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THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 OF 
 
 ISRAEL'S RESTORATION 
 
 (Isaiah, Chapters 40 — 66.) 
 
A BIBLE-READING FOR SCHOOLS. 
 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 OF 
 
 ISRAEL'S RESTORATION 
 
 (Isaiah, Chapters 40—66) 
 
 ARRANGED AND EDITED FOR 
 YOUNG LEARNERS 
 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD, D.C.L., 
 
 FORMERLY PROFESSOK OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ; 
 AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 ^0ttb0n: 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK. 
 1889 
 
 \All Rights reserved.} 
 
^ 5 / "^"1 3 
 
 A : 
 
 First Edition May 1872. 
 Reprinted Sept. and Oct, 1872, 1875, 
 
' Israel shall be saved m the Lord with an eve^'lasting salvation.^* 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 At the very outset, the humbleness of what is professed in 
 this little book cannot be set forth too strongly. With the aim 
 of enabling English school-children to read as a connected whole 
 the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, without being frequently 
 stopped by passages of which the meaning is almost or quite 
 unintelligible, I have sought to choose, among the better mean- 
 ings which have been offered for each of these passages, that 
 which seemed the best, and to weave it into the authorised text 
 in such a manner as not to produce any sense of strangeness or 
 interruption. This is all that I have attempted ; not to translate 
 or to correct independently, for which my knowledge of Hebrew, 
 — not more than sufficient to enable me in some degree to follow 
 and weigh the reasons offered by others in support of their judg- 
 ments, — and, indeed, my resources of all kinds, would be totally 
 inadequate ; but to use the work of more competent translators 
 and correctors, to use it so as to remove difficulties in our 
 authorised version which admit, many of them, of quite certain 
 correction ; and yet to leave the physiognomy and movement of 
 the authorised version quite unchanged. Such a work of emenda- 
 tion may be, I hope, of a useful character, but it is certainly 
 of a humble one ; and the reader is especially begged to note 
 that to this, and no more, does the present work aspire. 
 
 With like prominency must be set in view its provisional 
 character. It makes no pretensions to be permanent. Persons 
 of weight and of proved qualifications are now engaged in re- 
 vising the Bible, and their revision must undoubtedly be looked 
 to as that which, it is to be hoped, may obtain general currency. 
 To have one version universally or almost universally received 
 is of the greatest advantage. And their corrections will, pro- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 bably, be much more extensive than those attempted here, 
 and will extend far more to small points of detail; thus 
 aiming at absolute correctness, at perfection. A version thus 
 perfectly correct will most justly, if successful in other respects, 
 supersede any private and partial attempts. Such a partial 
 attempt is mine j an attempt, not to present an absolutely correct 
 version of the series of chapters treated, but merely to remove 
 such cause of disturbance as now, in the authorised version, 
 prevents their being read connectedly, with understanding of 
 what they mean, and with the profit and enjoyment that might 
 else be drawn from them. 
 
 And why is the attempt made ? It is made because of my 
 conviction of the immense importance in education of what is 
 called letters; of the side which engages our feelings and im- 
 agination. Science, the side which engages our faculty of exact 
 knowledge, may have been too much neglected; more particularly 
 this may have been so as regards our knowledge of nature. 
 This is probably tme of our secondary schools and universities. 
 But on our schools for the people (by this good German name 
 let us call them, to mark the overwhelmingly preponderant share 
 which falls to them in the work of national education) the 
 power of letters has hardly been brought to bear at all ; cer- 
 tainly it has not been brought to bear in excess, as compared 
 with the power of the natural sciences. And now, perhaps, it is 
 less likely than ever to be brought to bear. The natural sciences 
 are in high favour, it is felt that they have been unduly neglected, 
 they have gifted and brilliant men for their advocates, schools 
 for the people offer some special facilities for introducing them ; 
 on the other hand, the Bible, which would naturally be the great 
 vehicle for conveying the power of letters into these schools, is 
 withdrawn from the list of matters with which Government in- 
 spection concerns itself, and, so far, from attention. At the 
 same time, good compendiums for the teaching of the natural 
 sciences in schools for the people are coming forth; and the 
 advantage to any branch of study of possessing good and com- 
 pendious text-books it is impossible to overrate. The several 
 natural sciences, too, from their limited and definite character, ad- 
 mit better of being advantageously presented by short text-books 
 than such a wide and indefinite subject-matter, — -nothing less 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 than the whole history of the human spirit, — as that which be- 
 longs to letters ; and this inherent advantage men of skill and 
 talent, like the authors of the text-books I speak of, are just the 
 people to turn to the best account. So that at the very time 
 when the friends of the natural sciences have the public favour 
 with them in saying to letters: *'Give place, you have had 
 more than your share of attention !" their case is still further 
 improved by their being able to produce their own well-planned 
 text-books for physics, and then to point to the literary text- 
 books now in use in schools for the people, and to say to the 
 friends of letters : "And this is what you have to offer! this is 
 what you make such a fuss over! this is what you keep our 
 studies out in the cold for !" And in truth, while for those 
 branches of study which belong partly to letters, partly to 
 science, — language, geography, history, — ^our schools for the 
 people have no text-books meriting comparison with the new 
 text-books in physics, the schools are in worse plight still when 
 we come to their means of acquainting their scholars with letters 
 strictly so called, with poetry, philosophy, eloquence. A suc- 
 cession of pieces, not in general well-chosen, fragmentary, pre- 
 sented without any order or plan, and very ill comprehended by 
 the pupil, is what our schools for the people give as letters; and 
 the effect wrought by letters in these schools may be said, 
 therefore, to be absolutely null. 
 
 It is through the apprehension, either of all literature,— the 
 entire history of the human spirit, — or of a single great literature, 
 or of a single great literary work, as a connected whole, that 
 the real power of letters makes itself felt. Our leading secondary 
 schools give the best share of their time to the literature of Greece 
 and Rome. We shall not blame them for it ; this literature is, 
 indeed, only a part of the history of the human spirit, but it is 
 a very important part. Yet how little, let us remark, do they 
 conceive this literature as a whole ! how little, therefore, do they 
 get at its significance ! how little do they know it ! how little 
 does it become a power, in their hands, towards wide and com- 
 plete knowledge ! But though in our secondary schools the 
 scholar is not led to apprehend Greek and Latin literature as a 
 whole, he is (and this is a very important matter) led and often 
 enabled to lay hold of single great works, or connected portions 
 ISA.] ^ 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 of great works, of that literature, as wholes. Even supposing 
 that the Iliad and Odyssey and yEneid and Oresteia are seldom 
 entirely read at school, yet we must admit that portions of the 
 Iliad ^ Odyssey and yEneid, and single plays of the Oresteia, do 
 form important wholes by themselves, and that all the upper 
 scholars in our chief schools have read them. What these 
 scholars read or learn of English literature may be no more than 
 what the scholars in our schools for the people read or leani of 
 it, — short single pieces, or else bits detached here and there from 
 longer works. But the last book of the Iliad, or the sixth book 
 of the yEneid, or the Agamemno7t, are considerable wholes in 
 themselves, and these and other wholes of like beauty and mag- 
 nitude they do read. And all their training has been such as 
 to help them to understand what they read ; they have always 
 been hearing and learning (far too much so, many people 
 think) about the objects and personages they meet with in it ; 
 Helicon and Parnassus are far more familiar names to them 
 than Snowdon or Skiddaw; Troy and Mycenae than Berlin or 
 Vienna; Zeus and Phoebus than the gods of their own ances- 
 tors, Odin and Thor. So they are brought into *'the presence 
 and the power of greatness," as Wordsworth calls it, in these 
 indisputably great works and great wholes ; and when they are 
 so brought, they may, if they attend, *' perceive" it; they have 
 the equipment of notions and of previous information qualifying 
 them to perceive it. Now to know what Greece is, as a factor 
 in the history of the human spirit, is one thing; to take in and 
 enjoy the Agamemnon is another. But each is a whole; the 
 two wholes axe of a very different degree of value, nevertheless 
 the second is a whole, and a worthy whole, as well as the first ; 
 and the apprehension of it leads, however rudimentarily, towards 
 the first, and towards the whole of which the first is itself but a 
 part. For it tends, — how much we cannot exactly determine, not 
 much in one case, in another more than we could have believed 
 possible, — it does tend, as Wordsworth again says, in lines which 
 if not exactly good verse are at any rate good philosophy, to 
 
 " Nourish imagination in her growth, 
 And give the mind that apprehensive power, 
 Whereby she is made quick to recognise 
 The moral properties and scope of things." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In general, the scholars in our schools for the people come 
 in contact with English literature in a mere fragmentary way, 
 by short pieces or by odds and ends; and the power of a 
 great work as a whole they have, therefore, no chance of feel- 
 ing. But attempts are now sometimes made to acquaint them 
 with some whole work, which is supposed to be clear and 
 simple, such as, for instance. Goldsmith's Deserted Village or 
 his Traveller, The Deserted Village and the Traveller, works of 
 a very different rank from the same author's Vicar of Wakefield, 
 may be called good poems, but they are good pdems amongst 
 poetry of the second or even the third order, • and it would be 
 absurd to speak of feeling the power of poetry through them 
 as one feels it through the Agamemnon. But besides this, the 
 modern literatures have so grown up under the influence of the 
 literature of Greece and RoTne, that the forms, fashions, notions, 
 wordings, allusions of that literature have got deeply into them, 
 and are an indispensable preparation for understanding them; 
 now this preparation the scholars in our secondary schools, we 
 have seen, have; all their training is such as to give it them, 
 and it has thus passed into all the life and speech of what are 
 called the cultivated classes. The people are without it; and 
 how much of English literature is, therefore, almost unintelli- 
 gible to the people, or at least to the people in their commence- 
 ments of learning, — to the children of the people, — we can hardly 
 perhaps enough convince ourselves. What the people can un- 
 derstand is such speech as : 
 
 •* He sees his little lot the lot of all;" 
 
 but how small a proportion do lines like these bear, in Gold- 
 smith's poetry, to lines like : 
 
 " The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form ;" 
 or: 
 
 " See opulence, her grandeur to maintain, 
 Lead stern depopulation in her train ;" 
 
 and everything of this kind falls on the ear of the people simply 
 as words without meaning. Such diction is a reminiscence, 
 bad or good, of Latin hterature with its highly artificial 
 manner ; and such has been the influence of classical antiquity 
 that this sort of diction, and the sort of notions that go with it, 
 
 b2 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 pervade in some shape or other nearly all our literature, — pervade 
 works of infinitely higher merit than these poems of Goldsmith. 
 And wherever this sort of diction and of notions presents itself, 
 the people, one may say generally, are thrown out. A prepara- 
 tion is required which they have not had. 
 
 Only one literature there is, one great literature, for which 
 the people have had a preparation, — the literature of the Bible. 
 However far they may be from having a complete preparation 
 I for it, they have some; and it is the only great literature for 
 which they have any. Their bringing up, what they have heard 
 and talked of ever since they were born, have given them no 
 sort of conversance with the- forms, fashions, notions, wordings, 
 allusions, of literature having its source in Greece and Rome ; 
 but they have given them a good deal of conversance with the 
 forms, fashions, notions, wordings, allusions, of the Bible. 
 Zion and Babylon are their Athens and Rome, their Ida and 
 Olympus are Tabor and Hermon, Sharon is their Tempe; 
 these and the like Bible names can reach their imagination, 
 kindle trains of thought and remembrance in them. The ele- 
 ments with which the literature of Greece and Rome conjures, 
 have no power on them ; the elements with which the literature 
 of the Bible conjures, have. Therefore I have so often insisted, 
 in reports to the Education Department, on the need, if from 
 this point of view only, for the Bible in schools for the people. 
 If poetry, philosophy, and eloquence, if what we call in one 
 word letters^ are a power, and a beneficent wonder-working 
 power, in education, through the Bible only have the people 
 much chance of getting at poetry, philosophy, and eloquence. 
 Perhaps I may here quote what I have at former times said ; 
 ** Chords of power are touched by this instruction which no 
 other part of the instruction in a popular school reaches, and 
 chords various, not the single religious chord only. The Bible 
 is for the child in an elementary school almost his only contact 
 with poetry and philosophy. What a course of eloquence and 
 poetry (to call it by that name alone) is the Bible in a school 
 which has and can have but little eloquence and poetry! and 
 how much do our elementary schools lose by not having any 
 such course as part of their school-programme. All who value 
 the Bible may rest assured that thus to know and possess the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Bible is the most certain way to extend the power and efficacy of 
 the Bible." 
 
 I abstain from touching here on the political and ecclesiasti- 
 cal causes which obstruct such a use of the Bible in our popular 
 schools. A cause more real is to be found in the conditions 
 which at present rule our Bible-reading itself. If letters are a 
 power, and if the first stage in feeling this power is, as we have 
 seen, to apprehend certain great works as connected wholes, 
 then it must be said that there are hardly any means at present 
 for enabling young learners to get at this power through the 
 Bible. And for two reasons. The Catholics taunted the Re- 
 formers with their Bible-Babel; and indeed that grand and vast 
 miscellany which presents itself to us between the two covers 
 of the Bible has in it something overpowering and bewildering. 
 And its mass has never been grappled with, and separated, and 
 had clear and connected wholes taken from it and arranged so 
 that learners can use them, as the literature of Greece and Rome 
 has. The Bible stands before the learner as an immense whole ; 
 yet to know the Bibk as a whole, to know it in its historical 
 aspect and in its connexian, to have a systematic acquaintance 
 with its documents, is as great an affair as to know Greek litera- 
 ture as a whole ; and we have seen how far our best education 
 is from accomplishing this. But our best education does at any 
 rate prepare the way for it, by presenting to the learner great con-; 
 nected wholes from Greek literature, like the Agamemnon, and 
 does give the learner every help for understanding them ; nothing 
 or next to nothing of this kind has been done for the Bible. This 
 is one reason why the fruitful use of the Bible, as literature, in 
 out schools for the people, is at present almost impossible. The 
 other reason lies in the defects of our translation, noble as it is ; 
 defects which abound most in those very parts of the Bible 
 which, considered merely as literature, might have most power. 
 Grant that we had definite wholes taken out of those parts of 
 the Bible which exhibit its poetry and eloquence most con- 
 spicuously; grant that these wholes were furnished with all the 
 explanations and helps for the young learner with which a 
 Greek masterpiece is furnished ; he would still g,gain and again 
 be thrown out by finding what he reads, though English, though 
 his mother tongue, though always^^ihyilunical, always nobly 
 
 f ^ CFTF'F -^ 
 
 I TT-NTT VF.-RQTn- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 mounding, yet fail to be intelligible, fail to give a connexion with 
 what precedes and follows, fail, as we commonly say, to make 
 sense. This is a more serious matter than we might perhaps 
 think. To be thrown out by a passage clean unintelligible, im- 
 pairs and obscures the reader's understanding of much more than 
 that particular passage itself; the entire connexion of ideas is 
 broken for him and he has to begin again; and after several 
 such passages have occurred in succession, he often reads lan- 
 guidly and hopelessly where he had begun to read with anima- 
 tion and joy; or, at any rate, even if the beauty of single 
 phrases and verses still touches him, yet all grasp on his object 
 as a whole is gone. But we have seen that it is by being appre- 
 hended as a whole, that the true power of a work of literature 
 makes itself felt. 
 
 An ounce of practice, they say, is better than a pound of 
 theory ; and certainly one may talk for ever about the wonder- 
 working power of letters, and yet produce no good at all, unless 
 one really puts people in the way of feeling this power. The 
 friends of physics do not content themselves v^^ith extolling 
 physics; they put forth school-books by which the study of 
 physics may be with proper advantage brought near to those who 
 before were strangers to it ; and they do wisely. For any one 
 who believes in the civilising power of letters and often talks 
 of this belief, to think that he has for more than twenty years 
 got his living by inspecting schools for the people, has gone 
 in and out among them, has seen that the power of letters never 
 reaches them at all and that the whole study of letters is thereby 
 discredited and its power called in question, and yet has at- 
 tempted nothing to remedy this state of things, cannot but be 
 vexing and disquieting. He may truly say, like the Israel of 
 the prophet: **We have not wrought any deliverance in the 
 earth!" and he may well desire to do something to pay his debt 
 to popular education before he finally departs, and to serve it, if 
 he can, in that point where its need is sorest, where he has always 
 said its need was sorest, and where, nevertheless, it is as sore 
 still as when he began saying this, twenty years ago. Even if 
 what he does cannot be of service at once, owing to special preju- 
 dices and difficulties, yet these prejudices and difficulties years 
 are almost sure to dissipate, and it may be of service hereafter. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 The object, then, is to find some literary production of the 
 highest order, which in our schools for the people can be studied 
 and apprehended as a connected whole. It has been made out, 
 I think, that we must go to the Bible for this; so the object will 
 be to find in the Bible some v/hole, of admirable literary beauty 
 in style and treatment, of manageable length, with defined limits ; 
 to present this to the learner in an intelligible shape, and to add 
 such explanations and helps as may enable him to grasp it as a 
 connected and complete work. Evidently the Old Testament 
 offers more suitable matter for this purpose than the New. Its 
 documents exhibit Hebrew literature in its perfection, while the 
 New Testament does not pretend to exhibit the Greek language 
 and literature in their perfection ; the contents of the New Testa- 
 ment, moreover, almost entirely purport to be a plain record of 
 events, or else to be epistles, and do not the least give themselves 
 out as aspiring to the literary characters of poetry, rhythm, and 
 eloquence; many parts of the Old Testament, on the other 
 hand, do bear, and profess to bear, these characters. To the 
 Old Testament, then, we had better go for what we want ; and 
 I think it is clear that nothing could more exactly suit our pur- 
 pose than what the Old Testament gives us in the last twenty- 
 seven chapters of the Book of Isaiah. The Hebrew language 
 and genius, it is admitted by common consent, are seen in the 
 Book of Isaiah at their perfection; this has naturally had its 
 effect on the English translation, which nowhere perhaps rises 
 to such beauty as in this Book. Then, whatever may be thought 
 of the authorship of the last twenty-seven chapters, every one 
 will allow that there comes a break between them and what 
 goes immediately before them, and that they form a whole by 
 themselves. And the whole which they form is large enough 
 to exhibit a prolonged development and connexion, and yet is 
 of manageable length, and comes within fixed limits. Add to 
 which, it is a whole of surpassing interest ; so that, while Isaiah 
 is styled the greatest of the prophets, the evangelical prophet, 
 and St. Jerome calls him not so much a prophet as an evangelist, 
 and Ambrose told Augustine to read his prophecies the first 
 thing after his conversion, and this prophet is of all Old Testa- 
 ment writers the one far most quoted in the New, — while all 
 this is so, it is, moreover, in the last twenty-seven chapters that 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the greatest interest is reached ; insomuch that out of thirty-four 
 passages from him which Gesenius brings together as quoted in 
 the New Testament, there are twenty-one from these last chapters 
 against only thirteen from the rest of the Book. Finally, not 
 only have the last twenty-seven chapters this poetical and this 
 religious interest, but they have also an historical interest of the 
 highest order; for they mark the very point where Jewish history, 
 caught in the current of Cyrus's wars and policy, is carried into 
 the great open stream of the world's history, never again to be 
 separated from it. 
 
 But how to present these chapters to a young learner so that 
 he may apprehend them ? Evidently, as they stand in his Bible, 
 they are baffling to him ; and this is due partly to their arrange- 
 ment, partly to obscurities in the translation. To shew how 
 this is so, let us take a passage, not in this series of chapters, but 
 yet evidently by its subject belonging to them, — let us take the 
 2 1st chapter of Isaiah down to the end of verse lo. Thus it 
 stands in our Bibles : — 
 
 The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the 
 south pass through ; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible 
 land. 
 
 1 A grievous vision is declared unto me ; the treacherous 
 dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, 
 O Elam : besiege, O Media : all the sighing thereof have I made 
 to cease. 
 
 3 Therefore are my loins filled 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. 
 
 4 My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me : the night of 
 my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me. 
 
 5 Prepare the table, watch in the watch tower, eat, drink : 
 arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield. 
 
 6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, 
 let him declare what he seeth. 
 
 7 And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot 
 of asses, and a chariot of camels ; and he hearkened diligently 
 with much heed : 
 
 8 And he cried, A lion : My lord, I stand continually upon 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the watch-tower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole 
 nights : 
 
 9 And behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple 
 of horsemen. And he answered and said", Babylon is fallen, is 
 fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken 
 unto the ground. 
 
 10 O my threshing, and the com of my floor: that whicli 
 I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I de- 
 clared unto you. 
 
 And then the chapter goes on without any interruption, in 
 verses of just the same look, to a wholly different matter. 
 
 Now the learner in our schools for the people, who has the 
 bare text of a common Bible and nothing more, may perceive 
 that there is something grand in this passage, but he cannot 
 possibly understand it ; and this is due partly to the want of 
 explanations, partly to the arrangement, partly to obscurity in the 
 translation. He requires to be told first, as a learner would be 
 told before reading an ode of Pindar, what it is all about ; he 
 requires to have the passage separated for him from that with 
 which it has no connexion ; and he requires to have the text 
 made much clearer, both in its words and in its punctuation. 
 
 To supply explanations, it may be thought, is a matter which 
 need not embarrass us much; but the same cannot be said of 
 re-arranging and correcting. It must be remembered that in 
 dealing with the English Bible, we are dealing with a work 
 consecrated in the highest degree by long use and deep venera- 
 tion ; and we are dealing with it not for the benefit of the learned, 
 but for the benefit of our schools for the people, where we have 
 not much readiness for change to expect, but rather much resist- 
 ance to innovation. As to arrangement, therefore, we must not 
 cut and carve too freely ; a book, for instance, like The Psalms 
 Chronologically Arranged, by Four Friends, — with its Psalter 
 turned, so to speak, inside out, with its re-distribution, its novel 
 lettering, its interpolation of headings in archaic English by the 
 Four Friends, — one can hardly imagine a book like this, useful 
 as it really is, coming at present into general use in schools ; the 
 changes it makes are too glaring and radical. We have not even 
 ventured to detach from their place, and to print with the last 
 twenty-seven chapters, those earlier chapters of the Book of 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Isaiah, the 13th with the 14th down to the end of the 23rd verse, 
 the 2ist down to the end of the loth verse, the chapters from the 
 beginning of the 24th to the end of the 27th, and the 34th and 35th 
 chapters ; though these chapters are certainly connected by their 
 subject with the concluding series, are boldly printed with them 
 by recent translators, and should at any rate be read in con- 
 nexion with them by every student who wishes to apprehend the 
 concluding series fully. But this concluding series forms a con- 
 nected whole by itself, even as it now stands in our Bibles; by 
 itself it does give us, in strictness, what we want; and to take 
 other separated chapters out of their place, and print them in 
 a new order, might fairly enough be called tearing the Book of 
 Isaiah to pieces and recomposing it by private authority ; and 
 a book for elementary schools ought not to lay itselt open to 
 a reproach of this kind. The same is to be said of the novel 
 way of dividing, organising, and presenting their single Psalms 
 or single chapters, which recent translators, following Professor 
 Ewald, have adopted : in him and them, and for his and their 
 purpose, we may acquiesce in it ; but for our purpose it changes 
 the face of the Bible too startlingly and entirely. The divisions 
 in our common Bibles, however, do mark too little the con- 
 nexion of the sense, do often break it too arbitrarily, and of 
 themselves create difficulties for the reader. This will not be 
 denied; but the question is, how to apply a remedy without 
 innovating overmuch. Now it so happened that I had for many 
 years been in the habit of using a Bible* where the numbers 
 of the chapters are marked' at the side and do not interpose a 
 break between chapter and chapter ; and where the divisions of 
 the verses, being numbered in like manner at the side of the 
 page, not in the body of the verse, and being numbered in very 
 small type, do not thrust themselves forcibly on the attention. 
 Breaks between the chapters, too, this Bible admits, but only 
 when the sense seems urgently to call foi^ them ; and sometimes, 
 on the same motive, it even breaks a verse in the middle. And 
 it had always struck me how much more connected and com- 
 prehensible the sense of the Bible, and particularly of certain 
 
 * Perhaps I may be allowed here to mention, what to me at least will 
 always be very interesting, that this Bible was given to me by the late Mr 
 Keble, my godfather- 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 parts of the Bible such as the Prophetical Books and the Epi- 
 stles, appeared in this arrangement than in that of our common 
 Bibles; insomuch that here things would often look compara- 
 tively lucid and hanging together, which in our common Bibles 
 looked fragmentary and obscure. Well, then, it suggested it- 
 self to me to try, for conveying to unskilled learners the series 
 of chapters I had chosen, this mode of arrangement, extending 
 it a little and simplifying it a little ; extending it by using 
 breaks, if this seemed required by the sense, a little more fre- 
 quently ; and simplifying it by getting rid of- italics, signs, refer- 
 ences, and all apparatus of this sort, which readers such as 
 we have in view hardly ever understand, and are more dis- 
 tracted than helped by. So we might hope to exhibit this 
 series of chapters in a way to give a clue to their connexion 
 and sense, yet without making them look too odd and novel. 
 
