THIS chapter winds up the prophetic discourse with an express prediction of the change of dispensations, and a description of’the difference between them. Jehovah will no longer dwell in temples made with hands, v. 1. Every sincere and humble heart shall be his residence, v. 2. The ancient sacrifices, though divinely instituted, will henceforth be as hateful as the rites of idolatry, v. ‘3. They who still cling to the abrogated ritual will be fearfully but righteously requited, v. 4. The true Israel cast out by these deluded sinners shall ere long be glorified, and the carnal Israel fearfully rewarded, vs. 5, (5. The ancient Zion may already be seen travailing with a new and glorious dispensation, vs. 7-9. They who mourned for her seeming desolation now rejoice in her abundance and her honour, vs. 10-14. At the same time the cnmal Israel shall be destroyed, as apostates and idolaters, vs. 14-17. The place which they once occupied shall now be filled by the elect from all nations, v. 18. To gather these, a remnant of the ancient Israel shall go forth among the gentiles, v. 19. They shall come from every quarter and by every method of conveyance, v. 20. They shall be admitted to the sacerdotal honours of the chosen people, v. 21. This new dispensation is not to he temporary, like the one before it, but shall last for ever, v. 22. While the spiritual Israel is thus replenished from all nations, the apostate Israel shall perish by a lingering decay in the sight of an astonished world, vs. 23, 24.
1. Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens («re) my throne, and the earth my footstool; where is (or what is) the house which ye will build for me, and where is (or what is) the place of my rest! literally the place my rest, i. e. the place which is or can be my rest or permanent abode. The same term is elsewhere applied to the temple, as distinguished from the tabernacle or moveable sanctuary. (See 2 Sam. 7: 6. 2 Chron. 6:41. Ps. 132: 8.) As to the sense of HT—>x, see above on ch. 50: 1. In this case where is less appropriate than what, as the inquiry seems to have respect to the nature or the quality rather than the mere locality of the edifice in question. Hitzig translates r^3 strictly a house, and ^nri is variously rendered ye build, in the English Bible; ye would build, by Ewald; ye could build, by Gesenius, etc.; but the simplest and best version is ye will build, as including all the others. All interpreters agree that this question implies disapprobation of the building, as at variance with the great truth propounded in the first clause, namely, that the frame of nature is the only material temple worthy of Jehovah. This obvious relation of the clauses is sufficient of itself to set aside two of the old interpretations of the passage. The first is that of Kimchi, favoured more or less by Calvin and some later writers, which supposes that this chapter is a counterpart to the first, and that the Prophet here recurs to his original theme, the corruptions and abuses of his own age. But besides the undisputed references to the future in the latter part of this very chapter, it has been conclusively objected by Vitringa to the theory in question, that in the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah there could be no thought of building or rebuilding, nor even of repairing or adorning the temple, but rather of despoiling it. (2 Kings 16: 17. 18. 18: 15.) The same objection lies against the theory of Grotius, that this chapter was intended to console the pious Jews who were debarred from the customary public worship during the profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes. In neither of these cases could there be occasion for objecting to the building or rebuilding of the temple. Those who refer this whole series of predictions to the period of the Babylonish exile find it hard to explain this chapter upon that hypo thesis, since the building of the temple is urged upon the people as a duty by the acknowledged prophets of the exile, In order to facilitate the pro cess, some of them detach it from the foregoing context, on the ground of its abrupt commencement, which is not at all more striking than in other cases where no such conclusion has been drawn, because not felt to be necessary for the critic’s purpose. Eichhorn found this a fit occasion for the application of the “ higher criticism,” and he accordingly strikes out vs. 1-17 of this chapter as an older composition than the rest, the exact date not defin able, but certainly prior to the downfal of the Jewish monarchy. Pa.ulus and Rosenmuller, on the other hand, regard the -whole as later than the first return from Babylon. Between these extremes Gesenius as usual undertakes to mediate, condemns the first as “ trennende Kritik,” and refutes it by a copious but superfluous detail of minute coincidences both of thought and language between the disputed passage and the foregoing chapters, which he therefore supposes to belong to the same period. From this decision there is no material dissent among the later writers, although Hitzig asserts in the strongest terms the utter want of connexion between this and the preceding chapters. The same assertion might be made with equal plausibility in a”ny other case of a continued composition where the writer is not trammelled by a systematic method, but passes freely from one topic to another, in obedience to a lively and unchecked association of ideas. No reader or interpreter who has not a hypothesis to verify will find any reason for supposing a greater interruption here than at the end of an ordinary paragraph. The fallacy of the contrary assertion has been shown by Vitringa to consist in assuming”- that the passages are unconnected unless the first ru I verse of the second carries out the thought expressed in the last verse of the first, whereas the chapter now before us is in some sense parallel to that before it, taking up the subject at the same point and bringing it at last to the same issue. That exposition is indeed most probably the true one which assumes the most intimate connexion of the chapters here, and is least dependent upon forced divisions and arbitrary intervals crowded with imaginary events. Thus Rosenmiiller thinks that in the interval between these chapters the tribes of Benjamin and Judah had resolved to exclude the others from all participation in the rebuilding of the temple, and that the passage now before us was intended to reprove them for their want of charity, as if this end could be accomplished by proclaiming the worthlessness of all mate rial temples, which is tantamount to saying, why do you refuse to let your countrymen assist in the rebuilding of the temple, since no temples are of any value? Hitzig’s imagination is still more prolific, and invents a project to erect another temple in Chaldea as a succedaneum for returning to Jerusalem. At the same time his superior acuteness guards against the palpable absurdity already mentioned, by supposing the error here corrected to be that of believing that the mere erection of a temple would discharge their obligations and secure their welfare, without any reference to what Jehovah had commanded. They are therefore taught that he has no need of material dwellings, and that these, to be of any value, must be built exactly when and where and as he pleases to require. (1 Sam. 15: 22, 23.) This ingenious exposition would be faultless if it rested upon any firmer basis than a perfectly imaginary fact. That, there is any proof of it from other quarters, is not pretended. That it is not a necessary inference from that before us, will be clear when the true interpretation has been given. It is necessary first to state, however, that while Hitzig thus infers from the text itself a fact unknown to history because it never happened, Henderson with equal confidence infers from it a fact as little known to history, but for a very different reason. While the one considers it as proving that a parly of the exiles in Babylon desired to build a temple there instead of going back to Palestine, the other considers it as proving that part of the restored Jews will unlawfully attempt to rebuild the old temple in Palestine itself, and that this passage is intended to reprove them. Yet in ch. 60: 7, 13 we read not only of a sanctuary to be literally built of the most costly timber, but of an altar and of victims to be offered on it; all which may be tortured into figures, it appears, provided that the future restoration of the Jews be strictly expounded in a local sense.—With these interpretations, and the forced hypotheses which they involve, we may now coin-pare another which has been approved by various judicious writers, but by none more clearly stated or more successfully maintained than by Vitringa. It is simply this, that having held up in every point of view the true design, mission, and vocation of the church or chosen people, its relation to the natural descendants of Abraham, the causes which required that the latter should be stripped of their peculiar privileges, and the vocation of the gentiles as a part of the divine plan from its origin, the Prophet now addresses the apostate and unbelieving Jews at the close of the old dispensation, who, instead of preparing for the general extension of the church and the exchange of ceremonial for spiritual worship, were engaged in the rebuilding and costly decoration of the temple at Jerusalem. The pride and interest in this great public work, felt not only by the Herods but by all the Jews, is clear from incidental statements of the Scriptures (John 2: 20. Matt. 24: I) as well as from the ample and direct assertions of Josephus. That the nation should have been thus occupied precisely at the time when the Messiah came, is one of those agreements between prophecy and history which cannot be accounted for except upon the supposition of a providential and designed assimilation. To the benefit of this coincidence the exposition which has last been given is entitled, and by means of it the probabilities, already great, may be said to be converted into certainties, or if any thing more be needed for this purpose it will be afforded by the minuter points of similarity which will be presented in the course of the interpretation. One advantage of this exposition is that it accounts for the inference here drawn from a doctrine which was known to Solomon and publicly announced by him (1 Kings’8: 27), though described by Gesenius as unknown to the early Hebrews, who supposed that God was really confined to earthly temples. (1 Chron. 23: 2. Ps. 99: 5. 132: 5.) It may be asked, then, why this truth did not forbid the erection of the temple at first, as well as its gorgeous reconstruction in the time of Christ. The answer is. that it was necessary for a temporary purpose, but when this temporary purpose was accomplished it became not only useless but unlawful. Henceforth the worship was to be a spiritual worship, the church universally diffused, and the material sanctuary, as J. D. Michaelis says, no longer an earthly residence for God but a convenient place of meet ing for his people.
