ONE of the most important functions of the prophetic office was the exposition of the Law, that is to say, of the Mosaic institutions, the peculiar form in which the Church was organized until the advent of Messiah. This inspired exposition was of absolute necessity, in order to prevent or to correct mistakes which were constantly arising, not only from the blindness and perverseness of the people, but from the very nature of the system under which they lived. That system, being temporary and symbolical, was necessarily material, ceremonial, and restrictive in its forms; as nothing purely spiritual could be symbolical or typical of other spiritual things, nor could a catholic or free constitution have secured the necessary segregation of the people from all others for a temporary purpose.
The evils incident to such a state of things were the same that have occurred in many other like cases, and may all be derived from the superior influence of sensible objects on the mass of men, and from the consequent propensity to lose sight of the end in the use of the means, and to confound the sign with the thing signified. The precise form and degree of this perversion no doubt varied with the change of times and circumstances, and a corresponding difference must have existed in the action of the Prophets who were called to exert a corrective influence on these abuses.
In the days of Hezekiah, the national corruption had already passed through several phases, each of which might still be traced in its effects, and none of which had wholly vanished. Sometimes the prevailing tendency had been to make the ceremonial form of the Mosaic worship, and its consequent coincidence in certain points with the religions of surrounding nations, an occasion or a pretext for adopting heathen rites and usages, at first as a mere extension and enlargement of the ritual itself, then more boldly as an arbitrary mixture of heterogeneous elements, and lastly as an open and entire substitution of the false for the true, and of Baal, Ashtoreth, or Moloch, for Jehovah.
At other times the same corruption had assumed a less revolting form and been contented with perverting the Mosaic institutions while externally and zealously adhering to them. The two points from which this insidious process of perversion set out were the nature and design of the ceremonial law, and the relation of the chosen people to the rest of men. As to the first, it soon became a current and at last a fixed opinion with the mass of irreligious Jews, that the ritual acts of the Mosaic service had an intrinsic efficacy, or a kind of magical effect upon the moral and spiritual state of the worshipper. Against this error the Law itself had partially provided by occasional violations and suspensions of its own most rigorous demands, plainly implying that the rites were not intrinsically efficacious, but significant of something else. As a single instance of this general fact it may be mentioned, that although the sacrifice of life is every where throughout the ceremonial law presented as the symbol of atonement, yet in certain cases, where the circumstances of the offerer forbade an animal oblation, he was suffered to present one of a vegetable nature, even where the service was directly and exclusively expiatory,—a substitution wholly inconsistent with the doctrine of an intrinsic virtue or a magical effect, but perfectly in harmony with that of a symbolical and typical design, in which the uniformity of the external symbol, although rigidly maintained in general, might be dispensed with in a rare and special case without absurdity or inconvenience.
It might easily be shown that the same corrective was provided by the Law itself in its occasional departure from its own requisitions as to time and place and the officiating person; so that no analogy whatever really exists between the Levitical economy, even as expounded by itself, and the ritual systems which in later times have been so confidently built upon it. But the single instance which has been already cited will suffice to illustrate the extent of the perversion which at an early period had taken root among the Jews as to the real nature and design of their ceremonial services. The natural effect of such an error on the spirit and the morals is too obvious in itself, and too explicitly recorded in the sacred history, to require either proof or illustration.
On the other great point, the relation of the Jews to the surrounding nations, their opinions seem to have become at an early period equally erroneous. In this as in the other case, they went wrong by a superficial judgment founded on appearances, by looking simply at the means before them, and neither forwards to their end, nor backwards to their origin. From the indisputable facts of Israel’s divine election as the people of Jehovah, his extraordinary preservation as such, and his undisturbed exclusive possession of the written word and the accompanying rites, they had drawn the natural but false conclusion, that this national pre-eminence was founded on intrinsic causes, or at least on some original and perpetual distinction in their favour. This led them to repudiate or forget the fundavn mental truth of their whole history, to wit, that they were set apart and kept apart, not for the ruin and disgrace, but for the ultimate benefit and honour of the whole world, or rather of the whole church which was to be gathered from all nations, and of which the ancient Israel was designed to be the symbol and the representative. As it had pleased God to elect a certain portion of mankind to everlasting life through Christ, so it pleased him that until Christ came, this body of elect ones, scattered through all climes and ages, should be represented by a single nation, and that this representative body should be the sole depository of divine truth and a divinely instituted worship; while the ultimate design of this arrangement was kept constantly in view by the free access which in all ages was afforded to the gentiles who consented to embrace the true religion.
It is difficult indeed to understand how the Jews could reconcile the immemorial reception of proselytes from other nations, with the dogma of national superiority and exclusive hereditary right to the divine favour. The only solution of this singular phenomenon is furnished by continual recurrence to the great representative principle on which the Jewish church was organized, and which was carried out not only in the separation of the body as a whole from other men, but in the internal constitution of the body itself, and more especially in the separation of a whole tribe from the rest of Israel, and of a single family in that tribe from the other Levites, and of a single person in that family, in whom was finally concentrated the whole representation of the Body on the one hand, while on the other he was a constituted type of the Head.
If the Jews could have been made to understand or to remember that their national pre-eminence was representative, not original; symbolical, not real; provisional, not perpetual, it could never have betrayed them into hatred or contempt of other nations, but would rather have cherished an enlarged and catholic spirit, as it did in the most enlightened, an effect which may be clearly traced in the writings of Moses, David, and Isaiah. That view of the Mosaic dispensation which regards this Jewish bigotry as its genuine spirit is demonstrably a false one. The true spirit of the old economy was not indeed a latitudinarian indifference to its institutions, or a premature anticipation of a state of things still future. It was scrupulously faithful even to the temporary institutions of the ancient church; but while it looked upon them as obligatory, it did not look upon them as perpetual. It obeyed the present requisitions of Jehovah, but still looked forward to something better. Hence the failure to account, on any other supposition, for the seeming contradictions of the Old Testament, in reference to the ceremonies of the Law. If worthless, why were they so conscientiously observed by the best and wisest men? If intrinsically valuable, why are they disparaged and almost repudiated by the same men? Simply because they were neither worthless nor intrinsically valuable, but appointed temporary signs of something to be otherwise revealed thereafter; so that it was equally impious and foolish to reject them altogether with the skeptic, and to rest in them for ever with the formalist.
It is no less true, and for exactly the same reason, that the genuine spirit of the old economy was equally adverse to all religious mixture with the heathen or renunciation of the Jewish privileges on one hand, and to all contracted national conceit and hatred of the gentiles on the other. Yet both these forms of error had become fixed in the Jewish creed and character long before the days of Hezekiah. That they were not universal even then, we have abundant proof in the Old Testament. Even in the worst of times, there is reason to believe that a portion of the people held fast to the true doctrine and the true spirit of the extraordinary system under which they lived. How large this more enlightened party was at any time, and to how small a remnant it was ever reduced, we have not the means of ascertaining; but we know that it was always in existence, and that it constituted the true Israel, the real church of the Old Testament.
To this class the corruption of the general body must have been a cause not only of sorrow but of apprehension; and if express prophetic threatenings had been wanting, they could scarcely fail to anticipate the punishment and even the rejection of their nation. But in this anticipation they were themselves liable to error. Their associations were so intimately blended with the institutions under which they lived, that they must have found it hard to separate the idea of Israel as a church from that of Israel as a nation,—a difficulty similar in kind, however different in degree, from that which we experience in forming a conception of the continued existence of the soul without the body. And as all men, in the latter case, however fully they may be persuaded of the separate existence of the spirit and of its future disembodied state, habitually speak of it in terms strictly applicable only to its present state, so the ancient saints, however strong their faith, were under the necessity of framing their conceptions, as to future things, upon the model of those present; and the imperceptible extension of this process beyond the limits of necessity, would naturally tend to generate errors not of form merely but of substance. Among these we may readily suppose to have had place the idea that, as Israel had been unfaithful to its trust, and was to be rejected, the Church or People of God must as a body share the same fate; or in other words, that if the national Israel perished, the spiritual Israel must perish with it, at least so far as to be disorganized and resolved into its elements.
The same confusion of ideas still exists among the uninstructed classes, and to some extent among the more enlightened also, in those countries where the Church has for ages been a national establishment, and scarcely known in any other form; as, for instance, in Sweden and Norway among Protestants, or Spain and Portugal among the Papists. To the most devout in such communities the downfal of the hierarchical establishment seems perfectly identical with the extinction of the church; and nothing but a long course of [instruction, and perhaps experience, could enable them to form the idea of a disembodied, unestablished Christian church. If such mistakes are possible and real even now, we have little reason either to dispute their existence or to wonder at it, under the complicated forms and in the imperfect light of the Mosaic dispensation. It is not only credible but altogether natural, that even true believers, unassisted by a special reve lation, should have shunned the extreme of looking upon Israel’s pre-eminence among the nations as original and perpetual, only by verging towards the opposite error of supposing that the downfal of the nation would involve the abolition of the church, and human unbelief defeat the purposes and make void the promises of God.
Here then are several distinct but cognate forms of error, which appear to have gained currency among the Jews before the time of Hezekiah, in relation to the two great distinctive features of their national condition, the ceremonial law and their seclusion from the gentiles. Upon each of these points there were two shades of opinion entertained by very different classes. The Mosaic ceremonies were with some a pretext for idolatrous observances; while others rested in them, not as types or symbols, but as efficacious means of expiation. The pre-eminence of Israel was by some regarded as perpetual; while others apprehended in its termination the extinction of the church itself. These various forms of error might be variously combined and modified in different cases, and their general result must of course have contributed largely to determine the character of the church and nation.
