxxiv. 7. Also xlvi. 12, ^p ^T5^?' ^^^ 
 stout of heart. In use from the Book of Judges to Jeremiah, not found in the 
 later writings. 
 
 4. 7^5<, mourn, mourning, in iii. 26; xix. 8; xxiv. 4, 7; xxxiii, 9, and 
 in Ivii. 18; bci. 2, 3. 
 
346 ISAIAH. 
 
 5- D^^^' ^ P°°^' "^ ^'^- -3' (^•■'^- '°> ^- V- ^c-) 5 XXXV. 7, and also xli. i8 ; 
 xlii. 25. Never elsewhere in that sense. The context, in xxxv. 7; xli. 18; 
 xlii. 25, is also very similar. 
 
 6. pD^X) rush, bulrush, ix. 14; xix. 15, and Iviii. 5. The use in the 
 
 third passage, as a figure of dejection, and in the two others, to represent the 
 lower classes of society, is very similar. 
 
 7. yTl'^ (sing.), a tent, xvi. 5; x.\xiii. 20; xxxviii. 12, and also xl. 22; 
 liv. 2. In later prophets plural only. 
 
 S. |^^S) vanity, iniquity, i. 13 ; x. i ; xxix. 20; xxxi. 2; xxxii. 6, and also 
 
 xli. 29; Iv. 7; Iviii. 9; lix. 4, 6, 7 ; Ixvi. 3. It occurs also twice in Jeremiah, 
 but of the later prophets only once in Zechariah. 
 
 9- *l*li^) shine, kindle, xxvii. 11, and in Ix. i, 19. Also "l")}^, light, in 
 ii. 5; v. 20, 30; ix. 2; X. 17; xiii. 10; xxx. 26, and also xlii. 6, 16; xlv. 7; 
 xlix. 6; li. 4; Iviii. 8, 10; Ix. i, 3, 19, 20. In Zech. xiv. 6, alone of the later 
 prophets. The frequency of this illustrative figure in both parts of Isaiah is 
 one sign of the unity of the whole. So "the Light of Israel," as a Divine 
 title, occurs only ix. 2; x. 17, and Ix. i, 20. 
 
 10. "n^{»C, fire or fire-light, xxiv. 15; xxxi. 9, and ako xliv. 16; xlvii. 14, 
 I. II. Elsewhere only in Ezek. v. 2. 
 
 ^^' niK> sign, token, vii. 11, 14; viii. 18; xix. 20; xx. 3; xxxvii. 30; 
 xxxviii. 7, 22, and also xliv. 25 ; Iv. 13; Ixvi. 19. 
 
 This idea is characteristic of the Early Visions, from the promise of Im- 
 manuel to Hezekiah's recovery. In the Later Visions it is applied to three 
 main events, the false signs of the Chaldeans, to be made void through Cyrus, 
 the moral triumphs of the Gospel, and the promised recovery of Israel 
 from their long rejection and dispersion in the last days. 
 
 12. T5^)^, from that time, from the beginning, xvi. 13, and also xliv. 8; 
 
 xlviii. 3, 5. It is hardly found elsewhere in this form. 
 
 13. nj«{, to listen, to give ear, i. 2, 10; viii. 9; xxviii. 23; xxxii. 9, and 
 
 also xlii. 23; li. 4. So "mine ear, or ears," applied to God, v. 9; xxii. 14, 
 xxxvii. 29, and in 1. 4, 5. A double mark of unity. 
 
 H- ^TJ<) to gird, viii. 9, and also xlv. 5 ; 1. 11. The word occurs also in 
 Psalms, Samuel, Job, and once in Jeremiah, but in no other prophet. 
 
 15. *linXj behind, after, backward, i. 4; ix. 12 ; x-xviii. 13, and xli. 23; 
 xlii. 17, 23 ; xliv. 25 ; 1. 5 ; lix. 14. Not in the later prophets. 
 
 16. *iri{^, another, xxviii. 11 ; and also xlii. 8; xlviii. 11 ; Ixv. 15, 22. So 
 
 ^nX (verb), tarry, continue, v. 11, and xlvi. 13. 
 
 The first of these kindred words does not occur in the later prophets, the 
 second twice, the third once in Daniel. 
 
 17. ♦{i^, island, maritime country, xi. 11 ; xx. 6; xxiii. 2, 6; xxiv. 15, and 
 
 also xl. 15; xli. 5; xlii. 4, 10, 12, 15; xlix. i ; li. 5 ; lix. 18; Ix. 9; Ixvi. 19. 
 This word thus occurs 17 limes in the Book of Isaiah, five times in the 
 
APPENDIX I. 347 
 
 earlier, twelve times in the later portion; but once only, Dan. xi. ii, in the 
 prophets after the Exile. 
 
 1 8. '2''^, to hate, in Pres. Part. i. 24; ix. 11, and six times in chaps, xlii. 
 — Ixvi., not in prophets after the Exile. 
 J 9- D^'^s> dumb, XXXV. 6, and hi. 10. 
 -o- nilDb;}? faithfulness, xi. 5; xxv. i; xxxiii. 6, and Hx. 4. There is 
 
 also a close relation between the first three passages, and the two contrasted 
 verses, lix. 4, 1 7, 
 
 21- |0^S' '■^ ^^ firm or true, Niphal, i. 21, 26; vii. 9; viii. 2 ; xxii. 23, 25 ; 
 xxxiii. 16, and also xlix. 7; Iv. 3 ; Ix, 4 [jiursed). Hiphil, vii. 9; xxviii. 16, 
 and xliii. 9; liii. i. In these parts not in the later prophets. 
 
 22. *^/!3^SJ say, speak. In Niphal Fut., iv. 3; xix. 18; xxxii. 5, and also 
 
 Ixi. 6 ; Ixii. 4. The earliest use of this part is in Gen. x. 9, and the latest in 
 Ez. xiii, 12. It is repeated in the same verse in Hos. i. 10 (B.C. 785), and in 
 Is. Ixii. 4, in these Later Prophecies, alone. Again, *1^J|^, word, occurs 
 
 xxxii. 7, and xli. 26 in the earher books, and once in Hosea, but in no other 
 prophet later than Isaiah. 
 
 23- ri/^K^j ii^ truth, X. 20; xvi. 5; xxxviii. 3, and also xlviii. i; Ixi. 8; 
 
 never in the later prophets. The passages, also, have a very close relation 
 of subject to each other. 
 
 24. nrti^J) sighing, xxi. 2; xxxv. 10, and li. 11, these two verses being 
 the same. Peculiar to Isaiah and Jeremiah amongst the prophets. 
 
 25- r/y5*}> ii^ Piel, to strengthen, xxxv. 3, and xli. 10; xliv. 14, Here 
 also the second passage, in the Later Prophecies, is a fulfilment of the in- 
 struction given in the first. Elsewhere, only in Amos ii. 14; Nah. ii. i. 
 
 26. £5^'"'^in ni*ii^j ships of Tarshish, ii. 16; xxiii. I, 14, and .xhii. 14; 
 Ix. 9. Also in Ezek. xxvii. 25. The phrase occurs in no other prophet, but 
 in the Psalms, and the Book of Kings. 
 
 27- PD5»5) in Niphal Pret., take away, occurs in xvi. 10; Ivii. i, and Jer. 
 
 xlviii. 33 alone; but in Mic. iv. 11 ; Zech. xii. 3 in a different sense, and in 
 twenty other passages. 
 
 28. ^''DJ^, prisoner, x. 4; xxiv. 22, and xlii. 7, used in these three texts 
 
 alone in this form. 
 
 29- D'*3!J^5 the nostrils, ii. 22, and Ixv. 5. Only once beside in Amos, 
 and once in Lamentations, in this literal sense, though frequent in the de- 
 rived sense of anger in all the prophets. 
 
 30- nSs^i) darkness, viii. 22, and also Iviii. 10; lix. 9, in reference to 
 the gloom and desolation of the Jewish people. Once besides in Exodus and 
 Deuteronomy, twice in Proverbs, once in Joel, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah. 
 
348 ISAIAH. 
 
 31- D^^^ nothing, v. 8; xxxiv. 12, and xl. 17; xli. 12, 24, 29; xlv. 6, 14, 
 
 22; xlvi. 9; xlvii. 8, 10; lii. 4; liv. 15. Once only in Daniel in a kindred 
 sense, Dan. viii. 25, once in Job, and three times in Proverbs. It occurs at 
 the beginning and close of the Earlier, and in seven chapters of the Later 
 Prophecies. 
 
 32. ^3X> worse than nought? xli. 24. n^Sl^j viper, xxx. 6 and lix. 9. 
 
 Both are found in Isaiah only. 
 
 33- niS'nX. windows, xxiv. 18 and Ix. 8. Once Mai. iii. 10. niS^lX > 
 plots or spoils. Is. xxv. 1 1 only. 
 
 34- JlIX) to weave, xix. 9; xxxviii. 12, and again lix. 5, and in no other 
 text of the prophets. 
 
 35- rrij^) way, path, ii. 3; iii. 12; xxvi. 7, 8; xxx. li ; xxxiii. 8, and also 
 xl. 14; xli. 3. Besides, of the prophets, once in Joel and once in Micah only. 
 
 36. niSSJ'J^' quiver, in xxii. 6 and xlix. 2. Besides, once in Job, Psalms, 
 Jeremiah, and Lamentations. 
 
 37. *'n^^{, blessed, xxx. 18; xxxii. 20, and Ivi. 2. Frequent in the 
 Psalms and Proverbs, but elsewhere in the prophets only Dan. xii. 12. 
 
 3S- nni^j to come, to happen, xxi. 12, 14, and also xli. 5, 23, 25; Ivi. 9, 
 
 12; xliv. 7; xlv. II. The word occurs in earlier books, once in Micah, a 
 contemporary of Isaiah, and once in Jeremiah, xii. 9, in a verse which is like 
 a repetition of Ivi. 9 in these Later Prophecies. 
 
 There are thus forty words, under the first letter of the alphabet alone, in 
 which the Later resemble the Early Prophecies of Isaiah, and which do not 
 appear at all, with one or two slight exceptions, in the writings which are 
 known to belong to the close of the Exile, or the return from Babylon. There 
 is thus a strong internal presumption, on this ground alone, in favour of 
 the unity of the whole book, and against the modern theory. The verbal 
 argument, on which its advocates have relied in the teeth of all the external 
 evidence, when once fairly and inductively examined, is a powerful refutation 
 of the hypothesis of a Deutero-Isaiah. To these may be added another 
 mark of unity in phrases and titles employed. 
 
 I- nin^ '^)bX^ &c. "The lord win say" (Hcb. Fut.), occurs thrice in 
 
 the Early Prophecies, i. 11, 18; xxxiii. 10, and five times in the Later, xl. i, 
 25 ; xli. 21 ; Iviii. 9; Ixvi. 9, in their first and their last chapter. Elsewhere 
 it is found only in Ps. xii. 5, while the past tense, in such phrases, is of con- 
 stant occurrence. It forms thus an internal sign of Isaian authorship, in the 
 very first verse of the Later portion. 
 
 2. vXlb'^ {i'i^p- The Holy One of Israel, as a Divine title, occurs 
 
 fourteen times in the Earlier, and fifteen times in the Later Prophecies. It is 
 scarcely met with elsewhere; that is, only in the parallel text in Kings, thrice 
 in the Psalms, and twice in Jeremiah. 
 
APPENDIX I. 349 
 
 3- 7i^^b^^ T'iS^- The Mighty One of Israel, i. 24 and xlix. 26 ; Ix. 16. 
 Besides these texts, one of them in the Earher, two in the Later Visions, only 
 in Gen. xlix. 24 ; Ps. cxxxii. 2, 5. 
 
 4. "Your God," xxxv. 4, and xl. 9 ; lix. 2. The name, with this pronoun, 
 occurs elsewhere only in the compound title, "the LORD your God." 
 
 This internal evidence of style and diction in favour of common au- 
 thorship is of a cumulative kind. The marks, though some of them may 
 separately be slight, acquire a decisive force when they are combined in one 
 view. But they become still more forcible, when the objections alleged on 
 the opposite side have been examined. 
 
 V. Alleged Objections. 
 
 The chief reasons, which have been alleged to justify a desertion of the 
 constant faith of the Church of Christ, and of the direct testimony of our Lord 
 and his Apostles, have been summed up as follows in a recent English work. 
 
 1. "It is a first principle that the historical horizon of a prophet belongs 
 to his own time. He takes his stand in his own generation, and looks onward 
 from it. His starting-point lies in the circumstances of the age he lives in. 
 This analogy is violated by such as attribute these chapters to Isaiah, since 
 their visible horizon is the time of the Exile." 
 
 This first principle is a plain self-contradiction. A standpoint and an 
 horizon, the centre and the circumference of a landscape, are not the same. 
 The true first principle is that "holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost," and could therefore announce whatever the 
 Spirit of God, who sees the end from the beginning, was pleased to reveal. 
 It is another first principle, clearly laid down in these same chapters, that He 
 "declareth the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things 
 not yet done," xlvi. 10. 
 
 The objection, so far as it implies a truth, yields a direct proof of the 
 genuineness. The starting-point of a prophet, though not his horizon or 
 limit of view, is in the circumstances of his own age. So the starting-point 
 of this book, if all be genuine, is in its first chapters, and these abound in 
 references to Isaiah's time. But these Later Visions, if spurious, have their 
 starting-point in ch. xl., where no single person, place, or circumstance of 
 the Exile is introduced. They would thus float in the air with no historical 
 starting-point whatever. 
 
 2. "Isaiah could not have taken such a bound as to predict a far distant 
 personal Messiah, consistently with the analogy of prophecy. Such leaps 
 into the future are unknown." 
 
 Our Lord said to the Jews — "Abraham your father rejoiced to see my 
 day, and he saw it, and was glad," and, " Had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
 believed me, for he wrote of me." Yet Abraham lived twelve centuries, and 
 Moses seven centuries, before Isaiah. The assertion, then, flatly contradicts 
 Him whose name is the Truth. The exact reverse is i-eally true, that "all 
 the prophets bear witness" of Messiah, Acts x. 43, and that "the testimony 
 of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," Rev. xix. 10. Such predictions were 
 
j:) 
 
 o ISAIAH. 
 
 unknown of old to those whom Isaiah has so well described, xxix. 9 — 11, 13, 
 14, and they have not been without successors in modern times. 
 
 3. "The prophet indicates very clearly his own position, historically and 
 geographically, in ch. lii. 4, 5. Whether these be referred to place, Babylon, 
 or mean 'in the present case,' he alludes to the Chaldean Exile as then 
 present." 
 
 This remark combines four errors. P'irst, the date of these Later Pro- 
 phecies can never be fixed by one text midway in their course, where the 
 Lord himself, not the prophet, is plainly the speaker. Next, this chapter has 
 plainly no fixed standpoint, but a varying horizon. For in the second verse 
 Zion is described as still captive, and in v. 9 has been comforted and 
 redeemed. Thirdly, we have a clear indication that prophetic or ideal, not 
 actual time, is expressed, by the remark which follows: "Therefore they 
 shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak, etc." The time of the 
 fulfilment is there contrasted with that of the prophecy. Lastly, a reference 
 to the Babylonish Exile, except allusively, or as an earnest, seems disproved 
 by the context, which points us to a time when Jerusalem shall be no more 
 defiled by the presence of the unclean. This may apply to the future close 
 of the times of the Gentiles, but was not true of the Return from Babylon. 
 
 4. "It is implied, in various places, that Jerusalem and the cities of 
 Judah are depopulated and decayed, but that they shall be rebuilt, xliv. 26 
 — 28, li. 3, lii. 9, Iviii. 12, Ixii. 4, Ixiv. 10, n, xliv. 28, Iviii. 12, Ixi. 4." 
 
 All these passages imply and require some previous mention of the deso- 
 lation, either in the form of historical statement or direct prophecy. If the 
 chapters are from Isaiah, this condition is amply satisfied by eight or ten 
 clear predictions of this great change, i. 24 — 26, iii. 25, 26, vi. 11, 12, vii. 23 
 — 25, xiv. 3, 4, xvii. 9 — II, xxiv. 12, xxvii. 10, xxxii. 13, 14. But if spurious, 
 or from an unknown writer at the close of the Exile, this essential condition 
 wholly fails to be satisfied. This "Unknown" would rush at once into bright 
 predictions of Israel's Return, before one word was given to throw light on 
 his own circumstances, or to affirm the present state of exile. Thus it comes to 
 pass that one critic of the negative school places him in Palestine, another 
 in Egypt, a third in Babylon; some just after the fall of the temple, others 
 just before the Return. The objection is really fatal to the theory it is 
 brought to confirm. 
 
 5. "The people are described as robbed, spoiled, and imprisoned, whose 
 time of deliverance is nigh, xlii. 22 — 24." 
 
 This text, also, is a strong disproof of the view it is said to confirm. For 
 the appeal is there openly made : — "Who among you will give ear to this ? 
 who will hearken and hear y};;- the time to coir.e?" The message of calamity 
 is thus given to the people beforehand, that, when it is fully arrived, they may 
 lay it to heart. From this it follows, by natural inference, that the prophecy 
 dates before the Exile. 
 
 6. "The writer shows a minute acquaintance with the relations of the 
 oriental world in his day. The Chaldean Empire is depicted in the height 
 of its splendour, but its fall is near. He refers to intestine wars, xlix. 26, 
 Evil-Merodach murdered by Neriglissar, etc. Cyrus is named, and his 
 conquests referred to, and his designs against Egypt, which Cambyses 
 
APPENDIX I. 351 
 
 carried out ; and the Persians rewarded by the gift of Egypt, Ethiopia and 
 Meroe. Such specific details could only proceed from one living near the 
 end of the Exile, when Babylon's fall was at hand." 
 
 This objection consists of five elements. First, that the Spirit of God 
 could not know, and therefore could not reveal, the state of the Eastern 
 world so long beforehand as two centuries. Secondly, that the predictions of 
 Cyrus and his conquests, made here the ground of a solemn appeal to all the 
 heathen on the vanity of their idols in the presence of an All- wise God, who 
 sees the end from the beginning, were profane forgeries after the events, 
 which were foretold in pretence only. Thirdly, that the appeal concerning 
 the oppression of Babylon and its fall, "I have even from the beginning 
 declared it to thee, before it came to pass," means really that a forger 
 described it after all Asia had beheld it. Fourthly, that the threatening, "I 
 will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh," means that Evil-Me- 
 rodach had been murdered fifteen or twenty years before the words were 
 written. Lastly, that xliii. 3, " I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and 
 Seba for thee," describes the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, and still 
 was written by a forger, whose horizon was the Exile, fifteen or twenty years 
 before the expedition occurred ! 
 
 7. "Exhortations to the exiles, encouraging them to return, are an 
 anomaly in one like Isaiah, living in the Assyrian period, when the Exile was 
 unknown, and not predicted by any prophet, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and 
 Nahum. Our prophet takes his stand in the Exile, and does not predict its 
 desolation and misery." 
 
 The Exile could not be unknown to "the LORD God of the holy prophets," 
 who sees the end from the beginning. It had been announced by Moses 
 long before, and in Isaiah's own time by Amos, v. 27, and even Babylon 
 as the scene of exile by Micah, iv. 10. "Our prophet" also has predicted its 
 misery and desolation eight or ten times. Israel, too, were one people, and 
 the exile of Ephraim had already come. For a false Isaiah to urge the 
 exiles to return, without one single hint, date, person, or place, by which we 
 might learn who were the persons addressed, and their actual condition, 
 would be most unnatural. On the other hand, what can be more simple and 
 natural than for a prophet, who has ten times foretold the calamity, in a later 
 and still fuller message to proclaim the deliverance ? 
 
 8. "The writer often appeals to old announcements as in course of 
 fulfilment, xlii. 9, xliii. 9, xli. 22, xlviii. 3." 
 
 Such an objection is startling and prodigious, since these four texts sup- 
 ply one of the plainest disproofs of the sceptical theory. For in xli. 22, 23, 
 25, a coming of Cyrus, still future, is declared to be such a proof of God's 
 foreknowledge, that by means of it all idols and their worshippers will be 
 confounded and brought to shame. In xliii. 9, also, the declaration of former 
 things, namely, the return of Israel's captives, is again made the reason 
 of a public challenge to the nations and their idols, "Who among them can 
 declare, this?" In ch. xlviii. 3 — 8, the clearness of these very predictions is 
 explained by their moral design, to bow the stubborn hearts of the Jews into 
 submission and reverence. "Because I knew that thou art obstinate... I have 
 even from the beginning declared it to thee ; before it came to pass, I shewed 
 
352 ISAIAH. 
 
 it thee." To adduce these very texts as so many proofs that the predictions 
 they contain followed the events, is no common form of scepticism, and 
 seems to call for wonder and sorrow, rather than formal refutation. 
 
 9. "The people seem to be without the external ordinances of worship, 
 for the sacrifices and services of the temple are never referred to. They 
 only keep fast days and sabbaths." 
 
 To such an objection quotation is the best reply. ''But thou hast been 
 weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy 
 burnt offerings,... neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices," 
 xliii. 23, 24 ; "He that killcth an ox is as if he slew a man ; he that sacrificcth 
 a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck ; he that offercth an oblation, as if he 
 offered swine's blood," Ixvi. 3. If all texts alike are to be expounded of 
 actual, not prophetic time, these speak as plainly of an actual temple, and 
 of sacrifices either neglected or perverted, as others do of a temple in ruins. 
 But if once we admit the use of prophetic time, the whole argument vanishes 
 away. 
 
 10. "The writer describes the theocracy of the future in splendid poetry, 
 but without a visible king. But Isaiah always associates a king with the 
 flourishing theocracy, ix. 6, xi. i, xxxii. i." 
 
 This objection implies and requires some entire contrast between these 
 three earlier, and the later predictions of Messiah. But, on the contrary, the 
 allusions to the earlier in the later are clear and full. Thus "the Spirit of 
 the Lord shall rest upon him," xi. 2, has its exact counterpart in the words of 
 xlii. I, "I have put my Spirit upon him," and in the words of Messiah him- 
 self, Ixi. I, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." The next words, 
 "a Branch shall grow up out of his roots," are re-echoed in the description 
 liii. 2, "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and a root out of 
 a dry ground." Also Messiah is described in the later visions, first, as an 
 object of worship to kings and princes, xlix. 7 ; next as God reigning, lii. 7 ; 
 thirdly, as inheriting the strong for his portion, liii. 12 ; fourthly, as the 
 leader and commander, in whom the sure promises to David are fulfilled, Iv. 
 3, 4 ; and lastly, as the Divine Bridegroom and Redeemer of Israel, lix. 20, 
 Ixi. 10, Ixii. 5. The only difference is that the later messages reveal more 
 clearly, not royalty alone, but the sufferings of Christ, and His divine 
 glory. 
 
 11. "Favourite topics of the unknown prophet do not appear in Isaiah, 
 his delineation of the Servant of God and vicarious suffering. Idols are 
 combated with arguments ; and a defence of Jehovah as the only true God is 
 conducted ; and a proof of it founded on His declaring beforehand things 
 future, as a fact which shews the heathen gods to be nothing, because it is 
 beyond their power." 
 
 The first part of this objection is that the Messiah is described under 
 new titles of honour. It assumes that a prophet must go on repeating the 
 same phrases to the end, and may not, without pain of losing his identity, 
 reveal in new forms, or under varied titles, "the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ." 
 
 The next part of it makes an admission fatal to the sceptical 
 theory. It is owned that ch. liii. predicts vicarious sufferings, which can 
 
APPENDIX I. 353 
 
 only be those of Messiah. If so, the whole is inspired prophecy, and reaches 
 onward to a future, which was still distant even in the days of Cyrus. Thus 
 the attempt to find a mark of contrast between Isaiah and the "unknown 
 prophet" defeats itself. For if the writer, whoever he were, could predict the 
 vicarious sufferings of Christ five centuries before they occurred, the whole 
 basis of the sceptical hypothesis is overthrown. 
 
 The last remark is still more adverse to the theory it is intended to 
 sustain. For the argument by which, in these later chapters, idols are 
 denounced and condemned is the clear proof of God's foreknowledge which 
 He has here given, in announcing the fall of Babylon, the conquests of 
 Cyrus, and the return of the Jewish exiles, at a time when these events 
 could not have been foreseen by merely human wisdom. It follows plainly 
 that these messages could not have been written at the close of the Exile, 
 when those facts were patent to the whole world, unless we suppose this 
 "unknown prophet" to have been just as fooHsh, bhnd, and senseless, as 
 the idols he so sternly condemns. 
 
 Is it not strange that a critic of eminence should attempt to prove the 
 spuriousness of these later chapters by features which are consistent, logical, 
 and impressive, if referred to Isaiah himself, but which, when ascribed to 
 some unknown writer or pseudo-prophet at the close of the Exile, become 
 nothing better than one tissue of impudent and ridiculous folly ? 
 
 12. "The tone is tenderer, and more uniformly evangelical than that of 
 Isaiah, and the ideal hopes and pretendings of the theocracy take a higher, 
 wider, and purer range. Political relations enter into them far less than 
 into Isaiah's. The Gentile nations are little regarded ; and their destruction 
 is not dwelt upon with fierce rejoicings over it. Accordingly the heart of the 
 Christian more nearly sympathizes with the poetic strains in which the 
 unknown seer expatiates on the trials and hopes of Zion, and the promises 
 of Divine aid to her, than it does with the subhmest descriptions of Isaiah." 
 These words are an example of the bold manner in which critics who 
 have ceased to be disciples bring the words of God to the bar of their own 
 tastes and careless errors. First, the objection is fatally adverse to the 
 theory it is meant to support. Every prophetic message, by a constant and 
 unvaried law, deals more on bright hopes towards its close. Its Sinai 
 comes before its Olivet. This is doubly natural in the case of Isaiah. His 
 earlier prophecies were uttered in times of deep anxiety, in the midst of 
 political storms, and the ravages of the Assyrian spoiler. But he survived 
 till the brief reprieve of judgment after the fall of Sennacherib, and the days 
 of '' peace and truth," xxxix. 8, when the storm of the terrible had passed 
 away. 
 
 Again, for an Old Testament prophet to begin his message abruptly with 
 simple promises, before a single word of caution, reproof and remonstrance 
 has prepared the way, contradicts every known precedent. It sets aside a 
 truth, which lies deeper than those precedents, and occasions them, a settled 
 law of Divine revelation, expressly taught us by Isaiah himself in his earlier 
 prophecies. The Great Husbandman always convicts of sin before He 
 convinces of righteousness, and plows and harrows the ground with warnings 
 B. I. 23 
 
354 ISAIAH. 
 
 and judgments before He casts in the incorruptible seed of the promises of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 The sceptical theory involves an error like that of a superficial observer, 
 who would infer that a rosebud, being so different both in form and colour, 
 is really a complete and separate plant, and wholly independent of the rough 
 and prickly stem on which it has grown. 
 
 The other remark is untrue, as well as irreverent. For the Gentiles are 
 as prominent in the Later as in the Earlier Prophecies. They arc the 
 subject, first, of solemn reproof and warning, chh. xl., xli., then of repeated 
 ])romises, xlix., lii. 15, Iv. 4, then have solemn judgments denounced against 
 them, lix. ig, Ixiii. I — 6, and then arc addressed in words of rich promise 
 once more, Ixvi. 12, 19. The "fierce rejoicing" in the destruction of the 
 Gentile oppressors, Is. xiv. 3 — 27, is not one whit more severe than the woes 
 pronounced by our Lord on the Pharisees in Mat. xxiii., or than the counter- 
 part in the New Testament denunciation of the Fall of Babylon, Rev. xviii. 
 And there is nothing, even in the Later Prophecies, which has gathered 
 round it deeper Christian sympathy, love and joy, than Is. ix. 6, 7, the 
 keynote of every Christmas celebration, and the promises xxv. 6 — 9, xxvi. 
 I — 4, and the outburst of prophetic gladness which closes the whole series 
 in the thirty-fifth chapter. 
 
 13. "Jeremiah, a much later prophet, suffered ill-treatment and persecu- 
 tion for predicting a captivity, and none believed him. Had these prophe- 
 cies been current in the name of a prophet so celebrated as Isaiah, Jeremiah 
 would doubtless have appealed to them. Such a predecessor he could hardly 
 have overlooked, especially as his defenders appealed to an independent 
 prophecy of Micah's, Mic. iii. 12, Jer. xxvi. 17, 18. The discourses before 
 us therefore did not exist in Jeremiah's day, and are not Isaiah's."' (Uav. 
 Int. III. p. 40.) 
 
 Now it is true that an appeal was made by some of Jeremiah's friends to 
 the prophecy of Micah, and the conduct of Hezekiah and the people of his 
 days, to repel the malice of those who sought to put him to death, in these 
 earnest words— "Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him at all to death? did 
 he not fear the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented him of 
 the evil which he had pronounced against them ? Thus might we procure 
 great evil against our souls." 
 
 From this incident it is inferred that the Later Prophecies were not then 
 in existence, or else an appeal would have been made to them also in defence 
 of Jeremiah. A very strange argument ! For if it has any force, it would 
 prove the nonexistence of the Earlier Prophecies, admitted to be Isaiah's, 
 and not of the Later, whose authenticity is denied. For in Is. iii. 25, 26, 
 vi. 9 — 12, xxvii. 9— II, xxxii. 11 — 14, xxxix..5 — 7, we have repeated predic- 
 tions of the desolation of the land and exile of the people, and in the last a 
 distinct announcement of the deportation to Babylon. On the other hand, 
 the Later Prophecies predict only comfort and delivery to Zion, and judg- 
 ments on Babylon and the Chaldeans. 
 
 No appeal is made, in order to justify Jeremiah's warnings, to warnings 
 of Isaiah, repeated and explicit, of whose existence there is no doubt. And 
 
APPENDIX I. 355 
 
 yet it is argued that the later messages of grace and comfort could not have 
 been in existence, or else an appeal to them would certainly have been made. 
 Such reasoning is worthy of the cause in defence of which it is made. 
 
 The fifty pages of Dr Davidson's Introduction, in which this question is 
 discussed, began with a complaint that "doctrinal prepossessions have had 
 to do with its discussion, and interfered with a calm and impartial examina- 
 tion." Does he then so far deceive himself as to reckon his own argument 
 a model of impartiality.? The one feature apparent in the whole, is a settled 
 plan to assert positively everything that may make a seeming presumption 
 against the genuineness, to depreciate everything which can be urged in 
 its favour. It is the tone of a lawyer who has received a brief to maintain 
 the forgery of these later chapters at any cost, and then attempts to disguise 
 the real drift of his argument by disingenuous evasions of the real issue. 
 
 On whatever side we pursue the inquiry, if only it be thorough and com- 
 plete, the external and internal evidence, each of them full, various and 
 decisive, conspires to prove the genuineness and real Isaian authorship of 
 these later Prophecies. The repeated testimony of the Apostles and of the 
 Lord of glory himself, in the opening of His great mission at Nazareth, 
 ought to settle the question, and dispel every doubt, among all who call 
 themselves His disciples. But it is well to see that the internal evidence 
 keeps pace with the external, and confirms the unity of the whole Book by 
 an amount of proof which becomes clearer, deeper, and fuller, the further 
 the inquiry is pursued. 
 
 The adverse opinion does not rest, as sometimes alleged, on superior 
 accuracy of Hebrew scholarship, but on the concurrence, in a small number 
 of celebrated critics, of great technical knowledge of Hebrew grammar, with 
 an entire lack of the logical instinct, and of all insight into the real harmonies 
 and relations of the work they undertake to dissect. Their skill and learning 
 reach only to the husk and mere exterior of the prophecies, while they seem 
 wholly blind as to the substance of the whole. The result is what has been 
 fitly called "the theory of despair." The Book, in their hands, becomes a mere 
 cento from various writers, all unknown but one, of dates ranging through 
 three centuries, and thrown together without order, method, or unity of any 
 kind. 
 
 VI. Summary of the Negative Theory. 
 
 The view of the work, proposed as a substitute for the constant faith of 
 Jews and Christians from the first, confirmed by the voice of the Apostles 
 and of Christ himself, needs only to be clearly stated, to reveal its utter 
 helplessness and confusion. It nlay be summed up in the following state- 
 ments of its leading English advocate. (Dav. Intr. iii. pp. i — 86.) 
 
 "The parts of the book are not arranged in chronological connexion. 
 How could they, when they proceed from different prophets of different 
 times, and do not shew the hand even of one Editor? Neither have they 
 been grouped on the principle of similarity of contents. In fact, no one 
 principle has guided the arrangement. 
 