2. And all these my oitn hand made, and all these were (or are), saith Jehovah; and to this one will I look, to the afflicted and contrite in spirit and trembling at my word. By all these it is universally admitted that we are to understand the heavens and the earth, of which he claims to be not only the sovereign, as in the preceding verse, but the creator.—The next expression may be differently understood. Lowth supplies “^ to me, on the authority of the Septuagint (tanv f(iii)t *and adds that this word is absolutely necessary to the sense. But according to Hebrew usage, the verb would not have been expressed if this had been the meaning; and the clause as Lowth completes it does not mean *they are mine, but they were (or have been) mine. The same objection lies in some degree against the explanation of i-w without “b as meaning they exist (i.e. by my creative power). The reference is rather to the time of actual creation, my hand made them and they were, i. e. began to be. (See Gen. 1:3. Ps. 33: 9.) Both tenses of the verb are combined to express the same idea in Rev. 4:11. J. D. Michaelis and Ewald show the true connexion by translating, ‘ my hand made them and so they were or came into existence.’—It is important to the just interpretation of these verses to observe the climax in them. First the temples made by men are contrasted with the great material temple of the universe; then this is itself disparaged by Jehovah as his own handiwork, and still more in comparison \with a nobler temple of a spiritual nature, the renewed and contrite heart. (See ch. 57: 15. 2 Cor. (3: 16.) The same condescending favour is expressed for the same objects elsewhere. (Ps. 34: 19. 13S: G.) To look to, is to have regard to, and implies both approbation and affection. (See Gen. 4:4,5. Ex. 2: ‘25. Num. 16: 15. Judg. 6: 14. Ps. 25: 16.) The Septuagint and Vulgate make the last clause interrogative: To whom shall I look but? etc.— Contrite or broken in heart or spirit is a scriptural description of the subjects of divine grace in its humbling and subduing influences. (Ch. 61: 1.65:14.) The Septuagint renders it Ijaiyinr quiet, implying patient acquiescence in the will of God.— The fit refers to the following description, like TXT in ch. 56: 2.—Gesenius illustrates ^ -.vi by ciiing I Sam. 4: 13, where Eli is described as trembling for the ark of God; but Hitzig justly represents the cases as unlike, and explains the one before us as denoting not solicitude about the word of God, but an earnest inclination to it, or as Ewald renders it a trembling to his word, i. e. an eager and yet fearful haste to execute his will. (Compare Hos. 3:5. II: 10, 1 1.) The use of the phrase in historical prose by Ezra (9:4. 10: 3) is probably borrowed from the place before us.
3. Slaying the ox, smiting a man—sacrificing the sheep, breaking a dog’s neck—offering an oblation, blood of swine—making a memorial of incense, blessing vanity—also they have chosen their ways, and in their abominations has their soul delighted. This translation, although scarcely English, will convey some idea of the singular form of the original, and render intelligible what is said as to the different constructions of the sentence. —The first clause consists of four similar members, in each of which are coupled a form of sacrifice under the Mosaic law and an offering which according to that law was inadmissible and even revolting. The ox and the sheep represent the animal sacrifices, the nn:^ or meat-offering, and the incense those of an unbloody nature. The verbs connected with these nouns are likewise all selected from the technical vocabulary of the law. ana and nsj both originally signify to slay or slaughter, but are especially applied to sacrificial slaughter in the Pentateuch, nbria is the participle of a verb which means to cause to ascend, and in the language of the ritual, upon the altar. “^sj^ is another, of obscurer origin and strict signification, though its use and application are as clear as any of the rest. The modern writers commonly derive it from the noun ^3?*? the technical name of a certain kind of offering, especially of incense (Lev. 24: 7) with or without other vegetable substances (Num. 5: 26). It seems to mean memorial and is usually so translated, and explained upon the ground that the fumes of the incense were conceived of as ascending into heaven and reminding God of the worshipper. The same figure was then transferred to prayers and other spiritual offerings.—Thus we read in Acts 10:4 that the angel said to Cornelius, thy prayers and thine alms are come up before God for a memorial tt^ pvypoavvov, the very phrase employed by the Septuagint in the case before us. The verb then means to offer this oblation, but may be considered as expressing more directly the recalling of the worshipper to God’s remembrance, as it literally means to remind. Being also used in the sense of mentioning, it is so understood here by Luther, while the Vulgate gives it the meaning of its primitive, remembering.— Smiting has here, as often elsewhere, the emphatic sense of wounding mortally or killing. (Gen. 4: 15. Ex. 2: 12. Josh. 20: 5. 1 Sam. 17: 26.) S^s (from q^p the neck) is a technical term used in the law to denote the breaking of the neck of unclean animals when not redeemed from consecration to Jehovah. (Ex. 13: 13. Deut. 21:4.) It expresses therefore a peculiar mode of killing. The dog has ever been regarded in the east as peculiarly unclean, and in that light is coupled with the swine not only in the Bible (Matt. 7: 6. 2 Pet. 2: 22) but by Horace, who twice names dog and swine together as the vilest animals. Swine’s blood alone is without a verb to govern it, which Lowth thinks a defect in the existing text, while Hitzig ascribes it to the haste of composition. Bochart supplies eating, but Vitringa properly objects that all the rest relates to sacrifice. The simplest course is to repeat the leading verb of the same member.—”px is commonly supposed to mean an idol, as it does in a few places; but it is better to retain its generic sense, as more expressive. This is by some understood to be vanity, non entity, or worthlessness, as attributes of idols; by others, injustice or iniquity in general. The whole phrase is commonly explained to mean blessing (i. e. praising or worshipping) an idol, or. as Hitzig thinks, saluting it by kissing (1 Kings 19: 18. Job 31: 27); but Luther gives it the general sense of praising wickedness, an act to which he supposes that of mentioning incense to be likened, while Knobel understands V;J$ adverbially, and the phrase as meaning one who worships God unlawfully or wickedly; but this would be comparing a thing merely with itself, and as all the other secondary phrases denote rites of worship, it is better so to understand this likewise. Such is the meaning of the several expressions: but a question still remains as to their combination. The. simplest syntax is to supply the verb of existence, and thus produce a series of short propositions: He that slays an ox smites a man, etc. Lowth and Ewald understand this to mean that the same person who offers sacrifice to God in the form prescribed by law is also guilty of murder and idolatry, a practice implying gross hypocrisy as well as gross corruption. The ancient versions all supply a particle of likeness—he that slays an ox is like one that murders a man, etc. This is adopted by most of the modern writers, but of late without supplying any thing, the words being taken to assert not mere resemblance but identity, which is the strongest form of comparison. It is certainly more expressive to say that an offerer of cattle is a murderer, than to say that he is like one, though the latter may be after all the real meaning. He is a murderer, i. e. God°so esteems him. According to Lowth and Ewald, the verse describes the coexistence of ritual formality with every kind of wickedness, especially idolatry, as in the first chapter. Gesenius objects that this presupposes the existence of the Mosaic ritual when the passage was written, never dreaming that instead of presupposing it might prove it. His own interpretation and the common one is that the passage relates not to the actual practice of the abominations mentioned, but to the practice of iniquity in general, which renders the most regular and costly offerings as hateful to Jehovah as the most abominable rites of idolatry. Among those who adopt this explanation of the sentence there is still a difference as to its application. Gesenius applies it to the worthlessness of ritual performances without regard to moral duty; Hitzig and Knobel to the worthlessness of sacrifices which might be offered at irj temple built in Babylonia; Henderson to the unlawfulness of sacrifices under the Christian dispensation, with particular reference to the case of the restored Jews arid their temple at Jerusalem. I still regard Vitringa’s exposition as the most exact, profound, and satisfactory, whether considered in itself or in relation to the whole preceding context. He agrees with Gesenius in making the text the general doctrine that sacrifice is hateful in the sight of God if offered in a wicked spirit, but with a special reference to those who still adhered to the old sacrifices after the great sacrifice for sin was come and had been offered once for all. Thus understood this verse extends to sacrifices that which the foregoing verses said of the temple, after the change of dispensations.
V. 4. I also will choose their vexations, and their fear I will bring upon them; because I called and there was no one answering, I spake and they did not hear, and they did evil in my eyes, (.and that which 1 delight not in. they chose. The larger part of this verse, from because to the end, is repeated from ch. 65: 12, and serves not only to connect the passages as parts of an unbroken composition, but also to identify the subjects of discourse in the two places. According to the usual analogy of the masoretic interpunction, the first words of the verse before us ought to be connected as a parallel clause with the last words of v. 3, partly because each verse is complete and of the usual length without the clause in question, partly because the parallelism is indicated by the repetition of the ca. This repetition occurs elsewhere as an equivalent to the Greek xai—x«i, the Latin et—ct, and our both—and, as in the phrase also yesterday, also to-day (Ex. 5: 14). In the case before us it is paraphrased by some translators, as they chose, so I choose, by others, as well they as 1 chose; but perhaps the nearest equivalent in English is, on their part they chose, and on my part I choose. The obvious antithesis between the pronoun of the third and first person precludes the supposition that a different class of persons is denoted by n^n ca. The common version of o’Wsn (delusions) seems to be founded on a misconception of the Vulgate illuslones, which was probably intended to suggest the idea of derision like the ifJLftaiypaia of the Septuagint. The true sense of the word here is essentially the same but somewhat, stronger, viz. annoyances, vexations, which last is employed to represent it by Cocceius. It is in the cognate sense of petulance, caprice, that it is used to denote children in ch. 3: 4. This etymological affinity is wholly disregarded by transl.iting the word here calamities, with Lowth, Gesenius, and others. Their fear is the evil which they fear, as in Prov. 10: 24, where the same idea is expressed almost in the same words.