It was not, perhaps, until these errors had begun to take a definite and settled form among the people, that the Prophets, who had hitherto confined themselves to oral instruction or historical composition, were directed to utter and record for constant use discourses meant to be corrective or condemna tory of these dangerous perversions. This may at least be regarded as a plausible solution of the fact that prophetic writing in the strict sense became so much more abundant in the later days of the Old Testament history. Of these prophetic writings, still preserved in our canon, there is scarcely any part which has not a perceptible and direct bearing on the state of feeling and opinion which has been described. This is emphatically true of Isaiah’s Earlier Prophecies, which, though so various in form, are all adapted to correct the errors in question, or to establish the antago nistic truths. This general design of the predictions might be so used as to throw new light upon their exposition, by connecting it more closely with the prevalent errors of the ancient church than was attempted in the other volume. Guided even by this vague suggestion, an attentive reader will be able for the most part to determine with respect to each successive portion whether it was specially intended to rebuke idolatry, to rectify the errors of the formalist in reference to the ceremonial system, to bring down the arrogance of a mistaken nationality, or to console the true believer by assuring him that though the carnal Israel should perish, the true Israel must endure for ever.
But although this purpose may be traced, to some extent, in all the prophecies, it is natural to suppose that some part of the canon would be occupied with a direct, extensive, and continuous exhibition of the truth upon a subject so momentous; and the date of such a prophecy could scarcely be assigned to any other period so naturally as to that which has been specified, the reign of Hezekiah, when all the various forms of error and corruption which had successively prevailed were co-existent, when idolatry, although suppressed by law was still openly or secretly practised, and in many cases superseded only by a hypocritical formality and ritual religion, attended by an overweening sense of the national pre-eminence of Israel, from which even the most godly seem to have found refuge in despondent fears and skeptical misgivings. At such a time,—when the theocracy had long since reached and passed its zenith, and a series of providential shocks, with intervals of brief repose, had already begun to loosen the foundations of the old economy in preparation for its ultimate removal,—such a discourse as that supposed must have been eminently seasonable, if not absolutely needed, to rebuke sin. correct error, and sustain the hopes of true believers. It was equally important, nay, essential to the great end of the temporary system, that the way for its final abrogation should be gradually prepared, and that in the meantime it should be main tained in constant operation.
If the circumstances of the times which have been stated are enough to make it probable that such a revelation would be given, they will also aid us in determining beforehand, not in detail, but in the general, its form and character. The historical occasion and the end proposed would naturally lead us to expect in such a book the simultaneous or alternate presentation of a few great leading truths, perhaps with accompanying refutation of the adverse errors, and with such reproofs, remonstrances and exhortations, promises and threatenings, as the condition of the people springing from these errors might require, not only at the date of the prediction but in later times. In executing this design the Prophet might have been expected to pursue a method more rhetorical than logical, and to enforce his doctrine not so much by dry didactic statements as by animated argument combined with earnest exhortation, passionate appeals, poetical apostrophes, impressive repetitions, and illustrations drawn both from the ancient and the later history of Israel. In fine, from what has been already said, it follows that the doctrines which would naturally constitute the staple of the prophecy in such a case, are those relating to the true design of Israel’s vocation and seclusion from the gentiles, and of the ceremonial institutions under which he was in honourable bondage. The sins and errors which find their condemnation in the statement of these truths are those of actual idolatry, a ritual formality, a blinded nationality, and a despondent apprehension of the failure of Jehovah’s promise. Such might even a priori be regarded as the probable structure and complexion of a prophecy or series of prophecies intended to secure the end in question. If the person called to this important service had already been the organ of divine communications upon other subjects, or with more direct reference to other objects, it would be reason able to expect a marked diversity between these former prophecies and that uttered under a new impulse. Besides the very great and striking difference which must always be perceptible between a series of detached compositions, varying, and possibly remote from one another as to date, and a continuous discourse on one great theme, there would be other unavoidable distinctions springing directly from the new and wide scope of prophetic vision, and from the concentration in one vision of the elements diffused through many others. This diversity would be enhanced, of course, by any striking difference of outward circumstances, such as the advanced age of the writer, his matured experience, his seclusion from the world and from active life, or any other changes which might have the same effect; but even in the absence of these outward causes, the diversity would still be very great and unavoidable.
From these probabilities let us now turn to realities. Precisely such a book as that described is extant, having formed a part of the collection of Isaiah’s Prophecies as far back as the history of the canon can be traced, without the slightest vestige of a different tradition among Jews or Christians as to the author. The tone and spirit of these chapters are precisely such as might have been expected from the circumstances under which they are alleged to have been written, and their variations from the earlier chapters such as must have been expected from the change in the circumstances themselves.
A cursory inspection of these Later Prophecies is enough to satisfy the reader that he has before him neither a concatenated argument nor a mass of fragments, but a continuous discourse in which the same great topics are continually following each other, somewhat modified in form and combination, but essentially the same from the beginning to the end. If required to designate a single theme as that of the whole series, we might safely give the preference to Israel, the Peculiar People, the Church of the Old Testa ment, its origin, vocation, mission, sins and sufferings, former experience and ‘ final destiny. The doctrine inculcated as to this great subject may be summarily stated thus. The race of Israel was chosen from among the other nations, and maintained in the possession of peculiar privileges, not for the sake of any original or acquired merit, but by a sovereign act of the divine will; not for their own exclusive benefit and aggrandizement, but for the ultimate salvation of the world. The ceremonies of the Law were of no intrinsic efficacy, and when so regarded and relied on became hateful in the sight of God. Still more absurd and impious was the practice of analogous ceremonies not in obedience to Jehovah’s will, but in the worship of imaginary deities or idols. The Levitical rites, besides immediate uses of a lower kind, were symbols of God’s holiness and man’s corruption, the necessity of expiation in general, and of expiation by vicarious suffering in particular. Among them there were also types, prophetic symbols, of the very form in which the great work of atonement was to be accomplished, and of Him by whom it was to be performed. Until this work was finished, and this Saviour come, the promise of both was exclusively entrusted to the chosen people, who were bound to preserve it both in its written and its ritual form. To this momentous trust a large part of the nation had been unfaithful, some avowedly forsaking it as open idolaters, some practically betraying it as formal hypocrites. For these and other consequent offences, Israel as a nation was to be rejected and deprived of its pre-eminence. But in so doing God would not cast off his people. The promises to Israel, considered as the people of Jehovah, should enure to the body of believers, the remnant according to the election of grace. These were in fact from the beginning the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham, the Jews who were Jews inwardly. In these the continued existence of the church should be secured and perpetuated, first within the limits of the outward Israel, and then by the accession of believing gentiles to the spiritual Israel. When the fulness of time should come for the removal of the temporary and restrictive institutions of the old economy, that change should be so ordered us not only to effect the emancipation of the church from ceremonial bondage, but at the same time to attest the divine disapprobation of the sins committed by the carnal Israel throughout their history. While these had every thing to fear from the approaching change, the spiritual Israel had every thing to hope,—not only the continued existence of the church, but its existence under a more spiritual, free, and glorious dispensation, to be ushered in by the appearance of that great Deliverer towards whom the ceremonies of the Law all pointed.
From this succinct statement of the Prophet’s doctrine, it is easy to account for some peculiarities of form and phraseology, particularly for the constant alternation of encouragement and threatening, and for the twofold sense or rather application of the national name, Israel. This latter usage is explained by Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (ch. Si: 17-29. 9: 6-9. 11: 1-7), where the very same doctrine is propounded in relation to the ancient church that we have just obtained by a fair induction from Isaiah’s Later Prophecies. There is in fact no part of the Old Testament to which the New affords a more decisive key in the shape of an authoritative and inspired interpretation.
Another peculiarity of form highly important in the exposition of these Prophecies is the frequent introduction of allusions to particular events in the history of Israel, as examples of the general truths so constantly repeated. The events thus cited are not numerous, but of the greatest magnitude, such as the calling of Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the destruction of Babylon, the return from exile, and the advent of Messiah. These events have sometimes been confounded by interpreters, and even so far misconceived as to put a new and false face on the whole prediction, as we shall have occasion more explicitly to state below. At present, let it be observed that the prophetical discourse is continually varied’and relieved by these historical allusions.
The fairest and the most decisive test by which the foregoing views of the design and subject of these Later Prophecies can be tried, is one within the reach of any reader who will take the trouble to apply it, by a careful perusal of the prophecies themselves, even without any other comment than the general suggestions which have been already made. If this should still prove insufficient to establish the correctness of the exegetical hypothesis proposed, that end may still be answered by comparing this hypothesis with others which have more or less prevailed among interpreters.
Let us first compare with the hypothesis just stated, the one assumed wholly or in part by Cocceius and others, who appear disposed to recognise in these Later Prophecies specific periods and events in the history of the Christian church. Of this abundant illustration will be given in the Commentary on the Prophecies themselves. Meantime, it may be stated in the general, that besides the arbitrary character of such interpretation, and the infinite diversity which it exhibits in the hands of different writers, it creates the necessity of putting the most forced interpretations on the plainest terms, and of denying that Babylon, Israel, etc. were intended to mean Babylon, Israel, etc. in any sense warranted by Hebrew usage. And even in those parts of the Prophecy which do refer to later times and to the new dispensation, these interpreters are under the necessity of violating one of the most strongly marked peculiarities of this whole book, viz. the general view which it exhibits of the new dispensation as a whole, from its inception to its consummation, as contrasted with the more specific mention of particular events before the change, even when future to the Prophet’s own times. This mode of exposition, at least in its extreme forms, has received its most effective refutation from the lapse of time. When we find such writers as Cocceius, and less frequently Vitringa, seeking the fulfilment of grand prophecies in petty squabbles of the Dutch Church or Republic, which have long since lost their place in general history, the practical lesson thus imparted is of more force than the most ingenious arguments, to show that such interpretation rests upon a false hypothesis.