 23—2 
 
356 ISAIAH. 
 
 "There are four groups, (i) ch. i. — xii. (2) ch. xiii.— xxiii. (3) ch.xxiv. — xxxix. 
 (4) ch. xl. — Ixvi. But in none of them is the purely chronological arrangement 
 to be found ; nor is any of them arranged solely according to subject." 
 
 " In ch. ii. 2 — 4, either Isaiah borrowed from Micah, or the reverse, or 
 both adopted an older prophecy. If chh. ii.— iv. were written in the reign of 
 Jotham, as we suppose, Isaiah's text must be the older, because Micah pro- 
 phesied later than Jotham. Thus we cannot agree with Vitringa, Lowth, 
 and Umbreit. It is more probable that Isaiah cjuotes Micah, as Michaelis, 
 Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Keil and Henderson suppose." Thus the opinion 
 that Isaiah wrote under Jotham and Micah later, is made the reason for 
 dissenting from those critics who make Micah cjuote from Isaiah, and 
 agreeing with those who make Isaiah c^uote from Micah. " But the view is 
 preferable that both borrowed from some older prophet : Vogel, Hitzig, 
 Ewald, conjecture Joel, which is probable." 
 
 *' Ch. V. belongs to the commencement of the reign of Ahaz. Ch. vi. refers 
 to the inauguration of the prophet, but was not composed at the time, for 
 he could not then know that his addresses would only tend to aggravate the 
 guilt of the people. Hence we must assume an interval of time. The com- 
 position belongs to the early part of the reign of Ahaz. It is too late to 
 place it, with Hitzig, in the invasion of Sennacherib, or with Ewald, at the 
 accession of Hezckiah." 
 
 " Ch. vii. plainly belongs to the time of Ahaz, about 742, hardly later. 
 Ch. viii. — ix. 6 is perhaps a year or two later, as Bleek supposes, about 
 B.C. 741. Ch. ix. 7 — x. 4 is after Tiglath-pileser had annexed part of Israel, 
 about 739. Ch. X. 5 — xii. 6 is after Samaria had been conquered by Shal- 
 maneser and when Judah was subject to Assyria, that is, in the reign of 
 Hezekiah. Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Maurer, &c. think it written soon after 
 the fall of Samaria, perhaps in 722. This is preferable to the hypothesis of 
 Lowth, Koppe, and Ewald, who date it at Sennacherib's invasion, 714. But 
 the eleventh chapter is entirely Messianic." That is, the dates of the 
 others are to be settled by placing them after the events they respectively 
 announce, while this relates wholly to events seven centuries after it was 
 written ! '* The legs of the lame are not equal." 
 
 Ch. xiii. — xiv. 23 "did not proceed from Isaiah, but from a prophet 
 living at the close of the Exile. Maurer and Ewald think the author 
 identical with the writer of ch. xxi. i — 10, which is probable. Hitzig opposes 
 that view. We may put the composition about B. c. 556. The authenticity 
 of xiv. 24 — 27 is unquestionable. These are the fragment of a longer pro- 
 phecy, from which they were separated by the insertion of xiii. — xiv. 23. 
 They belong to x. 5 — xii. 6, to which they are an appendix and conclusion." 
 
 Ch. xiv. 28 — 32. "This is a prophecy against the Philistines. The title 
 is not authentic, but proceeded from a compiler. The Philistines did not 
 exult in their freedom in the last year of Ahaz, but early in his reign. It is 
 best to refer the prophecy, with Knobel, to the invasion of the confederate 
 kings, about 740." 
 
 Chh. XV., xvi. "It is commonly admitted that this oracle is older than 
 Isaiah. It proceeded from a former prophet, and Isaiah appended the 
 
APPENDIX I. 357 
 
 epilogue, xvi. 13, 14. The reason why it is so assigned is a perceptible 
 difference of manner, style, and diction." But in fact the real reason is a 
 thorough misunderstanding of the last verses. *' What is the hostile power 
 the prophet does not mention. It may have been the Assyrians. Perhaps 
 it is better to assume Jeroboam II. It is difficult to tell when Isaiah re- 
 peated it. He had the Assyrians in view. Hitzig and Credner suppose he 
 repeated it in the time of Sargon, B.C. 717. Knobel dates it 745? 744, and 
 that it was not fulfilled." 
 
 "Ch. xvii. I— II belongs to the reign of Ahaz, perhaps before the con- 
 federates invaded Judah rather than during the invasion, or B.C. 742. 
 Ch. xvii. 12— xviii. belongs to the reign of Hezekiah, about 715." That is, a 
 break of seventeen years is interposed in a continuous prophecy, that each 
 part may come after the event to which it is guessed to refer. But the end 
 is not secured, for " this prediction (ch. xviii.) was not fulfilled." 
 
 " Ch. xix. is a prophecy respecting Egypt. Doubts of Isaiah's having 
 written some verses have been expressed, but there is no good foundation 
 for them. The anticipations are indefinite, but pervaded by an expansive 
 charity towards Gentile enemies, which is rare and un-Jewish. The con- 
 version of the Egyptians is predicted, but such statements are ideal. Ch. xx. 
 is of the same date with the last, but a little later, about 714." 
 
 Ch. xxi. I — 10. " This was written by an unknown author, living towards 
 the close of the Babylonian exile. It does not belong to Isaiah himself. By 
 this interpretation prophetic foresight is not denied, because the oracle was 
 delivered before the event took place. The author is probably the same as 
 in xiii. i— xiv. 23, and the piece a httle later, about 538." The passage is 
 torn from its context, held to be spurious, and referred to some unknown 
 writer two hundred years after Isaiah, on the ground that a prophet of God 
 may predict an event truly two years beforehand, but not two whole centuries. 
 " There is nothing," Dr Alexander says, " in the reasonings of such writers 
 to shake the faith of any who do not hold their fundamental principle of 
 unbelief." But for this very natural and self-evident remark, he receives a 
 terrible rebuke. " Dogmatism, ignorance, and uncharitableness usually go 
 hand in hand, and compensate for the absence of argument by railing." 
 
 Ch. xxi. IT, 12. " If the Assyrian expedition of Tiglath-pileser be the 
 dreaded thing, the prophecy belongs to the reign of Jotham, 745, but this 
 date cannot be relied on. Ch. xxi. 11—15 conveys the impression that it 
 belongs to an older poet than Isaiah. The latter seems to append his own 
 words in vv. 16, 17." 
 
 Ch. xxii. "The former part belongs to the invasion of Sennacherib. The 
 Assyrians did not take the city. Shebna and the nobles were not carried 
 away. The prophet merely uttered what he expected to happen. The 
 principles of historical interpretation must not be violated to uphold the 
 exact fulfilment of every prophetic anticipation." 
 
 Ch. xxiii. "The authenticity of this prophecy has been questioned. 
 Ewald ascribes it to a younger disciple of Isaiah. The style is weak and 
 tiresome. It wants force. The inferiority of the composition is evident. 
 
358 ISAIAH. 
 
 Isaiah was master of a style elevated and majestic. Here it is lame, 
 and the ideas are loosely connected. The unknown writer was well 
 acquainted with Isaiah's prophecies. Hence he has much resemblance to 
 him in ideas and words, but he failed in an equal command of style. The 
 sentiment in v. i8 is mean and unworthy of Isaiah. The inferiority is too 
 marked to be attributed to a less happy mood... A Chaldean power could not 
 be spoken of till 625, as Hitzig rightly remarks, and prophetic inspiration does 
 not comport with prediction of the distant future ! " Yet Gesenius, Knobcl, 
 and Hcndewcrk maintain that Isaiah himself was the writer. Thus even 
 neological critics are divided, and many think it less difficult to explain 
 away the signs that the prophecy predicts events two centuries later, than to 
 resist the external and internal proofs that Isaiah is the author. 
 
 " The integrity too has been doubted. Eichhorn and Ewald look on 
 vv. 15 — 18 as a late appendix of the Persian period. The choice lies between 
 the two invasions of Phoenicia by Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar. We 
 refer it to the siege by the latter, because it bears the marks of a later writer 
 than Isaiah, and also mentions the Chaldeans as the besiegers. The un- 
 known prophet e.xults over the downfall of Tyre in a spirit hardly consonant 
 with Isaiah's. Movers and Block have endeavoured to shew that the writer 
 was Jeremiah. Of course their arguments are only presumptions, and the 
 latter afterwards modified his view, making it much more improbable." 
 
 Chh. xxiv, — xxvii. " The notices here point to the commencement of the 
 Babylonian conc|uest, before the enemy had left Juda:a, about 588. We are 
 thus brought to the conclusion that the prophet lived at the opening of the 
 Captivity. It was not written by Isaiah, because the historical standpoint is 
 in that Captivity. The diction is tolerably free from Aramasisms, because the 
 prophet was so familiar with earlier writers, especially Isaiah, as to have 
 imbibed much of their spirit. Yet there is a stiff and awkward air about it. 
 He is inferior in vigour, majesty, beauty, conciseness and originality." 
 
 Ch. xxviii. "The prophecy belongs to Hezekiah's reign, and may be 
 dated perhaps in 724. In ch. xxix., the siege by Sennacherib is the event 
 referred to. The time is the same, about 715. So also chh. xxx. — xxxii. must 
 be placed about 715. Ch. xxxiii. is perhaps somewhat later, in 714." 
 
 Chh. xxxiv., XXXV. " It is commonly admitted that this prophecy is not by 
 Isaiah, but is of later date. Internal evidence shews this. The spirit of 
 hatred to the heathen generally argues a later period. The extravagant 
 declarations both of punishment and redemption are not in the manner of 
 Isaiah and the older prophets. They are forced and unnatural. The hopes 
 in XXXV. 6 — 8 are a specimen of the extravagant in promising. We rely on 
 the spirit and tone throughout as proof of their later origin. They do not 
 bear the stamp of Isaiah." 
 
 Chh. xx.xvi. — xxxix. "These are an historical appendix to the discourses 
 of Isaiah. They were not composed as they arc by Isaiah himself" 
 
 Chh. xl. — Ixvi. Isaiah "could not have had that enlightened image of 
 the servant of God, the true Israel, which occupied the chief place in the 
 inner vision of the Dcutcro-Isaiuh and floated before his eye in life-like form 
 
APPENDIX I. 359 
 
 almost as a person. But a fundamental peculiarity in the mind and style of 
 every gifted writer, underlying all his modes of thought, is still perceptible. 
 Hence we disbelieve the Isaian authorship of xl. — Ixvi. No unusual combi- 
 nation of qualities in one person can persuade us that the entire Book of 
 Isaiah as it now exists proceeded from one and the same prophet." St John, 
 it seems, had a view directly opposite, and links it with a saying of the 
 prophet which has some deeper bearing on the question before us. " But 
 though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on 
 him. That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he 
 spake (Later Proph. ch. liii. i), Lord, who hath believed our report, and to 
 whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed.'' Therefore they could not 
 believe, because that Esaias said again (Earl. Proph. ch. vi.), He hath blinded 
 their eyes and hardened their heart ; that they should not see with their eyes, 
 nor understand with their heart. These things said Esaias, when he saw 
 his glory, and spake of him." 
 
 The denial of Isaiah's authorship, it is clear from the above extracts, is 
 not at all confined to the Later Prophecies, xl. — Ixvi. It includes further all 
 these passages, ch. ii. i — 4, (xii. 1—6, Ewald), xiii., xiv. i — 23, xv., xvi., xxi. 
 I — 10, II — 15, xxiii., xxiv. — xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., xxxvi. — xxxix., that is, eigh- 
 teen chapters or parts of chapters out of thirty-nine. Thus out of sixty-six 
 chapters, there are only twenty-two, or just one-third, of which the entire 
 authorship is conceded to Isaiah. Two-thirds are held to be spurious, and 
 falsely ascribed to him. Out of 1 304 verses, those of which the genuineness is 
 allowed are only 524, or exactly two parts in five. The rest are assigned to 
 four or five pseudo-Isaiahs, whose names, character, and residence are 
 wholly unknown. 
 
 It is needless to waste words on the comparisons in these criticisms 
 between the style of the true Isaiah, and the alleged defects of his various 
 counterfeits. To those who are convinced, both on external and internal 
 grounds, that all are his alike, they are wearisome and trifling. To those 
 who believe that they are all messages of truth and wisdom from the living 
 God to sinful men, it is hard to say whether the eulogies or the censures with 
 which they alternate are the more repulsive and painful. But there is one 
 remark forcibly suggested by the whole drift and character of that negative 
 criticism, of which a brief view has just been given. Starting from the principle 
 that real prophetic foresight is impossible, or has never been vouchsafed at 
 all, unless shrewd guesses at what is likely to happen within a year or two 
 is to be dignified with that name, the whole Book of Isaiah becomes a riddle, 
 incapable of any key, and baffles all the efforts of mere learning, however 
 great, to account for the phenomena. The parts have to be shifted up and 
 down, to meet the exigencies of a false theory, till confusion becomes worse 
 confounded, and every fresh critic, working on this unbelieving assumption, 
 makes a fresh guess, and introduces some new complication. The conclusion 
 finally reached is that the book is "an aggregate of unauthentic pieces accumu- 
 lating by degrees to its present extent. That he spent the eve of his life in 
 committing them to writing or arranging them after they were written, is 
 highly improbable, else he would not have left them without any observable 
 
36o ISAIAH. 
 
 plan. No organic unity can be pointed out in them. No principle of arrange- 
 ment appears." Surely we have here one illustration of the prophet's own 
 words, in describing the unhappy state of those who have light, and will not 
 use it. "We grope for the wall like the blind, and grope as if we had 
 no eyes ; we stumble at noon-day as in the night." The real structure is 
 beautifully simple, and the harmony of method and outline complete. The 
 chapters of history which separate the two portions, distinguish them, as the 
 New Testament is distinguished from the Old, but only so as to reveal more 
 plainly, to thoughtful minds, the deep unity of the whole message. As the 
 Law prepares for the Gospel, the Burdens and Woes prepare the way for rich 
 comfort and abundant promise. All the tones of threatening converge, in 
 the first part, on the Assyrian desolation and defiance, chh. xxxvi., xxxvii., and 
 all the messages of hope and promise diverge from ch. xxxix. and its warning 
 of the Captivity in Babylon. The solemn voice at the opening, "Hear, O 
 heaven, and give ear, O earth ! I have nourished and brought up children, 
 and they have rebelled against me," finds its gracious reversal in the later 
 voice of mercy " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." 
 
 Thus the whole Book is a miniature Bible, w^here the Law is unfolded in 
 the Earlier, and the Gospel largely and brightly anticipated in the Later 
 Prophecies, while the grand crisis of Zion's travail and deliverance lies be- 
 tween them, and unites them into one complete message of mingled warning, 
 hope, and Divine consolation. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 STRUCTURE OF THE LATER PROPHETS. 
 
 The Later Prophecies, Is. xl. — Ixvi., have no marks of internal separation 
 so distinct as those which are found in the earlier part of the book, and ap- 
 proach more nearly to the character of a long, continuous discourse. Hence 
 various opinions have been held as to their internal connexion, their proper 
 division and subdivision, and the breaks where there is a partial recommence- 
 ment — questions on which the true interpretation must partly depend. 
 
 The IMasoretic division is into eleven sections : 
 
 §7. Ch. Hi. 7 — Iv. 12. 
 J^S. Ch. Iv. 13— Ivii. 13. 
 §9. Ch. Ivii. 14 — Ixi. 
 § 10. Ch. Ixii. — Ixv. 8. 
 § II. Ch. Ixv. 9 ad Jilt. 
 
 §1- 
 
 Ch. xl.— xli. 26. 
 
 §-• 
 
 Ch. xli. 27 — xliv. 5. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Ch. xliv. 6— xlv. 16. 
 
 §4. 
 
 Ch. xlv. 17 — xlviii. i. 
 
 §5- 
 
 Ch. xlviii. 2 — xlix. 
 
 §6. 
 
 Ch. l.-lii. 6, 
 
APPENDIX II. 361 
 
 Vitringa divides the Earlier Prophecies into three main parts, ending with 
 ch. xii. and ch. xxiii., and sixteen smaller sections. But the Later into two 
 parts and nine subdivisions, as follows : 
 
 I, chh. xl., xli. ; 2, chh. xlii., xliii. ; 3, chh. xliv. — xlvii. ; 4, ch. xlviii. ; 5, ch. 
 xlix. ; 6, chh. 1., li. ; 7, chh. Hi. — Ix. ; 8, chh. Ixi., Ixii. ; 9, chh. Ixiii.— Ixvi. 
 
 This division, in which one section has nine chapters and two others one 
 only, while a break is made at the close of chh. xliii., li., Ixii., and none at the 
 close of chh. xl., xlv., xlvi.,lv., Ixv., is a very slight improvement on the Maso- 
 retic, and has none of the signs of a natural and true division. 
 
 The arrangement of Riickert ("Translation of the Hebrew Prophets," 
 1 831) has been accepted by many critics in the last forty years. It recog- 
 nizes two main breaks at the end of chh. xlviii., Ivii., where the same sentence 
 of warning recurs, and subdivides each of the three portions into three times 
 three sections, agreeing, except in chh. xlii., xliii., xliv., lii., Ivi., Ixiii., with the 
 division of the chapters. The scheme is generally adopted by Havernick, 
 Hahn, Delitzsch and many others. The last observes that " it is only in 
 the middle of the first part that the division is at all doubtful ; in the two 
 others it is hardly possible to err. The three parts are marked off by the 
 prophet himself, chh. xlviii. 22, Ivii. 21, but are only variations of one common 
 theme. It is equally certain that each part consists of three times three 
 addresses." 
 
 The endings which he substitutes for those of the above chapters are 
 xliii. 13, xliv. 5, xhv. 23, lii. 12, Ivi. 8, and Ixiii. 6. Hahn adopts in substance 
 thesame arrangement of three sections, chh. xl. — xlviii., xlix. — Ivii., Iviii. — Ixvi., 
 with nine sections in each. But he regards ch. xl. I — 11 as a common 
 preface to the whole, and in the rest adheres to the division of the chapters 
 as it stands, except that he transfers Ivi. 10 — 12 to the next chapter. 
 
 The adoption of Riickert's scheme, however, has not been so general as 
 Delitzsch assumes. Of English and American expositors, Henderson and 
 Alexander are the most prominent. The former does not even allude to it. 
 The latter calls it merely an aesthetic decoration and an aid to the memory, 
 but of no exegetical importance, since he looks on the whole almost as a 
 continuous discourse. Hendewerk, again, divides the whole into two parallel 
 series, of which the first closes with ch. xlv. Ewald and Knobel agree, 
 indeed, in making a threefold division, of which the first closes with ch. xlviii. 
 But Knobel ends the second at ch. Ixii., and Ewald, with better reason, at 
 ch. Ix., while at ch. Ivii. he admits only a secondary pause. 
 
 Stier, in his elaborate commentary on these Later Prophecies, agrees 
 with Vitringa and Hendewerk in dividing them into two main portions, and 
 with the former in placing the chief break after ch. xlviii. But the later part 
 he subdivides at chh. Iv. Ix., and not at ch. Ivii., where he places only a lower 
 subdivision. His scheme is as follows, ch. xl. being taken as a general preface. 
 
 I. Chh. xli.— xlviii. A. xli. i.— xliv. 5. B. xliv. 6—45. C. xlvi.— xlviii. 
 
 A. I, Ch. xli. 1—20; 2, ch. xh. 21 — 42; 3, ch. xhii. i— xliv. 5. 
 
 B. I, Ch. xliv. 6—25 ; 2, ch. xliv. 26 — 45. 
 
 C. I, Ch. xlvi. ; 2, ch. xlvii. ; 3, ch. xlviii. 
 
302 ISAIAH. 
 
 II. Clih. xlix. — Ixvi. 
 
 A. Chh. xlix.— Iv. I, ch. xlix. ; 2 (i), ch. 1. ; 2 (2), ch. li. ; 2 (3), 
 
 ch. lii. I— 12 ; 3 (i), lii. 13—53 ; 3 (2), ch. liv. ; 3 (3), ch. Iv. 
 
 B. Chh. Ivi.— Ix. I (1), ch. Ivi. ; i (2), ch. Ivii. ; 2 (1), ch. Iviii. ; 
 
 2 (2), ch. lix. ; 2 (3), ch. Ix. 
 
 C. Chh. Ixi. — Ixvi. i (i), ch. Ixi. ; i (2), ch. Ixii. ; i (3), ch. Ixiii. 
 
 1—6 ; 2 (i), ch. Ixiii. 7 — 19; 2 (2), ch. Ixiv. ; 2 (3), ch. Ixv. ; 
 3, ch. Ixvi. 
 
 This rather complex scheme, by joining A and B together as one main 
 integral portion of the prophecy, will agree with Ewald's threefold division. 
 And that of Vitringa, so diverse in its details, agrees also in the main point 
 of making the second main division, after ch. xlviii., at ch. Ix., where he ends 
 his second and longest section. The way is now ready for a comparison and 
 discussion of the various schemes. 
 
 I. That one main break in these visions is at the close of ch. xlviii. is 
 nearly self-evident, and in this almost all agree. The last portion, being of 
 nearly twice the length, eighteen chapters instead of nine, seems to require 
 distinction into two parts, making a threefold partition of the whole. Ought 
 this to be after ch. Ivii., with Riickert, Havcrnick, Hahn and Delitzsch, 
 or with Vitringa, Stier, and Ewald, to be placed three chapters later, at the 
 close of ch. Ix. ? 
 
 The chief grounds for the earlier place are the equal number of chapters 
 on each side, and the recurrence of the same words in ch. xlviii. 22, and 
 ch. Ivii. 21. But this last is a veiy insufficient proof that the main division is 
 there, for a plain reason. The text, ch. xxxv. 10, is the close of all the Earlier 
 Prophecies, and its recurrence might have seemed, then, to form a landmark, 
 by which to fix some main division. But it really recurs ch. li. 11, where no 
 critic pretends to place a main division. It does not even mark the close of 
 a chapter, or one of Riickert's nine sections, but comes in the midst of one 
 continuous message. Hence the recurrence of ch. xlviii. 22, which ends the 
 first main cycle of the Later Visions, at ch. Ivii. 21, can be no proof that this 
 is the end of a second main cycle. In fact, the analogy would point to the 
 opposite view. It comes plainly at the close of a section. But the analogy 
 of ch. li. 1 1 would lead us rather to infer that this is not a final but a medial 
 section, and that the words recur in the course of the second cycle, to bind it 
 more closely to the one which it follows. 
 
 The context strongly confirms this view. After ch. Ix. there arc plain 
 marks of a close and a recommencement. There are all the features of a 
 sublime peroration. On the other hand, ch. Ixi. is singled out by our Lord 
 himself as the beginning of a distinct and complete prophecy, and was 
 read in the synagogue of Nazareth, to mark the opening of His great 
 commission. 
 
 At ch. Ivii. these marks of contrast are wholly absent. One chapter 
 before, and two that follow, have a striking unity of subject and style 
 and continue the same series of rebukes and admonitions to the Jewish 
 people for their national sins. The words, "Cry aloud, spare not, &c." 
 
APPENDIX II. 363 
 
 intensify the previous rebuke, and are not at all like the opening of a wholly 
 distinct series of visions. Thus chh. Ivii., Iviii. cohere very closely, while 
 chh. Ix., Ixi. are plainly very different in their whole style. 
 
 I. The First Series. Chh. xl.— xlviii. 
 
 Here the first question is the exact relation of ch. xl. to the rest of 
 the prophecy. Stier separates it from all that follows, as a common preface 
 to the whole series. Hahn ascribes this character to vv. i — 11 alone, leaving 
 the rest to form an opening section. The same is the view of Mr Relton, in 
 an unpublished analysis of the Later Visions, which agrees in many important 
 particulars with my own. But this partition of eleven verses from all the rest, 
 in my opinion, is clearly wrong. The twelfth verse does not begin a fresh 
 prophecy, to which vv. i — 11 are a preface, but continues the same message 
 with no sensible pause. The contrast between the gentleness of the Lord 
 God, the Shepherd of Israel, who gathers the lambs in His arm, and His 
 Divine and unspeakable majesty, is simple and most sublime, and would only 
 be obscured by this causeless separation, of which there is no internal sign 
 whatever. On the contrary, the two last verses are linked most intimately 
 with those words of comfort, which begin the chapter, and form the keynote 
 of the whole. 
 
 The chapter, then, is one complete and continuous message. Nor is it 
 natural to join it, as Vitringa has done, with ch. xli. in the same section. The 
 words, "Keep silence before me, O islands," plainly begin a new and distinct 
 address to all the isles of the heathen, and stand in distinct contrast to that 
 voice of encouragement to the weary-hearted in Israel, which begins and 
 closes the opening section, and forms its most characteristic feature. 
 
 This chapter, again, is an integral section of the first later series, 
 chh. xl. — xlviii., rather than a common preface, as Stier makes it, to all the 
 Later Prophecies, chh. xl. — Ixvi. Its denunciation of idolatry, vv. 18 — 25, 
 introduces all those repeated messages in condemnation of heathen idolatry, 
 ch. xli. 4 — 7, 21 — 29, xlii. 17, xliv. 6 — 21, xlv. 16 — 20, xlvi. 5 — 10, xlviii. 5, 
 which form one main distinction of this first series, and hardly appear, or 
 much more sparingly, in the two others. Hence, though the chapter may be 
 viewed as a preface to all that follows, and its first two verses seem to indicate 
 the characteristics of the three divisions, it has relations of special intimacy 
 to the first of the three, to which it directly and properly belongs. 
 
 The last three chapters, xlvi., xlvii., xlviii., form a trilogy of threatening and 
 stern rebuke, mingled with promises of grace. Their distinct objects are 
 the heathen idols, the city of Babylon, and the sinful and rebellious people of 
 Israel. Each chapter is clearly a distinct whole, and the natural division 
 hardly admits of doubt. 
 
 The proper partition in chh. xli. — xlv. is less evident. Hahn makes it fivefold, 
 in strict agreement with the chapters. Delitzsch also makes it fivefold, but 
 the close of only two of the five agrees with the division of the chapters. His 
 portions are (i) ch. xli., (2) ch. xlii. i — xliii. 13, (3) ch. xliii. 14— xliv. 5, 
 (4) ch. xliv. 6—23, (5) ch. xliv. 24 — xlv, 25. Thus he attaches thirteen verses of 
 
364 ISAIAH. 
 
 ch. xliii. to ch. xlii., five verses of ch. xliv. to ch. xliii., and the last five to 
 ch. xlv. Slier makes a main division at ch. xhv. 5, and a fivefold subdivision, 
 but transfers nine verses of ch. xh. to ch. xhi., and three only of ch. xliv. 
 to ch. xlv. 
 
 The division at ch. xliv. 5, by Sticr, Dclitzsch and the Masora, is 
 certainly more correct than that of Hahn at the close of ch. xliii. For the 
 five verses, which begin ch. xliv., ^\•ith their promise of the Spirit to revive 
 Israel from spiritual barrenness, drought, and desolation, are the natural 
 sequel to the stern rebukes of their unspiritual worship, uttered just before. 
 And the sixth verse, in its very form, marks the opening of a new subject, 
 and is a stronger denunciation than before of the utter folly of the heathen in 
 their idol worship. Three other later sections, chh. 1., Ivi., Ixvi., and the 
 subsection, ch. xlv. 14, begin with the same heading, — "Thus saith the 
 Lord." 
 
 The other main division of these chapters here proposed, at ch. xlii. 16, 17, 
 is not recognised at all by these writers ; and this, I conceive, is a common 
 defect in their three schemes. Mr Relton, in his analysis, gives its proper 
 prominence to this division. 
 
 The previous message, to the isles of the Gentiles, goes back to the 
 days of Abraham and the first generations of mankind, and then moves 
 steadily onward, through the days of Cyrus, and the coming of Christ in 
 great humility, to the last times of Messiah's judgment. In ch. xlii. 16 it 
 reaches a full, impressive, and striking close, and a promise of effectual 
 guidance and comfort to the people of God. But the part which follows is an 
 address to Israel, as that which precedes is, almost in its whole course, to 
 the Gentiles. The words of ch. xlii. 17 are a calm, solemn aphorism of 
 eternal truth, and form a natural preface to a second message of rebuke and 
 controversy to the Jews, as before to the Gentiles, on account of their spiritual 
 blindness and perversity. This controversy finds its fitting close ch. xliv. 5, 
 in a gracious promise of their renewal by the Spirit of God. 
 
 As the promise of Zion's glory in the latter days, ch. ii. i — 5, is a preface 
 to the warnings of Isaiah's earliest visions, so the brief description of the 
 grace and forbearance of Messiah, the promised Immanuel, ch. xlii. iS— 21, 
 prepares for the sad contrast in the sin, folly and spiritual blindness of the 
 people of Israel. 
 
 Again, in the section ch. xli. — xlii. 16 there is a pause at xli. 20, where 
 Stier closes his first section, but the break at v. 29, where Hahn and Delitzsch 
 place it, at the close of the chapter, is more complete. We have first a review 
 of the growth of heathen idolatry, from Abraham onward, vv. i — 7 ; next, a 
 promise of blessing to despised Israel, vv. 8 — 20, and then, returning to the 
 heathen, a prediction of Cyrus and his conquests, in order to prove the 
 worthlcssness of their idols, which can neither foresee coming events, nor 
 protect their own worshippers. The attention is then turned to a higher 
 subject, the character and work of Messiah. The description, under new 
 titles, the Servant of Jehovah, the Elect or Chosen and Beloved, is plainly of 
 the same who has been announced in the Earlier Visions as the Branch of 
 the Lord, Immanuel, the Rod from the stem of Jesse ; and the new events of 
 
APPENDIX II. 365 
 
 His days are set in contrast with all that comes before them. Hence the true 
 break, in a fivefold division, is at ch. xlii. i, and not ch. xli. 21 ; though even 
 the former is only one marked pause and change in the same controversy of 
 (iod with the heathen, which closes with the events announced, ch. xlii. 13 — 16, 
 in the last days. 
 
 Again, in the middle section, ch. xlii. 17 — xliv. 5, the pauses at xlii. 25 
 (Stier, Hahn), at xliii. 13 (Delitzsch), and at xliii. 28 (Hahn), are quite secon- 
 dary in their character. The words " But now," xliii. i, mark plainly the 
 continuance of one and the same protest against the blindness of Israel, and 
 cannot be the opening of a new section. At verse 14 the solemn opening, 
 " Thus saith the LORD," seems to have a much stronger claim to be held 
 a recommencement of the prophet's message. But the pronouns "your 
 Redeemer" and " for your sake " refer directly to the previous verses, and 
 continue their appeal, while the very same form recurs immediately, v. 16. 
 In like manner, the words, "Yet hear now, O Jacob, my servant," mark and 
 indicate a direct continuance of the previous message. 
 
 In the subdivision of the third section, ch. xli\. 6 — xlv. 25, the fourth of 
 the series, there is clearly no break where Stier places one, at xliv. 26, and 
 it is slightly more natural at the direct address to Cyrus by name, where the 
 parting of the chapters is made, than where Delitzsch places one, ch. xliv. 24, 
 though the verses which follow seem like a bridge, connecting the two parts 
 of the whole section, and binding it into one. The marks of distinction in 
 the three other chapters, forming a second triplet or trilogy, are clear and 
 plain. 
 
 On the whole, I conclude that a sevenfold is more natural than a ninefold 
 division of these nine chapters. The distinction of the first and the three 
 last is plain. But chh. xli. — xlv. admit more naturally of a threefold than a 
 fivefold division. There is a double close after ch. xlii. 16 and ch. xliv. 5, of 
 which the first sets before us the last judgments on the adversaries of God's 
 people in the last days, and their safety in the protecting care of God at the 
 end of all their long-lasting sorrows ; while the other predicts the great out- 
 pouring of the Holy Spirit in the same great period, the times of restitution 
 of all things. The diversity in the others will be seen by placing them under 
 each other, as follows : 
 
 I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 
 
 Hahn xli. xlii. xliii. xliv. xlv. 
 
 Stier xli. i — 20. xli. 21 — 29, xlii. xliii., xliv. i — 5. xliv. 6 — 25. xliv. 26 — xlv. 
 
 Delitzsch... xli. xlii., xliii. i — 13. xliii. 14 — xliv. 5. xliv. 6 — 23. xliv. 24 — xlv. 
 
 On the other hand, both xlii. 16 and xliv. 5 shew, I think, clear marks of 
 a pause and change of subject. 
 
 II. Second Series. Chh. xlviii. — lx. 
 
 This Second Series of the Later Prophecies, or Sixth of the whole book, 
 begins in ch. xlix. with an address of Messiah to the Gentiles, which unfolds 
 presently into a full and impressive promise to Zion. Its beginning and 
 
366 ISAIAH. 
 
 close arc distinctly marked, and hence most critics recognize in it a distinct 
 section of the prophecy. 
 