5. Hear the word of Jehovah, ye that tremble at his word. Your brethren say, (those) hating you and casting you out for my name’s sake, Jehovah will be glorified and we shall gaze upon your joy—and they shall be ashamed. Trembling at (or rather to) Jehovah’s word seems to mean reverently waiting for it. Ye that thus expect a message from Jehovah, now receive it. Vitringa adheres strictly to the masoretic accents, which connect for my name’s sake with what follows: ‘ Your brethren say—those hating you and casting you out—for my name’s sake Jehovah shall be glorified.’ To this construction there are two objections: first, that the same persons who are three times mentioned in the plural are abruptly made to speak in the singular, for my name’s sake, an enallage which although possible is not to be assumed without necessity; and secondly, that for my name’s sake is not the appropriate expression of the thought supposed to be intended, which would rather be by my means. The majority of later writers are agreed in so far departing from the accents as to join the phrase in question with what goes before; which is the less objectionable here, as we have seen already in the preceding verses some appearance of inaccuracy in the masoretic interpunction. The neuter verb 1237 is here applied to God, as it is elsewhere to men (Job 14: 21) and cities (Ezek. 27: 25), in the sense of being glorious rather than glorified, which would require a passive form. It may be construed either as an optative or future; but the last is more exact, and really includes the other. All are agreed that these two words (nj^ nar?) are put into the mouth of the brethren before mentioned; but it is made a question whether the next phrase, Qsnn^toa n5T]?}, is spoken by them likewise. Piscator, followed by the English and Dutch versions, makes this the language of the Prophet, and translates it, and he shall appear to your joy. Besides the doubtful sense thus put upon the preposition, this translation really involves a change of pointing, so as to read fi&na or a very unusual construction of the participle. Vitringa makes these words the language of a chorus, and supposes them to mean, ‘ but we shall see your joy and they shall be ashamed.’ The modern writers who refer ^j, as we have seen, to God himself, are obliged to make nx^D the language of another speaker,—unless they assume a pluralis majestaticus, as some old Jewish writers did, according to Aben Ezra, which they do by adding it to what immediately precedes,—’ Your brethren say, Jehovah shall be glorified and we shall see your happiness;’ the verb n&n, as usual when followed by the preposition a, meaning to view or gaze at with strong feeling, and in this case with delight. This construction is unanimously sanctioned by the latest Germ n writers, and is in itself much simpler and more natural than any other. As to the application of the verse there is the usual diversity of judgment. Jarchi and Abarbenel apply it to the treatment of the Jews in their present exile by the Mohammedans and Romans, called their brethren because descendants of Ishmael and Esau. Gesenius seems to understand it as relating to the scornful treatment of the exiled Jews in Babylon by their heathen enemies. Knobel denies that the latter would be spoken of as brethren, and applies it to the treatment of the pious Jews by their idolatrous countrymen. Hitzig questions even this application of brethren, and explains the verse of the contempt with which the exiles who were willing to return were treated by the unbelievers who remained behind. But how could those who thus remained be said to cast out such as insisted on returning? The phrase may possibly be taken in the vague sense of despising or treating with contempt; but this diluted explanation, though admissible in case of necessity, cannot take precedence of the strict one, or of the interpretation which involves it. Vitringa, although rather infelicitous in his construction and translation of the sentence, has excelled all other writers in his exhibition of its general import. He applies it, in accordance with his previous hypothesis, to the rejection of the first Christian converts by the unbelieving Jews: Hear the word (or promise) of Jehovah, ye that wait for it with trembling confidence: your brethren (the unconverted Jews) who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake, have said (in so doing), ‘ Jehovah will be glorious (or glorify himself in your behalf no doubt), and we shall witness your salvation ‘ (a bitter irony like that in ch. 5: 19); but they (who thus speak) shall themselves be confounded (by beholding what they now consider so incredible). Besides the clearness and coherence of this exposition in itself considered, and its perfect harmony with what we have arrived at as the true sense of the whole foregoing context, it is strongly recommended by remarkable coincidences with the New Testament, some of which Vitringa specifies. That the unbelieving Jews might still be called the brethren of the converts, if it needed either proof or illustration, might derive it from Paul’s mode of address to them in Acts 22: 1, and of reference to them in Rom. 9: 3. The phrase those hating you may be compared with John 15: 18. 17: 14. Matt. 10: 2v>. 1 Thess. 2: 14; and Citsiing you out with John 16: 2. and Matthew 18: 17; for my names sake with Matt. 24: 10; to which may be added the interesting fact that the verb rw and its derivatives are used to this day by the Jews in reference to excommunication. Thus understood the verse is an assurance to the chosen remnant in whom the true Israel was to be perpetuated, that although their unbelieving countrymen might cast them out with scorn and hatred for a time, their spite should soon be utterly confounded. The great truth involved in the change of dispensations may be signally developed and exemplified hereafter, as Henderson infers from this passage that it will be, in the case of the restored Jews who receive the doctrine of the gospel and their brethren who persist in endeavouring to establish the old ritual; but we dare not abandon the fulfilment which has actually taken place for the sake of one which may never happen, since we have not been able thus far to discover any clear prediction of it.
0. A voice of tumult from (he city! A voice from the ternpJe! The voice of Jehovah, rendering requital to his enemies! The Hebrew word •jixcj is never applied elsewhere to a joyful cry or a cry of lamentation, liu lo the tumult of war, the rushing sound of jinnies and the shock of battle, in which sense it is repeatedly employed by Isaiah. The enemies here mentioned must of course he those \who had just been described as the despisers and persecutors of their brethren, and whose confusion after being threatened generally in the verse preceding is here graphically represented in detail. Even A ben Ezra says, these enemies of God are those who cast the others out. The description therefore cannot without violence be under stood of foreign or external enemies. These data furnished by usage and the context will enable us to estimate the various interpretations of the versebefore us. If what has just been stated be correct, the noise heard by the Prophet cannot be the rejoicing of the Maccabees and their adherents when the temple was evacuated by Antiochus, as Cretins imagines; nor the preaching of the gospel by the apostles beginning at Jerusalem, as Junius and Tremellius think; nor a voice calling for vengeance on the Romans, according to Jarchi; nor the blasphemies of the heathen, according to Abarbenel. Nor can the words, if rightly understood as meaning the tumult of war, be applied to the destruction of Gog and Magog, as by Kimchi; or to any other external enemies, as by the modern Germans. These indeed are not a little puzzled to explain the verse in any consistency with their hypo thesis. Gesenius admits that there is so Air a difficulty as the anti-theocratic party stayed behind in Babylon, and queries whether the Prophet may not have expected many such lo go up in the hope of worldly advantages, and there to be smitten by the divine judgments! maurer as usual sees no difficulty in the case, because Jehovah is described as punishing the \wicked Jews not in Jerusalem but from it. Hitzig makes it a description of the general judgment foretold by Joel, when all the nations should be judged at Jerusalem (Joel 4: 2). Knobel confidently adds that the Prophet expected this great judgment to fall specially upon the Babylonians, whom Cyrus had not punished sufficiently, and \with them on the idolatrous exiles. Umbreit, who seems to float in mid-air between faith and unbelief in his interpretation of this passage, makes the noise a joyful noise and separates it from Jehovah’s voice bringing vengeance to his external enemies.—The only Christian interpreter that need be quoted here is Henderson, who says that “ by a remarkable and astounding interposition of Jehovah the scheme of the Jews shall be defeated; the very temple which they shall be in the act of erecting shall be the scene of judgment.” Then adopting the groundless notion of the German writers, that the voice of Jehovah always means thunder, he adds that “in all probability the projected temple \will be destroyed by lightning.” This is certainly sufficiently specific, but by no means so entitled to belief as the fulfilment of the prophecy which has already taken place. In strict adherence to the usage of the words and to requisitions of the context, both immediate and remote, the verse may be applied to the giving up of Zion and the temple to its enemies, as a final demonstration that the old economy was at an end, and that the sins of Israel were now to be visited on that generation. The assailants of Jerusalem and of the Jews were now no longer those of God himself, but rather chosen instruments to execute his vengeance on his enemies, the unbelieving Jews themselves. Vitringa goes too far when he restricts the tumult here described to the noise actually made by the Romans in the taking of Jerusalem.—It rather comprehends the whole confusion of the siege and conquest, and a better commentary on this brief but grand prediction cannot be desired than that afforded by Josephus in his narrative of what may be regarded as not only the most dreadful siege on record but in some respects the most sublime and critical conjuncture in all history, because coincident with the transition from the abrogated system of the old economy to the acknowledged introduction of the new, a change of infinitely more extensive influence on human character and destiny than many philosophical historians have been willing to admit or even able to discover.
7. Before she travailed she brought forth, before her pain came she was delivered of a male. All interpreters agree that the mother here described is Zion, that the figure is essentially the same as in ch. 49: 21, and that in both cases an increase of numbers is represented as a birth, while in that before us the additional idea of suddenness is expressed by the figure of an unexpected birth. The difference between the cases is that in the other a plurality of children is described, while in this the whole increase is represented in the aggregate as a single birth. As to the specification of the sex, some regard it as a mere illustration of the oriental predilection for male children, not intended to have any special emphasis, while others make it significant of strength as well as numbers in the increase of the people. As to the application of the passage there is nothing in the terms employed which can determine it, but it must follow the sense put upon the foregoing context or the general hypothesis of the interpreter. Those who see nothing in these chapters but the restoration of the Jews from Babylon explain this verse as meaning simply that the joyful return of the exiles to the long forsaken city would be like an unexpected birth to a childless mother. Accord ing to Henderson, “ the language forcibly expresses the sudden and unexpected reproduction of the Jewish nation in their own land in the latter day; their future recovery is the object of the divine purpose, and every providential arrangement shall be made for effecting it; yet the event shall be unexpectedly sudden.” In both these cases there is an accommodation of the passage to the exegetical hypothesis without any attempt to show that the latter derives confirmation from it. In both cases too there is a certain 481 abruptness in the transition from the judgment threatened in the preceding verse to the promise here recorded. Knobel somewhat awkwardly describes the general judgment on the nations at Jerusalem, including specially the Babylonians and apostate Jews, as being followed by the speedy return of the believing exiles. Henderson in like manner makes the restoration follow the destruction of the projected temple by lightning, and yet supposes it to be described as unexpectedly sudden. Such retrogressions in the order of events are not without example, but they certainly give no advantage to the theories in which they are involved over such as have no need of them. Of this description is Vitringa’s doctrine that the passage has respect to the vocation of the gentiles as immediately consequent upon the excision of the Jews—a sequence of events which is continually held up to view in the New Testament history. (Luke 24: 47. Acts 3: 26. 13: 46. 18:6. Rom. 1: 16. 2: 10.) The only questionable point in his interpretation is his pressing the mere letter of the metaphor too far by representing the gen tiles or the gentile churches as the male child of which the apostolic church was unexpectedly delivered. It is perfectly sufficient and in better taste, to understand the parturition as a figure for the whole eventful crisis of the change of dispensations, and the consequent change in the condition of the church. This indestructible ideal person, when she might have seemed to be reduced to nothing by the defection of the natural Israel, is vastly and suddenly augmented by the introduction of the gentiles, a succession of events which is here most appropriately represented as the birth of a male child without the pains of childbirth.