A very different fate has been experienced by the ancient and still current doctrine that the main subject of these Prophecies throughout, is the restoration from the Babylonish exile. While this hypothesis has been assumed as undeniable by many Christian writers, it affords the whole foun dation of the modern neological criticism and exegesis. It is worth while, therefore, to examine somewhat closely the pretensions of this theory to general reception.
In the first place, let it be observed how seldom, after all, the book mentions Babylon, the Exile, or the Restoration. This remark is made in reference to those cases only where these subjects are expressly mentioned, i. e. either named totidem verbis, or described in terms which will apply to nothing else. An exact enumeration of such cases, made for the first time, might surprise one whose previous impressions had been all derived from the sweeping declarations of interpreters and critics. It is true the cases may be vastly multiplied by taking into the account all the indirect allusions which these writers are accustomed to assume, i. e. by applying to the Exile all the places and particular expressions which admit by possibility of such an application. Having first inferred from the explicit prophecies respecting Babylon, that this is the great subject of the book, it is perfectly easy to apply to this same subject hundreds of phrases in themselves inde finite and wholly dependent for specific meaning upon some hypothesis like that in question.
The necessary tendency of such a method to excess, is illustrated by the gradual advances of the later German writers in the specific explanation of these chapters. Where Rosenmuller and Gesenius were contented to find general poetical descriptions of the Exile and the Restoration, Hitzig detects precise chronological allusions to particular campaigns and battles in the progress of Cyrus; and this again is pushed so far by Hendewerk and Knobel, that they sometimes find more striking and minute coincidences between this Hebrew writer and Herodotus or Xenophon, than any of the old-fashioned orthodox writers ever dreamed of finding between him and the New Testament. To hear these writers talk of the battle of Pasargada, the defeat of Neriglassar, the first and second attack on Babylonia, the taking of Sardis, etc. etc. we might fancy ourselves listening to Eusebius or Cocceius, with a simple substitution of profane for sacred history.
The fallacy of this mode of interpretation lies in the fact that the inde finite expressions thus applied to one event or series of events, might just as naturally be applied to others, if these others were first fixed upon as being the mam subject of the whole composition. Thus, all admit that there are frequent allusions in these later chapters to the exodus from Egypt. Now if any interpreter should be intrepid and absurd enough to argue that they must have been composed by Moses, and that the great deliverance then wrought must be the subject of the whole book, whatever difficulties, and however insurmountable, this doctrine might encounter in a different direction, it could find none in adapting what is said of crossing seas and rivers, opening fountains, journeys through the desert, subjugation of enemies, rest in the promised land, etc. etc. to the original exodus, with far less violence than to the restoration from captivity. It is equally true, but in a less degree, that Grotius, who refers some portions of this book to the period of the Maccabees, is perfectly successful, after having once assumed this as the subject, in accommodating to it many of the very same expressions which another class of writers no less confidently claim as clear allusions to the Babylonian exile.
The fallacy of such exegetical reasoning may be further exposed by applying the same process to a distinct but analogous case. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul is now almost universally regarded as foretelling the restoration of the Jews to the favour of God. Assuming this to be the theme not only of those passages in which it is expressly mentioned, but of the whole Epistle, an interpreter of no great ingenuity might go completely through it, putting upon every general expression a specific sense, in strict agreement with his foregone conclusion. All that relates to justification might be limited to the Jews of some future day; the glorious truth that there is no condemnation to believers in Christ Jesus, made a specific and exclusive promise to converted Jews; and the precious promise that all things shall work together for good to them that love God, made to mean that all events shall be so ordered as to bring about the future restoration of the Jews. The very absurdity of such conclusions makes them better illustrations of the erroneous principles involved in similar interpretations of the more obscure and less familiar parts of Scripture.
Setting aside the cases which admit of one application as well as another, or of this application only because of a foregone conclusion, the truth of which cannot be determined by expressions deriving their specific meaning from itself, let the reader now enumerate the instances in which the reference to Babylon, the Exile, and the Restoration, is not only possible but necessary. He must not be surprised if he discovers as the fruit of his researches, that the Prophet speaks of Babylon less frequently than Egypt; that the ruins, desolations, and oppressions, which he mentions in a multitude of places, are no more Babylonian than Egyptian or Roman in the text itself, and only made so by the interest or fancy of some writers, the authority of others, and the easy faith of the remainder.
In opposition to these strained conclusions, we have only to propound the obvious supposition that the downfal of Babylon is repeatedly mentioned, like the exodus from Egypt, as a great event in the history of Israel,—but that the subject of the prophecy is neither the Egyptian nor the Babylonian bondage, nor deliverance from either, but the whole condition, character, and destiny of Israel as the chosen people and the church of the Old Testament.
All the hypotheses which have been mentioned are agreed in assuming the unity of these predictions as the product not only of a single age, but of a single writer. This unity, however, was by no means recognised by those who first applied the principles and methods of the Higher Criticism to Isaiah. The earliest hint of any new discovery is commonly ascribed to Koppe, who in a note upon his German edition of Bishop Lowth’s work suggests that the fiftieth chapter may have been written by Ezekiel or some other Jew in exile. A similar opinion was expressed about the same time by Doderlein and Eichhorn with respect to the entire latter part of Isaiah. The same hypothesis was then carried out in detail by Justi, and adopted by Bauer, Paulus, Bertholdt, and Augusti; so that not long after the beginning of this century, it was established as the current doctrine of the German schools.
This revolution of opinion, though ostensibly the pure result of critical analysis, was closely connected with the growing unbelief in inspiration, and the consequent necessity of explaining away whatever appeared either to demonstrate or involve it. It must also be noted, as a circumstance of great importance in the history of this controversy, that the young theologians of Germany for fifty years were almost as uniformly taught and as constantly accustomed to assume the certainty of this first principle, as their fathers had been to assume the contrary. This fact will enable us to estimate at something like their real value the pretensions to superior candour and impartiality advanced by the neological interpreters, and more especially by some of recent date, who are in truth as strongly biassed by the prejudice of education as their immediate predecessors by the love of novelty and passion for discovery.
The defenders of the unity of this part of Isaiah were in process of time relieved from much of the irksome task which they had undertaken by the concessions of the adverse party, that the Higher Criticism had been pushed too far, and made to prove too much; in consequence of which a retrocession became necessary, and in fact took place under the guidance new leaders, not without an earnest opposition on the part of the original discoverers.
This retreat was effected with great skill and conduct, but with no small sacrifice of logical consistency, by Gesenius in the Introduction to his second volume. Without any appeal to general principles or any attempt to distinguish clearly between what he abandons as “ extreme” and what he adopts as rational conclusions, he proceeds, by his favourite method of accumulation and arrangement of particulars, to prove that these twenty-seven chapters are the work of the same author, and that in the main they are still in the same order as at first, the only material exception being a surmise that the last chapters may possibly be older than the first; which seems to have been prompted by a natural reluctance to acknowledge that an ancient composition could remain so long unchanged, not without a misgiving with respect to the influence which this concession might exert hereafter on the criticism of the earlier chapters.
Although Gesenius’s argument in favour of the unity of these predictions is entirely successful, a large proportion of his detailed proofs are quite superfluous. ‘ It is an error of this German school, and of its imitators elsewhere, that identity of authorship must be established by minute resemblances of diction, phraseology, and syntax, which are therefore raked together and displayed with a profusion far more confounding than convincing to the reader. To the great mass of cultivated minds, conviction in such cases is produced by data not susceptible of exhibition in the form of schedules, catalogues, or tables, but resulting from a general impression of continuity and oneness, which might be just as strong if not a single phrase or combination occurred more than once, and the want of which could never be supplied by any number or servility of verbal repetitions. It is thus that the modern imitators of the classics may be almost infallibly detected, though their diction be but a cento of quotations from their favourite author, renewed and multiplied usque ad nauseam; while.the original is known wherever he appears, however innocent of copying himself.
This error of the higher or lower criticism, even when enlisted on the right side of a question, it is important to expose; because many of its boasted triumphs in behalf of error have been gained by the very petitesse of its expedients. The readers of Isaiah, in particular, have often been bewildered and unfairly prepossessed against the truth, by the interminable catalogues of Hebrew words and phrases which are crowded into prefaces and introductions as preliminary proofs of a position that can only be established, if at all, by the cumulative weight of a detailed interpretation; the effect of which is often to expose the absolute futility of arguments, considered one by one and in their proper place, which seem to gain reality and force by insulation from the context, and by being thrown together in crude masses, or forced into unnatural protrusion by the forms of a systematic catalogue. The minute details which constitute this portion of Gesenius’s argument against the fragmentary theory, must be sought in his own work, or in those which have transcribed it. Much more important and conclusive is that part of his argument derived from the unquestionable fact, that certain threads may be traced running through the entire texture of these Later Prophecies, sometimes dropped but never broken, crossing each other, and at times appearing to, be hopelessly entangled, but all distinguished, and yet all united in the denouement. The perpetual recurrence and succession of these topics is correctly represented by Gesenius as the strongest proof of unity. In opposition to Augusti, who alleges that some topics are more prominent at first than afterwards, and vice versa, Gesenius replies that progress and variety are perfectly consistent with the strictest unity; that the author’s ideal situation is the same throughout; and that all the topics which become more prominent as he proceeds, had at least been lightly touched before, to which he adds another list of verbal parallels between the parts described as most dissimilar. (See Gesen. Comm. vol. II. p. 15.) This reasoning is worthy of particular attention, on account of its remarkable affinity with that by which the defenders of the old opinions have maintained the genuineness of disputed places in the Earlier Prophecies, against objections of Gesenius himself, precisely analogous to those of Augusti which he here refutes. It would greatly contribute to the correct decision of these questions, among men who are accustomed to the weighing of evidence on other subjects, if their attention could be drawn to the facility with which the same degree and kind of proof are admitted or excluded by the Higher Critics, according to the end at which they happen to be aiming. Perhaps one of our most valuable safeguards against German innovations is afforded by our civil institutions, and the lifelong familiarity of.our people, either through the press or by personal participation, with the public administration of justice and the practical discrimination between truth and falsehood,—an advantage which can never be replaced by any method or amount of mental cultivation.