 So far for the arrangement : but even a more important 
 matter was correction, since an unintelligible passage, baffling 
 the reader and throwing him out, will often, as we have said, 
 spoil a whole chapter for him, and there are many such passages 
 in the authorised version. To avoid this check in reading the 
 grand series of chapters at the end of Isaiah, I had gradually 
 made for my own use the corrections which seemed indispens- 
 able ; these corrections, after having been carefully revised, are 
 adopted in the text now offered. And by indispensable correc- 
 tions I mean this : corrections which enable us to read the 
 authorised version without being baffled and thrown out. The 
 urgent matter, of course, is to get rid of the stoppage and em- 
 barrassment created by such things as: "He made his grave 
 with the Vf\Q}^&^... because he had done no violence;" or as : 
 *' That prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink- 
 offering for that number^* A clear sense is the indispensable 
 thing; even where the ' authorised version seems wrong, if its 
 words give a clear sense, I have almost always left them un- 
 altered. Sometimes, however, when the right correction seems 
 to give a sense either markedly clearer or markedly higher in 
 poetic propriety and beauty than the authorised version, I have 
 corrected ; but only if both the correction seemed certain, and 
 the gain in clearness, or in beauty, or in both, undeniable, 
 * Isaiah llii. 9, and Ixv. ii» 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 For example. I think it certain that at verse 15 of the 
 65th chapter the right rendering is: ''And ye shall leave 
 your name for a curse unto my chosen, So may the Lord God 
 slay theeP^ — the words in italics being the words of the curse, 
 as in Jeremiah xxix: **0f them (Zedekiah and Ahab) shall 
 be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are 
 in Babylon, saying, The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and AhabP^ 
 But the authorised version gives a perfectly clear sense: "And 
 ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the 
 Lord God shall slay thee ;" — and I have therefore left this as 
 it stands. Again, at v. 18 of the 66th chapter, I think the 
 
 right rendering almost certainly is : "But I their works and 
 
 their thoughts ! — it shall come, that I will gather all nations," 
 &c.; the expression being, as Professor Ewald explains it, a 
 broken, indignant one, with this sense: — Utterly to confound 
 and shame the expectations and practices of the faithless, idol- 
 seeking Jews (who have been the subject of the preceding 
 verse), idolatrous nations themselves shall come and worship 
 me. But the authorised version: "For I know their works 
 and their thoughts" (referring to the idolatrous Jews of the 
 preceding verse) ; — and then, after a pause, passing to another 
 subject: "It shall come, that I will gather all nations," — gives, 
 perhaps, a yet clearer sense, though, I believe, not the right sense ; 
 but the sense given being good and clear, I without hesitation 
 feel bound to abstain from change. It may seem at variance 
 with this that, for instance, in the last clause of the 46th chapter: 
 "I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory," which is 
 quite clear, I have yet allowed myself to make a change, and to 
 substitute : " I will give salvation to Zion ; to Israel my glory." 
 But this is because, while the change appears, from the law of 
 parallelism in Hebrew poetry, perfectly certain, the observance 
 here of this law gives, at the same time, a decided gain in poetic 
 propriety and beauty. So in verse 14 of the 43rd chapter: 
 "I have sent to Babylon and have brought down all their 
 nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships." This 
 cannot be right, but it gives a sense which may be made out ; 
 we may refer to what Heeren says of the maritime trade of 
 Babylon in the Persian Gulf, and explain the last clause of the 
 Chaldean fleets there, and of the joyful hailing and shouting of 
 
PREFACE, xix 
 
 the sailors. But we so little associate Babylon with a maritime 
 trade and fleets, that this sense for the passage is a strained and 
 unacceptable one; whereas the more correct rendering: "I have 
 sent to Babylon, and do make them all to flee away, and the 
 Chaldeans upon the ships of their pleasure," associates Babylon 
 with her great feature, — the river and the use of the river; 
 and so gives a sense, if not absolutely plainer, yet poetically 
 much more natural and more pleasing. Here therefore is a case 
 where our rules justify a change. 
 
 But when a change, however pleasing and ingenious, de- 
 pends on taking license to alter by guess the original text, 
 3 have regarded it as quite forbidden. There is a diflicult 
 expression in verse 17 of the 66th chapter, ** behind one 
 tree in the midst," where the word tree is supplied by our 
 English translators, and the original has only "behind one 
 in the midst ;" now, the Hebrew word for behind nearly re- 
 sembles the Hebrew word for one^ and Professor Ewald pro- 
 poses to read, in place of the word for oney the word for behind 
 repeated ; so that the meaning will be : " Back, back in the 
 innermost sanctuary ! " — a cry of recoil of the idol-serving and 
 superstitious renegade Jews at the approach of their uninitiated, 
 and, as they thought, profane countrymen. This suits well with 
 the "I am holier than thou!" attributed to the same rene- 
 gades, and as a conjectural emendation it is highly plausible 
 and attractive ; still, a conjectural emendation it is, and therefore, 
 as I consider, not permissible for our purpose here. All we may 
 do is to supply a word giving a better sense than the word tree^ 
 and such a word is chiefs — the ringleader or chief in the pro- 
 cessions and ceremonies held in the sacred gardens. 
 
 So it will be evident that our range for alteration is strictly 
 limited; indeed, it may almost be said, in general, to be re- 
 stricted to those cases where in the authorised version there is 
 unintelligibility or ambiguity baffling the reader and throwing 
 him out. A translator whose aim is purely scientific, to rendei 
 his original with perfect accuracy, will have nmch more latitude, 
 and no one can blame him for taking it ; but then the public 
 he must propose to himself is different. Possibly too, as has 
 been already said, a body of Bible-revisers acting by public 
 authority ought to take much more latitude, and to correct the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 old version not only where it is unintelligible, but also wherever 
 they think it in error. Perhaps they ought ; but it is clear that 
 no private translator, taking such latitude, could have any hope 
 of getting his work admitted into schools for the people. And 
 the reader in these schools we want to benefit, not the learned. 
 And our object is such that to retain as far as possible the old 
 text of the Bible is very desirable, nay, almost indispensable; 
 we want to enable him to apprehend, as a whole, a literary 
 work of the highest order. And the Book of Isaiah, as it 
 stands in our Bibles, is this in a double way ; by virtue of the 
 original it is a monument of the Hebrew genius at its best, 
 and by virtue of the translation it is a monument of the English 
 language at its best. Some change must be made for clear- 
 ness' sake, without which the work cannot be apprehended as a 
 whole ; but the power of the English version must not be sacri- 
 ficed, must, if possible, be preserved intact ; and though every 
 corrector says this, and pays his compliment tc the English ver- 
 sion, yet few proceed to act upon the rule, or seem to know 
 how hard it is to act upon it when we alter at all, and why 
 it is hard. Let us try and make clear to ourselves exactly what 
 the difficulty is. 
 
 The English version has created certain sentiments in the 
 reader's mind, and these sentiments must not be disturbed, if the 
 new version is to have the power of the old. Surely this con- 
 sideration should rule the corrector in determining whether or 
 not he should put Jehovah where the old version puts LiOrd. Mr. 
 Cheyne, the recent translator of Isaiah, — one of that new band 
 of Oxford scholars who so well deserve to attract our interest, 
 because they have the idea, which Oxford has had so far too 
 little, of separated and systematised studies, — Mr. Cheyne writes 
 for teachers, and his object is scientific, to render the original 
 with exactness. This is well, and it is a line a translator may very 
 properly and usefully take; only then he should not talk of 
 governing himself, in making changes, by '*the affectionate re- 
 verence with which the Authorised Version is so justly regarded," 
 for his changes are such as to get rid of the effect and senti- 
 ment of this version entirely. But how the Four Friends, who 
 evidently, by their style of comment, mean their book for re- 
 ligious use, for habitual readers of the Psalms, and who even 
 
PJiEJ^-A>S^CAU?:'oHWh- 
 
 take, because of this design, the Prayer-Book version as their 
 basis ; how they can have permitted themselves to substitute 
 Jehovah for Lord passes one's comprehension. Probably because 
 they were following Professor Ewald; but his object is scientific. 
 To obtain general acceptance by English Christians, who that 
 considers what the name in question represents to these, what 
 the Psalms are to them, what a place the expression, The Lord, 
 fills in the Psalms and in the English Bible generally, what 
 feelings and memories are entwined with it, and what the force 
 of sentiment is, — who that considers all this, would allow him* 
 self, in a version of the Psalms meant for popular use, to aban- 
 don the established expression. The Lord ? And Jehovah is in any 
 case a bad substitute for it, because to the English reader it does 
 not carry its own meaning with it, and has even, which is fatal, a 
 mythological sound. The Eternal, which the French versions use, 
 is far preferable. The Eternal is in itself, no doubt, a better ren- 
 dering of Jehovah than The Lord; in disquisition and criticism, 
 where it is important to keep as near as we can to the exact sense 
 of words, The Eternal may be introduced with advantage ; and 
 whoever has heard Jewish school-children use it, as they do, in 
 repeating the Commandments in English, cannot but have been 
 struck and satisfied with the effect of the rendering. But for 
 English school-children, and, indeed, for all English people 
 using the Bible except with a special scientific purpose. The 
 Lord is surely an expression consecrated ; the meaning which it 
 in itself carries is a meaning contained in the original name, even 
 though it may be possible to render this original more adequately ; 
 but, besides the contents which a term carries in itself, we must 
 consider the contents with which men, in long and reverential 
 use, have filled it ; and therefore we say that The Lord any 
 literary corrector of the English Bible must retain, because of 
 the sentiments this expression has created in the English reader's 
 mind, and firmly fixed there. 
 
 It is in deference to these pre-established sentiments in the 
 reader that we prefer, so long as the sense is well preserved, for 
 any famous passage of our chapters which is cited in the New 
 Testament, the New Testament rendering, because this rendering 
 will be to the English reader the more familiar, and touches 
 more chords. For instance, in the 2nd verse of the 43rd 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 chapter, He shall not cry nor lift up is the Old Testament ren- 
 dering; He shall not clamour nor cry might in itself be better, 
 but He shall not strive nor cry seems to us best of all, because 
 the New Testament has made it familiar. For the same reason, 
 it is with extreme reluctance that we alter any signally familiar 
 wording; the change in the first clause of the 53rd chapter is 
 the only such change I can recall, and it will hardly be believed 
 what a struggle it cost me to make it. Considerations of clear- 
 ness, and of the sense and connexion of the whole, are in the 
 last resort to govern us ; now, to make the prophet say, as one of 
 the sinful people, Who believed what we heard? instead of making 
 him say, as a prophet of God, Who hath believed our report? suits 
 much better in connexion with what immediately follows, where 
 he manifestly speaks as one of the sinful people. Undoubtedly, 
 in our series of chapters, he speaks in both capacities; but it 
 seems too baffling that he should speak in the one capacity in the 
 first verse of a chapter, and then in the other capacity in the five 
 verses which instantly follow. Add to this, that the meaning we 
 have adopted joins the verse in a very striking way to the in- 
 timately connected last verse of the preceding chapter. Still, 
 we tried at first to keep the old wording. Who believed our 
 report? explaining in a note that our rep07't meant not the report 
 we gave but the report we had. This, however, evidently takes 
 all clearness out of the expression ; so in deference, first, to the 
 sense and connexion of the whole, and then to clearness, we 
 finally were driven to the change made. All this is mention- 
 ed to shew what deference we really feel to be due to the pre- 
 established sentiments above spoken of. 
 
 But perhaps there would not be much difHculty if we had only 
 to avoid rash change in these marked cases. There is a far 
 subtler difficulty to be contended with. The English Bible is a 
 tissue, a fabric woven in a certain style, and a style which is 
 admirable. When the version was made, this style was in the 
 air; get a body of learned divines, and set them down to trans- 
 late, the right meaning they might often have difficulty with, 
 but the right style was pretty well sure to come of itself. This 
 style is in the air no longer ; that makes the real difficulty of the 
 learned divines now at work in Westminster. And exactly in what 
 the style consists, and what will impair it, and what sort of change 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 can be brought into it, and to what amount, without destroying 
 it, no learning can tell them ; they must trust to a kind of tact. 
 Every one agrees that in correcting the English Bible (we do not 
 now speak of re-translation in an aim of scientific exactness) you 
 must not change its style ; the question is, what kinds of altera- 
 tion do change its style? By two kinds of alteration, it may be 
 affirmed, you change its style ; you change it if you destroy the 
 character of the diction, and you change it if you destroy the 
 balaiice of the rhythiii. Either is enough ; and one has only to 
 state these two conditions to make it clear how entirely the 
 observance of them must be a matter of tact, and cannot be 
 ensured by any external rules. It is often said that no word 
 ought to be used in correcting the English Bible which is not 
 there already. This is pedantry ; no word must be used which 
 does not suit the Bible diction, but plenty of words may suit 
 it which do not happen to be there already. And after all, 
 what have you gained, if you get a word which is ever so much 
 a Bible word, and put it in so as to spoil the rhythm ? the style 
 of the Bible is equally changed, whether it is the character of 
 its diction that you destroy, or the balance of its rhythm. 
 
 Thus quite petty changes may have a great and fatal effect ; 
 the mass of a passage may be left (and this is what a corrector 
 generally understands by shewing ''affectionate reverence for 
 the Authorised Version "), and yet by altering a word or two the 
 Bible style may be more changed than if the passage had been 
 half re- written. I name Bishop Lowth with the highest re- 
 spect ; he, Vitringa, and the Jewish commentator Aben-Ezra, are 
 perhaps the three men who, before the labours of the Germans 
 in our century, did most to help the study of Isaiah. And what 
 Lowth did was due mainly to fine tact and judgment in things 
 of poetry and literature ; this enabled him to make his just and 
 fruitful remarks on the stmcture of the composition of the 
 Hebrew prophets, and on the literary character of the whole 
 Hebrew Scriptures. And he could point out, in Sebastian 
 Castellio's Latin version, the fault of "the loss of Hebrew sim- 
 plicity, the affectation of Latin elegance," and observe that "to 
 this even the barbarism of the Vulgate is preferable." And he 
 saw the merit, both in diction and in rhythm, of our authorised 
 English version: "As to the style and language," he says, "il 
 ISA.] C 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 admits but of little improvement;" all he proposed to himself 
 was to "correct and perfect it." But in good truth style^ such 
 as the beginning of th'e 17th century knew it, was at the end of 
 the 1 8th century no longer in the air; else how could a man of 
 Lowth's sound critical principles and fine natural tact have thought 
 that he perfected " Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem " by mak- 
 ing it " Speak ye animating words to Jerusalem ;" or *' Taught 
 him knowledge'''' by substituting ^^ Impart to him science f^ or 
 *'Hear now this, thotc that art given to pleasures, that dwellest 
 carelessly^'' by " Hear now this, O thou voluptuous, that sittest in 
 security i^ or "Yet did we esteem him stricken,'*'' by "Yet we 
 thought him judicially stricken;''^ or "When thou shalt make 
 his soul an offering for sin,^'' by "If his soul shall make a pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice f^ or " My salvation is near to come,'^ by "My 
 salvation is near, just ready to come^^l Surely this is not perfect- 
 ing but marring. 
 
 So, too, Mr. Cheyne may be rendering his original with more 
 accuracy when he writes : "He shall bring forth religion truth- 
 fully," instead of "He shall bring iorih. judg??ient unto truth f^ but 
 he must not imagine that he is here making a trifling change in 
 the wording of the old version, for he destroys its character alto- 
 gether. When he writes : " He shall not fail nor be discouraged 
 till he have set religion in the earth, and the sea-coasts wait for his 
 doctrine," he must not imagine that he is making a slight change 
 in the rhythm of *' He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he 
 have set judgment in the earth : and the isles shall wait for his law," 
 for he destroys the balance of the rhythm altogether. He may 
 or may not be expressing the prophet's meaning in appropriate 
 English, which he says is his design, when he puts *' Who hath 
 believed our revelaiion^^ for " Who hath believed our report," 
 or " He was tormented, but he suffered freely, and opened not his 
 mouth," for "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he 
 opened not his mouth;" but he is not governing himself by "the 
 affectionate reverence with which the Authorised Version is so 
 justly regarded," for he is changing its effect totally. And this, 
 though there may be only a word or two altered, or though 
 the new and imported words may be honest Bible words like 
 the old. 
 
 Hence we see how delicate is the matter we are touching, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 when we take in hand the authorised version to correct it ; and as 
 there is so much risk, it seems the safest way, first indeed to be 
 very shy of correcting needlessly ; but then, if there is need to 
 correct, to keep if possible the cast of phraseology and the fall 
 of sentence already given by the old version, and to correct 
 within the limits of these, transgressing the limits of neither. For 
 instance : ' * He was taken from prison and from judgment, and 
 who shall declare his generation ? for he was cut off out of the 
 land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he 
 stricken." This needs correction, for it gives no clear sense ; 
 but it possesses a cast of phraseology and a fall of sentence 
 which are marked, which we all know well and should be loath 
 to lose. Mr. Cheyne substitutes : " From oppression and from 
 judgment was he taken, — and as for his generation, who con- 
 sidered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the 
 transgression of my people he was stricken." This is hardly 
 clearer, indeed, than the old version; still, the old version's 
 cast of phraseology is on the whole maintained, but what has 
 become of its fall of sentence? Surely it is better to try and 
 keep this too ; and if we say: *' He was taken from prison and 
 from judgment ; and who of his generation regarded it, why he 
 was cut off out of the land of the living ? for the transgression 
 of my people was he stricken !" — we at least try to keep it. It 
 would be easy to translate the verse more literally by changing 
 its words and rhythm more radically; but what we should thus 
 gain in one way is less than what we should lose in another. 
 
 However, the safest way, of course, is to abstain from change ; 
 and the trial of the corrector is in deciding where to make 
 change and where not. For the public and authorised corrector 
 the latitude is greater, as I have said, than for an attempt like 
 ours. I will destroy and devour at once^ in verse 14 of chapter 42, 
 is perfectly clear and gives a tolerable sense, so we have kept 
 it ; but it is certainly not at all the sense of the original, and 
 public and authorised correctors would be right in changing it. 
 But I doubt whether any corrector should, merely for the sake 
 of being more exactly literal, change good words which give the 
 general sense of the original ; for example, in the second verse 
 of the first chapter of our series, ^^ Her iniqidty is pardoned" suffi- 
 ciently conveys the general sense; ^^Her sin-offering is accepted" is 
 
 C 2 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 more exact, but there is no adequate reason to change. But the 
 next clause, ^^ She hath received at the Lord'' s hand double fo)' all her 
 sinsy' is ambiguous ; it may mean, her punishments are twice as 
 much as her sins, or it may mean, her blessings are twice as much 
 as her punishments ; it does mean the latter, but the words would 
 lend themselves to the former meaning more readily. Mr. Cheyne 
 makes no change at all ; he ought to have made a change. Lowth 
 substitutes, ^' She shall receive at the hand of Jehovah blessings 
 double to the pu7iish?nent of all her sins 'j""^ the right sense is given, 
 but the rhythm of the old version is gone. Whereas the chang- 
 ing only one word would have left the rhythm as it was, and 
 yet have made the meaning quite clear : ^^ She shall receive at the 
 Lord^s hand double for all her rue." 
 
 Lowth in this passage changes the tense of the verb, and here 
 too is a point where, it should be noticed, great heed is requisite. 
 Veiy often, in the Hebrew prophets and poets, the time is a kind 
 of indeterminate one, neither strictly present, past, nor future; 
 they speak of God's action, and the time of God's action is the 
 time of a general law, which we can without impropriety make 
 present, past, or future, as we will. So in Horace's famous lines 
 declaring how regularly punishment overtakes the wicked : ^^Raro 
 antecedentein scelestufn deso'uit pede poena claudo;'^ the verb here 
 might almost equally well, as far as the sense is concerned, be 
 desei'uit, or deseret^ or deserit, — hath abandoned, shall abandon, 
 or doth abandon. Very often, where the time is of this kind, 
 the form of the Hebrew verb does not make it certain for us, as 
 in Latin, how we shall render ; the authorised version, having in 
 view the nature, as popularly conceived, of prophetical speech, 
 always leans to the future. Some modem translators uniformly 
 lean the other way ; but in all cases where the sense is not certainly 
 brought out better by one tense than another, the corrector of the 
 English Bible had better, in my opinion, hold his hand ; for to 
 change the tense is, very often, to change the rhythm. In the 
 particular text of our prophet which we have just been discussing, 
 the authorised version has the verb in the past tense: " She hath 
 received at the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Lowth 
 changes it to the future : " She shall receive ;'''' but the present is 
 more vivid: *' She receiveth,^' for this represents the compensa- 
 tion as actually taking place and begun. But it is the future tense 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 in the authorised version which nine times out of ten raises the 
 question of change; for example: ^*The isles shall wait for his 
 law," where we have rendered, '* Far lands wait for his law." 
 For, surely, waiting is already prospective enough without weak- 
 ening it by making it more prospective still; so that here, it 
 seems to me, the meaning gains decidedly if we change the tens a 
 to the present. But except where there is a decided gain of 
 this sort, I have let the futures of the old version stand. 
 
 So, too, as to that often recurring expression, the isles, the 
 islands. This rendering is consecrated by its long and universal 
 use; not only our Bibles have it, but the Septuagint and the 
 Vulgate have it also, and Luther has it. And it is noble and 
 poetical ; coasts y strands^ is more literal, and is the rendering 
 preferred by the modern German translators, and by Mr. Cheyne 
 following them. But where the coasts and isles of the Mediter- 
 ranean are alone intended, and no stress is meant to be specially 
 laid on their remoteness, isles, which is more distinct and beauti- 
 ful than coasts, seems preferable; but sometimes remoteness is 
 an important part of the idea, and then neither isles nor coasts 
 quite satisfies. This is so in the passage quoted a little way 
 back: *' The isles shall wait for his law." The full meaning is 
 not here brought out ; nor does Mr. Cheyne bring it out any more 
 by ^'' The sea-coasts wait for his doctrine." Lowth has : '"''The 
 distant natioiis shall earnestly wait for his law ;" and this is un- 
 doubtedly the meaning, only distant nations is prosaic, and 
 breaks the character of the Bible style. Therefore, where 
 remoteness seems a prominent part of the idea, we have used 
 the rendering T^r lands; as here ; *' Far lands wait for his law." 
 But in general we have retained the well-known isles. 
 
