THE great enigma of Israel’s simultaneous loss and gain is solved by a prediction of the calling of the gentiles, v. 1. This is connected with the obstinate unfaithfulness of the chosen people, v. 2. They are represented under the two main aspects of their character at different periods, as gross idolaters and as pharisaical bigots, vs. 3-5. Their casting off was not occasioned by the sins of one generation but of many, vs. 6, 7. But even in this rejected race there was a chosen remnant, in whom the promises shall be fulfilled, vs. 8-10. He then reverts to the idolatrous Jews and threatens them with condign punishment, vs. 11, 12. The fate of the unbelieving carnal Israel is compared with that of the true spiritual Israel, vs. 13-16. The gospel economy is described as a new creation, v. 17. Its blessings are described under glowing figures borrowed from the old dispensation, vs. 18, 19. Premature death shall be no longer known, v. 20. Possession and enjoyment shall no longer be precarious, vs. 21—23. Their very desires shall be anticipated, v. 24. All animosities and noxious influences shall cease for ever, v. 25.
1. I have been inquired of by those that asked not, 1 have been found by those that sought me not, I have said, Behold me, behold me, to a nation (that) was not called by my name. There is an apparent inconsistency between the first two members of the sentence in the English Version, arising from the use of the same verb (sought) to express two very different Hebrew verbs. ttJ^a is here used in the general sense of seeking or trying to obtain, tti^ in the technical religious sense of consulting as an oracle. In the latter case the difficulty of translation is enhanced by the peculiar form of the original, not simply passive but reflexive, and capable of being rendered in our idiom only by periphrasis. The exact sense seems to be, I allowed myself to be consulted, I afforded access to myself for the purpose of consultation. This is not a mere conjectural deduction from the form of the Hebrew verb or from general analogy, but a simple statement of the actual usage of this very word, as when Jehovah says again and again of the ungodly exiles that he will not be inquired of or consulted by them (Ez. 14: 3. 20: 3), i. e. with effect or to any useful purpose. In this connexion it is tantamount to saying that he will not hear them, answer them, or reveal himself to them; all which or equivalent expressions have been used by different writers in the translation of the verse before us. There is nothing therefore incorrect in substance, though the form be singular, in the Septuagint version of this verb, retained in the New Testament, viz. f^art^g tyevtj&qv, I became manifest, i. e. revealed myself. The object of the verb asked, if exact uniformity be deemed essential, may be readily supplied from the parallel expression sought me.—Behold me, or as it is sometimes rendered in the English Bible, here I am, is the usual idiomatic Hebrew answer to a call by name, and when ascribed to God contains an assurance of his presence rendered more emphatic by the repetition. (See above, ch. 52: 6. 58: 9.) It is therefore equivalent to being inquired of and being found. This last expression has occurred before in ch. 55: 6, and as here in combination with the verb to seek. A people not called by my name, i. e. not recognised or known as my people. (See above, ch. 48: 2.) All interpreters agree that this is a direct continuation of the foregoing context, and most of them regard it as the answer of Jehovah to the expostulations and petitions there presented by his people. The modern Germans and the Jews apply both this verb and the next to Israel. The obvious objection is that Israel even in its worst estate could never be described as a nation which had not been called by the name of Jehovah. Jarchi’s solution of this difficulty, namely, that they treated him as if they were not called by his name, is an evasion tending to destroy the force of language and con found all its distinctions. It is a standing characteristic of the Jews in the Old Testament, that they were called by the name of Jehovah; but if they may also be described in terms directly opposite, whenever the interpreter prefers it, then may any thing mean any thing. With equal right may we allege that the seed of Abraham in ch. 41: 8 means those who act as if they were his seed, and that the nation who had never known Messiah (ch. 55: 5) means a nation that might just as well have never known him. On the other hand, Kimchi’s explanation of the clause as meaning that they were unwilling to be called his people, is as much at variance with the facts of history as Jarchi’s with the principles of language. In all their alienations, exiles, and dispersions, the children of Israel have still retained that title as their highest glory and the badge of all their tribes. The incongruity of this interpretation of the first verse is admitted by Rabbi Moshe Haccohen among the Jews, and by Hendewerk among the Germans; the last of whom pronounces it impossible, and therefore understands the passage as applying to the Persians under Cyrus, who, without any previous relation to Jehovah, had been publicly and honourably called into his service. A far more obvious and natural application may be made to the gentiles generally, whose vocation is repeatedly predicted in this book, and might be here used with powerful effect in proof that the rejection of the Jews was the result of their own obstinate perverseness, not of God’s unfaithfulness or want of power. This is precisely Paul’s interpretation of the passage in Rom. 9:20, 21, where he does not as in many other cases merely borrow the expressions of the Prophet, but formally interprets them, applying this verse to the gentiles and then adding, c but to Israel (or of Israel) he saith’ what follows in the next verse. The same intention to expound the Prophet’s language is clear from the apostle’s mention of Isaiah’s boldness in thus shocking the most cherished prepossessions of the Jews. Grotius takes no notice of this apostolical interpretation, but applies both verses to the Jews in Babylon, although Abarbenel himself had been constrained to abandon it, and understand the passage as referring to the Jews in Egypt. Gesenius merely pleads for the reference to Babylon as equally admissible with that which Paul makes, and as better suited to the context in Isaiah. Hitzig as usual goes further, and declares it to be evident (pffenbar) that the words relate only to the Jews as alienated from Jehovah. This contempt for Paul’s authority is less surprising in a writer who describes Jehovah’s answer to the expostulations of the people as moving in a circle, and pronounces both incompetent to solve the question, why Jehovah should entice men into sin and then punish them. Instead of &np Lowth reads (never invoked my name) on the authority of the Septuagint (s The last clause is not included in Paul’s quotation.
2. I have spread (or stretched) out my hands all the day (or every day) to a rebellious people, those going the way not good, after their own thoughts (or designs). The gesture mentioned in the first clause is variously explained as a gesture of simple calling, of instruction, of invitation, of persuasion. According to Hitzig it is an offer of help on God’s part, corresponding to the same act as a prayer for help on man’s. (See ch. 1: 15.) All agree that it implies a gracious offer of himself and of his favour to the people. Whether all the day or every day be the correct translation, the idea meant to be conveyed is evidently that of frequent repetition, or rather of unremitting constancy. There is no need of supposing with Vitringa and others, that it specifically signifies the period of the old dispensation. The rebellious people is admitted upon all hands to be Israel. The last clause is an amplification and explanatory paraphrase of the first. Going and way are common figures for the course of life. A way not good, is a litotes or meiosis for a bad or for the worst way. (See Ps. 36: 5. Ezek. 36: 31. Thoughts, not opinions merely, but devices and inventions of wickedness. (See above, on ch. 55: 7.) With this description compare that of Moses, Deut. 32: 5, 6.
