diff options
Diffstat (limited to '39767.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 39767.txt | 14036 |
1 files changed, 14036 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/39767.txt b/39767.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e7f8f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/39767.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14036 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Isaiah, Volume I (of 2), by George Adam Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Isaiah, Volume I (of 2) + +Author: George Adam Smith + +Release Date: May 22, 2012 [EBook #39767] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, VOLUME I *** + + + + +Produced by Colin Bell, Julia Neufeld and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + +Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. + +[=a] depicts a macron over "a" as in "d[=a]l" + +Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been preserved except in +obvious cases of typographical error. + +All advertising has been moved to the end of the book. + + + THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE + + EDITED BY THE REV. + + SIR W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of "The Expositor," etc._ + + + THE BOOK OF ISAIAH + + BY THE REV. + + GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A. + + _VOLUME 1._ + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LONDON. MCMX + + + + + THE + + BOOK OF ISAIAH + + BY THE REV. + + GEORGE ADAM SMITH, M.A., D.D. + + _Professor of Hebrew in the Free Church College, Glasgow_ + + _IN TWO VOLUMES_ + VOL. I.--ISAIAH I.-XXXIX. + + _TWENTIETH EDITION_ + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LONDON. MCMX + +_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION ix + + TABLE OF DATES xvi + + + BOOK I. + + _ISAIAH'S PREFACE AND PROPHECIES TO + THE DEATH OF AHAZ_, 727 B.C. + + CHAP. + + I. ISAIAH'S PREFACE--THE ARGUMENT OF THE LORD. 3 + + ISAIAH i. + + II. THE THREE JERUSALEMS 19 + + ISAIAH ii.-iv. 740-735 B.C. + + III. THE VINEYARD OF THE LORD 35 + + ISAIAH v.; ix. 8-x. 4. 735 B.C. + + IV. ISAIAH'S CALL AND CONSECRATION 57 + + ISAIAH vi. 740. WRITTEN 735 OR 727 B.C. (?). + + V. THE WORLD IN ISAIAH'S DAY AND ISRAEL'S GOD 91 + + WITH A MAP. + + VI. KING AND MESSIAH; PEOPLE AND CHURCH 103 + + ISAIAH vii.-ix. 1-8. 735-732 B.C. + + VII. THE MESSIAH 131 + + + BOOK II. + + _PROPHECIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF HEZEKIAH + TO THE DEATH OF SARGON_, + 727-705 B.C. + + VIII. GOD'S COMMONPLACE 151 + + ISAIAH xxviii. ABOUT 725 B.C. + + IX. ATHEISM OF FORCE AND ATHEISM OF FEAR 168 + + ISAIAH x. 5-34. ABOUT 721 B.C. + + X. THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN MAN AND THE ANIMALS 179 + + ISAIAH xi.; xii. ABOUT 720 B.C. (?). + + XI. DRIFTING TO EGYPT, 720-705 B.C. 196 + + ISAIAH xx. (711 B.C.); xxi. 1-10 (710 B.C.); xxxviii.; xxxix. + + + BOOK III. + + _ORATIONS ON INTRIGUES WITH EGYPT_, + _AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS_, + 705-702 B.C. + + XII. ARIEL, ARIEL 209 + + ISAIAH xxix. ABOUT 703 B.C. + + XIII. POLITICS AND FAITH 221 + + ISAIAH xxx. ABOUT 702 B.C. + + XIV. THREE TRUTHS ABOUT GOD 238 + + ISAIAH xxxi. ABOUT 702 B.C. + + XV. A MAN; OR, CHARACTER AND THE CAPACITY TO + DISCRIMINATE CHARACTER 248 + + ISAIAH xxxii. 1-8. ABOUT 702 B.C. (?). + + XVI. ISAIAH TO WOMEN 262 + + ISAIAH xxxii. 9-20. DATE UNCERTAIN. + + XVII. ISAIAH TO THE FOREIGN NATIONS 271 + + ISAIAH xiv. 24-xxi.; xxiii. VARIOUS DATES. + + XVIII. TYRE; OR, THE MERCENARY SPIRIT 288 + + ISAIAH xxiii. 702 B.C. + + + BOOK IV. + + _JERUSALEM AND SENNACHERIB, 701 B.C._ + + XIX. AT THE LOWEST EBB 306 + + ISAIAH i.; xxii. Early in 701 B.C. + + XX. THE TURN OF THE TIDE: MORAL EFFECTS OF FORGIVENESS 320 + + ISAIAH xxii.; xxxiii. LATER IN 701 B.C. + + XXI. OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE 331 + + ISAIAH xxxiii. + + XXII. THE RABSHAKEH; OR, LAST TRIALS OF FAITH 343 + + ISAIAH xxxvi. 701 B.C. + + XXIII. THIS IS THE VICTORY ... OUR FAITH 352 + + ISAIAH xxxvii. 701 B.C. + + XXIV. A REVIEW OF ISAIAH'S PREDICTIONS CONCERNING + THE DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM 368 + + XXV. AN OLD TESTAMENT BELIEVER'S SICK-BED; OR, THE + DIFFERENCE CHRIST HAS MADE 375 + + ISAIAH xxxviii.; xxxix. DATE UNCERTAIN. + + XXVI. HAD ISAIAH A GOSPEL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL? 389 + + + BOOK V. + + _PROPHECIES NOT RELATING TO ISAIAH'S + TIME._ + + XXVII. BABYLON AND LUCIFER 405 + + ISAIAH xii. 12-xiv. 23. DATE UNKNOWN. + + XXVIII. THE EFFECT OF SIN ON OUR MATERIAL SURROUNDINGS 416 + + ISAIAH xxiv. DATE UNKNOWN. + + XXIX. GOD'S POOR 428 + + ISAIAH xxv.-xxvii.; xxxiv.; xxxv. DATES UNKNOWN. + + XXX. THE RESURRECTION 444 + + ISAIAH xxvi.; xxvii. + + INDEX OF CHAPTERS 453 + + INDEX OF SUBJECTS 455 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +As the following Exposition of the Book of Isaiah does not observe the +canonical arrangement of the chapters, a short introduction is necessary +upon the plan which has been adopted. + +The size and the many obscurities of the Book of Isaiah have limited the +common use of it in the English tongue to single conspicuous passages, +the very brilliance of which has cast their context and original +circumstance into deeper shade. The intensity of the gratitude with +which men have seized upon the more evangelical passages of Isaiah, as +well as the attention which apologists for Christianity have too +partially paid to his intimations of the Messiah, has confirmed the +neglect of the rest of the Book. But we might as well expect to receive +an adequate conception of a great statesman's policy from the epigrams +and perorations of his speeches as to appreciate the message, which God +has sent to the world through the Book of Isaiah, from a few lectures on +isolated, and often dislocated, texts. No book of the Bible is less +susceptible of treatment apart from the history out of which it sprang +than the Book of Isaiah; and it may be added, that in the Old Testament +at least there is none which, when set in its original circumstance and +methodically considered as a whole, appeals with greater power to the +modern conscience. Patiently to learn how these great prophecies were +suggested by, and first met, the actual occasions of human life, is +vividly to hear them speaking home to life still. + +I have, therefore, designed an arrangement which embraces all the +prophecies, but treats them in chronological order. I will endeavour to +render their contents in terms which appeal to the modern conscience; +but, in order to be successful, such an endeavour presupposes the +exposition of them in relation to the history which gave them birth. In +these volumes, therefore, narrative and historical exposition will take +precedence of practical application. + +Every one knows that the Book of Isaiah breaks into two parts between +chaps. xxxix. and xl. Vol. I. of this Exposition covers chaps. i.-xxxix. +Vol. II. will treat of chaps. xl.-lxvi. Again, within chaps. i.-xxxix. +another division is apparent. The most of these chapters evidently bear +upon events within Isaiah's own career, but some imply historical +circumstances that did not arise till long after he had passed away. Of +the five books into which I have divided Vol. I., the first four contain +the prophecies relating to Isaiah's time (740-701 B.C.), and the fifth +the prophecies which refer to later events (chaps. xiii.-xiv. 23; +xxiv.-xxvii.; xxxiv.; xxxv.). + +The prophecies, whose subjects fall within Isaiah's times, I have taken +in chronological order, with one exception. This exception is chap. i., +which, although it published near the end of the prophet's life, I treat +of first, because, from its position as well as its character, it is +evidently intended as a preface to the whole book. The difficulty of +grouping the rest of Isaiah's oracles and orations is great. The plan I +have adopted is not perfect, but convenient. Isaiah's prophesying was +determined chiefly by _four_ Assyrian invasions of Palestine: the first, +in 734-732 B.C., by Tiglath-pileser II., while Ahaz was on the throne; +the second by Salmanassar and Sargon in 725-720, during which Samaria +fell in 721; the third by Sargon, 712-710; the fourth by Sennacherib in +701, which last three occurred while Hezekiah was king of Judah. But +outside the Assyrian invasions there were three other cardinal dates in +Isaiah's life: 740, his call to be a prophet; 727, the death of Ahaz, +his enemy, and the accession of his pupil, Hezekiah; and 705, the death +of Sargon, for Sargon's death led to the rebellion of the Syrian States, +and it was this rebellion which brought on Sennacherib's invasion. +Taking all these dates into consideration, I have placed in Book I. all +the prophecies of Isaiah from his call in 740 to the death of Ahaz in +727; they lead up to and illustrate Tiglath-pileser's invasion; they +cover what I have ventured to call the prophet's apprenticeship, during +which the theatre of his vision was mainly the internal life of his +people, but he gained also his first outlook upon the world beyond. Book +II. deals with the prophecies from the accession of Hezekiah in 727 to +the death of Sargon in 705--a long period, but few prophecies, covering +both Salmanassar's and Sargon's campaigns. Book III. is filled with the +prophecies from 705 to 702, a numerous group, called forth from Isaiah +by the rebellion and political activity in Palestine consequent on +Sargon's death and preliminary to Sennacherib's arrival. Book IV. +contains the prophecies which refer to Sennacherib's actual invasion of +Judah and siege of Jerusalem, in 701. + +Of course, any chronological arrangement of Isaiah's prophecies must be +largely provisional. Only some of the chapters are fixed to dates past +possibility of doubt. The Assyriology which has helped us with these +must yield further results before the controversies can be settled that +exist with regard to the rest. I have explained in the course of the +Exposition my reasons for the order which I have followed, and need only +say here that I am still more uncertain about the generally received +dates of chaps x. 5-xi., xvii. 12-14 and xxxii. The religious problems, +however, were so much the same during the whole of Isaiah's career that +uncertainties of date, _if they are confined to the limits of that +career_, make little difference to the exposition of the book. + +Isaiah's doctrines, being so closely connected with the life of his day, +come up for statement at many points of the narrative, in which this +Exposition chiefly consists. But here and there I have inserted chapters +dealing summarily with more important topics, such as The World in +Isaiah's Day; The Messiah; Isaiah's Power of Prediction, with its +evidence on the character of Inspiration; and the question, Had Isaiah a +Gospel for the Individual? A short index will guide the student to +Isaiah's teaching on other important points of theology and life, such +as holiness, forgiveness, monotheism, immortality, the Holy Spirit, etc. + +Treating Isaiah's prophecies chronologically as I have done, I have +followed a method which put me on the look-out for any traces of +development that his doctrine might exhibit. I have recorded these as +they occur, but it may be useful to collect them here. In chaps. ii.-iv. +we have the struggle of the apprentice prophet's thoughts from the easy +religious optimism of his generation, through unrelieved convictions of +judgement for the whole people, to his final vision of the Divine +salvation of a remnant. Again, chap. vii. following on chaps. ii.-vi. +proves that Isaiah's belief in the Divine righteousness preceded, and +was the parent of, his belief in the Divine sovereignty. Again, his +successive pictures of the Messiah grow in contents, and become more +spiritual. And again, he only gradually arrived at a clear view of the +siege and deliverance of Jerusalem. One other fact of the same kind has +impressed me since I wrote the exposition of chap. i. I have there +stated that it is plain that Isaiah's conscience was perfect just +because it consisted of two complementary parts: one of God the +infinitely High, exalted in righteousness, far above the thoughts of His +people, and the other of God the infinitely Near, concerned and jealous +for all the practical details of their life. I ought to have added that +Isaiah was more under the influence of the former in his earlier years, +but that as he grew older and took a larger share in the politics of +Judah it was the latter view of God, to which he most frequently gave +expression. Signs of a development like these may be fairly used to +correct or support the evidence which Assyriology affords for +determining the chronological order of the chapters. + +But these signs of development are more valuable for the proof they give +that the Book of Isaiah contains the experience and testimony of a real +life: a life that learned and suffered and grew, and at last triumphed. +There is not a single word about the prophet's birth or childhood, or +fortune, or personal appearance, or even of his death. But between +silence on his origin and silence on his end--and perhaps all the more +impressively because of these clouds by which it is bounded--there +shines the record of Isaiah's spiritual life and of the unfaltering +career which this sustained,--clear and whole, from his commission by +God in the secret experience of his own heart to his vindication in +God's supreme tribunal of history. It is not only one of the greatest, +but one of the most finished and intelligible, lives in history. My main +purpose in expounding the book is to enable English readers, not only to +follow its course, but to feel, and to be elevated by, its Divine +inspiration. + +I may state that this Exposition is based upon a close study of the +Hebrew text of Isaiah, and that the translations are throughout my own, +except in one or two cases where I have quoted from the revised English +version. + +With regard to the Revised Version of Isaiah, which I have had +opportunities of thoroughly testing, I would like to say that my sense +of the immense service which it renders to English readers of the Bible +is only exceeded by my wonder that the Revisers have not gone just a +very little farther, and adopted one or two simple contrivances which +are in the line of their own improvements and would have greatly +increased our large debt to them. For instance, why did they not make +plain by inverted commas such undoubted interruptions of the prophet's +own speech as that of the drunkards in chap. xxviii. 9, 10? Not to know +that these verses are spoken in mockery of Isaiah, a mockery to which he +replies in vv. 10-13, is to miss the meaning of the whole passage. +Again, when they printed Job and the Psalms in metrical form, as well as +the Hymn of Hezekiah, why did they not do the same with other poetical +passages of Isaiah, particularly the great Ode on the King of Babylon in +chap. xiv.? This is utterly spoiled in the form in which the Revisers +have printed it. What English reader would guess that it was as much a +piece of metre as any of the Psalms? Again, why have they so +consistently rendered by the misleading word "judgement" a Hebrew term +that no doubt sometimes means an act of doom, but far oftener the +abstract quality of justice? It is such defects, along with a frequent +failure to mark the proper emphasis in a sentence, that have led me to +substitute a more literal version of my own. + +I have not thought it necessary to discuss the question of the +chronology of the period. This has been done so often and so recently. +See Robertson Smith's _Prophets of Israel_, pp. 145, 402, 413, Driver's +_Isaiah_, p. 12, or any good commentary. + +I append a chronological table, and an index to the canonical chapters +will be found before the index of subjects. The publishers have added a +map of Isaiah's world in illustration of chap. v. + + + + +TABLE OF DATES. + + + B.C. + + 745. Tiglath-pileser II. ascends the Assyrian Throne. + + 740. Uzziah dies. Jotham becomes sole King of Judah. Isaiah's + Inaugural Vision (Isa. vi.). + + 735. Jotham dies. Ahaz succeeds. League of Syria and Northern + Israel against Judah. + + 734-732. Syrian Campaign of Tiglath-pileser II. Siege and Capture + of Damascus. Invasion of Israel. Captivity of Zebulon, + Naphtali and Galilee (Isa. ix. 1). Ahaz visits Damascus. + + 727. Salmanassar IV. succeeds Tiglath-pileser II. Hezekiah succeeds + Ahaz (or in 725?). + + 725. Salmanassar marches on Syria. + + 722 or 721. Sargon succeeds Salmanassar. Capture of Samaria. + Captivity of all Northern Israel. + + 720 or 719. Sargon defeats Egypt at Rafia. + + 711. Sargon invades Syria (Isa. xx.). Capture of Ashdod. + + 709. Sargon takes Babylon from Merodach-baladan. + + 705. Murder of Sargon. Sennacherib succeeds. + + 701. Sennacherib invades Syria. Capture of Coast Towns. Siege + of Ekron and Battle of Eltekeh. Invasion of Judah. Submission + of Hezekiah. Jerusalem spared. Return of + Assyrians with the Rabshakeh to Jerusalem, while Sennacherib's + Army marches on Egypt. Disaster to Sennacherib's + Army near Pelusium. Disappearance of Assyrians from + before Jerusalem--all happening in this order. + + 697 or 696. Death of Hezekiah. Manasseh succeeds. + + 681. Death of Sennacherib. + + 607. Fall of Nineveh and Assyria. Babylon supreme. Jeremiah. + + 599. First Deportation of Jews to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. + + 588. Jerusalem destroyed. Second Deportation of Jews. + + 538. Cyrus captures Babylon. First Return of Jewish Exiles, under + Zerubbabel, happens soon after. + + 458. Second Return of Jewish Exiles, under Ezra. + + + + +BOOK I + +_PREFACE AND PROPHECIES TO THE DEATH OF AHAZ_, + +727 B.C. + + + + + ISAIAH: i. THE PREFACE. + + " ii.-iv. 740-735 B.C. + + " v., ix. 8-x. 4. 735 B.C. + + " vi. About 735 B.C. + + " vii.-ix. 7. 734-732 B.C. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +_THE ARGUMENT OF THE LORD AND ITS CONCLUSION._ + +ISAIAH i.--HIS GENERAL PREFACE. + + +The first chapter of the Book of Isaiah owes its position not to its +date, but to its character. It was published late in the prophet's life. +The seventh verse describes the land as overrun by foreign soldiery, and +such a calamity befell Judah only in the last two of the four reigns +over which the first verse extends Isaiah's prophesying. In the reign of +Ahaz, Judah was invaded by Syria and Northern Israel, and some have +dated chapter i. from the year of that invasion, 734 B.C. In the reign +again of Hezekiah some have imagined, in order to account for the +chapter, a swarming of neighbouring tribes upon Judah; and Mr. Cheyne, +to whom regarding the history of Isaiah's time we ought to listen with +the greatest deference, has supposed an Assyrian invasion in 711, under +Sargon. But hardly of this, and certainly not of that, have we adequate +evidence, and the only other invasion of Judah in Isaiah's lifetime took +place under Sennacherib, in 701. For many reasons this Assyrian invasion +is to be preferred to that by Syria and Ephraim in 734 as the occasion +of this prophecy. But there is really no need to be determined on the +point. The prophecy has been lifted out of its original circumstance +and placed in the front of the book, perhaps by Isaiah himself, as a +general introduction to his collected pieces. It owes its position, as +we have said, to its character. It is a clear, complete statement of the +points which were at issue between the Lord and His own all the time +Isaiah was the Lord's prophet. It is the most representative of Isaiah's +prophecies, a summary, perhaps better than any other single chapter of +the Old Testament, of the substance of prophetic doctrine, and a very +vivid illustration of the prophetic spirit and method. We propose to +treat it here as introductory to the main subjects and lines of Isaiah's +teaching, leaving its historical references till we arrive in due course +at the probable year of its origin, 701 B.C.[1] + + [1] See p. 343. + + * * * * * + +Isaiah's preface is in the form of a Trial or Assize. Ewald calls it +"The Great Arraignment." There are all the actors in a judicial process. +It is a Crown case, and God is at once Plaintiff and Judge. He delivers +both the Complaint in the beginning (vv. 2, 3) and the Sentence in the +end. The Assessors are Heaven and Earth, whom the Lord's herald invokes +to hear the Lord's plea (ver. 2). The people of Judah are the +Defendants. The charge against them is one of brutish, ingrate +stupidity, breaking out into rebellion. The Witness is the prophet +himself, whose evidence on the guilt of his people consists in +recounting the misery that has overtaken their land (vv. 4-9), along +with their civic injustice and social cruelty--sins of the upper and +ruling classes (vv. 10, 17, 21-23). The people's Plea-in-defence, +laborious worship and multiplied sacrifice, is repelled and exposed (vv. +10-17). And the Trial is concluded--_Come now, let us bring our +reasoning to a close, saith the Lord_--by God's offer of pardon to a +people thoroughly convicted (ver. 18). On which follow the Conditions of +the Future: happiness is sternly made dependent on repentance and +righteousness (vv. 19, 20). And a supplementary oracle is given (vv. +24-31), announcing a time of affliction, through which the nation shall +pass as through a furnace; rebels and sinners shall be consumed, but God +will redeem Zion, and with her a remnant of the people. + +That is the plan of the chapter--a Trial at Law. Though it disappears +under the exceeding weight of thought the prophet builds upon it, do not +let us pass hurriedly from it, as if it were only a scaffolding. + +That God should argue at all is the magnificent truth on which our +attention must fasten, before we inquire what the argument is about. God +reasons with man--that is the first article of religion according to +Isaiah. Revelation is not magical, but rational and moral. Religion is +reasonable intercourse between one intelligent Being and another. God +works upon man first through conscience. + +Over against the prophetic view of religion sprawls and reeks in this +same chapter the popular--religion as smoky sacrifice, assiduous +worship, and ritual. The people to whom the chapter was addressed were +not idolaters.[2] Hezekiah's reformation was over. Judah worshipped her +own God, whom the prophet introduces not as for the first time, but by +Judah's own familiar names for Him--Jehovah, Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy +One of Israel, the Mighty One, or Hero, of Israel. In this hour of +extreme danger the people are waiting on Jehovah with great pains and +cost of sacrifice. They pray, they sacrifice, they solemnize to +perfection. But they do not _know_, they do not _consider_; this is the +burden of their offence. To use a better word, they do not _think_. They +are God's grown-up children (ver. 2)--_children_, that is to say, like +the son of the parable, with native instincts for their God, and _grown +up_--that is to say, with reason and conscience developed. But they use +neither, stupider than very beasts. _Israel doth not know, my people +doth not consider._ In all their worship conscience is asleep, and they +are drenched in wickedness. Isaiah puts their life in an +epigram--_wickedness and worship: I cannot away_, saith the Lord, _with +wickedness and worship_ (ver. 13). + + [2] At least those to whom the first twenty-three verses were addressed. + There is distinct blame of worshipping in the groves of Asherah in the + appended oracle (vv. 24-31), which is proof that this oracle was given + at an earlier period than the rest of the chapter--a fair instance of + the very great difficulty we have in determining the dates of the + various prophecies of Isaiah. + +But the pressure and stimulus of the prophecy lie in this, that although +the people have silenced conscience and are steeped in a stupidity worse +than ox or ass, God will not leave them alone. He forces Himself upon +them; He compels them to think. In the order and calmness of nature +(ver. 2), apart from catastrophe nor seeking to influence by any +miracle, God speaks to men by the reasonable words of His prophet. +Before He will publish salvation or intimate disaster He must rouse and +startle conscience. His controversy precedes alike His peace and His +judgements. An awakened conscience is His prophet's first demand. Before +religion can be prayer, or sacrifice, or any acceptable worship, it must +be a _reasoning together_ with God. + +That is what mean the arrival of the Lord, and the opening of the +assize, and the call to know and consider. It is the terrible necessity +which comes back upon men, however engrossed or drugged they may be, to +pass their lives in moral judgement before themselves; a debate to which +there is never any closure, in which forgotten things will not be +forgotten, but a man "is compelled to repeat to himself things he +desires to be silent about, and to listen to what he does not wish to +hear, ... yielding to that mysterious power which says to him, Think. +One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea +from returning to a shore. With the sailor this is called the tide; with +the guilty it is called remorse. God upheaves the soul as well as the +ocean."[3] Upon that ever-returning and resistless tide Hebrew prophecy, +with its Divine freight of truth and comfort, rides into the lives of +men. This first chapter of Isaiah is just the parable of the awful +compulsion to think which men call conscience. The stupidest of +generations, formal and fat-hearted, are forced to consider and to +reason. The Lord's court and controversy are opened, and men are whipped +into them from His Temple and His altar. + + [3] _Les Miserables_: "a Tempest in a Brain." + +For even religion and religiousness, the common man's commonest refuge +from conscience--not only in Isaiah's time--cannot exempt from this +writ. Would we be judged by our moments of worship, by our +_temple-treading_, which is Hebrew for church-going, by the wealth of +our sacrifice, by our ecclesiastical position? This chapter drags us out +before the austerity and incorruptibleness of Nature. The assessors of +the Lord are not the Temple nor the Law, but Heaven and Earth--not +ecclesiastical conventions, but the grand moral fundamentals of the +universe, purity, order and obedience to God. Religiousness, however, +is not the only refuge from which we shall find Isaiah startling men +with the trumpet of the Lord's assize. He is equally intolerant of the +indulgent silence and compromises of the world, that give men courage to +say, We are no worse than others. Men's lives, it is a constant truth of +his, have to be argued out not with the world, but with God. If a man +will be silent upon shameful and uncomfortable things, he cannot. His +thoughts are not his own; God will think them for him as God thinks them +here for unthinking Israel. Nor are the practical and intellectual +distractions of a busy life any refuge from conscience. When the +politicians of Judah seek escape from judgement by plunging into deeper +intrigue and a more bustling policy, Isaiah is fond of pointing out to +them that they are only forcing judgement nearer. They do but sharpen on +other objects the thoughts whose edge must some day turn upon +themselves. + +What is this questioning nothing holds away, nothing stills, and nothing +wears out? It is the voice of God Himself, and its insistence is +therefore as irresistible as its effect is universal. That is not mere +rhetoric which opens the Lord's controversy: _Hear, O heavens, and give +ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken_. All the world changes to the +man in whom conscience lifts up her voice, and to the guilty Nature +seems attentive and aware. Conscience compels heaven and earth to act as +her assessors, because she is the voice, and they the creatures, of God. +This leads us to emphasize another feature of the prophecy. + +We have called this chapter a trial-at-law; but it is far more a +_personal_ than a legal controversy; of the formally forensic there is +very little about it. Some theologies and many preachers have attempted +the conviction of the human conscience by the technicalities of a system +of law, or by appealing to this or that historical covenant, or by the +obligations of an intricate and burdensome morality. This is not +Isaiah's way. His generation is here judged by no system of law or +ancient covenants, but by a living Person and by His treatment of +them--a Person who is a Friend and a Father. It is not Judah and the law +that are confronted; it is Judah and Jehovah. There is no contrast +between the life of this generation and some glorious estate from which +they or their forefathers have fallen; but they are made to hear the +voice of a living and present God: _I have nourished and brought up +children, and they have rebelled against Me_. Isaiah begins where Saul +of Tarsus began, who, though he afterwards elaborated with wealth of +detail the awful indictment of the abstract law against man, had never +been able to do so but for that first confronting with the Personal +Deity, _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?_ Isaiah's ministry started +from the vision of the Lord; and it was no covenant or theory, but the +Lord Himself, who remained the prophet's conscience to the end. + +But though the living God is Isaiah's one explanation of conscience, it +is God in two aspects, the moral effects of which are opposite, yet +complementary. In conscience men are defective by forgetting either the +sublime or the practical, but Isaiah's strength is to do justice to +both. With him God is first the infinitely High, and then equally the +infinitely Near. _The Lord is exalted in righteousness!_ yes, and +sublimely above the people's vulgar identifications of His will with +their own safety and success, but likewise concerned with every detail +of their politics and social behaviour, not to be relegated to the +Temple, where they were wont to confine Him, but by His prophet +descending to their markets and councils, with His own opinion of their +policies, interfering in their intrigues, meeting Ahaz at the conduit of +the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field, and fastening _eyes +of glory_ on every pin and point of the dress of the daughters of Zion. +He is no merely transcendent God. Though He be the High and Holy One, He +will discuss each habit of the people, and argue upon its merits every +one of their policies. His constant cry to them is _Come and let us +reason together_, and to hear it is to have a conscience. Indeed, Isaiah +lays more stress on this intellectual side of the moral sense than on +the other, and the frequency with which in this chapter he employs the +expressions _know_, and _consider_, and _reason_, is characteristic of +all his prophesying. Even the most superficial reader must notice how +much this prophet's doctrine of conscience and repentance harmonizes +with the _metanoia_ of New Testament preaching. + +This doctrine, that God has an interest in every detail of practical +life and will argue it out with men, led Isaiah to a revelation of God +quite peculiar to himself. For the Psalmist it is enough that his soul +_come to God, the living God_. It is enough for other prophets to awe +the hearts of their generations by revealing _the Holy One_; but Isaiah, +with his intensely practical genius, and sorely tried by the stupid +inconsistency of his people, bends himself to make them understand that +God is at least a _reasonable_ Being. Do not, his constant cry is, and +he puts it sometimes in almost as many words--do not act as if there +were a Fool on the throne of the universe, which you virtually do when +you take these meaningless forms of worship as your only intercourse +with Him, and beside them practise your rank iniquities, as if He did +not see nor care. We need not here do more than mention the passages in +which, sometimes by a word, Isaiah stings and startles self-conscious +politicians and sinners beetle-blind in sin, with the sense that God +Himself takes an interest in their deeds and has His own working-plans +for their life. On the land question in Judah (v. 9): _In mine ears, +saith the Lord of hosts_. When the people were paralyzed by calamity, as +if it had no meaning or term (xxviii. 29): _This also cometh forth from +the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in +effectual working_. Again, when they were panic-stricken, and madly +sought by foolish ways their own salvation (xxx. 18): _For the Lord is a +God of judgement--i.e._, of principle, method, law, with His own way and +time for doing things--_blessed are all they that wait for Him_. And +again, when politicians were carried away by the cleverness and success +of their own schemes (xxxi. 2): _Yet He also is wise_, or clever. It was +only a personal application of this Divine attribute when Isaiah heard +the word of the Lord give him the minutest directions for his own +practice--as, for instance, at what exact point he was to meet Ahaz +(vii. 3); or that he was to take a board and write upon it in the vulgar +character (viii. 1); or that he was to strip frock and sandals, and walk +without them for three years (xx). Where common men feel conscience only +as something vague and inarticulate, a flavour, a sting, a foreboding, +the obligation of work, the constraint of affection, Isaiah heard the +word of the Lord, clear and decisive on matters of policy, and definite +even to the details of method and style. + +Isaiah's conscience, then, was perfect, because it was two-fold: _God is +holy; God is practical_. If there be the glory, the purity as of fire, +of His Presence to overawe, there is His unceasing inspection of us, +there is His interest in the smallest details of our life, there are His +fixed laws, from regard for all of which no amount of religious +sensibility may relieve us. Neither of these halves of conscience can +endure by itself. If we forget the first we may be prudent and for a +time clever, but will also grow self-righteous, and in time +self-righteousness means stupidity too. If we forget the second we may +be very devotional, but cannot escape becoming blindly and +inconsistently immoral. Hypocrisy is the result either way, whether we +forget how high God is or whether we forget how near. + +To these two great articles of conscience, however--God is high and God +is near--the Bible adds a greater third, God is Love. This is the +uniqueness and glory of the Bible's interpretation of conscience. Other +writings may equal it in enforcing the sovereignty and detailing the +minutely practical bearings of conscience: the Bible alone tells man how +much of conscience is nothing but God's love. It is a doctrine as +plainly laid down as the doctrine about chastisement, though not half so +much recognised--_Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth_. What is true of +the material pains and penalties of life is equally true of the inward +convictions, frets, threats and fears, which will not leave stupid man +alone. To men with their obscure sense of shame, and restlessness, and +servitude to sin the Bible plainly says, "You are able to sin because +you have turned your back to the love of God; you are unhappy because +you do not take that love to your heart; the bitterness of your remorse +is that it is love against which you are ungrateful." Conscience is not +the Lord's persecution, but His jealous pleading, and not the fierceness +of His anger, but the reproach of His love. This is the Bible's doctrine +throughout, and it is not absent from the chapter we are considering. +Love gets the first word even in the indictment of this austere assize: +_I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled +against Me_. Conscience is already a Father's voice: the recollection, +as it is in the parable of the prodigal, of a Father's mercy; the +reproach, as it is with Christ's lamentation over Jerusalem, of outraged +love. We shall find not a few passages in Isaiah, which prove that he +was in harmony with all revelation upon this point, that conscience is +the reproach of the love of God. + +But when that understanding of conscience breaks out in a sinner's heart +forgiveness cannot be far away. Certainly penitence is at hand. And +therefore, because of all books the Bible is the only one which +interprets conscience as the love of God, so is it the only one that can +combine His pardon with His reproach, and as Isaiah now does in a single +verse, proclaim His free forgiveness as the conclusion of His bitter +quarrel. _Come, let us bring our reasoning to a close, saith the_ LORD. +_Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though +they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool._ Our version, _Come, +and let us reason together_, gives no meaning here. So plain an offer of +pardon is not reasoning together; it is bringing reasoning to an end; it +is the settlement of a dispute that has been in progress. Therefore we +translate, with Mr. Cheyne, _Let us bring our reasoning to an end_. And +how pardon can be the end and logical conclusion of conscience is clear +to us, who have seen how much of conscience is love, and that the +Lord's controversy is the reproach of His Father's heart, and His +jealousy to make His own consider all His way of mercy towards them. + +But the prophet does not leave conscience alone with its personal and +inward results. He rouses it to its social applications. The sins with +which the Jews are charged in this charge of the Lord are public sins. +The whole people is indicted, but it is the judges, princes and +counsellors who are denounced. Judah's disasters, which she seeks to +meet by worship, are due to civic faults, bribery, corruption of +justice, indifference to the rights of the poor and the friendless. +Conscience with Isaiah is not what it is with so much of the religion of +to-day, a _cul de sac_, into which the Lord chases a man and shuts him +up to Himself, but it is a thoroughfare by which the Lord drives the man +out upon the world and its manifold need of him. There is little +dissection and less study of individual character with Isaiah. He has no +time for it. Life is too much about him, and his God too much interested +in life. What may be called the more personal sins--drunkenness, vanity +of dress, thoughtlessness, want of faith in God and patience to wait for +Him--are to Isaiah more social than individual symptoms, and it is for +their public and political effects that he mentions them. Forgiveness is +no end in itself, but the opportunity of social service; not a sanctuary +in which Isaiah leaves men to sing its praises or form doctrines of it, +but a gateway through which he leads God's people upon the world with +the cry that rises from him here: _Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, +judge the fatherless, plead for the widow_. + +Before we pass from this form in which Isaiah figures religion we must +deal with a suggestion it raises. No modern mind can come into this +ancient court of the LORD's controversy without taking advantage of its +open forms to put a question regarding the rights of man there. That God +should descend to argue with men, what licence does this give to men? If +religion be reasonable controversy of this kind, what is the place of +doubt in it? Is not doubt man's side of the argument? Has he not also +questions to put--the Almighty from his side to arraign? For God has +Himself here put man on a level with Him, saying, _Come, and let us +reason together_. + +A temper of this kind, though not strange to the Old Testament, lies +beyond the horizon of Isaiah. The only challenge of the Almighty which +in any of his prophecies he reports as rising from his own countrymen is +the bravado of certain drunkards (chaps. v. and xxviii.). Here and +elsewhere it is the very opposite temper from honest doubt which he +indicts--the temper that _does not know_, that _does not consider_. +Ritualism and sensualism are to Isaiah equally false, because equally +unthinking. The formalist and the fleshly he classes together, because +of their stupidity. What does it matter whether a man's conscience and +intellect be stifled in his own fat or under the clothes with which he +dresses himself? They are stifled, and that is the main thing. To the +formalist Isaiah says, _Israel doth not know, my people doth not +consider_; to the fleshly (chap. v.), _My people are gone into captivity +for want of knowledge._ But _knowing_ and _considering_ are just that of +which doubt, in its modern sense, is the abundance, and not the defect. +The mobility of mind, the curiosity, the moral sensitiveness, the hunger +that is not satisfied with the chaff of formal and unreal answers, the +spirit to find out truth for one's self, wrestling with God--this is the +very temper Isaiah would have welcomed in a people whose sluggishness +of reason was as justly blamed by him as the grossness of their moral +sense. And if revelation be of the form in which Isaiah so prominently +sets it, and the whole Bible bears him out in this--if revelation be +this argumentative and reasonable process, then human doubt has its part +in revelation. It is, indeed, man's side of the argument, and as history +shows, has often helped to the elucidation of the points at issue. + +Merely intellectual scepticism, however, is not within Isaiah's horizon. +He would never have employed (nor would any other prophet) our modern +habits of doubt, except as he employs these intellectual terms, _to +know_ and _to consider_--viz., as instruments of moral search and +conviction. Had he lived now he would have been found among those few +great prophets who use the resources of the human intellect to expose +the moral state of humanity; who, like Shakespeare and Hugo, turn man's +detective and reflective processes upon his own conduct; who make +himself stand at the bar of his conscience. And truly to have doubt of +everything in heaven and earth, and never to doubt one's self, is to be +guilty of as stiff and stupid a piece of self-righteousness as the +religious formalists whom Isaiah exposes. But the moral of the chapter +is plainly what we have shown it to be, that a man cannot stifle doubt +and debate about his own heart or treatment of God; whatever else he +thinks about and judges, he cannot help judging himself. + +_Note on the Place of Nature in the Argument of the Lord._--The office +which the Bible assigns to Nature in the controversy of God with man is +fourfold--Assessor, Witness, Man's Fellow-Convict, and Doomster or +Executioner. Taking these backward:--1. Scripture frequently exhibits +Nature as the _doomster of the Lord_. Nature has a terrible power of +flashing back from her vaster surfaces the guilty impressions of man's +heart; at the last day her thunders shall peal the doom of the wicked, +and her fire devour them. In those prophecies of the book of Isaiah +which relate to his own time this use is not made of Nature, unless it +be in his very earliest prophecy in chap. ii., and in his references to +the earthquake (v. 25). To Isaiah the sentences and scourges of God are +political and historical, the threats and arms of Assyria. He employs +the violences of Nature only as metaphors for Assyrian rage and force. +But he often promises fertility as the effect of the Lord's pardon, and +when the prophets are writing about Nature, it is difficult to say +whether they are to be understood literally or poetically. But, at any +rate, there is much larger use made of physical catastrophes and +convulsions in those other prophecies which do not relate to Isaiah's +own time, and are now generally thought not to be his. Compare chaps. +xiii. and xiv. 2. The representation of the earth as the +_fellow-convict_ of guilty man, sharing his curse, is very vivid in +Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii. In the prophecies relating to his own time Isaiah, +of course, identifies the troubles that afflict the land with the sin of +the people, of Judah. But these are due to political causes--viz., the +Assyrian invasion. 3. In the Lord's court of judgement the prophets +sometimes employ Nature as _a witness_ against man, as, for instance, +the prophet Micah (vi. 1, _ff_). Nature is full of associations; the +enduring mountains have memories from old, they have been constant +witnesses of the dealing of God with His people. 4. Or lastly, Nature +may be used as the great _assessor_ of the conscience, sitting to +expound the principles on which God governs life. This is Isaiah's +favourite use of Nature. He employs her to corroborate his statement of +the Divine law and illustrate the ways of God to men, as in the end of +chap. xxviii., and no doubt in the opening verse of this chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +_THE THREE JERUSALEMS._ + +ISAIAH ii.-iv. (740-735 B.C.). + + +After the general introduction, in chap. i., to the prophecies of +Isaiah, there comes another portion of the book, of greater length, but +nearly as distinct as the first. It covers four chapters, the second to +the sixth, all of them dating from the same earliest period of Isaiah's +ministry, before 735 B.C. They deal with exactly the same subjects, but +they differ greatly in form. One section (chaps. ii.-iv.) consists of a +number of short utterances--evidently not all spoken at the same time, +for they conflict with one another--a series of consecutive prophecies, +that probably represent the stages of conviction through which Isaiah +passed in his prophetic apprenticeship; a second section (chap. v.) is a +careful and artistic restatement, in parable and oration, of the truths +he has thus attained; while a third section (chap. vi.) is narrative, +probably written subsequently to the first two, but describing an +inspiration and official call, which must have preceded them both. The +more one examines chaps. ii.-vi., and finds that they but express the +same truths in different forms, the more one is confirmed in some such +view of them as this, which, it is believed, the following exposition +will justify. Chaps. v. and vi. are twin appendices to the long summary +in ii.-iv.: chap. v. a public vindication and enforcement of the results +of that summary, chap. vi. a private vindication to the prophet's heart +of the very same truths, by a return to the secret moment of their +original inspiration. We may assign 735 B.C., just before or just after +the accession of Ahaz, as the date of the latest of these prophecies. +The following is their historical setting. + +For more than half a century the kingdom of Judah, under two powerful +and righteous monarchs, had enjoyed the greatest prosperity. Uzziah +strengthened the borders, extended the supremacy and vastly increased +the resources of his little State, which, it is well to remember, was in +its own size not larger than three average Scottish counties. He won +back for Judah the port of Elath on the Red Sea, built a navy, and +restored the commerce with the far East, which Solomon began. He +overcame, in battle or by the mere terror of his name, the neighbouring +nations--the Philistines that dwelt in cities, and the wandering tribes +of desert Arabs. The Ammonites brought him gifts. With the wealth, which +the East by tribute or by commerce poured into his little principality, +Uzziah fortified his borders and his capital, undertook large works of +husbandry and irrigation, organized a powerful standing army, and +supplied it with a siege artillery capable of slinging arrows and +stones. _His name spread far abroad, for he was marvellously helped till +he was strong._ His son Jotham (740-735 B.C.) continued his father's +policy with nearly all his father's success. He built cities and +castles, quelled a rebellion among his tributaries, and caused their +riches to flow faster still into Jerusalem. But while Jotham bequeathed +to his country a sure defence and great wealth, and to his people a +strong spirit and prestige among the nations, he left another bequest, +which robbed these of their value--the son who succeeded him. In 735 +Jotham died and Ahaz became king. He was very young, and stepped to the +throne from the hareem. He brought to the direction of the government +the petulant will of a spoiled child, the mind of an intriguing and +superstitious woman. It was when the national policy felt the paralysis +consequent on these that Isaiah published at least the later part of the +prophecies now marked off as chaps. ii.-iv. of his book. _My people_, he +cries--_my people! children are their oppressors, and women rule over +them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy +the way of thy paths._ + +Isaiah had been born into the flourishing nation while Uzziah was king. +The great events of that monarch's reign were his education, the still +grander hopes they prompted the passion of his virgin fancy. He must +have absorbed as the very temper of his youth this national +consciousness which swelled so proudly in Judah under Uzziah. But the +accession of such a king as Ahaz, while it was sure to let loose the +passions and follies fostered by a period of rapid increase in luxury, +could not fail to afford to Judah's enemies the long-deferred +opportunity of attacking her. It was an hour both of the manifestation +of sin and of the judgement of sin--an hour in which, while the majesty +of Judah, sustained through two great reigns, was about to disappear in +the follies of a third, the majesty of Judah's God should become more +conspicuous than ever. Of this Isaiah had been privately conscious, as +we shall see, for five years. _In the year that king Uzziah died_ +(740), the young Jew _saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and +lifted up_. Startled into prophetic consciousness by the awful contrast +between an earthly majesty that had so long fascinated men, but now sank +into a leper's grave, and the heavenly, which rose sovereign and +everlasting above it, Isaiah had gone on to receive conviction of his +people's sin and certain punishment. With the accession of Ahaz, five +years later, his own political experience was so far developed as to +permit of his expressing in their exact historical effects the awful +principles of which he had received foreboding when Uzziah died. What we +find in chaps. ii.-iv. is a record of the struggle of his mind towards +this expression; it is the summary, as we have already said, of Isaiah's +apprenticeship. + +_The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and +Jerusalem._ We do not know anything of Isaiah's family or of the details +of his upbringing. He was a member of some family of Jerusalem, and in +intimate relations with the Court. It has been believed that he was of +royal blood, but it matters little whether this be true or not. A spirit +so wise and masterful as his did not need social rank to fit it for that +intimacy with princes which has doubtless suggested the legend of his +royal descent. What does matter is Isaiah's citizenship in Jerusalem, +for this colours all his prophecy. More than Athens to Demosthenes, Rome +to Juvenal, Florence to Dante, is Jerusalem to Isaiah. She is his +immediate and ultimate regard, the centre and return of all his +thoughts, the hinge of the history of his time, the one thing worth +preserving amidst its disasters, the summit of those brilliant hopes +with which he fills the future. He has traced for us the main features +of her position and some of the lines of her construction, many of the +great figures of her streets, the fashions of her women, the arrival of +embassies, the effect of rumours. He has painted her aspect in triumph, +in siege, in famine and in earthquake; war filling her valleys with +chariots, and again nature rolling tides of fruitfulness up to her +gates; her moods of worship and panic and profligacy--till we see them +all as clearly as the shadow following the sunshine and the breeze +across the cornfields of our own summers. + +If he takes wider observation of mankind, Jerusalem is his watch-tower. +It is for her defence he battles through fifty years of statesmanship, +and all his prophecy may be said to travail in anguish for her new +birth. He was never away from her walls, but not even the psalms of the +captives by the rivers of Babylon, with the desire of exile upon them, +exhibit more beauty and pathos than the lamentations which Isaiah poured +upon Jerusalem's sufferings or the visions in which he described her +future solemnity and peace. + +It is not with surprise, therefore, that we find the first prophecies of +Isaiah directed upon his mother city: _The word that Isaiah the son of +Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem._ There is little about Judah in +these chapters: the country forms but a fringe to the capital. + +Before we look into the subject of the prophecy, however, a short +digression is necessary on the manner in which it is presented to us. It +is not a reasoned composition or argument we have here; it is a vision, +it is the word which Isaiah _saw_. The expression is vague, often abused +and in need of defining. Vision is not employed here to express any +magical display before the eyes of the prophet of the very words which +he was to speak to the people, or any communication to his thoughts by +dream or ecstasy. They are higher qualities of "vision" which these +chapters unfold. There is, first of all, the power of forming an ideal, +of seeing and describing a thing in the fulfilment of all the promise +that is in it. But these prophecies are much more remarkable for two +other powers of inward vision, to which we give the names of insight and +intuition--insight into human character, intuition of Divine +principles--_clear knowledge of what man is and how God will act_--a +keen discrimination of the present state of affairs in Judah, and +unreasoned conviction of moral truth and the Divine will. The original +meaning of the Hebrew word _saw_, which is used in the title to this +series, is to cleave, or split; then to see into, to see through, to get +down beneath the surface of things and discover their real nature. And +what characterizes the bulk of these visions is _penetrativeness_, the +keenness of a man who will not be deceived by an outward show that he +delights to hold up to our scorn, but who has a conscience for the inner +worth of things and for their future consequences. To lay stress on the +moral meaning of the prophet's vision is not to grudge, but to emphasize +its inspiration by God. Of that inspiration Isaiah was himself assured. +It was God's Spirit that enabled him to see thus keenly; for he saw +things keenly, not only as men count moral keenness, but as God Himself +sees them, in their value in His sight and in their attractiveness for +His love and pity. In this prophecy there occurs a striking +expression--_the eyes of the glory of God_. It was the vision of the +Almighty Searcher and Judge, burning through man's pretence, with which +the prophet felt himself endowed. This then was the second element in +his vision--to penetrate men's hearts as God Himself penetrated them, +and constantly, without squint or blur, to see right from wrong in their +eternal difference. And the third element is the intuition of God's +will, the perception of what line of action He will take. This last, of +course, forms the distinct prerogative of Hebrew prophecy, that power of +vision which is its climax; the moral situation being clear, to see then +how God will act upon it. + +Under these three powers of vision Jerusalem, the prophet's city, is +presented to us--Jerusalem in three lights, really three Jerusalems. +First, there is flashed out (chap. ii. 2-5) a vision of the ideal city, +Jerusalem idealized and glorified. Then comes (ii. 6-iv. 1) a very +realistic picture, a picture of the actual Jerusalem. And lastly at the +close of the prophecy (iv. 2-6) we have a vision of Jerusalem as she +shall be after God has taken her in hand--very different indeed from the +ideal with which the prophet began. Here are three successive motives or +phases of prophecy, which, as we have said, in all probability summarize +the early ministry of Isaiah, and present him to us _first_ as the +idealist or visionary, _second_ as the realist or critic, and _third_ as +the prophet proper or revealer of God's actual will. + + +I. THE IDEALIST (ii. 1-5). + +All men who have shown our race how great things are possible have had +their inspiration in dreaming of the impossible. Reformers, who at death +were content to have lived for the moving forward but one inch of some +of their fellow-men, began by believing themselves able to lift the +whole world at once. Isaiah was no exception to this human fashion. His +first vision was that of a Utopia, and his first belief that his +countrymen would immediately realize it. He lifts up to us a very grand +picture of a vast commonwealth centred in Jerusalem. Some think he +borrowed it from an older prophet; Micah has it also; it may have been +the ideal of the age. But, at any rate, if we are not to take verse 5 in +scorn, Isaiah accepted this as his own. _And it shall come to pass in +the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be +established in the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, +and all nations shall flow unto it._ The prophet's own Jerusalem shall +be the light of the world, the school and temple of the earth, the seat +of the judgement of the Lord, when He shall reign over the nations, and +all mankind shall dwell in peace beneath Him. It is a glorious destiny, +and as its light shines from the far-off horizon, _the latter days_, in +which the prophet sees it, what wonder that he is possessed and cries +aloud, _O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the +LORD!_ It seems to the young prophet's hopeful heart as if at once that +ideal would be realized, as if by his own word he could lift his people +to its fulfilment. + +But that is impossible, and Isaiah perceives so as soon as he turns from +the far-off horizon to the city at his feet, as soon as he leaves +to-morrow alone and deals with to-day. The next verses of the +chapter--from verse 6 onwards--stand in strong contrast to those which +have described Israel's ideal. There Zion is full of the law and +Jerusalem of the word of the Lord, the one religion flowing over from +this centre upon the world. Here into the actual Jerusalem they have +brought all sorts of foreign worship and heathen prophets; _they are +replenished from the East, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and +strike hands with the children of strangers_. There all nations come to +worship at Jerusalem; here her thought and faith are scattered over the +idolatries of all nations. The ideal Jerusalem is full of spiritual +blessings, the actual of the spoils of trade. There the swords are beat +into ploughshares and the spears into pruning-hooks; here are vast and +novel armaments, horses and chariots. There the Lord alone is +worshipped; here the city is crowded with idols. The real Jerusalem +could not possibly be more different from the ideal, nor its inhabitants +as they are from what their prophet had confidently called on them to +be. + + +II. THE REALIST (ii. 6-iv. 1). + +Therefore Isaiah's attitude and tone suddenly change. The visionary +becomes a realist, the enthusiast a cynic, the seer of the glorious city +of God the prophet of God's judgement. The recoil is absolute in style, +temper and thought, down to the very figures of speech which he uses. +Before, Isaiah had seen, as it were, a lifting process at work, +_Jerusalem in the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills_. +Now he beholds nothing but depression. _For the day of the LORD of hosts +shall be upon every one that is proud and haughty, upon all that is +lifted up, and it shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be +exalted in that day._ Nothing in the great civilization, which he had +formerly glorified, is worth preserving. The high towers, fenced walls, +ships of Tarshish, treasures and armour must all perish, even the hills +lifted by his imagination shall be bowed down, and _the LORD alone be +exalted in that day_. This recoil reaches its extreme in the last verse +of the chapter. The prophet, who had believed so much in man as to think +possible an immediate commonwealth of nations, believes in man now so +little that he does not hold him worth preserving: _Cease ye from man, +whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?_ + +Attached to this general denunciation are some satiric descriptions, in +the third chapter, of the anarchy, to which society in Jerusalem is fast +being reduced under its childish and effeminate king. The scorn of these +passages is scathing; _the eyes of the glory of God_ burn through every +rank, fashion and ornament in the town. King and court are not spared; +the elders and princes are rigorously denounced. But by far the most +striking effort of the prophet's boldness is his prediction of the +overthrow of Jerusalem itself (ver. 8). What it cost Isaiah to utter and +the people to hear we can only partly measure. To his own passionate +patriotism it must have felt like treason, to the blind optimism of the +popular religion it doubtless appeared the rankest heresy--to aver that +the holy city, inviolate and almost unthreatened since the day David +brought to her the ark of the Lord, and destined by the voice of her +prophets, including Isaiah himself, to be established upon the tops of +the mountains, was now to fall into ruin. But Isaiah's conscience +overcomes his sense of consistency, and he who has just proclaimed the +eternal glory of Jerusalem is provoked by his knowledge of her citizens' +sins to recall his words and intimate her destruction. It may have been, +that Isaiah was partly emboldened to so novel a threat, by his knowledge +of the preparations which Syria and Israel were already making for the +invasion of Judah. The prospect of Jerusalem, as the centre of a vast +empire subject to Jehovah, however natural it was under a successful +ruler like Uzziah, became, of course, unreal when every one of Uzziah's +and Jotham's tributaries had risen in revolt against their successor, +Ahaz. But of these outward movements Isaiah tells us nothing. He is +wholly engrossed with Judah's sin. It is his growing acquaintance with +the corruption of his fellow-countrymen that has turned his back on the +ideal city of his opening ministry, and changed him into a prophet of +Jerusalem's ruin. _Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, +to provoke the eyes of His glory._ Judge, prophet and elder, all the +upper ranks and useful guides of the people, must perish. It is a sign +of the degradation to which society shall be reduced, when Isaiah with +keen sarcasm pictures the despairing people choosing a certain man to be +their ruler because he alone has a coat to his back! (iii. 6). + +With increased scorn Isaiah turns lastly upon the women of Jerusalem +(iii. 16-iv. 2), and here perhaps the change which has passed over him +since his opening prophecy is most striking. One likes to think of how +the citizens of Jerusalem took this alteration in their prophet's +temper. We know how popular so optimist a prophecy as that of the +mountain of the Lord's house must have been, and can imagine how men and +women loved the young face, bright with a far-off light, and the dream +of an ideal that had no quarrel with the present. "But what a change is +this that has come over him, who speaks not of to-morrow, but of to-day, +who has brought his gaze from those distant horizons to our streets, who +stares every man in the face (iii. 9), and makes the women feel that no +pin and trimming, no ring and bracelet, escape his notice! Our loved +prophet has become an impudent scorner!" Ah, men and women of Jerusalem, +beware of those eyes! _The glory of God_ is burning in them; they see +you through and through, and they tell us that all your armour and the +_show of your countenance_, and your foreign fashions are as nothing, +for there are corrupt hearts below. This is your judgement, that +_instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness, and instead of a +girdle a rope, and instead of well-set hair baldness, and instead of a +stomacher a girding of sackcloth, and branding instead of beauty_. _Thy +men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates +shall lament and mourn, and she shall be desolate and sit upon the +ground!_ + +This was the climax of the prophet's judgement. If the salt have lost +its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for +nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot. If the women are +corrupt the state is moribund. + + +III. _The Prophet of the Lord_ (iv. 2-6). + +Is there, then, no hope for Jerusalem? Yes, but not where the prophet +sought it at first, in herself, and not in the way he offered it--by the +mere presentation of an ideal. There is hope, there is more--there is +certain salvation in the Lord, but it only comes after judgement. +Contrast that opening picture of the new Jerusalem with this closing +one, and we shall find their difference to lie in two things. There the +city is more prominent than the Lord, here the Lord is more prominent +than the city; there no word of judgement, here judgement sternly +emphasized as the indispensable way towards the blessed future. A more +vivid sense of the Person of Jehovah Himself, a deep conviction of the +necessity of chastisement: these are what Isaiah has gained during his +early ministry, without losing hope or heart for the future. The bliss +shall come only when the Lord shall _have washed away the filth of the +daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the +midst thereof by the spirit of judgement and the spirit of burning_. It +is a corollary of all this that the participants of that future shall be +many fewer than in the first vision of the prophet. The process of +judgement must weed men out, and in place of all nations coming to +Jerusalem, to share its peace and glory, the prophet can speak now only +of Israel--and only of a remnant of Israel. _The escaped of Israel, the +left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem._ This is a great +change in Isaiah's ideal, from the supremacy of Israel over all nations +to the bare survival of a remnant of his people. + + * * * * * + +Is there not in this threefold vision a parallel and example for our own +civilisation and our thoughts about it? All work and wisdom begin in +dreams. We must see our Utopias before we start to build our stone and +lime cities. + + "It takes a soul + To move a body; it takes a high-souled man + To move the masses even to a cleaner stye; + It takes the ideal to blow an inch inside + The dust of the actual." + +But the light of our ideals dawns upon us only to show how poor by +nature are the mortals who are called to accomplish them. The ideal +rises still as to Isaiah only to exhibit the poverty of the real. When +we lift our eyes from the hills of vision, and rest them on our +fellow-men, hope and enthusiasm die out of us. Isaiah's disappointment +is that of every one who brings down his gaze from the clouds to the +streets. Be our ideal ever so desirable, be we ever so persuaded of its +facility, the moment we attempt to apply it we shall be undeceived. +Society cannot be regenerated all at once. There is an expression which +Isaiah emphasizes in his motive of cynicism: _The show of their +countenance doth witness against them._ It tells us that when he called +his countrymen to turn to the light he lifted upon them he saw nothing +but the exhibition of their sin made plain. When we bring light to a +cavern whose inhabitants have lost their eyes by the darkness, the light +does not make them see; we have to give them eyes again. Even so no +vision or theory of a perfect state--the mistake which all young +reformers make--can regenerate society. It will only reveal social +corruption, and sicken the heart of the reformer himself. For the +possession of a great ideal does not mean, as so many fondly imagine, +work accomplished; it means work revealed--work revealed so vast, often +so impossible, that faith and hope die down, and the enthusiast of +yesterday becomes the cynic of to-morrow. _Cease ye from man, whose +breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted?_ In this +despair, through which every worker for God and man must pass, many a +warm heart has grown cold, many an intellect become paralyzed. There is +but one way of escape, and that is Isaiah's. It is to believe in God +Himself; it is to believe that He is at work, that His purposes to man +are saving purposes, and that with Him there is an inexhaustible source +of mercy and virtue. So from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope +and faith, as from beneath Isaiah's darkest verses that glorious passage +suddenly bursts like uncontrollable spring from the very feet of winter. +_For that day shall the spring of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, +and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely for them that +are escaped of Israel._ This is all it is possible to say. There must be +a future for man, because God loves him, and God reigns. That future can +be reached only through judgement, because God is righteous. + +To put it another way: All of us who live to work for our fellow-men or +who hope to lift them higher by our word begin with our own visions of a +great future. These visions, though our youth lends to them an original +generosity and enthusiasm, are, like Isaiah's, largely borrowed. The +progressive instincts of the age into which we are born and the mellow +skies of prosperity combine with our own ardour to make our ideal one of +splendour. Persuaded of its facility, we turn to real life to apply it. +A few years pass. We not only find mankind too stubborn to be forced +into our moulds, but we gradually become aware of Another Moulder at +work upon our subject, and we stand aside in awe to watch His +operations. Human desires and national ideals are not always fulfilled; +philosophic theories are discredited by the evolution of fact. Uzziah +does not reign for ever; the sceptre falls to Ahaz: progress is checked, +and the summer of prosperity draws to an end. Under duller skies +ungilded judgement comes to view, cruel and inexorable, crushing even +the peaks on which we built our future, yet purifying men and giving +earnest of a better future, too. And so life, that mocked the control of +our puny fingers, bends groaning to the weight of an Almighty Hand. God +also, we perceive as we face facts honestly, has His ideal for men; and +though He works so slowly towards His end that our restless eyes are too +impatient to follow His order, He yet reveals all that shall be to the +humbled heart and the soul emptied of its own visions. Awed and +chastened, we look back from His Presence to our old ideals. We are +still able to recognize their grandeur and generous hope for men. But we +see now how utterly unconnected they are with the present--castles in +the air, with no ladders to them from the earth. And even if they were +accessible, still to our eyes, purged by gazing on God's own ways, they +would no more appear desirable. Look back on Isaiah's early ideal from +the light of his second vision of the future. For all its grandeur, that +picture of Jerusalem is not wholly attractive. Is there not much +national arrogance in it? Is it not just the imperfectly idealized +reflection of an age of material prosperity such as that of Uzziah's +was? Pride is in it, a false optimism, the highest good to be reached +without moral conflict. But here is the language of pity, rescue with +difficulty, rest only after sore struggle and stripping, salvation by +the bare arm of God. So do our imaginations for our own future or for +that of the race always contrast with what He Himself has in store for +us, promised freely out of His great grace to our unworthy hearts, yet +granted in the end only to those who pass towards it through discipline, +tribulation and fire. + + * * * * * + +This, then, was Isaiah's apprenticeship, and its net result was to leave +him with the remnant for his ideal: the remnant and Jerusalem secured as +its rallying-point. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +_THE VINEYARD OF THE LORD, OR TRUE PATRIOTISM THE CONSCIENCE OF OUR +COUNTRY'S SINS._ + +ISAIAH v.; ix. 8-x. 4 (735 _B.C._). + + +The prophecy contained in these chapters belongs, as we have seen, to +the same early period of Isaiah's career as chapters ii.-iv., about the +time when Ahaz ascended the throne after the long and successful reigns +of his father and grandfather, when the kingdom of Judah seemed girt +with strength and filled with wealth, but the men were corrupt and the +women careless, and the earnest of approaching judgement was already +given in the incapacity of the weak and woman-ridden king. Yet although +this new prophecy issues from the same circumstances as its +predecessors, it implies these circumstances a little more developed. +The same social evils are treated, but by a hand with a firmer grasp of +them. The same principles are emphasized--the righteousness of Jehovah +and His activity in judgement--but the form of judgement of which Isaiah +had spoken before in general terms looms nearer, and before the end of +the prophecy we get a view at close quarters of the Assyrian ranks. + +Besides, opposition has arisen to the prophet's teaching. We saw that +the obscurities and inconsistencies of chapters ii.-iv. are due to the +fact that that prophecy represents several stages of experience through +which Isaiah passed before he gained his final convictions. But his +countrymen, it appears, have now had time to turn on these convictions +and call them in question: it is necessary for Isaiah to vindicate them. +The difference, then, between these two sets of prophecies, dealing with +the same things, is that in the former (chapters ii.-iv.), we have the +obscure and tortuous path of a conviction struggling to light in the +prophet's own experience; here, in chapter v., we have its careful array +in the light and before the people. + +The point of Isaiah's teaching against which opposition was directed was +of course its main point, that God was about to abandon Judah. This must +have appeared to the popular religion of the day as the rankest heresy. +To the Jews the honour of Jehovah was bound up with the inviolability of +Jerusalem and the prosperity of Judah. But Isaiah knew Jehovah to be +infinitely more concerned for the purity of His people than for their +prosperity. He had seen the LORD _exalted in righteousness_ above those +national and earthly interests, with which vulgar men exclusively +identified His will. Did the people appeal to the long time Jehovah had +graciously led them for proof that He would not abandon them now? To +Isaiah that gracious leading was but for righteousness' sake, and that +God might make His own a holy people. Their history, so full of the +favours of the Almighty, did not teach Isaiah as it did the common +prophets of his time, the lesson of Israel's political security, but the +far different one of their religious responsibility. To him it only +meant what Amos had already put in those startling words, _You only have +I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon +you all your iniquities_. Now Isaiah delivered this doctrine at a time +when it brought him the hostility of men's passions as well as of their +opinions. Judah was arming for war. Syria and Ephraim were marching upon +her. To threaten his country with ruin in such an hour was to run the +risk of suffering from popular fury as a traitor as well as from +priestly prejudice as a heretic. The strain of the moment is felt in the +strenuousness of the prophecy. Chapter v., with its appendix, exhibits +more grasp and method than its predecessors. Its literary form is +finished, its feeling clear. There is a tenderness in the beginning of +it, an inexorableness in the end and an eagerness all through, which +stamp the chapter as Isaiah's final appeal to his countrymen at this +period of his career. + +The chapter is a noble piece of patriotism--one of the noblest of a race +who, although for the greater part of their history without a +fatherland, have contributed more brilliantly than perhaps any other to +the literature of patriotism, and that simply because, as Isaiah here +illustrates, patriotism was to their prophets identical with religious +privilege and responsibility. Isaiah carries this to its bitter end. +Other patriots have wept to sing their country's woes; Isaiah's burden +is his people's guilt. To others an invasion of their fatherland by its +enemies has been the motive to rouse by song or speech their countrymen +to repel it. Isaiah also hears the tramp of the invader; but to him is +permitted no ardour of defence, and his message to his countrymen is +that they must succumb, for the invasion is irresistible and of the very +judgement of God. How much it cost the prophet to deliver such a message +we may see from those few verses of it in which his heart is not +altogether silenced by his conscience. The sweet description of Judah +as a vineyard, and the touching accents that break through the roll of +denunciation with such phrases as _My people are gone away into +captivity unawares_, tell us how the prophet's love of country is +struggling with his duty to a righteous God. The course of feeling +throughout the prophecy is very striking. The tenderness of the opening +lyric seems ready to flow into gentle pleading with the whole people. +But as the prophet turns to particular classes and their sins his mood +changes to indignation, the voice settles down to judgement; till when +it issues upon that clear statement of the coming of the Northern hosts +every trace of emotion has left it, and the sentences ring out as +unfaltering as the tramp of the armies they describe. + + +I. THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD (v. 1-7). + +Isaiah adopts the resource of every misunderstood and unpopular teacher, +and seeks to turn the flank of his people's prejudices by an attack in +parable on their sympathies. Did they stubbornly believe it impossible +for God to abandon a State He had so long and so carefully fostered? Let +them judge from an analogous case in which they were all experts. In a +picture of great beauty Isaiah describes a vineyard upon one of the +sunny promontories visible from Jerusalem. Every care had been given it +of which an experienced vine-dresser could think, but it brought forth +only wild grapes. The vine-dresser himself is introduced, and appeals to +the men of Judah and Jerusalem to judge between him and his vineyard. He +gets their assent that all had been done which could be done, and +fortified with that resolves to abandon the vineyard. _I will lay it +waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briers +and thorns._ Then the stratagem comes out, the speaker drops the tones +of a human cultivator, and in the omnipotence of the Lord of heaven he +is heard to say, _I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain +upon it_. This diversion upon their sympathies having succeeded, the +prophet scarcely needs to charge the people's prejudices in face. His +point has been evidently carried. _For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts +is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and He +looked for judgement, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but +behold a cry._ + +The lesson enforced by Isaiah is just this, that in a people's +civilization there lie the deepest responsibilities, for that is neither +more nor less than their cultivation by God; and the question for a +people is not how secure does this render them, nor what does it count +for glory, but how far is it rising towards the intentions of its +Author? Does it produce those fruits of righteousness for which alone +God cares to set apart and cultivate the peoples? On this depends the +question whether the civilization is secure, as well as the right of the +people to enjoy and feel proud of it. There cannot be true patriotism +without sensitiveness to this, for however rich be the elements that +compose the patriot's temper, as piety towards the past, ardour of +service for the present, love of liberty, delight in natural beauty and +gratitude for Divine favour, so rich a temper will grow rancid without +the salt of conscience; and the richer the temper is, the greater must +be the proportion of that salt. All prophets and poets of patriotism +have been moralists and satirists as well. From Demosthenes to +Tourgenieff, from Dante to Mazzini, from Milton to Russell Lowell, from +Burns to Heine, one cannot recall any great patriot who has not known +how to use the scourge as well as the trumpet. Many opportunities will +present themselves to us of illustrating Isaiah's orations by the +letters and speeches of Cromwell, who of moderns most resembles the +statesman-prophet of Judah; but nowhere does the resemblance become so +close as when we lay a prophecy like this of Jehovah's vineyard by the +side of the speeches in which the Lord Protector exhorted the Commons of +England, although it was the hour of his and their triumph, to address +themselves to their sins. + +So, then, the patriotism of all great men has carried a conscience for +their country's sins. But while this is always more or less a burden to +the true patriot, there are certain periods in which his care for his +country ought to be this predominantly, and need be little else. In a +period like our own, for instance, of political security and fashionable +religion, what need is there in patriotic displays of any other kind? +but how much for patriotism of this kind--of men who will uncover the +secret sins, however loathsome, and declare the hypocrisies, however +powerful, of the social life of the people! These are the patriots we +need in times of peace; and as it is more difficult to rouse a torpid +people to their sins than to lead a roused one against their enemies, +and harder to face a whole people with the support only of conscience +than to defy many nations if you but have your own at your back, so +these patriots of peace are more to be honoured than those of war. But +there is one kind of patriotism more arduous and honourable still. It is +that which Isaiah displays here, who cannot add to his conscience hope +or even pity, who must hail his country's enemies for his country's +good, and recite the long roll of God's favours to his nation only to +emphasize the justice of His abandonment of them. + + +II. THE WILD GRAPES OF JUDAH (v. 8-24). + +The _wild grapes_ which Isaiah saw in the vineyard of the Lord he +catalogues in a series of Woes (vv. 8-24), fruits all of them of love of +money and love of wine. They are abuse of the soil (8-10, 17[4]), a +giddy luxury which has taken to drink (11-16), a moral blindness and +headlong audacity of sin which habitual avarice and drunkenness soon +develop (18-21), and, again, a greed of drink and money--men's +perversion of their strength to wine, and of their opportunities of +justice to the taking of bribes (22-24). These are the features of +corrupt civilization not only in Judah, and the voice that deplores them +cannot speak without rousing others very clamant to the modern +conscience. It is with remarkable persistence that in every civilization +the two main passions of the human heart, love of wealth and love of +pleasure, the instinct to gather and the instinct to squander, have +sought precisely these two forms denounced by Isaiah in which to work +their social havoc--appropriation of the soil and indulgence in strong +drink. Every civilized community develops sooner or later its +land-question and its liquor-question. "Questions" they are called by +the superficial opinion that all difficulties may be overcome by the +cleverness of men; yet problems through which there cries for remedy so +vast a proportion of our poverty, crime and madness, are something worse +than "questions." They are huge sins, and require not merely the +statesman's wit, but all the penitence and zeal of which a nation's +conscience is capable. It is in this that the force of Isaiah's +treatment lies. We feel he is not facing questions of State, but sins of +men. He has nothing to tell us of what he considers the best system of +land tenure, but he enforces the principle that in the ease with which +land may be absorbed by one person the natural covetousness of the human +heart has a terrible opportunity for working ruin upon society. _Woe +unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there +be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land._ We +know from Micah that the actual process which Isaiah condemns was +carried out with the most cruel evictions and disinheritances. Isaiah +does not touch on its methods, but exposes its effects on the +country--depopulation and barrenness,--and emphasizes its religious +significance. _Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and +fair, without an inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one +bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.... Then shall +lambs feed as in their pasture, and strangers shall devour the ruins of +the fat ones--i.e._, of the luxurious landowners (9, 10, 17. See note +on previous page). And in one of those elliptic statements by which he +often startles us with the sudden sense that God Himself is acquainted +with all our affairs, and takes His own interest in them, Isaiah adds, +"All this was whispered to me by Jehovah: _In mine ears--the LORD of +hosts_" (ver. 9). + + [4] Ewald happily suggests that verse 17 has dropped out of, and should + be restored to, its proper position at the end of the first "woe," where + it contributes to the development of the meaning far more than from + where it stands in the text. + +During recent agitations in our own country one has often seen the "land +laws of the Bible" held forth by some thoughtless demagogue as models +for land tenure among ourselves; as if a system which worked well with a +small tribe in a land they had all entered on equal footing, and where +there was no opportunity for the industry of the people except in +pasture and tillage, could possibly be applicable to a vastly larger and +more complex population, with different traditions and very different +social circumstances. Isaiah says nothing about the peculiar land _laws_ +of his people. He lays down principles, and these are principles valid +in every civilization. God has made the land, not to feed the pride of +the few, but the natural hunger of the many, and it is His will that the +most be got out of a country's soil for the people of the country. +Whatever be the system of land-tenure--and while all are more or less +liable to abuse, it is the duty of a people to agitate for that which +will be least liable--if it is taken advantage of by individuals to +satisfy their own cupidity, then God will take account of them. There is +a responsibility which the State cannot enforce, and the neglect of +which cannot be punished by any earthly law, but all the more will God +see to it. A nation's treatment of their land is not always prominent as +a question which demands the attention of public reformers; but it +ceaselessly has interest for God, who ever holds individuals to answer +for it. The land-question is ultimately a religious question. For the +management of their land the whole nation is responsible to God, but +especially those who own or manage estates. This is a sacred office. +When one not only remembers the nature of land--how it is an element of +life, so that if a man abuse the soil it is as if he poisoned the air or +darkened the heavens--but appreciates also the multitude of personal +relations which the landowner or factor holds in his hand--the peace of +homes, the continuity of local traditions, the physical health, the +social fearlessness and frankness, and the thousand delicate +associations which their habitations entwine about the hearts of +men--one feels that to all who possess or manage land is granted an +opportunity of patriotism and piety open to few, a ministry less +honourable and sacred than none other committed by God to man for his +fellow-men. + +After the land-sin Isaiah hurls his second Woe upon the drink-sin, and +it is a heavier woe than the first. With fatal persistence the luxury of +every civilization has taken to drink; and of all the indictments +brought by moralists against nations, that which they reserve for +drunkenness is, as here, the most heavily weighted. The crusade against +drink is not the novel thing that many imagine who observe only its late +revival among ourselves. In ancient times there was scarcely a State in +which prohibitive legislation of the most stringent kind was not +attempted, and generally carried out with a thoroughness more possible +under despots than where, as with us, the slow consent of public opinion +is necessary. A horror of strong drink has in every age possessed those +who from their position as magistrates or prophets have been able to +follow for any distance the drifts of social life. Isaiah exposes as +powerfully as ever any of them did in what the peculiar fatality of +drinking lies. Wine is a mocker by nothing more than by the moral +incredulity which it produces, enabling men to hide from themselves the +spiritual and material effects of over-indulgence in it. No one who has +had to do with persons slowly falling from moderate to immoderate +drinking can mistake Isaiah's meaning when he says, _They regard not the +work of the LORD; neither have they considered the operation of His +hands_. Nothing kills the conscience like steady drinking to a little +excess; and religion, even while the conscience is alive, acts on it +only as an opiate. It is not, however, with the symptoms of drink in +individuals so much as with its aggregate effects on the nation that +Isaiah is concerned. So prevalent is excessive drinking, so entwined +with the social customs of the country and many powerful interests, that +it is extremely difficult to rouse public opinion to its effects. And +_so they go into captivity for lack of knowledge_. Temperance reformers +are often blamed for the strength of their language, but they may +shelter themselves behind Isaiah. As he pictures it, the national +destruction caused by drink is complete. It is nothing less than the +people's _captivity_, and we know what that meant to an Israelite. It +affects all classes: _Their honourable men are famished, and their +multitude parched with thirst.... The mean man is bowed down, and the +great man is humbled._ But the want and ruin of this earth are not +enough to describe it. The appetite of hell itself has to be enlarged to +suffice for the consumption of the spoils of strong drink. _Therefore +hell hath enlarged her desire and opened her mouth without measure; and +their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth +among them, descend into it._ The very appetite of hell has to be +enlarged! Does it not truly seem as if the wild and wanton waste of +drink were preventable, as if it were not, as many are ready to sneer, +the inevitable evil of men's hearts choosing this form of issue, but a +superfluous audacity of sin, which the devil himself did not desire or +tempt men to? It is this feeling of the infernal gratuitousness of most +of the drink-evil--the conviction that here hell would be quiet if only +she were not stirred up by the extraordinarily wanton provocatives that +society and the State offer to excessive drinking--which compels +temperance reformers at the present day to isolate drunkenness and make +it the object of a special crusade. Isaiah's strong figure has lost none +of its strength to-day. When our judges tell us from the bench that +nine-tenths of pauperism and crime are caused by drink, and our +physicians that if only irregular tippling were abolished half the +current sickness of the land would cease, and our statesmen that the +ravages of strong drink are equal to those of the historical scourges of +war, famine and pestilence combined, surely to swallow such a glut of +spoil _the appetite of hell must have been_ still more enlarged, _and +the mouth of hell made_ yet _wider_. + +The next three Woes are upon different aggravations of that moral +perversity which the prophet has already traced to strong drink. In the +first of these it is better to read, _draw punishment near with cords of +vanity_, than _draw iniquity_. Then we have a striking antithesis--the +drunkards mocking Isaiah over their cups with the challenge, as if it +would not be taken up, _Let Jehovah make speed, and hasten His work of +judgement, that we may see it_, while all the time they themselves were +dragging that judgement near, _as with cart-ropes_, by their persistent +diligence in evil. This figure of sinners jeering at the approach of a +calamity while they actually wear the harness of its carriage is very +striking. But the Jews are not only unconscious of judgement, they are +confused as to the very principles of morality: _Who call evil good, and +good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put +bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!_ + +In his fifth Woe the prophet attacks a disposition to which his scorn +gives no peace throughout his ministry. If these sensualists had only +confined themselves to their sensuality they might have been left alone; +but with that intellectual bravado which is equally born with "Dutch +courage" of drink, they interfered in the conduct of the State, and +prepared arrogant policies of alliance and war that were the distress of +the sober-minded prophet all his days. _Woe unto them that are wise in +their own eyes and prudent in their own sight._ + +In his last Woe Isaiah returns to the drinking habits of the upper +classes, from which it would appear that among the judges even of Judah +there were "six-bottle men." They sustained their extravagance by +subsidies, which we trust were unknown to the mighty men of wine who +once filled the seats of justice in our own country. _They justify the +wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous +from him._ All these sinners, dead through their rejection of the law of +Jehovah of hosts and the word of the Holy One of Israel, shall be like +to the stubble, fit only for burning, and their blossom as the dust of +the rotten tree. + + +III. THE ANGER OF THE LORD (v. 25; ix. 8-x. 4; v. 26-30). + +This indictment of the various sins of the people occupies the whole of +the second part of the oration. But a third part is now added, in which +the prophet catalogues the judgements of the Lord upon them, each of +these closing with the weird refrain, _For all this His anger is not +turned away, but His hand is stretched out still_. The complete +catalogue is usually obtained by inserting between the 25th and 26th +verses of chapter v. the long passage from chapter ix., ver. 8, to +chapter x., ver. 4. It is quite true that as far as chapter v. itself is +concerned it does not need this insertion; but ix. 8-x. 4 is decidedly +out of place where it now lies. Its paragraphs end with the same refrain +as closes v. 25, which forms, besides, a natural introduction to them, +while v. 26-30 form as natural a conclusion. The latter verses describe +an Assyrian invasion, and it was always in an Assyrian invasion that +Isaiah foresaw the final calamity of Judah. We may, then, subject to +further light on the exceedingly obscure subject of the arrangement of +Isaiah's prophecies, follow some of the leading critics, and place ix. +8-x. 4 between verses 25-26 of chapter v.; and the more we examine them +the more we shall be satisfied with our arrangement, for strung together +in this order they form one of the most impressive series of scenes +which even an Isaiah has given us. + +From these scenes Isaiah has spared nothing that is terrible in history +or nature, and it is not one of the least of the arguments for putting +them together that their intensity increases to a climax. Earthquakes, +armed raids, a great battle and the slaughter of a people; prairie and +forest fires, civil strife and the famine fever, that feeds upon itself; +another battle-field, with its cringing groups of captives and heaps of +slain; the resistless tide of a great invasion; and then, for final +prospect, a desolate land by the sound of a hungry sea, and the light is +darkened in the clouds thereof. The elements of nature and the elemental +passions of man have been let loose together; and we follow the violent +floods, remembering that it is sin which has burst the gates of the +universe, and given the tides of hell full course through it. Over the +storm and battle there comes booming like the storm-bell the awful +refrain, _For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is +stretched out still._ It is poetry of the highest order, but in him who +reads it with a conscience mere literary sensations are sobered by the +awe of some of the most profound moral phenomena of life. The +persistence of Divine wrath, the long-lingering effects of sin in a +nation's history, man's abuse of sorrow and his defiance of an angry +Providence, are the elements of this great drama. Those who are familiar +with _King Lear_, will recognize these elements, and observe how +similarly the ways of Providence and the conduct of men are represented +there and here. + +What Isaiah unfolds, then, is a series of calamities that have overtaken +the people of Israel. It is impossible for us to identify every one of +them with a particular event in Israel's history otherwise known to us. +Some it is not difficult to recognize; but the prophet passes in a +perplexing way from Judah to Ephraim and Ephraim to Judah, and in one +case, where he represents Samaria as attacked by Syria and the +Philistines, he goes back to a period at some distance from his own. +There are also passages, as for instance x. 1-4, in which we are unable +to decide whether he describes a present punishment or threatens a +future one. But his moral purpose, at least, is plain. He will show how +often Jehovah has already spoken to His people by calamity, and because +they have remained hardened under these warnings, how there now remains +possible only the last, worst blow of an Assyrian invasion. Isaiah is +justifying his threat of so unprecedented and extreme a punishment for +God's people as overthrow by this Northern people, who had just appeared +upon Judah's political horizon. God, he tells Israel, has tried +everything short of this, and it has failed; now only this remains, and +this shall not fail. The prophet's purpose, therefore, being not an +accurate historical recital, but moral impressiveness, he gives us a +more or less ideal description of former calamities, mentioning only so +much as to allow us to recognize here and there that it is actual facts +which he uses for his purpose of condemning Israel to captivity, and +vindicating Israel's God in bringing that captivity near. The passage +thus forms a parallel to that in Amos, with its similar refrain: _Yet ye +have not returned unto Me, saith the Lord_ (Amos iv. 6-12), and only +goes farther than that earlier prophecy in indicating that the +instruments of the Lord's final judgement are to be the Assyrians. + +Five great calamities, says Isaiah, have fallen on Israel and left them +hardened: 1st, earthquake (v. 25); 2nd, loss of territory (ix. 8-12); +3rd, war and a decisive defeat (ix. 13-17); 4th, internal anarchy (ix. +18-21); 5th, the near prospect of captivity (x. 1-4). + +1. THE EARTHQUAKE (v. 25).