 And the same with those noble and consecrated expressions, 
 judgment, 7-ighteousness ; we have hardly ever meddled witli 
 them. To talk, like Mr. Cheyne, of setting religion in the 
 earth, instead of SQiimg judg?nent in the earth, seems to us 
 wanton; but in our series of chapters there are several places 
 where saving health, salvation, undoubtedly renders the original 
 more truly than the righteousness of the English Bible. Here we 
 have hesitated, and there was considerable inducement to change ; 
 still, the notions of righteousness aud of the salvation belojiging 
 to righteousness do in our prophet so run into one another, and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the word righteousness in the English Bible is so noble a word 
 in itself, and so weighty an element of rhythm, that again and 
 again, even after changing, we have gone back to it. 
 \ In short, we have had a most lively sense of the risk one runs 
 in touching a great national monument like the English Bible ; 
 and how one is apt, by changes which seem little, to mar and 
 destroy utterly. If we are asked why we could not wait for the 
 revision promised by Convocation, we answer that two or three 
 more school-generations will have gone before this revision 
 comes, and even then it will not give us what for our special 
 purpose we want, — one self-contained portion of the Bible, 
 detached to stand as a great literary whole. But we will add, 
 too, that we think there is a danger with any body of modern 
 correctors of changing too much, and of thinking that little 
 things, especially, may be freely changed without harm ; and we 
 are conscious of an "affectionate reverence" for the diction and 
 rhythm of the English Bible, greater even, perhaps, than that of 
 many of the official revisers, — a reverence which, while for our 
 purpose some change in the text is needed, makes us eager, not- 
 withstanding, to preserve its total effect unimpaired, and binds 
 us, in this aim, to a moderation in altering much more than 
 commonly scrupulous. After all, the total number of changes 
 made is considerable, for clearness required it; but nothing 
 would be so gratifying as to find that a reader had gone from 
 the beginning of the chapters to the end without noticing any- 
 thing different from what he was accustomed to, except that he 
 was not perplexed and thrown out as formerly. « No corrector 
 should wish to claim any property in the English Bible; that 
 work, and the glory of it, belongs to the old translators, and 
 theirs, even if their work is amended, it should remain. Even 
 their punctuation one would gladly retain ; but this one finds 
 oneself more and more, the more one deals with it, obliged in 
 the interest of clearness and effect to alt-er. 
 
 We must still add a word about the notes and explanations. 
 This little book is meant for the young, and has no business to 
 discuss, or even to raise, questions which are in dispute between 
 different schools of Biblical interpreters. There ought to be 
 nothing in it which should hinder the adherent of any school of 
 Biblical interpretation or of religious belief from using it, and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 from putting it into the hands of children. The authorship of 
 our series of chapters is a vexed question; and undoubtedly I 
 believe that the author of the earlier part of the Book of Isaiah 
 was not the author of these last chapters. There is nothing to 
 forbid a member of the Church of England, or, for that matter, 
 a member of the Church of Rome either, or a member of the 
 Jewish Synagogue, fiom holding such a belief; but it is not a 
 belief which a work like the present has to concern itself with. 
 Our work ought simply to place itself, in presenting the last 
 twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, at the moment of hisfbry where 
 the contents of them become simplest, most actual, most striking ; 
 now, this moment evidently is the moment of Cyrus's attack 
 on Babylon and contemplated restoration of the Jews. This is 
 the moment when to the Jewish nation itself these chapters must 
 undoubtedly have come out with far more clearness and fulness 
 than could have been possible a hundred and fifty y€ars earlier, 
 when the matters handled were mere predictions of unknown 
 future events. The greatness of Hebrew prophecy, or even its 
 special character, are not concerned here. In my belief the 
 unique grandeur of the Hebrew prophets consists, indeed, not in 
 the curious foretelling of details, but in the unerring vision with 
 which they saw, the unflinching boldness and sublime force with 
 which they said, that the great unrighteous kingdoms of the 
 heathen could not stand, and that the world's salvation lay in a 
 recourse to the God of Israel. But, anyhow, the general pro- 
 phecy that the great unrighteous kingdoms of the heathen could 
 not stand was all that could in the time of Ahaz be fully 
 effective ; the full effect of all the particulars in our twenty-seven 
 chapters must have been reserved for the time when these par- 
 ticulars began visibly to explain themselves by being produced and 
 fulfilled. This every one must admit ; even those who believe 
 that the prophecy existed in the reign of Ahaz, a century and 
 a half before the conquests of Cyrus, will allow that at the 
 moment of the conquests of Cyrus its significance would be 
 brought out much more fully. And therefore we desire to place 
 the reader in the position of a Jew reading the chapters at that 
 critical moment, wiien the wars and revolutions with which they 
 deal had a nearness, grandeur, and reality they could not have 
 before or afterwards. But any one is free to suppose, if he 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 likes, that these chapters, so apposite and actual at that mo^ 
 ment, were an old prediction which had been in the posses-* 
 sion of the Jews long before ; whether this was so or not, whether 
 it is consistent with the true nature of Hebrew prophecy that 
 this should have been so, are questions into which the present 
 work does not enter, and ought not to enter. 
 
 Some persons will say, probably, that the notes and explana- 
 tions confine themselves too much to the local and temporary side 
 of these prophecies ; that the prophecies have two sides, a side 
 towards their nation and its history at the moment, and a side 
 towards the future and all mankind ; and that this second side 
 is by much the more important. I admit unreservedly that 
 these prophecies have a scope far, far beyond their primary 
 historical scope, that they have a secondary, eternal scope, and 
 that this scope is far, far the more important. To deny this 
 would, in my judgment, shew a very bad critic; but we must 
 make a distinction. There is a substratum of history and litera- 
 ture in the Bible which belongs to science and scliools ; there is 
 an application of the Bible and an edification by the Bible which 
 belongs to religion and churches. Some people say the Bible 
 altogether belongs to the Church, not the school. This is an 
 error; the Bible's application and edification belong to the 
 Church, its literary and historical substance to the school. 
 Other people say, that the Bible does indeed belong to school 
 as well as Church, but that its application and edification are 
 inseparable from its literature and history. This is an error, 
 they are separable. And though its application and edification 
 are what matter to a man far most (we say so in all sincerity), are 
 what he mainly lives by, yet it so happens that it is just in this 
 application and edification that religious differences arise. For 
 things do really lend themselves to far greater diversity in the 
 way of application of them, and edification by them, than in the 
 way of their primary historical and literary interpretation. To 
 take an example which will come home to all Protestants : Dr. 
 Newman, in one of those charming Essays which he has of late 
 rescued for us, quotes from the 54th chapter of Isaiah the passage 
 beginning, Iivill lay thy stones with fair colours and thy founda- 
 tions tvith sapphires^ as a prophecy and authorisation of the 
 sumptuosities of the Church of Rome. This is evidently to use 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 the passage in the way of application. Protestants will say that 
 it is a wrong use of it ; but to Dr. Newman their similar use of 
 passages about the beast, and the scarlet woman, and Antichrist, 
 will seem equally wrong ; and in these cases of application who 
 shall decide? But as to the historical substratum, the primary 
 sense of the passage Dr Newman quotes, what dissension can 
 there be? who can deny that in the first instance, however we 
 may apply them afterwards and whether this after-application be 
 right or wrong, the prophet's words apply to the restored Zion? 
 Then it is said, that those who lay stress on this primary applica- 
 tion of the words of the Bible reject and disparage the secondary. 
 So far from it, that the secondary application of the 53rd chap- 
 ter of Isaiah to Christ both is incomparably more important 
 than its now obscure primary historical application, and will be 
 admitted by every sound critic to be so. But, finally, it is said 
 that the historical and literary substratum in the Bible is, then, 
 relatively unimportant. And this belief is wide-spread and 
 genuine; but we answer, — and here is the justification of works 
 like the present, — that absolutely, at any rate, it is of very high 
 importance ; that without this historical and literary substructure, 
 the full religious significance of the Bible can never build itself 
 up for our minds, and that those who most value the Bible's 
 religious significance ought most to regard this substructure. Ad- 
 mirably true are these words of Goethe, so constant a reader of the 
 Bible that his free-thinking friends reproached him for wasting 
 his time over it : "I am convinced that the Bible becomes even 
 more beautiful the more one understands it; that is, the more 
 one gets insight to see, that every word, which we take generally 
 and make special application of to our own wants, has had, 
 in connexion with certain circumstances, with certain relations 
 of time and place, a particular, directly individual reference of 
 its own.'' 
 
 So that though our series of chapters, like the Bible in 
 general, contains more, much more, than what our notes chiefly 
 deal with, yet this too, nevertheless, is of very high importance 
 and leads up to that 7nore; and besides it belongs to school, and 
 can be taught and learnt without offering ground for those 
 religious disputes to which a more extended interpretation of 
 the Bible often gives rise. What disputes it offers ground for 
 
 ''^jpsE uia:^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 are of the sort which may arise out of any historical and 
 literary enquiry, and they are the fewer the more the enquiry is 
 conducted in an unassuming and truly scientific manner; when 
 that only is called certain which is really certain, and that which 
 is conjecture, however plausible, is allowed to be but conjecture. 
 It sets Bible-readers against all historical and Hterary investiga- 
 tion of the Bible, when novelties are violently and arrogantly 
 imposed upon them without sufficient grounds. No one who 
 has been studying the Book of Isaiah should close his studies 
 without paying homage to the German critics who in this century 
 have accomplished so much for that Book; and to two great 
 names, perhaps, above all, — Gesenius and Ewald. Professor 
 Ewald exhi^bits in a signal degree, over and above all his 
 learning, two natural gifts, — the historical sense and the poeti- 
 cal sense; the poetical sense, in my opinion, in a yet higher 
 degree than the historical. For the literary and historical 
 investigation of the Bible he has done wonders; yet perhaps 
 no one has done more to offend plain readers with such investi- 
 gation, by a harsh and splenetic dogmatism, as unphilosophical 
 as it is unpleasing. His great fault is that he will insist on our 
 taking as certainty what is and must be but conjecture. He 
 knows just when each chapter and portion of a chapter was 
 written, just where another prophet comes in and where he 
 leaves off ; he knows it the more confidently the more another 
 critic has known differently. But know in these cases he cannot, 
 he can but guess plausibly; and sometimes his guess, which 
 he gives as certain, has much to discredit even its plausibility. 
 Our series of chapters, for instance, he insists we shall believe 
 was written in Egypt, not Babylon, because Persia is called in it 
 the norths and Persia is north to Egypt, not to Babylon. How 
 strange that it never occurred to him, before thus making a 
 certainty where there can be none, that Persia is north to Zion; 
 and that for the Jewish exile in Babylon, Zion, the centre of his 
 thoughts, may well also have been the centre of his geography ! 
 
 The more we are content to let our text speak for itself, to 
 try and follow its intentions and elucidate them without im- 
 posing on it ours, the better critics we shall be certainly, but 
 also the less risk we shall run of indisposing ordinary readers to 
 Biblical criticism by rash changes or by assertions pressed too 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 far. There can hardly be a more interesting enquiry than who 
 the servant of God, so often mentioned in our series of chapters, 
 really was. We all know the secondary application to Christ, 
 often so striking ; but certainly this was not the primary appli- 
 cation; who was originally meant? the purged idealised Israel? 
 or a single prophet, the writer of the book? or the whole body 
 of prophets? or the pious and persisting part of the Jewish 
 nation? or the whole mass of the Jewish nation? It may 
 safely be said that all these are meant, sometimes the one of 
 them, sometimes the other ; and the best critic is he who does 
 not insist on being more precise than his text, who follows 
 his text with docility, allows it to have its way in meaning 
 sometimes one and sometimes the other, and is intelligent to 
 discern when it means one and when the other. But a German 
 critic elects one out of these several meanings, and will have the 
 text decidedly mean that one and no other. He does not reflect 
 that in his author's own being all these characters were certainly 
 blended: the ideal Israel, his own personal individuality, the 
 character of representative of his order, the character of repre- 
 sentative of the pious and faithful part of the nation, the cha- 
 racter (who that knows human nature can doubt it?) of repre- 
 sentative of the sinful mass of the nation. How then, when the 
 prophet came to speak, could God''s sei-vant fail to be all these 
 by turns? No doubt, the most important and beautiful of these 
 characters is the character of the ideal Israel, and Professor 
 Ewald has shewn poetical feeling in seizing on it, and in elo- 
 quently developing its significance. Gesenius, Professor Ewald's 
 inferior in genius, but how superior in good temper and freedom 
 from jealousy and acrimony! seizes in like manner on the cha- 
 racter of representative of the order of prophets. But both of 
 them make the object of their selection a hobby, and ride it 
 too hard ; and when they come to the perilous opening of the 
 49th chapter, both of them permit themselves, in order to save 
 their hobby, to tamper with the text. These are the proceedings 
 which give rise to disputes, cause offence, make historical and 
 literary criticism of the Bible to be regarded with suspicion ; a 
 faithful, simple, yet discriminative following of one's author and 
 his text might avoid them all. 
 
 We have been too long ; but our attempt is new, and needed 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 explanation. One or two words of yet more special explanation 
 have yet to be added. References, except to the passages quoted 
 from the Bible, are hardly ever given in our notes ; they are 
 written for readers who in general will have no book of reference 
 but their Bible. A variety of interpretations of any passage is 
 hardly ever given ; one interpretation is adopted, and the rest 
 are left without notice. This is not because I consider the 
 interpretation to be in all cases certain, but because the notes 
 are written for those who are not ripe for weighing conflicting 
 interpretations, and whose one great need is a clear view of the 
 whole. I hope that teachers who use the book will above all 
 things attend to making their pupils seize the connexion of 
 sense; and that to this end they will require the chapter or 
 chapters read to be always prepared beforehand, the notes 
 studied, and the connexion in some sort grasped by the pupil. 
 The notes contain some words which the pupil will probably 
 not understand, and which will have to be explained to him, — 
 words like noi?iad^ for instance, or elliptical. It would have 
 been pedantic and tedious to avoid them and to use circumlo- 
 cutions ; but a teacher will know at a glance which they are, 
 and will take care that the pupil is not suffered to be thrown 
 out by them, or to get rid of the obligation to learn his lesson 
 beforehand and to master its sense. The lesson in class will 
 then be of double value to him : the strict preparation of the 
 class-lesson beforehand, so universally insisted upon in our 
 secondary schools, is an excellent discipline which our element- 
 ary schools, partly from bad habits of teaching, partly fiom 
 want of books, are too much without. The seizing the con- 
 nexion of sense, the apprehending a whole, is another discipline 
 nearly unknown to them, and, as I have urged in the early part 
 of this preface, most salutary. It would be possible that every 
 child of twelve or thirteen years of age, who leaves the highest 
 class in an elementary school, should have read this series of 
 chapters and received a clear sense of their contents as a whole. 
 It is not at all likely that a discipline so novel should at once 
 be introduced on this wide scale ; but could it be so, it seems to 
 me that the fresh life and spring given to popular education would 
 almost be such as to regenerate it. If I say this, and if I add 
 no apologetic phrases about the faults of my own editing and 
 
- " -^ -^ 1- o J. i X J 
 
 annotating, it is not that I am unconscious of their defectiveness ; 
 but I know that the work for which they in some sort open a 
 way is so important as far more than to make up for it. 
 
 To make a great work pass into the popular mind is not 
 easy; but our series of chapters have one quahty which facili- 
 tates this passage for them, — their boundless exhilaration. Much 
 good poetry is profoundly melancholy ; now, the life of the 
 people is such that in literature they require joy. If ever that 
 "good time coming," for which they long, was presented with 
 energy and magnificence, it is in these chapters ; it is impossible to 
 read them without catching its glow. And they present it truly 
 and with the true conditions ; it is easy to misconceive it on a 
 first view, easy to misconceive its apparent conditions ; but the 
 more these chapters sink into the mind and are apprehended, 
 tlie more manifest is their connexion with universal history, the 
 key they offer to it, the truth of the ideal they propose for it. 
 Many of us have a kind of centre-point in the far past to which 
 we make things converge, from which our thoughts of history 
 instinctively start and to which they return ; it may be the 
 Persian War, or the Peloponnesian War, or Alexander, or the 
 Licinian Laws, or Csesar. Our education is such that we are 
 strongly led to take this centre-point in the history of Greece or 
 Rome ; but it may be doubted whether one who took the conquest 
 of Babylon and the restoration of the Jewish exiles would not have 
 a better. The pupil in our schools for the people, who began 
 with laying hold on this series of chapters as a whole, would 
 have a starting-point and lights of unsurpassed value for getting 
 a conception of the course of man's history and development as 
 a whole ; if but for a few pupils out of many this could happen, 
 yet, even so, what access to a new life, almost unknown to 
 their class hitherto ! what an extending of their horizons, what 
 a lifting them out of the present, what a suggestion of hope and 
 courage! "It is a stingy selfishness," says Barrow, "which 
 maketh us so sensible of crosses and so uncapable of comfort;" 
 there are numbers whose crosses are so many and comforts so few 
 that to the misery of narrow thoughts they seem almost driven 
 and bound ; what a blessing is whatever extricates them and 
 makes them live with the life of the race ! Our acts are, it is 
 most tme, infinitely more important than our thoughts and 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 studies ; but the bearing which thoughts and studies may have 
 upon our acts is not enough considered. And the power of 
 animation and consolation in those thoughts and studies, which, 
 beginning by giving us a hold upon a single great work, end with 
 giving us a hold upon the history of the human spirit, and the 
 course drift and scope of the career of our race as a whole, 
 cannot be over-estimated- Not pathetic only, but profound also, 
 and of the most solid substance, was that reply made by an old 
 Carthusian monk to the trifler who asked him how he had 
 managed to get through his life: — ''^ Cogitavi dies antiquos, et 
 annos czternos in mente habtii,^^ * 
 
 ♦ Psalm Ixxvii. 5. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 In the year 722 B.C. the kingdom of Israel fell ; its capital, 
 Samaria, was taken by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and its ten 
 tribes were carried away into Assyria. Of the chosen people 
 in the Holy Land, therefore, ** there was none left but the tribe 
 of Judah only." The great eas-tern empire of Assyria was then 
 at its height of power ; Media, Persia and Babylon were subject 
 to it, and it was hoping to conquer Egypt, with which Hoshea, 
 the last king of Israel, had made an alliance. The kingdom of 
 Judah, also, leaned towards Egypt ; for Judah, though it sur- 
 vived, was tributary to Assyria, and hoped by help of Egypt 
 to break the Assyrian power. Eight years after the destruc- 
 tion of the kingdom of Israel, Hezekiah the king of Judah 
 refused to pay his tribute any longer : the king of Assyria, Sen- 
 nacherib, invaded Egypt and Palestine, but without success, 
 and his army which appeared before Jerusalem was destroyed. 
 At this time Babylon threw off the yoke of Assyria and sent 
 an embassy to gain the friendship of Hezekiah ; Media also 
 made itself independent. Sennacherib regained his hold upon 
 Babylon, but the end of Assyria's greatness was drawing nigh. 
 She again lost Babylon, and in the year 625 the king of Babylon, in 
 conjunction with the king of Media, took Niniveh and destroyed for 
 ever the Assyrian empire. The kingdom of Media with Persia, 
 on the one hand, and the kingdom of Babylon, on the other, were 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Assyria's heirs and successors. Judah after the death of Hezekiah 
 liad no returning gleam of political prosperity. In 588, thirty- 
 seven years after the fall of the kingdom of Assyria, and a hundred 
 and thirty-four years after the fall of the kingdom of Israel, 
 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made a final invasion of Judah, 
 took Jerusalem, and carried away the king and the chief part 
 of the people to Babylon. But Nebuchadnezzar's brilliant reign 
 founded no enduring power for Babylon. His successors became 
 engaged in war with the Medo-Persian kingdom ; and it was this 
 kingdom which was to grow and succeed. Under Cyrus the 
 Persian its fortunes prevailed ; in 548 B. c, forty years after 
 the fall of Jerusalem, he conquered the wealthy Lydian monarchy 
 of Croesus and the Greek cities on the western coast of Asia 
 Minor; then, in the year 541, he turned upon Babylon, defended 
 by its walls and waters. Against their enslaver and oppressor 
 the Jewish exiles in Babylon saw uplifted the irresistible sword 
 of God's instrument, this Persian prince, to whose religion the 
 Babylonian idolatry was hateful ; a victorious warrior, a wise and 
 just statesman, favourable to Babylon's prisoners and victims, 
 and disposed to restore the exiles of Judah to their own land. 
 Assyria had fallen, Babylon was now falling ; and in this su- 
 preme hour is heard the voice of God's prophets, commanded 
 to comfort God's people, as follows : — 
 
, CPTHE ^- 
 
 {Isaiah^ 40 — 66.) 
 
 40 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 receiveth of the Lord's hand double 
 for all her rue. 
 
 3 A voice of one that crieth ! In the wilderness prepare 
 ye the way 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 said. Cry ! And he said. What shall I cry ? — All 
 flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower 
 of the field : 
 
 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit 
 of the Lord bloweth upon it : surely the people is grass. 
 
 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the word of 
 our God shall stand for ever. 
 
 9 O thou that bringest good tidings to Zion, get thee up 
 into the high mountain ; O thou that bringest good tidings 
 
 ISA,] I 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength ; lift it up, be 
 not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your 
 God! 
 
 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and lo 
 his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with 
 him, and his recompence before him. 
 
 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd : he shall gather 1 1 
 the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, 
 and shall gently lead those that are with young. 
 
 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of 12 
 his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and 
 comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, 
 and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a 
 balance ? 
 
 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his 13 
 counsellor hath taught him ? 
 
 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, 14 
 and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him 
 knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? 
 
 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are 1 5 
 counted as the small dust of the balance : behold, he 
 taketh up the isles as a very little thing! 
 
 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts 16 
 thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 
 
 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are 17 
 counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. 
 
 To whom then will ye liken God.? or what likeness will 18 
 ye compare unto him ? 
 
 The workman melteth an image, and the goldsmith 19 
 spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 
 
 He that is too poor for oblation chooseth a tree that 20 
 will not rot ; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to 
 prepare an image, that shall not be moved. 
 
 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not 2i 
 been told you from the beginning ? have ye not under- 
 stood from the foundations of the earth? 
 
 He that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the 22 
 inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ? that stretcheth 
 out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a 
 tent to dwell in? 
 
 That bringeth the princes to nothing? he maketh the 23 
 judges of the earth as vanity. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION, 
 
 24 Yea, scarce shall they be planted, yea, scarce shall 
 they be sown, yea, scarce shall their stock take root in 
 the earth ; and he shall blow upon them, and they shall 
 wither, 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 unto the heavens, and behold ! who 
 hath created these things 1 he bringeth out their host by 
 number, he calleth them all by 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 1 
 
 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? there is no searching 
 of his understanding. 
 
 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 ; and they shall walk, and not 
 faint. 
 
 4 1 Keep silence before me, O islands, and let the nations 
 renew 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 
 him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his 
 sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. 
 
 3 He pursued them, and passed safely, even by the way 
 that he had not gone with his feet. 
 
 4 Who hath wrought and done it? even he that called 
 forth the generations from the beginning : I the LORD, 
 the first, and to the last I am he. 
 
 5 Far lands saw it, and feared ; the ends of the earth 
 ', were afraid, draw near, and come. 
 
 1—2 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 They help every one his neighbour, and every one 6 
 saith to his brother, Be of good courage. 
 
 So the carpenter encourageth the goldsmith, and he that 7 
 smootheth with the hammer him that smiteth the anvil, 
 saying of the solder, It is good : and he fasteneth it with 
 nails, that it should not be moved. 
 
 But thou, Israel my servant, Jacob whom I have cho- 8 
 sen, the seed of Abraham my friend ; 
 
 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, 9 
 and called thee from the extreme borders thereof, and 
 said unto thee, Thou art my servant ; I have chosen thee, 
 and not cast thee away : 
 
 Fear thou not, for I am with thee ! be not dismayed, 10 
 for I am thy God ! I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help 
 thee, yea, 1 will uphold thee with the right hand of my 
 righteousness. 
 
 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be 1 1 
 ashamed and confounded : they shall be as nothing ; and 
 they that strive with thee shall perish. 
 
 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even 12 
 them that contended with thee : they that war against 
 thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. 
 
 For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, say- 13 
 ing unto thee. Fear not ; I help thee ! 
 
 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and thou handful Israel ! 14 
 I help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer is the Holy 
 One of Israel. 
 
 Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instru- 15 
 ment having teeth : thou shalt thresh the mountains, and 
 beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. 
 
 Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them 16 
 away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; but thou 
 shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy 
 One of Israel. 
 
 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, 17 
 and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear 
 them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 
 
 I will open rivers on high places, and fountains in the 18 
 midst of the valleys : I will make the wilderness a pool of 
 water, and the dry land springs of water. 
 
 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia tree, 19 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 
 
 and the myrtle, and the oHve tree ; I will set in the desert 
 the cypress tree, and the pine, and the box tree together : 
 
 20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and under- 
 stand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, 
 and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. 
 
 21 Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your 
 strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 
 
 22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall hap- 
 pen : let them shew the former things, what they be, that 
 we may consider them, and know the latter end of them ; 
 or declare us things for to come. 
 
 23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may 
 know that ye are gods ! yea, do good, or do evil, that we 
 may be dismayed, and behold it together ! 
 
 24 Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought : 
 an abomination is he that chooseth you. 
 
 25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come : 
 from the rising of the sun, that he should call upon my 
 name : and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, 
 and as the potter treadeth clay. 
 
 26 Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may 
 know.^ and beforetime, that we may say. He is right ! yea, 
 
 ^ there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that de- 
 clareth, yea, there is none that hath heard your words. 
 
 27 I the first said to Zion, Behold, behold it! and I gave to 
 Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. 
 
 28 I look, and there is no one ; even among them, and there is 
 no counsellor, that, when I should ask of them, could answer 
 a word. 
 
 29 Behold, they are all vanity! their works are nothing: 
 their molten images are wind and confusion. 
 
 42 Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in 
 whom my soul delighteth ! I have put my spirit upon 
 him : he shall declare judgment to the Gentiles. 
 
 2 He shall not strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be 
 heard in the street. 
 
 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax 
 shall he not quench : he shall declare judgment with truth. 
 
 4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, until he set judg- 
 ment in the earth : far lands wait for his law. 
 
 ^ttsETTe^^ 
 
 CFTHE 
 TT -K-r -r ^-,. -r-, 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, 5 
 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 : 
 
 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will 6 
 hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a 
 mediator of the people, for a light of the Gentiles ; 
 
 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from 7 
 the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison 
 house ; 
 
 I the Lord : that is my name ! and my glory will I not 8 
 give to another, neither my praise to graven images. 
 
 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new 9 
 things do I declare : before they spring forth I tell you of 
 them. 
 
 Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from 10 
 the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea and all 
 that is therein ; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof! 
 
 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their 11 
 voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; let the in- 
 habitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of 
 the mountains. 
 
 Let them give glory unto the Lord, and declare his 12 
 praise in the islands. 
 
 The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir 13 
 up his zeal like a man of war : he shall cry, yea, roar : he 
 shall behave himself mightily against his enemies. 
 
 I have long time holden my peace ; I have been still, 14 
 and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing wo- 
 man ; I will destroy and devour at once. 
 
 I will make waste mountains and hills, and parch up all 15 
 their herbs; and I will make the rivers dry land, and I 
 will dry up the pools. 
 
 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew 16 
 not, I will lead them in paths that they have not known : 
 I will make darkness light before them, and crooked 
 things straight. These things will I do unto them, and 
 not forsake them. 
 
 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly 17 
 ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the 
 molten images, Ye are our gods. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 
 
 1 8 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see ! 
 
 19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messen- 
 ger that I would send? who is blind as God's liegeman, 
 and blind as the Lord's servant ? 
 
 20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not ; having the 
 ears open, but he heareth not. 
 
 21 The Lord was pleased to do it for his righteousness' 
 sake ; to magnify the law, and to make it honourable. 
 
 22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled ; they are all of 
 them snared in dungeons, 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? who will hearken 
 and hear concerning the fore time? 
 
 24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? . 
 did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for ■ 
 they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obe- 
 dient unto his law. 
 
 25 Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his 
 anger, and the strength of battle ; and it hath set him on 
 fire round about, yet he knew not, and it burned him, yet 
 he laid it not to heart. 
 
 43 But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O 
 Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel! Fear not, for 
 I have redeemed thee ; I have called thee by thy name, 
 thou art mine. 
 
 2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with 
 thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : 
 when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
 burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 
 
 3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, 
 thy Saviour : I give Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and 
 Saba for thee. 
 
 4 Because thou art precious in my sight, honourable, and 
 I have loved thee, therefore will I give men for thee, and 
 people for thy life. 
 
 5 Fear not, for I am with thee ! I will bring thy seed from 
 the east, and gather thee from the west : 
 
 6 I will say to the north, Give up! and to the south, 
 Keep not back ! bring my sons from far, and my daugh- 
 ters from the ends of the earth, 
 
 7 Even every one that is called by my name : for I have 
 
8 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 created him for my glory, I have formed him, yea, I 
 have made him. 
 
 Bring forth the bhnd people that have eyes, and the 8 
 deaf that have ears ! 
 
 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the 9 
 Gentiles be assembled: who among them can declare 
 this? Or let them shew us former things: let them bring 
 forth their witnesses, that they may be justified : let one 
 hear, and say. It is truth! 
 
 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant 10 
 whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me, 
 and understand that I am he: before me there was no 
 God formed, neither shall there be after me. 
 
 I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no 1 1 
 saviour. 
 
 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, 12 
 and it was no strange god that was among you: therefore 
 ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God. 
 
 Yea, before the day was, I am he, and there is none 13 
 that can take away out of my hand: I will work, and who 
 shall let it? 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of 14 
 Israel : For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and do 
 make them all to flee away, and the Chaldeans upon the 
 ships of their pleasure ; 
 
 I the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your 15 
 King. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, 16 
 and a path in the mighty waters ; 
 
 Which bringeth. forth the chariot and horse, the army 17 
 and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall 
 not rise : they are extinct, they are quenched as tow. 
 
 Remember not the former things, neither consider the 18 
 things of old. 
 
 Behold, I do a new thing! now it shall spring forth; 19 
 shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the 
 wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 
 
 The beast of the field shall honour me, the jackals and 20 
 the ostriches: because I give waters in the wilderness, 
 and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my 
 chosen, 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORA TION, 
 
 21 This people that I formed for myseU"; they shall shew 
 forth my praise. 
 
 22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob! but thou 
 hast been careless of me, O Israel! 
 
 23 Thou hast not brought me the lambs of thy burnt offer- 
 ing, neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices: 
 I have not burdened thee with an offering, nor wearied 
 thee with incense. 
 
 24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, nei- 
 ther hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: 
 but thou hast burdened me 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 remembrance : let us plead together: declare 
 thou, that thou mayest be justified ! 
 
 27 Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have 
 transgressed against me. 
 
 28 Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, 
 and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to re- 
 proaches. 
 
 44 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom 
 I have chosen ! 
 
 2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee 
 from the womb, 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 the grass amidst water, 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. 
 
 6 Thus saith the Lord the king of Israel, and his re- 
 deemer the Lord of hosts : I am the first, and I am the 
 last ; and beside me there is no God. 
 
 7 And who, as I, hath foretold (let him declare it, and set it 
 in order for me !) since I appointed the ancient people.^ md 
 the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew ] 
 
 8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid : have not I told thee 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 from aforetime, and have declared it? ye are even my 
 witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no 
 God ; I know not any. 
 
 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity, 9 
 and their delectable things shall not profit : and they are 
 their own witnesses, they see not, nor know, that they 
 may be ashamed. 
 
 Who hath formed a god, or molten an image that is 10 
 profitable for nothing ? 
 
 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed, and the work- ii 
 men, that are but men. Let them all be gathered together, 
 let them stand up ; they shall fear, they shall be ashamed 
 together. 
 
 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, 12 
 and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the 
 strength of his arms : yea, he is hungry, and his strength 
 faileth ; he drinketh no water, and is faint. 
 
 The carpenter stretcheth out his rule ; he marketh it 13 
 out with a line ; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh 
 it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of 
 a man, according to the beauty of a man ; that it may re- 
 main in the house. 
 
 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress 14 
 and the oak : he chooseth for himself among the trees of 
 the forest : he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish 
 it. 
 
 Then shall it be for a man to burn, for he will take 15 
 thereof, and warm himself ; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh 
 bread ; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it ; he 
 maketh it a graven image, and faileth down thereto. 
 
 He burneth part thereof in the fire ; with part thereof 16 
 he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied : yea, 
 he warmeth himself, .and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have 
 seen the fire ! 
 
 And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his 17 
 graven image : he faileth down unto it, and worshippeth 
 it, and prayeth unto it, and saith : Deliver me, for thou 
 art my god I 
 
 They have not known nor understood ; for he hath 18 
 shut their eyes, that they cannot see, and their hearts, 
 that they cannot understand. ^ 
 
 And none considereth in his heart, neither is there 19 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION, 
 
 knowledge nor understanding to say : I have burned part 
 of it in the fire, yea, also I have baked bread upon the 
 coals thereof, I have roasted flesh, and eaten it ; and 
 shall 1 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 this, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my 
 '. servant ! I have formed thee, thou art my servant : O 
 
 Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me ! 
 
 22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, 
 and, as a cloud, thy sins ; return unto me, for I have re- 
 deemed thee. 
 
 23 Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it : shout, 
 ye foundations of the earth : break forth into singing, ye 
 mountains, O forest, and every tree therein ! for the Lord 
 hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel. 
 
 24 Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed 
 thee from the womb, I the Lord that maketh all things, 
 that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth 
 abroad the earth by myself; 
 
 25 That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh 
 diviners mad ; that turneth wise men backward, and 
 maketh their knowledge foolish ; 
 
 26 That confirmeth his word to his servant, and performeth 
 his counsel toward his messengers; that saith to Jeru- 
 salem, Thou shalt be inhabited ! and to the cities of 
 Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed 
 places thereof! 
 
 27 That saith to the deep. Be dry, and I will dry up thy 
 rivers ! 
 
 28 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall 
 perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou 
 shalt be built, and to the temple. Thy foundation shall be 
 laid ! 
 
 45 Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, 
 whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before 
 him ; and I will ungird the loins of kings, to open before 
 him the two leaved gates, and the gates shall not be 
 shut ; 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places 2 
 straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut 
 in sunder the bars of iron : 
 
 And I will give thee the treasures hid in darkness, and 3 
 concealed riches of secret places, that thou mayest know 
 that I am the LORD which call thee by thy name, the 
 God of Israel. 
 
 For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I 4 
 have even called thee by thy name : I have surnamed 
 thee, though thou hast not known me. 
 
 lam the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God 5 
 beside me : I girded thee, though thou hast not known 
 me : 
 
 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and 6 
 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. 7 
 and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. 
 
 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies 8 
 pour down righteousness ! let the earth open, and bring 
 forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together I 
 I the Lord have created it. 
 
 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker ! Let the 9 
 potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the 
 clay say to him that fashioneth it. What makest thou? or 
 thy work. He hath no hands t 
 
 Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What beget- 10 
 test thou.^ or to his mother. What hast thou brought forth? 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his ii 
 Maker: Ask ye me of things to come concerning my 
 sons? and concerning the work of my hands command 
 ye me ? 
 
 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, 12 
 even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all 
 their host have I commanded. 
 
 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct 13 
 all his ways : he shall build my city, and he shall let go 
 my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and mer- 14 
 chandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, 
 shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine : they 
 
OF ISRAELS RESTORATION. 13 
 
 shall come after thee ; in chains they shall come over, and 
 they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplica- 
 tion unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee, and there 
 is none else, there is no God ! 
 
 15 Verily thou art a God whose way is hidden, O God of 
 Israel, the Saviour! 
 
 16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of 
 them, they shall go to confusion together that are makers 
 of idols. 
 
 17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an ever- 
 lasting salvation : ye shall not be ashamed nor confound- 
 ed world without end. 
 
 18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens, God 
 himself that formed the earth and made it ; he hath es- 
 tablished it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be 
 inhabited ; I the Lord, and there is none else : 
 
 19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the 
 earth : I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in 
 vain ! I the Lord speak uprightly, I declare things that 
 are right. 
 
 20 Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together, ye 
 that are escaped of the nations ! they have no knowledge 
 that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto 
 a god that cannot save. 
 
 21 Tell ye, and bring them near, yea, let them take coun- 
 sel together ! who hath declared this from ancient time 1 
 who hath told it from that time 1 have not I the Lord 1 
 and there is no God else beside me ; a just God and a 
 Saviour ; there is none beside me. 
 
 22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the 
 earth ! for I am God, and there is none else. 
 
 23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my 
 mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto 
 me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 
 
 24 Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness 
 and strength ! Even to him shall men 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. 
 
 46 Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols are 
 upon the beasts, and upon the cattle : they are borne that 
 ye carried ; they are a burden to the weary beast. 
 
14 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 They stoop, they bow down together ; they cannot de- 2 
 liver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. 
 
 Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the rem- 3 
 nant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from 
 the birth, which are carried from the womb ! 
 
 And even to your old age I am he, and even to hoar 4 
 hairs will I carry you : I have made, and I will bear; even 
 I will carry, and will deliver you. 
 
 To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and 5 
 compare me, that we may be like ? 
 
 They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the 6 
 balance, and hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god : 
 they fall down, yea, they worship. 
 
 They bear him upon the shdulder, they carry him, and 7 
 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. 
 
 Remember this, and shew yourselves men ! bring it 8 
 again to mind, O ye transgressors ! 
 
 Remember the former things of old : for I am God, and 9 
 there is none else ; I am God, and there is none like me ; 
 
 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient 10 
 times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel 
 shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure : 
 
 Calling the eagle from the east, the man that executeth 11 
 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. 
 
 Hearken unto me, ye obdurate, that are far from right- 12 
 eousness ! 
 
 I bring near my righteousness ; it shall not be far off, 13 
 and my salvation shall not tarry ; and I will give salva- 
 tion to Zion ; to Israel, my glory. 
 
 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter 47 
 of Babylon, sit on the ground ! there is no throne, O 
 daughter of the Chaldeans ! for thou shalt no more be 
 called tender and delicate. 
 
 Take the millstones, and grind meal : uncover thy locks, 2 
 make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the 
 rivers. 
 
 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall 3 
 
OF ISRAELS K%^dRATlON.'^-^^J 15 
 
 be seen : I will take vengeance, and I will be entreated of 
 for thee by no 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 darkness, O daughter 
 of the Chaldeans ! for thou shalt no more be called. The 
 lady of kingdoms. 
 
 6 I was wroth with my people, I polluted mine inherit- 
 ance, and gave them into thine hand : thou didst shew 
 them no mercy ; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily 
 laid thy yoke. 
 
 7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever : so that thou 
 didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst re- 
 member the latter end of it. 
 
 8 Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, 
 that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, 
 and none else beside me ; I shall not sit as a widow, nei- 
 ther shall I know the loss of children. 
 
 9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in 
 one day, the loss of children, and widowhood : they shall 
 come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy 
 sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchant- 
 ments. 
 
 10 For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, thou hast said. 
 None seeth me ! Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath 
 perverted thee ; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, 
 and none else beside me. 
 
 11 Therefore shall evil come upon thee, thou shalt not 
 know from whence it riseth ; and mischief shall fall upon 
 thee, thou shalt not be able to put it off; and desolation 
 shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not 
 know. 
 
 1 2 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multi- 
 tude of thy sorceries, wherein 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 
 now the astrologers, the stargazers, the prognosticators by 
 the new moon, stand up, and save thee from these things 
 that shall come upon thee. 
 
 14 Behold, they shall be as stubble ! the fire shall burn 
 them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of 
 
t6 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 the flame ! it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire for 
 a man to sit before ii. 
 
 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast 15 
 laboured, even they with whom thou hast dealt from thy 
 youth : they shall wander every one to his quarter ; none 
 shall save thee. 
 
 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by 48 
 the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the fountain 
 of Judah ! which swear by the name of the Lord, and 
 make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor 
 in righteousness! 
 
 For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay them- 2 
 selves upon the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name. 
 
 I have declared the former things from the beginning, 3 
 and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them ; 
 I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. 
 
 Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is 4 
 an iron sinew, and thy brow brass, 
 
 I have even from the beginning declared it to thee : 5 
 before it came to pass I shewed it thee : lest thou should- 
 est say. Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, 
 and my molten image, hath commanded them. 
 
 Thou hast heard — see all this ! and will not ye declare 6 
 it ? I shew thee new things from this time, even hidden 
 things, and thou didst not know them. 
 
 They are created now, and not in the former time ; 7 
 even before this day thou heardest them not ; lest thou 
 shouldest say. Behold, I knew them. 
 
 Yea, thou heardest not, yea, thou knewest not, yea, 8 
 beforehand thine ear was not opened ; for I knew that 
 thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a 
 transgressor from the womb. 
 
 For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my 9 
 praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. 
 
 Behold, I have refined thee, but not gotten therefrom 10 
 silver ; I liave tried thee in the furnace of affliction. 
 
 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do 11 
 it : for how should my name be polluted ? and I will not 
 give my glory unto another. 
 
 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called! I am 12 
 he ; I am the first, I also am the last. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. M 
 
 13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, 
 and my right hand hath spread out the heavens : when I 
 call unto them, they stand forth together. 
 
 14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear: which among 
 them hath declared these things? The man whom the 
 Lord loveth will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his 
 chastisement on the Chaldeans. 
 
 15 I, even I, have spoken ; yea, I have called him : I have 
 brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. 
 
 16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this: I have not spoken 
 in secret from the beginning ; from the time that it was, 
 
 . there am I. (And now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hatn 
 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, 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 offspring 
 of thy bowels like the grains thereof ; his name should 
 not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. 
 
 20 Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans_, 
 with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to 
 the end of the earth ! say ye : The LORD hath redeemed 
 his servant Jacob, 
 
 21 And they thirsted not when he led them through the 
 deserts ; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock foj 
 them ; he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out 
 
 22 No peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked ! 
 
 49 LISTEN, O isles, unto me ; and hearken, ye people, 
 from far ; 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 said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in 
 whom I will be glorified. 
 
 ISA.] 2 
 
1 8 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 Then I said : I have laboured in vain, I have spent my 4 
 strength for nought, and in vain ; yet surely my righteous- 
 ness is with the Lord, and my recompence with my God. 
 
 And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb 5 
 to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, and that 
 Israel may be gathered ; (for I have honour in the eyes 
 of the Lord, and my God is my strength ;) 
 
 And he said: It is a light thing that thou shouldest be 6 
 my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to re- 
 store the preserved of Israel ; I will also give thee for a 
 light to the Gentiles, that my salvation may be unto the 
 end of the earth. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his 7 
 Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom 
 the people abhorreth, to a servant of tyrants : Kings shall 
 see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the 
 Lord that is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and he 
 chose thee. 
 
 Thus saith the LORD : In an acceptable time have I 8 
 heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee ; 
 and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a mediator of 
 the people, to establish the land, to cause to inherit the 
 desolate heritages ; 
 
 That thou may est say to the prisoners, Go forth ! to 9 
 them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves! They shall 
 feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high 
 places. 
 
 They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat 10 
 nor sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them 
 shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he 
 guide them. 
 
 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my high- 1 1 
 ways shall be cast up. 
 
 Behold, these shall come from far ; and, lo, these from 1 2 
 the north and from the west ; and these from the land of 
 Sinim. 
 
 Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break 13 
 forth into singing, O mountains ! for the LORD hath com- 
 forted his people, and doth have mercy upon his afflicted. 
 
 But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my 14 
 Lord hath forgotten me ! 
 
 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should 15 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. i^ 
 
 not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they 
 
 may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 
 t6 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my 
 
 hands ; thy walls are continually before me. 
 17 Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and 
 
 they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. 
 J 8 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold! all these 
 
 gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, 
 
 saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them 
 
 all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a 
 
 bride doeth. 
 
 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 children which thou shalt have, after thou hast 
 lost the other, shall say again in thine ears. The place is 
 too strait for me ; give place to me that I may dwell. 
 
 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart : Who hath begotten 
 me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am deso- 
 late, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath 
 brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where 
 had they been? 
 
 22 Thus saith the Lord GOD : Behold, I will lift up mine 
 hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the peo- 
 ple ; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy 
 daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 
 
 23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their 
 queens thy nursing mothers : they shall bow down to thee 
 with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of 
 thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD ; for 
 they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. 
 
 24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the cap- 
 tivity of the righteous be loosed? 
 
 25 But thus saith the Lord : Even the captives of the 
 mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible 
 shall be loosed : for I will contend with him that contend- 
 eth with thee, and I will save thy children. 
 
 26 And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own 
 flesh, and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as 
 with new wine ; and all flesh shall know that I the LORD 
 am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer the mighty One of Jacobs 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mo- 50 
 ther's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of 
 my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for 
 your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your trans- 
 gressions is your mother put away. 
 
 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I 2 
 called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened 
 at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to de- 
 liver? 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. 
 
 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sack- 3 
 cloth their covering. 
 
 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learn- 4 
 ed, that I should know how to speak a word in season to 
 him that is weary : he wakeneth morning by morning, he 
 wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. 
 
 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not 5 
 rebellious, neither turned away back. 
 
 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them 6 
 that plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame 
 and spitting. 
 
 For the Lord GOD will help me, therefore shall I not 7 
 be confounded; therefore have I set my fac<e like a flint, 
 and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 
 
 He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with 8 
 me? let us stand together! who is mine adversary? let 
 him come near to me ! 
 
 Behold, the Lord God will help me ; who is he that 9 
 shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a gar- 
 ment, the moth shall eat them up. 
 
 Who is among you that feareth the LORD? let him obey 10 
 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 ! 
 
 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass your- 1 1 
 selves about with burning darts : get ye into the flame of 
 your fire, and among the darts that ye have kindled ! 
 This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in 
 sorrow. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 
 
 51 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, 
 ye that seek the Lord! look unto the rock whence ye are 
 hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. 
 
 2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that 
 bare you ; for I called him when he was alone, and bless- 
 ed him, and increased him. 
 
 3 For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all 
 her waste places, and he will make her wilderness like 
 Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord ; joy 
 and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and 
 the voice of melody. 
 
 4 Hearken unto me, 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 Gentiles. 
 
 5 My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, 
 and mine arms shall judge the people ; far lands 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. 
 
 7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the peo- 
 ple 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 from generation to 
 generation. 
 
 9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! 
 awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. 
 Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the 
 dragon ? 
 
 10 Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of 
 the great deep ? that hath made the depths of the sea a 
 way for the ransomed to pass over? 
 
 1 1 Even so the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and 
 come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be 
 upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and 
 sorrow and mourning shall flee away. 
 
 12 I, even I, am he that comforte th you ! who art thou, 
 
THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and 
 of the son of man which shall be made as grass ; 
 
 And forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched 13 
 forth 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? 
 
 The captive exile shall very soon be loosed; he shall 14 
 not die in the pit, neither shall his bread fail. 
 
 For I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, 15 
 whose waves roared : The Lord of hosts is his name. 
 
 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have 16 
 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 ! 
 
 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast 17 
 drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury ! thou 
 hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and 
 wrung them out. 
 
 None to guide her among all the sons whom she hath 18 
 brought forth! neither any to take her by the hand of all 
 the sons that she hath brought up ! 
 
 These two things are come unto thee — who shall be 19 
 sorry for thee? desolation with destruction, and famine 
 with the sword : by whom shall I comfort thee? 
 
 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at all corners of the 20 
 streets, as a wild bull in a net : they are full of the fury of 
 the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. 
 
 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, 21 
 but not with wine ! 
 
 Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that 22 
 pleadeth the cause of his people : Behold, I have taken out 
 of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the 
 cup of my fury ; thou shalt no more drink it again : 
 
 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee, 23 
 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. 
 
 Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion! put on 52 
 thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! for 
 henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncir- 
 cumcised and the unclean. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 
 
 n 
 
 2 Shake thyself from the dust, arise, and sit up, O 
 Jerusalem! loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O 
 captive daughter of Zion ! 
 