 Jerome, however, Vitringa, and Rosenmiillcr would transfer to it three 
 verses from the next chapter. But this arises simply from their failing to 
 perceive the real connexion of these verses with those that follow, and the 
 vision of which they form the opening. That connexion is very simple. 
 The Divine Speaker, who is the Word of God, first repels the false notion 
 that God would divorce His people without cause. He then describes His 
 own future service of love, in which the parts are reversed, and He himself 
 would be rejected without a cause by His own people. 
 
 The division in the next chapters is less plain. Yet ch. li. plainly con- 
 tinues the appeal to Israel in ch. 1., with promises to the faithful Israelites, 
 and those in ch. lii. are succeeded by a glowing promise to Zion of her full 
 and joyful deliverance. This whole message finds its climax in the promise 
 of ch. lii. lo, "And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of the 
 Lord." 
 
 The verses lii. ii, 12 are usually joined to this section as if forming its 
 close. But surely v. 10 fulfils that character in a still more impressive way, 
 and it seems quoted in that character, as the winding up and sum of a 
 prophetic message, in the opening of St Luke's Gospel. 
 
 Now vv. II, 12 are referred most naturally to the restoration of the vessels 
 of the temple by the Jewish exiles on their return from Babylon, of which 
 we read in Ezra i. 7 — 11, ii. 69, viii. 24 — 31. This predicted revival of the 
 temple-service out of its ruins was the needful preparation for the appearance 
 of Messiah, when He should come suddenly to His temple, as announced by 
 Malachi. Thus two chapters and ten verses of a third form one section with 
 seven subsections, of which three are headed by the address "Hearken," and 
 three by the repeated call, " Awake, awake ! " These reach onward from the 
 rejection of Messiah at His first coming to the engrafting of the broken 
 olive branches, and the glory of restored Israel, when the desolation is ended, 
 and the times of restitution have come. 
 
 The next Section, ch. lii. 11 — Iv., the third in this Second Series, has the 
 days of Messiah, His work and person, for its more special object. It 
 answers to the second clause in the opening words of the Later Visions, and 
 announces comfort to Zion because her iniquity is pardoned. It resolves 
 itself into three minor portions, of which the subjects arc the sufferings of 
 Christ, tli.c glories that should follow, ch. liv. and the promises and invitations 
 of the Gospel, ch. Iv. It begins with a prediction of the restoration of the 
 temple after the Captivity, and then passes on to a clear prophecy of the Birth, 
 Life, and Death of the promised Immanucl, in whom the voice to Zion "that 
 her iniquity is pardoned" should be gloriously and abundantly fulfilled. 
 
 In the five next chapters, Ivi. — Ix., there is a remarkable change of 
 tone, and in the greater part a severe and mournful character of reproof and 
 warning prevails once more. The commencement of a new message with 
 ch. Ivi., and a partial close after chh. Ivii., Iviii., lix., and one still more com- 
 plete after ch. Ix., are all plain. But those who part chh. xlix. — Ivii. into nine 
 sections, to carry out Riickert's main idea, vary in their division of chh. Ivi. 
 
APPENDIX IT. 367 
 
 Ivii. Vitringa groups the nine chapters, hi.— Ix., into one section. Hahn, 
 Dclitzsch, and Sticr part ch. Ivi. from ch. Ivii. in three different ways, that is, 
 at the eighth, ninth, or twelfth verses. But these two chapters seem really 
 to form only one section. The command and promise, vv. i — 7, introduce 
 a warning of outward enemies and inward corruptions, which continues 
 without serious break, and almost without a pause, till the weighty 
 sentence of ch. xlviii. 21, 22 is repeated once more. In Ivi. 8 the promise 
 begins to pass into warning. The close connexion of vv. 9, 10 is clear, and 
 hardly less plain is the transition from v. 12 to Ivii. i, since abounding 
 sensuality and profaneness are sure pledges of " evil to come." 
 
 The Second Series, then, like the First, falls naturally into a sevenfold 
 division, which is also threefold, being composed in each case of a separate 
 section, and of two trilogies or triplets more closely related to each other. 
 They are as below : 
 
 First Series or Cvcee. Chh. xl. — xlviii. 
 
 1. Preface. i. Comfort to Zion. Ch. xl. 
 
 I 2. Controversy with Heathen. Ch. xli. — xlii. 16. 
 
 2. First Trilogy. < 3. Controversy with Israel. Ch. xlii. 17 — xliv. 5. 
 
 ( 4. Cyrus and Immanuel. Ch. xliv. 6 — xlv. 
 t 5. Woe on Idols. Ch. xlvi. 
 
 3. .Second Trilogy. -| 6. Sentence on Babylon. Ch. xlvii. 
 
 (7: 
 
 Rebuke and warning to Israel. Ch. xlviii. 
 
 Second Series or Cycle. Chh. xlix. — lx. 
 
 ii. Messiah's Voice to the Heathen. Ch. xlix. 
 
 2. Messiah's Voice to Israel. Ch. 1. — lii. 10. 
 
 3. Messiah and the Gospel. Ch. lii. 11 — Iv. 
 
 i4. Woe on Idolaters. Chh. Ivi., Ivii. 
 
 5. Sentence on Formalism. Ch. Iviii. 
 
 6. Rebuke and Promise to Israel. Ch. li.x. 
 
 3. Peroration, 7. Zion's Final Glory. Ch. lx. 
 
 III. Third Series or Cycle. Chh. lxi.— lxvl 
 
 This latest portion of the book, according to Riickert, Hahn and 
 Delitzsch, consists of only six sections, or two-thirds of their third division. 
 But this arrangement greatly obscures and distorts the relations of the parts 
 to each other. The union of chh. Iviii., lix. with the previous message of 
 rebuke and stern reproof is very plain on the one hand, and on the other 
 the completeness of the close of ch. lx, in rhythm and subject, is very 
 marked, and also in the sentence which completes and crowns the message, 
 " I the Lord will hasten it in its time." That ch. lxi. begins a complete and 
 distinct message may be said to rest on the direct authority of our Lord him- 
 self, in whom it was fulfilled, and who took it for the preface of His great 
 commission at Nazareth. 
 
 Again, there are signs of a pause and recommencement at Ixiii. 6, so that 
 Delitzsch transfers Ixiii. 7 — 19 from the third to the fourth of the six divi- 
 
368 ISAIAH. 
 
 sions. The latter tluis becomes four times longer than the one before it, 
 llahn, on the contrary, adhering to the division of the chapters, avoids this 
 disproportion, but overlooks and sets aside a break at that place which is 
 very apparent. 
 
 This Series, like the two before it, is, I believe, both sevenfold and three- 
 fold, but being much shorter than the two others, the threefold division is 
 the more conspicuous. It may be thus disposed : 
 
 Third Cycle or Series of Later Visions. Chh. lxi. — lxvi. 
 
 I. Messiah's Work of Mercy and Judgment. Ch. Ixi. — Ixiii. 6. 
 
 1. Messiah's Ministry on Earth. Ch. Ixi. 
 
 2. His Heavenly Intercession. Ch. Ixii. 
 
 3. His Work of Judgment and Redemption. Ch. Ixiii. i — 6. 
 
 II. The Last Controversy with Israel. Ch. Ixiii. 7 — Ixv. 
 
 1. Review of God's past Mercies. Ch. Ixiii. 7 — ig. 
 
 2. Israel's Confession and Prayer in the Last Days. Ch. Ixiv. 
 
 3. Messiah's answer of Reproof and Blessing. Ch. Ixv. 
 
 III. The Last Conflicts and Deliverance. Ch. lxvi. 
 
 The main part of this closing portion is an expansion of the promise, 
 ch. ii. I — 5, with which Isaiah began his earliest message, and thus confirms 
 and seals the unity of the whole scries, from first to last, of the Visions of this 
 glorious prophecy. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 THE ASSYRIAN REIGNS IN ISAIAH. 
 
 I. The Prophecies of Isaiah are connected so closely with the progress 
 of Assyrian power, from the first invasion of Pul to the death of Sennacherib, 
 that a correct view of the order and length of the successive reigns must 
 form one main help to a just view of the true reference of the earlier predic- 
 tions. Recent discoveries within the last thirty years, and the progress of 
 cuneiform interpretation, have thrown much unexpected light on the history 
 of these Assyrian kings. But while there have been, from these new sources 
 of knowledge, some remarkable confirmations of the sacred history, serious 
 difficulties have also arisen. The view of the chronology, espoused by Sir H. 
 and Prof. Rawlinson, Dr Hincks, and M. Oppert, and which many, from 
 their high authority as Syrologists, are disposed to receive as scientifically 
 established, is, in some of its main features, directly opposed to the con- 
 current testimony of Kings, Chronicles and the Book of Isaiah. 
 
 Till these recent discoveries, the mention of Sargon, Isa. xx. i, stood 
 quite alone. No light was thrown on the royal name in this solitary verse 
 by any known writer or monument of classic antiquity. These Assyrian 
 discoveries, however, have now restored him to the domain of history. 
 Under the name Sargina or Sai-kin, the inscriptions reveal him plainly as 
 
APPENDIX III. 369 
 
 the father of Sennacherib, the head of a hne of five Assyrian kings, a great 
 and prosperous monarch, who carried on about fifteen campaigns in Media, 
 Babylon, Armenia, Syria, and Arabia, founded a city near Khorsabad, and 
 built there a splendid palace, the ruins of which, after twenty-five centuries, 
 have yielded a large supply of sculptures and monuments of his reign. 
 
 2. But this sudden recovery of Sargon from the mention of him in one 
 solitar}^ verse of Isaiah into historic life has created a difficulty on the other 
 side. It was hard, before, to find any proof of his existence, at least under 
 this name ; but now the perplexity is how to find room for his recorded exploits 
 without an entire sacrifice of the truth of Scripture. In the opening of his 
 reign he claims to have captured Samaria. The Book of Kings places the 
 fall of that city in the sixth of Hczekiah, after a three years' siege by Shal- 
 manezer ; while Sennacherib's invasion, both in Kings and Isaiah, is ascribed 
 to Hezekiah's 14th year. The fifteen years of the cuneiform annals refuse, 
 apparently, to be crushed into this narrow interval. Hence some have 
 suggested that Sennacherib's campaign was in his father's lifetime. But the 
 more usual view of Syrologists supposes an error in the numeral, and they 
 propose to read the 27th instead of the 14th year of Hezekiah, for the true 
 date of the monumental Assyrian campaign. 
 
 3. The former view saves the letter of the text by a still greater sacrifice 
 of its drift and evident meaning. There is no sign that Sennacherib was 
 only his father's deputy and heir when the invasion occurred, and twenty 
 times he is affirmed to be " the great king." And besides, the year is the 
 same which the scheme assigns to Sargon's own Philistian campaign. If 
 the mere change of one numeral removed the difficulty, it would be a 
 simpler solution. But this is not the case. Such a change by mere con- 
 jecture without one MS. in each of two distinct works, is indeed a strain on 
 the laws of evidence. Unhappily, while the critical plunge is violent, the 
 chief difficulty remains. For on the modern view the campaign of Sargon 
 against Ashdod, in the ninth year of his annals, is in the 14th of Hezekiah, 
 the year, in the present text, of a wholly different campaign of another king. 
 The accession of Sennacherib is placed in the 23rd, a first campaign in the 
 27th, and the disastrous reverse in Hezekiah's 29th and last year. The pious 
 king, on this view, had not a single year of "peace and truth " after his great 
 trouble, but died at once ; while Sennacherib reigned on prosperously and 
 gloriously for 17 years. Now this reverses and turns upside down the chief 
 moral feature, as well as the main political outlines, of the whole history, and 
 would go far to convict the sacred writer of direct collusion. The account in 
 2 Chr. xxxii. 22, 23 is thus falsified, and made not only untrue but impossible. 
 The sickness and recovery of Hezekiah, also, are related next after the over- 
 throw, in Kings, Chronicles, and Isaiah; and a scheme which places them 
 15 years before it must be violent in the extreme. 
 
 Besides these serious and almost fatal objections, this view distorts and 
 destroys a whole series of relations, which a close study of this book of 
 Isaiah reveals, between the successive messages of the inspired prophet and 
 the ever-threatening progress of the mighty Assyrian power, till the flood, 
 
 B. I. 24 
 
370 ISAIAH. 
 
 when it reached the neck, was rolled back suddenly by the mightier hand of 
 the God of Israel. 
 
 I propose, then, in this Appendix, first, to give a brief sketch of the 
 modern scheme of the Assyrian reigns, and the supposed proofs on which it 
 rests ; and next, to shew their insufficiency, and the historical objections to 
 which it is exposed. The way will then be open for its comparison with 
 another scheme, and an attempted restoration, from Scripture and the monu- 
 ments, of Assyrian history throughout the days of Isaiah, from the inroads of 
 I'ul to the time of Esarhaddon. 
 
 § I. The Modern Scheme of the Assyrian Reigns. 
 
 4. Three Assyrian invaders are named in the Book of Kings, not in 
 Isaiah — Pul, Tiglath-pileser and Shalmancser ; and three in Isaiah — Sargon, 
 Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. Assuming the third and fourth to be distinct, 
 this will give six Assyrian reigns to be harmonized with the sacred text. 
 Four of these are easily identified by their monumental names : Tigulta- 
 Pal-tsira, Tiklat-pul-isri or Tuklat-pul-assar ; Sargina, Sarkin or Sar-kayan ; 
 Tsin-akhi-irib, Sin-akhi-erba or Sin-akh-irib ; and Asshur-akh-iddina or 
 Assur-akh-idin. Three earlier Shalmanasars are found in the monuments 
 or lists, but the names of Pul and Shalmaneser IV. have not been found. 
 No absolute dates, again, are given on the monuments, referring to any 
 fixed era, like the Olympiads, the years of Rome, or of Nabonassar. The 
 dates assigned are not monumental, but inferences from a comparison with 
 the Scripture history, and with the Canon of Ptolemy, imperfectly checked 
 by a lately discovered Assyrian list of reigns, dating shortly before the fall of 
 Nineveh, and by the contemporary Egyptian or Ethiopian reigns of So and 
 Tirhakah. 
 
 5. The dates which result from Scripture, for the accession of the kings 
 of Judah and Israel; those of the rulers of Babylon from the Canon of 
 Ptolemy ; and those of the Assyrian kings according to Sir H. Rawlinson, 
 Dr Hincks, and M. Oppert, will be seen in the following lists : 
 
 (i) B.C. 810, Uzziah ; 772 — i, Menahem ; 761, Pckahiah ; 759, Pckah ; 
 758, Jotham ; 742, Ahaz ; 739, Pekah slain ; 729, Hoshea ; 726, Hezekiah ; 
 721, Samaria taken; 713, Hczekiah's 14th year; 697, Manasseh ; 642, Anion ; 
 640, Josiah ; 609, Jchoiakin ; 59S, Jcconiah and Zedekiah ; 588, Fall of the 
 Temple. 
 
 (2) D. C. 747, Nabonassar; 7^3} Nadius ; 731, Chinzirus and Porus ; 
 726, Elula:us or Juga;us ; 721, Mardocempalus ; 709, Arceanus ; 704, inter- 
 regnum ; 702, Belibus ; 699, Apronadius or Assaronadius ; 693, Rigebelus ; 
 692, Mesessimordacus ; 688, interregnum ; 680, Asaradinus ; 667, Saos- 
 duchinus ; 647, Chyniladanus. 
 
 (3) 13. C. 824, Shamas-iva ; 810, Iva-lush IV. ; 781, Shalmaneser III. ; 
 770, Asshur-danin-il II.; 752, Asshur-lush ; 744, Tiglath Pileser II.; 726, 
 Shalmancser IV. ; 721, Sargina ; 704, Sennacherib ; 680, Esarhaddon : 667, 
 Asshur-bani-pal = Sardanapalus ; 647, Asshur-cmid-din = Chyniladanus or 
 Saracus. 
 
APPENDIX III. 371 
 
 6. The following are the chief grounds for the arrangement of the reigns 
 in this third list : 
 
 (i) Sargon, in his annals, claims to have captured Samaria in the 
 opening of his reign. Scripture states that Shalmaneser came up and 
 besieged it for three years, and adds that " they took it," but does not name 
 Shalmaneser in the capture. Hence Sargon's reign must date from that 
 capture in the 6th of Hezekiah, or B.C. 721. 
 
 (2) The same annals state that in Sargon's first year Merodach- 
 baladan had seized the kingdom of Babylon, and in his 12th year that 
 Alerodach had reigned twelve years. But the years of Mardocempalus in 
 the Canon are B.C. 721 — 710, thus doubly in agreement with B.C. 721, as 
 before, for the first of Sargon. 
 
 (3) Arceanus follows in the Canon for five years. The name differs 
 little from Sarkin, and Dr Hincks supposes it to refer to him, while 12 + 5 = 17, 
 his years in the Assyrian Canon. 
 
 (4) Sennacherib, in his first campaign, says that he defeated Merodach, 
 and set up one Belipni as Governor at Babylon. This is supposed to be the 
 same with Belibus, whose first year in the Canon of Ptolemy is B.C. 702. 
 This will agi-ee with the third year of Sennacherib, his accession being 
 placed B.C. 704. 
 
 (5) Sennacherib, in his fourth campaign on his cyhnders, again 
 defeats Merodach, displaces Belipni, and sets up his son Asshur-inadi-su, 
 as governor. This is supposed to be his sixth year, B. C. 699, when Apro- 
 nadius, corrected by an easy change to Assaronadius, assumed to be distinct 
 from Esarhaddon, became ruler at Babylon by the Canon. 
 
 (6) Sennacherib, by the Assyrian Canon, reigned 24 years. This will 
 place his death at B.C. 680. He was succeeded by his son Esarhaddon, and 
 in the Canon of Ptolemy B. C. 680 is the date of Asaradinus. 
 
 (7) Esarhaddon's cylinders record ten campaigns. The Canon of 
 Ptolemy gives Asaradinus 13 years, B.C. 680 — 668, and the Assyrian Canon 
 gives the same number to Asshur-akh-idin. 
 
 The dates of the earlier reigns of Asshur-lush and Asshur-danin-il H. 
 result at once from combining the above dates with the length of their reigns 
 in the Assyrian Canon, where alone their names appear. The details of the 
 Assyrian history, as restored by this scheme, in their connection with the 
 accounts in Kings, Chronicles, and Isaiah, will be nearly as follows. 
 
 7. Pul = Asshur-lush, B.C. 752 — 744. 
 
 This king is named only in 2 Kings xv. 19, i Chr. v. 26, where he is said 
 to have exacted tribute from Menahem early in his ten years' reign, and to 
 have carried away part of the tribes east of Jordan. His name is not found 
 in the monuments, nor one like it in the Assyrian Canon. Hence some take 
 him for a general, others for Tiglath-pileser himself. Professor Rawlinson 
 {F. G. M. Vol. II. 388) thinks he was a pretender to the throne, not owned 
 at Nineveh, but established in the western provinces ; or possibly a Baby- 
 lonian monarch, who in those troublous times occupied the Euphratean 
 valley, and thence invaded Palestine : but that at least his expedition fell 
 
 24 — 2 
 
3/2 ISAIAH. 
 
 within the eight years of Asshur-hish, Tiglath's predecessor. It is true that 
 this is directly opposed to the present text of Kings, which places Mena- 
 hem's reign h.c. 771—762, ending 41 years before the fall of Samaria, or 
 ten years before the accession of Asshur-lush. This discrepancy, it is said, 
 is reduced nine years " by omitting the imaginary interregnum between 
 Pekah and Hoshea, which is contradicted by 2 Kings xv. 30." For by this 
 change the accession of Pul or Asshur-lush, it is thought, will be only one 
 year after the death of Menahem. This is an entire mistake, but also leaves 
 the historical contradiction just the same. 
 
 <S. Tiglath-pileser II., B.C. 744—726. 
 
 This king, in Professor Rawlinson's Herodotus, is placed three years 
 higher, and is lowered in deference to the supposed authority of the Assyrian 
 Canon. The inscriptions imply that he was an usurper, and no regular heir, 
 since he " omits all mention of his ancestry, and does not record even his 
 father's name." Next his line was displaced by Sargon, Shalmaneser IV. 
 being assumed to be his son. As the result of the hostility of the later kings, 
 his annals " exist only in a very fragmentary state, having been engraven on 
 slabs, afterwards defaced by Sargon or his descendants, and finally torn 
 from their places, and used by Esarhaddon for buildings at Nimroud, the 
 ancient Calah." The chief events recorded in them are an invasion of 
 Babylon, assigned there to his first, and a Syrian campaign, in his eighth 
 year (Rawlinson's Herodotus, p. 470). In this he defeated Rezin, king of 
 Damascus, took and destroyed his city, and received tribute from a king of 
 Samaria whom he calls Menahem, from Hiram king of Tyre, and Khabibi, 
 a queen of the Arabians. The Scripture plainly fixes the opening of this 
 campaign against Rezin to the 2nd or 3rd year of Ahaz, B.C. 741 — 740. 
 
 The scheme (/\ G. M. 11. 396, 397) affirms three Syrian wars of Tiglath- 
 pileser, the first B.C. 741 — 'J2i7i from his 4th to his 8th year, to which the 
 main record is referred, before the invitation of Ahaz ; a second in his 
 12th year or B.C. 733, to which 2 Kings xv. 29, and the light affliction of 
 Isaiah ix. i, are said to belong ; and a third "of greater importance than 
 either of the others," probably from his 13th to his 17th year, B.C. 732—728, 
 in reply to the invitation of Ahaz ; on return from which northward he 
 defeated a son of Rezin and destroyed Damascus. 
 
 9. Shalmaneser IV., B.C. 726—721. 
 
 The name of this king, supposed to be a son of Tiglath, and predecessor 
 of Sargon, does not appear at all in the monuments or the Assyrian Canon. 
 But assuming him distinct from Sargon, his five years' reign is thus filled up 
 in the scheme. He succeeded his father B.C. 726, and soon after, in his first 
 year, came up against Samaria, and received the submission of Hoshea. 
 Next year or next but one, he came up against him once more, 2 Kings 
 xvii. 4, bound him and put him in prison. Early in B.C. 723 he came up a 
 third time, and laid siege to Samaria. In B.C. 721 it surrendered or was 
 taken by storm, but his reign had first come to an end, either by natural 
 death or violence. But he also marched into Phoenicia, and overran the 
 country at the beginning of his reign. In his second year or later, the 
 
APPENDIX III. 373 
 
 Tyrians revolted. He returned and attacked them with a fleet, but was 
 defeated. He then invested them for five years, but wc are not told whether 
 the attempt succeeded. The five years probably reach to the autumn of 
 Sargon's second year. 
 
 10. Sargon, B.C. 721 — 704. 
 
 Sargon, Sargina or Sarkin, whose name according to M. Oppert's first 
 view means "king de facto," implying usurpation, by the modern scheme 
 usurped the throne in B.C. 721, perhaps while Shalmaneser was absent at 
 Samaria. He immediately marched into Susiana, defeated the Elamite 
 king, and received the submission of the Chaldeans, "who seem however to 
 have rebelled that year, and placed themselves under Merodach-baladan." 
 From the extreme south-east he marched to the extreme south-west, and 
 completed the reduction of Samaria, which Shalmaneser had failed to ac- 
 complish, carried off 27,280 persons, and appointed an Assyrian governor. 
 He was soon recalled by a revolt, in which Hamath, Arpad, Zimira, Da- 
 mascus, and Samaria were confederate. He defeated them at Gargar, 
 perhaps Aroer, and beheaded the king of Hamath. Next he attacked Gaza, 
 then in league with Egypt. At Raphekh or Raphia, he defeated Hanun 
 king of Gaza, and Shebek, Tar-dan of Egypt. Five or six years later, 
 B.C. 715 — 4, he marched into Arabia, subdued tribes never tributary to 
 Assyria, reduced the Thamudites, and settled Arabians in Samaria. The 
 Pharaoh of Egypt, the king of the Sabeans, and a queen of the Arabians, 
 made submission and brought presents. 
 
 Three years later, B.C. 712 — 11, he led a first expedition against Ashdod, 
 which surrendered after a siege, and appointed a governor ; and he boasts 
 that "the king of Meroe, who dwelt in the desert, and had never sent 
 ambassadors to any of his predecessors, in fear of his majesty bowed down 
 before him.'' Soon after he warred on lUib in Susiana, and set Ipsabara on 
 the throne. He next defeated the Babylonians, besieged Merodach in 
 Bethyakin, burnt his city, but generously spared his life, and appointed a 
 governor, perhaps Arceanus. While he held court at Babylon B.C. 708 or 7, 
 he received a double embassy, from the prince of an island in the Persian 
 Gulf, and from seven Cyprian princes. These brought tribute, and carried 
 back an effigy of Sargon, since found on the site of Idalium, and now in the 
 Berlin Museum. Fie made other expeditions to the north and north-east. 
 In his 15th year or B.C. 707, he founded Dour-Sarkayan, or Khorsabad, and 
 in August of his 17th year, B.C. 705, was assassinated and succeeded by his 
 son Sennacherib. 
 
 11. Sennacherib, B.C. 704 — 680. 
 
 The name of this king, according to the Syrologists, is Sin-akhi-irib, "The 
 Moon-god has multiplied brethren." He reigned, by the Assyrian Canon, 
 24 years ; but the Taylor and Bellini cylinders, from which the Assyrian 
 records of his reign are taken, contain only eight campaigns, and these are 
 campaigns, not years, as in the Annals of Sargon. A clay tablet of his 22nd 
 year is the highest monumental number of his reign. 
 
 The modern scheme is as follows. He succeeded his father Sargon, 
 
374 ISAIAH. 
 
 Aug. B.C. 705, so that B.C. 704 is his first year. Two years passed with- 
 out a campaign. His third year, and first campaign, was B.C. 702, when 
 he warred against INIerodach and Susub, and set up Behpni, that is 
 Behbus, at Babylon. His fourth year and second campaign, B.C. 701, when 
 he warred on the tribes in Zagros, forced Ipsabara to fly, whom Sargon had 
 set up, and attached a district to Assyria. His third campaign, in his fifth 
 year, the 27th of Hezekiah, was against Sidon and Palestine, and was wholly 
 successful. He reduced Sidon and set up Tubal in the place of Suliya, king 
 of Sidon, received tribute from kings of Arvad, Byblus, Ashdod, Beth-Ammon, 
 ]\Ioab, Edom, and according to some, of Menahcm king of Samaria. He 
 marched south to Ascalon, and captured it, with Hazor, Joppa,and Beth-dagon. 
 Ekron had rebelled, and its king, Padi, had been sent a prisoner to Hezekiah. 
 The Egyptians and Ethiopians came to succour Ekron. The battle was at 
 Eltekeh or Altaku, near Ekron, and they were defeated with great slaughter, 
 and several sons of the king of Egypt were taken alive. Ekron then 
 submitted. The king then marched against Judah, took forty-six fenced 
 cities, and smaller towns without number, captured and carried off 
 200,000 persons, and shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem as in a cage, raising 
 banks against it, when he submitted to a tribute of 30 talents of gold and 
 800 of silver, Padi was surrendered, and part of Hezekiah's dominions 
 attached to those of the kings of Edom and Gaza. The success of the 
 Assyrian conqueror was complete. 
 
 Next year, the sixth of his reign, in a fourth campaign, B.C. 699, he 
 invaded Babylonia, where Merodach and Susub were in arms, defeated 
 them, displaced Belipni, and set up his eldest son, Asshur-inadi-su, 
 Assaronadius of the Canon, the Asordanes of Polyhistor. Next year, the 
 seventh of his reign, B.C. 698, the monuments being wholly silent, but the only 
 year left within the reign of Hezekiah, is assumed to be the date of a second 
 and disastrous campaign, to which the main part of the sacred history refers, 
 2 Kings xviii. 17 — xix. 35; 2 Chron. xxxii. 9 — 21, Isaiah xxxvi. 2 — xxxvii. ; 
 and that the sudden destruction took place near Pelusium, at the entrance 
 of Egypt, whither he had ad\anced to meet Tirhakah. 
 
 No signal consequences, however, on the scheme of these writers, followed 
 this reverse, of which there is no trace in the Assyrian annals. A fifth 
 recorded campaign, in his eighth year, B.C. 697, was against Nipur, part of 
 the Zagros range, and he boasts that he penetrated farther than any 
 king before him. For three more years, B.C. 696 — 694, he fought with 
 Babylon and Susa, embarked on the Tigris, in ships built by Phccnician 
 workmen, destroyed thirty-four large towns of Susiana, overthrew Susub, who 
 was in league with Elam, at Khaluli, captured a son of Merodach, and 
 probably set up Rigebelus (B.C. 693, Canon) as his viceroy. Some time 
 later in his reign, we may infer from other authors that he made an 
 expedition to Cilicia, and built Tarsus. But the monuments throw no light 
 on the last thirteen years of his reign. 
 
 12. Esarhaddon, B.C. 680 — 667, and Asshur-bani-pal, B.C. 667 — 647. 
 
 Sennacherib was assassinated by his sons, B. C. 680, after a glorious reign of 
 24 years. His eldest, who had been viceroy at Babylon, was probably dead 
 
APPENDIX III. 375 
 
 before. The two next, his murderers, expected to gain the crown ; when 
 Esarhaddon, a fourth, came forward, and was acknowledged without 
 opposition as king, and restored also the viceroyalty of Babylon. He was 
 succeeded by Asshur-bani-pal, or Sardanapalus, in B.C. 667, and thus held the 
 crown only thirteen years. Ten of his campaigns are recorded on cylinders. 
 We learn also from a tablet of his son, that Esarhaddon invaded Egypt, 
 gained a battle over Tirhakah, and divided the country into twenty 
 governments. 
 
 13. Such is the view of the chronology of these reigns, held in substance 
 by Sir H. and Prof. Rawlinson, Dr Hincks, M. Oppert, and several other 
 Syrologists. Its results, when compared with the text of Scripture and the 
 Prophecies of Isaiah, would more than neutralize the partial confirmation of 
 their truth from the historical details of Sargon's reign, and from the 
 coincidence, in the two accounts, of the talents of gold paid to Sennacherib 
 by Hezekiah. They are siinply these, in order of time : First that Pul was a 
 king, or conquered in the reign of a king, whose reign began 10 years after 
 the Bible date of Menahem's death, or from the 5th to the 15th of Jotham. 
 Next that Tiglath-pileser had made two campaigns against Palestine, and 
 destroyed Rezin, before Ahaz asked his aid against Rezin and Pekah. 
 Secondly, that the only date of a Syrian campaign in the monuments is in 
 the sixth of Ahaz, two full years after Pekah's death. Thirdly, that Shal- 
 maneser is unknown to the monuments and did not take Samaria. Fourthly, 
 that having enforced tribute on Hoshea in his first year, he imprisoned him 
 the year after, because he had ceased to bring the enforced tribute, as he 
 had previously done " year by year." Fifthly, that Sargon was making con- 
 quests in and round Palestine, from the 6th to the 22nd of Hezekiah, or for 
 eight years after his sickness and recovery ; and still that the only mention 
 of him, in Scripture, is one allusion to the sending of Tartan to Ashdod, of 
 which no date is given. Sixthly, that Sennacherib made no expedition 
 against Judea till the 27th of Hezekiah, or two years before his death. 
 Seventhly, that he was completely successful, and returned in triumph with 
 great booty to Nineveh. Eighthly, that the date in 2 Kings xviii. 13, 
 Isaiah xxxvi. i, twice given, applies only to four verses in one book, and to 
 one in the other, and is wholly wrong. Ninthly, that the main history, the 
 crisis of the whole narrative, 2 Kings xviii. 17 — xix., Isaiah xxxvi. 2 — xxxvii., 
 is left wholly without a date. Tenthly, that the history of the sickness and 
 recovery is misplaced in three different books, as well as the message that 
 followed, and is given fifteen years after its proper date. (11) That no years 
 of peace and truth were given to Hezekiah, such as were promised, but only 
 growing calamity to his latest years. ( 1 2) That the promise, " I will deliver 
 thee from the hand of the king of Assyria," was followed by a heavier scourge 
 than even Ahaz had known. (13) That the instruction "the third year, sow 
 and eat, &c." belonged not to the days of Hezekiah, but of the idolatrous 
 Manasseh. (14) That the Assyrian host did not fall, as Isaiah had pro- 
 phesied, on the mountains of Israel, but on the confines of Egypt. (15) That 
 the monuments are wholly silent about the one campaign in which the 
 disaster occurred, and betray no later signs of its previous occurrence. 
 