--Amos closes his series with an earthquake; +Isaiah begins with one. It may be the same convulsion they describe, or +may not. Although the skirts of Palestine both to the east and west +frequently tremble to these disturbances, an earthquake in Palestine +itself, up on the high central ridge of the land, is very rare. Isaiah +vividly describes its awful simplicity and suddenness. _The Lord +stretched forth His hand and smote, and the hills shook, and their +carcases were like offal in the midst of the streets._ More words are +not needed, because there was nothing more to describe. The Lord lifted +His hand; the hills seemed for a moment to topple over, and when the +living recovered from the shock there lay the dead, flung like refuse +about the streets. + +2. THE LOSS OF TERRITORY (ix. 8-21).--So awful a calamity, in which the +dying did not die out of sight nor fall huddled together on some far off +battle-field, but the whole land was strewn with her slain, ought to +have left indelible impression on the people. But it did not. The Lord's +own word had been in it for Jacob and Israel (ix. 8), _that the people +might know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria_. But unhumbled +they turned in the stoutness of their hearts, saying, when the +earthquake had passed:[5] _The bricks are fallen, but we will build with +hewn stones;[6] the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into +cedars_. Calamity did not make this people thoughtful; they felt God +only to endeavour to forget Him. Therefore He visited them the second +time. They did not feel the Lord shaking their land, so He sent their +enemies to steal it from them: _the Syrians before and the Philistines +behind; and they devour Israel with open mouth_. What that had been for +appalling suddenness this was for lingering and harassing--guerilla +warfare, armed raids, the land eaten away bit by bit. _Yet the people do +not return unto Him that smote them, neither seek they the LORD of +hosts._ + + [5] Read past tenses, as in the margin of Revised Version, for all the + future tenses, or better, the historical present, down to the end of the + chapter. + + [6] It is part of the argument for connecting ix. 8 with v. 25 that this + phrase would be very natural after the earthquake described in v. 25. + +3. WAR AND DEFEAT (ix. 13-17).--The next consequent calamity passed from +the land to the people themselves. A great battle is described, in which +the nation is dismembered in one day. War and its horrors are told, and +the apparent want of Divine pity and discrimination which they imply is +explained. Israel has been led into these disasters by the folly of +their leaders, whom Isaiah therefore singles out for blame. _For they +that lead these people cause them to err, and they that are led of them +are destroyed._ But the real horror of war is that it falls not upon +its authors, that its victims are not statesmen, but the beauty of a +country's youth, the helplessness of the widow and orphan. Some question +seems to have been stirred by this in Isaiah's heart. He asks, Why does +the Lord not rejoice in the young men of His people? Why has He no pity +for widow and orphan, that He thus sacrifices them to the sin of the +rulers? It is because the whole nation shares the ruler's guilt; _every +one is an hypocrite and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly_. +As ruler so people, is a truth Isaiah frequently asserts, but never with +such grimness as here. War brings out, as nothing else does, the +solidarity of a people in guilt. + +4. INTERNAL ANARCHY (ix. 18-21).--Even yet the people did not repent; +their calamities only drove them to further wickedness. The prophet's +eyes are opened to the awful fact that God's wrath is but the blast that +fans men's hot sins to flame. This is one of those two or three awful +scenes in history, in the conflagration of which we cannot tell what is +human sin and what Divine judgement. There is a panic wickedness, sin +spreading like mania, as if men were possessed by supernatural powers. +The physical metaphors of the prophet are evident: a forest or prairie +fire, and the consequent famine, whose fevered victims feed upon +themselves. And no less evident are the political facts which the +prophet employs these metaphors to describe. It is the anarchy which has +beset more than one corrupt and unfortunate people, when their +misleaders have been overthrown: the anarchy in which each faction seeks +to slaughter out the rest. Jealousy and distrust awake the lust for +blood, rage seizes the people as fire the forest, _and no man spareth +his brother_. We have had modern instances of all this; these scenes +form a true description of some days of the French Revolution, and are +even a truer description of the civil war that broke out in Paris after +her late siege. + + "If that the heavens do not their visible spirits + Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, + 'T will come, + Humanity must perforce prey on itself + Like monsters of the deep."[7] + + [7] _King Lear_, act iv., sc. 2. + +5. THE THREAT OF CAPTIVITY (x. 1-4).--Turning now from the past, and +from the fate of Samaria, with which it would appear he has been more +particularly engaged, the prophet addresses his own countrymen in Judah, +and paints the future for them. It is not a future in which there is any +hope. The day of their visitation also will surely come, and the prophet +sees it close in the darkest night of which a Jewish heart could +think--the night of captivity. Where, he asks his unjust +countrymen--where _will ye then flee for help? and where will you leave +your glory_? Cringing among the captives, lying dead beneath heaps of +dead--that is to be your fate, who will have turned so often and then so +finally from God. When exactly the prophet thus warned his countrymen of +captivity we do not know, but the warning, though so real, produced +neither penitence in men nor pity in God. _For all this His anger is not +turned away, but His hand is stretched out still._ + +6. THE ASSYRIAN INVASION (v. 26-30).--The prophet is, therefore, free to +explain that cloud which has appeared far away on the northern horizon. +God's hand of judgement is still uplifted over Judah, and it is that +hand which summons the cloud. The Assyrians are coming in answer to +God's signal, and they are coming as a flood, to leave nothing but ruin +and distress behind them. No description by Isaiah is more majestic than +this one, in which Jehovah, who has exhausted every nearer means of +converting His people, lifts His undrooping arm with a _flag to the +nations that are far off, and hisses_ or whistles _for them from the end +of the earth_. _And, behold, they come with speed, swiftly: there is no +weary one nor straggler among them; none slumbers nor sleeps; nor loosed +is the girdle of his loins, nor broken the latchet of his shoes; whose +arrows are sharpened, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are +like the flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind; a roar have they +like the lion's, and they roar like young lions; yea, they growl and +grasp the prey, and carry it off, and there is none to deliver. And they +growl upon him that day like the growling of the sea; and if one looks +to the land, behold, dark and distress, and the light is darkened in the +cloudy heaven._ + +Thus Isaiah leaves Judah to await her doom. But the tones of his weird +refrain awaken in our hearts some thoughts which will not let his +message go from us just yet. + +It will ever be a question, whether men abuse more their sorrows or +their joys; but no earnest soul can doubt, which of these abuses is the +more fatal. To sin in the one case is to yield to a temptation; to sin +in the other is to resist a Divine grace. Sorrow is God's last message +to man; it is God speaking in emphasis. He who abuses it shows that he +can shut his ears when God speaks loudest. Therefore heartlessness or +impenitence after sorrow is more dangerous than intemperance in joy; its +results are always more tragic. Now Isaiah points out that men's abuse +of sorrow is twofold. Men abuse sorrow by mistaking it, and they abuse +sorrow by defying it. + +Men abuse sorrow by mistaking it, when they see in it nothing but a +penal or expiatory force. To many men sorrow is what his devotions were +to Louis XI., which having religiously performed, he felt the more brave +to sin. So with the Samaritans, who said in the stoutness of their +hearts, _The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; +the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars._ To +speak in this way is happy, but heathenish. It is to call sorrow "bad +luck;" it is to hear no voice of God in it, saying, "Be pure; be humble; +lean upon Me." This disposition springs from a vulgar conception of God, +as of a Being of no permanence in character, easily irritated but +relieved by a burst of passion, smartly punishing His people and then +leaving them to themselves. It is a temper which says, "God is angry, +let us wait a little; God is appeased, let us go ahead again." Over +against such vulgar views of a Deity with a temper Isaiah unveils the +awful majesty of God in holy wrath: _For all this His anger is not +turned away, but His hand is stretched out still_. How grim and savage +does it appear to our eyes till we understand the thoughts of the +sinners to whom it was revealed! God cannot dispel the cowardly thought, +that He is anxious only to punish, except by letting His heavy hand +abide till it purify also. The permanence of God's wrath is thus an +ennobling, not a stupefying doctrine. + +Men also abuse sorrow by defying it, but the end of this is madness. "It +forms the greater part of the tragedy of _King Lear_, that the aged +monarch, though he has given his throne away, retains his imperiousness +of heart, and continues to exhibit a senseless, if sometimes +picturesque, pride and selfishness in face of misfortune. Even when he +is overthrown he must still command; he fights against the very +elements; he is determined to be at least the master of his own +sufferings and destiny. But for this the necessary powers fail him; his +life thus disordered terminates in madness. It was only by such an +affliction that a character like his could be brought to repentance, ... +to humility, which is the parent of true love, and that love in him +could be purified. Hence the melancholy close of that tragedy."[8] As +Shakespeare has dealt with the king, so Isaiah with the people; he also +shows us sorrow when it is defied bringing forth madness. On so impious +a height man's brain grows dizzy, and he falls into that terrible abyss +which is not, as some imagine, hell, but God's last purgatory. +Shakespeare brings shattered Lear out of it, and Isaiah has a remnant of +the people to save. + + [8] Ulrici: _Shakespeare's Dramatic Art_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +_ISAIAH'S CALL AND CONSECRATION._ + +ISAIAH vi. (740 B.C.; WRITTEN 735? OR 725?). + + +It has been already remarked that in chapter vi. we should find no other +truths than those which have been unfolded in chapters ii.-v.: the Lord +exalted in righteousness, the coming of a terrible judgement from Him +upon Judah, and the survival of a bare remnant of the people. But +chapter vi. treats the same subjects with a difference. In chapters +ii.-iv. they gradually appear and grow to clearness in connection with +the circumstances of Judah's history; in chapter v. they are formally +and rhetorically vindicated; in chapter vi. we are led back to the +secret and solemn moments of their first inspiration in the prophet's +own soul. It may be asked why chapter vi. comes last and not first in +this series, and why in an exposition, attempting to deal, as far as +possible, chronologically with Isaiah's prophecies, his call should not +form the subject of the first chapter. The answer is simple, and throws +a flood of light upon the chapter. In all probability chapter vi. was +written after its predecessors, and what Isaiah has put into it is not +only what happened in the earliest moments of his prophetic life, but +that spelt out and emphasized by his experience since. The ideal +character of the narrative, and its date some years after the events +which it relates, are now generally admitted. Of course the narrative is +all fact. No one will believe that he, whose glance penetrated with such +keenness the character of men and movements, looked with dimmer eye into +his own heart. It is the spiritual process which the prophet actually +passed through before the opening of his ministry. But it is that, +developed by subsequent experience, and presented to us in the language +of outward vision. Isaiah had been some years a prophet, long enough to +make clear that prophecy was not to be for him what it had been for his +predecessors in Israel, a series of detached inspirations and occasional +missions, with short responsibilities, but a work for life, a profession +and a career, with all that this means of postponement, failure, and +fluctuation of popular feeling. Success had not come so rapidly as the +prophet in his original enthusiasm had looked for, and his preaching had +effected little upon the people. Therefore he would go back to the +beginning, remind himself of that to which God had really called him, +and vindicate the results of his ministry, at which people scoffed and +his own heart grew sometimes sick. In chapter vi. Isaiah acts as his own +remembrancer. If we keep in mind, that this chapter, describing Isaiah's +call and consecration to the prophetic office, was written by a man who +felt that office to be the burden of a lifetime, and who had to explain +its nature and vindicate its results to his own soul--grown somewhat +uncertain, it may be, of her original inspiration--we shall find light +upon features of the chapter that are otherwise most obscure. + + +1. THE VISION (vv. 1-4). + +Several years, then, Isaiah looks back and says, _In the year King +Uzziah died._ There is more than a date given here; there is a great +contrast suggested. Prophecy does not chronicle by time, but by +experiences, and we have here, as it seems, the cardinal experience of a +prophet's life. + +All men knew of that glorious reign with the ghastly end--fifty years of +royalty, and then a lazar-house. There had been no king like this one +since Solomon; never, since the son of David brought the Queen of Sheba +to his feet, had the national pride stood so high or the nation's dream +of sovereignty touched such remote borders. The people's admiration +invested Uzziah with all the graces of the ideal monarch. The chronicler +of Judah tells us _that God helped him and made him to prosper, and his +name spread far abroad, and he was marvellously helped till he was +strong_; he with the double name--Azariah, Jehovah-his-Helper; Uzziah, +Jehovah-his-Strength. How this glory fell upon the fancy of the future +prophet, and dyed it deep, we may imagine from those marvellous colours, +with which in later years he painted the king in his beauty. Think of +the boy, the boy that was to be an Isaiah, the boy with the germs of +this great prophecy in his heart--think of him and such a hero as this +to shine upon him, and we may conceive how his whole nature opened out +beneath that sun of royalty and absorbed its light. + +Suddenly the glory was eclipsed, and Jerusalem learned that she had seen +her king for the last time: _The Lord smote the king so that he was a +leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, and he +was cut off from the house of the Lord._ Uzziah had gone into the +temple, and attempted with his own hands to burn incense. Under a later +dispensation of liberty he would have been applauded as a brave +Protestant, vindicating the right of every worshipper of God to approach +Him without the intervention of a special priesthood. Under the earlier +dispensation of law his act could be regarded only as one of +presumption, the expression of a worldly and irreverent temper, which +ignored the infinite distance between God and man. It was followed, as +sins of wilfulness in religion were always followed under the old +covenant, by swift disaster. Uzziah suffered as Saul, Uzzah, Nadab and +Abihu did. The wrath, with which he burst out on the opposing priests, +brought on, or made evident as it is believed to have done in other +cases, an attack of leprosy. The white spot stood out unmistakeably from +the flushed forehead, and he was thrust from the temple--_yea, himself +also hasted to go out_. + +We can imagine how such a judgement, the moral of which must have been +plain to all, affected the most sensitive heart in Jerusalem. Isaiah's +imagination was darkened, but he tells us that the crisis was the +enfranchisement of his faith. _In the year King Uzziah died_--it is as +if a veil had dropped, and the prophet saw beyond what it had hidden, +_the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up_. That it is no mere +date Isaiah means, but a spiritual contrast which he is anxious to +impress upon us, is made clear by his emphasis of the rank and not the +name of God. It is _the Lord sitting upon a throne--the Lord_ +absolutely, set over against the human prince. The simple antithesis +seems to speak of the passing away of the young man's hero-worship and +the dawn of his faith; and so interpreted, this first verse of chapter +vi. is only a concise summary of that development of religious +experience which we have traced through chapters ii.-iv. Had Isaiah ever +been subject to the religious temper of his time, the careless optimism +of a prosperous and proud people, who entered upon their religious +services without awe, _trampling the courts of the Lord_, and used them +like Uzziah, for their _own honour_, who felt religion to be an easy +thing, and dismissed from it all thoughts of judgement and feelings of +penitence--if ever Isaiah had been subject to that temper, then once for +all he was redeemed by this stroke upon Uzziah. And, as we have seen, +there is every reason to believe that Isaiah did at first share the too +easy public religion of his youth. That early vision of his (ii. 2-5), +the establishment of Israel at the head of the nations, to be +immediately attained at his own word (v. 5) and without preliminary +purification, was it not simply a less gross form of the king's own +religious presumption? Uzziah's fatal act was the expression of the +besetting sin of his people, and in that sin Isaiah himself had been a +partaker. _I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a +people of unclean lips._ In the person of their monarch the temper of +the whole Jewish nation had come to judgement. Seeking the ends of +religion by his own way, and ignoring the way God had appointed, Uzziah +at the very moment of his insistence was hurled back and stamped +unclean. The prophet's eyes were opened. The king sank into a leper's +grave, but before Isaiah's vision the Divine majesty arose in all its +loftiness. _I saw the Lord high and lifted up._ We already know what +Isaiah means by these terms. He has used them of God's supremacy in +righteousness above the low moral standards of men, of God's occupation +of a far higher throne than that of the national deity of Judah, of +God's infinite superiority to Israel's vulgar identification of His +purposes with her material prosperity or His honour with the +compromises of her politics, and especially of God's seat as their +Judge over a people, who sought in their religion only satisfaction for +their pride and love of ease. + +From this contrast the whole vision expands as follows. + +Under the mistaken idea that what Isaiah describes is the temple in +Jerusalem, it has been remarked, that the place of his vision is +wonderful in the case of one who set so little store by ceremonial +worship. This, however, to which our prophet looks is no house built +with hands, but Jehovah's own heavenly _palace_ (ver. 1--not _temple_); +only Isaiah describes it in terms of the Jerusalem temple which was its +symbol. It was natural that the temple should furnish Isaiah not only +with the framework of his vision, but also with the platform from which +he saw it. For it was in the temple that Uzziah's sin was sinned and +God's holiness vindicated upon him. It was in the temple that, when +Isaiah beheld the scrupulous religiousness of the people, the contrast +of that with their evil lives struck him, and he summed it up in the +epigram _wickedness and worship_ (i. 13). It was in the temple, in +short, that the prophet's conscience had been most roused, and just +where the conscience is most roused there is the vision of God to be +expected. Very probably it was while brooding over Uzziah's judgement on +the scene of its occurrence that Isaiah beheld his vision. Yet for all +the vision contained the temple itself was too narrow. The truth which +was to be revealed to Isaiah, the holiness of God, demanded a wider +stage and the breaking down of those partitions, which, while they had +been designed to impress God's presence on the worshipper, had only +succeeded in veiling Him. So while the seer keeps his station on the +threshold of the earthly building, soon to feel it rock beneath his +feet, as heaven's praise bursts like thunder on the earth, and while his +immediate neighbourhood remains the same familiar _house_, all beyond is +glorified. The veil of the temple falls away, and everything behind it. +No ark nor mercy-seat is visible, but a throne and a court--the palace +of God in heaven, as we have it also pictured in the eleventh and +twenty-ninth Psalms. The Royal Presence is everywhere. Isaiah describes +no face, only a Presence and a Session: _the Lord sitting on a throne, +and His skirts filled the palace_. + + "No face; only the sight + Of a sweepy garment vast and white + With a hem that I could recognize."[9] + + [9] Browning's "Christmas Eve." + +_Around_ (not _above_, as in the English version) were ranged the +hovering courtiers, of what shape and appearance we know not, except +that they veiled their faces and their feet before the awful +Holiness,--all wings and voice, perfect readinesses of praise and +service. The prophet heard them chant in antiphon, like the temple +choirs of priests. And the one choir cried out, _Holy, holy, holy is +Jehovah of hosts_; and the other responded, _The whole earth is full of +His glory_. + +It is by the familiar name Jehovah of hosts--the proper name of Israel's +national God--that the prophet hears the choirs of heaven address the +Divine Presence. But what they ascribe to the Deity is exactly what +Israel will not ascribe, and the revelation they make of His nature is +the contradiction of Israel's thoughts concerning Him. + +What, in the first place, is HOLINESS? We attach this term to a definite +standard of morality or an unusually impressive fulness of character. +To our minds it is associated with very positive forces, as of comfort +and conviction--perhaps because we take our ideas of it from the active +operations of the Holy Ghost. The original force of the term _holiness_, +however, was not positive but negative, and throughout the Old +Testament, whatever modifications its meaning undergoes, it retains a +negative flavour. The Hebrew word for holiness springs from a root which +means _to set apart, make distinct, put at a distance from_. When God is +described as the Holy One in the Old Testament it is generally with the +purpose of withdrawing Him from some presumption of men upon His majesty +or of negativing their unworthy thoughts of Him. The Holy One is the +Incomparable: _To whom, then, will ye liken Me, that I should be equal +to him? saith the Holy One_ (xl. 25). He is the Unapproachable: _Who is +able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God?_ (1 Sam. vi. 20). He is the +Utter Contrast of man: _I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst +of thee_ (Hosea xi. 9). He is the Exalted and Sublime: _Thus saith the +high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell +in the high and holy place_ (lvii. 15). Generally speaking, then, +holiness is equivalent to separateness, sublimity--in fact, just to that +loftiness or exaltation which Isaiah has already so often reiterated as +the principal attribute of God. In their thrice-repeated _Holy_ the +seraphs are only telling more emphatically to the prophet's ears what +his eyes have already seen, _the Lord high and lifted up_. Better +expression could not be found for the full idea of Godhead. This little +word _Holy_ radiates heaven's own breadth of meaning. Within its +fundamental idea--distance or difference from man--what spaces are +there not for every attribute of Godhead to flash? If the Holy One be +originally He who is distinct from man and man's thoughts, and who +impresses man from the beginning with the awful sublimity of the +contrast in which He stands to him, how naturally may holiness come to +cover not only that moral purity and intolerance of sin to which we now +more strictly apply the term, but those metaphysical conceptions as +well, which we gather up under the name "supernatural," and so finally, +by lifting the Divine nature away from the change and vanity of this +world, and emphasizing God's independence of all beside Himself, become +the fittest expression we have for Him as the Infinite and +Self-existent. Thus the word _holy_ appeals in turn to each of the three +great faculties of man's nature, by which he can be religiously +exercised--his conscience, his affections, his reason; it covers the +impressions which God makes on man as a sinner, on man as a worshipper, +on man as a thinker. The Holy One is not only the Sinless and +Sin-abhorring, but the Sublime and the Absolute too. + +But while we recognize the exhaustiveness of the series of ideas about +the Divine Nature, which develop from the root meaning of holiness, and +to express which the word _holy_ is variously used throughout the +Scriptures, we must not, if we are to appreciate the use of the word on +this occasion, miss the motive of recoil which starts them all. If we +would hear what Isaiah heard in the seraphs' song, we must distinguish +in the three-fold ascription of holiness the intensity of recoil from +the confused religious views and low moral temper of the prophet's +generation. It is no scholastic definition of Deity which the seraphim +are giving. Not for a moment is it to be supposed that to that age, +whose representative is listening to them, they are attempting to convey +an idea of the Trinity. Their thrice-uttered _Holy_ is not theological +accuracy, but religious emphasis. This angelic revelation of the +holiness of God was intended for a generation, some of whom were +idol-worshippers, confounding the Godhead with the work of their own +hands or with natural objects, and none of whom were free from a +confusion in principle of the Divine with the human and worldly, for +which now sheer mental slovenliness, now a dull moral sense, and now +positive pride was to blame. To worshippers who _trampled_ the courts of +the Lord with the careless feet, and looked up the temple with the +unabashed faces, of routine, the cry of the seraphs, as they veiled +their faces and their feet, travailed to restore that shuddering sense +of the sublimity of the Divine Presence, which in the impressible youth +of the race first impelled man, bowing low beneath the awful heavens, to +name God by the name of the Holy. To men, again, careful of the legal +forms of worship, but lawless and careless in their lives, the song of +the seraphs revealed not the hard truth, against which they had already +rubbed conscience trite, that God's law was inexorable, but the fiery +fact that His whole nature burned with wrath towards sin. To men, once +more, proud of their prestige and material prosperity, and presuming in +their pride to take their own way with God, and to employ like Uzziah +the exercises of religion for their own honour, this vision presented +the real sovereignty of God: the Lord Himself seated on a throne +_there_--just where they felt only a theatre for the display of their +pride, or machinery for the attainment of their private ends. Thus did +the three-fold cry of the angels meet the three-fold sinfulness of that +generation of men. + +But the first line of the seraph's song serves more than a temporary +end. The Trisagion rings, and has need to ring, for ever down the +Church. Everywhere and at all times these are the three besetting sins +of religious people--callousness in worship, carelessness in life, and +the temper which employs the forms of religion simply for +self-indulgence or self-aggrandisement. These sins are induced by the +same habit of contentment with mere form; they can be corrected only by +the vision of the Personal Presence who is behind all form. Our +organization, ritual, law and sacrament--we must be able to see them +fall away, as Isaiah saw the sanctuary itself disappear, before God +Himself, if we are to remain heartily moral and fervently religious. The +Church of God has to learn that no mere multiplication of forms, nor a +more aesthetic arrangement of them, will redeem her worshippers from +callousness. Callousness is but the shell which the feelings develop in +self-defence when left by the sluggish and impenetrative soul to beat +upon the hard outsides of form. And nothing will fuse this shell of +callousness but that ardent flame, which is kindled at the touching of +the Divine and human spirits, when forms have fallen away and the soul +beholds with open face the Eternal Himself. As with worship, so with +morality. Holiness is secured not by ceremonial, but by a reverence for +a holy Being. We shall rub our consciences trite against moral maxims or +religious rites. It is the effluence of a Presence, which alone can +create in us, and keep in us, a clean heart. And if any object that we +thus make light of ritual and religious law, of Church and sacrament, +the reply is obvious. Ritual and sacrament are to the living God but as +the wick of a candle to the light thereof. They are given to reveal Him, +and the process is not perfect unless they themselves perish from the +thoughts to which they convey Him. If God is not felt to be present, as +Isaiah felt Him to be, to the exclusion of all forms, then these will be +certain to be employed, as Uzziah employed them, for the sake of the +only other spiritual being of whom the worshipper is conscious--himself. +Unless we are able to forget our ritual in spiritual communion with the +very God, and to become unconscious of our organization in devout +consciousness of our personal relation to Him, then ritual will be only +a means of sensuous indulgence, organization only a machinery for +selfish or sectarian ends. The vision of God--this is the one thing +needful for worship and for conduct. + +But while the one verse of the antiphon reiterates what Jehovah of hosts +is in Himself, the other describes what He is in revelation. _The whole +earth is full of His glory._ Glory is the correlative of holiness. Glory +is that in which holiness comes to expression. Glory is the expression +of holiness, as beauty is the expression of health. If holiness be as +deep as we have seen, so varied then will glory be. There is nothing in +the earth but it is the glory of God. _The fulness of the whole earth is +His glory_, is the proper grammatical rendering of the song. For Jehovah +of hosts is not the God only of Israel, but the Maker of heaven and +earth, and not the victory of Israel alone, but the wealth and the +beauty of all the world is His glory. So universal an ascription of +glory is the proper parallel to that of absolute Godhead, which is +implied in holiness. + + +II. THE CALL (vv. 4-8). + +Thus, then, Isaiah, standing on earth, on the place of a great sin, with +the conscience of his people's evil in his heart, and himself not +without the feeling of guilt, looked into heaven, and beholding the +glory of God, heard also with what pure praise and readiness of service +the heavenly hosts surround His throne. No wonder the prophet felt the +polluted threshold rock beneath him, or that as where fire and water +mingle there should be the rising of a great smoke. For the smoke +described is not, as some have imagined, that of acceptable incense, +thick billows swelling through the temple to express the completion and +satisfaction of the seraphs' worship; but it is the mist which ever +arises where holiness and sin touch each other. It has been described +both as the obscurity that envelops a weak mind in presence of a truth +too great for it, and the darkness that falls upon a diseased eye when +exposed to the mid-day sun. These are only analogies, and may mislead +us. What Isaiah actually felt was the dim-eyed shame, the distraction, +the embarrassment, the blinding shock of a personal encounter with One +whom he was utterly unfit to meet. For this was a personal encounter. We +have spelt out the revelation sentence by sentence in gradual argument; +but Isaiah did not reach it through argument or brooding. It was not to +the prophet what it is to his expositors, a pregnant thought, that his +intellect might gradually unfold, but a Personal Presence, which +apprehended and overwhelmed him. God and he were there face to face. +_Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because a man unclean of lips +am I, and in the midst of a people unclean of lips do I dwell; for the +King, Jehovah of hosts, mine eyes have beheld._ + +The form of the prophet's confession, _uncleanness of lips_, will not +surprise us as far as he makes it for himself. As with the disease of +the body, so with the sin of the soul; each often gathers to one point +of pain. Every man, though wholly sinful by nature, has his own +particular consciousness of guilt. Isaiah being a prophet felt his +mortal weakness most upon his lips. The inclusion of the people, +however, along with himself under this form of guilt, suggests a wider +interpretation of it. The lips are, as it were, the blossom of a man. +_Grace is poured upon thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee for +ever. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to +bridle the whole body also._ It is in the blossom of a plant that the +plant's defects become conspicuous; it is when all a man's faculties +combine for the complex and delicate office of expression that any fault +which is in him will come to the surface. Isaiah had been listening to +the perfect praise of sinless beings, and it brought into startling +relief the defects of his own people's worship. Unclean of lips these +were indeed when brought against that heavenly choir. Their social and +political sin--sin of heart and home and market--came to a head in their +worship, and what should have been the blossom of their life fell to the +ground like a rotten leaf beneath the stainless beauty of the seraphs' +praise. + +While the prophet thus passionately gathered his guilt upon his lips, a +sacrament was preparing on which God concentrated His mercy to meet it. +Sacrament and lips, applied mercy and presented sin, now come together. +_Then flew unto me one of the seraphim, and in his hand a glowing +stone--with tongs had he taken it off the altar--and he touched my mouth +and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and so thy iniquity passeth +away and thy sin is atoned for._ + +The idea of this function is very evident, and a scholar who has said +that it "would perhaps be quite intelligible to the contemporaries of +the prophet, but is undoubtedly obscure to us," appears to have said +just the reverse of what is right; for so simple a process of atonement +leaves out the most characteristic details of the Jewish ritual of +sacrifice, while it anticipates in an unmistakeable manner the essence +of the Christian sacrament. In a scene of expiation laid under the old +covenant, we are struck by the absence of oblation or sacrificial act on +the part of the sinner himself. There is here no victim slain, no blood +sprinkled; an altar is only parenthetically suggested, and even then in +its simplest form, of a hearth on which the Divine fire is continually +burning. The _glowing stone_, not _live coal_ as in the English version, +was no part of the temple furniture, but the ordinary means of conveying +heat or applying fire in the various purposes of household life. There +was, it is true, a carrying of fire in some of the temple services, as, +for example, on the great Day of Atonement, but then it was effected by +a small grate filled with living embers. In the household, on the other +hand, when cakes had to be baked, or milk boiled, or water warmed, or in +fifty similar applications of fire, a glowing stone taken from off the +hearth was the invariable instrument. It is this swift and simple +domestic process which Isaiah now sees substituted for the slow and +intricate ceremonial of the temple--a seraph with a glowing stone in his +hand, _with tongs had he taken it off the altar_. And yet the prophet +feels this only as a more direct expression of the very same idea, with +which the elaborate ritual was inspired--for which the victim was +slain, and the flesh consumed in fire, and the blood sprinkled. Isaiah +desires nothing else, and receives no more, than the ceremonial law was +intended to assure to the sinner--pardon of his sin and reconciliation +to God. But our prophet will have conviction of these immediately, and +with a force which the ordinary ritual is incapable of expressing. The +feelings of this Jew are too intense and spiritual to be satisfied with +the slow pageant of the earthly temple, whose performances to a man in +his horror could only have appeared so indifferent and far away from +himself as not to be really his own nor to effect what he passionately +desired. Instead therefore of laying his guilt in the shape of some +victim on the altar, Isaiah, with a keener sense of its inseparableness +from himself, presents it to God upon his own lips. Instead of being +satisfied with beholding the fire of God consume it on another body than +his own, at a distance from himself, he feels that fire visit the very +threshold of his nature, where he has gathered the guilt, and consume it +there. The whole secret of this startling nonconformity to the law, on +the very floor of the temple, is that for a man who has penetrated to +the presence of God the legal forms are left far behind, and he stands +face to face with the truth by which they are inspired. In that Divine +Presence Isaiah is his own altar; he acts his guilt in his own person, +and so he feels the expiatory fire come to his very self directly from +the heavenly hearth. It is a replica of the fifty-first Psalm: _For Thou +delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou hast no pleasure +in burnt offering._ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. This is +my sacrifice, my sense of guilt gathered here upon my lips: my _broken +and contrite heart_, who feel myself undone before Thee, _Lord, Thou +wilt not despise_. + +It has always been remarked as one of the most powerful proofs of the +originality and Divine force of Christianity, that from man's worship of +God, and especially from those parts in which the forgiveness of sin is +sought and assured, it did away with the necessity of a physical rite of +sacrifice; that it broke the universal and immemorial habit by which man +presented to God a material offering for the guilt of his soul. By +remembering this fact we may measure the religious significance of the +scene we now contemplate. Nearly eight centuries before there was +accomplished upon Calvary that Divine Sacrifice for sin, which abrogated +a rite of expiation, hitherto universally adopted by the conscience of +humanity, we find a Jew, in the dispensation where such a rite was most +religiously enforced, trembling under the conviction of sin, and upon a +floor crowded with suggestions of physical sacrifice; yet the only +sacrifice he offers is the purely spiritual one of confession. It is +most notable. Look at it from a human point of view, and we can estimate +Isaiah's immense spiritual originality; look at it from a Divine, and we +cannot help perceiving a distinct foreshadow of what was to take place +by the blood of Jesus under the new covenant. To this man, as to some +others of his dispensation, whose experience our Christian sympathy +recognizes so readily in the Psalms, there was granted aforetime +boldness to enter into the holiest. For this is the explanation of +Isaiah's marvellous disregard of the temple ritual. It is all behind +him. This man has passed within the veil. Forms are all behind him, and +he is face to face with God. But between two beings in that position, +intercourse by the far off and uncertain signals of sacrifice is +inconceivable. It can only take place by the simple unfolding of the +heart. It must be rational, intelligent and by speech. When man is at +such close quarters with God what sacrifice is possible but the +sacrifice of the lips? Form for the Divine reply there must be some, for +even Christianity has its sacraments, but like them this sacrament is of +the very simplest form, and like them it is accompanied by the +explanatory word. As Christ under the new covenant took bread and wine, +and made the homely action of feeding upon them the sign and seal to His +disciples of the forgiveness of their sins, so His angel under the old +and sterner covenant took the more severe, but as simple and domestic +form of fire to express the same to His prophet. And we do well to +emphasize that the experimental value of this sacrament of fire is +bestowed by the word attached to it. It is not a dumb sacrament, with a +magical efficacy. But the prophet's mind is persuaded and his conscience +set at peace by the intelligible words of the minister of the sacrament. + +Isaiah's sin being taken away, he is able to discern the voice of God +Himself. It is in the most beautiful accordance with what has already +happened that he hears this not as command, but request, and answers not +of compulsion, but of freedom. _And I heard the voice of the Lord +saying, Whom shall I send? and who will go for us? And I said, Here am +I; send me._ What spiritual understanding alike of the will of God and +the responsibility of man, what evangelic liberty and boldness, are +here! Here we touch the spring of that high flight Isaiah takes both in +prophecy and in active service for the State. Here we have the secret of +the filial freedom, the life-long sense of responsibility, the regal +power of initiative, the sustained and unfaltering career, which +distinguish Isaiah among the ministers of the old covenant, and stamp +him prophet by the heart and for the life, as many of them are only by +the office and for the occasion. Other prophets are the servants of the +God of heaven; Isaiah stands next the Son Himself. On others the hand of +the Lord is laid in irresistible compulsion; the greatest of them are +often ignorant, by turns headstrong and craven, deserving correction, +and generally in need of supplementary calls and inspirations. But of +such scourges and such doles Isaiah's royal career is absolutely without +a trace. His course, begun in freedom, is pursued without hesitation or +anxiety; begun in utter self-sacrifice, it knows henceforth no moment of +grudging or disobedience. _Esaias is very bold_, because he is so free +and so fully devoted. In the presence of mind with which he meets each +sudden change of politics during that bewildering half-century of +Judah's history, we seem to hear his calm voice repeating its first, +_Here am I_. Presence of mind he always had. The kaleidoscope shifts: it +is now Egyptian intrigue, now Assyrian force; now a false king requiring +threat of displacement by God's own hero, now a true king, but helpless +and in need of consolation; now a rebellious people to be condemned, and +now an oppressed and penitent one to be encouraged:--different dangers, +with different sorts of salvation possible, obliging the prophet to +promise different futures, and to say things inconsistent with what he +had already said. Yet Isaiah never hesitates; he can always say, _Here +am I_. We hear that voice again in the spontaneousness and versatility +of his style. Isaiah is one of the great kings of literature, with every +variety of style under his sway, passing with perfect readiness, as +subject or occasion calls, from one to another of the tones of a +superbly endowed nature. Everywhere this man impresses us with his +personality, with the wealth of his nature and the perfection of his +control of it. But the personality is consecrated. The _Here am I_ is +followed by the _send me_. And its health, harmony and boldness, are +derived, Isaiah being his own witness, from this early sense of pardon +and purification at the Divine hands. Isaiah is indeed a king and a +priest unto God--a king with all his powers at his own command, a priest +with them all consecrated to the service of Heaven. + +One cannot pass away from these verses without observing the plain +answer which they give to the question, What is a call to the ministry +of God? In these days of dust and distraction, full of party cries, with +so many side issues of doctrine and duty presenting themselves, and the +solid attractions of so many other services insensibly leading men to +look for the same sort of attractiveness in the ministry, it may prove a +relief to some to ponder the simple elements of Isaiah's call to be a +professional and life-long prophet. Isaiah got no "call" in our +conventional sense of the word, no compulsion that he must go, no +articulate voice describing him as the sort of man needed for the work, +nor any of those similar "calls" which sluggish and craven spirits so +often desire to relieve them of the responsibility or the strenuous +effort needed in deciding for a profession which their conscience will +not permit them to refuse. Isaiah got no such call. After passing +through the fundamental religious experiences of forgiveness and +cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable premises of life +with God, Isaiah was left to himself. No direct summons was addressed +to him, no compulsion was laid on him; but he heard the voice of God +asking generally for messengers, and he on his own responsibility +answered it for himself in particular. He heard from the Divine lips of +the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately full of the mind +that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart to give himself to +it. So great an example cannot be too closely studied by candidates for +the ministry in our own day. Sacrifice is not the half-sleepy, +half-reluctant submission to the force of circumstance or opinion, in +which shape it is so often travestied among us, but the resolute +self-surrender and willing resignation of a free and reasonable soul. +There are many in our day who look for an irresistible compulsion into +the ministry of the Church; sensitive as they are to the material bias +by which men roll off into other professions, they pray for something of +a similar kind to prevail with them in this direction also. There are +men who pass into the ministry by social pressure or the opinion of the +circles they belong to, and there are men who adopt the profession +simply because it is on the line of least resistance. From which false +beginnings rise the spent force, the premature stoppages, the stagnancy, +the aimlessness and heartlessness, which are the scandals of the +professional ministry and the weakness of the Christian Church in our +day. Men who drift into the ministry, as it is certain so many do, +become mere ecclesiastical flotsam and jetsam, incapable of giving +carriage to any soul across the waters of this life, uncertain of their +own arrival anywhere, and of all the waste of their generation, the most +patent and disgraceful. God will have no drift-wood for His sacrifices, +no drift-men for His ministers. Self-consecration is the beginning of +His service, and a sense of our own freedom and our own responsibility +is an indispensable element in the act of self-consecration. _We_--not +God--have to make the decision. We are not to be dead, but living, +sacrifices, and everything which renders us less than fully alive both +mars at the time the sincerity of our surrender and reacts for evil upon +the whole of our subsequent ministry. + + +III. THE COMMISSION (vv. 9-13). + +A heart so resolutely devoted as we have seen Isaiah's to be was surely +prepared against any degree of discouragement, but probably never did +man receive so awful a commission as he describes himself to have done. +Not that we are to suppose that this fell upon Isaiah all at once, in +the suddenness and distinctness with which he here records it. Our sense +of its awfulness will only be increased when we realize that Isaiah +became aware of it, not in the shock of a single discovery, sufficiently +great to have carried its own anaesthetic along with it, but through a +prolonged process of disillusion, and at the pain of those repeated +disappointments, which are all the more painful that none singly is +great enough to stupefy. It is just at this point of our chapter, that +we feel most the need of supposing it to have been written some years +after the consecration of Isaiah, when his experience had grown long +enough to articulate the dim forebodings of that solemn moment. _Go and +say to this people, Hearing, hear ye, but understand not; seeing, see +ye, but know not. Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears make +heavy, and its eyes smear, lest it see with its eyes, and hear with its +ears, and its heart understand, and it turn again and be healed._ No +prophet, we may be sure, would be asked by God to go and tell his +audiences that in so many words, at the beginning of his career. It is +only by experience that a man understands that kind of a commission,[10] +and for the required experience Isaiah had not long to wait after +entering on his ministry. Ahaz himself, in whose death-year it is +supposed by many that Isaiah wrote this account of his consecration--the +conduct of Ahaz himself was sufficient to have brought out the +convictions of the prophet's heart in this startling form, in which he +has stated his commission. By the word of the Lord and an offer of a +sign from Him, Isaiah did make fat that monarch's heart and smear his +eyes. And perverse as the rulers of Judah were in the examples and +policies they set, the people were as blindly bent on following them to +destruction. _Every one_, said Isaiah, when he must have been for some +time a prophet--_every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every +mouth speaketh folly_. + + [10] Even Calvin, though in order to prove that Isaiah had been + prophesying for some time before his inaugural vision, says that his + commission implies some years' actual experience of the obstinacy of the + people. + +But if that clear, bitter way of putting the matter can have come to +Isaiah only with the experience of some years, why does he place it upon +the lips of God, as they give him his commission? Because Isaiah is +stating not merely his own singular experience, but a truth always true +of the preaching of the word of God, and of which no prophet at the time +of his consecration to that ministry can be without at least a +foreboding. We have not exhausted the meaning of this awful commission +when we say that it is only a forcible anticipation of the prophet's +actual experience. There is more here than one man's experience. Over +and over again are these words quoted in the New Testament, till we +learn to find them true always and everywhere that the Word of God is +preached to men,--the description of what would seem to be its necessary +effect upon many souls. Both Jesus and Paul use Isaiah's commission of +themselves. They do so like Isaiah at an advanced stage in their +ministry, when the shock of misunderstanding and rejection has been +repeatedly felt, but then not solely as an apt description of their own +experience. They quote God's words to Isaiah as a prophecy fulfilled in +their own case--that is to say, as the statement of a great principle or +truth of which their own ministry is only another instance. Their own +disappointments have roused them to the fact, that this is always an +effect of the word of God upon numbers of men--to deaden their spiritual +faculties. While Matthew and the book of Acts adopt the milder Greek +version of Isaiah's commission, John gives a rendering that is even +stronger than the original. _He hath blinded_, he says of God Himself, +_their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their +eyes and perceive with their hearts_. In Mark's narrative Christ says +that He speaks to them that are outside in parables, _for the purpose +that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, +and not understand, lest haply they should turn again and it should be +forgiven them_. We may suspect, in an utterance so strange to the lips +of the Lord of salvation, merely the irony of His baffled love. But it +is rather the statement of what He believed to be the necessary effect +of a ministry like His own. It marks the direction, not of His desire, +but of natural sequence. + +With these instances we can go back to Isaiah and understand why he +should have described the bitter fruits of experience as an imperative +laid upon him by God. _Make fat the heart of this people, and its ears +make heavy, and its eyes do thou smear._ It is the fashion of the +prophet's grammar, when it would state a principle or necessary effect, +to put it in the form of a command. What God expresses to Isaiah so +imperatively as almost to take our breath away; what Christ uttered with +such abruptness that we ask, Does He speak in irony? what Paul laid down +as the conviction of a long and patient ministry, is the great truth +that the Word of God has not only a saving power, but that even in its +gentlest pleadings and its purest Gospel, even by the mouth of Him who +came, not to condemn, but to save the world, it has a power that is +judicial and condemnatory. + +It is frequently remarked by us as perhaps the most deplorable fact of +our experience, that there exists in human nature an accursed facility +for turning God's gifts to precisely the opposite ends from those for +which He gave them. So common is man's misunderstanding of the plainest +signs, and so frequent his abuse of the most evident favours of Heaven, +that a spectator of the drama of human history might imagine its Author +to have been a Cynic or Comedian, portraying for His own amusement the +loss of the erring at the very moment of what might have been their +recovery, the frustration of love at the point of its greatest warmth +and expectancy. Let him look closer, however, and he will perceive, not +a comedy, but a tragedy, for neither chance nor cruel sport is here at +work, but free will and the laws of habit, with retribution and penalty. +These actors are not puppets in the hand of a Power that moves them at +will; each of them plays his own part, and the abuse and contradiction, +of which he is guilty, are but the prerogative of his freedom. They are +free beings who thus reject the gift of Divine assistance, and so +piteously misunderstand Divine truth. Look closer still, and you will +see that the way they talk, the impression they accept of God's +goodness, the effect of His judgements upon them, is determined not at +the moment of their choice, and not by a single act of their will, but +by the whole tenor of their previous life. In the sudden flash of some +gift or opportunity, men reveal the stuff of which they are made, the +disposition they have bred in themselves. Opportunity in human life is +as often judgement as it is salvation. When we perceive these things, we +understand that life is not a comedy, where chance governs or +incongruous situations are invented by an Almighty Satirist for his own +sport, but a tragedy, with all tragedy's pathetic elements of royal +wills contending in freedom with each other, of men's wills clashing +with God's: men the makers of their own destinies, and Nemesis not +directing, but following their actions. We go back to the very +fundamentals of our nature on this dread question. To understand what +has been called "a great law in human degeneracy," that "the evil heart +can assimilate good to itself and convert it to its nature," we must +understand what free will means, and take into account the terrible +influence of habit. + +Now there is no more conspicuous instance of this law, than that which +is afforded by the preaching of the Gospel of God. God's Word, as Christ +reminds us, does not fall on virgin soil; it falls on soil already +holding other seed. When a preacher stands up with the Word of God in a +great congregation, vast as Scripture warrants us for believing his +power to be, his is not the only power that is operative. Each man +present has a life behind that hour and place, lying away in the +darkness, silent and dead as far as the congregation are concerned, but +in his own heart as vivid and loud as the voice of the preacher, though +he be preaching never so forcibly. The prophet is not the only power in +the delivery of God's Word, nor is the Holy Spirit the only power. That +would make all preaching of the Word a mere display. But the Bible +represents it as a strife. And now it is said of men themselves that +they harden their hearts against the Word, and now--because such +hardening is the result of previous sinning, and has therefore a +judicial character--that God hardens their hearts. _Simon, Simon_, said +Christ to a face that spread out to His own all the ardour of worship, +_Satan is desiring to have you, but I have prayed that your faith fail +not_. God sends His Word into our hearts; the Mediator stands by, and +prays that it make us His own. But there are other factors in the +operation, and the result depends on our own will; it depends on our own +will, and it is dreadfully determined by our habits. + +Now this is one of the first facts to which a young reformer or prophet +awakes. Such an awakening is a necessary element in his education and +apprenticeship. He has seen the Lord high and lifted up. His lips have +been touched by the coal from off the altar. His first feeling is that +nothing can withstand that power, nothing gainsay this inspiration. Is +he a Nehemiah, and the hand of the Lord has been mighty upon him? Then +he feels that he has but to tell his fellows of it to make them as +enthusiastic in the Lord's work as himself. Is he a Mazzini, aflame from +his boyhood with aspirations for his country, consecrated from his birth +to the cause of duty? Then he leaps with joy upon his mission; he has +but to show himself, to speak, to lead the way, and his country is free. +Is he--to descend to a lower degree of prophecy--a Fourier, sensitive +more than most to how anarchic society is, and righteously eager to +settle it upon stable foundations? Then he draws his plans for +reconstruction, he projects his phalanges and phalansteres, and believes +that he has solved the social problem. Is he--to come back to the +heights--an Isaiah, with the Word of God in him like fire? Then he sees +his vision of the perfect state; he thinks to lift his people to it by a +word. _O house of Jacob_, he says, _come ye, and let us walk in the +light of the Lord_! + +For all of whom the next necessary stage of experience is one of +disappointment, with the hard commission, _Make the heart of this people +fat_. They must learn that, if God has caught themselves young, and when +it was possible to make them entirely His own, the human race to whom He +sends them is old, too old for them to effect much upon the mass of it +beyond the hardening and perpetuation of evil. Fourier finds that to +produce his perfect State he would need to re-create mankind, to cut +down the tree to the very roots, and begin again. After the first rush +of patriotic fervour, which carried so many of his countrymen with him, +Mazzini discovers himself in "a moral desert," confesses that the +struggle to liberate his fatherland, which has only quickened him to +further devotion in so great a cause, has been productive of scepticism +in his followers, and has left them withered and hardened of heart, +whom it had found so capable of heroic impulses. He tells us how they +upbraided and scorned him, left him in exile, and returned to their +homes, from which they had set out with vows to die for their country, +doubting now whether there was anything at all worth living or dying for +outside themselves. Mazzini's description of the first passage of his +career is invaluable for the light which it throws upon this commission +of Isaiah. History does not contain a more dramatic representation of +the entirely opposite effects of the same Divine movement upon different +natures. While the first efforts for the liberty of Italy materialized +the greater number of his countrymen, whom Mazzini had persuaded to +embark upon it, the failure and their consequent defection only served +to strip this heroic soul of the last rags of selfishness, and +consecrate it more utterly to the will of God and the duty that lay +before it. + +A few sentences from the confessions of the Italian patriot may be +quoted, with benefit to our appreciation of what the Hebrew prophet must +have passed through. + + "It was the tempest of doubt, which I believe all who devote their + lives to a great enterprise, yet have not dried and withered up + their soul--like Robespierre--beneath some barren intellectual + formula, but have retained a loving heart, are doomed, once at + least, to battle through. My heart was overflowing with and greedy + of affection, as fresh and eager to unfold to joy as in the days + when sustained by my mother's smile, as full of fervid hope for + others, at least, if not for myself. But during these fatal months + there darkened round me such a hurricane of sorrow, disillusion and + deception as to bring before my eyes, in all its ghastly nakedness, + a foreshadowing of the old age of my soul, solitary in a desert + world, wherein no comfort in the struggle was vouchsafed to me. It + was not only the overthrow for an indefinite period of every + Italian hope, ... it was the falling to pieces of that moral + edifice of faith and love from which alone I had derived strength + for the combat; the scepticism I saw arising round me on every + side; the failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound + themselves to pursue unshaken the path we had known at the outset + to be choked with sorrows; the distrust I detected in those most + dear to me, as to the motives and intentions which sustained and + urged me onward in the evidently unequal struggle.... When I felt + that I was indeed alone in the world, I drew back in terror at the + void before me. There, in that moral desert, doubt came upon me. + Perhaps I was wrong, and the world right? Perhaps my idea was + indeed a dream?... One morning I awoke to find my mind tranquil and + my spirit calmed, as one who has passed through a great danger. The + first thought that passed across my spirit was, _Your sufferings + are the temptations of egotism, and arise from a misconception of + life_.... I perceived that although every instinct of my heart + rebelled against that fatal and ignoble definition of life which + makes it to be a _search after happiness_, yet I had not completely + freed myself from the dominating influence exercised by it upon the + age.... I had been unable to realize the true ideal of love--love + without earthly hope.... Life is a mission, duty therefore its + highest law. From the idea of God I descended to faith in a mission + and its logical consequence--duty the supreme rule of life; and + having reached that faith, I swore to myself that nothing in this + world should again make me doubt or forsake it. It was, as Dante + says, passing through martyrdom to peace--'a forced and desperate + peace.' I do not deny, for I fraternized with sorrow, and wrapped + myself in it as in a mantle; but yet it was peace, for I learned to + suffer without rebellion, and to live calmly and in harmony with my + own spirit. I reverently bless God the Father for what consolations + of affection--I can conceive of no other--He has vouchsafed to me + in my later years; and in them I gather strength to struggle with + the occasional return of weariness of existence. But even were + these consolations denied me, I believe I should still be what I + am. Whether the sun shine with the serene splendour of an Italian + noon, or the leaden, corpse-like hue of the northern mist be above + us, I cannot see that it changes our duty. God dwells above the + earthly heaven, and the holy stars of faith and the future still + shine within our souls, even though their light consume itself + unreflected as the sepulchral lamp." + +Such sentences are the best commentary we can offer on our text. The +cases of the Hebrew and Italian prophets are wonderfully alike. We who +have read Isaiah's fifth chapter know how his heart also was +"overflowing with and greedy of affection," and in the second and third +chapters we have seen "the hurricane of sorrow, disillusion and +deception darken round him." "The falling to pieces of the moral edifice +of faith and love," "scepticism rising on every side," "failure of faith +in those who had solemnly bound themselves," "distrust detected in those +most dear to me"--and all felt by the prophet as the effect of the +sacred movement God had inspired him to begin:--how exact a counterpart +it is to the cumulative process of brutalizing which Isaiah heard God +lay upon him, with the imperative _Make the heart of this people fat!_ +In such a morally blind, deaf and dead-hearted world Isaiah's faith was +indeed "to consume itself unreflected like the sepulchral lamp." The +glimpse into his heart given us by Mazzini enables us to realize with +what terror Isaiah faced such a void. _O Lord, how long?_ This, too, +breathes the air of "a forced and desperate peace," the spirit of one +who, having realized life as a mission, has made the much more rare +recognition that the logical consequence is neither the promise of +success nor the assurance of sympathy, but simply the acceptance of +duty, with whatever results and under whatever skies it pleases God to +bring over him. + + _Until cities fall into ruin without an inhabitant, + And houses without a man, + And the land be left desolately waste, + And Jehovah have removed man far away, + And great be the desert in the midst of the land; + And still if there be a tenth in it, + Even it shall be again for consuming. + Like the terebinth, and like the oak, + Whose stock when they are felled remaineth in them, + The holy seed shall be its stock._ + +The meaning of these words is too plain to require exposition, but we +can hardly over-emphasize them. This is to be Isaiah's one text +throughout his career. "Judgement shall pass through; a remnant shall +remain." All the politics of his day, the movement of the world's +forces, the devastation of the holy land, the first captivities of the +holy people, the reiterated defeats and disappointments of the next +fifty years--all shall be clear and tolerable to Isaiah as the +fulfilling of the sentence to which he listened in such "forced and +desperate peace" on the day of his consecration. He has had the worst +branded into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has +seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond. So when the +wickedness of Judah and the violence of Assyria alike seem most +unrestrained--Assyria most bent on destroying Judah, and Judah least +worthy to live--Isaiah will yet cling to this, that a remnant must +remain. All his prophecies will be variations of this text; it is the +key to his apparent paradoxes. He will proclaim the Assyrians to be +God's instrument, yet devote them to destruction. He will hail their +advance on Judah, and yet as exultingly mark its limit, because of the +determination in which he asked the question, _O Lord, how long?_ and +the clearness with which he understood the _until_, that came in answer +to it. Every prediction he makes, every turn he seeks to give to the +practical politics of Judah, are simply due to his grasp of these two +facts--a withering and repeated devastation, in the end a bare survival. +He has, indeed, prophecies which travel farther; occasionally he is +permitted to indulge in visions of a new dispensation. Like Moses, he +climbs his Pisgah, but he is like Moses also in this, that his lifetime +is exhausted with the attainment of the margin of a long period of +judgement and struggle, and then he passes from our sight, and no man +knoweth his sepulchre unto this day. As abruptly as this vision closes +with the announcement of _the remnant_, so abruptly does Isaiah +disappear on the fulfilment of the announcement--some forty years +subsequent to this vision--in the sudden rescue of the holy seed from +the grasp of Sennacherib. + + * * * * * + +We have now finished the first period of Isaiah's career. Let us +catalogue what are his leading doctrines up to this point. High above a +very sinful people, and beyond all their conceptions of Him, Jehovah, +the national God, rises holy, exalted in righteousness. From such a God +to such a people it can only be judgement and affliction that pass; and +these shall not be averted by the fact that He is the national God, and +they His worshippers. Of this affliction the Assyrians gathering far off +upon the horizon are evidently to be the instruments. The affliction +shall be very sweeping; again and again shall it come; but the Lord will +finally save a remnant of His people. Three elements compose this +preaching--a very keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering +vision of God, in whose immediate intimacy the prophet believes himself +to be; and a very sharp perception of the politics of the day. + +One question rises. In this part of Isaiah's ministry there is no trace +of that Figure whom we chiefly identify with his preaching, the Messiah. +Let us have patience; it is not time for him; but the following is his +connection with the prophet's present doctrines. + +Isaiah's great result at present is the certainty of a remnant. That +remnant will require two things--they will require a rallying-point, +and they will require a leader. Henceforth Isaiah's prophesying will be +bent to one or other of these. The two grand purposes of his word and +work will be, for the sake of the remnant, the inviolateness of Zion, +and the coming of the Messiah. The former he has, indeed, already +intimated (chap. iv.); the latter is now to share with it his hope and +eloquence. + +[Illustration: (Map) Isaiah's World] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +_THE WORLD IN ISAIAH'S DAY AND ISRAEL'S GOD._ + +735-730 B.C. + + +Up to this point we have been acquainted with Isaiah as a prophet of +general principles, preaching to his countrymen the elements of +righteousness and judgement, and tracing the main lines of fate along +which their evil conduct was rapidly forcing them. We are now to observe +him applying these principles to the executive politics of the time, and +following Judah's conduct to the issues he had predicted for it in the +world outside herself. Hitherto he has been concerned with the inner +morals of Jewish society; he is now to engage himself with the effect of +these on the fortunes of the Jewish State. In his seventh chapter Isaiah +begins that career of practical statesmanship, which not only made him +"the greatest political power in Israel since David," but placed him, +far above his importance to his own people, upon a position of influence +over all ages. To this eminence Isaiah was raised, as we shall see, by +two things. First, there was the occasion of his times, for he lived at +a juncture at which the vision of the _World_, as distinguished from the +_Nation_, opened to his people's eyes. Second, he had the faith which +enabled him to realize the government of the World by the One God, whom +he has already beheld exalted and sovereign within the Nation. In the +Nation we have seen Isaiah led to emphasize very absolutely the +righteousness of God; applying this to the whole World, he is now to +speak as the prophet of what we call Providence. He has seen Jehovah +ruling in righteousness in Judah; he is now to take possession of the +nations of the World in Jehovah's name. But we mistake Isaiah if we +think it is any abstract doctrine of providence which he is about to +inculcate. For him God's providence has in the meantime but one end: the +preservation of a remnant of the holy people. Afterwards we shall find +him expecting besides, the conversion of the whole World to faith in +Israel's God. + +The World in Isaiah's day was practically Western Asia. History had not +long dawned upon Europe; over Western Asia it was still noon. Draw a +line from the Caspian to the mouth of the Persian Gulf; between that +line and another crossing the Levant to the west of Cyprus, and +continuing along the Libyan border of Egypt, lay the highest forms of +religion and civilisation which our race had by that period achieved. +This was the World on which Isaiah looked out from Jerusalem, the +furthest borders of which he has described in his prophecies, and in the +political history of which he illustrated his great principles. How was +it composed? + +There were, first of all, at either end of it, north-east and +south-west, the two great empires of ASSYRIA and EGYPT, in many respects +wonderful counterparts of each other. No one will understand the history +of Palestine, who has not grasped its geographical position relative to +these similar empires. Syria, shut up between the Mediterranean sea and +the Arabian desert, has its outlets north and south into two great +river-plains, each of them ending in a delta. Territories of that kind +exert a double force on the world with which they are connected, now +drawing across their boundaries the hungry races of neighbouring +highlands and deserts, and again sending them forth, compact and +resistless armies. This double action summarises the histories of both +Egypt and Assyria from the earliest times to the period which we are now +treating, and was the cause of the constant circulation, by which, as +the Bible bears witness, the life of Syria was stirred from the Tower of +Babel downwards. Mesopotamia and the Nile valley drew races as beggars +to their rich pasture grounds, only to send them forth in subsequent +centuries as conquerors. The century of Isaiah fell in a period of +forward movement. Assyria and Egypt were afraid to leave each other in +peace; and the wealth of Phoenicia, grown large enough to excite their +cupidity, lay between them. In each of these empires, however, there was +something to hamper this aggressive impulse. Neither Assyria nor Egypt +was a homogeneous State. The valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile were, +each of them the home of two nations. Beside Assyria lay Babylonia, once +Assyria's mistress, and now of all the Assyrian provinces by far the +hardest to hold in subjection, although it lay the nearest to home. In +Isaiah's time, when an Assyrian monarch is unable to come into +Palestine, Babylon is generally the reason; and it is by intriguing with +Babylon that a king of Judah attempts to keep Assyria away from his own +neighbourhood. But Babylon only delayed the Assyrian conquest. In Egypt, +on the other hand, power was more equally balanced between the hardier +people up the Nile and the wealthier people down the Nile--between the +Ethiopians and the Egyptians proper. It was the repeated and undecisive +contests between these two during the whole of Isaiah's day, which kept +Egypt from being an effective force in the politics of Western Asia. In +Isaiah's day no Egyptian army advanced more than a few leagues beyond +its own frontier. + +Next in this world of Western Asia come the PHOENICIANS. We may say +that they connected Egypt and Assyria, for although Phoenicia proper +meant only the hundred and fifty miles of coast between Carmel and the +bay of Antioch, the Phoenicians had large colonies on the delta of the +Nile and trading posts upon the Euphrates. They were gathered into +independent but more or less confederate cities, the chief of them Tyre +and Sidon; which, while they attempted the offensive only in trade, were +by their wealth and maritime advantages capable of offering at once a +stronger attraction and a more stubborn resistance to the Assyrian arms, +than any other power of the time. Between Phoenicia proper and the +mouths of the Nile, the coast was held by groups of PHILISTINE cities, +whose nearness to Egypt rather than their own strength was the source of +a frequent audacity against Assyria, and the reason why they appear in +the history of this period oftener than any other State as the object of +Assyrian campaigns. + +Behind Phoenicia and the Philistines lay a number of inland +territories: the sister-States of Judah and Northern Israel, with their +cousins Edom, Moab, and Aram or Syria. Of which JUDAH and ISRAEL were +together about the size of Wales; EDOM a mountain range the size and +shape of Cornwall; MOAB, on its north, a broken tableland, about a +Devonshire; and ARAM, or SYRIA, a territory round Damascus, of uncertain +size, but considerable enough to have resisted Assyria for a hundred and +twenty years. Beyond Aram, again, to the north, lay the smaller State of +HAMATH, in the mouth of the pass between the Lebanons, with nothing +from it to the Euphrates. And then, hovering upon the east of these +settled States, were a variety of more or less NOMADIC TRIBES, whose +refuges were the vast deserts of which so large a part of Western Asia +consists. + +Here was a world, with some of its constituents wedged pretty firmly by +mutual pressure, but in the main broken and restless--a political +surface that was always changing. The whole was subject to the movements +of the two empires at its extremes. One of them could not move without +sending a thrill through to the borders of the other. The approximate +distances were these:--from Egypt's border to Jerusalem, about one +hundred miles; from Jerusalem to Samaria, forty-five; from Samaria to +Damascus, one hundred and fifteen; from Damascus to Hamath, one hundred +and thirty; and from Hamath to the Euphrates, one hundred; in all from +the border of Egypt to the border of Assyria four hundred and ninety +English statute miles. The main line of war and traffic, coming up from +Egypt, kept the coast to the plain of Esdraelon, which it crossed +towards Damascus, travelling by the north of the sea of Galilee, _the +way of the sea_. Northern Israel was bound to fall an early prey to +armies, whose easiest path thus traversed her richest provinces. Judah, +on the other hand, occupied a position so elevated and apart, that it +was likely to be the last that either Assyria or Egypt would achieve in +their subjugation of the States between them. + +Thus, then, Western Asia spread itself out in Isaiah's day. Let us take +one more rapid glance across it. Assyria to the north, powerful and on +the offensive, but hampered by Babylon; Egypt on the south, weakened and +in reserve; all the cities and States between turning their faces +desperately northwards, but each with an ear bent back for the promises +of the laggard southern power, and occasionally supported by its +subsidies; Hamath, their advanced guard at the mouth of the pass between +the Lebanons, looking out towards the Euphrates; Tyre and Sidon +attractive to the Assyrian king, whose policy is ultimately commercial, +by their wealth, both they and the Philistine cities obstructing his +path by the coast to his great rival of Egypt; Israel bulwarked against +Assyria by Hamath and Damascus, but in danger, as soon as they fall, of +seeing her richest provinces overrun; Judah unlikely in the general +restlessness to retain her hold upon Edom, but within her own borders +tolerably secure, neither lying in the Assyrian's path to Egypt, nor +wealthy enough to attract him out of it; safe, therefore, in the +neutrality which Isaiah ceaselessly urges her to preserve, and in danger +of suction into the whirlpool of the approach of the two empires only +through the foolish desire of her rulers to secure an utterly +unnecessary alliance with the one or the other of them. + +For a hundred and twenty years before the advent of Isaiah, the annals +of the Assyrian kings record periodical campaigns against the cities of +"the land of the west," but these isolated incursions were followed by +no permanent results. In 745, however, five years before King Uzziah +died, a soldier ascended the throne of Assyria, under the title of +Tiglath-pileser II.,[11] who was determined to achieve the conquest of +the whole world and its organization as his empire. Where his armies +came, it was not simply to chastise or demand tribute, but to annex +countries, carry away their populations and exploit their resources. It +was no longer kings who were threatened; peoples found themselves in +danger of extinction. This terrible purpose of the Assyrian was pursued +with vast means and the utmost ferocity. He has been called the Roman of +the East, and up to a certain degree we may imagine his policy by +remembering all that is familiar to us of its execution by Rome: its +relentlessness, impetus and mysterious action from one centre; the +discipline, the speed, the strange appearance, of his armies. But there +was an Oriental savagery about Assyria, from which Rome was free. The +Assyrian kings moved in the power of their brutish and stormy gods--gods +that were in the shape of bulls and had the wings as of the tempest. The +annals of these kings, in which they describe their campaigns, are full +of talk about trampling down their enemies; about showering tempests of +clubs upon them, and raining a deluge of arrows; about overwhelming +them, and sweeping them off the face of the land, and strewing them like +chaff on the sea; about chariots with scythes, and wheels clogged with +blood; about great baskets stuffed with the salted heads of their foes. +It is a mixture of the Roman and Red Indian. + + [11] The Pul of 2 Kings xv. 19 and the Tiglath-pileser of 2 Kings xvi. + are the same. + +Picture the effect of the onward movement of such a force upon the +imaginations and policies of those little States that clustered round +Judah and Israel. Settling their own immemorial feuds, they sought +alliance with one another against this common foe. Tribes, that for +centuries had stained their borders with one another's blood, came +together in unions, the only reason for which was that their common fear +had grown stronger than their mutual hate. Now and then a king would be +found unwilling to enter such an alliance or eager to withdraw from it, +in the hope of securing by his exceptional conduct the favour of the +Assyrian, whom he sought further to ingratiate by voluntary tribute. The +shifting attitudes of the petty kings towards Assyria bewilder the +reader of the Assyrian annals. The foes of one year are the tributaries +of the next; the State, that has called for help this campaign, appears +as the rebel of that. In 742, Uzziah of Judah is cursed by +Tiglath-pileser as an arch-enemy; Samaria and Damascus are recorded as +faithful tributaries. Seven years later Ahaz of Judah offers tribute to +the Assyrian king, and Damascus and Samaria are invaded by the Assyrian +armies. What a world it was, and what politics! A world of petty clans, +with no idea of a common humanity, and with no motive for union except +fear; politics without a noble thought or long purpose in them, the +politics of peoples at bay--the last flicker of dying nationalities,-- +_stumps of smoking firebrands_, as Isaiah described two of them. + +When we turn to the little we know of the religions of these tribes, we +find nothing to arrest their restlessness or broaden their thoughts. +These nations had their religions, and called on their gods, but their +gods were made in their own image, their religion was the reflex of +their life. Each of them employed, rather than worshipped, its deity. No +nation believed in its god except as one among many, with his +sovereignty limited to its own territory, and his ability to help it +conditioned by the power of the other gods, against whose peoples he was +fighting. There was no belief in "Providence," no idea of unity or of +progress in history, no place in these religions for the great +world-force that was advancing upon their peoples. + +From this condemnation we cannot except the people of Jehovah. It is +undeniable that the mass of them occupied at this time pretty much the +same low religious level as their neighbours. We have already seen +(chap. i.) their mean estimate of what God required from themselves; +with that corresponded their view of His position towards the world. To +the majority of the Israelites their God was but one out of many, with +His own battles to fight and have fought for Him, a Patron sometimes to +be ashamed of, and by no means a Saviour in whom to place an absolute +trust. When Ahaz is beaten by Syria, he says: _Because the gods of the +kings of Syria helped them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that +they may help me_ (2 Chron. xxviii. 23). Religion to Ahaz was only +another kind of diplomacy. He was not a fanatic, but a diplomat, who +made his son to pass through the fire to Moloch, and burnt incense in +the high places and on the hills, and under every green tree. He was +more a political than a religious eclectic, who brought back the pattern +of the Damascus altar to Jerusalem. The Temple, in which Isaiah saw the +Lord high and lifted up, became under Ahaz, and by the help of the +priesthood, the shelter of various idols; in every corner of Jerusalem +altars were erected to other gods. This religious hospitality was the +outcome neither of imagination nor of liberal thought; it was prompted +only by political fear. Ahaz has been mistaken in the same way as +Charles I. was--for a bigot, and one who subjected the welfare of his +kingdom to a superstitious regard for religion. But beneath the cloak of +religious scrupulousness and false reverence,[12] there was in Ahaz the +same selfish fear for the safety of his crown and his dynasty, as those +who best knew the English monarch tell us, was the real cause of his +ceaseless intrigue and stupid obstinacy. + + [12] Isa. vii. 12. + +Now that we have surveyed this world, its politics and its religion, we +can estimate the strength and originality of the Hebrew prophets. Where +others saw the conflicts of nations, aided by deities as doubtfully +matched as themselves, they perceived all things working together by the +will of one supreme God and serving His ends of righteousness. It would +be wrong to say, that before the eighth century the Hebrew conception of +God had been simply that of a national deity, for this would be to +ignore the remarkable emphasis placed by the Hebrews from very early +times upon Jehovah's righteousness. But till the eighth century the +horizon of the Hebrew mind had been the border of their territory; the +historical theatre on which it saw God working was the national life. +Now, however, the Hebrews were drawn into the world; they felt movements +of which their own history was but an eddy; they saw the advance of +forces against which their own armies, though inspired by Jehovah, had +no chance of material success. The perspective was entirely changed; +their native land took to most of them the aspect of a petty and +worthless province, their God the rank of a mere provincial deity; they +refused the waters of Shiloah, that go softly, and rejoiced in the glory +of the king of Assyria, the king of the great River and the hosts that +moved with the strength of its floods. It was at this moment that the +prophets of Israel performed their supreme religious service. While Ahaz +and the mass of the people illustrated the impotence of the popular +religion, by admitting to an equal place in the national temple the gods +of their victorious foes, the prophets boldly took possession of the +whole world in the name of Jehovah of hosts, and exalted Him to the +throne of the supreme Providence. Now they could do this only by +emphasizing and developing the element of righteousness in the old +conception of Him. This attribute of Jehovah took absolute possession of +the prophets; and in the strength of its inspiration they were enabled, +at a time when it would have been the sheerest folly to promise Israel +victory against a foe like Assyria, to asseverate that even that supreme +world-power was in the hand of Jehovah, and that He must be trusted to +lead up all the movements of which the Assyrians were the main force to +the ends He had so plainly revealed to His chosen Israel. Even before +Isaiah's time such principles had been proclaimed by Amos and Hosea, but +it was Isaiah, who both gave to them their loftiest expression, and +applied them with the utmost detail and persistence to the practical +politics of Judah. We have seen him, in the preliminary stages of his +ministry under Uzziah and Jotham, reaching most exalted convictions of +the righteousness of Jehovah, as contrasted with the people's view of +their God's "nationalism." But we are now to follow him boldly applying +this faith--won within the life of Judah, won, as he tells us, by the +personal inspiration of Judah's God--to the problems and movements of +the whole world as they bear upon Israel's fate. The God, who is supreme +in Judah through righteousness, cannot but be supreme everywhere else, +for there is nothing in the world higher than righteousness. Isaiah's +faith in a Divine Providence is a close corollary to his faith in +Jehovah's righteousness; and of one part of that Providence he had +already received conviction--_A remnant shall remain_. Ahaz may crowd +Jerusalem with foreign altars and idols, so as to be able to say: "We +have with us, on our side, Moloch and Chemosh and Rimmon and the gods of +Damascus and Assyria." Isaiah, in the face of this folly, lifts up his +simple gospel: "Immanu-El. We have with us, in our own Jehovah of hosts, +El, the one supreme God, Ruler of heaven and earth." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +_KING AND MESSIAH; PEOPLE AND CHURCH._ + +ISAIAH vii., viii., ix. 1-8. + +735-732 B.C. + + +This section of the book of Isaiah (vii.-ix. 7) consists of a number of +separate prophecies uttered during a period of at least three years: +735-732 B.C. By 735 Ahaz had ascended the throne; Tiglath-pileser had +been occupied in the far east for two years. Taking advantage of the +weakness of the former and the distance of the latter, Rezin, king of +Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, planned an invasion of Judah. It +was a venture they would not have dared had Uzziah been alive. While +Rezin marched down the east of the Jordan and overturned the Jewish +supremacy in Edom, Pekah threw himself into Judah, defeated the armies +of Ahaz in one great battle, and besieged Jerusalem, with the object of +deposing Ahaz and setting a Syrian, Ben-Tabeel, in his stead. +Simultaneously the Philistines attacked Judah from the south-west. The +motive of the confederates was in all probability anger with Ahaz for +refusing to enter with them into a Pan-Syrian alliance against Assyria. +In his distress Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser, and the Assyrian +swiftly responded. In 734--it must have been less than a year since Ahaz +was attacked--the hosts of the north had overrun Samaria and swept as +far south as the cities of the Philistines. Then, withdrawing his troops +again, Tiglath-pileser left Hoshea as his vassal on Pekah's throne, and +sending the population of Israel east of the Jordan into distant +captivity, completed a two years' siege of Damascus (734-732) by its +capture. At Damascus Ahaz met the conqueror, and having paid him +tribute, took out a further policy of insurance in the altar-pattern, +which he brought back with him to Jerusalem. Such were the three years, +whose rapid changes unfolded themselves in parallel with these +prophecies of Isaiah. The details are not given by the prophet, but we +must keep in touch with them while we listen to him. Especially must we +remember their central point, _the decision of Ahaz to call in the help +of Assyria_, a decision which affected the whole course of politics for +the next thirty years. Some of the oracles of this section were plainly +delivered by Isaiah before that event, and simply seek to inspire Ahaz +with a courage which should feel Assyrian help to be needless; others, +again, imply that Ahaz has already called in the Assyrian: they taunt +him with hankering after foreign strength, and depict the woes which the +Assyrian will bring upon the land; while others (for example, the +passage ix. 1-7) mean that the Assyrian has already come, and that the +Galilean provinces of Israel have been depopulated, and promise a +Deliverer. If we do not keep in mind the decision of Ahaz, we shall not +understand these seemingly contradictory utterances, which it thoroughly +explains. Let us now begin at the beginning of chapter vii. It opens +with a bare statement, by way of title, of the invasion of Judah and the +futile result; and then proceeds to tell us how Isaiah acted from the +first rumour of the confederacy onward. + + +I. THE KING (chap. vii.). + +_And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of +Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son +of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but +could not prevail against it._ This is a summary of the whole adventure +and issue of the war, given by way of introduction. The narrative proper +begins in verse 2, with the effect of the first news of the league upon +Ahaz and his people. Their hearts were moved, like the trees of the +forest before the wind. The league was aimed so evidently against the +two things most essential to the national existence and the honour of +Jehovah; the dynasty of David, namely, and the inviolability of +Jerusalem. Judah had frequently before suffered the loss of her +territory; never till now were the throne and city of David in actual +peril. But that, which bent both king and people by its novel terror, +was the test Isaiah expected for the prophecies he had already uttered. +Taking with him, as a summary of them, his boy with the name +Shear-Jashub--_A-remnant-shall-return_--Isaiah faced Ahaz and his court +in the midst of their preparation for the siege. They were +examining--but more in panic than in prudence--the water supply of the +city, when Isaiah delivered to them a message from the Lord, which may +be paraphrased as follows: _Take heed and be quiet_, keep your eyes open +and your heart still; _fear not, neither be faint-hearted, for the +fierce anger of Rezin and Remaliah's son_. They have no power to set you +on fire. They are _but stumps of expiring firebrands_, almost burnt out. +While you wisely look after your water supply, do so in hope. This +purpose of deposing you is vain. _Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: It shall +not stand, neither shall it come to pass._ Of whom are you afraid? Look +those foes of yours in the face. _The head of Syria is Damascus, and +Damascus' head is Rezin_: is he worth fearing? _The head of Ephraim is +Samaria, and Samaria's head is Remaliah's son_: is he worth fearing? +Within a few years they will certainly be destroyed. But whatever +estimate you make of your foes, whatever their future may be, for +yourself have faith in God; for you that is the essential thing. _If ye +will not believe, surely ye shall not be established._[13] + + [13] There is a play upon words here, which may be reproduced in English + by the help of a North-England term: If ye have not _faith_, ye cannot + have _staith_. + +This paraphrase seeks to bring out the meaning of a passage confessedly +obscure. It seems as if we had only bits of Isaiah's speech to Ahaz and +must supply the gaps. No one need hesitate, however, to recognize the +conspicuous personal qualities--the combination of political sagacity +with religious fear, of common-sense and courage rooted in faith. In a +word, this is what Isaiah will say to the king, clever in his alliances, +religious and secular, and busy about his material defences: "Take unto +you the shield of faith. You have lost your head among all these things. +Hold it up like a man behind that shield; take a rational view of +affairs. Rate your enemies at their proper value. But for this you must +believe in God. Faith in Him is the essential condition of a calm mind +and a rational appreciation of affairs." + +It is, no doubt, difficult for us to realize that the truth which Isaiah +thus enforced on King Ahaz--the government of the world and human +history by one supreme God--was ever a truth of which the race stood in +ignorance. A generation like ours cannot be expected to put its mind in +the attitude of those of Isaiah's contemporaries who believed in the +real existence of many gods with limited sovereignties. To us, who are +full of the instincts of Divine Providence and of the presence in +history of law and progress, it is extremely hard even to admit the +fact--far less fully to realize what it means--that our race had ever to +receive these truths as fresh additions to their stock of intellectual +ideas. Yet, without prejudice to the claims of earlier prophets, this +may be confidently affirmed: that Isaiah where we now meet him stood on +one side believing in one supreme God, Lord of heaven and earth, and his +generation stood on the other side, believing that there were many gods. +Isaiah, however, does not pose as the discoverer of the truth he +preaches; he does not present it as a new revelation, nor put it in a +formula. He takes it for granted, and proceeds to bring its moral +influence to bear. He will infect men with his own utter conviction of +it, in order that he may strengthen their character and guide them by +paths of safety. His speech to Ahaz is an exhibition of the moral and +rational effects of believing in Providence. Ahaz is a sample of the +_character_ polytheism produced; the state of mind and heart to which +Isaiah exhorts him is that induced by belief in one righteous and +almighty God. We can make the contrast clear to ourselves by a very +definite figure. + +The difference, which is made to the character and habits of men if the +country they live in has a powerful government or not, is well known. If +there be no such central authority, it is a case of every man's hand +against his neighbour. Men walk armed to the teeth. A constant attitude +of fear and suspicion warps the whole nature. The passions are excited +and magnified; the intelligence and judgement are dwarfed. Just the +same after its kind is life to the man or tribe, who believe, that the +world in which they dwell and the life they share with others have no +central authority. They walk armed with prejudices, superstitions and +selfishnesses. They create, like Ahaz, their own providences, and still, +like him, feel insecure. Everything is exaggerated by them; in each evil +there lurks to their imagination unlimited hostility. They are without +breadth of view or length of patience. But let men believe that life has +a central authority, that God is supreme, and they will fling their +prejudices and superstitions to the winds, now no more needed than the +antiquated fortresses and weapons by which our forefathers, in days when +the government was weak, were forced to defend their private interests. +When we know that God reigns, how quiet and free it makes us! When +things and men are part of His scheme and working out His ends, when we +understand that they are not monsters but ministers, how reasonably we +can look at them! Were we afraid of Syria and Ephraim? Why, the head of +Syria is this fellow Rezin, the head of Ephraim this son of Remaliah! +They cannot last long; God's engine stands behind to smite them. By the +reasonable government of God, let us be reasonable! Let us take heed and +be quiet. Have faith in God, and to faith will come her proper +consequent of commonsense. + +For the higher a man looks, the farther he sees: to us that is the +practical lesson of these first nine verses of the seventh chapter. The +very gesture of faith bestows upon the mind a breadth of view. The man, +who lifts his face to God in heaven, is he whose eyes sweep +simultaneously the farthest prospect of earth, and bring to him a sense +of the proportion of things. Ahaz, facing his nearest enemies, does not +see over their heads, and in his consternation at their appearance +prepares to embark upon any policy that suggests itself, even though it +be so rash as the summoning of the Assyrian. Isaiah, on the other hand, +with his vision fixed on God as the Governor of the world, is enabled to +overlook the dust that darkens Judah's frontier, to see behind it the +inevitable advance of the Assyrians, and to be assured that, whether +Ahaz calls them to his quarrel or no, they will very soon of their own +motion overwhelm both of his enemies. From these _two smoking +firebrands_ there is then no real danger. But from the Assyrian, if once +Judah entangle herself in his toils, there is the most extreme danger. +Isaiah's advice is therefore not mere religious quietism; it is prudent +policy. It is the best political advice that could have been offered at +that crisis, as we have already been able to gather from a survey of the +geographical and political dispositions of Western Asia,[14] apart +altogether from religious considerations. But to Isaiah the calmness +requisite for this sagacity sprang from his faith. Mr. Bagehot might +have appealed to Isaiah's whole policy in illustration of what he has so +well described as the military and political benefits of religion. +Monotheism is of advantage to men not only by reason of "the high +concentration of steady feeling" which it produces, but also for the +mental calmness and sagacity, which surely spring from a pure and vivid +conviction that the Lord reigneth.