 3 For thus saith the Lord : Ye have sold yourselves for 
 nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money. 
 
 4 For thus saith the Lord God : My people went down 
 aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian 
 oppressed them for nought. 
 
 5 Now therefore what have I here, saith the LORD, that 
 my people is taken away for nought ? they that rule over 
 them make them to howl, saith the Lord, and my name 
 continually every day is blasphemed. 
 
 6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore 
 they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: 
 behold, it is I ! 
 
 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him 
 that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! that 
 bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ! 
 that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth ! 
 
 8 Thy watchmen lift up the voice, with the voice to- 
 gether do they sing ; for eye to eye they behold, how that 
 the Lord doth 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 nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the 
 salvation of our God. 
 
 1 1 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no 
 unclean thing ! go ye out of the midst of her ! be ye clean, 
 that bear the vessels of the Lord ! 
 
 12 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 shall prosper, he shall be exalted 
 and extolled, and be very high. 
 
 14 As many were astonied at thee — his visage was so 
 marred more than any man, and his form more than the 
 sons of men — 
 
 15 So shall many nations exult in him: kings shall shut 
 
24 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 their mouths before him : for that which had not been 
 told them shall they see, and that which they had not 
 heard shall they consider. 
 
 Who believed what we heard, and to whom was the 53 
 arm. of the Lord revealed ? 
 
 For he grew up before him as a slender plant, and as a 2 
 root out of a dry ground : he had no form nor comeliness, 
 and when we saw him, there was no beauty that we should 
 desire him. 
 
 He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sor- 3 
 rows, and acquainted with grief ; and we hid as it were our 
 faces from him ; he was despised, and we esteemed him 
 not. 
 
 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 4 
 rows! yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
 and afflicted. 
 
 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was 5 
 bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace 
 was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. 
 
 All we like sheep were gone astray, we were turned 6 
 every one to his own way ; and the LORD hath laid on him 
 the iniquity of us all. 
 
 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened 7 
 not his mouth : as a lamb is brought to the slaughter, 
 and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened 
 not his mouth. 
 
 He was taken from prison and from judgment ; and 8 
 Avho of his generation regarded it, why he was cut off out 
 of the land of the. living.^ for the transgression of my 
 people was he stricken ! 
 
 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with sin- 9 
 ners in his death ; although he had done no violence, 
 neither was any deceit in his mouth. 
 
 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath put him 10 
 to grief; — when thou hast made his soul an offering for 
 sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and 
 the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 
 
 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be ii 
 satisfied : by his knowledge shall my righteous servant 
 justify many; for he shall. bear their iniquities. 
 
 Therefore will I divide him his portion with the great, 12 
 and he shall divide the spoil with the strong ! because he 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION-. 25 
 
 hath poured out his soul unto death ; and he was num- 
 bered with the transgressors ; and he bare the sin of many, 
 and made intercession for the transgressors. 
 
 54 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear! break 
 forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not tra- 
 vail with child ! for more are the children of the desolate 
 than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. 
 
 2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch 
 forth the curtains of thine habitations ; spare not, 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! neither be 
 thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame ! for 
 thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not 
 remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 
 
 5 For thy Maker is thine 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, and a wife of youth, when thou wast 
 refused, saith thy God. 
 
 7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with 
 great mercies will I gather thee. 
 
 8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; 
 but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, 
 saith the Lord thy Redeemer. 
 
 9 For this is as the waters of Noah unto me ; for as I have 
 sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over 
 the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with 
 thee, nor rebuke thee. 
 
 10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be 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. 
 
 11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not com- 
 forted! behold, I will lay thy stoned with fair colours, and 
 lay thy foundations with sapphires ; 
 
 1 2 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates 
 of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. 
 
i6 THE GREAT FROPITECY 
 
 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD ; and 13 
 great shall be the peace of thy children. 
 
 In righteousness shalt thou be established: be thou far 14 
 from anguish, for thou shalt not fear ! and from terror, for 
 it shall not come near thee ! 
 
 Behold, if any gather together against thee, it is not by 15 
 me : whosoever shall gather together against thee shall 
 come over unto thy part. 
 
 Behold, 1 have created the smith that bloweth the coals 16 
 in the fire, and that bringeth forth a weapon by his work ; 
 and I have created the waster to destroy. 
 
 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; 17 
 and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment 
 thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants 
 of the Lord, and their righteousness of me, saith the 
 Lord. 
 
 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 55 
 and he that hath no money ! come ye, buy, and eat ! yea, 
 come, buy wine and milk without money and without 
 price ! 
 
 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not 2 
 bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not "^ 
 hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, 
 and let your soul delight itself in fatness. 
 
 Inchne your ear, and come unto me! hear, and your 3 
 soul shall live ! and I will make an everlasting covenant 
 with you, even the sure mercies of David. 
 
 Behold, I appointed him for a lawgiver to the nations, a 4 
 prince and commander to the nations. 
 
 Behold, thou shalt call nations that thou knowest not, 5 
 and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee be- 
 cause of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of 
 Israel, for he hath glorified thee. 
 
 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon 6 
 him while he is near ! 
 
 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 7 
 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 ! 
 
 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are 8 
 your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 
 
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 9 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATIOJV. 
 
 27 
 
 ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your 
 thoughts. 
 
 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, 
 and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and 
 maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the 
 sower, and bread to the eater : 
 
 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; 
 it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish 
 that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where- 
 to I sent it. 
 
 12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with 
 peace : the mountains and the hills shall break forth before 
 you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap 
 their hands. 
 
 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and 
 instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree ; and it 
 shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign 
 that shall not be cut off. 
 
 56 Thus saith the Lord: Keep ye judgment, and do 
 justice ! for my salvation is near to come, and my right- 
 eousness 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 
 polluting 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 mine 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, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sab- 
 bath from polluting it, and taketh 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 shall be accepted upon mine altar ; for 
 
28 THE GREAT' PROPHECY 
 
 mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all 
 people. 
 
 The Lord GOD, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, 8 
 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 9 
 beasts of the forest ! 
 
 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are 10 
 all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, 
 loving to slumber. 
 
 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, 1 1 
 and they are shepherds that cannot understand : they all 
 look to their own way, every one for his gain, one and all 
 of them. 
 
 Come, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill our- 12 
 selves with strong drink ; and to morrow shall be as this 
 day, and much more abundant. 
 
 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart ; 5 7 
 and merciful men are taken away, none considering that 
 the righteous is taken away because of the evil. 
 
 He shall enter into peace ! they shall rest in their beds, 2 
 whoso walked in his uprightness. 
 
 But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed 3 
 of the adulterer and the whore! 
 
 Against whom do ye sport yourselves ? against whom 4 
 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, 5 
 slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks .^ 
 
 Among the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion ; 6 
 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 : 7 
 even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. 
 
 Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy 8 
 remembrance : 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. 
 
OF- ISRAEL'S RESTQRATiON^^^^^^^ 
 
 . "-^^^^i^if-r . KNi^ ..^' 
 
 9 And thou wentest unto Moloch with ointment, and didst 
 i increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far 
 f off, and didst go down even deep into hell. 
 
 10 Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way, yet saidst 
 thou not. There is no hope ! thou hast yet found strength 
 in thine hand, therefore thou wast not discouraged. 
 
 1 1 And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou 
 hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy 
 heart 1 have not I held my peace even of old, and thou 
 fearest me not .? 
 
 12 I declare thy salvation! and thy handiwork, it shall not 
 profit thee. 
 
 13 When thou criest, let thy companies of idols deliver 
 thee ! but the wind shall carry them all away, vanity shall 
 take them ; but he that putteth his trust in me shall pos- 
 sess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain. 
 
 14 Thus shall it be said : Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare 
 the way, take the stumblingblock out of the way of my 
 people ! 
 
 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 of a contrite and humble 
 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 always 
 wroth ; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls 
 which I have made. 
 
 17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and 
 smote him : I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on 
 frowardly in the way of his heart. 
 
 18 I have seen his ways, and will heal him ! I will lead him 
 also, and restore comforts unto him 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 are like the troubled sea, when it cannot 
 rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 
 
 21 No peace, saith my God, to the wicked ! 
 
 58 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 Yet they seek me daily, and desire to know my ways, as 
 
30 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordi- 
 nance of their God : they ask of me the ordinances of 
 judgment, they desire that God should draw nigh to them. 
 
 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? 3 
 wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no 
 knowledge? — Behold, in the day of your fast ye find 
 pleasure, and exact all your labours ! 
 
 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with 4 
 the fist of wickedness ! your fast this day is not a fast, to 
 make your voice to be heard on high. 
 
 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? such a day that 5 
 a man doth afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as 
 a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? 
 wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the 
 Lord? 
 
 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the 6 
 bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
 let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? 
 
 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou 7 
 bring the poor that are cast out to thy house ? when thou 
 seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide 
 not thyself from thine own flesh ? 
 
 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and 8 
 thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy right- 
 eousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord 
 shall be thy rereward. 
 
 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer ; thou 9 
 shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am ! If thou take 
 away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of 
 the finger, and speaking vanity ; 
 
 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy 10 
 the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, 
 and thy darkness be as the noon day. 
 
 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy H 
 thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones ; and thou 
 shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, 
 whose waters fail not. 
 
 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste I2 
 places : thou shalt raise up the ruins of many generations ; 
 and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The 
 restorer of paths to dwell in. 
 
 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing 13 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 31 
 
 thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a de- 
 light, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour 
 him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
 pleasure, nor speaking thine own words ; 
 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD, and I will 
 cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and 
 feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the 
 mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 69 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 separated between you and 
 your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that 
 he will not hear. 
 
 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers 
 with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue 
 hath muttered perverseness. 
 
 4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: 
 they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mis- 
 chief, and bring forth iniquity. 
 
 5 They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's 
 web : he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is 
 crushed breaketh out into a viper. 
 
 6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall 
 they cover themselves with their works : their works are 
 works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their 
 hands. 
 
 7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed in- 
 nocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;' 
 wasting and destruction are in their paths. 
 
 8 The way of peace they know not, and there is no right 
 in their goings : they have made them crooked paths ; 
 whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. 
 
 9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice 
 overtake us : we wait for light, but behold obscurity ; for 
 brightness, but we walk in darkness. 
 
 10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as 
 if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the 
 night ; we are in desolate places as dead men. 
 
 J I We roar all like bears, and moan sore like doves : we 
 look for judgment, but there is none ; for salvation, but 
 it is far off from us. 
 
 12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and 
 
31 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 our sins testify against us ; for our transgressions are with 
 us, and as for our iniquities, we know them ; 
 
 In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and dc- 13 
 parting away from our God, speaking oppression and 
 revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of 
 falsehood. 
 
 And justice is turned away backward, and righteous- 14 
 ness standeth afkr off; for truth is fallen in the street, and 
 equity cannot enter. 
 
 Yea, truth faileth! and he that departeth from evil 15 
 maketh himself a prey. 
 
 And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there 
 was no judgment. 
 
 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that 16 
 there was no intercessor ; therefore his arm brought salva- 
 tion unto him, and his righteousness, it sustained him. 
 
 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an 17 
 helmet of salvation upon his head ; and he put on the 
 garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with 
 zeal as a cloke. 
 
 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay; 18 
 fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies ; to the 
 far lands he will repay recompence. 
 
 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, 19 
 and his glory from the rising of the sun, when the enemy 
 shall come in like a flood, whom the Spirit of the Lord 
 shall drive. 
 
 And a redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that 20 
 turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. 
 
 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the 21 
 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 hence- 
 forth and for ever. 
 
 Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of 60 
 the Lord is risen upon thee ! 
 
 For, behold, darkness doth cover the earth, and 2 
 gross darkness the nations ! but the Lord shall arise upon 
 thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S restoration: 33 
 
 3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to 
 the brightness 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 carried upon 
 the arm. 
 
 5 Then thou shalt see and rejoice, and thine heart shall 
 flutter and be enlarged ; because the abundance of the 
 sea shall be converted unto thee, the treasures of the Gen- 
 tiles shall come unto thee. 
 
 6 The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the drome- 
 daries 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 the doves 
 to their windows } 
 
 9 Surely the isles do wait upon me, and the ships of Tar- 
 shish in front, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and 
 their gold with them, for the name of the Lord thy God, 
 and for the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified 
 thee! 
 
 10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, 
 and their kings shall minister unto thee ; for in my 
 wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy 
 on thee. 
 
 11 Therefore thy gates shall be open continually, they 
 shall not be shut day nor night ; that men may bring unto 
 thee the treasures of the Gentiles, and that their kings 
 may be brought. 
 
 12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee 
 shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. 
 
 13 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the cypress 
 tree, the pine tree, and the box together, 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 they that despised thee shall 
 bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet ; and they 
 
 ISA.] 3 
 
34 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 shall call thee, The city of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy- 
 One of Israel. 
 
 Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no 15 
 man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excel- 
 lency, a joy of many generations. 
 
 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt 16 
 suck the breast of kings ; and thou shalt know that I the 
 Lord am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer the mighty One 
 of Jacob. 
 
 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring 17 
 silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also 
 make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 
 
 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting 18 
 nor destruction within thy borders ; but thou shalt call thy 
 walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 
 
 The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for 19 
 brightness shall the moon give light unto thee ; but the 
 Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God 
 thy glory. 
 
 Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy 20 
 moon withdraw itself; for the LORD shall be thine ever- 
 lasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be 
 ended. 
 
 Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall in- 21 
 herit the land for ever ; the branch of my planting, the 
 work of my hands, that I may be glorified. 
 
 A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one 22 
 a stronc^ nation : I the LORD will hasten it in his time. 
 
 THE Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because 61 
 the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto 
 the afflicted ; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenheart- 
 ed, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of 
 the prison to them that are bound ; 
 
 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the 2 
 day of vengeance of our God ; to comfort all that mourn ; 
 
 To appoint, unto them that mourn in Zion, to give 3 
 unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, 
 the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that 
 they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting 
 of the Lord, that he might be glorified. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 35 
 
 4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up 
 the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste 
 cities, the desolations of many generations. 
 
 5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and 
 the sons of the aUen shall be 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 ye shall have double; and for con- 
 fusion shall my people rejoice in 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 and 
 wrong ; and I will give them their reward in truth, and I 
 will make an everlasting covenant with them. 
 
 9 And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, 
 and their offspring among the people: all that see them 
 shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the 
 Lord hath blessed. 
 
 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be 
 joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the 
 garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the 
 robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself 
 with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with 
 her jewels. 
 
 11 For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the 
 garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring 
 forth ; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and 
 praise to spring forth before all the nations. 
 
 62 For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
 Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness 
 thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as 
 a lamp that burneth. 
 
 2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all 
 kings thy glory ; and thou shalt be called by a new name, 
 which the mouth of the Lord shall name. 
 
 3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the 
 Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 
 
 4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall 
 thy land any more be termed Desolate ; but thou shalt be 
 
36 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 called My delight is in her, and thy land Married ; for the ♦ 
 Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. 
 
 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons 5 
 marry thee ; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the 
 bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. 
 — *I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which 6 
 shall never hold their peace day nor night.' — Ye that are 
 the Lord's remembrancers, keep not silence. 
 
 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make 7 
 Jerusalem a praise in the earth ! 
 
 The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the 8 
 arm of his strength : Surely I will no more give thy corn to 
 be meat for thine enemies, and the sons of the stranger shall 
 not drink thy wine for the which thou hast laboured ; 
 
 But they that have harvested it shall eat it, and praise 9 
 the Lord ; and they that have gathered thy wine shall 
 drink it in the courts of my holiness. 
 
 Go through, go through the gates ! prepare ye the way 10 
 of the people ! cast up, cast up the highway ! gather out 
 the stones ! lift up a standard for the nations ! 
 
 Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the 11 
 world : Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salva- 
 tion Cometh ! behold, his reward is with him, and his 
 recompence before him ! 
 
 And they shall call them. The holy people. The re- 12 
 deemed of the Lord ; and thou shalt be called. Sought 
 out, A city not forsaken. 
 
 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 63 
 garments from Bozrah ? this that is glorious in his apparel, 
 travelling in the greatness of his strength ? 
 — * I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.' — 
 
 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy gar- 2 
 ments like him that tread eth in the winefat? 
 — * I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations 3 
 there was none with me ; then trod I them in mine anger, 
 and trampled them in my fury, and their blood was 
 sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my 
 raiment. 
 
 ' For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year 4 
 of my redeemed is come. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 37 
 
 5 ^ And I looked, and there was none to help, and I won- 
 dered that there was none to uphold ; therefore mine own 
 arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me. 
 
 6 ^And I tread down the people in mine anger, and make 
 them drunk in my fury, and I bring down their strength 
 to the earth.' — 
 
 7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and 
 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 accord- 
 ing to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his 
 lovingkindnesses. 
 
 8 For he said. Surely they are my people, children that 
 will not lie ! so he was their Saviour. 
 
 9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of 
 his presence saved them : in his love and in his pity he 
 redeemed them ; and he bare them and carried them all 
 the days of old. 
 
 10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit ; therefore he 
 was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. 
 
 1 1 Then remembered his people the days of old, and Moses, 
 saying : Where is he-that brought them up out of the sea 
 with the shepherd of his flock ? where is he that put his 
 holy Spirit within them ? 
 
 12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with his 
 glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make 
 himself an everlasting name ? 
 
 13 That led them through the deep, as an horse in the 
 desert, and they did not stumble 1 
 
 14 As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the 
 Lord caused them to rest : so didst thou lead thy people, 
 to make thyself a glorious name. 
 
 15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation 
 of thy holiness and of thy glory ! where is thy zeal and 
 thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies 
 toward me t are they restrained 1 
 
 16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be 
 ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not ! thou, O 
 Lord, art our father ! our redeemer is thy name from ever- 
 lasting! ■ 
 
38 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, 17 
 and hardened our heart from thy fear ? Return for thy 
 servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance ! 
 
 The people of thy hoHness have had possession but a 18 
 little while : our adversaries have trodden down thy sanc- 
 tuary. 
 
 We are thine ! thou never barest rule over them ; they 19 
 were not called by thy name. 
 
 Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou 64 
 wouldest come down ! that the mountains might flow down 
 at thy presence. 
 
 As the fire burneth the stubble, the fire causeth the 2 
 water to boil ! to make thy name known to thine adver- 
 saries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. 
 
 When thou didst terrible things which we looked not 3 
 for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy 
 presence. 
 
 For since the beginning of the world men have not 4 
 heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, 
 O God, beside thee, who hath prepared such things for 
 him that waiteth for him. 
 
 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteous- 5 
 ness, those that remember thee in thy ways. 
 
 Behold, thou art wroth (for we have sinned) with thy 
 people continually ! — and shall we be saved ? 
 
 We are all even as the unclean, and all our righteous- 6 
 nesses are as filthy rags ; and we all have faded as a leaf, 
 and our iniquities, like the wind, do take us away. 
 
 And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stir- 7 
 reth up himself to take hold of thee ; for thou hast hid thy 
 face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our ini- 
 quities. 
 
 But now, O Lord, thou art our father ! we are the clay, 8 
 and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand. 
 
 Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember 9 
 iniquity for ever ! behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all 
 thy people ! 
 
 Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, 10 
 Jerusalem a desolation. 
 
 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers u 
 praised thee, is burned up with fire ; and all our pleasant 
 tilings are laid waste. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 39 
 
 12 Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LoRD? 
 wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore ? 
 
 65 I gave ear to them that asked not for me, I am 
 found of them that sought me not : I said, Behold me, 
 behold me, unto a nation that called not upon my name. 
 
 2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious 
 people, which walketh in a way not good, after their own 
 thoughts ; 
 
 3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my 
 face ; that sacrificeth in the gardens, and burneth incense 
 upon the tiles ; 
 
 4 Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the 
 monuments ; which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abomi- 
 nable things is in their vessels ; 
 
 5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me ; for 
 I am holier than thou ! These are a smoke in my nose, a 
 fire that burneth all the day. 
 
 6 Behold, it is written before me ; I will not keep silence, 
 but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, 
 
 7 Your miquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, 
 saith the Lord, which have burned incense upon the moun- 
 tains, and blasphemed me upon the hills ; therefore will I 
 measure the reward of their former work into their bosom. 
 
 8 Thus saith the Lord : As the new wine is found in the 
 grape cluster, and one saith. Destroy it not, for a blessing 
 is in it ! so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not 
 destroy them all. 
 
 9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of 
 Judah an inheritor of my mountains ; and mine elect shall 
 inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. 
 
 10 And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of 
 Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people 
 that have sought me. 
 
 1 1 But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my 
 holy mountain, that prepare a table for Fortune, and that 
 furnish the drink oflering unto that which destineth. 
 
 12 Therefore will I destine you to the sword, and ye shall all 
 bow down to the slaughter ; because when I called, ye did not 
 answer, when I spake, ye did not hear, but did evil before 
 mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not. 
 
 '^^n.^ir^ 
 
AO THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD : Behold, my servants 13 
 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 ; 
 
 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye 14? 
 shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation 
 of spirit. 
 
 And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my 15 
 chosen ; for the Lord God shall slay you, and call his 
 servants by another name ; 
 
 That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless 16 
 himself in the God of truth, and he that sweareth in the 
 earth shall swear by the God of truth ; because the former 
 troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine 
 eyes. 
 
 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; and 17 
 the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 
 
 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I 18 
 create ; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her 
 people a joy. 
 
 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; 19 
 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 20 
 old man that hath not filled his days : for the child shall 
 die an hundred years old, and the sinner being an hundred . 
 years old shall be accursed. 
 
 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and 21 
 they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 
 
 They shall not build, and another inhabit ; they shall 22 
 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 ; 23 
 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 24 
 answer ; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. 
 
 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion 25 
 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. 
 
OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. 41 
 
 66 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 ? 
 
 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those 
 things were, saith the Lord ; but to this man will I look, 
 even to him that is meek and of a contrite spirit, and 
 trembleth at my word. 
 
 3 He that killeth an ox is the same that slayeth a man ; 
 he that sacrificeth a lamb, the same that cutteth a dog's 
 throat ; he that offereth an oblation, ofifereth swine's blood ; 
 he that burneth incense, is he that blesseth an idol. Yea, 
 they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth 
 in their abominations. 
 
 4 I also will choose to mock them, 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 which I delighted not. 
 
 5 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, and let 
 your joy appear ! but 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 travailed, she brought forth : before her pain 
 came, she was delivered of a man child. 
 
 8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such 
 things ? Shall a land be brought forth in one day, or 
 shall a nation be born at once t for as soon as Zion tra- 
 vailed, she brought forth her children. 
 
 9 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. 
 
 [o 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 ! 
 
 1 1 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. 
 
 12 For thus saith the Lord : Behold, I will extend peace to 
 
42 THE GREAT PROPHECY 
 
 her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flow- 
 ing 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 13 
 you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 
 
 And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your 14 
 bones shall flourish like an herb ; and the hand of the 
 Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his in- 
 dignation toward his enemies. 
 
 For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his 15 
 chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, 
 and his rebuke with flames of fire. 
 
 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with 16 
 all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. 
 
 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in 17 
 the gardens behind one chief in the midst, eating swine's 
 flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be con- 
 sumed together, saith the LORD. 
 
 For I know their works and their thoughts. 18 
 
 It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues, 
 and they shall come, and see my glory. 
 
 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those 19 
 that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Phul and 
 Lud that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles 
 afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen 
 my glory ; and they shall declare my glory among the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering 20 
 unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in 
 chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon drome- 
 daries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, 
 as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel 
 into the house of the Lord. 
 
 And of them also will I take for priests and for Levites, 21 
 saith the Lord. 
 
 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will 22 
 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 23 
 
OF I3RAEVS RESTORATION. 43 
 
 another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh 
 come to worship before me, saith the Lord. 
 24 And they shall go forth, and look upon th.e carcases of 
 the men that have transgressed against me ; for their 
 worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, 
 and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 CHAPTER 40. 
 