376 ISAIAH. 
 
 (i6) That Hezekiah died that same year, while Sennacherib reigned prosper- 
 ously and gloriously for seventeen or eighteen years after his army was 
 destroyed. (17) That either one main part of the Book of Isaiah is spurious, 
 or else the prophet must have survived at least eighty years the date of his 
 first commission in the last year of Uzziah. 
 
 These results, with everyone who has more faith in the word of God than 
 in the boastful bulletins of idolatrous kings, or in barren lists of nameless 
 and unknown writers, are enough to make us doubt the stability of the 
 whole edifice to which they belong. When the notes on ch. xx. were written, 
 out of deference to great names I accepted one main pillar of their system, 
 as if proved by the monuments, which lend it no direct evidence whatever ; 
 and thought that the Scripture interval of eight years, from the 6th to the 
 14th of Hezekiah, might have been swelled, in some way, into fifteen half- 
 yearly campaigns, mistaken for complete years. But a closer view of the 
 whole evidence has convinced me that Dean Milman's suspicion, in his 
 History of the yews, is correct ; and that, in contrast to Gesenius, Ewald, 
 Winer, Hincks, and Sir H. Rawlinson, the earlier opinion of Vitringa, 
 Offerhaus, Eichhorn, and Hupfeld, is confirmed, not disproved, by the 
 monumental evidence, so that Shalmaneser and Sargon are two names of 
 the same king. 
 
 The scheme just given, besides its collision with the teaching of Scrip- 
 ture in almost every point of contact, seems to me loaded, in every part, 
 with serious internal difficulties, not to say contradictions, of its own. 
 
 § 2. Tfie Modern Scheme of the Reigns examined. 
 
 14. The questions raised by the scheme of Assyrian chronology, just 
 expounded, are briefly these. Does the account in Kings, Chronicles, and 
 Isaiah, of Sennacherib's invasion refer to two distinct campaigns, wholly 
 opposite in their result, and two years apart, or to one only? Is the date in 
 the text a mere error of copyists, or the true date of one single campaign, 
 confirmed by the whole tenour of the sacred history? Is Shalmaneser a pre- 
 decessor of Sai-gon, or proved, by every mention of him, to be the Sargon of 
 the monuments under a different name? Did the reign of Sennacherib last 
 18 years after the death of Hezekiah, including 13 years of which no monu- 
 mental records remain? Or docs it reach only four or five years beyond 
 Hezekiah, so that Isaiah may easily have survived to place it on record in 
 the book of his prophecies? Was the murder of Sennacherib the occasion 
 for the instant recovery of Babylon from revolt or independence, or rather 
 for Esarhaddon to resign a viceroyalty at Babylon on mounting the throne 
 of Nineveh? These are the main questions which need a distinct answer, 
 though others of a secondary nature will arise. 
 
 15. The Campaign of Sennacherib in Judea. 
 
 The view, which prolongs this campaign to two or three years, so as to 
 include an Assyrian invasion and victory in Egypt, has been held by Usher 
 
APPENDIX III. 377 
 
 and many others, though justly rejected by Petavius, Vitringa, and many of 
 the best critics, as opposed to the natural scope of the sacred text. But the 
 theory now current among Syrologists, and received by Prof. Rawlinson in 
 his Five Great iMonarcJiies, of two campaigns two years apart, separated 
 by a triumphant return to Nineveh, is still more unnatural, and seems dis- 
 proved by almost every verse, (i) It makes the date twice given useless 
 and deceptive. It confines it to one verse only in Isaiah, and four in Kings ; 
 while it plainly seems to belong, as a heading, to the two whole chapters 
 that follow, which contain the main crisis of Jewish history in Isaiah's days. 
 (2) It introduces a siege and investment of Jerusalem between vv. 13, 14 in 
 2 Kings xviii. and vv. i, 2 in Isaiah xxxvi., one far more complete than the 
 other afterwards named — where the text is wholly silent. (3) It assumes 
 Sennacherib's observance of the condition of Hezekiah's tribute, in direct con- 
 tradiction to Isaiah's repeated prophecies. (4) It introduces a return to Nine- 
 veh between vv. 16, 17, of which there is not the slightest trace or sign in the 
 text. (5) It invents further a return from Nineveh between the same verses 
 for a second campaign, on which not Scripture only, but all the monuments, 
 are wholly silent. (6) It leaves the second more important campaign, not 
 only without any word to mark its commencement, but also without any 
 date, though, on their view, the main event in this part of the history. 
 (7) It leaves wholly unexplained the entire absence of any allusion, by the 
 boastful Rabshakeh, to this highly successful campaign, completed two 
 years before. (8) It makes Sennacherib content himself with tribute and 
 booty, when he had actually invested Jerusalem with a mighty army, and 
 raised mounds on every side ; and then expect its surrender, two years later, 
 on sending a small force "insufficient for a siege" {F. G. M., p. 441). (9) It 
 makes it incredible that the people should be urged not to trust in Heze- 
 kiah, because he had taken away the high places, which by the hypothesis 
 was almost thirty years before, and no use be made of a far simpler and 
 plainer appeal, that his resistance had led to immense calamities just two 
 years ago, to the loss of all the fenced cities, and the captivity of 200,000 
 souls. (10) The appeal to the conquest of Hamath, Arpad, and Samaria 
 is inconceivable, with no allusion to the successes so lately gained in Judea 
 itself. (11) Rabshakeh plainly implies, v. 25, that this was the first time 
 his master had come for the destruction of the land. On the new hypo- 
 thesis, its destruction by the Assyrians had, for two years, been almost com- 
 plete. (12) Hezekiah calls this the hour of travail pangs ; but by the theory 
 this had already come without any deliverance. (13) Lachish, on this view, 
 within two years must have required a second siege, after being so lately 
 captured. (14) Sennacherib is mute, like Rabshakeh, about this former 
 campaign, and sets about reducing Lachish and Libnah, just as if it had 
 never been done before. (15) Hezekiah, in his prayer, alludes to Assyrian 
 successes in other lands, but not in Judah. (16) He prays for deliverance, 
 not as from a second invasion, when the first had nearly completed his 
 ruin, but as in the long-expected hour of conflict and travail. (17) The 
 answer given by Isaiah is robbed of nearly all its force, if the Assyrian had 
 enjoyed two years of complete success in a triumphant campaign. (18) The 
 passage, 2 Kings xix. 27, 28, Isaiah xxxvii. 28, 29, is most unnatural, if 
 
37S ISAIAH. 
 
 this complete Assyrian triumph had gone before. (19) Rich and full pro- 
 mises are thus applied solely to a second campaign, when the city was not 
 besieged, while no trace of Divine help is found in that earlier hour, when 
 the city was really invested, and the calamity was extreme. (20) The first, 
 second, and third years in the closing promise, are left without a date, and 
 the hypothesis transfers them from Hezekiah to Manasseh's idolatrous 
 reign. In short, this view of a double campaign, the first wholly prosperous, 
 the second mainly the reverse, with a campaign in Babylonia between them, 
 does utter violence to every feature of the text, and deprives it alike of his- 
 torical clearness and- consistency, and of its moral grandeur and sublimity. 
 The proud king and the sacred annalist would then seem almost like well 
 matched rivals in their concealment of humbling and unpalatable truths. 
 
 16. The Date of the Campaign. 
 
 The evidence on this point also, in the sacred text, is full and clear. 
 This crisis of invasion is twice assigned to Hczekiah's fourteenth year. 
 Three times it is immediately followed by the account of Hczekiah's sickness 
 and recovery, which the promise then made to him fixes to the close of that 
 same year. Again, the message from Babylon, following that recovery, or in 
 the 15th year, is joined with a promise that there should be "peace and 
 truth in his days." That promise would be reversed and wholly falsified, 
 if Judah's heaviest calamity from the Assyrian were thirteen years later, and 
 reached to the very close of his reign. A delay, again, of 21 years instead of 
 eight, after Samaria's fall, before the invasion of Judah and siege of Jeru- 
 salem, is at variance with the rapid succession of Assyrian conquests. Still 
 further, the statement in 2 Chron. xxxii. 22, 23, if this hypothesis be received, 
 is not only untrue but impossible. Other reasons, from the structure of 
 Isaiah's prophecies, and the order and course of its predictions, redouble the 
 force of these which are patent in the history, and which seem decisive 
 of themselves. 
 
 17. Shalmaneser and Sargon. 
 
 The one main fact which stands out in the annals of Sargon, as recovered 
 from the ruins of Khorsabad, is a distinct series of campaigns, or domestic 
 acts of religion, through a reign of fifteen years. These cannot, without 
 some violent supposition, hardly credible, be crushed into the interval of 
 eight years, from the final capture of Samaria to the 14th of Hezekiah. If we 
 assume that Sargon is a successor of Shalmaneser, and began to reign in 
 that year of Samaria's fall, which the sacred text fixes by a foiufold synchron- 
 ism, then Sennacherib's accession must be brought down at least to the 
 2 1st of Hezekiah, and his campaign in Judah be later still. But if the date 
 in Isaiah be confirmed, not only by the clear, simple outline of the whole 
 narrative in that historical episode, but also by its organic relation to the 
 structure of the book, and the moral scope of the whole history, wc are 
 thrown upon the other alternative, the view deduced by Vitringa, Offerhaus, 
 Eichhorn, and Hupfcld, from Scripture alone, that Sargon and Shalma- 
 neser are really two names of one and the same king. The arrangement, 
 which results from their identity, not only replaces direct opposition to 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 \79 
 
 Scripture testimony in almost every part by entire agreement ; but will be 
 found, I believe, in more real accordance with natural inferences from 
 the monuments and the Canon of Ptolemy, than the lowered dates which 
 claim to rest on their combined authority. 
 
 1 8. First, what evidence is alleged from the monuments for the reign of 
 this previous king? By the admission of the advocates of the lower dates, 
 none whatever. "Of Shalmaneser very httle is known, and his name has not 
 yet been found on the monuments. The only facts belonging to his reign, which 
 have come down to us, are his two expeditions against Samaria, recorded in 
 Scripture" (Rawlinson, Herod. I. 471). "Very little is known of him, since 
 Sargon his successor, of a different family, and most likely a rebel, seems 
 to have destroyed his monuments " (Shalmaneser, Smith's Diet.). "A 
 monarch whose name is absent from the canon (i.e. the Assyrian) and has 
 not yet been supplied by any cuneiform record" {F. G. M. 11. p. 400). 
 
 In fact, there are only four marks by which Shalmaneser can be identi- 
 fied, and all these, without exception, meet in the Sargon of the monuments. 
 First, that he besieged, and in the natural construction of the text, took 
 Samaria, and carried away its people. This conquest and captivity the Sar- 
 gon of Khorsabad claims for himself alone, with no mention of any other 
 king. Next, that he was on the throne, invading and conquering, from the 
 seventeenth to the eighth year before one of the early campaigns of Sen- 
 nacherib. This character, again, belongs to Sargon alone by the evidence 
 of the monuments, which give him fifteen years at least. Thirdly, that, ac- 
 cording to Menander, he made an expedition against Phoenicia and Cyprus. 
 On this Prof. Rawlinson remarks, "The accounts of Menander are probably 
 unhistorical. He has confused Shalmaneser with his successor Sargon, by 
 whom expeditions against these places were really undertaken" (Herod, i. 
 471, note 8; Smith, ill. 1225). And again: "The effigy of Sargon, found on 
 the site of Idalium, is now in the Berlin Museum" {F. G. M. ll. 421). Lastly, 
 Enemessar in Tobit is clearly a varied and corrupt form of Shalmaneser. 
 Now there he is called the father of Sennacherib, who succeeds at once upon 
 his death. Thus every mark by which Shalmaneser is defined, either in or 
 out of Scripture, belongs to the Sargon of the monuments, and two of them 
 plainly to him alone. 
 
 19. The reasons for an opposite view seem to be two only : the statement 
 in the Annals that he captured Samaria in his first year, and the difference 
 of the names. Now, first, these royal annals, as they never recount defeats 
 and reverses, are not likely to give prominence even to serious checks and 
 delays in their course of conquest. The faults of modern bulletins, which 
 have become a proverb, apply fully to these permanent bulletins of Egypt 
 and Assyria, though engraven in stone. Shalmaneser subdued the kingdom 
 of Samaria, and laid it under tribute, at the very opening of his reign. Since 
 Tiglath-pileser had already carried away many Israelites captive, he would 
 probably do the same, and even on a larger scale. After so long a siege, the 
 proud ruler might easily group the whole result under the first triumph 
 which led to it, and conceal the stubborn resistance ; just as the sacred 
 
38o ISAIAH. 
 
 writer reserves his whole moral for the latest step in the conquest, when 
 Samaria was taken, and the kingdom fell. 
 
 20. The double name is no real difficulty. It seems allowed that Sargon 
 was not the personal name of the monarch from his birth, but one assumed 
 when he was on the throne. It means probably, not "king de facto" as 
 M. Oppert once thought, a very tame and unlikely name for a proud king to 
 assume, but rather "the established king." He succeeded, not as heir, but 
 either by an election of Assyrian chiefs, or by violence; and would naturally 
 assume at once a royal name, honourable in the Old Empire, and of these 
 Shalmaneser is one. But when he was firmly seated on the throne, and had 
 enlarged the empire beyond its former limits, he might well disdain to 
 borrow a name from that older and extinct line, and prefer, in all his own 
 royal monuments, to call himself by a still more boastful title, "The Esta- 
 blished King." 
 
 21. The scheme, at its lower limit, assumes that Esarhaddon began to 
 reign in the same year at Nineveh and at Babylon. But an opposite view, 
 historically, is much more probable. Those years of Asaradinus, B. C. 680— 
 667, are apparently the only time out of 122 years, B.C. 747 — 625, when the 
 rule of Babylon was held personally by the reigning king of Assyria. At 
 Nineveh Esarhaddon succeeded through the murder of Sennacherib, and 
 the flight of his brothers ; but his reign at Babylon, B.C. 680, follows an 
 interregnum of eight years, implying that a season of revolt and anarchy 
 then came to an end. Now that murder was far more likely to occasion a 
 revolt than to be its sudden cure. It is commonly agreed that for Aprona- 
 dius in the Canon should be read Assaronadius, o-cr being mistaken for ct in 
 transcription. He is called Asordanius by Polyhistor, and the name is so 
 like that of Esarhaddon, or Assaradinus, even in the monumental forms, as 
 to need strong evidence to prove them distinct. For Apronadius, or 
 Asshur-inadi-su of the monuments, is confessedly the eldest son of Senna- 
 cherib, made viceroy by his father, the natural heir of the throne, and 
 we have no subseciuent record of his death. If Esarhaddon were viceroy of 
 Babylon when Sennacherib was murdered, this would help to explain both 
 the fact itself and the flight of the murderers, and he would commit the 
 viceroyalty to another, when called suddenly to the throne. But, on re- 
 covering Babylon after years of revolt, policy might lead him to the new 
 plan of keeping it in his own hands, residing in turn at each city, as the 
 monuments imply in his case alone. The highest monumental date of Sen- 
 nacherib is a clay tablet of his 22nd year, implying 20 or 21 complete years. 
 But from B.C. 714, the 13th of Hezekiah, to B.C. 693, when Rigebelus succeeds 
 Assaronadius in the Canon, are just 21 years. The coincidence is as exact 
 as in the opposite view. Also, by the admission of its advocates, their last 
 thirteen years of Sennacherib, B.C. 693—680, have no proof at all of his- 
 torical reality from his cylinders or the monuments, which do not require us 
 to assign to them one single recorded campaign. 
 
 22. The coincidence between the first twelve years of Sargon and 
 those of Merodach in the Canon, is the strongest reason for the lower set of 
 
APPENDIX III. 381 
 
 dates. But its force is greatly lessened by the evidence of the monuments 
 themselves. In the Canon Merodach-baladan appears only B.C. 721 — 709. 
 But the monuments shew him to have been in conflict with Tiglath in his 
 first year, B.C. 744 — 7, either 23 or 26 years earlier, and again with Senna- 
 cherib in the first of Assaronadius, B.C. 699, or ten years later than his 
 period in the Canon. Hence it is quite possible that the Assyrian annals, 
 and the astronomical records of Babylon, might reckon his years in a 
 different way. Also by the annals of Sargon the coincidence is not exact. 
 Merodach was already in power, by Sargon's report, at the opening of his 
 own first year, and twelve years of Merodach at least were complete, when 
 his own twelfth year began. Also Sennacherib's first campaign, by his 
 cylinders, was against Merodach and the king of Elam, when Merodach, 
 though defeated, escaped once more, and contended afresh for the throne. 
 
 23. The next argument for the lower dates, from the Canon of Ptolemy, 
 is drawn from the years of Belibus, or Elibus, in Polyhistor. But it fails in 
 one main point, Sennacherib professes to have set up one Belipni as vice- 
 roy in his first, and to have displaced him, and set up Asshur-inadi-su in his 
 fourth campaign. These are referred, in the lower scheme, to his third and 
 sixth years. Polyhistor, however, gives no hint that Belibus was set up 
 by the king of Assyria, but says that Merodach slew Acises, and reigned six 
 months, and then was slain by one Elibus, who reigned in his stead. But 
 in the annals Merodach survives the first campaign of Sennacherib, and, 
 aided by one Susub, a Chaldean prince, maintains a conflict with Assyria 
 in the fourth campaign {F. G. M. ll. 438). An accession of Belibus or 
 Elibus by internal feud, after slaying Merodach, cannot safely be assumed 
 to be the same event as his forced accession by Assyrian help in Merodach's 
 lifetime, at a date after which he recovers the kingdom. Such a coincidence 
 is too weak a ground for setting aside a large body of Scripture testimony, 
 which fixes that king's first campaign to the middle, not the close, of Heze- 
 kiah's reign. Or the difficulty is equally removed by supposing a displace- 
 ment, in the cylinder record, of the one fatal campaign alone. 
 
 24. The Egyptian annals, though sometimes alleged as favouring the 
 lower dates, are strictly neutral, and lend them no real aid. The accessions 
 of Necho II., and Psammetichus, may be viewed as fixed to B.C. 610, and 664, 
 or at least within a year of those dates. The Lists of Manetho place before 
 Psammetichus three reigns in the same dynasty, amounting to 21 years, 
 reaching thus to B.C. 685. In the Ethiopian dynasty, the recensions of 
 Africanus and Eusebius give 8, 14, 18, or 12, 12, 20 for the reigns of Sabaco, 
 So or Sevechus, and Tirhakah. But since the 26th of Tirhakah is found on 
 the monuments, and Herodotus and the heading both assign fifty years to 
 the Ethiopian, the correction was natural to 8, 14 and 28 for the three 
 reigns, which would then begin B.C. 735, 727, 713 ; and the ist of Tirhakah, 
 falling thus in the 14th of Hezekiah, would seem to agree perfectly with the 
 sacred text. But the later evidence of an Apis stele, and the annals of 
 Asshur-bani-pal, son of Esarhaddon, seem to prove that Tirhakah was the 
 immediate predecessor of Psammetichus, and that his reign was reckoned to 
 
382 ISAIAH. 
 
 begin in Egypt only twenty-six years earlier, though the reading of the Apis 
 'stele is open to some doubt. On this view, now usual, the accession of 
 Tirhakah would be B.C. 690, or seven years after Hezekiah's death. 
 
 This change is very fatal to the authority of the Lists of Manctho, since 
 three reigns of his twenty-sixth dynasty are thus blotted out of the chrono- 
 logical series of kings. But it lends no weight to the lower Assyrian dates 
 as compared with the higher, and involves no contradiction of the sacred 
 text. If the first of Tirhakah in Egypt were also his first in Ethiopia, the 
 new date would be equally adverse to the 29th as to the 14th of Hezekiah, 
 and would require us to place Sennacherib's campaign not earlier than the 
 eighth of Manasseh. Nor could this evil be cured by the plan some propose, 
 either of shortening Manasseh's long reign, or lowering the Captivity, and 
 assuming Darius the Mede to be Darius Hystaspes. For this, bringing 
 down the date of Samaria's fall, would involve a further lowering of the 
 Assyrian reigns also, and the main difficulty be just the same as before. 
 But Dr Hincks justly observes that, in Kings and Isaiah, Tirhakah is called 
 king of Ethiopia, not of Egypt, though Pharaoh king of Egypt has been 
 named shortly before, Isaiah xxxvi. 6, xxxvii. 9, and So or Sevcchus has 
 been called king of Egypt. But if Tirhakah might have reigned in Ethiopia 
 eight years, or B.C. 698 — 690, before his accession in Egypt, he might equally 
 have reigned there twenty-three years. This would bring his total reign to 
 forty-nine years, or fifty current, and account for the story in Herodotus, 
 who places one Ethiopian reign of fifty years at this very period, only assign- 
 ing it to Sabaco. This is simpler than the more violent solution, that three 
 reigns were confused into one. Tlie abdication of Tirhakah on the second 
 expedition of Asshur-bani-pal in Egypt, about B.C. 665, is affirmed in the 
 Assyrian inscriptions, while Herodotus ascribes such an abdication to 
 Sabaco, also after a reign of fifty years. The solution is simple, that Tirha- 
 kah's reign in Egypt was only twenty-six years, but that his reign in Ethiopia 
 and influence over Egypt began twenty-three or twenty-four years earlier, 
 B.C. 7i4or 713. The statement in Scripture, where he appears as king of 
 Ethiopia, not of Egypt, will thus remain in full agreement with the most 
 recent Egyptian evidence. 
 
 § 3. COMrARISON OF THE HiGIIER AND LOWER DATES. 
 
 25. The dates of the Assyrian reigns now current among Syrologists, 
 and received by Sir H. Rawlinson, JM. Oppert, and Prof. Rawlinson in 
 Smith's Dictionary and the Five Great Monarchies, are as follows : 
 
 B.C. 752, Pul=Asshur-lush; 744, Tiglath-pileser ; 726, Shalmaneser IV.; 
 721, Sargon; 704, Sennacherib ; 680, Esarhaddon = Asaradinus, or Asshur- 
 akh-idin ; 667, Asshur-bani-pal; 647, Asshur-emid-idil, or Saracus. 
 
 The higher series, which results from the last section, will be as follows : 
 
 B.C. 773, Pul = Asshur-danin-il II.; 747, Tiglath-pileser; 729, Shalman- 
 eser IV. = Sargon ; 714, Sennacherib; 693, Esarhaddon at Nineveh; 680, 
 he recovers Babylon : 667, Asshur-bani-pal ; 647, Saracus. 
 
APPENDIX III. 383 
 
 To begin with Pul, the first Assyrian reign in Scripture. The lower 
 scheme either makes him the same with Asshur-lush, or else a Chaldean 
 king or rebel satrap in that reign. But the sacred text calls him distinctly 
 king of Assyria, not of Babylon. It ascribes to him an invasion of 
 Israel at the opening of the reign of Menahem, who, by that text, came to 
 the throne late in the Jewish year 772 — i, his years reckoning from the 
 later date; that is, in the first three months of B.C. 771. The accession of 
 Asshur-lush, by the scheme, was nine years after Menahem's death, a direct 
 contradiction to the history. And this is not removed by the expedient of 
 setting aside the nine years' interregnum between Pekah's murder and 
 Hoshea's accession {F. G. M. il. 389). But this, if it lowers the reigns in 
 Israel, would still place the accession of the false Pul in the very year of 
 Menahem's death. And besides, it cannot lower those reigns without 
 falsifying eight distinct synchronisms, and even transferring half of them 
 to the reigns of other kings. 
 
 On the other view, though the place of this king, Asshur-danin-il, is in- 
 ferred only from the Assyrian Canon, and not found in the monuments, 
 the harmony is complete. The first campaign of these Assyrian kings is 
 usually eastward or southward, and the second or third westward. But if 
 the accession were towards the close of B.C. 773, then B.C. 771, the first year 
 of Menahem, would be the year of Pul's second, or first westward, campaign. 
 Again, it is historically far more natural to refer a campaign of conquest to 
 the last king but one of the dynasty, answering to Jeroboam II. in Israel, or 
 Asshur-bani-pal in the Lower Empire, than to a Chaldean king, when Baby- 
 lon has not appeared on the scene ; or to an Assyrian Augustulus, in whose 
 short reign the kingdom was broken, and the dynasty come to an end. 
 
 26. TiGLATH-PILESER, B.C. 747 — 729. 
 
 This king is named, 2 Kings xv. 29, xvi. 7, 9, 10; I Chron. v. 26; 2 Chron. 
 xxviii. 20. In the reign of Pekah he took '"Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, 
 and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land 
 of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." Ahaz sent messengers 
 to him, when he "went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried it 
 away captive to Kir, and slew Rezin." Ahaz then went and met him at 
 Damascus. The third passage says that Pul and Tiglath-pileser carried 
 away Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. The last states simply that he 
 came to Ahaz, " and distressed him, but strengthened him not." 
 
 His name in the monuments is variously rendered, Tigulti-pal-tsira, 
 Tiklat-pal-isri, or Tuklat-pal-asar. They imply that he was an usurper, 
 and no regular heir, since "he does not record even his father's name." The 
 chief events in his remains are an invasion of Syria, assigned to his first, and 
 a Syrian campaign of his eighth year. In this he claims to have defeated 
 Rezin king of Damascus, taken and destroyed his city, and received tribute 
 from a king of Samaria, whom he calls Menahem, from Hiram king of 
 Tyre, and Khabibi, a queen of the Arabians. 
 
 With the higher dates there are three distinct harmonies with Scripture 
 or general history. First, his accession as an usurper, the old line being 
 
384 ISAIAH. 
 
 ended by decay or violence in Asshur-lush, is in the Era of Nabonassar, in 
 full agreement with the general consent of historians, that this was the time 
 of a revolt of Babylon, and of transition from an Upper to a Lower As- 
 syrian Empire. The other view places him three years later, too short for 
 an interposed reign, and too long for a probable interregnum, or for the 
 survival of the last feeble monarch, when the crisis of the empire had come. 
 
 Next, the monuments place his Syrian campaign in his eighth year. On 
 the higher scheme this is B.C. 740, or the third of Ahaz, the very year to 
 which it is assigned by Scripture, since the urgent invitation of Ahaz was 
 caused by a second invasion of Rezin and Pekah, in his own second year. 
 The murder of Pekah, early in the next year, the 4th of Ahaz and 20th 
 of Jotham, might be a natural result of those disasters to Israel, when the 
 land of Naphtali and Gilead was carried away. 
 
 Thirdly, in the last year of Ahaz, B.C. 727, Philistia is warned not to 
 rejoice because the rod that smote them was now broken. The serpent who 
 had lately stung them would have successors still more deadly. Now the 
 monuments of Tiglath record that he received tribute from kings of Ascalon 
 and Gaza, and the Philistines were one people against whom he was invited 
 by Ahaz. The higher dates agree, since his death would thus be about a 
 year and a half before the time of Isaiah's warning. 
 
 27. The lower date, B.C. 744 — 726, replaces these agreements by as 
 many improbabilities or contradictions. First, it divorces his accession from 
 the Era of Nabonassar, to which the change of dynasty and the fall of the 
 old line, after lasting 520 years, is so naturally referred. Next, it ascribes 
 to him three Syrian campaigns, in B.C. 741, 733, 732, in his 4th, 12th and 
 I 3th years, but none in his 8th, the only date of such a campaign in the 
 monuments. The date these give to the expedition, in which Damascus 
 and Rezin were overcome, answers in this scheme to B.C. 'jyj, the sixth of 
 Ahaz, or three years after the Bible date of Pekah's death. The invitation 
 of Ahaz is referred to his own nth or 12th year, which requires us to read 
 thirty years for twenty in 2 Kings xv. 27, and thirtieth for twentieth in v. 30, 
 in the second case a very improbable change. And a more serious contra- 
 diction remains, even with this unproved extension of Pekah's reign. For two 
 prosperous expeditions of Tiglath against Rezin and Pekah, one of them 
 four years in length, are thus placed before that message of Ahaz, which is 
 clearly described in Kings, Chronicles, and Isaiah, as the guilty cause of the 
 first recommencement of Assyrian conquests in Palestine. Also two con- 
 quests of Damascus are made directly to precede the prosperous campaigns 
 of Rezin and Pekah against Judah, and Ephraim's boasts of recovered power, 
 Isaiah ix. 8 — 12. The slabs of Tiglalh-pilcser are not more broken, defaced, 
 and displaced by Esarhaddon, than the predictions of Isaiah and the 
 history of Ahaz by this proposed scheme of Tiglath-pileser's Syrian 
 campaigns. 
 
 28. Three reasons arc given for holding three distinct expeditions, of 
 which neither Scripture nor the monuments offer any trace. First, that the 
 localities in i Chron. v. 26 and 2 Kings xv. 29 are quite different. But this 
 
APPENDIX III. 385^ 
 
 is a clear mistake, since the text in Chronicles is in the genealogies, and 
 could only refer to the tribes east of Jordan, while Gilead is expressly included 
 in the Book of Kings. Next, that the second and third are the lighter and 
 heavier afflictions of Isaiah ix. i. But these, by the text, were both of them 
 past in the second of Ahaz, and answer precisely to the much earlier ravages 
 of Benhadad, i Kings xv. 20, and of Hazael, 2 Kings x. 32, 33. And the 
 main scope of the prophet's warning is to contrast these with the whole series 
 of heavier Assyrian troubles, which the unbelief of Ahaz and Judah was now 
 ready to bring upon the land. Thirdly, that Menahem is named in the 
 annals of the eighth year. But this is not accounted for in the least, either 
 by the lower system of Assyrian dates, or by getting rid of what is called 
 "an imaginary interregnum" between Hoshea's accession and Pekah's death. 
 For this last can be done only in one of three ways. First, by lowering all 
 the higher reigns in Israel. This leaves the entry unexplained, since Mena- 
 hem's death, B.C. 751, would still be seven years before Tiglath's accession, 
 and it also falsifies no less than eight or ten synchronisms in the text : 
 secondly, by raising Hoshea's accession, and changing four synchronisms : 
 or thirdly, by lengthening Pekah's reign, and changing two texts, as above. 
 Both of these changes leave the death of Menahem 17 years before Tiglath's 
 accession in this lower scheme. 
 
 But, in fact, the interregnum yields an easy solution to this one difficulty 
 in the Assyrian record, which remains wholly unsolved by setting that interval 
 aside against the evidence of the text. The year when Ahaz sent his message 
 was the 19th of Pekah. The attack on Rezin, the siege and capture of Da- 
 mascus, and the first steps of Israel's deportation, would follow next year ; and 
 Pekah was slain early in the following year, the 20th of Jotham, or 4th of 
 Ahaz. Since Pekah had reigned by the murder of Pekahiah, son of Mena- 
 hem, to avenge this murder might be Hoshea's plea for his own act. 
 Whether, then, he was too weak to seize the throne at once, or declined it 
 from policy in an hour of disaster, he might naturally seek to govern in the 
 name of some heir of Menahem ; and few things are more usual than for the 
 grandson to have the grandfather's name. The second campaign of Tiglath, 
 to complete the first, would plainly be after Pekah's death, under his no- 
 minal successor, who might thus be a Menahem II., grandson of the first. 
 Or the Assyrian king himself might set up such a puppet king, who is re- 
 fused any notice as a king in the sacred history. 
 
 29. Shalmaneser=Sargon, B.C. 729 — 714. 
 
 The divergence of the two schemes, slight in amount in the last reign, 
 though important in its results, is here radical and complete. For Tiglath 
 being placed three years lower, and separate reigns of five and seventeen years 
 assigned to Shalmanescr and Sargon, the reign of Sennacherib is brought 
 down to Hezekiah's twenty-third year ; and then, by the two years' inaction, 
 and the double campaign, the decisive expedition is delayed to the twenty- 
 ninth and last year, thus reversing the main features of the sacred history, 
 and of Isaiah's prophecy. It has been shewn already that only four marks 
 exist by which the Shalmaneser in Kings can be identified, and that all of 
 B. I. 25 
 
386 ISAIAH. 
 
 these belong to the Sargon of the monuments. It remains now to justify 
 this conckision by Scripture, the monuments of Sargon, and the Canon of 
 Ptolemy, in the details of this reign. 
 
 First, the sacred text is adverse, in its natural meaning, to the insertion 
 of another reign between Shalmaneser and Sennacherib. For in 2 Kings 
 xvi., after mention of "Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria," v. 7, in the two 
 next verses he is called simply "the king of Assyria," the person being the 
 same. In 2 Kings xvii., after mention of "Shalmaneser king of Assyria," 
 V. 3, in the three next verses "the king of Assyria" is mentioned simply five 
 times, and in four of these the person is admitted to be the same. It is 
 very unnatural to suppose a different king to be meant, without naming him, 
 in the fifth case alone. In 2 Kings xviii. 9, Shalmaneser king of Assyria 
 is named once more, then the king of Assyria once only in v. 11, then Sen- 
 nacherib king of Assyria, in v. 13, and again the king of Assyria simply, 
 twelve times in succession, the person remaining the same. Here it is still 
 more unnatural to suppose a different king meant in the one occurrence of 
 the title between two different names, when the title is plainly used four 
 times in one case, and twelve times in the other, in reference to the last- 
 named king. The utmost that can be inferred, with reason, from the plural 
 form "they took it," is that the capture was by Shalmaneser's generals, 
 and not by the king in person. 
 