[15] + + [14] Page 96. + + [15] _Physics and Politics_ (International Scientific Series), pp. 75 + ff. One of the finest modern illustrations of the connection between + faith and common-sense is found in the _Letters of General Gordon to His + Sister_. Gordon's coolness in face of the slave trade, the just survey + he makes of it, and the sensible advice which he gives about meeting it + stand well in contrast to the haste and rash proposals of + philanthropists at home, and are evidently due to his conviction that + the slave trade, like everything else in the world, is in the hands of + God, and so may be calmly studied and wisely checkmated. Gordon's + letters make very clear how much of his shrewdness in dealing with men + was due to the same source. It is instructive to observe throughout, how + his complete resignation to the will of God and his perfect obedience + delivered him from prejudices and partialities, from distractions and + desires, that make sober judgement impossible in other men. + +One other thing it is well we should emphasize, before we pass from +Isaiah's speech to Ahaz. Nothing can be plainer than that Isaiah, though +advocating so absolutely a quiescent belief in God, _is no fatalist_. +Now other prophets there have been, insisting just as absolutely as +Isaiah upon resignation to God the supreme, and the evident practical +effect of their doctrine of the Divine sovereignty has been to make +their followers, not shrewd political observers, but blind and apathetic +fatalists. The difference between them and Isaiah has lain in the kind +of character, which they and he have respectively attributed to the +Deity, before exalting Him to the throne of absolute power and resigning +themselves to His will. Isaiah, though as disciplined a believer in +God's sovereignty and man's duty of obedience as any prophet that ever +preached these doctrines, was preserved from the fatalism to which they +so often lead by the conviction he had previously received of God's +righteousness. Fatalism means resignation to fate, and fate means an +omnipotence either without character, or (which is the same thing) of +whose character we are ignorant. Fate is God _minus_ character, and +fatalism is the characterless condition to which belief in such a God +reduces man. History presents it to our view amid the most diverse +surroundings. The Greek mind, so free and sunny, was bewildered and +benumbed by belief in an inscrutable Nemesis. In the East how frequently +is a temper of apathy or despair bred in men, to whom God is nothing but +a despot! Even within Christianity we have had fanatics, so inordinately +possessed with belief in God's sovereignty of election, to the exclusion +of all other Divine truths, as to profess themselves, with impious +audacity, willing to be damned for His glory. Such instances are enough +to prove to us the extreme danger of making the sovereignty of God the +_first_ article of our creed. It is not safe for men to exalt a deity to +the throne of the supreme providence, till they are certified of his +character. The vision of mere power intoxicates and brutalizes, no less +when it is hallowed by the name of religion, than when, as in modern +materialism, it is blindly interpreted as physical force. Only the +people who have first learned to know their Deity intimately in the +private matters of life, where heart touches heart, and the delicate +arguments of conscience are not overborne by the presence of vast +natural forces or the intricate movements of the world's history, can be +trusted afterwards to enter these larger theatres of religion, without +risk of losing their faith, their sensibility or their conscience. + +The whole course of revelation has been bent upon this: to render men +familiarly and experimentally acquainted with the character of God, +before laying upon them the duty of homage to His creative power or +submission to His will. In the Old Testament God is the Friend, the +Guide, the Redeemer of men, or ever He is their Monarch and Lawgiver. +The Divine name which the Hebrew sees _excellent through all the earth_ +is the name that he has learned to know at home as _Jehovah, our Lord_ +(Ps. viii.). Jehovah trains His people to trust His personal troth and +lovingkindness within their own courts, before He tests their allegiance +and discipline upon the high places of the world. And when, amid the +strange terrors of these and the novel magnitudes with which Israel, +facing the world, had to reckon, the people lost their presence of mind, +His elegy over them was, _My people are destroyed for lack of +knowledge._ Even when their temple is full and their sacrifices of +homage to His power most frequent, it is still their want of moral +acquaintance with Himself of which He complains: _Israel doth not know; +My people doth not consider._ What else was the tragedy in which Jewish +history closed, than just the failure to perceive this lesson: that to +have and to communicate the knowledge of the Almighty's character is of +infinitely more value than the attempt to vindicate in any outward +fashion Jehovah's supremacy over the world? This latter, this forlorn, +hope was what Israel exhausted the evening of their day in attempting. +The former--to communicate to the lives and philosophies of mankind a +knowledge of the Divine heart and will, gained throughout a history of +unique grace and miracle--was the destiny which they resigned to the +followers of the crucified Messiah. + +For under the New Testament this also is the method of revelation. What +our King desires before He ascends the throne of the world is that the +world should know Him; and so He comes down among us, to be heard, and +seen, and handled of us, that our hearts may learn His heart and know +His love, unbewildered by His majesty. And for our part, when we +ascribe to our King the glory and the dominion, it is as unto Him that +loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood. For the chief thing +for individuals, as for nations, is not to believe that God reigneth so +much as to know what kind of God He is who reigneth. + + * * * * * + +But Ahaz would not be persuaded. He had a policy of his own, and was +determined to pursue it. He insisted on appealing to Assyria. Before he +did so, Isaiah made one more attempt on his obduracy. With a vehemence, +which reveals how critical he felt the king's decision to be, the +prophet returned as if this time the very voice of Jehovah. _And Jehovah +spake to Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God; ask it either +in Sheol below or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, +neither will I tempt the Lord._ + +Isaiah's offer of a sign was one which the prophets of Israel used to +make when some crisis demanded the immediate acceptance of their word by +men, and men were more than usually hard to convince--a miracle such as +the thunder that Samuel called out of a clear sky to impress Israel with +God's opinion of their folly in asking for a king;[16] or as the rending +of the altar which the man of God brought to pass to convict the sullen +Jeroboam;[17] or as the regress of the shadow on the sun-dial, which +Isaiah himself gave in assurance of recovery to the sick Hezekiah.[18] +Such signs are offered only to weak or prejudiced persons. The most +real faith, as Isaiah himself tells us, is unforced, the purest natures +those which need no signs and wonders. But there are certain crises at +which faith must be immediately forced, and Ahaz stood now at such a +crisis; and there are certain characters who, unable to read a writ from +the court of conscience and reason, must be served with one from a +court--even though it be inferior--whose language they understand; and +Ahaz was such a character. Isaiah knew his man, and prepared a pretty +dilemma for him. By offering him whatever sign he chose to ask, Isaiah +knew that the king would be committed before his own honour and the +public conscience to refrain from calling in the Assyrians, and so Judah +would be saved; or if the king refused the sign, the refusal would +unmask him. Ahaz refused, and at once Isaiah denounced him and all his +house. They were mere shufflers, playing fast and loose with God as well +as men. _Hear ye now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to +weary men, that ye must weary my God also?_ You have evaded God; +therefore God Himself will take you in hand: _the Lord Himself shall +give you a sign_. + + [16] 1 Sam. xii. 17. + + [17] 1 Kings xiii. 3. + + [18] Chap. xxxviii. + +In order to follow intelligently the rest of Isaiah's address, we must +clearly understand how the sign which he now promises differs in nature +from the sign he had implored Ahaz to select, of whatever sort he may +have expected that selection to be. The king's determination to call in +Assyria has come between. Therefore, while the sign Isaiah first offered +upon the spot was intended for an immediate pledge that God would +establish Ahaz, if only he did not appeal to the foreigner, the sign +Isaiah now offers shall come as a future proof of how criminal and +disastrous the appeal to the foreigner has been. The first sign would +have been an earnest of salvation; the second is to be an exposure of +the fatal evil of Ahaz's choice. The first would have given some +assurance of the swift overthrow of Ephraim and Syria; the second shall +be some painful illustration of the fact that not only Syria and +Ephraim, but Judah herself, shall be overwhelmed by the advance of the +northern power. This second sign is one, therefore, which only time can +bring round. Isaiah identifies it with a life not yet born. + +A Child, he says, shall shortly be born to whom his mother shall give +the name Immanu-El--_God-with-us_. By the time this Child comes to years +of discretion, _he shall eat butter and honey_. Isaiah then explains the +riddle. He does not, however, explain who the mother is, having +described her vaguely as _a_ or _the young woman of marriageable age_; +for that is not necessary to the sign, which is to consist in the +Child's own experience. To this latter he limits his explanation. Butter +and honey are the food of privation, the food of a people, whose land, +depopulated by the enemy, has been turned into pasture. Before this +Child shall arrive at years of discretion not only shall Syria and +Ephraim be laid waste, but the Lord Himself will have laid waste Judah. +_Jehovah shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people and upon thy +father's house days, that have not come, from the day that Ephraim +departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria._ Nothing more is said of +Immanuel, but the rest of the chapter is taken up with the details of +Judah's devastation. + +Now this sign and its explanation would have presented little difficulty +but for the name of the Child--Immanuel. Erase that, and the passage +reads forcibly enough. Before a certain Child, whose birth is vaguely +but solemnly intimated in the near future, shall have come to years of +discretion, the results of the choice of Ahaz shall be manifest. Judah +shall be devastated, and her people have sunk to the most rudimentary +means of living. All this is plain. It is a form which Isaiah used more +than once to measure the near future. And in other literatures, too, we +have felt the pathos of realizing the future results of crime and the +length to which disaster lingers, by their effect upon the lives of +another generation:-- + + "The child that is unborn shall rue + The hunting of that day!" + +But why call the Child Immanuel? The name is evidently part of the sign, +and has to be explained in connection with it. Why call a Child +_God-with-us_ who is not going to act greatly or to be highly honoured, +who is only going to suffer, for whom to come to years of intelligence +shall only be to come to a sense of his country's disaster and his +people's poverty? This Child who is used so pathetically to measure the +flow of time and the return of its revenges, about whom we are told +neither how he shall behave himself in the period of privation, nor +whether he shall survive it--why is he called Immanuel? or why, being +called Immanuel, has he so sordid a fate to contrast with so splendid a +name? + +It seems to the present expositor quite impossible to dissociate so +solemn an announcement by Jehovah to the house of David of the birth of +a Child, so highly named, from that expectation of the coming of a +glorious Prince which was current in this royal family since the days of +its founder. Mysterious and abrupt as the intimation of Immanuel's birth +may seem to us at this juncture, we cannot forget that it fell from +Isaiah's lips on hearts which cherished as their dearest hope the +appearance of a glorious descendant of David, and were just now the more +sensitive to this hope that both David's city and David's dynasty were +in peril. Could Ahaz possibly understand by Immanuel any other child +than that Prince whose coming was the inalienable hope of his house? But +if we are right in supposing that Ahaz made this identification, or had +even the dimmest presage of it, then we understand the full force of the +sign. Ahaz by his unbelief had not only disestablished himself (ver. 9): +he had mortgaged the hope of Israel. In the flood of disaster, which his +fatal resolution would bring upon the land, it mattered little what was +to happen to himself. Isaiah does not trouble now to mention any penalty +for Ahaz. But his resolve's exceeding pregnancy of peril is borne home +to the king by the assurance that it will devastate all the golden +future, and must disinherit the promised King. The Child, who is +Israel's hope, is born; he receives the Divine name, and that is all of +salvation or glory suggested. He grows up not to a throne or the majesty +which the seventy-second Psalm pictures--the offerings of Sheba's and +Seba's kings, the corn of his land shaking like the fruit of Lebanon, +while they of the city flourish like the grass of the earth--but to the +food of privation, to the sight of his country razed by his enemies into +one vast common fit only for pasture, to loneliness and suffering. Amid +the general desolation his figure vanishes from our sight, and only his +name remains to haunt, with its infinite melancholy of what might have +been, the thorn-choked vineyards and grass-grown courts of Judah. + +But even if it were to prove too fine a point, to identify Immanuel with +the promised Messiah of David's house, and we had to fall back on some +vaguer theory of him, finding him to be a personification,--either a +representative of the coming generation of God's people, or a type of +the promised to-morrow,--the moral effect of the sign would remain the +same; and it is with this alone that we have here to do. Be this an +individual, or a generation, or an age,--by the Name bestowed upon it, +it was to have been a glorious, God-inhabited age, generation, or +individual, and Ahaz has prematurely spoiled everything about it but the +Name. The future shall be like a boy cursed by his fathers, brought into +the world with glorious rights that are stamped in his title, but only +to find his kingdom and estates no longer in existence, and all the +circumstances dissipated, in which he might have realized the glorious +meaning of his name. Type of innocent suffering, he is born to an empty +title, his name the vestige of a great opportunity, the ironical +monument of an irreparable crime. + +If Ahaz had any conscience left, we can imagine the effect of this upon +him. To be punished for sin in one's own body and fortune, this is sore +enough; but to see heaven itself blackened and all the gracious future +frustrate, this is unspeakably terrible. + +Ahaz is thus the Judas of the Old Testament, if that conception of +Judas' character be the right one which makes his wilful desire to bring +about the kingdom of God in his own violent fashion the motive of his +betrayal of Jesus. Of his own obduracy Ahaz has betrayed the Messiah and +Deliverer of his people. The assurance of this betrayal is the sign of +his obduracy, a signal and terrible proof of his irretrievable sin in +calling upon the Assyrians. The king has been found wanting. + + +II. THE PEOPLE (chap. viii.). + +The king has been found wanting; but Isaiah will appeal to the people. +Chap. viii. is a collection of addresses to them, as chap. vii. was an +expostulation with their sovereign. The two chapters are contemporary. +In chap. viii. ver. 1, the narrative goes back upon itself, and returns +to the situation as it was before Ahaz made his final resolution of +reliance on Assyria. Vv. 1-4 of chap. viii. imply that the Assyrian has +not yet been summoned by Ahaz to his assistance, and therefore run +parallel to chap. vii. vv. 3-9; but chap. viii. ver. 5 and following +verses sketch the evils that are to come upon Judah and Israel, +consequent upon the arrival of the Assyrians in Palestine, in answer to +the appeal of Ahaz. These evils for land and nation are threatened as +absolutely to the people, as they had been to the king. And then the +people are thrown over (viii. 14), as the king had been; and Isaiah +limits himself to his disciples (ver. 16)--the _remnant_ that was +foretold in chap. vi. + +This appeal from monarch to people is one of the most characteristic +features of Isaiah's ministry. Whatever be the matter committed to him, +Isaiah is not allowed to rest till he has brought it home to the popular +conscience; and however much he may be able to charge national disaster +upon the folly of politicians or the obduracy of a king, it is the +people whom he holds ultimately responsible. The statesman, according to +Isaiah, cannot rise far above the level of his generation; the people +set the fashion to their most autocratic rulers. This instinct for the +popular conscience, this belief in the moral solidarity of a nation and +their governors, was the motive of the most picturesque passages in +Isaiah's career, and inspired some of the keenest epigrams in which he +conveyed the Divine truth. We have here a case in illustration. Isaiah +had met Ahaz and his court _at the conduit of the upper pool, in the +highway of the fuller's field_, preparing for the expected siege of the +city, and had delivered to them the Lord's message not to fear, for that +Syria-Ephraim would certainly be destroyed. But that was not enough. It +was now laid upon the prophet to make public and popular advertisement +of the same truth. + +Isaiah was told to take a large, smooth board, and write thereon in the +character used by the common people--_with the pen of a man_--as if it +were the title to a prophecy, the compound word "Maher-shalal-hash-baz." +This was not only an intelligibly written, but a significantly sonorous, +word--one of those popular cries in which the liveliest sensations are +struck forth by the crowded, clashing letters, full to the dullest ears +of rumours of war: _speed-spoil-hurry-prey_. The interpretation of it +was postponed, the prophet meantime taking two faithful witnesses to its +publication. In a little a son was born to Isaiah, and to this child he +transferred the noisy name. Then its explanation was given. The double +word was the alarm of a couple of invasions. _Before the boy shall have +knowledge to cry, My father, my mother, the riches of Damascus and the +spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria._ So +far nothing was told the people that had not been told their king; only +the time of the overthrow of their two enemies was fixed with greater +precision. At the most in a year, Damascus and Samaria would have +fallen. The ground was already vibrating to the footfall of the northern +hosts. + +The rapid political changes, which ensued in Palestine, are reflected on +the broken surface of this eighth chapter. We shall not understand +these abrupt and dislocated oracles, uttered at short intervals during +the two years of the Assyrian campaign, unless we realize that northern +shadow passing and repassing over Judah and Israel, and the quick +alternations of pride and penitence in the peoples beneath it. We need +not try to thread the verses on any line of thought. Logical connection +among them there is none. Let us at once get down into the currents of +popular feeling, in which Isaiah, having left Ahaz, is now labouring, +and casting forth these cries. + +It is a period of powerful currents, a people wholly in drift, and the +strongest man of them arrested only by a firm pressure of the Lord's +hand. _For Jehovah spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed +me, that I should not walk in the way of this people._ The character of +the popular movement, _the way of this people_, which nearly lifted +Isaiah off his feet, is evident. It is that into which every nation +drifts, who have just been loosened from a primitive faith in God, and +by fear or ambition have been brought under the fascination of the great +world. On the one hand, such a generation is apt to seek the security of +its outward life in things materially large and splendid, to despise as +paltry its old religious forms, national aspirations and achievements, +and be very desirous to follow foreign fashion and rival foreign wealth. +On the other hand, the religious spirit of such an age, withdrawn from +its legitimate objects, seeks satisfaction in petty and puerile +practices, demeaning itself spiritually, in a way that absurdly +contrasts with the grandeur of its material ambitions. Such a stage in +the life of a people has its analogy in the growth of the individual, +when the boy, new to the world, by affecting the grandest companions +and models, assumes an ambitious manner, with contempt for his former +circumstances, yet inwardly remains credulous, timid and liable to +panic. Isaiah reveals that it was such a stage, which both the kingdoms +of Israel had now reached. _This people hath refused the waters of +Shiloah, that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son._ + +It was natural, that when the people of Judah contrasted their own +estate with that of Assyria, or even of Damascus, they should despise +themselves. For what was Judah? A petty principality, no larger than +three of our own counties. And what was Jerusalem? A mere mountain +village, some sixty or seventy acres of barren rock, cut into tongues by +three insignificant valleys, down which there sometimes struggled tiny +threads of water, though the beds were oftener dry, giving the town a +withered and squalid look--no great river to nourish, ennoble or +protect. What were such a country and capital to compare with the empire +of Assyria?--the empire of the two rivers, whose powerful streams washed +the ramparts, wharves, and palace stairs of mighty cities! What was +Jerusalem even to the capital of Rezin? Were not Abana and Pharpar, +rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, let alone +these waterless wadys, whose bleached beds made the Jewish capital so +squalid? It was the Assyrian's vast water system--canals, embankments, +sluices, and the wealth of water moving through them--that most +impressed the poor Jew, whose streams failed him in summer, and who had +to treasure up his scanty stores of rainwater in the cisterns, with +which the rocky surface of his territory is still so thickly indented. +There had, indeed, been at Jerusalem some attempt to conduct water. It +was called _The Shiloah_--_conduit_ or _aqueduct_, literally _emissary_ +in the old sense of the word--a rough, narrow tunnel of some thousand +feet in length, hewn through the living rock from the only considerable +spring on the east side of Jerusalem, to a reservoir within the walls. +To this day _The Shiloah_ presents itself as not by any means a +first-class piece of engineering. Ahaz had either just made the tunnel +or repaired it; but if the water went no faster than it travels now, the +results were indeed ridiculous. Well might _this people despise the +waters of the Shiloah, that go trickling_, when they thought upon the +rivers of Damascus or the broad streams of Mesopotamia. Certainly it was +enough to dry up the patriotism of the Judean, if he was capable of +appreciating only material value, to look upon this bare, riverless +capital, with its bungled aqueduct and trickling water supply. On merely +material grounds, Judah was about the last country at that time, in +which her inhabitants might be expected to show pride or confidence. + +But woe to the people, whose attachment to their land is based upon its +material advantages, who have lost their sense for those spiritual +presences, from an appreciation of which springs all true love of +country, with warrior's courage in her defence and statesman's faith in +her destiny! The greatest calamity, which can befall any people, is to +forfeit their enthusiasm for the soil, on which their history has been +achieved and their hearths and altars lie, by suffering their faith in +the presence of God, of which these are but the tokens, to pass away. +With this loss Isaiah now reproaches Judah. The people are utterly +materialized; their delights have been in gold and silver, chariots and +horses, fenced cities and broad streams, and their faith has now +followed their delights. But these things to which they flee will only +prove their destruction. The great foreign river, whose waters they +covet, will overflow them: _even the king of Assyria and all his glory, +and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks; +and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass +through; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his +wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel_, thou who art +_God-with-us_. At the sound of the Name, which floats in upon the floods +of invasion like the Ark on the waters of old, Isaiah pulls together his +distraught faith in his country, and forgetting her faults, flings +defiance at her foes. _Associate yourselves, ye peoples, and ye shall be +broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far-off countries, gird +yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and +it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: +for Immanu-El_--"With us is God." The challenge was made good. The +prophet's faith prevailed over the people's materialism, and Jerusalem +remained inviolable till Isaiah's death. + +Meantime the Assyrian came on. But the infatuated people of Judah +continued to tremble rather before the doomed conspirators, Rezin and +Pekah. It must have been a time of huge excitement. The prophet tells us +how he was steadied by the pressure of the Lord's hand, and how, being +steadied, the meaning of the word "Immanuel" was opened out to him. +_God-with-us_ is the one great fact of life. Amid all the possible +alliances and all the possible fears of a complex political situation, +He remains the one certain alliance, the one real fear. _Say ye not, A +conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people say, A conspiracy; +neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof. Jehovah of hosts, +Him shall ye sanctify; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your +dread._ God is the one great fact of life, but what a double-edged +fact--_a sanctuary to all who put their trust in Him, but a rock of +offence to both houses of Israel!_ The figure is very picturesque. An +altar, a common stone on steps, one of those which covered the land in +large numbers--it is easy to see what a double purpose that might serve. +What a joy the sight would be to the weary wanderer or refugee who +sought it, what a comfort as he leant his weariness upon it, and knew he +was safe! But those who were flying over the land, not seeking Jehovah, +not knowing indeed what they sought, blind and panic-stricken--for them +what could that altar do but trip them up like any other common rock in +their way? "In fact, Divine justice is something which is either +observed, desired, or attained, and is then man's weal, or, on the other +hand, is overlooked, rejected, or sought after in a wild, unintelligent +spirit, and only in the hour of need, and is then their lasting +ruin."[19] + + [19] Ewald. + +The Assyrian came on, and the temper of the Jews grew worse. Samaria was +indeed doomed from the first, but for some time Isaiah had been +excepting Judah from a judgement for which the guilt of Northern Israel +was certainly riper. He foresaw, of course, that the impetus of invasion +might sweep the Assyrians into Judah, but he had triumphed in this: that +Judah was Immanuel's land, and that all who arrayed themselves against +her must certainly come to nought. But now his ideas have changed, as +Judah has persisted in evil. He knows now that God is for a +stumbling-block to _both_ houses of Israel; nay, that upon Jerusalem +herself He will fall as a gin and a snare. Only for a little group of +individuals, separate from both States, and gathered round the prophet +and the word of God given to him, is salvation certain. People, as well +as king, have been found wanting. There remains only this _remnant_. + +Isaiah then at last sees his _remnant_. But the point we have reached is +significant for more than the fulfilment of his expectations. This is +the first appearance in history of a religious community, apart from the +forms of domestic or national life. "Till then no one had dreamed of a +fellowship of faith dissociated from all national forms, bound together +by faith in the Divine word alone. It was the birth of a new era in +religion, for it was the birth of the conception of the Church, the +first step in the emancipation of spiritual religion from the forms of +political life."[20] + + [20] Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 275. + +The plan of the seventh and eighth chapters is now fully disclosed. As +the king for his unworthiness has to give place to the Messiah, so the +nation for theirs have to give place to the Church. In the seventh +chapter the king was found wanting, and the Messiah promised. In the +eighth chapter the people are found wanting; and the prophet, turning +from them, proceeds to form the Church among those who accept the Word, +which king and people have refused. _Bind thou up the testimony, and +seal the teaching[21] among my disciples. And I will wait on Jehovah, +who hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him. +Behold, I and the children Jehovah hath given me are for signs and +wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, Him that dwelleth in Mount +Zion._ + + [21] English Version, "law," but not the law of Moses. Isaiah refers to + the word that has come by himself. + +This, then, is the situation: revelation concluded, the Church formed +upon it, and the nation abandoned. But is that situation final? The +words just quoted betray the prophet's hope that it is not. He says: _I +will wait._ He says again: The LORD is only _hiding His face from the +house of Jacob_. I will expect again the shining of His countenance. I +will hope for Divine grace and the nation being once more conterminous. +The rest of the section (to ix. 7) is the development of this hope, +which stirs in the prophet's heart after he has closed the record of +revelation. + +The darkness deepened across Israel. The Assyrian had come. The northern +floods kept surging among the little States of Palestine, and none knew +what might be left standing. We can well understand Isaiah pausing, as +he did, in face of such rapid and incontrollable movements. When +Tiglath-pileser swept over the plain of Esdraelon, casting down the king +of Samaria and the Philistine cities, and then swept back again, +carrying off upon his ebb the populations east of the Jordan, it looked +very like as if both the houses of Israel should fall. In their panic, +the people betook themselves to morbid forms of religion; and at first +Isaiah was obliged to quench the hope and pity he had betrayed for them +in indignation at the utter contrariety of their religious practices to +the word of God. There can be no Divine grace for the people as long as +they _seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards +that chirp and that mutter_. For such a disposition the prophet has +nothing but scorn, _Should not a people seek unto their God? On behalf +of the living should they seek unto the dead?_ They must come back to +the prophet's own word before hope may dawn. _To the revelation and the +testimony! If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no +morning for them._ + +The night, however, grew too awful for scorn. There had been no part of +the land so given to the idolatrous practices, which the prophet +scathed, as _the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, by the sea +beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles_. But all the horrors of +captivity had now fallen upon it, and it had received at the Lord's hand +double for all its sins. The night had been torn enough by lightning; +was there no dawn? The darkness of these provinces fills the prophet's +silenced thoughts. He sees a people _hardly bestead and hungry, fretting +themselves, cursing their king_, who had betrayed them, _and their God_, +who had abandoned them, _turning their faces upwards_ to heaven and +_downwards_ to the sacred soil from which they were being dragged, _but, +behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick +darkness they are driven away_. It is a murky picture, yet through the +smoke of it we are able to discern a weird procession of Israelites +departing into captivity. We date it, therefore, about 732 B.C., the +night of Israel's first great captivity. The shock and the pity of this +rouse the prophet's great heart. He cannot continue to say that there is +no morning for those benighted provinces. He will venture a great hope +for their people. + +Over how many months the crowded verses, viii. 21-ix. 7, must be spread, +it is useless now to inquire--whether the revulsion they mark arose all +at once in the prophet's mind, or hope grew gradually brighter as the +smoke of war died away on Israel's northern frontier during 731 B.C. It +is enough that we can mark the change. The prophet's tones pass from +sarcasm to pity (viii. 20, 21); from pity to hope (viii. 22-ix. 1); from +hope to triumph in the vision of salvation actually achieved (ix. 2). +_The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that +dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, on them hath the light +shined._ For a mutilated, we see a multiplied, nation; for the fret of +hunger and the curses of defeat, we hear the joy of harvest and of spoil +after victory. _For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his +shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, Thou hast broken as in the day of +Midian._ War has rolled away for ever over that northern horizon, and +all the relics of war in the land are swept together into the fire. _For +all the armour of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled +in blood, shall even be for burning, and for fuel of fire._ In the +midday splendour of this peace, which, after the fashion of Hebrew +prophecy, is described as already realized, Isaiah hails the Author of +it all in that gracious and marvellous Child whose birth he had already +intimated, Heir to the throne of David, but entitled by a fourfold name, +too generous, perhaps, for a mere mortal, _Wonderful-Counsellor_, +_Hero-God_, _Father-Everlasting_, _Prince-of-peace_, who shall redeem +the realms of his great forerunner and maintain _Israel with justice and +righteousness from henceforth, even for ever_. + +When, finally, the prophet inquires what has led his thoughts through +this rapid change from satisfaction (chap. viii. 16) with the salvation +of a small _remnant_ of believers in the word of God--a little kernel of +patience in the midst of a godless and abandoned people--to the daring +vision of a whole nation redeemed and established in peace under a +Godlike King, he says: _The zeal of the Lord of hosts hath performed +this._ + +_The zeal_, translates our English version, but no one English word will +give it. It is that mixture of hot honour and affection to which +"jealousy" in its good sense comes near. It is that overflow of the love +that cannot keep still, which, when men think God has surely done all He +will or can do for an ungrateful race, visits them in their distress, +and carries them forward into unconceived dispensations of grace and +glory. It is the Spirit of God, which yearns after the lost, speaks to +the self-despairing of hope, and surprises rebel and prophet alike with +new revelations of love. We have our systems representing God's work up +to the limits of our experience, and we settle upon them; but the +Almighty is ever greater than His promise or than His revelation of +Himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +_THE MESSIAH._ + + +We have now reached that point of Isaiah's prophesying at which the +Messiah becomes the most conspicuous figure on his horizon. Let us take +advantage of it, to gather into one statement all that the prophet told +his generation concerning that exalted and mysterious Person.[22] + + [22] The Messiah, or _Anointed_, is used in the Old Testament of many + agents of God: high-priest (Lev. iv. 3); ministers of the Word (Ps. cv. + 15); Cyrus (Isa. xlv. 1); but mostly of God's king, actual (1 Sam. xxiv. + 7), or expected (Dan. ix. 25). So it became in Jewish theology the + technical term for the coming King and the Captain of salvation. + +When Isaiah began to prophesy, there was current among the people of +Judah the expectation of a glorious King. How far the expectation was +defined it is impossible to ascertain; but this at least is historically +certain. A promise had been made to David (2 Sam. vii. 4-17) by which +the permanence of his dynasty was assured. His offspring, it was said, +should succeed him, yet eternity was promised not to any individual +descendant, but to the dynasty. Prophets earlier than Isaiah emphasized +this establishment of the house of David, even in the days of Israel's +greatest distress; but they said nothing of a single monarch with whom +the fortunes of the house were to be identified. It is clear, however, +even without the evidence of the Messianic Psalms, that the hope of such +a hero was quick in Israel. Besides the documentary proof of David's own +last words (2 Sam. xxiii.), there is the manifest impossibility of +dreaming of an ideal kingdom apart from the ideal king. Orientals, and +especially Orientals of that period, were incapable of realizing the +triumph of an idea or an institution without connecting it with a +personality. So that we may be perfectly sure, that when Isaiah began to +prophesy the people not only counted upon the continuance of David's +dynasty, as they counted upon the presence of Jehovah Himself, but were +familiar with the ideal of a monarch, and lived in hope of its +realization. + +In the first stage of his prophecy, it is remarkable, Isaiah makes no +use of this tradition, although he gives more than one representation of +Israel's future in which it might naturally have appeared. No word is +spoken of a Messiah even in the awful conversation, in which Isaiah +received from the Eternal the fundamentals of his teaching. The only +hope there permitted to him is the survival of a bare, leaderless few of +the people, or, to use his own word, _a stump_, with no sign of a +prominent sprout upon it. In connection, however, with the survival of a +remnant, as we have said on chap. vi. (p. 89), it is plain that there +were two indispensable conditions, which the prophet could not help +having to state sooner or later. Indeed, one of them he had mentioned +already. It was indispensable that the people should have a leader, and +that they should have a rallying-point. They must have their King, and +they must have their City. Every reader of Isaiah knows that it is on +these two themes the prophet rises to the height of his +eloquence--Jerusalem shall remain inviolable; a glorious King shall be +given unto her. But it has not been so generally remarked, that Isaiah +is far more concerned and consistent about the secure city than about +the ideal monarch. From first to last the establishment and peace of +Jerusalem are never out of his thoughts, but he speaks only now and then +of the King to come. Through long periods of his ministry, though +frequently describing the blessed future, he is silent about the +Messiah, and even sometimes so groups the inhabitants of that future, as +to leave no room for Him among them. Indeed, the silences of Isaiah upon +this Person are as remarkable as the brilliant passages, in which he +paints His endowments and His work. + +If we consider the moment, chosen by Isaiah for announcing the Messiah +and adding his seal to the national belief in the advent of a glorious +Son of David, we find some significance in the fact that it was a +moment, when the throne of David was unworthily filled and David's +dynasty was for the first time seriously threatened. It is impossible to +dissociate the birth of a boy called _Immanuel_, and afterwards so +closely identified with the fortunes of the whole land (vii. 8), from +the public expectation of a King of glory; and critics are almost +unanimous in recognizing Immanuel again in the Prince-of-the-Four-Names +in chap. ix. Immanuel, therefore, is the Messiah, the promised King of +Israel. But Isaiah makes his own first intimation of Him, not when the +throne was worthily filled by an Uzziah or a Jotham, but when a fool and +traitor to God abused its power, and the foreign conspiracy to set up a +Syrian prince in Jerusalem imperilled the whole dynasty. Perhaps we +ought not to overlook the fact, that Isaiah does not here designate +Immanuel as a descendant of David. The vagueness with which the mother +is described has given rise to a vast amount of speculation as to what +particular person the prophet meant by her. But may not Isaiah's +vagueness be the only intention he had in mentioning a mother at all? +The whole house of David shared at that moment the sin of the king (vii. +13); and it is not presuming too much upon the freedom of our prophet to +suppose, that he shook himself loose from the tradition, which entailed +the Messiah upon the royal family of Judah, and at least left it an open +question, whether Immanuel might not, in consequence of their sin, +spring from some other stock. + +It is, however, far less with the origin, than with the experience, of +Immanuel that Isaiah is concerned; and those who embark upon curious +inquiries, as to who exactly the mother might be, are busying themselves +with what the prophet had no interest in, while neglecting that in which +really lay the significance of the sign that he offered. + +Ahaz by his wilfulness has made a Substitute necessary. But Isaiah is +far more taken up with this: that he has actually mortgaged the +prospects of that Substitute. The Messiah comes, but the wilfulness of +Ahaz has rendered His reign impossible. He, whose advent has hitherto +not been foretold except as the beginning of an era of prosperity, and +whose person has not been painted but with honour and power, is +represented as a helpless and innocent Sufferer--His prospects +dissipated by the sins of others, and Himself born only to share His +people's indigence (p. 115). Such a representation of the Hero's fate is +of the very highest interest. We are accustomed to associate the +conception of a suffering Messiah only with a much later development of +prophecy, when Israel went into exile; but the conception meets us +already here. It is another proof that _Esaias is very bold_. He calls +his Messiah Immanuel, and yet dares to present Him as nothing but a +Sufferer--a Sufferer for the sins of others. Born only to suffer with +His people, who should have inherited their throne--that is Isaiah's +first doctrine of the Messiah. + +Through the rest of the prophecies published during the Syro-Ephraitic +troubles the Sufferer is slowly transformed into a Deliverer. The stages +of this transformation are obscure. In chap. viii. Immanuel is no more +defined than in chap. vii. He is still only a Name of hope upon an +unbroken prospect of devastation. _The stretching out of his +wings_--_i.e._, the floods of the Assyrian--_shall fill the breadth of +Thy land, O Immanuel_. But this time that the prophet utters the Name, +he feels inspired by new courage. He grasps at Immanuel as the pledge of +ultimate salvation. Let the enemies of Judah work their worst; it shall +be in vain, _for Immanuel, God is with us_. And then, to our +astonishment, while Isaiah is telling us how he arrived at the +convictions embodied in this Name, the personality of Immanuel fades +away altogether, and Jehovah of hosts Himself is set forth as the sole +sanctuary of those who fear Him. There is indeed a double displacement +here. Immanuel dissolves in two directions. As a Refuge, He is displaced +by Jehovah; as a Sufferer and a Symbol of the sufferings of the land, by +a little community of disciples, the first embodiment of the Church, who +now, with Isaiah, can do nothing except wait for the Lord (pp. 124-126). + +Then, when the prophet's yearning thoughts, that will not rest upon so +dark a closure, struggle once more, and struggling pass from despair to +pity, and from pity to hope, and from hope to triumph in a salvation +actually achieved, they hail all at once as the Hero of it the Son whose +birth was promised. With an emphasis, which vividly reveals the sense of +exhaustion in the living generation and the conviction that only +something fresh, and sent straight from God Himself, can now avail +Israel, the prophet cries: _Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is +given_. The Messiah appears in a glory that floods His origin out of +sight. We cannot see whether He springs from the house of David; but +_the government is to be upon His shoulder_, and He shall reign _on +David's throne with righteousness for ever_. His title shall be +fourfold: _Wonderful-Counsellor_, _God-Hero_, _Father-Everlasting_, +_Prince-of-Peace_. + +These Four Names do certainly not invite us to grudge them meaning, and +they have been claimed as incontrovertible proofs, that the prophet had +an absolutely Divine Person in view. Some distinguished scholars insist +that the promised Deliverer is nothing less than a God in the +metaphysical sense of the word.[23] There are serious reasons, however, +which make us doubt this conclusion, and, though we firmly hold that +Jesus Christ was God, prevent us from recognizing these names as +prophecies of His Divinity. Two of the names are capable of being used +of an earthly monarch: _Wonderful-Counsellor_ and _Prince-of-Peace_, +which are, within the range of human virtue, in evident contrast to +Ahaz, at once foolish in the conception of his policy and warlike in its +results. It will be more difficult to get Western minds to see how +_Father-Everlasting_ may be applied to a mere man, but the ascription of +eternity is not unusual in Oriental titles, and in the Old Testament is +sometimes rendered to things that perish. When Hebrews speak of any one +as everlasting, that does not necessarily imply Divinity. The second +name, which we render _God-Hero_, is, it is true, used of Jehovah +Himself in the very next chapter to this, but in the plural it is also +used of men by Ezekiel (xxxii. 21). The part of it translated _God_ is a +frequent name of the Divine Being in the Old Testament, but literally +means only _mighty_, and is by Ezekiel (xxxi. 11) applied to +Nebuchadnezzar. We should hesitate, therefore, to understand by these +names "a God in the metaphysical sense of the word." + + [23] I regret very much that in previous editions I should have + erroneously imputed this opinion to Dr. Hermann Schultz--through a + mistranslation of his words on pp. 726, 727 of his _A. T. Theologie_. + +We fall back with greater confidence on other arguments of a more +general kind, which apply to all Isaiah's prophecies of the Messiah. If +Isaiah had one revelation rather than another to make, it was the +revelation of the unity of God. Against king and people, who crowded +their temple with the shrines of many deities, Isaiah presented Jehovah +as the one only God. It would simply have nullified the force of his +message, and confused the generation to which he brought it, if either +he or they had conceived of the Messiah, with the conceiving of +Christian theology, as a separate Divine personality. + +Again, as Mr. Robertson Smith has very clearly explained,[24] the +functions assigned by Isaiah to the King of the future are simply the +ordinary duties of the monarchy, for which He is equipped by the +indwelling of that Spirit of God, that makes all wise men wise and +valorous men valorous. "We believe in a Divine and eternal Saviour, +because the work of salvation as we understand it in the light of the +New Testament is essentially different from the work of the wisest and +best earthly king." But such an earthly king's work is all Isaiah looks +for. So that, so far from its being derogatory to Christ to grudge the +sense of Divinity to these names, it is a fact that the more spiritual +our notions are of the saving work of Jesus, the less inclined shall we +be to claim the prophecies of Isaiah in proof of His Deity. + + [24] _Prophets of Israel_, p. 306. + +There is a third argument in the same direction, the force of which we +appreciate only when we come to discover how very little from this point +onwards Isaiah had to say about the promised king. In chaps. i.-xxxix. +only three other passages are interpreted as describing the Messiah. The +first of these, xi. 1-5, dating perhaps from about 720, when Hezekiah +was king, tells us, for the first and only time by Isaiah's lips, that +the Messiah is to be a scion of David's house, and confirms what we have +said: that His duties, however perfectly they were to be discharged, +were the usual duties of Judah's monarchy.[25] The second passage, +xxxii. 1 ff., which dates probably from after 705, when Hezekiah was +still king, is, if indeed it refers at all to the Messiah, a still +fainter, though sweeter, echo of previous descriptions. While the third +passage, xxxiii. 17: _Thou shalt see thy king in his beauty_, does not +refer to the Messiah at all, but to Hezekiah, then prostrate and in +sackcloth, with Assyria thundering at the gate of Jerusalem (701). The +mass of Isaiah's predictions of the Messiah thus fall within the reign +of Ahaz, and just at the point at which Ahaz proved an unworthy +representative of Jehovah, and Judah and Israel were threatened with +complete devastation. There is a repetition when Hezekiah has come to +the throne. But in the remaining seventeen years, except perhaps for one +allusion, Isaiah is silent on the ideal king, although he continued +throughout that time to unfold pictures of the blessed future which +contained every other Messianic feature, and the realization of which he +placed where he had placed his Prince-of-the-Four-Names--in connection, +that is, with the approaching defeat of the Assyrians. Ignoring the +Messiah, during these years Isaiah lays all the stress of his prophecy +on the inviolability of Jerusalem; and while he promises the recovery of +the actually reigning monarch from the distress of the Assyrian +invasion,--as if that were what the people chiefly desired to see, and +not a brighter, stronger substitute,--he hails Jehovah Himself, in +solitary and undeputed sovereignty, as Judge, Lawgiver, Monarch and +Saviour (xxxiii. 22). Between Hezekiah, thus restored to his beauty, and +Jehovah's own presence, there is surely no room left for another royal +personage. But these very facts--that Isaiah felt most compelled to +predict an ideal king when the actual king was unworthy, and that, on +the contrary, when the reigning king proved worthy, approximating to the +ideal, Isaiah felt no need for another, and indeed in his prophecies +left no room for another--form surely a powerful proof that the king he +expected was not a supernatural being, but a human personality, +extraordinarily endowed by God, one of the descendants of David by +ordinary succession, but fulfilling the ideal which his forerunners had +missed. Even if we allow that the four names contain among them the +predicate of Divinity, we must not overlook the fact that the Prince is +only called by them. It is not that _He is_, but that He shall be +called, _Wonderful-Counsellor_, _God-Hero_, _Father-Everlasting_, +_Prince-of-Peace_. Nowhere is there a dogmatic statement that He is +Divine. Besides, it is inconceivable that if Isaiah, the prophet of the +unity of God, had at any time a second Divine Person in his hope, he +should have afterwards remained so silent about Him. To interpret the +ascription of the Four Names as a conscious definition of Divinity, at +all like the Christian conception of Jesus Christ, is to render the +silence of Isaiah's later life and the silence of subsequent prophets +utterly inexplicable. + + [25] See further on this passage pp. 180-183. As is there pointed out, + while these passages on the Messiah are indeed infrequent and + unconnected, there is a very evident progress through them of Isaiah's + conception of his Hero's character. + +On these grounds, then, we decline to believe that Isaiah saw in the +king of the future "a God in the metaphysical sense of the word." Just +because we know the proofs of the Divinity of Jesus to be so spiritual, +do we feel the uselessness of looking for them to prophecies, that +manifestly describe purely earthly and civil functions. + +But such a conclusion by no means shuts us out from tracing a relation +between these prophecies and the appearance of Jesus. The fact, that +Isaiah allowed them to go down to posterity, proves that he himself did +not count them to have been exhausted in Hezekiah. And this fact of +their preservation is ever so much the more significant, that their +literal truth was discredited by events. Isaiah had evidently foretold +the birth and bitter youth of Immanuel for the _near_ future. Immanuel's +childhood was to begin with the devastation of Ephraim and Syria, and to +be passed in circumstances consequent on the devastation of Judah, which +was to follow close upon that of her two enemies. But although Ephraim +and Syria were immediately spoiled, as Isaiah foresaw, Judah lay in +peace all the reign of Ahaz and many years after his death. So that had +Immanuel been born in the next twenty-five years after the announcement +of His birth, He would not have found in His own land the circumstances +which Isaiah foretold as the discipline of His boyhood. Isaiah's +forecast of Judah's fate was, therefore, falsified by events. That the +prophet or his disciples should have allowed it to remain, is proof that +they believed it to have contents, which the history they had lived +through neither exhausted nor discredited. In the prophecies of the +Messiah there was something ideal, which was as permanent and valid for +the future as the prophecy of the Remnant or that of the visible majesty +of Jehovah. If the attachment, at which the prophet aimed when he +launched these prophecies on the stream of time, was denied them by +their own age, that did not mean their submersion, but only their +freedom to float further down the future and seek attachment there. + +This boldness, to entrust to future ages a prophecy discredited by +contemporary history, argues a profound belief in its moral meaning and +eternal significance; and it is this boldness, in face of disappointment +continued from generation to generation in Israel, that constitutes the +uniqueness of the Messianic hope among that people. To sublimate this +permanent meaning of the prophecies from the contemporary material, with +which it is mixed, is not difficult. Isaiah foretells his Prince on the +supposition that certain things are fulfilled. When the people are +reduced to the last extreme, when there is no more a king to rally or to +rule them, when the land is in captivity, when revelation is closed, +when, in despair of the darkness of the Lord's face, men have taken to +them that have familiar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter, then, +in that last sinful, hopeless estate of man, a Deliverer shall appear. +_The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it._ This is the first +article of Isaiah's Messianic creed, and stands back behind the Messiah +and all Messianic blessings, their exhaustless origin. Whatsoever man's +sin and darkness be, the Almighty lives, and His zeal is infinite. +Therefore it is a fact eternally true, that whatsoever Deliverer His +people need and can receive shall be sent to them, and shall be styled +by whatsoever names their hearts can best appreciate. Titles shall be +given Him to attract their hope and their homage, and not a definition +of His nature, of which their theological vocabulary would be incapable. +This is the vital kernel of Messianic prophecy in Isaiah. The _zeal of +the Lord_, kindling the dark thoughts of the prophet as he broods over +his people's need of salvation, suddenly makes a Saviour +visible--visible just as He is needed there and then. Isaiah hears Him +hailed by titles that satisfy the particular wants of the age, and +express men's thoughts as far up the idea of salvation and majesty as +they of that age can rise. But the prophet has also perceived that sin +and disaster will so accumulate before the Messiah comes, that, though +innocent, He shall have to bear tribulation and pass to His prime +through suffering. No one with open mind can deny, that in this moderate +estimate of the prophet's meaning there is a very great deal of the +essence of the Gospel as it has been fulfilled in the personal +consciousness and saving work of Jesus Christ,--as much of that essence, +indeed, as it was possible to communicate to so early a generation, and +one whose religious needs were so largely what we call temporal. But if +we grant this, and if at the same time we appreciate the uniqueness of +such a hope as this of Israel, then surely it must be allowed to have +the appearance of a special preparation for Christ's life and work; and +so, to use very moderate words which have been applied to Messianic +prophecy in general, it may be taken "as a proof of its true connection +with the Gospel dispensation as part of one grand scheme in the counsels +of Providence."[26] + + [26] Stanton: _The Jewish and Christian Messiah_. + + * * * * * + +Men do not ask when they drink of a streamlet high up on the hills, "Is +this going to be a great river?" They are satisfied if it is water +enough to quench their thirst. And so it was enough for Old Testament +believers if they found in Isaiah's prophecy of a Deliverer--as they did +find--what satisfied their own religious needs, without convincing them +to what volumes it should swell. But this does not mean that in using +these Old Testament prophecies we Christians should limit our enjoyment +of them to the measure of the generation to whom they were addressed. To +have known Christ must make the predictions of the Messiah different to +a man. You cannot bring so infinite an ocean of blessing into historic +connection with these generous, expansive intimations of the Old +Testament without its passing into them. If we may use a rough figure, +the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are tidal rivers. They not +only run, as we have seen, to their sea, which is Christ; they feel His +reflex influence. It is not enough for a Christian to have followed the +historical direction of the prophecies, or to have proved their +connection with the New Testament as parts of one Divine harmony. Forced +back by the fulness of meaning to which he has found their courses +open, he returns to find the savour of the New Testament upon them, and +that where he descended shallow and tortuous channels, with all the +difficulties of historical exploration, he is borne back on full tides +of worship. To use the appropriate words of Isaiah, _the Lord is with +him there, a place of broad rivers and streams_. + +With all this, however, we must not forget that, beside these prophecies +of a great earthly ruler, there runs another stream of desire and +promise, in which we see a much stronger premonition of the fact that a +Divine Being shall some day dwell among men. We mean the Scriptures in +which it is foretold that Jehovah Himself shall visibly visit Jerusalem. +This line of prophecy, taken along with the powerful anthropomorphic +representations of God,--astonishing in a people like the Jews, who so +abhorred the making of an image of the Deity upon the likeness of +anything in heaven and earth,--we hold to be the proper Old Testament +instinct that the Divine should take human form and tabernacle amongst +men. But this side of our subject--the relation of the anthropomorphism +of the Old Testament to the Incarnation--we postpone till we come to the +second part of the book of Isaiah, in which the anthropomorphic figures +are more frequent and daring than they are here. + + + + +BOOK II. + +_PROPHECIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF HEZEKIAH TO THE DEATH OF SARGON, +727-705_ B.C. + + + + + ISAIAH:-- + + xxviii. 725 B.C. + + x. 5-34. 721 B.C. + + xi., xii. About 720 B.C.? + + xx. 711 B.C. + + xxi. 1-10. 710 B.C. + + xxxviii., xxxix. Between 712 and 705 B.C. + + + + +BOOK II. + + +The prophecies with which we have been engaged (chaps. ii.-x. 4) fall +either before or during the great Assyrian invasion of Syria, undertaken +in 734-732 by Tiglath-pileser II., at the invitation of King Ahaz. +Nobody has any doubt about that. But when we ask what prophecies of +Isaiah come next in chronological order, we raise a storm of answers. We +are no longer on the sure ground we have been enjoying. + +Under the canonical arrangement the next prophecy is "The Woe upon the +Assyrian" (x. 5-34). In the course of this the Assyrian is made to boast +of having overthrown Samaria (vv. 9-11): _Is not Samaria as Damascus?... +Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to +Jerusalem and her idols?_ If _Samaria_ mean the capital city of Northern +Israel--and the name is never used in these parts of Scripture for +anything else--and if the prophet be quoting a boast which the Assyrian +was actually in a position to make, and not merely imagining a boast, +which he would be likely to make some years afterwards (an entirely +improbable view, though held by one great scholar[27]), then an event is +here described as past and over which did not happen during +Tiglath-pileser's campaign, nor indeed till twelve years after it. +Tiglath-pileser did not require to besiege Samaria in the campaign of +734-732. The king, Pekah, was slain by a conspiracy of his own subjects; +and Hoshea, the ringleader, who succeeded, willingly purchased the +stability of a usurped throne by homage and tribute to the king of +kings. So Tiglath-pileser went home again, satisfied to have punished +Israel by carrying away with him the population of Galilee. During his +reign there was no further appearance of the Assyrians in Palestine, but +at his death in 727 Hoshea, after the fashion of Assyrian vassals when +the throne at Nineveh changed occupants, attempted to throw off the yoke +of the new king, Salmanassar IV. Along with the Phoenician and +Philistine cities, Hoshea negotiated an alliance with So, or Seve, the +Ethiopian, a usurper who had just succeeded in establishing his +supremacy over the land of the Pharaohs. In a year Salmanassar marched +south upon the rebels. He took Hoshea prisoner on the borders of his +territory (725), but, not content, as his predecessor had been, with the +submission of the king, _he came up throughout all the land, and went up +to Samaria, and besieged it three years_.[28] He did not live to see the +end of the siege, and Samaria was taken in 722 by Sargon, his successor. +Sargon overthrew the kingdom and uprooted the people. The northern +tribes were carried away into a captivity, from which as tribes they +never returned. + + [27] Delitzsch, who fancies that the fall of Samaria is a completed + affair only in the vision of the prophet, not in reality. + + [28] 2 Kings xvii. 5. + +It was evidently this complete overthrow of Samaria by Sargon in +722-721, which Isaiah had behind him when he wrote x. 9-11. We must, +therefore, date the prophecy after 721, when nothing was left as a +bulwark between Judah and the Assyrian. We do so with reluctance. There +is much in x. 5-34 which suits the circumstances of Tiglath-pileser's +invasion. There are phrases and catch-words coinciding with those in +vii.-ix. 7; and the whole oration is simply a more elaborate expression +of that defiance of Assyria, which inspires such of the previous +prophecies as viii. 9, 10. Besides, with the exception of Samaria, all +the names in the Assyrian's boastful catalogue--Carchemish, Calno, +Arpad, Hamath and Damascus--might as justly have been vaunted by the +lips of Tiglath-pileser as by those of Sargon. But in spite of these +things, which seem to vindicate the close relation of x. 5-34 to the +prophecies which precede it in the canon, the mention of Samaria as +being already destroyed justifies us in divorcing it from them. While +they remain dated from before 732, we place it subsequent to 722. + +Was Isaiah, then, silent these ten years? Is there no prophecy lying +farther on in his book that treats of Samaria as still standing? Besides +an address to the fallen Damascus in xvii. 1-11, which we shall take +later with the rest of Isaiah's oracles on foreign states, there is one +large prophecy, chap. xxviii., which opens with a description of the +magnates of Samaria lolling in drunken security on their vine-crowned +hill, but God's storms are ready to break. Samaria has not yet fallen, +but is threatened and shall fall soon. The first part of chap. xxviii. +can only refer to the year, in which Salmanassar advanced upon +Samaria--726 or 725. There is nothing in the rest of it to corroborate +this date; but the fact, that there are several turns of thought and +speech very similar to turns of thought and speech in x. 5-34, makes us +the bolder to take away xxviii. from its present connection with +xxix.-xxxii., and place it just before x. 5-34. + +Here then is our next group of prophecies, all dating from the first +seven years of the reign of Hezekiah: xxviii., a warning addressed to +the politicians of Jerusalem from the impending fate of those of Samaria +(date 725); x. 5-34, a woe upon the Assyrian (date about 720), +describing his boasts and his progress in conquest till his sudden crash +by the walls of Jerusalem; xi., of date uncertain, for it reflects no +historical circumstance, but standing in such artistic contrast to x. +that the two must be treated together; and xii., a hymn of salvation, +which forms a fitting conclusion to xi. With these we shall take the few +fragments of the book of Isaiah which belong to the fifteen years +720-705, and are as straws to show how Judah all that time was drifting +down to alliance with Egypt--xx., xxi. 1-10, and xxxviii.-xxxix. This +will bring us to 705, and the beginning of a new series of prophecies, +the richest of Isaiah's life, and the subject of our third book. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +_GOD'S COMMONPLACE._ + +ISAIAH xxviii. (ABOUT 725 B.C.) + + +The twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Isaiah is one of the greatest +of his prophecies. It is distinguished by that regal versatility of +style, which places its author at the head of Hebrew writers. Keen +analyses of character, realistic contrasts between sin and judgement, +clever retorts and epigrams, rapids of scorn, and "a spate" of +judgement, but for final issue a placid stream of argument banked by +sweet parable--such are the literary charms of the chapter, which +derives its moral grandeur from the force with which its currents set +towards faith and reason, as together the salvation of states, +politicians and private men. The style mirrors life about ourselves, and +still tastes fresh to thirsty men. The truths are relevant to every day +in which luxury and intemperance abound, in which there are eyes too +fevered by sin to see beauty in simple purity, and minds so surfeited +with knowledge or intoxicated with their own cleverness, that they call +the maxims of moral reason commonplace and scorn religious instruction +as food for babes. + +Some time when the big, black cloud was gathering again on the north, +Isaiah raised his voice to the magnates of Jerusalem: "Lift your heads +from your wine-bowls; look north. The sunshine is still on Samaria, and +your fellow-drinkers there are revelling in security. But the storm +creeps up behind. They shall certainty perish soon; even you cannot help +seeing that. Let it scare you, for their sin is yours, and that storm +will not exhaust itself on Samaria. Do not think that your clever +policies, alliance with Egypt or the treaty with Assyria herself, shall +save you. Men are never saved from death and hell by making covenants +with them. Scorners of religion and righteousness, except ye cease being +sceptical and drunken, and come back from your diplomacy to faith and +reason, ye shall not be saved! This destruction that looms is going to +cover the whole earth. So stop your running to and fro across it in +search of alliances. _He that believeth shall not make haste._ Stay at +home and trust in the God of Zion, for Zion is the one thing that shall +survive." In the parable, which closes the prophecy, Isaiah offers some +relief to this dark prospect: "Do not think of God as a mere +disaster-monger, maker of terrors for men. He has a plan, even in +catastrophe, and this deluge, which looks like destruction for all of +us, has its method, term and fruits, just as much as the husbandman's +harrowing of the earth or threshing of the corn." + +The chapter with this argument falls into four divisions. + + +I. THE WARNING FROM SAMARIA (vv. 1-6). + +They had always been hard drinkers in North Israel. Fifty years before, +Amos flashed judgement on those who trusted in the mount of Samaria, +_lolling upon their couches and gulping their wine out of basons_, women +as well as men. Upon these same drunkards of Ephraim, now soaked and +_stunned with wine_, Isaiah fastens his Woe. Sunny the sky and balmy the +air in which they lie, stretched upon flowers by the heads of their fat +valleys--a land that tempts its inhabitants with the security of +perpetual summer. But God's swift storm drives up the valley--hail, rain +and violent streams from every gorge. Flowers, wreaths and pampered +bodies are trampled in the mire. The glory of sunny Ephraim is as the +first ripe fig a man findeth, and _while it is yet in his hand, he +eateth it up_. But while drunken magnates and the flowers of a rich land +are swept away, there is a residue who can and do abide even that storm, +to whom the Lord Himself shall be for a crown, _a spirit of justice to +him that sitteth for justice, and for strength to them that turn back +the battle at the gate_. + +Isaiah's intention is manifest, and his effort a great one. It is to rob +passion of its magic and change men's temptations to their disgusts, by +exhibiting how squalid passion shows beneath disaster, and how +gloriously purity shines surviving it. It is to strip luxury and +indulgence of their attractiveness by drenching them with the storm of +judgement, and then not to leave them stunned, but to rouse in them a +moral admiration and envy by the presentation of certain grand survivals +of the storm--unstained justice and victorious valour. Isaiah first +sweeps the atmosphere, hot from infective passion, with the cold tempest +from the north. Then in the clear shining after rain he points to two +figures, which have preserved through temptation and disaster, and now +lift against a smiling sky, the ideal that those corrupt judges and +drunken warriors have dragged into the mire--_him that sitteth for +justice and him that turneth back the battle at the gate_. The escape +from sensuality, this passage suggests, is two-fold. There is the +exposure to nature where God's judgements sweep their irresistible way; +and then from the despair, which the unrelieved spectacle of judgement +produces, there is the recovery to moral effort through the admiration +of those purities and heroisms, that by God's Spirit have survived. + +When God has put a conscience into the art or literature of any +generation, they have followed this method of Isaiah, but not always to +the healthy end which he reaches. To show the slaves of Circe the +physical disaster impending--which you must begin by doing if you are to +impress their brutalized minds--is not enough. The lesson of Tennyson's +"Vision of Sin" and of Arnold's "New Sirens," that night and frost, +decay and death, come down at last on pampered sense, is necessary, but +not enough. Who stops there remains a defective and morbid moralist. +When you have made the sensual shiver before the disease that inevitably +awaits them, you must go on to show that there are men who have the +secret of surviving the most terrible judgements of God, and lift their +figures calm and victorious against the storm-washed sky. Preach the +depravity of men, but never apart from the possibilities that remain in +them. It is Isaiah's health as a moralist that he combines the two. No +prophet ever threatened judgement more inexorable and complete than he. +Yet he never failed to tell the sinner, how possible it was for him to +be different. If it were necessary to crush men in the mud, Isaiah would +not leave them there with the hearts of swine. But he put conscience in +them, and the envy of what was pure, and the admiration of what was +victorious. Even as they wallowed, he pointed them to the figures of +men like themselves, who had survived and overcome by the Spirit of +God. Here we perceive the ethical possibilities, that lay in his +fundamental doctrine of a remnant. Isaiah never crushed men beneath the +fear of judgement, without revealing to them the possibility and beauty +of victorious virtue. Had we lived in those great days, what a help he +had been to us--what a help he may be still!--not only firm to declare +that the wages of sin is death, but careful to effect that our +humiliation shall not be despair, and that even when we feel our shame +and irretrievableness the most, we shall have the opportunity to behold +our humanity crowned and seated on the throne from which we had fallen, +our humanity driving back the battle from the gate against which we had +been hopelessly driven! That seventh verse sounds like a trumpet in the +ears of enervated and despairing men. + + +II. GOD'S COMMONPLACE (vv. 7-13). + +But Isaiah has cast his pearls before swine. The men of Jerusalem, whom +he addresses, are too deep in sensuality to be roused by his noble +words. _Even priest and prophet stagger through strong drink_; and the +class that should have been the conscience of the city, responding +immediately to the word of God, _reel in vision and stumble in +judgement_. They turn upon Isaiah's earnest message with tipsy men's +insolence. Verses 9 and 10 should be within inverted commas, for they +are the mocking reply of drunkards over their cups. _Whom is he going to +teach knowledge, and upon whom is he trying to force "the Message,"_ as +he calls it? _Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the +breasts?_ Are we school-children, that he treats us with his endless +platitudes and repetitions--_precept upon precept and precept upon +precept, line upon line and line upon line, here a little and there a +little?_ So did these bibulous prophets, priests and politicians mock +Isaiah's messages of judgement, wagging their heads in mimicry of his +simple, earnest tones. "We must conceive the abrupt, intentionally +short, reiterated and almost childish words of verse 10 as spoken in +mimicry, with a mocking motion of the head, and in a childish, +stammering, taunting tone."[29] + + [29] Ewald. The original runs thus: "Ki tsav la-tsav, tsav la-tsav qav + la-qav, qav la-qav; z'eir sham z'eir sham." + +But Isaiah turns upon them with their own words: "You call me, +Stammerer! I tell you that God, Who speaks through me, and Whom in me +you mock, will one day speak again to you in a tongue that shall indeed +sound stammering to you. When those far-off barbarians have reached your +walls, and over them taunt you in uncouth tones, then shall you hear how +God can stammer. For these shall be the very voice of Him, and as He +threatens you with captivity it shall be your bitterness to remember how +by me He once offered you _a rest and refreshing_, which you refused. I +tell you more. God will not only speak in words, but in deeds, and then +truly your nickname for His message shall be fulfilled to you. Then +shall the word of the Lord be unto you _precept upon precept, precept +upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a +little_. For God shall speak with the terrible simplicity and slowness +of deeds, with the gradual growth of fate, with the monotonous stages of +decay, till step by step you _go, and stumble backward, and be broken, +and snared, and taken_. You have scorned my instruction as monosyllables +fit for children! By irritating monosyllables of gradual penalty shall +God instruct you the second time." + +This is not only a very clever and cynical retort, but the statement of +a moral principle. We gather from Isaiah that God speaks twice to men, +first in words and then by deeds, but both times very simply and +plainly. And if men deride and abuse the simplicity of the former, if +they ignore moral and religious truths because they are elementary, and +rebel against the quiet reiteration of simple voices, with which God +sees it most healthy to conduct their education, then they shall be +stunned by the commonplace pertinacity, with which the effects of their +insolence work themselves out in life. God's ways with men are mostly +commonplace; that is the hardest lesson we have to learn. The tongue of +conscience speaks like the tongue of time, prevailingly by ticks and +moments; not in undue excitement of soul and body, not in the stirring +up of our passions nor by enlisting our ambitions, not in thunder nor in +startling visions, but by everyday precepts of faithfulness, honour and +purity, to which conscience has to rise unwinged by fancy or ambition, +and dreadfully weighted with the dreariness of life. If we, carried away +upon the rushing interests of the world, and with our appetite spoiled +by the wealth and piquancy of intellectual knowledge, despise the simple +monitions of conscience and Scripture, as uninteresting and childish, +this is the risk we run,--that God will speak to us in another, and this +time unshirkable, kind of commonplace. What that is we shall understand, +when a career of dissipation or unscrupulous ambition has bereft life of +all interest and joy, when one enthusiasm after another grows dull, and +one pleasure after another tasteless, when all the little things of life +preach to us of judgement, and _the grasshopper becometh a burden_, and +we, slowly descending through the drab and monotony of decay, suffer the +last great commonplace, death. There can be no greater irony than for +the soul, which has sinned by too greedily seeking for sensation, to +find sensation absent even from the judgements she has brought upon +herself. Poor Heine's _Confessions_ acknowledge, at once with the +appreciation of an artist and the pain of a victim, the satire, with +which the Almighty inflicts, in the way that Isaiah describes, His +penalties upon sins of sense. + + +III. COVENANTS WITH DEATH AND HELL (vv. 14-22). + +To Isaiah's threats of destruction, the politicians of Jerusalem +replied, We have bought destruction off! They meant some treaty with a +foreign power. Diplomacy is always obscure, and at that distance its +details are buried for us in impenetrable darkness. But we may safely +conclude that it was either the treaty of Ahaz with Assyria, or some +counter-treaty executed with Egypt since this power began again to rise +into pretentiousness, or more probably still it was a secret agreement +with the southern power, while the open treaty with the northern was yet +in force. Isaiah, from the way in which he speaks, seems to have been in +ignorance of all, except that the politician's boast was an unhallowed, +underhand intrigue, accomplished by much swindling and false conceit of +cleverness. This wretched subterfuge Isaiah exposes in some of the most +powerful sentences he ever uttered. A faithless diplomacy was never more +thoroughly laid bare, in its miserable mixture of political pedantry and +falsehood. + +_Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye men of scorn, rulers of this +people, which is in Jerusalem!_ + +_Because ye have said, We have entered into a covenant with Death, and +with Hell have we made a bargain; the "Overflowing Scourge,"_ a current +phrase of Isaiah's which they fling back in his teeth, _when it passeth +along, shall not come unto us, for we have set lies as our refuge, and +in falsehood have we hidden ourselves_ [the prophet's penetrating scorn +drags up into their boast the secret conscience of their hearts, that +after all lies did form the basis of this political arrangement], +_therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I lay in Zion for +foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure +foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste._ No need of swift +couriers to Egypt, and fret and fever of poor political brains in +Jerusalem! The word _make haste_ is onomatopoetic, like our _fuss_, and, +if fuss may be applied to the conduct of high affairs of state, its +exact equivalent in meaning. + +_And I will set justice for a line, and righteousness for a plummet, and +hail shall sweep away the subterfuge of lies, and the secrecy shall +waters overflow. And cancelled shall be your covenant with Death, and +your bargain with Hell shall not stand._ + +"_The Overflowing Scourge_," indeed! _When it passeth over, then ye +shall be unto it for trampling. As often as it passeth over, it shall +take you away, for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by +night. Then shall it be sheer terror to realize "the Message"!_ Too late +then for anything else. Had you realized "the Message" now, what rest +and refreshing! But then only terror. + +_For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself upon it, and +the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it._ This proverb +seems to be struck out of the prophet by the belief of the politicians, +that they are creating a stable and restful policy for Judah. It +flashes an aspect of hopeless uneasiness over the whole political +situation. However they make their bed, with Egypt's or Assyria's help, +they shall not find it comfortable. No cleverness of theirs can create a +satisfactory condition of affairs, no political arrangement, nothing +short of faith, of absolute reliance on that bare foundation-stone laid +in Zion,--God's assurance that Jerusalem is inviolable. + +_For Jehovah shall arise as on Mount Peratsim; He shall be stirred as in +the valley of Gibeon, to do His deed--strange is this deed of His, and +to bring to pass His act--strange is His act._ + +_Now, therefore, play no more the scorner, lest your bands be made +tight, for a consumption, and that determined, have I heard from the +Lord, Jehovah of hosts, upon the whole earth._ This finishes the matter. +Possibility of alliance there is for sane men nowhere in this world of +Western Asia, so evidently near convulsion. Only the foundation-stone in +Zion shall be left. Cling to that! + +When the pedantic members of the General Assembly of the Kirk of +Scotland, in the year 1650, were clinging with all the grip of their +hard logic, but with very little heart, to the "Divine right of kings," +and attempting an impossible state, whose statute-book was to be the +Westminster Confession, and its chief executive officer King Charles +II., Cromwell, then encamped at Musselburgh, sent them that letter in +which the famous sentence occurs: "I beseech you in the bowels of +Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. Precept may be upon +precept, line may be upon line," he goes on to say, "and yet the Word of +the Lord may be to some a word of Judgement; that they may fall +backward, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken! There may be a +spiritual fulness, which the world may call drunkenness; as in the +second Chapter of the _Acts_. There may be, as well, a carnal confidence +upon misunderstood and misapplied precepts, which may be called +spiritual drunkenness. There may be a _Covenant_ made with Death and +Hell! I will not say yours was so. But judge if such things have a +politic aim: To avoid the overflowing scourge; or, To accomplish worldly +interests? And if therein you have confederated with wicked and carnal +men, and have respect for them, or otherwise have drawn them in to +associate with us, Whether this be a covenant of God and spiritual? +Bethink yourselves; we hope we do. + +"I pray you read the Twenty-eighth of Isaiah, from the fifth to the +fifteenth verse. And do not scorn to know that it is the Spirit that +quickens and giveth life."[30] + + [30] _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, Letter cxxxvi. + +Cromwell, as we have said, is the best commentator Isaiah has ever had, +and that by an instinct born, not only of the same faith, but of +experience in tackling similar sorts of character. In this letter he is +dealing, like Isaiah, with stubborn pedants, who are endeavouring to +fasten the national fortunes upon a Procrustean policy. The diplomacy of +Jerusalem was very clever; the Covenanting ecclesiasticism of Edinburgh +was logical and consistent. But a Jewish alliance with Assyria and the +attempt of Scotsmen to force their covenant upon the whole United +Kingdom were equally sheer impossibilities. In either case _the bed was +shorter than that a man could stretch himself on it, and the covering +narrower than that he could wrap himself in it_. Both, too, were +covenants with Death and Hell; for if the attempt of the Scots to secure +Charles II. by the Covenant was free from the falsehood of Jewish +diplomacy, it was fatally certain if successful to have led to the +subversion of their highest religious interests; and history has proved +that Cromwell was no more than just in applying to it the strong +expressions, which Isaiah uses of Judah's ominous treaties with the +unscrupulous heathen. Over against so pedantic an idea, as that of +forcing the life of the three nations into the mould of the one +Covenant, and so fatal a folly as the attempt to commit the interests of +religion to the keeping of the dissolute and perjured king, Cromwell +stands in his great toleration of everything but unrighteousness and his +strong conviction of three truths:--that the religious life of Great +Britain and Ireland was too rich and varied for the Covenant: that +national and religious interests so complicated and precious could be +decided only upon the plainest principles of faith and justice: and +that, tested by these principles, Charles II. and his crew were as +utterly without worth to the nation and as pregnant with destruction, as +Isaiah felt Assyria and Egypt to be to Judah. The battle-cries of the +two parties at Dunbar are significant of the spiritual difference +between them. That of the Scots was "The Covenant!" Cromwell's was +Isaiah's own, "The Lord of hosts!" However logical, religious and +sincere theirs might be, it was at the best a scheme of men too narrow +for events, and fatally compromised by its association with Charles II. +But Cromwell's battle-cry required only a moderately sincere faith from +those who adopted it, to ensure their victory. For to them it meant just +what it had meant to Isaiah, loyalty to a Divine providence, supreme in +righteousness, the willingness to be guided by events, interpreting them +by no tradition or scheme, but only by conscience. He who understands +this will be able to see which side was right in that strange civil war, +where both so sincerely claimed to be Scriptural. + +It may be wondered why we spend so much argument on comparing the +attempt to force Charles II. into the Solemn League and Covenant with +the impious treaty of Judah with the heathen. But the argument has not +been wasted, if it have shown how even sincere and religious men may +make covenants with death, and even Church creeds and constitutions +become beds too short that a man may lie upon them, coverings narrower +than that he can wrap himself in them. Not once or twice has it happened +that an old and hallowed constitution has become, in the providence of +God, unfit for the larger life of a people or of a Church, and yet is +clung to by parties in that Church or people from motives of theological +pedantry or ecclesiastical cowardice. Sooner or later a crisis is sure +to arrive, in which the defective creed has to match itself against some +interest of justice; and then endless compromises have to be +entertained, that discover themselves perilously like _bargains with +hell_. If we of this generation have to make a public application of the +twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, it lies in this direction. There are +few things, to which his famous proverb of the short bed can be applied +more aptly, than to the attempt to fasten down the religious life and +thought of the present age too rigorously upon a creed of the fashion of +two or three hundred years ago. + +But Isaiah's words have wider application. Short of faith as he +exemplified it, there is no possibility for the spirit of man to be free +from uneasiness. It is so all along the scale of human endeavour. No +power of patience or of hope is his, who cannot imagine possibilities +of truth outside his own opinions, nor trust a justice larger than his +private rights. It is here very often that the real test of our faith +meets us. If we seek to fit life solely to the conception of our +privileges, if in the preaching of our opinions no mystery of higher +truth awe us at least into reverence and caution; then, whatever +religious creeds we profess, we are not men of faith, but shall surely +inherit the bitterness and turmoil that are the portion of unbelievers. +If we make it the chief aim of our politics to drive cheap bargains for +our trade or to be consistent to party or class interests; if we trim +our conscience to popular opinion; if we sell our honesty in business or +our love in marriage, that we may be comfortable in the world; then, +however firmly we be established in reputation or in welfare, we have +given our spiritual nature a support utterly inadequate to its needs, +and we shall never find rest. Sooner or later, a man must feel the pinch +of having cut his life short of the demands of conscience. Only a +generous loyalty to her decrees will leave him freedom of heart and room +for his arm to swing. Nor will any philosophy, however comprehensive, +nor poetic fancy, however elastic, be able without the complement of +faith to arrange, to account for, or to console us for, the actual facts +of experience. It is only belief in the God of Isaiah, a true and loving +God, omnipotent Ruler of our life, that can bring us peace. There was +never a sorrow, that did not find explanation in that, never a tired +thought, that would not cling to it. There are no interests so scattered +nor energies so far-reaching that there is not return and rest for them +under the shadow of His wings. _He that believeth shall not make haste._ +_Be still_, says a psalm of the same date as Isaiah--_Be still, and know +that I am God_. + + +IV. THE ALMIGHTY THE ALL-METHODICAL (vv. 23-29). + +The patience of faith, which Isaiah has so nobly preached, he now +proceeds to vindicate by reason. But the vindication implies that his +audience are already in another mood. From confidence in their clever +diplomacy, heedless of the fact that God has His own purposes concerning +them, they have swung round to despair before His judgements. Their +despair, however, is due to the same fault as their careless +confidence--the forgetfulness that God works by counsel and method. Even +a calamity, so universal and extreme as that, of whose certainty the +prophet has now convinced them, has its measure and its term. To +persuade the crushed and superstitious Jews of this, Isaiah employs a +parable. "You know," he says, "the husbandman. Have you ever seen him +keep on _harrowing and breaking the clods of his land_ for mere sport, +and without farther intention? Does not the harrowing time lead to the +sowing time? Or again, when he threshes his crops, does he thresh for +ever? Is threshing the end he has in view? Look, how he varies the +rigour of his instrument by the kind of plant he threshes. For delicate +plants, like fitches and cummin, he does not use the _threshing sledge_ +with the sharp teeth, or the lumbering _roller, but the fitches are +beaten out with a staff and the cummin with a rod_. And in the case of +_bread corn_, which needs _his roller and horses_, he does not use these +upon it till it is all _crushed to dust_." The application of this +parable is very evident. If the husbandman be so methodical and careful, +shall the God who taught him not also be so? If the violent treatment of +land and fruits be so measured and adapted for their greater +fruitfulness and purity, ought we not to trust God to have the same +intentions in His violent treatment of His people? Isaiah here returns +to his fundamental gospel: that the Almighty is the All-methodical, too. +Men forget this. In their times of activity they think God indifferent; +they are too occupied with their own schemes for shaping life, to +imagine that He has any. In days of suffering, again, when disaster +bursts, they conceive of God only as force and vengeance. Yet, says +Isaiah, _Jehovah of hosts is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in that +sort of wisdom which causes things to succeed_. This last word of the +chapter is very expressive. It literally means _furtherance, help, +salvation_, and then _the true wisdom or insight which ensures these: +the wisdom which carries things through_. It splendidly sums up Isaiah's +gospel to the Jews, cowering like dogs before the coming calamity: God +is not mere force or vengeance. His judgements are not chaos. But _He is +wonderful in counsel_, and all His ways have _furtherance_ or +_salvation_ for their end. + +We have said this is one of the finest prophecies of Isaiah. His +political foresight was admirable, when he alone of his countrymen +predicted the visitation of Assyria upon Judah. But now, when all are +convinced of it, how still more wonderful does he seem facing that novel +disaster, with the whole world's force behind it, and declaring its +limit. He has not the temptation, so strong in prophets of judgement, to +be a mere disaster-monger, and leave judgement on the horizon +unrelieved. Nor is he afraid, as other predicters of evil have been, of +the monster he has summoned to the land. The secret of this is that from +the first he predicted the Assyrian invasion, not out of any private +malice nor merely by superior political foresight, but because he +knew--and knew, as he tells us, by the inspiration of God's own +Spirit--that God required such an instrument to punish the +unrighteousness of Judah. If the enemy was summoned by God at the first, +surely till the last the enemy shall be in God's hand. + +To this enemy we are now to see Isaiah turn with the same message he has +delivered to the men of Jerusalem. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +_ATHEISM OF FORCE AND ATHEISM OF FEAR._ + +ISAIAH x. 5-34 (ABOUT 721 B.C.). + + +In chap. xxviii. Isaiah, speaking in the year 725 when Salmanassar IV. +was marching on Samaria, had explained to the politicians of Jerusalem +how entirely the Assyrian host was in the hand of Jehovah for the +punishment of Samaria and the punishment and purification of Judah. The +invasion which in that year loomed so awful was not unbridled force of +destruction, implying the utter annihilation of God's people, as +Damascus, Arpad and Hamath had been annihilated. It was Jehovah's +instrument for purifying His people, with its appointed term and its +glorious intentions of fruitfulness and peace. + +In the tenth chapter Isaiah turns with this truth to defy the Assyrian +himself. It is four years later. Samaria has fallen. The judgement, +which the prophet spoke upon the luxurious capital, has been fulfilled. +All Ephraim is an Assyrian province. Judah stands for the first time +face to face with Assyria. From Samaria to the borders of Judah is not +quite two days' march, to the walls of Jerusalem a little over two. Now +shall the Jews be able to put to the test their prophet's promise! What +can possibly prevent Sargon from making Zion as Samaria, and carrying +her people away in the track of the northern tribes to captivity? + +There was a very fallacious human reason, and there was a very sound +Divine one. + +The fallacious human reason was the alliance which Ahaz had made with +Assyria. In what state that alliance now was, does not clearly appear, +but the most optimist of the Assyrian party at Jerusalem could not, +after all that had happened, be feeling quite comfortable about it. The +Assyrian was as unscrupulous as themselves. There was too much impetus +in the rush of his northern floods to respect a tiny province like +Judah, treaty or no treaty. Besides, Sargon had as good reason to +suspect Jerusalem of intriguing with Egypt, as he had against Samaria or +the Philistine cities; and the Assyrian kings had already shown their +meaning of the covenant with Ahaz by stripping Judah of enormous +tribute. + +So Isaiah discounts in this prophecy Judah's treaty with Assyria. He +speaks as if nothing was likely to prevent the Assyrian's immediate +march upon Jerusalem. He puts into Sargon's mouth the intention of this, +and makes him boast of the ease with which it can be accomplished (vv. +7-11). In the end of the prophecy he even describes the probable +itinerary of the invader from the borders of Judah to his arrival on the +heights, over against the Holy City (vv. 27 last clause to 32).[31] + + [31] It will be noticed that in the above version a different reading is + adopted from the meaningless clause at the end of verse 27 in the + English version, out of which a proper heading for the subsequent + itinerary has been obtained by Robertson Smith (_Journal of Philology_, + 1884, p. 62). + +_Cometh up from the North the Destroyer._ + +_He is come upon Ai; marcheth through Migron; at Michmash musters his +baggage._ + +_They have passed through the Pass; "Let Geba be our bivouac."_ + +_Terror-struck is Ramah; Gibeah of Saul hath fled._ + +_Make shrill thy voice, O daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! Answer +her, Anathoth!_ + +_In mad flight is Madmenah; the dwellers in Gebim gather their stuff to +flee._ + +_This very day he halteth at Nob; he waveth his hand at the Mount of the +Daughter of Zion, the Hill of Jerusalem._ + +This is not actual fact; but it is vision of what may take place to-day +or to-morrow. For there is nothing--not even that miserable treaty--to +prevent such a violation of Jewish territory, within which, it ought to +be kept in mind, lie all the places named by the prophet. + +But the invasion of Judah and the arrival of the Assyrian on the heights +over against Jerusalem does not mean that the Holy City and the shrine +of Jehovah of hosts are to be destroyed; does not mean that all the +prophecies of Isaiah about the security of this rallying-place for the +remnant of God's people are to be annulled, and Israel annihilated. For +just at the moment of the Assyrian's triumph, when he brandishes his +hand over Jerusalem, as if he would harry it like a bird's nest, Isaiah +beholds him struck down, and crash like the fall of a whole Lebanon of +cedars (vv. 33, 34). + +_Behold the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, lopping the topmost boughs with a +sudden crash,_ + +_And the high ones of stature hewn down, and the lofty are brought low!_ + +_Yea, He moweth down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon +by a Mighty One falleth._ + +All this is poetry. We are not to suppose that the prophet actually +expected the Assyrian to take the route, which he has laid down for him +with so much detail. As a matter of fact, Sargon did not advance across +the Jewish frontier, but turned away by the coast-land of Philistia to +meet his enemy of Egypt, whom he defeated at Rafia, and then went home +to Nineveh, leaving Judah alone. And, although some twenty years later +the Assyrian did appear before Jerusalem, as threatening as Isaiah +describes, and was cut down in as sudden and miraculous a manner, yet it +was not by the itinerary Isaiah here marked for him that he came, but in +quite another direction: from the south-west. What Isaiah merely insists +upon is that there is nothing in that wretched treaty of Ahaz--that +fallacious _human_ reason--to keep Sargon from overrunning Judah to the +very walls of Jerusalem, but that, even though he does so, there is a +most sure _Divine_ reason for the Holy City remaining inviolate. + +The Assyrian expected to take Jerusalem. But he is not his own master. +Though he knows it not, and his only instinct is that of destruction +(ver. 7), he is the rod in God's hand. And when God shall have used him +for the needed punishment of Judah, then will God visit upon him his +arrogance and brutality. This man, who says he will exploit the whole +earth as he harries a bird's nest (ver. 14), who believes in nothing but +himself, saying, _By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my +wisdom, for I am prudent_, is but the instrument of God, and all his +boasting is that of _the axe against him that heweth therewith and of +the saw against him that wieldeth it_. _As if_, says the prophet, with a +scorn still fresh for those who make material force the ultimate power +in the universe--_As if a rod should shake them that lift it up, or as +if a staff should lift up him that is not wood_. By the way, Isaiah has +a word for his countrymen. What folly is theirs, who now put all their +trust in this world-force, and at another time cower in abject fear +before it! Must he again bid them look higher, and see that Assyria is +only the agent in God's work of first punishing the whole land, but +afterwards redeeming His people! In the midst of denunciation the +prophet's stern voice breaks into the promise of this later hope (vv. +24-27_a_); and at last the crash of the fallen Assyrian is scarcely +still, before Isaiah has begun to declare a most glorious future of +grace for Israel. But this carries us over into the eleventh chapter, +and we had better first of all gather up the lessons of the tenth. + +This prophecy of Isaiah contains a great Gospel and two great Protests, +which the prophet was enabled to make in the strength of it: one against +the Atheism of Force, and one against the Atheism of Fear. + +The Gospel of the chapter is just that which we have already emphasized +as the gospel _par excellence_ of Isaiah: the Lord exalted in +righteousness, God supreme over the supremest men and forces of the +world. But we now see it carried to a height of daring not reached +before. This was the first time that any man faced the sovereign force +of the world in the full sweep of victory, and told himself and his +fellow-men: "This is not travelling in the greatness of its own +strength, but is simply a dead, unconscious instrument in the hand of +God." Let us, at the cost of a little repetition, get at the heart of +this. We shall find it wonderfully modern. + +Belief in God had hitherto been local and circumscribed. Each nation, as +Isaiah tells us, had walked in the name of its god, and limited his +power and prevision to its own life and territory. We do not blame the +peoples for this. Their conception of God was narrow, because their life +was narrow, and they confined the power of their deity to their own +borders because, in fact, their thoughts seldom strayed beyond. But now +the barriers, that had so long enclosed mankind in narrow circles, were +being broken down. Men's thoughts travelled through the breaches, and +learned that outside their fatherland there lay the world. Their lives +thereupon widened immensely, but their theologies stood still. They felt +the great forces which shook the world, but their gods remained the same +petty, provincial deities. Then came this great Assyrian power, hurtling +through the nations, laughing at their gods as idols, boasting that it +was by his own strength he overcame them, and to simple eyes making good +his boast as he harried the whole earth like a bird's nest. No wonder +that men's hearts were drawn from the unseen spiritualities to this very +visible brutality! No wonder all real faith in the gods seemed to be +dying out, and that men made it the business of their lives to seek +peace with this world-force, that was carrying everything, including the +gods themselves, before it! Mankind was in danger of practical atheism: +of placing, as Isaiah tells us, the ultimate faith which belongs to a +righteous God in this brute force: of substituting embassies for +prayers, tribute for sacrifice, and the tricks and compromises of +diplomacy for the endeavour to live a holy and righteous life. Behold, +what questions were at issue: questions that have come up again and +again in the history of human thought, and that are tugging at us to-day +harder than ever!--whether the visible, sensible forces of the +universe, that break so rudely in upon our primitive theologies, are +what we men have to make our peace with, or whether there is behind them +a Being, who wields them for purposes, far transcending them, of justice +and of love; whether, in short, we are to be materialists or believers +in God. It is the same old, ever-new debate. The factors of it have only +changed a little as we have become more learned. Where Isaiah felt the +Assyrians, we are confronted by the evolution of nature and history, and +the material forces into which it sometimes looks ominously like as if +these could be analysed. Everything that has come forcibly and +gloriously to the front of things, every drift that appears to dominate +history, all that asserts its claim on our wonder, and offers its own +simple and strong solution of our life--is our Assyria. It is precisely +now, as then, a rush of new powers across the horizon of our knowledge, +which makes the God, who was sufficient for the narrower knowledge of +yesterday, seem petty and old-fashioned to-day. This problem no +generation can escape, whose vision of the world has become wider than +that of its predecessors. But Isaiah's greatness lay in this: that it +was given to him to attack the problem the first time it presented +itself to humanity with any serious force, and that he applied to it the +only sure solution--a more lofty and spiritual view of God than the one +which it had found wanting. We may thus paraphrase his argument: "Give +me a God who is more than a national patron, give me a God who cares +only for righteousness, and I say that every material force the world +exhibits is nothing but subordinate to Him. Brute force cannot be +anything but an instrument, _an axe_, _a saw_, something essentially +mechanical and in need of an arm to lift it. Postulate a supreme and +righteous Ruler of the world, and you not only have all its movements +explained, but may rest assured, that it shall only be permitted to +execute justice and purify men. The world cannot prevent their +salvation, if God have willed this." + +Isaiah's problem was thus the fundamental one between faith and atheism; +but we must notice that it did not arise theoretically, nor did he meet +it by an abstract proposition. This fundamental religious +question--whether men are to trust in the visible forces of the world or +in the invisible God--came up as a bit of practical politics. It was not +to Isaiah a philosophical or theological question. It was an affair in +the foreign policy of Judah. + +Except to a few thinkers, the question between materialism and faith +never does present itself as one of abstract argument. To the mass of +men it is always a question of practical life. Statesmen meet it in +their policies, private persons in the conduct of their fortunes. Few of +us trouble our heads about an intellectual atheism, but the temptations +to practical atheism abound unto us all day by day. Materialism never +presents itself as a mere _ism_; it always takes some concrete form. Our +Assyria may be the world in Christ's sense, that flood of successful, +heartless, unscrupulous, scornful forces which burst on our innocence, +with their challenge to make terms and pay tribute, or go down +straightway in the struggle for existence. Beside their frank and +forceful demands, how commonplace and irrelevant do the simple precepts +of religion often seem; and how the great brazen laugh of the world +seems to bleach the beauty out of purity and honour! According to our +temper, we either cower before its insolence, whining that character and +energy of struggle and religious peace are impossible against it; and +that is the Atheism of Fear, with which Isaiah charged the men of +Jerusalem, when they were paralysed before Assyria. Or we seek to ensure +ourselves against disaster by alliance with the world. We make ourselves +one with it, its subjects and imitators. We absorb the world's temper, +get to believe in nothing but success, regard men only as they can be +useful to us, and think so exclusively of ourselves as to lose the +faculty of imagining about us any other right or need or pity. And all +that is the Atheism of Force, with which Isaiah charged the Assyrian. It +is useless to think, that we common men cannot possibly sin after the +grand manner of this imperial monster. In our measure we fatally can. In +this commercial age private persons very easily rise to a position of +influence, which gives almost as vast a stage for egotism to display +itself as the Assyrian boasted. But after all the human Ego needs very +little room to develop the possibilities of atheism that are in it. An +idol is an idol, whether you put it on a small or a large pedestal. A +little man with a little work may as easily stand between himself and +God, as an emperor with the world at his feet. Forgetfulness that he is +a servant, a trader on graciously entrusted capital--and then at the +best an unprofitable one--is not less sinful in a small egoist than in a +great one; it is only very much more ridiculous, than Isaiah, with his +scorn, has made it to appear in the Assyrian. + +Or our Assyria may be the forces of nature, which have swept upon the +knowledge of this generation with the novelty and impetus, with which +the northern hosts burst across the horizon of Israel. Men to-day, in +the course of their education, become acquainted with laws and forces, +which dwarf the simpler theologies of their boyhood, pretty much as the +primitive beliefs of Israel dwindled before the arrogant face of +Assyria. The alternative confronts them either to retain, with a +narrowed and fearful heart, their old conceptions of God, or to find +their enthusiasm in studying, and their duty in relating themselves to, +the forces of nature alone. If this be the only alternative, there can +be no doubt but that most men will take the latter course. We ought as +little to wonder at men of to-day abandoning certain theologies and +forms of religion for a downright naturalism--for the study of powers +that appeal so much to the curiosity and reverence of man--as we wonder +at the poor Jews of the eighth century before Christ forsaking their +provincial conceptions of God as a tribal Deity for homage to this great +Assyrian, who handled the nations and their gods as his playthings. But +is such the only alternative? Is there no higher and sovereign +conception of God, in which even these natural forces may find their +explanation and term? Isaiah found such a conception for his problem, +and his problem was very similar to ours. Beneath his idea of God, +exalted and spiritual, even the imperial Assyrian, in all his arrogance, +fell subordinate and serviceable. The prophet's faith never wavered, and +in the end was vindicated by history. Shall we not at least attempt his +method of solution? We could not do better than by taking his factors. +Isaiah got a God more powerful than Assyria, by simply _exalting_ the +old God of his nation _in righteousness_. This Hebrew was saved from the +terrible conclusion, that the selfish, cruel force which in his day +carried all before it was the highest power in life, simply by believing +righteousness to be more exalted still. But have twenty-five centuries +made any change upon this power, by which Isaiah interpreted history +and overcame the world? Is righteousness less sovereign now than then, +or was conscience more imperative when it spoke in Hebrew than when it +speaks in English? Among the decrees of nature, at last interpreted for +us in all their scope and reiterated upon our imaginations by the ablest +men of the age, truth, purity and civic justice as confidently assert +their ultimate victory, as when they were threatened merely by the +arrogance of a human despot. The discipline of science and the glories +of the worship of nature are indeed justly vaunted over the childish and +narrow-minded ideas of God, that prevail in much of our average +Christianity. But more glorious than anything in earth or heaven is +character, and the adoration of a holy and loving will makes more for +"victory and law" than the discipline or the enthusiasm of science. +Therefore, if our conceptions of God are overwhelmed by what we know of +nature, let us seek to enlarge and spiritualize them. Let us insist, as +Isaiah did, upon His righteousness, until our God once more appear +indubitably supreme. + +Otherwise we are left with the intolerable paradox, that truth and +honesty, patience and the love of man to man, are after all but the +playthings and victims of force; that, to adapt the words of Isaiah, the +rod really shakes him who lifts it up, and the staff is wielding that +which is not wood. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +_THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN MAN AND THE ANIMALS._ + +ISAIAH xi., xii. (ABOUT 720 B.C.?) + + +Beneath the crash of the Assyrian with which the tenth chapter closes, +we pass out into the eleventh upon a glorious prospect of Israel's +future. The Assyrian when he falls shall fall for ever like the cedars +of Lebanon, that send no fresh sprout forth from their broken stumps. +But out of the trunk of the Judaean oak, also brought down by these +terrible storms, Isaiah sees springing a fair and powerful Branch. +Assyria, he would tell us, has no future. Judah has a future, and at +first the prophet sees it in a scion of her royal house. The nation +shall be almost exterminated, the dynasty of David hewn to a stump; _yet +there shall spring a shoot from the stock of Jesse, and a branch from +his roots shall bear fruit_. + +The picture of this future, which fills the eleventh chapter, is one of +the most extensive that Isaiah has drawn. Three great prospects are +unfolded in it: a prospect of mind, a prospect of nature and a prospect +of history. To begin with, there is (vv. 2-5) the geography of a royal +mind in its stretches of character, knowledge and achievement. We have +next (vv. 5-9) a vision of the restitution of nature, Paradise regained. +And, thirdly (vv. 9-16), there is the geography of Israel's redemption, +the coasts and highways along which the hosts of the dispersion sweep up +from captivity to a station of supremacy over the world. To this third +prospect chapter xii. forms a fitting conclusion, a hymn of praise in +the mouth of returning exiles.[32] The human mind, nature and history +are the three dimensions of life, and across them all the prophet tells +us that the Spirit of the Lord will fill the future with His marvels of +righteousness, wisdom and peace. He presents to us three great ideals: +the perfect indwelling of our humanity by the Spirit of God; the peace +and communion of all nature, covered with the knowledge of God; the +traversing of all history by the Divine purposes of redemption. + + [32] The authenticity of this hymn has been called in question. + + +I. THE MESSIAH AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD (xi. 1-5). + +The first form, in which Isaiah sees Israel's longed-for future +realised, is that which he so often exalts and makes glistering upon the +threshold of the future--the form of a king. It is a peculiarity, which +we cannot fail to remark about Isaiah's scattered representations of +this brilliant figure, that they have no connecting link. They do not +allude to one another, nor employ a common terminology, even the word +_king_ dropping out of some of them. The earliest of the series bestows +a name on the Messiah, which none of the others repeat, nor does Isaiah +say in any of them, This is He of whom I have spoken before. Perhaps the +disconnectedness of these oracles is as strong a proof as is necessary +of the view we have formed that throughout his ministry our prophet had +before him no distinct, identical individual, but rather an ideal of +virtue and kinghood, whose features varied according to the conditions +of the time. In this chapter Isaiah recalls nothing of Immanuel, or of +the Prince-of-the-Four-Names. Nevertheless (besides for the first time +deriving the Messiah from the house of David), he carries his +description forward to a stage which lies beyond and to some extent +implies his two previous portraits. Immanuel was only a Sufferer with +His people in the day of their oppression. The Prince-of-the-Four-Names +was the Redeemer of his people from their captivity, and stepped to his +throne not only after victory, but with the promise of a long and just +government shining from the titles by which He was proclaimed. But now +Isaiah not only speaks at length of this peaceful reign--a chronological +advance--but describes his hero so inwardly that we also feel a certain +spiritual advance. The Messiah is no more a mere experience, as Immanuel +was, nor only outward deed and promise, like the Prince-of-the-Four-Names, +but at last, and very strongly, _a character_. The second verse is the +definition of this character; the third describes the atmosphere in +which it lives. _And there shall rest upon him the Spirit of Jehovah, +the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, +the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah; and he shall draw breath +in the fear of Jehovah_--in other words, ripeness but also sharpness of +mind; moral decision and heroic energy; piety in its two forms of +knowing the will of God and feeling the constraint to perform it. We +could not have a more concise summary of the strong elements of a ruling +mind. But it is only as Judge and Ruler that Isaiah cares here to think +of his hero. Nothing is said of the tender virtues, and we feel that the +prophet still stands in the days of the need of inflexible government +and purgation in Judah. + +Dean Plumptre has plausibly suggested, that these verses may represent +the programme which Isaiah set before his pupil Hezekiah on his +accession to the charge of a nation, whom his weak predecessor had +suffered to lapse into such abuse of justice and laxity of morals.[33] +The acts of government described are all of a punitive and repressive +character. The hero speaks only to make the land tremble: _And He shall +smite the land[34] with the rod of His mouth_ [what need, after the +whispering, indecisive Ahaz!], _and with the breath of His lips shall He +slay the wicked_. + + [33] Dean Plumptre notes the identity of the ethical terminology of this + passage with that of the book of Proverbs, and conjectures that the + additions to the original nucleus, chaps. x.-xxiv., and therefore the + whole form, of the book of Proverbs, may be due to the editorship of + Isaiah, and perhaps was the manual of ethics, on which he sought to + mould the character of Hezekiah (_Expositor_, series ii., v., p. 213). + + [34] Perhaps for _land--'arets_--we ought, with Lagarde, to read + _tyrant--'arits_. + +This, though a fuller and more ethical picture of the Messiah than even +the ninth chapter, is evidently wanting in many of the traits of a +perfect man. Isaiah has to grow in his conception of his Hero, and will +grow as the years go on, in tenderness. His thirty-second chapter is a +much richer, a more gracious and humane picture of the Messiah. There +the Victor of the ninth and righteous Judge of the eleventh chapters is +represented as _a Man_, who shall not only punish but protect, and not +only reign but inspire, who shall be life as well as victory and justice +to His people--_an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the +tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great +rock in a weary land_. + +A conception so limited to the qualifications of an earthly monarch, as +this of chap. xi., gives us no ground for departing from our previous +conclusion, that Isaiah had not a "supernatural" personality in his +view. The Christian Church, however, has not confined the application of +the passage to earthly kings and magistrates, but has seen its perfect +fulfilment in the indwelling of Christ's human nature by the Holy Ghost. +But it is remarkable, that for this exegesis she has not made use of the +most "supernatural" of the details of character here portrayed. If the +Old Testament has a phrase for sinlessness, that phrase occurs here, in +the beginning of the third verse. In the authorized English version it +is translated, _and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of +the Lord_, and in the Revised Version, _His delight shall be in the fear +of the Lord_, and on the margin the literal meaning of _delight_ is +given as _scent_. But the phrase may as well mean, _He shall draw his +breath in the fear of the Lord_; and it is a great pity, that our +revisers have not even on the margin given to English readers any +suggestion of so picturesque, and probably so correct, a rendering. It +is a most expressive definition of sinlessness--sinlessness which was +the attribute of Christ alone. We, however purely intentioned we be, are +compassed about by an atmosphere of sin. We cannot help breathing what +now inflames our passions, now chills our warmest feelings, and makes +our throats incapable of honest testimony or glorious praise. As oxygen +to a dying fire, so the worldliness we breathe is to the sin within us. +We cannot help it; it is the atmosphere into which we are born. But from +this Christ alone of men was free. He was His own atmosphere, _drawing +breath in the fear of the Lord_. Of Him alone is it recorded, that, +though living in the world, He was never infected with the world's sin. +The blast of no man's cruelty ever kindled unholy wrath within His +breast; nor did men's unbelief carry to His soul its deadly chill. Not +even when He was led of the devil into the atmosphere of temptation, did +His heart throb with one rebellious ambition. Christ _drew breath in the +fear of the Lord_. + +But draughts of this atmosphere are possible to us also, to whom the +Holy Spirit is granted. We too, who sicken with the tainted breath of +society, and see the characters of children about us fall away and the +hidden evil within leap to swift flame before the blasts of the +world--we too may, by Christ's grace, _draw breath_, like Him, _in the +fear of the Lord_. Recall some day when, leaving your close room and the +smoky city, you breasted the hills of God, and into opened lungs drew +deep draughts of the fresh air of heaven. What strength it gave your +body, and with what a glow of happiness your mind was filled! What that +is physically, Christ has made possible for us men morally. He has +revealed stretches and eminences of life, where, following in His +footsteps, we also shall draw for our breath the fear of God. This air +is inspired up every steep hill of effort, and upon all summits of +worship. In the most passion-haunted air, prayer will immediately bring +this atmosphere about a man, and on the wings of praise the poorest soul +may rise from the miasma of temptation, and sing forth her song into the +azure with as clear a throat as the lark's. + +And what else is heaven to be, if not this? God, we are told, shall be +its Sun; but its atmosphere shall be His fear, _which is clean and +endureth for ever_. Heaven seems most real as a moral open-air, where +every breath is an inspiration, and every pulse a healthy joy, where no +thoughts from within us find breath but those of obedience and praise, +and all our passions and aspirations are of the will of God. He that +lives near to Christ, and by Christ often seeks God in prayer, may +create for himself even on earth such a heaven, _perfecting holiness in +the fear of God_. + + +II. THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD (xi. 2, 3). + +This passage, which suggests so much of Christ, is also for Christian +Theology and Art a classical passage on the Third Person of the Trinity. +If the texts in the book of Revelation (chaps. i. 4; iii. 1; iv. 5; v. +6) upon the Seven Spirits of God were not themselves founded on this +text of Isaiah, it is certain that the Church immediately began to +interpret them by its details. While there are only six spirits of God +named here--three pairs--yet, in order to complete the perfect number, +the exegesis of early Christianity sometimes added _the Spirit of the +Lord_ at the beginning of verse 2 as the central branch of a +seven-branched candlestick; or sometimes _the quick understanding in the +fear of the Lord_ in the beginning of verse 3 was attached as the +seventh branch. (Compare Zech. iv. 6.) + +It is remarkable that there is almost no single text of Scripture, which +has more impressed itself upon Christian doctrine and symbol than this +second verse of the eleventh chapter, interpreted as a definition of the +Seven Spirits of God. In the theology, art and worship of the Middle +Ages it dominated the expression of the work of the Holy Ghost. First, +and most native to its origin, arose the employment of this text at the +coronation of kings and the fencing of tribunals of justice. What Isaiah +wrote for Hezekiah of Judah became the official prayer, song or ensample +of the earliest Christian kings in Europe. It is evidently the model of +that royal hymn--not by Charlemagne, as usually supposed, but by his +grandson Charles the Bald--the _Veni Creator Spiritus_. In a Greek +miniature of the tenth century, the Holy Spirit, as a dove, is seen +hovering over King David, who displays the prayer: _Give the king Thy +judgements, O God, and Thy righteousness to the king's son_, while there +stand on either side of him the figures of Wisdom and Prophecy.[35] +Henry III.'s order of knighthood, "Du Saint Esprit," was restricted to +political men, and particularly to magistrates. But perhaps the most +interesting identification of the Holy Spirit with the rigorous virtues +of our passage occurs in a story of St. Dunstan, who, just before mass +on the day of Pentecost, discovered that three coiners, who had been +sentenced to death, were being respited till the Festival of the Holy +Ghost should be over. "It shall not be thus," cried the indignant saint, +and gave orders for their immediate execution. There was remonstrance, +but he, no doubt with the eleventh of Isaiah in mind, insisted, and was +obeyed. "I now hope," he said, resuming the mass, "that God will be +pleased to accept the sacrifice I am about to offer." "Whereupon," says +the veracious _Acts of the Saints_, "a snow-white dove did, in the +vision of many, descend from heaven, and until the sacrifice was +completed remain above his head in silence, with wings extended and +motionless." Which may be as much legend as we have the heart to make +it, but nevertheless remains a sure proof of the association, by +discerning mediaevals who could read their Scriptures, of the Holy Spirit +with the decisiveness and rigorous justice of Isaiah's "mirror for +magistrates."[36] + + [35] Didron, _Christian Iconography_, Engl. trans., i., 432. + + [36] Didron, _Christian Iconography_, Engl. trans., i., 426. + +But the influence of our passage may be followed to that wider +definition of the Spirit's work, which made Him the Fountain of all +intelligence. The Spirits of the Lord mentioned by Isaiah are +prevailingly intellectual; and the mediaeval Church, using the details of +this passage to interpret Christ's own intimation of the Paraclete as +the Spirit of truth,--remembering also the story of Pentecost, when the +Spirit bestowed the gifts of tongues, and the case of Stephen, who, in +the triumph of his eloquence and learning, was said to be full of the +Holy Ghost,--did regard, as Gregory of Tours expressly declared, the +Holy Spirit as the "God of the intellect more than of the heart." All +Councils were opened by a mass to the Holy Ghost, and few, who have +examined with care the windows of mediaeval churches, will have failed to +be struck with the frequency with which the Dove is seen descending upon +the heads of miraculously learned persons, or presiding at discussions, +or hovering over groups of figures representing the sciences.[37] To the +mediaeval Church, then, the Holy Spirit was the Author of the intellect, +more especially of the governing and political intellect; and there can +be little doubt, after a study of the variations of this doctrine, that +the first five verses of the eleventh of Isaiah formed upon it the +classical text of appeal. To Christians, who have been accustomed by the +use of the word _Comforter_ to associate the Spirit only with the +gentle and consoling influences of heaven, it may seem strange to find +His energy identified with the stern rigour of the magistrate. But in +its practical, intelligent and reasonable uses the mediaeval doctrine is +greatly to be preferred, on grounds both of Scripture and common-sense, +to those two comparatively modern corruptions of it, one of which +emphasizes the Spirit's influence in the exclusive operation of the +grace of orders, and the other, driving to an opposite extreme, +dissipates it into the vaguest religiosity. It is one of the curiosities +of Christian theology, that a Divine influence, asserted by Scripture +and believed by the early Church to manifest itself in the successful +conduct of civil offices and the fulness of intellectual learning, +should in these latter days be so often set up in a sort of +"supernatural" opposition to practical wisdom and the results of +science. But we may go back to Isaiah for the same kind of correction on +this doctrine, as he has given us on the doctrine of faith; and while we +do not forget the richer meaning the New Testament bestows on the +operation of the Divine Spirit, we may learn from the Hebrew prophet to +seek the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in all the endeavours of science, +and not to forget that it is His guidance alone which enables us to +succeed in the conduct of our offices and fortunes. + + [37] See Didron for numerous interesting instances of this. + + +III. THE REDEMPTION OF NATURE (xi. 6-9). + +But Isaiah will not be satisfied with the establishment of a strong +government in the land and the redemption of human society from chaos. +He prophesies the redemption of all nature as well. It is one of those +errors, which distort both the poetry and truth of the Bible, to suppose +that by the bears, lions and reptiles which the prophet now sees tamed +in the time of the regeneration, he intends the violent human characters +which he so often attacks. When Isaiah here talks of the beasts, he +means the beasts. The passage is not allegorical, but direct, and forms +a parallel to the well-known passage in the eighth of Romans. Isaiah and +Paul, chief apostles of the two covenants, both interrupt their +magnificent odes upon the outpouring of the Spirit, to remind us that +the benefits of this will be shared by the brute and unintelligent +creation. And, perhaps, there is no finer contrast in the Scriptures +than here, where beside so majestic a description of the intellectual +faculties of humanity Isaiah places so charming a picture of the +docility and sportfulness of wild animals,--_And a little child shall +lead them_. + +We, who live in countries, from which wild beasts have been +exterminated, cannot understand the insecurity and terror, that they +cause in regions where they abound. A modern seer of the times of +regeneration would leave the wild animals out of his vision. They do not +impress any more the human conscience or imagination. But they once did +so most terribly. The hostility between man and the beasts not only +formed once upon a time the chief material obstacle in the progress of +the race, but remains still to the religious thinker the most pathetic +portion of that groaning and travailing of all creation, which is so +heavy a burden on his heart. Isaiah, from his ancient point of view, is +in thorough accord with the order of civilisation, when he represents +the subjugation of wild animals as the first problem of man, after he +has established a strong government in the land. So far from rhetorizing +or allegorizing--above which literary forms it would appear to be +impossible for the appreciation of some of his commentators to follow +him--Isaiah is earnestly celebrating a very real moment in the laborious +progress of mankind. Isaiah stands where Hercules stood, and Theseus, +and Arthur when + + "There grew great tracts of wilderness, + Wherein the beast was ever more and more, + But man was less and less till Arthur came. + And he drave + The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled + The forest, and let in the sun, and made + Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight, + And so returned." + +But Isaiah would solve the grim problem of the warfare between man and +his lower fellow-creatures in a very different way from that, of which +these heroes have set the example to humanity. Isaiah would not have the +wild beasts exterminated, but tamed. There our Western and modern +imagination may fail to follow him, especially when he includes reptiles +in the regeneration, and prophesies of adders and lizards as the +playthings of children. But surely there is no genial man, who has +watched the varied forms of life that sport in the Southern sunshine, +who will not sympathize with the prophet in his joyous vision. Upon a +warm spring day in Palestine, to sit upon the grass, beside some old +dyke or ruin with its face to the south, is indeed to obtain a rapturous +view of the wealth of life, with which the bountiful God has blessed and +made merry man's dwelling-place. How the lizards come and go among the +grey stones, and flash like jewels in the dust! And the timid snake +rippling quickly past through the grass, and the leisurely tortoise, +with his shiny back, and the chameleon, shivering into new colour as he +passes from twig to stone and stone to straw,--all the air the while +alive with the music of the cricket and the bee! You feel that the ideal +is not to destroy these pretty things as vermin. What a loss of colour +the lizards alone would imply! But, as Isaiah declares,--whom we may +imagine walking with his children up the steep vineyard paths, to watch +the creatures come and go upon the dry dykes on either hand,--the ideal +is to bring them into sympathy with ourselves, make pets of them and +playthings for children, who indeed stretch out their hands in joy to +the pretty toys. Why should we need to fight with, or destroy, any of +the happy life the Lord has created? Why have we this loathing to it, +and need to defend ourselves from it, when there is so much suffering we +could cure, and so much childlikeness we could amuse and be amused by, +and yet it will not let us near? To these questions there is not another +answer but the answer of the Bible: that this curse of conflict and +distrust between man and his fellow-creatures is due to man's sin, and +shall only be done away by man's redemption. + +Nor is this Bible answer,--of which the book of Genesis gives us the one +end, and this text of Isaiah the other,--a mere pious opinion, which the +true history of man's dealing with wild beasts by extermination proves +to be impracticable. We may take on scientific authority a few facts as +hints from nature, that after all man is to blame for the wildness of +the beasts, and that through his sanctification they may be restored to +sympathy with himself. Charles Darwin says: "It deserves notice, that at +an extremely ancient period, when man first entered any country the +animals living there would have felt no instinctive or inherited fear of +him, and would consequently have been tamed far more easily than at +present." And he gives some very instructive facts in proof of this with +regard to dogs, antelopes, manatees and hawks. "Quadrupeds and birds +which have seldom been disturbed by man dread him no more than do our +English birds the cows or horses grazing in the fields."[38] Darwin's +details are peculiarly pathetic in their revelation of the brutes' utter +trustfulness in man, before they get to know him. Persons, who have had +to do with individual animals of a species that has never been +thoroughly tamed, are aware that the difficulty of training them lies in +convincing them of our sincerity and good-heartedness, and that when +this is got over they will learn almost any trick or habit. The +well-known lines of Burns to the field-mouse gather up the cause of all +this in a fashion very similar to the Bible's. + + [38] Darwin, _Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication_, pp. + 20, 21. + + "I'm truly sorry man's dominion + Has broken nature's social union, + And justifies that ill opinion, + Which makes thee startle + At me, thy poor earth-born companion + And fellow-mortal." + +How much the appeal of suffering animals to man--the look of a wounded +horse or dog with a meaning which speech would only spoil, the tales of +beasts of prey that in pain have turned to man as their physician, the +approach of the wildest birds in winter to our feet as their +Providence--how much all these prove Paul's saying that the _earnest +expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of +God_. And we have other signals, than those afforded by the pain and +pressure of the beasts themselves, of the time when they and man shall +sympathize. The natural history of many of our breeds of domesticated +animals teaches us the lesson that their growth in skill and +character--no one who has enjoyed the friendship of several dogs will +dispute the possibility of character in the lower animals--has been +proportionate to man's own. Though savages are fond of keeping and +taming animals, they fail to advance them to the stages of cunning and +discipline, which animals reach under the influence of civilised +man.[39] "No instance is on record," says Darwin, "of such dogs as +bloodhounds, spaniels or true greyhounds having been kept by savages; +they are the products of long-continued civilisation." + + [39] Galton, quoted by Darwin. + +These facts, if few, certainly bear in the direction of Isaiah's +prophecy, that not by extermination of the beasts, but by the influence +upon them of man's greater force of character, may that warfare be +brought to an end, of which man's sin, according to the Bible, is the +original cause. + +The practical "uses" of such a passage of Scripture as this are plain. +Some of them are the awful responsibility of man's position as the +keystone of creation, the material effects of sin, and especially the +religiousness of our relation to the lower animals. More than once do +the Hebrew prophets liken the Almighty's dealings with man to merciful +man's dealings with his beasts.[40] Both Isaiah and Paul virtually +declare that man discharges to the lower creatures a mediatorial office. +To say so will of course seem an exaggeration to some people, but not to +those who, besides being grateful to remember what help in labour and +cheer in dreariness we owe our humble fellow-creatures, have been +fortunate enough to enjoy the affection and trust of a dumb friend. Men +who abuse the lower animals sin very grievously against God; men who +neglect them lose some of the religious possibilities of life. If it is +our business in life to have the charge of animals, we should magnify +our calling. Every coachman and carter ought to feel something of the +priest about him; he should think no amount of skill and patience too +heavy if it enables him to gain insight into the nature of creatures of +God, all of whose hope, by Scripture and his own experience, is towards +himself. + + [40] Isa. lxiii. 13, 14; Hos. xi. 4. + +Our relation to the lower animals is one of the three great relations of +our nature. For God our worship; for man our service; for the beasts our +providence, and according both to Isaiah and Paul, the mediation of our +holiness. + + +IV. THE RETURN AND SOVEREIGNTY OF ISRAEL (xi. 10-16). + +In passing from the second to the third part of this prophecy, we cannot +but feel that we descend to a lower point of view and a less pure +atmosphere of spiritual ambition. Isaiah, who has just declared peace +between man and beast, finds that Judah must clear off certain scores +against her neighbours before there can be peace between man and man. It +is an interesting psychological study. The prophet, who has been able to +shake off man's primeval distrust and loathing of wild animals, cannot +divest himself of the political tempers of his age. He admits, indeed, +the reconciliation of Ephraim and Judah; but the first act of the +reconciled brethren, he prophesies with exultation, will be to _swoop +down upon_ their cousins Edom, Moab and Ammon, and their neighbours the +Philistines. We need not longer dwell on this remarkable limitation of +the prophet's spirit, except to point out that while Isaiah clearly saw +that Israel's own purity would not be perfected except by her political +debasement, he could not as yet perceive any way for the conversion of +the rest of the world except through Israel's political supremacy. + +The prophet, however, is more occupied with an event preliminary to +Israel's sovereignty, namely the return from exile. His large and +emphatic assertions remind the not yet captive Judah through how much +captivity she has to pass before she can see the margin of the blessed +future which he has been describing to her. Isaiah's words imply a much +more general captivity than had taken place by the time he spoke them, +and we see that he is still keeping steadily in view that thorough +reduction of his people, to the prospect of which he was forced in his +inaugural vision. Judah has to be dispersed, even as Ephraim has been, +before the glories of this chapter shall be realized. + +We postpone further treatment of this prophecy, along with the hymn +(chap. xii.), which is attached to it, to a separate chapter, dealing +with all the representations, which the first half of the book of Isaiah +contains, of the return from exile. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +_DRIFTING TO EGYPT._ + +ISAIAH xx.; xxi. 1-10; xxxviii.; xxxix. + +(720-705 B.C.). + + +From 720, when chap. xi. may have been published, to 705--or, by rough +reckoning, from the fortieth to the fifty-fifth year of Isaiah's +life--we cannot be sure that we have more than one prophecy from him; +but two narratives have found a place in his book which relate events +that must have taken place between 712 and 705. These narratives are +chap. xx.: How Isaiah Walked Stripped and Barefoot for a Sign against +Egypt, and chaps. xxxviii. and xxxix.: The Sickness of Hezekiah, with +the Hymn he wrote, and his Behaviour before the Envoys from Babylon. The +single prophecy belonging to this period is chap. xxi. 1-10, _Oracle of +the Wilderness of the Sea_, which announces the fall of Babylon. There +has been considerable debate about the authorship of this oracle, but +Cheyne, mainly following Dr. Kleinert, gives substantial reasons for +leaving it with Isaiah. We postpone the full exposition of chaps. +xxxviii., xxxix., to a later stage, as here it would only interrupt the +history. But we will make use of chaps. xx. and xxi. 1-10 in the course +of the following historical sketch, which is intended to connect the +first great period of Isaiah's prophesying, 740-720, with the second, +705-701. + +All these fifteen years, 720-705, Jerusalem was drifting to the refuge +into which she plunged at the end of them--drifting to Egypt. Ahaz had +firmly bound his people to Assyria, and in his reign there was no talk +of an Egyptian alliance. But in 725, when the _overflowing scourge_ of +Assyrian invasion threatened to sweep into Judah as well as Samaria, +Isaiah's words give us some hint of a recoil in the politics of +Jerusalem towards the southern power. The _covenants with death and +hell_, which the men of scorn flaunted in his face as he harped on the +danger from Assyria, may only have been the old treaties with Assyria +herself, but the _falsehood and lies_ that went with them were most +probably intrigues with Egypt. Any Egyptian policy, however, that may +have formed in Jerusalem before 719, was entirely discredited by the +crushing defeat, which in that year Sargon inflicted upon the empire of +the Nile, almost on her own borders, at Rafia. + +Years of quietness for Palestine followed this decisive battle. Sargon, +whose annals engraved on the great halls of Khorsabad enable us to read +the history of the period year by year, tells us that his next campaigns +were to the north of his empire, and till 711 he alludes to Palestine +only to say that tribute was coming in regularly, or to mention the +deportation to Hamath or Samaria of some tribe he had conquered far +away. Egypt, however, was everywhere busy among his feudatories. +Intrigue was Egypt's _forte_. She is always represented in Isaiah's +pages as the talkative power of many promises. Her fair speech was very +sweet to men groaning beneath the military pressure of Assyria. Her +splendid past, in conjunction with the largeness of her promise, +excited the popular imagination. Centres of her influence gathered in +every state. An Egyptian party formed in Jerusalem. Their intrigue +pushed mines in all directions, and before the century was out the +Assyrian peace in Western Asia was broken by two great Explosions. The +first of these, in 711, was local and abortive; the second, in 705, was +universal, and for a time entirely destroyed the Assyrian supremacy. + +The centre of the Explosion of 711 was Ashdod, a city of the +Philistines. The king had suddenly refused to continue the Assyrian +tribute, and Sargon had put another king in his place. But the +people--in Ashdod, as everywhere else, it was the people who were +fascinated by Egypt--pulled down the Assyrian puppet and elevated Iaman, +a friend to Pharaoh. The other cities of the Philistines, with Moab, +Edom and Judah, were prepared by Egyptian promise to throw in their lot +with the rebels. Sargon gave them no time. "In the wrath of my heart, I +did not divide my army, and I did not diminish the ranks, but I marched +against Asdod with my warriors, who did not separate themselves from the +traces of my sandals. I besieged, I took, Asdod and Gunt-Asdodim.... I +then made again these towns. I placed the people whom my arm had +conquered. I put over them my lieutenant as governor. I considered them +like Assyrians, and they practised obedience."[41] It is upon this +campaign of Sargon that Mr. Cheyne argues for the invasion of Judah, to +which he assigns so many of Isaiah's prophecies, as, _e.g._, chaps. i. +and x. 5-34. Some day Assyriology may give us proof of this supposition. +We are without it just now. Sargon speaks no word of invading Judah, +and the only part of the book of Isaiah that unmistakably refers to this +time is the picturesque narrative of chap. xx. + + [41] _Records of the Past_, vii., 40. + +In this we are told that _in the year_ the _Tartan_, the Assyrian +commander-in-chief, _came to Ashdod when Sargon king of Assyria sent +him_ [that is to be supposed the year of the first revolt in Ashdod, to +which Sargon himself did not come], _and he fought against Ashdod and +took it:--in that time Jehovah had spoken by the hand of Isaiah the son +of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth_, the prophet's robe, _from +off thy loins, and thy sandal strip from off thy foot; and he did so, +walking naked_, that is unfrocked, _and barefoot_. For Egyptian intrigue +was already busy; the temporary success of the Tartan at Ashdod did not +discourage it, and it needed a protest. _And Jehovah said, As My servant +Isaiah hath walked unfrocked and barefoot three years for a sign and a +portent against Egypt and against Ethiopia_ [note the double name, for +the country was now divided between two rulers, the secret of her +impotence to interfere forcibly in Palestine] _so shall the king of +Assyria lead away the captives of Egypt and exiles of Ethiopia, young +and old, stripped and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the +shame of Egypt. And they shall be dismayed and ashamed, because of +Ethiopia their expectation and because of Egypt their boast. And the +inhabitant of this coastland_ [that is, all Palestine, and a name for it +remarkably similar to the phrase used by Sargon, "the people of +Philistia, Judah, Edom and Moab, dwelling by the sea"[42]] _shall say in +that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we had fled for help +to deliver ourselves from the king of Assyria, and how shall we +escape--we?_ + + [42] Cheyne. + +This parade of Isaiah for three years, unfrocked and barefoot, is +another instance of that habit on which we remarked in connection with +chap. viii. 1: the habit of finally carrying everything committed to him +before the bar of the whole nation. It was to the mass of the people God +said, _Come and let us reason together._ Let us not despise Isaiah in +his shirt any more than we do Diogenes in his tub, or with a lantern in +his hand, seeking for a man by its rays at noonday. He was bent on +startling the popular conscience, because he held it true that a +people's own morals have greater influence on their destinies than the +policies of their statesmen. But especially anxious was Isaiah, as we +shall again see from chap. xxxi., to bring this Egyptian policy home to +the popular conscience. Egypt was a big-mouthed, blustering power, +believed in by the mob: to expose her required public, picturesque and +persistent advertisement. So Isaiah continued his walk for three years. +The fall of Ashdod, left by Egypt to itself, did not disillusion the +Jews, and the rapid disappearance of Sargon to another part of his +empire where there was trouble, gave the Egyptians audacity to continue +their intrigues against him.[43] + + [43] W. R. Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 282. + +Sargon's new trouble had broken out in Babylon, and was much more +serious than any revolt in Syria. Merodach Baladan, king of Chaldea, was +no ordinary vassal, but as dangerous a rival as Egypt. When he rose, it +meant a contest between Babylon and Nineveh for the sovereignty of the +world. He had long been preparing for war. He had an alliance with Elam, +and the tribes of Mesopotamia were prepared for his signal of revolt. +Among the charges brought against him by Sargon is that, "against the +will of the gods of Babylon, he had sent during twelve years +ambassadors." One of these embassies may have been that which came to +Hezekiah after his great sickness (chap. xxxix.). _And Hezekiah was glad +of them, and showed them the house of his spicery, the silver, and the +gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and all the house of his +armour and all that was found in his treasures; there was nothing in his +house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not._ Isaiah was +indignant. He had hitherto kept the king from formally closing with +Egypt; now he found him eager for an alliance with another of the powers +of man. But instead of predicting the captivity of Babylon, as he +predicted the captivity of Egypt, by the hand of Assyria, Isaiah +declared, according to chap. xxxix., that Babylon would some day take +Israel captive; and Hezekiah had to content himself with the prospect +that this calamity was not to happen in his time. + +Isaiah's prediction of the exile of Israel to Babylon is a matter of +difficulty. The difficulty, however, is not that of conceiving how he +could have foreseen an event which took place more than a century later. +Even in 711 Babylon was not an unlikely competitor for the supremacy of +the nations. Sargon himself felt that it was a crisis to meet her. Very +little might have transferred the seat of power from the Tigris to the +Euphrates. What, therefore, more probable than that when Hezekiah +disclosed to these envoys the whole state of his resources, and excused +himself by saying _that they were come from a far country, even +Babylon_, Isaiah, seized by a strong sense of how near Babylon stood to +the throne of the nations, should laugh to scorn the excuse of +distance, and tell the king that his anxiety to secure an alliance had +only led him to place the temptation to rob him in the face of a power +that was certainly on the way to be able to do it? No, the difficulty is +not that the prophet foretold a captivity of the Jews in Babylon, but +that we cannot reconcile what he says of that captivity with his +intimation of the immediate destruction of Babylon, which has come down +to us in chap. xxi. 1-10. + +In this prophecy Isaiah regards Babylon as he has been regarding +Egypt--certain to go down before Assyria, and therefore wholly +unprofitable to Judah. If the Jews still thought of returning to Egypt +when Sargon hurried back from completing her discomfiture in order to +beset Babylon, Isaiah would tell them it was no use. Assyria has brought +her full power to bear on the Babylonians; Elam and Media are with her. +He travails with pain for the result. Babylon is not expecting a siege; +but _preparing the table, eating and drinking_, when suddenly the cry +rings through her, "_Arise, ye princes; anoint the shield._ The enemy is +upon us." So terrible and so sudden a warrior is this Sargon! At his +words nations move; when he saith, _Go up, O Elam! Besiege, O Media!_ it +is done. And he falls upon his foes before their weapons are ready. Then +the prophet shrinks back from the result of his imagination of how it +happened--for that is too painful--upon the simple certainty, which God +revealed to him, that it must happen. As surely as Sargon's columns went +against Babylon, so surely must the message return that Babylon has +fallen. Isaiah puts it this way. The Lord bade him get on his +watchtower--that is his phrase for observing the signs of the times--and +speak whatever he saw. And he saw a military column on the march: _a +troop of horsemen by pairs, a troop of asses, a troop of camels_. It +passed him out of sight, _and he hearkened very diligently_ for news. +But none came. It was a long campaign. _And he cried like a lion_ for +impatience, _O my Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower by day, +and am set in my ward every night_. Till at last, _behold, there came a +troop of men, horsemen in pairs, and_ now _one answered and said, +Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of her gods he hath broken +to the ground_. The meaning of this very elliptical passage is just +this: as surely as the prophet saw Sargon's columns go out against +Babylon, so sure was he of her fall. Turning to his Jerusalem, he says, +_My own threshed one, son of my floor, that which I have heard from +Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you_. How +gladly would I have told you otherwise! But this is His message and His +will. Everything must go down before this Assyrian. + +Sargon entered Babylon before the year was out, and with her conquest +established his fear once more down to the borders of Egypt. In his +lifetime neither Judah nor her neighbours attempted again to revolt. But +Egypt's intrigue did not cease. Her mines were once more laid, and the +feudatories of Assyria only waited for their favourite opportunity, a +change of tyrants on the throne at Nineveh. This came very soon. In the +fifteenth year of his reign, having finally established his empire, +Sargon inscribed on the palace at Khorsabad the following prayer to +Assur: "May it be that I, Sargon, who inhabit this palace, may be +preserved by destiny during long years for a long life, for the +happiness of my body, for the satisfaction of my heart, and may I arrive +to my end! May I accumulate in this palace immense treasures, the +booties of all countries, the products of mountains and valleys!" The +god did not hear. A few months later, in 705, Sargon was murdered; and +before Sennacherib, his successor, sat down on the throne, the whole of +Assyrian supremacy in the south-west of Asia went up in the air. It was +the second of the great Explosions we spoke of, and the rest of Isaiah's +prophecies are concerned with its results. + + + + +BOOK III. + +ORATIONS ON THE EGYPTIAN INTRIGUES AND ORACLES ON FOREIGN NATIONS, +705-702 B.C. + + + + +ISAIAH:-- + + + xxix. About 703. + + xxx. A little later. + + xxxi. " " + + xxxii. 1-8. " + + xxxii. 9-20. Date uncertain. + + _______ + + xiv. 28-xxi. 736-702. + + xxiii. About 703. + + + + +BOOK III. + + +We now enter the prophecies of Isaiah's old age, those which he +published after 705, when his ministry had lasted for at least +thirty-five years. They cover the years between 705, the date of +Sennacherib's accession to the Assyrian throne, and 701, when his army +suddenly disappeared from before Jerusalem. + +They fall into three groups:-- + +1. Chaps. xxix.-xxxii., dealing with Jewish politics while Sennacherib +is still far from Palestine, 704-702, and having Egypt for their chief +interest, Assyria lowering in the background. + +2. Chaps. xiv. 28-xxi. and xxiii., a group of oracles on foreign +nations, threatened, like Judah, by Assyria. + +3. Chaps. i., xxii., and xxxiii., and the historical narrative in +xxxvi., and xxxvii., dealing with Sennacherib's invasion of Judah and +siege of Jerusalem in 701; Egypt and every foreign nation now fallen out +of sight, and the storm about the Holy City too thick for the prophet to +see beyond his immediate neighbourhood. + +The _first and second_ of these groups--orations on the intrigues with +Egypt and oracles on the foreign nations--delivered while Sennacherib +was still far from Syria, form the subject of this Third Book of our +exposition. + +The prophecies on the siege of Jerusalem are sufficiently numerous and +distinctive to be put by themselves, along with their appendix +(xxxviii., xxxix.), in our Fourth Book. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +_ARIEL, ARIEL._ + +ISAIAH xxix. (about 703 B.C.). + + +In 705 Sargon, King of Assyria, was murdered, and Sennacherib, his +second son, succeeded him. Before the new ruler mounted the throne, the +vast empire, which his father had consolidated, broke into rebellion, +and down to the borders of Egypt cities and tribes declared themselves +again independent. Sennacherib attacked his problem with Assyrian +promptitude. There were two forces, to subdue which at the beginning +made the reduction of the rest certain: Assyria's vassal kingdom and +future rival for the supremacy of the world, Babylon; and her present +rival, Egypt. Sennacherib marched on Babylon first. + +While he did so the smaller States prepared to resist him. Too small to +rely on their own resources, they looked to Egypt, and among others who +sought help in that quarter was Judah. There had always been, as we have +seen, an Egyptian party among the politicians of Jerusalem; and +Assyria's difficulties now naturally increased its influence. Most of +the prophecies in chaps. xxix.-xxxii. are forward to condemn the +alliance with Egypt and the irreligious politics of which it was the +fruit. + +At the beginning, however, other facts claim Isaiah's attention. After +the first excitement, consequent on the threats of Sennacherib, the +politicians do not seem to have been specially active. Sennacherib found +the reduction of Babylon a harder task than he expected, and in the end +it turned out to be three years before he was free to march upon Syria. +As one winter after another left the work of the Assyrian army in +Mesopotamia still unfinished, the political tension in Judah must have +relaxed. The Government--for King Hezekiah seems at last to have been +brought round to believe in Egypt--pursued their negotiations no longer +with that decision and real patriotism, which the sense of near danger +rouses in even the most selfish and mistaken of politicians, but rather +with the heedlessness of principle, the desire to show their own +cleverness and the passion for intrigue which run riot among statesmen, +when danger is near enough to give an excuse for doing something, but +too far away to oblige anything to be done in earnest. Into this false +ease, and the meaningless, faithless politics, which swarmed in it, +Isaiah hurled his strong prophecy of chap. xxix. Before he exposes in +chaps. xxx., xxxi., the folly of trusting to Egypt in the hour of +danger, he has here the prior task of proving that hour to be near and +very terrible. It is but one instance of the ignorance and fickleness of +the people, that their prophet has first to rouse them to a sense of +their peril, and then to restrain their excitement under it from rushing +headlong for help to Egypt. + +Chap. xxix. is an obscure oracle, but its obscurity is designed. Isaiah +was dealing with a people, in whom political security and religious +formalism had stifled both reason and conscience. He sought to rouse +them by a startling message in a mysterious form. He addressed the city +by an enigma:-- + +_Ho! Ari-El, Ari-El! City David beleaguered! Add a year to a year, let +the feasts run their round, then will I bring straitness upon Ari-El, +and there shall be moaning and bemoaning,[44] and yet she shall be unto +Me as an Ari-El._ + + [44] Cheyne. + +The general bearing of this enigma became plain enough after the sore +siege and sudden deliverance of Jerusalem in 701. But we are unable to +make out one or two of its points. _Ari-El_ may mean either _The Lion of +God_ (2 Sam. xxiii. 20), or _The Hearth of God_ (Ezek. xliii. 15, 16). +If the same sense is to be given to the four utterances of the name, +then _God's-Lion_ suits better the description of ver. 4; but +_God's-Hearth_ seems suggested by the feminine pronoun in ver. 1, and is +a conception to which Isaiah returns in this same group of prophecies +(xxxi. 9). It is possible that this ambiguity was part of the prophet's +design; but if he uses the name in both senses, some of the force of his +enigma is lost to us. In any case, however, we get a picturesque form +for a plain meaning. In a year after the present year is out, says +Isaiah, God Himself will straiten the city, whose inhabitants are now so +careless, and she shall be full of mourning and lamentation. +Nevertheless in the end she shall be a true Ari-El: be it a true +_God's-Lion_, victor and hero; or a true _God's-Hearth_, His own +inviolate shrine and sanctuary. + +The next few verses (3-8) expand this warning. In plain words, Jerusalem +is to undergo a siege. God Himself shall _encamp against thee--round +about_ reads our English version, but more probably, as with the change +of a letter, the Septuagint reads it--_like David_. If we take this +second reading, the reference to David in the enigma itself (ver. 1) +becomes clear. The prophet has a very startling message to deliver: that +God will besiege His own city, the city of David! Before God can make +her in truth His own, make her verify her name, He will have to +beleaguer and reduce her. For so novel and startling an intimation the +prophet pleads a precedent: "_City which David_ himself _beleaguered_! +Once before in thy history, ere the first time thou wast made God's own +hearth, thou hadst to be besieged. As then, so now. Before thou canst +again be a true Ari-El I must _beleaguer thee like David_." This reading +and interpretation gives to the enigma a reason and a force which it +does not otherwise possess. + +Jerusalem, then, shall be reduced to the very dust, and whine and +whimper in it (like a sick _lion_, if this be the figure the prophet is +pursuing), when suddenly it is _the surge of_ her foes--literally _thy +strangers_--whom the prophet sees as _small dust, and as passing chaff +shall the surge of tyrants be; yea, it shall be in the twinkling of an +eye, suddenly_. _From Jehovah of hosts shall she be visited with thunder +and with earthquake and a great noise,--storm-wind, and tempest and the +flame of fire devouring. And it shall be as a dream, a vision of the +night, the surge of all the nations that war against Ariel, yea all that +war against her and her stronghold, and they that press in upon her. And +it shall be as if the hungry had been dreaming, and lo! he was eating; +but he hath awaked, and his soul is empty: and as if the thirsty had +been dreaming, and lo! he was drinking; but he hath awaked, and lo! he +is faint, and his soul is ravenous: thus shall be the surge of all the +nations that war against Mount Zion._ Now that is a very definite +prediction, and in its essentials was fulfilled. In the end Jerusalem +was invested by Sennacherib, and reduced to sore straits, when very +suddenly--it would appear from other records, in a single night--the +beleaguering force disappeared. This actually happened; and although the +main business of a prophet, as we now clearly understand, was not to +predict definite events, yet, since the result here predicted was one on +which Isaiah staked his prophetic reputation and pledged the honour of +Jehovah and the continuance of the true religion among men, it will be +profitable for us to look at it for a little. + +Isaiah foretells a great event and some details. The event is a double +one: the reduction of Jerusalem to the direst straits by siege and her +deliverance by the sudden disappearance of the besieging army. The +details are that the siege will take place after a year (though the +prophet's statement of time is perhaps too vague to be treated as a +prediction), and that the deliverance will come as a great natural +convulsion--thunder, earthquake and fire--which it certainly did not do. +The double event, however, stripped of these details, did essentially +happen. + +Now it is plain that any one with a considerable knowledge of the world +at that day must easily have been able to assert the probability of a +siege of Jerusalem by the mixed nations who composed Sennacherib's +armies. Isaiah's orations are full of proofs of his close acquaintance +with the peoples of the world, and Assyria, who was above them. +Moreover, his political advice, given at certain crises of Judah's +history, was conspicuous not only for its religiousness, but for what we +should call its "worldly-wisdom:" it was vindicated by events. Isaiah, +however, would not have understood the distinction we have just made. +To him political prudence was part of religion. _The LORD of hosts is +for a spirit of judgement to him that sitteth in judgement, and for +strength to them that turn back the battle to the gate._ Knowledge of +men, experience of nations, the mental strength which never forgets +history, and is quick to mark new movements as they rise, Isaiah would +have called the direct inspiration of God. And it was certainly these +qualities in this Hebrew, which provided him with the materials for his +prediction of the siege of Jerusalem. + +But it has not been found that such talents by themselves enable +statesmen calmly to face the future, or clearly to predict it. Such +knowledge of the past, such vigilance for the present, by themselves +only embarrass, and often deceive. They are the materials for +prediction, but a ruling principle is required to arrange them. A +general may have a strong and well-drilled force under him, and a +miserably weak foe in front; but if the sun is not going to rise +to-morrow, if the laws of nature are not going to hold, his familiarity +with his soldiers and expertness in handling them will not give him +confidence to offer battle. He takes certain principles for granted, and +on these his soldiers become of use to him, and he makes his venture. +Even so Isaiah handled his mass of information by the grasp which he had +of certain principles, and his facts fell clear into order before his +confident eyes. He believed in the real government of God. _I also saw +the Lord sitting, high and lifted up._ He felt that God had even this +Assyria in His hands. He knew that all God's ends were righteousness, +and he was still of the conviction that Judah for her wickedness +required punishment at the Lord's hands. Grant these convictions to him +in the superhuman strength in which he tells us he was conscious of +receiving them from God, and it is easy to see how Isaiah could not help +predicting a speedy siege of Jerusalem, how he already beheld the +valleys around her bristling with barbarian spears. + +The prediction of the sudden raising of this siege was the equally +natural corollary to another religious conviction, which held the +prophet with as much intensity, as that which possessed him with the +need of Judah's punishment. Isaiah never slacked his hold on the truth +that in the end God would save Zion, and keep her for Himself. Through +whatever destruction, a root and remnant of the Jewish people must +survive. Zion is impregnable because God is in her, and because her +inviolateness is necessary for the continuance of true religion in the +world. Therefore as confident as his prediction of the siege of +Jerusalem is Isaiah's prediction of her delivery. And while the prophet +wraps the fact in vague circumstance, while he masks, as it were, his +ignorance of how in detail it will actually take place by calling up a +great natural convulsion, yet he makes it abundantly clear--as, with his +religious convictions and his knowledge of the Assyrian power, he cannot +help doing--that the deliverance will be unexpected and unexplainable by +the natural circumstances of the Jews themselves, that it will be +evident as the immediate deed of God. + +It is well for us to understand this. We shall get rid of the mechanical +idea of prophecy, according to which prophets made exact predictions of +fact by some particular and purely official endowment. We shall feel +that prediction of this kind was due to the most unmistakeable +inspiration, the influence upon the prophet's knowledge of affairs of +two powerful religious convictions, for which he himself was strongly +sure that he had the warrant of the Spirit of God. + +Into the easy, selfish politics of Jerusalem, then, Isaiah sent this +thunderbolt, this definite prediction: that in a year or more Jerusalem +would be besieged and reduced to the direst straits. He tells us that it +simply dazed the people. They were like men suddenly startled from +sleep, who are too stupid to read a message pushed into their hands (vv. +9-12). + +Then Isaiah gives God's own explanation of this stupidity. The cause of +it is simply religious formalism. _This people draw nigh unto Me with +their mouth, and with their lips do they honour Me, but their heart is +far from Me, and their fear of Me is a mere commandment of men, a thing +learned by rote._ This was what Israel called religion--bare ritual and +doctrine, a round of sacrifices and prayers in adherence to the +tradition of the fathers. But in life they never thought of God. It did +not occur to these citizens of Jerusalem that He cared about their +politics, their conduct of justice, or their discussions and bargains +with one another. Of these they said, taking their own way, _Who seeth +us, and who knoweth us?_ Only in the Temple did they feel God's fear, +and there merely in imitation of one another. None had an original +vision of God in real life; they learned other men's thoughts about Him, +and took other men's words upon their lips, while their heart was far +away. In fact, speaking words and listening to words had wearied the +spirit and stifled the conscience of them. + +For such a disposition Isaiah says there is only one cure. It is a new +edition of his old gospel, that God speaks to us in facts, not forms. +Worship and a lifeless doctrine have demoralized this people. God shall +make Himself so felt in real life that even their dull senses shall not +be able to mistake Him. _Therefore, behold, I am proceeding to work +marvellously upon this people, a marvellous work and a wonder! and the +wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the cleverness of their +clever ones shall be obscured._ This is not the promise of what we call +a miracle. It is a historical event on the same theatre as the +politicians are showing their cleverness, but it shall put them all to +shame, and by its force make the dullest feel that God's own hand is in +it. What the people had ceased to attribute to Jehovah was ordinary +intelligence; they had virtually said, _He hath no understanding_. The +_marvellous work_, therefore, which He threatens shall be a work of +wisdom, not some convulsion of nature to cow their spirits, but a +wonderful political result, that shall shame their conceit of +cleverness, and teach them reverence for the will and skill of God. Are +the politicians trying to change the surface of the world, thinking that +they _are turning things upside down_, and supposing that they can keep +God out of account: _Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?_ God Himself is +the real Arranger and Politician. He will turn things upside down! +Compared with their attempt, how vast His results shall be! As if the +whole surface of the earth were altered, _Lebanon changed into +garden-land, and garden-land counted as forest_! But this, of course, is +metaphor. The intent of the miracle is to show that God hath +understanding; therefore it must be a work, the prudence and +intellectual force of which politicians can appreciate, and it shall +take place in their politics. But not for mere astonishment's sake is +_the wonder_ to be done. For blessing and morality shall it be: to cure +the deaf and blind; to give to the meek and the poor a new joy; to +confound the tyrant and the scorner; to make Israel worthy of God and +her own great fathers. _Therefore thus saith Jehovah to the house of +Jacob, He that redeemed Abraham: Not now ashamed shall Jacob be, and not +now shall his countenance blanch._ So unworthy hitherto have this stupid +people been of so great ancestors! _But now when his_ (Jacob's) +_children behold the work of My hand in the midst of him, they shall +hallow My name, yea, they shall hallow the Holy One of Jacob, and the +God of Israel shall they make their fear. They also that err in spirit +shall know understanding, and they that are unsettled shall learn to +accept doctrine_. + +Such is the meaning of this strong chapter. It is instructive in two +ways. + +_First_, it very clearly declares Isaiah's view of the method of God's +revelation. Isaiah says nothing of the Temple, the Shechinah, the Altar, +or the Scripture; but he points out how much the exclusive confinement +of religion to forms and texts has deadened the hearts of his countrymen +towards God. In your real life, he says to them, you are to seek, and +you shall find, Him. There He is evident in miracles,--not physical +interruptions and convulsions, but social mercies and moral providences. +The quickening of conscience, the dispersion of ignorance, poor men +awakening to the fact that God is with them, the overthrow of the social +tyrant, history's plain refutation of the atheist, the growth of civic +justice and charity--In these, said the Hebrew prophet to the Old +Testament believer, Behold your God! + +Wherefore, _secondly_, we also are to look for God in events and deeds. +We are to know that nothing can compensate us for the loss of the open +vision of God's working in history and in life about us,--not ecstasy +of worship nor orthodoxy of doctrine. To confine our religion to these +latter things is to become dull towards God even in them, and to forget +Him everywhere else. And this is a fault of our day, just as it was of +Isaiah's. So much of our fear of God is conventional, orthodox and not +original, a trick caught from men's words or fashions, not a part of +ourselves, nor won, like all that is real in us, from contact with real +life. In our politics, in our conduct with men, in the struggle of our +own hearts for knowledge and for temperance, and in service--there we +are to learn to fear God. But there, and wherever else we are busy, self +comes too much in the way; we are fascinated with our own cleverness; we +ignore God, saying, _Who seeth us? who knoweth us?_ We get to expect Him +only in the Temple and on the Sabbath, and then only to influence our +emotions. But it is in deeds, and where we feel life most real, that we +are to look for Him. He makes Himself evident to us by wonderful works. + +For these He has given us three theatres--the Bible, our country's +history, and for each man his own life. + +We have to take the Bible, and especially the life of Christ, and to +tell ourselves that these wonderful events did really take place. In +Christ God did dwell; by Christ He spoke to man; man was converted, +redeemed, sanctified, beyond all doubt. These were real events. To be +convinced of their reality were worth a hundred prayers. + +Then let us follow the example of the Hebrew prophets, and search the +history of our own people for the realities of God. Carlyle says in a +note to Cromwell's fourth speech to Parliament, that "the Bible of every +nation is its own history." This note is drawn from Carlyle by +Cromwell's frequent insistence, that we must ever be turning from forms +and rituals to study God's will and ways in history. And that speech of +Cromwell is perhaps the best sermon ever delivered on the subject of +this chapter. For he said: "What are all our histories but God +manifesting Himself, that He hath shaken, and tumbled down and trampled +upon everything that He hath not planted!" And again, speaking of our +own history, he said to the House of Commons: "We are a people with the +stamp of God upon us, ... whose appearances and providences among us +were not to be outmatched by any story." Truly this is national +religion:--the reverential acknowledgment of God's hand in history; the +admiration and effort of moral progress; the stirring of conscience when +we see wrong; the expectation, when evil abounds, that God will bring +justice and purity to us if we labour with Him for them. + +But for each man there is the final duty of turning to himself. + + "My soul repairs its fault + When, sharpening sense's hebetude, + She turns on my own life! So viewed, + No mere mote's breadth but teems immense + With witnessings of providence: + And woe to me if when I look + Upon that record, the sole book + Unsealed to me, I take no heed + Of any warning that I read!"[45] + + [45] Browning's _Christmas Eve_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +_POLITICS AND FAITH._ + +ISAIAH xxx. (ABOUT 702 B.C.). + + +This prophecy of Isaiah rises out of circumstances a little more +developed than those in which chap. xxix. was composed. Sennacherib is +still engaged with Babylon, and it seems that it will yet be long before +he marches his armies upon Syria. But Isaiah's warning has at last +roused the politicians of Judah from their carelessness. We need not +suppose that they believed all that Isaiah predicted about the dire +siege which Jerusalem should shortly undergo and her sudden deliverance +at the hand of the Lord. Without the two strong religious convictions, +in the strength of which, as we have seen, he made the prediction, it +was impossible to believe that this siege and deliverance must certainly +happen. But the politicians were at least startled into doing something. +They did not betake themselves to God, to whom it had been the purpose +of Isaiah's last oration to shut them up. They only flung themselves +with more haste into their intrigues with Egypt. But in truth haste and +business were all that was in their politics: these were devoid both of +intelligence and faith. Where the sole motive of conduct is fear, +whether uneasiness or panic, force may be displayed, but neither +sagacity nor any moral quality. This was the case with Judah's Egyptian +policy, and Isaiah now spends two chapters in denouncing it. His +condemnation is twofold. The negotiations with Egypt, he says, are bad +politics and bad religion; but the bad religion is the root and source +of the other. Yet while he vents all his scorn on the politics, he uses +pity and sweet persuasiveness when he comes to speak of the eternal +significance of the religion. The two chapters are also instructive, +beyond most others of the Old Testament, in the light they cast on +revelation--its scope and methods. + +Isaiah begins with the bad politics. In order to understand how bad they +were, we must turn for a little to this Egypt, with whom Judah was now +seeking an alliance. + +In our late campaign on the Upper Nile we heard a great deal of the +Mudir of Dongola. His province covers part of the ancient kingdom of +Ethiopia; and in Meirawi, the village whose name appeared in so many +telegrams, we can still discover Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia. Now in +Isaiah's day the king of Ethiopia was, what the Mudir of Dongola was at +the time of our war, an ambitious person of no small energy; and the +ruler of Egypt proper was, what the Khedive was, a person of little +influence or resource. Consequently there happened what might have +happened a few years ago but for the presence of the British army in +Egypt. The Ethiopian came down the Nile, defeated Pharaoh and burned him +alive. But he died, and his son died after him; and before their +successor could also come down the Nile, the legitimate heir to Pharaoh +had regained part of his power. Some years ensued of uncertainty as to +who was the real ruler of Egypt. + +It was in this time of unsettlement that Judah sought Egypt's help. The +ignorance of the policy was manifest to all who were not blinded by fear +of Assyria or party feeling. To Isaiah the Egyptian alliance is a folly +and fatality that deserve all his scorn (vv. 1-8). + +_Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, executing a policy, but +it is not from Me; and weaving a web, but not of My spirit, that they +may heap sin upon sin; who set themselves on the way to go down to +Egypt, and at My mouth they have not inquired, to flee to the refuge of +Pharaoh, and to hide themselves in the shadow of Egypt. But the refuge +of Pharaoh shall be unto you for shame, and the hiding in the shadow of +Egypt for confusion!_ How can a broken Egypt help you? _When his princes +are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes, they shall all be +ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not for help nor +for profit, but for shame, and also for reproach._ + +Then Isaiah pictures the useless caravan which Judah has sent with +tribute to Egypt, strings of asses and camels struggling through the +desert, _land of trouble and anguish_, amid lions and serpents, and all +for _a people that shall not profit them_ (ver. 6). + +What tempted Judah to this profitless expenditure of time and money? +Egypt had a great reputation, and was a mighty promiser. Her brilliant +antiquity had given her a habit of generous promise, and dazzled other +nations into trusting her. Indeed, so full were Egyptian politics of +bluster and big language, that the Hebrews had a nickname for Egypt. +They called her Rahab--_Stormy-speech_, _Blusterer_, _Braggart_. It was +the term also for the crocodile, as being a _monster_, so that there was +a picturesqueness as well as moral aptness in the name. Ay, says Isaiah, +catching at the old name and putting to it another which describes +Egyptian helplessness and inactivity, I call her _Rahab Sit-still_, +_Braggart-that-sitteth-still_, _Stormy-speech Stay-at-home_. _Blustering +and inactivity, blustering and sitting still_, that is her character; +_for Egypt helpeth in vain and to no purpose_. + +Knowing how sometimes the fate of a Government is affected by a happy +speech or epigram, we can understand the effect of this cry upon the +politicians of Jerusalem. But that he might impress it on the popular +imagination and memory as well, Isaiah wrote his epigram on a tablet, +and put it in a book. We must remind ourselves here of chap. xx., and +remember how it tells us that Isaiah had already some years before this +endeavoured to impress the popular imagination with the folly of an +Egyptian alliance, _walking unfrocked and barefoot three years for a +sign and a portent upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia_ (see p. 199). + +So that already Isaiah had appealed from politicians to people on this +Egyptian question, just as he appealed thirty years ago from court to +market-place on the question of Ephraim and Damascus.[46] It is another +instance of that prophetic habit of his, on which we remarked in +expounding chap. viii.; and we must again emphasize the habit, for chap. +xxx. here swings round upon it. Whatever be the matter committed to him, +Isaiah is not allowed to rest till he brings it home to the popular +conscience; and however much he may be able to charge national disaster +upon the folly of politicians or the obduracy of a king, it is the +people whom he holds ultimately responsible. To Isaiah a nation's +politics are not arbitrary; they are not dependent on the will of kings +or the management of parties. They are the natural outcome of the +nation's character. What the people are, that will their politics be. If +you wish to reform the politics, you must first regenerate the people; +and it is no use to inveigh against a senseless policy, like this +Egyptian one, unless you go farther and expose the national temper which +has made it possible. A people's own morals have greater influence on +their destinies than their despots or legislators. Statesmen are what +the State makes them. No Government will attempt a policy for which the +nation behind it has not a conscience; and for the greater number of +errors committed by their rulers, the blame must be laid on the people's +own want of character or intelligence. + + [46] Chap. viii. 1 (p. 119). + +This is what Isaiah now drives home (xxx. 9 ff.). He tracks the bad +politics to their source in bad religion, the Egyptian policy to its +roots in the prevailing tempers of the people. The Egyptian policy was +doubly stamped. It was disobedience to the word of God; it was +satisfaction with falsehood. The statesmen of Judah shut their ears to +God's spoken word; they allowed themselves to be duped by the Egyptian +Pretence. But these, says Isaiah, are precisely the characteristics of +the whole Jewish people. _For it is a rebellious people, lying children, +children that will not hear the revelation of the LORD_. It was these +national failings--the want of virtues which are the very substance of a +nation: truth and reverence or obedience--that had culminated in the +senseless and suicidal alliance with Egypt. Isaiah fastens on their +falsehood first: _Which say to the seers, Ye shall not see, and to the +prophets, Ye shall not prophesy unto us right things; speak to us smooth +things: prophesy deceits_. No wonder such a character had been +fascinated by "Rahab"! It was a natural Nemesis, that a people who +desired from their teachers fair speech rather than true vision should +be betrayed by the confidence their statesmen placed in the Blusterer, +_that blustered and sat still_. Truth is what this people first require, +and therefore the _revelation of the LORD_ will in the first instance be +the revealing of the truth. Men who will strip pretence off the reality +of things; men who will call things by their right names, as Isaiah had +set himself to do; honest satirists and epigrammatists--these are the +bearers of God's revelation. For it is one of the means of Divine +salvation to call things by their right names, and here in God's +revelation also epigrams have their place. So much for truth. + +But reverence is truth's other self, for reverence is simply loyalty to +the supremest truth. And it is against the truth that the Jews have +chiefly sinned. They had shut their eyes to Egypt's real character, but +that was a small sin beside this: that they turned their backs on the +greatest reality of all--God Himself. _Get you out of the way_, they +said to the prophets, _turn out of the path; keep quiet in our presence +about the Holy One of Israel_. Isaiah's effort rises to its culmination +when he seeks to restore the sense of this Reality to his people. His +spirit is kindled at the words _the Holy One of Israel_, and to the end +of chap. xxxi. leaps up in a series of brilliant and sometimes scorching +descriptions of the name, the majesty and the love of God. Isaiah is not +content to have used his power of revelation to unveil the political +truth about Egypt. He will make God Himself visible to this people. +Passionately does he proceed to enforce upon the Jews what God thinks +about their own condition (vv. 12-14), then to persuade them to rely +upon Him alone, and wait for the working of His reasonable laws (vv. +15-18). Rising higher, he purges with pity their eyes to see God's very +presence, their ears to hear His voice, their wounds to feel His touch +(vv. 19-26). Then he remembers the cloud of invasion on the horizon, and +bids them spell, in its uncouth masses, the articulate name of the Lord +(vv. 27-33). And he closes with another series of figures by which God's +wisdom, and His jealousy and His tenderness are made very bright to them +(chap. xxxi.). + +These brilliant prophecies may not have been given all at the same time: +each is complete in itself. They do not all mention the negotiations +with Egypt, but they are all dark with the shadow of Assyria. Chap. xxx. +vv. 19-26 almost seem to have been written in a time of actual siege; +but vv. 27-33 represent Assyria still upon the horizon. In this, +however, these passages are fitly strung together: that they equally +strain to impress a blind and hardened people with the will, the majesty +and the love of God their Saviour. + + +I. THE BULGING WALL (vv. 12-14). + +Starting from their unwillingness to listen to the voice of the Lord in +their Egyptian policy, Isaiah tells the people that if they refused to +hear His word for guidance, they must now listen to it for judgement. +_Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because ye look down on +this word, and trust in perverseness and crookedness, and lean thereon, +therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, +bulging out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an +instant._ _This iniquity_, of course, is the embassy to Egypt. But that, +as we have seen, is only the people's own evil character coming to a +head; and by the breaking of the wall, we are therefore to suppose that +the prophet means the collapse not only of this Egyptian policy, but of +the whole estate and substance of the Jewish people. It will not be your +enemy that will cause a breach in the nation, but your teeming iniquity +shall cause the breach--to wit, this Egyptian folly. Judah will burst +her bulwarks from the inside. You may build the strongest form of +government round a people, you may buttress it with foreign alliances, +but these shall simply prove occasions for the internal wickedness to +break forth. Your supposed buttresses will prove real breaches; and of +all your social structure there will not be left as much as will make +the fragments of a single home, not _a sherd_ big enough _to carry fire +from the hearth, or to hold water from the cistern_. + + +II. NOT ALLIANCES, BUT RELIANCE (vv. 15-18). + +At this point, either Isaiah was stung by the demands of the politicians +for an alternative to their restless Egyptian policy which he condemned, +or more likely he rose, unaided by external influence, on the prophet's +native instinct to find some purely religious ground on which to base +his political advice. The result is one of the grandest of all his +oracles. _For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel: In +returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence +shall be your strength; and ye would not. But ye said, No, for upon +horses will we flee; wherefore ye shall flee: and upon the swift will we +ride; wherefore swift shall be they that pursue you! One thousand at the +rebuke of one--at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a +bare pole on the top of a mountain, and as a standard on an hill. And +therefore will the LORD wait that He may be gracious unto you, and +therefore will He hold aloof that He may have mercy upon you, for a God +of judgement is the LORD; blessed are all they that wait for Him._ The +words of this passage are their own interpretation and enforcement, all +but one; and as this one is obscure in its English guise, and the +passage really swings from it, we may devote a paragraph to its meaning. + +_A God of judgement is the LORD_ is an unfortunately ambiguous +translation. We must not take _judgement_ here in our familiar sense of +the word. It is not a sudden deed of doom, but a long process of law. It +means _manner_, _method_, _design_, _order_, _system_, the ideas, in +short, which we sum up under the word "law." Just as we say of a man, +_He is a man of judgement_, and mean thereby not that by office he is a +doomster, but that by character he is a man of discernment and prudence, +so simply does Isaiah say here that _Jehovah is a God of judgement_, and +mean thereby not that He is One, whose habit is sudden and awful deeds +of penalty or salvation, but, on the contrary, that, having laid down +His lines according to righteousness and established His laws in wisdom, +He remains in His dealings with men consistent with these. + +Now it is a great truth that the All-mighty and All-merciful is the +All-methodical too; and no religion is complete in its creed or healthy +in its influence, which does not insist equally on all these. It was +just the want of this third article of faith which perverted the souls +of the Jews in Isaiah's day, which (as we have seen under Chapter I.) +allowed them to make their worship so mechanical and material--for how +could they have been satisfied with mere forms if they had but once +conceived of God as having even ordinary intelligence?