 (For the circumstances under which this Chapter opens see the Intro- 
 ductory Note following the Preface. 
 
 The Greek Version mentioned in these notes is that of the Septuagint, or 
 Seventy, begun at Alexandria in the third century before Christ, but not 
 completed till the following century. It is the version which we find gener- 
 ally used and quoted in the New Testament. The Vtdgate is the Latin 
 Version of St Jerome, made at the beginning of the fifth century after Christ. 
 It is the authorised version of the Church of Rome, and up to the Reformation 
 was the Bible of Christendom ; only for the Psalms a yet earlier Latin version, 
 made from the Greek, not the Hebrew, maintained its ground; of this version 
 the Latin headings to the Psalms in the Prayer-Book are relics. The Chal- 
 daic Version and paraphrase was formerly thought to be nearly contem- 
 porary with the Christian era, or a little anterior to it ; a considerable weight 
 of opinion now, however, seems to be in favour of assigning this version 
 to the third and fourth centuries after Christ. In any case it possesses great 
 interest, having been made by learned Jews, in an idiom akin to Hebrew, 
 and which was the idiom in common use in Palestine at the Christian era. 
 In this idiom were interpreted the Scriptures at those "readings in the 
 Synagogue every Sabbath-day," which we find mentioned in the New Tes- 
 tament; and much of these old interpretations and explanations is probably 
 incorporated in the Chaldaic paraphrase. Other versions will be mentioned 
 in the following notes, but they do not require special remark here.) 
 
 I. Comfort ye, comfort ye vty people. — Sometimes my people is erro- 
 neously taken for the nominative of address, as if the meaning were : Be 
 comforted, my people. It is not so: the prophets are commanded to comfort 
 the people. "Prophets, prophesy consolations," is the opening in the Chal- 
 daic version. And in the Greek the v/ord priests is supplied at the beginning 
 of the second verse. But the right word to supply is prophets. 
 
 6. And he said. What shall I C7y? — He is the prophet to whom the 
 command to cry came. The Greek and the Vulgate have / said; the Arabic 
 version supplies, as a subject to said, the words He who was commanded. 
 But this is not necessary : the air is full of inspiration, of divine calls and 
 prophetic voices, and the forms of expression are naturally rapid and ellipti- 
 cal. After a pause, it is given to the prophet what he shall cry. 
 
 9. O thou. — Here the opening ends, and the main subject, — Israel's 
 restoration by the Almighty God of Israel, — is directly entered on. 
 
 15. The isles. — See note on verse i of the following chapter. 
 
 16. And Lebanon is not sicfficient to burn. — The trees of Lebanon are 
 not enough for wood on the fire of sacrifice. 
 
 18. To whom then will ye liken God'? — How should the image-deities 
 of idolatrous Babylon be compared to this almighty and unsearchable God 
 of Israel? 
 
 20. He that is too poor for oblation. — Probably a contrast is intended 
 between the costly idol of metal and the cheaper idol of wood, just as we 
 find the two kinds of idols put side by side again at c. 44, vv. 12 — 17, So 
 
NOTES. 
 
 blinded are these heathens, the Prophet means, that every man must have 
 his idol ; he who is too poor for oblation, who is still more, therefore, too 
 poor to have his molten image with work of silver and gold, will yet have nis 
 image of wood. 
 
 23. That bringetk the priftces to nothing.— Aher these words, in order 
 to complete the sense, Have ye not known him ? should be repeated from 
 v. 21. 
 
 26. Their host.— The host of the stars. 
 
 27. JVhj> safest thou, O Jacob. —How then can Jacob and Israel be 
 faint-hearted, or despair of their restoration, when this unmatchable, all- 
 powerful, unwearying God is their God? Compare c. 49, v. 14. 
 
 ib. My judgment is passed over. — Is neglected. My God neglects 
 (Israel is supposed to say) to judge my cause and to give sentence for me. 
 
 CHAPTER 41. 
 
 To make still clearer the contrast between the power and wisdom of the 
 God of Israel and of the gods of the heathen, these latter are challenged to 
 show and compare their performances beside His. 
 
 1. O islands. — Literally, coast-lands, with especial reference to the 
 coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, and, as these were westerly to the 
 Jews, to the west; but used also generally in the sense cA far lands, dista7it 
 regions. 
 
 ib. Ref tew their strength. — Collect all their force to answer me. 
 
 2. The righteous man from the east. — Cyrus from Persia, which is 
 easterly both to Babylonia and to Palestine. Cyrus had the character of a 
 mild and just prince ; and Xenophon, the Greek historian, chose him for his 
 ideal of a virtuous ruler. The Persians themselves said, according to Hero- 
 dotus, that Darius was a hucksterer, Cambyses a master, but Cyrus a father. 
 But it specially weighed, besides, with the Jews, that his religion, the reli- 
 gion of Persia, rejected and forbade idols Hke the religion of Israel. With 
 this character to mark his religion, and pnirsuing, too, a policy favourable to 
 the Jews, Cyrus came to be spoken of by them almost as a servant of the 
 true God like themselves. See Ezra i. 2: "Thus saith Cyrus King of 
 Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the 
 earth." 
 
 ib. Gave the nations before him. — First the kingdom of the Medes, 
 then Lydia, the kingdom of the rich Croesus, and the Greek cities of Asia 
 Minor; all conquered by Cyrus before his enterprise against Babylon. 
 
 3. Even by the way that he had not gone. — Even in his marches through 
 new and unknown countries Cyrus was guided prosperously to his goal, as 
 God's instrument. 
 
 8. But thou, Israel. — Amid the conquest, panic, and hurried recourse of 
 the heathens to their idols, Israel has a secure upholder and restorer in the 
 Lord his God. 
 
 17. When the poor and needy seek water.— On the march of the suffer- 
 ing exiles through the desert between Babylon and the Holy Land, in the 
 promised and approaching return of the Jews to their country. In these 
 regions water is almost the first abject of a man's thoughts ; the Ghassanides, 
 one of the most powerful divisions of the Arabian race, took their name from 
 a spring of water they fell in with on their march across the desert from 
 Arabia into Syria. God promises his people to provide water in the wilder- 
 ness and on the bare highlands for them, and verdure in the desert, that their 
 return may be made easier. 
 
 21. Produce your cause. — Israel having been exhorted and encouraged, 
 the discourse turns again to the heathen and their false gods, who had been 
 challenged to a competition with the Lord. 
 
 22. Let them, shew the former things. — Let the gods of the heathen 
 show what counsel and warning they have given to their dependents in 
 
NOTES> — -- 
 
 -^^LiFon 
 
 m 
 
 V 
 
 former times, and let us see whether it has been verified ; or let them give 
 some counsel and warning to them now, and let us see whether it will be 
 verified. 
 
 23. Oue fro7n the north, and. . .from the rising of the J7/«.— Cyrus 
 from Persia, which is to the north and east of Babylon. 
 
 24. Who hath declared. — Who of the false gods can point to warnings and 
 prophecies fulfilled, as the God of Israel can? What have they to produce 
 like the Lord's sentence passed two hundred years ago on Assyria in its pride 
 of power : " When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion 
 and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of 
 Assyria, and the glory of his high looks" (Isaiah x. 12) — and since fulfilled 
 in Assyria's fall? What can they produce like the Lord's sentence passed 
 seventy years ago on Babylon in its pride of power : " I will punish the king 
 of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, 
 and will make it a perpetual desolation" (Jeremiah xxv. 12) — and now being 
 fulfilled in Babylon's danger and fast approaching fall? Nothing of this 
 kind can they produce, and they are all vanity. 
 
 27. I gave to yerusalejn. — Israel had prophets and true counsellors from 
 his God, while the heathen from their false gods had none. 
 
 CHAPTER 42. 
 
 Israel, the object of this divine favour and these divine purposes, is now 
 more closely considered, his true mode of working is declared, his blindness 
 and shortcomings are reproved. 
 
 1. Behold my servant, whotn I uphold; vtine elect. — The Greek sup- 
 plies, " Jacob my servant, Israel mine elect." The whole passage, vv. 1 — 4, 
 is applied to Christ in the New Testament, St Matt. xii. 17 — 21 ; but neither 
 the Greek version nor the Hebrew original are there closely followed. The 
 occasion of quoting the passage is Jesus's charge to those he healed that they 
 should not make him known, the point primarily to be illustrated being 
 Christ's mild, silent, and uncontentious manner of working. 
 
 2. He shall not strive. — More literally, shall not clamour: shall not 
 speak with the high, vehement voice of men who contend. God's servant 
 shall bring to men's hearts the word of God's righteousness and salvation by 
 a gentle, inward, and spiritual method. 
 
 3. A brtdsed reed. — Suffering and failing hearts he shall treat tenderly, 
 and restore them by mildness, not severity. 
 
 6. For a mediator of tfie people, for the light of the Gentiles. — We are 
 familiar with the application of this to Christ; but it is said in the first 
 instance of the ideal Israel, immediately represented to the speaker by God's 
 faithful prophets bent on declaring his commandments and promises, and 
 by the pious part of the nation, persisting, in spite of their exile among an 
 idolatrous people, in their reliance on God and in their pure worship of 
 Him. The ideal Israel, thus conceived, was to be God's mediator with the 
 more backward mass of the Jewish nation, and the bringer of the saving 
 light and health of the God of Israel to the rest of mankind, 
 
 9. The former things are come to pass. — Such as the prophesied fall of 
 Assyria. 
 
 ib. And new things do I declare. — The approaching fall of Babylon and 
 the restoration of Israel. 
 
 10. Sing unto the Lord. — In the convulsions of war and change coming 
 upon the earth God's arm was about to be shown in the overthrow of idola- 
 trous Babylon, and in the restoration of his chosen people ; hence this song 
 of triumph. 
 
 ib. Ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein.— CompiirQ 
 Psalm xcvi. 11 : " Let the sea make a noise, and all that therein is." 
 
 11. The wilderness and the cities thereof — The great expanse of desert 
 country between Babylonia, Palestine, and Arabia, with nomad tribes 
 
48 NOTES. 
 
 masters of it, and settlements scattered through it where there is water. 
 Kedar is the name of an Arabian people, descended from Ishmael, lying in 
 the north of Arabia, next to their brother race, Nebaioth, the Nabathseans. 
 See Gen. xxv. 13. 
 
 ib. The inhabitants of the rock. — The country above spoken of is by no 
 means one great plain of sand, but has stony regions (Arabia Petraea), hills, 
 and rock-forts. These are often contrasted with the undefended habitations 
 of the nomad Arabs. "We Bedouins," says one of these Arabs, in the 6th 
 century after Christ, to the poet Imroulcays, who sought his protection, 
 " live in the plains, and have no castles where we can make our guests safe ; 
 go to the Jew Samuel in his castle of El-Ablak." The fidelity of this 
 Jewish lord of an Arabian rock-fort became a proverb. 
 
 12. In the islands. — See note to c. 41, v. i. 
 
 15. I will make t/ie rivers dry land, ^c. — The great rivers of Mesopotamia, 
 from the nature of the country through which they flow, have from the earliest 
 times offered scope for large engineering operations, both civil and military. 
 Mr Layard speaks thus of the ruins of a great stone-dam he found in the 
 Tigris: " It was one of those monuments of a great people, to be found in 
 all the rivers of Mesopotamia, which were undertaken to ensure a constant 
 supply of water to the innumerable canals spreading like network over the 
 surrounding country, and which, even in the days of Alexander, were looked 
 upon as the works of an ancient nation." Engineering works for a military 
 object, besides the operations on the Gyndes and Euphrates attributed to 
 Cyrus, are continually mentioned. For example, Arabian writers relate how 
 Zebba (probably the Zenobia of our histories) built two fortresses, one on the 
 right the other on the left bank of the Euphrates, and connected them by a 
 tunnel, which she made by damming and turning the Euphrates when its 
 waters were low, executing a deep cutting in its bed, bricking the cutting 
 over, and then turning the waters back again. She hoped thus to iiave 
 always a sure place of refuge, but an enemy who was at war with her got the 
 secret of the tunnel, met her at its mouth in the second fortress when she 
 fled fi-om the first, and slew her. 
 
 16. And I will bring the blind, &'c. — I will bring my faint-hearted, in- 
 credulous and undiscerning people safe through the desert to their own land. 
 
 19. Who is blind, but viy servant. — Israel, as a whole, is faint-hearted, 
 is slow to understand God's great purposes for it, and incredulous of them, 
 in spite of all the experience it has had of God's guidance. 
 
 20. The Lord was pleased, &^c. — The Lord took Israel for his chosen 
 people, in order to exalt his law, the law of righteousness, committed to 
 Israel; Israel is conquered, despoiled and captive; how can such thi igs: 
 befall God's chosen people ? Clearly, because of Israel's sins ; because, 
 though the chosen people, Israel would not walk in God's ways. Let Israel 
 now return to them and be saved. 
 
 CHAPTER 43. 
 
 And saved Israel shall be, the next chapter continues; his sons shall be 
 gathered from all the regions where they are dispersed, and shall be brought 
 with safety and victory, as of old from the bondage of Egypt, to their 
 own land. 
 
 3. / give Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Saba for thee. — In the 
 crash now begun, the new conquering power, Persia, was about to attack 
 and overturn other powers besides Babylon. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, 
 conquered Egypt and invaded Ethiopia. Saba is Meroe on the Upper Nile. 
 The Persian king was to set free the chosen people ; these other peoples, 
 given into his hand, were to be as a ransom and a substitute for the delivered 
 Israel. 
 
 8. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes. — Set free my people 
 
NOTES, 49 
 
 Israel, who have been blind to my ways but shall see them, and deaf to my 
 word but shall hearken to it. 
 
 9. Let all tlie nations. — The heathen and their gods are again chal* 
 lenged as in c. 41. See note to v. 24 of that chapter. 
 
 10. Ve are my witnesses, &^c. — Israel is here addressed, both the blind 
 and faint-hearted mass of the nation, and the faithful and believing few. 
 
 14. And the Chaldeafis upon the shij>s 0/ their pleasure. — " I make the 
 Chaldeans to flee upon the barks that had before served for their pleasure.'* 
 The great feature of Babylon was its river, the Euphrates, with its quays, 
 bridges, cuts, and artificial lakes ; it served alike for use and pleasure. 
 
 16. Which viaketh a way ifi the sea. — A remembrance of the march out 
 of Egypt and of Pharaoh's overthrow. 
 
 20. The beasts of the Jield shall honour me. — I will provide water in 
 the desert for my returning people on their march through it ; and by this 
 the wild creatures of the desert, which usually suffer by the drought pre- 
 vailing there, shall profit. 
 
 23. Thou hast not brought me the lambs. — Compare Ps. 1. 8: "I will 
 not reprove thee because of thy sacrifices or for thy burnt-offerings, because 
 they were not always before me." The sacrificial service of the temple 
 necessarily ceased during the exile at Babylon ; God has no concern for this, 
 neither does he plague his people about it ; his concern is because his peo- 
 ple plague him. with their sins. 
 
 24. No S7veet cane. — A spice reed, calamus aromaticus, used for the 
 holy anointing oil. See Exod. xxx. 23, where it is called "sweet calamus," 
 and mentioned along with cinnamon. 
 
 26. Let us plead together. — As the heathen and their deities were chal- 
 lenged recently, so Israel is now challenged to try its cause with God. 
 
 27. ^ Thy first father. — Jacob, by whose representative name the Jewish 
 people is throughout addressed. See Hos. xii. 2, 3: "The Lord will punish 
 Jacob according to his ways, according to his doings will he recompense 
 him; he took his brother by the heel in the womb," &c. But probably a 
 general sense is meant to be given to the expression: "thy forefathers," 
 "thy race fiom its first beginning." 
 
 28. The princes of the sanctuary. The chief priests. See Jer. lii. 24. 
 
 CHAPTER 44. 
 
 Nevertheless Israel shall be restored, and so evidently blest that other 
 nations shall attach themselves to him, call themselves by his name, and 
 become servants of his God. For his God is the only God, the idols are 
 vanity ; amidst the joy of the whole earth, God will perform his promise and 
 restore Israel by the hand of Cyrus. 
 
 2. Jeshutun. — Probably a diminutive of endearment, coming originally 
 from Jashar, 7ipright, and with a force something like that of Goodchild. 
 The Greek has, my beloved Israel., the Vulgate, rectissime, Luther, From- 
 mer, "pious one.'* 
 
 3. The ancient people. — More literally, the everlasting -people ; Israel, 
 the chosen, eternal people of God. 
 
 7. Let them sJiew. — A challenge as at c. 41, w. 21 — 24; see the notes 
 there. 
 
 8. They are their own witnesses. — They themselves have the plain 
 evidence of the nullity of their gods; but they are blind to it, that they may 
 come to shame and ruin. 
 
 11. That are but 7nen. — That are mere mortal men, and yet make gods ! 
 
 12. The sjuith. — There is here mention, first, of the molten image made 
 by the smith, and then of the cheaper wooden image made by the carpenter. 
 See c. 40, v. 20, and the note there. 
 
 ib. Yea., he is hungry. — This god-maker is hungry and faint, even at 
 the very time he is at his god-making I 
 
 ISA.] 
 
50 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 27. That snith to the deep, &'c. — There is reference here to the Israelites* 
 passage of the Red Sea, and probably also to the operations of Cyrus iu 
 - drying and turning the rivers of Babylon. 
 
 ' CHAPTER 45. 
 
 Cyrus is God's instrument, and those Jews that have difficulty in recog- 
 nising him as such, are warned not to be more wise than God. God has 
 raised up Cyrus and is directing his wars, that Israel may be saved, and that 
 • the world may be saved with Israel in Israel's God, the sole source of 
 salvation. 
 
 I. To his anointed, to Cyrus. — The Vulgate keeps the Greek word for 
 anointed, and has Christo meo Cyro. 
 
 ib. I will ungird the loins. — To gird the loins is to make fit for 
 action and to fill with strength ; so to ««gird them is to make powerless for 
 action and to leave defenceless. 
 
 ib. To opeji before him the two-leaved gates, 6r»^. — The gates of Babylon 
 and the other cities besieged by Cyrus. 
 
 4. / have surnatned thee. — " My Shepherd." See the last verse of the 
 preceding chapter. 
 
 8. Drop doiun, ye heavens, &^c. — Compare Dent, xxxii. 2 : My doctrine 
 shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, &c. 
 
 ib. H ave created hint. — Cyrus. 
 
 9. Woe unto him. — God here turns to Israel, who was looking for "a 
 rod out of the stem of Jesse" to restore the Jews in triumph to Jerusalem, 
 and was little prepared to accept an alien deliverer like Cyrus. " Will 
 Israel be more wise than God who made him and the world and rules them 
 in his own manner ?" is the substance of this and the following verses. 
 
 ib. Thy work. — In common speech we should say, ones work. Shall 
 one's work say of him that fashioneth it, &c. 
 
 II. Ask ye me of things to come, S'c. — See note to v. 9. Will ye take 
 the disposition of things out of my hands, and direct me how I am to deal 
 with my own chosen people? 
 
 13. / have raised him, ^'c. — Hifn is Cyrus, my city is Jerusalem, tny 
 captives are the Jews. 
 
 14. The labour of Egypt, &'c. — See c. .43, v. 3, and the note there. 
 Saba, or Meroe, on the upper Nile, was the centre of a great caravan trade 
 between Ethiopia, Egypt and North Africa, Arabia and I ndia. Herodotus 
 speaks (iii. 20) of the Ethiopians as "the tallest of men." 
 
 ib. Shall come over unto thee. — Thee is Israel. The conquest of strange 
 nations by Cyrus shall acquaint these nations with Israel and Israel's God, 
 and make them see that only in this God is salvation. 
 
 ib. In chaifis. — After their conquest by Cyrus. 
 
 15. Thoit art a God that hides t thyself. — A God that is unsearchable, 
 whose ways, though excellent, are not as man's ways, and whose footsteps 
 are not known. 
 
 19. / have not spoken in secret. — My oracles have not been hidden and 
 ambiguous, my promises and threatenings have been distinct and clear. See 
 note to c. 41, v. 24. 
 
 20. Ve that are escaped of the nations. — The great convulsion of 
 Cyrus's conquests is supposed to be over, and the remnants of the conquered 
 nations are called upon to leave their idols, and to know and acknowledge 
 the God of Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER 46. 
 The idols of Babylon fall, and their captive worshippers, instead of 
 being sustained by them, have to put them on beasts of burden to be carried; 
 the God of Israel is no idol to be carried on beasts of burden or on men's 
 shoulders, he carries his people. He has called Cyrus and will save Israel iu 
 his own manner. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1. Bel bo7vetk do7un, Nelo stoopeth^ — ^^Babylonian idols. In the star- 
 worship of Babylon, Bel was the planet Jupiter; it has been conjectured 
 that Nebo was the planet Mercury. The temple of Bel was one of the won- 
 ders of Babylon, The gods of the conquered people were carried off into 
 captivity along with the people. So Jeremiah says (xlviii. 7) of Chemosh 
 the god of Moab: " Chemosh shall go into captivity with his priests and his 
 princes." 
 
 ib. They are borne that ye carried. — The Bab^'Ionians are addressed. 
 The idols that they used to carry with honour in their religious processions, 
 are now packed on horses and bullocks and borne by the weary beasts 
 away. 
 
 2. They could not deliver the burden. — The false gods could not deliver 
 their own images, borne into captivity. 
 
 8. Shew yourselves juen. — Not such children as to confound me with 
 these dumb idols, who cannot counsel or save. 
 
 11. Calling an eagle frotn the east. — Cyrus from Persia. 
 
 12. Ye obdurate. — Spoken to those Jews who were slow to believe in 
 their deliverance through Cyrus. 
 
 CHAPTER 47. 
 
 An outburst of triumph on the approaching fall of luxurious, tyrannous, 
 superstitious Babylon. 
 
 1. Daughter of the Chaldeans. — Chaldaea was the country, Babylon 
 the capital. 
 
 2. Take the millstones^ «5r»^. — Perform the offices of a slave, thou who 
 hast been so luxurious ! 
 
 ib. Uncover thy locks, S'c. — Struggle along on thy way into captivity, 
 squalid and half-clad, thou who hast been so delicate ! 
 
 6. upon the ancient. — Israel. Israel the ancient, Israel in his old age^ 
 is used to heighten the picture of oppression. Ancient here must not be 
 paralleled with ancient in c. 44, v. 7, "the ancient people;" the word in the 
 original is not the same there as here, and means ihevQeternal, God's chosen 
 and eternal people. 
 
 9. The loss of children and widowhood. — Babylon is said to lose her 
 children inasmuch as she loses her citizens, and to be a widow inasmuch as 
 she loses her king. 
 
 ib. The mtdtitude of thy sorceries. — The "magicians, astrologers, and 
 sorcerers '' of Babylon are familiar to us from the book of Daniel. See 
 Dan. ii. 2. 
 
 14. It shall not be a coal to warm at, &^c. — Not a pleasant, warmth- 
 giving fire, but a devouring, destructive one. 
 
 15. They with whom thort hast dealt. — The magicians and astrologers 
 of Babylon, with whose arts she has so busied herself, and on whom she has 
 so relied, shall fail her in her day of trouble ; they shall either be destroyed 
 or flee. 
 
 CHAPTER 48. 
 
 Israel is warned against his old hardness of heart, and bidden to receive 
 the declaration of that which is God's present will, — the deliverance of Israel 
 through Cyrus. But for the wicked, let Israel know, there is no deliverance. 
 
 3. I have declared the former things. — Such as the fall of Assyria and 
 of Babylon. See c. 41, v. 24, and the note there. 
 
 6. Thou hast heard; see all this! — The Vulgate well translates, Qti^e 
 audisti, vide o^nnia ! All that was before prophesied to thee, the fall of 
 these mighty kingdoms, beho'd it fulfilled ! 
 
 ib. I shew thee nezu things. — What these "new things" are, namely, 
 the deliverance through Cyrus will be distinctly declared at v. 14. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 NOTES. 
 