If then these twenty-seven chapters are confessedly the work of one man and indeed a continuous discourse on one great subject, and if a perfectly uniform tradition has attached them to the writings of Isaiah, it remains to be considered whether we have any reason to deny or even to dispute the fact so solemnly attested. All the presumptions are in favour of its truth. For two thousand years, at least, the book was universally regarded as Isaiah’s, and no other name has ever been connected with it even by mistake or accident. It is just such a book as the necessities of that age might have been expected to call forth. Its genuineness, therefore, as a writing of Isaiah, is not a fact requiring demonstration by detailed and special proof, but one attested both by its external history and its internal structure, unless positive reasons can be given for rejecting a conclusion which appears not only obvious but unavoidable.
Among the objections to Isaiah as the author of these later chapters, there are two upon which the whole weight of the argument depends, and to which all others may be reckoned supplementary. The first of these has reference to the matter of the prophecies, the second to their form. The latter is entirely posterior in date, and has been growing more and more prominent as the necessity of something to sustain the first and main objection has been forced upon its advocates by the resistance which it has encountered. This chronological relation of the two main objections is here stated not only as a curious fact of literary history, but also as directly bearing on the issue of the whole dispute, for reasons which will be explained below.
The first and main objection to the doctrine that Isaiah wrote these chapters, although variously stated by the writers who have urged it, is in substance this: that the Prophet every where alludes to the circumstances and events of the Babylonish Exile as those by which he was him self surrounded and with which he was familiar, from which his conceptions and his images are borrowed, out of which he looks both at the future and the past, and in the midst of which he must as a necessary consequence have lived and written.
This objection involves two assumptions, both which must be true, or it is wholly without force. One of these, viz. that the Babylonish exile is the subject of the whole book, has already been disproved; and there is strictly, therefore, no need of considering the other. But in order that the whole strength of our cause may be disclosed, it will be best to show that even if the supposition just recited were correct, the other, which is equally essential to the truth of the conclusion, is entirely unfounded. This is the asumption that the local and historical allusions of a prophet must be always those of his own times.
Some of the later German writers try to rest this upon general grounds, by alleging that such is the invariable practice of the Hebrew Prophets. But as the book in question, i. e. the latter portion of Isaiah, is admitted by these very critics to deserve the highest rank among prophetic writings, and to have exercised a more extensive influence on later writers and opinions than any other, it is unreasonable to appeal to a usage of which the book itself may be considered as a normal standard. It is in fact a begging of the question to deny that such was the prophetic usage, when that denial really involves an allegation that it is not so in the case before us.
Another answer to this argument from usage may be drawn from the analogy of other kinds of composition, in which all grant that a writer may assume a;( Standpunlct “ different from his own, and personate those earlier and later than himself. The classical historians do this when they put their own words into the mouths of ancient heroes and statesmen; the dramatic poets when they carry out this personation in detail; and still more imaginative writers, when they throw themselves into the future, and surround themselves by circumstances not yet in existence. If it be natural for poets thus to speak of an ideal future, why may not prophets of a real one? The only answer is, because they cannot know it; and to this point all the tortuous evasions of the more reserved neologists as surely tend as the positive averments of their bolder brethren. In every form, this argument against the genuineness of the book before us is at bottom a denial of prophetic inspiration as impossible. For if the Prophet could foresee the future, his allusions only prove that he did foresee it; and the positive assertion that the prophets never do so, unless it be founded upon this hypothesis, is just as foolish as it would be to assert that historians and poets never do the like. Unless we are prepared to go the same length, we cannot consistently reject these prophecies as spurious, on the ground that they allude to events long posterior to the writer’s times, even if these allusions were as numerous and explicit as we have seen them to be few when clear, and in all other cases vague and doubtful.
It has indeed been said, in confirmation of this main objection, that a real foresight would extend to more remote as well as proximate events, whereas in this case what relates to the period of the Exile is minutely accurate, while all beyond is either blank or totally erroneous; in proof of which we are referred to the extravagant descriptions of the times which should succeed the Restoration.
Both parts of this reasoning rest upon a false assumption as to the space which is occupied in this book by the Babylonish Exile. If, as we have seen or shall see, the alleged minute descriptions of that period are imaginary, and if the alleged extravagant descriptions of its close relate to events alto gether different, then this auxiliary argument must share the fate of that •which it is brought in to sustain. To this same category appertains the special objection founded on the mention of Cyrus by name. That it may readily be solved by an application of the same principle, will be shown in the exposition of the passage where the prophecy occurs. (See below, p. H6seq.)
| Another erroneous supposition, which has tended to confirm this first objection to the genuineness of the Later Prophecies, is that they must have been intended solely for the contemporaries of the writer. This hypothesis is closely connected with the denial of divine inspiration. The idea that Isaiah wrote for after ages is of course a ” nichtige A.nnahme” to an infidel. The prophet’s work, according to this theory, is more confined than that of the orator or poet. These may be said to labour for posterity; but his views must be limited to those about him. Ewald alone of those who deny a real inspiration (unless Umbreit may be likewise so described) admits a far-reaching purpose in the ancient prophecies. The rest appear to be agreed that nothing could be more absurd than consolation under sorrows which were not to be experienced for ages. Here again may be seen the working of a double error, that of making the Exile the great subject of the book, and that of denying that it could have been foreseen so long before hand. Of all the evils afterwards matured, the germ, if nothing more, existed in Isaiah’s time. And even if it did not, their appearance at a later date might well have been predicted. If the book, as we have reason to believe, was intended to secure a succession of the highest ends,—the warning and instruction of the Prophet’s own contemporaries, the encouragement and consolation of the pious exiles, the reproof and conviction of their unbelieving brethren, the engagement of the Persians and esj | ecially of Cyrus in the service of Jehovah, the vindication of God’s dealings with the Jews both in wrath and mercy, and a due preparation of the minds of true believers for the advent of Messiah,—then such objections as the one last cited must be either unmeaning and impertinent, or simply equivalent to a denial of prophetic inspiration. |
To the same head may be referred those objections which have been derived from the alleged appearance of opinions in these chapters which are known to have arisen at a later period. Besides the palpable petitio principii involved in such an argument, so far as it assumes that to be late which these prophecies if genuine demonstrate to be ancient, there is here again a confident assumption of a fact as certain which at best is doubtful, and in my opinion utterly unfounded, namely, that the strict observance of the Sabbath and a particular regard to the Levitical priesthood and the sanctuary, all belong to a species of Judaism later than the times of the genuine Isaiah. It is by thus assuming their own paradoxical conclusions as unquestionable facts, that the Higher Critics of the German school have been enabled to construct some of their most successful arguments.
All that need be added in relation to the arguments against the genuine ness of these chapters drawn from their matter or contents, is the general observation that their soundness may be brought to the test by inquiring whether they do not either take for granted something as belonging to the prophecy which is not found there by a simple and natural interpretation, or proceed upon some general false principle, such as the denial of prophetic inspiration as impossible. If either of these flaws is fatal to the argument affected by it, how much more must it be vitiated by the co-existence of the two, which is the case in many minor arguments of this class, and emphatically true of that main argument to which they are auxiliary, namely, that Isaiah cannot be the writer of these chapters on account of their minute and constant reference to the Babylonian Exile. The alleged fact and the inference are equally unfounded.
The other main objection to the genuineness of these prophecies is founded not upon their matter but their manner, or in other words, their diction, phraseology, and style, which are said to be entirely unlike those of Isaiah. The minute specifications of this argument, so far as they can lay claim even to a passing notice, are reserved for the exposition of the passages from which they are derived, and where they may be calmly viewed in their original connexion, and without the artificial glare produced by an immense accumulation of detached examples, which may blind the reader by their number and variety, without affording him the means of judging for himself how many may at best be dubious^ how many inconclusive, and how many more entirely irrelevant. For the same reason no reliance will be placed upon a similar display of minute resemblances between these later chapters and the undisputed writings of Isaiah, although such are furnished in abundance by Kleinert, Havernick, and others. On the value of such proofs and the soundness of the inferences drawn from them, a reference may be made to the General Introduction (Earlier Prophecies, pp. xxix-xxxi). At the same time it cannot be denied that the counter-proofs collected by these writers are of great importance, as esta blishing the fact of their existence upon both sides of the controversy, and as serving, if no higher purpose, that of cancelling such proofs when urged against the genuineness of the prophecies by writers who to all alleged resemblances reply that “ such trifles can prove nothing,” or that the style has been assimilated by a later hand. For this reason some of the most striking coincidences of expression will be noticed in the exposition, as well as the discrepancies which have been alleged in proof of later origin.
It has been already mentioned that this argument from difference of language is much later in its origin than that derived from the historical allusions. This is a significant and important circumstance. Had the Higher Criticism set out from some palpable diversity of diction as a starting point, and, after vainly trying to identify the writers upon this ground, been compelled to own a corresponding difference of matter and substantial indications of a later age than that of Isaiah, the critical process, although still inconclusive, would at least have been specious, and the difficulty of defence proportionally greater. But what is the true state of the case? Eichhorn and Bertholdt, though disposed to assume not only a later date but a plurality of authors, could find nothing to sustain this assumption in the language of the book itself. Augusti, who occupied the same ground, went so far as to account for the traditional incorporation of these chapters with Isaiah from their perfect imitation of his style and manner. Rosenmiiller dwells altogether on the first objection drawn from the allusions to the Babylonish Exile. Even Gesenius admits that the peculiarities of this class are less numerous than might have been expected, but succeeds in specifying some which had been overlooked. From that time the discovery (for such it may well be termed) of these philological diversities has been in constant and accelerated progress. Even Maurer, who is commonly so sparing of details, adds to the black list several particulars. Hitzig enlarges it still further, but unluckily admits that some of the expressions which he notes are not to be found either in the earlier or later books. Ewald as usual supplies the want of detailed proofs by authoritative affirmations. Umbreit considers the work done already, and declines attempting to refute Hengstenberg and Kleinert as a work of supererogation. But this forbearance is abundantly made good by the zeal of Hendewerk and Knobel, who have carried their citation of neologisms so far, that little now seems left for their successors but to gather the remainder of the book by way of glean ings.