--and which +turned their political life into such a mass of intrigue, conceit and +falsehood, for how could they have dared to suppose that they would get +their own way, or have been so sure of their own cleverness, if only +they had had a glimpse of the perception, that God, the Ruler of the +world, had also His policy regarding them? They believed He was the +Mighty, they believed He was the Merciful, but because they forgot that +He was the Wise and the Worker by law, their faith in His might too +often turned into superstitious terror, their faith in His mercy +oscillated between the sleepy satisfaction that He was an indulgent God +and the fretful impatience that He was an indifferent one. Therefore +Isaiah persisted from first to last in this: that God worked by law; +that He had His plan for Judah, as well as these politicians; and, as we +shall shortly find him reminding them when intoxicated with their own +cleverness, _that He also is wise_ (xxxi. 2). Here by the same thought +he bids them be at peace, and upon the rushing tides of politics, +drawing them to that or the other mad venture, to swing by this anchor: +that God has His own law and time for everything. No man could bring the +charge of fatalism against such a policy of quietness. For it thrilled +with intelligent appreciation of the Divine method. When Isaiah said, +_In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence +shall be your strength_, he did not ask his restless countrymen to yield +sullenly to an infinite force or to bow in stupidity beneath the +inscrutable will of an arbitrary despot, but to bring their conduct into +harmony with a reasonable and gracious plan, which might be read in the +historical events of the time, and was vindicated by the loftiest +religious convictions. Isaiah preached no submission to fate, but +reverence for an all-wise Ruler, whose method was plain to every +clear-sighted observer of the fortunes of the nations of the world, and +whose purpose could only be love and peace to His own people (cf. p. +110). + + +III. GOD'S TABLE IN THE MIDST OF THE ENEMIES (vv. 19-26). + +This patient purpose of God Isaiah now proceeds to describe in its +details. Every line of his description has its loveliness, and is to be +separately appreciated. There is perhaps no fairer prospect from our +prophet's many windows. It is not argument nor a programme, but a series +of rapid glimpses, struck out by language, which often wants logical +connection, but never fails to make us see. + +To begin with, one thing is sure: the continuance of the national +existence. Isaiah is true to his original vision--the survival of a +remnant. _For a people in Zion--there shall be abiding in Jerusalem._ So +the brief essential is flashed forth. _Thou shalt surely weep no more; +surely He will be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy crying; with +His hearing of thee He will answer thee._ Thus much of general promise +had been already given. Now upon the vagueness of the Lord's delay +Isaiah paints realistic details, only, however, that he may make more +vivid the real presence of the Lord. The siege shall surely come, with +its sorely concrete privations, but the _Lord_ will be there, equally +distinct. _And though the Lord give you the bread of penury and the +water of tribulation_--perhaps the technical name for siege +rations--_yet shall not thy Teacher hide Himself any more, but thine +eyes shall ever be seeing thy Teacher; and thine ears shall hear a word +behind thee, saying, This is the way: walk ye in it, when ye turn to the +right hand or when ye turn to the left._ Real, concrete sorrows, these +are they that make the heavenly Teacher real! It is linguistically +possible, and more in harmony with the rest of the passage, to turn +_teachers_, as the English version has it, into the singular, and to +render it by _Revealer_. The word is an active participle, "Moreh," from +the same verb as the noun "Torah," which is constantly translated "Law" +in our version, but is, in the Prophets at least, more nearly equivalent +to "instruction," or to our modern term "revelation" (cf. ver. 9). +Looking thus to the One Revealer, and hearkening to the One Voice, _the +lying and rebellious children_ shall at last be restored to that +capacity for truth and obedience the loss of which has been their ruin. +Devoted to the Holy One of Israel, they shall scatter their idols as +loathsome (ver. 22). But thereupon a wonder is to happen. As the +besieged people, conscious of the One Great Presence in the midst of +their encompassed city, cast their idols through the gates and over the +walls, a marvellous vision of space and light and fulness of fresh food +bursts upon their starved and straitened souls (ver. 23). Promise more +sympathetic was never uttered to a besieged and famished city. Mark that +all down the passage there is no mention of the noise or instruments of +battle. The prophet has not spoken of the besiegers, who they may be, +how they may come, nor of the fashion of their war, but only of the +effects of the siege on those within: confinement, scant and bitter +rations. And now he is almost wholly silent about the breaking up of the +investing army and the trail of their slaughter. No battle breaks this +siege, but a vision of openness and plenty dawns noiselessly over its +famine and closeness. It is not vengeance or blood that an exhausted and +penitent people thirst after. But as they have been caged in a +fortress, narrow, dark and stony, so they thirst for the sight of the +sower, and the drop of the rain on the broken, brown earth, and the +juicy corn, and the meadow for their cribbed cattle, and the noise of +brooks and waterfalls, and above and about it all fulness of light. _And +He shall give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground +withal, and bread, even the increase of the ground, and it shall be +juicy and fat; thy cattle shall feed that day in a broad meadow. And the +oxen and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savoury +provender, winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be +upon every lofty mountain and upon every lifted hill rivers, streams of +water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. And the +light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the +sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the +LORD bindeth up the hurt of His people and healeth the stroke of their +wound._ It is one of Isaiah's fairest visions, and he is very much to be +blamed who forces its beauty of nature into an allegory of spiritual +things. Here literally God spreads His people a table in the midst of +their enemies. + + +IV. THE NAME OF THE LORD (vv. 27-33). + +But Isaiah lays down "the oaten pipe" and lifts again a brazen trumpet +to his lips. Between him and that sunny landscape of the future, of +whose pastoral details he has so sweetly sung, roll up now the uncouth +masses of the Assyrian invasion, not yet fully gathered, far less +broken. We are back in the present again, and the whole horizon is +clouded. + +The passage does not look like one from which comfort or edification can +be derived, but it is of extreme interest. The first two verses, for +instance, only require a little analysis to open a most instructive +glimpse into the prophet's inner thoughts about the Assyrian progress, +and show us how they work towards the expression of its full meaning. +_Behold, the Name of Jehovah cometh from afar--burning His anger and +awful the uplifting smoke; His lips are full of wrath, and His tongue as +fire that devoureth; and His breath is as an overflowing torrent--even +unto the neck it reacheth--to shake the nations in a sieve of +destruction, and a bridle that leadeth astray on the jaws of the +peoples._ + +_The Name of Jehovah_ is the phrase the prophets use when they wish to +tell us of the personal presence of God. When we hear a name cried out, +we understand immediately that a person is there. So when the prophet +calls, _Behold, the Name of Jehovah_, in face of the prodigious advance +of Assyria, we understand that he has caught some intuition of God's +presence in that uplifting of the nations of the north at the word of +the great King and their resistless sweep southward upon Palestine. In +that movement God is personally present. The Divine presence Isaiah then +describes in curiously mingled metaphor, which proves how gradually it +was that he struggled to a knowledge of its purpose there. First of all +he describes the advance of Assyria as a thunderstorm, heavy clouds and +darting, devouring fire. His imagination pictures a great face of wrath. +The thick curtains of cloud as they roll over one another suggest the +heavy lips, and the lightnings the fiery tongue. Then the figure passes +from heaven to earth. The thunderstorm has burst, and becomes the +_mountain torrent_, which speedily _reaches the necks_ of those who are +caught in its bed. But then the prophet's conscience suggests something +more than sudden and sheer force in this invasion, and the _tossing_ of +the torrent naturally leads him to express this new element in the +figure of _a sieve_. His thought about the Assyrian flood thus passes +from one of simple force and rush to one of judgement and being well +kept in hand. He sees its ultimate check at Jerusalem, and so his last +figure of it is the figure of _a bridle_, or _lasso_, such as is thrown +upon the jaws of a wild animal when you wish to catch and tame him. + +This gradual progress from the sense of sheer wild force, through that +of personal wrath, to discipline and sparing is very interesting. Vague +and chaotic that disaster rolled up the horizon upon Judah. _It cometh +from afar._ The politicians fled from it to their refuge behind the +Egyptian Pretence. But Isaiah bids them face it. The longer they look, +the more will conscience tell them that the unavoidable wrath of God is +in it; no blustering Rahab will be able to hide them from the anger of +the Face that lowers there. But let them look longer still, and the +unrelieved features of destruction will change to a hand that sifts and +checks, the torrent will become a sieve, and the disaster show itself +well held in by the power of their own God. + +So wildly and impersonally still do the storms of sorrow and disaster +roll up the horizon on men's eyes, and we fly in vague terror from them +to our Egyptian refuges. So still does conscience tell us it is futile +to flee from the anger of God, and we crouch hopeless beneath the rush +of imaginations of unchecked wrath, blackening the heavens and turning +every path of life to a tossing torrent. May it then be granted us to +have some prophet at our side to bid us face our disaster once more, and +see the discipline and judgement of the Lord, the tossing only of His +careful sieve, in the wild and cruel waves! We may not be poets like +Isaiah nor able to put the processes of our faith into such splendid +metaphors as he, but faith is given us to follow the same course as his +thoughts did, and to struggle till she arrives at the consciousness of +God in the most uncouth judgements that darken her horizon--the +consciousness of God present not only to smite, but to sift, and in the +end to spare. + +Of the angel who led Israel to the land of promise, God said, _My Name +is in him_. Our faith is not perfect till we can, like Isaiah, feel the +same of the blackest angel, the heaviest disaster, God can send us, and +be able to spell it out articulately: _The LORD, the LORD, a God +merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and +truth_. + +For delivery, says Isaiah, shall come to the people of God in the +crisis, as sudden and as startling into song as the delivery from Egypt +was. _Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, +and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the +mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel._ + +After this interval of solemn gladness, the storm and fire break out +afresh, and rage again through the passage. But their direction is +reversed, and whereas they had been shown rolling up the horizon as +towards Judah, they are now shown rolling down the horizon in pursuit of +the baffled Assyrian. The music of the verses is crashing. _And the LORD +shall cause the peal[47] of His voice to be heard, and the lighting down +of His arm to be seen in the fury of anger, yea flame of devouring +fire--bursting and torrent and hailstones. For from the voice of the +LORD shall the Assyrian be scattered when He shall smite with the rod. +And every passage of the rod of fate which the LORD bringeth down upon +him shall be with tabrets and harps, and in battles of waving shall he +be fought against._ The meaning is obscure, but palpable. Probably the +verse describes the ritual of the sacrifice to Moloch, to which there is +no doubt the next verse alludes. To sympathize with the prophet's +figure, we need of course an amount of information about the details of +that ritual which we are very far from possessing. But Isaiah's meaning +is evidently this. The destruction of the Assyrian host will be liker a +holocaust than a battle, like one of those fatal sacrifices to Moloch +which are directed by the solemn waving of a staff, and accompanied by +the music, not of war, but of festival. _Battles of waving_ is a very +obscure phrase, but the word translated _waving_ is the technical term +for the waving of the victim before the sacrifice to signify its +dedication to the deity; "and these _battles of waving_ may perhaps have +taken place in the fashion in which single victims were thrown from one +spear to another till death ensued."[48] At all events, it is evident +that Isaiah means to suggest that the Assyrian dispersion is a religious +act, a solemn holocaust rather than one of this earth's ordinary +battles, and directed by Jehovah Himself from heaven. This becomes clear +enough in the next verse: _For a Topheth hath been set in order +beforehand; yea, for Moloch is it arranged; He hath made it deep and +broad; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, +like a torrent of brimstone, shall kindle it_. So the Assyrian power was +in the end to go up in flame. + + [47] So Dr. B. Davis, quoted by Cheyne. + + [48] So Bredenkamp in his recent commentary on Isaiah. + +We postpone remarks on Isaiah's sense of the fierceness of the Divine +righteousness till we reach his even finer expression of it in chap. +xxxiii. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +_THREE TRUTHS ABOUT GOD._ + +ISAIAH xxxi. (ABOUT 702 B.C.). + + +Chap. xxxi., which forms an appendage to chaps. xxix. and xxx., can +scarcely be reckoned among the more important prophecies of Isaiah. It +is a repetition of the principles which the prophet has already +proclaimed in connection with the faithless intrigues of Judah for an +alliance with Egypt, and it was published at a time when the statesmen +of Judah were further involved in these intrigues, when events were +moving faster, and the prophet had to speak with more hurried words. +Truths now familiar to us are expressed in less powerful language. But +the chapter has its own value; it is remarkable for three very unusual +descriptions of God, which govern the following exposition of it. They +rise in climax, enforcing three truths:--that in the government of life +we must take into account God's wisdom; we must be prepared to find many +of His providences grim and savage-looking; but we must also believe +that He is most tender and jealous for His people. + + +I. YET HE ALSO IS WISE (vv. 1-3). + +We must suppose the negotiations with Egypt to have taken for the moment +a favourable turn, and the statesmen who advocated them to be +congratulating themselves upon some consequent addition to the fighting +strength of Judah. They could point to many chariots and a strong body +of cavalry in proof of their own wisdom and refutation of the prophet's +maxim, _In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; in +returning and rest shall ye be saved_. + +Isaiah simply answers their self-congratulation with the utterance of a +new Woe, and it is in this that the first of the three extraordinary +descriptions of God is placed. _Woe unto them that go down to Egypt for +help; upon horses do they stay, and trust in chariots because they are +many, and in horsemen because they are very strong: but they look not +unto the Holy One of Israel, and Jehovah they do not seek. Yet He also +is wise._ You have been clever and successful, but have you forgotten +that _God also is wise_, that He too has His policy, and acts reasonably +and consistently? You think you have been making history; but God also +works in history, and surely, to put it on the lowest ground, with as +much cleverness and persistence as you do. _Yet He also is wise, and +will bring evil, and will not call back His words, but will arise +against the house of the evil-doers, and against the help of them that +work iniquity._ + +This satire was the shaft best fitted to pierce the folly of the rulers +of Judah. Wisdom, a reasonable plan for their aims and prudence in +carrying it out, was the last thing they thought of associating with +God, whom they relegated to what they called their religion--their +temples, worship and poetry. When their emotions were stirred by solemn +services, or under great disaster, or in the hour of death, they +remembered God and it seemed natural to them that in these great +exceptions of life He should interfere; but in their politics and their +trade, in the common course and conduct of life, they ignored Him and +put their trust in their own wisdom. They limited God to the ceremonies +and exceptional occasions of life, when they looked for His glory or +miraculous assistance, but they never thought that in their ordinary +ways He had any interest or design. + +The forgetfulness, against which Isaiah directs this shaft of satire, is +the besetting sin of very religious people, of very successful people, +and of very clever people. + +It is the temptation of an ordinary Christian, church-going people, like +ourselves, with a religion so full of marvellous mercies, and so blessed +with regular opportunities of worship, to think of God only in +connection with these, and practically to ignore that along the far +greater stretches of life He has any interest or purpose regarding us. +Formally-religious people treat God as if He were simply a +constitutional sovereign, to step in at emergencies, and for the rest to +play a nominal and ceremonial part in the conduct of their lives. +Ignoring the Divine wisdom and ceaseless providence of God, and couching +their hearts upon easy views of His benevolence, they have no other +thought of Him, than as a philanthropic magician, whose power is +reserved to extricate men when they have got past helping themselves. +From the earliest times that way of regarding God has been prevalent, +and religious teachers have never failed to stigmatize it with the +hardest name for folly. _Fools_, says the Psalmist, _are afflicted when +they draw near unto the gates of death; then_, only then, _do they cry +unto the Lord in their trouble_. _Thou fool!_ says Christ of the man +who kept God out of the account of his life. God is not mocked, although +we ignore half His being and confine our religion to such facile views +of His nature. With this sarcasm, Isaiah reminds us that it is not a +Fool who is on the throne of the universe; yet is the Being whom the +imaginations of some men place there any better? O wise men, _God also +is wise_. Not by fits and starts of a benevolence similar to that of our +own foolish and inconsistent hearts does He work. Consistency, reason +and law are the methods of His action; and they apply closely, +irretrievably, to all of our life. Hath He promised evil? Then evil will +proceed. Let us believe that God keeps His word; that He is thoroughly +attentive to all we do; that His will concerns the whole of our life. + +But the temptation to refuse to God even ordinary wisdom is also the +temptation of very successful and very clever people, such as these +Jewish politicians fancied themselves to be, or such as the Rich Fool in +the parable. They have overcome all they have matched themselves +against, and feel as if they were to be masters of their own future. Now +the Bible and the testimony of men invariably declare that God has one +way of meeting such fools--the way Isaiah suggests here. God meets them +with their own weapons; He outmatches them in their own fashion. In the +eighteenth Psalm it is written, _With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself +pure, and with the perverse Thou wilt show Thyself froward_. The Rich +Fool congratulates himself that his soul is his own; says God, _This +night thy soul shall be required of thee_. The Jewish politicians pride +themselves on their wisdom; _Yet God also is wise_, says Isaiah +significantly. After Moscow Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed, +"The Almighty is too strong for me." But perhaps the most striking +analogy to this satire of Isaiah is to be found in the "Confessions" of +that Jew, from whose living sepulchre we are so often startled with +weird echoes of the laughter of the ancient prophets of his race. When +Heine, Germany's greatest satirist, lay upon a bed to which his evil +living had brought him before his time, and the pride of art, which had +been, as he says, his god, was at last crushed, he tells us what it was +that crushed him. They were singing his songs in every street of his +native land, and his fame had gone out through the world, while he lay +an exile and paralysed upon his "mattress-grave." "Alas!" he cries, "the +irony of Heaven weighs heavily upon me. The great Author of the +universe, the celestial Aristophanes, wished to show me, the petty, +earthly, German Aristophanes, how my most trenchant satires are only +clumsy patchwork compared with His, and how immeasurably He excels me in +humour and colossal wit." That is just a soul writing in its own heart's +blood this terrible warning of Isaiah: _Yet God also is wise_. + +_Yea, the Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses flesh, and +not spirit; and when Jehovah shall stretch out His hand, both he that +helpeth shall stumble, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they all +shall perish together._ + + +II. THE LION AND HIS PREY (ver. 4). + +But notwithstanding what he has said about God destroying men who trust +in their own cleverness, Isaiah goes on to assert that God is always +ready to save what is worth saving. The people, the city, His own +city--God will save that. To express God's persistent grace towards +Jerusalem, Isaiah uses two figures borrowed from the beasts. Both of +them are truly Homeric, and fire the imagination at once; but the first +is not one we should have expected to find as a figure of the saving +grace of God. Yet Isaiah knows it is not enough for men to remember how +wise God always is. They need also to be reminded how grim and cruel He +must sometimes appear, even in His saving providences. _For thus saith +Jehovah unto me: Like as when the lion growleth, and the young lion over +his prey, if a mob of shepherds be called forth against him, from their +voice he will not shrink in dismay, nor for their noise abase himself; +so shall Jehovah of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion and the hill +thereof._ A lion with a lamb in his claws, growling over it, while a +crowd of shepherds come up against him; afraid to go near enough to kill +him, they try to frighten him away by shouting at him. But he holds his +prey unshrinking. + +It is a figure that startles at first. To liken God with a saving hold +upon His own to a wild lion with his claws in the prey! But horror plays +the part of a good emphasis; while if we look into the figure, we shall +feel our horror change to appreciation. There is something majestic in +that picture of the lion with the shouting shepherds, too afraid to +strike him. _He will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself +for the noise of them._ Is it, after all, an unworthy figure of the +Divine Claimant for this city, who kept unceasing hold upon her after +His own manner, mysterious and lionlike to men, undisturbed by the +screams, formulas, and prayers of her mob of politicians and +treaty-mongers? For these are the _shepherds_ Isaiah means--sham +shepherds, the shrieking crew of politicians, with their treaties and +military display. God will save and carry Jerusalem His own way, paying +no heed to such. _He will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase +Himself for the noise of them._ + +There is more than the unyielding persistency of Divine grace taught +here. There is that to begin with. God will never let go what He has +made His own: the souls He has redeemed from sin, the societies He has +redeemed from barbarism, the characters He has hold of, the lives He has +laid His hand upon. Persistency of saving grace--let us learn that +confidently in the parable. But that is only half of what it is meant to +teach. Look at the shepherds: shepherds shouting round a lion; why does +Isaiah put it that way, and not as David did--lions growling round a +brave shepherd, with the lamb in his arms? Because it so appeared then +in the life Isaiah was picturing, because it often looks the same in +real life still. These politicians--they seemed, they played the part +of, shepherds; and Jehovah, who persistently frustrated their plans for +the salvation of the State--He looked the lion, delivering Jerusalem to +destruction. And very often to men does this arrangement of the parts +repeat itself; and while human friends are anxious and energetic about +them, God Himself appears in providences more lionlike than shepherdly. +He grasps with the savage paw of death some one as dear to us as that +city was to Isaiah. He rends our body or soul or estate. And friends and +our own thoughts gather round the cruel bereavement or disaster with +remonstrance and complaint. Our hearts cry out, doing, like shepherds, +their best to scare by prayer and cries the foe they are too weak to +kill. We all know the scene, and how shabby and mean that mob of human +remonstrances looks in face of the great Foe, majestic though +inarticulate, that with sullen persistence carries off its prey. All we +can say in such times is that if it is God who is the lion, then it is +for the best. For _though He slay me, yet will I trust Him_; and, after +all, it is safer to rely on the mercies of God, lionlike though they be, +than on the weak benevolences and officious pities of the best of human +advisers. "Thy will be done"--let perfect reverence teach us to feel +that, even when providence seems as savage as men that day thought God's +will towards Jerusalem. + +In addition then to remembering, when men seem by their cleverness and +success to rule life, that God is wiser and His plans more powerful than +theirs, we are not to forget, when men seem more anxious and merciful +than His dark providence, that for all their argument and action His +will shall not alter. But now we are to hear that this will, so hard and +mysterious, is as merciful and tender as a mother's. + + +III. THE MOTHER-BIRD AND HER NEST (ver. 5). + +_As birds hovering, so will Jehovah of hosts cover Jerusalem, He will +cover and deliver it: He will pass over and preserve it._ At last we are +through dark providence, to the very heart of the Almighty. The meaning +is familiar from its natural simplicity and frequent use in Scripture. +Two features of it our version has not reproduced. The word _birds_ +means the smaller kind of feathered creatures, and the word _hovering_ +is feminine in the original: _As little mother-birds hovering, so will +Jehovah of hosts protect Jerusalem_. We have been watching in spring the +hedge where we know is a nest. Suddenly the mother-bird, who has been +sitting on a branch close by, flutters off her perch, passes backwards +and forwards, with flapping wings that droop nervously towards the nest +over her young. A hawk is in the sky, and till he disappears she will +hover--the incarnation of motherly anxiety. This is Isaiah's figure. His +native city, on which he poured so much of his heart in lyrics and +parables, was again in danger. Sennacherib was descending upon her; and +the pity of Isaiah's own heart for her, evil though she was, suggested +to him a motherhood of pity in the breast of God. The suggestion God +Himself approved. Centuries after, when He assumed our flesh and spoke +our language, when He put His love into parables lowly and familiar to +our affections, there were none of them more beautiful than that which +He uttered of this same city, weeping as He spake: _O Jerusalem, +Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a +hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!_ + +With such fountains in Scripture, we need not, as some have done, exalt +the Virgin, or virtually make a fourth person in the Godhead, and that a +woman, in order to satisfy those natural longings of the heart which the +widespread worship of the mother of Jesus tells us are so peremptory. +For all fulness dwelleth in God Himself. Not only may we rejoice in that +pity and wise provision for our wants, in that pardon and generosity, +which we associate with the name of father, but also in the wakefulness, +the patience, the love, lovelier with fear, which make a mother's heart +so dear and indispensable. We cannot tell along what wakened nerve the +grace of God may reach our hearts; but Scripture has a medicine for +every pain. And if any feel their weakness as little children feel it, +let them know that the Spirit of God broods over them, as a mother over +her babe; and if any are in pain or anxiety, and there is no human +heart to suffer with them, let them know that as closely as a mother may +come to suffer with her child, and as sensitive as she is to its danger, +so sensitive is God Almighty to theirs, and that He gives them proof of +their preciousness to Him by suffering with them. + + * * * * * + +How these three descriptions meet the three failings of our faith! We +forget that God is ceaselessly at work in wisdom in our lives. We forget +that God must sometimes, even when He is saving us, seem lionlike and +cruel. We forget that "the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully +kind." + +Having thus made vivid the presence of their Lord to the purged eyes of +His people, patient, powerful in order, wise in counsel, persistent in +grace, and, last of all, very tender, Isaiah concludes with a cry to the +people to turn to this Lord, from whom they have so deeply revolted. Let +them cast away their idols, and there shall be no fear of the result of +the Assyrian invasion. The Assyrian shall fall, not by the sword of man, +but the immediate stroke of God. _And his rock shall pass away by reason +of terror, and his princes shall be dismayed at the ensign, saith the +Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem._ And so +Isaiah closes this series of prophecies on the keynote with which it +opened in the first verse of chap. xxix.: that Jerusalem is Ariel--_the +hearth and altar, the dwelling-place and sanctuary, of God_. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +_A MAN: CHARACTER AND THE CAPACITY TO DISCRIMINATE CHARACTER._ + +ISAIAH xxxii. 1-8 (ABOUT 702 B.C.?). + + +The Assyrians being thus disposed of, Isaiah turns to a prospect, on +which we have scarcely heard him speak these twenty years, since Assyria +appeared on the frontier of Judah--the religious future and social +progress of his own people. This he paints in a small prophecy of eight +verses, the first eight of chap. xxxii.--verses 9-20 of that chapter +apparently springing from somewhat different conditions. + +The first eight verses of chap. xxxii. belong to a class of prophecies +which we may call Isaiah's "escapes." Like St. Paul, Isaiah, when he has +finished some exposition of God's dealings with His people or argument +with the sinners among them, bursts upon an unencumbered vision of the +future, and with roused conscience, and voice resonant from long debate, +takes his loftiest flights of eloquence. In Isaiah's book we have +several of these visions, and each bears a character of its own +according to the sort of sinners from whom the prophet shook himself +loose to describe it and the kind of indignation that filled his heart +at the time. We have already seen, how in some of Isaiah's visions the +Messiah has the chief place, while from others He is altogether absent. +But here we come upon another inconsistency. Sometimes, as in chap. xi., +Isaiah is content with nothing but a new dispensation--the entire +transformation of nature, when there shall be no more desert or storm, +but to the wild animals docility shall come, and among men an end to +sorrow, fraud and war. But again he limits his prophetic soul and +promises less. As if, overcome by the spectacle of the more clamant +needs and horrible vices of society, he had said, we must first get rid +of these, we must supply those, before we can begin to dream of heaven. +Such is Isaiah's feeling here. This prophecy is not a vision of society +glorified, but of society established and reformed, with its foundation +firmly settled (ver. 1), with its fountain forces in full operation +(ver. 2), and with an absolute check laid upon its worst habits, as, for +instance, the moral grossness, lying and pretence which the prophet has +been denouncing for several chapters (vv. 3-8). This moderation of the +prophecy brings it within the range of practical morals; while the +humanity of it, its freedom from Jewish or Oriental peculiarities, +renders it thoroughly modern. If every unfulfilled prophecy ought to be +an accusing conscience in the breast of the Christian Church, there will +be none more clamant and practical than this one. Its demands are +essential to the social interests of to-day. + +In ver. 1 we have the presupposition of the whole prophecy: _Behold, in +righteousness shall a king reign, and princes--according to justice +shall they rule_. A just government is always the basis of Isaiah's +vision of the future. Here he defines it with greater abstractness than +he has been wont to do. It is remarkable, that a writer, whose pen has +already described the figure of the coming King so concretely and with +so much detail, should here content himself with a general promise of a +righteous government, regarding, as he seems to do, rather the office of +kinghood, than any single eminent occupier of it. That the prophet of +Immanuel, and still more the prophet of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names +(chap. ix. 7), and of the Son of Jesse (chap. xi. 1), should be able to +paint the ideal future, and speak of the just government that was to +prevail in it, without at the same time referring to his previous very +explicit promises of a royal Individual, is a fact which we cannot +overlook in support of the opinion we have expressed on pp. 180 and 181 +concerning the object of Isaiah's Messianic hopes. + +Nor is the vagueness of the first verse corrected by the terms of the +second: _And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind_, etc. We +have already spoken of this verse as an ethical advance upon Isaiah's +previous picture of the Messiah (see p. 182). But while, of course, the +Messiah was to Isaiah the ideal of human character, and therefore shared +whatsoever features he might foresee in its perfect development, it is +evident that in this verse Isaiah is not thinking of the Messiah alone +or particularly. When he says with such simplicity _a_ man, he means any +man, he means the ideal for every man. Having in ver. 1 laid down the +foundation for social life, he tells us in ver. 2 what the shelter and +fountain force of society are to be: not science nor material wealth, +but personal influence, the strength and freshness of the human +personality. _A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and a +covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the +shadow of a great rock in a weary land._ After just government (ver. 1) +great characters are the prophet's first demand (ver. 2), and then (vv. +3-8) he will ask for the capacity to discriminate character. "Character +and the capacity to discriminate character" indeed summarizes this +prophecy. + + +I. A MAN (ver. 2). + +Isaiah has described personal influence on so grand a scale that it is +not surprising that the Church has leapt to his words as a direct +prophecy of Jesus Christ. They are indeed a description of Him, out of +whose shadow advancing time has not been able to carry the children of +men, who has been the shelter and fertility of every generation since He +was lifted up, and to whom the affections of individual hearts never +rise higher than when they sing-- + + "Rock of ages, cleft for me, + Let me hide myself in Thee." + +Such a rock was Christ indeed; but, in accordance with what we have said +above, the prophet here has no individual specially in his view, but is +rather laying down a general description of the influence of individual +character, of which Christ Jesus was the highest instance. Taken in this +sense, his famous words present us, _first_, with a philosophy of +history, at the heart of which there is, _secondly_, a great gospel, and +in the application of which there is, _thirdly_, a great ideal and duty +for ourselves. + +1. Isaiah gives us in this verse a PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. Great men are +not the whole of life, but they are the condition of all the rest; if it +were not for the big men, the little ones could scarcely live. The first +requisites of religion and civilisation are outstanding characters. + +In the East the following phenomenon is often observed. Where the desert +touches a river-valley or oasis, the sand is in a continual state of +drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the +barrenness of such portions of the desert at least as abut upon the +fertile land. For under the rain, or by infiltration of the river, +plants often spring up through the sand, and there is sometimes promise +of considerable fertility. It never lasts. Down comes the periodic +drift, and life is stunted or choked out. But set down a rock on the +sand, and see the difference its presence makes. After a few showers, to +the leeward side of this some blades will spring up; if you have +patience, you will see in time a garden. How has the boulder produced +this? Simply by arresting the drift. + +Now that is exactly how great men benefit human life. A great man serves +his generation, serves the whole race, by arresting the drift. Deadly +forces, blind and fatal as the desert wind, sweep down human history. In +the beginning it was the dread of Nature, the cold blast which blows +from every quarter on the barbarian, and might have stunted men to +animals. But into some soul God breathed a great breath of freedom, and +the man defied Nature. Nature has had her revenge by burying the rebel +in oblivion. On the distant horizon of history we can see, merely in +some old legend, the evidence of his audacity. But the drift was +arrested; behind the event men took shelter, in the shelter grew free, +and learned to think out what the first great resister felt. + +When history had left this rock behind, and the drift had again space to +grow, the same thing happened; and the hero this time was Abraham. He +laid his back to the practice of his forefathers, and lifting his brow +to heaven, was the first to worship the One Unseen God. Abraham +believed; and in the shadow of his faith, and sheltered by his example, +his descendants learned to believe too. To-day from within the three +great spiritual religions men look back to him as the father of the +faithful. + +When Isaiah, while all his countrymen were rushing down the mad, steep +ways of politics, carried off by the only powers that were as yet known +in these ways, fear of death and greed to be on the side of the +strongest--when Isaiah stood still amid that panic rush, and uttered the +memorable words, _In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; +in returning and rest shall ye be saved_, he stopped one of the most +dangerous drifts in history, and created in its despite a shelter for +those spiritual graces, which have always been the beauty of the State, +and are now coming to be recognized as its strength. + +When, in the early critical days of the Church, that dark drift of +Jewish custom, which had overflown the barriers set to the old +dispensation, threatened to spread its barrenness upon the fields of the +Gentile world, already white to the harvest of Christ, and Peter and +Barnabas and all the Apostles were carried away by it, what was it that +saved Christianity? Under God, it was this: that Paul got up and, as he +tells us, withstood Peter to the face. + +And, again, when the powers of the Roman Church and the Roman Empire, +checked for a little by the efforts which began the Reformation, +gathered themselves together and rose in one awful front of emperor, +cardinals, and princes at the Diet of Worms, what was it that stood fast +against that drift of centuries, and proved the rock, under whose +shelter men dared to read God's pure word again, and preach His Gospel? +It was the word of a lonely monk: "Here stand I. I cannot otherwise. So +help me, God." + +So that Isaiah is right. A single man has been as _an hiding-place from +the wind and a covert from the tempest_. History is swept by drifts: +superstition, error, poisonous custom, dust-laden controversy. What has +saved humanity has been the upraising of some great man to resist those +drifts, to set his will, strong through faith, against the prevailing +tendency, and be the shelter of the weaker, but not less desirous, souls +of his brethren. "The history of what man has accomplished in the world +is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked there." Under +God, personal human power is the highest force, and God has ever used it +as His chief instrument. + +2. But in this philosophy of history there is a GOSPEL. Isaiah's words +are not only man's ideal; they are God's promise, and that promise has +been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most conspicuous +example--none others are near Him--of this personal influence in which +Isaiah places all the shelter and revival of society. God has set His +seal to the truth, that the greatest power in shaping human destiny is +man himself, by becoming one with man, by using a human soul to be the +Saviour of the race. _A man_, says Isaiah, _shall be as an hiding-place +from the wind, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land_; and the +Rock of ages was a Man. The world indeed knew that personal character +could go higher than all else in the world, but they never knew how high +till they saw Jesus Christ, or how often till they numbered His +followers. + +This figure of a rock, a rock resisting drift, gives us some idea, not +only of the commanding influence of Christ's person, but of that special +office from which all the glory of His person and of His name arises: +that _He saves His people from their sins_. + +For what is sin? Sin is simply the longest, heaviest drift in human +history. It arose in the beginning, and has carried everything before it +since. "The oldest custom of the race," it is the most powerful habit of +the individual. Men have reared against it government, education, +philosophy, system after system of religion. But sin overwhelmed them +all. + +Only Christ resisted, and His resistance saves the world. Alone among +human lives presented to our view, that of Christ is sinless. What is so +prevalent in human nature that we cannot think of a human individual +without it never stained Christ's life. Sin was about Him; it was not +that He belonged to another sphere of things which lay above it. Sin was +about Him. He rose from its midst with the same frailty as other men, +encompassed by the same temptations; but where they rose to fall, He +rose to stand, and standing, became the world's Saviour. The great +tradition was broken; the drift was arrested. Sin never could be the +same again after the sinless manhood of Christ. The old world's sins and +cruel customs were shut out from the world that came after. Some of them +ceased so absolutely as scarcely to be afterwards named; and the rest +were so curbed that no civilised society suffered them to pass from its +constraint, and no public conscience tolerated them as natural or +necessary evils. + +What the surface of the world's life bears so deeply, that does every +individual, who puts his trust in Jesus, feel to the core. Of Jesus the +believer can truly say that life on _this_ side of Him is very different +from life on _that_. Temptations keep far away from the heart that keeps +near to Christ. Under the shadow of our Rock, for us the evil of the +present loses all its suggestiveness, the evil of the past its awful +surge of habit and guilty fear. + +3. But there is not only a philosophy of history and a gospel in this +promise of _a man_. There is a great DUTY and IDEAL for every one. If +this prophecy distinctly reaches forward to Jesus Christ as its only +perfect fulfilment, the vagueness of its expression permits of its +application to all, and through Him its fulfilment by all becomes a +possibility. Now each of us may be a rock, a shelter and a source of +fertility to the life around him in three modes of constant influence. +We can be like Christ, the Rock, in shutting out from our neighbours the +knowledge and infection of sin, in keeping our conversation so +unsuggestive and unprovocative of evil, that, though sin drift upon us, +it shall never drift through us. And we may be like Christ, the Rock, in +shutting out blame from other men; in sheltering them from the east wind +of pitiless prejudice, quarrel or controversy; in stopping the unclean +and bitter drifts of scandal and gossip. How many lives have lost their +fertility for the want of a little silence and a little shadow! Some +righteous people have a terribly north-eastern exposure; children do not +play about their doors, nor the prodigal stop there. And again, as there +are a number of men and women who fall in struggling for virtue simply +because they never see it successful in others, and the spectacle of one +pure, heroic character would be their salvation, here is another way in +which each servant of God may be a rock. Of the late Clerk Maxwell it +was said, "He made faith in goodness easy to other men." _A man shall be +as streams of water in a desert place._ + + +II. CAPACITY TO DISTINGUISH CHARACTER (vv. 3-8). + +But after the coming of this ideal, it is not paradise that is regained. +Paradise is farther off. We must have truth to begin with: truth and the +capacity to discriminate character. The sternness with which Isaiah thus +postpones his earlier vision shows us how sore his heart was about the +_lying_ temper of his people. We have heard him deploring the +fascination of their false minds by the Egyptian Pretence. Their +falseness, however, had not only shown itself in their foreign politics, +but in their treatment of one another, in their social fashions, +judgements and worships. In society there prevailed a want of moral +insight and of moral courage. At home also the Jews had failed to call +things by their right names (cf. p. 226). Therefore next in their future +Isaiah desires the cure of moral blindness, haste and cowardice (vv. 3, +4), with the explosion of all social lies (ver. 5). Men shall stand out +for what they are, whether they be bad--for the bad shall not be wanting +(vv. 6, 7)--or good (ver. 8). On righteous government (ver. 1) and +influence of strong men (ver. 2) must follow social truthfulness (vv. +3-8). Such is the line of the prophet's demands. The details of vv. 3-8 +are exceedingly interesting. + +_And not closed shall be the eyes of them that see, and the ears of them +that hear shall be pricked up._ The context makes it clear that this is +spoken, not of intellectual, but of moral, insight and alertness. _And +the heart of the hasty shall learn how to know, and the tongue of the +stammerer be quick_ (the verb is the same as the _hasty_ of the +previous clause) _to speak plain things_. _Startlingly plain +things_--for the word literally means _blinding-white_, and is so used +of the sun--_startlingly plain_, like that scorching epigram upon Egypt. +The morally rash and the morally timid are equal fathers of lies. + +In illustration Isaiah takes the conventional abuse of certain moral +terms, exposes it and declares it shall cease: _The vile person shall no +more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful_. _Liberal_ +and _bountiful_ were conventional names. The Hebrew word for _liberal_ +originally meant exactly that--_open-hearted_, _generous_, +_magnanimous_. In the East it is the character which above all they call +princely. So like our words "noble" and "nobility," it became a term of +rank, _lord_ or _prince_, and was often applied to men who were not at +all great-hearted, but the very opposite--even to the _vile person_. +_Vile person_ is literally the _faded_ or the _exhausted_, whether +mentally or morally--the last kind of character that could be princely. +The other conventional term used by Isaiah refers to wealth rather than +rank. The Hebrew for _bountiful_ literally means _abundant_, a man +blessed with plenty, and is used in the Old Testament both for the rich +and the fortunate. Its nearest English equivalent is perhaps _the +successful man_. To this Isaiah fitly opposes a name, wrongly rendered +in our version _churl_, but corrected in the margin to _crafty_--_the +fraudulent_, _the knave_. When moral discrimination comes, says Isaiah, +men will not apply the term _princely_ to _worn-out_ characters, nor +grant them the social respect implied by the term. They will not call +the _fraudulent_ the _fortunate_, nor canonise him as successful, who +has gotten his wealth by underhand means. _The worthless character shall +no more be called princely, nor the knave hailed as the successful._ But +men's characters shall stand out true in their actions, and by their +fruits ye shall know them. In those magic days the heart shall come to +the lips, and its effects be unmistakeable. _For the worthless person, +worthlessness shall he speak_--what else can he?--_and his heart shall +do iniquity, to practise profaneness and to utter against the LORD rank +error, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink +of the thirsty to fail_. _The tools, too, of the knave_ (a play upon +words here--"Keli Kelav," _the knave his knives_) _are evil; he! low +tricks he deviseth to destroy the poor with words of falsehood, even +when the poor speaks justice_ (that is, has justice as well as poverty +to plead for him). _But the princely things deviseth, and he upon +princely things shall stand_--not upon conventional titles or rank, or +the respect of insincere hearts, but upon actual deeds of generosity and +sacrifice. + +After great characters, then, what society needs is capacity to discern +character, and the chief obstacle in the way of this discernment is the +substitution of a conventional morality for a true morality, and of some +distinctions of man's making for the eternal difference which God has +set between right and wrong. + +Human progress consists, according to Isaiah, of getting rid of these +conventions; and in this history bears him out. The abolition of +slavery, the recognition of the essential nobility of labour, the +abolition of infanticide, the emancipation of woman--all these are due +to the release of men's minds from purely conventional notions, and the +courageous application in their place of the fundamental laws of +righteousness and love. If progress is still to continue, it must be by +the same method. In many directions it is still a false +conventionalism,--sometimes the relic of barbarism, sometimes the fruit +of civilisation,--that blocks the way. The savage notions which +obstruct the enforcement of masculine purity have to be exposed. Nor +shall we ever get true commercial prosperity, or the sense of security +which is indispensable to that, till men begin to cease calling +transactions all right merely because they are the custom of the trade +and the means to which its members look for profits. + +But, above all, as Isaiah tells us, we need to look to our use of +language. It is one of the standing necessities of pure science to +revise the terminology, to reserve for each object a special name, and +see that all men understand the same object by the same name. Otherwise +confusion comes in, and science is impossible. The necessity, though not +so faithfully recognized, is as imperative in morals. If we consider the +disgraceful mistakes in popular morals which have been produced by the +transference and degradation of names, we shall feel it to be a +religious duty to preserve for these their proper meaning. In the +interests of morality, we must not be careless in our use of moral +terms. As Socrates says in the _Phaedo_: "To use words wrongly and +indefinitely is not merely an error in itself; it also creates evil in +the soul."[49] What noxious misconceptions, what mistaken ideals of +life, are due to the abuse of these four words alone: "noble," +"gentleman," "honour" and "Christian"! By applying these, in flattery or +deceit, to persons unworthy of them, men have not only deprived them of +the virtue which originally the mere utterance of them was enough to +instil into the heart, but have sent forth to the world under their +attractiveness second-rate types of character and ideals. The word +"gentleman"! How the heart sickens as it thinks what a number of people +have been satisfied to aim at a shoddy and superficial life because it +was labelled with this gracious name. Conventionalism has deprived the +English language of some of its most powerful sermons by devoting terms +of singular moral expressiveness to do duty as mere labels upon +characters that are dead, or on ranks and offices, for the designation +of which mere cyphers might have sufficed. + + [49] Cf. further with this passage F. J. Church, _Trial and Death of + Socrates_, Introd. xli. ff. + +We must not forget, however, Isaiah's chief means for the abolition of +this conventionalism and the substitution of a true moral vision and +terminology. These results are to follow from the presence of the great +character, _A Man_, whom he has already lifted up. Conventionalism is +another of the drifts which that _Rock_ has to arrest. Setting ourselves +to revise our dictionaries or to restore to our words their original +meanings out of our memories is never enough. The rising of a +conspicuous character alone can dissipate the moral haze; the sense of +his influence will alone fill emptied forms with meaning. So Christ +Jesus judged and judges the world by His simple presence; men fall to +His right hand and to His left. He calls things by their right names, +and restores to each term of religion and morals its original ideal, +which the vulgar use of the world had worn away.[50] + + [50] Cf. with the fifth and sixth verses of chap. xxxii. the forcible + passage in the introduction to Carlyle's _Cromwell's Letters_, + beginning, "Sure enough, in the Heroic Century, as in the Unheroic, + knaves and cowards ... were not wanting. But the question always + remains, Did they lie chained?" etc. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +_ISAIAH TO WOMEN._ + +ISAIAH xxxii. 9-20 (DATE UNCERTAIN). + + +The date of this prophecy, which has been appended to those spoken by +Isaiah during the Egyptian intrigues (704-702), is not certain. It is +addressed to women, and there is no reason why the prophet, when he was +upbraiding the men of Judah for their false optimism, should not also +have sought to awaken the conscience of their wives and daughters on +what is the besetting sin rather of women than of men. The chief +evidence for dissociating the prophecy from its immediate predecessors +is that it predicts, or apparently predicts (vv. 13-14), the ruin of +Jerusalem, whereas in these years Isaiah was careful to exempt the Holy +City from the fate which he saw falling on the rest of the land. But +otherwise the argument of the prophecy is almost exactly that of chaps. +xxix.-xxx. By using the same words when he blames the women for _ease_ +and _carelessness_ in vv. 9-11, as he does when he promises _confidence_ +and _quiet resting-places_ in vv. 17, 18, Isaiah makes clear that his +purpose is to contrast the false optimism of society during the +postponement of the Assyrian invasion with that confidence and stability +upon righteousness which the Spirit of God can alone create. The +prophecy, too, has the usual three stages: sin in the present, +judgement in the immediate future, and a state of blessedness in the +latter days. The near date at which judgement is threatened--_days +beyond a year_--ought to be compared with chap. xxix. 1: _Add ye a year +to a year; let the feasts come round_. + +The new points are--that it is the women who are threatened, that +Jerusalem itself is pictured in ruin, and that the pouring out of the +Spirit is promised as the cause of the blessed future. + + +I. THE CHARGE TO THE WOMEN (vv. 9-12) + +is especially interesting, not merely for its own terms, but because it +is only part of a treatment of women which runs through the whole of +Scripture. + +Isaiah had already delivered against the women of Jerusalem a severe +diatribe (chap. iii.), the burden of which was their vanity and +haughtiness. With the satiric temper, which distinguishes his earlier +prophecies, he had mimicked their ogling and mincing gait, and described +pin by pin their fashions and ornaments, promising them instead of these +things _rottenness_ and _baldness_, and _a girdle of sackcloth and +branding for beauty_. But he has grown older, and penetrating below +their outward fashion and gait, he charges them with thoughtlessness as +the besetting sin of their sex. _Ye women that are at ease, rise up, and +hear my voice; ye careless daughters, give ear to my speech. For days +beyond a year shall ye be troubled, O careless women, for the vintage +shall fail; the ingathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are +at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones._ By a pair of epithets he +describes their fault; and almost thrice does he repeat the pair, as if +he would emphasize it past all doubt. The besetting sin of women, as he +dins into them, is ease; an ignorant and unthinking contentment with +things as they are; thoughtlessness with regard to the deeper mysteries +of life; disbelief in the possibility of change. + +But Isaiah more than hints that these besetting sins of women are but +the defects of their virtues. The literal meaning of the two adjectives +he uses, _at ease_ and _careless_, is _restful_ and _trustful_. +Scripture throughout employs these words both in a good and a bad sense. +Isaiah does so himself in this very chapter (compare these verses with +vv. 17, 18). In the next chapter he describes the state of Jerusalem +after redemption as a state of _ease_ or _restfulness_, and we know that +he never ceased urging the people to _trustfulness_. For such truly +religious conditions he uses exactly the same names as for the shallow +optimism with which he now charges his countrywomen. And so doing, he +reminds us of an important law of character. The besetting sins of +either sex are its virtues prostituted. A man's greatest temptations +proceed from his strength; but the glory of the feminine nature is +repose, and trust is the strength of the feminine character, in which +very things, however, lies all the possibility of woman's degradation. +Woman's faith amounts at times to real intuition; but what risks are +attached to this prophetic power--of impatience, of contentment with the +first glance at things, "the inclination," as a great moralist has put +it, "to take too easily the knowledge of the problems of life, and to +rest content with what lies nearest her, instead of penetrating to a +deeper foundation." Women are full of indulgence and hope; but what +possibilities lie there of deception, false optimism, and want of that +anxiety which alone makes progress possible. Women are more inclined +than men to believe all things; but how certain is such a temper to +sacrifice the claims of truth and honour. Women are full of tact, the +just favourites of success, with infinite power to plead and please; but +if they are aware of this, how certain is such a self-consciousness to +produce negligence and the fatal sleep of the foolish virgins. + +Scripture insists repeatedly on this truth of Isaiah's about the +besetting sin of women. The prophet Amos has engraved it in one of his +sharpest epigrams, declaring that thoughtlessness is capable of turning +women into very brutes, and their homes into desolate ruins: _Hear this +word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which +oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say unto their lords, +Bring and let us drink. The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by His holiness +that, lo, the days shall come upon you that they shall take you away +with hooks, and your residue with fish-hooks, and ye shall go out at the +breaches, every one straight before her, and ye shall cast yourselves +into Harmon, saith Jehovah._ It is a cowherd's picture of women: a troop +of cows, heavy, heedless animals, trampling in their anxiety for food +upon every frail and lowly object in the way. There is a cowherd's +coarseness in it, but a prophet's insight into character. Not of +Jezebels, or Messalinas, or Lady-Macbeths is it spoken, but of the +ordinary matrons of Samaria. Thoughtlessness is able to make brutes out +of women of gentle nurture, with homes and a religion. For +thoughtlessness when joined to luxury or beauty plays with cruel +weapons. It means greed, arrogance, indifference to suffering, +wantonness, pride of conquest, dissimulation in love, and revenge for +little slights; and there is no waste, unkind sport, insolence, +brutality, or hysterical violence to which it will not lead. Such women +are known, as Amos pictured them, through many degrees of this +thoughtlessness: interrupters of conversation, an offence to the wise; +devourers of many of the little ones of God's creation for the sake of +their own ornament; tormentors of servants and subordinates for the sake +of their own ease; out of the enjoyment of power or for admiration's +sake breakers of hearts. And are not all such victims of thoughtlessness +best compared, with Amos, to a cow--an animal that rushes at its grass +careless of the many daisies and ferns it tramples, that will destroy +the beauty of a whole country lane for a few mouthfuls of herbage? +Thoughtlessness, says Amos--_and the Lord GOD hath sworn it by His +holiness_--is the very negation of womanhood, the ruin of homes. + +But when we turn from the degradation of woman as thus exposed by the +prophets to her glory as lifted up in the New Testament, we find that +the same note is struck. Woman in the New Testament is gracious +according as she is thoughtful; she offends even when otherwise +beautiful by her feeling overpowering her thought. Martha spoils a most +estimable character by one moment of unthinking passion, in which she +accuses the Master of carelessness. Mary chooses the better part in +close attention to her Master's words. The Ten Virgins are divided into +five wise and five foolish. Paul seems to have been struck, as Isaiah +was, with the natural tendency of the female character, for the first +duty he lays upon the old women is to _teach the young women to think +discreetly_, and he repeats the injunction, putting it before chastity +and industry--_Teach them_, he says, _teach them discretion_ (Titus ii. +4, 5). In Mary herself, the mother of our Lord, we see two graces of +character, to the honour of which Scripture gives equal place--faith and +thoughtfulness. The few sentences, which are all that he devotes to +Mary's character, the Evangelist divides equally between these two. She +was called _blessed_ because she believed the word of the Lord. But +trustfulness did not mean in her, as in other women, neglect to think. +Twice, at an interval of twelve years, we are shown thoughtfulness and +carefulness of memory as the habitual grace of this first among women. +_Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. His mother +kept all these sayings in her heart._[51] What was Mary's glory was +other women's salvation. By her own logic the sufferer of Capernaum, +whom many physicians failed to benefit, found her cure; by her +persistent argument the Syrophenician woman received her daughter to +health again. And when our Lord met that flippant descendant of the +_kine of Bashan, that are in the mount of Samaria_, how did He treat her +that He might save her but by giving her matter to think about, by +speaking to her in riddles, by exploding her superficial knowledge, and +scattering her easy optimism? + + [51] Cf. Newman, _Oxford University Sermons_, xv. + +So does all Scripture declare, in harmony with the oracle of Isaiah, +that thoughtlessness and easy contentment with things as they be, are +the besetting sins of woman. But her glory is discretion. + +II. The next new point in this prophecy is the + + +DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM (vv. 13-15). + +_Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon +all the houses of joy in the joyous city: for the palace shall be +forsaken; the populous city shall be deserted; Ophel and the Watch-tower +shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks._ +The attempt has been made to confine this reference to the outskirts of +the sacred city, but it is hardly a just one. The prophet, though he +does not name the city, evidently means Jerusalem, and means the whole +of it. Some therefore deny the authenticity of the prophecy. Certainly +it is almost impossible to suppose, that so definite a sentence of ruin +can have been published at the same time as the assurances of +Jerusalem's inviolability in the preceding orations. But that does not +prevent the hypothesis that it was uttered by Isaiah at an earlier +period, when, as in chaps. ii. and iii., he did say extreme things about +the destruction of his city. It must be noticed, however, that Isaiah +speaks with some vagueness; that at the present moment he is not +concerned with any religious truth or will of the Almighty, but simply +desires to contrast the careless gaiety of the women of Jerusalem with +the fate hanging over them. How could he do this more forcibly than by +turning the streets and gardens of their delights into ruins and the +haunts of the wild ass, even though it should seem inconsistent with his +declaration that Zion was inviolable? Licence for a certain amount of +inconsistency is absolutely necessary in the case of a prophet who had +so many divers truths to utter to so many opposite interests and +tempers. Besides, at this time he had already reduced Jerusalem very low +(xxix. 4). + + +III. THE SPIRIT OUTPOURED (vv. 15-20). + +The rest of the prophecy is luminous rather than lucid, full of suffused +rather than distinct meanings. The date of the future regeneration is +indefinite--another feature more in harmony with Isaiah's earlier +prophecies than his later. The cause of the blessing is the outpouring +of the Spirit of God (ver. 15). Righteousness and peace are to come to +earth by a distinct creative act of God. Isaiah adds his voice to the +invariable testimony of prophets and apostles, who, whether they speak +of society or the heart of individual man, place their hope in new life +from above by the Spirit of the living God. Victor Hugo says, "There are +no weeds in society, only bad cultivators;" and places all hope of +progress towards perfection in proper methods of social culture. These +are needed, as much as the corn, which will not spring from the sunshine +alone, requires the hand of the sower, and the harrow. And Isaiah, too, +speaks here of human conduct and effort as required to fill up the +blessedness of the future: righteousness and labour. But first, and +indispensably, he, with all the prophets, places the Spirit of God. + +It appears that Isaiah looked for the fruits of the Spirit both as +material and moral. He bases the quiet resting-places and regular +labours of the future not on righteousness only, but on fertility and +righteousness. _The wilderness shall become a fruitful field_, and _what +is_ to-day _a fruitful field shall be counted as a forest_. That this +proverb, used by Isaiah more than once, is not merely a metaphor for the +moral revolution he describes in the next verse, is proved by his having +already declared the unfruitfulness of their soil as part of his +people's punishment. Fertility is promised for itself, and as the +accompaniment of moral bountifulness. _And there shall dwell in the +wilderness justice, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field. +And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect, or +service, of righteousness, quietness and confidence for ever. And my +people shall abide in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and +in quiet resting-places.... Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, +that send forth the feet of the ox and the ass!_ + +There is not a prophecy more characteristic of Isaiah. It unfolds what +for him were the two essential and equal contents of the will of God: a +secure land and a righteous people, the fertility of nature and the +purity of society. But in those years (705-702) he did not forget that +something must come between him and that paradise. Across the very +middle of his vision of felicity there dashes a cruel storm. In the gap +indicated above Isaiah wrote, _But it shall hail in the downfall of the +forest, and the city shall be utterly laid low._ A hailstorm between the +promise and fulfilment of summer! Isaiah could only mean the Assyrian +invasion, which was now lowering so dark. Before it bursts we must +follow him to the survey which he made, during these years before the +siege of Jerusalem, of the foreign nations on whom, equally with +Jerusalem, that storm was to sweep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +_ISAIAH TO THE FOREIGN NATIONS._ + +ISAIAH xiv. 24-32, xv.-xxi., and xxiii. (736-702 B.C.). + + +The centre of the Book of Isaiah (chaps. xiii. to xxiii.) is occupied by +a number of long and short prophecies which are a fertile source of +perplexity to the conscientious reader of the Bible. With the +exhilaration of one who traverses plain roads and beholds vast +prospects, he has passed through the opening chapters of the book as far +as the end of the twelfth; and he may look forward to enjoying a similar +experience when he reaches those other clear stretches of vision from +the twenty-fourth to the twenty-seventh and from the thirtieth to the +thirty-second. But here he loses himself among a series of prophecies +obscure in themselves and without obvious relation to one another. The +subjects of them are the nations, tribes and cities with which in +Isaiah's day, by war or treaty or common fear in face of the Assyrian +conquest, Judah was being brought into contact. There are none of the +familiar names of the land and tribes of Israel which meet the reader in +other obscure prophecies and lighten their darkness with the face of a +friend. The names and allusions are foreign, some of them the names of +tribes long since extinct, and of places which it is no more possible to +identify. It is a very jungle of prophecy, in which, without much +Gospel or geographical light, we have to grope our way, thankful for an +occasional gleam of the picturesque--a sandstorm in the desert, the +forsaken ruins of Babylon haunted by wild beasts, a view of Egypt's +canals or Phoenicia's harbours, a glimpse of an Arab raid or of a +grave Ethiopian embassy. + +But in order to understand the Book of Isaiah, in order to understand +Isaiah himself in some of the largest of his activities and hopes, we +must traverse this thicket. It would be tedious and unprofitable to +search every corner of it. We propose, therefore, to give a list of the +various oracles, with their dates and titles, for the guidance of +Bible-readers, then to take three representative texts and gather the +meaning of all the oracles round them. + +First, however, two of the prophecies must be put aside. The +twenty-second chapter does not refer to a foreign State, but to +Jerusalem itself; and the large prophecy which opens the series (chaps. +xiii.-xiv. 23) deals with the overthrow of Babylon in circumstances that +did not arise till long after Isaiah's time, and so falls to be +considered by us along with similar prophecies at the close of this +volume. (See Book V.) + +All the rest of these chapters--xiv.-xxi. and xxiii.--refer to Isaiah's +own day. They were delivered by the prophet at various times throughout +his career; but the most of them evidently date from immediately after +the year 705, when, on the death of Sargon, there was a general +rebellion of the Assyrian vassals. + +1. xiv. 24-27. OATH OF JEHOVAH that the Assyrian shall be broken. +Probable date, towards 701. + +2. xiv. 28-32. ORACLE FOR PHILISTIA. Warning to Philistia not to rejoice +because one Assyrian king is dead, for a worse one shall arise: _Out of +the serpent's root shall come forth a basilisk_. Philistia shall be +melted away, but Zion shall stand. The inscription to this oracle (ver. +28) is not genuine. The oracle plainly speaks of the death and accession +of Assyrian, not Judaean, kings. It may be ascribed to 705, the date of +the death of Sargon and accession of Sennacherib. But some hold that it +refers to the previous change on the Assyrian throne--the death of +Salmanassar and the accession of Sargon. + +3. xv.-xvi. 12. ORACLE FOR MOAB. A long prophecy against Moab. This +oracle, whether originally by himself at an earlier period of his life, +or more probably by an older prophet, Isaiah adopts and ratifies, and +intimates its immediate fulfilment, in xvi. 13, 14. _This is the word +which Jehovah spake concerning Moab long ago. But now Jehovah hath +spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of an hireling, and the +glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt with all the great +multitude, and the remnant shall be very small and of no account._ The +dates both of the original publication of this prophecy and of its +reissue with the appendix are quite uncertain. The latter may fall about +711, when Moab was threatened by Sargon for complicity in the Ashdod +conspiracy (p. 198), or in 704, when, with other States, Moab came under +the cloud of Sennacherib's invasion. The main prophecy is remarkable for +its vivid picture of the disaster that has overtaken Moab and for the +sympathy with her which the Jewish prophet expresses; for the mention of +a _remnant_ of Moab; for the exhortation to her to send tribute in her +adversity _to the mount of the daughter of Zion_ (xvi. 1); for an appeal +to Zion to shelter the outcasts of Moab and to take up her cause: _Bring +counsel, make a decision, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of +the noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not the wanderer_; for a +statement of the Messiah similar to those in chaps. ix. and xi.; and for +the offer to the oppressed Moabites of the security of Judah in +Messianic times (vv. 4, 5). But there is one great obstacle to this +prospect of Moab lying down in the shadow of Judah--Moab's arrogance. +_We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud_ (ver. 6, cf. +Jer. xlviii. 29, 42; Zeph. ii. 10), which pride shall not only keep this +country in ruin, but prevent the Moabites prevailing in prayer at their +own sanctuary (ver. 12)--a very remarkable admission about the worship +of another god than Jehovah. + +4. xvii. 1-11. ORACLE FOR DAMASCUS. One of the earliest and most crisp +of Isaiah's prophecies. Of the time of Syria's and Ephraim's league +against Judah, somewhere between 736 and 732. + +5. xvii. 12-14. UNTITLED. The crash of the peoples upon Jerusalem and +their dispersion. This magnificent piece of sound, which we analyse +below, is usually understood of Sennacherib's rush upon Jerusalem. Verse +14 is an accurate summary of the sudden break-up and "retreat from +Moscow" of his army. The Assyrian hosts are described as _nations_, as +they are elsewhere more than once by Isaiah (xxii. 6, xxix. 7). But in +all this there is no final reason for referring the oracle to +Sennacherib's invasion, and it may just as well be interpreted of +Isaiah's confidence of the defeat of Syria and Ephraim (734-723). Its +proximity to the oracle against Damascus would then be very natural, and +it would stand as a parallel prophecy to viii. 9: _Make an uproar, O ye +peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of the +distances of the earth: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in +pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces_--a prophecy +which we know belongs to the period of the Syro-Ephraimitic league. + +6. xviii. _Untitled._ An address to Ethiopia, _land of a rustling of +wings, land of many sails, whose messengers dart to and fro upon the +rivers in their skiffs of reed_. The prophet tells Ethiopia, cast into +excitement by the news of the Assyrian advance, how Jehovah is resting +quietly till the Assyrian be ripe for destruction. When the Ethiopians +shall see His sudden miracle, they shall send their tribute to Jehovah, +_to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion_. It is +difficult to know to which southward march of Assyria to ascribe this +prophecy--Sargon's or Sennacherib's? For at the time of both of these an +Ethiopian ruled Egypt. + +7. xix. _Oracle for Egypt._ The first fifteen verses describe judgement +as ready to fall on the land of the Pharaohs. The last ten speak of the +religious results to Egypt of that judgement, and they form the most +universal and "missionary" of all Isaiah's prophecies. Although doubts +have been expressed of the Isaian authorship of the second half of this +chapter on the score of its universalism, as well as of its literary +style, which is judged to be "a pale reflection" of Isaiah's own, there +is no final reason for declining the credit of it to Isaiah, while there +are insuperable difficulties against relegating it to the late date +which is sometimes demanded for it. On the date and authenticity of this +prophecy, which are of great importance for the question of Isaiah's +"missionary" opinions, see Cheyne's introduction to the chapter and +Robertson Smith's notes in _The Prophets of Israel_ (p. 433). The latter +puts it in 703, during Sennacherib's advance upon the south. The former +suggests that the second half may have been written by the prophet much +later than the first, and justly says, "We can hardly imagine a more +'swan-like end' for the dying prophet." + +8. xx. UNTITLED. Also upon Egypt, but in narrative and of an earlier +date than at least the latter half of xix. Tells how Isaiah walked naked +and barefoot in the streets of Jerusalem for a sign against Egypt and +against the help Judah hoped to get from her in the years 711-709, when +the Tartan, or Assyrian commander-in-chief, came south to subdue Ashdod. +See pp. 198-200. + +9. xxi. 1-10. ORACLE FOR THE WILDERNESS OF THE SEA, announcing but +lamenting the fall of Babylon. Probably 709. See pp. 202, 203. + +10. xxi. 11, 12. ORACLE FOR DUMAH. Dumah, or _Silence_--in Ps. xciv. 17, +cxv. 17, _the land of the silence of death_, the grave--is probably used +as an anagram for Edom and an enigmatic sign to the wise Edomites, in +their own fashion, of the kind of silence their land is lying under--the +silence of rapid decay. The prophet hears this silence at last broken by +a cry. Edom cannot bear the darkness any more. _Unto me one is calling +from Seir, Watchman, how much off the night? how much off the night?[52] +Said the watchman, Cometh the morning, and also the night: if ye will +inquire, inquire, come back again._ What other answer is possible for a +land on which the silence of decay seems to have settled down? He may, +however, give them an answer later on, if they will come back. Date +uncertain, perhaps between 704 and 701. + + [52] Our translation, though picturesque, is misleading. The voice does + not inquire, "What of the night?" _i.e._, whether it be fair or foul + weather, but "How much of the night is passed?" literally "What from off + the night?" This brings out a pathos that our English version has + disguised. Edom feels that her night is lasting terribly long. + +11. xxi. 13-17. ORACLE FOR ARABIA. From Edom the prophet passes to their +neighbours the Dedanites, travelling merchants. And as he saw night upon +Edom, so, by a play upon words, he speaks of evening upon Arabia: _in +the forest, in Arabia_, or with the same consonants, _in the evening_. +In the time of the insecurity of the Assyrian invasion the travelling +merchants have to go aside from their great trading roads _in the +evening to lodge in the thickets_. There they entertain fugitives, or +(for the sense is not quite clear) are themselves as fugitives +entertained. It is a picture of the _grievousness of war_, which was now +upon the world, flowing down even those distant, desert roads. But +things have not yet reached the worst. The fugitives are but the heralds +of armies, that _within a year_ shall waste the _children of Kedar_, for +Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. So did the prophet of little +Jerusalem take possession of even the far deserts in the name of his +nation's God. + +12. xxiii. ORACLE FOR TYRE. Elegy over its fall, probably as Sennacherib +came south upon it in 703 or 702. To be further considered by us (pp. +288 ff.). + + * * * * * + +These then are Isaiah's oracles for the Nations, who tremble, intrigue +and go down before the might of Assyria. + +We have promised to gather the circumstances and meaning of these +prophecies round three representative texts. These are-- + +1. _Ah! the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of +the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of +mighty waters they rush; nations, like the rushing of many waters they +rush. But He rebuketh it, and it fleeth afar off, and is chased like the +chaff on the mountains before the wind and like whirling dust before the +whirlwind_ (xvii. 12, 13). + +2. _What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah +hath founded Zion, and in her shall find refuge the afflicted of His +people_ (xiv. 32). + +3. _In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a +blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath +blessed them, saying, Blessed be My people Egypt, and the work of My +hands Assyria, and Mine inheritance Israel_ (xix. 24, 25). + +1. The first of these texts shows all the prophet's prospect filled with +storm, the second of them the solitary rock and lighthouse in the midst +of the storm: Zion, his own watchtower and his people's refuge; while +the third of them, looking far into the future, tells us, as it were, of +the firm continent which shall rise out of the waters--Israel no longer +a solitary lighthouse, _but in that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt +and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth_. These three texts +give us a summary of the meaning of all Isaiah's obscure prophecies to +the foreign nations--a stormy ocean, a solitary rock in the midst of it, +and the new continent that shall rise out of the waters about the rock. + +The restlessness of Western Asia beneath the Assyrian rule (from 719, +when Sargon's victory at Rafia extended that rule to the borders of +Egypt) found vent, as we saw (p. 198), in two great Explosions, for both +of which the mine was laid by Egyptian intrigue. The first Explosion +happened in 711, and was confined to Ashdod. The second took place on +Sargon's death in 705, and was universal. Till Sennacherib marched +south on Palestine in 701, there were all over Western Asia hurryings to +and fro, consultations and intrigues, embassies and engineerings from +Babylon to Meroe in far Ethiopia, and from the tents of Kedar to the +cities of the Philistines. For these Jerusalem the one inviolate capital +from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, was the natural centre. And +the one far-seeing, steady-hearted man in Jerusalem was Isaiah. We have +already seen that there was enough within the city to occupy Isaiah's +attention, especially from 705 onward; but for Isaiah the walls of +Jerusalem, dear as they were and thronged with duty, neither limited his +sympathies nor marked the scope of the gospel he had to preach. +Jerusalem is simply his watchtower. His field--and this is the peculiar +glory of the prophet's later life--his field is the world. + +How well fitted Jerusalem then was to be the world's watchtower, the +traveller may see to this day. The city lies upon the great central +ridge of Palestine, at an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet +above the level of the sea. If you ascend the hill behind the city, you +stand upon one of the great view-points of the earth. It is a forepost +of Asia. To the east rise the red hills of Moab and the uplands of +Gilead and Bashan, on to which wandering tribes of the Arabian deserts +beyond still push their foremost camps. Just beyond the horizon lie the +immemorial paths from Northern Syria into Arabia. Within a few hours' +walk along the same central ridge, and still within the territory of +Judah, you may see to the north, over a wilderness of blue hills, +Hermon's snowy crest; you know that Damascus is lying just beyond, and +that through it and round the base of Hermon swings one of the longest +of the old world's highways--the main caravan road from the Euphrates +to the Nile. Stand at gaze for a little, while down that road there +sweep into your mind thoughts of the great empire, whose troops and +commerce it used to carry. Then, bearing these thoughts with you, follow +the line of the road across the hills to the western coastland, and so +out upon the great Egyptian desert, where you may wait till it has +brought you imagination of the southern empire to which it travels. +Then, lifting your eyes a little further, let them sweep back again from +south to north, and you have the whole of the west, the new world, open +to you, across the fringe of yellow haze that marks the sands of the +Mediterranean. It is even now one of the most comprehensive prospects in +the world. But in Isaiah's day, when the world was smaller, the high +places of Judah either revealed or suggested the whole of it. + +But Isaiah was more than a spectator of this vast theatre. He was an +actor upon it. The court of Judah, of which during Hezekiah's reign he +was the most prominent member, stood in more or less close connection +with the courts of all the kingdoms of Western Asia; and in those days +when the nations were busy with intrigue against their common enemy this +little highland town and fortress became a gathering place of peoples. +From Babylon, from far-off Ethiopia, from Edom, from Philistia, and no +doubt from many other places also, embassies came to King Hezekiah, or +to inquire of his prophet. The appearance of some of them lives for us +still in Isaiah's descriptions: _tall and shiny_ figures of Ethiopians +(xviii. 2), with whom we are able to identify the lithe, silky-skinned, +shining-black bodies of the present tribes of the Upper Nile. Now the +prophet must have talked much with these strangers, for he displays a +knowledge of their several countries and ways of life that is full and +accurate. The agricultural conditions of Egypt; her social ranks and her +industries (xix.); the harbours and markets of Tyre (xxiii.); the +caravans of the Arab nomads as in times of war they shun the open desert +and seek the thickets (xxi. 14)--Isaiah paints these for us with a vivid +realism. We see how this statesman of the least of States, this prophet +of a religion which was confessed over only a few square miles, was +aware of the wide world, and how he loved the life that filled it. They +are no mere geographical terms with which Isaiah thickly studs these +prophecies. He looks out upon, and paints for us, lands and cities +surging with men--their trades, their castes, their religions, their +besetting tempers and sins, their social structures and national +policies, all quick and bending to the breeze and the shadow of the +coming storm from the north. + +We have said that in nothing is the regal power of our prophet's style +so manifest as in the vast horizons, which, by the use of a few words, +he calls up before us. Some of the finest of these revelations are made +in this part of his book, so obscure and unknown to most. Who can ever +forget those descriptions of Ethiopia in the eighteenth chapter?--"_Ah! +the land of the rustling of wings, which borders on the rivers of Cush, +which sendeth heralds on the sea, and in vessels of reed on the face of +the waters! Travel, fleet messengers, to a people lithe and shining, to +a nation feared from ever it began to be, a people strong, strong and +trampling, whose land the rivers divide_; or of Tyre in chapter +xxiii.?--"_And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the +Nile, was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations._ What expanses +of sea! what fleets of ships! what floating loads of grain! what +concourse of merchants moving on stately wharves beneath high +warehouses! + +Yet these are only segments of horizons, and perhaps the prophet reaches +the height of his power of expression in the first of the three texts, +which we have given as representative of his prophecies on foreign +nations (p. 278). Here three or four lines of marvellous sound repeat +the effect of the rage of the restless world as it rises, storms and +breaks upon the steadfast will of God. The phonetics of the passage are +wonderful. The general impression is that of a stormy ocean booming in +to the shore and then crashing itself out into one long hiss of spray +and foam upon its barriers. The details are noteworthy. In ver. 12 we +have thirteen heavy M-sounds, besides two heavy B's, to five N's, five +H's, and four sibilants. But in ver. 13 the sibilants predominate; and +before the sharp rebuke of the Lord the great, booming sound of ver. 12 +scatters out into a long _yish-sh[=a] 'oon_. The occasional use of a +prolonged vowel amid so many hurrying consonants produces exactly the +effect now of the lift of a storm swell out at sea and now of the pause +of a great wave before it crashes on the shore. "_Ah, the booming of the +peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the +rushing of the nations, like the rushing of the mighty waters they rush: +nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He checketh +it_--a short, sharp word with a choke and a snort in it--_and it fleeth +far away, and is chased like chaff on mountains before wind, and like +swirling dust before a whirlwind_." + +So did the rage of the world sound to Isaiah as it crashed into pieces +upon the steadfast providence of God. To those who can feel the force of +such language nothing need be added upon the prophet's view of the +politics of the outside world these twenty years, whether portions of it +threatened Judah in their own strength, or the whole power of storm that +was in it rose with the Assyrian, as in all his flood he rushed upon +Zion in the year 701. + +2. But amid this storm Zion stands immovable. It is upon Zion that the +storm crashes itself into impotence. This becomes explicit in the second +of our representative texts: _What then shall one answer the messengers +of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find a +refuge the afflicted of His people_ (xiv. 32). This oracle was drawn +from Isaiah by an embassy of the Philistines. Stricken with panic at the +Assyrian advance, they had sent messengers to Jerusalem, as other tribes +did, with questions and proposals of defences, escapes and alliances. +They got their answer. Alliances are useless. Everything human is going +down. Here, here alone, is safety, because the LORD hath decreed it. + +With what light and peace do Isaiah's words break out across that +unquiet, hungry sea! How they tell the world for the first time, and +have been telling it ever since, that, apart from all the struggle and +strife of history, there is a refuge and security of men, which God +Himself has assured. The troubled surface of life, nations heaving +uneasily, kings of Assyria and their armies carrying the world before +them--these are not all. The world and her powers are not all. Religion, +in the very teeth of life, builds her refuge for the afflicted. + +The world seems wholly divided between force and fear. Isaiah says, It +is not true. Faith has her abiding citadel in the midst, a house of God, +which neither force can harm nor fear enter. + +This then was Isaiah's Interim-Answer to the Nations--Zion at least is +secure for the people of Jehovah. + +3. Isaiah could not remain content, however, with so narrow an +interim-answer: Zion at least is secure, whatever happens to the rest of +you. The world was there, and had to be dealt with and accounted +for--had even to be saved. As we have already seen, this was the problem +of Isaiah's generation; and to have shirked it would have meant the +failure of his faith to rank as universal. + +Isaiah did not shirk it. He said boldly to his people, and to the +nations: "The faith we have covers this vaster life. Jehovah is not only +God of Israel. He rules the world." These prophecies to the foreign +nations are full of revelations of the sovereignty and providence of +God. The Assyrian may seem to be growing in glory; but Jehovah is +watching from the heavens, till he be ripe for cutting down (xviii. 