8. Who hath heard such a thing 1 who hath seen such things? Shall a land be brought forth in one day, or shall a nation be born at once? For Zion hath travailed, she hath also brought forth her children. This verse, in the form of pointed interrogation, represents the event previously mentioned as without example. The terms of the sentence are exceed ingly appropriate both to the return from Babylon and the future restoration of the Jews, but admit at the same time of a wider application to the change of economy, the birth of the church of the New Testament. )nx appears to be construed as a masculine, because it is put for the inhabitants, as in ch. 9: 18. 26: 18 (compare Judges 18: 30); or the verb may take that form according to the usual license when the object follows, as in Gen. 13: 6. Ps. 105: 30.—The causative sense given to this verb in the English and some other versions is not approved by the later lexicographers, who make btrn a simple passive. Beck’s application of the phrase to the creation of the earth is forbidden by the parallel term “H*.—To avoid the apparent contradiction between this and the foregoing verse as to the pains of childbirth, some explain mln w rfcn to mean, ‘ scarcely had she travailed 31 when she brought forth,’ which is a forced construction. Hitzig attains the same end by making sons the object of both verbs, and making both synonymous. Both these expedients are unnecessary, as the reference is merely to the short time required for the birth, as if he had said, she has (already) travailed, she has also brought forth,
9. Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth 1 saith Jehovah. Or am I the one causing to bring forth, and shall I shut up? saith thy God. Without pretending to enumerate the various explanations of this verse, some of which are as disgusting as absurd, it will be sufficient to adduce as specimens Jerome’s interpretation, which supposes him to ask whether he who causes others to bring forth shall not bring forth himself; and that of Cocceius, whether he who causes others to bring forth shall not cause Zion to do so likewise. The sense now put upon the figure by the general consent of interpreters, is that he who begins the work may be expected to accomplish it, to be both its author and its finisher. The reason why it is expressed in this form is not any peculiar adaptation or expressive ness in these unusual metaphors, but simply that the increase of the church had been already represented as a birth, and the additional ideas of the writer are expressed without a change of figure. The precise connexion of the verse with that before it seems to be that it extenuates the wonder which had been described by representing it as something which was to be expected in the case supposed. That is to say, if God had undertaken to supply the place of what his church had lost by new accessions, the extent and suddenness of the effect could not be matters of surprise. On the contrary, it would have been indeed surprising, if he who began the change had stopped it short, and interfered for the prevention of his own designs.—On the metaphor of this verse and the one preceding, compare ch. 26: 18; on the peculiar use of W in this application, Gen. 16: 2. 20: 18.
10. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem and exult in her, all that love her; be glad with her with gladness, all those mourning for her. This is an indirect prediction of the joyful change awaiting Zion, clothed in the form of a command or invitation to her friends to rejoice with her. The expression fin i^a may either have the same sense, viz. that of sympathetic joy, or it may mean rejoice in her or within her in a local sense, or in her as the object of your joy, all which constructions are grammatical and justifiable by usage. Different interpreters, according to their various exegetical hypotheses, explain this as a prophecy of Israel’s ancient restoration from the Babylonish exile, or of their future restoration from the present exile and dispersion, or of the glorious enlargement of the church after the excision of the unbelieving Jews and the throes of that great crisis in which old things passed away and 483 the nefl heavens and the new earth came into existence; which last I believe to betne true sense, for reasons which have been already fully stated.
11. That ye may suck and be satisfied from the breast of her consoJaticns, that ye may milk out and enjoy yourselves from the fulness (or the full breast) of her glory. Those who have sympathized with Zion in her joys and sorrows shall partake of her abundance and her glory. The figure of a mother is continued, but beautifully varied. The Taro-um takes TfcS in its usual sense of spoil or plunder; but see above on ch. 60: 16. Hendewerk, with some of the older writers, reads because instead of so that or in order that; but this is a needless substitution of a meaning rare and doubtful at the best. Suck and be satisfied, milk out and enjoy yourselves may be regarded as examples of hendiadys, meaning suck to satiety and milk out with delight; but no such change in the form of the translation is required or admissible. The Targum explains t^ as meaning wine; Lowth proposes to read “pt provision, but there is no such word; Cocceius trans lates it animals, as in Ps. 50: 11. SO: 14, which makes no sense; Jerome and Symmachus make it mean variety (omnimoda); but the modern writers are agreed that it originally signifies radiation or a radiating motion, then the radiating flow of milk or other liquids, and then fulness or the full breast whence the radiation flows. Glory includes wealth or abundance, but much more, viz. all visible superiority or excellence.
12. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold I am extending to her peace like a river, and like an overflowing stream the glory of nations—and ye shall suck—on the side shall ye be borne, and on the knees shall ye be dandled. As ^K is sometimes interchanged with b?, Vitringa here translates extending over, i. e. so as to cover or submerge. But the force and beauty of the Prophet’s figure is secured, without any departure from the ordinary usage, by supposing it to represent a river suddenly or gradually widening its channel or its flow until it reaches to a certain spot, its actual submersion being not expressed, though it may be implied. That the particle retains its pro per meaning may be argued from the use of the entire phrase in Gen. 39: 21. Another suggestion of Vitringa, which has been rejected by the later writers, is that iw and bns here denote specifically the Euphrates and the Nile, which last he regards as a derivative of the Hebrew word. But the incorrectness of this etymology, the absence of the article which elsewhere makes the nouns specific, and the uselessness of this supposition to the force and beauty of the passage, all conspire to condemn it. Peace is here to be taken in its frequent sense of welfare or prosperity. (See above, on ch. 48: 18.) The words and ye shall suck are added to announce a resumption of the figure of the foregoing verse. The Targum and Vulgate read itt) fcs \ instead of 12 bs, while Houbigant and Lowth insert the former after suck (ye shall suck at the breast, ye shall be carried at the side). Equally gratuitous is the addition of the pronoun by Henderson (ye shall suck them) and Hendewerk (ye shall suck it), and Gesenius’s paraphrase (zum Gtmss). For the sense of is b?, see above, on ch. 60: 4, and compare ch. 49: 22. The objects of address in this verse, are the sons of Zion, to be gathered from all nations.
13. As a man whom his mother comfortelh, so will I comfort yrit, and in Jerusalem shall ye be. comforted. De Wette’s version, ‘ as a man who comforts his mother’ (der seine Mutter trostef) is so utterly at variance with the form of the original, that it must be regarded as an inadvertence, or per haps as an error of the press. The image 48: 18 is essentially the same with that in ch. 49: 15, but with a striking variation. The English Version, which, in multitudes of cases, inserts man where the original expression is inde finite, translating ovdsis, for example, always 710 man, here reverses the process and dilutes a man to one. The same liberty is taken by many other versions old and new, occasioned no doubt by a feeling of the incongruity of making a full-grown man the subject of maternal consolations. The difficulty might if it were necessary, be avoided by explaining tt^iK to mean a man-child, as it does in Gen. 4:1.1 Sam. 1:11, and in many other cases. But the truth is that the solecism, which has been so carefully expunged by these translators, is an exquisite trait of patriarchal manners, in their primitive simplicity. Compare Gen. 24: 67. Judges 17:2. 1 Kings 2: 19,20, and the affecting scenes between Thetis and Achilles in the Iliad. Of the modern writers, Umbreit alone does justice to this beautiful allusion, not only by a strict translation, but by adding as a gloss, ‘ with the consolation of a mother who, as no other can, soothes the ruffled spirit of a man (rfes Mannes).’’ Equally characteristic is the brief remark of Hitzig, that ’ the tti^ is not well chosen.’—Lowth in another respect shows what would now be thought a morbid distaste for simplicity by changing the passive, ye shall be comforted into ye shall receive consolation, in order to avoid a repetition which to any unsophisticated ear is charming.—The in Jerusalem suggests the only means by which these blessings are to be secured, viz. a union of affection and of interest with the Israel of God, to whom alone they are promised.
14. And ye shall see, and your heart shall leap (with joy), and your bones like grass shall sprout, and the hand of Jehovah shall be known to his servants, and he shall be indignant at his enemies. The object of address still continues to be those who had loved Zion, and had mourned for her, and whom God had promised to comfort in Jerusalem. They are here assured that they shall see for themselves the fulfilment of these promises. —Ewald gives toto its primary sense of bounding, leaping, which agrees well with the strong figure in the next clause, where the bones, as the seat of strength, or the framework of the body, are compared with springing herbage to denote their freshness and vigour. Here again Ewald makes the language more expressive by translating become, green like the young grass, which, however, is a paraphrase and not an exact version, as the primary meaning of the Hebrew verb is to burst out or put forth. (For the figure, compare ch. 27: 6. 58: 11. Job 21: 24. Prov. 3:8. 15: 30. Ps. 51: 10, and e converso Ps. 6:3. 22: 15. 31: 11.) There is no need of supposing with Hitzig that the human frame is likened to a tree of which the bones are the branches, and the muscles, flesh, and skin, the leaves. (See Job 10:11.)—The hand of God is known when his power is recognised as the cause of any given effect. Gesenius makes «”i?T’p the passive of ^’‘Tin and fix the sign of the second accusative (it is made known his servants i. e. to his servants). But Hitzig explains the first word as the passive of “11! and fix as a preposition equivalent to b? in ch. 53: 1 and to ”*& in Ezek. 38: 23, where the same passive verb is used. The English Version follows Luther in translating fi?t as a noun, which never has this form, however, out of pause. It is correctly explained by Aben Ezra as a verb with Vav conversive. The nx may be either the objective particle, as this verb usually governs the accusative, or a preposition equivalent to bs csj in Dan. 11: 30, and to our expression, he is angry with another. Noyes makes this verb agree with hand; which would be ungrammatical, as *n is feminine. The whole clause is omitted in Hendewerk’s translation. It is important as affording a transition from the promise to the threatening, in accordance with the Prophet’s constant practice of presenting the salvation of God’s people as coincident and simultaneous with the destruction of his enemies.