3. The people angering me to my face continually, sacrificing in the gardens, and censing on the bricks. We have now a more detailed description of the way not good, and the devices mentioned in the foregoing verse. The construction is continued, the people provoking me etc. being in direct apposition with the rebellious people going etc. To my face, not secretly or timidly (Job 31: 27), but openly and in defiance of me (ch. 3: 9. Job 1:11), which is probably the meaning of before me in the first command ment (Ex. 20: 3). Animal offerings and fumigations are combined to represent all kinds of sacrifice. As to the idolatrous use of groves and gar dens, see above, on ch. 57: 5, and the Earlier Prophecies, p. 20. Vitringa’s distinction between groves and gardens is gratuitous, the Hebrew word denoting any enclosed and carefully cultivated ground, whether chiefly occupied by trees or not. Of the last words, on the bricks, there are four interpretations. The first is that of many older writers, who suppose an allusion to the prohibition in Exod. 20: 24, 25. But bricks are not there mentioned, and can hardly come under the description of “hewn stone,” besides the doubt which overhangs the application of that law, and especially the cases in which it was meant to operate. This evil is not remedied but rather aggravated, by supposing an additional allusion to Lev. 26: 1 and Num. 33: 52, as Grotius does, and understanding by the bricks such as were impressed with unlawful decorations or inscriptions. A second hypo thesis is that of Bochart, who supposes bricks to mean roofing-tiles (Mark 2: 4. Luke 5: 19), and the phrase to be descriptive of idolatry as practised on the roofs of houses. (2 Kings 23: 12. Jer. 19: 13. 32: 29. Zeph. I: 5.) Ewald approves of this interpretation, and, to make the parallelism perfect, changes nisa gardens to ttiaa roofs. Vitringa’s objection to this reading, drawn from the analogy of ch. 1: 29 and 56: 17, Ewald converts into a reason for it, by supposing the common text to have arisen from assimilation. An objection not so easily disposed of is the one alleged by Knobel, namely, that Hebrew usage would require a different preposition before rvi*a. A third hypothesis is that of Rosenmiiller, who supposes an allusion to some practice now unknown, but possibly connected with the curiously inscribed bricks found in modern times near the site of ancient Babylon. Gesenius hesitates between this and a fourth interpretation, much the simplest and most natural of all, viz. that the phrase means nothing more than altars, or at most altars slightly and hastily constructed. Of such altars bricks may be named as the materials, or tiles as the superficial covering.
4. Sitting in the graves and in the holes they will lodge, eating the flesh of swine, and broth of filthy things (is in) their vessels. All agree that this verse is intended to depict in revolting colours the idolatrous customs of the people. Nor is there much doubt as to the construction of the sentence, or the force of the particular expressions. But the obscurity which overhangs the usage referred to, affords full scope to the archaeological propensities of modern commentators, some of whom pass by in silence questions of the highest exegetical importance, while they lavish without stint or scruple time and labour, ingenuity and learning, on a vain attempt to settle questions which throw no light on the drift of the passage, nor even on the literal translation of the words, but are investigated merely for their own sake or their bearing upon other objects, so that Rosenmiiller interrupts himself in one of these antiquarian inquiries by saying, sed redeamus ad locum vatis in quo explicando versamnr. Such are the questions, whether these idolaters sat in the graves or among them; whether for necromantic purposes, i. e. to interrogate the dead, or to perform sacrificial rites to their memory, or to obtain demoniacal inspiration; whether D^ix? means monuments, or caves, or temples; whether they were lodged in for licentious purposes, or to obtain prophetic dreams; whether they are charged with simply eating pork for food, or after it had been sacrificed to idols; whether swine’s flesh was forbidden for medicinal reasons, or because 448 CH AFTER LXV.
the heathen sacrificed and ate it, or on other grounds; whether P^s means broth or bits of meat, and if the former, whether it was so called on account of the bread broken in it, or for other reasons, etc. The only question of grammatical construction which has found a place among these topics of pedantic disquisition, is as such entitled to consideration, though of small importance with respect to the interpretation of the passage. It is the question whether trt^s is to be governed by a preposition understood (Rosenmuller), or explained as an accusative of place (Gesenius), or as the predicate of the proposition, broth of abominable meats are their vessels (Maurer). This last construction is retained by Knobel, but he changes the whole meaning of the clause by explaining the last word to mean their instruments or implements, and giving to P^B the sense of bits or pieces: ‘ pieces of abominable meat are their instruments of divination,’ in allusion to the mantic inspection of the sacrificial victims by the heathen priests as means of ascertaining future events. Even if we should successively adopt and then discard every one of the opinions some of which have now been mentioned, the essential meaning of the verse would still remain the same, as a highly wrought description of idolatrous abominations.
5. The (men) saying, Keep to thyself, come not near to me, for I am holy to thee, these (are) a s?noke in my wrath, a fire burning all the day (or every day). Gesenius’s obscure addition und noch sagt is faithfully transcribed by Noyes, who yet say. The peculiar phrase spbx i’np is analogous but not precisely equivalent to ^-rrcja in ch. 49: 20. (See above, p. 190.) The literal translation is approach to thyself; and as this implies removal from the speaker, the essential meaning is correctly expressed, though in a very different form from the original, both by the Septuagint (aoQQet air Ipov) and by the Vulgate (recede a me). The common English version (stand by thyself) and Henderson’s improvement of it (keep by thyself) both suggest an idea not contained in the original, viz. that of standing alone, whereas all that is expressed by the Hebrew phrase is the act of standing away from the speaker, for which Lowth has found the idiomatic equivalent (keep to thyself). Another unusual expression is tpnirnp, which may be represented by the English words, lam holy thee. The Targum resolves this into *pa inisnp, and Vitringa accordingly assumes an actual ellipsis of the preposition *ja as a particle of comparison. But as this ellipsis is extremely rare, De Dieu and Cocceius assume that of b, lam holy to thee. Gesenius adopts the same construction, but explains the ^ as a mere pleonasm, and translates accordingly, I am holy, which is merely omitting what cannot be explained. The particle no doubt expresses general relation, and the phrase means, I am holy with respect to thee; and as this implies comparison, the same sense is attained as by the old construction, but in a manner more grammatical and regular. The implied comparison enables us to reconcile two of the ancient versions as alike in spirit, although in letter flatly contradictory. The Septuagint has I am pure (i. e. in comparison with thee); the Vulgate, Thou art impure (i. e. in comparison with me). There is no need, therefore, of resorting to the forced explanation proposed by Thenius in a German periodical, which takes *&&!’% in the sense of separating, one which occurs no where else in actual usage, and is excluded even from the etymon, by some of the best modern lexicographers. Equally gratuitous is Hitzig’s explanation of the verb (in which he seems to have been anticipated by Luther) as transitive, and meaning, lest 1 hallow thee, i. e. by touching thee, a notion contradictory to that expressed in Hagg. 2: 12, 13, and affording no good sense here, as the fear of making others holy, whether as an inconvenience or a benefit, would hardly have been used to characterize the men described. As to the question who are here described, there are two main opinions: first, that the clause relates to the idolaters mentioned in the foregoing verses; the other, that it is descriptive of a wholly different class. On the first supposition, Gesenius imagines that Jewish converts to the Parsee religion are described as looking at their former brethren with contempt. On the other, Henderson assumes that the Prophet, having first described the idolatrous form of Jewish apostasy, as it existed in his own day and long after, then describes the pharisaical form of the same evil, as it existed in the time of Christ, both being put together as the cause of the rejection of the Jews. To any specific application of the passage to the Babylonish exile, it may be objected that the practice of idolatry at that time by the Jews can only be established by a begging of the question in expounding this and certain parallel passages. The other explanation is substantially the true one. The great end which the Prophet had in view was to describe the unbelieving Jews as abominable in the sight of God. His manner of expressing this idea is poetical, by means of figures drawn from various periods of their history, without intending to exhibit either of these periods exclusively. To a Hebrew writer what could be more natural than to express the idea of religious corruption by describing its subjects as idolaters, diviners, eaters of swine’s flesh, worshippers of outward forms, and self-righteous hypocrites. Of such the text declares God’s abhorrence. Smoke and fire may be taken as natural concomitants and parallel figures, as if he had said, against whom my wrath smokes and burns continually. Or the smoke may represent the utter consumption of the object, and the fire the means by which it is effected, which appears to have been Luther’s idea. That ^x in such connexions does not mean the nose, but wrath itself, has been shown in the exposition of ch. 48: 9. (See above, p. 158.) 29