But although the general course of this peculiar criticism has been onward, there have not been wanting certain retrograde movements and obliquities to break the uniformity of progress. Every one of the later writers above mentioned rejects some of the examples cited by his predecessors as irrelevant, and not seldom with expressions of contempt. But still the aggregate has grown, and by a further application of the same means may continue growing, until the materials are exhausted, or the Higher Criticism chooses to recede from this extreme, as it receded five and twenty years ago from that of Eichhorn and Augusti, who would no doubt have looked down upon the notion that these twenty-seven chapters were the work of the same hand, with almost as much contempt as on the old belief that this hand was Isaiah’s. It is indeed not a matter of conjecture but of history, that Eichhorn in the last edition of his Introduction finds fault with Gesenius for having abandoned the plurality of authors, and evidently pities him as one who from excess of light had gone back into darkness. By a similar reaction we might look for some concession in favour even of Isaiah as the writer; but although such an expectation need not be discouraged by the fear of any scrupulous regard to logic or consistency among the Higher Critics, it is rendered hopeless for the present by the obvious necessity which it involves of abandoning their fundamental principle, the impossibility of inspiration or prophetic foresight. For to this, as the original, the chief, and I had almost said the only ground of the rejection of these chapters, we are still brought back from every survey of the arguments by which it is defended. The obvious deduction from the sketch which has \IV boon given of the progress of discovery in this department is, that the philological objection would have slept for ever, had it not become absolutely necessary to secure the rejection of a book, which, if genuine, carried on its face the clearest proofs of inspiration.
Ho it remembered, then, that the rejection of these chapters was not forced upon the critics by a palpable diversity of style and diction, but that such diversities were hunted up, laboriously and gradually brought to light, in order to justify the previous rejection. By parity of reasoning it may be foreseen that whoever cannot be convinced of the reality of inspiration, will consider those detailed proofs of later date conclusive; while the reader who knows better, or at least has no misgivings upon that point, will as certainly pronounce them “‘trifles light as air.” If we gain nothing more by this investigation, it is at least satisfactory to know that all depends upon a fore gone conclusion, and that as to faith in such things no less than in higher matters, ho that hath received), and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.
Tho objection drawn from other more indefinite diversities of tone and manner, such as a more flowing style and frequent repetitions, is so far from having any force, that the absence of these differences would in the circumstances of the case be well adapted to excite suspicion. In other words, Isaiah writing at a later period of life, and when withdrawn from active labour, with his view directed not to the present or a proximate futurity, but one more distant, and composing not a series of detached discourses, but a continuous unbroken prophecy, not only may but must have differed from his former self as much as these two parts of the collection differ from each other. This antecedent probability is strengthened by the fact that similar causes have produced a still greater difference in some of the most celebrated writers ancient and modern, who exhibit vastly more unlikeness to themselves in different parts of their acknowledged writings than the most microscopic criticism has been able to detect between the tone or manner of Isaiah’s Earlier and Later Prophecies.
The only other objections to the genuineness of these chapters which appear to deserve notice are those derived from the silence or the testimony of the other books. That these are not likely to do more than confirm the conclusions previously reached on one side or the other, may be gathered from the fact that they are urged with equal confidence on both sides of the question. Thus Gesenius argues that if these later chapters had been known to Jeremiah, be would have appealed to them in self-vindication, as he did to Micah. On the other hand, Hengstenberg alleges that by parity of reason ing, Micah 4: 10 could not have been extant, or the enemies of Jeremiah would have quoted it against him. At the same time, he maintains that there are obvious traces of these chapters in the writings of that prophet. The truth is, that the advocates on both sides 6first determine which is the older writer, and then explain the appearances of quotation or allusion accordingly. The same ‘is true of similar appearances in Nahum, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk; which Hitzig cites as proofs of imitation on the part of the Pseudo-Isaiah, while Havernick claims them all as proofs of his priority. It is a very important observation of the last mentioned writer, that the influence of Isaiah on these later prophets b not to be estimated by detached expressions, but by more pervading indications, which he thinks are clearly perceptible throughout the writings both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
As samples of the arguments in favour of their genuineness drawn from the same quarter, may be cited Zech. 7: 4-1-2, where “ the former prophets/’ who cried in the name of Jehovah to the people “ when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity,” must include the writer of these chapters. In reference to all these minor arguments, however, it will be felt by every reader that they have no practical effect, except to corroborate the main ones which have been discussed, and with which they must stand or fall.
Enough has now been said to show that there is no sufficient reason for rejecting the traditional ascription of these chapters to Isaiah. Let us now turn the tables, and inquire what objections lie against the contrary hypo thesis. These objections may be all reduced to this, that the oblivion of the author’s name and history is more inexplicable, not to say incredible, than any thing about the other doctrine can be to a believer in prophetic inspiration. This is a difficulty which no ingenuity has ever yet been able to surmount. That a writer confessedly of the highest genius, living at one of the most critical junctures in the history of Israel, when the word of God be^an to be precious and prophetic inspiration rare, should have produced such a series of prophecies as this, with such effects upon the exiles and even upon Cyrus as tradition ascribes to them, and then have left them to the admiration of all future ages, without so much as a trace of his own personality about them, is a phenomenon of literary history compared with which the mystery of Junius is as nothing. It would be so even if we had no remains of the same period to compare with these; but how immensely is the improbability enhanced by the fact that the other prophets of the exile, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, are not only well known and easily identified, but minutely accurate in the chronological specifications of their prophecies, a feature absolutely wanting in these chapters, though alleged to be the work of a contemporary writer. It is in vain to say, with Ewald, that the suppression of the author’s name and the oblivion of his person may be accounted for by the peculiar circumstances of the times, when the other writings of those times still extant not only fail to prove what is alleged, but prove the very opposite. Even this, however, though sufficiently incredible, is still not all we are required to believe; for we must also grant that these anonymous though admirable writings were attached to those of a prophet who flourished in the preceding century, and with whose productions they are said to have scarcely any thing in common, and that this mysterious combination took place so early as to lie beyond the oldest tradition of the Hebrew Canon, and was so blindly acquiesced in from the first that not the faintest intimation of another author or another origin was ever heard of for two thousand years, when the Higher Criticism first discovered that the prophecies in question were the work of many authors, and then (no less infallibly) that they were really the work of only one, but (still infallibly) that this one could not be Isaiah!
It is in vain that the Germans have endeavoured to evade this fatal obstacle by childish suppositions about big rolls and little rolls, or by citing cases of concealment or oblivion wholly dissimilar and far less wonderful, or by negligently saying that we are not bound to account for the fact, provided we can prove it; as if the proof were not dependent in a great degree upon the possibility of accounting for it, or as if the only business of the Higher Critics were to tie knots which neither we nor they can untie. The question here at issue only needs to be presented to the common sense of man kind, and especially of those who are accustomed to weigh evidence in real life, to be immediately disposed of by the prompt decision that the modern hypothesis is utterly incredible, and that nothing could make it appear otherwise to any man acquainted with the subject, but an irresistible desire to destroy a signal proof and instance of prophetic inspiration.
To this intrinsic want of credibility now add, as positive considerations, the ancient and uniform tradition of the Jews; the testimony of the general title, which must be regarded as inclusive of these chapters, in the absence of all countervailing evidence; the influence exerted by these prophecies, according to Josephus, on Cyrus and the Restoration, implying their antiquity and previous notoriety; the recognition of the whole book as Isaiah’s by the Son of Sirach (48: 22-25); and the indiscriminate citation of its different parts in the New Testament.
Again, to these external testimonies may be added, as internal proofs, the writer’s constant representation of himself as living before some of the events which he describes, and as knowing them by inspiration; his repeated claim to have predicted Cyrus and the Restoration, long before the first appearances of those events; the obvious allusions to Jerusalem and Judah as the writer’s home, to the temple and the ritual as still subsisting, and to idolatry as practised by the people, which the Higher Critics can evade only by asserting that the Jews did not cease to be idolaters in Babylon; the historical allusions to the state of the world with which the writer was familiar, precisely similar to those in the genuine Isaiah; the very structure of the prophecies relating to the exile, clear enough to be distinctly verified, and yet not so minute as a contemporary writer must have made them; and lastly, the identity of Messiah here described with the Messiah of the undisputed prophecies.
It is perhaps impossible for any writer on this subject to do full justice to the adverse arguments, especially to those of a minor and auxiliary character. This is the less to be regretted, because every fresh discussion of the subject makes it more and more apparent that the question really at issue is not whether either party has established its position by direct proofs, but whether it has furnished the other with sufficient reasons for abandoning its own. If the Higher Critics can find nothing in-the arguments alleged against them to make inspiration and prophetic foresight credible, they have certainly done still less to drive us from our position, that Isaiah’s having written this book is unspeakably more probable than any other supposition.
Having now traced the history of the criticism of these prophecies, it may not be amiss to look at that of their interpretation, not through the medium of minute chronological or bibliographical details, but by exhibiting the several theories or schools of exegesis which, at different times or at the same time, have exerted an important influence on the interpretation of these chapters.