15. For lo, Jehovah in fire will come, and like the whirlwind his chariots, to appease in fury his anger, and his rebuke in flames of fire. This is an amplification of the brief phrase at the end of v. 14. Lowth reads as afire, with the Septuagint version, which is probably a mere inadvertence. Luther and others translate with fire (see v. 16), but the modern writers generally in fire, that is enveloped and surrounded by it, as on Sinai. (See above, ch. 29: 6. 30: 27, 30, and compare Ps. 50: 3.)—The second clause is repeated in Jer. 4: 13. The points of comparison are swiftness and violence. The allusion is to the two-wheeled chariots of ancient war fare. Vitringa supposes angels to be meant, on the authority of Ps. 68: 18. (Compare Ps. 18: 11.) Hendewerk supposes an allusion to the chariots and horses of fire, mentioned 2 Kings 2:11. 6: 17. (Compare Hab. 3: 8.) The English Version supplies with before his chariots, but this is forbidden by the order of the words in Hebrew, and unnecessary, as the chariots may be construed either with shall come or with the substantive verb are or shall be.—Ewald agrees with the older writers who give ^it’rj the sense of rendering, returning, recompensing, which it has in Ps. 54:7. Hos. 12: 15, and in which it is construed with vengeance in Deut. 32: 41, 43. Hender son prefers the sense of causing to return, implying repetition and severity. Gesenius adheres to the usage of this very verb and noun in Ps. 78: 38 and Job 9:13 (compare Gen. 27: 44, 45), where it means to withdraw anger i. e. to appease it, which may seem to be at variance with the context here, but is really, as Maurer has observed, the most appropriate and elegant expression of the writer’s meaning, which is that of wrath appeased by being gratified. (Compare ch. 1: 24 and the Earlier Prophecies, p. 17.)— Lowth’s emendation of the text by reading rr^ri (from -^2) to breathe out is gratuitous and not supported by the usage of that verb itself.—Luther and Hendewerk make “isx J”>sr, a kind of intensive compound (Zorncsgluth), as in ch. 42: 25; but it is better with Maurer to regard nans as qualifying a^ttjrt and explaining how his anger was to be appeased, viz. in fury, i. e. in the free indulgence of it.—God’s rebuke is often coupled with his wrath as its effect or practical manifestation. (See above, ch. 17: 13. 51: 20. 54: 9.) Most writers seem to make rebuke dependent on the preceding verb; but Hendewerk apparently regards it as an independent clause, exactly similar in form to the second member of the sentence, and like the whirlwind his chariots, and his rebuke in flames of fire. The leading noun may then, instead of being governed by ^ttitt, agree with is or shall be understood. The whole verse represents Jehovah, considered in relation to his enemies, as a consuming fire. (Deut. 4: 24. Heb. 12: 29. Comp. 2 Thess. 1: 8.)
16. For by fire is Jehovah striving and by his sword with all flesh, and multiplied (or many) are the slain of Jehovah. Fire and sword are mentioned as customary means of destruction, especially in war. The reflexive form oar a has here its usual sense of reciprocal judgment, litigation, or contention in general. (See above, ch. 43: 26.) Gesenius makes it mean directly to punish, which it never means except by implication: and Hitzig, on the same ground, explains ns as the sign of the accusative; but that it is really a preposition is clear from Ezek. 17: 20 and Joel 4: 2.— The repetition of with by Noyes and Henderson, ‘ with fire, with his sword, with all flesh,’ is a cacophonous tautology not found in the original, where two distinct prepositions are employed, which Lowth has \well translated by and with.—According to Knobel, all flesh means all nations, and especially the Babylonians who had not been sufficiently punished by Cyrus. Henderson applies the verses to the battle of Armageddon, described in Rev. 16: 14-21. 19: 11-21, and Vitringa admits a reference to the same event. But this interpretation rests upon the false assumption, often noticed hereto fore, that the Apocalyptic prophecies are exegetical of those in the Old Testament from which their images and terms are borrowed.—A much surer clew O to the primary application of the one before us is afforded by our Saviour’s words in Matth. 24: 22, where in speaking of the speedy destruction of Jerusalem he says that excepting the elect no flesh should be saved, i. e. no portion of the Jewish race but those who were ordained to everlasting life through faith in him. This application of Isaiah’s prophecy agrees exactly with the view already taken of the whole preceding context as relating to that great decisive crisis in the history of the church and of the world, the dissolution of the old economy and the inauguration of the new. Accord ing to this view of the passage what is here said of fire, sword, and slaughter, was fulfilled not only as a figurative prophecy of general destruction, but in its strictest sense in the terrific carnage which attended the extinction of the Jewish state, and of which, more emphatically than of any other event out wardly resembling it, it might be said that many were the slain of Jehovah.
17. The (men) hallowing themselves and the (men) cleansing themselves to (or towards) the gardens after one in the midst, eaters of swine’s flesh and vermin and mouse, together shall cease (or come to an end), saith Jehovah. This verse is closely connected with the one before it, and explains who are meant by the slain of Jehovah. It is almost universally agreed that these are here described as gross idolaters; but Henderson, with some of the old Jewish writers, is inclined to understand it of the Mohammedans, as we shall see. But even among those who understand it of idolaters, there is no small difference of opinion in relation to particular expressions. The class of persons meant is obviously the same as that described in ch. 65: 3; 5, the gardens and the swine’s flesh being common to both. The reflexive participles in the first clause are technical terms for ceremonial purification under the law of Moses, here transferred to heathen rites. The older writers for the most part follow the Vulgate in explaining rvisan-‘bN as synonymous with nisaa in ch. 65: 3. Even Gesenius admits this sense, although he gives the preference to that of for. But Maurer speaks of it as one no longer needing refutation, and returns to the strict translation of the Septuagint («V tov$ x/J^oiv), implying that they purified themselves not in but on their way to the gardens, which is essentially the sense conveyed by the translation /or, i. e. in preparation for the gardens where the idolatrous services were to be performed. The next words (rpna ^r.x tem) are those which constitute the principal difficulty of the sentence. This some have undertaken to remove by emendations of the text. Even the Masora reads rns, which is only changing the gender of the numeral. Ewald assimilates the first two words so as to read which he renders hinten hinten, i. e. far back. Lowth on the other hand reads ^nx ‘inx one one, i. e. one by one, or one after the other. The same reading seems to be implied in Luther’s version, one here and another there. The Peshito has one after another, and the same sense is expressed by the Targum, crowd after crowd, and by Symmachus and Theodotion oTiiaco aHijkoor. Schelling accordingly inserts a word, reading “inx inx inx. Whether a various reading is implied in the Septuagint version (*V 101$ ngo&vQOis) or merely a peculiar explanation of “rnx is a matter of dispute. Some, without a change of text, bring out the same sense by supposing an ellipsis. Most interpreters take irix (or according to the masoretic Ken n^) as the numeral one, agreeing either with grove (Aben Ezra), or with pool (Kimchi), or with tree (Saadias), or with priest or priestess (Gesenius); which last may be given as the current explanation, in which an allusion is supposed to an idolatrous procession led by a hierophant. Maurer applies ^nx to the idol, which he supposes to be so called in contempt, one being then equivalent to the Latin quidam,nescio quern. Vitringa follows Scaliger, Bochart, and other learned men of early date, in treating ^nx as the proper name of a Syrian idol, called by Sanchoniathon “Adwdog and by Pliny and Macrobius Adad, the last writer adding expressly that the name means one. For the difference of form various explanations have been suggested, and among the rest a corruption in the classical orthography, which is rendered exceedingly improbable, however, by the substantial agreement of the Greek and Latin writers above cited. Rosenmiiller acquiesces in Vitringa’s suggestion that the difference of form may be explained by the exclusion of the aspirate from the middle of a Greek word, the hiatus being remedied by the insertion of a dental; but Gesenius replies that inx would more naturally have been written *A%a8og and Achadus in Greek and Latin. The masoretic reading nnx is identified by Clericus with Hecate, in whose Egyptian worship swine’s flesh was particularly used. Henderson calls attention to a very striking coincidence between the use of this word here and the constant application of the cognate one in Arabic (<X^>!) by the Mohammedans to God as being One, in express contradiction to the doctrine of the Trinity. This is especially the case in the 112th Surah of the Koran, to which they attach peculiar doctrinal importance. The common editions of the Vulgate render “inx here by janua (like the Peshito); but some of more authority have unatoj in accordance with the marginal Keri. Besides the difficulty which attends the absolute use of the numeral without a noun, there is another of the same kind arising from the like use of T^n midst without any thing to limit or determine it. Gesenius attaches to it here, as he does in 2 Sam. 4: 6, the sense of the interior or court of an oriental house, and applies it to the edifice in which the lustrations were performed before entering the gardens; which may also be the meaning of the Septuagint version, f/v rovf xfaovg, lv rotV nyodvQoig. Maurer and others follow Scaliger, who makes it mean the midst of the grove or garden, where the idol was commonly erected. But Knobel, by ingeniously combining Gen. 42: 5. Ps. 42: 5. Ps. 68: 26, makes it not improbable that in the midst means in the crowd or procession of worshippers. All these constructions adhere to the masoretic points and interpunction. But Lowth and Henderson follow Theodotion and Symmachus in reading T|ina and connecting it directly with what follows, in the midst of those eating swine’s flesh, etc. implying, as Lowth thinks, a participation in these impure rites, while Henderson supposes the Mohammedans to be distinguished, as to this point, from the Pagans who surround them. Boettcher departs still further from the usual interpunction, and includes “jinn not in the description of the sin, but in the threatening of punishment — in the midst of the eaters of swine’s flesh etc. together shall they perish. One reason urged by Henderson in favour of his own construction is without weight, namely, that fc^rx being without the article cannot be in apposition with the words at the beginning of the sentence, but must designate a totally different class of persons. He did not observe that n^=x is rendered definite by the addition of a qualifying noun, which being equivalent to the article excludes it. As to the eating of swine’s flesh, see above, on ch. 65: 4. — fp.