Vs. 6, 7. Lo, it is written before me. I will not rest except I repay, and I will repay into their bosom your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith Jehovah, who burned incense on the mountains and on the hills blasphemed me, and 1 will measure their first work into their bosom. The particle at the beginning calls attention both to the magnitude and certainty of the event about to be predicted.—Lowth, for some reason unexplained, thinks proper to translate fi^ns is recorded in writing, which is abridged by Noyes to stands recorded, and still more by Henderson to is recorded. One step further in the same direction brings us back to the simple and perfectly sufficient version of the English Bible, it is written. This may serve as an instructive sample of the way in which the later English versions sometimes improve upon the old. The figure which these verbs express is variously understood by different writers. Umbreit seems think that what is said to be written is the eternal law of retribution. Hitzig and Knobel understand by it a book of remembrance (Mai. 3: 16), i. e. a record of the sins referred to afterwards, by which they are kept perpetually present to the memory of Jehovah (Daniel 7: 10). Vitringa and most later writers understand by it a record, not of the crime, but of its punishment, or rather of the purpose or decree to punish it (Dan. 5: 5, 24), in reference to the written judgments of the ancient courts (ch. 10: 1). This last interpretation does not necessarily involve the supposition that the thing here said to be written is the threatening which immediately follows, although this is by no means an unnatural construction.—/ will not rest or be silent, an expression used repeatedly before in reference to the seeming inaction or indifference of Jehovah. (See above, ch. 42: 14. 57: 11, and compare Ps. 50: 21. Hab. 1: 13.)—Gesenius and De Wette follow the older writers in translating, I will not keep silence, but will recompense. But although ox n3, like the German sondern, is the usual adversative after a negation, this construction of the preterite *WjW would be contrary to usage, and tax *3 must be construed as it usually is before the preterite, as meaning unless or until, in which sense it is accurately rendered both by Hitzig (bis) and Ewald (ausser). See above, on ch. 55: 10, where this same construction is gratuitously set aside by Hitzig on the ground that it would argue too much knowledge of natural philosophy in a Hebrew writer. (Compare also 2 Sam. 1: 18.)—For repay into their bosom, we have in the seventh verse measure into their bosom, which affords a clue to the origin and real meaning of the figure; as we read that Boaz said to Ruth, Bring the veil (or cloak) that is upon thee and hold it, and she held it, and he measured six (measures of) barley and laid it on her (Ruth 3: 15). Hence the phrase to measure into any one’s bosom, i. e. into the lap or the fold of the garment covering the bosom. (See above, on ch. 49: 22.) The same figure is employed by Jer. 32: 18 and in Ps. 79: 12, and is explained by Rosenmiiller in his Scholia on the latter, and by Winer in his Lexicon, as implying abundance, or a greater quantity than one could carry in the hand. (Compare Luke 6: 38.) But Gesenius and Maurer understand the main idea to be not that of abundance, but of retribution, any thing being said to return into one’s own bosom, just as it is elsewhere said to return upon his own head (Judg. 9: 57. Ps. 7: 17). Both these accessory ideas are appropriate in the case before us. In Jer. 32: 18 and Ps. 79: 12 the preposition bs is used, and the same form is also found here in some manuscripts, and even in the Masora upon the next verse, though the bs is no more likely to be wrong there than here, nor at all, according to Maurer, who explains it as denoting motion towards an object from above. The sudden change from their to your at the beginning of v. 7, has been commonly explained as an example of the enallage personae so frequently occur ring in Isaiah. This supposition is undoubtedly sufficient to remove all difficulty from the syntax. It is possible, however, that the change is not a mere grammatical anomaly or license of construction, but significant, and intended to distinguish between three generations. I will repay into their bosom (that of your descendants) your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers. If this be not a fanciful distinction, it gives colour to Henderson’s opinion that the previous description brings to view successively the gross idolatry of early times and the pharisaical hypocrisy prevailing at the time of Christ. Supposing his contemporaries to be the immediate objects of address, there would then be a distinct allusion to their idolatrous progenitors, the measure of whose guilt they filled up (Matt. 23: 32), and to their children, upon whom it was to be conspicuously visited (Luke 24: 28). But whether this be so or not, the meaning of the text is obvious, as teach ing that the guilt which had accumulated through successive generations should be visited, though not exclusively, upon the last.—The whole of idolatry is here summed up in burning incense on the mountains, which are elsewhere mentioned as a favourite resort of those who worshipped idols (ch. 57: 7. Jer. 3:6. Ez. 6: 13. 18:6. Hos. 4: 13), and blaspheming God upon the hills, which may either be regarded as a metaphorical description of idolatry itself, or strictly taken to denote the oral expression of con tempt for Jehovah and his worship, which might naturally be expected to accompany such practices.—There is some obscurity in the word nr&J&n as here used. Ewald takes it as an adverb, meaning first, or at first (zuersi), and appears to understand the clause as meaning, their reward (that of your fathers) will I measure first into their bosom. But this does not seem to agree with the previous declaration that the sons should suffer for the fathers’ guilt and for their own together. At the same time, the construction is less natural and obvious than that of Gesenius and other writers, who make naiflsn an adjective agreeing with ft&JB, their former work, i. e. its product 452 CH AFTER LXV. or reward, as in ch. 40: 10. (See above, p. 11.) The only sense in which it can be thus described is that of ancient, as distinguished not from the subsequent transgressions of the fathers, but from those of the children who came after them.—According to the sense which the Apostle puts upon the two first verses of this chapter, we may understand those now before us as predicting the excision of the Jews from the communion of the church and from their covenant relation to Jehovah, as a testimony of his sore displeasure on account of the unfaithfulness and manifold transgressions of that chosen race throughout its former history, but also on account of the obstinate and spiteful unbelief with which so many later generations have rejected the Messiah for whose sake alone they ever had a national existence and enjoyed so many national advantages.
8. Thus saith Jehovah, as (when) juice is found in the cluster and one says, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so will I do for the sake of my servants, not to destroy the whole. Gesenius objects to the translation of ittsxs as if, or as when, in the Vulgate and many other versions, on the ground that, though “irx is sometimes elliptically used for when, the compound particle never denotes as when. He therefore gives it the conditional sense of if or when, as in Gen. 27: 40, and takes i as in that case for the sign of the apodosis, ‘ when (or if) juice is found in the cluster, then one says,’ etc. But most interpreters consider it more natural to make *i^&f3 and k|3> correlatives, as usual in cases of comparison, equivalent to as and so in English. We may then either supply when, as Maurer does, or translate it strictly, with Ewald and the English Version, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says destroy it not, so will I do, etc.—Although ttSrrn, according to the derivation usually given, means fermented grapejuice of the first year, it is evidently here applied to the juice in its original state, unless we understand it to be used proleptically for the pledge or earnest of new wine. A blessing is in it, seems to mean something more than that it has some value. The idea meant to be suggested is, that God has blessed it, and that man should therefore not destroy it. The meaning of the simile in this clause appears obvious, and yet it has been strangely misconceived both by the oldest and the latest writers. Knobel understands it to mean that as a grape or a cluster of grapes is preserved for the sake of the juice, notwithstanding the presence of the stem, skin, and stones, which are of no use, so the good Jews shall be saved, notwithstanding the bad ones who are mingled with them. But this explanation would imply that men are sometimes disposed to destroy good grapes because they consist partly of unprofitable substances, and need to be reminded that the juice within is valuable. Much nearer to the truth, and yet erroneous, is Jerome’s explanation of the clause as relating to a single good grape in a cluster, CH AFTER LXV. 453 which diminishes the force of the comparison by making the redeeming element too insignificant. The image really presented hy the Prophet, as Vitringa clearly shows, and most later writers have admitted, is that of a good cluster (Vi3tt5x), in which juice is found, while others are unripe or rotten.—I will do is by some understood as meaning I will act, or I will cause it to be so; but this is not the usage of the Hebrew verb, which rather means precisely what the English I will do denotes in such connexions, i. e. 1 will do so, or will act in the same manner.—My servants is by some under stood to mean the patriarchs, the fathers, for whose sake Israel was still beloved (Rom. 11: 28). It is more natural, however, to apply it to the remnant, according to the election of grace (Rom. 11: 5), the true believers represented by the ripe and juicy cluster in the foregoing simile.— The construction of the last words is the same as in ch. 48: 9.—The whole is a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase, and at once more exact and more expressive than the common version, them all.