 II. Will I do zV.— Deliver thee. 
 
 14, Which among them. — Among the false gods and the false prophets 
 of the heathen. 
 
 ib. The Lord hath loved him. — Him is Cyrus. The Lord hath loved 
 Cyrus; Cyrus will do the Lord's pleasure on Babylon, and the Lord's arm 
 shall be, by Cyrus, on the Chaldeans. 
 
 16. Come ye 7iear unto me, 6^c. — In this verse the Prophet, charged 
 with these messages from God, speaks in his own name, and testifies to his 
 countrymen that he has from the beginning pointed out to them God's hand 
 and beck in these great events now happening. 
 
 21. A7id they thirsted not, ^'c. — This is what the delivered are to sing. 
 On their return from Babylon, as in old time on their return from Egypt, 
 they have been led safely through the desert and supplied with water. 
 
 22. No peace. — This is the note of warning, coining in at the close of the 
 strain of promise. 
 
 At the end of this chapter there is a kind of pause in the discourse, which 
 enters upon a second stage in the next chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER 49. 
 
 The Prophet, who had appeared in v. 16 of the preceding chapter, comes 
 forth in this chapter more distinctly. Speaking in the name of Israel, the 
 true Israel, the pious and persisting part of his nation, he announces God's 
 calling and purposes for this Lsrael of whom he is the representative. God 
 will not only restore the Jewish nation through this true Israel full of faith 
 and of courage for the promised restoration ; he will also bring the Gentiles to 
 himself through its light and leading. It is true, many of the Jews are 
 incredulous and desponding ; vain are their fears ; God will not forsake his 
 people. 
 
 2. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword. — Compare Heb. iv. 12 : 
 **The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
 sword," &c. 
 
 6. It is a light thing, d^c. — See the introduction to this chapter. 
 
 8. A mediator of the people. — The same expression as at c. 42, v. 6; 
 see the note there. The people is the Jewish people as opposed to the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 ib. To establish the land. — The Holy Land, which was to be restored 
 and re-settled. 
 
 9. The prisoners. — The exiled and captive Israelites. 
 
 ib. Tlteir pastures shall be in all hi^h places. — See c. 41, v. 17, and the 
 note there. 
 
 11. My highways shall be -exalted. — Built up so as to form a clear and 
 strong causeway to travel on. 
 
 12. Tlie land of Sinim. — Probably China, which may have been known 
 to the dwellers in Babylon as the name of a distant land, beyond India. It 
 seems used here to imply the farthest parts of the world. 
 
 14. But Zion said. — The great body of the Jews were made despondent 
 by their long adversity, and thought God had left them and would never 
 restore them. Compare c. 40, v. 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?" 
 
 16. Graven thee upon the palms of my hands. — As something to be ever 
 remembered by me. See Deut. vi. 8: "And thou shalt bind them (God's 
 words) for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between 
 thine eyes." Here the object for remembrance is conceived as written on 
 something like paper, and then attached to the hands or face; in the text 
 it is conceived as graven directly upon the hands. In Persia at this day 
 people wear talismans, called y^'r;;/^, representing a star with five rays, each 
 
NOTES. 53. 
 
 ray having written on it an important text of the Koran, and in the middle 
 of the star is written the name of God. These are now talismans, but they 
 were originally reminders, to keep God and certain thoughts concerning him 
 ever at hand. Their use throws light on the expressions, " to trust in God's 
 9iaine," "to fear the 7tame" "to rejoice in the name," "to believe in the 
 name" which so often occur in the Bible. 
 
 18. All these. — The scattered and exiled children of Zion. 
 
 19. They that swallcntjed thee up. — Zion's foreign conquerors and occu- 
 piers shall evacuate her, and leave her to her own children. 
 
 20. The place is too strait for me. — A picture of the fulness and prospe- 
 rity, after her restoration, of the desolate and empty Jerusalem of the time 
 of the exile. 
 
 21. Then shalt thou say, ^c. — The expressions in this verse are to be 
 closely noted, for the discourse returns to them at the beginning of the next 
 chapter. Zion complains that she is, (i) a mother who has lost her children, 
 and (2) a wife whom her husband (God) has abandoned. 
 
 24. Shall the prey. — Shall Israel be really rescued from such a power as 
 Babylon? Yes. 
 
 CHAPTER 50. 
 
 In the first three verses the thread of the discourse is uirectly continued 
 from the last chapter At v. 4 the Prophet, as the true Israel (see the intro- 
 duction to the last chapter), speaks again of himself and his mission. 
 
 1. Thus saith the Lord, &^c. — See v. 21 of the preceding chapter. Zion 
 complains that her children are lost, and she is divorced. God answers ; 
 Can a writing of divorcement (St Matt. v. 31) be shown against me, as in a 
 man's case, to prove a formal divorce? or, have I creditors to whom, as 
 a human debtor, I sell my children? Zion is abandoned, and her children 
 lost to her, but for a time, because of her sins and while her sins last. 
 
 2. Wherefore, when I came, &^c. — The faint-heartedness of the bulk of 
 the Jewish people, despondent and inert about the promised restoration, is 
 rebuked, and God's almighty power to effect his designs is set forth. 
 
 10. IVho is among you. — God speaks. 
 
 It. Behold, all ye that kiiidle a fire. — This is said to the Jews, who 
 receive with incredulity, anger, and persecution, God's message and mes- 
 senger. In this, as in the preceding verse, it is God who speaks ; and he 
 warns these Jews that their anger and violence shall be turned against 
 themselves, and they shall "lie down in sorrow." See c. 66, v. 24. 
 
 CHAPTER 51. 
 
 This chapter continues the encouragement given at v. 10 of the preceding 
 chapter. The faithful of Israel shall be brought to the land of promise like 
 their father Abraham, and shall be blest and multiplied there ; they shall be 
 the means of extending God's salvation to the rest of the world. Let not 
 man make them afraid ; the Lord is with them, who brought them out of 
 Egypt; who afflicted them, but will now save them and afflict their Op- 
 pressors. 
 
 1. The rock, &'c. — Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of Israel. 
 
 2. / called him alone. — When he was but one, God called him, to make 
 him a great nation. Compare Ezek. xxxiii. 24: "Abraham was one, and he 
 inherited the land." 
 
 9. Cut Rahab and luounded the dragon. — Rah-ab, "the Proud," is 
 Egypt; the dragon is probably the crocodile of the Nile, the emblematic 
 beast of Egypt. As God smote Egypt of old, and delivered his people, so 
 he will deliver them now. 
 
 12. Afraid of a man. — Such as thy oppressor, the king of Babylon, 
 whom thou fearedst so, and who is now falling. 
 
54 NOTES. 
 
 i6. That I may plant the heavens, ^'c- — The new heavens and the new 
 earth. Compare c. 65, v. 17. 
 
 18. None to guide her. — What follows is a picture of the misery wrought 
 by Nebuchadnezzar's siege and destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 19. These two things. — Desolation and destruction of the land is one of 
 the two things ; famine and slaughter of the people the other. 
 
 21. Not with wine. — Dizzy and staggering, not with wine, but with 
 affliction from God. 
 
 23. Laid thy body as the ground and as the street. — A trait of the 
 humiliation of the conquered and the insolence of the conqueror in Eastern 
 kingdoms. So it is related that when Sapor king of Persia got on horse- 
 back, his prisoner, the Roman emperor Valerian, had to kneel down and 
 make his back a step for him. 
 
 CHAPTER 52, 
 
 The strain of the previous chapter is continued. Israel shall be restored, 
 and the mountains of Judah, and the waste places of Jerusalem, shall rejoice 
 at the triumphal return to Zion of the Lord with his people. This strain 
 ends with v. 12. 
 
 3. Ye have sold yourselves far no7tght. — This is the same sort of argu- 
 mentation as at c. 50, V. I ; see the note there. Egypt and Assyria acquired 
 no perpetual rights over Israel, they never became his purchasers and legal 
 owners ; so it is now with Babylon ; Babylon has no permanent property in 
 Israel whom it so heavily oppresses ; therefore the Lord, who punished Israel 
 by giving him over for a time to his enemies, will now restore him. 
 
 7. Thy watchmen. — The prophets, who with joy announce God's return 
 with his redeemed people to Zion. 
 
 11. From tlience. — From Babylon, on their march home to the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 ib. Tlie vessels of tJte Lord.— The holy vessels of the Temple, which 
 had been carried off to Babylon, and which Cyrus restored to the returning 
 Jews. See Ezra i. 7, 8: "Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of 
 the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of 
 Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; even those did Cyrus 
 king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and 
 numbered them unto Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah." 
 
 12. With haste. — With haste and by flight, as ye did from Egypt. The 
 exodus from Babylon shall be not like this, but public and triumphant. 
 
 13. Befiold my servant^ &*c. — This and the two following verses belong 
 to the next chapter. They declare the future glory of God's persecuted 
 servant. 
 
 14. His visage was so ■marred. — See c. 50, v. 6. 
 
 15. So shall 7nany nations exult in hijn. — The Vulgate has aspergei 
 gentes tnultas, "he shall sprinkle many nations;" and so, too, has our 
 Bible. The Greek has: "Many nations shall be in admiration at him." 
 The Chaldaic has, "he shall ro7it," or "scatter." 
 
 ib. Kings shall shut their mouths before him. — In sign of reverence. 
 
 CHAPTER 53. 
 
 The application of this well-known chapter to Christ will be in everyone's 
 mind. But it must be our concern here to find out its primary historical import, 
 and its connection with the discourse where it stands. On this the 50th chap- 
 ter throws much light; see particularly vv. 5 — 9. There we find ill usage and 
 persecution of God's servant: "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." In Jeremiah (c. 11, v. 19) we find this persecution of God's ser- 
 vant, at the hands of those who would not receive his word, threatening to 
 proceed even to killing: "I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to 
 
NOTES, 55 
 
 the slaughter ; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, 
 saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us dut him off 
 from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.** 
 From the same prophet we find that in the case of Urijah, brought from Egypt 
 and put to death under Jehoiakim, the persecution ^/<^ proceed even to killing 
 (Jer. xxvi. 23). From the New Testament we learn the same thing: "Ye 
 are witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed 
 the prophets;" — "Jerusalem, that kiilest the prophets" (St Matt, xxiii. 
 
 31, 37). Leaving the Bible, from Josephus we learn the same ; from the 
 Jewish traditions, too, the same. According to these traditions, Isaiah him- 
 self was put to death by Manasseh. Adding all this to the data furnished 
 by this 53rd chapter itself, we have for the original subject of this chapter a 
 martyred servant of God, recognisable by the Jews of the exile under the 
 allusions here made to him, who eminently fulfilled the ideal of the servant 
 of God, the true Israel, the mediator of the people and the light of the 
 Gentiles, presented in this series of chapters ; and whose death, crowning 
 his life and reaching men's hearts, made an epoch of victory for this ideal. 
 
 More, as to the first and historical meaning, cannot be said with certainty. 
 Many attempts have been made at an identification of this "man of sorrows" 
 with his primary historical original, in addition to the identification of him 
 with Christ; he has been said to be Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah himself, 
 Jeremiah ; but there are no sufficient grounds to establish his identity with 
 any one of them. 
 
 The purport of the chapter is as follows. The Prophet, speaking as one 
 of the Jewish people (as in c. 42, v. 24; "The Lord, he against whom 
 •we have sinned") declares how God's faithful servant, the bearer of his 
 commands and promises, despised, persecuted, and at last taken away from . 
 prison and judgment to die, was stricken for the iniquities of the people, 
 bare their sins, healed them by his sufferings, and would finally, in spite, 
 nay, by means of his death, prevail and triumph. 
 
 1. Who believed -what lue heard. — See the last verse of the preceding 
 chapter The Gentiles and their kings had never heard of God's servant ; 
 but we Jews, who heard and saw, had we more understanding? 
 
 ib. What we heard. — Literally, "our heari7ig," which the Greek and 
 the Vulgate have. The report to us, the report we had of God's commands 
 and promises and of the glorification of his servant. See the last three 
 verses of the preceding chapter ; see also c. 49, vv. i — 8, and c. 50, vv. 7 — 11. 
 
 2. Before hhn. — Before the Lord. 
 
 ib. A slender plant. — The word in the original means merely a young 
 shoot, a sapling. Not a tender plant, which implies beauty, delicacy and . 
 fostering care, but a slender plant, "as a root out of a dry ground," thin and 
 insignificant, 
 
 3. We hid as it were our faces. — In contempt and disgust. 
 
 5. The chastisement of our peace. — The chastisement by which our 
 peace is won. 
 
 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. — The Vulgate, which 
 throughout this chapter translates so as to heighten the identification with 
 Christ, has here : Oblatus est quia ipse voluit, He was offered because he 
 himself chose to be. It is remarkable that in several places in this chapter 
 the old Latin version which the Vulgate superseded is more faithful to the 
 original than the Vulgate itself 
 
 8. He was taken, 6^c. — Taken away from prison and from judgment 
 to a violent death. This and the preceding verse are quoted in Acts viii. 
 
 32, 33, as the place of the Scripture which the Ethiopian eunuch was 
 reading when Philip joined him. This verse is there quoted according to 
 the Greek version, which mistakes the original: "In his humiliation his 
 judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for his life 
 is tScen away from the earth." 
 
 ib. Who of his generation. — Who of his contemporaries recognised 
 
 ^^^^%,ki^^ 
 
5(5 NOTES. 
 
 the true meaning of his death ? that he died, not, as we thought, by his own 
 fault, but for us and because of our sins. 
 
 ib. My people. — The Prophet speaks as in God's name. The Vulgate 
 here makes God himself speak, and say: Propter scelus populi inei percussi 
 euin, Because of the wickedness of my people I smote him. 
 
 9. He rtiade his grave with the 'wicked. — Compare Jer, xxvi. 23, as to 
 the burial of the prophet Urijah : "And they fetched forth Urijah out of 
 Egypt and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king : who slew him with the 
 sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people." 
 
 II. He shall see of the travail of his soul. — He shall see the fruits of 
 his sufferings in the many whom his life and death have turned to God and 
 saved. 
 
 ib. By his knowledge. — Compare c. 50, v. 4: **The Lord God hath 
 given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word 
 in season to him that is weary," &c. In this and the following verse God 
 himself speaks. 
 
 CHAPTER 54. 
 
 God's people thus purged and healed shall be eternally established , 
 Israel shall extend his borders and multiply his sons ; his enemies shall come 
 over to him ; this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their pro- 
 mised justification through God's righteous servant. 
 
 1. Si7ig, O barren. — Zion is addressed as at c. 49, vv. 18 — 21, and with 
 the same promises. See the notes there. The captivity in Babylon is Zioh's 
 widowhood without her husband, the Lord ; the slaughter and diminution of 
 her people are her childlessness ; this is to be more than made good after her 
 restoration. 
 
 2. Lengthen thy gords, &>c. Images taken from the pitching of tents. 
 6. A wife of youth. — And therefore beloved. 
 
 9. This is as the 7vaters of Noah unto me. — I deal with my people re- 
 specting this their captivity in Babylon, as I dealt with them respecting 
 Noah's flood. The words which follow explain the particular dealing 
 meant. 
 
 15. Whosoever shall gather together against thee, d^c. — It had been 
 already promised that the Gentiles should resort to Israel for salvation ; here 
 it is added that even those who try to be his enemies shall come over to 
 him. 
 
 16. Behold I have created, &=€. — Destroyers and destruction are God's 
 work ; they reach those only whom he means them to reach, and he does 
 not mean them to reach Israel. 
 
 17. Their righteousness of me. — This is what was promised at v. n 
 of the preceding chapter : " By his knowledge shall my righteous servant 
 justify many." In the original, the same word stands both for jtistiflcation 
 and for righteousness, and what is said here is : "This is the heritage of the 
 servants of the Lord and their promised justification by me through means 
 of my righteous servant." 
 
 CHAPTER 55. 
 
 The Jewish people are urged to take the freely offered salvation now 
 close at hand ; but are warned that they can have it only on condition of 
 amending their lives. 
 
 I. Ho, every one that thirsteth. — Compare St John vii. 37: "Jesus 
 stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst let him come unto me and 
 drink." 
 
 3. The sure mercies of David. — The same sure, unfailing mercies which 
 I showed to David. 
 
 4. Behold, I appointed him. — I gave formerly the nations into David's 
 hand ; so will I now into yours. 
 
 5 Thou shalt call a nation, Sr'c. — See the preceding chapter, v, 3. 
 See aLo c. 52, v. 15 ; and c. 45, v. 14, and the notes there. 
 
NOTES. 57 
 
 12. For ye shall go oui with joy. — On tlie return to the Holy Land. 
 See c. 52, V. 12, and the note there. 
 
 CHAPTER 56. 
 
 The warning is continued. Righteousness is needed, in order to lay hold 
 on God's coming salvation ; but, with righteousness, the stranger may lay 
 hold on it as well as Israel. At v. 8 the discourse turns abruptly, with severe 
 threatenings, to the slothful and sinful part of the nation and their faithless 
 guides. 
 
 1. Do justice 1 for My salvation is near. — This is nearly the same as 
 John the Baptist's preaching, St Matt. iii. 2 ; ** Repent ye, for the kingdom 
 of heaven is at hand." 
 
 2. That keepeth the sabbath. — This seems at variance with Isaiah, c. i, 
 V. 13: **The new moons and sabbaths I cannot away with." But that 
 related to a time when the kingdom of Judah yet stood, when the service of 
 the Temple was in full course, the whole exterior part of the Jews' religion 
 splendid and prominent; at such a time, a prophet might naturally under- 
 value the whole of this exterior part in comparison with the inward part. 
 But during the exile in Babylon all the services and sacrifices of the Temple 
 had ceased, and the one testimony of faithfulness to their religion which the 
 Jews among an idolatrous people could give was the observance of their 
 Sabbath, their Sabbath was the one outward thing which brought their reli- 
 gion to their mind ; hence its observance acquired quite a special value. 
 
 3. Neither let the son of the stranger, &=>€. — By the law of Moses, 
 eunuchs and strangers were not to enter into the congregation of the Lord, 
 See Deut. xxiii. i — 8. This exclusion was now to cease. A stricter and 
 narrower policy, however, prevailed under Ezra and Nehemiah after the 
 return (Neh. xiii. 14), and in general the views of the priesthood were, on a 
 point like this, less liberal than those of the prophets. But our prophet's 
 whole conception of the Gentiles in relation to the religion of Israel is 
 luiexampled in the Old Testament for its admirable width, depth and 
 grandeur. 
 
 ib. Eunuch.- — It must be remembered that, attached to a great Eastern 
 court like that of Babylon, were a multitude of eunuchs, some of whom had 
 perhaps adopted the religion of Israel. It is probable, also, that some of the 
 Jewish youth were taken for the court service as eunuchs, and their country- 
 men would afterwards have been likely to abhor them on that account. 
 These considerations will enable us the better to feel the exquisite tender- 
 ness and mercifulness of this passage. 
 
 5. Better than of sons. — A better and more enduring name than he 
 could have had through children born to him to keep up his name and the 
 name of his family. 
 
 7. Mine house shall be called an house of j>rayer. — The words quoted 
 by Christ when he cleared the temple. See St Matt. xxi. 13. 
 
 9. All ye beasts of the field. — There is here an abrupt turn to the 
 faithless part of the Jewish nation, under their negligent rulers and guides. 
 The barbarous idolatrous nations are called, as beasts of the field and forest, 
 to devour this easy prey. 
 
 10. His uaichmen. — His chief men, princes, priests, and prophets. 
 
 CHAPTER 57. 
 
 The insensibility and idolatry of the unfaithful part of the Jewish nation 
 are reproved. The restoration of Israel is, indeed, willed by God, but it is 
 for the righteous only. 
 
 I. The righteous perisheth, dr'C. — We are taken back to the subject of 
 c. 53: "Who of his generation regarded it, why he was cut off out of the 
 land of the living?" The wicked cannot understand the meaning of the life 
 a id death of the righteous , how his perishing is not his fault, but the fault 
 of the evil around him. 
 
58 NOTES, 
 
 _ 3. But draiv near, ^c. — The righteous dies and is at rest ; but ye, what 
 will ye make at last of your derision of the righteous, and of the follies and 
 idolatries wherein ye trust ? Nothing. 
 
 ib. Sons 0/ the sorceress, ^'c. — Ye who have mixed yourselves up with 
 the sorceries and idolatries of Babylon, The figure of adultery, &c., has 
 reference to this idolatrous unfaithfulness. We find again in chapters 65 and 
 66 that many of the Jews in Babylon gave themselves to this, and thought it 
 really religion and a way of safety out of their troubles. 
 
 4. Against "whom. — The idolatrous Jews mocked and despised the pious 
 and persisting servant of God, 
 
 5. Under every green tree. — The idolatrous worship in tlie consecrated 
 groves of the false gods, so often mentioned in Scripture. 
 
 //'. Slaying the children in the valleys. — The most famous sacrifices ot 
 this kind were those in the valley of Hinnom. See Jeremiah vii. 31. They 
 were made to Moloch, the king of heaven, the god of the Ammonites. But 
 through all the kindreds of the Semitic race (to which the Babylonians, too, 
 belonged) sacrifices of this sort seem to have been in use. 
 
 6. They, they are thy lot. — To them thou attachest thy luck, thy fortune. 
 The worship of stones is a very early form of idolatry, and originated, pro- 
 bably, in the veneration paid to meteoric stones, — stones which, as the people 
 said, " fell down from heaven." But the worship extended to other stones 
 also. Traces of this worship occur twice in Genesis, in Jacob's consecration 
 of the stones in his passage by Bethel, on his way to Mesopotamia and on 
 his return thence. " And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the 
 stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it npfor a pillar afid poured 
 oil 7ipon the top 0/ itP The Greeks, too, had this stone worship ; " In the 
 earlier times," says the Greek traveller Pausanias, "all the Greeks wor- 
 shipped, in place of images of the gods, undressed stones." We find the 
 name ^a'^_j'//rt given to these stones, and it has even been conjectured that 
 this name comes from Bethel. 
 
 7. Upon a lofty and high mountain. — The worship "in high places" 
 is well known. 
 
 ib. Thy bed. — The idolatry of the Jews is throughout spoken of under 
 the figure of adultery, as unfaithfulness to God. 
 
 8. Thy renieiiibraiice. — Probably, small images like those of the Roman 
 Penates or household gods, which were in every private family, and were the 
 object of prayers and offerings. 
 
 ib. Thou hast enlarged thy bed. — Still the figure of adultery against 
 God committed with the false gods of Babylon. 
 
 9. And thou iventest, ^c. — See v. 5 and the second note there. The 
 idolatrous Jews offered precious ointment and frankincense to Moloch. 
 Moloch was the king of heaven, but these Jews sought out all idolatrous 
 worships and false gods, down to the gods of the under-world. 
 
 10. 77io7i art wearied. — Nothing could convince these idolatrous Jews 
 of the folly of their misplaced trust and vain worship. 
 
 11. And 0/ iv horn hast thou <^^^« rt/r^z'rt?.?— How could thy calamities, 
 and the fear of thy Babylonian tyrant, make thee so superstitious and for- 
 getful ? 
 
 14. Cast ye up. — ^As before ; make a clear and smooth highway for my 
 returning people. 
 
 15. Of a contrite and hu7nble spirit. — This should be noted as, what 
 may bfe called, the ne^u test of religion, brought in, — or at any rate first set. in 
 clear light, — by this Prophet. See also c. 66, v. 2, where this test is again 
 ^iven. Compare, too, c. 42, v. 2. 
 
 19. / create thefrtiit of the lips. — I create comfort and joy of heart, and 
 BO give cause for the outpourings of praise and thankfulness from those whom 
 I save. 
 
 of the 
 
 ib. Peace to him that is far off. — Again this Prophet's large conception 
 the extent, reaching to the Gentiles as well as Jews, of God's salvation. 
 