The first of these proceeds upon the supposition that these Later Prophecies have reference throughout to the New Dispensation and the Christian Church, including its whole history, with more or less distinctness, from the advent of Christ to the end of the world. This is a favourite doctrine of the Fathers who have written on Isaiah, to wit, Cyril, Eusebius, Jerome, and of some modern writers, among whom the most distinguished is Cocceius. The difference between those who maintain it respects chiefly the degree of fulness and consistency with which they carry out their general idea, some admitting much more frequently than others the occasional occurrence of predictions which were verified before the Advent.
This system’of prophetic exegesis is founded, to a great extent, on the assumption that the Book of Revelation was designed to be a key to the meaning of the ancient prophecies, and not a series of new predictions, often more enigmatical than any of the others. Because Babylon is there named as a power still existing and still threatened with destruction, it was inferred that the name must be symbolical in Isaiah likewise, or at least that it might be so explained at the interpreter’s discretion. This opened an illimitable field of conjecture and invention, each interpreter pursuing his own method of determining the corresponding facts in Church History, without any settled rule to guide or to control him.
The extravagant conclusions often reached in this way, and the general uncertainty imparted to the whole work of interpretation, together with the seeming incorrectness of the principle assumed in regard to the Apocalypse, led many, and particularly those in whom the understanding strongly predominated over the imagination, to reject this theory in favour of its opposite, viz. that the main subject of these chapters must be sought as far as possible before the Advent, and as a necessary consequence either in the period of the Babylonian Exile, or in that of the Syrian domination, with the periods of reaction which succeeded them respectively, since it was only these that furnished events of sufficient magnitude to be the subject of such grand predictions.
It is evident at once that both these theories involve some truth, and that their application must evolve the true sense of some passages. The fatal vice of both is their exclusiveness. The unbiassed reader of Isaiah can no more be persuaded that he never speaks of the New Dispensation than that he never speaks of the Old. After both systems had been pushed to an extreme, it was found necessary to devise some method of conciliating and combining them.
The first and rudest means employed for this end, even by some of the most strenuous adherents of the two extreme hypotheses, when forced at times to grant themselves a dispensation from the rigorous enforcement of their own rule, was to assume arbitrarily a change of subject when it appeared necessary, and to make the Prophet skip from Babylon to Rome, and from the Maccabees to Doomsday, as they found convenient. This arbitrary mixture of the theories is often perpetrated by Cocceius, and occasionally even by Vitringa; neither of whom seems to think it necessary to subject the application of the prophecies to any general principle, or to account for it in any other way than by alleging that it suits the text and context.
A more artificial method of combining both hypotheses is that of Grotius, whose interpretation of these prophecies appears to be governed by two maxims: first, that they all relate to subjects and events before the time of Christ; and secondly, that these are often types of something after wards developed. What renders this kind of interpretation unsatisfactory, is the feeling which it seldom fails to generate, that the text is made to mean too much, or rather too many things; that if one of the senses really belongs to it, the other is superfluous; but above all, that the nexus of the two is insufficient; that although a gradual or even a repeated execution of a promise or a threatening is conceivable, it seems unreasonable that the interpreter should have the discretionary right of saying that the same passage means one thing in ancient times and an altogether different thing in modern times—that the same words, for example, are directly descriptive of Antiochus Epiphanes and Antichrist, of Judas Maccabaeus and Gustavus Adolphus.
A third mode of reconciling these two theories of interpretation is the one pursued by Lowth, and still more successfully by Hengstenberg. It rests upon the supposition that the nearer and the more remote realization of the same prophetic picture might be presented to the Prophet simultaneously or in immediate succession; so that, for example, the deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus insensibly merges into a greater deliverance from sin and ruin by Christ. The principle assumed in this ingenious doctrine is as just as it is beautiful, and of the highest practical importance in interpretation. The only objection to its general application in the case before us is, that it concedes the constant reference to Babylon throughout this book, and only seeks to reconcile this fundamental fact with the wider application of the Prophecies.
It still remains to be considered, therefore, whether any general hypo thesis or scheme can be constructed, which, without’giving undue prominence to any of the topics introduced, without restricting general expressions to specific objects, without assuming harsh transitions, needless double senses, or imaginary typical relations, shall do justice to the unity and homogeneousness of the composition, and satisfactorily reconcile the largeness and variety of its design with the particular allusions and predictions which can only be eliminated from it by a forced and artificial exegesis.
Such a hypothesis is that propounded at the beginning of this Introduction, and assumed as the basis of the following Exposition. It supposes the main subject of these Prophecies, or rather of this Prophecy, to be the Church or people of God, considered in its members and its head, in its design, its origin, its progress, its vicissitudes, its consummation, in its various relations to God and to the world, both as a field of battle and a field of labour, an enemy’s country to be conquered and an inheritance to be secured.
Within the limits of this general description it is easy to distinguish, as alternate objects of prophetic vision, the two great phases of the Church on earth, its state of bondage and its state of freedom, its ceremonial and its spiritual aspect—in a word, what we usually call the Old and New Economy or Dispensation. Both are continually set before us, but with this observable distinction in the mode of presentation, that the first great period is described by individual specific strokes, the second by its outlines as a definite yet undivided whole. To the great turning-point between the two dispensations the prophetic view appears to reach with clear discrimination of the intervening objects, but beyond that to take all in at a single glance. Within the boundaries first mentioned the eye passes with a varied uniformity from one salient point to another; but beyond them it contemplates the end and the beginning, not as distinct pictures, but as necessary elements of one. This difference might naturally be expected in a Prophecy to the Old Dispensation, while in one belonging to the New we should as naturally look for the same definiteness and minuteness as the older prophets used in their descriptions of the older times; and this condition is completely answered by the Book of Revelation.
If this be so, it throws a new light on the more specific Prophecies of this part of Isaiah (such as those relating to the Babylonish Exile); which are then to be regarded, not as the main subject of the Prophecy, but only as prominent figures in the great prophetic picture, some of which were to the Prophet’s eye already past, and some still future. In this respect the Prophecy is perfectly in keeping with the History of Israel, in which the Exile and the Restoration stand conspicuously forth as one of the great critical conjunctures which at distant intervals prepared the way for the removal of the ancient system, and yet secured its continued operation till the time of that removal should arrive. How far the same thing may be said of other periods which occupy a like place in the history of the Jews, such as the period of the Maccabees or Hasmonean Princes, is a question rendered doubtful by the silence of the Prophecy itself, and by the absence of any indications which are absolutely unambiguous. The specific reference of certain passages to this important epoch both by Grotius and Vitringa, has no antecedent probability against it; but we cannot with the same unhesitating confidence assert such an allusion as we can in the case of Babylon and Cyrus, which are mentioned so expressly and repeatedly. It may be that historical discovery, the march of which has been so rapid in our own day, will enable us, or those who shall come after us, to set this question finally at rest. In the meantime it is safest to content ourselves with care fully distinguishing between the old and new economy as represented on the Prophet’s canvass, without attempting to determine by conjecture what particular events are predicted even in the former, any further than we have the certain guidance of the Prophecy itself.
As to a similar attempt in reference to the New Dispensation, it is wholly inconsistent with the view which we have taken of the structure of these Prophecies, and which regards them not as particular descriptions of this or that event in later times, but as a general description of the Church in its emancipated state, or of the Reign of the Messiah, not at one time or another, but throughout its whole course, so that the faint light of the dawn is blended with the glow of sunset and the blaze of noon. The form under which the Reign of Christ is here presented to and by the Prophet is that of a glorious emancipation from the bondage and the darkness of the old economy, in representing which he naturally dwells with more minuteness upon that part of the picture which is nearest to himself, while the rest is bathed in a flood of light; to penetrate beyond which, or to discriminate the objects hid beneath its dazzling veil, formed no part of this Prophet’s mission, but was reserved for the prophetic revelations of the New Testa ment.
It is not however merely to the contrast of the two dispensations that the Prophet’s eye is here directed. It would indeed have been impossible to bring this contrast clearly into view without a prominent exhibition of.the great event by which the transition was effected, and of the great person who effected it. That person is the Servant of Jehovah, elsewhere spoken of as his Anointed or Messiah, and both here and elsewhere represented as combining the prophetic, regal, and sacerdotal characters suggested by that title. The specific relation which he here sustains to the Israel of God, is that of the Head to a living Body; so that in many cases what is said of him appears to be true wholly or in part of them, as forming one complex person, an idea perfectly accordant with the doctrines and the images of the New Testament. It appears to have been first clearly stated in the dictum of an ancient writer quoted by Augustin: “ De Christo et Corpore ejus Ecclesia tanquam de una persona in Scriptura saepius mentionem fieri, cui quaedam tribuuntur quae tantum in Caput, quaedam quae tantum in Corpus competunt, quaedam vero in utrumque.” There is nothing in these Prophecies more striking or peculiar than the sublime position occupied by this colossal figure, standing between the Church of the Old and that of the New Testament, as a mediator, an interpreter, a bond of union, and a common head.
If this be a correct view of the structure of these prophecies, nothing can be more erroneous or unfriendly to correct interpretation, than the idea, which appears to form the basis of some expositions, that the primary object in the Prophet’s view is Israel as a race or nation, and that its spiritual or ecclesiastical relations are entirely adventitious and subordinate. The natural result of this erroneous supposition is a constant dis position to give every thing a national and local sense. This is especially the case with respect to the names so frequently occurring, Zion, Jerusalem, and Judah; all which, according to this view of the matter, must be understood, wherever it is possible, as meaning nothing more than the hill, the city, and the land, which they originally designate. This error has even been pushed by some to the irrational extreme of making Israel as a race the object of the promises, after their entire separation from the church and their reduction for the time being to the same position with the sons of Ishmael and of Esau. That this view should be taken by the modern Jews, in vindication of their own continued unbelief, is not so strange as its adoption by some Christian writers, even in direct opposition to their own interpretation of former prophecies, almost identical in form and sub stance. The specifications of this general charge will be fully given in the exposition.