9. And I will bring forth from Jacob a seed and from Judah an heir of my mountains, and my chosen ones shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. This is an amplification of the promise, I will do so, in the foregoing verse. Knobel’s interpretation of:nt as meaning a generation, i. e. a body of contemporaries, is at variance both with etymology and usage, with the parallel expression heir or inheritor, and with the figurative import of the verb, which is constantly applied to the generation of new animal and vegetable products. (See ch. 1: 4.) That there is reference to propagation and increase is also rendered probable by the analogy of ch. 27: 6 and 37: 31. Objections of the same kind may be urged against the needless attenuation of the proper sense of onr*, so as to exclude the idea of regular succession and hereditary right. My mountains is supposed by Vitringa to denote Mount Zion and Moriah, or Jerusalem as built upon them; but the later writers more correctly suppose it to describe the whole of Palestine, as being an uneven, hilly country. See the same use of the plural in ch. 14: 25, and the analogous phrase, mountains of Israel, repeatedly employed by Ezekiel (36: 1, 8. 38: 8). The corresponding singular, my mountain (11:9. 57: 13), is by many understood in the same manner. Lowth restores that reading here on the authority of the Septuagint and Peshito, but understands it to mean Zion, which he also makes the antecedent of the suffix in the phrase inherit it, while Maurer refers it to the land directly, and some of the older writers make it a collective neuter. The adverb at the end of the sentence properly means thither, and is never perhaps put for there except in cases where a change of place is previously mentioned or implied. If so, the sense is not merely that they shall abide there, but that they shall first go or return thither, which in this connexion is peculiarly appropriate.—Of the promise here recorded there are three principal interpretations. The first, embraced by nearly all the modern Germans, is that the verse predicts the restoration of the Jews from Babylon. The second may be stated in the words of Henderson, viz. that “ the future happy occupation of Palestine by a regenerated race of Jews is here clearly predicted.” The third is that the verse foretells the perpetuation of the old theocracy or Jewish church; not in the body of the nation, but in the remnant which believed on Christ; and which, enlarged by the accession of the gentiles, is identical in character and rights with the church of the old dispensation, the heir to all its promises, and this among the rest, which either has been or is to be fulfilled both in a literal and figurative sense; in the latter, because the Church already has what is essentially equivalent to the possession of the land of Canaan under a local ceremonial system; in the former, because Palestine is yet to be recovered from the Paynim and the Infidel, and right fully occupied, if not by Jews, by Christians, as the real seed of Abraham, partakers of the same faith and heirs of the same promise (Heb. 11:9), for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4: 13). If it should please God to collect the natural descendants of the patriarch in that land and convert them in a body to the true faith, there would be an additional coincidence between the prophecy and the event, even in minor circumstances, such as we often find in the history of Christ. But if no such national restoration of the Jews to Palestine should ever happen, the extension of the true religion over that benighted region, which both prophecy and providence encourage us to look for, would abundantly redeem the pledge which God has given to his people in this and other parts of Scripture.
10. And Sharon shall be for (or become) a home of flocks, and the Valley ofAchor a lair of herds, for my people who have sought me. This is a repetition of the promise in the foregoing verse, rendered more specific by the mention of one kind of prosperity, viz. that connected with the rais ing of cattle, and of certain places where it should be specially enjoyed, viz. the valley of Achor and the plain of Sharon. Two reasons have been given for the mention of these places, one derived from their position, the other from their quality. As the valley of Achor was near Jericho and Jordan, and the plain of Sharon on the Mediterranean, between Joppa and Cesarea, some suppose that they are here combined to signify the whole breadth of the land, from East to West. And as Sharon was proverbial for its verdure and fertility (see above, ch. 33: 9. 35: 2), it is inferred by some that Achor was so likewise, which they think is the more probable because Hosea says that the valley of Achor shall be a door of hope (Hos. 2: 17). But this may have respect to the calamity which Israel experienced there at his first entrance on the land of promise (Josh. 7: 26), so that where his troubles then began his hopes shall now begin. For these or other reasons Sharon and Achor are here mentioned, in Isaiah’s characteristic manner, as samples of the whole land, or its pastures, just as flocks and herds are used as images of industry and wealth, derived from the habits of the patriarchal age. That this is the correct interpretation of the flocks and herds, is not disputed even by the very writers who insist upon the literal construction of the promise that the seed of Jacob shall possess the land, as guaranteeing the collection of the Jews into the region which their fathers once inhabited. By what subtle process the absolute necessity of literal interpretation is transformed into a very large discretion when the change becomes convenient, is a question yet to be determined.—That to seek Jehovah sometimes has specific reference to repentance and conversion, on the part of those who have been alienated from him, may be seen by a comparison of ch. 9: 12 and 55: 6.
11. And (as for) you, forsakers of Jehovah, the (men) forgetting my holy mountain, the (men) setting for Fortune a table, and the (men) filling for Fate a mingled draught. This is only a description of the object of address; the address itself is contained in the next verse. The form aftxi indicates a contrast with what goes before, as in ch. 3: 14. The class of persons meant is first described as forsakers of Jehovah and forgetters of his holy mountain. Rosenmuller understands this as a figurative name for the despisers of his worship; but Knobel, as a literal description of those exiles who had lost all affection for Jerusalem, and had no wish to return thither. The description of the same persons in the last clause is much more obscure, and has occasioned a vast amount of learned disquisition and discussion. The commentators on the passage who have gone most fully into the details, are Vitringa and Rosenmuller: but the clearest summary is furnished by Gesenius. The strangest exposition of the clause is that of Zeltner, in a dissertation on the verse (1715), in which he applies it to the modern Jews as a prolific and an avaricious race. Many interpreters have understood the two most important words (“ia and h?^) as common nouns denoting troop and number (the former being the sense put upon the name Gad, in Gen. 30: II), and referred the whole clause either to convivial assemblies, perhaps connected with idolatrous worship, or to the troop of planets and the multitude of stars, as objects of such worship. But as the most essential words in this case are supplied, the later writers, while they still suppose the objects worshipped to be here described, explain the descriptive terms in a different manner. Luther retains the Hebrew names Gad and Menij which are also given in the margin of the English Bible; but most inter- 456 CH AFTER LXV.