 Again, the mention of Sargon, Isaiah xx. i, in a mere parenthesis, is cjuitc 
 natural, if this were known to be one name of a king, mentioned already, and 
 that prominently, in the chronicles of Israel, as the author of Ephraim's 
 captivity. But if the king is named here only, while his reign filled the 
 greater half of that of Hezekiah, such a parenthesis is not at all natural or 
 easy to explain. 
 
 30. The supposed reign, again, of Shalmaneser for five years only, as 
 laid down in the other scheme, is historically impossible. There is no 
 space for the three expeditions assigned him, without contradicting the 
 text. If B.C. 726, the first of Hezekiah, were his first year, the siege 
 B.C. 723, and an expedition lay between them {F. G. M. 11. 404, and note 
 13), it must have occurred the next year, or next but one, after the first im- 
 position of tribute. But the siege is expressly referred to Hoshea's having 
 discontinued tribute, which he had brought "year by year." This is quite 
 consistent with the higher date, which places the accession of Shalmaneser- 
 Sargon B.C. 729, six years before the final siege in the Book of Kings, but 
 not with the lower date, even without the middle expedition, which on that 
 view is a direct historical contradiction. 
 
 The scheme further assumes that, in the same five years, Shalmaneser 
 made a first and second campaign against Tyre, and then blockaded it five 
 years longer. It is historically most improbable that two such sieges of 
 Tyre and Samaria would be carried on side by side for three years, the 
 second beginning while the first was in progress. Also the close of that 
 blockade, by the extract in Alenander, and the hypothesis, would be in the 
 third of Sargon, and his annals of that year allude to no such event. It is 
 most unlikely that his reign should begin with two sieges still unfinished, 
 
APPENDIX III. 387 
 
 both begun by his predecessor, while no alkision to one of them, nor to the 
 predecessor himself, has been found. 
 
 31. The facts, in M. Oppert's version of the annals, which bear on the 
 
 sacred history, are briefly these, (i) In the beginning of his reign the 
 
 Samaritan (3 lines deficient) With the aid of the Sun, he besieged and 
 
 seized on the city of Samaria, led captive 27,280 persons, and brought them 
 into Assyria, and placed instead of them men he had conquered, set over 
 them his lieutenants as governors, and imposed on them tribute as Assyrians. 
 (2) In his first year he vanquished the king of Elam. Merodach-baladan, 
 against the will of the gods, having arrogated the government of Babylonia, 
 
 he carried off thence men, and transplanted them to Assyria. (3) In the 
 
 second year Ilu-bid of Hamath fixed himself in Gargar and stirred up Arpad, 
 
 Zimira, Damascus and Samaria to revolt (40 lines wanting) Another 
 
 inscription says: "I uprooted the land of Hamath, tortured and burnt Ilu- 
 bid, tanned his skin, and stretched it out like wool. I blew on Carchemish, 
 when my hand had reached Pisiri, for he had conspired to revolt." He 
 attacked Gaza, whose king Hanun had leagued with Shebek, Tar-dan of 
 Egypt, and defeated them at Raphekh or Raphia. " Shebek had confidence 
 in his allies, and met me in battle. I defied him, remembering the great god 
 Asshur, my god. Shebek fled and escaped alone. Hanun was taken, and 
 I carried all his possessions to my city in Assyria. I destroyed his cities and 
 burnt them with fire, and carried off 9053 men and their goods." (4) The 
 third year he marched against Van, and Mititti the Zikirtian. In the fourth, 
 "Kiakkou of Sinoukta hardened his heart not to send tribute. I lifted my 
 hands to the gods, and lighted on him like a cloud, led captive him and his 
 soldiers, his wife, sons, daughters, the servants of his palace, and much 
 booty, and gave Sinoukta his capital to Matti of Atuna." (5) In the fifth 
 year Carchemish rebelled, their chief was put in chains, many of them were 
 removed to Assyria, and Assyrians placed in Carchemish. (6) The sixth and 
 seventh years had campaigns against Ursaha the Armenian, Belsharusur of 
 Kisasi, Ursaha and Ullusou of Van, and the king of Nairi. It continues: "I 
 occupied the country of Beth-Hamma, and carried away 2830 inhabitants. 
 I seized on the towns of Harua and Usnani in the land of Kue, which Mita, 
 king of the Moschians (Moab ?), had usurped. I marched against the tribes 
 
 of the Tasidi, Ibadadi, Marsimani of the land (of Arabia), the far off 
 
 dwellers in the land Bari, which the learned and wise had not known, 
 and of which none of the kings my fathers had heard the name. I made 
 them obey Asshur, and those who remained I took from their homes and 
 placed them in the city of Samaria. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Samsia queen 
 of Arabia, It-hamar the Sabean, are kings of the farthest sea. I took tribute 
 from them, incense, metals, dogs of all kinds, horses and camels. I succoured 
 Meta king of the Moschians?. ..in the district of his kingdom. The strong 
 places of Haroua and Usnani that had belonged to the men of his countiy 
 from time immemorial, I restored to him." (7) The eighth year had a cam- 
 paign against Van and Media, Mittiti of Zikirta, Ursaha the Armenian, the 
 Nairi, &c. (8) In the tenth year "the vast country of Khamman had not 
 submitted to Asshur," and was the scene of a conquest, and a viceroy set up. 
 
 25 — 2 
 
388 ISAIAH. 
 
 Mention is made, in a fragment, of "the retreats of the mountains of Syria," 
 and of tributes in metal from several places, and "the land of Amnion," all 
 which were laid up in his city Dur-Sarkin. (9) In the eleventh year "Azuri, 
 king of Ashdod, would not obey Asshur, nor give his tributes, and sent to 
 neighbour kings messages hostile to Assyria. I meditated vengeance and 
 raised in his stead his brother Akhimit to the throne. But the people of 
 Syria, greedy of revolt, tired of his rule, and set up Yaman. In the wrath of 
 my heart, I did not divide my army, nor bpcak its ranks, but marched against 
 Ashdod with my warriors, who did not stray from the traces of my sandals. 
 I besieged and took Ashdod, carried off its gods, gold, silver, treasures of the 
 palace, and placed there men whom I had coivjuered, placed over them my 
 lieutenant, treated them as Assyrians, and they pmctised obedience." 
 
 The twelfth and thirteenth years have a long acc(5ant of war with Mero- 
 dach-baladan, Elam, and Babylon. "He refused tribute, had leagued with 
 Umbanigas king of Elam, and raised against me all the tribes of Mesopo- 
 tamia. Against the will of the gods of Babylon, the city of Bel who judges 
 the gods, he had sent embassies twelve years. But Merodach, the great god, 
 did not protect the hostile deeds of the Chaldean, by whose help he lost the 
 sceptre and throne of his kingdom."... "The rest of the Aramaeans, a perverse 
 race, had placed their hopes on Merodach-baladan and Sutruk-nakhunti (king 
 of Elam)... I established my power amidst the palace of Merodach-baladan, 
 and received tribute from the lands of Aram. I committed Birtu to my 
 lieutenant the governor of Babylon." The conflict continued through the 
 thirteenth year. Meanwhile his lieutenant, westward, had fought with and 
 defeated Meta the Moschian. "Seven princes of Yatnan (Cyprus), whose 
 home is seven days off in the midst of the sea, and of whom the kings my 
 fathers had not known the names, on hearing the humiliation of the king of 
 Babylon, brought presents to me at Babylon, gold, silver, ebony, sandal 
 wood, and kissed my feet." The fourteenth year had a campaign in Com- 
 magene, and in the fifteenth Ispabara was set up by his seven captains 
 in lUib. 
 
 32. The Book of Kings tells us that, in the beginning of the reign of 
 Hoshea, Shalmaneser came up against him, and he became his servant and 
 gave him tribute ; that on finding him to have conspired with So or Shcbek, 
 king of Egypt, he imprisoned him, came up against all the land, besieged 
 Samaria in the seventh, and took it in the ninth of Hoshea, or in the fourth 
 and si.\th of Hezekiah. The broken fragment of the annals agrees with this 
 account as well with the higher as the lower dates. On the latter view 
 Sargon wholly conceals the fact that the conquest and siege were begun by 
 his predecessor, and nearly finished when his reign began. With the higher 
 date two explanations are possible. Either a summary of the repeated cam- 
 paigns against Samaria is made to introduce the annals of separate years, 
 and their whole result is given at once ; or else the words, from their order, 
 refer to months after the accession, before the first complete year began. 
 Nov/ if he succeeded in the summer of B.C. 729, the first of Hoshea, there 
 was time for a campaign before the spring of his first year began. Since 
 Tiglath had already carried captive the half tribe of Manasseh, Gad, and 
 
APPENDIX III. 389 
 
 Naphtali, a further captivfty would be almost certain to accompany this 
 new inroad, with fresh imposition of tribute on Hoshea, constituting him 
 an Assyrian vassal and viceroy. A capture of Samaria, taken unpre- 
 pared, might accompany the same event, as it had been taken by Tiglath 
 before ; and the inscription, being fifteen years later, might prefer to take 
 no notice of the protracted defence in a second siege, which would be less 
 glorious to the arms of Assyria than the first rapid conquest. Accordingly, 
 the message of Hezekiah in his first year, B.C. 726, or two and a half years 
 later, seems to imply that a large deportation of Israel to Assyria had taken 
 place very shortly before, 2 Chr. xxx. 6. The annals, also, state that Samaria 
 was invited by the king of Hamath, in Sargon's first year, to share in revolt 
 with Hamath, Arpad, and Damascus. This agrees perfectly with the view 
 that the date was B.C. 727, Hoshea's third year, when the annual tribute had 
 to be paid a second time ; but is hardly conceivable in the very next year 
 after the three years' siege, when its strength was utterly broken by famine, 
 sword, and captivity ; when a native Assyrian deputy ruled the feeble rem- 
 nant, that were not yet carried away, or those who had replaced them. 
 
 33. The chief argument for the lower dates is drawn from the notices of. 
 Merodach-baladan in Sargon's first and twelfth years, compared with the 
 Canon of Ptolemy. But while that canon has deservedly much weight, from 
 its use of a fixed era, and its agreement, in the lowest and best known por- 
 tions, with other historical testimonies; in itself it is a bare list of names and 
 numbers, perhaps derived from Babylonian registers, and the exact mode in 
 which the successions were fixed in its earliest portion is quite unknown. 
 We know, from the annals of Tiglath and Sennacherib, that Merodach was 
 a native leader in Babylonia, and able to contend with the kings of Assyria, 
 more than twenty years before the beginning of his place in the canon, and 
 also ten years after its close. We learn further, from Polyhistor, that he reigned 
 again, six months, before Elibus or Belibus. But neither the annals nor 
 other histories give us any knowledge of Chinzirus and Porus, and Elulseus 
 or Jugceus, the names which come before him, nor of Arceanus, who comes 
 after him. The interregnum that follows is a further sign of civil strife, involv- 
 ing uncertainty in the mode of reckoning the succession. The years, again, of 
 Sargon do not seem, in his own annals, to answer strictly to those of his rival, 
 but to be one lower; since Merodach is already in power in Sargon's first 
 year, and had completed twelve years, apparently, in Sargon's reckoning, when 
 the twelfth campaign began. The accession was reckoned, probably, by the 
 priesthood of Bel, since Dr Hincks has shewn strong reasons (y. S.L., 1859) 
 for holding the name of rule in Babylon to be priestly ; and though a rival 
 might be displaced, the civil governor might not displace a friendly name 
 from the temple register. Let us assume, then, that for three years of Chinzirus 
 and Porus, or of Porus after two of Chinzirus, of whom history tells us nothing, 
 and through five of Elulseus or Jugaeus, perhaps Yagin, father of Merodach, 
 the latter held actual power at Babylon, assuming the priestly honour only 
 on his father's death ; and that he recovered power, and held it eight years, with 
 the double title, after Sennacherib's reverse had encouraged Babylon to 
 assert its independence once more. The dates would then be — 72> i Chinzirus ; 
 
390 ISAIAH. 
 
 729 Merodach, civil ruler, Porus, priest of Bel ; 726 Merodach in rule, Jugaeus or 
 Yagin, priest; 721 Merodach king, and priest of Bel; 717 Arceanus, Assyrian 
 governor under Sargon, and priest ; 712 Merodach in power once more; 704 
 interregnum, Merodach recovering power at its close; 702 Belibus ; 699 
 Assaronadius. His absolute date in the priestly register, combined with the 
 fact, proved by tablets and inscriptions, of a twelve years' continuous rule, 
 would thus lead naturally to the transposition of the five years of Arceanus, 
 and of his own last eight in the priestly register. And since his political life 
 and struggles, from the annals, extend over 45 or 48 years, it is more likely 
 that his actual rule, as king of Babylon, amounted to 20 than only to 1 2 
 years. For we find him struggling manfully, from first to last, against the 
 Assyrian domination. 
 
 34. In all other respects the annals, with the higher dates, agree with 
 the natural meaning of the Books of Kings and Isaiah. The successive 
 conquests of Hamath, Arpad, Damascus, and Samaria, are set before us in 
 Isaiah x. as the actual order of Assyrian progress. Sargon, after ravaging 
 Babylonia in his first year, but claiming no conquest, in his second defeats the 
 rebellious king of Hamath, slays him, and reduces the city, when leagued 
 with Arpad and Damascus, at the opening of the campaign. That Sama- 
 ria was invited to share the revolt seems to fix the event in Hoshea's reign, 
 before its utter fall. That year, B.C. 727, was the last of Ahaz, when Isaiah 
 warned the Philistines, who were rejoicing in Tiglath's recent death, that still 
 greater evils were impending from his successor, and that successor's son. 
 The same year, on this view, Sargon attacked Gaza, defeated the Philistines 
 and Egyptians at Raphia, led Hanun and 9033 persons captive, and burned 
 the cities of Philistia with fire. This year is also, reckoning upward from 
 the Ethiopian date of Tirhakah, B.C. 713, the first of the fourteen years of 
 Shebek, who appears as a new ally of the Philistines. The coming triumphs 
 of Sargon over Hamath, Damascus, and Arpad, at Kharkhar or Aroer, and 
 over Philistia and Egypt at Raphia, both of them in his second year, would 
 thus be a fitting occasion for the burdens on Philistia, Moab, Damascus, and 
 Egypt, in Isaiah's prophecies. If the burden on Moab were two years after 
 that on Philistia, then "three years," ch. xvi. 14, will reach to the seventh 
 of Sargon, the middle year of the last siege of Samaria, when he made an 
 expedition against Arabia and the wandering tribes of the desert, which 
 seeins to have included Aroer, Ammon, and the Moabites, and thus to have 
 been by the eastern side of 'Jordan. To this the burdens of ch. xxi. seem to 
 refer. The Thamudites were then subdued, and he penetrated "to the 
 remote Arabia, which had never before given tribute to Assyria, of which none 
 of the kings my fathers had heard the name." Some of these were settled in 
 Samaria. Its final capture, by the scheme, would be next year, and probably 
 not by Sargon himself, but Tartan his general, thus answering to the order 
 in Isaiah, where that calamity is next described in " the burden of the valley 
 of vision." The year of its fall was probably the same when Tartan was 
 sent to Ashdod, to set up Akhimit in place of Azuri his brother. The three 
 years' sign in ch. xx. would thus belong to that date, and be fulfilled in Sar- 
 gon's eleventh year, when he marched against Ashdod in person, and " there 
 
APPENDIX III. 391 
 
 was no straggler in his armies," Isaiah xiv, 31 (R.V.) ; or, in his own words, 
 his warriors " did not separate themselves from the trace of his sandals ;" when 
 also the Egyptian and Ethiopian allies of Yaman were put to open shame, and 
 the king of Meroe was led by fear of his majesty to bow down before him. 
 In short, the reign of Sargon, who on this view is the basilisk of Isaiah xiv. 29, 
 beginning with the first of Hoshea, three years before Hezekiah, was that of 
 an eastern Napoleon, leading the Assyrian empire, by one unbroken series of 
 campaigns and victories, to the height of power, and sealing it by the build- 
 ing of his new city ; so as to make the sudden disaster more conspicuous, 
 when the flood reached the neck in Sennacherib's campaign. 
 
 35. Sennacherib, b.c. 714—693. 
 
 In the annals of Sennacherib, as drawn from the Taylor and Bellino cylin- 
 ders, two things are very suggestive of concealment and partial falsehood. 
 First, that " he does not speak of years, but of campaigns" {K G. M. 11. 144). 
 And next, that his recorded campaigns are only eight in number, while a 
 tablet has been found with his twenty-second year. Yet the Taylor cylinder 
 seems to have been engraven in his twenty-first year. After Sargon's 
 career of unbroken conquest, it follows that, for some reason or other, about 
 thirteen of his son's years, though equally daring and boastful with his 
 father, were without any campaign. 
 
 The historical outline of his reign, with the lower dates, is incredible, 
 unless we reject the clear and sublime narrative of the word of God 
 as a mere fable. Succeeding to Sargon, who had raised the empire to its 
 height of power by successes almost without a pause, we are called to 
 believe that Sennacherib began by a total inaction of two years ; and that, 
 next, he did a second time what Sargon professes to have done about five 
 years before, expelled Merodach, and set up an Assyrian governor. His Syrian 
 expedition, in his fiftli year, is an unmingled success. His reverse was in a 
 second campaign, which the Bible narrative excludes, and of which the Assy- 
 rian records say not a single word. But its effect was so trifling, that in the 
 same or the next year he was conquering just as his father had done, and went 
 on conquering through four or five prosperous campaigns. Then the love of 
 rest and ease must have seized on him for thirteen years ; which are without 
 a campaign, though Babylon, close at his side, was in revolt or independ- 
 ence for eight years ; till his murder by his own sons enabled Esarhaddon, at 
 the same moment, to displace the murderers at Nineveh, and also to recover 
 Babylon from revolt to dependence and submission. Such a course of events, 
 unless all the known laws of history were suspended and reversed, is quite 
 incredible. 
 
 36. Let us now compare the result of the higher dates. Sargon, in his 
 fifteenth year, as he reckons in his annals, but the sixteenth, including 
 the year of his accession, B.C. 729, is assassinated, B.C. 714, perhaps in 
 the month of August (Oppert, p. 29). He is succeeded by his equally 
 proud and warlike son. The father's recent successes in Babylonia, and the 
 temporary fall of Merodach, left no call for his activity in that direction ; so 
 that, when firmly seated on the throne, he bent his efforts at once to com- 
 
392 ISAIAH. 
 
 plcte the Assyrian victories, already great, in Phoenicia, Judaea, and Egypt. 
 His campaign began B.C. 713, early in the year, with forces that seemed 
 irresistible. His fust successes were great. He expelled Luliya or Elulaus, 
 king of Sidon, established Tubal in his place, received tributes from Arvad, 
 Byblus, Ashdod, Amnion, and Moab ; captured Ascalon, and transported its 
 king to Assyria ; marched on Ekron, and met the Philistines, Egyptians, and 
 Ethiopians at Altaku or Eltekeh, defeated them with great slaughter, took 
 alive several sons of Pharaoh, slew the rebels, and sold others as slaves. 
 He then made war on Judah, the only power north of Egypt not yet 
 reduced. He claims in his annals to have shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem 
 as a bird in a cage, raising mounds against it on every side, taken 46 strong 
 fenced cities, and smaller towns a countless number, to have received thirty 
 talents of gold and 800 of silver in tribute, and carried off as spoil 200,150 
 people with horses and mares, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a count- 
 less multitude. So ends his own history of the campaign, agreeing exactly 
 with Scripture except on two or three points, on which his bulletin for 
 Assyrian readers was sure to be false. He conceals his own breach of faith, 
 who first received Hezekiah's tribute, and then renewed the siege, to compel 
 their abject submission, and carry off the people as Assyrian slaves ; and 
 also the sudden destruction of the beleaguering host, in one night, on the 
 mountain heights where they were encamped around Jerusalem, Isaiah xiv. 
 25, XXV. 4, 5, xxix. 4 — 8. 
 
 37. The Scripture narrative then continues ; " So he departed, and went 
 and returned, even Sennacherib king of Assyria, and he dwelt at Nineveh." 
 The words plainly do not imply his sudden and speedy death, as stated in 
 the book of Tobit, which the annals fully disprove ; but they do seem to 
 imply, what was natural and almost inevitable, a cessation of foreign cam- 
 paigns for some years. His father's city, Dour-Sarkin, was probably still in- 
 complete, the reign having been full of wars and conquests ; and, besides 
 completing those monuments, he might seek to immortalize himself by 
 magnificent structures of his own. But the blow must have shaken the 
 empire to its basis, and dissolved for a time the charm of invincible strength. 
 The year, on this view, would be the fifth and last of Sargon's viceroy at 
 Babylon, B.C. 717 — 7I3. Early next year " IMerodach-baladan, the son of 
 Baladan," had profited by the heavy blow on Assyria to recover his throne, 
 which he held eight years longer, and sent, as was natural, an embassy to 
 Hezekiah. At the end of that time native feuds had arisen, the empire 
 was recovering from the shock, an Assyrian party prevailed for a moment, 
 and a brother of Sennacherib was received as viceroy. Merodach, still 
 unsubdued, recovers it for a few months, when Sennacherib takes the field 
 for the first time after his reverse, and sets up Belipni or Bclibus at 
 Babylon. A campaign in Zagros follows, then a pause of a year, and a third 
 campaign, when Assaronadius his son is made viceroy, and holds the post 
 for six years. Four campaigns in succession now follow, the king and the 
 empire being no longer spell-bound by their great reverse, first in Zagros 
 and Cilicia, and then on the side of Babylon and Susiana. Probably in 
 B.C. 694 he made an expedition to the sea-coast of Cilicia, and founded Tarsus. 
 
APPENDIX III. 393 
 
 But, when thus entered anew on a course of conquest, he was quickly arrested 
 by the stroke of death. His own sons were his murderers, and Esar-haddon, 
 committing the rule of Babylon to Rigebelus, ascended the throne. 
 
 38. Esar-haddon or Asaradinus, b.c. 693—667. 
 
 The reign of this king, with the lower dates, is only 13 years, both at 
 Nineveh and Babylon. With the higher it is 26 years, half at Nineveh 
 alone, and the other half with the Babylonian viceroyalty held in his own 
 person, besides six years when he held it alone in his father's lifetime. 
 The events themselves seem to favour the higher estimate for the length of 
 his reign. His cylinders record ten distinct campaigns ; against Phoenicia, 
 including a naval expedition to Cyprus, and the reduction of Sidon and a 
 neighbouring king ; against Armenia and Cilicia, with wars in the north-west 
 and north-east ; against Chaldea, to displace one son of Merodach, and set up 
 another ; against Edom ; and next, against a remote district, perhaps the land 
 of Buz in Arabia, where no Assyrian army had reached before ; against 
 Armenian tribes, and a very remote part of Media. But besides these, there 
 was the expedition in which Manasseh was made captive, the transfer of 
 > Cuthites to Samaria, the founding of a new city near to Sidon, and also an 
 invasion and conquest of Egypt, to which the annals of his son allude. 
 When we add that he claims to have built three palaces and thirty temples, 
 and that one of those palaces was planned on the largest scale, it seems hardly 
 possible that all should be compressed within the short space of thirteen 
 years. To these we may add a civil war with Adrammelech, vv^hich Abydenus 
 ascribes to the opening of his reign. A slight presumption for the higher 
 dates may be further gained from the genealogy. If Asshurbanipal was ten 
 years younger than Sargon at his accession, we should still have only B.C. 
 761 — 697, or 64 years, for three generations ; but 8 years more, or 72 years, 
 with the earlier date. 
 
 39. The result of this inquiry may be summed up in a few words. 
 With the dates now adopted by Syrologists in opposition to the earlier 
 chronologers, we adhere to the Canon of Ptolemy in some of its details, to 
 other details of a nameless Assyrian canon, and to the entire truthful- 
 ness of Sennacherib in what he records ; but we sacrifice the text of 
 Scripture, the drift and main features of the most central part of the sacred 
 history, the common silence of the monuments and the Assyrian Canon on 
 any reign between Tiglath-pileser and Sargon, and the direct proof from 
 Menander that Shalmaneser and Sargon are the same. Instead of a series of 
 harmonies between the monuments and the annals of the Book of Isaiah, we 
 produce a series of discords and contradictions ; while the course of events 
 seems wholly opposed to all the lessons of historical common-sense. 
 
 On the other view we assume a wilful concealment, by Sennacherib, of 
 the reverse which ended his Juda;an cainpaign, of his own guilty breach of 
 faith which led to the calamity, and also of the true order of that event 
 among the years of his reign ; since this would have betrayed the long 
 inaction in which he dwelt at Nineveh, and carried on its stately build- 
 
394 ISAIAH. 
 
 ings without venturing on foreign war for a season. We assume, further, 
 that the priestly register of Babylon was not always identical with the 
 civil rule. But we gain thereby a result historically consistent and natural ; 
 and a series of agreements, some patent on the surface, others revealing 
 themselves on closer search, between the facts in the annals of Assyria, 
 the whole range of Isaiah's prophecies, and the Books of Chronicles and 
 Kings. 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF IMMANUEL. 
 
 The Christian interpretation of this most important prophecy, which 
 sees its proper fulfilment in our Lord and Him alone, is confirmed by these 
 reasons: (i) The character of the offered sign, "in the height above, or in 
 the depth beneath," which implies that the event thus promised was some 
 unusual wonder. (2) The natural force of the word "virgin," when com- 
 pared further with the first promise of the Seed of the woman. (3) The 
 mention of Immanuel, ch. viii. 8, as the Owner of the land of Israel. (4) The 
 further and fuller description, ix. 6, of this Child that was to be born, as the 
 Mighty God, answering to the name " God with us ;" and as the appointed 
 heir of the throne of David, whose kingdom would have no end. (5) The 
 plain repetition of the same promise, ch. xi., in the promise of the Rod from 
 the stem of Jesse, given as the sequel of the Assyrian overthrow. (6) The 
 fact that another child with another name, a son of the prophet, and not in 
 the royal line, is immediately given, to fulfil the more limited purpose of 
 predicting the time when Rezin and Pekah would be overthrown. 
 
 Two main objections lie against this view, and need to be removed. How 
 could the birth of Christ, after seven centuries, be a sign to Ahaz of speedy 
 deliverance? How can the words of ch. vii. 16 be explained on this view? 
 Is it not a strange promise, that before the boyhood of Christ, seven centuries 
 later, the dreaded invasion would have passed away ? The difficulty has 
 been felt and known by most orthodox expositors, and various attempts have 
 been made to remove it. Some interpret "the child" v. 16 indefinitely, for any 
 new-born child, others refer it to Shear-jashub. Vitringa supposes a compari- 
 son between this first stage of Messiah's lifetime when born, and the interval 
 till Rczin's overthrow. Hengstcnberg adds the further view of a prophetic 
 cxtasy, in which the prophet saw the stages of that infancy as if present, and 
 compared them with the actual and immediate future. Others refer the verse 
 to the actual passing away of the sceptre from Judah after the birth of Christ. 
 
 It is clearly strained and violent to assume a sudden transition, in v. 16, 
 to a second child. Shear-jashub was probably a youth at the time, and to 
 him it could not apply. A reference to the unborn son of the prophet is 
 more reasonable. But Maher-shalal-hashbaz was not the Owner of the land, 
 nor the heir of David's throne, nor was the birth such a sign as had been 
 offered, in the height or in the depth. He was indeed a sign, like Shear- 
 jashub, viii. 18; but still a contrast to that greater and nobler Child, ix. 6, 
 
APPENDIX IV. 395 
 
 whose name would be "the Alighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince 
 of Peace." 
 
 A key to this difficulty is found, when we observe the close connection of 
 ch. vii. vv. 15, 22, in both of which "curds and honey" are named. The main 
 object of this sign of unusual dignity was, in the hour of alarm and terror, 
 to renew the confidence of the faithful in God's double covenant to Abraham 
 and to David, of One who should possess the gate of his enemies, and of that 
 Son of David, who should rise up to sit on his throne, of whose kingdom 
 there should be no end. The purpose of the hostile league was wholly to 
 displace the sacred line, and to set up the son of Tabeal, a stranger or a 
 renegade, on David's throne. The promise, then, to the house of David, of 
 the greater Son of David, whose birth would be a miracle of Divine power, 
 the Owner of the land, and the Redeemer of His people from their enemies, 
 is confirmed with greater fulness and clearness than before. But a special 
 warning, due to the present sin of Ahaz and his people, is here joined with 
 the promise. Not only the present invasion, which would very soon be at 
 an end, but heavier troubles and desolations from the Assyrian spoiler, whom 
 they were blindly inviting to relieve them from a momentary danger, were 
 coming upon the whole land, on Judah as well as Ephraim ; and it would 
 thus be reduced to a waste and desolate condition, before this promised 
 Child should enter on His work of deliverance. 
 
 The whole prediction, then, vv. 17 — 25, is included in v. 16, as if it formed 
 part of one and the same sentence, and expounds the force of the warning 
 notice in the previous verse. The special food of Messiah, while yet an 
 infant, is made the subject of prediction, to indicate that the troubles and 
 changes presently described must all be fulfilled, before He would enter on 
 His great work as the destined heir of David's throne, and the Redeemer of 
 Israel. 
 
 The promise of Immanuel, then, has a primary and a secondaiy pur- 
 pose. The first and chief was to strengthen the hope of the faithful in 
 Judah, in this hour of fear and danger, that they might stay their souls 
 anew on the covenant to Abraham and to David, and also gain some further 
 insight into the mysterious nature and dignity of the Messiah who was to 
 come. He was to be "Immanuel," God with us, the Son of the Virgin, 
 pure and sinless from His birth, knowing to choose good and refuse evil. A 
 foundation is thus laid for all Isaiah's later messages, centering on the same 
 glorious Child; the Rod from the Stem of Jesse, the Root of Jesse, the 
 precious Corner-stone, laid by God himself in Zion, the King to reign in 
 righteousness, the Divine Shepherd of Israel, the Chosen and Beloved 
 Servant of God, the Man of sorrows, the great Intercessor for transgress- 
 ors, the Anointed Preacher of comfort to the mourners in Zion, the Salva- 
 tion of His people, the King who speaks in righteousness, mighty to save. 
 But a secondary object, connected with the time when this great promise 
 is renewed, was to teach them that this Deliverer would not arise, and re- 
 deem His people, till sore calamities from the Assyrian spoilers had first 
 lighted on the whole land of promise, and its fruitful Carmels, its vine- 
 yards and olive-yards, had been changed into open pasture-fields and 
 comparative desolation. 
 
39(5 ISAIAH. 
 
 Since, however, the form of the main promise, given to fulfil this double 
 object, might easily have led to the mistaken conclusion that the birth of 
 Immanucl was close at hand, a second message is at once given; and the 
 birth of a second child is promised, a son of the prophet, with a different 
 name, and in a different line of descent, to be a direct and proper limit of the 
 time appointed for the speedy overthrow of "these two tails of smoking fire- 
 brands," Rczin, and the son of Remaliah. The main promise, being thus set 
 free from that faulty and narrow view of its purpose, which might else have 
 arisen, is at once renewed, ch. viii. 8, in all the fulness of its true meaning; 
 that it may be like a star of bright hope before the eyes of the faithful 
 throughout the long series of Assyrian and Chaldean desolations, which 
 ■were coming shortly upon the land and people of Israel. 
 