 St Paul quotes these words in Eph. iii. 17 : " Christ came and preached peace 
 to you (the Gentiles) which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." 
 
 21. No peace. — Again this warning as to the sole condition upon which 
 God's salvation can be had. See the last verse of c. 48. 
 
 CHAPTER 58. 
 
 Reproof continues. External worship is insufficient ; a change of 
 heart, mildness and mercy, are requisite in order that God's Salvation offered 
 to Israel may take effect. 
 
 I. Cry aloud. — God speaks to the prophet. 
 
 3. Wherefore have 7ue/asted? — Besides the regular fasts of the Jewish 
 religion, there were, during the captivity in Babylon, special fasts appointed 
 as days of repentance and prayer for Israel, 
 
 lb. Exact all your labours. — Make your dependents do all the work you 
 want done. Oppression, fault-finding, and harshness go on during the fast 
 just the same. 
 
 4. To be heard on high. — If ye wish your voice and your prayer to be 
 heard by God in heaven, this is not the sort of fast to induce him to listen. 
 
 9. TJie putting forth of the finger. — Mockery and insolence towards the 
 pious and persisting part of the nation. 
 
 13. _ The sabbath. — For the .special importance of the Sabbath during the 
 captivity in Babylon see c. 58, v. 2, and the note there. 
 
 14. _ The high places of the earth. — In early times and in the warfare of 
 early times the high and rocky situations were also the strong and defensible 
 situations, and therefore he who occupied them was formidable and powerful. 
 
 CHAPTER 59. 
 
 Israel's sins are what make Israel's misery and defer his salvation ; but 
 God, because Israel is his chosen instrument, will himself interpose to break 
 up the unrighteous kingdoms of the world and to restore Israel. 
 
 3. Vour hands are defiled. — This and what follows is a picture of the 
 sins of the unfaithful part of the Jewish nation during the captivity in Baby- 
 lon, and in spite of the lessons taught by that captivity. 
 
 5. They hatch cockatrice' eggs. — They hatch mischief. Cockatrice is 
 compounded of the words cock and adder, and is a fabled venomous serpent 
 bred from an egg. Serpents do not lay eggs, but bring forth their young 
 alive. 
 
 ib. Weave the spider's web. — They spin vain, foolish schemes, which 
 can only come to nought. 
 
 7. Their feet rmt to evil. — Quoted in the Epistle to the Romans (iii. 15), 
 to prove the guiltiness before God of the Jews under their law. 
 
 9. Therefore is judgment gone from us. — Here the person changes, 
 and the Prophet speaks as himself one of the sinful people, and offers up in 
 his own name and theirs a sort of confession of sins. 
 
 ib. Wewait for light, Sr'C. — See the precedmg chapter, v. 3: "Where- 
 fore have we fasted, and thou seest not?" Now the people know and confess 
 the reason ; — because of their sins. 
 
 10. We grope for the wall. — A picture of the helplessness and hopeless- 
 ness of the Jewish exiles. 
 
 II. We roar all like bears, and moan sore like doves. — We complain 
 loudly and obstreperously, and we complain with whining and moaning ; in 
 vain, because our heart is not right with God. 
 
 15. He that departeth f'om evil maketh himself a prey. — Again a 
 reference, probably, to the subject of the 53rd chapter, — the death of the 
 patient and innocent servant of God. 
 
 ib. And the Lord saw it, ^fc. — Israel, God's chosen instrument, failed 
 to put down iniquity, — nay, himself fell into it: therefore God, by the wars 
 and convulsions which shatter the world, will himself destroy the wicked. 
 
6o NOTES. 
 
 both Jew and Gentile, and will bring about, through these wars and convul- 
 sions, the restoration of Zion and of the remnant of the true Israelites, and 
 the salvation of the world through the light that shall spring from them. 
 
 i8. According to their deeds, &=€. — The enemies of the Lord, whoever 
 and wherever they are, Jew or Gentile, near or far, shall be visited and 
 smitten. 
 
 19. When the enemy. — Cyrus. See c. 45, v. i. Cyrus and his conquests 
 are to^ be God's instruments of punishment to an unrighteous world, of re- 
 storation to the true Israelites. 
 
 20. Afid a redeemer shall come to Zion, &'c. — The primary historical 
 application of this is still to Cyrus, or, more strictly, to the salvation which 
 was to arise for Zion, and through Zion for the world, out of that great storm 
 of war and change in which Cyrus was the chief human agent. St Paul, in 
 Rom. xi. 26, quotes the Greek version, which differs from the original : 
 '* There shall come out of Sion the deliverer, and shall turn away un- 
 godliness from Jacob." The best Greek text has not "out of Sion," as 
 St Paul quotes, but "for Sion's sake." 
 
 21. My spirit that is upon thee. — The Prophet here declares God's pro- 
 mise to Israel that the line of prophets of God should not fail. 
 
 CHAPTER 60. 
 The Prophet, who has just announced 'M redeejner shall come to Zion" 
 now describes Zion as it shall be after its restoration. 
 
 1. Arise, shine. — Zion is addressed ; the Greek, the Vulgate, and the 
 Chaldaic insert the explanatory word "Jerusalem.'* 
 
 2. Darkness doth cover the earth. — The kingdoms of the earth are 
 breaking up amid gloom and misery; with Israel alone is light and joy in the 
 Lord. 
 
 3. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light. — It shall be seen that Israel 
 alone has in the Lord the secret of light and joy, and the heathen nations 
 shall come to share it with Israel. See c. 45, v. 14, and the notes there. 
 
 4. Thy sons shall co77te from far. — See c. 49, v. 22 : "The Gentiles. . . 
 shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon 
 their shoulders." The nations amongst which the Jews are scattered shall 
 bring them back to the Holy Land, with offerings and treasures to restore 
 the Temple service and rebuild Jerusalem. 
 
 5. The abundance of the sea. — The riches of the coast-lands of the 
 West, the Mediterranean countries, "the isles." More fully at v. 9. 
 
 6. The multitude of cajnels. — In this and the following verse are 
 enumerated nations and contributions of the inland country to the south and 
 south-east of Palestine, Arabian tribes and their respective products; in 
 verses 8 and 9, those of the Mediterranean sea-board and the west. Midian 
 and Ephah, with their caravan trade, Kedar (see c. 42, v. 11) and Nebaioth, 
 with their flocks, are tribes of Northern Arabia; Sheba, with its gold and 
 frankincense, is in Arabia Felix, to the south of them. 
 
 8. Who are these that fiy as a cloud? — The Prophet has pictured the 
 approach of the caravans of inland Arabia ; now he pictures the approach of 
 the fleets from the coast lands of the Mediterranean. The fleets with their 
 sails, as seen afar off, are compared to a cloud, or to a flock of white doves 
 flying towards their dovecote. 
 
 9. Tarshish.—Th& Greek Tartessus, a Phoenician settlement at the 
 mouth of the Guadalquivir, outside the Straits of Gibraltar, and representing 
 to the Hebrews the farthest west. It was the port whence the rich mineral 
 produce of Spain was shipped by the Phoenicians. 
 
 II. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually.— This trait, with 
 many others in the present chapter, is repeated in the picture of the new 
 Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation (xxi. 25). Here the open gates have 
 their special reason assigned; to admit the ever in-streaming world, with its 
 offerings and homage. . , 
 
NOTES. t\ 
 
 12. For the nation and kingdom. — Every nation shall fall unless it 
 serves the Lord, the righteous God, the God of Israel, through whom alone 
 is salvation. The figure of serving Israel means serving the God of Israel. 
 
 13. The glory 0/ Lebanoft. — A reminiscence of the building of Solomon's 
 temple, and of the contributions to it of cedar-wood out of Lebanon (i Kings, 
 V. I— 11), which are to be repeated now for the rebuilding of the Temple. 
 
 16. Thou shalt also sitck. — See v. 11. 
 
 17. For brass, &=€. — The more valuable, for the less valuable thou hast 
 lost. 
 
 ib. Thy officers j>eace. — The restored Zion shall have peace-loving and 
 righteous rulers. 
 
 21. Thy people also shall be all righteo7is. — The stress is on all. See 
 c. 54, V. 13; c. 57, v. 13 ; and the twice-repeated warning: " No peace, saith 
 my God, to the wicked !" . ^ 
 
 ib. The branch. — This is in apposition with they. They, the branch of 
 my planting, the work of my hands, shall inherit the land for ever. In this 
 and the concluding verse God himself speaks. 
 
 At the end of this chapter is a pause. 
 
 CHAPTER 61. 
 
 The Prophet speaks in his own name, as at c. 50, v. 4, which should be 
 compared with the opening of this chapter. See also the opening of c. 49. 
 He declares for whom his ministry and God's promises are intended, sums 
 up the blessings of the new era at hand, and professes his joy and thankful- 
 ness for it. 
 
 I. Unto the afflicted. — The Vulgate, which the English Authorised Ver- 
 sion follows, has inanstcetis, "the meek;" the Greek has "the poor." It 
 will be remembered how (St Luke iv. 18) Christ reads out this passage in the 
 synagogue at Nazareth, and applies it to himself and his ministry. He 
 quotes the Greek, and says ''the poor." 
 
 ib. Liberty to tlie captives. — The expressions, " liberty to the captives," 
 "opening of the prison to the bound," ''acceptable year of the Lord," are 
 all exprebsions with a special meaning for the Jews from the year of jubilee, 
 when by the law of Mos,es the slave recovered his liberty. Acceptable year 
 is more properly graciojcs year, or, year of grace of the Lord. 
 
 3. Beauty for ashes. — Beauty means ornament here; the signs of joy 
 instead of the signs of mourning. 
 
 5. And strangers. — The Jews, a nation of God's servants appointed to 
 initiate the rest of the world into his service, are to give themselves to this 
 sacred and priestly labour, while the rest of the world do their secular labour 
 for them. 
 
 7. For your sha77te ye shall have double. — See c. 40, v. i : " Jerusalem 
 receiveth of the Lord's hand double for all her rue." 
 
 ib. My people. — One of the sudden changes of person so common with 
 this Prophet. Ye and they^ both relate to God's people, Israel. 
 
 10. / will greatly rejoice. — The Prophet speaks as already possessing by 
 anticipation the blessings promised, and as filled with gratitude for them. 
 
 CHAPTER 62. 
 
 For these blessings the Prophet will not caase to pray and wrestle, until 
 they arrive, and the glorious salvation of the renewed Zion shines forth. 
 
 1. Righteousness. — More properly here saving health. The Vulgate, 
 to make the application to Christ evident, translates: " Until her Just One 
 go forth as brightness, and her Saviour be lighted as a lamp." 
 
 2. New name. — We have again, in the Book of Revelation, this bestowal 
 of a new name upon those whom God has redeemed and renewed. 
 
62 NOTES. 
 
 4. My delight is in her, and thy land Married.— In the Hebrew 
 Hephzibah and Beulah. 
 
 6. / have set ivatchmen. — God declares that he has set his watchmen, 
 his angels, upon the walls of Jerusalem, to remind Jiim of her continually. 
 Compare c. 49, v. 16. The Prophet entreats these watchmen to ply their 
 office without ceasing, until Jerusalem is restored. 
 
 ID. Go thro7cgh, go through. — Compare c. 40, v. 3. The immediate 
 return of the Lord with his chosen people to Jerusalem, is announced, and 
 preparations for the triumphal march and entry are to be made. 
 
 ib. Lift up a standard for the nations. — In order that "the Gentiles 
 shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." See 
 «. 60, V. 3. 
 
 CHAPTER 63. 
 
 So sure are God's purposes that even if mortal instruments (such as 
 Cyrus) fail, God himself will do the work upon the enemies of Israel. The 
 Prophet selects Edom as a kindred and neighbour people of Israel, and yet 
 their ancient and specially bitter enemy (compare c. 34; compare also Ezek. 
 XXXV. 5, and Ps. cxxxvii. 7), who had assisted Nebuchadnezzar in the 
 destruction of Jerusalem. In a kind of short drama, of sublime grandeur, 
 the Prophet exhibits God himself as returning from executing vengeance 
 upon Edom. 
 
 After the 6th verse the subject changes, and the Prophet, reverting to 
 ' God's old mercies towards Israel, supplicates for their renewal. 
 
 I. Who is this 1 — A conqueror with blood-stained garments is supposea 
 ' to appear. The spectators ask. Who is he?— He is the Lord. 
 
 ib. Bozrah. — A place in Hauran, to the north of Edom as marked in 
 the maps, but the territory of the Edomites reached there after the downfall 
 of the Jewish kingdom. Bozrah, or Bostra, afterwards became a place of 
 importance ; the fairs of Bozrah and Damascus are mentioned as the two 
 great Syrian fairs which Mahomet in his youth visited. 
 
 ib. I that speak. — God answers. In the next verse the spectators again 
 question ; in the three following verses God speaks. 
 
 4. / looked, arid there was none to help. — The year of God's redeemed 
 has come (see c. 61, v. i, and the note there), the time for the restoration of 
 Israel that the world might be saved through Israel; the kings of the earth 
 and the revolutions of states might fail or delay in bringing about God's 
 designs for Israel ; then God himself must interpose. 
 
 7. / ivill mention. — Here the short drama, or vision, of the Divine Con- 
 queror of Edom ends ; the Prophet reverts to God's old loving-kindnesses 
 and the deliverance from Egypt, and implores a return of like dealings of 
 God with Israel, 
 
 13. As an horse in tJie desert. — As the free, light-stepping horse of the 
 Arab in the desert, 
 
 14. As the beast. — As the cattle go instinctively down to sheltered places 
 for their rest, so Israel was led to places of rest and security. 
 
 15. The sou7tding of thy bowels. — The metaphor is from strings tightly 
 stretched, and giving, therefore, a louder and deeper sound. 
 
 16. Though Abraham be ig7iorant of us. — Though we are in exile, 
 strangers to the Holy Land and the polity founded by our fathers. 
 
 18. Our adversaries. — Babylon and the heathen nations. 
 
 . CHAPTER 64. 
 
 The supplication goes on without interruption, but it passes into a confes- 
 sion of sins in the name of the whole people, — sins that had grown up amidst 
 the despair and misery of the exile, — and ends with an appeal to God's grace 
 and mercy. 
 
 1. That thou wotildest rend the heavens.— Th3.t thou wouldest appear 
 cnce more in fire, as formerly on Sinai. . .0 
 
NOTES. ^i 
 
 4. Wko hath prepared. — Before who supply, to complete the sense, 
 a God. 
 
 5. That rejoiceth. — In the Lord. Compare Psalm xcvii. 12: *^ Rejoice 
 in the Lord, ye righteous." 
 
 ib. Wroth with thejn contin?ially. — With thy people Israel. One of the 
 changes of person already noticed as frequent with this Prophet, 
 
 CHAPTER 65. 
 
 God makes answer to the foregoing supplication. He has called his 
 people, but in vain ; they have been obstinately deaf to him, unfaithful and 
 superstitious. The unfaithful shall be punished ; but a faithful remnant shall 
 be saved and restored to Zion, and for them the promises shall take effect. • 
 
 I. I gave ear to them, <Sr»<:. — Quoted from the Greek version, but with a 
 transposition of the two clauses, by St Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 X. 20: "1 was found of them that sought me not, I was made manifest unto 
 them that asked not after me." St Paul applies this verse to the Gentiles, 
 and the verse following to Israel. Here both verses apply to Israel. 
 
 3. Gardens. — The gardens and sacred groves of the false gods. See 
 C. I, V. 29 : " Ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen." 
 
 ib. The tiles. — The roof-tiles of the flat-roofed Eastern houses, where 
 the Chaldeans practised their star-worship. See Zephaniah, i. 4, 5 : "I will 
 cut off them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops." 
 
 4. Remain among the graves, &r'c. — The Greek adds, in explanation, 
 " for the sake of visions." What is meant is the heathen practice called 
 incnbatio, — passing the night on tombs or in sacred places for the sake of 
 apparitions and revelations expected there. 
 
 ib. Which eat sivine's Jlesh, dr^c. — Which use for their sacrifices, and 
 for their feasts after their sacrifices, things unclean and forbidden to Israel. 
 
 5. Which say, Stand by thyself. — Yet doing all this out of superstition, 
 and out of the vain notion that it will be of religious avail to them, they 
 insf)lently repel their unsuperstitious and faithful brethren as less holy than 
 
 ' themselves. 
 
 6. These are a smoke in my nose, &'c. — Make my nostrils to smoke with 
 wrath, and my wrath to burn like fire. 
 
 7. Burned incense upon the moufttaitis, &'c. — The so often mentioned 
 idolatrous worship upon the high places. See c. 57, v. 7. 
 
 8. As the new wine, &^c. — The juice that shall one day be wine is in 
 the grape-cluster, and the grape-cluster is preserved for its sake ; so Israel 
 shall be preserved, for the sake of the life and blessing to come from it. 
 
 9. My moHntaiHs.—-T\\e. mountains of Judah in general, and the hills of 
 Zion and Moriah in particular. 
 
 10. Sharon. — The strip of western coast from Joppa northwards to 
 Caesarea. The valley of Achor is opposed to it, as being in the east of the 
 Holy Land, by Jericho. 
 
 II. Fortune. — In the original. Fortune and that which destineth are 
 Gad and Meni. Gad means luck, Meni means /ate or destiny. They are 
 Babylonian names of two stars, or, star-deities ; probably of the two planets 
 held to be fortunate, Jupiter and Venus. Or, Meni may be the planet 
 Saturn, the unlucky star, opposed to Jupiter, the star of good luck. 
 
 15. By atiother name.^A. name like. The blessed 0/ the Lord. See 
 V. 23. 
 
 T7. I create new heavens. — Witli the break-up of the heathen kingdoms 
 and the restoration of Israel begins a new epoch. 
 
 20. There shall be no more, <57^^.— Child and man shall alike attain to 
 a patriarchal age. The child shall grow up and come to old age ; the sinner 
 shall be an old man when his curse overtakes him. 
 
 22. As the days of a tree.—M.zx\s life shall have, instead of its present 
 brief term, the far longer term alloUed to the life of trees. 
 
64 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 25. Dust shall be the serj>enfs meat. — The serpent shall be harmful no 
 more, but shall be content to feed on dust, an innocent food. 
 
 CHAPTER 66. 
 
 The discourse is continued from the preceding chapter. 
 
 God declares his chief pleasure to be in piety ; the sacrifices of the super- 
 stitious and unfaithful Jews shall avail them nothing, while, on the other 
 hand, the triumph of their faithful brethren is immediately approaching. 
 Swiftly shall Zion rise again from her ruins; then shall be held a day of the 
 Lord to sift the unfaithful from among the righteous, and to punish them 
 and all their like; the whole world shall afterwards flow to Zion and 
 worship before God. 
 
 1. The heaven is my throne, Sr'c, — Stephen quotes this in his speech 
 before the council. After saying, " Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands," he goes on, "As saith the prophet," and quotes 
 this passage. See Acts vii. 48 — 50. 
 
 2. But to this fnaft, ^'c. — See c. 57, v. 15. The line of thought seems 
 to be as follows : The temple is going to be rebuilt, and men's thoughts will 
 be concentrated upon this work made with hands ; in Babylon the unfaithful 
 Jews have just shown, by even adopting the rites and sacrifices of the 
 heathen, how prone men are to rely upon the outward parts of religion ; at 
 this moment, therefore, God will declare that what he regards is not these 
 things, but inward religion; lowliness, contrition, and awe of his word, 
 
 3. He that killeth an ox. — These superstitious Jews in Babylon, who 
 thought to be more religious than their brethren by multiplymg ceremonies 
 and sacrifices, even those of the heathen, included in the jumble of obser- 
 vances to which they were thus led rites the most abominable, far more than 
 enough to countervail the other sacrifices by which they thought, perhaps, 
 to replace the suspended worship of the Temple ; to this their superstitious 
 unfaithfulness and self-will brought them, and to a neglect or violation of all 
 that God really regards. 
 
 5. Ye t/iat tj-emble at his word. — This is addressed to the faithful part 
 of the nation. Their superstitious brethren had scornfully repelled them, 
 thinking that they glorified God by doing so, and by multiplying the obser- 
 vances which constituted, they hoped, their own superior holiness : God was 
 indeed about to be glorified, but by the restoration of Zion and the triumph of 
 the faithful kv/, to the discomfiture of the faint hearted dingers to Babylon. 
 
 6. A voice o/ttoise, St'c. — The restoration is supposed to be taking place. 
 The three following verses describe its incomparable suddenness and ra- 
 pidity. 
 
 12. The glory of the Gentiles. — See c. 60, v. 5. 
 
 14. The hand of the Lord, ^c. — When Zion is rebuilt the Lord will 
 hold a great day of judgment there, to sift out and punish his enemies. 
 
 15. The gardens. — As before, the consecrated groves and gardens of the 
 heathen deities. 
 
 ib. One chief in the midst. — The choragus or ringleader in the idola- 
 trous processions and ceremonies. 
 
 16. All flesh. — Not the Jews only, but all flesh; and the wicked oi all 
 flesh shall perish. 
 
 17. Swine's flesh. — Such uncleanness and abomination for Israel as has 
 already been mentioned at v. 3, and in c. 65, v. 4, and in c. 57, vv. 5 — 9. 
 
 18. It shall come. — After this vengeance on the wicked God will gather 
 the world to Zion to see his glory and to worship him. 
 
 19. Those that escape of them. — See c. 45, v. 20 : "Assemble yourselves 
 .. .ye that are escaped of the nations." See also v. 14 of the same chapter. 
 Those who remain of the nations, after the wars and destructions coming 
 upon the earth, having been converted themselves to the God of Israel, 
 shall go to all parts of the world spreading God's name, and setting at 
 
NOTES. 65 
 
 liberty the widely dispersed Israelites, whom they shall bring back to Je- 
 rusalem as an offering to the Lord. 
 
 ib. Tari,hish, Phul, and Lud, &^c. — The prophet goes from west to east 
 in his enumeration. For Tarshish see c. 60, v. 9, and the note there. Phul is 
 the country mentioned with Lud in Ezekiel, xxvii. 10, and by him there 
 called Phut, where the Greek and the Vulgate translate Libyans. In the 
 text now before us the Greek has Phud or Phut after the Hebrew, but the 
 Vulgate translates Africa. An African people is meant, and an African 
 people famous in the use of the bow, which the Ethiopians, for example; 
 were. Lud is Lydia, the well-known western kingdom of Asia Minor, con- 
 quered by Cyrus before his march against Babylon. Tubal is a people in the 
 north-east of Asia Minor. Javan is Greece, Ionia; Homer has the word 
 laones, which is very near Javan ; and a Greek note-writer to another poet 
 says: "The barbarians call all the Greeks laones." The sigfi mentioned at 
 the beginning of this verse consists in the converted Gentiles going to convert 
 the more distant heathen world, and to bring the scattered Israelites home. 
 
 20. A7id they shall brings dr'c. — Compare c. 43, v.5 ; and c. 49, v. 12 and 
 V. 22. 
 
 ib. An offering. — The restored Israelites shall be offered by their Gen- 
 tile liberators to the Lord in Zion, as gifts are offered to the Temple. 
 
 21. For priests and for Levites. — Of the Gentiles also shall priests and 
 Levites for God's service be taken. Originally priests and Levites had 
 been taken from the tribe of Levi only, but at c. 61, v. 6 it was said of the 
 Israelites generally : "Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord ; men shall 
 call you the ministers of our God." And now, finally, our Prophet's 
 horizons widen yet more, and he admits to the priesthood and ministry of 
 God the Gentiles also. 
 
 23. From one new moon, dfc. — Every new moon and every sabbath 
 shall all flesh, Gentile as well as Jew, worship before the Lord. 
 
 24. The men that have transgressed. — The unfaithful and unrighteous 
 who in the day of God's judgment have been separated and slain. See 
 V. 16. 
 
 ib. Their worm shall not die, &=€. — This expression is adopted in the 
 New Testament: " Where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quench- 
 ed" (St Mark ix. 44). 
 
 ISA. I 
 
atamhxitiQt: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
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