The claim of this mode of interpretation to the praise of strictness and exactness is a false one, if the Israel of prophecy is not the nation as such merely, but the nation as the temporary frame-work of the church, and if the promises addressed to it, in forms derived from this transitory state, were nevertheless meant to be perpetual, and must be therefore independent of all temporary local restrictions. The true sense of the prophecies in this respect cannot be more strongly or explicitly set forth than in the words of the Apostle, when he says that « God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew;”—” Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded;” “ not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which are of Israel.”
One effect of the correct view of this matter is to do away with vague ness and uncertainty or random license in the explanation of particular predictions. This requires to be more distinctly stated, as at first view the effect may seem to be directly opposite. It was a favourite maxim with an old school of interpreters, of whom Vitringa may be taken as the type and representative, that the prophecies should be explained to mean as much as possible, because the word of God must of course be more significant and pregnant than the word of man. Without disputing the correctness of the reason thus assumed, it may be granted that the rule itself is good or bad, in theory and practice, according to the sense in which it is received and applied. By the interpreters in question it was practically made to mean, that the dignity of prophecy required the utmost possible particularity of application to specific points of history, and the greatest possible number and variety of such applications. The sincerity with which the rule was recognised and acted on, in this sense, is apparent from the zeal with which Vitringa seeks minute historical allusions under the most general expressions, and the zest with which he piles up mystical senses, as he calls them, on the top of literal ones, plainly regarding the assumption of so many senses not as a necessary evil, but as a desirable advantage.
The evils of this method are, however, more apparent when the senses are less numerous, and the whole fulfilment of the prophecy is sought in some one juncture; because then all other applications are excluded, whereas the more they are diversified the more chance is allowed the reader of discovering the true generic import of the passage. For example, when Vitringa makes the Edom of these prophecies denote the Roman Empire, and also the Church of Rome, and also the unbelieving Jews, he widens the scope of his interpretation so far as unwittingly to put the reader on the true scent of a comprehensive threatening against the inveterate enemies of God and of his people, among whom those specified are only comprehended, if at all, as individual examples. But when, on the other hand, he asserts that a particular prophecy received its whole fulfilment in the decline of Protestant theology and piety after the Reformation, he not only puts a meaning on the passage which no one else can see there without his assistance, but excludes all other applications as irrelevant. In some interpreters belonging to the same school, but inferior to Vitringa both in learning and judgment, this mode of exposition is connected with a false view of prophecy as mere prediction, and as intended solely to illustrate the divine omniscience.
Now in aiming to make every thing specific and precise, this kind of exposition renders all uncertain and indefinite, by leaving the particular events foretold to the discretion or caprice of the interpreter. Where the event is expressly described in the prophecy itself, as the conquests of Cyrus are in ch. 44 and 45, there can be no question; it is only where a strict sense is to be imposed upon indefinite expressions, that this evil fruit appears. The perfect license of conjecture thus afforded may be seen by comparing two interpreters of this class, and observing with what confidence the most incompatible opinions are maintained, neither of which would be suggested by the language of the prophecy itself to any other reader. What is thus dependent upon individual invention, taste, or fancy, must be uncertain, not only till it is discovered, but for ever; since the next interpreter may have a still more felicitous conjecture, or a still more ingenious combination, to supplant the old one. It is thus that in aiming at an unattainable precision these interpreters have brought upon themselves the very reproach which they were most solicitous to shun, that of vagueness and uncertainty.
If, instead of this, we let the Prophet say precisely what his words most naturally mean, expounded by the ordinary laws of human language and a due regard to the immediate context and to general usage, without attempt ing to make that specific which the author has made general, any more than to make general what he has made specific, we shall not only shun the inconveniences described, but facilitate the use and application of these prophecies by modern readers. Christian interpreters, as we have seen, have been so unwilling to renounce their interest, and that of the Church gene rally, in these ancient promises, encouragements, and warnings, that they have chosen rather to secure them by the cumbrous machinery of allegory, anagoge, and accommodation. But if the same end may be gained without resorting to such means,—if instead of being told to derive consolation from God’s promises addressed to the Maccabees or to the Jews in exile, because he will be equally gracious to ourselves, we are permitted to regard a vast proportion of those promises as promises to the Church, and the ancient deliverances of the chosen people as mere samples or instalments of their ultimate fulfilment,—such a change in the relative position of the parties to these covenant transactions, without any change in the matter of the c covenant itself, may perhaps not unreasonably be described as recom mending the method of interpretation which alone can make it possible, An exegesis marked by these results is the genuine and only realization of the old idea, in its best sense, that the word of God must mean as much as possible. All this, however, has respect to questions which can only be determined by the slow but sure test of a thorough and detailed interpretation.
Before proceeding to apply this test, it will be necessary to consider briefly the arrangement and division of these Later Prophecies. This is not a question of mere taste, or even of convenience, but one which may mate rially influence the exposition. Here again a brief historical statement may be useful, and not wholly without interest.
The older writers on Isaiah, being free from the influence of any artificial theory, and taking the book just as they found it, treated these chapters as a continuous discourse, with little regard to the usual divisions of the text, except as mere facilities for reference.
Vitringa’s fondness for exact and even formal method, led him to attempt a systematic distribution of these chapters, similar to that which he had given of the Earlier Prophecies. He accordingly throws them into condones or discourses, and divides these into sectioncs, often coinciding with the chapters, but sometimes either longer or shorter. These subdivisions he provides with his favourite apparatus of analysis, anacrisis, etc. under which heads he appropriates distinct paragraphs to the description of the scope, design, occasion, argument, etc. of each section. The inappropriateness of this method, cumbrous at best, to these later chapters, is betrayed by the inanity of many of the prefaces, which have the look of frames or cases without any thing to fill them. This is particularly true of the paragraphs professing to exhibit the occasion upon which the several sections were composed. Here the author not unfrequently is under the necessity of simply referring to the preceding chapter as affording the occasion of the next,—an indirect concession that the separation of the parts, at least in that case, is gratuitous and artificial.
J. H. and J. D. Michaelis, Lowth, Gill, and other writers of the same period, while they wholly discard this embarrassing and wearisome machinery, and content themselves with the common division into chapters, are sometimes chargeable with treating these too much as an original arrange ment of the author’s matter by himself, and thus converting the whole into a series of detached discourses. The same thing is still more apparent in the popular and useful works of Henry, Scott, and others; where the reader is permitted, if not taught, to look upon the chapters as in some sense inde pendent compositions, and to regard the first verse of each as introducing and the last as winding up a complete subject. This would be hurtful to correct interpretation, even if the chapters were divided with the most consummate skill, much more when they are sometimes the result of the most superficial inspection.
The Higher Critics of the elder race, such as Eichhorn and his follow ers, carried out their idea of entire corruption and the consequent necessity of total revolution, not only by assuming a plurality of writers, but by taking for granted that their compositions had been put together perfectly at ran dom, and could be reduced to order only by the constant practice of invent we ingenuity and critical conjecture, The practical effects of this hypo thesis were valuable only as exhibiting its folly and producing a reaction towards more reasonable views. As a specimen of this school may be mentioned BCJ tholdt’s distribution of the prophecies, in which certain chapters and parts of chapters are picked out and classified as having been written before the invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus, others after the invasion but before the siege of Babylon, others during the siege, others after the catastrophe.
Gesenius holds, in opposition to this theory, as we have seen, the one ness of the author and of his design. With respect to the actual arrangement of the book, he is inclined to regard it as original, but grants it to be possible that some transpositions may have taken place, and more particularly that the last chapters, as they now stand, may be older than the first.
Hitzig maintains the strict chronological arrangement of the chapters, with the exception of the forty-seventh, which he looks upon as older, but incorporated with the others by the writer himself. He also maintains, with the utmost confidence, the oneness of the composition, and rejects all suggestions of interpolation and corruption with disdain. This departure from his method in the earlier portion of the book is closely connected with his wish to bring the date of the prophecies as near as possible to that of the fulfilment. For the same reason he assumes the successive composition of the parts with considerable intervals between them, during which he supposes the events of the Persian war to have followed one another and repeatedly changed the posture of affairs. In addition to this chronological arrangement of his own, Hitzig adopts Riickert’s threefold division of the book into three nearly equal parts, as indicated by the closing words of ch. 48 and 57. Ewald adopts the same view of the unity and gradual production of these prophecies, but with a different distribution of the parts. Ch. 40-48 he describes as the first attempt, exhibiting the freshest inspiration; ch. 49 —60 as somewhat later, with a pause at the end of ch. 57. To these he adds two postscripts or appendixes, an earlier one ending ch. 63: 6, and a later one extending to the close of the book.
Hendewerk divides the whole into two parallel series, the first ending with the forty-fifth chapter. He rejects Riickert’s threefold division, as founded on an accidental repetition. He also rejects Hitzig’s theory as to ch. 47, but goes still further in determining.the precise stages of the composition and tracing in the prophecy the principal events in the history of Cyrus. Knobel divides the whole into three parts, ch. 40-48, ch. 49-62, ch. 63-66.
A comparison of these minute arrangements shows that they are founded on imaginary allusions, or prompted by a governing desire to prove that the writer must have been contemporary with the exile, a wish which here predominates over the habitual disposition of these critics to explain away apparent references to history rather than to introduce them where they do not really exist.
Discarding these imaginary facts, Havernick goes back to the rational hypothesis of a continuous discourse, either uninterrupted in its composition or unaffected in its structure by the interruptions which are now beyond the reach of critical discovery, and for the same reason wholly unimportant. This is substantially the ground assumed by the old interpreters, and even by Gesenius, but now confirmed by the utter failure of all efforts to establish any more artificial distribution of the text. As to arrangement, Havernick adopts that of Ruckert, which is rather poetical than critical, and founded on the similar close of ch. 48 and 57, coinciding with the usual division into chapters, so as to throw nine into each of the three portions. As an aid to the memory, and a basis of convenient distribution, this hypothesis may be adopted without injury, but not as implying that the book consists of three independent parts, or that any one of the proposed divisions can be satisfactorily interpreted apart from the others. The greater the pains taken to demonstrate such a structure, the more forced and artificial must the exposition of the book become; and it is therefore best to regard this ingenious idea of Ruckert as an aesthetic decoration rather than an exegetical expedient.