 The words that follow, ch. viii. i8, confirm this view. The two sons of 
 Isaiah are there described as "signs and wonders from the LORD of hosts, 
 who dwelleth in Zion." Shear-jashub was probably born and named soon 
 after the promise in Isaiah's first commission, — "There shall be in it a tenth, 
 that shall return." He was now, probably, a boy seventeen years old, and 
 his name was a pledge and a sign of mercy in the midst of sorest trial. ]\Iaher- 
 shalal-hash-baz was, by his name, the sign and seal of those judgments which 
 were coming on the land through the Assyrian spoiler. These two signs are 
 both combined in the prediction that next follows, which opens with a 
 mention of the Divine commission to the Assyrian himself, "to take a spoil, 
 and to take the prey, and tread them down as the mire of the streets ;" and 
 then issues in the contrasted promise, "Shear-jashub," "A remnant shall 
 return, the remnant of Jacob, unto the Mighty God," x. 6, 21. But, in con- 
 trast to these two sons of the prophet, these secondary and lower signs of 
 judgment mingled with mercy, the promise of Immanucl, the son of the 
 Virgin, stands out in sublime and unapproachable grandeur throughout the 
 long series of Isaiah's prophecies. It marks the close of this fifth section of 
 the first series, in the well-known and glorious passage, ix. 6, 7. It is referred 
 to in the next section, for "the Mighty God" is one title of this Child, and it is 
 to the same " Mighty God" that the remnant of Jacob are to return. It forms 
 the substance of the seventh and last section, in the prophecy of the Rod 
 from the stem of Jesse, on whom the fulness of the Spirit is to rest. In 
 the third series of Woes, the coming of the same Divine Person is thrice 
 foretold, as the precious Corner-stone, the righteous King, and the Lord the 
 Healer of his people. In each of the three later series He appears, at least 
 in three different characters, with evergrowing clearness in the revelation. He 
 is the Shepherd of Israel, the Chosen Servant of God, the Word sent by 
 the Lord God and his Spirit to be the Redeemer of Israel. He is the true 
 Israel, the Comforter of the weary, the Man of sorrows, the Witness, 
 Leader, and Commander of the people. He is the Anointed Preacher of 
 grace, the heavenly Intercessor, the righteous Judge and King. He is the 
 Alpha and Omega in this book of divine prophecy, just as in the whole 
 compass and extent of the word of God. 
 
 The passage, ix. i, has been variously explained. But when we compare 
 the two events of earlier history, i Kings xv. 20, 2 Kings x. 32, 33, its mean- 
 ing becomes clear and plain. The light aflliction is that by Bcnhadad, 
 
APPENDIX V. 397 
 
 when Dan, Chlnneroth, and Naphtali were first ravaged by Syria. The 
 heavier affliction is that in the days of Hazael, when they were smitten 
 "from the Jordan eastward... even Gilead and Bashan." But now, when 
 Ahaz had invited the Assyrian spoiler, a time of more complete wasting was 
 to set in, attended with still deeper sorrows. All these calamities, however, 
 would be a dark background, to bring out in brighter relief the blessing to 
 follow. The Child to be born would be "a light to lighten the Gentiles," 
 and of Him and His forerunner it would be true, that there would be "joy 
 and gladness, and many should rejoice at his birth." The same region, also, 
 where the captivity had begun, Galilee of the Gentiles, was to be marked by 
 the first bright dawn of this heavenly light that was to arise. The ministry 
 of our Lord was purposely so ordered, that despised Galilee, as it was the first 
 to undergo those troubles from the heathen, might be the first to catch the 
 full dawn of the long-promised deliverance that Messiah would bring to His 
 people. 
 
 In ch. ix. 3, where the received text is both obscure and slightly uncertain, 
 having three varieties, the conjecture of Professor Selwyn (n^J gladness, for '•ij 
 tiation, followed by N'?. 1? or rO) has been adopted from the strong internal 
 evidence. The parallelism is thus rendered simple and complete. "Thou 
 hast multiplied the gladness, thou hast increased the joy : they joy before thee 
 according to the joy in harvest : and as men are glad (-l^'JJ) when they divide 
 the spoil." So the fulfilment is recounted in those words of the angel to Za- 
 charias, "Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his 
 birth." And again to the shepherds, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of 
 great joy, which shall be to all the people." A change by conjecture in the 
 sacred text, without direct MS. evidence, ought certainly to be confined 
 within the narrowest limits. But this is one of the very few cases where the 
 variations of the Keri, Chethib, and versions, the obscurity of the sense as 
 the text now stands, and the harmony of sense and structure by the omission 
 of one single letter, seem to me strong evidence that the change only restores 
 the true text as it proceeded from Isaiah. One similar change, Isaiah xxix. 13 
 (•inhl for ^nfll), of a single letter seems doubly confirmed by the clearer and 
 fuller emphasis it gives to the passage, and by the quotation in the first two 
 Gospels, where the emphasis of our Lord's discourse seems to rest mainly on 
 this very word, denouncing the vanity of their formal worship. 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 THE HISTORICAL GROUNDWORK OF THE BURDENS. 
 
 The review of Assyrian history in the times of Isaiah, in App. III., drawn 
 from a comparison of the annals with other evidence, may throw further 
 light on the connection of the parts in the second and third divisions of the 
 prophecy, chh. xiii. — xxxv. Some of the statements in the notes will thus be 
 slightly modified, while the intimate relation between these prophecies and 
 the actual course of events will assume a still more definite form. 
 
 The date of Isaiah's commission, in the year of Uzziah's death, or B.C. 
 
398 ISAIAH. 
 
 759, lies just midway between the three main classic Eras, the Olympiads 
 B.C. 776, the Varronian date of Rome B.C. 753, and the Era of Nabonassar B.C. 
 747. The earliest of his visions, chh. ii. — vi., seem all to belong to that year of 
 transition from Uzziah's prosperous reign to the less prosperous one of Jo- 
 tham, and to the disasters under Ahaz. In the second of Ahaz, B.C. 741, 
 eighteen years after the first, a second series of messages, closely related to 
 them, and continuing the same burden, were given. The first had announced 
 the destruction from Ephraim and Syria, which took place in the first 
 year of Ahaz, and then warned, in general terms, of the Assyrian invasion 
 then to follow, ch. v. 25. In ch. vii. this first judgment has been fulfilled, and 
 the calamities from Assyria occupy the whole foreground. Damascus and 
 Samaria are soon to be punished, but Judah's desolations are only just be- 
 gun. This later message, chh. i., vii. — xii., seems to have been completed in 
 the second and third of Ahaz, and combined with the first ; so as to form one 
 entire prophetic series, committed to the keeping of the faithful, viii. 16, 17, 
 until the course of events should put a further seal on the message. 
 
 The Burdens begin a new series of prophetic warnings. The date, xiv. 
 28, seems to imply that the first was given before the year of the death of 
 Ahaz. Now B.C. 729, the 14th of Ahaz, was also the first of Hoshea in the 
 reckoning of his years in Kings. If the view already unfolded be just, it was 
 also the year of Tiglath's death, in which his successor, Shalmaneser or 
 Sargon, came to the throne, and also when Merodach became actual ruler at 
 Babylon. It would thus be a very suitable date, at the opening of the last 
 inglorious reign in Israel, and the most prosperous one in the annals of 
 Assyria, when Assyria's rival, Babylon, also came into new political life and 
 activity, for a series of Burdens on the Gentile powers, to be followed by 
 Woes on Ephraim and Judah. 
 
 1. The first Burden is on Babylon, the power by which the captivity of 
 Judah, after escaping from Assyria, was at length to be fulfilled. As the first 
 scries began with the final glory of Zion, and then predicted the trials that 
 were first to come ; so this Burden on Babylon takes precedence of the judg- 
 ments on the other Gentile powers, Avhich Nineveh first, and then Babylon, 
 were to overrun and subdue. And here it is plain that Assyria and Babylon 
 are viewed as two successive stages of one and the same power. Hence the 
 description, xiv. 4—8, of the king of Babylon, applies actually to Tiglath, 
 Sargon, and Sennacherib, whose annals are filled mainly with their exactions 
 of tribute from conquered tribes and nations. Also the mention, xiv. 24—27, 
 of the Assyrian overthrow, at the close of this burden, proves that the two 
 powers were viewed as essentially one and the same. But if the year of the 
 prophecy were marked by the rise to power, at Babylon, of the one king who 
 struggled with success against Assyria in the time of its supremacy, and 
 whose later embassy was the first connection between Babylon and Judah, 
 and also by the accession of the most prosperous of Assyrian conquerors, no 
 relation could be more exact and complete between the nature of the mes- 
 sage and the occasion when it was revealed. 
 
 2. The Burden on Philistia next follows, "in the year that king Ahaz 
 died," or B.C. 727. This note of time, like those in xvi. 13, 14, xx. i, and 
 perhaps in xxi. j6, 17, may be viewed as not applying to the whole sequel 
 
APPENDIX V. 399 
 
 of the visions, but to this passage alone, as slightly later than those on 
 either side. That year, on the view above, is the second year of Sar- 
 gon ; in which, after subduing Hamath and its allies, he marched south- 
 ward, defeated Shebek at Raphia, carried Hanun king of Gaza captive 
 into Assyria, with 9033 persons, and burned the neighbouring cities with 
 fire. How seasonable would be the prophet's warning, when the year 
 began, that, although Tiglath the first invader was dead, broken perhaps by 
 violence, Philistia had no cause to rejoice ! The fierce basilisk, his successor, 
 was ready to equal and exceed those former ravages, and there would be 
 " no straggler in his armies." The phrase of Sargon is nearly the same in 
 his later campaign, that his soldiers "did not separate theinselves from 
 the traces of his sandals." (Inscript. Oppert, p. 34.) 
 
 3. The Burden of Moab follows. Assigning this, like the first Burden, 
 to the opening of Hoshea's reign, the annals of Sargon, however imperfectly 
 deciphered with regard to the geographical names, imply clearly that one or 
 two invasions of Moab occurred within the eight or nine years that followed. 
 Qarqar, the scene of the first battle with Hamath and its confederates, may 
 perhaps have been the northern Aroer, and a rapid invasion of Ammon and 
 Moab may have then followed. In the seventh year, the mention of Beth- 
 hamma (Ammon), of Haroua (Aroer?) and of Mita king of the Moschians 
 (Mesha king of Moab?), plainly in connection with a southward or Arabian 
 expedition, suggests strongly the idea of a Moabite invasion, such as the 
 prophecy describes. Such an invasion, whether or not the names can be 
 identified from the slabs of Khorsabad, must have attended, almost certainly, 
 the siege and fall of Samaria. The seventh of Sargon, on the view above, 
 would be B.C. 722, the one complete year of the siege. While the tedious 
 work was committed to a lieutenant, possibly Tartan, the king might 
 prefer the more enterprising and brilliant task of a campaign against the 
 Arabian tribes, taking Moab on the east of Jordan in his course. If the 
 main prophecy were given in the first year, as the era of reviving prophecy, 
 the last two verses might then be added four years later, to define the 
 near approach of the threatened judgment. 
 
 4. The Burden of Damascus may be referred to the same date, the first 
 of Hoshea, and 14th of Ahaz. The next year would be that of the battle of 
 Qarqar (Aroer.?), when the confederate forces of Hamath, Zimira, Arpad, and 
 Damascus, were overthrown. A fresh capture of Damascus would be sure to 
 follow ; and the cities of Aroer, once the district of the north-eastern tribes of 
 Israel, but mainly owned by Syria ever since the days of Hazael, would be 
 exposed to a further desolation. The following verses would be fulfilled 
 in the seven next ensuing years, and eight years still later would be the great 
 judgment on Assyria, predicted at the close. The invitation, in the next 
 chapter, to the Egypto-Ethiopian power, is most appropriate in the reign of 
 Sevechus, the second of the three Ethiopian kings of Egypt. 
 
 5. The Burden of Egypt, on this view, would also be given the year be- 
 fore the battle of Raphia, the first formal conflict of Assyria and Egypt, 
 which was soon to be followed by two later Egyptian reverses, in the eleventh 
 of Sargon, B.C. 718, and in the opening of Sennacherib's Jud?ean campaign. 
 The warnings of the prophecy may include, further, the double invasion 
 
400 ISAIAH. 
 
 of Egypt by Esarhaddon and his son Asbhurbanipal, when these haughty 
 Assyrian conquerors parcelled it out into separate nomcs or provinces. 
 These campaigns may form the nearer foreground of the prophetic picture ; 
 while its fuller reference is to the Persian conquest, and the Era of Alex- 
 ander and the Ptolemies, leading on to the times of the Gospel. 
 
 6. In ch. XX. we have the sole mention of Sargon by name, and a three 
 years' sign appointed to the prophet, of the common shame of Ethiopia and 
 Egypt. In the nth of Sargon was his expedition against Ashdod, to put 
 down Yaman, who had usurped the rule, and refused tribute. Akhimit had 
 been set up in place of Azuri by the Assyrians some time before. These im- 
 perfect hints will agree with each other and the prophecy, if Tartan marched 
 against Ashdod, and took it, setting up Akhimit as its king, in the summer of 
 B.C. 721, when Samaria had fallen. Within three years from that date would 
 be the later campaign, when its Ethiopian and Egyptian succours could not 
 save it from falling a second time, but were exposed themselves to shame 
 and disgrace from the haughty conqueror. 
 
 7. The Burdens of ch. xxi. belong to the Desert of the Sea, that is, the 
 Red Sea, and to the southern Arabian tribes. So, in Sargon's seventh year, 
 "he subdued the uncultivated plains of remote Arabia, which had never be- 
 fore given tribute to Assyria," and of which he says, "the kings my fathers 
 did not even know the names." The Burden of the Valley of Vision imme- 
 diately follows. Accordingly, on the view above, the Arabian expedition 
 would be B.C. 722, while one of the Assyrian generals continued the tedious 
 blockade of Samaria ; and the next year would be that of the fall of the 
 luxurious city, so vividly portrayed in Isaiah's warning vision. Referring 
 the prediction to the same date as before, it will furnish another instance of 
 a three years' warning, since the deposition of Shebna may be probably 
 referred to the first opening of Hczekiah's reign. 
 
 8. The Burden of Tyre is last in order. If we accept the outline, in Me- 
 nander, of a five years' investment of that city under Shalmaneser, whom his 
 conquest of Cyprus, there named, identifies with Sargon, whose effigy has 
 been recovered from Idalium, then the embassy of Cyprian princes to Sargon 
 at Babylon, in his 13th year, will carryback the investment to the 7th or 
 8th year, and fix this event, probably, to this latest part of his reign. If the 
 sieo-e and capture of Ashdod by Tartan followed on the fall of Samaria, and 
 the next event was the investment of Tyre, the order will be just the same as 
 in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the place of this Burden will agree 
 strictly with the succession of Assyrian conquests. 
 
 9. The Burdens, on this view, would form, in respect of date, a third 
 series of Isaiah's messages. The first, chh. ii. — vi., belong to the last year of 
 Uzziah's long reign, or B.C. 759, a year of transition and downward progress, 
 a farewell to the political glories of David, Solomon, and Uzziah. The second, 
 chh. i. vii. — xii., will bear date in the second of Ahaz, B.C. 741, when the first 
 trouble from Syria was past, and the first stage of Assyrian invasion was 
 close at hand. The third, chh. xiii. — xx\ii., though including three portions 
 sli"-htly later, the Burden of Philistia, the sequel to that of Moab, and the 
 longer sequel to that of Egypt, ch. xx., may be referred, as a whole, with pro- 
 bable evidence, to B.C. 729, the first year of Hoshea, just thirty years after the 
 
APPENDIX VI. 40l 
 
 prophet's course began, and still more than thirty years before his death. 
 If the previous reasonings are sound, this was also the year of the accession 
 of Shalmaneser or Sargon at Nineveh, and of Merodach-baladan's actual 
 rule at Babylon, while his priestly rule in the registers may have been eight 
 years later, after the death of Yagin or Jugseus. The Woes that follow may 
 have been two years later, in the last year of Ahaz, the year of Shebek's pro- 
 bable accession, to whom Israel and Judah sent their embassies to entreat 
 his alliance. This would form a natural date for prophecies, in which one 
 main feature is stern rebuke of their dependence on a heathen power which 
 could not save, and of their refusal to trust in the Lord God of Israel. The 
 altered tone, more hopeful and encouraging, though still mingled with 
 severity, may thus be explained, not by the actual accession of Hezekiah 
 but by the near prospect of that happy change. These same messages, when 
 applied by the Spirit to the conscience of the youthful king, and of the more 
 faithful rulers of Judah, may have been one main cause of the zealous 
 reformation, which marked the very opening of Hezekiah's reign. 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 THE ASSYRIAN OVERTHROW. 
 
 The Scripture, in three different books, reports a campaign of Sennache- 
 rib in Judsa, which began in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, and ended in 
 the sudden overthrow of his army, and his hasty return to Nineveh; also 
 in the same year, before that sickness and recovery, when fifteen years, by 
 Divine promise, were added to his life and reign. Those years, it is further 
 stated, were to be years of peace and truth, and safety from Assyrian violence. 
 The annals of Sennacherib in the Taylor and Bellino cylinders also report 
 one campaign in Judsea, and one only, and agree fully with the Scripture 
 statement as to its earlier successes, but conceal wholly the great reverse at 
 its close. Instead of two campaigns being "clearly proved" by them, as 
 some able writers strangely affirm (Hezekiah, Smith's Dictionary), the 
 sacred text and the cylinder record agree perfectly in affirming one cam- 
 paign of this king against Hezekiah, and one only. A review of their 
 testimony will render this fact still plainer, and throw further light on this 
 memorable deliverance. 
 
 The annals, it must first be noticed, do not mention years of the reign, as 
 in the case of Sargon, but campaigns only. The number of these is only 
 eight, though they reach nearly or quite to the end of his reign, which a 
 clay tablet shows to have lasted twenty-two current years. Thus twelve, 
 thirteen, or fourteen years, must have been passed with no campaign ; 
 while Sargon had one every year, and a second in seven or eight years, of 
 his active and warlike reign. These years of inaction are nearly equal in 
 E.I. 20 
 
402 ISAIAH. 
 
 number to the years of peace assured to Hezekiahby Divine promise after 
 the Assyrian overthrow. The annals naturally conceal the reverse itself, 
 and also the suspended warfare that it occasioned, numbering the cam- 
 paigns, and not the years to which they belong. It is quite credible, then, 
 that there may also be some departure from the true order in these un- 
 dated cylinder bulletins of this haughty king, still further to conceal so 
 great a calamity. 
 
 Again, the successive conquests by Sargon of Hamath, Arpad, Zimira, 
 Damascus, Samaria, Ashdod, and Gaza, and the triumphs in Babylonia at 
 the close of his reign, would lead us to expect, on the first accession of his 
 proud and warlike son, a campaign against Judaea and Egypt. Two years 
 entire inaction at the opening of such a reign is most improbable. But on 
 the other hand, if a campaign, which ended in a great reverse, stood alone, 
 it would be a slight departure from truth, compared with others of which 
 these kings are certainly guilty, to place this first campaign third in order, 
 so as to fill up a vacant year in a series of later and more prosperous 
 expeditions. 
 
 The cylinder record begins with the defeat of Luliya, king of Sidon, and 
 the setting up of one Tubal in his place as a tributary king. So, among the 
 burdens which belong to the days of Sargon as their starting-point, the last is 
 that of Tyre. Sennacherib then receives tribute from the kings of Arvad 
 and Byblus, Mitinti king of Ashdod, Puduel king of Beth Ammon, and 
 kings of Moab and of Edom. Next he marched to Ashkelon, captured 
 the king, his wife, children, brothers, and all his family, and transported 
 them to Assyria. Hazor, Joppa, Beth-barak, Bcth-dagon, are reduced. 
 Ekron had revolted, sent its king Padi a prisoner to Hezekiah, and 
 allied itself with Ethiopia and Egypt. A battle follows at Altaku or El- 
 tekeh near Ekron, where the allies are defeated with great slaughter. Tam- 
 na (Timnath) and Ekron are then taken, great numbers of rebels are 
 impaled, and others sold as slaves. Padi is restored, and a small tribute 
 imposed. But Hezekiah, having received him, was viewed as a sharer in 
 the revolt, and became the object of Sennacherib's vengeance, who next 
 invaded Judaea. 
 
 These statements agree fully with the account in Scripture of the first 
 steps of this great campaign. For this implies that the power of the Great 
 King, to all human appearance, was irresistible, a flood reaching to the neck, 
 which threatened to drown the whole kingdom. The recent reverse of the 
 Egyptians at Altaku explains Rabshakeh's pithy description of Pharaoh as 
 "a broken reed" in his insulting speech at Jerusalem. Thirdly, we are told 
 that Hezekiah, at the opening of his reign, had " rebelled against the king of 
 Assyria" and ceased to pay the tribute, which Ahaz had paid before, 2 Kings 
 xviii. 7. He had also gained successes over the Philistines, and brought 
 them partly into subjection, 2 Kings xviii. 8. Lastly, the Prophecy, Isaiah 
 xiv. 32, implies that messengers from Philistia would come to Jerusalem in the 
 hour of their common terror from the Assyrian, and be assured, in answer, 
 that a safe refuge would be found in Zion. The Assyrian report probably 
 disguises the fact that Ekron had submitted to Hezekiah as a conqueror, 
 and that his rival claim, lately asserted, of suzerainty over the Philistian 
 
APPENDIX VI. 403 
 
 cities was his real offence in the eyes of the Assyrian king. The account 
 then proceeds : — 
 
 " Because Hezekiah king of Judah would not submit to my yoke, I 
 came up against him, and by the force of arms and the might of my power 
 (Isai. X. 13) I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities, and of smaller towns 
 scattered about I took a countless number. From these places I captured 
 and carried off 200,150 people, old and young, male and female, with horses 
 and mules, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude And 
 Hezekiah I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, 
 building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth, 
 to prevent escape. Then on this Hezekiah fell the fear of the power of my 
 arms, and he sent out to me the chiefs and elders of Jerusalem, with thirty 
 talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a 
 rich and immense booty. All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, 
 the seat of my government, Hezekiah having sent them by way of tribute, 
 and in token of submission to my power." 
 
 Here there is a close agreement with Scripture, except in two main 
 points, and one detail. The Scripture account says that Sennacherib took 
 all the fenced cities of Judah. This clearly implies the unresisted occupa- 
 tion of all the open villages, and also, by the constant usage of the Assy- 
 rians, the carrying off of a great number of Jewish captives. This flood, 
 Isaiah had foretold, would reach to the neck, and Jerusalem alone escape 
 the inundation. We are told, further, that Hezekiah sent to Lachish, and 
 promised 30 talents of gold and 300 talents of silver, to buy off the threat- 
 ened siege ; and that he sent them off without delay, supposing that his re- 
 quest, " Return from me," would then be fulfilled. It seems also likely, from 
 the sacred text, that the first steps had already been taken for investing the 
 city. The agreement in the talents of gold is exact. The difference in those 
 of silver may be due to an exaggeration in the cyhnder record, or else tributes 
 from other captured cities may have been included, to swell the amount. 
 
 The differences are two only. The annals, as might have been cer- 
 tainly foreseen, are wholly silent on that terrible reverse which brought the 
 campaign to a close ; and they also conceal the treachery of the Great King, 
 which was the immediate cause of this heavy judgment. He consented, as 
 we see from Scripture, to receive a very costly tribute on condition of raising 
 the siege and ceasing hostilities ; and then, when possessed of Hezekiah's 
 treasure, renewed them with greater fierceness than before. The messages of 
 Isaiah contain repeated predictions of this very crime, Isai. xvi. 4, xxi. 2, 
 xxiv. 16, xxxiii. i, 8. In all other respects the two accounts agree. The 
 strict investment of the city, and the raising of mounds against it, are implied 
 in the history, and clearly foretold by Isaiah xxix. I — 8. They are predicted, 
 not as to be followed by Assyrian success, but by complete and sudden dis- 
 comfiture, thus fixing both events to one and the same campaign. The words 
 of Isai. xxxvii. 33, rightly understood, agree perfectly with this view. The 
 siege never reached the latest stage, when it would be endeavoured to take 
 the city by storm ; when Sennacherib, having completed the capture of 
 weaker fortresses, intended, after the usage of Eastern kings, to be present in 
 person, and claim the whole conquest for his own. But the history in Kings 
 
 26 — 2 
 
404 ISAIAH. 
 
 shows that Tartan invested it with "a mighty host," and the prophecy, that 
 he raised mounds against it on every side, making it to whisper out of the 
 dust with fear and alarm. That host is never said to have been withdrawn. 
 The prediction is clear, that God would break the Assyrian in His land, and 
 tread him under foot on the mountains of Israel, xiv. 25. We are further 
 taught, xviii. 3, that this mighty judgment would be like a trumpet voice, 
 and an uplifted ensign on those hills of Jerusalem, to the Gentile nations, 
 calling them to bring tributes of willing homage to the LORD of hosts, the 
 God of Israel. 
 
 A second campaign, referred to the seventh of Sennacherib and the last 
 year of Hezekiah, by a kind of despairing effort to reconcile with Scripture 
 a theory opposed to the whole drift of its statements, has no grain of real 
 evidence either in Scripture or the Assyrian remains. These last are wholly 
 silent concerning it. The sacred text not only is silent, but excludes it ; 
 since it would contradict and reverse the Divine promise to Hezekiah, after 
 his recovery and the message from Babylon, that he should have peace and 
 safety from the Assyrian for the rest of his days. The supposed outline, 
 woven out of a distorted Egyptian tradition in Herodotus, and parts of the 
 sacred narrative torn away from their date and their context, not only con- 
 tradicts Scriptui'e, but also the plainest laws of liistorical probability. 
 
 The view assumes, first, that Hezekiah, in his 28th year, was tributary 
 to Sennacherib. This is directly opposed to Scripture, which states that in 
 those last years he was receiving honour and large presents from foreign 
 powers because of the signal deliverance he had gained. Next, that he en- 
 tered anew into negociations with Egypt. This contradicts the Scripture, 
 making this pious king, even to the end of his reign, act in bold defiance 
 of Isaiah's repeated warnings. And it contradicts historical consistency, 
 because the previous year is supposed to be that of Egypt's utter defeat, when 
 it became evidently "a broken reed." Still further, the history and Isaiah's 
 prophecy, ch. xviii., both imply that, instead of Hezekiah courting Egyptian 
 help in his last years, Egypt was sending him tokens of honour on account 
 of the Assyrian overthrow. Next, it is assumed that the king, instead of 
 stopping to chastise Jerusalem, pressed on to Libnah and Lachish on his 
 ■way to Egypt. Arvother historical contradiction, that he should need to 
 besiege these places again ; having taken them two years before, by the 
 hypothesis, in a triumphant campaign, in which he annexed them to the 
 tributary powers of Ekron and Gaza. How could a work need at once to 
 be repeated, which had just been so completely done.-* Next, he is supposed 
 first to have marched his whole army to Lachish, and then to have sent a 
 small body northward back to Jerusalem, to summon it to surrender. But 
 the text calls those who came against Jerusalem " a great host." The words 
 in Chronicles, "and all his power with him," refer evidently to the invasion 
 generally, and are no contrast between the forces at Lachish and Jerusalem. 
 It is unlikely that he would first march his whole army to the south, and 
 then countermarch a part northward, without cause. It is even incredible 
 that, having compassed Jerusalem with all his forces, only two years before, 
 simply to obtain tribute, he should now send a small detachment, with the 
 hope of obtaining a complete surrender without any siege ; and then 
 
APPENDIX VI. 405 
 
 employ his whole army to capture a second time one out of forty-six cities, 
 which had all been taken rapidly two years before. 
 
 The next supposition is that the king made a second attempt to frighten 
 Jerusalem into surrender by a letter without a siege ; and that Hezekiah, of 
 whom no prayer is recorded in the actual siege two years earlier, in this 
 hour of far less apparent danger cried in deep distress for help to God. 
 Sennacherib, it is then supposed, leaving in his rear Jerusalem unsubdued 
 and rebellious, marched on to Egypt, to crush the native Egyptian army, 
 before it was joined by their Ethiopian allies. But the text leaves no time 
 for this supposed march to Egypt. The message was sent from Libnah, 
 only 30 miles from Jerusalem in a direct line, and its nature implies that 
 there would be no delay. The prayer of Hezekiah was offered as soon as it 
 came, and the answer of the prophet was given at once, in fulfilment of the 
 promise, xxx. 19. The same night, we are told, the destruction followed. 
 But from Libnah to the brook of Egypt is at least 70 miles in a straight 
 line, and it is 80 miles further to Pelusium, while a vast army must be 
 slower in its movements than a royal post. 
 
 It is next supposed that Sennacherib encamped at Pelusium, and the 
 Egyptians under Sethos just opposite, when the disaster lighted on the 
 troops around the king. But first, it is historically most unlikely that 
 Sethos would hasten to the encounter, instead of retiring to form a junction 
 with the Ethiopians. This would be exactly to play the game of his adver- 
 sary. Next, the history in Isaiah and Kings leaves no time for this arrival 
 in Egypt. Thirdly, the escape of the king, the most guilty party, when 
 his troops all perished around him, is thus wholly unexplained. Fourthly, 
 the express warnings of the prophet are falsified, that this great over- 
 throw would be in the land and on the mountains of Israel. Fifthly, its 
 great moral is wholly obscured, if not reversed ; since bystanders would 
 more naturally refer the judgment, as the Egyptian legend strives to do, 
 to Vulcan, the idol god of Sethos, than to Jehovah the God of Israel. 
 Sixthly and lastly, the whole drift and current, both of the prophecies of 
 Isaiah and of the attendant history, is set aside and reversed ; which de- 
 scribe a series of Assyrian conquests, reaching their height in the siege 
 of Jerusalem, and then and there arrested, in answer to the faith of the 
 king and the prophet ; so as to assure to the former fifteen added years 
 of peace and truth, secure from renewed aggressions : and to the latter, 
 a fitting season for those brighter and nobler prophecies, which crown and 
 complete his earlier message. 
 
 The scene of this great judgment, in the Book of Isaiah, is twelve times 
 indirectly or directly referred to the land of Israel, and to the mountains 
 around Jerusalem. The flood was to cover the land of Immanuel, reaching 
 to the neck, so that Zion, the head, would alone escape and be rescued from 
 its violence, viii. 8, and there the confederacy of foes would be broken in 
 pieces, viii. 9. The destruction would be as "in the day of Alidian," when 
 that mighty host fell suddenly amidst the land of Israel. It is while the 
 Assyrian shakes his hand againt " the mount of the daughter of Zion" that 
 the forest of his stately cedars is to "fall mightily," x. 32 — 34. The same 
 scene of judgment is implied xiv. 32, xvi. 4, 5. But in xiv. 24, 25 it is 
 
4o6 ISAIAH. 
 
 announced in plain words, and confirmed by a solemn oath of God, which 
 the modern theory would convict of failure and falsehood. This sudden 
 destruction, in xviii. 3, is God's own ensign on the mountains of Israel, 
 calling the nations to acts of reverence towards " the place of the name 
 of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion," xviii. 7. 
 
 The deliverance, again, was to be no mere throat from an absent armv, 
 but in the height of a pressing danger, and "when the blast of the terrible 
 was as a storm against the wall," xxv. 4. It was to be like the judgments 
 in Perazim and Mount Gibeon, both of them in close proximity to Jeru- 
 salem. It was to be a sudden frustration of confident hopes of victory and 
 triumph, while the foe was encamped round about Ariel, the city of God ; 
 and when the force was such, and the siege so complete, as to leave no 
 human hope of deliverance, xxix. 7, 8. It seems implied that there would 
 be an extensive burial or burning of the carcases of the slain in the valley 
 of Tophet, close to Jerusalem, ch. xxx. 33. The nature of the judgment 
 would be such, as to appear like a fire going forth from Jerusalem, the 
 Ariel or hearth of God, to consume its surrounding enemies. These would 
 be like shepherds, gathered round a lion, which defies and devours them ; 
 so the Lord would come down to fight over Mount Zion and the hill thereof. 
 He would have a fire in Zion and a furnace in Jerusalem, xxxi. 4, 9. It 
 was while ravaging the holy land itself, and counting the towers that seemed 
 ready to fall, that the people should be "as thorns cut up, that are burned 
 in the fire," xxxiii. 12, 18. All these warnings, twelve times repeated, predict 
 a sudden overthrow, not on the borders of Egypt, but around mount Zion 
 itself; and are in full agreement with the record, that Tartan's mighty host 
 came against Jerusalem, and invested it for many days, but never were 
 withdrawn, and never returned. This explains, further, the promise that 
 the king should never come against the city, and that he escaped when this 
 mighty destruction fell on the main portion of his army. When the rumour of 
 this blast from heaven reached him at Libnah, he would naturally decamp in 
 haste, with the troops and princes that still remained, and hasten to Assyria. 
 
 The form of this destruction has been often supposed to be a simoom, 
 or dry wind of the desert. But the words of Scripture lend no countenance 
 to this view. The conclusion often drawn from Isa. xxxvii. 36, that it took 
 place in dead silence, seems to be without real warrant. The words from 
 their context refer to the men of Judah, not to those in the Assyrian camp- 
 They went to rest, full of alarm and fear. They arose in the morning, and 
 found that the mighty host of their enemies lay smitten by the hand of God. 
 But the words of the prophet, in three or four places, imply that a thunder- 
 storm, of terrific grandeur and intensity, accompanied the solemn work and 
 strange task of the angelic messenger of God. The lightning of heaven, 
 which often destroys individuals in a moment, might be used in this solemn 
 hour, by one of God's heavenlj- ministers, whose own nature is like a flame of 
 celestial fire, to fulfil the commission he had received. On this view, which 
 results from repeated warnings of the prophet, the judgment would be the 
 more appalling and sublime; and would leave the deeper impression, not 
 on the Jews alone, but on the Assyrian survivors when the tidings came to 
 their ears, and on all the surrounding heathen. 
 