4). +Egypt's statesmen may be perverse and wilful; but Jehovah of hosts +swingeth His hand against the land: _they shall tremble and shudder_ +(xix. 16). Egypt shall obey His purposes (17). Confusion may reign for a +time, but a signal and a centre shall be lifted up, and the world gather +itself in order round the revealed will of God. The audacity of such a +claim for his God becomes more striking when we remember that Isaiah's +faith was not the faith of a majestic or a conquering people. When he +made his claim, Judah was still tributary to Assyria, a petty highland +principality, that could not hope to stand by material means against the +forces which had thrown down her more powerful neighbours. It was no +experience of success, no mere instinct of being on the side of fate, +which led Isaiah so resolutely to pronounce that not only should his +people be secure, but that his God would vindicate His purposes upon +empires like Egypt and Assyria. It was simply his sense that Jehovah was +exalted in righteousness. Therefore, while inside Judah only the remnant +that took the side of righteousness would be saved, outside Judah +wherever there was unrighteousness, it would be rebuked, and wherever +righteousness, it would be vindicated. This is the supremacy which +Isaiah proclaimed for Jehovah over the whole world. + +How spiritual this faith of Isaiah was, is seen from the next step the +prophet took. Looking out on the troubled world, he did not merely +assert that his God ruled it, but he emphatically said, what was a far +more difficult thing to say, that it would all be consciously and +willingly God's. God rules this, not to restrain it only, but to make it +His own. The knowledge of Him, which is to-day our privilege, shall be +to-morrow the blessing of the whole world. + +When we point to the Jewish desire, so often expressed in the Old +Testament, of making the whole world subject to Jehovah, we are told +that it is simply a proof of religious ambition and jealousy. We are +told that this wish to convert the world no more stamps the Jewish +religion as being a universal, and therefore presumably a Divine, +religion than the Mohammedans' zeal to force their tenets on men at the +point of the sword is a proof of the truth of Islam. + +Now we need not be concerned to defend the Jewish religion in its every +particular, even as propounded by an Isaiah. It is an article of the +Christian creed that Judaism was a minor and imperfect dispensation, +where truth was only half revealed and virtue half developed. But at +least let us do the Jewish religion justice; and we shall never do it +justice till we pay attention to what its greatest prophets thought of +the outside world, how they sympathized with this, and _in what way_ +they proposed to make it subject to their own faith. + +_Firstly_ then, there is something in the very manner of Isaiah's +treatment of foreign nations, which causes the old charges of religious +exclusiveness to sink in our throats. Isaiah treats these foreigners at +least as men. Take his prophecies on Egypt or on Tyre or on +Babylon--nations which were the hereditary enemies of his nation--and +you find him speaking of their natural misfortunes, their social decays, +their national follies and disasters, with the same pity and with the +same purely moral considerations, with which he has treated his own +land. When news of those far-away sorrows comes to Jerusalem, it moves +this large-hearted prophet to mourning and tears. He breathes out to +distant lands elegies as beautiful as he has poured upon Jerusalem. He +shows as intelligent an interest in their social evolutions as he does +in those of the Jewish State. He gives a picture of the industry and +politics of Egypt as careful as his pictures of the fashions and +statecraft of Judah. In short, as you read his prophecies upon foreign +nations, you perceive that before the eyes of this man humanity, broken +and scattered in his days as it was, rose up one great whole, every part +of which was subject to the same laws of righteousness, and deserved +from the prophet of God the same love and pity. To some few tribes he +says decisively that they shall certainly be wiped out, but even them he +does not address in contempt or in hatred. The large empire of Egypt, +the great commercial power of Tyre, he speaks of in language of respect +and admiration; but that does not prevent him from putting the plain +issue to them which he put to his own countrymen: If you are +unrighteous, intemperate, impure--lying diplomats and dishonest rulers, +you shall certainly perish before Assyria. If you are righteous, +temperate, pure, if you do trust in truth and God, nothing can move you. + +But, _secondly_, he, who thus treated all nations with the same strict +measures of justice and the same fulness of pity with which he treated +his own, was surely not far from extending to the world the religious +privileges, which he has so frequently identified with Jerusalem. In his +old age, at least Isaiah looked forward to the time when the particular +religious opportunities of the Jew should be the inheritance of +humanity. For their old oppressor Egypt, for their new enemy Assyria, he +anticipates the same experience and education, which has made Israel the +firstborn of God. Speaking to Egypt, Isaiah concludes a missionary +sermon, fit to take its place beside that which Paul uttered on the +Areopagus to the younger Greek civilisation, with the words, _In that +day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the +midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, +Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands and Israel +Mine inheritance_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +_TYRE; OR, THE MERCENARY SPIRIT._ + +ISAIAH xxiii. (702 B.C.). + + +The task, which was laid upon the religion of Israel while Isaiah was +its prophet, was the task, as we have often told ourselves, of facing +the world's forces, and of explaining how they were to be led captive +and contributory to the religion of the true God. And we have already +seen Isaiah accounting for the largest of these forces: the Assyrian. +But besides Assyria, that military empire, there was another power in +the world, also novel to Israel's experience and also in Isaiah's day +grown large enough to demand from Israel's faith explanation and +criticism. This was Commerce, represented by the Phoenicians, with +their chief seats at Tyre and Sidon, and their colonies across the seas. +Not even Egypt exercised such influence on Isaiah's generation as +Phoenicia did; and Phoenician influence, though less visible and +painful than Assyrian, was just as much more subtle and penetrating as +in these respects the influence of trade exceeds that of war. Assyria +herself was fascinated by the glories of Phoenician commerce. The +ambition of her kings, who had in that century pushed south to the +Mediterranean, was to found a commercial empire. The mercenary spirit, +as we learn from prophets earlier than Isaiah, had begun also to leaven +the life of the agricultural and shepherd tribes of Western Asia. For +good or for evil commerce had established itself as a moral force in the +world. Isaiah's chapter on Tyre is, therefore, of the greatest interest. +It contains the prophet's vision of commerce the first time commerce had +grown vast enough to impress his people's imagination, as well as a +criticism of the temper of commerce from the standpoint of the religion +of the God of righteousness. Whether as a historical study or a message +addressed to the mercantile tempers of our own day, the chapter is +worthy of close attention. + +But we must first impress ourselves with the utter contrast between +Phoenicia and Judah in the matter of commercial experience, or we +shall not feel the full force of this excursion which the prophet of a +high, inland tribe of shepherds makes among the wharves and warehouses +of the great merchant city on the sea. + +The Phoenician empire, it has often been remarked, presents a very +close analogy to that of Great Britain; but even more entirely than in +the case of Great Britain the glory of that empire was the wealth of its +trade, and the character of the people was the result of their +mercantile habits. A little strip of land, one hundred and forty miles +long, and never more than fifteen broad, with the sea upon one side and +the mountains upon the other, compelled its inhabitants to become miners +and seamen. The hills shut off the narrow coast from the continent to +which it belongs, and drove the increasing populations to seek their +destiny by way of the sea. These took to it kindly, for they had the +Semite's born instinct for trading. Planting their colonies all round +the Mediterranean, exploiting every mine within reach of the coastland, +establishing great trading depots both on the Nile and the Euphrates, +with fleets that passed the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic and +the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb into the Indian Ocean, the Phoenicians +constructed a system of trade, which was not exceeded in range or +influence till, more than two thousand years later, Portugal made the +discovery of America and accomplished the passage of the Cape of Good +Hope. From the coasts of Britain to those of Northwest India, and +probably to Madagascar, was the extent of Phoenician credit and +currency. Their trade tapped river basins so far apart as those of the +Indus, the Euphrates, probably the Zambesi, the Nile, the Rhone, the +Guadalquivir. They built ships and harbours for the Pharaohs and for +Solomon. They carried Egyptian art and Babylonian knowledge to the +Grecian archipelago, and brought back the metals of Spain and Britain. +No wonder the prophet breaks into enthusiasm as he surveys Phoenician +enterprise! _And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the +Nile, was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations._ + +But upon trade the Phoenicians had built an empire. At home their +political life enjoyed the freedom, energy and resources which are +supplied by long habits of an extended commerce with other peoples. The +constitution of the different Phoenician cities was not, as is +sometimes supposed, republican, but monarchical; and the land belonged +to the king. Yet the large number of wealthy families at once limited +the power of the throne, and saved the commonwealth from being dependent +upon the fortunes of a single dynasty. The colonies in close relation +with the mother country assured an empire with its life in better +circulation and with more reserve of power than either Egypt or +Assyria. Tyre and Sidon were frequently overthrown, but they rose again +oftener than the other great cities of antiquity, and were still places +of importance when Babylon and Nineveh lay in irreparable ruin. Besides +their native families of royal wealth and influence and their +flourishing colonies, each with its prince, these commercial States kept +foreign monarchs in their pay, and sometimes determined the fate of a +dynasty. Isaiah entitles Tyre _the giver of crowns, the maker of kings, +whose merchants are princes, and her traffickers are the honourable of +the earth_. + +But trade with political results so splendid had an evil effect upon the +character and spiritual temper of the people. By the indiscriminating +ancients the Phoenicians were praised as inventors; the rudiments of +most of the arts and sciences, of the alphabet and of money have been +ascribed to them. But modern research has proved that of none of the +many elements of civilisation which they introduced to the West were +they the actual authors. The Phoenicians were simply carriers and +middlemen. In all time there is no instance of a nation so wholly given +over to buying and selling, who frequented even the battlefields of the +world that they might strip the dead and purchase the captive. +Phoenician history--though we must always do the people the justice to +remember that we have their history only in fragments--affords few signs +of the consciousness that there are things which a nation may strive +after for their own sake, and not for the money they bring in. The +world, which other peoples, still in the reverence of the religious +youth of the race, regarded as a house of prayer, the Phoenicians had +already turned into a den of thieves. They trafficked even with the +mysteries and intelligences; and their own religion is largely a +mixture of the religions of the other peoples, with whom they came into +contact. The national spirit was venal and mercenary--the heart of an +hireling, or, as Isaiah by a baser name describes it, the heart of _an +harlot_. There is not throughout history a more perfect incarnation of +the mercenary spirit than the Phoenician nation. + +Now let us turn to the experience of the Jews, whose faith had to face +and account for this world-force. + +The history of the Jews in Europe has so identified them with trade that +it is difficult for us to imagine a Jew free from its spirit or ignorant +of its methods. But the fact is that in the time of Isaiah Israel was as +little acquainted with commerce as it is possible for a civilised nation +to be. Israel's was an inland territory. Till Solomon's reign the people +had neither navy nor harbour. Their land was not abundant in materials +for trade--it contained almost no minerals, and did not produce a +greater supply of food than was necessary for the consumption of its +inhabitants. It is true that the ambition of Solomon had brought the +people within the temptations of commerce. He established trading +cities, annexed harbours and hired a navy. But even then, and again in +the reign of Uzziah, which reflects much of Solomon's commercial glory, +Israel traded by deputies, and the mass of the people remained innocent +of mercantile habits. Perhaps to moderns the most impressive proof of +how little Israel had to do with trade is to be found in their laws of +money-lending and of interest. The absolute prohibition which Moses +placed upon the charging of interest could only have been possible among +a people with the most insignificant commerce. To Isaiah himself +commerce must have appeared alien. Human life, as he pictures it, is +composed of war, politics and agriculture; his ideals for society are +those of the shepherd and the farmer. We moderns cannot dissociate the +future welfare of humanity from the triumphs of trade. + + "For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, + Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be; + Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, + Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales." + +But all Isaiah's future is full of gardens and busy fields, of +irrigating rivers and canals:-- + +_Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness +become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a +forest.... Blessed are ye, that sow beside all waters, that send forth +the feet of the ox and the ass._ + +_And He shall give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground +withal, and bread-corn, the increase of the ground; and it shall be +juicy and fat: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures._ + +Conceive how trade looked to eyes which dwelt with enthusiasm upon +scenes like these! It must have seemed to blast the future, to disturb +the regularity of life with such violence as to shake religion herself! +With all our convictions of the benefits of trade, even we feel no +greater regret or alarm than when we observe the invasion by the rude +forces of trade of some scene of rural felicity: blackening of sky and +earth and stream; increasing complexity and entanglement of life; +enormous growth of new problems and temptations; strange knowledge, +ambitions and passions, that throb through life and strain the tissue of +its simple constitution, like novel engines, which shake the ground and +the strong walls, accustomed once to re-echo only the simple music of +the mill-wheel and the weaver's shuttle. Isaiah did not fear an invasion +of Judah by the habits and the machines of trade. There is no +foreboding in this chapter of the day when his own people were to take +the place of the Phoenicians as the commercial _harlots_ of the world, +and a Jew was to be synonymous with usurer and _publican_. Yet we may +employ our feelings to imagine his, and understand what this +prophet--seated in the sanctuary of a pastoral and agricultural tribe, +with its simple offerings of doves, and lambs and sheaves of corn, +telling how their homes, and fields and whole rustic manner of life were +subject to God--thought, and feared, and hoped of the vast commerce of +Phoenicia, wondering how it also should be sanctified to Jehovah. + +First of all, Isaiah, as we might have expected from his large faith and +broad sympathies, accepts and acknowledges this great world-force. His +noble spirit shows neither timidity nor jealousy before it. Before his +view what an unblemished prospect of it spreads! His descriptions tell +more of his appreciation than long laudations would have done. He grows +enthusiastic upon the grandeur of Tyre; and even when he prophesies that +Assyria shall destroy it, it is with the feeling that such a destruction +is really a desecration, and as if there lived essential glory in great +commercial enterprise. Certainly from such a spirit we have much to +learn. How often has religion, when brought face to face with the new +forces of a generation--commerce, democracy or science--shown either a +base timidity or baser jealousy, and met the innovations with cries of +detraction or despair! Isaiah reads a lesson to the modern Church in the +preliminary spirit with which she should meet the novel experiences of +Providence. Whatever judgement may afterwards have to be passed, there +is the immediate duty of frankly recognising greatness wherever it may +occur. This is an essential principle, from the forgetfulness of which +modern religion has suffered much. Nothing is gained by attempting to +minimise new departures in the world's history; but everything is lost +if we sit down in fear of them. It is a duty we owe to ourselves, and a +worship which Providence demands from us, that we ungrudgingly +appreciate every magnitude of which history brings us the knowledge. + +It is almost an unnecessary task to apply Isaiah's meaning to the +commerce of our own day. But let us not miss his example in this: that +the right to criticise the habits of trade and the ability to criticise +them healthily are alone won by a just appreciation of trade's +world-wide glory and serviceableness. There is no use preaching against +the venal spirit and manifold temptations and degradations of trade, +until we have realised the indispensableness of trade and its capacity +for disciplining and exalting its ministers. The only way to correct the +abuses of "the commercial spirit," against which many in our day are +loud with indiscriminate rebuke, is to impress its victims, having first +impressed yourself, with the opportunities and the ideals of commerce. A +thing is great partly by its traditions and partly by its +opportunities--partly by what it has accomplished and partly by the +doors of serviceableness of which it holds the key. By either of these +standards the magnitude of commerce is simply overwhelming. Having +discovered the world-forces, commerce has built thereon the most +powerful of our modern empires. Its exigencies compel peace; its +resources are the sinews of war. If it has not always preceded religion +and science in the conquest of the globe, it has shared with them their +triumphs. Commerce has recast the modern world, so that we hardly think +of the old national divisions in the greater social classes which have +been its direct creation. Commerce determines national policies; its +markets are among the schools of statesmen; its merchants _are_ still +_princes, and its traffickers the honourable of the earth_. + +Therefore let all merchants and their apprentices believe, "Here is +something worth putting our manhood into, worth living for, not with our +brains only or our appetites, but with our conscience, with our +imagination, with every curiosity and sympathy of our nature. Here is a +calling with a healthy discipline, with a free spirit, with unrivalled +opportunities of service, with an ancient and essential dignity." The +reproach which is so largely imagined upon trade is the relic of a +barbarous age. Do not tolerate it, for under its shadow, as under other +artificial and unhealthy contempts of society, there are apt to grow up +those sordid and slavish tempers, which soon make men deserve the +reproach that was at first unjustly cast upon them. Dissipate the base +influence of this reproach by lifting the imagination upon the antiquity +and world-wide opportunities of trade--trade, _whose origin_, as Isaiah +so finely puts it, _is of ancient days; and her feet carry her afar off +to sojourn_. + +So generous an appreciation of the grandeur of commerce does not prevent +Isaiah from exposing its besetting sin and degradation. + +The vocation of a merchant differs from others in this, that there is no +inherent nor instinctive obligation in it to ends higher than those of +financial profit--emphasized in our days into the more dangerous +constraint of _immediate_ financial profit. No profession is of course +absolutely free from the risk of this servitude; but other professions +offer escapes, or at least mitigations, which are not possible to +nearly the same extent in trade. Artist, artisan, preacher and statesman +have ideals which generally act contrary to the compulsion of profit and +tend to create a nobility of mind strong enough to defy it. They have +given, so to speak, hostages to heaven--ideals of beauty, of accurate +scholarship or of moral influence, which they dare not risk by +abandoning themselves to the hunt for gain. But the calling of a +merchant is not thus safeguarded. It does not afford those visions, +those occasions of being caught away to the heavens, which are the +inherent glories of other lives. The habits of trade make this the first +thought--not what things of beauty are in themselves, not what men are +as brothers, not what life is as God's discipline, but what things of +beauty, and men and opportunities are worth to us--and in these times +what they are _immediately_ worth--as measured by money. In such an +absorption art, humanity, morals and religion become matters of growing +indifference. + +To this spirit, which treats all things and men, high or low, as matters +simply of profit, Isaiah gives a very ugly name. We call it the +mercenary or venal spirit. Isaiah says it is the spirit of _the harlot_. + +The history of Phoenicia justified his words. To-day we remember her +by nothing that is great, by nothing that is original. She left no art +nor literature, and her once brave and skilful populations degenerated +till we know them only as the slave-dealers, panders and prostitutes of +the Roman empire. If we desire to find Phoenicia's influence on the +religion of the world, we have to seek for it among the most sensual of +Greek myths and the abominable practices of Corinthian worship. With +such terrible literalness was Isaiah's harlot-curse fulfilled. + +What is true of Phoenicia may become true of Britain, and what has +been seen on the large scale of a nation is exemplified every day in +individual lives. The man who is entirely eaten up with the zeal of gain +is no better than what Isaiah called Tyre. He has prostituted himself to +covetousness. If day and night our thoughts are of profit, and the +habit, so easily engendered in these times, of asking only, "What can I +make of this?" is allowed to grow upon us, it shall surely come to pass +that we are found sacrificing, like the poor unfortunate, the most +sacred of our endowments and affections for gain, demeaning our natures +at the feet of the world for the sake of the world's gold. A woman +sacrifices her purity for coin, and the world casts her out. But some +who would not touch her have sacrificed honour and love and pity for the +same base wage, and in God's sight are no better than she. Ah, how much +need is there for these bold, brutal standards of the Hebrew prophet to +correct our own social misappreciations! + +Now for a very vain delusion upon this subject! It is often imagined in +our day that if a man seek atonement for the venal spirit through the +study of art, through the practice of philanthropy or through the +cultivation of religion, he shall surely find it. This is +false--plausible and often practised but utterly false. Unless a man see +and reverence beauty in the very workshop and office of his business, +unless he feel those whom he meets there, his employes and customers, as +his brethren, unless he keep his business methods free from fraud, and +honestly recognise his gains as a trust from the Lord, then no amount of +devotion elsewhere to the fine arts, nor perseverance in philanthropy, +nor fondness for the Church evinced by ever so large subscriptions, will +deliver him from the devil of mercenariness. That is a plea of _alibi_ +that shall not prevail on the judgement day. He is only living a double +life, whereof his art, philanthropy or religion is the occasional and +dilettante portion, with not nearly so much influence on his character +as the other, his calling and business, in which he still sacrifices +love to gain. His real world--the world in which God set him, to buy and +sell indeed, but also to serve and glorify his God--he is treating only +as a big warehouse and exchange. And so much is this the case at the +present day, in spite of all the worship of art and religion which is +fashionable in mercantile circles, that we do not go too far when we say +that if Jesus were now to visit our large markets and manufactories, in +which the close intercourse of numbers of human persons renders the +opportunities of service and testimony to God so frequent, He would +scourge men from them, as He scourged the traffickers of the Temple, for +that they had forgotten that _here_ was their Father's house, where +their brethren had to be owned and helped, and their Father's glory +revealed to the world. + +A nation with such a spirit was of course foredoomed to destruction. +Isaiah predicts the absolute disappearance of Tyre from the attention of +the world. _Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years._ _Then_, like some +poor unfortunate whose day of beauty is past, she shall in vain practise +her old advertisements on men. _After the end of seventy years it shall +be unto Tyre as in the song of the harlot: Take an harp, go about the +city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many +songs, that thou mayest be remembered._ + +But Commerce is essential to the world. Tyre must revive; and the +prophet sees her revive as the minister of Religion, the purveyor of the +food of the servants of the Lord, and of the accessories of their +worship. It must be confessed, that we are not a little shocked when we +find Isaiah continuing to apply to Commerce his metaphor of a harlot, +even after Commerce has entered the service of the true religion. He +speaks of her wages being devoted to Jehovah, just in the same manner as +those of certain notorious women of heathen temples were devoted to the +idol of the temple. This is even against the directions of the Mosaic +law. Isaiah, however, was a poet; and in his flights we must not expect +him to carry the whole Law on his back. He was a poet, and probably no +analogy would have more vividly appealed to his Oriental audience. It +will be foolish to allow our natural prejudice against what we may feel +to be the unhealthiness of the metaphor to blind us to the magnificence +of the thought which he clothes in it. + +All this is another proof of the sanity and far sight of our prophet. +Again we find that his conviction that judgement is coming does not +render his spirit morbid, nor disturb his eye for things of beauty and +profit in the world. Commerce, with all her faults, is essential, and +must endure, nay shall prove in the days to come Religion's most +profitable minister. The generosity and wisdom of this passage are the +more striking when we remember the extremity of unrelieved denunciation +to which other great teachers of religion have allowed themselves to be +hurled by their rage against the sins of trade. But Isaiah, in the +largest sense of the expression, is a man of the world--a man of the +world because God made the world and rules it. Yet even from his far +sight was hidden the length to which in the last days Commerce would +carry her services to man and God, proving as she has done, under the +flag of another Phoenicia, to all the extent of Isaiah's longing, one +of Religion's most sincere and profitable handmaids. + + + + +BOOK IV. + +_JERUSALEM AND SENNACHERIB_, 701 B.C. + + + + +ISAIAH:-- + + xxxvi. 1. Early in 701. + + i. " " + + xxii. " " + + xxxiii. A little later. + + xxxvi. 2-xxxvii. " " + + _______ + + xxxviii.-xxxix. Date uncertain. + + + + +BOOK IV. + + +Into this fourth book we put all the rest of the prophecies of the Book +of Isaiah, that have to do with the prophet's own time: chaps. i., xxii. +and xxxiii., with the narrative in xxxvi., xxxvii. All these refer to +the only Assyrian invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem: that +undertaken by Sennacherib in 701. + +It is, however, right to remember once more, that many authorities +maintain that there were two Assyrian invasions of Judah--one by Sargon +in 711, the other by Sennacherib in 701--and that chaps. i. and xxii. +(as well as x. 5-34) belong to the former of these. The theory is +ingenious and tempting; but, in the silence of the Assyrian annals about +any invasion of Judah by Sargon, it is impossible to adopt it. And +although chaps. i. and xxii. differ very greatly in tone from chap. +xxxiii., yet to account for the difference it is not necessary to +suppose two different invasions, with a considerable period between +them. Virtually, as will appear in the course of our exposition, +Sennacherib's invasion of Judah was a double one. + +1. The first time Sennacherib's army invaded Judah they took all the +fenced cities, and probably invested Jerusalem, but withdrew on payment +of tribute and the surrender of the _casus belli_, the Assyrian vassal +Padi, whom the Ekronites had deposed and given over to the keeping of +Hezekiah. To this invasion refer Isa. i., xxii. and the first verse of +xxxvi.: _Now it came to pass in the fourteenth[53] year of King Hezekiah +that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities +of Judah and took them._ This verse is the same as 2 Kings xviii. 13, to +which, however, there is added in vv. 14-16 an account of the tribute +sent by Hezekiah to Sennacherib at Lachish, that is not included in the +narrative in Isaiah. Compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 1. + + [53] It is confusing to find this date attached to Sennacherib's + invasion of 701, unless, with one or two critics, we place Hezekiah's + accession in 715. But Hezekiah acceded in 728 or 727, and 701 would + therefore be his twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh year. Mr. Cheyne, who + takes 727 as the year of Hezekiah's accession, gets out of the + difficulty by reading "Sargon" for "Sennacherib" in this verse and in 2 + Kings xiii., and thus secures another reference to that invasion of + Judah, which he supposes to have taken place under Sargon between 712 + and 710. By the change of a letter some would read _twenty-fourth_ for + _fourteenth_. But in any case this date is confusing. + +2. But scarcely had the tribute been paid when Sennacherib, himself +advancing to meet Egypt, sent back upon Jerusalem a second army of +investment, with which was the Rabshakeh; and this was the army that so +mysteriously disappeared from the eyes of the besieged. To the +treacherous return of the Assyrians and the sudden deliverance of +Jerusalem from their grasp refer Isa. xxxiii., xxxvi. 2-xxxvii., with +the fuller and evidently original narrative in 2 Kings xviii. 17-xix. +Compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 9-23. + +To the history of this double attempt upon Jerusalem in 701--xxxvi. and +xxxvii.--there has been appended in xxxviii. and xxxix. an account of +Hezekiah's illness and of an embassy to him from Babylon. These events +probably happened some years before Sennacherib's invasion. But it will +be most convenient for us to take them in the order in which they stand +in the canon. They will naturally lead us up to a question that it is +necessary we should discuss before taking leave of Isaiah--whether this +great prophet of the endurance of the kingdom of God upon earth had any +gospel for the individual who dropped away from it into death. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +_AT THE LOWEST EBB._ + +ISAIAH i. and xxii. (701 B.C.). + + +In the drama of Isaiah's life we have now arrived at the final act--a +short and sharp one of a few months. The time is 701 B.C., the fortieth +year of Isaiah's ministry, and about the twenty-sixth of Hezekiah's +reign. The background is the invasion of Palestine by Sennacherib. The +stage itself is the city of Jerusalem. In the clear atmosphere before +the bursting of the storm Isaiah has looked round the whole world--his +world--uttering oracles on the nations from Tyre to Egypt and from +Ethiopia to Babylon. But now the Assyrian storm has burst, and all +except the immediate neighbourhood of the prophet is obscured. From +Jerusalem Isaiah will not again lift his eyes. + +The stage is thus narrow and the time short, but the action one of the +most critical in the history of Israel, taking rank with the Exodus from +Egypt and the Return from Babylon. To Isaiah himself it marks the summit +of his career. For half a century Zion has been preparing for, +forgetting and again preparing for, her first and final struggle with +the Assyrian. Now she is to meet her foe, face to face across her own +walls. For forty years Isaiah has predicted for the Assyrian an +uninterrupted path of conquest to the very gates of Jerusalem, but +certain check and confusion there. Sennacherib has overrun the world, +and leaps upon Zion. The Jewish nation await their fate, Isaiah his +vindication, and the credit of Israel's religion, one of the most +extraordinary tests to which a spiritual faith was ever subjected. + +In the end, by the mysterious disappearance of the Assyrian, Jerusalem +was saved, the prophet was left with his remnant and the future still +open for Israel. But at the beginning of the end such an issue was by no +means probable. Jewish panic and profligacy almost prevented the Divine +purpose, and Isaiah went near to breaking his heart over the city, for +whose redemption he had travailed for a lifetime. He was as sure as ever +that this redemption must come, but a collapse of the people's faith and +patriotism at the eleventh hour made its coming seem worthless. +Jerusalem appeared bent on forestalling her deliverance by moral +suicide. Despair, not of God but of the city, settled on Isaiah's heart; +and in such a mood he wrote chap. xxii. We may entitle it therefore, +though written at a time when the tide should have been running to the +full, "At the Lowest Ebb." + +We have thus stated at the outset the motive of this chapter, because it +is one of the most unexpected and startling of all Isaiah's prophecies. +In it "we can discern precipices." Beneath our eyes, long lifted by the +prophet to behold a future _stretching very far forth_, this chapter +suddenly yawns, a pit of blackness. For utterness of despair and the +absolute sentence which it passes on the citizens of Zion we have had +nothing like it from Isaiah since the evil days of Ahaz. The historical +portions of the Bible which cover this period are not cleft by such a +crevasse, and of course the official Assyrian annals, full as they are +of the details of Sennacherib's campaign in Palestine, know nothing of +the moral condition of Jerusalem.[54] Yet if we put the Hebrew and +Assyrian narratives together, and compare them with chaps. i. and xxii. +of Isaiah, we may be sure that the following was something like the +course of events which led down to this woeful depth in Judah's +experience. + + [54] _Records of the Past_, i. 33 ff. vii.; Schrader's _Cuneiform + Inscriptions and the Old Testament_ (Whitehouse's translation). + +In a Syrian campaign Sennacherib's path was plain--to begin with the +Phoenician cities, march quickly south by the level coastland, +subduing the petty chieftains upon it, meet Egypt at its southern end, +and then, when he had rid himself of his only formidable foe, turn to +the more delicate task of warfare among the hills of Judah--a campaign +which he could scarcely undertake with a hostile force like Egypt on his +flank. This course, he tells us, he followed. "In my third campaign, to +the land of Syria I went. Luliah (Elulaeus), King of Sidon--for the +fearful splendour of my majesty overwhelmed him--fled to a distant spot +in the midst of the sea. His land I entered." City after city fell to +the invader. The princes of Aradus, Byblus and Ashdod, by the coast, and +even Moab and Edom, far inland, sent him their submission. He attacked +Ascalon, and captured its king. He went on, and took the Philistine +cities of Beth-dagon, Joppa, Barka and Azor, all of them within forty +miles of Jerusalem, and some even visible from her neighbourhood. South +of this group, and a little over twenty-five miles from Jerusalem, lay +Ekron; and here Sennacherib had so good a reason for anger, that the +inhabitants, expecting no mercy at his hands, prepared a stubborn +defence. + +Ten years before this Sargon had set Padi, a vassal of his own, as king +over Ekron; but the Ekronites had risen against Padi, put him in chains, +and sent him to their ally Hezekiah, who now held him in Jerusalem. +"These men," says Sennacherib, "were now terrified in their hearts; the +shadows of death overwhelmed them."[55] Before Ekron was reduced, +however, the Egyptian army arrived in Philistia, and Sennacherib had to +abandon the siege for these arch-enemies. He defeated them in the +neighbourhood, at Eltekeh, returned to Ekron, and completed its siege. +Then, while he himself advanced southwards in pursuit of the Egyptians, +he detached a corps, which, marching eastwards through the mountain +passes, overran all Judah and threatened Jerusalem. "And Hezekiah, King +of Judah, who had not bowed down at my feet, forty-six of his strong +cities, his castles and the smaller towns in their neighbourhood beyond +number, by casting down ramparts and by open attack, by battle--_zuk_, +of the feet; _nisi_, hewing to pieces and casting down (?)--I besieged, +I captured.... He himself, like a bird in a cage, inside Jerusalem, his +royal city, I shut him up; siege-towers against him I constructed, for +he had given command to renew the bulwarks of the great gate of his +city."[56] But Sennacherib does not say that he took Jerusalem, and +simply closes the narrative of his campaign with the account of large +tribute which Hezekiah sent after him to Nineveh. + + [55] _Records of the Past_, i. 38; vii. 62. + + [56] _Ibid._, i., 40; Schrader, i., 286. + +Here, then, we have material for a graphic picture of Jerusalem and her +populace, when chaps. i. and xxii. were uttered by Isaiah. + +At Jerusalem we are within a day's journey of any part of the territory +of Judah. We feel the kingdom throb to its centre at Assyria's first +footfall on the border. The nation's life is shuddering in upon its +capital, couriers dashing up with the first news; fugitives hard upon +them; palace, arsenal, market and temple thrown into commotion; the +politicians busy; the engineers hard at work completing the +fortifications, leading the suburban wells to a reservoir within the +walls, levelling every house and tree outside which could give shelter +to the besiegers, and heaping up the material on the ramparts, till +there lies nothing but a great, bare, waterless circle round a +high-banked fortress. Across this bareness the lines of fugitives +streaming to the gates; provincial officials and their retinues; +soldiers whom Hezekiah had sent out to meet the foe, returning without +even the dignity of defeat upon them; husbandmen, with cattle and +remnants of grain in disorder; women and children; the knaves, cowards +and helpless of the whole kingdom pouring their fear, dissoluteness and +disease into the already-unsettled populace of Jerusalem. Inside the +walls opposing political factions and a weak king; idle crowds, swaying +to every rumour and intrigue; the ordinary restraints and regularities +of life suspended, even patriotism gone with counsel and courage, but in +their place fear and shame and greed of life. Such was the state in +which Jerusalem faced the hour of her visitation. + +Gradually the Visitant came near over the thirty miles which lay between +the capital and the border. Signs of the Assyrian advance were given in +the sky, and night after night the watchers on Mount Zion, seeing the +glare in the west, must have speculated which of the cities of Judah was +being burned. Clouds of smoke across the heavens from prairie and forest +fires told how war, even if it passed, would leave a trail of famine; +and men thought with breaking hearts of the villages and fields, +heritage of the tribes of old, that were now bare to the foot and the +fire of the foreigner. _Your country is desolate; your cities are burned +with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is +desolate as the overthrow of strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left +as a booth in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Except +Jehovah of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have +been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah._[57] Then came +touch of the enemy, the appearance of armed bands, vistas down +Jerusalem's favourite valleys of chariots, squadrons of horsemen +emerging upon the plateaus to north and west of the city, heavy +siege-towers and swarms of men innumerable. _And Elam bare the quiver, +with troops of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield._ At last +they saw their fears of fifty years face to face! Far-away names were +standing by their gates, actual bowmen and flashing shields! As +Jerusalem gazed upon the terrible Assyrian armaments, how many of her +inhabitants remembered Isaiah's words delivered a generation +before!--_Behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be +weary or stumble among them; neither shall the string of their loins be +lax nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows are sharp, +and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs shall be counted like +flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind; their roaring shall be like a +lion: they shall roar like young lions. For all this His anger is not +turned away, but His hand is stretched out still._ + + [57] Chap. i. 7-9. + +There were, however, two supports, on which that distracted populace +within the walls still steadied themselves. The one was the +Temple-worship, the other the Egyptian alliance. + +History has many remarkable instances of peoples betaking themselves in +the hour of calamity to the energetic discharge of the public rites of +religion. But such a resort is seldom, if ever, a real moral conversion. +It is merely physical nervousness, apprehension for life, clutching at +the one thing within reach that feels solid, which it abandons as soon +as panic has passed. When the crowds in Jerusalem betook themselves to +the Temple, with unwonted wealth of sacrifice, Isaiah denounced this as +hypocrisy and futility. _To what purpose is the multitude of your +sacrifices unto Me? saith Jehovah.... I am weary to bear them. And when +ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye +make many prayers, I will not hear_ (i. 11-15). + +Isaiah might have spared his scornful orders to the people to desist +from worship. Soon afterwards they abandoned it of their own will, but +from motives very different from those urged by him. The second support +to which Jerusalem clung was the Egyptian alliance--the pet project of +the party then in power. They had carried it to a successful issue, +taunting Isaiah with their success.[58] He had continued to denounce +it, and now the hour was approaching when their cleverness and +confidence were to be put to the test. It was known in Jerusalem that an +Egyptian army was advancing to Sennacherib, and politicians and people +awaited the encounter with anxiety. + + [58] See p. 238. + +We are aware what happened. Egypt was beaten at Eltekeh; the alliance +was stamped a failure; Jerusalem's last worldly hope was taken from her. +When the news reached the city, something took place, of which our moral +judgement tells us more than any actual record of facts. The Government +of Hezekiah gave way; the rulers, whose courage and patriotism had been +identified with the Egyptian alliance, lost all hope for their country, +and fled, as Isaiah puts it, _en masse_ (xxii. 3). There was no battle, +no defeat at arms (_id._ 2, 3); but the Jewish State collapsed. + +Then, when the last material hope of Judah fell, fell her religion too. +The Egyptian disappointment, while it drove the rulers out of their +false policies, drove the people out of their unreal worship. What had +been a city of devotees became in a moment a city of revellers. Formerly +all had been sacrifices and worship, but now feasting and blasphemy. +_Behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh +and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die_ (_id._ +13. The reference of ver. 12 is probably to chap. i.). + +Now all Isaiah's ministry had been directed just against these two +things: the Egyptian alliance and the purely formal observance of +religion--trust in the world and trust in religiousness. And together +both of these had given way, and the Assyrian was at the gates. Truly it +was the hour of Isaiah's vindication. Yet--and this is the tragedy--it +had come too late. The prophet could not use it. The two things he said +would collapse had collapsed, but for the people there seemed now no +help to be justified from the thing which he said would remain. What was +the use of the city's deliverance, when the people themselves had +failed! The feelings of triumph, which the prophet might have expressed, +were swallowed up in unselfish grief over the fate of his wayward and +abandoned Jerusalem. + +_What aileth thee now_--and in these words we can hear the old man +addressing his fickle child, whose changefulness by this time he knew so +well--_what aileth thee now that thou art wholly gone up to the +housetops_--we see him standing at his door watching this ghastly +holiday--_O thou that art full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous +town?_ What are you rejoicing at in such an hour as this, when you have +not even the bravery of your soldiers to celebrate, when you are without +that pride which has brought songs from the lips of a defeated people as +they learned that their sons had fallen with their faces to the foe, and +has made even the wounds of the dead borne through the gate lips of +triumph, calling to festival! _For thy slain are not slain with the +sword, neither are they dead in battle._ + + _All thy chiefs fled in heaps; + Without bow they were taken: + All thine that were found were taken in heaps; + From far had they run. + Wherefore I say, Look away from me; + Let me make bitterness bitterer by weeping. + Press not to comfort me + For the ruin of the daughter of my people._ + +Urge not your mad holiday upon me! _For a day of discomfiture and of +breaking and of perplexity hath the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, in the +valley of vision, a breaking down of the wall and a crying to the +mountain._ These few words of prose, which follow the pathetic elegy, +have a finer pathos still. The cumulative force of the successive +clauses is very impressive: _disappointment_ at the eleventh hour; the +sense of a being _trampled_ and overborne by sheer brute force; the +counsels, courage, hope and faith of fifty years crushed to blank +_perplexity_, and all this from Himself--_the Lord, Jehovah of +hosts_--in the very _valley of vision_, the home of prophecy; as if He +had meant of purpose to destroy these long confidences of the past on +the floor where they had been wrestled for and asserted, and not by the +force of the foe, but by the folly of His own people, to make them +ashamed. The last clause crashes out the effect of it all; every +spiritual rampart and refuge torn down, there is nothing left but an +appeal to the hills to fall and cover us--_a breaking down of the wall +and a crying to the mountain_. + +On the brink of the precipice, Isaiah draws back for a moment, to +describe with some of his old fire the appearance of the besiegers (vv. +6-8_a_). And this suggests what kind of preparation Jerusalem had made +for her foe--every kind, says Isaiah, but the supreme one. The arsenal, +Solomon's _forest-house_, with its cedar pillars, had been looked to +(ver. 8), the fortifications inspected and increased, and the suburban +waters brought within them (vv. 9-11_a_). _But ye looked not unto Him +that had done this_, who had brought this providence upon you; _neither +had ye respect unto Him that fashioned it long ago_, whose own plan it +had been. To your alliances and fortifications you fled in the hour of +calamity, but not to Him in whose guidance the course of calamity lay. +And therefore, when your engineering and diplomacy failed you, your +religion vanished with them. _In that day did the Lord, Jehovah of +hosts, call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding +with sackcloth; but, behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing +sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for +to-morrow we shall die._ It was the dropping of the mask. For half a +century this people had worshipped God, but they had never trusted Him +beyond the limits of their treaties and their bulwarks. And so when +their allies were defeated, and their walls began to tremble, their +religion, bound up with these things, collapsed also; they ceased even +to be men, crying like beasts, _Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we +die_. For such a state of mind Isaiah will hold out no promise; it is +the sin against the Holy Ghost, and for it there is no forgiveness. _And +Jehovah of hosts revealed Himself in mine ears. Surely this iniquity +shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord, Jehovah of +hosts._ + +Back forty years the word had been, _Go and tell this people, Hear ye +indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make +the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their +eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and +understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed._ What +happened now was only what was foretold then: _And if there be yet a +tenth in it, it shall again be for consumption._ That radical revision +of judgement was now being literally fulfilled, when Isaiah, sure at +last of his remnant within the walls of Jerusalem, was forced for their +sin to condemn even them to death. + + * * * * * + +Nevertheless, Isaiah had still respect to the ultimate survival of a +remnant. How firmly he believed in it could not be more clearly +illustrated than by the fact that when he had so absolutely devoted his +fellow-citizens to destruction he also took the most practical means for +securing a better political future. If there is any reason, it can only +be this, for putting the second section of chap. xxii., which advocates +a change of ministry in the city (vv. 15-22), so close to the first, +which sees ahead nothing but destruction for the State (vv. 1-14). + +The _mayor of the palace_ at this time was one Shebna, also called +_minister_ or _deputy_ (lit. _friend_ of the king). That his father is +not named implies perhaps that Shebna was a foreigner; his own name +betrays a Syrian origin; and he has been justly supposed to be the +leader of the party then in power, whose policy was the Egyptian +alliance, and whom in these latter years Isaiah had so frequently +denounced as the root of Judah's bitterness. To this unfamilied +intruder, who had sought to establish himself in Jerusalem, after the +manner of those days, by hewing himself a great sepulchre, Isaiah +brought sentence of violent banishment: _Behold, Jehovah will be +hurling, hurling thee away, thou big man, and crumpling, crumpling thee +together. He will roll, roll thee on, thou rolling-stone, like a ball_ +thrown out _on broad level ground; there shall thou die, and there shall +be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of the house of thy lord. And I +thrust thee from thy post, and from thy station do they pull thee down_. +This vagabond was not to die in his bed, nor to be gathered in his big +tomb to the people on whom he had foisted himself. He should continue a +_rolling-stone_. For him, like Cain, there was a land of Nod; and upon +it he was to find a vagabond's death. + +To fill this upstart's place, Isaiah solemnly designated a man with a +father: Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. The formulas he uses are perhaps +the official ones customary upon induction to an office. But it may be +also, that Isaiah has woven into these some expressions of even greater +promise than usual. For this change of office-bearers was critical, and +the overthrow of the "party of action" meant to Isaiah the beginning of +the blessed future. _And it shall come to pass that in that day I will +call My servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah; and I will clothe him with +thy robe, and with thy girdle will I strengthen him, and thine +administration will I give into his hand, and he shall be for a father +to the inhabitant of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will set +the key of the house of David upon his shoulder; and he shall open, and +none shut: and he shall shut, and none open. And I will hammer him in, a +nail in a firm place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to his +father's house._ Thus to the last Isaiah will not allow Shebna to forget +that he is without root among the people of God, that he has neither +father nor family. + +But a family is a temptation, and the weight of it may drag even the man +of the Lord's own hammering out of his place. This very year we find +Eliakim in Shebna's post,[59] and Shebna reduced to be secretary; but +Eliakim's family seem to have taken advantage of their relative's +position, and either at the time he was designated, or more probably +later, Isaiah wrote two sentences of warning upon the dangers of +nepotism. Catching at the figure, with which his designation of Eliakim +closed, that Eliakim would be a peg in a solid wall, a throne on which +the glory of his father's house might settle, Isaiah reminds the +much-encumbered statesman that the firmest peg will give way if you hang +too much on it, the strongest man be pulled down by his dependent and +indolent family. _They shall hang upon him all the weight of his +father's house, the scions and the offspring_ (terms contrasted as +degrees of worth), _all the little vessels, from the vessels of cups to +all the vessels of flagons_. _In that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, shall +the peg that was knocked into a firm place give way, and it shall be +knocked out and fall, and down shall be cut the burden that was upon it, +for Jehovah hath spoken._ + + [59] Isa. xxxvi. 3. + +So we have not one, but a couple of tragedies. Eliakim, the son of +Hilkiah, follows Shebna, the son of Nobody. The fate of the overburdened +nail is as grievous as that of the rolling stone. It is easy to pass +this prophecy over as a trivial incident; but when we have carefully +analysed each verse, restored to the words their exact shade of +signification, and set them in their proper contrasts, we perceive the +outlines of two social dramas, which it requires very little imagination +to invest with engrossing moral interest. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +_THE TURN OF THE TIDE: MORAL EFFECTS OF FORGIVENESS._ + +ISAIAH xxii., contrasted with xxxiii. (701 B.C.). + + +The collapse of Jewish faith and patriotism in the face of the enemy was +complete. Final and absolute did Isaiah's sentence ring out: _Surely +this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith Jehovah of +hosts._ So we learn from chap. xxii., written, as we conceive, in 701, +when the Assyrian armies had at last invested Jerusalem. But in chap. +xxxiii., which critics unite in placing a few months later in the same +year, Isaiah's tone is entirely changed. He hurls the woe of the Lord +upon the Assyrians; confidently announces their immediate destruction; +turns, while the whole city's faith hangs upon him, in supplication to +the Lord; and announces the stability of Jerusalem, her peace, her glory +and the forgiveness of all her sins. It is this great moral difference +between chaps. xxii. and xxxiii.--prophecies that must have been +delivered within a few months of each other--which this chapter seeks to +expound. + +In spite of her collapse, as pictured in chap. xxii., Jerusalem was not +taken. Her rulers fled; her people, as if death were certain, betook +themselves to dissipation; and yet the city did not fall into the hands +of the Assyrian. Sennacherib himself does not pretend to have taken +Jerusalem. He tells us how closely he invested Jerusalem, but he does +not add that he took it, a silence which is the more significant that he +records the capture of every other town which his armies attempted. He +says that Hezekiah offered him tribute, and details the amount he +received. He adds that the tribute was not paid at Jerusalem (as it +would have been had Jerusalem been conquered), but that for "the payment +of the tribute and the performance of homage" Hezekiah "despatched his +envoy"[60] to him when he was at some distance from Jerusalem. All this +agrees with the Bible narrative. In the book of Kings we are told how +Hezekiah sent to the King of Assyria at Lachish, saying, _I have +offended; return from me; that which thou puttest upon me I will bear_. +_And the King of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, King of Judah, three +hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave +him all the silver that was found in the house of Jehovah and in the +treasures of the king's house. At the same time did Hezekiah cut off the +gold from the doors of the temple of Jehovah, and from the pillars which +Hezekiah, King of Judah, had overlaid, and gave it to the King of +Assyria._[61] It was indeed a sore submission, when even the Temple of +the Lord had to be stripped of its gold. But it purchased the relief of +the city; and no price was too high to pay for that at such a moment as +the present, when the populace was demoralised. We may even see +Isaiah's hand in the submission. The integrity of Jerusalem was the one +fact on which the word of the Lord had been pledged, on which the +promised remnant could be rallied. The Assyrian must not be able to say +that he has made Zion's God like the gods of the heathen, and her people +must see that even when they have given her up Jehovah can hold her for +Himself, though in holding He tear and wound (xxxi. 4). The Temple is +greater than the gold of the Temple; let even the latter be stripped off +and sold to the heathen if it can purchase the integrity of the former. +So Jerusalem remained inviolate; she was still _the virgin, the daughter +of Zion_. + + [60] Schrader, _Cuneiform Inscriptions_, _O.T._, i., p. 286. + + [61] 2 Kings xviii. 13-16. Here closes a paragraph. Ver. 17 begins to + describe what Sennacherib did, in spite of Hezekiah's submission. He had + withdrawn the army that had invested Jerusalem, for Hezekiah purchased + its withdrawal by the tribute he sent. But Sennacherib, in spite of + this, sent another corps of war against Jerusalem, which second attack + is described in ver. 17 and onwards. + +And now upon the redeemed city Isaiah could proceed to rebuild the +shattered faith and morals of her people. He could say to them, +"Everything has turned out as, by the word of the Lord, I said it +should. The Assyrian has come down; Egypt has failed you. Your +politicians, with their scorn of religion and their confidence in their +cleverness, have deserted you. I told you that your numberless +sacrifices and pomp of unreal religion would avail you nothing in your +day of disaster, and lo! when this came, your religion collapsed. Your +abounding wickedness, I said, could only close in your ruin and +desertion by God. But one promise I kept steadfast: that Jerusalem would +not fall; and to your penitence, whenever it should be real, I assured +forgiveness. Jerusalem stands to-day, according to my word; and I repeat +my gospel. History has vindicated my word, but _Come now, let us bring +our reasoning to a close, saith the Lord; though your sins be as +scarlet, they shall be white as snow: though they be red like crimson, +they shall be as wool_. I call upon you to build again on your redeemed +city, and by the grace of this pardon, the fallen ruins of your life." + +Some such sermon--if indeed not actually part of chap. i.--we must +conceive Isaiah to have delivered to the people when Hezekiah had bought +off Sennacherib, for we find the state of Jerusalem suddenly altered. +Instead of the panic, which imagined the daily capture of the city, and +rushed in hectic holiday to the housetops, crying, _Let us eat and +drink, for to-morrow we die_, we see the citizens back upon the walls, +trembling yet trusting. Instead of sweeping past Isaiah in their revelry +and leaving him to feel that after forty years of travail he had lost +all his influence with them, we see them gathering round about him as +their single hope and confidence (xxxvii.). King and people look to +Isaiah as their counsellor, and cannot answer the enemy without +consulting him. What a change from the days of the Egyptian alliance, +embassies sent off against his remonstrance, and intrigues developed +without his knowledge; when Ahaz insulted him, and the drunken magnates +mimicked him, and, in order to rouse an indolent people, he had to walk +about the streets of Jerusalem for three years, stripped like a captive! +Truly this was the day of Isaiah's triumph, when God by events +vindicated his prophecy, and all the people acknowledged his leadership. + +It was the hour of the prophet's triumph, but the nation had as yet only +trials before it. God has not done with nations or men when He has +forgiven them. This people, whom of His grace, and in spite of +themselves, God had saved from destruction, stood on the brink of +another trial. God had given them a new lease of life, but it was +immediately to pass through the furnace. They had bought off +Sennacherib, but Sennacherib came back. + +When Sennacherib got the tribute, he repented of the treaty he had made +with Hezekiah. He may have felt that it was a mistake to leave in his +rear so powerful a fortress, while he had still to complete the +overthrow of the Egyptians. So, in spite of the tribute, he sent a force +back to Jerusalem to demand her surrender. We can imagine the moral +effect upon King Hezekiah and his people. It was enough to sting the +most demoralised into courage. Sennacherib had doubtless expected so +pliant a king and so crushed a people to yield at once. But we may +confidently picture the joy of Isaiah, as he felt the return of the +Assyrians to be the very thing required to restore spirit to his +demoralised countrymen. Here was a foe, whom they could face with a +sense of justice, and not, as they had met him before, in carnal +confidence and the pride of their own cleverness. Now was to be a war +not, like former wars, undertaken merely for party glory, but with the +purest feelings of patriotism and the firmest sanctions of religion, a +campaign to be entered upon, not with Pharaoh's support and the strength +of Egyptian chariots, but with God Himself as an ally--of which it could +be said to Judah, _Thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory +of the Lord shall be thy rereward_. + +On what free, exultant wings the spirit of Isaiah must have risen to the +sublime occasion! We know him as by nature an ardent patriot and +passionate lover of his city, but through circumstance her pitiless +critic and unsparing judge. In all the literature of patriotism there +are no finer odes and orations than those which it owes to him; from no +lips came stronger songs of war, and no heart rejoiced more in the +valour that turns the battle from the gate. But till now Isaiah's +patriotism had been chiefly a conscience of his country's sins, his +passionate love for Jerusalem repressed by as stern a loyalty to +righteousness, and all his eloquence and courage spent in holding his +people from war and persuading them _to returning and rest_. At last +this conflict is at an end. The stubbornness of Judah, which has divided +like some rock the current of her prophet's energies, and forced it back +writhing and eddying upon itself, is removed. Isaiah's faith and his +patriotism run free with the force of twin-tides in one channel, and we +hear the fulness of their roar as they leap together upon the enemies of +God and the fatherland. _Woe to thee, thou spoiler, and thou wast not +spoiled, thou treacherous dealer, and they did not deal treacherously +with thee! Whenever thou ceasest to spoil, thou shall be spoiled; and +whenever thou hast made an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal +treacherously with thee. O Jehovah, be gracious unto us; for Thee have +we waited: be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the +time of trouble. From the noise of a surging the peoples have fled; from +the lifting up of Thyself the nations are scattered. And gathered is +your spoil, the gathering of the caterpillar; like the leaping of +locusts, they are leaping upon it. Exalted is Jehovah; yea, He dwelleth +on high: He hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And there +shall be stability of thy times, wealth of salvation, wisdom and +knowledge; the fear of Jehovah, it shall be his treasure_ (xxxiii. 1-6). + +Thus, then, do we propose to bridge the gulf which lies between chaps. +i. and xxii. on the one hand and chap. xxxiii. on the other. If they are +all to be dated from the year 701, some such bridge is necessary. And +the one we have traced is both morally sufficient and in harmony with +what we know to have been the course of events. + +What do we learn from it all? We learn a great deal upon that truth +which chap. xxxiii. closes by announcing--the truth of Divine +forgiveness. + +The forgiveness of God is the foundation of every bridge from a hopeless +past to a courageous present. That God can make the past be for guilt as +though it had not been is always to Isaiah the assurance of the future. +An old Greek miniature[62] represents him with Night behind him, veiled +and sullen and holding a reversed torch. But before him stands Dawn and +Innocence, a little child, with bright face and forward step and torch +erect and burning. From above a hand pours light upon the face of the +prophet, turned upwards. It is the message of a Divine pardon. Never did +prophet more wearily feel the moral continuity of the generations, the +lingering and ineradicable effects of crime. Only faith in a pardoning +God could have enabled him, with such conviction of the inseparableness +of yesterday and to-morrow, to make divorce between them, and turning +his back on the past, as this miniature represents, hail the future as +Immanuel, a child of infinite promise. From exposing and scourging the +past, from proving it corrupt and pregnant with poison for all the +future, Isaiah will turn on a single verse, and give us a future without +war, sorrow or fraud. His pivot is ever the pardon of God. But nowhere +is his faith in this so powerful, his turning upon it so swift, as at +this period of Jerusalem's collapse, when, having sentenced the people +to death for their iniquity--_It was revealed in mine ears by Jehovah of +hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, +saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts_ (xxii. 14)--he swings round on his +promise of a little before--_Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall +be white as snow_--and to the people's penitence pronounces in the last +verse of chap. xxxiii. a final absolution: _The inhabitant shall not +say, I am sick; the people that dwell therein are forgiven their +iniquity_. If chap. xxxiii. be, as many think, Isaiah's latest oracle, +then we have the literal crown of all his prophesying in these two +words: _forgiven iniquity_. It is as he put it early that same year: +_Come now and let us bring our reasoning to a close; though your sins be +as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like +crimson, they shall be as wool_. If man is to have a future, this must +be the conclusion of all his past. + + [62] Didron _Christian Iconography_, fig. 52. + +But the absoluteness of God's pardon, making the past as though it had +not been, is not the only lesson which the spiritual experience of +Jerusalem in that awful year of 701 has for us. Isaiah's gospel of +forgiveness is nothing less than this: that when God gives pardon He +gives Himself. The name of the blessed future, which is entered through +pardon--as in that miniature, a child--is Immanuel: _God-with-us_. And +if it be correct that we owe the forty-sixth Psalm to these months when +the Assyrian came back upon Jerusalem, then we see how the city, that +had abandoned God, is yet able to sing when she is pardoned, _God is our +refuge and our strength, a very present help in the midst of troubles_. +And this gospel of forgiveness is not only Isaiah's. According to the +whole Bible, there is but one thing which separates man from God--that +is sin, and when sin is done away with, God cannot be kept from man. In +giving pardon to man, God gives back to man Himself. How gloriously +evident this truth becomes in the New Testament! Christ, who is set +before us as the Lamb of God, who beareth the sins of the world, is also +Immanuel--God-with-us. The Sacrament, which most plainly seals to the +believer the value of the One Sacrifice for sin, is the Sacrament in +which the believer feeds upon Christ and appropriates Him. The sinner, +who comes to Christ, not only receives pardon for Christ's sake, but +receives Christ. Forgiveness means nothing less than this: that in +giving pardon God gives Himself. + +But if forgiveness mean all this, then the objections frequently brought +against a conveyance of it so unconditioned as that of Isaiah fall to +the ground. Forgiveness of such a kind cannot be either unjust or +demoralising. On the contrary, we see Jerusalem permoralised by it. At +first, it is true, the sense of weakness and fear abounds, as we learn +from the narrative in chaps. xxxvi. and xxxvii. But where there was +vanity, recklessness and despair, giving way to dissipation, there is +now humility, discipline and a leaning upon God, that are led up to +confidence and exultation. Jerusalem's experience is just another proof +that any moral results are possible to so great a process as the return +of God to the soul. Awful is the responsibility of them who receive such +a Gift and such a Guest; but the sense of that awfulness is the +atmosphere, in which obedience and holiness and the courage that is born +of both love best to grow. One can understand men scoffing at messages +of pardon so unconditioned as Isaiah's, who think they "mean no more +than a clean slate." Taken in this sense, the gospel of forgiveness must +prove a savour of death unto death. But just as Jerusalem interpreted +the message of her pardon to mean that _God is in the midst of her; she +shall not be moved_, and straightway obedience was in all her hearts, +and courage upon all her walls, so neither to us can be futile the New +Testament form of the same gospel, which makes our pardoned soul the +friend of God, accepted in the Beloved, and our body His holy temple. + +Upon one other point connected with the forgiveness of sins we get +instruction from the experience of Jerusalem. A man has difficulty in +squaring his sense of forgiveness with the return on the back of it of +his old temptations and trials, with the hostility of fortune and with +the inexorableness of nature. Grace has spoken to his heart, but +Providence bears more hard upon him than ever. Pardon does not change +the outside of life; it does not immediately modify the movements of +history, or suspend the laws of nature. Although God has forgiven +Jerusalem, Assyria comes back to besiege her. Although the penitent be +truly reconciled to God, the constitutional results of his fall remain: +the frequency of temptation, the power of habit, the bias and facility +downwards, the physical and social consequences. Pardon changes none of +these things. It does not keep off the Assyrians. + +But if pardon means the return of God to the soul, then in this we have +the secret of the return of the foe. Men could not try nor develop a +sense of the former except by their experience of the latter. We have +seen why Isaiah must have welcomed the perfidious reappearance of the +Assyrians after he had helped to buy them off. Nothing could better test +the sincerity of Jerusalem's repentance, or rally her dissipated forces. +Had the Assyrians not returned, the Jews would have had no experimental +proof of God's restored presence, and the great miracle would never +have happened that rang through human history for evermore--a +trumpet-call to faith in the God of Israel. And so still _the Lord +scourgeth every son whom He receiveth_, because He would put our +penitence to the test; because He would discipline our disorganised +affections, and give conscience and will a chance of wiping out defeat +by victory; because He would baptize us with the most powerful baptism +possible--the sense of being trusted once more to face the enemy upon +the fields of our disgrace. + +That is why the Assyrians came back to Jerusalem, and that is why +temptations and penalties still pursue the penitent and forgiven. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +_OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE._ + +ISAIAH xxxiii. (701 B.C.). + + +We have seen how the sense of forgiveness and the exultant confidence, +which fill chap. xxxiii., were brought about within a few months after +the sentence of death, that cast so deep a gloom on chap. xxii. We have +expounded some of the contents of chap. xxxiii., but have not exhausted +the chapter; and in particular we have not touched one of Isaiah's +principles, which there finds perhaps its finest expression: the +consuming righteousness of God. + +There is no doubt that chap. xxxiii. refers to the sudden disappearance +of the Assyrian from the walls of Jerusalem. It was written, part +perhaps on the eve of that deliverance, part immediately after morning +broke upon the vanished host. Before those verses which picture the +disappearance of the investing army, we ought in strict chronological +order to take the narrative in chaps. xxxvi. and xxxvii.--the return of +the besiegers, the insolence of the Rabshakeh, the prostration of +Hezekiah, Isaiah's solitary faith, and the sudden disappearance of the +Assyrian. It will be more convenient, however, since we have already +entered chap. xxxiii., to finish it, and then to take the narrative of +the events which led up to it. + +The opening verses of chap. xxxiii. fit the very moment of the crisis, +as if Isaiah had flung them across the walls in the teeth of the +Rabshakeh and the second embassy from Sennacherib, who had returned to +demand the surrender of the city in spite of Hezekiah's tribute for her +integrity: _Woe to thee, thou spoiler, and thou wast not spoiled, thou +treacherous dealer, and they did not deal treacherously with thee_! +_When thou ceasest to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou makest +an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee._ +Then follows the prayer, as already quoted, and the confidence in the +security of Jerusalem (ver. 2). A new paragraph (vv. 7-12) describes +Rabshakeh and his company demanding the surrender of the city; the +disappointment of the ambassadors who had been sent to treat with +Sennacherib (ver. 7); the perfidy of the great king, who had broken the +covenant they had made with him and swept his armies back upon Judah +(ver. 8); the disheartening of the land under this new shock (ver. 9); +and the resolution of the Lord now to rise and scatter the invaders: +_Now will I arise, saith Jehovah; now will I lift up Myself; now will I +be exalted_. _Ye shall conceive chaff; ye shall bring forth stubble; +your breath is a fire, that shall devour you. And the peoples shall be +as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut down that are burned in the fire_ +(vv. 10-12). + +After an application of this same fire of God's righteousness to the +sinners _within_ Jerusalem, to which we shall presently return, the rest +of the chapter pictures the stunned populace awaking to the fact that +they are free. Is the Assyrian really gone, or do the Jews dream as they +crowd the walls, and see no trace of him? Have they all vanished--the +Rabshakeh, _by the conduit of the upper pool, with his loud voice_ and +insults; the scribes to whom they handed the tribute, and who prolonged +the agony by counting it under their eyes; the scouts and engineers +insolently walking about Zion and mapping out her walls for the assault; +the close investment of barbarian hordes, with their awesome speech and +uncouth looks! _Where is he that counted? where is he that weighed the +tribute? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shall not see the +fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive, +of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand._ They have vanished. +Hezekiah may lift his head again. O people--sore at heart to see thy +king in sackcloth and ashes[63] as the enemy devoured province after +province of thy land and cooped thee up within the narrow walls, thou +scarcely didst dare to peep across--take courage, the terror is gone! _A +king in his beauty thine eyes shall see; they shall behold the land +spreading very far forth_ (ver. 17). We had thought to die in the +restlessness and horror of war, never again to know what stable life and +regular worship were, our Temple services interrupted, our home a +battlefield. But _look upon Zion_; behold again _she is the city of our +solemn diets; thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent +that shall not be removed, the stakes whereof shall never be plucked up, +neither shall the cords thereof be broken. But there Jehovah_, whom we +have known only for affliction, _shall be in majesty for us_. Other +peoples have their natural defences, Assyria and Egypt their Euphrates +and Nile; but God Himself shall be for us _a place of rivers, streams, +broad on both hands, on which never a galley shall go, nor gallant ship +shall pass upon it_. Without sign of battle, God shall be our refuge and +our strength. It was that marvellous deliverance of Jerusalem by the +hand of God, with no effort of human war, which caused Isaiah to invest +with such majesty the meagre rock, its squalid surroundings and paltry +defences. The insignificant and waterless city was glorious to the +prophet because God was in her. One of the richest imaginations which +patriot ever poured upon his fatherland was inspired by the simplest +faith saint ever breathed. Isaiah strikes again the old keynote (chap. +viii.) about the waterlessness of Jerusalem. We have to keep in mind the +Jews' complaints of this, in order to understand what the forty-sixth +Psalm means when it says, _There is a river the streams whereof make +glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most +High_--or what Isaiah means when he says, _Glorious shall Jehovah be +unto us, a place of broad rivers and streams_. Yea, he adds, Jehovah is +everything to us: Jehovah is our Judge; Jehovah is our Lawgiver; Jehovah +is our King: He will save us. + + [63] Chap. xxxvii. + + * * * * * + +Such were the feelings aroused in Jerusalem by the sudden relief of the +city. Some of the verses, which we have scarcely touched, we will now +consider more fully as the expression of a doctrine which runs +throughout Isaiah, and indeed is one of his two or three fundamental +truths--that the righteousness of God is an all-pervading atmosphere, an +atmosphere that wears and burns. + +For forty years the prophet had been preaching to the Jews his gospel, +_God-with-us_; but they never awakened to the reality of the Divine +presence till they saw it in the dispersion of the Assyrian army. Then +God became real to them (ver. 14). The justice of God, preached so long +by Isaiah, had always seemed something abstract. Now they saw how +concrete it was. It was not only a doctrine: it was a fact. It was a +fact that was a fire. Isaiah had often called it a fire; they thought +this was rhetoric. But now they saw the actual burning--_the peoples as +the burning of lime, as thorns cut down that are burned in the fire_. +And when they felt the fire so near, each sinner of them awoke to the +fact that he had something burnable in himself, something which could as +little stand the fire as the Assyrians could. There was no difference in +this fire outside and inside the walls. What it burned there it would +burn here. Nay, was not Jerusalem the dwelling-place of God, and Ariel +the very hearth and furnace of the fire which they saw consume the +Assyrians? _Who_, they cried in their terror--_Who among us shall dwell +with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting +burnings?_ + +We are familiar with Isaiah's fundamental God-with-us, and how it was +spoken not for mercy only, but for judgement (chap. viii.). If +_God-with-us_ meant love with us, salvation with us, it meant also +holiness with us, judgement with us, the jealousy of God breathing upon +what is impure, false and proud. Isaiah felt this so hotly, that his +sense of it has broken out into some of the fieriest words in all +prophecy. In his younger days he told the citizens not _to provoke the +eyes of God's glory_, as if Heaven had fastened on their life two +gleaming orbs, not only to pierce them with its vision, but to consume +them with its wrath. Again, in the lowering cloud of calamity he had +seen _lips of indignation, a tongue as a devouring fire_, and in the +overflowing stream which finally issued from it the hot _breath of the +Almighty_. These are unforgettable descriptions of the ceaseless +activity of Divine righteousness in the life of man. They set our +imaginations on fire with the prophet's burning belief in this. But they +are excelled by another, more frequently used by Isaiah, wherein he +likens the holiness of God to an universal and constant fire. To Isaiah +life was so penetrated by the active justice of God, that he described +it as bathed in fire, as blown through with fire. Righteousness was no +mere doctrine to this prophet: it was the most real thing in history; it +was the presence which pervaded and explained all phenomena. We shall +understand the difference between Isaiah and his people if we have ever +for our eyes' sake looked at a great conflagration through a coloured +glass which allowed us to see the solid materials--stone, wood and +iron--but prevented us from perceiving the flames and shimmering heat. +To look thus is to see pillars, lintels and cross-beams twist and fall, +crumble and fade; but how inexplicable the process seems! Take away the +glass, and everything is clear. The fiery element is filling all the +interstices, that were blank to us before, and beating upon the solid +material. The heat becomes visible, shimmering even where there is no +flame. Just so had it been with the sinners in Judah these forty years. +Their society and politics, individual fortunes and careers, personal +and national habits--the home, the Church, the State--common outlines +and shapes of life--were patent to every eye, but no man could explain +the constant decay and diminution, because all were looking at life +through a glass darkly. Isaiah alone faced life with open vision, which +filled up for him the interstices of experience and gave terrible +explanation to fate. It was a vision that nearly scorched the eyes out +of him. Life as he saw it was steeped in flame--the glowing +righteousness of God. Jerusalem was full _of the spirit of justice, the +spirit of burning. The light of Israel is for a fire, and his Holy One +for a flame._ The Assyrian empire, that vast erection which the strong +hands of kings had reared, was simply their pyre, made ready for the +burning. _For a Topheth is prepared of old; yea, for the king it is made +ready; He hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much +wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle +it._[64] So Isaiah saw life, and flashed it on his countrymen. At last +the glass fell from their eyes also, and they cried aloud, _Who among us +shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with +everlasting burnings?_ Isaiah replied that there is one thing which can +survive the universal flame, and that is character: _He that walketh +righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of fraud, +that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, that stoppeth his +ears from the hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from looking on +evil, he shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the +munitions of rocks: his bread shall be given him: his water shall be +sure._ + + [64] Chaps. iv. 4; xxx. 33. + + * * * * * + +Isaiah's Vision of Fire suggests two thoughts to us. + +1. Have we done well to confine our horror of the consuming fires of +righteousness to the next life? If we would but use the eyes which +Scripture lends us, the rifts of prophetic vision and awakened +conscience by which the fogs of this world and of our own hearts are +rent, we should see fires as fierce, a consumption as pitiless, about us +here as ever the conscience of a startled sinner fearfully looked for +across the grave. Nay, have not the fires, with which the darkness of +eternity has been made lurid, themselves been kindled at the burnings of +this life? Is it not because men have felt how hot this world was being +made for sin that they have had a _certain fearful expectation of +judgement and the fierceness of fire_? We shudder at the horrible +pictures of hell which some older theologians and poets have painted for +us; but it was not morbid fancy, nor the barbarism of their age nor +their own heart's cruelty that inspired these men. It was their hot +honour for the Divine holiness; it was their experience of how pitiless +to sin Providence is already in this life; it was their own scorched +senses and affections--brands, as many honest men among them felt +themselves, plucked from the burning. Our God _is_ a consuming +fire--here as well as yonder. Hell has borrowed her glare from the +imagination of men aflame with the real fieriness of life, and may +be--more truly than of old--pictured as the dead and hollow cinder left +by those fires, of which, as every true man's conscience is aware, this +life is full. It was not hell that created conscience; it was conscience +that created hell, and conscience was fired by the vision which fired +Isaiah--of all life aglow with the righteousness of God--_God with us_, +as He was with Jerusalem, _a spirit of burning and a spirit of justice_. +This is the pantheism of conscience, and it stands to reason. God is the +one power of life. What can exist beside Him except what is like Him? +Nothing--sooner or later nothing but what is like Him. The will that is +as His will, the heart that is pure, the character that is +transparent--only these dwell with the everlasting fire, and burning +with God, as the bush which Moses saw, are nevertheless not consumed. +Let us lay it to heart--Isaiah has nothing to tell us about hell-fire, +but a great deal about the pitiless justice of God in this life. + +2. The second thought suggested by Isaiah's Vision of Life is a +comparison of it with the theory of life which is fashionable to-day. +Isaiah's figure for life was a burning. Ours is a battle, and at first +sight ours looks the truer. Seen through a formula which has become +everywhere fashionable, life is a fierce and fascinating warfare. +Civilised thought, when asked to describe any form of life or to account +for a death or survival, most monotonously replies, "The struggle for +existence." The sociologist has borrowed the phrase from the biologist, +and it is on everybody's lips to describe their idea of human life. It +is uttered by the historian when he would explain the disappearance of +this national type, the prevalence of that one. The economist traces +depression and failures, the fatal fevers of speculation, the cruelties +and bad humours of commercial life, to the same source. A merchant with +profits lessening and failure before him relieves his despair and +apologizes to his pride with the words, "It is all due to competition." +Even character and the spiritual graces are sometimes set down as +results of the same material process. Some have sought to deduce from it +all intelligence, others more audaciously all ethics; and it is certain +that in the silence of men's hearts after a moral defeat there is no +excuse more frequently offered to conscience by will than that the +battle was too hot. + +But fascinating as life is when seen through this formula, does not the +formula act on our vision precisely as the glass we supposed, which when +we look through it on a conflagration shows us the solid matter and the +changes through which this passes, but hides from us the real agent? One +need not deny the reality of the struggle for existence, or that its +results are enormous. We struggle with each other, and affect each other +for good and for evil, sometimes past all calculation. But we do not +fight in a vacuum. Let Isaiah's vision be the complement of our own +feeling. We fight in an atmosphere that affects every one of us far more +powerfully than the opposing wits or wills of our fellow-men. Around us +and through us, within and without as we fight, is the all-pervading +righteousness of God; and it is far oftener the effects of this which we +see in the falls and the changes of life than the effects of our +struggle with each other, enormous though these may be. On this point +there is an exact parallel between our days and the days of Isaiah. Then +the politicians of Judah, looking through their darkened glass at life, +said, Life is simply a war in which the strongest prevail, a game which +the most cunning win. So they made fast their alliances, and were ready +to meet the Assyrian, or they fled in panic before him, according as +Egypt or he seemed the stronger. Isaiah saw that with Assyrian and Jew +another Power was present--the real reason of every change in politics, +collapse or crash in either of the empires--the active righteousness of +God. Assyrian and Jew had not only to contend with each other. They were +at strife with Him. We now see plainly that Isaiah was right. Far more +operative than the intrigues of politicians or the pride of Assyria, +because it used these simply as its mines and its fuel, was the law of +righteousness, the spiritual force which is as impalpable as the +atmosphere, yet strong to burn and try as a furnace seven times heated. +And Isaiah is equally right for to-day. As we look at life through our +fashionable formula it does seem a mass of struggle, in which we catch +only now and then a glimpse of the decisions of righteousness, but the +prevailing lawlessness of which we do not hesitate to make the reason of +all that happens, and in particular the excuse of our own defeats. We +are wrong. Righteousness is not an occasional spark; righteousness is +the atmosphere. Though our dull eyes see it only now and then strike +into flame in the battle of life, and take for granted that it is but +the flash of meeting wits or of steel on steel, God's justice is +everywhere, pervasive and pitiless, affecting the combatants far more +than they have power to affect one another. + +We shall best learn the truth of this in the way the sinners in +Jerusalem learned it--each man first looking into himself. _Who among us +shall dwell with the everlasting burnings?_ Can we attribute all our +defeats to the opposition that was upon us at the moment they occurred? +When our temper failed, when our charity relaxed, when our resoluteness +gave way, was it the hotness of debate, was it the pressure of the +crowd, was it the sneer of the scorner, that was to blame? We all know +that these were only the occasions of our defeats. Conscience tells us +that the cause lay in a slothful or self-indulgent heart, which the +corrosive atmosphere of Divine righteousness had been consuming, and +which, sapped and hollow by its effect, gave way at every material +shock. + +With the knowledge that conscience gives us, let us now look at a kind +of figure which must be within the horizon of all of us. Once it was the +most commanding stature among its fellows, the straight back and broad +brow of a king of men. But now what is the last sight of him that will +remain with us, flung out there against the evening skies of his life? A +bent back (we speak of character), a stooping face, the shrinking +outlines of a man ready to collapse. It was not the struggle for +existence that killed him, for he was born to prevail in it. It was the +atmosphere that told on him. He carried in him that on which the +atmosphere could not but tell. A low selfishness or passion inhabited +him, and became the predominant part of him, so that his outward life +was only its shell; and when the fire of God at last pierced this, he +was as thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire. + +We can explain much with the outward eye, but the most of the +explanation lies beyond. Where our knowledge of a man's life ends, the +great meaning of it often only begins. All the vacancy beyond the +outline we see is full of that meaning. God is there, and _God is a +consuming fire_. Let us not seek to explain lives only by what we see of +them, the visible strife of man with man and nature. It is the invisible +that contains the secret of what is seen. We see the shoulders stoop, +but not the burden upon them; the face darken, but look in vain for what +casts the shadow; the light sparkle in the eye, but cannot tell what +star of hope its glance has caught. And even so when we behold fortune +and character go down in the warfare of this world, we ought to remember +that it is not always the things we see that are to blame for the fall, +but that awful flame which, unseen by common man, has been revealed to +the prophets of God. + +Righteousness and retribution, then, are an atmosphere--not lines or +laws that we may happen to stumble upon, not explosives, that, being +touched, burst out on us, but the atmosphere--always about us and always +at work, invisible and yet more mighty than aught we see. _God, in whom +we live and move and have our being, is a consuming fire._ + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +_THE RABSHAKEH; OR, LAST TEMPTATIONS OF FAITH._ + +ISAIAH xxxvi. (701 B.C.). + + +It remains for us now to follow in chaps. xxxvi., xxxvii., the +historical narrative of the events, the moral results of which we have +seen so vivid in chap. xxxiii.--the perfidious return of the Assyrians +to Jerusalem after Hezekiah had bought them off and their final +disappearance from the Holy Land. + +This historical narrative has also its moral. It is not annals, but +drama. The whole moral of Isaiah's prophesying is here flung into a duel +between champions of the two tempers, which we have seen in perpetual +conflict throughout his book. The two tempers are--on Isaiah's side an +absolute and unselfish faith in God, Sovereign of the world and Saviour +of His people; on the side of the Assyrians a bare, brutal confidence in +themselves, in human cleverness and success, a vaunting contempt of +righteousness and of pity. The main interest of Isaiah's book has +consisted in the way these tempers oppose each other, and alternately +influence the feeling of the Jewish community. That interest is now to +culminate in the scene which brings near such thorough representatives +of the two tempers as Isaiah and the Rabshakeh, with the crowd of +wavering Jews between. Most strikingly, Assyria's last assault is not of +force, but of speech, delivering upon faith the subtle arguments of the +worldly temper; and as strikingly, while all official religion and +power of State stand helpless against them, these arguments are met by +the bare word of God. In this mere statement of the situation, however, +we perceive that much more than the quarrel of a single generation is +being decided. This scene is a parable of the everlasting struggle +between faith and force, with doubt and despair between them. In the +clever, self-confident, persuasive personage with two languages on his +tongue and an army at his back; in the fluttered representatives of +official religion who meet him and are afraid of the effect of his +speech on the common people; in the ranks of dispirited men who hear the +dialogue from the wall; in the sensitive king so aware of faith, and yet +so helpless to bring faith forth to peace and triumph; and, in the +background of the whole situation, the serene prophet of God, grasping +only God's word, and by his own steadfastness carrying the city over the +crisis and proving that faith indeed can be _the substance of things +hoped for_--we have a phase of the struggle ordained unto every +generation of men, and which is as fresh to-day as when Rabshakeh played +the cynic and the scribes and elders filled the part of nervous +defenders of the faith, under the walls of faith's fortress, two +thousand five hundred years ago. + + +THE RABSHAKEH. + +This word is a Hebrew transliteration of the Assyrian Rab-sak, _chief of +the officers_. Though there is some doubt on the point, we may naturally +presume from the duties he here discharges that the Rabshakeh was a +civilian--probably the civil commissioner or political officer attached +to the Assyrian army, which was commanded, according to 2 Kings xviii. +16, by the Tartan or commander-in-chief himself. + +In all the Bible there is not a personage more clever than this +Rabshakeh, nor more typical. He was an able deputy of the king who sent +him, but he represented still more thoroughly the temper of the +civilisation to which he belonged. There is no word of this man which is +not characteristic. A clever, fluent diplomatist, with the traveller's +knowledge of men and the conqueror's contempt for them, the Rabshakeh is +the product of a victorious empire like the Assyrian, or, say, like the +British. Our services sometimes turn out the like of him--a creature +able to speak to natives in their own language, full and ready of +information, mastering the surface of affairs at a glance, but always +baffled by the deeper tides which sway nations; a deft player upon party +interests and the superficial human passions, but unfit to touch the +deep springs of men's religion and patriotism. Let us speak, however, +with respect of the Rabshakeh. From his rank (Sayce calls him the +Vizier), as well as from the cleverness with which he explains what we +know to have been the policy of Sennacherib towards the populations of +Syria, he may well have been the inspiring mind at this time of the +great Assyrian empire--Sennacherib's Bismarck. + +The Rabshakeh had strutted down from the great centre of civilisation, +with its temper upon him, and all its great resources at his back, +confident to twist these poor provincial tribes round his little finger. +How petty he conceived them we infer from his never styling Hezekiah +_the king_. This was to be an occasion for the Rabshakeh's own +glorification. Jerusalem was to fall to his clever speeches. He had +indeed the army behind him, but the work to be done was not the rough +work of soldiers. All was to be managed by him, the civilian and orator. +This fellow, with his two languages and clever address, was to step out +in front of the army and finish the whole business. + +The Rabshakeh spoke extremely well. With his first words he touched the +sore point of Judah's policy: her trust in Egypt. On this he spoke like +a very Isaiah. But he showed a deeper knowledge of Judah's internal +affairs, and a subtler deftness in using it, when he referred to the +matter of the altars. Hezekiah had abolished the high places in all +parts of the land, and gathered the people to the central sanctuary in +Jerusalem. The Assyrian knew that a number of Jews must look upon this +disestablishment of religion in the provinces as likely to incur +Jehovah's displeasure and turn Him against them. Therefore he said, _But +if thou say unto me, We trust in Jehovah our God, is not that He whose +high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to +Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?_ And then, +having shaken their religious confidence, he made sport of their +military strength. And finally he boldly asserted, _Jehovah said unto +me, Go up against this land and destroy it_. All this shows a master in +diplomacy, a most clever demagogue. The scribes and elders felt the +edge, and begged him to sheathe it in a language unknown to the common +people. But he, conscious of his power, spoke the more boldly, +addressing himself directly to the poorer sort of the garrison, on whom +the siege would press most heavily. His second speech to them is a good +illustration of the policy pursued by Assyria at this time towards the +cities of Palestine. We know from the annals of Sennacherib that his +customary policy, to seduce the populations of a hostile State from +allegiance to their rulers, had succeeded in other cases; and it was so +plausibly uttered in this case, that it seemed likely to succeed again. +To the common soldiers on the walls, with the prospect of being reduced +to the foul rations of a prolonged siege (ver. 12), Sennacherib's +ambassador offers rich and equal property and enjoyment. _Make a treaty +with me, and come out to me, and eat every one of his vine and every one +of his fig tree, and drink ye every one of the water of his cistern, +until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of +corn and grapes, a land of bread-corn and orchards. Every one_!--it is a +most subtle assault upon the discipline, comradeship and patriotism of +the common soldiers by the promises of a selfish, sensuous equality and +individualism. But then the speaker's native cynicism gets the better of +him--it is not possible for an Assyrian long to play the part of +clemency--and, with a flash of scorn, he asks the sad men upon the walls +whether they really believe that Jehovah can save them: _Hath any of the +gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the King of +Assyria, ... that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?