preters explain them by equivalents. Gesenius ingeniously argues from the etymology of the names that they relate to human destiny; and from the mythology of the ancient eastern nations, that they relate to heavenly bodies. He dissents, however, from Vitringa’s opinion that the sun and moon are meant, as well as from the notions of older writers, that the names are descriptive of the planetary system, the signs of the Zodiac, particular constellations, etc. His own opinion is that “?* is the planet Jupiter (identical with Bel or Baal), and *m the planet Venus (identical with Ashtoreth), which are called in the old Arabian mythology the Greater and Lesser Fortune or Good Luck, while Saturn and Mars were known as the Greater and Lesser Evil Fortune or 111 Luck. J. D. Michaelis had long before explained the names here used as meaning Fortune and Fate, or Good and Evil Destiny; and Ewald, in like manner, under stands the planets here intended to be Jupiter and Saturn, while Knobel goes back to the old hypothesis of Vitringa and the others, that the names denote the Sun and Moon, the latter assumption being chiefly founded on the supposed affinity between •’aa and [*%*$. Others connect it with the Arabic sLuo, an idol worshipped at Mecca before the time of Mohammed. Some supposed the moon to be called *}”& (from na’a to measure), as a measure of time. Amidst this diversity of theories and explanations, only a very minute part of which has been introduced by way of sample, it is satisfactory to find that there is perfect unanimity upon the only point of exegetical importance, namely, that the passage is descriptive of idolatrous worship; for even those who apply it directly to convivial indulgences connect the latter with religious institutions. This being settled, the details still doubtful can be interesting only to the philologist and antiquarian. The kind of offering described is supposed to be identical with the lectisternia of the Roman writers; and Gesenius characteristically says, the showbread in the temple at Jerusalem was nothing else (nichts anders). The heathen rite in question consisted in the spreading of a feast for the con sumption of the gods. Herodotus mentions a TQan^a fiiou as known in Egypt; and Jeremiah twice connects this usage with the worship of the queen of heaven. (Jer. 7: 18. 44: 17.) T(o^ denotes mixture, and may either mean spiced wine, or a compound of different liquors, or a mere preparation or infusion of one kind. (See the Earlier Prophecies, p. 78.)— As to the application of the passage, there is the usual division of opinion among the adherents of the different hypotheses. Henderson’s reasoning upon this verse is remarkable. Having applied vs. 3-5 to the ancient Jewish idolatry, he might have been expected to attach the same sense to the words before us, where the Prophet seems to turn again to those of whom he had been speaking when he began to promise the deliverance of the elect remnant (v. 8). But “ it seems more natural to regard them as the impe- CH AFTER LXV. 457 nitent and worldly portion of the Jews who shall live at the time of the restoration.” The reason given for this sudden change can only satisfy the minds of those who agree with the author in his foregone conclusion, namely, that “ the persons addressed in this and the four following verses are contrasted with those who are to return and enjoy the divine favour in Palestine.” But even after the application of the terms is thus decided, there is a question not so easily disposed of, as to what they mean. The principle of strict interpretation might be thought to require the conclusion doubtingly hinted at by J. D. Michaelis, that the Jews are to worship Gad and Meni hereafter. But, according to Henderson, “ there is no reason to imagine that the Jews will again become actual idolaters,” as if the strict interpretation of this verse would not itself afford a reason not for imagining but for believing that it will be so. But rather than admit this, he declares that “ all attempts to explain Gad and Meni of idols literally taken, are aside from the point.” From what point they are thus aside does not appear, unless it be the point of making half the prophecy a loose metaphorical description, and cutting the remainder to the quick by a rigorously literal interpretation. “Israel,” “ Jerusalem,” “ the land,” must all denote the “ Israel,” “ Jerusalem,” and “ land” of ancient times and of the old economy; but all attempts to explain Gad and Meni of idols literally taken are aside from the point. And thus we are brought to the curious result of one literal interpretation excluding another as impossible. The true sense of the passage seems to be the same as in vs. 3—7, where Henderson himself regards the Prophet as completing his description of the wickedness of Israel, by circumstances drawn from different periods of his history, such as the idolatrous period, the pharisaical period, etc.
15. And I have numbered you to the sword, and all of you to the slaughter shall bow; because I called and ye did not answer, 1 spake and ye did not hear, and ye did the (thing that was) evil in my eyes, and that which I desired not ye chose. The preceding verse having reference only to the present and the past, the Vav at the beginning of this can have no conversive influence upon the verb, which is therefore to be rendered as a preterite. The objections to making it the sign of the apodosis have been already stated. The paraphrastic version, therefore, is entirely gratuitous. Gesenius gives the verb in this one place the diluted sense of allotting or appointing; but the strict sense of numbering or counting is not only admissible, but necessary to express a portion of the writer’s meaning, namely, the idea that they should be cut off one by one, or rather one with another, i. e. all without exception. (See ch. 27: 12 and the Earlier Prophecies, p. 467.) Knobel, indeed, imagines that a universal slaughter cannot be intended, because he goes on to tell what shall befall the survivors, viz. hunger, thirst, disgrace, distress, etc. Hitzig had taste enough to see that these are not described as subsequent in time to the evils threatened in the verse before us, but specifications of the way in which that threatening should be executed. The sense above given to ‘‘n’1?^ is confirmed and illustrated by its application elsewhere to the numbering of sheep. (Jer. 33: 13.) In its use here there is evident allusion to its derivative ^aa in the preceding verse, which some of the German writers try to make perceptible to German readers by combining cognate nouns and verbs, such as Shicksal and schicke, Verh’dngniss and verhdnge, Bestimmung and bestimme, etc. The same effect, if it were worth the while, might be produced in English by the use of destiny and destine. Vitringa, in order to identify the figures of the first and second clauses, makes S’nn mean a butcher’s knife; but an opposite assimilation would be better, namely, that of making ftM mean slaughter in general, not that of the slaughter-house exclusively. Both sword and slaughter are familiar figures for violent destruction. The verb 3-*2 is also applied elsewhere to one slain by violence (Judg. 5: 27. 2 Kings 9: 24). Bowing or stooping to the slaughter is submitting to it either willingly or by compulsion. Gesenius takes rna in the local sense ofSchlachtbanJc, to suit which he translates the verb kneel, and the particle before. This last Noyes retains without the others, in the English phrase bow down before the slaughter, which is either unmeaning, or conveys a false idea, that of priority in time. The remainder of the verse assigns the reason of the threatened punishment. The first expression bears a strong resemblance to the words of Wisdom, in Prov. 1: 24-31. Knobel’s explanation of the c *thing that was evil in my eyes ‘ as a description of idolatry, is as much too restricted as Vitringa’s explanation of’ that which I desired not or delighted not in’ as signifying ritual or formal as opposed to spiritual worship. Of the two the former has the least foundation, as the only proof cited is ch. 38: 3, whereas Vitringa’s explanation of the other phrase derives no little countenance from Ps. 40: 7. 51: 18. Hos. 6: 6. The only objection to either is that it mistakes a portion of the true sense for the whole.—As to the application of the words, there is the usual confidence and contradiction. Knobel regards them as a threatening of captivity and execution to the Jews who took sides with the Babylonians against Cyrus. Henderson applies them to the inevitable and condign punishment of those Jews who shall prefer the pleasures of sin to those of true religion embraced by the great body of the nation, which punishment, he adds, “ will, *in all probability, be inflicted upon them in common with the members of the antichristian confederacy, after their believing brethren shall have been securely settled in Palestine.” The grounds of this all-probable anticipation are not given. Vitringa understands the passage as predicting the excision of the Jewish nation from the church, not only for the crowning sin of rejecting Christ, CH AFTER LXV. 459 but for their aggregate offences as idolaters and hypocrites, as rebels against God and despisers of his mercy, with which sins they are often charged in the Old Testament (e. g. ch. 50: 2. 65: 2. 66: 4. Jer. 7: 13, 25), and still more pointedly by Christ himself in several of his parables and other discourses, some of which remarkably resemble that before us both in sentiment and language. (See Matt. 23: 37. 22: 7. Luke 19: 27, and compare Acts 13: 46.) Besides the countenance which this analogy affords to Vitringa’s exposition, it is strongly recommended by its strict agreement with what we have determined, independently of this place, to be the true sense of the whole foregoing context. Interpreted by these harmonious analogies, the verse, instead of threatening the destruction of the Babylonish Jews before the advent, or of the wicked Jews and Anti christ hereafter, is a distinct prediction of a far more critical event than either, the judicial separation of the Jewish nation and the Israel of God, which had for ages seemed inseparable, not to say identical.