APPENDIX VI. 407 
 
 The modern theory, as it is wholly destitute of direct evidence in the 
 annals for this supposed second campaign, and opposed to the testimony 
 of Scripture in most of its details, seems, in its outline of later events, to 
 contradict the plainest laws of real history. It is thought conceivable that 
 "Assyria was not so injured by the loss of a single great army, as to 
 make it necessary for her to stop, even for a single year, in the course of her 
 aggressive warfare." Accordingly, four cylinder campaigns having gone 
 before, including one in Judaea, claimed as a triumphant success, and this 
 second being placed in Hezekiah's last year, as a fifth campaign wholly omitted, 
 the four that remain are assigned to the four following years, B.C. 697 — 4, 
 so as to close with the accession of Rigebelus, the new Babylonian viceroy. 
 Thus the grand crisis of the sacred history, midway between Moses and 
 Christ, on which the messages of the foremost of the prophets all converge, 
 forty years before it came, in solemn warning, and from which they diverge? 
 for fifteen or twenty years after it has come to pass, in loftiest strains of 
 comfort, hope, and peace, is degraded into a mere trivial episode in the 
 steady course of Assyrian conquest, a hardly perceptible ripple on the 
 surface, historically of less consequence than the supposed indolence of the 
 proud conqueror in the later years of his reign. But the laws of human 
 nature, as well as the express statements of Scripture, protest against such 
 a view. The sudden calamity, with all its attendant circumstances, besides 
 the greatness of the loss in itself, as including the pride and flower of all 
 the military forces of the empire, would be felt the more deeply in a super- 
 stitious age. No doubt the empire survived the shock, and Sennacherib 
 might wage successful campaigns in the east before the close of his reign ; 
 while under Esarhaddon, twenty years later, Assyria might enter, eastward, 
 westward, and southward, on a full career of victory once more. But reason 
 and common sense must lead us to infer, after such a mighty catastrophe, 
 a pause in aggressive conquest for ten, twelve, or fifteen years. This con- 
 clusion, so natural in itself, is confirmed by the cylinders, which record no 
 campaign during twelve or fourteen years of this reign, while twenty at 
 least are on record in the fifteen years of Sargon ; by the significant sequel 
 in Scripture, that he dwelt at Nineveh; by the greatness and splendour 
 of his architectural works, agreeing with a period of unwilling abstinence 
 from foreign conquest ; and most of all, by the promise of God to Heze- 
 kiah, at the time when fifteen years were added to his life, and the declining 
 shadow was reversed on the dial of Ahaz, that these would be years of peace 
 and truth, and safety from the Assyrian, a gracious and merciful reprieve in 
 the downward course of the kingdom of Judah. After his death, under the 
 idolatrous Manasseh, the clouds were to return, and the shadows of evening 
 to close once more around the faithless people. 
 
4o8 ISAIAH. 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 THE CONTROVERSY WITH GENTILE IDOLATRY. 
 
 The true meaning of ch. xli. 1—4, in which the controversy with Israel, 
 at the opening of the Earlier Prophecies, is replaced by a like controversy 
 with the idolatrous Gentiles, has been the subject of much dispute. The 
 Rabbis and early Jewish authorities apply the words to Abraham, and several 
 of the Christian Fathers to Christ; but Aben Ezra, Pagninus, Estius, and 
 others of early times, expound them of Cyrus and his conquests. This view 
 is strongly espoused by Vitringa, who thinks that difference of judgment 
 will almost cease when his reasons have been weighed; and the great 
 majority of later critics, whether orthodox or rationalist, have concurred in 
 the same application. The seeming consent, however, conceals a vital con- 
 trast and divergence ; for while one class hold it to be a genuine prophecy, 
 the others make this reference the basis of their theory, that the Later Pro- 
 phecies are not from Isaiah, but from some unknown writer near the close 
 uf the Exile. 
 
 A clear prediction of the coming of Cyrus, of his conquest of Babylon, 
 and of the rebuilding of the temple by his decree, if made by Isaiah, as God's 
 prophet, soon after his warning message to Hezekiah on occasion of the 
 Babylonian embassy, must form a most suitable, grand, and convincing 
 proof of the Divine foreknowledge, worthy to rank side by side with the 
 proof of His Almighty Power in the first creation of the world. Such is the 
 claim of the Most High, repeatedly made by the prophet in the First Series 
 of these Later Visions; and which the sceptical theory of a Deutero-Isaiah 
 boldly replaces by the cunning craftiness of some unprincipled forger, speak- 
 ing lies in the name of Jehovah, and lying in wait to deceive. But if such 
 be the main object of the message, the sudden introduction of the victories 
 of Cyrus, as if already past, without any previous mention uf his name, or of 
 the time and manner of his future appearing, is by no means a method likely 
 to be used, in order to fulfil the object of the prophecy. For the constant law 
 of such messages is to begin with real time, and direct prediction ; and then 
 to introduce gradually the prophetic past, or ideal time, to give greater vivid- 
 ness to their picture of changes that are still to come. Thus in ch. i. we 
 have a description, in the past tense, of desolations that in the reign of 
 Ahaz had already come. In ch. ii. i — 5 we have next a description, in the 
 future tense, of the glory of Zion in the latter days. The chapters that 
 follow mention the day of calamity to Israel as still future, and only in iii. 8 
 the prophetic past, in a single verse, begins to be used. In ch. v. the same 
 form of direct prediction again prevails; and only in v. 25 the prophetic 
 past is used, in reference to the slaughter by Pckah and Rezin, to contrast 
 it with the still later Assyrian troubles. 
 
APPENDIX VII. 409 
 
 The appeal, then, in ch. xli. I — 4, if it referred to Cyrus, would form a 
 direct presumption against the Isaian authorship, and in favour of the scep- 
 tical theory, that these chapters were written toward the close of the Exile. 
 At that time an appeal to the Gentiles on the power of God, as shown in 
 the rapid victories of Cyrus accomplished before their eyes, would be natu- 
 ral. Only the appeal would then be simply to the power of Jehovah, as shown 
 in the overthrow of idolatrous nations, and not to His foreknowledge as 
 having announced the event long before. Yet this last, and not the first, is 
 the appeal really made at the close of the chapter, vv. 22, 26, 27 — 29, and 
 again in xlii. 9, 23, xliii. 9, and onward to the end of this series, xlviii. 14, 16. 
 This forms a powerful reason against Vitringa's reference of the first verses 
 to Cyrus; and confirms the earlier interpretation of the Jewish writers, and 
 of Calvin, Piscator, Grotius, Lowth, and Bengel, among Christian critics 
 since the Reformation. 
 
 The first three Gospels have their historical starting-point in the concep- 
 tion and birth of our Lord, or of John His forerunner. The Fourth Gospel 
 mounts higher, and sets before us the Word, who was in the beginning 
 with God. So the Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah have their basis, ch. ii., in 
 the prosperous luxury in the reign of Uzziah, and in present calamities, 
 ch. i., in the reign of Ahaz. But the Later Visions, as their building is to 
 be higher and loftier, with fuller hopes and more distant promises, also lay 
 their foundation deeper. Hence they go back to the days of Abraham, to 
 weighty lessons of the abiding laws of Providence, from the Call of the 
 patriarch, and his early victory, in the first act of warfare on record, over 
 the confederate kings. Babylon, in the person of Amraphel king of Shinar, 
 and the chosen seed, the people of Israel, in the person of their great fore- 
 father, then came first into conflict. On one side were idolatrous kings and 
 conquerors, on the other God's chosen and solitary witness against the idols 
 of Chaldea and Canaan, and the result of that conflict was a Divine pro- 
 phecy, in act, and not in word alone, of all the later stages of the same conflict, 
 and their certain issue. The whole chapter is thus a challenge to the idols 
 and their votaries, the nature of which is summed up at its close, "Let them 
 shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and 
 know the latter end of them." That victory of Abraham is here expounded 
 as the first link in a long series of later conflicts between Israel and the 
 idols of the heathen, in which the moral connexion was firm, and the final 
 issue foreseen from the beginning. The raising up of Cyrus from the 
 east, to subdue Babylon, and set free the captives of Israel, was only one 
 main step, foreseen and foreordained from the beginning, in this mighty 
 work of the God of Abraham for the triumph of His name, and of His 
 true servants, over all the banded might of the heathen world. 
 
 Again, the sudden mention of the victories of Cyrus as past, while still 
 remotely future, v/ould not only be harsh and forced in itself, but doubly so with 
 the proposed rendering of the second verse, which replaces the name of the 
 conqueror, or a simple title, by the obscure and somewhat vague descrip- 
 tion, "Who hath raised up from the east one whom righteousness meets at 
 his steps?" On the other hand, the application of the word, "righteousness," 
 the abstract for the concrete, to Abraham the father of the faithful, the pat- 
 
4IO ISAIAH. 
 
 tern and heir of the righteousness which is by faith, is emphatic, striking 
 and even subhme. Out of the depths of unrighteousness and idolatry in 
 Chaldea he was raised up, by Divine power, to keep ahve a seed of right- 
 eousness on the earth ; and that righteous Lt)RD, who lovoth righteousness, 
 would not fail to watch over this grain of mustard-seed to the end of time, 
 till it should become a spreading tree, and overshadow all the nations of 
 the earth. 
 
 Vitringa objects, first, that victory in war was not the characteristic fea- 
 ture of Abraham, as it was of Cyrus. But this only adds to the force of 
 the appeal. So, in vv. 14, 15 it is not the characteristic of a worm to 
 thresh the mountains, and make the hills like chaff. The more remote this 
 victory from the peaceful pursuits of Abraham, and his quiet pastoral hfe, 
 so much clearer was the proof it afforded of the mighty hand of God, 
 protecting and prospering His own servant. That a mighty warrior should 
 make conquests is nothing strange. But that a peaceful shepherd, with a 
 few household servants, armed at a moment's notice, should gain a complete 
 triumph over four kings and their army, when flushed with a long course of 
 conquests, or that the worm Jacob, feeble and despised, should thresh 
 in pieces the mountains, was indeed a pledge of utter overthrow of all 
 idols by the God of Abraham, "the Most High, the Possessor of heaven 
 and earth." 
 
 It is urged, next, that the appeal on this view has no real force. The 
 Gentiles might deny that they saw anything surprising, or any proof of the 
 dominion of the true God, and of the vanity of idols, in this exploit of Abra- 
 ham, of which they might themselves have no record. But the force of 
 the appeal lies in this double fact, that those idolatrous nations had either 
 wholly forgotten the event itself, or else had failed to see the true lesson they 
 should have learned thereby. It is the earliest campaign and war of which 
 a distinct record remains. Confederate powers, Elam and Babylon, all 
 idolatrous, therein ravaged many countries, gained repeated victories, and 
 were returning home triumphant, laden with the spoil of their captive enemies. 
 Then the one righteous man, whom the God of glory had called from Chal- 
 dean idolatry to bear witness for His great name, a man of peaceful habits, a 
 pilgrim shepherd, in a moment, with the help of his own household, pursues, 
 overtakes, assails them, scatters their host as dust and as driven stubble, and 
 on returning does public homage to the God of heaven and earth, who had 
 given him this marvellous victory. What plainer, louder appeal could there 
 be to the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Chaldeans and Elamites of those 
 early days, to cease from their idol-worship, and return to the God whom they 
 had forsaken, and who is so mighty to help His servants, and destroy His ene- 
 mies? If the mists of heathen darkness closed afterward around them, 
 blotting out the memory of this act of judgment, as man's unbelief strives 
 ever to do with all similar tokens of God's presence, this only adds force 
 and emphasis to the prophet's message ; when it reminds them of a great fact 
 they had forgotten, and of a certain inference from that fact, which they 
 were too blind to draw for themselves, but which was soon to be confirmed 
 anew, to the utter shame of Babylon and her idols, by greater victories of 
 Cyrus still future, but near at hand. The idols and their worshippers 
 
APPENDIX VIII. 411 
 
 had forgotten the former things, or else could not discern their true nature 
 their deep moral lesson, and the solemn prophecy they conveyed. What they 
 could not or would not do, the Living God was now doing by His prophet, 
 and therein asserted His own exclusive and rightful claim to the obedience 
 and reverence of all mankind. 
 
 The words that follow, vv. 5—7, agree perfectly with this application of 
 the words, and their emphasis is thus increased. The nations ought, by 
 such a signal lesson of God's power early in their own history, to have been 
 reclaimed from their downward course of idolatrous abasement. Instead 
 of this, it seemed as if they had conspired with one consent, by the wide 
 and universal growth of idol-worship, to blot out from their own minds 
 every trace of the power and dominion of Jehovah the God of Abraham. 
 They strove to hide out His unwelcome presence by their assiduous zeal 
 in false religions, ever framing to themselves fresh idols and new divini- 
 ties, the magnified reflections of their own pride, passion, cruelty, and lust. 
 Therefore Israel, though like a worm to the eye of sense, when compared 
 with these heathen powers, should be strengthened to prevail over every 
 foe, and to break them in pieces. Nay, a mighty prince was prepared among 
 the heathen themselves, to execute God's work of judgment once more, and 
 would shortly be raised up from the lands of the east. The controversy does 
 not end, when the latter end of the former things has thus been foreshown. 
 Beyond this nearer vision, the Allwise would now show to His people and 
 to the Gentiles "things to corrve," or the later wonders of the person and work 
 of that Chosen Servant of God, the Immanuel already promised, who should 
 open the eyes of the Gentiles, bring the prisoners of sin and death out 
 of their dark prison-house, and accomplish, by His sufferings, resurrection, 
 and judgment, the long-promised redemption of our fallen world. 
 
 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 INTERNAL MARKS IN ISAIAH, CHAPTERS XL.— LXVI., OF 
 AN ORIGIN NOT LATER THAN THE EXILE. 
 
 The following is an approximate classification of the chapters of the 
 earlier and later Prophecies as to the Historic Present. 
 
 EARLIER PROPHECIES. 
 Explicit mention of Isaiah, eight chapters. Chh, i. ii. vi. vii. viii. xiii. xiv. xx. 
 Historical chapters interposed of Isaiah's time, four chapters. Chh. xxxvi. 
 xxxvii. xxxviii. xxxix. 
 
 A. Prophetic Present Messianic or more remote, fifteen chapters. Chh. iv. ix. xi. 
 
 xvi. xxiii. xxiv. xxv. xxvi. xxvii. xxix. xxx. xxxi. xxxii. xxxiii. xxxv. 
 
 B. Prophetic Present in Isaiah's time ranging in order from the fourth year of Ahaz 
 
 to the fourteenth of Hezekiah, nine chapters. Chh. iii. v. x. xii. xv. xvii. 
 xxii. xxviii. xxxiv. 
 
 C. Prophetic Present partially at least in the time of Cyrus, three chapters. 
 
 Chh. xviii. xix. xxi. 
 
412 ISAIAH. 
 
 LATER PROPHECIES. 
 
 A. Prophetic Present Messianic or more remote, sixteen chapters. Chh. xl. xhi. 
 
 xliii. xlix. 1. li. lii. liii- liv. Iv. Ix. Ixi. Ixii. Ixiii. Ixv. Ixvi. 
 
 B. Prophetic Present in Isaiah's time, reign of Manasseh, five chapters. Chh. Ivi. 
 
 Ivii. Iviii. lix. Ixiv. 
 
 C. Prophetic Present in the time of Cyrus, six chapters. Chh. xli. xliv. xlv. xlvi. 
 
 xlvii. xlviii. 
 
 The sceptical hypothesis which divorces what the Spirit of God has 
 inseparably united— the earlier and the later prophecies of Isaiah, ascribing 
 the latter to some wholly unknown author in the days of Cyrus, is disproved 
 by an overwhelming combination of external evidence ; it contradicts the 
 words of the incarnate Son of God, the Apostle St John, the Baptist, 
 St Luke and St Paul, and the consenting voice of Jesus the Son of Sirach and 
 the constant tradition of the Jewish Church and nation for more than 2000 
 years. Of external evidence in its favour there is not a single grain. The 
 internal evidence of the unity of the whole Book is also full, various and 
 decisive. The one alleged presumption in favour of the hypothesis from 
 internal evidence has now to be considered. The prophetic present in all the 
 earlier prophecies is said to be the time of Isaiah himself, and in all the rest, 
 two centuries later, about the time of Cyrus and Ezra. This sole basis of the 
 hypothesis of dual authorship will be found on examination to be wholly 
 untrue, and will be almost reversed on a close and inductive enquiry. The 
 prophetic present of prophecies which range over from seven to twenty-five 
 centuries of future time is not, in the nature of things, always easy to define : 
 there is no conceivable reason why the Spirit of God in disclosing to any of 
 His servants so wide and vast a landscape of the future should confine him 
 to view every part from his own actual place, and not rather transport him 
 more or less into the grand and magnificent future he is permitted to reveal. 
 
 In this Book there are eight chapters in the earlier prophecies and four 
 of interposed history, which expressly assign themselves to Isaiah and his 
 times ; there remain 27 chapters of the earlier, and 27 of the later prophecies 
 where there is no such express and formal indication of the date of authoi-- 
 ship. In each of these, ten or eleven chapters only furnish any apparent 
 ground for the application of this alleged test of diverse authorship : in the 
 rest, the Prophet is either transported into the times of Messiah, or other 
 times still later, or the prophetic present can scarcely be defined, and may 
 travel from one point of time to another. The sceptical argument must 
 lest on the concurrence of these three assumptions, ist. That a difference in 
 the point of sight of two centuries, in prophecies ranging over seven or 
 twenty-five centuries, every part of which must more or less be contemplated 
 as present by the inspired seer rapt out of the littleness of his own human 
 life by the Spirit of God, would of itself prove two different seers. 
 2nd, That in all the chapters of the earlier prophecies which supply a test, 
 the prophetic present is that of Isaiah himself. 3rd, That in all the ten 
 chapters of the later prophecies, it is not the time of Isaiah himself, but two 
 or three centuries later. Each of these tlirec assumptions is demonstrably 
 
APPENDIX VIII. 413 
 
 untrue, so that the sole basis of the dual hypothesis, on examination, crumbles 
 into the dust, and leaves the whole accumulated force of the external testimony 
 and internal evidence to weigh in the same scale. First ; of the nine or ten 
 chapters of the earlier prophecies which alone have a definite prophetic 
 present not later than the return from Babylon, there are three where 
 that present is not the time of Isaiah, but that of Cyrus, about two centuries 
 later. Out of the ten chapters of the later prophecies which by the hypothesis 
 should not have a prophetic present in the time of Isaiah, but two or three 
 centuries later, there are at least one half in which it is plainly the time of 
 Isaiah, or more definitely still, the reign of Manasseh. Thus the alleged 
 contrast on which alone the immense superstructure of the sceptical hypo- 
 thesis has been reared, wholly disappears on close examination. 
 
 Of the twenty-seven chapters in each division, fifteen in the earlier and 
 sixteen in the later prophecies have a messianic present, or from A. r. 30 — 100, 
 eight centuries later than Isaiah, and six centuries later than the Pseudo-Esaias. 
 This is plainly a presumption in favour of the common authorship of both 
 portions. Secondly, there are eight chapters in the earlier prophecies, of 
 which the present is in the time of Isaiah, ranging from Pehak's invasion of 
 Judah to the campaign of Sennacherib, ch. v. 25 — xxxiv. i. These are a 
 proof of the genuineness of the earlier prophecies, but no proof of the later 
 origin of the others. There are five chapters in the later prophecies of which 
 the present is in the time of Isaiah, in the reign of Manasseh, chh. Ivi., Ivii., 
 Iviii., lix., Ixiv. The proof passages are "The Lord God which gathereth the 
 outcasts of Israel saith. Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that 
 are gathered unto him. All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all 
 ye beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant, 
 they are all dumb dogs ; they cannot bark ; lying down, loving to slumber : yea, 
 they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds 
 that cannot understand ; they all look to their own way, every one for 
 his gain from his quarter." Ch. Ivi. 8 — ir. These verses answer fully to the 
 political and moral features of the reign of Manasseh. "The righteous 
 perisheth, 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. He 
 shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his 
 uprightness. But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the 
 adulterer and the whore. 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, Enflaming yourselves with idols under 
 every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the 
 rocks? Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion ; they, they 
 are thy lot : even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered 
 a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these ? Upon a lofty and 
 high mountain hast thou set thy bed : even thither wentest thou up to offer 
 sacrifice. Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remem- 
 brance : for 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. And thou wentest to the king with 
 ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far 
 
414 ISAIAH. 
 
 off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell." Ch. Ivii. 1—9. Here the first verse 
 seems plainly to refer to the death of Hezekiah, the righteous king on whose 
 life the promise of continued suspense of judgment was made to depend, and 
 the insensibility of the nation to the consequent approach of evil ; the later 
 verses apply as plainly to the reviving idolatry of Manasseh's reign, and the 
 worldly leagues with, and embassies to the Assyrian king. 
 
 Chapters Iviii. and lix. have a general correspondence with the growing 
 formality and immorality under Manasseh ; but ch. l.xv. i — 5 and Ixvi. 17 
 have a more express relation to the forms of idolatry and will worship that 
 prevailed in the reign of Manasseh. These prove then that the later 
 prophecies, equally with the earlier, date in the time of Isaiah. 
 
 Thirdly, in the later prophecies there are six chapters, of which the 
 prophetic present is in the time of Cyrus, chh. xli., xliv., xlv., xlvi., xlvii., xlviii. 
 The proof passages are, "I have raised up one from the north, and he shall 
 come : from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name. Ch. xli. 25. 
 The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel...! am the Lord 
 that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth 
 abroad the earth by myself; That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and 
 maketh diviners mad ; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their know- 
 ledge foolish ; That confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the 
 counsel of his messengers ; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; 
 and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed 
 places thereof : That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: 
 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure : 
 even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, Thy 
 foundation shall be laid. Ch. xliv. 23 — 28. 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 before him the two leaved 
 gates ; and the gates shall not be shut ; I will go before thee, and make the 
 crooked places straight : I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in 
 sunder the bars of iron : And I will gi\-e thee the treasures of darkness, and 
 hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which 
 call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, 
 and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name : I have surnamed 
 thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, 
 there is no God beside me : I girded thee, though thou hast not known me : 
 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. I form the light, 
 and create darkness : I make peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these 
 things. Ch. xlv. i — 7. Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were 
 upon the beasts, and upon the cattle : your carriages were heavy loaden ; 
 they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; 
 they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. 
 Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of 
 Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the 
 womb. ..Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that exccuteth my 
 counsel from a far country : yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; 
 I have purposed it, I will also do it. Ch. xlvi. i — 3, 1 1. As for our redeemer. 
 
APPENDIX VIII. 415 
 
 the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit thou silent, and 
 get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans : for thou shalt no more 
 be called. The lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I have 
 polluted mine inheritance, and given thern into thine hand : thou didst shew 
 them no mercy ; upon the ancient hast thou veiy heavily laid thy yoke." 
 Ch. xlvii. 4—6. In the earlier prophecies there are also three chapters, of 
 which the present is partially at least in the time of Cyrus, chh. xviii,, xix., xxi. 
 The fall of Sennacherib, xviii. 3, 5, 6, " All ye inhabitants of the world and 
 dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the 
 mountains, hear ye... For afore the harvest when the bud is perfect, and the 
 sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with 
 pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. They shall be 
 left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth : 
 and the fowls shall summer upon them and all the beasts of the earth shall 
 winter upon them." Ch. xix. 2, 4, 17—19. Time of Psammeticus, Cambyses, 
 and Ochus. "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. Therefore are 
 my loins filled with pain : pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs 
 of a woman that travaileth : I was bowed down at the hearing of it ; I 
 was dismayed at the seeing of it. My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted 
 me : the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me." Ch. 
 xxi. 2 — 4. Time of the fall of Babylon. Thus there is just the same reason 
 for referring the earlier as the later prophecies to some later prophet 
 than Isaiah. The whole argument then is nugatory, and the sameness 
 of the proportions of the three classes in the two divisions is a fresh, 
 indirect, and collateral proof of their common authorship. Thus both 
 in the earlier and later prophecies, there are four or five chapters where the 
 prophetic present seems to be in the time of Isaiah himself, but more ex- 
 pressly so in the later than in the earlier ; in each there are four or five 
 chapters when the prophet seems rather translated from his own actual place 
 two or three centuries into the times of Cyrus, though more explicitly and 
 clearly in the later than in the earlier prophecies. Thus the last pretext for 
 the dual hypothesis on close examination disappears and yields a fresh 
 argument in proof of its falsehood ; those are thus left, I think, without the 
 least excuse who venture to contradict the testimony of our Lord Himself 
 in the very opening of His grand commission of mercy, and the consent- 
 ing testimony of nearly all the inspired writers of the New Testament. The 
 pertinacity with which some cling to this novel hypothesis in the teeth 
 of such overwhelming evidence, and on the faith of an alleged contrast which 
 disappears when closely examined, is a striking illustration of that credulity 
 which has been well said to be the nemesis of scepticism. 
 
4i6 ISAIAH. 
 
 APPENDIX IX. 
 
 ISAIAH LXV. 17— LXVI. 
 
 THE PREDICTED MERCIES AND JUDGMENTS OF THE 
 LAST DAYS. 
 
 In this glorious conclusion of the whole Prophecy of the great evangelical 
 prophet, three main events are set before us. First, The Millenial kingdom, 
 the New Heavens and the New Earth in which righteousness shall dwell for 
 ever: "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former 
 shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice 
 for ever in that which I create : for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, 
 and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my 
 people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the 
 voice of crying. 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 ; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. 
 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vine- 
 yards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit ; 
 they shall not plant, and another eat : for as the days of a tree are the days 
 of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 
 They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble ; for they are the 
 seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall 
 come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet 
 speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the 
 lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. 
 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." 
 Ch. l.w. 17 — 25. Several main features of that time of future blessedness are 
 distinctly revealed : first. The oblivion of former troubles through the great- 
 ness and fulness of the blessings to be now revealed. " The former troubles 
 are forgotten, and they are hid from mine eyes ; behold, I create new 
 heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come 
 into mind." Secondly, The joy and glory of Jerusalem, the city of the great 
 king, recovered from long sorrow and degradation, and become a joy and 
 a rejoicing for ever. " The voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, 
 nor the voice of crying." Thirdly, The restriction of the power of Death, 
 and the extension of human life once more to a patriarchal measure. " They 
 shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat ; 
 for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall 
 long enjoy the work of their hands." Fourthly, a renewal of the Paradisaical 
 state in the restraint of the destructive instincts both of man and the lower 
 animals. "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat 
 straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat ; they shall not 
 hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.' Fifthly, The 
 
APPENDIX IX. 417 
 
 condition described is that of a life on earth exalted and ennobled, but in 
 which curse and death have not completely passed away. " There shall be 
 no moi-e thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his 
 days, for a child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner being an 
 hundred years old shall be accursed ; they shall build houses and inhabit 
 them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them ; they shall 
 not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat... they 
 shall not labour in vain nor bring forth for trouble, for they are the seed of 
 the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." 
 
 The whole description answers to the words of St Peter on the day of 
 Pentecost, "whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution 
 of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets 
 since the world began." 
 
 The second event is the description of the Jewish people in the Last 
 Days, and of their restoration to the covenant of God, to blessing, and 
 especial honour. " Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the 
 earth is my footstool : where is the house that ye build unto me? and where 
 is the place of my rest ? for all those things hath mine hand made, and all 
 those things have been, saith the Lord : but to this man will I look, even to 
 him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. He 
 that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man ; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he 
 cut off a dog's neck ; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's 
 blood ; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have 
 chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. I 
 also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them ; be- 
 cause when I called, none did answer ; when I spake, they did not hear : 
 but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not. 
 Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word ; your brethren that 
 hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be 
 glorified : but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. A 
 voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that 
 rendereth recompence to his enemies. Before she travailed, she brought 
 forth ; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath 
 heard such a thing ? who hath seen such things ? Shall the earth be made 
 to bring forth in one day ? or shall a nation be born at once ? for as soon as 
 Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, 
 and not cause to bring forth ? saith the Lord : shall I cause to bring forth, 
 and shut the womb? saith thy God. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad 
 with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for 
 her : that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations ; 
 that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. 
 For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and 
 the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream : then shall ye suck, ye shall 
 be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. As one whom his 
 mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted in 
 Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones 
 shall flourish like an herb : and the hand of the Lord shall be known towards 
 his servants, and his indignation towards his enemies."' First, by comparing 
 B. L 27 
 
4i8 ISAIAH. 
 
 with Ezek. xx. 32 — 40, we have three distinct parties described into which 
 the people of Israel will be divided in the last days, as in those of Christ and 
 the Apostles, (i) In Ezekiel there is set before us the Sadducean party, who 
 seek to free themselves from the yoke of God's covenant, and all faith in 
 Moses and the Prophets and supernatural revelation, and to mingle them- 
 selves without distinction with the Gentile nations amongst whom they arc 
 scattered. God declares that He will completely disappoint these counsels 
 of the Sadducean Israelites of the last days. " That which comcth into your 
 mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the 
 families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord 
 God, surely with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury 
 poured out, will I rule over you : and I will bring you out from the people, 
 and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a 
 mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I 
 will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with 
 you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the 
 land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause 
 you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." 
 Isaiah sets before us the state and actings of a Pharisaic portion of the 
 same people, aiming to restore their long-ruined temple, and to revive the 
 Mosaic covenant and its ordinances, while still refusing to receive and 
 acknowledge the true Messiah, The event predicted cannot be the building 
 of the second Temple under Ezra and Nehemiah, which was an act of 
 obedience to the revealed will of God, nor yet the building of the temple in 
 Ezekiel by repentant Israel, restored to the favour of God, and under the 
 shelter of the promise, "The name of the city shall be from that day, The 
 Lord is there." It is an attempt to antedate the blessing still delayed 
 through their own unbelief. " They have chosen their own ways, and their 
 soul delighteth in their abominations ; and 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 evil before mine eyes, 
 and chose that in v/hich I delighted not." Thus the attempt of the Saddu- 
 cean Jews to lose themselves in the mass of the Gentile nations by casting 
 aside the faith of their fathers, and the attempt of the Pharisaic Jews to 
 build themselves up once more into a nation with a restored temple and a 
 glorious ceremonial worship, while still rejecting the true Messiah, are alike 
 doomed by the just sentence of God to utter and signal disappointment. A 
 third class remains, of believing Israelites, "poor and of a contrite spirit, 
 who tremble at the word" of God, and turn in penitence to God their 
 Saviour. These will first endure persecution from their unbelieving country- 
 men as in the days of old, and then experience a sudden and mighty 
 deliverance from the hand of God. That deliverance is the glorious birthday 
 of Israel as a nation. " Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word ; 
 Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said. Let 
 the Lord be glorified : but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be 
 ashamed." The immediate sequel of this act of Divine grace will be the abun- 
 dant and abiding blessedness of Zion and of the Jewish people. "Rejoice ye 
 with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with 
 
APPENDIX IX. 419 
 
 her, all ye that mourn for her;. ..The hand of the Lord shall be known toward 
 his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. For, behold, the Lord 
 will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger 
 with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." This is plainly the time of the 
 fulfilment of Christ's promise to Jerusalem, " I say unto you, ye shall not see me 
 henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
 Lord." 
 