^ may either have its generic sense of abomination or abominable food, or the more specific sense of flesh offered to idols (Hitzig), or of the smaller unclean animals, whether quad rupeds, insects, or reptiles, to which it is specially applied in the Law (Lev. 11: 41-43), and in reference to which it corresponds very nearly, in effect, to the English word vermin. Spencer thinks that it means a kid boiled in its mother’s milk. (Ex. 23: 19. 34: 26.) Against the wide sense of abomination and in favour of some more specific meaning is the collocation of the word between swine’s flesh and the mouse, or as the modern writers understand the word the jerboa or Arabian field-mouse, which is eaten by the Arabs. The actual use of any kind of mouse in the ancient heathen rites has never been established, the modern allegations of the fact being founded on the place before us. As to the application of the passage, those who make the Babylonian exile the great subject of the prophecy, see nothing here but a description of the practices of those Jews who apostatized to heathenism, and who were to be cut off by the same judgments which secured the restoration of their brethren. J. D. Michaelis confesses his uncertainty in what sense this description will be verified hereafter; and Henderson, who holds the same hypothesis, pleads guilty to a part of the same ignorance, but bravely and ingeniously endeavours, by the combination of the particular contrivances already mentioned, to impart some plausibility to his assumption that the prophecy has reference to the future restoration of the Jews. This could not have been done with greater skill or more success than he has shown in his attempt to make it probable that what is here predicted is the future destruction of the Moslems as the enemies of Christ’s divinity, and noted for their trust in outward rites, especially ablutions—their destruction in the midst of the idolaters whom now they hate most bitterly and most profoundly scorn. This explanation seems to have been framed by its ingenious author without any reference to the dictum of the Rabbins, that the first clause of the verse is a description of the Moslems and their purifications, but the next of the Christians as eaters of swine-flesh, and regardless of all difference in meats and drinks. The most offensive part of this interpretation, although extant in the writings of Kimchi himself, has been expunged from most editions for prudential motives. (See Vitringa on the passage.) It is not to be expected that the advocates of any exegetical hypothesis will here abandon it if able by any means to reconcile it with the Prophet’s language, and accordingly I see no cause to change my previous conclusion that this prophecy relates to the excision of the Jews and the vocation of the gentiles, or in other words the change of dispensation. The apparent difficulty which arises from the description of such gross idolatry as all admit to have had no existence among the Jews after their return from exile, is removed by the consideration that the Jews were cast off not for the sins of a single generation, but of the race throughout its ancient history, and that idolatry was not only one of these, but that which most abounded in the days of the Prophet; so that when he looks forward to the great catastrophe and paints its causes, he naturally dips his pencil in the colours which were nearest and most vivid to his own perceptions, without meaning to exclude from his description other sins as great or greater in themselves, which afterwards supplanted these revolting practices as the besetting national transgressions of apostate Israel. A writer in the early days of Wilberforce and Clarkson in denouncing God’s wrath upon England would most naturally place the oppression of the negro in the foreground of his picture, even if he had been gifted to foresee that this great evil in the course of time would be completely banished from the sight of men by new forms of iniquity successively usurping its conspicuous position, such as excessive luxury, dishonest speculation, and ambitious encroachment on the rightful possessions of inferior powers in the east. If it were really God’s purpose to destroy that mighty kingdom for its national offences, he would not lose sight of ancient halfforgotten crimes, because they have long since given place to others more or less atrocious. So in reference to Israel, although the generation upon whom the final blow fell were hypocrites, not idolaters, the misdeeds of their fathers entered into the account, and they were cast off not merely as the murderers of the Lord of Life, but as apostates who insulted Jehovah to his face by bowing down to stocks and stones in groves and gardens, and by eating swine’s flesh, the abomination, and the mouse. And as all this was included in the grounds of their righteous condemnation, it might well be rendered prominent in some of the predictions of that great catastrophe.— Another possible interpretation of the passage, in direct application to the unbelieving Jews who were contemporary with our Saviour, is obtained by supposing an allusion to v. 3, where those who’still clung to the abrogated ritual are put upon a level with the grossest idolaters, and may here be absolutely so described, just as the rulers and people of Jerusalem in ch. 1: 9 are addressed directly as rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, on account of the comparison immediately preceding. This view of the passage is undoubtedly favoured by the mention of swine’s flesh in both places, which would naturally make the one suggestive of the other. Neither of these exegetical hypotheses requires the assumption of imaginary facts, such as the practice of idolatry by the Jews in exile, or their return to it hereafter.
18. And I—their works and their thoughts—it is come—to gather all the nations and the tongues—and they shall come and see my glory. This is an exact transcript of the Hebrew sentence, the grammatical construction of which has much perplexed interpreters. Luther cuts the knot by arbitrary transposition, I will come and gather all their works and thoughts with all nations etc.; J. D. Michaelis, by a no less arbitrary change of pointing, so as to read, they are my work, even mine, and my thought, . e. care. Tremellius and Cocceius among the older writers, Hitzig and Hendewerk among the moderns, follow Jarchi in taking the pronoun as a nominative absolute and construing Mxa with the nouns preceding: As for me—their works and thoughts are come to gather etc. Hitzig explains are come as meaning they have this effect; while Hendewerk gives to the nouns themselves the sense of recompense, as in ch. 40: 10 and Rev. 14: 13. Henderson has substantially the same construction, but supplies before me after come, and takes ystf) as a simple future, I will assemble’, both which assumptions are extremely forced. Vitringa, Gesenius, and most other writers, suppose an aposiopesis or a double ellipsis, supplying a verb after •obK and a noun before nss. The verb most commonly supplied is know, as in the English Version (I know their works and their thoughts), and substantially in°the Chaldee Paraphrase (revealed before me are their works and thoughts). The noun supplied is time, according to the dictum of Aben Ezra. But the verb supplied by Maurer is I will punish, and he makes rixa impersonal, it comes or it is come, as we say, Is it come to this? without referring to a definite subject. In this obscurity and doubt as to the syntax, there is something attractive in the theory of Ewald and Knobel, who sup ply nothing, but regard the first clause as a series of broken and irregular ejaculations, in which the expression of the thought is interrupted by the writer’s feelings.—Common to all these explanations is the general assumption that the words and thoughts of the persons in question are in some way represented as the cause or the occasion of the gathering mentioned in the other clause. The use of the word tongues as as an equivalent to nations, has reference to national distinctions springing from diversity of language, and is founded on Gen. 10: 5, 20, 31, by the influence of which passage and the one before us it became a phrase of frequent use in Daniel, whose predictions turn so much upon the calling of the gentiles. (Dan. 3: 4, 7, 31. 5: 19.) The representation of this form of speech as an Aramaic idiom by some modern critics is characteristic of their candor.—To see the glory of Jehovah is a phrase repeatedly used elsewhere to denote the special manifestation of his presence and his power (ch. 40: 4. 59: 19. 60: 2), and is applied by Ezekiel to the display of his punitive justice in the sight of all mankind (Ezek. 39: 8). Cocceius refers this passage to the Reformation and the Council of Trent. The Jews understand it of the strokes to be inflicted hereafter on their enemies. But as we have seen that the crimes described in the foregoing verses are not those of the heathen, but of the apostate Jews, whose deeds and thoughts must therefore be intended in the first clause, the explanation most in harmony with this immediate context, as well as with the whole drift of the prophecy thus far, is that which makes the verse before us a distinct prediction of the calling of the gentiles, both to witness the infliction of God’s vengeance on the Jews, and to supply their places in his church or chosen people. It is perhaps to the language of this prophecy that Christ himself alludes in Matt. 24: 31. (Compare also John 5: 25.)