Vs. 13, 14. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Lo! my servants shall eat and ye shall hunger; lo, my servants shall drink and ye shall thirst; lo, my servants shall rejoice and ye shall be ashamed; lo, my servants shall shout from gladness of heart, and ye shall cry from grief of heart, and from, brokenness of spirit ye shall howl These verses merely carry out the general threatening of the one preceding, in a series of poetical antitheses, where hunger, thirst, disgrace, and anguish, take the place of sword and slaughter, and determine these to be symbolical or emblematic terms. Knobel’s interpretation of these verses as predicting bodily privations and hard bondage to those who should escape the sword of Cyrus, is entitled to as little deference as he would pay to the suggestion of Vitringa, that the eating and drinking have specific reference to the joy with which the first Christian converts partook of the Lord’s supper (Acts 2: 46. 9: 31). This is no doubt chargeable with undue refinement and particularity, but notwithstanding this excess, the exposition is correct in principle, as we may learn from the frequent use of these antagonist metaphors to signify spiritual joy and horror, not only in the Prophets (see above, ch, 8: 21. 33: 16. 55: 1. 58: 14), but by our Saviour when he speaks of his disciples as eating bread in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 14: 13), where many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down (or recline at table) with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt. 8:11); and ascribes to the king in the parable the solemn declaration, I say unto you none of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper (Luke 14: 24). Thus understood, the passage is a solemn prediction of happiness to the believing and of misery to the unbelieving Jews. The latter are directly addressed, the former designated as my servants.—Gladness of heart, literally goodness of heart, which in our idiom would express a different idea, on account of our predominant use of the first word in a moral sense. For the Hebrew expression see Deut. 28: 47. Judg. 19:6, 22. For brokenness of spirit, compare ch. 61: 1 and Ps. 51: 17.—To be ashamed, as often elsewhere, includes disappointment and frustration of hope.
15. And ye shall leave your name for an oath to my chosen ones, and the Lord Jehovah shall slay thee, and shall call his servants by another name (literally, call another name to them). The object of address is still the body of the Jewish nation, from which the believing remnant are distinguished by the names my chosen and my servants. Oath is here put for curse, as it is added to it in Dan. 9:11, and the two are combined in Num. 5:21, where the oath of cursing may be regarded as the complete expression of which oath is here an ellipsis. To leave one’s name for a curse, according to Old Testament usage, is something more than to leave it to be cursed. The sense is that the name shall be used as a formula of cursing, so that men shall be able to wish nothing worse to others than a like character and fate. This is clear from Jer. 29: 22 compared with Zech. 3: 2, as well as from the converse or correlative promise to the patriarchs and their children that a like use should be made of their names as a formula of blessing (Gen. 22: 18. 48: 20). As in other cases where the use of names is the subject of discourse, there is no need of supposing that any actual practice is predicted, but merely that the character and fate of those addressed will be so bad as justly to admit of such an application.—Ewald ingeniously explains the words rnrn 154x ^rncrvi as the very form of cursing to be used, 50 may the Lord Jehovah slay thee! This construction, though adopted by Umbreit and Knobel, is far from being obvious or natural. The preterite, though sometimes construed with the optative particles, would hardly be employed in that sense absolutely, especially in the middle of a sentence, preceded and followed by predictive clauses, each beginning with 1, which on Ewald’s supposition must be either overlooked as pleonastic or violently made to bear the sense of 50. Even if this were one of the mean ings of the particle, a more explicit form would no doubt have been used in a case where the comparison is every thing. The wish required by the con text is that God would kill them so, or in like manner; a bare wish that he would kill them, would be nothing to the purpose. The violence of this construction might be counteracted as an argument against it by exegetical necessity, but no such necessity exists. The use of the singular pronoun thee, so far from requiring it, is in perfect keeping with the rest of the sentence. As the phrase your name shows that the object of address is a plurality of persons bearing one name, or in other words an organized community, so the singular form slay thee is entirely appropriate to this collective or ideal person.—Of the last clause there are three interpretations. The rabbinical expounders understand it as the converse of the other clause. As your name is to be a name of cursing, so my servants are to have another name, i. e. a name of blessing, or a name by which men shall bless. Others give it a more general sense, as meaning their condition shall be altogether different. A third opinion is that it relates to the substitution of the Christian name for that of Jew, as a distinctive designation of God’s people. The full sense of the clause can only be obtained by combining all these explanations, or at least a part of each. The first is obviously implied, if not expressed. The second is established by analogy and usage, and the almost unanimous consent of all interpreters. The only question is in reference to the last, which is of course rejected with contempt by the neologists, and regarded as fanciful by some Christian writers. These have been influenced in part by the erroneous assumption that if this is not the whole sense of the words, it cannot be a part of it. But this is only true in cases where the two proposed are incompatible. The true state of the case is this: According to the usage of the prophecies the promise of another name imports a different character and state, and in this sense the promise has been fully verified. But in addition to this general fulfilment, which no one calls in question, it is matter of history that the Jewish commonwealth or nation is destroyed; that the name of Jew has been for centuries a bye-word and a formula of execration, and that they who have succeeded to the spiritual honours of this once favoured race, although they claim historical identity therewith, have never borne its name, but another, which from its very nature could have no existence until Christ had come, and which in the common parlance of the Christian world is treated as the opposite of Jew. Now all this must be set aside as mere fortuitous coincidence, or it must be accounted for precisely in the same way that we all account for similar coincidences between the history of Christ and the Old Testament in minor points, where all admit that the direct sense of the prophecy is more extensive. As examples, may be mentioned John the Baptist’s preaching in a literal wilderness, our Saviour’s riding on a literal ass, his literally opening the eyes of the blind, when it is evident to every reader of the original passage that it predicts events of a far more extensive and more elevated nature. While I fully believe that this verse assures God’s servants of a very different fate from that of the unbelieving Jews, 1 have no doubt that it also has respect to the destruction of the Jewish state and the repudiation of its name by the true church or Israel of God.