 The third event— (vv. 15 — 24) — is the signal judgment of God upon avast 
 confederacy of unbelieving and rebellious Gentiles in the last days. This an- 
 swers to the separate predictions of the same season of the great confederacy of 
 Gog, predicted in Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. It answers further to the description 
 in Rev. xvi. 14— 19, where the three unclean spirits "go forth unto the kings of 
 the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great 
 day of God Almighty : and they gathered them together into the place called 
 in the Hebrew tongue 'Armageddon'." It answers further to the prophecy in 
 Rev. xix. 17 — 21, where the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies 
 are gathered together, and war against Him that sat on the horse and His 
 armies. It answers further in many respects to the description in Rev. xx. 
 7 — 9, which is expressly connected with the ending of the Millennial kingdom : 
 "When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 
 and shall go forth to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the 
 earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of 
 whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the 
 earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and 
 fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." Thus, as the 
 gathering is said to be by the working of three unclean spirits, so it seems 
 to result in three great confederacies of evil, of which the leaders are 
 Gog and Magog of Rev. xx., from the four quarters of the earth, and 
 the beast and the false prophet of Rev. xiii., the Latin or Roman form of 
 Antichrist in the last days, and thirdly Gog of Ezekiel, the chief of Rosh, 
 Mesech and Tubal, with a .vast confederate multitude from the lands of the 
 north, the same with the king of the north in Dan. xi. 40, who is to come 
 against the land of Israel "like a whirlwind with chariots and with horsemen 
 and many ships, who shall enter into the countries, and overflow and pass 
 over," in the great predicted season of trouble in the last days. In each 
 prophecy this great confederacy is placed in close connection with the coming 
 of the Lord to execute judgment and the resurrection of the faithful dead. 
 The judgment here in Isaiah is thus described : " Behold, the Lord will come 
 with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger in fury 
 and his rebuke with flames of fire ; and by fire and by sword will the Lord 
 plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." So it is 
 denounced against Gog in Ezekiel : " In my jealousy and the fire of my 
 wrath have I spoken ; and I will call for a sword against him throughout all 
 my mountains, saith the Lord God." So in the judgment on the beast and 
 the false prophet : " These both were cast alive into a lake of fire, and the 
 remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse." And in 
 the third description of Gog and Magog, the judgment comes while they 
 "compassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down 
 
 27—2 
 
420 ISAIAH. 
 
 from God out of heaven and devoured them." Thus all these passages concur 
 in setting before us a vast confederacy gathered together in Palestine and 
 around Jerusalem, and an overthrow greater than that of vSennacherib 
 of old wrought by the mighty power of God. The last verses describe one 
 solemn result of this judgment, a vast multitude of unburied slain "in the 
 valley of the son of Hinnom" near to Jerusalem, from which the name 
 " Gehenna" is derived, made a long-enduring spectacle of shame and 
 abhorring and most solemn warning to all survivors both of Israel and of the 
 Gentile nations. It is further predicted that those who are spared and 
 escape in this solemn Judgment shall be sent as messengers to all the 
 distant parts of the earth, to those who have not witnessed this wonderful 
 work of God, to proclaim it amongst them, and invite them to repentance 
 and submission to the mighty hand of the God of Israel. The appointed 
 sign of their submission is then set before us. "They shall bring all your 
 brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations 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 an 
 offering in a clean vessel unto the house of the Lord." Then will commence 
 the long-promised reign of righteousness and peace after the remnant of 
 Israel have been gloriously restored to their own land by the willing 
 co-operation of all the spared remnant of the Gentile nations ; thence- 
 forward Israel, the chosen race, shall abide as a distinct people, "and all that 
 see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord 
 hath blessed." " I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the 
 Lord ; and as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall 
 remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain ; 
 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." So closes this wonderful, far-reaching and comprehensive prophecy 
 of the seer whose lips had been touched with fire from the heavenly altar, 
 and who was further honoured by the Son of God Himself when He selected 
 one part of his prophecy as the public preface to His own glorious message of 
 redeeming love. 
 
 APPENDIX X. 
 
 ON CH. LXVI. 22—24, AND THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL 
 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 The importance of the doctrine of Eternal Judgment may be inferred from 
 the prominent place it holds in the messages of God from first to last. It is 
 involved in the first promise and warning in Paradise; it marks the close of 
 Isaiah's message of glorious hope and gospel promise. It forms the close of 
 the Book of Ecclesiastes, and of the prophecies of Daniel, Hosea and Micah, of 
 Zechariah and Haggai. It gives their tone to the closing sentences of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, and forms the main topic of two of the chief discourses 
 of Christ in the Gospels, and of the Second Epistle of St Peter and that of 
 
APPENDIX X. 421 
 
 St Jude, and it is revealed with especial prominence from first to last in the 
 Visions of the Apocalypse. Next to the glorious revelation of God Himself 
 and the great work of Redemption, it forms the third main feature in the whole 
 scheme of Revelation. Its immense practical importance seems to place it 
 under the same solemn safeguard with the latest message of God itself, of 
 which it is written, "If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto 
 him the plagues which are written in this book ; and if any man shall take 
 away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 
 part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which 
 are written in this book." Our enquiries into this solemn subject ought thus 
 to be with modesty and reverence, and godly fear lest by taking away from 
 what God has really revealed, or by unwarranted and false additions of our 
 own, we should fall on the right hand or on the left under the edge of 
 this solemn warning of the Spirit of God. There are six truths which 
 are the main features of the doctrine as really revealed in the Word of 
 God : there are three additions which man has often made to it, which have 
 no warrant in the Word of God, and which have tended to blot out or 
 wholly to reverse its moral features, and to make it a stumbling-block 
 to unbelievers, and oppressive, burdensome and repulsive to the hearts and 
 consciences of Christians themselves. 
 
 Our Lord opened His message at Nazareth with quoting the words of this 
 prophet, Ch. Ixi. 2, as then fulfilled in Himself Again He takes four words 
 from this final warning, and repeating them three times, Mark ix. 41 — 50, 
 transfers them to His own final act of judgment on the unbelieving. The two 
 passages clearly do not refer to the same event. The judgment in Isaiah has 
 for its subject great multitudes of unburied corpses exposed for a spectacle 
 of shame near to Jerusalem, and therefore must precede the resurrection of 
 all the unfaithful dead. The judgment in St Mark refers plainly to the 
 solemn results and sequel of that resurrection. 
 
 The first main truth in the Scriptural doctrine is the converse of 
 Universalism, the revealed separation of all mankind into two great classes, 
 the sheep who are placed by the Judge on His right hand, and the goats on 
 His left, over whom He pronounces an opposite sentence of condemnation 
 and gracious acceptance and blessing, and of whom it is said, " These shall 
 go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life everlasting." 
 The same contrast is taught in the first promise, under symbols borrowed 
 from the fact of the fall, " the seed of the serpent," including the multitude 
 of arrogant, presumptuous and impenitent sinners, and " the seed of the 
 woman," all penitent sinners who are of a broken and contrite heart : the 
 same contrast reappears still more plainly in the last page of the whole 
 Bible, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he that is filthy, let him 
 be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he 
 that is holy, let him be holy still. Blessed are they that do his command- 
 ments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through 
 the gates into the city ; for without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore- 
 mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a 
 lie." In Saint Matthew alone there are about a hundred passages where 
 this great contrast is either expressly affirmed or plainly implied, so that there 
 
422 ISAIAH. 
 
 are probably nearly four times as many in the A\hole of the New Testa- 
 ment, 
 
 Next, the result of the judgment to both classes of men is said to be 
 eternal, and its very name "eternal judgment." Yet under the names of 
 '■conditional immortality" or the "annihilation" of the unbelieving, and of 
 "life in Christ only," the converse of this second part of revealed truth has 
 been extensively held and maintained of late years. There seem to be five 
 main arguments by which this negation may be disproved. First, the word 
 uldivios, by which our Lord Himself defines the duration of the punishment 
 He denounces on the ungodly, is not only the same by which He defines 
 the blessing on the righteous, but is one seventy times used in the New 
 Testament, and always— except in three cases, where it refers not to future 
 but past time — plainly in the sense of that which is unending ; this then is 
 its only natural meaning in this solemn sentence of the supreme Judge. 
 Secondly, our Lord in quoting these verses of Isaiah, repeats the words 
 emphatically three times with reference to His own solemn sentence of 
 future judgment : " It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having 
 two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched," — 
 then the words are thrice repeated, " where their worm dieth not, and the fire 
 is not quenched." How could words more strongly affirm the unending 
 character of the sentence then to be proclaimed .'* Thirdly, the immortality 
 of man and all God's rational creatures seems to differ from the absolute 
 immortality of the Creator by three contrasts, two of them involved in the 
 actual constitution of human nature, and the third reserved in the sovereign 
 will and pleasure of the Creator, i. Human life, as conscious and responsible 
 being, is made dependent on a constant alternation of a sleeping and 
 waking state. The weak and limited being of the creature needs to be 
 continually repaired by intervals of suspended activity. Sleep, it has been 
 said by one of our poets, is "a sister of death." It is used in Scripture itself 
 to describe the death of the righteous. " A perpetual sleep " as denounced 
 against Babylon, seems the nearest approach in Scripture to the idea of 
 annihilation. A second contrast is that which depends on the dual con- 
 stitution of man's nature, by which the continued conscious actings of the 
 spiritual nature are made dependent on the health and continuance of the 
 bodily organization ; the breaking up of that union by violence or decay 
 puts a stop, so far as our experience extends, to the conscious and responsible 
 activities of the soul, though not to its real existence : thus the death 
 or dissolution of the body, if not reversed by Divine power, would involve, 
 though not the extinction or non-existence of the soul, yet that which in many 
 respects would be equivalent, the suspense of its capacity for incurring 
 further guilt or earning further reward, or for conscious enjoyment or 
 suffering. This explains why the Gospel in revealing the Resurrection 
 of the dead is said to have "brought life and immortality to light." The 
 tliird contrast is that the derived and dependent life both of men and angels 
 seems to need repairing by continual communication with the fountain 
 of uncreated life from which it is derived. There was a symbol of this 
 truth in the tree of life in Paradise, by eating of which so long as man had 
 access to it, he was exempt from the power of death. This is further 
 expressed in a striking passage in the book of Job, xxxiv. 14, 15 : " If he set 
 
APPENDIX X. 423 
 
 his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, 
 all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again into dust." So, 
 again, it was said to Belshazzar by the prophet, " The God in whose hand 
 thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." Thus, 
 not only is man's conscious being alternately suspended by sleep, and liable 
 to be permanently suspended by the stroke of death, but it is further 
 dependent on the sovereign will and pleasure of God, who framed him out of 
 dust and " breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Should He be 
 pleased to resume the breath which He gave at the first, and so dissever what 
 His creating act united, all flesh should turn to the dust again ; but of such 
 an act of God causing an actual termination of man's thinking and creative 
 being, we have no hint in Scripture ; nay it seems expressly precluded by 
 that sentence of the apostle, that " the gifts and calling of God are without 
 repentance." The power is still God's, as a lesson to proud man of his 
 entire dependence on the blessed Creator, but there is no hint in a single 
 passage that it will ever be exercised. Fourthly, The nearest approach then 
 to the idea of extinction or annihilation of being in Scripture is that which is 
 connected with temporal death or the suspense thereby of the intellectual 
 and moral activities of the soul. Now, at the time of the final judgment, 
 both in Matthew xxv. and the Apocalypse, the Resurrection is past, nay 
 death itself is abolished and cast into the lake of fire. There is thus no 
 revealed pathway left open by which there shall be any future extinction of 
 Moral Being. The Resurrection brings back all the dead who are raised, 
 from the borders of nothingness and from the land where all things are 
 forgotten, to a recovered perfection of physical being ; and the Judgm.ent 
 completes this work by bringing back from forgetfulness and oblivion all the 
 acts of those who are raised to be weighed in the Judgment. Thus, a future 
 extinction of being, by which the results of the Judgment should be 
 terminated and brought to an eternal end, seems to be entirely precluded. 
 It would not only reverse the original work of creation, but reverse, with 
 regard to the ungodly, that more recent act of new creation by which they 
 have been raised from the dead before they stand in judgment. Fifthly, 
 The annihilation and utter extinction of the ungodly cannot reverse their 
 past actings, and that reign of disobedience, rebellion and blasphemy 
 through long ages on which the sentence of judgment is based ; but abolish- 
 ing the persons themselves by whom those actions have been wrought, and 
 on whom, so long as they exist, the guilt of them rests, it would leave the 
 greater part of the past history of the world, the actions of the vast majority 
 of the human race, as accidents without any subject, an immense irre- 
 versible blot in the vast scheme of Providence in which God the Creator could 
 be glorified neither by judgment nor by mercy ; it would so far reverse and blot 
 out all results and tracesof God's judgment and His original workmanship from 
 the view of the sur^nvors. The doctrine then not only is devoid of direct vScrip- 
 tural evidence, but contradicts great fundamental truths with regard to the 
 wisdom of God in all His works, and the whole scheme of Providence, 
 and involves moral anomalies of a grave and intolerable kind. 
 
 The third main feature of the revealed doctrine of judgment to come is that 
 the present mortal life is the accepted season of grace and day of redemption ; 
 
424 ISAIAH. 
 
 and that this is closed and followed by a Day of Judgmenfwhen the invitations 
 to repentance and the acceptance of offered grace arc followed by the sentence 
 of the great Judge on the then state and character and works of all men both 
 good and bad. The doctrine which would mitigate the solemnity of the Divine 
 warnings of judgment to come by teaching an indefinite extension of the time of 
 grace and probation through all the ages of the coming eternity, is " another 
 gospel, which is not another," and directly opposed to many repeated 
 messages of the word of God. " It will be too late to knock when the door 
 shall be shut, and too late to cry for mercy, when it is the time of justice ; 
 when once the Master of the house hath risen and shut to the door." "When 
 the bridegroom came, they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, 
 and the door was shut." Hence the emphatic message, "Behold, now is the 
 accepted time, now is the day of salvation." On this truth is based the urgency 
 of the appeal to turn unto God at once and without delay, and the danger of 
 present neglect of the great salvation proclaimed in the Gospel. To replace 
 this truth, without any express warrant in Scripture, by the doctrine of an 
 endlessly renewed probation, removes one of the grand landmarks laid 
 down in Scripture, on which the power of its appeal to the heart and 
 conscience of careless and impenitent sinners very mainly depends. The 
 teaching of Scripture on the interval between the hour of death and the 
 return of the Lord from heaven to execute His long-delayed judgment and 
 bring in the eternal reign of righteousness, is less clear. It is plainly taught 
 that the interval is not one of moral stagnation. The judgment will not 
 tind men in all respects such as each was at the moment of death. " He who 
 hath begun a good work " in the righteous " will perform it until the Day of 
 Christ." Both the righteous and the unrighteous come within the range of 
 the message. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, 
 let him be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and 
 he that is holy, let him be holy still ; and my reward is with me, to give every 
 man as his work shall be." There is here taught immense moral develop- 
 ment between the hour of death and the advent of the Judge, but no hint of 
 a fresh space for repentance by which there is a transfer from one class to 
 the other. This is as little taught in the statement of the preaching of the 
 Gospel to the dead by the Lord Himself in the interval between His death 
 and His resurrection, I Pet. iii. i8 — 22, and iv. 6. This is rather a message 
 to those who had died penitent, under a more elementary manifestation 
 of God's mercy as taught in the promise in Paradise, or the goodness 
 of God which continually leads to repentance, in all the works of nature, and 
 in continued mercy and forbearance to a world of sinners, whose own con- 
 science convicts them continually of guilt, though involved in visible judg- 
 ments, to announce to them the completed work of redemption ; so Peter 
 was sent to Cornelius, "a just man and one that feared God and wrought 
 righteousness," " to speak to him words whereby he and all his house should 
 be saved," The judgment to each will be according to the degrees and 
 measures of light which they have received under that Divine law. " To 
 whom much is given, of him shall much be required." Besides the silence of 
 Scripture, the parable of Dives and Lazarus yields a clear presumption 
 agamst any passage after death across that chasm which separates the believ- 
 
APPENDIX X. 425 
 
 ing and penitent from the unbelieving. The words which Christ ascribes to 
 Abraham in reply to the request of the rich man — "They have Moses and 
 the Prophets, let them hear them. Nay, father Abraham, but if one went 
 unto them from the dead they will repent. And he said unto them, If they 
 hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though 
 one rose from the dead," — may raise a doubt whether the revelations of the 
 life to come would avail to produce true repentance on those who have all 
 their lifetime persevered in slighting God's revealed message of grace in 
 the Law and the Gospel. 
 
 A fourth element of the Scriptural doctrine is the statement of our Lord, 
 Matt. vii. 13, 14. It has been sought to mitigate this solemn revelation in 
 Scripture concerning judgment to come, by a classification of mankind into 
 a small number eminently and conspicuously righteous, and a small number 
 irremediably, helplessly, and monstrously evil, and a vast majority whom 
 death finds in a comparatively neutral state, and who, it is thought, by later 
 and renewed probation may be freed from guilt, and included at last among 
 the number of the saved. This view would involve the consequence that all 
 mankind from Adam till the Judgment, except a few hardened criminals, 
 are to share in the unspeakable honour of constituting the mystic bride of 
 Christ presented to Him at last " without spot or blemish." This would con- 
 tradict the plain words of the Lord Himself, " Enter ye in at the strait 
 gate : for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, 
 and many there be that go in thereat ; because strait is the gate and 
 narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it ;" and 
 His further words of gracious promise, " Fear not, little flock, for it is your 
 Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The whole tenor of Scripture 
 teaching as to the present age concurs with the sentence drawn from 
 experience of the Greek wise man, ol ■^rXeioves KaKoi. But while it is plainly 
 taught that the church of true believers is only a minority compared with 
 the number of the unbelieving world, two further truths mitigate in some 
 measure the oppressive solemnity of this great doctrine : they teach us that 
 the number of the church itself is very great, " a multitude that no man can 
 number;" and they teach further that in the world to come, besides the 
 church of the firstborn, there will be immense multitudes of righteous 
 generations, the inhabiters of the new heavens and new earth wherein 
 righteousness dwells for ever, and in whom the promise is fulfilled made to 
 Abraham, that the covenant and the oath to him would be "even to a 
 thousand generations," and in whom the promise made by Ezekiel to 
 repentant Israel and the heathen shall be fulfilled: " I will make a covenant 
 of peace with them ; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them ; and I 
 will place them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of 
 them for evermore, and my tabernacle also shall be with them ; and I will be 
 their God, and they shall be my people." 
 
 A fifth element of the revealed doctrine of Future Judgment which it 
 has been sought to set aside in consequence of the repulsive development it 
 has received in mediccval writers, and the sensational pictures of those who 
 have added to the Divine warnings, aiming to render them more deterrent 
 and terrible, at the risk of exposing themselves to the warning that God ma)- 
 
426 ISAIAH. 
 
 "add to them the plagues written in His book," is the fact that the coming 
 judgment is to be by fire from the righteous anger of God. " The fire that 
 shall not be quenched" is plainly and in many passages proclaimed to be the 
 penal judgment of God on those who are placed at the left hand by the 
 Judge. It is not taught, however, that it is only penal and has nothing of 
 the remedial or corrective character ; on the contrary, it is plainly 
 taught that this fire of the great judgment will also have the character 
 of an anti-septic, an antidote to the corrupting tendencies of moral 
 evil in the creature when not restrained by the hand of the righteous 
 Judge, for this fire is salt as well as fire. " Every one shall be salted 
 with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." This fire of divine 
 holiness is that through which both the righteous and the unrighteous 
 must pass in the great day of account. It is a fire which discriminates and 
 will bring to light and perfect whatever is the work of the new-creating 
 Spirit of God, and will bring to light and consume, whether in the righteous 
 or the ungodly, whatever is evil, corrupt, and impure. " Every man's work 
 shall be made manifest ; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be 
 revealed by fire, for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is ; 
 and if any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive 
 a reward ; if any man's work shall be burned, he himself shall be saved, yet 
 so as by fire." 
 
 The revealed message of Scripture on judgment to come includes a 
 sixth main feature, that from the days of Paradise to the return of Christ, 
 the whole human race has been placed under an economy of redeeming 
 love. "That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself ;" that 
 every child of man is called upon to repent and turn to God, invited and 
 earnestly entreated to accept the offered gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus; 
 that there is no fatal secret decree of reprobation by which any are 
 positively shut out from a share in the blessing ; that the invitations of God 
 are sincere, earnest and real, and not in pretence only, as unbelieving hearts 
 are prone to suspect, — is assured by a threefold pledge of Divine love. 
 First, the oath and promise of God the Father, "As I live, saith the 
 Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the 
 wicked should turn from his way and Ii\e ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
 ways." Again, by the tears and lamentation of the Incarnate Son over 
 guilty Jerusalem, " when he came near and beheld the city and wept over it, 
 O that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things 
 which belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes!" And 
 thirdly and lastly, by the parting message and invitation of the Holy and 
 Eternal Spirit. "The Spirit and the Bride say Come; and let him that 
 heareth say Come; and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, 
 let him take of the water of life freely." This invitation of Divine love, 
 most clearly revealed in the Gospel, is also given, though more dimly, in 
 that goodness of God shown in all His works, by which He "leadeth men to 
 repentance," and the apostle assures us that even while He suffered the nations 
 to walk in their own ways, "he left not Himself without witness, in that He did 
 "^ood, and gave them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts 
 with food and gladness ;" and His judgment on all we are further assured will 
 
APPENDIX X. 427 
 
 be according to the light they have received, so that " unto whom much is 
 given, of them much will be required." 
 
 The worst corruption of the revealed warnings of judgment to come is 
 that which infers from the revealed issues of judgment in connection with a 
 human misconception of the Divine attribute of omnipotence, that the way of 
 life has never really been opened to any but those who finally accept the 
 Gospel and are placed at the right hand of the Judge. It is that which 
 ascribes their destruction to some secret decree of absolute reprobation, 
 and not to their own wilful and persevering rejection of the Divine gift freely 
 offered to them. It thus turns the earnest invitations of the Gospel to the 
 great majority of mankind into a mockery without real meaning, and 
 virtually imputes perjury to the most Holy and the most Merciful in that 
 most solemn message, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in 
 the death of the wicked." 
 
 There are three other main errors which have been engrafted on the 
 solemn truth, so as to have been mistaken in the minds of many Christians 
 for one integral part of it. The result has been to present in its stead a 
 compound morally offensive in the eyes of multitudes of men of deep 
 religious instincts, and burdensome and oppressive to the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the most spiritual Christians. 
 
 First is the doctrine which has grown out of the neglect of the great 
 scriptural hope of the return of the Lord in glory from heaven to execute 
 judgment, and which drops out of sight altogether the intermediate state 
 between death and the future resurrection. Hence the message of coming 
 judgment is made to imply the doctrine that each individual at the hour of 
 death at once is cast into hell and undergoes a sentence of eternal con- 
 demnation, or is taken up to heaven and enters into a state of perfected 
 bliss and glory. In the case of all except a few aggravated and atrocious 
 criminals, it has become the habit of many, under the phrase " the con- 
 solations of religion," to expect from the ministers of religion words express- 
 ing more than simple hope, something like an assurance that the departed 
 has gone to heaven, and has entered into glory. This form of Christian hope, 
 though widely current in our own and other Protestant lands, as the only 
 alternative to the terrors and abuses of the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, 
 really combines two great evils, disobedience to a clearly revealed command, 
 and contradiction to some of the most express statements of Scripture. It 
 disobeys the command, " Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, 
 who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest 
 the counsels of the hearts ; and then the praise to every man shall be from 
 God." There are some indeed whose " good works are manifest before- 
 hand," and in whose case we may therefore have the full confidence of their 
 future acceptance by the gracious Judge. There are some whose evil works 
 are manifest beforehand, yet scarce any for whom the Christian may not 
 retain some faint hope of their repentance in a dying hour, and shrink from 
 an absolute assertion of their future condemnation. But with the great 
 majority of men, their moral state at the hour of death is certainly open to 
 the Searcher of hearts alone ; to hope for the best is the duty and instinct of 
 Christian charity, but to change that hope into distinct and confident asser- 
 
423 ISAIAH. 
 
 tions that the Judge has already pronounced over them a sentence of 
 gracious acceptance, and that they have entered into heavenly glory, is to 
 transgress the express charge of the Great Apostle ; and when we consider 
 how dim and feeble are the signs of grace, hearty repentance, and real 
 holiness, in the great majority of deathbeds, even in Christian lands, it must 
 go far towards replacing the warnings of Scripture by a practical doctrine of 
 universalism. The confident manner in which many earnest religionists pro- 
 nounce on and reckon up individual cases of alleged conversion, and the 
 free and easy way in which they pronounce dogmatically of others that they 
 are unconverted and under present sentence of condemnation, are two 
 opposite forms of disobedience to the wise and solemn caution which Christ 
 has given us by His Apostle. No Scripture warrants the statement in the 
 Scotch Catechism that " the souls of the righteous, when they die, do im- 
 mediately pass into glory." The doctrine in the early ages was rather reckoned 
 a mark of Gnostic heresy than a part of the Catholic faith. Not death, but 
 the coming of the Lord, is many times declared in Scripture to be the time 
 when the righteous enter into glory. " When Christ, who is our life, shall 
 appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Till the sentence 
 of death is reversed in the resurrection, the holiness of God forbids any 
 being to be " presented in the presence of His glory," and reserves that gift 
 for the day of full " adoption, which is the redemption of the body." It is 
 thus an error opposed to the express teaching of Scripture, that the "souls of 
 the righteous after death do immediately pass into glory." The state of the 
 dead while unclothed is one of secrecy and humiliation, and the converse or 
 opposite of full and perfect glory. 
 
 A second main error which has been adopted by many as one part of the 
 revealed message of wrath to come, is the doctrine of an eternal reign of Satan, 
 the great Adversary of God and Christ, over all those who are condemned by the 
 great Judge to exclusion from eternal bliss. One recent advocate of the doctrine 
 of eternal punishment has said that this addition to it is so universal, that the 
 general consent of Christians makes it needless to allege any Scriptural proof 
 of its truth ; so easily in this most solemn subject may men make their own ad- 
 ditions to the revealed warnings of God, and then fight for them as if a part of 
 the Divine message, reckless of the danger they incur lest God should add to 
 them the plagues written in His book. The revealed purpose of Christ's 
 manifestation is "to destroy the works of Satan," and to put an end to his 
 kingdom. In the judgment of the arch Deceiver will be fulfilled the great 
 maxim of Divine righteousness, that "whosoever exalteth himself shall be 
 abased." The state of Satan after the Judgment is revealed not only as one 
 of perpetual imprisonment, but of the most profound humiliation, in which 
 all power both to te*iipt and to accuse shall have ceased for ever. His 
 revealed position is not that of a throned king, but of a footstool under the 
 feet of the great Redeemer. 
 
 A third great error which has been contended for as part of the revealed 
 doctrine is the entire absence of mercy from the judgment on the wicked in 
 the great day of account. Thei-e is only one verse which even seems to yield 
 a warrant for this doctrine, where St James says, "There shall be judgment 
 without mercy to him who has not shewn mercy; and mercy rejoicctli against 
 
APPENDIX X. 429 
 
 judgment." The Spirit here declares that on the unmerciful there will be 
 judgment in a certain sense without mercy. It will be without mercy in this 
 sense, that no act of mercy will either prevent its execution or bring it to a 
 close ; but the words themselves prove that it will not be without mercy in 
 every sense, for this would be to ascribe to the righteous Judge Himself that 
 very character on which He here pronounces the most severe condemnation. 
 It is further revealed that righteous judgment itself is a result of the Divine 
 mercy. " Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every 
 man according to his works." 
 
 Three characters will meet and be combined in all those who are 
 placed at the left hand of the Judge, and must all be revealed in 
 the character of the judgment which they undergo. The first is that 
 of creatures who by rebellion and persevering sin have forfeited that full 
 redemption which was once within their reach, and in whose being there will 
 remain evermore an unsolved discord, and the lack of free and willing 
 co-operation with the perfect Will of the Creator — "the worm that dieth 
 not," bitter remorse of conscience for the scorn of blessings that have passed 
 away for ever, and "the fire that is not quenched," a will not freely and 
 spontaneously, but through punishment and humUiation alone, brought into 
 subjection to the supreme and perfect goodness. A second character is that 
 of Brotherhood. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg- 
 ment unto the Son, because he is the Son of man." "Christ is the head of 
 every man," though pre-eminently the Brother of the righteous who "do the 
 will" of God, yet He is the Brother of the prodigals also who have forsaken 
 their Father's house. He has given a pledge in His law that even in inflicting 
 stripes on the wicked for their wickedness, the Judge, who is the Son of man, 
 will not forget or overlook the unannuUed relation of brotherhood. "If the 
 wicked man be worthy to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down 
 and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number, 
 and he may not exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, lest thy 
 brother should seem vile unto thee." Those who receive either few or many 
 stripes from the Son of Man when He sits on the throne of judgment, are 
 still by the voice of the supreme Lawgiver included in the vast fraternity of 
 the human race, and within the range of the law, "Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself." A third character that will belong for ever to the 
 saved and the unsaved alike is that of creatures made originally after the 
 image of God ; and this Divine sonship by creation, though not a closer and. 
 higher sonship by re-creation and regeneration, must be theirs for ever, and 
 is one of the latest messages of God under the Law by the prophet Malachi. 
 "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us.? Why do we 
 deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant 
 of our fathers?" The lamentation of God over them is, "I have nourished 
 and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." 
 
 The doctrine that judgment without any mercy is to be revealed in the sen- 
 tence of God on the unrighteous, and mercy without righteousness in the blessing 
 on the righteous, would introduce an eternal schism and severance between two 
 Divine perfections, which must everywhere and in all the works of God 
 remain inseparably united. There is no antinomian or capricious blessedness 
 
430 ISAIAH. 
 
 promised to the righteous, but it is pronounced over and over again that "they 
 will be judged every one according to his works." There is no judgment devoid 
 of every form of mercy announced to the ungodly, but a judgment in which 
 their guilt and folly in the previous rejection or abuse of Divine mercy will be 
 signally seen for ever, but in which tlicy will also be recognized by the Supreme 
 Judge as brothers and included in the vast fraternity of the sons of Adam, 
 and treated by the Almighty Father, the faithful Creator, as those who 
 were created at first after His own image, and in whom this character of sons 
 of God by creation must abide for evermore ; and they must still be included 
 within the Divine command to God's people, "Honour all men." In their 
 doom the contrast between the creature and God the only good must remain 
 signally manifested for evermore : yet so that along with this manifestation 
 by which alone the ransomed universe may be sustained for ever in assured 
 blessedness and abiding union with the all-perfect fountain of Life and 
 Blessedness, yet in judgment which is God's strange work, as in all His 
 works, it will be seen that " He is the Lord who exerciseth lovingkindness, 
 righteousness, and judgment in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith 
 the Lord." The neglect or denial of these further features in the judgment 
 to come' tends to awaken in the unbelieving world countless blasphemies 
 against the Bible and the God of the Bible, and to encourage in Christians 
 themselves a spirit of Pharisaic selfishness most opposite to the true spirit of 
 the Gospel. The same view which introduces a fatal schism or dualism into 
 the Divine attributes, introduces a like schism of irreconcileable contradiction 
 between two great Christian duties; it is a revealed law of Christian duty and 
 hope to "look for and haste unto the coming of the Day of God," to long and 
 pray for the promised return of Christ to execute judgment : it is also a 
 revealed duty, the second great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself;" it is plainly impossible to long for and earnestly desire the 
 coming of an hour which shall be to millions of our fellow-creatures, whom 
 we are bound to love equally with ourselves, the commencement of a state of 
 intense and eternal anguish unrelieved by any glimpse of hope and attended 
 with no kind or degree of mitigation, or any concurrent exercise of the 
 redeeming grace and mercy of God. The human corruptions of the revealed 
 doctrine of coming judgment have practically destroyed in the Church 
 the desire for the coming of Christ. They have strengthened and turned 
 into secret hope the language of the unfaithful servant, " My Lord delayeth 
 his coming:" and only when these mischievous additions are cast aside, and 
 the truth itself in all its solemn majesty still retained and seen to be in 
 harmony with all the rest of the glorious works of God, can the Church 
 re-adopt into its inmost heart that closing voice of the Holy Spirit, "Amen, 
 even so come, Lord Jesus." 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. <- lAV, .M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
Works by the same Author. 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORAL SCIENCE; A First 
 Course of Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge. Crown 
 8vo. Zs. 6d. 
 
 MODERN UTILITARIANISM; or THE SYSTEMS of 
 Paley, Bentham, and Mill examined and compared. Crown 8vo. 
 6s. 6d. 
 
 MODERN PHYSICAL FATALISM, AND THE DOC- 
 
 trine of Evolution, including an Examination of Mr HERBERT 
 Spencer's First Principles. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 THE DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF in connection with the 
 Creation and the Fall, Redemption and Judgment. Second Edition, 
 enlarged. Crown 8vo. 5^. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE RIGHT ESTIMATION OF MSS. 
 Evidence in the Text of the New Testament. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. LONDON. 
 
Works by the same AntJior. 
 
 1. THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 
 
 2. THE EXODUS OF ISRAEL. 
 
 3. HORAE APOSTOLICAE. Tract Society. \ 
 
 4. THE WAYS OF GOD. Seeley. 
 
 5. SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF CREATION. 
 
 S. P. C. K. 
 
 6. THE SACRAMENTS, SCIENCE AND PRAYER. 
 
 Christian Book Society. 
 
 7. THE TREASURES OF WISDOM. .- Seeley. 
 
Date Due 
 
♦ D,