19. And I will place in them (or among them) a sign, and I will send of them survivors (or escaped ones) to the nations, Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, drawers of the bow, Tubal and Javan, the distant isles, which have not heard my fame and have not seen my glory, and they shall declare my glory among the nations. By a sign Grotius understands a signal, making nix equivalent to cs in ch. 5: 26. 11: 12. 18: 3. 62: 10. Gesenius objects to the sense thus put upon rix as not sustained by usage; but Maurer defends it as easily deducible from that of a military standard, which it has in Num. 2: 2. Most modern writers agree, however, with Gesenius in determining the sense of the whole phrase from that which it evidently has in Ex. 10: 1,2, where God is twice said to have placed his signs among the Egyptians, with evident allusion to the plagues as miraculous evidences of his power. Explained by this analogy, the clause before us would appear to mean, I will work a miracle among them or before them.—The D^-jbs, as in ch. 4: 3, are the survivors of the judgments previously mentioned. These are sent to the nations, of whom some are then particularly mentioned. For the sense of Tarshish, see above, on ch. 60: 9. Its use here may be regarded as decisive of the question whether it denotes the sea. Even the Septuagint, the oldest authority for that interpretation, here retains the Hebrew word; and Luther, though lie still translates it sea, is compelled to avoid a palpable absurdity by altering the syntax so as to read to the nations on the sea, whereas Tarshish is added to the general term nations precisely as the other names are added afterwards. The incongruity of this translation of the word is exhibited without disguise in the Vulgate, ad gentcs, in mare, in Africam, etc., so that the sea stands first in a catalogue of nations.—Pul is identified by Bochart with the island Philae in the Nile on the frontier of Ethiopia and Egypt; which Gesenius rejects as improbable, without proposing any better explanation. Hitzig and Knobel regard it as an orthographical variation or an error of the text for Put or Phut, which is elsewhere joined with Lud (Jer. 46: 9. Ezek. 27: 10) and repeatedly written in the Septuagint (I>oi>8 (Gen. 10:6. 1 Chron. 1: 8), the same form which that version here employs. All agree that the name belongs to Africa, like that which follows, Lud, the Ludim of Gen. 10:3 and Jer. 46: 9, elsewhere represented as archers (Ezek. 27: 10. 30: 5). There is no ground, therefore, for suspecting, with Lowth and J. D. Michaelis, that nap •’D’w’a is an error of the text for “J’-B Meshech, although that name frequently occurs in connexion with the following name Tubal (Gen. 10:2. Ez. 27: 13, etc.) as denoting the Mo6%oi x«« TifiaQrtvo] of Herodotus. Javan is the Hebrew name for Greece (Gen. 10: 2. Dan. 8: 21. Zech. 9: 13), perhaps identical with Ion or Ionia. Gesenius quotes a Scholiast on Aristo phanes as saying, TZ arras lov^’E^^vag ‘idovag o! ^UQ^UQOL Ixabovv. The same name essentially exists in Sanscrit. Even Henderson, instead of finding here, as might perhaps have been expected, a specific promise of the future conversion (or reconversion) of the nations specified, affirms that they are “ obviously given as a sample.^ This is rendered still more certain by the addition of the general expression, the remote coasts or islands; for the sense of which see above, on ch. 41: 1. It is not without plausibility suggested by Vitringa, that some of the obscure names here used were selected for the express purpose of conveying the idea of remote and unknown regions. The restriction of the promise to the very places mentioned would be like the proceeding of a critic who should argue hereafter from the mention of Greenland, India, Africa, and Ceylon, in Heber’s Missionary Hymn, that the zeal of English Protestants extended only to those portions of the heathen world. As this interpretation of the hymn would be forbidden, not only by the general analogy of figurative language and of lyric composition, but by the express use of such universal phrases as “from pole to pole” in the very same connexion, so in this case it is plain that the essential mean ing of the whole enumeration is that expressed in the following clause: who have not heard my fame and have not seen my glory 1 Lowth’s poor attempt at emendation of the text by reading name for fame (^tti for ^%£) is not only built upon a false assumption of unvaried uniformity in the expression of the same idea, but unsupported even by the Septuagint version (ovo^a), which Kocher has shown to be a frequent equivalent in that translation for the Hebrew snfli.—As to the meaning of the whole verse, or the nature of the event which it predicts, interpreters differ in exact accordance with their several hypotheses. Gesenius understands by the sign here promised, the extraordinary confluence of Jews from all parts of the world. Hitzig agrees with the Rabbins in supposing it to designate a miraculous slaughter of the enemies of Zion, which they however represent as future, while he supposes that the writer expected it to take place at the time of the return from Babylon. According to Henderson, “ the missionaries to be sent to the different parts of the world are gentiles, who shall have been present at, but have not perished in, the great overthrow in Palestine.” All these explanations proceed upon the supposition that the pronoun them, which is twice used in the first clause, must refer to the tongues and nations mentioned in the precedino- verse, and Henderson speaks of its reference to the Jews themselves as “ violent.” But this is only true on the assumption that the nineteenth verse describes something subsequent in time to the eighteenth, which is not only needless but at variance with the context. For with what consistency could the Prophet represent all nations as assembled at Jerusalem and then the survivors or escaped among them being sent to all the nations 1 To say that the first is a figure of speech, is only saying what may just as well be said of the other. If the Prophet really presents to us in v. 18 the image of a general assemblage of the nations, we have no right to suppose that in the next verse he has quite forgotten it. The only way in which these seeming contradictions can be reconciled is by assuming what is in itself most natural and perfectly agreeable to usage, namely, that v. 19 does not describe the progress of events beyond the time referred to in v. 18, but explains in what way the assemblage there described is to be brought about. I will gather all nations. By what means? I will send those who escape my judgments to invite them. Both verses being then collateral and equally dependent on v. 17, the pronoun them refers to the persons there described, viz. the apostate Jews whose excision is the subject of this prophecy. The whole may then be paraphrased as follows: Such being their character, I will cast them off and gather the nations to take their place; for which end I will send forth the survivors of the nation, the elect for whose sake these days shall be shortened when all besides them perish, to declare my glory in the regions where my name has never yet been heard. Thus understood, the passage is exactly descriptive of the preaching of the gospel at the beginning of the new dispensation. All the first preachers were escaped 495 Jews, plucked as brands from the burning, saved from that perverse generation (Acts 2: 40). The sign will then denote the whole miraculous display of divine power, in bringing the old dispensation to a close and introducing the new, including the destruction of the unbelieving Jews on the one hand, and on the other all those signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost (Heb. 2: 4), which Paul calls the signs of an apostle (2 Cor. 12: 12), and which Christ himself had promised should follow them that believed (Mark 16: 17). All these were signs placed among them, i. e. among the Jews, to the greater condemnation of the unbelievers, and to the salvation of such as should be saved.—That there will not be hereafter an analogous display of divine power in the further execution of this promise, cannot be proved, and need not be affirmed; but if there never should be, it will still have had a glorious fulfilment in a series of events compared with which the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Canaan is of little moment.
20. And they shall bring all your brethren from all nations, an oblation to Jehovah, with horses, and with chariot, and with litters, and with mules, and with dromedaries, on my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, as the children of Israel bring the oblation in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. The verb at the beginning may be construed either with the messengers of v. 19, or indefinitely as denoting c men shall bring your brethren,’ equivalent in Hebrew usage to ‘your brethren shall be brought.’ Although this last construction is in perfect agreement with analogy, the other is not only unobjectionable but entitled to the preference as much more graphic and expressive. The survivors sent forth to the nations are then described as bringing back the converts to the true religion as an offer ing to Jehovah. Their return for this purpose is described as easy, swift, and even splendid, all the choicest methods of conveyance used in ancient times being here combined to express that idea. As to the sense of the particular expressions there is no longer any dispute or doubt, and a general reference may be made to the lexicons. Lowth here exhibits an extraordinary lapse of taste and judgment in transforming litters into counes, as if this uncouth Persian word, which he had found in Thevenot, could make the sentence either more perspicuous or better English. With equal right he might have introduced the native or vernacular name of the peculiar oriental mule etc. It does not even matter as to the general meaning of the verse, whether a 22 was a coach, a litter, or a wagon, since either would suggest the idea of comparatively rapid and convenient locomotion.—The rinsa was the stated vegetable offering of the Mosaic ritual. It was commonly composed of flour with oil and incense; but the name, in its widest sense, may be considered as including fruits and grain in a crude as well as a prepared state. This oblation seems to be selected here as free from the concomitant ideas of cruelty and grossness which were inseparable from bloody sacrifices. The wz* at the end cannot be grammatically rendered as a past tense, which form Hitzig here adopts perhaps in accommodation to his theory as to the composition of the passage during the Babylonish exile. Even in that case, however, the future would be perfectly appropriate, as implying an expected restoration of the ancient rites, much more if we suppose that the verse was written before they had ever been suspended.—The only general exegetical question in relation to this verse is whether your brethren means the scattered Jews or the converted gentiles. Here again, all depends upon a foregone conclusion. Henderson says, “ that your brethren means the Jews there can be no doubt,” in which he is sustained by the Jews themselves, and by Maurer, Hitzig, Hendewerk, and Knobel; while the opposite conclusion is considered equally indubitable not only by Vitringa but by Gesenius, Ewald, and Umbreit. In answer to the question how the Jews are to be thus brought by the nations, when the gathering of the nations is itself to be occasioned by the previous gathering of the Jews, he replies that the verse “ regards such Jews as might not yet have reached the land of their fathers,” as if this contingent possible residuum could be described as all your brethren from all nations! How inextricably this one case is implicated in the general question as to the subject and design of the prophecy, appears from the fact that those who apply this expression to the Jews content themselves with citing all the other places in Isaiah where precisely the same doubt exists as in the case before us. In favour of the other explanation Vitringa adduces and perhaps too strongly urges Paul’s description of the gentiles as an oblation which he as an officiating priest offered up to God. (Rom. 15: 26.) Although it may be doubted whether Paul, as Vitringa says, there formally explains or even quotes this prophecy, his obvious allusion to its images and terms shows at least that he considered them as bearing such an application, and in the absence of any other gives it undoubtedly a clear advantage. Another suggestion of Vitringa, not unworthy of attention, is that there may here be special reference to the early converts from the heathen world considered as the first fruits of the spiritual harvest; which agrees well with the wide use of the technical term rmao as already stated, and with the frequent application of the figure of first fruits to the same subject in the books of the New Testa ment.
21. And also of them will I taJce for the priests for the Levites saith Jehovah. Many manuscripts supply and before the second for, and Lowth considers it necessary to the sense, and accordingly inserts it. peculiar form of the common text may be intended to identify the two classes, as in point of fact the priests were all without exception Levites. It seems at least to be implied that the distinction is in this case of no con sequence, both names being given lest either should appear to be excluded. The only question here is to what the pronoun them refers. The Jews of course refuse to understand it of the gentiles; and even Joseph Kimchi, who admits this application as required by the context, avoids all inconvenient consequences by explaining for the priests and Levites, to mean for their service, as hewers of wood and drawers of water! Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, Maurer, Ewald, and Umbreit, do not hesitate to understand the promise of the gentiles, and to see in it an abrogation of the ancient national distinctions, without seeming to remember the directly opposite interpretation put by some of themselves upon ch. 61: 5, 6. Hitzig and Knobel, more consistent in their exposition, go back to the ground maintained by Grotius and the rabbins, namely, that of them means of the scattered Jews, who should not be excluded from the honours of the priestly office. But why should mere dispersion be considered as disqualifying Levites for the priesthood? Or if the meaning be that the levitical prerogative should be abolished, why is the promise here restricted to the exiles brought back by the nations? If the Prophet meant to say, all the other tribes shall share the honours of the tribe of Levi, he could hardly have expressed it more obscurely than by saying, ‘also of them (the restored Jews) will he take for priests and Levites.’—Of those who adopt the natural construction which refers of them to gentile converts, some with Cocceius understand this as a promise that they shall all be admitted to the spiritual priesthood common to believers. But Vitringa objects that the expressions I will take and of them, both imply selection and discrimination. He therefore refers it to the Christian ministry, to which the gentiles have as free access as Jews. There can be no doubt that this office might be so described in a strongly figurative context, where the functions of the ministry were represented in the same connexion as sacerdotal functions. But the only offering here mentioned is the offering of the gentile converts as an oblation to Jehovah, and the priesthood meant seems therefore to be merely the ministry of those by whom their conversion was effected. The most natural interpretation there fore seems to be as follows. The mass of the Jewish people was to be cast off from all connexion with the church; but the elect who should escape were to be sent among the nations and to bring them for an offering to Jehovah, as the priests and Levites offered the oblation at Jerusalem. But this agency was not to be confined to the Jews who were first entrusted with it; not only of them, but also of the gentiles themselves, priests and Levites should be chosen to offer this oblation i. e. to complete the vocation of the gentiles. Should the context be supposed to require a still more general meaning, it may be that the sacerdotal mediation of the ancient Israel 32 between Jehovah and the other nations, which was symbolized by the Levitical and.Aaronic priesthood, was to cease with the necessity that brought it into being, and to leave the divine presence as accessible to one race as another.