16. (By) which the (man) blessing himself in the land (or earth) shall bless himself by the God of truth, and (by which) the (man) swearing in the land (or earth) shall swear by the God of truth, because forgotten are the former enmities (or troubles), and because they are hidden from my eyes. Two things have divided and perplexed interpreters in this verse, as it stands connected with the one before it. The first is the apparent change of subject, and the writer’s omission to record the new name which had just been promised. The other is the very unusual construction of the relative iitfx. The first of these has commonly been left without solution, or refer red to the habitual freedom of the writer. The other has been variously but very unsuccessfully explained. Kimchi takes it in the sense of when, Luther in that of so that. • Vitringa connects it with the participle, as if it were a future. Rosenmiiller and Gesenius regard it as redundant, which is a mere evasion of the difficulty, as the cases which they cite of such a usage are entirely irrelevant, as shown by Maurer, whose own hypothesis is not more satisfactory, viz. that either the article or relative was carelessly inserted (negligentius dictum). Ewald gives the relative its strict sense, and makes Jehovah the antecedent, by supplying before it, thus saith Jehovah (or saith he) by whom the man that blesses etc. This has the advantage of adhering to the strict sense of the pronoun, but the disadvantage of involving an improbable ellipsis, and of making the writer say circuitously what he might have said directly. Thus saith he by whom the person blessing blesses by the God of truth, is perfectly equivalent to Thus saith the God of truth. Both these objections may be obviated by referring ittjx to an expressed antecedent, viz. name, a construction given both in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions, although otherwise defective and obscure. Another advantage of this construction is that it removes the abrupt transition and supplies the name, which seems on any other supposition to be wanting. According to this view of the place, the sense is that the people shall be called after the God of truth, so that his name and theirs shall be identical, and consequently whoever blesses or swears by the one blesses or swears by the other also. The form in which this idea is expressed is peculiar, but intelligible and expressive: ’ His people he shall call by another name, which (i. e. with respect to which, or more specifically by which) he that blesseth shall bless by the God of truth,’ etc. Ewald supposes blessing and cursing to be meant, as oath is used above to signify a curse; but most interpreters understand by blessing himself, praying for God’s blessing, and by swearing, the solemn invocation of his presence as a witness, both being mentioned as acts of religious worship and of solemn recognition.—^KX is probably an adjective meaning sure, trustworthy, and therefore including the ideas of reality and faithfulness, neither of which should be excluded, and both of which are comprehended in the English phrase, the true God, or retaining more exactly the form of the original, the God of truth. Hender son’s version, “ faithful God,” expresses only half of the idea. This Hebrew word is retained in the Greek of the New Testament, not only as a particle of asseveration, but in a still more remarkable manner as a name of Christ (Rev. 1: 18. 3: 14), with obvious reference to the case before us; and there must be something more than blind chance in the singular coincidence thus brought to light between this application of the phrase and the sense which has been put upon the foregoing verse, as relating to the adoption of the Christian name by the church or chosen people. As applied to Christ, the name is well explained by Vitringa to describe him as very God, as a witness to the truth, as the substance or reality of the legal shadows, and as the fulfiller of the divine promises. Ewald agrees with the older writers in rendering yixn in the earth, but most interpreters prefer the more restricted version, in the land. The difference is less than might at first sight be sup posed, as ‘ in the land ‘ could here mean nothing less than in the land of pro mise, the domain of Israel, the church in its widest and most glorious diffusion.—The last clause gives the reason for the application of the title, God of truth, viz. because in his deliverance of his people he will prove himself to be the true God in both senses, truly divine and eminently faithful. This proof will be afforded by the termination of those evils which the sins of his own people once rendered necessary. Usage is certainly in favour of the common version, troubles or distresses; but there is something striking in Lowth’s version, provocations, which agrees well with what seems to be the sense of fTpt in ch. 63: 9. As commonly translated, it is understood by Gesenius as meaning that God will forget the former necessity for punishing his people, which is equivalent to saying that he will forget their sins. But Maurer understands the sense to be that he will think no more of smiting them again. Both seem to make the last words a poetical description of oblivion; but Knobel refers what is said of forgetting to the people, and only the remaining words to God.
17. For lo I (am) creating (or about to create) new heavens and a new earth, and the former (things) shall not be remembered, and shall not come up into the mind (literally, on the heart). Some interpreters refer former to heavens and earth, which makes the parallelism more exact; but most interpreters refer it to tYhsn in v. 16, where the same adjective is used, or construe it indefinitely in the sense of former things. Of the whole verse there are several distinct interpretations. Aben Ezra understands it as predicting an improvement in the air and soil, conducive to longevity and uninterrupted health; and a similar opinion is expressed by J. D. Michaelis, who illustrates the verse by the supposition of a modern writer who should describe the vast improvement in Germany since ancient times, by saying that the heaven and the earth are new. A second explanation of the verse is that of Thomas Burnet and his followers, which makes it a prediction of the renovation of the present earth with its skies etc. after the destruction of the present at the day of judgment. A third is that of Vitringa, who regards it as a figurative prophecy of changes in the church, according to a certain systematic explication of the several parts of the material universe as symbols. Better than all these, because requiring less to be assumed, and more in keeping with the usage of prophetic language, is the explanation of the verse as a promise or prediction of entire change in the existing state of things, the precise nature of the change and of the means by which it shall be brought about forming no part of the revelation here. That the words are not inapplicable to a revolution of a moral and spiritual nature, we may learn from Paul’s analogous description of the change wrought in conversion (2 Cor. 5:17. Gal. 6: 15), and from Peter’s application of this very passage, Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteous ness (2 Peter 3: 13). That the words have such a meaning even here, is rendered probable by the last clause, the oblivion of the former state of things being much more naturally connected with moral and spiritual changes than with one of a material nature.
18. But rejoice and be glad unto eternity (in) that which I (am) creating, for lo I (am) creating Jerusalem a joy, and her people a rejoicing, i. e. a subject or occasion of it. There is no need of explaining the imperatives as futures, though futurity is of course implied in the command. It would be highly arbitrary to explain what I create in this place as different from the creation in the verse preceding. It is there said that a creation shall take place. It is here enjoined upon God’s people to rejoice in it. But here the creation is declared to be the making of Jerusalem a joy and Israel a rejoicing. Now the whole analogy of the foregoing prophecies leads to the conclusion that this means the exaltation of the church or chosen people; and the same analogy admits of that exaltation being represented as a revolution in the frame of nature. On the other hand, a literal prediction of new heavens and new earth would scarcely have been followed by a reference merely to the church; and if Jerusalem arid Zion be explained to mean the literal Jerusalem and the restored Jews, the only alternative is then to conclude that as soon as they return to Palestine, it and the whole earth are to be renewed, or else that what relates to Jerusalem and Israel is literal, and what relates to the heavens and the earth metaphorical, although, as we have just seen, the connexion of the verses renders it necessary to regard the two events as one. From all these incongruities we are relieved by understanding the whole passage as a poetical description of a complete and glorious change. C H AFTER L XV. 465
1. 9. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and there shall not be heard in her again the voice of weeping and the voice of crying. Considered as the language of the Prophet himself, this would express his sympathetic interest in the joyous changes which awaited his people. But such an application would be wholly arbitrary, as Jehovah is undoubtedly the speaker in the foregoing verse, where lie claims creative power; and even here there is an implication of divine authority in the promise that weeping shall no more be heard in her. There is something very beautiful in the association of ideas here expressed. God shall rejoice in his people, and they shall rejoice with him. They shall no longer know what grief is, because he shall cease to grieve over them; their former distresses shall be forgotten by them and for ever hidden from his eyes.
20. There shall be no more from there an infant of days, and an old man who shall not fulfil his days; for the child a hundred years old shall die, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.—Some refer n1^ to time, and understand it to mean thenceforth, a departure from the settled usage which can be justified only by necessity. Others regard the preposition as unmeaning, and read there, which is as arbitrary as Lowth’s reading cd, neither of which proceedings can be justified by the example of the ancient version?. The strict translation thence (from there} is not only admissible but necessary to the sense. It does not, however, mean springing or proceeding thence, but taken away thence, or as Kimchi has it, carried thence to burial. It is thus equivalent to r.^ in the next clause, and denotes that none shall die there in infancy. In consequence of not correctly apprehending this, Hitzig alleges that this first clause by itself can only mean that there shall be no longer any infants, to avoid which paralogism he connects ^^ ^” as well as ipt with the following words: neither infant nor old man who shall not fulfil their days. But there is no need of this tautological construction if =isa rrrp implies death, and D”1^ a few days only, which last is more agreeable to usage than the specific sense of year, which some assume. A curious turn is given to the sentence by some of the older writers, who take fulfil his days in the moral sense of spending them well, with special reference to improvement in knowledge, and the child as meaning one who even at a very advanced age continues still a child in understanding, and shall therefore die. Still more unnatural is the modification of this exposition by Cocceius, who explains the whole to mean that men shall have as abundant opportunities of instruction in the truth as if they enjoyed a patriarchal longevity, so that he who perishes for lack of knowledge will be left without excuse. Vitringa justly repudiates these far-fetched explanations, but agrees with them in understanding shall 30 die as an emphatic threatening, and in departing from the ordinary sense of “i?3, which he takes to be here an equivalent to sinner. All the modern writers are agreed as to the literal meaning of this last clause, though they differ as to the relation of its parts. Some regard it as a synonymous parallelism, and understand the sense to he that he who dies a hundred years old will he considered as dying young, and by a special curse from God, interrupting the ordinary course of nature. Others follow De Dieu in making the parallelism antithetic, and contrasting the child with the sinner. Perhaps the true view of the passage is, that it resumes the contrast drawn in vs. 13-15 between the servants of Jehovah and the sinners there addressed. Vs. 16-19 may then he regarded as a parenthetical amplification. As if he had said, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall mourn; my servants shall be just beginning life when ye are driven out of it; among the former, he who dies a hundred years old shall die a child; among you, he who dies at the same age shall die accursed. On the whole, however, the most natural meaning is the one already mentioned as preferred by most modern writers. Premature death, and even death in a moderate old age, shall be unknown; he who dies a hundred years old shall be considered either as dying in childhood, or as cut off by a special malediction. The whole is a highly poetical description of longevity, to be explained precisely like the promise of new heavens and a new earth in v. 17. Beck’s gross expressions of contempt for the absurdity of this verse are founded on a wilful perversion or an ignorant misapprehension. E\ald is equally unjust but less indecent in his representation of this verse as a fanatical anticipation of the literal change which it describes.
Vs. 21, 22. And they shall build houses and inhabit (them), and shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them, th<y shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another cat; for as the days of a tree (shall be) the days of my people, and the work of their hands my chosen ones shall wear out (or survive). This is a piomise of security and permanent enjoy ment, clothed in expressions drawn from the promises and threatenings of the Mosaic law. By the age of a tree is generally understood the great age which some species are said to attain, such as the oak, the banyan, etc. But Knobel takes it in the general sense of propagation and succession, and understands the promise to be that, as trees succeed each other naturally and for ever, so shall the chosen of Jehovah do. The essential idea is in either case that of permanent continuance, and the figures here used to express it make it still more probable that in the whole foregoing context the predictions are to be figuratively understood. CH AFTER LXV. 457
23. They shall not labour in vain, and they shall not bring forth for terror; for the seed of the blessed of Jehovah are they, and their offspring with (hern. The sense of sudden destruction given to!”^2 by some modern writers, is a mere conjecture from the context, and no more correct than the translation curse, which others derive from the Arabic analogy, and which Henderson regards as the primitive meaning. The Hebrew word properly denotes extreme agitation and alarm, and the meaning of the clause is that they shall not bring forth children merely to be subjects of distressing solicitude. Knobel, as in ch. 1: 4, takes st1* in the sense of a generation or contemporary race; but it adds greatly to the strength of the expression if we give its more usual sense of progeny or offspring: they are themselves the offspring of those blessed of God, and their o\v n offspring likewise, as the older writers understand cnx, while the moderns suppose it to mean shall be with them, i. e. shall continue with them, as opposed to the alarm referred to in the other clause. Umbreit’s idea that the picture of domestic happiness is here completed by the unexpected stroke of parents and children still continuing to live together, is ingenious and refined, perhaps too much so to be altogether natural in this connexion.
24. And it shall be (or come to pass), that they shall not yet J.ave called and I will answer, yet (shall) they (be) speaking and I will hear, A strong expression of God’s readiness to hear and answer prayer, not a mere promise that it shall be heard (like that in Jer. 29: 12. Zech. 13: 9), but an assurance that it shall be granted before it is heard. The nearest parallel is Matth. 6: 8, where our Lord himself says, Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. (Compare ch. 30: 19. 58: 9. Ps. Mo: 18, 19.)—EVJ is commonly explained here as a conjunction, before they call, and Gesenius gives this as the primary meaning of the Hebrew particle. But according to Hitzig and Maurer, this is always expressed by the compound form cvja, and the simple form invariably means not yet. This construction, \which might otherwise seem very harsh, is favoured by the use of the conjunction and, which, on the u-ual hypo thesis, must be omitted or regarded merely as a sign of the apodosis, whereas in the parallel clause it occupies precisely the same place, and can only be taken in its usual sense. Lowth attempts to reproduce the form of the original, but not with much success, by rendering the last clause, “they shall be yet speaking and I shall have heard.” The parallel verbs both mean to hear prayer in a favourable sense, and are therefore rendered in the Vulgate by the cognate forms audiam and cjcaudiam. The last verb is curiously paraphrased in the Septuagint, I will say, what is it 1 (f’(>c5 ii ion;)
25. The wolf and the lamb shall feed as one, and the lion like th ox shall eat straw, and the serpent dust (for) his food. They shall not hurt and they shall not corrupt (or destroy) in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah. The promise of a happy change is wound up in the most appropriate manner by repeating the prophecy in ch. 11: 6-9, that all hurtful influences shall for ever cease in the holy hill or church of God. Yet Knobel ventures to assert that it is an unmeaning imitation of that passage, introduced here without any just connexion, and perhaps by a different hand from that of the original writer. Another fact which had escaped preceding writers, is that the phrase as one belongs to the later Hebrew, because used in Ecc. 11:6, whereas it is essentially identical with as one man in Judges 20: 8. 1 Sam. 11:7. It is not a simple synonyme of Tnrn together (the word used in ch. 11: 6), but much stronger and more graphic; so that Lowth only weakens the expression by proposing to assimilate the readings on the authority of a single manuscript. Another point in which the description is here heightened is the substitution of nba, a young and tender lamb, for i^s, a he-lamb of riper age. Ewald expresses the distinction here by using the diminutive term Ldmmlein.—Instead of the lion like the ox, the Vulgate has the lion and the ox (leo et bos), and that the et is not an error of the text for ut appears from the plural form of the verb comedcnt.—Most of the modern writers construe un; as a nominative absolute, as for the serpent, dust (shall be) his food. A more obvious construction is to repeat the verb shall eat, and consider dust and food as in apposition. J. D. Michaelis supplies continue (bleibc), and most writers regard this idea as implied though not expressed: The serpent shall continue to eat dust. Michaelis arid Gesenius suppose an allusion to the popular belief that serpents feed on dust because they creep upon the ground, and understand the prophecy to be that they shall henceforth be contented with this food and cease to prey on men or other animals. But this, as Vitringa well observes, would be too small a promise for the context, since a very small part of the evils which men suffer can arise from this cause. He therefore understands the clause to mean that the original curse upon the serpent who deceived Eve (Gen. 3: 14) shall be fully executed. (Compare Rev. 20: 1-3.) He refers to some of his contemporaries as explaining it to mean that the serpent should henceforth prey only upon low and earthly men; but this would be too lar^e a concession, and the true sense seems to be that, in accordance with his ancient doom, he shall be rendered harmless, robbed of his favourite nutriment, and made to bite the dust at the feet of his conqueror. (Gen. 3: 15. Rom. 16: 20. 1 John 3: 8. Compare Isaiah 49: 20.)—The last clause resolves the figures of the first. The verbs are therefore to be under stood indefinitely, as in ch. 11: 9^;:orif they be referred to the animals previously mentioned, it is only a symbolical or tropical expression of the same idea. Hitzig gratuitously says that the verbs which in the other place relate to men, are here determined to refer to animals by the connexion; to which Knobel flippantly replies that this is not the case, because there is no connexion to determine it. The truth is that the form of expression is the same in either case, except that what begins a verse in the eleventh chapter here concludes one. Had the passage here repeated been in one of the so-called later chapters, it would no doubt have been cited as a proof of the author’s identity; but no such proof can be admitted by the “ higher criticism “ in favour of identifying the writer of this chapter with the genuine Isaiah. Rather than listen to such reasoning, the “ higher critics” make it a case of imitation and abridgment, and one of them, as we have seen, of ignorant interpolation.—For any further explanation of this verse, the reader is refer red to the Earlier Prophecies, pp. 224—227.-