_ All +the range of their feelings does he thus run through, seeking with sharp +words to snap each cord of faith in God, of honour to the king and love +of country. Had the Jews heart to answer him, they might point out the +inconsistency between his claim to have been sent by Jehovah and the +contempt he now pours upon their God. But the inconsistency is +characteristic. The Assyrian has some acquaintance with the Jewish +faith; he makes use of its articles when they serve his purpose, but his +ultimatum is to tear them to shreds in their believers' faces. He treats +the Jews as men of culture still sometimes treat barbarians, first +scornfully humouring their faith and then savagely trampling it under +foot. + +So clever were the speeches of the Rabshakeh. We see why he was +appointed to this mission. He was an expert both in the language and +religion of this tribe, perched on its rock in the remote Judaean +highlands. For a foreigner he showed marvellous familiarity with the +temper and internal jealousies of the Jewish religion. He turned these +on each other almost as adroitly as Paul himself did in the disputes +between Sadducees and Pharisees. How the fellow knew his cleverness, +strutting there betwixt army and town! He would show his soldier friends +the proper way of dealing with stubborn barbarians. He would astonish +those faith-proud highlanders by exhibiting how much he was aware of the +life behind their thick walls and silent faces, _for the king's +commandment was, Answer him not_. + +And yet did the Rabshakeh, with all his raking, know the heart of Judah? +No, truly. The whole interest of this man is the incongruity of the +expertness and surface-knowledge, which he spattered on Jerusalem's +walls, with the deep secret of God, that, as some inexhaustible well, +the fortress of the faith carried within her. Ah, Assyrian, there is +more in starved Jerusalem than thou canst put in thy speeches! Suppose +Heaven were to give those sharp eyes of thine power to look through the +next thousand years, and see this race and this religion thou puffest +at, the highest-honoured, hottest-hated of the world, centre of +mankind's regard and debate, but thou, and thy king and all the glory of +your empire wrapped deep in oblivion. To this little fortress of +highland men shall the heart of great peoples turn: kings for its +nursing-fathers and queens for its nursing-mothers, the forces of the +Gentiles shall come to it, and from it new civilisations take their +laws; while thou and all thy paraphernalia disappear into blackness, +haunted only by the antiquary, the world taking an interest in thee just +in so far as thou didst once hopelessly attempt to understand Jerusalem +and capture her faith by thine own interpretation of it. Curious pigmy, +very grand thou thinkest thyself, and surely with some right as delegate +of the king of kings, parading thy cleverness and thy bribes before +these poor barbarians; but the world, called to look upon you both from +this eminence of history, grants thee to be a very good head of an +intelligence department, with a couple of languages on thy glib tongue's +end, but adjudges that with the starved and speechless men before thee +lies the secret of all that is worth living and dying for in this world. + +The Rabshakeh's plausible futility and Jerusalem's faith, greatly +distressed before him, are typical. Still as men hang moodily over the +bulwarks of Zion, doubtful whether life is worth living within the +narrow limits which religion prescribes, or righteousness worth fighting +for with such privations and hope deferred, comes upon them some elegant +and plausible temptation, loudly calling to give the whole thing up. +Disregarding the official arguments and evidences that push forward to +parley, it speaks home in practical tones to men's real selves--their +appetites and selfishnesses. "You are foolish fellows," it says, "to +confine yourselves to such narrowness of life and self-denial! The fall +of your faith is only a matter of time: other creeds have gone; yours +must follow. And why fight the world for the sake of an idea, or from +the habits of a discipline? Such things only starve the human spirit; +and the world is so generous, so free to every one, so tolerant of each +enjoying his own, unhampered by authority or religion." + +In our day what has the greatest effect on the faith of many men is just +this mixture, that pervades the Rabshakeh's address,--of a superior +culture pretending to expose religion, with the easy generosity, which +offers to the individual a selfish life, unchecked by any discipline or +religious fear. That modern Rabshakeh, Ernest Renan, with the forces of +historical criticism at his back, but confident rather in his own skill +of address, speaking to us believers as poor picturesque provincials, +patronising our Deity, and telling us that he knows His intentions +better than we do ourselves, is a very good representative of the +enemies of the Faith, who owe their impressiveness upon common men to +the familiarity they display with the contents of the Faith, and the +independent, easy life they offer to the man who throws his strict faith +off. Superior knowledge, with the offer on its lips of a life on good +terms with the rich and tolerant world--pretence of science promising +selfishness--that is to-day, as then under the walls of Jerusalem, the +typical enemy of the Faith. But if faith be held simply as the silent +garrison of Jerusalem held it, faith in a Lord God of righteousness, who +has given us a conscience to serve Him, and has spoken to us in plain +explanation of this by those whom we can see, understand and trust--not +only by an Isaiah, but by a Jesus--then neither mere cleverness nor the +ability to promise comfort can avail against our faith. A simple +conscience of God and of duty may not be able to answer subtle arguments +word for word, but she can feel the incongruity of their cleverness with +her own precious secret; she can at least expose the fallacy of their +sensuous promises of an untroubled life. No man, who tempts us from a +good conscience with God in the discipline of our religion and the +comradeship of His people, can ensure that there will be no starvation +in the pride of life, no captivity in the easy tolerance of the world. +To the heart of man there will always be captivity in selfishness; there +will always be exile in unbelief. Even where the romance and sentiment +of faith are retained, after the manner of Renan, it is only to mock us +with mirage. _As in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, our heart +and flesh shall cry out for the living God, as we have aforetime seen +Him in the sanctuary._ The land, in which the tempter promises a life +undisturbed by religious restraints, is not our home, neither is it +freedom. By the conscience that is in us, God has set us on the walls of +faith, with His law to observe, with His people to stand by; and against +us are the world and its tempters, with all their wiles to be defied. If +we go down from the charge and shelter of so simple a religion, then, +whatever enjoyment we have, we shall enjoy it only with the fears of the +deserter and the greed of the slave. + +In spite of scorn and sensuous promise from Rabshakeh to Renan, let us +lift the hymn which these silent Jews at last lifted from the walls of +their delivered city: _Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell ye +the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, and consider her palaces, +that ye may tell it to the generation to come. For this God is our God +for ever and ever. He will be our Guide even unto death._ + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +_THIS IS THE VICTORY.... OUR FAITH._ + +ISAIAH xxxvii. (701 B.C.). + + +Within the fortress of the faith there is only silence and +embarrassment. We pass from the Rabshakeh, posing outside the walls of +Zion, to Hezekiah, prostrate within them. We pass with the distracted +councillors, by the walls crowded with moody and silent soldiers, many +of them--if this be the meaning of the king's command that they should +not parley--only too ready to yield to the plausible infidel. We are +astonished. Has faith nothing to say for herself? Have this people of so +long Divine inspiration no habit of self-possession, no argument in +answer to the irrelevant attacks of their enemy? Where are the +traditions of Moses and Joshua, the songs of Deborah and David? Can men +walk about Zion, and their very footsteps on her walls ring out no +defiance? + +Hezekiah's complaint reminds us that in this silence and distress we +have no occasional perplexity of faith, but her perpetual burden. Faith +is inarticulate because of her greatness. Faith is courageous and +imaginative; but can she convert her confidence and visions into fact? +Said Hezekiah, _This is a day of trouble, and rebuke and contumely, for +the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring +them forth_. These words are not a mere metaphor for anguish. They are +the definition of a real miscarriage. In Isaiah's contemporaries faith +has at last engendered courage, zeal for God's house and strong +assurance of victory; but she, that has proved fertile to conceive and +carry these confidences, is powerless to bring them forth into real +life, to transform them to actual fact. Faith, complains Hezekiah, is +not the substance of things hoped for. At the moment when her subjective +assurances ought to be realized as facts, she is powerless to bring them +to the birth. + +It is a miscarriage we are always deploring. Wordsworth has said, +"Through love, through hope, through faith's transcendent dower, we feel +that we are greater than we know." Yes, greater than we can articulate, +greater than we can tell to men like the Rabshakeh, even though he talk +the language of the Jews; and therefore, on the whole, it is best to be +silent in face of his argument. But greater also, we sometimes fear, +than we can realise to ourselves in actual character and victory. All +life thrills with the pangs of inability to bring the children of faith +to the birth of experience. The man, who has lost his faith or who takes +his faith easily, never knows, of course, this anguish of Hezekiah. But +the more we have fed on the promises of the Bible, the more that the +Spirit of God has engendered in our pure hearts assurances of justice +and of peace, the more we shall sometimes tremble with the fear that in +outward fact there is no life for these beautiful conceptions of the +soul. Do we really believe in the Fatherhood of God--believe in it till +it has changed us inwardly, and we carry a new sense of destiny, a new +conscience of justice, a new disgust of sin, a new pity for pain? Then +how full of the anguish of impotence must our souls feel when they +consciously survey one day of common life about us, or when we honestly +look back on a year of our own conduct! Does it not seem as if upon one +or two hideous streets in some centre of our civilisation all +Christianity, with its eighteen hundred years of promise and impetus, +had gone to wreck? Is God only for the imagination of man? Is there no +God outwardly to control and grant victory? Is He only a Voice, and not +the Creator? Is Christ only a Prophet, and not the King? + +And then over these disappointments there faces us all the great +miscarriage itself--black, inevitable death. Hezekiah cried from despair +that the Divine assurance of the permanence of God's people in the world +was about to be wrecked on fact. But often by a deathbed we utter the +same lament about the individual's immortality. There is everything to +prove a future life except the fact of it within human experience. This +life is big with hopes, instincts, convictions of immortality; and yet +where within our sight have these ever passed to the birth of fact?[65] +Death is a great miscarriage. _The children have come to the birth, and +there is not strength to bring them forth._ + + [65] Cf. Browning's _La Saisiaz_. + +And yet within the horizon of this life at least--the latter part of the +difficulty we postpone to another chapter--_faith is the substance of +things hoped for_, as Isaiah did now most brilliantly prove. For the +miracle of Jerusalem's deliverance, to which the narrative proceeds, was +not that by faith the prophet foretold it, but that by faith he did +actually himself succeed in bringing it to pass. The miracle, we say, +was not that Isaiah made accurate prediction of the city's speedy +relief from the Assyrian, but far more that upon his solitary +steadfastness, without aid of battle, he did carry her disheartened +citizens through this crisis of temptation, and kept them, though +silent, to their walls till the futile Assyrian drifted away. The +prediction, indeed, was not, although its terms appear exact, so very +marvellous for a prophet to make, who had Isaiah's religious conviction +that Jerusalem must survive and Isaiah's practical acquaintance with the +politics of the day. _Behold, I am setting in him a spirit; and he shall +hear a rumour, and shall return into his own land._ We may recall the +parallel case of Charlemagne in his campaign against the Moors in Spain, +from which he was suddenly and unseasonably hastened north on a +disastrous retreat by news of the revolt of the Saxons.[66] In the vast +Assyrian territories rebellions were constantly occurring, that demanded +the swift appearance of the king himself; and God's Spirit, to whose +inspiration Isaiah traced all political perception, suggested to him the +possibility of one of these. In the end, the Bible story implies that it +was not a rumour from some far-away quarter so much as a disaster here +in Syria, which compelled Sennacherib's "retreat from Moscow." But it +is possible that both causes were at work, and that as Napoleon offered +the receipt of news from Paris as his reason for hurriedly abandoning +the unfortunate Spanish campaign of 1808, so Sennacherib made the rumour +of some news from his capital or the north the occasion for turning his +troops from a theatre of war, where they had not met with unequivocal +success, and had at last been half destroyed by the plague. Isaiah's +further prediction of Sennacherib's death must also be taken in a +general sense, for it was not till twenty years later that the Assyrian +tyrant met this violent end: _I will cause him to fall by the sword in +his own land_. But do not let us waste our attention on the altogether +minor point of the prediction of Jerusalem's deliverance, when the great +wonder, of which the prediction is but an episode, lies lengthened and +manifest before us--that Isaiah, when all the defenders of Jerusalem +were distracted and her king prostrate, did by the single steadfastness +of his spirit sustain her inviolate, and procure for her people a safe +and glorious future. + + [66] A still more striking analogy may be found in the case of Napoleon + I. when in the East in 1799. He had just achieved a small victory which + partly masked the previous failure of his campaign, when "Sir Sydney + Smith now contrived that he should receive a packet of journals, by + which he was informed of all that had passed recently in Europe and the + disasters that France had suffered. His resolution was immediately + taken. On August 22nd he wrote to Kleber announcing that he transferred + to him the command of the expedition, and that he himself would return + to Europe.... After carefully spreading false accounts of his + intentions, he set sail on the night of the same day" (Professor Seeley, + article "Napoleon" in the _Ency. Brit._). + +The baffled Rabshakeh returned to his master, whom he found at Libnah, +_for he had heard that he had broken up from Lachish_. Sennacherib, the +narrative would seem to imply, did not trouble himself further about +Jerusalem till he learned that Tirhakah, the Ethiopian ruler of Egypt, +was marching to meet him with probably a stronger force than that which +Sennacherib had defeated at Eltekeh. Then, feeling the danger of leaving +so strong a fortress as Jerusalem in his rear, Sennacherib sent to +Hezekiah one more demand for surrender. Hezekiah spread his enemy's +letter before the Lord. His prayer that follows is remarkable for two +features, which enable us to see how pure and elevated a monotheism +God's Spirit had at last developed from the national faith of Israel. +The Being whom the king now seeks he addresses by the familiar name +_Jehovah of hosts, God of Israel_, and describes by the physical +figure--_who art enthroned upon the cherubim_. But he conceives of this +God with the utmost loftiness and purity, ascribing to Him not only +sovereignty and creatorship, but absolute singularity of Godhead. We +have but to compare Hezekiah's prayer with the utterances of his +predecessor Ahaz, to whom many gods were real, and none absolutely +sovereign, or with the utterances of Israelites far purer than Ahaz, to +whom the gods of the nations, though inferior to Jehovah, were yet real +existences, in order to mark the spiritual advance made by Israel under +Isaiah. It is a tribute to the prophet's force, which speaks volumes, +when the deputation from Hezekiah talk to him of _thy God_ (ver. 4). For +Isaiah by his ministry had made Israel's God to be new in Israel's eyes. + +Hezekiah's lofty prayer drew forth through the prophet an answer from +Jehovah (vv. 21-32). This is one of the most brilliant of Isaiah's +oracles. It is full of much, with which we are now familiar: the triumph +of the inviolable fortress, _the virgin daughter of Zion_, and her scorn +of the arrogant foe; the prophet's appreciation of Asshur's power and +impetus, which only heightens his conviction that Asshur is but an +instrument in the hand of God; the old figure of the enemy's sudden +check as of a wild animal by hook and bridle; his inevitable retreat to +the north. But these familiar ideas are flung off with a terseness and +vivacity, which bear out the opinion that here we have a prophecy of +Isaiah, not revised and elaborated for subsequent publication, like the +rest of his book, but in its original form, struck quickly forth to meet +the city's sudden and urgent prayer. + +The new feature of this prophecy is the sign added to it (ver. 30). This +sign reminds us of that which in opposite terms described to Ahaz the +devastation of Judah by the approaching Assyrians (chap. vii.). The wave +of Assyrian war is about to roll away again, and Judah to resume her +neglected agriculture, but not quite immediately. During this year of +701 it has been impossible, with the Assyrians in the land, to sow the +seed, and the Jews have been dependent on the precarious crop of what +had fallen from the harvest of the previous year and sown +itself--_saphiah_, or _aftergrowth_. Next year, it being now too late to +sow for next year's harvest, they must be content with the _shahis--wild +corn, that which springs of itself. But the third year sow ye, and reap, +and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof._ Perhaps we ought not to +interpret these numbers literally. The use of three gives the statement +a formal and general aspect, as if the prophet only meant, It may be not +quite at once that we get rid of the Assyrians; but when they do go, +then they go for good, and you may till your land again without fear of +their return. Then rings out the old promise, so soon now to be +accomplished, about _the escaped_ and _the remnant_; and the great +pledge of the promise is once more repeated: _The zeal of Jehovah of +hosts will perform this_. With this exclamation, as in ix. 7, the +prophecy reaches a natural conclusion; and vv. 33-35 may have been +uttered by Isaiah a little later, when he was quite sure that the +Assyrian would not even attempt to repeat his abandoned blockade of +Jerusalem. + + * * * * * + +At last in a single night the deliverance miraculously came. It is +implied by the scattered accounts of those days of salvation, that an +Assyrian corps continued to sit before Jerusalem even after the +Rabshakeh had returned to the headquarters of Sennacherib. The +thirty-third of Isaiah, as well as those Psalms which celebrate the +Assyrian's disappearance from Judah, describe it as having taken place +from under the walls of Jerusalem and the astonished eyes of her +guardians. It was not, however, upon this force--perhaps little more +than a brigade of observation (xxxiii. 18)--that the calamity fell which +drove Sennacherib so suddenly from Syria. _And there went forth_ (_that +night_, adds the book of Kings) _the angel of Jehovah; and he smote in +the camp of Assyria one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when the +camp arose in the morning, behold all of them were corpses, dead men. +And Sennacherib, King of Assyria, broke up, and returned and dwelt in +Nineveh._ Had this pestilence dispersed the camp that lay before +Jerusalem, and left beneath the walls so considerable a number of +corpses, the exclamations of surprise at the sudden disappearance of +Assyria, which occur in Isa. xxxiii. and in Psalms xlviii. and lxxvi., +could hardly have failed to betray the fact. But these simply speak of +vague _trouble_ coming _upon them that were assembled about Zion_, and +of their swift decampment. The trouble was the news of the calamity, +whose victims were the main body of the Assyrian army, who had been +making for the borders of Egypt, but were now scattered northwards like +chaff. + +For details of this disaster we look in vain, of course, to the Assyrian +annals, which only record Sennacherib's abrupt return to Nineveh. But it +is remarkable that the histories of both of his chief rivals in this +campaign, Judah and Egypt, should contain independent reminiscences of +so sudden and miraculous a disaster to his host. From Egyptian sources +there has come down through Herodotus (ii. 14), a story that a king of +Egypt, being deserted by the military caste, when "Sennacherib King of +the Arabs and Assyrians" invaded his country, entered his sanctuary and +appealed with weeping to his god; that the god appeared and cheered him, +that he raised an army of artisans and marched to meet Sennacherib in +Pelusium; that by night a multitude of field-mice ate up the quivers, +bow-strings and shield-straps of the Assyrians; and that, as these fled +on the morrow, very many of them fell. A stone statue of the king, adds +Herodotus, stood in the temple of Hephaestus, having a mouse in the hand. +Now, since the mouse was a symbol of sudden destruction, and even of the +plague, this story of Herodotus seems to be merely a picturesque form of +a tradition that pestilence broke out in the Assyrian camp. The parallel +with the Bible narrative is close. In both accounts it is a prayer of +the king that prevails. In both the Deity sends His agent--in the +grotesque Egyptian an army of mice, in the sublime Jewish His angel. In +both the effects are sudden, happening in a single night. From the +Assyrian side we have this corroboration: that Sennacherib did abruptly +return to Nineveh without taking Jerusalem or meeting with Tirhakah, and +that, though he reigned for twenty years more, he never again made a +Syrian campaign. Sennacherib's convenient story of his return may be +compared to the ambiguous account which Caesar gives of his first +withdrawal from Britain, laying emphasis on the submission of the tribes +as his reason for a swift return to France--a return which was rather +due to the destruction of his fleet by storm and the consequent +uneasiness of his army. Or, as we have already said, Sennacherib's +account may be compared to Napoleon's professed reason for his sudden +abandonment of his Spanish campaign and his quick return to Paris in +1808. + +The neighbourhood in which the Assyrian army suffered this great +disaster[67] was notorious in antiquity for its power of pestilence. +Making every allowance for the untutored imagination of the ancients, we +must admit the Serbonian bog, between Syria and Egypt, to have been a +place terrible for filth and miasma. The noxious vapours travelled far; +but the plagues, with which this swamp several times desolated the +world, were first engendered among the diseased and demoralised +populations, whose villages festered upon its margin. A Persian army was +decimated here in the middle of the fourth century before Christ. "The +fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and +his successors first appeared in the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between +the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile."[68] To the north +of the bog the Crusaders also suffered from the infection. It is, +therefore, very probable that the moral terror of this notorious +neighbourhood, as well as its malaria, acting upon an exhausted and +disappointed army in a devastated land, was the secondary cause in the +great disaster, by which the Almighty humbled the arrogance of Asshur. +The swiftness, with which Sennacherib's retreat is said to have begun, +has been equalled by the turning-points of other historical campaigns. +Alexander the Great's decision to withdraw from India was, after +victories as many as Sennacherib's, made in three days. Attila vanished +out of Italy as suddenly as Sennacherib, and from a motive less evident. +In the famous War of the Fosse the Meccan army broke off from their +siege of Mohammed in a single stormy night. Napoleon's career went back +upon itself with just as sharp a bend no less than thrice--in 1799, on +Sennacherib's own ground in Syria; in 1808, in Spain; and in 1812, when +he turned from Moscow upon "one memorable night of frost, in which +twenty thousand horses perished, and the strength of the French army was +utterly broken."[69] + + [67] The statement of the Egyptian legend, that it was from a point in + the neighbourhood of Pelusium that Sennacherib's army commenced its + retreat, is not contradicted by anything in the Jewish records, which + leave the locality of the disaster very vague, but, on the contrary, + receives some support from what Isaiah expresses as at least the + intention of Sennacherib (chap. xxxvii. 25). + + [68] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, xliii. + + [69] Arnold, _Lectures on Modern History_, 177, quoted by Stanley. + +The amount of the Assyrian loss is enormous, and implies of course a +much higher figure for the army which was vast enough to suffer it; but +here are some instances for comparison. In the early German invasions of +Italy whole armies and camps were swept away by the pestilential +climate. The losses of the First Crusade were over three hundred +thousand. The soldiers of the Third Crusade, upon the scene of +Sennacherib's war, were reckoned at more than half a million, and their +losses by disease alone at over one hundred thousand.[70] The Grand Army +of Napoleon entered Russia two hundred and fifty thousand, but came out, +having suffered no decisive defeat, only twelve thousand; on the retreat +from Moscow alone ninety thousand perished. + + [70] Gibbon, xlii.; lix. + +What we are concerned with, however, is neither the immediate occasion +nor the exact amount of Sennacherib's loss, but the bare fact, so +certainly established, that, having devastated Judah to the very walls +of Jerusalem, the Assyrian was compelled by some calamity apart from +human war to withdraw before the sacred city itself was taken. For this +was the essential part of Isaiah's prediction; upon this he had staked +the credit of the pure monotheism, whose prophet he was to the world. If +we keep before us these two simple certainties about the great +Deliverance: _first_, that it had been foretold by Jehovah's word, and +_second_, that it had been now achieved, despite all human probability, +by Jehovah's own arm, we shall understand the enormous spiritual +impression which it left upon Israel. The religion of the one supreme +God, supreme in might because supreme in righteousness, received a most +emphatic historical vindication, a signal and glorious triumph. Well +might Isaiah exclaim, on the morning of the night during which that +Assyrian host had drifted away from Jerusalem, _Jehovah is our Judge_; +_Jehovah is our Lawgiver_; _Jehovah is our King_: _He saveth us_. No +other god for the present had any chance in Judah. Idolatry was +discredited, not by the political victory of a puritan faction, not even +by the distinctive genius or valour of a nation, but by an evident act +of Providence, to which no human aid had been contributory. It was +nothing less than the baptism of Israel in spiritual religion, the grace +of which was never wholly undone. + +Nevertheless, the story of Jehovah's triumph cannot be justly recounted +without including the reaction which followed upon it within the same +generation. Before twenty years had passed from the day, on which +Jerusalem, with the forty-sixth Psalm on her lips, sought with all her +heart the God of Isaiah, she relapsed into an idolatry, that wore only +this sign of the uncompromising puritanism it had displaced: that it +was gloomy, and filled with a sense of sin unknown to Israel's +idolatries previous to the age of Isaiah. The change would be almost +incomprehensible to us, who have realized the spiritual effects of +Sennacherib's disappearance, if we had not within our own history a +somewhat analogous experience. Puritanism was as gloriously accredited +by event and seemed to be as generally accepted by England under +Cromwell as faith in the spiritual religion of Isaiah was vindicated by +the deliverance of Jerusalem and the peace of Judah under Hezekiah. But +swiftly as the ruling temper in England changed after Cromwell's death, +and Puritanism was laid under the ban, and persecution and +licentiousness broke out, so quickly when Hezekiah died did Manasseh his +son--no change of dynasty here--_do evil in the sight of Jehovah, and +make Judah to sin, building again the high places and rearing up altars +for Baal and altars in the house of Jehovah, whereof Jehovah had said, +In Jerusalem will I put My name_. Idolatry was never so rampant in +Judah. _Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood till he filled Jerusalem +from one end to another._ It is in this carnage that tradition has +placed the death of Isaiah. He, who had been Judah's best counsellor +through five reigns, on whom the whole nation had gathered in the day of +her distress, and by whose faith her long-hoped-for salvation had at +last become substantive, was violently put to death by the son of +Hezekiah. It is said that he was _sawn asunder_.[71] + + [71] Heb. xi. + +The parallel, which we are pursuing, does not, however, close here. "As +soon," says an English historian, "as the wild orgy of the Restoration +was over, men began to see that nothing that was really worthy in the +work of Puritanism had been undone. The whole history of English +progress since the Restoration, on its moral and spiritual sides, has +been the history of Puritanism." + +For the principles of Isaiah and their victory we may make a claim as +much larger than this claim, as Israel's influence on the world has been +greater than England's. Israel never wholly lost the grace of the +baptism wherewith she was baptized in 701. Even in her history there was +no event in which the unaided interposition of God was more conspicuous. +It is from an appreciation of the meaning of such a Providence that +Israel derives her character--that character which marks her off so +distinctively from her great rival in the education of the human race, +and endows her ministry with its peculiar value to the world. If we are +asked for the characteristics of the Hellenic genius, we point to the +august temples and images of beauty in which the wealth and art of man +have evolved in human features most glorious suggestions of divinity, or +we point to Thermopylae, where human valour and devotion seem grander +even in unavailing sacrifice than the almighty Fate, that renders them +the prey of the barbarian. In Greece the human is greater than the +divine. But if we are asked to define the spirit of Israel, we remember +the worship which Isaiah has enjoined in his opening chapter, a worship +that dispenses even with temple and with sacrifice, but, from the first +strivings of conscience to the most certain enjoyment of peace, ascribes +all man's experience to the word of God. In contrast with Thermopylae, we +recall Jerusalem's Deliverance, effected apart from human war by the +direct stroke of Heaven. In Judah man is great simply as he rests on +God. The rocks of Thermopylae, how imperishably beautiful do they shine +to latest ages with the comradeship, the valour, the sacrificial blood +of human heroes! It is another beauty which Isaiah saw upon the bare, +dry rocks of Zion, and which has drawn to them the admiration of the +world. _There_, he said, _Jehovah is glory for us, a place of broad +rivers and streams_. + + * * * * * + +_In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence +is your strength._ How divine Isaiah's message is, may be proved by the +length of time mankind is taking to learn it. The remarkable thing is, +that he staked so lofty a principle, and the pure religion of which it +was the temper, upon a political result, that he staked them upon, and +vindicated them by, a purely local and material success--the relief of +Jerusalem from the infidel. Centuries passed, and Christ came. He did +not--for even He could not--preach a more spiritual religion than that +which He had committed to His greatest forerunner, but He released this +religion, and the temper of faith which Isaiah had so divinely +expressed, from the local associations and merely national victories, +with which even Isaiah had been forced to identify them. The destruction +of Jerusalem by the heathen formed a large part of Christ's prediction +of the immediate future; and He comforted the remnant of faith with +these words, to some of which Isaiah's lips had first given their +meaning: _Ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship +the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him +in spirit and in truth._ + +Again centuries passed--no less than eighteen from Isaiah--and we find +Christendom, though Christ had come between, returning to Isaiah's +superseded problem, and, while reviving its material conditions, unable +to apply to them the prophet's spiritual temper. The Christianity of +the Crusades fell back upon Isaiah's position without his spirit. Like +him, it staked the credit of religion upon the relief of the holy city +from the grasp of the infidel; but, in ghastly contrast to that pure +faith and serene confidence with which a single Jew maintained the +inviolateness of Mount Zion in the face of Assyria, with what pride and +fraud, with what blood and cruelty, with what impious invention of +miracle and parody of Divine testimony, did countless armies of +Christendom, excited by their most fervent prophets and blessed by their +high-priest, attempt in vain the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracen! +The Crusades are a gigantic proof of how easy it is to adopt the +external forms of heroic ages, how difficult to repeat their inward +temper. We could not have more impressive witness borne to the fact that +humanity--though obedient to the orthodox Church, though led by the +strongest spirits of the age, though hallowed by the presence of its +greatest saints, though enduring all trials, though exhibiting an +unrivalled power of self-sacrifice and enthusiasm, though beautified by +courtesy and chivalry, and though doing and suffering all for Christ's +sake--may yet fail to understand the old precept that _in returning and +rest men are saved, in quietness and in confidence is their strength_. +Nothing could more emphatically prove the loftiness of Isaiah's teaching +than this failure of Christendom even to come within sight of it. + +Have we learned this lesson yet? O God of Israel, God of Isaiah, in +returning to whom and resting upon whom alone we are saved, purge us of +self and of the pride of life, of the fever and the falsehood they +breed. Teach us that in quietness and in confidence is our strength. +Help us to be still and know that Thou art God. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +_A REVIEW OF ISAIAH'S PREDICTIONS CONCERNING THE DELIVERANCE OF +JERUSALEM._ + + +As we have gathered together all that Isaiah prophesied concerning the +Messiah, so it may be useful for closer students of his book if we now +summarise (even at the risk of a little repetition) the facts of his +marvellous prediction of the siege and delivery of Jerusalem. Such a +review, besides being historically interesting, ought to prove of +edification in so far as it instructs us in the kind of faith by which +the Holy Ghost inspired a prophet to foretell the future. + +1. The primary conviction with which Isaiah felt himself inspired by the +Spirit of Jehovah was a purely moral one--that a devastation of Judah +was necessary for her people's sin, to which he shortly added a +religious one: that a remnant would be saved. He had this double +conviction as early as 740 B.C. (vi. 11-13). + +2. Looking round the horizon for some phenomenon with which to identify +this promised judgement, Isaiah described the latter at first without +naming any single people as the invaders of Judah (v. 26 ff.). It may +have been that for a moment he hesitated between Assyria and Egypt. Once +he named them together as equally the Lord's instruments upon Judah +(vii. 18), but only once. When Ahaz resolved to call Assyria into the +Syrian quarrels, Isaiah exclusively designated the northern power as the +scourge he had predicted; and when in 732 the Assyrian armies had +overrun Samaria, he graphically described their necessary overflow into +Judah also (viii.). This invasion did not spread to Judah, but Isaiah's +combined moral and political conviction, for both elements of which he +claimed the inspiration of God's Spirit, seized him with renewed +strength in 725, when Salmanassar marched south upon Israel (xxviii.); +and in 721, when Sargon captured Samaria, Isaiah uttered a vivid +description of his speedy arrival before Jerusalem (x. 28 ff.). This +prediction was again disappointed. But Sargon's departure without +invading Judah, and her second escape from him on his return to Syria in +711, did not in the least induce Isaiah to relax either of his two +convictions. Judah he proclaimed to be as much in need of punishment as +ever (xxix.-xxxii.); and, though on Sargon's death all Palestine +revolted from Assyria to Egypt, he persisted that this would not save +her from Sennacherib (xiv. 29 ff.; xxix.-xxx.). The "dourness" with +which his countrymen believed in Egypt naturally caused the prophet to +fill his orations at this time with the _political_ side of his +conviction that Assyria was stronger than Egypt; but because Jerusalem's +Egyptian policy springs from a deceitful temper (xxx. 1, 9, 10) he is as +earnest as ever with his _moral_ conviction that judgement is coming. +After 705 his pictures of a siege of Jerusalem grow more definite +(xxix.; xxx.). He seems scorched by the nearness of the Assyrian +conflagration (xxx. 27 ff.). At last in 701, when Sennacherib comes to +Palestine, the siege is pictured as immediate--chaps. i. and xx., which +also show at its height the prophet's moral conviction of the necessity +of the siege for punishing his people. + +3. But over against this _moral_ conviction, that Judah must be +devastated for her sin, and this _political_, that Assyria is to be the +instrument, even to the extreme of a siege of Jerusalem, the prophet +still holds strongly to the _religious_ assurance that God cannot allow +His shrine to be violated or His people to be exterminated. At first it +is only of the people that Isaiah speaks--_the remnant_ (vi.; viii. 18). +Jerusalem is not mentioned in the verses that describe the overflowing +of all Judah by Assyria (viii. 7). It is only when at last, in 721, the +prophet realizes how near a siege of Jerusalem may be (x. 11, 28-32), +that he also pictures the sudden destruction of the Assyrian on his +arrival within sight of her walls (x. 33). In 705, when the siege of the +sacred city once more becomes imminent, the prophet again reiterates to +the heathen that Zion alone shall stand among the cities of Syria (xiv. +32). To herself he says that, though she shall be besieged and brought +very low, she shall finally be delivered (xxix. 1-8; xxx. 19-26; xxxi. +1, 4, 5). It is true, this conviction seems to be broken--once by a +prophecy of uncertain date (xxxii. 14), which indicates a desolation of +the buildings of Jerusalem, and once by the prophet's sentence of death +upon the inhabitants in the hour of their profligacy (xxii.)--but when +the city has repented, and the enemy have perfidiously come back to +demand her surrender, Isaiah again asseverates, though all are hopeless, +that she shall not fall (xxxvii.). + +4. Now, with regard to the method of Jerusalem's deliverance, Isaiah has +uniformly described this as happening not by human battle. From the +beginning he said that Israel should be delivered in the last extremity +of their weakness (vi. 13). On the Assyrian's arrival over against the +city, Jehovah is to lop him off (x. 33). When her enemies have invested +Jerusalem, Jehovah is to come down in thunder and a hurricane and sweep +them away (after 705, xxix. 5-8). They are to be suddenly disappointed, +like a hungry man waking from a dream of food. A beautiful promise is +given of the raising of the siege without mention of struggle or any +weapon (xxx. 20-26). The Assyrian is to be checked as a wild bull is +checked _with a lasso_, is to be slain _by the lighting down of the +Lord's arm, by the voice of the Lord_, through a judgement that shall be +like a solemn holocaust to God than a human battle (xxx. 30-33). When +the Assyrian comes back, and Hezekiah is crushed by the new demand for +surrender, Isaiah says that, by a Divinely inspired impulse, +Sennacherib, hearing bad news, shall suddenly return to his own land +(xxxviii. 7). + +It is only in very little details that these predictions differ. The +thunderstorm and torrents of fire are, of course, but poetic variations. +In 721, however, the prophet hardly anticipates the very close siege, +which he pictures after 705; and while from 705 to 702 he identifies the +relief of Jerusalem with a great calamity to the Assyrian army about to +invade Judah, yet in 701, when the Assyrians are actually on the spot, +he suggests that nothing but a rumour shall cause their retreat and so +leave Jerusalem free of them. + +5. In all this we see a certain FIXITY and a certain FREEDOM. The +freedom, the changes and inconsistencies in the prediction, are entirely +limited to those of Isaiah's convictions which we have called political, +and which the prophet evidently gathered from his observation of +political circumstances as these developed before his eyes from year to +year. But what was fixed and unalterable to Isaiah, he drew from the +moral and religious convictions to which his political observation was +subservient; viz., Judah's very sore punishment for sin, the survival of +a people of God in the world, and their deliverance by His own act. + +6. This "Bible-reading" in Isaiah's predictive prophecies reveals very +clearly the nature of inspiration under the old covenant. To Isaiah +inspiration was nothing more nor less than the possession of certain +strong moral and religious convictions, which he felt he owed to the +communication of the Spirit of God, and according to which he +interpreted, and even dared to foretell, the history of his people and +the world. Our study completely dispels, on the evidence of the Bible +itself, that view of inspiration and prediction, so long held in the +Church, which it is difficult to define, but which means something like +this: that the prophet beheld a vision of the future in its actual +detail and read this off as a man may read the history of the past out +of a book or a clear memory. This is a very simple view, but too simple +either to meet the facts of the Bible, or to afford to men any of that +intellectual and spiritual satisfaction which the discovery of the +Divine methods is sure to afford. The literal view of inspiration is too +simple to be true, and too simple to be edifying. On the other hand, how +profitable, how edifying, is the Bible's own account of its inspiration! +To know that men interpreted, predicted and controlled history in the +power of the purest moral and religious convictions--in the knowledge +of, and the loyalty to, certain fundamental laws of God--is to receive +an account of inspiration, which is not only as satisfying to the reason +as it is true to the facts of the Bible, but is spiritually very +helpful by the lofty example and reward it sets before our own faith. By +faith differing in degree, but not in kind, from ours, _faith which is +the substance of things hoped for_, these men became prophets of God, +and received the testimony of history that they spoke from Him. Isaiah +prophesied and predicted all he did from loyalty to two simple truths, +which he tells us he received from God Himself: that sin must be +punished, and that the people of God must be saved. This simple faith, +acting along with a wonderful knowledge of human nature and ceaseless +vigilance of affairs, constituted inspiration for Isaiah. + +There is thus, with great modifications, an analogy between the prophet +and the scientific observer of the present day. Men of science are able +to affirm the certainty of natural phenomena by their knowledge of the +laws and principles of nature. Certain forces being present, certain +results must come to pass. The Old Testament prophets, working in +history, a sphere where the problems were infinitely more complicated by +the presence and powerful operation of man's free-will, seized hold of +principles as conspicuous and certain to them as the laws of nature are +to the scientist; and out of their conviction of these they proclaimed +the necessity of certain events. God is inflexibly righteous, He cannot +utterly destroy His people or the witness of Himself among men: these +were the laws. Judah shall be punished, Israel shall continue to exist: +these were the certainties deduced from the laws. But for the exact +conditions and forms both of the punishment and its relief the prophets +depended upon their knowledge of the world, of which, as these pages +testify, they were the keenest and largest-hearted observers that ever +appeared. + +This account of prophecy may be offered with advantage to those who are +prejudiced against prophecy as full of materials, which are inexplicable +to minds accustomed to find a law and reason for everything. Grant the +truths of the spiritual doctrines, which the prophets made their +premises, and you must admit that their predictions are neither +arbitrary nor bewildering. Or begin at the other end: verify that these +facts took place, and that the prophets actually predicted them; and if +you are true to your own scientific methods, you will not be able to +resist the conclusion that the spiritual laws and principles, by which +the predictions were made, are as real as those by which in the realm of +nature you proclaim the necessity of certain physical phenomena--and all +this in spite of there being at work in the prophets' sphere a force, +the free-will of man, which cannot interfere with the laws you work by, +as it can with those on which they depend. + +But, to turn from the apologetic value of this account of prophecy to +the experimental, we maintain that it brings out a new sacredness upon +common life. If it be true that Isaiah had no magical means for +foretelling the future, but simply his own spiritual convictions and his +observation of history, that may, of course, deprive some eyes of a +light which they fancied they saw bursting from heaven. But, on the +other hand, does it not cast a greater glory upon daily life and +history, to have seen in Isaiah this close connection between spiritual +conviction and political event? Does it not teach us that life is +governed by faith; that the truths we profess are the things that make +history; that we carry the future in our hearts; that not an event +happens but is to be used by us as meaning the effect of some law of +God, and not a fact appears but is the symbol and sacrament of His +truth? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +_AN OLD TESTAMENT BELIEVER'S SICK-BED; OR, THE DIFFERENCE CHRIST HAS +MADE._ + +ISAIAH xxxviii.; xxxix. (DATE UNCERTAIN). + + +To the great national drama of Jerusalem's deliverance, there have been +added two scenes of a personal kind, relating to her king. Chaps. +xxxviii. and xxxix. are the narrative of the sore sickness and recovery +of King Hezekiah, and of the embassy which Merodach-baladan sent him, +and how he received the embassy. The date of these events is difficult +to determine. If, with Canon Cheyne, we believe in an invasion of Judah +by Sargon in 711, we shall be tempted to refer them, as he does, to that +date--the more so that the promise of fifteen additional years made to +Hezekiah in 711, the fifteenth year of his reign, would bring it up to +the twenty-nine, at which it is set in 2 Kings xviii. 2. That, however, +would flatly contradict the statement both of Isaiah xxxviii. 1 and 2 +Kings xx. 1 that Hezekiah's sickness fell in the days of the invasion of +Judah by Sennacherib; that is, after 705. But to place the promise of +fifteen additional years to Hezekiah after 705, when we know he had been +reigning for at least twenty years, would be to contradict the verse, +just cited, which sums up the years of his reign as twenty-nine. This +is, in fact, one of the instances, in which we must admit our present +inability to elucidate the chronology of this portion of the book of +Isaiah. Mr. Cheyne thinks the editor mistook the siege by Sennacherib +for the siege by Sargon. But as the fact of a siege by Sargon has never +been satisfactorily established, it seems safer to trust the statement +that Hezekiah's sickness occurred in the reign of Sennacherib, and to +allow that there has been an error somewhere in the numbering of the +years. It is remarkable that the name of Merodach-baladan does not help +us to decide between the two dates. There was a Merodach-baladan in +rebellion against Sargon in 710, and there was one in rebellion against +Sennacherib in 705. It has not yet been put past doubt as to whether +these two are the same. The essential is that there was a +Merodach-baladan alive, real or only claimant king of Babylon, about +705, and that he was likely at that date to treat with Hezekiah, being +himself in revolt against Assyria. Unable to come to any decision about +the conflicting numbers, we leave uncertain the date of the events +recounted in chaps. xxxviii., xxxix. The original form of the narrative, +but wanting Hezekiah's hymn, is given in 2 Kings xx.[72] + + [72] Isa. xxxviii., xxxix., has evidently been abridged from 2 Kings xx. + and in some points has to be corrected by the latter. Chap. xxxviii. 21, + 22, of course, must be brought forward before ver. 7. + + * * * * * + +We have given to this chapter the title "An Old Testament Believer's +Deathbed; or, The Difference Christ has made," not because this is the +only spiritual suggestion of the story, but because it seems to the +present expositor as if this were the predominant feeling left in +Christian minds after reading for us the story. In Hezekiah's conduct +there is much of courage for us to admire, as there are other elements +to warn us; but when we have read the whole story, we find ourselves +saying, What a difference Christ has made to me! Take Hezekiah from two +points of view, and then let the narrative itself bring out this +difference. + +Here is a man, who, although he lived more than twenty-five centuries +ago is brought quite close to our side. Death, who herds all men into +his narrow fold, has crushed this Hebrew king so close to us that we can +feel his very heart beat. Hezekiah's hymn gives us entrance into the +fellowship of his sufferings. By the figures he so skilfully uses he +makes us feel that pain, the shortness of life, the suddenness of death +and the utter blackness beyond were to him just what they are to us. And +yet this kinship in pain, and fear and ignorance only makes us the more +aware of something else which we have and he has not. + +Again, here is a man to whom religion gave all it could give without the +help of Christ; a believer in the religion out of which Christianity +sprang, perhaps the most representative Old Testament believer we could +find, for Hezekiah was at once the collector of what was best in its +literature and the reformer of what was worst in its worship; a man +permeated by the past piety of his Church, and enjoying as his guide and +philosopher the boldest prophet who ever preached the future +developments of its spirit. Yet when we put Hezekiah and all that Isaiah +can give him on one side, we shall again feel for ourselves on the other +what a difference Christ has made. + +This difference a simple study of the narrative will make clear. + + +I. + +_In those days Hezekiah became sick unto death._ They were critical days +for Judah--no son born to the king (2 Kings xxi. 1), the work of +reformation in Judah not yet consolidated, the big world tossing in +revolution all around. Under God, everything depended on an experienced +ruler; and this one, without a son to succeed him, was drawing near to +death. We will therefore judge Hezekiah's strong passion for life to +have been patriotic as well as selfish. He stood in the midtime of his +days, with a faithfully executed work behind him and so good an example +of kinghood that for years Isaiah had not expressed his old longing for +the Messiah. The Lord had counted Hezekiah righteous; that twin-sign had +been given him which more than any other assured an Israelite of +Jehovah's favour--a good conscience and success in his work. Well, +therefore, might he cry when Isaiah brought him the sentence of death, +_Ah, now, Jehovah, remember, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before +Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good +in Thine eyes. And Hezekiah wept with a great weeping._ + +There is difficulty in the strange story which follows. The dial was +probably a pyramid of steps on the top of which stood a short pillar or +obelisk. When the sun rose in the morning, the shadow cast by the pillar +would fall right down the western side of the pyramid to the bottom of +the lowest step. As the sun ascended the shadow would shorten, and creep +up inch by inch to the foot of the pillar. After noon, as the sun began +to descend to the west, the shadow would creep down the eastern steps; +and the steps were so measured that each one marked a certain degree of +time. It was probably afternoon when Isaiah visited the king. The shadow +was _going down_ according to the regular law; the sign consisted in +causing the shadow to shrink up the steps again. Such a reversal of the +ordinary progress of the shadow may have been caused in either of two +ways: by the whole earth being thrown back on its axis, which we may +dismiss as impossible, or by the occurrence of the phenomenon known as +refraction. Refraction is a disturbance in the atmosphere by which the +rays of the sun are bent or deflected from their natural course into an +angular one. In this case, instead of shooting straight over the top of +the obelisk, the rays of the sun had been bent down and inward, so that +the shadow fled up to the foot of the obelisk. There are many things in +the air which might cause this; it is a phenomenon often observed; and +the Scriptural narratives imply that on this occasion it was purely +local (2 Chron. xxxii. 31). Had we only the narrative in the book of +Isaiah, the explanation would have been easy. Isaiah, having given the +sentence of death, passed the dial in the palace courtyard, and saw the +shadow lying ten degrees farther up than it should have done, the sight +of which coincided with the inspiration that the king would not die; and +Isaiah went back to announce to Hezekiah his reprieve, and naturally +call his attention to this as a sign, to which a weak and desponding man +would be glad to cling. But the original narrative in the book of Kings +tells us that Isaiah offered Hezekiah a choice of signs: that the shadow +should either advance or retreat, and that the king chose the latter. +The sign came in answer to Isaiah's prayer, and is narrated to us as a +special Divine interposition. But a medicine accompanied it, and +Hezekiah recovered through a poultice of figs laid on the boil from +which he suffered. + +While recognising for our own faith the uselessness of a discussion on +this sign offered to a sick man, let us not miss the moral lessons of so +touching a narrative, nor the sympathy with the sick king which it is +fitted to produce, and which is our best introduction to the study of +his hymn. + +Isaiah had performed that most awful duty of doctor or minister the +telling of a friend that he must die. Few men have not in their personal +experience a key to the prophet's feelings on this occasion. The leaving +of a dear friend for the last time; the coming out into the sunlight +which he will nevermore share with us; the passing by the dial; the +observation of the creeping shadow; the feeling that it is only a +question of time, the passion of prayer into which that feeling throws +us that God may be pleased to put off the hour and spare our friend; the +invention, that is born, like prayer, of necessity: a cure we suddenly +remember; the confidence which prayer and invention bring between them; +the return with the joyful news; the giving of the order about the +remedy--cannot many in their degree rejoice with Isaiah in such an +experience? But he has, too, a conscience of God and God's work to which +none of us may pretend: he knows how indispensable to that work his +royal pupil is, and out of this inspiration he prophesies the will of +the Lord that Hezekiah shall recover. + +Then the king, with a sick man's sacramental longing, asks a sign. Out +through the window the courtyard is visible; there stands the same +step-dial of Ahaz, the long pillar on the top of the steps, the shadow +creeping down them through the warm afternoon sunshine. To the sick man +it must have been like the finger of death coming nearer. _Shall the +shadow_, asks the prophet, _go forward ten steps or go back ten steps? +It is easy_, says the king, alarmed, _for the shadow to go down ten +steps_. Easy for it to go down! Has he not been feeling that all the +afternoon? "Do not," we can fancy him saying, with the gasp of a man who +has been watching its irresistible descent--"do not let that black thing +come farther; but _let the shadow go backward ten steps_." + +The shadow returned, and Hezekiah got his sign. But when he was well, he +used it for more than a sign. He read a great spiritual lesson in it. +The time, which upon the dial had been apparently thrown back, had in +his life been really thrown back; and God had given him his years to +live over again. The past was to be as if it had never been, its guilt +and weakness wiped out. _Thou hast cast behind Thy back all my sins._ As +a newborn child Hezekiah felt himself uncommitted by the past, not a +sin's-doubt nor a sin's-cowardice in him, with the heart of a little +child, but yet with the strength and dignity of a grown man, for it is +the magic of tribulation to bring innocence with experience. _I shall go +softly_, or literally, _with dignity or caution, as in a procession, all +my years because of the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, upon such things +do men live; and altogether in them is the life of my spirit.... Behold, +for perfection was it bitter to me,_ so _bitter_. And through it all +there breaks a new impression of God. _What shall I say? He hath both +spoken with me, and Himself hath done it._ As if afraid to impute his +profits to the mere experience itself, _In them is the life of my +spirit_, he breaks in with _Yea, Thou hast recovered me; yea, Thou hast +made me to live_. And then, by a very pregnant construction, he adds, +_Thou hast loved my soul out of the pit of destruction; that is, of +course, loved, and by Thy love lifted_, but he uses the one word loved, +and gives it the active force of _drawing_ or _lifting_. In this lay the +head and glory of Hezekiah's experience. He was a religious man, an +enthusiast for the Temple services, and had all his days as his friend +the prophet whose heart was with the heart of God; but it was not +through any of these means God came near him, not till he lay sick and +had turned his face to the wall. Then indeed he cried, _What shall I +say? He hath both spoken with me, and Himself hath done it!_ + +Forgiveness, a new peace, a new dignity and a visit from the living God! +Well might Hezekiah exclaim that it was only through a near sense of +death that men rightly learned to live. _Ah, Lord, it is upon these +things that men live; and wholly therein is the life of my spirit._ It +is by these things men live, and therein I have learned for the first +time what life is! + +In all this at least we cannot go beyond Hezekiah, and he stands an +example to the best Christian among us. Never did a man bring richer +harvest from the fields of death. Everything that renders life really +life--peace, dignity, a new sense of God and of His forgiveness--these +were the spoils which Hezekiah won in his struggle with the grim enemy. +He had snatched from death a new meaning for life; he had robbed death +of its awful pomp, and bestowed this on careless life. Hereafter he +should walk with the step and the mien of a conqueror--_I shall go in +solemn procession all my years because of the bitterness of my soul_--or +with the carefulness of a worshipper, who sees at the end of his course +the throne of the Most High God, and makes all his life an ascent +thither. + +This is the effect which every great sorrow and struggle has upon a +noble soul. Come to the streets of the living. Who are these, whom we +can so easily distinguish from the crowd by their firmness of step and +look of peace, walking softly where some spurt and some halt, holding, +without rest or haste, the tenor of their way, as if they marched to +music heard by their ears alone? These are they which have come out of +great tribulation. They have brought back into time the sense of +eternity. They know how near the invisible worlds lie to this one, and +the sense of the vast silences stills all idle laughter in their hearts. +The life that is to other men chance or sport, strife or hurried flight, +has for them its allotted distance; is for them a measured march, a +constant worship. _For the bitterness of their soul they go in +procession all their years._ Sorrow's subjects, they are our kings; +wrestlers with death, our veterans: and to the rabble armies of society +they set the step of a nobler life. + +Count especially the young man blessed, who has looked into the grave +before he has faced the great temptations of the world, and has not +entered the race of life till he has learned his stride in the race with +death. They tell us that on the outside of civilisation, where men carry +their lives in their hands, a most thorough politeness and dignity are +bred, in spite of the want of settled habits, by the sense of danger +alone; and we know how battle and a deadly climate, pestilence or the +perils of the sea have sent back to us the most careless of our youth +with a self-possession and regularity of mind, that it would have been +hopeless to expect them to develop amid the trivial trials of village +life. + +But the greatest duty of us men is not to seek nor to pray for such +combats with death. It is when God has found these for us to remain +true to our memories of them. The hardest duty of life is to remain true +to our psalms of deliverance, as it is certainly life's greatest +temptation to fall away from the sanctity of sorrow, and suffer the +stately style of one who knows how near death hovers to his line of +march to degenerate into the broken step of a wanton life. This was +Hezekiah's temptation, and this is why the story of his fall in the +thirty-ninth chapter is placed beside his vows in the thirty-eighth--to +warn us how easy it is for those who have come conquerors out of a +struggle with death to fall a prey to common life. He had said, _I will +walk softly all my years_; but how arrogantly and rashly he carried +himself when Merodach-baladan sent the embassy to congratulate him on +his recovery. It was not with the dignity of the veteran, but with a +childish love of display, perhaps also with the too restless desire to +secure an alliance, that he showed the envoys _his storehouse, the +silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and all the +house of his armour and all that was found in his treasures. There was +nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his house nor in all his +dominion._ In this behaviour there was neither caution nor sobriety, and +we cannot doubt but that Hezekiah felt the shame of it when Isaiah +sternly rebuked him and threw upon all his house the dark shadow of +captivity. + +It is easier to win spoils from death than to keep them untarnished by +life. Shame burns warm in a soldier's heart when he sees the arms he +risked life to win rusting for want of a little care. Ours will not burn +less if we discover that the strength of character we brought with us +out of some great tribulation has been slowly weakened by subsequent +self-indulgence of vanity. How awful to have fought for character with +death only to squander it upon life! It is well to keep praying, "My +God, suffer me not to forget my bonds and my bitterness. In my hours of +wealth and ease, and health and peace, by the memory of Thy judgements +deliver me, good Lord." + + +II. + +So far then Hezekiah is an example and warning to us all. With all our +faith in Christ, none of us, in the things mentioned, may hope to excel +this Old Testament believer. But notice very particularly that +Hezekiah's faith and fortitude are profitable only for this life. It is +when we begin to think, What of the life to come? that we perceive the +infinite difference Christ has made. + +We know what Hezekiah felt when his back was turned on death, and he +came up to life again. But what did he feel when he faced the other way, +and his back was to life? With his back to life and facing deathwards, +Hezekiah saw nothing, that was worth hoping for. To him to die was to +leave God behind him, to leave the face of God as surely as he was +leaving the face of man. _I said, I shall not see Jah, Jah in the land +of the living; I shall gaze upon man no more with the inhabitants of the +world._ The beyond was not to Hezekiah absolute nothingness, for he had +his conceptions, the popular conceptions of his time, of a sort of +existence that was passed by those who had been men upon earth. The +imagination of his people figured the gloomy portals of a nether +world--_Sheol_, the _Hollow_ (Dante's "hollow realm"), or perhaps the +_Craving_--into which death herds the shades of men, bloodless, +voiceless, without love or hope or aught that makes life worth living. +With such an existence beyond, to die to life here was to Hezekiah like +as when a weaver rolls up the finished web. My life may be a pattern for +others to copy, a banner for others to fight under, but for me it is +finished. Death has cut it from the loom. Or it was like going into +captivity. _Mine age is removed and is carried away from me into exile, +like a shepherd's tent_--exile which to a Jew was the extreme of +despair, implying as it did absence from God, and salvation and the +possibility of worship. _Sheol cannot praise Thee; death cannot +celebrate Thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy +faithfulness._ + +Of this then at the best Hezekiah was sure: a respite of fifteen +years--nothing beyond. Then the shadow would not return upon the dial; +and as the king's eyes closed upon the dear faces of his friends, his +sense of the countenance of God would die too, and his soul slip into +the abyss, hopeless of God's faithfulness. + +It is this awful anticlimax, which makes us feel the difference Christ +has made. This saint stood in almost the clearest light that revelation +cast before Jesus. He was able to perceive in suffering a meaning and +derive from it a strength not to be exceeded by any Christian. Yet his +faith is profitable for this life alone. For him character may wrestle +with death over and over again, and grow the stronger for every grapple, +but death wins the last throw. + +It may be said that Hezekiah's despair of the future is simply the +morbid thoughts of a sick man or the exaggerated fancies of a poet. "We +must not," it is urged, "define a poet's language with the strictness of +a theology." True, and we must also make some allowance for a man dying +prematurely in the midst of his days. But if this hymn is only poetry, +it would have been as easy to poetise on the opposite possibilities +across the grave. So quick an imagination as Hezekiah's could not have +failed to take advantage of the slightest scintilla of glory that +pierced the cloud. It must be that his eye saw none, for all his poetry +droops the other way. We seek in heaven for praise in its fulness; there +we know God's servants shall see Him face to face. But of this Hezekiah +had not the slightest imagination; he anxiously prayed that he might +recover _to strike the stringed instruments all the days of his life in +the house of Jehovah. The living, the living, he praiseth thee, as I do +this day; the father to the children shall make known Thy truth._ But +_they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy faithfulness_. + +Now compare all this with the Psalms of Christian hope; with the faith +that fills Paul; with his ardour who says, _To me to depart is far +better_; with the glory which John beholds with open face: the hosts of +the redeemed praising God and walking in the light of His face, all the +geography of that country laid down, and the plan of the new Jerusalem +declared to the very fashion of her stones; with the audacity since of +Christian art and song: the rapture of Watts' hymns and the exhilaration +of Wesley's praise as they contemplate death; and with the joyful and +exact anticipations of so many millions of common men as they turn their +faces to the wall. In all these, in even the Book of the Revelation, +there is of course a great deal of pure fancy. But imagination never +bursts in anywhither till fact has preceded. And it is just because +there is a great fact standing between us and Hezekiah that the pureness +of our faith and the richness of our imagination of immortality differ +so much from his. That fact is Jesus Christ, His resurrection and +ascension. It is He who has made all the difference and brought life and +immortality to light. + +And we shall know the difference if we lose our faith in that fact. For +_except Christ be risen from the dead_ and gone before to a country +which derives all its reality and light for our imagination from that +Presence, which once walked with us in the flesh, there remains for us +only Hezekiah's courage to make the best of a short reprieve, only +Hezekiah's outlook into Hades when at last we turn our faces to the +wall. But to be stronger and purer for having met with death, as he was, +only that we must afterwards succumb, with our purity and our strength, +to death--this is surely to be, as Paul said, _of all men the most +miserable_. + +Better far to own the power of an endless life, which Christ has sealed +to us, and translate Hezekiah's experience into the new calculus of +immortality. If to have faced death as he did was to inherit dignity and +peace and sense of power, what glory of kingship and queenship must sit +upon those faces in the other world who have been at closer quarters +still with the King of terrors, and through Christ their strength have +spoiled him of his sting and victory! To have felt the worst of death +and to have triumphed--this is the secret of the peaceful hearts, +unfaltering looks and faces of glory, _which pass in solemn procession +of worship_ through all eternity before the throne of God. + + * * * * * + +We shall consider the Old Testament views of a future life and +resurrection more fully in chaps. xxvii. and xxx. of this volume. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HAD ISAIAH A GOSPEL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL? + + +The two narratives, in which Isaiah's career culminates--that of the +Deliverance of Jerusalem (xxxvi.; xxxvii.) and that of the Recovery of +Hezekiah (xxxviii.; xxxix.)--cannot fail, coming together as they do, to +suggest to thoughtful readers a striking contrast between Isaiah's +treatment of the community and his treatment of the individual, between +his treatment of the Church and his treatment of single members. For in +the first of these narratives we are told how an illimitable future, +elsewhere so gloriously described by the prophet, was secured for the +Church upon earth; but the whole result of the second is the gain for a +representative member of the Church of a respite of fifteen years. +Nothing, as we have seen, is promised to the dying Hezekiah of a future +life; no scintilla of the light of eternity sparkles either in Isaiah's +promise or in Hezekiah's prayer. The net result of the incident is a +reprieve of fifteen years: fifteen years of a character strengthened, +indeed, by having met with death, but, it would sadly seem, only in +order to become again the prey of the vanities of this world (chap. +xxxix.). So meagre a result for the individual stands strangely out +against the perpetual glory and peace assured to the community. And it +suggests this question: Had Isaiah any real gospel for the individual? +If so, what was it? + +First of all, we must remember that God in His providence seldom gives +to one prophet or generation more than a single main problem for +solution. In Isaiah's day undoubtedly the most urgent problem--and +Divine problems are ever practical, not philosophical--was the +continuance of the Church upon earth. It had really got to be a matter +of doubt whether a body of people possessing the knowledge of the true +God, and able to transfuse and transmit it, could possibly survive among +the political convulsions of the world, and in consequence of its own +sin. Isaiah's problem was the reformation and survival of the Church. In +accordance with this, we notice how many of his terms are collective, +and how he almost never addresses the individual. It is the _people_, +upon whom he calls--_the nation, Israel, the house of Jacob My vineyard, +the men of Judah His pleasant plantation_. To these we may add the +apostrophes to the city of Jerusalem, under many personifications: +_Ariel, Ariel, inhabitress of Zion, daughter of Zion_. When Isaiah +denounces sin, the sinner is either the whole community or a class in +the community, very seldom an individual, though there are some +instances of the latter, as Ahaz and Shebna. It is _This people hath +rejected_, or _The people would not_. When Jerusalem collapsed, although +there must have been many righteous men still within her, Isaiah said, +_What aileth thee that all belonging to thee have gone up to the +housetops?_ (xxii. 1). His language is wholesale. When he is not +attacking society, he attacks classes or groups: _the rulers_, the +land-grabbers, the drunkards, _the sinners_, _the judges_, _the house of +David_, _the priests and the prophets_, _the women_. And the sins of +these he describes in their social effects, or in their results upon +the fate of the whole people; but he never, except in two cases, gives +us their individual results. He does not make evident, like Jesus or +Paul, the eternal damage a man's sin inflicts on his own soul. + +Similarly when Isaiah speaks of God's grace and salvation the objects of +these are again collective--_the remnant; the escaped_ (also a +collective noun); a _holy seed_; a _stock_ or _stump_. It is a _restored +nation_ whom he sees under the Messiah, the perpetuity and glory of a +_city_ and _a State_. What we consider to be a most personal and +particularly individual matter--the forgiveness of sin--he promises, +with two exceptions, only to the community: _This people that dwelleth +therein hath its iniquity forgiven_. We can understand all this social, +collective and wholesale character of his language only if we keep in +mind his Divinely appointed work--the substance and perpetuity of a +purified and secure Church of God. + +Had Isaiah then no gospel for the individual? This will indeed seem +impossible to us if we keep in view the following considerations:-- + +1. ISAIAH HIMSELF had passed through a powerfully individual experience. +He had not only felt the solidarity of the people's sin--_I dwell among +a people of unclean lips_--he had first felt his own particular guilt: +_I am a man of unclean lips_. One who suffered the private experiences +which are recounted in chap. vi.; whose _own eyes_ had _seen_ the _King, +Jehovah of hosts_; who had gathered on his own lips his guilt and felt +the fire come from heaven's altar by an angelic messenger specially to +purify him; who had further devoted himself to God's service with so +thrilling a sense of his own responsibility, and had so thereby felt his +solitary and individual mission--he surely was not behind the very +greatest of Christian saints in the experience of guilt, of personal +obligation to grace and of personal responsibility. Though the record of +Isaiah's ministry contains no narratives, such as fill the ministries of +Jesus and Paul, of anxious care for individuals, could he who wrote of +himself that sixth chapter have failed to deal with men as Jesus dealt +with Nicodemus, or Paul with the Philippian gaoler? It is not +picturesque fancy, nor merely a reflection of the New Testament temper, +if we realize Isaiah's intervals of relief from political labour and +religious reform occupied with an attention to individual interests, +which necessarily would not obtain the permanent record of his public +ministry. But whether this be so or not, the sixth chapter teaches that +for Isaiah all public conscience and public labour found its necessary +preparation in personal religion. + +2. But, again, Isaiah had an INDIVIDUAL FOR HIS IDEAL. To him the future +was not only an established State; it was equally, it was first, a +glorious king. Isaiah was an Oriental. We moderns of the West place our +reliance upon institutions; we go forward upon ideas. In the East it is +personal influence that tells, persons who are expected, followed and +fought for. The history of the West is the history of the advance of +thought, of the rise and decay of institutions, to which the greatest +individuals are more or less subordinate. The history of the East is the +annals of personalities; justice and energy in a ruler, not political +principles, are what impress the Oriental imagination. Isaiah has +carried this Oriental hope to a distinct and lofty pitch. The Hero whom +he exalts on the margin of the future, as its Author, is not only a +person of great majesty, but a character of considerable decision. At +first only the rigorous virtues of the ruler are attributed to Him +(chap. xi. 1 ff.), but afterwards the graces and influence of a much +broader and sweeter humanity (xxxii. 2). Indeed, in this latter oracle +we saw that Isaiah spoke not so much of his great Hero, as of what any +individual might become. _A man_, he says, _shall be as an hiding-place +from the wind_. Personal influence is the spring of social progress, the +shelter and fountain force of the community. In the following verses the +effect of so pure and inspiring a presence is traced in the +discrimination of individual character--each man standing out for what +he is--which Isaiah defines as his second requisite for social progress. +In all this there is much for the individual to ponder, much to inspire +him with a sense of the value and responsibility of his own character, +and with the certainty that by himself he shall be judged and by himself +stand or fall. _The worthless person shall be no more called princely, +nor the knave said to be bountiful._ + +3. If any details of character are wanting in the picture of Isaiah's +Hero, they are supplied by HEZEKIAH'S SELF-ANALYSIS (chap. xxxviii.). We +need not repeat what we have said in the previous chapter of the king's +appreciation of what is the strength of a man's character, and +particularly of how character grows by grappling with death. In this +matter the most experienced of Christian saints may learn from Isaiah's +pupil. + +Isaiah had then, without doubt, a gospel for the individual; and to this +day the individual may plainly read it in his book, may truly, strongly, +joyfully live by it--so deeply does it begin, so much does it help to +self-knowledge and self-analysis, so lofty are the ideals and +responsibilities which it presents. But is it true that Isaiah's gospel +is for this life only? + +Was Isaiah's silence on the immortality of the individual due wholly to +the cause we have suggested in the beginning of this chapter--that God +gives to each prophet his single problem, and that the problem of Isaiah +was the endurance of the Church upon earth? There is no doubt that this +is only partly the explanation. + +The Hebrew belonged to a branch of humanity--the Semitic--which, as its +history proves, was unable to develop any strong imagination of, or +practical interest in, a future life apart from foreign influence or +Divine revelation. The pagan Arabs laughed at Mahommed when he preached +to them of the Resurrection; and even to-day, after twelve centuries of +Moslem influence, their descendants in the centre of Arabia, according +to the most recent authority,[73] fail to form a clear conception of, or +indeed to take almost any practical interest in, another world. The +northern branch of the race, to which the Hebrews belonged, derived from +an older civilisation a prospect of Hades, that their own fancy +developed with great elaboration. This prospect, however, which we shall +describe fully in connection with chaps. xiv. and xxvi., was one +absolutely hostile to the interests of character in this life. It +brought all men, whatever their life had been on earth, at last to a +dead level of unsubstantial and hopeless existence. Good and evil, +strong and weak, pious and infidel, alike became shades, joyless and +hopeless, without even the power to praise God. We have seen in +Hezekiah's case how such a prospect unnerved the most pious souls, and +that revelation, even though represented at his bedside by an Isaiah, +offered him no hope of an issue from it. The strength of character, +however, which Hezekiah professes to have won in grappling with death, +added to the closeness of communion with God which he enjoyed in this +life, only brings out the absurdity of such a conclusion to life as the +prospect of Sheol offered to the individual. If he was a pious man, if +he was a man who had never felt himself deserted by God in this life, he +was bound to revolt from so God-forsaken an existence after death. This +was actually the line along which the Hebrew spirit went out to victory +over those gloomy conceptions of death, that were yet unbroken by a +risen Christ. _Thou wilt not_, the saint triumphantly cried, _leave my +soul in Sheol, nor wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption_. +It was faith in the almightiness and reasonableness of God's ways, it +was conviction of personal righteousness, it was the sense that the Lord +would not desert His own in death, which sustained the believer in face +of that awful shadow through which no light of revelation had yet +broken. + + [73] Doughty's _Arabia Deserta: Travels in Northern Arabia_, 1876-1878. + +If these, then, were the wings by which a believing soul under the Old +Testament soared over the grave, Isaiah may be said to have contributed +to the hope of personal immortality just in so far as he strengthened +them. By enhancing as he did the value and beauty of individual +character, by emphasizing the indwelling of God's Spirit, he was +bringing life and immortality to light, even though he spoke no word to +the dying about the fact of a glorious life beyond the grave. By +assisting to create in the individual that character and sense of God, +which alone could assure him he would never die, but pass from the +praise of the Lord in this life to a nearer enjoyment of His presence +beyond, Isaiah was working along the only line by which the Spirit of +God seems to have assisted the Hebrew mind to an assurance of heaven. + +But further in his favourite gospel of the REASONABLENESS OF GOD--that +God does not work fruitlessly, nor create and cultivate with a view to +judgement and destruction--Isaiah was furnishing an argument for +personal immortality, the force of which has not been exhausted. In a +recent work on _The Destiny of Man_[74] the philosophic author maintains +the reasonableness of the Divine methods as a ground of belief both in +the continued progress of the race upon earth and in the immortality of +the individual. "From the first dawning of life we see all things +working together towards one mighty goal--the evolution of the most +exalted and spiritual faculties which characterize humanity. Has all +this work been done for nothing? Is it all ephemeral, all a bubble that +bursts, a vision that fades? On such a view the riddle of the universe +becomes a riddle without a meaning. The more thoroughly we comprehend +the process of evolution by which things have come to be what they are, +the more we are likely to feel that to deny the everlasting persistence +of the spiritual element in man is to rob the whole process of its +meaning. It goes far towards putting us to permanent intellectual +confusion. For my own part, I believe in the immortality of the soul, +not in the sense in which I accept demonstrable truths of science, but +as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of God's work." + + [74] By Professor Fiske. + +From the same argument Isaiah drew only the former of these two +conclusions. To him the certainty that God's people would survive the +impending deluge of Assyria's brute force was based on his faith that +the Lord is _a God of judgement_, of reasonable law and method, and +could not have created or fostered so spiritual a people only to destroy +them. The progress of religion upon earth was certain. But does not +Isaiah's method equally make for the immortality of the individual? He +did not draw this conclusion, but he laid down its premises with a +confidence and richness of illustration that have never been excelled. + +We, therefore, answer the question we put at the beginning of the +chapter thus:--Isaiah had a gospel for the individual for this life, and +all the necessary premises of a gospel for the individual for the life +to come. + + + + +BOOK V. + +_PROPHECIES NOT RELATING TO ISAIAH'S TIME._ + +ISAIAH:-- + +xiii.-xiv. 23 + +xxiv.-xxvii. + +xxxiv. + +xxxv. + + + + +BOOK V. + + +In the first thirty-nine chapters of the Book of Isaiah--the half which +refers to the prophet's own career and the politics contemporary with +that--we find four or five prophecies containing no reference to Isaiah +himself nor to any Jewish king under whom he laboured, and painting both +Israel and the foreign world in quite a different state from that in +which they lay during his lifetime. These prophecies are chap. xiii., an +Oracle announcing the Fall of Babylon, with its appendix, chap. xiv. +1-23, the Promise of Israel's Deliverance and an Ode upon the Fall of +the Babylonian Tyrant; chaps. xxiv.-xxvii., a series of Visions of the +breaking up of the universe, of restoration from exile, and even of +resurrection from the dead; chap. xxxiv., the Vengeance of the Lord upon +Edom; and chap. xxxv., a Song of Return from Exile. + +In these prophecies Assyria is no longer the dominant world-force, nor +Jerusalem the inviolate fortress of God and His people. If Assyria or +Egypt is mentioned, it is but as one of the three classical enemies of +Israel; and Babylon is represented as the head and front of the hostile +world. The Jews are no longer in political freedom and possession of +their own land; they are either in exile or just returned from it to a +depopulated country. With these altered circumstances come another +temper and new doctrine. The horizon is different, and the hopes that +flush in dawn upon it are not quite the same as those which we have +contemplated with Isaiah in his immediate future. It is no longer the +repulse of the heathen invader; the inviolateness of the sacred city; +the recovery of the people from the shock of attack, and of the land +from the trampling of armies. But it is the people in exile, the +overthrow of the tyrant in his own home, the opening of prison doors, +the laying down of a highway through the wilderness, the triumph of +return and the resumption of worship. There is, besides, a promise of +the resurrection, which we have not found in the prophecies we have +considered. + +With such differences, it is not wonderful that many have denied the +authorship of these few prophecies to Isaiah. This is a question that +can be looked at calmly. It touches no dogma of the Christian faith. +Especially it does not involve the other question, so often--and, we +venture to say, so unjustly--started on this point, Could not the Spirit +of God have inspired Isaiah to foresee all that the prophecies in +question foretell, even though he lived more than a century before the +people were in circumstances to understand them? Certainly, God is +almighty. The question is not, Could He have done this? but one somewhat +different: Did He do it? and to this an answer can be had only from the +prophecies themselves. If these mark the Babylonian hostility or +captivity as already upon Israel, this is a testimony of Scripture +itself, which we cannot overlook, and beside which even unquestionable +traces of similarity to Isaiah's style or the fact that these oracles +are bound up with Isaiah's own undoubted prophecies have little weight. +"Facts" of style will be regarded with suspicion by any one who knows +how they are employed by both sides in such a question as this; while +the certainty that the Book of Isaiah was put into its present form +subsequently to his life will permit of,--and the evident purpose of +Scripture to secure moral impressiveness rather than historical +consecutiveness will account for,--later oracles being bound up with +unquestioned utterances of Isaiah. + +Only one of the prophecies in question confirms the tradition that it is +by Isaiah, viz., chap. xiii., which bears the title _Oracle of Babylon +which Isaiah, son of Amoz, did see_; but titles are themselves so much +the report of tradition, being of a later date than the rest of the +text, that it is best to argue the question apart from them. + +On the other hand, Isaiah's authorship of these prophecies, or at least +the possibility of his having written them, is usually defended by +appealing to his promise of the return from exile in chap. xi. and his +threat of a Babylonish captivity in chap. xxxix. This is an argument +that has not been fairly met by those who deny the Isaianic authorship +of chaps. xiii.-xiv. 23, xxiv.-xxvii., and xxxv. It is a strong +argument, for while, as we have seen (p. 201), there are good grounds +for believing Isaiah to have been likely to make such a prediction of a +Babylonish captivity as is attributed to him in chap. xxxix. 6, almost +all the critics agree in leaving chap. xi. to him. But if chap. xi. is +Isaiah's, then he undoubtedly spoke of an exile much more extensive than +had taken place by his own day. Nevertheless, even this ability in xi. +to foretell an exile so vast does not account for passages in xiii.-xiv. +23, xxiv.-xxvii., which represent the Exile either as present or as +actually over. No one who reads these chapters without prejudice can +fail to feel the force of such passages in leading him to decide for an +exilic or post-exilic authorship (see pp. 429 ff.). + +Another argument against attributing these prophecies to Isaiah is that +their visions of the last things, representing as they do a judgement on +the whole world, and even the destruction of the whole material +universe, are incompatible with Isaiah's loftiest and final hope of an +inviolate Zion at last relieved and secure, of a land freed from +invasion and wondrously fertile, with all the converted world, Assyria +and Egypt, gathered round it as a centre. This question, however, is +seriously complicated by the fact that in his youth Isaiah did +undoubtedly prophesy a shaking of the whole world and the destruction of +its inhabitants, and by the probability that his old age survived into a +period, whose abounding sin would again make natural such wholesale +predictions of judgement as we find in chap. xxiv. + +Still, let the question of the eschatology be as obscure as we have +shown, there remains this clear issue. In some chapters of the Book of +Isaiah, which, from our knowledge of the circumstances of his times, we +know must have been published while he was alive, we learn that the +Jewish people has never left its land, nor lost its independence under +Jehovah's anointed, and that the inviolateness of Zion and the retreat +of the Assyrian invaders of Judah, without effecting the captivity of +the Jews, are absolutely essential to the endurance of God's kingdom on +earth. In other chapters we find that the Jews have left their land, +have been long in exile (or from other passages have just returned), and +that the religious essential is no more the independence of the Jewish +State under a theocratic king, but only the resumption of the Temple +worship. Is it possible for one man to have written both these sets of +chapters? Is it possible for one age to have produced them? That is the +whole question. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +BABYLON AND LUCIFER. + +ISAIAH xiii. 2-xiv. 23 (DATE UNCERTAIN). + + +This double oracle is against the City (xiii. 2-xiv. 2) and the Tyrant +(xiv. 3-23) of Babylon. + + +I. THE WICKED CITY (xiii. 2-xiv. 23). + +The first part is a series of hurried and vanishing scenes--glimpses of +ruin and deliverance caught through the smoke and turmoil of a Divine +war. The drama opens with the erection of a gathering _standard upon a +bare mountain_ (ver. 2). He who gives the order explains it (ver. 3), +but is immediately interrupted by _Hark! a tumult on the mountains, like +a great people. Hark! the surge of the kingdoms of nations gathering +together. Jehovah of hosts is mustering the host of war._ It is the _day +of Jehovah_ that is _near_, the day of His war and of His judgement upon +the world. + +This Old Testament expression, _the day of the LORD_, starts so many +ideas that it is difficult to seize any one of them and say this is just +what is meant. For _day_ with a possessive pronoun suggests what has +been appointed aforehand, or what must come round in its turn; means +also opportunity and triumph, and also swift performance after long +delay. All these thoughts are excited when we couple _a day_ with any +person's name. And therefore as with every dawn some one awakes saying, +This is my day; as with every dawn comes some one's chance, some soul +gets its wish, some will shows what it can do, some passion or principle +issues into fact: so God also shall have His day, on which His justice +and power shall find their full scope and triumph. Suddenly and simply, +like any dawn that takes its turn on the round of time, the great +decision and victory of Divine justice shall at last break out of the +long delay of ages. _Howl ye, for the day of Jehovah is near; as +destruction from the Destructive does it come._ Very savage and quite +universal is its punishment. _Every human heart melteth._ Countless +faces, white with terror, light up its darkness like flames. Sinners are +_to be exterminated out of the earth; the world is to be punished for +its iniquity_. Heaven, the stars, sun and moon aid the horror and the +darkness, heaven shivering above, the earth quaking beneath; and +between, the peoples like shepherdless sheep drive to and fro through +awful carnage. + +From ver. 17 the mist lifts a little. The vague turmoil clears up into a +siege of Babylon by the Medians, and then settles down into Babylon's +ruin and abandonment to wild beasts. Finally (xiv. 1) comes the +religious reason of so much convulsion: _For Jehovah will have +compassion upon Jacob, and choose again Israel, and settle them upon +their own ground; and the foreign sojourner shall join himself to them, +and they shall associate themselves to the house of Jacob_. + +This prophecy evidently came to a people already in captivity--a very +different circumstance of the Church of God from that in which we have +seen her under Isaiah. But upon this new stage it is still the same old +conquest. Assyria has fallen, but Babylon has taken her place. The old +spirit of cruelty and covetousness has entered a new body; the only +change is that it has become wealth and luxury instead of brute force +and military glory. It is still selfishness and pride and atheism. At +this, our first introduction to Babylon, it might have been proper to +explain why throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation this one +city should remain in fact or symbol the enemy of God and the stronghold +of darkness. But we postpone what may be said of her singular +reputation, till we come to the second part of the Book of Isaiah where +Babylon plays a larger and more distinct role. Here her destruction is +simply the most striking episode of the Divine judgement upon the whole +earth. Babylon represents civilisation; she is the brow of the world's +pride and enmity to God. One distinctively Babylonian characteristic, +however, must not be passed over. With a ring of irony in his voice, the +prophet declares, _Behold, I stir up the Medes against thee, who regard +not silver and take no pleasure in gold_. The worst terror that can +assail us is the terror of forces, whose character we cannot fathom, who +will not stop to parley, who do not understand our language nor our +bribes. It was such a power, with which the resourceful and luxurious +Babylon was threatened. With money the Babylonians did all they wished +to do, and believed everything else to be possible. They had subsidised +kings, bought over enemies, seduced the peoples of the earth. The foe +whom God now sent them was impervious to this influence. From their pure +highlands came down upon corrupt civilisation a simple people, whose +banner was a leathern apron, whose goal was not booty nor ease but power +and mastery, who came not to rob but to displace. + +The lessons of the passage are two: that the people of God are +something distinct from civilisation, though this be universal and +absorbent as a very Babylon; and that the resources of civilisation are +not even in material strength the highest in the universe, but God has +in His armoury weapons heedless of men's cunning, and in His armies +agents impervious to men's bribes. Every civilisation needs to be told, +according to its temper, one of these two things. Is it hypocritical? +Then it needs to be told that civilisation is not one with the people of +God. Is it arrogant? Then it needs to be told that the resources of +civilisation are not the strongest forces in God's universe. Man talks +of the triumph of mind over matter, of the power of culture, of the +elasticity of civilisation; but God has natural forces, to which all +these are as the worm beneath the hoof of the horse: and if moral need +arise, He will call His brute forces into requisition. _Howl ye, for the +day of Jehovah is near; as destruction from the Destructive does it +come._ There may be periods in man's history when, in opposition to +man's unholy art and godless civilisation, God can reveal Himself only +as destruction. + + +II. THE TYRANT (xiv. 3-23). + +To the prophecy of the overthrow of Babylon there is annexed, in order +to be sung by Israel in the hour of her deliverance, a _satiric ode_ or +_taunt-song_ (Heb. _mashal_, Eng. ver. _parable_) upon the King of +Babylon. A translation of this spirited poem in the form of its verse +(in which, it is to be regretted, it has not been rendered by the +English revisers) will be more instructive than a full commentary. But +the following remarks of introduction are necessary. The word _mashal_, +by which this ode is entitled, means comparison, _similitude_ or +_parable_, and was applicable to every sentence composed of at least two +members that compared or contrasted their subjects. As the great bulk of +Hebrew poetry is sententious, and largely depends for rhythm upon its +parallelism, _mashal_ received a general application; and while another +term--_shir_--more properly denotes lyric poetry, _mashal_ is applied to +rhythmical passages in the Old Testament of almost all tempers: to mere +predictions, proverbs, orations, satires or taunt-songs, as here, and to +didactic pieces. The parallelism of the verses in our ode is too evident +to need an index. But the parallel verses are next grouped into +strophes. In Hebrew poetry this division is frequently effected by the +use of a refrain. In our ode there is no refrain, but the strophes are +easily distinguished by difference of subject-matter. Hebrew poetry does +not employ rhyme, but makes use of assonance, and to a much less extent +of alliteration--a form which is more frequent in Hebrew prose. In our +ode there is not much either of assonance or alliteration. But, on the +other hand, the ode has but to be read to break into a certain rough and +swinging rhythm. This is produced by long verses rising alternate with +short ones falling. Hebrew verse at no time relied for a metrical effect +upon the modern device of an equal or proportionate number of syllables. +The longer verses of this ode are sometimes too short, the shorter too +long, variations to which a rude chant could readily adapt itself. But +the alternation of long and short is sustained throughout, except for a +break at ver. 10 by the introduction of the formula _And they answered +and said_, which evidently ought to stand for a long and a short verse +if the number of double verses in the second strophe is to be the same +as it is--seven--in the first and in the third. + +The scene of the poem, the Underworld and abode of the shades of the +dead, is one on which some of the most splendid imagination and music of +humanity has been expended. But we must not be disappointed if we do not +here find the rich detail and glowing fancy of Virgil's or of Dante's +vision. This simple and even rude piece of metre, liker ballad than +epic, ought to excite our wonder not so much for what it has failed to +imagine as for what, being at its disposal, it has resolutely stinted +itself in employing. For it is evident that the author of these lines +had within his reach the rich, fantastic materials of Semitic mythology, +which are familiar to us in the Babylonian remains. With an austerity, +that must strike every one who is acquainted with these, he uses only so +much of them as to enable him to render with dramatic force his simple +theme--the vanity of human arrogance.