22. For as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making (or about to make), are standing (or about to stand) before me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your name and your seed. To the reference of the preceding verse to the gentiles it is urged as one objection, that the verse before us does not give a reason for the promise so explained; for how could it be said that God would put them on a level with the Jews because the name and succession of the latter were to be perpetual? But this objection rests upon the false assumption, running through the whole interpretation of this book, that the promise is addressed to Israel as a nation; whereas it is addressed to Israel as a church, from which the natural descendants of Jacob for the most part have been cut off, and the object of this verse is to assure the church that notwithstanding this excision it should still continue to exist, not only as a a church but as the church, the identical body which was clothed in the forms of the old dispensation and which still survives when they are worn out and rejected. The grand error incident to a change of dispensations was the very one which has perverted and obscured the meaning of these prophecies, the error of confounding the two Israels whom Paul so carefully distinguishes, and of supposing that the promises given to the church when externally identified with one race are continued to that race even after their excision from the church. It was to counteract this very error that the verse before us was recorded, in which God’s people, comprehending a remnant of the natural Israel and a vast accession from the gentiles, are assured that God regards them as his own chosen people, not a new one, but the same that was of old, and that the very object of the great revolution here and elsewhere represented as a new creation was to secure their perpetuity and constant recognition as his people. Since then he creates new heavens and a new earth for this very purpose, that purpose cannot be defeated while these heavens and that earth endure.—The Jews themselves understand this as a promise that their national pre-eminence shall be perpetual, and several of the modern German writers give it the same sense in reference to the New Jerusalem or Jewish state after the Babylonish exile. Henderson goes with them in making it a promise to the Jews, but stops short at the turning-point and represents it as ensuring merely that “they shall never be any more rejected, but shall form one fold \with the gentiles under the one Shepherd and Bishop of souls, the Great Messiah.” How this assurance affords any ground or reason for the previous declaration, as explained by Henderson, “ that the performance of divine service shall not be restricted to the tribe of Levi, but shall be the common privilege of the whole people,” does not appear, and cannot well be imagined.
23. And it shall be (or come to pass) that from new-moon to newmoon (or on every new-moon), and from sabbath to sabbath (or on every sabbath), shall come all flesh to bow themselves (or worship) before me, saith Jehovah. The form of expression in the first clause is so idiomatic and peculiar that it does not admit of an exact translation. A slavish copy of the original would be, ’ from the sufficiency of new moon in its new moon and from the sufficiency of sabbath in its sabbath.’ As to ^a, see above, ch. 28: 19. It often stands where we should say as often as (1 Sam. 18: 30. 1 Kings 14: 28). The antecedent of the pronoun seems to be the noun itself. Gesenius accordingly explains the whole to mean, as often as the new-moon comes in its new-moon, i. e. its appointed time. (Compare Num. 28: 10.) But although the form is so peculiar, there is no doubt among modern writers as to the essential meaning, viz. from new-moon to new-moon or at every new-moon. The idea of Cocceius that every new-moon is here represented as occurring in a new-moon, and every sabbath in a sabbath, because there is one perpetual new-moon and sabbath, shows a disposition to convert an idiom into a mystery. The Septuagint and Vulgate read ’ there shall be a month from a month, and a sabbath from a sab bath,’ which appears to have no meaning. The other ancient versions are equally obscure.—At these stated periods of public worship under the old economy (those of most frequent recurrence being specified) all flesh shall come up to worship before me. According to the Jewish doctrine this can only mean ‘ must come up to Jerusalem,’ and the Septuagint actually has the name. Against this restriction Henderson protests, “ as it is absolutely impossible that all should be able to repair thither.” Yet in his note upon the next verse he observes that “the scene is laid in the environs of Jerusalem;” and he makes no attempt to indicate a change of subject in the verbs, or an interruption of the regular construction. By combining his two comments, therefore, we obtain this sense, that ’ from month to month and from sabbath to sabbath all flesh shall come to worship before God, wherever they may be, in all parts of the earth, and shall go out into the environs of Jerusalem and see’ etc. If it be possible in any case to reason from the context, it would seem plain here, that as the scene in the last verse is laid in the environs of Jerusalem it must be laid there in the one before it; as the same sentence is continued through both verses, and the subjects of the verbs in the contiguous clauses are confessedly identical. On our hypothesis there is no more need of excluding Jerusalem from one verse than the other, since the Prophet, in accordance with his constant practice, speaks of the emancipated church in language borrowed from her state of bondage; and that this form of expression is a natural one, may be inferred from the facility with which it is perpetuated in the common parlance of the church and of religion, the Jerusalem or Zion of our prayers and hymns being perfectly identical with that of the prophecy before us. Thus understood, the verse is a prediction of the general diffusion of the true religion with its stated observances and solemn forms.
24. And they shall go forth and gaze upon the carcases of the men who revolted (or apostatized) from me, for their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an horror to all flesh. The first verb may be construed as it is by Ewald indefinitely, (they i. e. men/ without defining them; but in so vivid a description, it is certainly more natural to give the verbs a definite subject, and especially the one that had been previously introduced, viz. the worshippers assembled from all nations to do homage at Jerusalem.—The noun “p’sn’-J occurs only here and (with a slight variation) in Dan. 12: 2. The ancient versions seem to have derived it from nso, and to have given it the sense of sight or spectacle. The Septuagint has simply elg oQaatv; but the Targum and Vulgate seem to make the word a compound from Jian and ^, as the former has, ‘ the wicked shall be judged in Gehenna till the just say of them, we have seen enough,’ and the latter, erunt usque ad satietatem visionis. The modern lexicographers refer it to an Arabic root expressive of repulsion, and explain the noun itself to mean abhorrence or disgust.—This sublime conclusion has been greatly weakened and obscured, by the practice of severing it from the context as a kind of moral, application, practical improvement, or farewell warning to the reader. All this it is incidentally and with the more complete effect because directly and primarily it is an integral part of the “great argument” with which the whole book has been occupied, and which the Prophet never loses sight of to the end of his last sentence. The grand theme of these prophecies, as we have seen, is the relation of God’s people to himself and to the world, and in the latter stages of its history, to that race with which it was once outwardly identical. The great catastrophe with which the vision closes is the change of dispensations, comprehending the final abolition of the ceremonial law, and its concomitants, the introduction of a spiritual worship and the consequent diffusion of the church, its vast enlargement by the introduction of all gentile converts to complete equality of privilege and honour with the believing Jews, and the excision of the unbelieving Jews frojn all connexion with the church or chosen people, which they once ima gined to have no existence independent of themselves. The contrast between these two bodies, the rejected Jews, and their believing brethren forming one great mass with the believing gentiles, is continued to the end, and presented for the last time in these two concluding verses, where the whole is condensed into a single vivid spectacle, of which the central figure is Jerusalem and its walls the dividing line between the two contrasted objects. Within is the true Israel, without the false. Within, a great congregation, even “ all flesh,” come from the east and the west, and the north and the south, while the natural children of the kingdom are cast out. (Matth. 8: 12.) The end of the former is left to be imagined or inferred from other prophecies, but that of the latter is described, or suggested in a way more terrible than all description. In the valley of the son of Hinnom, under the very brow of Zion and Moriah, where the children were once sacrificed to Moloch, and where purifying fires were afterwards kept ever burning, the apostate Israel is finally exhibited, no longer living but committed to the flames of Tophet. To render our conception more intense the worm is added to the flame, and both are represented as undying. That the contrast hitherto maintained may not be forgotten even in this closing scene, the men within the walls may be seen by the light of those funereal fires coming forth and gazing at the ghastly scene, not with delight as some interpreters pretend, but as the text expressly says with horror. The Hebrew phrase here used means to look with any strong emotion, that of pleasure which is commonly suggested by the context being here excluded not by inference or implication merely but by positive assertion. The whimsy of Grotius that the verse describes the unburied bodies of the enemies slaughtered by the Maccabees and the protracted conflagration of their dwellings, needs as little refutation as the Jewish dream that what is here described is the destruction of the enemies of Israel hereafter. In its primary mean ing, I regard it as a prophecy of ruin to the unbelieving Jews, apostate Israel, to whom the Hebrew phrase here used (^ Q^en) is specially appropriate. But as the safety of the chosen remnant was to be partaken by all other true believers, so the ruin of the unbelieving Jew is to be shared by every other unbeliever.—Thus the verse becomes descriptive of the final doom of the ungodly, without any deviation from its proper sense, or any supposition of a mere allusion or accommodation in the use of the same figures by our Lord himself in reference to future torments. All that is requisite to reconcile and even to identify the two descriptions is the con sideration that the state of ruin here described is final and continuous, how ever it may be divided, in the case of individuals, between the present life and that which is to come. Hell is of both worlds, so that in the same essential sense although in different degrees it may be said both of him who is still living but accursed, and of him who perished centuries ago, that his worm dieth not and his fire is not quenched. THE END,