After carefully comparing all the methods of division and arrangement which have come to my knowledge, I am clearly of opinion that in this part of Scripture, more perhaps than any other, the evil to be shunned is not so much defect as excess; that the book is not only a continued but a desul tory composition; that although there is a sensible progression in the whole from the beginning to the end. it cannot be distinctly traced in every minor part, being often interrupted and obscured by retrocessions and resumptions, which, though governed by a natural association in each case, are not reduci ble to rule or system. The conventional division into chapters, viewed as a mechanical contrivance for facilitating reference, is indispensable, and cannot be materially changed with any good effect at all proportioned to the inconvenience and confusion which would necessarily attend such a departure from a usage long established and now universally familiar. The disadvantages attending it, or springing from an injudicious use of it by readers and expounders, are the frequent separation of parts which as really cohere together as those that are combined, and the conversion of one great shifting spectacle, in which the scenes are constantly succeeding one another in a varied order, into a series of detached and unconnected pictures, throwing no light on each other even when most skilfully divided, and too often exhibiting a part of one view in absurd juxtaposition with another less akin to it than that from which it has been violently sundered.
A similar caution is required in relation to the summaries or prefatory notes with which the chapters, in conformity to usage and the prevalent opinion, are provided in the present work. In order to prevent an aggravation of the evils just described, a distinction must be clearly made between these summaries, and logical analyses so useful in the study of an argumentative context. It is there that such a method is at once most useful and most easy; because the logical nexus, where it really exists, is that which may be most successfully detected and exhibited as well as most tenaciously remembered. But in the case of an entirely different structure, and especially in one where a certain cycle of ideas is repeated often, in an order not prescribed by logic but by poetical association, there is no such facility, but on the other hand a tendency to sameness and monotony which weakens rather than excites the attention, and affords one of the strongest confirmations of the views already taken with respect to the structure of the whole book and the proper mode of treating it.
The most satisfactory and useful method of surveying the whole book with a view to the detailed interpretation of the parts is, in my opinion, to obtain a clear view of the few great themes with which the writer’s mind was filled, and of the minor topics into which they readily resolve themselves, and then to mark their varied combinations as they alternately present themselves, some more fully and frequently in one part of the book, some exclusively in one part, others with greater uniformity in all. The succession of the prominent figures will be pointed out as we proceed in the interpretation of the several chapters. But in order to afford the reader every preliminary aid before attempting the detailed interpretation, I shall close this Introduction with a brief synopsis of the whole, presenting at a single glance its prominent contents and the mutual relation of its parts.
The prominent objects here presented to the Prophet’s view are these five. 1. The carnal Israel, the Jewish nation, in its proud self-reliance and its gross corruption, whether idolatrous or only hypocritical and formal. 2. The spiritual Israel, the true Church, the remnant according to the election of grace, considered as the object of Jehovah’s favour and protection, but at the same time as weak in faith and apprehensive of destruction. 3. The Babylonish Exile and the Restoration from it, as the most important inter mediate point between the date of the prediction and the advent of Messiah, and as an earnest or a sample of Jehovah’s future dealings with his people both in wrath and mercy. 4. The Advent itself, with the person and character of Him who was to come for the deliverance of his people not only from eternal ruin but from temporal bondage, and their introduction into “glorious liberty.” 5. The character of this new condition of the Church or of the Christian Dispensation, not considered in its elements but as a whole; not in the way of chronological succession, but at one view; not so much in itself, as in contrast with the temporary system that preceded it.
These are the subjects of the Prophet’s whole discourse, and may be described as present to his mind throughout; but the degree in which they are respectively made prominent is different in different parts. The attempts which have been made to show that they are taken up successively and treated one by one, are unsuccessful, because inconsistent with the frequent repetition and recurrence of the same theme. The order is not that of strict succession, but of alternation. It is still true, however, that the relative prominence of these great themes is far from being constant. As a general fact, it may be said that their relative positions in this respect answer to those which they hold in the enumeration above given. The character of Israel, both as a nation and a church, is chiefly prominent in the beginning, the Exile and the Advent in the middle, the contrast and the change of dispensations at the end. With this general conception of the Prophecy, the reader can have very little difficulty in perceiving the unity of the discourse, and marking its transitions for himself, even without the aid of such an abstract as the following.
The form in which the Prophecy begins has been determined by its intimate connexion with the threatening in the thirty-ninth chapter. To assure the Israel of God, or true church, that the national judgments which had been denounced should not destroy it, is the Prophet’s purpose in the fortieth chapter, and is executed by exhibiting Jehovah’s power, and willing ness, and fixed determination to protect and save his own elect. In the forty-first, his power and omniscience are contrasted with the impotence of idols, and illustrated by an individual example. In the forty-second, the person of the great Deliverer is introduced, the nature of his influence described, the relation of his people to himself defined, and their mission or vocation as enlighteners of the world explained. The forty-third completes this exposition by exhibiting the true design of Israel’s election as a people, its entire independence of all merit in themselves, and sole dependence on the sovereign will of God. In the forty-fourth the argument against idolatry is amplified and urged, and the divine sufficiency and faithfulness exemplified by a historical allusion to the exodus from Egypt, and a prophetic one to the deliverance from Babylon, in which last Cyrus is expressly named. The last part of this chapter should have been connected with the first part of the forty-fifth, in which the name of Cyrus is repeated, and his conquests represented as an effect of God’s omnipotence, and the prediction as a proof of his omniscience, both which attributes are then again contrasted with the impotence and senselessness of idols. The same comparison is still continued in the forty-sixth, with special reference to the false gods of Babylon, as utterly unable to deliver either their worshippers or themselves. In the forty-seventh the description is extended to the Babylonian government, as wholly powerless in opposition to Jehovah’s interference for the emancipation of his people. The forty-eighth contains the winding up of this great argument from Cyrus and the fall of Babylon, as a conviction and rebuke to the unbelieving Jews themselves. The fact that Babylon is expressly mentioned only in these chapters is a strong confirmation of our previous conclusion that it is not the main subject of the prophecy. By a natural transition he reverts in the forty-ninth to the true Israel, and shows the groundlessness of their misgivings, by disclosing God’s design respecting them, and showing the certainty of its fulfilment notwithstanding all discouraging appearances. The difference in the character and fate of the two Israels is still more exactly defined in the fiftieth chapter. In the fifty-first the true relation of the chosen people both to God and to the gentiles is illustrated by historical examples—the calling of Abram and the exodus from Egypt, and the same power pledged for the safety of Israel in time to come. In the last part of this chapter and the first of the fifty-second, which cohere in the most intimate manner, the gracious purposes of God are represented as fulfilled already, and described in the most animating terms. This view of the future condition of the church could not be separated long from that of Him by whom it was to be effected; and accordingly the last part of this chapter, forming one unbroken context with the fifty-third, exhibits him anew, no longer as a teacher, but as the great sacrifice for sin. No sooner is this great work finished than the best days of the church begin, the loss of national distinction being really a prelude to her glorious emancipation. The promise of this great change in the fifty-fourth chapter, is followed in the fifty-fifth by a gracious invitation to the whole world to partake of it. The fifty-sixth continues the same subject, by predicting the entire abrogation of all local, personal, and national distinctions. Having dwelt so long upon the prospects of the spiritual Israel or true church, the Prophet, in the last part of the fifty-sixth and the first part of the fifty-seventh, looks back at the carnal Israel, as it was in the days of its idolatrous apostacy, and closes with a threatening which insensibly melts into a promise of salvation to the true Israel. The fifty-eighth again presents the carnal Israel, not as idolaters but as hypocrites, and points out the true mean between the rejection of appointed rites and the abuse of them. The fifty-ninth explains Jehovah’s dealings with the nation of the Jews, and shows that their rejection was the fruit of their own doings, as the salvation of the saved was that of God’s omnipotent compassions. In the sixtieth he turns once more to the true Israel, and begins a series of magnificent descriptions of the new dispensation as a whole, contrasted with the imperfections and restrictions of the old. The prominent figures of the picture in this chapter are immense increase by the accession of the gentiles, and internal purity and peace. The prominent figure in the sixty-first is that of the Messiah as the agent in this great work of spiritual emancipation. In the sixty-second it is that of Zion, or the Church herself, in the most intimate union with Jehovah and the full fruition of his favour. But this anticipation is inseparably blended with that of vengeance on the enemies of God, which is accordingly presented in the sublime vision of the sixty-third chapter, followed by an appeal to God’s former dealings with his people, as a proof that their rejection was their own fault, and that he will still protect the true believers. These are represented in the sixty-fourth as humbly confessing their own sins and suing for the favour of Jehovah. In the sixty-fifth he solemnly announces the adoption of the gentiles and the rejection of the carnal Israel because of their iniquities, among which idolatry is once more rendered prominent. He then contrasts the doom of the apostate Israel with the glorious destiny awaiting the true Israel. And this comparison is still continued in the sixtysixth chapter, where the Prophet, after ranging through so wide a field of vision, seems at last to fix his own eye and his reader’s on the dividing line or turning point between the old and new economy, and winds up the whole drama with a vivid exhibition of the nations gathered to Jerusalem for worship, while the children of the kingdom, i. e. Israel according to the flesh, are cast forth into outer darkness, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched. Upon this awful spectacle the curtain falls, and we are left to find relief from its impressions in the merciful disclosures of a later and more cheering revelation.