[75] + + [75] "Those principles of natural philosophy which smothered the + religions of the East with their rank and injurious growth are almost + entirely absent from the religion of the Hebrews. Here the motive-power + of development is to be found in ethical ideas, which, though not indeed + alien to the life of other nations, were not the source from which their + religious notions were derived."--(Lotze's _Microcosmos_, Eng. Transl., + il., 466.) + +For this purpose he employs the idea of the Underworld which was +prevalent among the northern Semitic peoples. Sheol--the _gaping_ or +_craving_ place--which we shall have occasion to describe in detail when +we come to speak of belief in the resurrection,[76] is the state after +death that craves and swallows all living. There dwell the shades of men +amid some unsubstantial reflection of their earthly state (ver. 9), and +with consciousness and passion only sufficient to greet the arrival of +the new-comer and express satiric wonder at his fall (ver. 9). With the +arrogance of the Babylonian kings, this tyrant thought to scale the +heavens to set his throne in the _mount of assembly_ of the immortals, +_to match the Most High_.[77] But his fate is the fate of all +mortals--to go down to the weakness and emptiness of Sheol. Here, let us +carefully observe, there is no trace of a judgement for reward or +punishment. The new victim of death simply passes to his place among his +equals. There was enough of contrast between the arrogance of a tyrant +claiming Divinity and his fall into the common receptacle of mortality +to point the prophet's moral without the addition of infernal torment. +Do we wish to know the actual punishment of his pride and cruelty? It is +visible above ground (strophe 4); not with his spirit, but with his +corpse; not with himself, but with his wretched family. His corpse is +unburied, his family exterminated; his name disappears from the +earth.[78] + + [76] P. 447 ff. + + [77] It is, however, only just to add that, as Mr. Sayce has pointed out + in the Hibbert Lectures for 1887 (p. 365), the claims of Babylonian + kings and heroes for a seat on the mountain of the gods were not always + mere arrogance, but the first efforts of the Babylonian mind to + emancipate itself from the gloomy conceptions of Hades and provide a + worthy immortality for virtue. Still most of the kings who pray for an + entrance among the gods do so on the plea that they have been successful + tyrants--a considerable difference from such an assurance as that of the + sixteenth Psalm. + + [78] The popular Semitic conception of Hades contained within it neither + grades of condition, according to the merits of men, nor any trace of an + infernal torment in aggravation of the unsubstantial state to which all + are equally reduced. This statement is true of the Old Testament till at + least the Book of Daniel. Sheol is lit by no lurid fires, such as made + the later Christian hell intolerable to the lost. That life is + unsubstantial; that darkness and dust abound; above all, that God is not + there, and that it is impossible to praise Him, is all the punishment + which is given in Sheol. Extraordinary vice is punished above ground, in + the name and family of the sinner. Sheol, with its monotony, is for + average men; but extraordinary piety can break away from it (Ps. xvi.). + +Thus, by the help of only a few fragments from the popular mythology, +the sacred satirist achieves his purpose. His severe monotheism is +remarkable in its contrast to Babylonian poems upon similar subjects. He +will know none of the gods of the underworld. In place of the great +goddess, whom a Babylonian would certainly have seen presiding, with her +minions, over the shades, he personifies--it is a frequent figure of +Hebrew poetry--the abyss itself. _Sheol shuddereth at thee._ It is the +same when he speaks (ver. 13) of the deep's great opposite, that _mount +of assembly_ of the gods, which the northern Semites believed to soar to +a silver sky _in the recesses of the north_ (ver. 14), upon the great +range which in that direction bounded the Babylonian plain. This Hebrew +knows of no gods there but One, whose are the stars, who is the Most +High. Man's arrogance and cruelty are attempts upon His majesty. He +inevitably overwhelms them. Death is their penalty: blood and squalor on +earth, the concourse of shuddering ghosts below. + + _The kings of the earth set themselves, + And the rulers take counsel together, + Against the Lord and against His Anointed. + He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; + The Lord shall have them in derision._ + +He who has heard that laughter sees no comedy in aught else. This is the +one unfailing subject of Hebrew satire, and it forms the irony and the +rigour of the following ode.[79] + + [79] Readers will remember a parallel to this ode in Carlyle's famous + chapter on Louis the Unforgotten. No modern has rivalled Carlyle in his + inheritance of this satire, except it be he whom Carlyle called "that + Jew blackguard Heine." + +The only other remarks necessary are these. In ver. 9 the Authorized +Version has not attempted to reproduce the humour of the original +satire, which styles them that were chief men on earth _chief-goats_ of +the herd, bell-wethers. The phrase _they that go down to the stones of +the pit_ should be transferred from ver. 19 to ver. 20. + +_And thou shalt lift up this proverb upon the King of Babylon, and shalt +say,_-- + +I. + + Ah! stilled is the tyrant, + And stilled is the fury! + Broke hath Jehovah the rod of the wicked, + Sceptre of despots: + Stroke of (the) peoples with passion, + Stroke unremitting, + Treading in wrath (the) nations, + Trampling unceasing. + Quiet, at rest, is the whole earth, + They break into singing; + Even the pines are jubilant for thee, + Lebanon's cedars! + "Since thou liest low, cometh not up + Feller against us." + +II. + + Sheol from under shuddereth at thee + To meet thine arrival, + Stirring up for thee the shades, + All great-goats of earth! + Lifteth erect from their thrones + All kings of peoples. + +10. _All of them answer and say to thee,_-- + + "Thou, too, made flaccid like us, + To us hast been levelled! + Hurled to Sheol is the pride of thee, + Clang of the harps of thee; + Under thee strewn are (the) maggots + Thy coverlet worms." + +III. + + How art thou fallen from heaven + Daystar, son of the dawn + (How) art thou hewn down to earth, + Hurtler at nations. + And thou, thou didst say in thine heart, + "The heavens will I scale, + Far up to the stars of God + Lift high my throne, + And sit on the mount of assembly, + Far back of the north, + I will climb on the heights of (the) cloud, + I will match the Most High!" + Ah! to Sheol thou art hurled, + Far back of the pit! + +IV. + + Who see thee at thee are gazing; + Upon thee they muse: + Is this the man that staggered the earth, + Shaker of kingdoms? + Setting the world like the desert, + Its cities he tore down; + Its prisoners he loosed not + (Each of them) homeward. + All kings of peoples, yes all, + Are lying in their state; + But thou! thou art flung from thy grave, + Like a stick that is loathsome. + Beshrouded with slain, the pierced of the sword, + Like a corpse that is trampled. + They that go down to the stones of a crypt, + Shalt not be with them in burial. + For thy land thou hast ruined, + Thy people hast slaughtered. + Shall not be mentioned for aye + Seed of the wicked! + Set for his children a shambles, + For guilt of their fathers! + They shall not rise, nor inherit (the) earth, + Nor fill the face of the world with cities. + +V. + + But I will arise upon them, + Sayeth Jehovah of hosts; + And I will cut off from Babel + Record and remnant, + And scion and seed, + Saith Jehovah: + Yea, I will make it the bittern's heritage, + Marshes of water! + And I will sweep it with sweeps of destruction, + Sayeth Jehovah of hosts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +_THE EFFECT OF SIN ON OUR MATERIAL CIRCUMSTANCE._ + +ISAIAH xxiv. (DATE UNCERTAIN). + + +The twenty-fourth of Isaiah is one of those chapters, which almost +convince the most persevering reader of Scripture that a consecutive +reading of the Authorized Version is an impossibility. For what does he +get from it but a weary and unintelligent impression of destruction, +from which he gladly escapes to the nearest clear utterance of gospel or +judgement? Criticism affords little help. It cannot clearly identify the +chapter with any historical situation. For a moment there is a gleam of +a company standing outside the convulsion, and to the west of the +prophet, while the prophet himself suffers captivity.[80] But even this +fades before we make it out; and all the rest of the chapter has too +universal an application--the language is too imaginative, enigmatic and +even paradoxical--to be applied to an actual historical situation, or to +its development in the immediate future. This is an ideal description, +the apocalyptic vision of a last, great day of judgement upon the whole +world; and perhaps the moral truths are all the more impressive that the +reader is not distracted by temporary or local references. + + [80] vv. 14-16, which are very perplexing. In 14 a company is introduced + to us very vaguely as _those_ or _yonder ones_, who are represented as + seeing the bright side of the convulsion which is the subject of the + chapter. _They cry aloud from the sea_; that is, _from the west_ of the + prophet. He is therefore in the east, and in captivity, in the centre of + the convulsion. The problem is to find any actual historical situation, + in which part of Israel was in the east in captivity, and part in the + west free and full of reasons for praising God for the calamity, out of + which their brethren saw no escape for themselves. + +With the very first verse the prophecy leaps far beyond all particular +or national conditions: _Behold, Jehovah shall be emptying the earth and +rifling it; and He shall turn it upside down and scatter its +inhabitants_. This is expressive and thorough; the words are those which +were used for cleaning a dirty dish. To the completeness of this opening +verse there is really nothing in the chapter to add. All the rest of the +verses only illustrate this upturning and scouring of the material +universe. For it is with the material universe that the chapter is +concerned. Nothing is said of the spiritual nature of man--little, +indeed, about man at all. He is simply called _the inhabitant of the +earth_, and the structure of society (ver. 2) is introduced only to make +more complete the effect of the convulsion of the earth itself. Man +cannot escape those judgements which shatter his material habitation. It +is like one of Dante's visions. _Terror, and Pit and Snare upon thee, O +inhabitant of the earth! And it shall come to pass that he who fleeth +from the noise of the Terror shall fall into the Pit, and he who cometh +up out of the midst of the Pit shall be taken in the Snare. For the +windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth do shake. +Broken, utterly broken, is the earth; shattered, utterly shattered, the +earth; staggering, very staggering, the earth; reeling, the earth +reeleth like a drunken man: she swingeth to and fro like a hammock._ And +so through the rest of the chapter it is the material life of man that +is cursed: _the new wine_, _the vine_, _the tabrets_, _the harp_, _the +song_, and the merriness in men's hearts which these call forth. Nor +does the chapter confine itself to the earth. The closing verses carry +the effect of judgement to the heavens and far limits of the material +universe. _The host of the high ones on high_ (ver. 21) are not +spiritual beings, the angels. They are material bodies, the stars. +_Then, too, shall the moon be confounded, and the stars ashamed_, when +the Lord's kingdom is established and His righteousness made gloriously +clear. + +What awful truth is this for illustration of which we see not man, but +his habitation, the world and all its surroundings, lifted up by the +hand of the Lord, broken open, wiped out and shaken, while man himself, +as if only to heighten the effect, staggers hopelessly like some broken +insect on the quaking ruins? What judgement is this, in which not only +one city or one kingdom is concerned, as in the last prophecy of which +we treated, but the whole earth is convulsed, and moon and sun +confounded? + +The judgement is the visitation of man's sins on his material +surroundings--_The earth's transgression shall be heavy upon it; and it +shall rise, and not fall_. The truth on which this judgement rests is +that between man and his material circumstance--the earth he inhabits, +the seasons which bear him company through time and the stars to which +he looks high up in heaven--there is a moral sympathy. _The earth also +is profaned under the inhabitants thereof, because they have +transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting +covenant._ + +The Bible gives no support to the theory that matter itself is evil. God +created all things; _and God saw everything that He had made; and, +behold, it was very good_. When, therefore, we read in the Bible that +the earth is cursed, we read that it is cursed for man's sake; when we +read of its desolation, it is as the effect of man's crime. The Flood, +the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt and other +great physical catastrophes happened because men were stubborn or men +were foul. We cannot help noticing, however, that matter was thus +convulsed or destroyed, not only for the purpose of punishing the moral +agent, but because of some poison which had passed from him into the +unconscious instruments, stage and circumstance of his crime. According +to the Bible, there would appear to be some mysterious sympathy between +man and Nature. Man not only governs Nature; he infects and informs her. +As the moral life of the soul expresses itself in the physical life of +the body for the latter's health or corruption, so the conduct of the +human race affects the physical life of the universe to its farthest +limits in space. When man is reconciled to God, the wilderness blossoms +like a rose; but the guilt of man sullies, infects and corrupts the +place he inhabits and the articles he employs; and their destruction +becomes necessary, not for his punishment so much as because of the +infection and pollution that is in them. + +The Old Testament is not contented with a general statement of this +great principle, but pursues it to all sorts of particular and private +applications. The curses of the Lord fell, not only on the sinner, but +on his dwelling, on his property and even on the bit of ground these +occupied. This was especially the case with regard to idolatry. When +Israel put a pagan population to the sword, they were commanded to raze +the city, gather its wealth together, burn all that was burnable and put +the rest into the temple of the Lord as a thing _devoted_ or +_accursed_, which it would harm themselves to share (Deut. vii. 25, 26; +xiii. 7). The very site of Jericho was cursed, and men were forbidden to +build upon its horrid waste. The story of Achan illustrates the same +principle. + +It is just this principle which chap. xxiv. extends to the whole +universe. What happened in Jericho because of its inhabitants' idolatry +is now to happen to the whole earth because of man's sin. _The earth +also is profane under her inhabitants, because they have transgressed +the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant._ In +these words the prophet takes us away back to the covenant with Noah, +which he properly emphasizes as a covenant with all mankind. With a +noble universalism, for which his race and their literature get too +little credit, this Hebrew recognises that once all mankind were holy +unto God, who had included them under His grace, that promised the +fixedness and fertility of nature. But that covenant, though of grace, +had its conditions for man. These had been broken. The race had grown +wicked, as it was before the Flood; and therefore, in terms which +vividly recall that former judgement of God--_the windows on high are +opened_--the prophet foretells a new and more awful catastrophe. One +word which he employs betrays how close he feels the moral sympathy to +be between man and his world. _The earth_, he says, _is profane_. This +is a word, whose root meaning is _that which has fallen away_ or +_separated itself_, which is _delinquent_. Sometimes, perhaps, it has a +purely moral significance, like our word "abandoned" in the common +acceptance: he who has fallen far and utterly into sin, _the reckless +sinner_. But mostly it has rather the religious meaning of one who has +fallen out of the covenant relation with God and the relevant benefits +and privileges. Into this covenant not only Israel and their land, but +humanity and the whole world, have been brought. Is man under covenant +grace? The world is also. Does man fall? So does the world, becoming +with him _profane_. The consequence of breaking the covenant oath was +expressed in Hebrew by a technical word; and it is this word which, +translated _curse_, is applied in ver. 6 to the earth. + +The whole earth is to be broken up and dissolved. What then is to become +of the people of God--the indestructible remnant? Where are they to +settle? In this new deluge is there a new ark? For answer the prophet +presents us with an old paradise (ver. 23). He has wrecked the universe; +but he says now, _Jehovah of hosts shall dwell in Mount Zion and in +Jerusalem_. It would be impossible to find a better instance of the +limitations of Old Testament prophecy than this return to the old +dispensation after the old dispensation has been committed to the +flames. At such a crisis as the conflagration of the universe for the +sin of man, the hope of the New Testament looks for the creation of a +new heaven and a new earth, but there is no scintilla of such a hope in +this prediction. The imagination of the Hebrew seer is beaten back upon +the theatre his conscience has abandoned. He knows "the old is out of +date," but for him "the new is not yet born;" and, therefore, convinced +as he is that the old must pass away, he is forced to borrow from its +ruins a provisional abode for God's people, a figure for the truth which +grips him so firmly, that, in spite of the death of all the universe for +man's sin, there must be a visibleness and locality of the Divine +majesty, a place where the people of God may gather to bless His holy +name. + +In this contrast of the power of spiritual imagination possessed +respectively by the Old and New Testaments we must not, however, lose +the ethical interest which the main lesson of this chapter has for the +individual conscience. A breaking universe, the great day of judgement, +may be too large and too far off to impress our conscience. But each of +us has his own world--body, property and environment--which is as much +and as evidently affected by his own sins as our chapter represents the +universe to be by the sins of the race. + +To grant that the moral and physical universes are from the same hand is +to affirm a sympathy and mutual reaction between them. This affirmation +is confirmed by experience, and this experience is of two kinds. To the +guilty man Nature seems aware, and flashes back from her larger surfaces +the magnified reflection of his own self-contempt and terror. But, +besides, men are also unable to escape attributing to the material +instruments or surroundings of their sin a certain infection, a certain +power of recommunicating to their imaginations and memories the desire +for sin, as well as of inflicting upon them the pain and penalty of the +disorder it has produced among themselves. Sin, though born, as Christ +said, in the heart, has immediately a material expression; and we may +follow this outwards through man's mind, body and estate, not only to +find it "hindering, disturbing, complicating all," but reinfecting with +the lust and odour of sin the will which gave it birth. As sin is put +forth by the will, or is cherished in the heart, so we find error cloud +the mind, impurity the imagination, misery the feelings, and pain and +weariness infect the flesh and bone. God, who modelled it, alone knows +how far man's physical form has been degraded by the sinful thoughts +and habits of which for ages it has been the tool and expression; but +even our eyes may sometimes trace the despoiler, and that not only in +the case of what are preferably named sins of the flesh, but even with +lusts that do not require for their gratification the abuse of the body. +Pride, as one might think the least fleshly of all the vices, leaves yet +in time her damning signature, and will mark the strongest faces with +the sad symptoms of that mental break-down, for which unrestrained pride +is so often to blame. If sin thus disfigures the body, we know that sin +also infects the body. The habituated flesh becomes the suggester of +crime to the will which first constrained it to sin, and now wearily, +but in vain, rebels against the habits of its instrument. But we recall +all this about the body only to say that what is true of the body is +true of the soul's greater material surroundings. With the sentence +_Thou shalt surely die_, God connects this other: _Cursed is the ground +for thy sake_. + +When we pass from a man's body, the wrapping we find next nearest to his +soul is his property. It has always been an instinct of the race, that +there is nothing a man may so infect with the sin of his heart as his +handiwork and the gains of his toil. And that is a true instinct, for, +in the first place, the making of property perpetuates a man's own +habits. If he is successful in business, then every bit of wealth he +gathers is a confirmation of the motives and tempers in which he +conducted his business. A man deceives himself as to this, saying, Wait +till I have made enough; then I will put away the meanness, the +harshness and the dishonesty with which I made it. He shall not be able. +Just because he has been successful, he will continue in his habit +without thinking; just because there has been no break-down to convict +of folly and suggest penitence, so he becomes hardened. Property is a +bridge on which our passions cross from one part of our life to another. +The Germans have an ironical proverb: "The man who has stolen a hundred +thousand dollars _can afford_ to live honestly." The emphasis of the +irony falls on the words in italics: he can afford, but never does. His +property hardens his heart, and keeps him from repentance. + +But the instinct of humanity has also been quick to this: that the curse +of ill-gotten wealth passes like bad blood from father to child. What is +the truth in this matter? A glance at history will tell us. The +accumulation of property is the result of certain customs, habits and +laws. In its own powerful interest property perpetuates these down the +ages, and infects the fresh air of each new generation with their +temper. How often in the history of mankind has it been property gained +under unjust laws or cruel monopolies which has prevented the abolition +of these, and carried into gentler, freer times the pride and +exclusiveness of the age, by whose rude habits it was gathered. This +moral transference, which we see on so large a scale in public history, +is repeated to some extent in every private bequest. A curse does not +necessarily follow an estate from the sinful producer of it to his heir; +but the latter is, _by the bequest itself_ generally brought into so +close a contact with his predecessor as to share his conscience and be +in sympathy with his temper. And the case is common where an heir, +though absolutely up to the date of his succession separate from him who +made and has left the property, nevertheless finds himself unable to +alter the methods, or to escape the temper, in which the property has +been managed. In nine cases out of ten property carries conscience and +transfers habit; if the guilt does not descend, the infection does. + +When we pass from the effect of sin upon property to its effect upon +circumstance, we pass to what we can affirm with even greater +conscience. Man has the power of permanently soaking and staining his +surroundings with the effect of sins in themselves momentary and +transient. Sin increases terribly by the mental law of association. It +is not the gin-shop and the face of wanton beauty that alone tempt men +to sin. Far more subtle seductions are about every one of us. That we +have the power of inflicting our character upon the scenes of our +conduct is proved by some of the dreariest experiences of life. A +failure in duty renders the place of it distasteful and enervating. Are +we irritable and selfish at home? Then home is certain to be depressing, +and little helpful to our spiritual growth. Are we selfish and niggardly +in the interest we take in others? Then the congregation we go to, the +suburb we dwell in, will appear insipid and unprofitable; we shall be +past the possibility of gaining character or happiness from the ground +where God planted us and meant us to grow. Students have been idle in +their studies till every time they enter them a reflex languor comes +down like stale smoke, and the room they desecrated takes its revenge on +them. We have it in our power to make our workshops, our laboratories +and our studies places of magnificent inspiration, to enter which is to +receive a baptism of industry and hope; and we have power to make it +impossible ever to work in them again at full pitch. The pulpit, the +pew, the very communion-table, come under this law. If a minister of God +have made up his mind to say nothing from his accustomed place, which +has not cost him toil, to feel nothing but a dependence on God and a +desire for souls, then he will never set foot there but the power of the +Lord shall be upon him. But there are men who would rather set foot +anywhere than in their pulpit--men who out of it are full of fellowship, +information, and infective health, but there they are paralysed with the +curse of their idle past. How history shows us that the most sacred +shelters and institutions of man become tainted with sin, and are +destroyed in revolution or abandoned to decay by the intolerant +conscience of younger generations! How the hidden life of each man feels +his past sins possessing his home and hearth, his pew, and even his +place at the Sacrament, till it is sometimes better for his soul's +health to avoid these! + +Such considerations give a great moral force to the doctrine of the Old +Testament that man's sin has rendered necessary the destruction of his +material circumstances, and that the Divine judgement includes a broken +and a rifled universe. + +The New Testament has borrowed this vision from the Old, but added, as +we have seen, with greater distinctness, the hope of new heavens and a +new earth. We have not concluded the subject, however, when we have +pointed this out, for the New Testament has another gospel. The grace of +God affects even the material results of sin; the Divine pardon that +converts the sinner converts his circumstance also; Christ Jesus +sanctifies even the flesh, and is the Physician of the body as well as +the Saviour of the soul. To Him physical evil abounds only that He may +show forth His glory in curing it. _Neither did this man sin nor his +parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him._ To +Paul the _whole creation groaneth and travaileth with_ the sinner _till +now_, the hour of the sinner's redemption. The Gospel bestows an +evangelic liberty which permits the strong Christian to partake of meats +offered to idols. And, finally, _all things work together for good to +them that love God_, for although to the converted and forgiven sinner +the material pains which his sins have brought on him may continue into +his new life, they are experienced by him no more as the just penalties +of an angry God, but as the loving, sanctifying chastisements of his +Father in heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +_GOD'S POOR._ + +ISAIAH xxv.-xxvii. (DATE UNCERTAIN). + + +We have seen that no more than the faintest gleam of historical +reflection brightens the obscurity of chap. xxiv., and that the disaster +which lowers there is upon too world-wide a scale to be forced within +the conditions of any single period in the fortunes of Israel. In chaps. +xxv.-xxvii., which may naturally be held to be a continuation of chap. +xxiv., the historical allusions are more numerous. Indeed, it might be +said they are too numerous, for they contradict one another to the +perplexity of the most acute critics. They imply historical +circumstances for the prophecy both before and after the exile. On the +one hand, the blame of idolatry in Judah (xxvii. 9), the mention of +Assyria and Egypt (xxvii. 12, 13), and the absence of the name of +Babylon are indicative of a pre-exilic date.[81] Arguments from style +are always precarious; but it is striking that some critics, who deny +that chaps. xxiv.-xxvii. can have come as a whole from Isaiah's time, +profess to see his hand in certain passages.[82] Then, secondly, through +these verses which point to a pre-exilic date there are woven, almost +inextricably, phrases of actual exile: expressions of the sense of +living on a level and in contact with the heathen (xxvi. 9, 10); a +request to God's people to withdraw from the midst of a heathen public +to the privacy of their chambers (20, 21); prayers and promises of +deliverance from the oppressor (_passim_); hopes of the establishment of +Zion, and of the repopulation of the Holy Land. And, thirdly, some +verses imply that the speaker has already returned to Zion itself: he +says more than once, _in this mountain_; there are hymns celebrating a +deliverance actually achieved, as--God _has done a marvel. For Thou hast +made a citadel into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a castle of +strangers to be no city, not to be built again._ Such phrases do not +read as if the prophet were creating for the lips of his people a psalm +of triumph against a far future deliverance; they have in them the ring +of what has already happened. + + [81] The mention of Moab (xxv. 10, 11) is also consistent with a + pre-exilic date, but does not necessarily imply it. + + [82] _E.g._, xxv. 6-8, 10, 11; xxvii. 10, 11, 9, 12, 13. + +This bare statement of the allusions of the prophecy will give the +ordinary reader some idea of the difficulties of Biblical criticism. +What is to be made of a prophecy uttering the catch-words and breathing +the experience of three distinct periods? One solution of the difficulty +may be that we have here the composition of a Jew already returned from +exile to a desecrated sanctuary and depopulated land, who has woven +through his original utterances of complaint and hope the experience of +earlier oppressions and deliverances, using even the names of earlier +tyrants. In his immediate past a great city that oppressed the Jews has +fallen, though, if this is Babylon, it is strange that he nowhere names +it. But his intention is rather religious than historical; he seeks to +give a general representation of the attitude of the world to the +people of God, and of the judgement which God brings on the world. This +view of the composition is supported by either of two possible +interpretations of that difficult verse xxvii. 1: _In that day Jehovah +with His sword, the hard and the great and the strong, shall perform +visitation upon Leviathan, Serpent Elusive, and upon Leviathan, Serpent +Tortuous; and He shall slay the Dragon that is in the sea._ Cheyne +treats these monsters as mythic personifications of the clouds, the +darkness and the powers of the air, so that the verse means that, just +as Jehovah is supreme in the physical world, He shall be in the moral. +But it is more probable that the two Leviathans mean Assyria and +Babylon--the _Elusive_ one, Assyria on the swift-shooting Tigris; the +_Tortuous_ one, Babylon on the winding Euphrates--while _the Dragon that +is in the sea_ or _the west_ is Egypt. But if the prophet speaks of a +victory over Israel's three great enemies all at once, that means that +he is talking universally or ideally; and this impression is further +heightened by the mythic names he gives them. Such arguments, along with +the undoubted post-exilic fragments in the prophecy, point to a late +date, so that even a very conservative critic, who is satisfied that +Isaiah is the author, admits that "the _possibility_ of exilic +authorship does not allow itself to be denied." + +If this character which we attribute to the prophecy be correct--viz., +that it is a summary or ideal account of the attitude of the alien world +to Israel, and of the judgement God has ready for the world--then, +though itself be exilic, its place in the Book of Isaiah is +intelligible. Chaps. xxiv.-xxvii. fitly crown the long list of Isaiah's +oracles upon the foreign nations; they finally formulate the purposes +of God towards the nations and towards Israel, whom the nations have +oppressed. Our opinions must not be final or dogmatic about this matter +of authorship; the obscurities are not nearly cleared up. But if it be +ultimately found certain that this prophecy, which lies in the heart of +the Book of Isaiah, is not by Isaiah himself, that need neither startle +nor unsettle us. No doctrinal question is stirred by such a discovery, +not even that of the accuracy of the Scriptures. For that a book is +entitled by Isaiah's name does not necessarily mean that it is all by +Isaiah; and we shall feel still less compelled to believe that these +chapters are his when we find other chapters called by his name while +these are not said to be by him. In truth there is a difficulty here, +only because it is supposed that a book entitled by Isaiah's name must +necessarily contain nothing but what is Isaiah's own. Tradition may have +come to say so; but the Scripture itself, bearing as it does +unmistakable marks of another age than Isaiah's, tells us that tradition +is wrong: and the testimony of Scripture is surely to be preferred, +especially when it betrays, as we have seen, sufficient reasons why a +prophecy, though not Isaiah's, was attached to his genuine and undoubted +oracles. In any case, however, as even the conservative critic whom we +have quoted admits, "for the religious value" of the prophecy "the +question" of the authorship "is thoroughly irrelevant." + +We shall perceive this at once as we now turn to see what is the +religious value of our prophecy. Chaps. xxv.-xxvii. stand in the front +rank of evangelical prophecy. In their experience of religion, their +characterisations of God's people, their expressions of faith, their +missionary hopes and hopes of immortality, they are very rich and +edifying. Perhaps their most signal feature is their designation of the +people of God. In this collection of prayers and hymns the people of God +are not regarded as a political body. They are only once called the +_nation_ and spoken of in connection with a territory (xxvi. 15). Only +twice are they named with the national names of Israel and Jacob (xxvii. +6, 9, 12). We miss Isaiah's promised king, his pictures of righteous +government, his emphasis upon social justice and purity, his interest in +the foreign politics of his State, his hopes of national grandeur and +agricultural felicity. In these chapters God's people are described by +adjectives signifying spiritual qualities. Their nationality is no more +pleaded, only their suffering estate and their hunger and thirst after +God. The ideals that are presented for the future are neither political +nor social, but ecclesiastical. We saw how closely Isaiah's prophesying +was connected with the history of his time. The people of this prophecy +seem to have done with history, and to be interested only in worship. +And along with the assurance of the continued establishment of Zion as +the centre for a secure and holy people, filling a secure and fertile +land,--with which, as we have seen, the undoubted visions of Isaiah +content themselves, while silent as to the fate of the individuals who +drop from this future through death,--we have the most abrupt and +thrilling hopes expressed for the resurrection of these latter to share +in the glory of the redeemed and restored community. + +Among the names applied to God's people there are three which were +destined to play an enormous part in the history of religion. In the +English version these appear as two: _poor and needy_; but in the +original they are three. In chap. xxv. 4: _Thou hast been a stronghold +to the poor and a stronghold to the needy, poor_ renders a Hebrew word, +"d[=a]l," literally _wavering_, _tottering_, _infirm_, then _slender_ or +_lean_, then _poor_ in fortune and estate; _needy_ literally renders the +Hebrew "'ebhyon," Latin _egenus_. In chap. xxvi. 6: _the foot of the +poor and the steps of the needy, needy_ renders "d[=a]l," while _poor_ +renders "'[=a]ni," a passive form--_forced_, _afflicted_, _oppressed_, +then _wretched_, whether under persecution, poverty, loneliness or +exile, and so _tamed_, _mild_, _meek_. These three words, in their root +ideas of _infirmity_, _need_ and positive _affliction_, cover among them +every aspect of physical poverty and distress. Let us see how they came +also to be the expression of the highest moral and evangelical virtues. + +If there is one thing which distinguishes the people of the revelation +from other historical nations, it is the evidence afforded by their +dictionaries of the power to transmute the most afflicting experiences +of life into virtuous disposition and effectual desire for God. We see +this most clearly if we contrast the Hebrews' use of their words for +_poor_ with that of the first language which was employed to translate +these words--the Greek in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. +In the Greek temper there was a noble pity for the unfortunate; the +earliest Greeks regarded beggars as the peculiar proteges of Heaven. +Greek philosophy developed a capacity for enriching the soul in +misfortune; Stoicism gave imperishable proof of how bravely a man could +hold poverty and pain to be things indifferent, and how much gain from +such indifference he could bring to his soul. But in the vulgar opinion +of Greece penury and sickness were always disgraceful; and Greek +dictionaries mark the degradation of terms, which at first merely noted +physical disadvantage, into epithets of contempt or hopelessness. It is +very striking that it was not till they were employed to translate the +Old Testament ideas of poverty that the Greek words for "poor" and +"lowly" came to bear an honourable significance. And in the case of the +Stoic, who endured poverty or pain with such indifference, was it not +just this indifference that prevented him from discovering in his +tribulations the rich evangelical experience which, as we shall see, +fell to the quick conscience and sensitive nerves of the Hebrew? + +Let us see how this conscience was developed. In the East poverty +scarcely ever means physical disadvantage alone: in its train there +follow higher disabilities. A poor Eastern cannot be certain of fair +play in the courts of the land. He is very often a wronged man, with a +fire of righteous anger burning in his breast. Again, and more +important, misfortune is to the quick religious instinct of the Oriental +a sign of God's estrangement. With us misfortune is so often only the +cruelty, sometimes real sometimes imagined, of the rich; the unemployed +vents his wrath at the capitalist, the tramp shakes his fist after the +carriage on the highway. In the East they do not forget to curse the +rich, but they remember as well to humble themselves beneath the hand of +God. With an unfortunate Oriental the conviction is supreme, God is +angry with me; I have lost His favour. His soul eagerly longs for God. + +A poor man in the East has, therefore, not only a hunger for food: he +has the hotter hunger for justice, the deeper hunger for God. Poverty in +itself, without extraneous teaching, develops nobler appetites. The +physical, becomes the moral, pauper; poor in substance, he grows poor in +spirit. It was by developing, with the aid of God's Spirit, this quick +conscience and this deep desire for God, which in the East are the very +soul of physical poverty, that the Jews advanced to that sense of +evangelical poverty of heart, blessed by Jesus in the first of His +Beatitudes as the possession of the kingdom of heaven. + +Till the Exile, however, the poor were only a portion of the people. In +the Exile the whole nation became poor, and henceforth "God's poor" +might become synonymous with "God's people." This was the time when the +words received their spiritual baptism. Israel felt the physical curse +of poverty to its extreme of famine. The pains, privations and terrors, +which the glib tongues of our comfortable middle classes, as they sing +the psalms of Israel, roll off so easily for symbols of their own +spiritual experience, were felt by the captive Hebrews in all their +concrete physical effects. The noble and the saintly, the gentle and the +cultured, priest, soldier and citizen, woman, youth and child, were torn +from home and estate, were deprived of civil standing, were imprisoned, +fettered, flogged and starved to death. We learn something of what it +must have been from the words which Jeremiah addressed to Baruch, a +youth of good family and fine culture: _Seekest thou great things for +thyself? Seek them not, for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, +saith the LORD; only thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all +places whither thou goest._ Imagine a whole nation plunged into poverty +of this degree--not born into it having known no better things, nor +stunted into it with sensibility and the power of expression sapped out +of them, but plunged into it, with the unimpaired culture, conscience +and memories of the flower of the people. When God's own hand sent +fresh from Himself a poet's soul into "the clay biggin'" of an Ayrshire +ploughman, what a revelation we received of the distress, the discipline +and the graces of poverty! But in the Jewish nation as it passed into +exile there were a score of hearts with as unimpaired an appetite for +life as Robert Burns; and, worse than he, they went to feel its pangs +away from home. Genius, conscience and pride drank to the dregs in a +foreign land the bitter cup of the poor. The Psalms and Lamentations +show us how they bore their poison. A Greek Stoic might sneer at the +complaint and sobbing, the self-abasement so strangely mixed with fierce +cries for vengeance. But the Jew had within him the conscience that will +not allow a man to be a Stoic. He never forgot that it was for his sin +he suffered, and therefore to him suffering could not be a thing +indifferent. With this, his native hunger for justice reached in +captivity a famine pitch; his sense of guilt was equalled by as sincere +an indignation at the tyrant who held him in his brutal grasp. The +feeling of estrangement from God increased to a degree that only the +exile of a Jew could excite: the longing for God's house and the worship +lawful only there; the longing for the relief which only the sacrifices +of the Temple could bestow; the longing for God's own presence and the +light of His face. _My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth after +Thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, as I have looked +upon Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory. For Thy +lovingkindness is better than life!_ + +_Thy lovingkindness is better than life!_--is the secret of it all. +There is that which excites a deeper hunger in the soul than the hunger +for life, and for the food and money that give life. This spiritual +poverty is most richly bred in physical penury, it is strong enough to +displace what feeds it. The physical poverty of Israel which had +awakened these other hungers of the soul--hunger for forgiveness, hunger +for justice, hunger for God--was absorbed by them; and when Israel came +out of exile, _to be poor_ meant, not so much to be indigent in this +world's substance as to feel the need of pardon, the absence of +righteousness, the want of God. + +It is at this time, as we have seen, that Isa. xxiv.-xxvii. was written; +and it is in the temper of this time that the three Hebrew words for +"poor" and "needy" are used in chaps. xxv. and xxvi. The returned exiles +were still politically dependent and abjectly poor. Their discipline +therefore continued, and did not allow them to forget their new lessons. +In fact, they developed the results of these further, till in this +prophecy we find no fewer than five different aspects of spiritual +poverty. + +1. We have already seen how strong the sense of sin is in chap. xxiv. +This POVERTY of PEACE is not so fully expressed in the following +chapters, and indeed seems crowded out by the sense of the _iniquity of +the inhabitants of the earth_ and the desire for their judgement (xxvi. +21). + +2. The feeling of the POVERTY of JUSTICE is very strong in this +prophecy. But it is to be satisfied; in part it has been satisfied (xxv. +1-4). _A strong city_, probably Babylon, has fallen. _Moab shall be +trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of +the dunghill._ The complete judgement is to come when the Lord shall +destroy the two _Leviathans_ and the great _Dragon of the west_ (xxvii. +1). It is followed by the restoration of Israel to the state in which +Isaiah (chap. v. 1) sang so sweetly of her. _A pleasant vineyard, sing +ye of her. I, Jehovah, her Keeper, moment by moment do I water her; +lest any make a raid upon her, night and day will I keep her._ The +Hebrew text then reads, _Fury is not in Me_; but probably the Septuagint +version has preserved the original meaning: _I have no walls_. If this +be correct, then Jehovah is describing the present state of Jerusalem, +the fulfilment of Isaiah's threat, chap. v. 6: _Walls I have not; let +there but be briers and thorns before me! With war will I stride against +them; I will burn them together._ But then there breaks the softer +alternative of the reconciliation of Judah's enemies: _Or else let him +seize hold of My strength; let him make peace with Me--peace let him +make with Me_. In such a peace Israel shall spread, and his fulness +become the riches of the Gentiles. _In that by-and-bye Jacob shall take +root, Israel blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with +fruit._ + +Perhaps the wildest cries that rose from Israel's famine of justice were +those which found expression in chap. xxxiv. This chapter is so largely +a repetition of feelings we have already met with elsewhere in the Book +of Isaiah, that it is necessary now only to mention its original +features. The subject is, as in chap. xiii., the Lord's judgement upon +all the nations; and as chap. xiii. singled out Babylon for special +doom, so chap. xxxiv. singles out Edom. The reason of this distinction +will be very plain to the reader of the Old Testament. From the day the +twins struggled in their mother Rebekah's womb, Israel and Edom were +either at open war or burned towards each other with a hate, which was +the more intense for wanting opportunities of gratification. It is an +Eastern edition of the worst chapters in the history of England and +Ireland. No bloodier massacres stained Jewish hands than those which +attended their invasions of Edom, and Jewish psalms of vengeance are +never more flagrant than when they touch the name of the children of +Esau. The only gentle utterance of the Old Testament upon Israel's +hereditary foe is a comfortless enigma. Isaiah's _Oracle for Dumah_ +(xxii. 11 f.), shows that even that large-hearted prophet, in face of +his people's age-long resentment at Edom's total want of appreciation of +Israel's spiritual superiority, could offer Edom, though for the moment +submissive and inquiring, nothing but a sad, ambiguous answer. Edom and +Israel, each after his fashion, exulted in the other's misfortunes: +Israel by bitter satire when Edom's impregnable mountain-range was +treacherously seized and overrun by his allies (Obadiah 4-9); Edom, with +the harassing, pillaging habits of a highland tribe, hanging on to the +skirts of Judah's great enemies, and cutting off Jewish fugitives, or +selling them into slavery, or malignantly completing the ruin of +Jerusalem's walls after her overthrow by the Chaldeans (Obadiah 10-14; +Ezek. xxxv. 10-15; Ps. cxxxi. 7). In _the quarrel of Zion_ with the +nations of the world Edom had taken the wrong side,--his profane, earthy +nature incapable of understanding his brother's spiritual claims, and +therefore envious of him, with the brutal malice of ignorance, and +spitefully glad to assist in disappointing such claims. This is what we +must remember when we read the indignant verses of chap. xxxiv. Israel, +conscious of his spiritual calling in the world, felt bitter resentment +that his own brother should be so vulgarly hostile to his attempts to +carry it out. It is not our wish to defend the temper of Israel towards +Edom. The silence of Christ before the Edomite Herod and his men of war +has taught the spiritual servants of God what is their proper attitude +towards the malignant and obscene treatment of their claims by vulgar +men. But at least let us remember that chap. xxxiv., for all its +fierceness, is inspired by Israel's conviction of a spiritual destiny +and service for God, and by the natural resentment that his own kith and +kin should be doing their best to render these futile. That a famine of +bread makes its victims delirious does not tempt us to doubt the +genuineness of their need and suffering. As little ought we to doubt or +to ignore the reality or the purity of those spiritual convictions, the +prolonged starvation of which bred in Israel such feverish hate against +his twin-brother Esau. Chap. xxxiv., with all its proud prophecy of +judgement, is, therefore, also a symptom of that aspect of Israel's +poverty of heart, which we have called a hunger for the Divine justice. + +3. POVERTY OF THE EXILE. But as fair flowers bloom upon rough stalks, so +from Israel's stern challenges of justice there break sweet prayers for +home. Chap. xxxiv., the effusion of vengeance on Edom, is followed by +chap. xxxv., the going forth of hope to the return from exile and the +establishment of the ransomed of the Lord in Zion.[83] Chap. xxxv. opens +with a prospect beyond the return, but after the first two verses +addresses itself to the people still in a foreign captivity, speaking of +their salvation (vv. 3, 4), of the miracles that will take place in +themselves (vv. 5, 6) and in the desert between them and their home (vv. +6, 7), of the highway which God shall build, evident and secure (vv. 8, +9), and of the final arrival in Zion (ver. 10). In that march the usual +disappointments and illusions of desert life shall disappear. _The +mirage shall become a pool_; and the clump of vegetation which afar off +the hasty traveller hails for a sign of water, but which on his approach +he discovers to be the withered grass of a _jackal's lair_, shall indeed +be _reeds and rushes_, standing green in fresh water. Out of this +exuberant fertility there emerges in the prophet's thoughts a great +highway, on which the poetry of the chapter gathers and reaches its +climax. Have we of this nineteenth century, with our more rapid means of +passage, not forgotten the poetry of the road? Are we able to appreciate +either the intrinsic usefulness or the gracious symbolism of the king's +highway? How can we know it as the Bible-writers or our forefathers knew +it when they made the road the main line of their allegories and +parables of life? Let us listen to these verses as they strike the three +great notes in the music of the road: _And an highway shall be there, +and a way; yea, The Way of Holiness shall it be called, for the unclean +shall not pass over it_--that is what is to distinguish this road from +all other roads. But here is what it is as being a road. First, it shall +be unmistakably plain: _The wayfaring man, yea fools, shall not err +therein_. Second, it shall be perfectly secure: _No lion shall be there, +nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon; they shall not be met with +there_. Third, it shall bring to a safe arrival and ensure a complete +overtaking: _And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come with +singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they +shall overtake gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee +away_. + + [83] Even at the risk of incurring Canon Cheyne's charge of + "ineradicable error," I feel I must keep to the older view of chap. + xxxv. which makes it refer to the return from exile. No doubt the + chapter covers more than the mere return, and includes "the glorious + condition of Israel after the return;" but vv. 4 and 10 are undoubtedly + addressed to Jews still in exile and undelivered. + +4. So Israel was to come home. But to Israel home meant the Temple, and +the Temple meant God. The poverty of the Exile was, in the essence of +it, POVERTY OF GOD, POVERTY OF LOVE. The prayers which express this are +very beautiful,--that trail like wounded animals to the feet of their +master, and look up in His face with large eyes of pain. _And they shall +say in that day, Lo, this is our God: we have waited for Him, that He +should save us; this is the LORD: we have waited for Him; we will +rejoice and be glad in His salvation.... Yea, in the way of Thy +ordinances, O LORD, have we waited for Thee; to Thy name and to Thy +Memorial was the desire of our soul. With my soul have I desired Thee in +the night; yea, by my spirit within me do I seek Thee with dawn_ (chaps. +xxv. 9; xxvi. 8). + +An Arctic explorer was once asked, whether during eight months of slow +starvation which he and his comrades endured they suffered much from the +pangs of hunger. No, he answered, we lost them in the sense of +abandonment, in the feeling that our countrymen had forgotten us and +were not coming to the rescue. It was not till we were rescued and +looked in human faces that we felt how hungry we were. So is it ever +with God's poor. They forget all other need, as Israel did, in their +need of God. Their outward poverty is only the weeds of their heart's +widowhood. _But Jehovah of hosts shall make to all the peoples in this +mountain a banquet of fat things, a banquet of wines on the lees, fat +things bemarrowed, wines on the lees refined._ + +We need only note here--for it will come up for detailed treatment in +connection with the second half of Isaiah--that the centre of Israel's +restored life is to be the Temple, not, as in Isaiah's day, the king; +that her dispersed are to gather from all parts of the world at the +sound of the Temple _trumpet_; and that her national life is to consist +in worship (cf. xxvii. 13). + + * * * * * + +These then were four aspects of Israel's poverty of heart: a hunger for +pardon, a hunger for justice, a hunger for home, and a hunger for God. +For the returning Jews these wants were satisfied only to reveal a +deeper poverty still, the complaint and comfort of which we must reserve +to another chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +_THE RESURRECTION._ + +ISAIAH xxvi. 14-19; xxv. 6-9. + + +Granted the pardon, the justice, the Temple and the God, which the +returning exiles now enjoyed, the possession of these only makes more +painful the shortness of life itself. This life is too shallow and too +frail a vessel to hold peace and righteousness and worship and the love +of God. St. Paul has said, _If in this life only we have hope in Christ, +we are of all men most miserable_. What avails it to have been pardoned, +to have regained the Holy Land and the face of God, if the dear dead are +left behind in graves of exile, and all the living must soon pass into +that captivity,[84] from which there is no return? + + [84] Hezekiah's expression for death, xxxviii. 12. + +It must have been thoughts like these, which led to the expression of +one of the most abrupt and powerful of the few hopes of the resurrection +which the Old Testament contains. This hope, which lightens chap. xxv. +7, 8, bursts through again--without logical connection with the +context--in vv. 14-19 of chap. xxvi. + +The English version makes ver. 14 to continue the reference to the +lords, whom in ver. 13 Israel confesses to have served instead of +Jehovah. "They are _dead; they shall not live_: they are _deceased; they +shall not rise_." Our translators have thus intruded into their version +the verb "they are," of which the original is without a trace. In the +original, _dead_ and _deceased_ (literally _shades_) are themselves the +subject of the sentence--a new subject and without logical connection +with what has gone before. The literal translation of ver. 14 therefore +runs: _Dead men do not live; shades do not rise: wherefore Thou visitest +them and destroyest them, and perisheth all memory of them_. The prophet +states a fact, and draws an inference. The fact is, that no one has ever +returned from the dead; the inference, that it is God's own _visitation_ +or _sentence_ which has gone forth upon them, and they have really +ceased to exist. But how intolerable a thought is this in presence of +the other fact that God has here on earth above gloriously enlarged and +established His people (ver. 15). _Thou hast increased the nation, +Jehovah; Thou hast increased the nation. Thou hast covered Thyself with +glory; Thou hast expanded all the boundaries of the land._ To this +follows a verse (16), the sense of which is obscure, but palpable. It +"feels" to mean that the contrast which the prophet has just painted +between the absolute perishing of the dead and the glory of the Church +above ground is the cause of great despair and groaning: _O Jehovah, in +The Trouble they supplicate Thee; they pour out incantations when Thy +discipline is upon them_.[85] In face of _The_ Trouble and _The_ +Discipline _par excellence_ of God, what else can man do but betake +himself to God? God sent death; in death He is the only resource. +Israel's feelings in presence of The Trouble are now expressed in ver. +17: _Like as a woman with child that draweth near the time of her +delivery writheth and crieth out in her pangs, so have we been before +Thee, O Jehovah_. Thy Church on earth is pregnant with a life, which +death does not allow to come to the birth. _We have been with child; we +have been in the pangs, as it were; we have brought forth wind; we make +not the earth_, in spite of all we have really accomplished upon it in +our return, our restoration and our enjoyment of Thy presence--_we make +not the earth salvation, neither are the inhabitants of the world +born_.[86] + + [85] I think this must be the meaning of ver. 16, if we are to allow + that it has any sympathy with vv. 14 and 15. Bredenkamp suggests that + the persons meant are themselves the dead. Jehovah has glorified the + Church on earth; but the dead below are still in trouble, and _pour out + prayers_ (Virgil's "preces fundunt," _AEneid_, vi., 55), beneath this + punishment which God causes to pass on all men (ver. 14). Bredenkamp + bases this exegesis chiefly on the word for "prayer," which means + _chirping_ or _whispering_, a kind of voice imputed to the shades by the + Hebrews and other ancient peoples. But while this word does originally + mean _whispering_, it is never in Scripture applied to the dead, but, on + the other hand, is a frequent name for _divining_ or _incantation_. I + therefore have felt compelled to understand it as used in this passage + of the living, whose only resource in face of death--_Goa's discipline + par excellence_--is to pour out incantations. If it be objected that the + prophet would scarcely parallel the ordinary incantations on behalf of + the dead with supplications to Jehovah, the answer is that he is talking + poetically or popularly. + + [86] English version, _fallen; i.e._, like our expression for the birth + of animals, _dropped_. + +The figures are bold. Israel achieves, through God's grace, everything +but the recovery of her dead; this, which alone is worth calling +_salvation_, remains wanting to her great record of deliverances. The +living Israel is restored, but how meagre a proportion of the people it +is! The graves of home and of exile do not give up their dead. These are +not born again to be inhabitants of the upper world. + +The figures are bold, but bolder is the hope that breaks from them. Like +as when the Trumpet shall sound, ver. 19 peals forth the promise of the +resurrection--peals the promise forth, in spite of all experience, +unsupported by any argument, and upon the strength of its own inherent +music. _Thy dead shall live! my dead bodies shall arise!_ The change of +the personal pronoun is singularly dramatic. Returned Israel is the +speaker, first speaking to herself: _thy dead_, as if upon the +depopulated land, in face of all its homes in ruin, and only the +sepulchres of ages standing grim and steadfast, she addressed some +despairing double of herself; and secondly speaking _of_ herself: _my +dead bodies_, as if all the inhabitants of these tombs, though dead, +were still her own, still part of her, the living Israel, and able to +arise and bless with their numbers their bereaved mother. These she now +addresses: _Awake and sing, ye dwellers in the dust, for a dew of lights +is Thy dew, and the land bringeth forth the dead_.[87] + + [87] Technical Hebrew word for the inhabitants of the underworld--_the + shades_. + +If one has seen a place of graves in the East, he will appreciate the +elements of this figure, which takes _dust_ for death and _dew_ for +life. With our damp graveyards mould has become the traditional +trappings of death; but where under the hot Eastern sun things do not +rot into lower forms of life, but crumble into sapless powder, that will +not keep a worm in life, _dust_ is the natural symbol of death. When +they die, men go not to feed fat the mould, but _down into the dust_; +and there the foot of the living falls silent, and his voice is choked, +and the light is thickened and in retreat, as if it were creeping away +to die. The only creatures the visitor starts are timid, unclean bats, +that flutter and whisper about him like the ghosts of the dead. There +are no flowers in an Eastern cemetery; and the withered branches and +other ornaments are thickly powdered with the same dust that chokes, and +silences and darkens all. + +Hence the Semitic conception of the underworld was dominated by dust. It +was not water nor fire nor frost nor altogether darkness, which made the +infernal prison horrible, but that upon its floor and rafters, hewn from +the roots and ribs of the primeval mountains, dust lay deep and choking. +Amid all the horrors he imagined for the dead, Dante did not include one +more awful than the horror of dust. The picture which the northern +Semites had before them when they turned their faces to the wall was of +this kind.[88] + + [88] Extracted from the Assyrian _Descent of Istar to Hades_ (Dr. + Jeremias' German translation, p. 11, and _Records of the Past_, i., + 145). + + The house of darkness.... + The house men enter, but cannot depart from. + The road men go, but cannot return. + The house from whose dwellers the light is withdrawn. + The place where dust is their food, their nourishment clay. + The light they behold not; in darkness they dwell. + They are clothed like birds, all fluttering wings. + On the door and the gateposts, the dust lieth deep. + +Either, then, an Eastern sepulchre, or this its infernal double, was +gaping before the prophet's eyes. What more final and hopeless than the +dust and the dark of it? + +But for dust there is dew, and even to graveyards the morning comes that +brings dew and light together. The wonder of dew is that it is given +from a clear heaven, and that it comes to sight with the dawn. If the +Oriental looks up when dew is falling, he sees nothing to thank for it +between him and the stars. If he sees dew in the morning, it is equal +liquid and lustre; it seems to distil from the beams of the sun--_the +sun, which riseth with healing under his wings_. The dew is thus doubly +"dew of light." But our prophet ascribes the dew of God, that is to +raise the dead, neither to stars nor dawn, but, because of its Divine +power, to that higher supernal glory which the Hebrews conceived to have +existed before the sun, and which they styled, as they styled their God, +by the plural of majesty: _A dew of lights is Thy dew_.[89] As, when the +dawn comes, the drooping flowers of yesterday are seen erect and +lustrous with the dew, every spike a crown of glory, so also shall be +the resurrection of the dead. There is no shadow of a reason for +limiting this promise to that to which some other passages of +resurrection in the Old Testament have to be limited: a corporate +restoration of the holy State or Church. This is the resurrection of its +individual members to a community which is already restored, the +recovery by Israel of her dead men and women from their separate graves, +each with his own freshness and beauty, in that glorious morning when +the Sun of righteousness shall arise, with healing under His wings--_Thy +dew_, O Jehovah! + + [89] Cf. James i. 17. + +Attempts are so often made to trace the hopes of resurrection, which +break the prevailing silence of the Old Testament on a future life, to +foreign influences experienced in the Exile, that it is well to +emphasize the origin and occasion of the hopes that utter themselves so +abruptly in this passage. Surely nothing could be more inextricably +woven with the national fortunes of Israel, as nothing could be more +native and original to Israel's temper, than the verses just expounded. +We need not deny that their residence among a people, accustomed as the +Babylonians were to belief in the resurrection, may have thawed in the +Jews that reserve which the Old Testament clearly shows that they +exhibited towards a future life. The Babylonians themselves had received +most of their suggestions of the next world from a non-Semitic race; and +therefore it would not be to imagine anything alien to the ascertained +methods of Providence if we were to suppose that the Hebrews, who showed +what we have already called the Semitic want of interest in a future +life, were intellectually tempered by their foreign associations to a +readiness to receive any suggestions of immortality, which the Spirit of +God might offer them through their own religious experience. That it was +this last, which was the effective cause of Israel's hopes for the +resurrection of her dead, our passage puts beyond doubt. Chap. xxvi. +shows us that the occasion of these hopes was what is not often noticed: +the returned exiles' disappointment with the meagre repopulation of the +holy territory. A restoration of the State or community was not enough: +the heart of Israel wanted back in their numbers her dead sons and +daughters. + +If the occasion of these hopes was thus an event in Israel's own +national history, and if the impulse to them was given by so natural an +instinct of her own heart, Israel was equally indebted to herself for +the convictions that the instinct was not in vain. Nothing is more clear +in our passage than that Israel's first ground of hope in a future life +was her simple, untaught reflection upon the power of her God. Death was +_His chastening_. Death came from Him, and remained in His power. Surely +He would deliver from it. This was a very old belief in Israel. _The +Lord killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth +up._ Such words, of course, might be only an extreme figure for recovery +from disease, and the silence of so great a saint as Hezekiah about any +other issue into life than by convalescence from mortal sickness +staggers us into doubt whether an Israelite ever did think of a +resurrection. But still there was Jehovah's almightiness; a man could +rest his future on that, even if he had not light to think out what sort +of a future it would be. So mark in our passage, how confidence is +chiefly derived from the simple utterance of the name of Jehovah, and +how He is hailed as _our God_. It seems enough to the prophet to connect +life with Him and to say merely, _Thy dew_. As death is God's own +discipline, so life, _Thy dew_, is with Him also. + +Thus in its foundation the Old Testament doctrine of the resurrection is +but the conviction of the sufficiency of God Himself, a conviction which +Christ turned upon Himself when He said, _I am the Resurrection and the +Life. Because I live, ye shall live also._ + +If any object that in this picture of a resurrection we have no real +persuasion of immortality, but simply the natural, though impossible, +wish of a bereaved people that their dead should to-day rise from their +graves to share to-day's return and glory--a revival as special and +extraordinary as that appearing of the dead in the streets of Jerusalem +when the Atonement was accomplished, but by no means that general +resurrection at the last day which is an article of the Christian +faith--if any one should bring this objection, then let him be referred +to the previous promise of immortality in chap. xxv. The universal and +final character of the promise made there is as evident as of that for +which Paul borrowed its terms in order to utter the absolute +consequences of the resurrection of the Son of God: _Death is swallowed +up in victory_. For the prophet, having in ver. 6 described the +restoration of the people, whom exile had starved with a famine of +ordinances, to _a feast in Zion of fat things and wines on the lees well +refined_, intimates that as certainly as exile has been abolished, with +its dearth of spiritual intercourse, so certainly shall God Himself +destroy death: _And He shall swallow up in this mountain_--perhaps it is +imagined, as the sun devours the morning mist on the hills--_the mask of +the veil, the veil that is upon all the peoples, and the film spun upon +all the nations. He hath swallowed up death for ever, and the Lord +Jehovah shall wipe away tears from off all faces, and the reproach of +His people shall He remove from off all the earth, for Jehovah hath +spoken it. And they shall say in that day, Behold, this is our God: we +have waited for Him, and He shall save us; this is Jehovah: we have +waited for Him; we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation._ Thus over +all doubts, and in spite of universal human experience, the prophet +depends for immortality on God Himself. In chap. xxvi. 3 our version +beautifully renders, _Thou wilt keep_ him _in perfect peace_ whose +_mind_ is _stayed_ on Thee, _because he trusteth in Thee_. This is a +confidence valid for the next life as well as for this. _Therefore trust +ye in the LORD_ for ever. Amen. + +Almighty God, we praise Thee that, in the weakness of all our love and +the darkness of all our knowledge before death, Thou hast placed +assurance of eternal life in simple faith upon Thyself. Let this faith +be richly ours. By Thine omnipotence, by Thy righteousness, by the love +Thou hast vouchsafed, we lift ourselves and rest upon Thy word. _Because +I live, ye shall live also._ Oh keep us steadfast in union with Thyself, +through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. + + + + +INDEX TO CHAPS. I.-XXXIX. + + + CHAPTERS OF DATE B.C. CHAPTERS OF THE + ISAIAH. EXPOSITION. + + i. 701 I., XIX., p. 311 ff. + ii.-iv. 740-735 II. + v. 735 III. + vi. 740; IV., XXVI., 391 f. + written 735 or 727 + vii.-ix. 7 734-732 VI. + vii. 14 ff. 734 VII. 133 + viii. 734-733 VII. 135 + ix. 1-7 732 VII. 136 + ix. 8-x. 4 735 III. 47 ff. + x. 5-34 About 721 IX. 147 + xi. [xii.] About 720? X. + xi. 1-6 VII. 138 + xiii.-xiv. 23 ? XXVII. + xiv. 24-27 Towards 701 XVII. 272 + xiv. 28-32 705 XVII. 272 + xv.-xvi. 12 ? XVII. 273 + xvi. 13, 14 711 or 704? XVII. 273 + xvii. 1-11 Between 736 and 732 XVII. 274 + xvii. 12-14 ? XVII. 274, 277, 281 f. + xviii. 711 or towards 701? XVII. 275 + xix. 703 or after 700? XVII. 275, 278, 284 ff. + xx. 711-709 XI. 198-200, XVII. 276 + xxi. 1-10 Probably 709 XI. 201, XVII. 276 + xxi. 11, 12 Between 704 and 701 XVII. 276 + xxi. 13, 17 XVII. 277 + xxii. 701 XIX., XX. + xxiii. 703 or 702 XVII. 277, XVIII. + xxiv. ? XXVIII. + xxv.-xxvii. ? XXIX.-XXX. + xxviii. About 725 VIII. 149 + xxix.-xxxii. p. 207 + xxix. About 703 XII. + xxx. About 702 XIII. + xxxi. About 702 XIV. + xxxii. 1-8 About 702? XV. + xxxii. 9-20 Date uncertain XVI. + xxxiii. 701 XX., XXI., 207, 304 + xxxiv. ? XXIX. 438 ff. + xxxv. ? XXIX. 440 f. + xxxvi. 1 701 303 f. + xxxvi. 2-xxxvii. 701 303 f. + xxxvi. 2-22 701 XXII. 303 f. + xxxvii. 701 XXIII. + xxxviii.-xxxix. Date uncertain XXV. 304 + xxxviii. XXVI. 393 + xxxix. XI. 201 + + + + +SHORT INDEX OF SUBJECTS. + + + Ahaz, 98; + compared with Charles I., 99, 103 ff., 113; + Judas of Old Testament, 118. + + Animals, the lower, 190 ff.; + our mediatorship to, 193. + + Anthropomorphism, 144. + + Arabia, 277. + + Aram, 94, 103 ff. + + Ashdod, 198. + + Assyria and Assyrians, 53, 92 f., 95, 97, 103 f., 122, and _passim_. + + Atheism, two kinds of, 172 ff. + + + Babylon, 93, 201, 405. + + Babylonian captivity, 201, 402. + + Bribery, 47. + + + Captivity of Israel, first, 128; + second, 148. + + Christ, 80, 142 ff., 254 ff., 328, 426. + + Church, origin of idea of, 126. + + Commerce, 296. + + Conscience, 6; + its threefold character, 12; + simplicity, 151. + + Cromwell, 160 ff., 220. + + + Damascus, 95, 120, 122, 274. + + Drunkenness, 44 f., 152 ff. + + + Earthquake, 50. + + Edom, 94, 276, 438 ff. + + Egypt, 92, 96, 197 ff., 222 ff., _passim_. + + Ekron, 308 f. + + Eliakim, 317. + + Ethiopia, 93, 222, 275. + + + Faith, moral results of, 106 f., 163 f.; + power to shape history, 109, 352 ff. + + Fatalism, 110. + + Forgiveness of sin, 13, 71 ff., 326 ff., 361, 381. + + Formalism, 216, 240. + + Free-will, 82. + + + Glory, 68. + + + Hamath, 94. + + Heine, 158, 242, 413. + + Hezekiah, 352, 378 ff., _passim_. + + Holiness, 63 ff. + + Holy Spirit, 185-188. + + + Immanuel, 102, 115, 124 ff., 133 ff. + + Immortality, 385 ff., 394 ff., 410, 444 ff. + + Individual, the, and the community, 389 ff. + + Inspiration, 23 ff., 213, 372. + + Isaiah: + apprenticeship, 19; + youth, 21, 59; + a son of Jerusalem, 22; + threefold vision, 23-25; + idealist, 25; + realist, 27; + prophet, 30; + patriotism, a conscience of his country's sins, 30 f.; + call and consecration, 57 ff.; + personality, 75 f., 253; + comp. with Mazzini, 85-87; + with Moses, 88; + contribution to religious development of Israel, 101, 284, 288; + no fatalist, 110; + habit of appealing to the people, 119; + saved from the popular drift, 121; + scorn, 127; + sanity, 109, 154 f., 166, 300; + comp. with Cromwell, 160 ff., 220; + self-control, 166; + regard for animals, 190; + walks stripped for a sign, 199; + inspiration, 213, 372; + working of his imagination, 234; + style, 281; + humanity, 285, 294; + triumph, 323 ff.; + imagination and conscience, 335; + lesson for all time, 366; + contrasted with Crusaders, 367; + personal religion, 391; + ideal, 392; + satire, 29, 139, 156. + + Israel, religious condition, 99; + and Greece, 365. + + + Jerusalem, 22, 25 ff., 169 f., 211 f., 231 f., 243, 267 f., 279, + Book IV., _passim_. + + + "King Lear," 49, 55. + + + Land question, 41 ff. + + Language, abuse of, 260. + + + Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 120. + + Mazzini, 84-86. + + Merodach-baladan, 200, 376. + + Messiah, 89, 90, 115 ff., 129, 131-144, 180 ff., 249. + + Moab, 94, 273. + + Monotheism, moral and political advantages, 108-110; + growth in Israel, 357, 363. + + + Name of the LORD, 233 ff. + + Nature, fourfold use of by the prophets, 16 f.; + redemption of, 188; + destruction of, 417 ff. + + + Palestine, 92. + + People, the, ultimately responsible, 119, 198, 224 ff. + + Philistines, 94, 272. + + Phoenicia, 94, 96, 288 ff. + + Poetry, Hebrew, 411. + + Polytheism, 99, 107. + + Preaching the word, 82, 83. + + Prophecy, its power of vision, 23-25; + its service to religion, 100 f. + + Providence, 98. + + + Rabshakeh, the, 343 ff. + + Remnant, the, 31, 87, 101, 126, 129, and _passim_. + + Resurrection, 387, 444 ff. + + Return from exile, 195, 401 ff., 429, 440 f., 450. + + Righteousness, Isaiah's doctrine of, 334 ff. + + + Sacrament, an Old Testament, 74. + + Samaria, 95, 147, 152 ff. + + Sargon, 148, 169, 198 ff. + + Scepticism, 15. + + Sennacherib, 209, 302, 308 ff., 355 ff. + + Serbonian bog, 361. + + Shebna, 317. + + Sheol, 385, 410, 447 ff. + + Shiloah, 122. + + Sin, 52, 69, _passim_; + effect on man's material circumstance, 416. + + Sorrow, man's abuse of, 54. + + + Tiglath-pileser II., 96, 103 f. + + + Uzziah, 59 f., 98. + + + War, 51. + + Women, Isaiah to, 262. + + Wrath of God, 47 f., 55. + + _Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._ + + +FIRST SERIES. + + Colossians. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D., D.Lit. + + St. Mark. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + Genesis. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + 1 Samuel. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + 2 Samuel. + By the same Author. + + Hebrews. + By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. + +SECOND SERIES. + + Galatians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Pastoral Epistles. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Isaiah I.--XXXIX. + By Prin. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Book of Revelation. + By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. + + 1 Corinthians. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + The Epistles of St. John. + By the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh. + +THIRD SERIES. + + Judges and Ruth. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Jeremiah. + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A. + + Isaiah XL.--LXVI. + By Prin. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II. + + St. Matthew. + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. + + Exodus. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + St. Luke. + By the Rev. H. BURTON, M.A. + +FOURTH SERIES. + + Ecclesiastes. + By the Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. + + St. James and St. Jude. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Proverbs. + By the Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D. + + Leviticus. + By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I. + +FIFTH SERIES. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I. + + 1 and 2 Thessalonians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + The Book of Job. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Ephesians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II. + +SIXTH SERIES. + + 1 Kings. + By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S. + + Philippians. + By Principal RAINY, D.D. + + Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Joshua. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II. + + The Epistles of St. Peter. + By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D. + +SEVENTH SERIES. + + 2 Kings. + By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S. + + Romans. + By the Right Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D. + + The Books of Chronicles. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.Lit. + + 2 Corinthians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + Numbers. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III. + +EIGHTH SERIES. + + Daniel. + By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S. + + The Book of Jeremiah. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.Lit. + + Deuteronomy. + By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D. + + The Song of Solomon and Lamentations. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Ezekiel. + By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A. + + The Books of the Twelve Prophets. + By Prin. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols. + + + + +WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d._ + + +VOLUME II. + +THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. + +CHAPS. XL.-LXVI. + +REV. DR. MARCUS DODS, in _The British Weekly_, says: "That criticism so +keen and so well principled should co-exist with a historical sense so +fully developed as Mr. Smith's, is perhaps not so wonderful as that both +these high and useful faculties should seem not to overwhelm and +smother, but rather to stimulate and find opportunity for the faculty of +dramatic presentation, for the magical English style, and, above all, +for the singular spiritual insight which this volume exhibits." + +REV. DR. BEET says: "The first volume of Smith's _Isaiah_ took us all by +surprise, and revealed the advent of an expositor of the first rank. The +high standard thus set up is fully maintained in the second volume. +Indeed, as dealing with more difficult topics it increases greatly our +respect for the author. We have accurate Hebrew scholarship, keen +insight into the life and thought of Isaiah's day, and devout +appreciation of the abiding spiritual worth of this ancient prophecy +presented in a form intelligible and attractive to all." + +THE RECORD. "Mr. Smith is a sound and thoroughly capable Hebrew scholar, +and he has written in these volumes an exposition of Isaiah which every +scholarly teacher and every conscientious expounder of the evangelical +prophet, even though he may differ from Mr. Smith upon occasion, ought +to possess." + +THE ACADEMY. "It is needless to mention the literary merits which in +reviews of the first volume of this work were so abundantly recognised. +This is, indeed, one of the few theological books which it is a pure +pleasure to read; nor need one, in the case of the present volume, add +the qualifying remark that the homiletical element is somewhat unduly +large. The scholarship too, is still as accurate as might be expected +from Mr. Smith's excellent training." + +THE INDEPENDENT: "It is in every way a notable book, and will even add +to the now established reputation of its author among Old Testament +students. The two volumes taken together constitute one of the most +successful attempts ever made to expound an Old Testament book in the +light of modern research. Mr. Smith has here shown something of the +power of criticism to do constructive work, and has made it abundantly +evident that some, at least, of the recent critical results may be used +with most illuminating and inspiring effect." + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + +_8vo, cloth, 15s. With Six Maps, specially prepared._ + +THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. + +Especially in Relation to the History of Israel and of the Early Church. + +"In some respects the book is the most comprehensive and complete +contribution to Palestinian literature of the last twenty years.... In +English, at least, there is no book from which the reader can carry away +in his mind's eye so clear, connected, and permanent a picture of +Palestine as from Dr. Smith's."--_Daily News._ + +"A very noteworthy contribution to the study of sacred history, based +upon the three indispensable conditions of personal acquaintance with +the land, a study of the explorations, discoveries, and decipherments, +especially of the last twenty years, and the employment of the results +of Biblical criticism during the same period. The necessity and +importance of such an undertaking need no demonstration, and the results +as set forth in Dr. Smith's learned and laborious work will be +appreciated by all competent scholars."--_Times._ + +"It is not often that we have to review a book so thorough and so +masterly, and, at the same time, written in a style which commands +attention as well as admiration.... It contains and 'uses' the important +parts of all the immense mass of modern research and discovery, enriched +and illuminated by a mind of imagination and poetry, as well as +scholarship."--_Saturday Review._ + +"This is really a great book. A subject of fascinating interest has been +treated with an ability and a fulness which leave nothing to be +desired."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + +FOUR PSALMS. + +_Cloth, 1s. 6d._ + +"These expositions are in every way admirable, and worthy of the highest +admiration."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ + +"Very choice expositions in a deeply spiritual vein. Learning, genius, +and grace combine to make these four choice psalms more precious than +ever."--_Baptist._ + + +MODERN CRITICISM AND PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s._ + +DR. ROBERTSON NICOLL says in _The British Weekly_: "Dr. George Adam +Smith has given us a fresh, brilliant, Christian book on a vital +subject. In some respects it is perhaps on an even higher level than +anything else he has written. It would be impertinent in us to speak of +the scholarship shown everywhere. Dr. Smith is as accurate as he is +brilliant. There are many evidences not only of his scholarship, but of +the wide range his reading has covered. The book is written throughout +with marked distinction, and in a high and generous spirit. It is +anything but a mere _resume_. It is full of originality and +suggestiveness, and is alive and challenging from end to end. It is as +powerful and ardent as anything Dr. Smith has written, and it is also +spiritual and subtle." + + +THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s._ + + +JERUSALEM. + +_In Two Volumes. Net, 24s._ + + +THE LIFE OF HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E. + +_With Portrait. Cloth, 3s. 6d._ + +"A very large audience may safely be predicted for his biography. The +work is well done.... A more devote life has rarely been portrayed, a +cleaner soul has not often been unveiled."--_Spectator._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON + + +THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS. + +Commonly called the Minor. + +_In Two Volumes. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. each._ + +VOL. I.--AMOS, HOSEA AND MICAH. + + VOL. II.--ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, OBADIAH, HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH + I.-VIII., "MALACHI," JOEL, "ZECHARIAH" IX.-XIV., AND JONAH. + +"In Dr. Smith's volumes we have much more than a popular exposition of +the minor Prophets. We have that which will satisfy the scholar and the +student quite as much as the person who reads for pleasure and for +edification.... If the minor Prophets do not become popular reading it +is not because anything more can be done to make them attractive. Dr. +Smith's volumes present this part of Scripture in what is at once the +most attractive and the most profitable form."--DR. MARCUS DODS in the +_British Weekly_. + +"By his two volumes on Isaiah, and that preceding the present one of the +Prophets, Professor Smith gave abundant evidence both of his Hebrew +scholarship and his capacity as an expositor of Scripture, ... and he +has now put us under fresh obligations by publishing this volume, which +in no respect falls behind its predecessors."--_Scotsman._ + +"The volume which completes the great enterprise is one of the +best."--_Methodist Times._ + +"The volume altogether, in its accurate scholarship, its vivid +descriptions, its bold and candid treatment of difficulties, and its +fulness of reference to the labours of other critics of every school, +forms not only one of the most brilliant of the series, but one of the +foremost of British contributions to the literature of its special +subject."--_Christian World._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + + + +THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE EXPOSITOR'S GREEK TESTAMENT. + +EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +Editor of the _Expositor_, _Expositor's Bible_, _etc._ + + +_CONTAINING_ + +THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. + +By the Rev. Professor R. J. KNOWLING, D.D., Vice-Principal of King's +College, London. + + +THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. + +By the Rev. Professor JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + +THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. + +By the Rev. Professor G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + +THE THIRD VOLUME, CONTAINING + +THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. + +By the Very Rev. Dean BERNARD, D.D. + + +THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. + +By the Rev. FREDERIC RENDALL, M.A. + + +THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. + +By the Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D. + + +THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. + +By the Rev. H. A. A. KENNEDY, D.Sc. + + +THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. + +By the Rev. Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A. + +_The price of each volume is 28s. Volumes I. and II. may still be had at +subscription price, viz. 30s._ + +_Those who have subscribed for Volumes I. and II. may have Volume III. +on payment of 15s._ + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + +THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXPOSITOR'S GREEK TESTAMENT. + +EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +Editor of the _Expositor_, _Expositor's Bible_, _etc_. + +The First Volume, of 880 pages, handsomely bound in buckram cloth, +consists of the Gospels of ST. MATTHEW, ST. MARK, and ST. LUKE by the +Rev. Professor A. B. BRUCE, D.D., and the Gospel of ST. JOHN by the Rev. +Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. + +_The Price of each volume is 28s; but for those who PAY IN ADVANCE the +price for two volumes is 30s._ + + * * * * * + +FROM PRESS NOTICES OF VOLUME I. + +"Dr. Bruce's commentary on the Synoptics is a notable piece of work. It +is cheering and refreshing to find these books, with which our inner +life is so closely bound up, treated frankly and honestly, as well as +adequately for English readers, and withal in so believing and reverent +a spirit that the treatment need not repel the most orthodox.... All is +set forth with great frankness and admirable common sense, and often in +racy language, not without an occasional Scottish flavour."--_Athenaeum._ + +"The first thing that strikes one when he takes up the volume on the +Gospels is the uncommon handsomeness of the book. It is a joy to handle +it and look into its pages. It is the very book to lure a student into +reading. The form is so superb, the paper so choice and so light, the +margins so delightfully broad, the type so clear and so tasteful.... +The two scholars to whom this volume has been committed are the very +men for the work. Each is a master of his subject, and each has gone +into his task _con amore_.... A work worthy of the most cordial +appreciation."--_Critical Review._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + + + +WORKS BY THE REV. A. M. FAIRBAIRN, M.A., D.D., LL.D., + +PRINCIPAL OF MANSFIELD COLLEGE, OXFORD. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d._ + + +CATHOLICISM--ROMAN AND ANGLICAN. + +"Dr. Fairbairn's able and striking volume.... The treatment is +throughout so thoughtful and free from narrow polemical bias."--_Times._ + +"The book is certainly one every theologian must welcome--high-minded in +tone, broad in its outlook, penetrating in its vision, and full of +luminous _apercus_ on the history of thought and of events."--_Literature._ + + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d._ + +RELIGION IN HISTORY AND IN MODERN LIFE. + +Together with an Essay on the Church and the Working Classes. + +"In its new dress, 'Religion in History' is a timely and weighty +contribution to a subject with which theologians but too seldom venture +to grapple."--_Scotsman._ + +"It is one of the best pieces of work which even Principal Fairbairn has +ever done."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ + + +_8vo, cloth, 12s._ + +THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN MODERN THEOLOGY. + +"His work is, without doubt, one of the most valuable and comprehensive +contributions to theology that has been made during this +generation."--_The Spectator._ + +"A more vivid summary of church history has never been given. With its +swift characterisation of schools and politics, with its subtle tracings +of the development of various tendencies through the influence of their +invironment, of reaction, and of polemic; with its contrasts of +different systems, philosophies, and races; with its portraits of men; +with its sense of progress and revolt--this part of Dr. Fairbairn's book +is no mere annal, but drama, vivid and full of motion, representative of +the volume and sweep of Christianity through the centuries."--_The +Speaker._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + +WORKS BY SIR W. M. RAMSAY, D.C.L., LL.D., + +PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN, AND HON. FELLOW OF +EXETER AND LINCOLN COLLEGES, OXFORD. + + +8_vo, cloth, with Map, 10s. 6d._ + +ST. PAUL THE TRAVELLER AND THE ROMAN CITIZEN. + +"Professor Ramsay brings not only his great experience as a traveller +and archaeologist, but the resources of an ingenious mind, and a lively +style. The book is, like everything Professor Ramsay does, +extraordinarily alive. It shows everywhere personal learning, personal +impression; it has the sharp touch of the traveller and the +eye-witness."--_Times._ + + +_With Maps and Illustrations, 8vo, cloth, 12s._ + +THE CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE BEFORE A.D. 170. + +"The whole volume is full of freshness and originality.... I lay down +his book with warm and sincere admiration. He has succeeded in investing +a number of critical discussions with extraordinary vividness and +reality."--PROFESSOR W. SANDAY, in _The Expositor_. + + +_Crown_ 8_vo_, _cloth_, 5_s_. + +WAS CHRIST BORN AT BETHLEHEM? + +A Study in the Credibility of St. Luke. + +"The work is characterised by great earnestness as well as ability, +while the learning which it displays is such as may be expected from one +who has long made the topics discussed matter of special study, for the +pursuit of which he has also had special opportunities."--_Scotsman._ + +"There is much interesting matter on allied topics in this learned and +informing work, which will sustain Professor Ramsay's reputation as an +accomplished and courageous scholar."--_Christian World._ + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Isaiah, Volume I (of 2), by +George Adam Smith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, VOLUME I *** + +***** This file should be named 39767.txt or 39767.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/6/39767/ + +Produced by Colin Bell, Julia Neufeld and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |