Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2
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Title: Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2
Author: Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
Translator: Theodore Meyer
Release date: December 5, 2009 [eBook #30608]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30608
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from images obtained from Google Books.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: AND A COMMENTARY ON THE MESSIANIC PREDICTIONS. VOL. 2 ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from images obtained from Google Books.
Transcriber's Note: Images taken from the 1861 edition, found at
Books.Google.com., are the source of the text used for this ebook. This
original book was from Harvard University and digitized in 2006.
Unclear or missing punctuation marks were corrected by reference to the
1856 edition of this work.
The Latin diphthong oe is expressed by [oe].
Greek words are directly transliterated using the English equivalents
of the Greek; the Greek eta is transliterated as ê and omega as ô.
Diacritic marks are omitted with the exception of the initial hard
breathing mark which is indicated by an "h" before the initial vowel of
the word.
Hebrew words, which in this book are mainly represented without
the vowel and pronunciation points, are transcribed as follows:
Alef = a Lahmed = l
Bet = b Mem = m (final = M)
Gimel = g Nun = n (final = N)
Dalet = d Samekh = s
He = h Ahyin = i
Vav = v Peh = p (final = P)
Zayin = z Tsadi = c (final = C)
Het = H Qof = q
Tet = T Resh = r
Yod = i Shin = w
Kahf = k (final = K) Tav = t
[Pg i]
CLARK'S
FOREIGN
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
NEW SERIES.
VOL. II.
Hengstenberg's Christology of the Old Testament.
VOL. II.
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
LONDON: J. GLADDING; WARD AND CO.; AND JACKSON AND WALFORD
DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON
MDCCCLXI.
[Pg ii]
[Blank Page]
[Pg iii]
CHRISTOLOGY
OF
THE OLD TESTAMENT,
AND A
COMMENTARY ON THE MESSIANIC PREDICTIONS
BY
E. W. HENGSTENBERG,
DR. AND PROF. OF THEOL. IN BERLIN.
SECOND EDITION GREATLY IMPROVED.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY THE
THE REV. THEODORE MEYER.
HEBREW TUTOR IN THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.
VOLUME II.
EDINBURGH:
T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.;
WARD AND CO.; JACKSON AND WALFORD, ETC. DUBLIN:
JOHN ROBERTSON, AND HODGES AND SMITH.
MDCCCLXI.
[Pg iv]
NOTICE.
_This Work is copyright in this country by arrangement with the
Author._
[Pg v]
LIST OF CONTENTS.
Page
MESSIANIC PREDICTIONS IN THE PROPHETS.
THE PROPHET ISAIAH.
General Preliminary Remarks, 1
Chap. ii.-iv.--The Sprout of the Lord, 10
Chap. vii.--Immanuel, 26
Chap. viii. 23-ix. 6--Unto us a Child is born, 66
Chap. ix. 1-7, 75
Chap. xi., xii.--The Twig of Jesse, 94
On Matthew ii. 23, 106
Chap. xii., 133
Chaps. xiii. 1-xiv. 27, 135
Chaps. xvii., xviii., 137
Chap. xix., 141
Chap. xxiii.--The Burden upon Tyre, 146
Chaps. xxiv.-xxvii., 149
Chaps. xxviii.-xxxiii., 154
Chap. xxxv., 158
General Preliminary Remarks on Chaps, xl.-lxvi., 163
Chap. xlii. 1-9, 196
Chap. xlix. 1-9, 226
Chap. 1. 4-11, 246
Chap. li. 16, 256
Chaps. lii. 13-liii. 12, 259
I. History of the Interpretation.
A. With the Jews, 311
B. History of the Interpretation with the Christians, 319
II. The Arguments against the Messianic Interpretation, 327
III. The Arguments in favour of the Messianic
Interpretation, 330
IV. Examination of the Non-Messianic Interpretation, 334
Chap. lv. 1-5, 343
Chap. lxi. 1-3, 351
THE PROPHET ZEPHANIAH, 356
THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.
General Preliminary Remarks, 362
Chap. iii. 14-17, 373
Chap. xxiii. 1-8, 398
Chap. xxxi. 31-40, 424
Chap. xxxiii. 14-26, 459
[Pg vi]
[Blank Page]
[Pg 1]
THE PROPHET ISAIAH.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Isaiah is the principal prophetical figure in the first period of
canonical prophetism, _i.e._, the Assyrian period, just as Jeremiah is
in the second, _i.e._, the Babylonian. With Isaiah are connected in the
kingdom of Judah: Joel, Obadiah, and Micah; in the kingdom of Israel:
Hosea, Amos, and Jonah.
The name "Isaiah" signifies the "Salvation of the Lord." In this name
we have the key-note of his prophecies, just as the name Jeremiah: "The
Lord casts down," indicates the nature of his prophecies, in which the
prevailing element is entirely of a threatening character. That the
proclamation of salvation occupies a very prominent place in Isaiah,
was seen even by the Fathers of the Church. _Jerome_ says: "I shall
expound Isaiah in such a manner that he shall appear not as a prophet
only, but as an Evangelist and an Apostle;" and in another passage:
"Isaiah seems to me to have uttered not a prophecy but a Gospel." And
_Augustine_ says, _De Civ. Dei_, 18, c. 29, that, according to the
opinion of many, Isaiah, on account of his numerous prophecies of
Christ and the Church, deserved the name of an Evangelist rather than
that of a Prophet. When, after his conversion, _Augustine_ applied to
_Ambrose_ with the question, which among the Sacred Books he should
read in preference to all others, he proposed to him Isaiah, "because
before all others it was he who had more openly declared the Gospel and
the calling of the Gentiles." (_Aug. Conf._ ix. 5.) With the Fathers of
the Church _Luther_ coincides. He says in commendation of Isaiah: "He
is full of loving, comforting, cheering words for all poor consciences,
and wretched, afflicted hearts." Of course, there is in Isaiah no want
of severe reproofs and threatenings. If it were [Pg 2] otherwise, he
would have gone beyond the boundary by which true prophetism is
separated from false. "There is in it," as Luther says, "enough of
threatenings and terrors against the hardened, haughty, obdurate heads
of the wicked, if it might be of some use." But the threatenings never
form the close in Isaiah; they always at last run out into the promise;
and while, for example, in the great majority of Jeremiah's prophecies,
the promise, which cannot be wanting in any true prophet, is commonly
only short, and hinted at, sometimes consisting only of words which are
thrown into the midst of the several threatenings, _e. g._, iv. 27:
"Yet will I not make a full end,"--in Isaiah the stream of consolation
flows in the richest fulness. The promise absolutely prevails in the
second part, from chap. xl.-lxvi. The reason of this peculiarity is to
be sought for chiefly in the historical circumstances. Isaiah lived at
a time in which, in the kingdom of Judah, the corruption was far from
having already reached its greatest height,--in which there still
existed, in that kingdom, a numerous "election" which gathered round
the prophet as their spiritual centre. With a view to this circle,
Isaiah utters the words: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." The
contemporary prophets of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was
poisoned in its very first origin, found a different state of things;
the field there was already ripe for the harvest of judgment. And at
the time of Jeremiah, Judah had become like her apostate sister. At
that time it was not so much needed to comfort the miserable, as to
terrify sinners in their security. It was only after the wrath of God
had manifested itself in deeds, only after the judgment of God had been
executed upon Jerusalem, or was immediately at hand,--it was only then
that, in Jeremiah, and so in Ezekiel also, the stream of promise broke
forth without hinderance.
Chronology is, throughout, the principle according to which the
Prophecies of Isaiah are arranged. In the first six chapters, we obtain
a survey of the Prophet's ministry under Uzziah and Jotham. Chap. vii.
to x. 4 belongs to the time of Ahaz. From chap. x. 4 to the close of
chap. xxxv. every thing belongs to the time of the Assyrian invasion in
the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; in the face of which invasion the
prophetic gift of Isaiah was displayed as it had never been before. The
section, chap. xxxvi.-xxxix., furnishes us with the historical
commentary on the preceding [Pg 3] prophecies from the Assyrian period,
and forms, at the same time, the transition to the second part, which
still belongs to the same period, and the starting point of which is
Judah's deliverance from Asshur. In this most remarkable year of the
Prophet's life--a year rich in the manifestation of God's glory in
judgment and mercy--his prophecy flowed out in full streams, and spread
to every side. Not the destinies of Judah only, but those of the
Gentile nations also are drawn within its sphere. The Prophet does not
confine himself to the events immediately at hand, but in his ecstatic
state, the state of an elevated, and, as it were, armed consciousness,
in which he was during this whole period, his eye looks into the
farthest distances. He sees, especially, that, at some future period,
the Babylonian power, which began, even in his time, to germinate,
would take the place of the Assyrian,--that, like it, it would find the
field of Judah white for the harvest,--that, for this oppressor of the
world, destruction is prepared by _Koresh_ (Cyrus), the conqueror from
the East, and that he will liberate the people from their exile; and,
at the close of the development, he beholds the Saviour of the world,
whose image he depicts in the most glowing colours.
Isaiah has especially brought out the view of the Prophetic and
Priestly offices of Christ, while in the former prophecies it was
almost alone the Kingly office which appeared; it is only in Deut.
xviii. that the Prophetic office, and in Ps. cx. that the Priestly
office, is pointed at. Of the two states of Christ, it is the doctrine
of the state of humiliation, the doctrine of the suffering Christ,
which here meets us, while formerly it was the state of exaltation
which was prominently brought before us,--although Isaiah too can very
well describe it when it is necessary to meet the fears regarding the
destruction of the Theocracy by the assaults of the powerful heathen
nations. The first attempt at a description of the humbled, suffering,
and expiating Christ, is found in chap. xi. 1. The real seat of this
proclamation is, however, in the second part, which is destined more
for the election, than for the whole nation. In chap. xlii. we meet the
servant of God, who, as a Saviour meek and lowly in heart, does not
break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and by this
merciful love establishes righteousness on the whole earth. In chap.
xlix., the Prophet describes how the covenant-people requite with
ingratitude the faithful labours of the Servant of God, but that [Pg 4]
the Lord, to recompense Him for the obstinacy of Israel, gives Him the
Gentiles for an inheritance. In chap. l. we have presented to us that
aspect of the sufferings of the Servant of God which is common to
Christ and His people--viz., how, in fulfilling His calling. He offered
His back to the smiters, and did not hide His face from shame and
spitting. Then, finally, in chap. liii.--that culminating point of the
prophecy of the Old Testament--Christ is placed before our eyes in His
highest work, in His atoning and vicarious suffering, as the truth of
both the Old Testament high-priest, and the Old Testament sin-offering.
There are still the following Messianic features which are peculiar to
Isaiah. A clear Old Testament witness for the divinity of Christ is
offered by chap. ix. 5 (6); the birth by a virgin, closely connected
with His divinity, is announced in chap. vii. 14; according to chap.
viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Galilee, and, in general, the country surrounding the
Sea of Gennesareth, being that part of the country which hitherto had
chiefly been covered with disgrace, are, in a very special manner, to
be honoured by the appearance of the Saviour, who shall come to have
mercy upon the miserable, and to seek that which was lost. Isaiah has,
further, first taught that, by the redemption, the consequences of the
Fall would disappear in the irrational creation also, and that it
should return to paradisaic innocence, chap. xi. 6-9. He has first
announced to the people of God the glorious truth, that death, as it
had not existed in the beginning, should, at the end also, be expelled,
chap. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19. The healing powers which by Christ should be
imparted to miserable mankind, Isaiah has described in chap xxxv. in
words, which by the fulfilment have, in a remarkable manner, been
confirmed.
Let us endeavour to form, from the single scattered features which
occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, a comprehensive view of his
prospects into the future.
The announcement first uttered by Moses of an impending exile of the
people, and desolation of the country, is brought before us by Isaiah
in the first six chapters, in the prophecies belonging to the time of
Uzziah and Jotham, at which the future had not yet been so clearly laid
open before the Prophet as it was at a later period, at the time of
Ahaz, and, very especially, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. A
reference to [Pg 5] the respective announcements of the Pentateuch is
found in chap. xxxvii. 26, where, in opposition to the imagination of
the King of Asshur, that, by his own power, he had penetrated as a
conqueror as far as Judah, Isaiah asks him whether he had not heard
that the Lord, long ago and from ancient times, had formed such a
resolution regarding His people. These words can be referred only to
the threatenings of the Pentateuch, which a short-sighted criticism
endeavoured to ascribe to a far later period, without considering that
the germ of this knowledge of the future is found in the Decalogue
also, the genuineness of which is, at present, almost unanimously
conceded: "In order that thy (Israel's) days may be long in the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
In the solemnly introduced short summary of the history of the
covenant-people, in chap. vi., there is, after the announcement of the
impending complete desolation of the country and the carrying away of
its inhabitants in vers. 11, 12, the indication of a _second_ judgment
which will not less make an end, in ver. 13: "But yet there is a tenth
part in it, and it shall again be destroyed;" and this goes hand in
hand with the promise that the _election_ shall become partakers of the
Messianic salvation.
The Prophet clearly sees that, by the _Syrico-Ephraemitic_ war, the
full realization of that threatening of the Pentateuch will not be
brought about, as far as Judah is concerned; that here a faint prelude
only to the real fulfilment is the point in question. Although the
allied kings speak in chap. vii. 6: "Let us go up against Judea and vex
it, and let us conquer it for us, and set a king in the midst of it,
even the son of Tabeal," the Lord speaks in chap. vii. 7: "It shall not
stand, neither shall it come to pass." And although the heart of the
king and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the wood
are moved with the wind, the Prophet says: "Fear not, let not thy heart
be tender for the tails of those two smoking firebrands."
It is Asshur that shall do more for the realization of that divine
decree first revealed by Moses. It is he who, immediately after that
expedition against Judah, shall break the power of the kingdom of the
ten tribes, chap. viii. 4: "Before the child shall be able to cry: 'My
father and my mother,'the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria
shall be carried before the King of [Pg 6] Assyria." The communion of
guilt into which it has entered with Damascus shall also implicate it
in a communion of punishment with it, chap. xvii. 3. The adversaries of
Rezin shall devour Israel with open mouth, chap. ix. 11, 12. Yea Asshur
shall, some time afterwards, put an end altogether to the kingdom of
Israel; "Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that
it shall not be a people any more," chap. vii. 8. Upon Judah also
severe sufferings shall be inflicted by Asshur. He shall invade and
devastate their land, chap. vii. 17, and chap. viii. He shall
irresistibly penetrate to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, chap. x.
28-32. But when he is just preparing to inflict the mortal blow upon
the head of the people of God, the Lord shall put a stop to him: "He
shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall
fall by the mighty one," chap. x. 34. "Asshur shall be broken in the
land of the Lord, and upon His mountains be trodden under foot; and his
yoke shall depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their
shoulders," chap. xiv. 25. "And Asshur shall fall with the sword not of
a man," chap. xxxi. 8. These prophecies found their fulfilment in the
destruction of Sennacherib's host before Jerusalem,--an event which no
human ingenuity could have known even a day beforehand. But Isaiah does
not content himself with promising to trembling Zion the help of God
against Asshur in that momentary calamity. In harmony with Hosea and
Micah, he promises to Judah, in general, security from Asshur. He says
to Hezekiah, after that danger was over, in chap. xxxviii. 6: "And I
will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the King of Assyria,
and I will defend this city."
Behind the Assyrian kingdom, the Prophet beholds a new power
germinating, viz., the Babylonian or Chaldean; and he announces most
distinctly and repeatedly that from this shall proceed a comprehensive
execution of the threatenings against unfaithful Judah. According to
chap. xxiii. 13, the Chaldeans overturn the Assyrian monarchy, and
conquer proud Tyre which had resisted the assault of the Assyrians.
Shinar or Babylon appears in chap. xi. 11, in the list of the places to
which Judah has been removed in punishment. In chap. xiii. 1-xiv. 27,
Babylon is, for the first time, distinctly and definitely mentioned as
the threatening power of the future, by which Judah is to be carried
into captivity. The corresponding announcement in chap. xxxix. is so
[Pg 7] closely and intimately interwoven with the historical context,
that even _Gesenius_ did not venture to deny its origin by Isaiah, just
as he was compelled also to acknowledge the genuineness of the prophecy
against Tyre, in which the Babylonian dominion is most distinctly
foretold, and even the duration of that dominion is fixed. The 70 years
of Jeremiah have here already their foundation.
The Prophet sees distinctly and definitely that Egypt, the rival
African world's power, on which the sharp-sighted politicians of his
time founded their hope for deliverance, would not be equal to the
Asiatic world's power representing itself in the Assyrian and
Babylonian phases. He knows what he could not know from any other
source than by immediate communication of the Spirit of God, that, by
its struggle against the Asiatic power, Egypt would altogether lose its
old political importance, and would never recover it; compare remarks
on chap. xix.
As the power which is to overthrow the Babylonian Empire appear, in
chap. xxxiii. 17, the Medes. In chap. xxi. 2, Elam, which, according to
the _usus loquendi_ of Isaiah, means Persia, is mentioned besides
Media. This power, and at its head, the conqueror from the East, Cyrus,
will bring deliverance to Judah. By it they obtain a restoration to
their native land.[1] Nevertheless Elam appears in chap. xxii. 16 as
the representative of the world's power oppressing Judah in the future;
and from chap. xi. 11 we are likewise led to expect that the world's
power will in future shew itself in an Elamitic phase also, and that
the difference between Babel and Elam is one of degree only, just as,
indeed, it appeared in history; comp. Neh. ix. 36, 37.
An intimation of an European phasis of the world's power, hostile to
the kingdom of God, is to be found in chap. xi. 11.
After the Kingdom of God has, for such protracted periods, been subject
to the world's power, the relation will suddenly be reversed; at the
end of the days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be exalted
above all the hills, and all nations shall flow into it, chap. ii. 2.
This great change shall be accomplished by the Messiah, chaps. iv.,
ix., xi., xxxiii. 17, who proceeds from the house of [Pg 8] David,
chap. ix. 6 (7), lv. 3, but only after it has sunk down to the utmost
lowliness, chap. xi. 1. With the human, He combines the divine nature.
This appears not only from the names which are given to Him in chap.
ix. 5 (6), but also from the works which are assigned to Him,--works by
far exceeding human power. He rules over the whole earth, according to
chap. xi.; He slays, according to xi. 4, the wicked with the breath of
His mouth (compare chap. l. 11, where likewise He appears as a partaker
of the omnipotent punitive power of God); He removes the consequences
of sin even from the irrational creation, chap. xi. 6-9; by His
absolute righteousness He is enabled to become the substitute of the
whole human race, and thereby to accomplish their salvation resting on
this substitution, chap. liii.
The Messiah appears at first in the form of a servant, low and humble,
chap. xi. 1, liii. 2. His ministry is quiet and concealed, chap. xlii.
2, as that of a Saviour who with tender love applies himself to the
miserable, chap. xlii. 3, lxi. 1. At first it is limited to Israel,
chap. xlix. 1-6, where it is enjoyed especially by the most degraded of
all the parts of the country, viz., that around the sea of Galilee,
chap. viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Severe sufferings will be inflicted upon Him in
carrying out His ministry. These proceed from the same people whom He
has come to raise up, and to endow (according to chap. xlii. 6, xlix.
8), with the full truth of the covenant into which the Lord has entered
with them. The Servant of God bears these suffering's with unbroken
courage. They bring about, through His mediation, the punishment of God
upon those from whom they proceeded, and become the reason why the
salvation passes over to the Gentiles, by whose deferential homage the
Servant of God is indemnified for what He has lost in the Jews, chap.
xlix. 1-9, l. 4-11. (The foundation for the detailed announcement in
these passages is given already in the sketch in chap. vi.,--according
to which an election only of the people attain to salvation, while the
mass becomes a prey to destruction.) But it is just by these
sufferings, which issue at last in a violent death, that the Servant of
God reaches the full height of His destination. They possess a
vicarious character, and effect the reconciliation of a whole sinful
world, chap. lii. 13-liii. 12. Subsequently to the suffering, and on
the ground of it, begins the exercise of the Kingly office of Christ,
chap. liii. 12. He brings law and righteousness to the [Pg 9] Gentile
world, chap. xlii. 1; light into their darkness, chap. xlii. 6. He
becomes the centre around which the whole Gentile world gathers, chap.
xi. 10: "And it shall come to pass in that day, the root of Jesse which
shall stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek,
and His rest shall be glory;" comp. chap. lx., where the delighted eye
of the Prophet beholds how the crowds of the nations from the whole
earth turn to Zion; chap. xviii., where the future reception of the
Ethiopians into the Kingdom of God is specially prophecied; chap. xix.,
according to which Egypt turns to the God of Israel, and by the tie of
a common love to Him, is united with Asshur, his rival in the time of
the Prophet, and so likewise with Israel, which has so much to suffer
from him; chap. xxiii., according to which, in the time of salvation.
Tyre also does homage to the God of Israel. The Servant of God becomes,
at the same time, the _Witness_, and the Prince and Lawgiver of the
nations, chap. lv. 4. Just as the Spirit of the Lord rests upon Him,
chap. xi. 2, xlii. 1, lxi. 1, so there takes place in His days an
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, chap. xxxii. 15, xliv. 3, comp. with
chap. liv. 13. Sin is put an end to by Him, chap. xi. 9, and an end is
put especially to war, chap. ii. 4. The Gentiles gathered to the Lord
become at last the medium of His salvation for the covenant-people, who
at first had rejected it, chap. xi. 12, lx. 9, lxvi. 20, 21. The end is
the restoration of the paradisaic condition, chap. xi. 6-9, lxv. 25;
the new heavens and the new earth, chap. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22; but the
wicked shall inherit eternal condemnation, chap. lxvi. 24.
[Footnote 1: _Vitringa_: There are no predictions in reference to the
temporal deliverance of the Jewish Church, in which the Prophet shews
himself more than in those which relate to the downfall of the
Babylonian Empire, and the deliverance of the people of God by Cyrus.]
[Pg 10]
THE PROPHECY--CHAP. II.-IV.
THE SPROUT OF THE LORD.
It has been already proved, in Vol. i., p. 416 ff., that this discourse
belongs to the first period of the Prophet's ministry. It consists of
three parts. In the first, chap. ii. 2-4, the Prophet draws a picture
of the Messianic time, at which the Kingdom of God, now despised,
should be elevated above all the kingdoms of the world, should exercise
an attractive power over the Gentiles, and should cause peace to dwell
among them; comp. Vol. i., p. 437 ff. In the second part, from chap.
ii. 5-iv. 1, the Prophet describes the prevailing corruption, exhorts
to repentance, threatens divine judgments. This part is introduced, and
is connected with the preceding, by the admonition in ii. 5, addressed
to the people, to prepare, by true godliness, for a participation in
that blessedness, to beware lest they should be excluded through their
own fault. In the third part, chap. iv. 2-6, the prophet returns to the
proclamation of salvation, so that the whole is, as it were, surrounded
by the promise. It was necessary that this should be prominently
brought out, in order that sinners might not only be terrified by fear,
but also allured by hope, to repentance,--and in order that the elect
might not imagine that the sin of the masses, and the judgment
inflicted in consequence of it, did away with the mercy of the Lord
towards His people, and with His faithfulness to His promises.
Salvation does not come without judgment. This feature, by which true
prophetism is distinguished from false, which, divesting God of His
righteousness, announced salvation to unreformed sinners, to the whole
rude mass of the people,--this feature is once more prominently brought
out in ver. 4. But salvation for the elect comes as necessarily as
judgment does upon the sinners. In the midst of the deepest abasement
of the people of God, God raises from out of the midst of them the
Saviour by whom they are raised to the highest glory, chap. iv. 2. They
are installed into the dignity of the saints of God, after the penitent
ones have been renewed by His Spirit, and the [Pg 11] obstinate sinners
have been exterminated by His judgment, ver. 3, 4. God's gracious
presence affords them protection from their enemies, and from all
tribulation and danger, ver. 5, 6.
The first part, in which Isaiah follows Micah (comp. the arguments in
proof of originality in Micah, Vol. i., p. 413 ff.), has already been
expounded on a former occasion. We have here only to answer the
question, why it is that the Prophet opens his discourse with a
proclamation of salvation borrowed from Micah? His object certainly was
to render the minds of the people susceptible of the subsequent
admonition and reproof, by placing at the head a promise which had
already become familiar and precious to the people. The position which
the Messianic proclamation occupies in Isaiah is altogether
misunderstood if, with _Kleinert_ and _Ewald_, we assume that the
passage does not, in Isaiah, belong to the real substance of the
prophecy; that it is merely placed in front as a kind of text, the
abuse and misinterpretation of which the Prophet meets in that which
follows, so that the sense would be: the blessed time promised by
former prophets will come _indeed_, but _only_ after severe, rigorous
judgments upon all who had forsaken Jehovah. It is especially ver. 5
which militates against this interpretation, where, in the words: "Come
ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord,"[1] the prophet gives an
_express declaration_ as to the object of the description which he has
placed in front, and expresses himself in regard to it in perfect
harmony [Pg 12] with Heb. iv. 1: [Greek: phobêthômen oun mêpote
kataleipomenês epangelias ... dokê tis ex humôn husterêkenai.] This
shows, that after the manner of an evangelical preacher, and in
conformity with his name, he wishes to allure to repentance by pointing
to the great salvation of the future;--that the [Greek: êngike hê
basileia tôn ouranôn] of the first part serves as a foundation to the
[Greek: metanoeite oun] of the second.
The threatening of punishment contained in the second part is destitute
of any particular reference. It bears a general character,
comprehending the whole of the mischief with which the Lord is to visit
the unfaithfulness of His people. Most thoroughly was the animating
idea realized in the Roman catastrophe, the consequence of which is the
helplessness which still presses upon the people. The preparatory
steps were the decay of the people at the time of Ahaz--especially
the Chaldean overthrow--and, generally, everything which the people
had to suffer in the time of the dominion of the Assyrian, Chaldean,
Medo-Persian, and Greek kingdoms. As none of these kingdoms were as yet
on the stage, or in sight, it is quite natural that the threatening
here keeps altogether within general terms; it was given to Isaiah
himself afterwards to individualize it much more.
It is with the third part only that we have here more particularly to
employ ourselves.
Ver. 2. "_In that day the Sprout of the Lord becomes for beauty and
glory, and the fruit of the land for exaltation and ornament, to the
escaped of Israel._"
Ver. 3. "_And it shall come to pass, he that was left in Zion, and was
spared in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written to
life in Jerusalem._"
Ver. 4. "_When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of
Zion, and shall remove the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by
the spirit of right and the spirit of destruction._"
Ver. 5. "_And the Lord creates over the place of Mount Zion, and over
her assemblies clouds by day and smoke, and the brightness of flaming
fire by night, for above all glory is a covering._"
Ver. 6. "_And a tabernacle shall be for a shadow by day from the heat,
and, for a refuge and covert from storm and from rain._"
Ver. 2. "_In that day_" _i.e._, not by any means _after_ the suffering,
but _in the midst of it_, comp. chap. iii. 18; iv. 1, where, by [Pg 13]
the words "in that day," contemporaneousness is likewise expressed.
Parallel is chap. ix. 1 (2), where the people that walketh in darkness
seeth a great light. According to Micah v. 2 (3) also, the people are
given up to the dominion of the world's powers until the time that she
who is bearing has brought forth. Inasmuch as the Messianic
proclamation bears the same general comprehensive character as the
threatening of punishment, and includes in itself beginning and end,
the suffering may partly also reach into the Messianic time. It
dismisses from its discipline those who are delivered up to it,
gradually only, after they have become ripe for a participation in the
Messianic salvation.--There cannot be any doubt that, by the "_Sprout
of the Lord_" the Messiah is designated,--an explanation which we meet
with so early as in the Chaldee Paraphrast ([Hebrew: bedna hhva ihi
mwiHa dii lHdvh vliqr]), from which even _Kimchi_ did not venture to
differ, which was in the Christian Church, too, the prevailing one, and
which Rationalism was the first to give up. The Messiah is here quite
in His proper place. The Prophet had, in chap. iii. 12-15, in a very
special manner, derived the misery of the people from their bad rulers.
What is now more rational, therefore, than that he should connect the
salvation and prosperity likewise with the person of a Divine Ruler?
comp. chap. i. 26. In the adjoining prophecies of Isaiah, especially in
chaps. vii., ix., and xi., the person of the Messiah likewise forms the
centre of the proclamation of salvation; so that, _a priori_, a mention
of it must be expected here. To the same result we are led by the
analogy of Micah; comp. Vol. i. p. 443-45, 449. _Farther_--The
representation of the Messiah, under the image of a sprout or shoot, is
very common in Scripture; comp. chap. xi. 1-10; liii. 2; Rev. v. 5. But
of decisive weight are those passages in which precisely our word
[Hebrew: cmH] occurs as a designation of the Messiah. The two passages,
Jer. xxiii. 5: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I raise unto
David a righteous Sprout;" and xxxiii. 15: "In those days, and at that
time, shall I cause the Sprout of righteousness to grow up unto David,"
may at once and plainly be considered as an _interpretation_ of the
passage before us, and as a commentary upon it; and that so much the
more that there, as well as here, all salvation is connected with this
Sprout of Jehovah; comp. Jer. xxiii. 6: "In His days Judah [Pg 14]
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is His name
whereby he shall be called: The Lord our righteousness." The two other
passages, Zech. iii. 8: "Behold, I bring my servant _Zemach_," and vi.
12: "Behold, a man whose name is _Zemach_" are of so much the greater
consequence that in them _Zemach_ (_i.e._, Sprout) occurs as a kind of
_nomen proprium_, the sense of which is supposed as being known from
former prophecies to which the Prophet all but expressly refers; or as
_Vitringa_ remarks on these passages: "That man who, in the oracles of
the preceding Prophets (Is. and Jer.) bears the name of 'Sprout.'" Of
no less consequence, _finally_, is the parallel passage, chap. xxviii.
5: "In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and
for a diadem of beauty unto the residue of His people." The words
[Hebrew: cbi] and [Hebrew: tpart] there meet us again. The same is
there ascribed to the Lord which is here attributed to the Sprout of
the Lord. That can be readily accounted for, only if the Sprout of the
Lord be the Messiah. For the Messiah appears everywhere as the channel
through which the Lord imparts to His Church all the fulness of His
blessings, as the Immanuel by whom the promise given at the very
threshold of the Old Testament: "I dwell in the midst of them," is most
perfectly realized. "This is the name whereby He shall be called: The
Lord our righteousness," says Jeremiah, in the passage quoted.--The
"Sprout of the Lord" may designate either him whom the Lord causes to
sprout, or him who has sprouted forth from the Lord, _i.e._, the Son of
God. Against the latter interpretation it is objected by _Hoffmann_
(_Weissagung und Erfüllung._ Th. 1, S. 214): "[Hebrew: cmH] is an
intransitive verb, so that [Hebrew: cmH] may be as well connected with
a noun which says, who causes to sprout forth, as with one which says,
whence the thing sprouts forth. Now it is quite obvious that, in the
passage before us, the former case applies, and not the latter,
inasmuch as one cannot say that something, or even some one, sprouts
forth from Jehovah; it is only with a thing, not with a person, that
[Hebrew: cmH] can be connected." But it is impossible to admit that
this objection is well founded. The person may very well be conceived
of as the soil from which the sprout goes forth. Yet we must, indeed,
acknowledge that the Messiah is nowhere called a Sprout of David. But
what decides in favour of the first view are the [Pg 15] parallel
passages. In Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, the Lord raises up to David a
righteous Sprout, and causes Him to grow up unto David. Hence here,
too, the Sprout will in that sense only be the Lord's, that he does not
sprout forth out of Him, but through Him. In Zech. iii. 8 the Lord
brings his servant _Zemach_; in Ps. cxxxii. 17, it is said: "There I
cause a horn to sprout to David," and already in the fundamental
passage, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, which contains the first germ of our passage,
David says: "For all my salvation and all my pleasure should He not
make it to _sprout_ forth."--As the words "Sprout of the Lord" denote
the heavenly origin of the Redeemer, so do the words [Hebrew: pri harC]
the earthly one, the soil from which the Lord causes the Saviour to
sprout up. These words are, by _Vitringa_ and others, translated: "the
fruit of the earth," but the correct translation is "the fruit of the
_land_." The passages, Num. xiii. 26: "And shewed them the fruit of the
land;" and Deut. i. 25: "And they took in their hands of the fruit of
the land, and brought it unto us, and brought us word again, and said,
good is the land which the Lord our God doth give us,"--these two
passages are, besides that under consideration, the only ones in which
the phrase [Hebrew: pri harC] occurs; and there is here, no doubt, an
allusion to them. The excellent natural fruit of ancient times is a
type of the spiritual fruit. To the same result--that [Hebrew: harC]
designates the definite land, that land which, in the preceding verses,
in the description of the prevailing conniption, and of the divine
judgments, was always spoken of,--to this result we are led by the fact
also, that everywhere in the Old Testament where the contrariety of the
divine and human origin of the Messiah is mentioned, the human origin
is more distinctly qualified and limited. This is especially the case
in those passages which, being dependent upon that before us, maybe
considered as a commentary upon it; in Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, where
the Lord raises a Sprout unto _David_, and Zech. vi. 12, where the man
whose name is _Zemach_ (Sprout) grows up out of its soil; comp. Heb.
vii. 14, where, in allusion to the Old Testament passages of the
Sprout--the verb [Greek: anatellein] is commonly used of the sprouting
forth of the plants (see _Bleek_ on this passage)--it is said: [Greek:
ex Iouda anatetalken ho Kurios hêmôn], _Bengel_: _ut germen justitiae_;
farther, Mic. v. 1 (2), where the eternal existence of the Messiah, [Pg
16] and His birth in Bethlehem are contrasted with one another; Is. ix.
5, (6), where the words: "Unto _us_ a child is born, unto _us_ a son is
given," are contrasted with the various designations of the Messiah,
according to His divine majesty. This qualification and limitation
which everywhere takes place, have their ground in the circumstance
that the Messiah is constantly represented to the covenant-people as
their property; and that He, indeed, was, inasmuch as salvation went
out from Jews (John iv. 22), and was destined for the Jews, into whose
communion the Gentiles were to be received; comp. my Commentary on
Revel. vii. 4. "The Sprout of the Lord," "the fruit of the land," is
accordingly He whom the Lord shall make to sprout forth from Israel.
The Sprout of the Lord, the fruit of the land is to become to the
escaped of Israel for _beauty_ and _glory_, for _exaltation_ and
_ornament_. The passages to be compared are 2 Sam. i. 19, where Saul
and Jonathan are called [Hebrew: cbi iwral]; _farther_, Is. xxviii. 5:
"In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of beauty, and for
a diadem of ornament unto the residue of His people," where the words
[Hebrew: cbi] and [Hebrew: tpart] are likewise used; _finally_, chap.
xxiv. 16, where, in reference to the Messianic time, it is said: "From
the uttermost part of the earth do we hear songs of praise: beauty (
[Hebrew: cbi]) to the righteous." By the appearance of Christ, the
covenant-people, hitherto despised, were placed in the centre of the
world's history; by it the Lord took away the rebuke of His people from
off all the earth, chap. xxv. 8. There is evidently in these words a
reference to the preceding threatening of punishment, especially to
chap. iii. 18: "In that day the Lord will take away the ornament," &c.:
But _Drechsler_ is wrong in fixing and expressing this reference thus:
"Instead of farther running after strange things, Israel will find its
glory and ornament in Him who is the long promised seed of Abrahamitic
descent." For it is not the position which Israel takes that is spoken
of, but that which is granted to them. The antithesis is between the
false glory which God takes away, and the true glory which He gives.
The Lord cannot, by any possibility, for any length of time, appear
merely _taking away_; He takes those seeming blessings, only in order
to be able to give the true ones. Every taking away is a prophecy of
giving.--"_To the escaped of Israel_," who, according to the idea of a
people of God, and according to [Pg 17] the promise of the Law (comp.
Deut. xxx. 1, ff.) can never be wanting, as little as it is possible
that the salvation should be partaken of by the whole _mass_ of the
people; sifting judgments must necessarily go before and along with it.
True prophetism everywhere knows of salvation for a remnant only. On
[Hebrew: pliTh], which does not mean "deliverance," so that the
abstract would thus here stand for the concrete, but "that which has
escaped," comp. remarks on Joel iii. 5, Vol. 1, p. 338.
All which now remains is to examine those explanations of this verse
which differ from the Messianic interpretation. 1. Following the
interpretation of _Grotius_ and others, _Gesenius_, in his Commentary,
understands by the Sprout of the Lord the new growth of the people
after their various defeats. His explanation is: "Then the sprout of
Jehovah will be splendid and glorious, and the fruit of the land
excellent and beautiful for the escaped of Israel." _Fruit of the land_
he takes in its literal sense, and understands it to mean the product
of the land. The same view is held by _Knobel_: "_He becomes for beauty
and glory_, _i.e._, the people, having reformed, prosper and form a
splendid, glorious state." And _Maurer_ in his Dictionary says: "The
Sprout of Jehovah seems to be the morally improved remnant, the new,
sanctified increase of the people." But in opposition to such a view
there is, _first_, the circumstance, that according to it the [Hebrew:
l] before [Hebrew: lcbi] and [Hebrew: lkbvr] must be understood
differently from what it is in [Hebrew: lgavN], and [Hebrew: ltpart]
which immediately follow and exactly correspond with them. There are,
_secondly_, the parallel passages chap. xxviii. 5, xxiv. 16, according
to which [Hebrew: cbi] "beauty" is conferred upon the escaped, but they
themselves do not become beauty. _Finally_--It is always most natural
to suppose that [Hebrew: cmH ihvh] and [Hebrew: pri harC] correspond
with one another, and denote the same subject which is here described
after his various aspects only. For in the same manner as [Hebrew: cmH]
and [Hebrew: pri] go hand in hand, both being taken from the territory
of botany, so [Hebrew: ihvh] and [Hebrew: harC] also stand in a
contrast which is not to be mistaken. 2. _Hitzig_, _Ewald_, _Meier_,
and others not only refer "the fruit of the land," but also the "Sprout
of Jehovah" to that which Jehovah makes to sprout forth.[2] It is true
that, in the prophetic [Pg 18] announcements, among the blessings of
the future the rich produce of the land is also mentioned (comp. chap.
xxx. 23-25), and the same is very expressly done in the Law also; but
in not a single one of these passages does the strange expression
occur, that this fruitfulness should serve to the escaped for beauty
and glory, for exaltation and ornament, or any other that bears the
slightest resemblance to it. Against this explanation there is, _in
addition_, the circumstance that the barrenness of the country is not
at all pointed out in the preceding context. _Finally_--When we
understand this expression as referring to the Messiah, this verse,
standing as it does at the head of the proclamation of salvation,
contains the fundamental thought; and in what follows we obtain the
expansion. In the verse before us we are told that in Christ the people
attain to glory,--and, in those which follow, how this glory is
manifested in them. But according to this view, every internal
connexion of the verse before us with what follows is entirely
destroyed. 3. According to _Hendewerk_, by the "Sprout of the Lord,"
"the collective person of the ruling portion in the state during the
Messianic happy time," is designated. This opinion is the beginning of
a return to the Messianic interpretation. But then only could that
ideal person be here referred to, if elsewhere in Isaiah too it would
come out strongly and decidedly. As this, however, is not the case; as,
on the contrary, the Messiah everywhere in Isaiah meets us in shining
clearness, it would be arbitrary to give up the _person_ in favour of a
_personification_. 4. _Umbreit_ acknowledges that, in the case of
[Hebrew: cmH ihvh], the Messianic interpretation is the only correct
one. "The two subsequent prophecies in chap. ix. and xi.," he says,
"are to be considered as a commentary on our short text." But it is
characteristic of his compromising manner that by "the fruit of the
land" he understands "the consequences of the dominion of the Messiah
for the land, the fruits which, in consequence of his appearing, the
consecrated soil brings forth,"--thus plainly overlooking the clear [Pg
19] contrast between the Sprout of the Lord, and the fruit of the land,
by which evidently the same thing is designated from different aspects.
Ver. 3. The Prophet now begins to show, more in detail, in how far the
Sprout of the Lord and the fruit of the land would serve for the honour
and glory of the Church. The words: "He that was left in Zion and was
spared in Jerusalem," take up the idea suggested by the "escaped of
Israel" in ver. 2. The double designation is intended to direct
attention to the thought that the remnant, and the remnant only, are
called to a participation in the glory. _Zion_ and _Jerusalem_, as the
centre of the covenant-people, here represent the whole; this is
evident from the circumstance that at the close of ver. 2, which is
here resumed, the escaped of _Israel_ were spoken of Ever since the
sanctuary and the royal palace were founded at Zion, it was in a
spiritual point of view, the residence of all Israel, who even
personally met there at the high festivals.--Whoever is left in Zion
"_shall be called holy_." The fundamental notion of holiness is that of
separation. God is holy, inasmuch as He is separated from all that is
created and finite, and is elevated above all that is finite; comp. my
Commentary on Rev. iv. 8. _Believers_ are holy, because they are
separated from the world as regards their moral existence and their
destiny. Here only the latter aspect is considered. Holy in a moral
sense they were already, inasmuch as it is this which forms the
condition of their being spared in the divine judgments. They became
holy because they are partakers of the beauty, of the exaltation, and
ornament which are to be bestowed upon the escaped by the Sprout of the
Lord. The circumstance that they have been installed into the dignity
of the saints of God implies that, when the Spirit of the Lord has
appeared, the world's power has no longer any dominion over them, but
that, on the contrary, they shall judge the world. In like manner we
read in Exod. xix. 6, in the description of the _reward_ for
faithfulness: "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy
nation;" comp. ver. 5: "And now if you will obey my voice and keep my
covenant, ye shall be a property unto me out of all people." In
reference to the exalted dignity and glory, holiness occurs in Deut.
vii. 6: "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord
thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself out of
all the people that are upon [Pg 20] the face of the earth." When the
company of Korah said: "All the congregation, they are holy" (Numb.
xvi. 3), they had in view, not the moral holiness but the dignity--a
circumstance which is quite obvious from words added: "And in the midst
of them is the Lord." And so Moses likewise speaks of the dignity in
Numb. xvi. 7: "Whom the Lord shall choose, he is the holy one." In Rom.
i. 7; Heb. iii. 1, holiness is declared to consist in being loved,
called, and chosen by God.--As regards the fulfilment of this promise,
it has its _horas_ and _moras_. It began with the first appearance of
Christ, by which the position of the true Israel to the world was
substantially and fundamentally changed. It was not without meaning
that, as early as in the apostolic times, the "Saints" was a kind of
_nomen proprium_ of believers, comp. Acts ix. 13, 32. We are even now
the sons of God, and hence even already installed into an important
portion of the inheritance of holiness; but it has not yet appeared
what we shall be, 1 John iii. 2. But the beginning, and the
continuation pervading all ages, viz., God's dealings throughout the
whole of history, whereby he ever anew lifts up His Church from the
dust of lowliness, afford to us the guarantee for the completion,
which is, with graphic vividness, described in the last two chapters
of Revelation.--"_To be called_" is more than merely "to be;" it
indicates that the _being_ is so marked as to procure for itself
acknowledgment.--The words: "_Every one that is written to life in
Jerusalem_" anew point out that judgment will go before, and by the
side of grace. The meaning of [Hebrew: HiiM] is, according to the
fundamental passage in Ps. lxix. 29, "not living ones" (_Hoffmann_,
_Weiss._ i. S. 208), but "life." In Revelation, too, the book of life,
and not the book of the living ones, is spoken of "To be written to
life" is equivalent to being ordained to life, Acts xiii. 48; comp. my
Comment. on Ps. lxix. 29; Rev. iii. 5. Life is not naked life,--a
miserable life is, according to the view of Scripture, not to be called
a life, but is a form of death only--but life in the full enjoyment of
the favour of God; comp. my Comment. on Ps. xvi. 11, xxx. 6, xxxvi. 10;
xlii. 9; lxiii. 4. The Chaldean thus paraphrases it: "All they that are
written to eternal life shall see the consolation of Jerusalem, _i.e._
the Messiah." Comp. Dan. xii. 1; Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xx. 15, xxii.
19; Phil. iv. 3; Luke x. 20. The bodily death of believers cannot
exclude them from a participation in being written to [Pg 21] life;
for, being a mere transition to life, it can, in truth, not be called a
death. Here, too, the word of Christ applies: "The maid is not dead but
sleepeth," Matt. ix. 24. The fact that there is no contradiction
between bodily death and life, _i.e._ a participation in the blessings
of the Kingdom of Christ, is pointed out by Isaiah himself in chap.
xxvi. 19: "Thy dead men shall _live_, my dead bodies shall arise, for a
dew of light is thy dew."
Ver. 4. The Prophet points out that before the Church is raised to the
dignity of the saints of God, a thorough change of its moral
conditions, an energetic expunging of the sin now prevailing in her,
must take place, "_When the Lord has washed away the filth of the
daughters of Zion._" The "daughters of Zion" are none other than those
whose haughtiness, luxury, and wantonness were described in chap. iii.
16 ff., and to whom the deepest abasement was then threatened. The
filth, under the image of which sin is here represented (comp. Prov.
xxx. 12); "A generation pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed
from their filthiness," forms the contrast to the splendid attire which
is there spoken of Behind this splendid attire the filthiness is
concealed. The filth is not washed away (1 Cor. vi. 11; Eph. v. 26)
from the daughters of Jerusalem,--for, inasmuch as this washing away is
accomplished by means of the spirit of destruction, it could not apply
to them--but from Jerusalem; comp. the phrase, "from the midst
thereof," which immediately follows. Jerusalem, the city of the Lord,
in which no unclean person, and no unclean thing are permitted to
dwell, is cleansed from the filth with which its unworthy daughters
contaminate it. "_And shall remove the blood of Jerusalem._" The "blood
of Jerusalem" is the blood which attaches to Jerusalem, which has been
shed in it. The connection of the punishment of the sins of avarice on
the part of the rulers, in chap. iii. 13-15, with the punishment of the
luxury and ostentation on the part of the women, is illustrative of the
relation of filth and blood to each other. Blood is shed in order to
furnish pride and vanity with the means of their gratification. The
avarice of the rulers, and their shedding of blood, are put together in
Ezek. xxii. 13; comp. ver. 27: "Her princes are in the midst thereof
like wolves ravening the prey, shedding blood, destroying souls, to get
dishonest gain." Bloodguiltiness those too incur who deprive the poor
of the necessary means of support, Mic. iii. 2, 3. The comparison of
[Pg 22] chap. i. 15: "Your hands are full of blood," and of ver. 21:
"But now murderers," compared with vers. 17, 23, 26, shews that we have
to think especially of unjust judges and avaricious rulers. Yet, there
is no reason for limiting ourselves to the nobles and rulers _alone_;
comp. Ezek. xxii. 29: "The people of the land use oppression, and
boldly practice robbery, and vex the poor and needy, and oppress the
stranger." Where sins so gross are still prevalent, where the law of
the Lord is so wantonly broken, an installation into the dignity of
the saints of God is out of the question. For that, it is absolutely
essential that exertions be made that the high destination of the
people: "Ye shall be holy for I am holy," become a truth; that in
a moral point of view it show itself as truly separated from the
world,--and that is something so infinitely great, that men are utterly
unable for it, that it can proceed from God only, with whom nothing is
impossible.--The last words of the verse are commonly explained: "by
the spirit of _judgment_, and by the spirit of destruction or burning."
In that case the putting away of the filth and blood by the judging
activity of the Lord, by the destruction of sin, would be spoken of
[Hebrew: mwpT], however, may also be taken in the sense of "right:" by
the spirit of right which lays hold of, and changes the well disposed
(comp. Mic. iii. 8: "But I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord,
and of _right_ and might"), and by the spirit of destruction which
consumes the disobedient. In favour of the latter view are the parallel
passages; above all, chap. xxviii. 6, where it is said of the Messianic
time, "In that day the Lord will become, &c.," "And for a spirit of
right to him that sitteth for right;" farther, chap. i. 27, 28: "Zion
shall be redeemed by right, and her converts by righteousness. But the
transgressors and sinners are destroyed together, and they that forsake
the Lord are consumed." Comp. Matt. iii. 11: [Greek autos humas
baptisei en pneumati hagiô kai puri], where likewise a double washing,
that of grace and that of wrath, is spoken of. In chap. xxxii. 15:
"Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high," Isaiah likewise
points to the regeneration which, in the Messianic time, will be
accomplished by the Spirit; and it is, according to the whole _usus
loquendi_ of the Old Testament, most natural to think of the Spirit
transforming from within The Spirit of God scarcely occurs elsewhere in
the Old Testament as the executor of God's judgments; so that the
supposition is [Pg 23] very natural that the spirit of destruction has
been brought in by the spirit of right only.--The word [Hebrew: ber]
is, by some, understood as "burning," by others, as "destruction." We
ourselves decide in favour of the latter signification, which occurs
also in chap. iv. 13, for this reason, that it is in that signification
that [Hebrew: ber] is, in Deuteronomy, used as the _terminus technicus_
of the extirpation of the wicked. If the Church does not comply with
the command: [Greek: exareite ton ponêron ex humôn autôn], 1 Cor. v.
13; Deut. xiii. 6 (5), God himself will enforce His authority by His
Spirit, who carries out the judgments of the avenging God, just as He
carries out every influence of the Creator upon the created. On the
"Spirit of the Lord," comp. my remarks on Rev. i. 4.
Ver. 5. The image is here taken from the journey of Israel through the
wilderness. During that journey, they were guided and protected by a
symbol of God's presence, which by day presented itself as smoke, and
by night assumed the form of flaming fire. By this symbol the God of
Israel was designated as the jealous God, as the living, personal
energy, energetic in His love for His people, energetic in wrath
against His and their enemies. Comp. especially Exod. xiii. 21: "And
the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them on
the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light;" and xl.
38: "For a cloud was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by
night;" comp. Numb. ix. 15, 16. The same phenomenon is to be repeated
in future, although in a different form. In a manner the most real, the
Lord will manifest himself as the living energy of His Church, dwelling
in the midst of her, and ruling over her as a protector, so that the
world's power can no longer injure her. That such will be done in and
by His _Sprout_, in Christ, appears from the relation of the verse
under consideration to ver. 2; for the verse before us still belongs to
the expansion of the proposition placed at the head of the whole: "The
_Sprout_ of the Lord becomes for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the
land for exaltation and ornament to the escaped of Israel." Christ in
His person and Spirit is the true Shechinah, the true indwelling of God
in His Church. This indwelling is, even in the Law, designated as the
highest privilege of the covenant-people; its being raised to a higher
power is therefore to the Prophet the highest blessing of the future,
the source from which all other blessings flow. That which the heathen
in vain longed [Pg 24] for and imagined; that which Israel hitherto
possessed only very imperfectly, a _praesens numen_, whereby the
antithesis of heaven and earth is done away with, and earth is
glorified into a heaven;--that, the purified Church of the Lord
possesses in the most perfect and real manner, and in it, absolute
security against the world, a decided victory over it. The words:
"_Over her assemblies_," show that the whole life of the people shall
then bear a religious character, and shall be a continual service of
God, comp. Acts ii. 42, where, as a type of the completion of the
Church, it is said: "And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles'
doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."
[Hebrew: mqra] is only the name for that which is called, "the
assembly," and stands in Levit. xxiii. and Is. i. 13 of the religious
assemblies which were held on the holy days, comp. my pamphlet: _Ueber
den Tag des Herrn S_. 32. The same phenomenon is, according to its
appearance by day, designated, at the same time, as _clouds_ and
_smoke_. Smoke is never "vapour, vapoury clouds" (_Knobel_); and here
the smoke by day corresponds with the _flaming fire_ by night. If then
the smoke can be considered as a product of the fire only (comp. my
remarks on Rev. xv. 8), the cloud cannot come into consideration
according to its matter, but according to its form only. The smoke
assumes the form of a cloud which affords protection from the burning
sun of tribulations, as once, in the burning desert, from the scorching
heat of the natural sun, comp. Num. x. 34: "And the cloud of the Lord
was upon them;" Ps. cv. 39: "He spread a cloud for a covering;" Is.
xxv. 5. The cloud which thus affords protection to the Church turns a
threatening face towards her enemies. Rev. xv. 8.--The words: "_For
above all glory is a covering_," point to the ground of the protecting,
gracious presence of God in the Church. Several interpreters explain
the sense thus: "As we cover and preserve precious things more
carefully, in order that they may not be injured, so does God in His
grace surround His Church, which has been adorned with glorious
virtues, and raised to the high dignity of the saints of God, and
protects her from every danger." Others understand by [Hebrew: kl-kbvd]
the whole glory mentioned in the preceding context; but in that case we
should expect the article. One may also supply the limitation: For, _in
the Kingdom of God_, there is a covering over all glory.
[Pg 25]
Ver. 6. God--this is the same sense--protects His Church from every
danger and calamity. By His gracious presence in His Sprout, He affords
to them that protection which a hut does from sun, storms, and rain.
Luther says: "In this passage, accordingly, Christ is held up to us as
He who in all tribulations, bodily as well as spiritual, is our
protection." There is an allusion to the 21st verse of Ps. xxxi. (which
was written by David): "Thou hidest them in the secret of thy
countenance from the conspiracy of every one; thou keepest them
secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." The pavilion in
this Psalm is a spiritual one, viz., God's grace and protection. That
word of David shall be gloriously fulfilled when the Sprout of the Lord
shall appear.--The "_Sun_" comes into consideration in its scorching
quality; and the "_heat_" is in Scripture the image of temptations,
sufferings, and trials; comp. remarks on Rev. viii. 12, xvi. 8; Song of
Sol. i. 6; Ps. cxxi. 6; Matt. xiii. 6, compared with v. 21; Is. xlix.
10, xxv. 4; and, according to the last passage, we must especially have
in view the enmity and assaults of the world's power. The "_rain_"
appears as an image of tribulation in the Song of Sol. ii. 11; Is. xxv.
4: "The spirit of the terrible ones (the passions of the kings of the
world, and conquerors) is like a violent shower against the wall;"
xxxii. 2.--A comparison of the Messianic prophecy in chap ii. with that
which we have now considered shows very clearly how necessary it is to
regard the single Messianic prophecies as fragments only, supplementing
one another, inasmuch as commonly a few aspects only were presented to
the spiritual eye of the Prophet. Just as the description in chap. ii.
receives an important supplement from the passage now considered,
inasmuch as the latter contains the mention of the personal Messiah, so
it, again, supplements that before us by announcing the participation
by the Gentiles in the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom.
[Footnote 1: Light is the image of salvation; to walk in the light is
to enjoy a participation in it. Israel is not wantonly to wander away
from the path of light which the Lord has opened up to them, into the
dark desolation of misery. In the words [Hebrew: lkv vnlkh] there is a
clear reference to [Hebrew: lkv vnelh] of the Gentile nations in ver.
3. If the Gentiles apply with such zeal for a participation in the
blessings of the Kingdom of God, how disgraceful would it be if you,
the people of the covenant, the children of the Kingdom, should lose
your glorious possession by your ungodly walk. In vers. 6-11 the
Prophet states the grounds of his admonition to the people to walk in
the light of the Lord which he had expressed in the preceding verse.
This admonition implies that there existed a danger of losing a
participation in the light; and it is this danger which the Prophet
here more particularly details. It is not without reason, so the words
may be paraphrased, that I say: "Walk ye in the light of the Lord," for
at present the Lord has _forsaken_ the people on account of their sins,
and with that, a participation in His light is incompatible. By being
full of heathenish superstition, of false confidence in earthly things,
yea, even of the most disgraceful that can be imagined for Israel,
viz., gross idolatry, they rather become more and more ripe for the
divine judgment which will break in irresistibly upon them.]
[Footnote 2: So _Gesenius_ also in the _Thesaurus_: "The whole earth
shall be holy and shall more beautifully bloom and be adorned with
plenty of fruits and corn for the benefit of those who have escaped
from those calamities." _Gesenius'_ wavering clearly shows how little
satisfaction the non-Messianic explanation affords to its own abettors.
Besides the explanations of [Hebrew: cmH ihvh] by "the new growth of
the people," and "the rich produce of the country," he advances still a
third one, viz., "a divinely favoured ruler,"--an explanation which has
even the grammar against it, as we are at liberty to translate only:
"The Sprout of the Lord;" and likewise the analogy of [Hebrew: pri
harC], according to which the Genitive can have a reference to the
_origin_ only.]
[Pg 26]
THE PROPHECY, CHAP. VII.
IMMANUEL.
A crisis of the most important nature in the history of Israel is
formed by the Syrico-Ephraemitic war, by the expedition of the allied
kings, Rezin of Damascus, and Pekah of Samaria, which had been already
prepared under the reign of Jotham, and which broke out in the first
years of Ahaz. It was in consequence of this war that Asshur came
into the land. The inroad of the Assyrian King, Pul, under Menahem
of Israel, had been transitory only, comp. Vol. 1. p. 165. It was
only with the invasion under Ahaz that the tendency of Asshur began
of making lasting conquests on the other side of the Euphrates,
which could not fail to bring about a collision with the Egyptian
power. The succeeding powers in Asia and Europe followed Asshur's
steps. "Hitherto,"--so says _Caspari_, in his pamphlet on the
Syrico-Ephraemitic war, S. 17 ff.--"hitherto Israel had to do with the
small neighbouring nations only,--now, in punishment of their sins,
oppressed by them; then, in reward of their obedience, oppressing and
ruling over them. And the Syrico-Ephraemitic war itself had been a link
only in the chain of these attacks--its last link. Israel, having
arrived at the point of being hardened, and having entered upon a path
in accordance with this tendency, required another more severe
corrective--its being crushed by the mighty world's power. The
appearance of these mighty powers, just at the period when Israel
entered upon their hardening, is most providential.--The beginning of
the end of the kingdom of the ten tribes had come, and the breaking up
of its independent political existence had commenced. As enmity to
Judah had given its origin to the kingdom of the ten tribes, so also
did it bring about its destruction; born out of it, it died of it. It
owed its existence to the incipient enmity; when the latter was
accomplished (Isa. vii. 6,) it caused its death.--The Assyrians came to
the help of Judah, but charged a high price for their help, viz.,
Judah's submission and fealty. Thirty heavy years of servitude, and, to
a great part, of [Pg 27] fears of the worst, 2 Kings xvi. 18; Is.
xxxiii. 18 (?); xxxvii. 3, followed for this kingdom also; and when, at
the close of this period, it freed itself from them after the fashion
of the kingdom of Israel, it shared nearly the same fate, 2 Kings
xviii. 31 ff. It was only to the mercy of the Lord, who looked
graciously upon the feeble beginnings of conversion, that it owed its
deliverance. The Assyrian power, which had put an end to the kingdoms
of Damascus and Israel, and which was the first power that appeared on
the stage of history and came into conflict with the people of God,
became a significant sign of the final fate of the world's power in its
attacks upon the Kingdom of God. But, as a prelude to the long series
of visitations which it had to endure from the world's power in its
different phases, Judah was even now led to the very brink of
destruction; there came a period, the 14th year of Hezekiah, when
almost nothing more of it was to be seen by the outward eye than its
metropolis exposed to the utmost danger."
A remarkable proof of the fact that the spirit which filled the
prophets was a higher one than their own, is the fact that Isaiah
recognized so distinctly and clearly the importance of the decisive
moment.
In close connection with the great crisis at which the history of the
people of God had arrived, stands the richer display of the Messianic
announcement which begins with the chapter before us. Messiah is
henceforth represented to Judah as an Immanuel against the world's
powers, as the surety for its deliverance from the severe oppressions
hanging over it, as He who at last, at His appearance, would conquer
the world, and lay it at the feet of the people of God.
After these general introductory remarks, let us turn more particularly
to the contents of the chapter before us. It was told to the house of
David: "Aram is encamped in Ephraim." The position of Ahaz was, humanly
considered, desperate. His enemies were far superior to him, and he
could scarcely hope for help from heaven, for he had an evil
conscience. The idea of seeking help from Asshur was natural. Isaiah
received a commission to oppose this idea before it became a firm
resolution. In doing so he, by no means, occupies the position of an
ingenious politician. On the contrary, the whole commission is [Pg 28]
forced upon him. It can scarcely be doubted that the Assyrians would
have penetrated to Western Asia, even if Ahaz had not called them to
his assistance. The expedition of the Syrians and Ephraimites with the
view of making conquests, could not but turn their attention to that
quarter. As the instruments of the judgments upon Damascus and Samaria,
which Isaiah announced as impending under any circumstances, we can
surely think of none but Asshur. But if once they came into these
regions, in order to chastise the haughtiness of the Syrians and
Ephraimites, who would set up as a new conquering power, then was Judah
too threatened by them. _In a political point of view it did not make
any great difference whether Ahaz sought help from the Assyrians, or
not_; on the contrary, the king of Asshur could not but be more
favourably disposed towards him for so doing. _Isaiah, throughout,
rather occupies the position of the man of God._ The kings of the
people of God were, in general, not prevented from forming alliances;
but such alliances must belong to the category of permitted human
resources. Such, however, was not the case here. Asshur was a
conquering power, altogether selfish. His help had to be purchased with
dependance, and with the danger of entire destruction; to stay upon him
was to stay upon their destroyer, Is. x. 20. Such an alliance was a _de
facto_ denial of the God of Israel, an insult to His omnipotence and
grace. If Ahaz had obeyed Him; if he had limited himself to the use of
the human means granted to him by the Lord without trusting in them,
and had placed all his confidence in the Lord, He would have delivered
him in the same manner as He afterwards delivered Hezekiah, in the
first instance from Aram and Ephraim, and then from Asshur also. But
although Ahaz did not follow the prophet, his mission was by no means
in vain. Even before the mission, this result lay open before the Lord
who sent him. The great point was to establish, before the first
conflict of Israel with the world's power, thus much, that this
conflict had been brought about by the sin of the house of David, and
that hence it did not afford any cause for doubting the omnipotence and
mercy of the Lord whose help had been offered, but rejected.
The Prophet seeks out the king at a place to which he had been driven
by his despairing disquietude which was clinging convulsively to human
resources. He endeavours, first, to exert [Pg 29] an influence upon him
by taking with him his son, whose symbolical name, containing a
prophecy of the future destinies of the people, indicated that the
king's fear of a total destruction of the State was without foundation.
After the king has thus been prepared, he endeavours to make a deeper
impression upon him by the announcement, distinct and referring to the
present case, that the enemies should not only entirely fail in their
intention of conquering and dividing between themselves the kingdom of
Judah; but that the kingdom of Ephraim was itself hastening towards
that destruction which it was preparing for its brethren, and that
after sixty-five years it should altogether lose its national
independence and existence, ver. 1-9. But Ahaz makes no reply; and his
whole deportment shows that he does not follow the Prophet's
exhortation to "take heed and be quiet," and that the words: "If ye do
not believe, ye shall not be established," with which the Prophet
closes his address, have not made any impression upon him. In order
that the greatness of the king's hardness of heart may become manifest,
the Prophet offers, in the commission of the Lord, to confirm the
certainty of his statement by a miraculous sign, which the king himself
is called upon to fix, without any restriction, in order that any
suspicion of imposition may be removed. "But Ahaz, the unbeliever, is
afraid of heavenly communications, has already chosen his help, wishes
that every thing should go on in an easy human manner, and refuses the
Lord's offer in a polite turn which even refers to the Law. A sign is
then forced upon him, because as the king of Judah, he must see and
hear for all Judah that the Lord is faithful and good."[1] The Prophet,
in ver. 14, points to the birth of the Saviour by a Virgin. How then
was it possible that in the present collision that people should be
destroyed, among whom, according to former promises. He was to be born;
that that family should be extinguished from which he was to be
descended? The name "Immanuel," by which the future Saviour is
designated as "He in whom the Lord is, in the truest manner, to be with
His people," is a guarantee for His help in the present distress also.
The Prophet then states the time in which the land shall be entirely
delivered from its present enemies. The contemporaries, as the
representative of whom [Pg 30] the child appears (the Prophet, in the
energy of his faith, has transferred the birth of this child from the
future to the present), shall, after the short space of about two
years, again obtain the full enjoyment of the products of the land,
ver. 15. For, before this period has elapsed, destruction will fall
upon the hostile kings in their own land, ver. 16. The danger,
however--and this is pointed out in ver. 17-25--will come from just
that quarter from which Ahaz expects help, viz., from Asshur. But the
security for deliverance from this danger also--the conqueror of the
world's power which was soon to begin its course in Asshur, is none
other than Immanuel, whom the Prophet, in the beginning of the
humiliation of the people of God, makes, so to say, to become man, in
order that, during the impending deep humiliation of the people of God,
He may accompany it in its history during all the stages of its
existence, until He should really become man. He is, however in this
discourse, not yet pointed out as the deliverer from Asshur, and the
world's power represented by him. The darkness of the misery to be
inflicted by Asshur should not, and could not, in the meantime, be
cleared up for Ahaz; the picture must end in night. But in the
following discourse, chap. viii. 1, ix. 6 (7), which serves as a
necessary supplement to the one before us, the Saviour is depicted
before the eyes of those despairing in the sight of Asshur; and the
two-fold repetition of His name Immanuel, in chap. viii. 8, 10, serves
to show that the two discourses are intimately connected, and form one
whole.
Ahaz persevered in his unbelief, according to 2 Kings xvi. 7, 8. He
sent messengers with large presents to Tiglath-pileser, King of
Assyria, saying: "I am _thy servant_ and _thy son_ (a word as ominous
as that: 'We have no king but Cæsar,'in John xix. 35); come up and
save me out of the hand of the King of Aram, and out of the hand of the
King of Israel which rise up against me." But before the asked-for help
came, king and people had to endure very severe sufferings from Aram
and Ephraim. Ahaz, after having first made preparations to secure
Jerusalem against the impending siege, sent out his armies. They met
with a twofold heavy defeat from the divided armies of the allied
kings,[2] from which he might have been spared by [Pg 31] being still,
and hoping. The hostile armies then came up to Jerusalem, and laid
siege to it. It was probably by the intelligence of the advance of
Asshur that they were induced to raise the siege. It was now confirmed
that the Prophet had been right in designating the two hostile kings as
mere tails of smoking firebrands. Damascus was taken by the King of
Ophir; the inhabitants were carried away into exile to Kir; Rezin was
slain, 2 Kings xvi. 9: the land of Israel was devastated; a portion of
its inhabitants was carried away into exile; the king was made
tributary, 2 Kings xv. 29. Exactly at the time fixed by the Prophet,
the overthrow of the two hostile kingdoms took place; but the
deliverance which, without any farther sacrifice, Ahaz would have
obtained, if he had believed the Prophet, had now to be purchased by
very heavy sacrifices; and with perfect justice it is said in 2 Chron.
xxviii. 20, 21, that the king of Asshur did not help him, but rather,
by coming unto him, distressed him. Ahaz purchased this help at the
price of his independence, and had probably to submit to very hard
claims being made upon him. (_Caspari_, S. 60.) The world's power, to
which Ahaz had offered a finger, seized, more and more, the whole hand,
and held it by a firm grasp. Under Hezekiah, faith broke through the
consequences of the sin of the family; but this interruption lasted as
long only as did the faith. In addition to that which Ahaz had, for his
unbelief, to suffer from Aram, Ephraim, and Asshur, came the rebellion
of the neighbouring nations,--of the Edomites, according to 2 Chron.
xxviii. 17, and of the Philistines, according to ver. 18.
Ver. 1. "_And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham,
the son of Uzziah, that Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah the son of
Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem, to war against
it, and could not fight against it._"
In thus tracing back the pedigree of Ahaz to Uzziah, there is a
reference to chap. vi. 1: "In the year that King Uzziah [Pg 32] died,"
&c. These two chapters stand related to each other as prophecy and
fulfilment. It was in the year of Uzziah's death that the Prophet had
been seized with fearful forebodings; and by the divine word these
fearful forebodings had soon been raised into a clear knowledge of the
threatening judgments which were impending. Under Ahaz, the second
successor of Uzziah, this knowledge began to be realized, keeping pace
with the hardening which in Ahaz had become personified. He, the type
of the unbelieving Jewish people, did not hear and understand, did not
see and perceive; and the announcement of the Prophet served merely
to increase his hardening. Even as early as that, the germ of the
carrying away of the people, announced by the Prophet in chap. vi., was
formed.--The circumstance of the hostile kings being introduced as
_going up_ implies the spiritual elevation of Jerusalem; comp. remarks
on Ps. xlviii. 3; xlviii. 17. The city of God is unconquerable unless
her inhabitants and, above all, the anointed one of God, make, by their
unbelief, their glorious privilege of no avail. In the last words:
"_And could not fight against it_," (the singular [Hebrew: ikl] because
Rezin is the chief person, Rezin and Pekah being identical with Rezin
with Pekah, comp. Esth. iv. 16), the result of the siege is
anticipated; and this is easily accounted for by the consideration that
ver. 1 serves as an introduction to the whole account, stating, in
general terms, the circumstances which induced the Prophet to come
publicly forward. In the following verses, the share only is mentioned
which the Prophet took in the matter; and the account is closed after
he has discharged his commission. The apparent contradiction to 2 Kings
xvi. 5, according to which Jerusalem was really besieged,--a
contradiction which occurs also in that passage itself: "And they
besieged Ahaz, and could not fight"--is most simply reconciled by the
remark that a fruitless struggle can, as it were, not be called a
struggle, just as, _e. g._, in the Old Testament, such as have a name
little known are spoken of as being without a name.
Ver. 2, "_And it was told to the house of David, saying: Aram rests
upon Ephraim. Then his heart trembled, and the heart of his people,
like as the trembling of the trees of the wood before the wind._"
The representative of the house of David was, according to [Pg 33] ver.
1, Ahaz, to whom the suffix in [Hebrew: lbbv] refers. It is thereby
intimated that Ahaz does not come into consideration as an individual,
but as a representative of the whole Davidic family, of which the
members were responsible, conjunctly and severally, and which in Ahaz
denied their God, and gave themselves up to the world's power,--a deed
of the family from the consequences of which a heroic faith only, like
that of Hezekiah, could deliver, but in such a manner only that it at
once became valid again when this faith ceased, until at length in
Christ the house of David was raised to glory. Ver. 19 shows that
[Hebrew: nvH] must be taken in the signification "to let oneself down,"
"to sit down," "to encamp." The anguish of the natural man, who has not
his strength in God at the breaking in of danger, is most graphically
described.
Ver. 3. "_And the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, thou and
Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in
the highway of the fuller's field._"
Why is the Prophet to seek out the king just at this place? The answer
is given by chap. xxii. 2. "And a reservoir you make between the two
walls for the waters of the old pool: and not do ye look unto him who
makes it (viz., the impending calamity), and not do ye regard him who
fashioned it long ago." When a siege of Jerusalem was imminent, in the
lower territory, the first task was to cut off the water from the
hostile army. This measure Hezekiah, according to 2 Chron. xxxii. 3,
took against Sennacherib: "And he took counsel with his princes and his
mighty men, to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the
city, and they helped him." That might be done in faith; but he who,
like Ahaz, did not stand in the faith, sought in it, _per se_, his
safety; his despairing heart clung to such measures. The stopping of
the fountains was, in his case, on a level with seeking help from the
Assyrians. It is thus in the midst of his sin that the Prophet seeks
out the king, and recalls to his conscience: "take heed and be quiet."
But why did the Prophet take his son Shearjashub with him? It surely
cannot be without significance; for otherwise it would not have been
recorded, far less would it have been done at the express command of
the Lord. As the boy does not appear actively, the reason can only be
in the signification of the name. According to chap. viii., the Prophet
was accustomed to give to [Pg 34] his sons symbolical names which had a
relation to the destinies of the nation. They were, according to chap.
viii. 18, "for signs and for wonders in Israel." But as an
interpretation of the name, the passage chap. x. 21 is to be
considered: "The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob unto the
mighty God." The word [Hebrew: wvb] can, accordingly, be understood of
returning to the Lord, of repentance only, comp. chap. i. 27; Hos. iii.
5. But with repentance the recovery of salvation is indissolubly
connected. The reason why it is impossible that they who commit the sin
against the Holy Ghost shall never recover salvation lies solely in the
circumstance, that it is impossible that they should be renewed to
repentance. The fundamental passage, which is comprehended in the name
of the Prophet's son: "And thou returnest unto the Lord thy God.... And
the Lord thy God turneth thy captivity (_i.e._, thy misery), and hath
compassion upon thee, and returneth and gathereth thee from all the
nations" (Deut. xxx. 2, 3), emphatically points out the indissoluble
connection of the return to the Lord, and of the return of the Lord to
His people. This connection comes out so much the more clearly, when we
consider that, according to Scripture, repentance is not the work of
man but of God, and is nothing else but the beginning of the bestowal
of salvation; comp. Deut. xxx. 6: "And the Lord thy God circumciseth
thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live;" Zech.
xii. 10. King and people feared entire destruction; and it was at this
that their powerful enemies aimed. Isaiah took his son with him, "as
the living proof of the preservation of the nation, even amidst the
most fearful destruction of the greater part of it." After having in
this manner endeavoured to free their minds from the extreme of fear,
he seeks to elevate them to joyful hopes, by the prophetical
announcement proper, which showed that, from this quarter, not even the
future great judgment, which would leave a portion only, was to be
feared.
Ver. 4. "_And say unto him: Take heed and be quiet; fear not, nor let
thy heart be tender for the two ends of these smoking firebrands, for
the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and of the son of Remaliah._"
[Pg 35]
The words "_Take heed_" point to the dangerous consequences of fear;
comp. ver. 9: "If ye do not believe, ye shall not be established." On
the words "_be quiet_," lit., make quiet, viz., thy heart and walk,
comp. chap. xxx. 15: "For thus saith the Lord: By returning and rest ye
shall be saved; in _quietness_ and confidence shall be your strength;
and ye would not." Such as he was, Ahaz could not respond to the
exhortations to be quiet. Quietness is a product of _faith_. But the
way of faith stood open to Ahaz every moment, and by his promising word
and by his example, the Prophet invited him to enter upon it. In the
words: "Fear not," &c., there is an unmistakable reference to Deut. xx.
1, ff., according to which passage the priest was, on the occasion of
hostile oppression, to speak to the people: "Let not your hearts be
tender, and be not terrified." That which, in the Law, the priest was
commanded to do, is here done by the Prophet, who was obliged so often
to step in as a substitute, when the class of the ordinary servants
fell short of the height of their calling.--The "firebrand" is the
image of the conqueror who destroys countries by the fire of war, comp.
remarks on Rev. viii. 8. The Prophet is just about to announce to the
hostile kings their impending overthrow; for this reason, he calls them
_ends_ of firebrands, which no longer blaze, but only glimmer. He calls
them thus because he considers them with the eye of _faith_; to the
bodily eye a bright flame still presented itself, as the last words:
"For the fierce anger," &c., and vers. 5 and 6 show. _Chrysostom_
remarks: "He calls these kings 'firebrands,'to indicate at the same
time their violence, and that they are to be easily overcome; and it is
for this reason, that he adds 'smoking,'_i.e._, that they were near
being altogether extinguished."
Vers. 5, 6. "_Because Aram meditates evil against thee, Ephraim and the
son of Remaliah, saying: Let us go up against Judah, and drive it to
extremity, and conquer it for us, and set up as a king in the midst of
it the son of Tabeal._"
We have here, farther carried out, the thought indicated by the words:
"for the fierce anger," &c. The interval, in the original text, between
vers. 6 and 7, is put in to prevent the false connection of these
verses with ver. 7 (_Hitzig_ and _Ewald_).--[Hebrew: qvC] always means
"to loathe," "to experience disgust;" here, [Pg 36] in Hiph., "to cause
disgust," "to drive to extremity;" comp. my work on Balaam, Rem. on
Num. xxii. 3.--[Hebrew: bqe] means always: "to cleave asunder," "to
open," "to conquer."--The words: "_For us_," show that Tabeal is to be
the vassal only of the two kings. The absolute confidence with which
the Prophet recognizes the futility of the plan of the two kings, forms
a glaring contrast to the modern view of Prophetism, Ver. 2 shows in
what light ordinary consciousness did, and could not fail to look on
the then existing state of things.
Ver. 7. "_Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: It shall not stand, neither
shall it come to pass._" (A plan stands when it is carried out.)
Ver. 8. "_For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is
Rezin, and in threescore and five years more, Ephraim shall be broken,
and be no more a people._"
Ver. 9. "_And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria
is Remaliah's son. If ye believe not, ye shall not be established._"
Each of these two verses forms a complete whole.--The words: "For the
head of Aram," &c., to "Rezin" receive their explanation from the
antithesis to vers. 5 and 6, where the king of Aram and the king of
Ephraim had declared their intention of extending their dominion over
Judah. As, concerning this intention and this hope, the Lord has
declared His will that it shall not be, we must understand: Not as
regards Judah, and not as regards Jerusalem. It is in vain that men's
thoughts exalt themselves against the purposes of God. From Aram, the
Prophet turns, in the second part of the verse, to Ephraim: "And even
Ephraim! What could it prevail against the Lord and His Kingdom! It
surely should give up all attempts to get more; its days are numbered,
the sword is already suspended over its own head." But inasmuch as it
is possible, although not likely, that Ephraim, before its own
overthrow, may still bring evil upon Judah, this is expressly denied in
ver. 9: Samaria, according to the counsel of God, and the limit
assigned to it, is the head of Ephraim only, and not, at the same time,
of Judah, &c. With this are then connected the closing words: "If ye
believe not, ye shall not be established" (properly, the consequence
will be that ye do not continue), which are equivalent to it: it is
hence not Samaria [Pg 37] and the son of Remaliah that you have to
fear; the enemy whom you have to dread, whom you have to contend
against with prayer and supplication, is in yourselves. Take heed lest
a similar cause produce a similar effect, as in the last clause of ver.
8 it has been threatened against Ephraim.--This prophecy and warning,
one would have expected to have produced an effect so much the deeper,
because they were not uttered by some obscure fanatic, but by a worthy
member of a class which had in its favour the sanction of the Lawgiver,
and which in the course of centuries had been so often and so
gloriously owned and acknowledged by God.[3]
[Pg 38]
Vers. 10, 11. "_And the Lord spoke farther unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee
a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it from the depth, or above from the
height._"
Ahaz observed a dignified silence after those words of the Prophet;
but his whole manner shews the Prophet that they have not made any
impression upon him. If David's spirit had rested on Ahaz, he would
surely, if he had wavered at all, have, on the word of the Prophet,
thrown himself into the arras of his God. But in order that the
depth of his apostacy, the greatness of his guilt, and the justice
of the divine judgments may become manifest, God shows him even a
deeper condescension. The Prophet offers to prove the truth of his
announcement by any miraculous work which the king himself should
determine, and from which he might, at the same time, see God's
omnipotence, and the Divine mission of the Prophet. As Ahaz refused
the offered sign, the word 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13: [Greek: ei arnoumetha,
kakeinos arnêsetai hêmas. ei apistoumen, ekeinos pistos
menei--arnêsasthai gar heauton ou dunatai] came into application.
According to Deut. vii. 9 ff. the truth and faithfulness of God must
now manifest itself in the [Pg 39] infliction of severe visitations
upon the house of David.--The character of a _sign_ is, in general,
borne by everything which serves for certifying facts which belong to
the territory of faith, and not to that of sight. 1. In some instances,
the sign consists in a mere naked word; thus in Exod. iii. 12: "And
this shall be the sign unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast
brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this
mountain." Moses'doubts of the truth of his Divine mission originated
in the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in the condition of
those to whom he was sent. From these doubts he was delivered by the
announcement that, at the place where he had been called, he, at the
head of the delivered people, should serve his God. This was to him a
_sign_ that God was in earnest in calling him. 2. In other instances
the assurance given by the sign consists in its perceptibility and
corporeality; so that the word assumes, as it were, flesh and blood. A
case of this kind it is, _e.g._, when, in chap. viii. 18, Isaiah calls
his two sons, to whom, at the command of God, he had given symbolical
names, expressive of the future salvation of the covenant-people,
"Signs and wonders in Israel;" farther, chap. xx. 3, where the Prophet
walks naked and barefoot for a sign of the calamity impending over
Egypt and Ethiopia in three years. 3. In another class of signs, a fact
is announced which is, in itself, natural, but not to be foreseen by
any human combination, the coming to pass of which, in the immediate
future, furnishes the proof that, at a distant future, that will be
fulfilled which was foretold as impending. The wonderful element, and
the demonstrative power do not, in such a case, lie in the matter of
the sign, but in the telling of it beforehand. It is in this sense
that, in 1 Sam. x., Samuel gives several _signs_ to Saul, that God had
destined him to be king, _e.g._, that in a place exactly fixed, he
would meet two men who would bring him the intelligence that the lost
asses were found; that, farther onwards, he would meet with three men,
one of whom would be carrying three kids, another, three loaves of
bread, and another, a bottle of wine, &c. In 1 Sam. ii. 34, the sudden
death of his two sons is given to Eli as a sign that all the calamities
threatened against his family should certainly come to pass. In Jer.
xliv. 29, 30, the impending defeat of Pharaoh-Hophras is given as a
_sign_ of the divine vengeance breaking in upon the Jews in Egypt. Even
before the [Pg 40] thing came to pass, it could not in such a case, be
otherwise than that the previous condition and foundation brought
before the eyes in a lively manner (Jer. xliv. 30: "_Behold_, I give
Pharaoh-Hophras into the hands of his enemies") gave a powerful shock
to the doubts as to whether the fact in question would come to pass. 4.
In other cases, the assurance was given in such a manner, that all
doubts as to the truth of the announcement were set at rest by the
immediate performance of a miraculous work going beyond the ordinary
laws of nature. Thus, _e.g._, Isaiah says to Hezekiah, in chap. xxviii.
7: "And this shall be the sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord
will do this thing which He has spoken," and, as a _sign_ that the Lord
would add fifteen years to the life of the King, who was sick unto
death, he makes the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz to go back ten
degrees. Of this description were also the signs granted to Gideon,
and, in many respects, the plagues in Egypt also. In the passage before
us, no other sign can possibly be spoken of than one of the _two last
classes_. For it was a real, miraculous sign only which could possibly
exert any influence on a mind so darkened as was that of Ahaz, and it
was the vain offer of such an one only which was fitted to bring to
light his obduracy. If, then, the Prophet was willing and able to give
a real, miraculous sign, why, then, is the answer of Ahaz so
unsuitable? And we can surely not suppose, as _Meier_ does, that he
should have intentionally misunderstood the Prophet. The temptation of
the Lord by the children of Israel, to which the word of the Lord,
Deut. vi. 16, quoted by Ahaz, refers, consisted, according to Exod.
xvii., in their having asked _water_, as a _miraculous sign_ that the
Lord was truly in the midst of them. How could the Prophet reproach
Ahaz with having offended, not men merely, but God, unless he had
offered to prove, by a fact which lay absolutely beyond the limits of
nature, the truth of his announcement, the divinity of Him who gave it,
the divinity of his own mission, and the soundness of his advice?
_Hendewerk_ is of opinion that "it is difficult to say what the author
would have made to be the sign in the heavens; probably, a very simple
thing." But in making this objection it is forgotten that Isaiah gives
_free choice_ to the king. _Hitzig_ says: "Without knowing it, Isaiah
here plays a very dangerous game. For if Ahaz had accepted his
proposition, Jehovah would [Pg 41] probably have left His servant in
the lurch, and he would have begun to doubt of his God and of himself."
In these words, at all events, it is conceded that the prophets
themselves would not be what people in modern times would have them to
be. If such was their position towards _miracles_, then, in their own
convictions, _prophecies_, too, must be something else than general
descriptions, and indefinite forebodings. But how should it have been
possible that an order could have maintained itself for centuries, the
most prominent members of which gave themselves up to such enthusiastic
imprudence and rashness? Moreover, it is overlooked that afterwards, to
Hezekiah, our Prophet grants that in reality which here he offers to
Ahaz in vain,--[Hebrew: hemq] and [Hebrew: hgbh] are _Infin. absol._
"going high," "going low." The Imperat. [Hebrew: walh] must be
understood after [Hebrew: hgbh] also. Some explain [Hebrew: walh] by
"to hell," "down to hell;" but this is against the form of the word,
which it would be arbitrary to change. Nor does one exactly see how, if
we except, perhaps, the apparition of one dead, Isaiah could have given
to the king a sign from the Sheol; and in other passages, too (comp.
Joel iii. 3 [ii. 30]), signs in the heavens and in the earth are
contrasted with one another. _Theodoret_ remarks that both kinds of
miracles, among which the Lord here allowed a choice to Ahaz, were
granted by Him to his pious son, Hezekiah, inasmuch as He wrought a
phenomenon in _heaven_ which affected the going back of the shadow on
the sun-dial of Ahaz; and on _earth_, inasmuch as He, in a wonderful
manner, destroyed the Assyrians, and restored the king to health.
_Jerome_ farther remarks, that, from among the plagues in Egypt, the
lice, frogs, &c., were signs on earth; the hail, fire, and three day's
darkness, were signs in the heaven. It is on the passage before us that
the Pharisees take their stand, when in Matt. xvi. 1 they ask from the
Lord that He should grant them a sign from heaven. If even the Prophet
Isaiah offered to prove in such a manner his divine mission, then,
according to their opinion, Christ was much more bound to do this,
inasmuch as He set up far higher claims. But they overlooked the
circumstance that enough had already been granted for convincing those
who were well disposed, and that it can never be a duty to convince
obstinate unbelief in a manner so palpable.
[Pg 42]
Ver. 12. "_And Ahaz said: I will not ask, neither will I tempt the
Lord._"
Ahaz declines the offer by referring to Deut. vi. 16., and thus
assuming the guise of reverence for God and His commandment. "He
pretends," says _Calvin_, "to have faith in the words of the Prophet,
and not to require anything besides the word." The same declarations of
the Law, the Lord opposes to Satan, when the latter would induce Him to
do something for which he had no word of God, Matt. iv. 7. That would
really have been a tempting of God. Ahaz had no doubt that the miracle
would really be performed; but he had a dislike to enter within the
mystical sphere. Who knows whether the God who grants the miracle is
really the highest God? comp. Is. x. 10, 11, xxxvi. 18-20, xxxvii.
10-12. Who knows whether He is not laying for him a trap; whether, by
preventing him from seeking the help of man. He is not to bring upon
him the destruction which his conscience tells him he has so richly
deserved? At all events the affording of His help is clogged with a
condition which he is resolved not to fulfil, viz., his conversion. A
better and easier bargain, he thought, could be struck with the
Assyrians; how insatiable soever they might be, they did not ask the
heart. How many do even now-a-days rather perish in sin and misery,
than be converted!
Ver. 13. "_And he said: Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it too little
for you to provoke man, that you provoke also my God?_"
When Ahaz had before refused to believe in the simple announcement of
the Prophet, his sin was more pardonable; for, inasmuch as Isaiah had
not proved himself outwardly as a divine ambassador, Ahaz sinned to a
certain degree against man only, against the Prophet only, by unjustly
suspecting him of a deceitful pretension to a divine revelation. Hence,
Isaiah continues mild and gentle. But when Ahaz declined the offered
sign, _God himself_ was provoked by him, and his wickedness came
evidently to light. It is substantially the same difference as that
between the sin against the _Son of Man_, the Christ coming outwardly
and as a man only (Bengel: _quo statu conspicu, quatenus aequo tum loco
cum hominibus conversabatur_), and the sin against the Holy Ghost who
powerfully glorifies Him outwardly and inwardly. It is the antithesis
[Pg 43] of the relative ignorance of what one is doing, and of the
absolute unwillingness which purposely hardens itself to the truth
known, or easy to be known. We say _relative_ ignorance; for an element
of obduracy and hardening already existed, if he did not believe the
Prophet, even without a sign. For the fact that the Prophet was sent by
God, and spoke God's word, was testified to all who would hear it, even
by the inner voice, just as in every sin against the Son of Man there
is always already an element of the sin against the Holy Ghost.--The
truth that godlessness is the highest folly is here seen in a very
evident manner. The same Ahaz who rejects the offer of the living God,
who palpably wishes to reveal to him that He is a living God,
sacrifices his son to the dead idol Moloch, who never yet gave the
smallest sign of life! In this mirror we may see the condition of human
nature.--The circumstance that it is not Ahaz, but the house of David
that is addressed, indicates that the deed is a deed of the whole
house.--The Prophet says, "_My God_," _i.e._, the God whose faithful
servant I am, and in whom ye hypocrites have no more any share. In Ver.
11, the Prophet had still called Him the God of Ahaz.
Ver. 14. "_Therefore the Lord himself giveth you a sign: Behold the
Virgin is with child, and heareth a Son, and thou callest his name
Immanuel._"
Ahaz had refused the proffered sign; the whole depth of his apostacy
had become manifest; no further regard was to be had to him. But it was
necessary to strengthen those who feared God, in their confidence in
the Lord, and in their hope in him. For this reason, the Prophet gives
a sign, even against the will of Ahaz, by which the announcement of the
deliverance from the two kings was confirmed. Your weak, prostrate
faith, he says, may erect itself on the certain fact that, in the Son
of the Virgin, the Lord will some day be with us in the truest manner,
and may perceive therein a guarantee and a pledge of the lower help in
the present danger also.--"Therefore"--because ye will not fix upon a
sign. _Reinke_, in the ably written Monograph on this passage, assigns
to [Hebrew: lkN] the signification, "nevertheless," which is not
supported by the _usus loquendi_.--[Hebrew: itN] must be translated as
a Present; for the pregnancy of the Virgin and birth of Immanuel are
present to [Pg 44] the Prophet; and the fact cannot serve as a sign, in
so far as it manifests itself outwardly, but only in so far as, by
being foretold, it is realized as present.--[Hebrew: hva] _He_, _i.e._,
of His own accord without any co-operation, such as would have taken
place if Ahaz had asked the sign.--[Hebrew: lkM] refers by its form to
the house of David; but in determining the sign, it is not the real
condition of its representative at that time which is regarded, but as
he ought to be. In substance, the sign given to ungodly Ahaz is
destined for believers only.--[Hebrew: hnh] "behold" indicates the
energy with which the Prophet anticipates the future; in his spirit
it becomes to him the immediate present. Thus it was understood as
early as by _Chrysostom_: [Greek: monon gar ouk horôntos ên ta ginomena
kai phantazomenou kai pollên echontos huper tôn eirêmenôn plêrophorian,
tôn gar hêmeterôn ophthalmôn ekeinoi saphesteron ta mê horômena
eblepon.]--The article in [Hebrew: helmh] cannot refer to _the_ virgin
_known_ as the mother of the Saviour; for, besides the passage before
us, it is only Micah v. 2 (3) which mentions the mother of the Saviour,
and it is our passage only which speaks of her as a _virgin_. In
harmony with [Hebrew: hnh], the article in [Hebrew: helmh] might be
explained from the circumstance that the Virgin is present to the
inward perception of the Prophet--equivalent to "the virgin there." But
since the use of the article in the _generic_ sense is so general, it
is most natural to understand "the virgin" as forming a contrast to the
married or old woman, and hence, in substance, as here equivalent to
_a_ virgin. To this view we are led also by the circumstance that, in
the parallel passage, Mic. v. 2 (3) [Hebrew: ivldh] "a bearing woman"
is used without the article.--[Hebrew: elmh] is, by old expositors,
commonly derived from [Hebrew: elM] in the signification "to conceal" A
virgin, they assume, is called a _concealed_ one, with reference to the
customs of the East, where the virgins are obliged to lead a concealed
life. Thus it was understood by _Jerome_ also: "_Almah_ is not applied
to girls or virgins generally, but is used emphatically of a hidden and
concealed virgin, who is never accessible to the look of males, but who
is with great care watched by the parents." But all parties now rightly
agree that the word is to be derived from [Hebrew: elM], in the
signification, "to grow up." To offer here any arguments in proof would
be a work of supererogation, as they are offered by all dictionaries.
But with all that, _Luther's_ remark is even now in full force: "If [Pg
45] a Jew or a Christian can prove to me that in any passage of
Scripture _Almah_ means 'a married woman,'I will give him a hundred
florins, although God alone knows where I may find them." It is true
that [Hebrew: elmh] is distinguished from [Hebrew: btvlh], which
designates the virgin state as such, and in this signification occurs
in Joel i. 8. also where the bride laments over her bridegroom whom she
has lost by death. Inviolate chastity is, in itself, not implied in the
word. But certain it is that [Hebrew: elmh] designates an unmarried
person in the first years of youth; and if this be the case, un
violated chastity is a matter of course in this context; for if the
mother of the Saviour was to be an _unmarried_ person, she could be a
virgin only; and, in general, it is inconceivable that the Prophet
should have brought forward a relation of impure love. In favour of "an
unmarried person" is, in the first instance, the derivation. Being
derived from [Hebrew: elM], "to grow up," "to become marriageable,"
[Hebrew: elmh] can denote nothing else than _puella nubilis_. But still
more decisive is the _usus loquendi_. In Arabic and Syriac the
corresponding words are never used of married women, and _Jerome_
remarks, that in the Punic dialect also a virgin proper is called
[Hebrew: elmh]. Besides in the passage before us, the word occurs in
Hebrew six times (Gen. xxiv. 43; Exod. ii. 8; Ps. lxviii. 26; Song of
Sol. i. 3, vi. 8; Prov. xxx. 19); but in all these passages the word
is undeniably used of unmarried persons. In the two passages of the
Song of Solomon, the [Hebrew: elmvt] designate the nations which have
not yet attained to an union with the heavenly Solomon, but are
destined for this union. In chap. vi. 8, they are, as _brides_,
expressly contrasted with the _wives_ of the first and second class.
Marriage forms the boundary; the _Almah_ appears here distinctly as the
anti-thesis to a married woman. It is the passage in Proverbs only
which requires a more minute examination, as the opponents have given
up all the other passages, and seek in it alone a support for their
assertion that [Hebrew: elmh] may be used of a married woman also. The
passage in its connection runs as follows: Ver. 18. "There be three
things which are too wonderful for me, and four which I know not. Ver.
19. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon the rock,
the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a
maid. Ver. 20. This is the way of an adulterous woman; she [Pg 46]
eateth, and wipeth her mouth and saith: I have done no wickedness."
According to _De Wette_, _Bertheau_, and others, the _tertium
comparationis_ for every thing is to lie in this only, that the ways do
not leave any trace that could be recognized. But the traceless
disappearing is altogether without foundation; there is not one word to
indicate it; and it is quite impossible that that on which every thing
depends should have been left to conjecture. Farther,--instead of the
eagle, every other bird might have been mentioned, and the words "in
the air" would be without meaning, as well as the words "in the heart
of the sea" mentioned in reference to the ship. But the real point of
view is expressly stated in ver. 18. It is the _incomprehensible_. It
is thus only that ver. 20, for which the other verses prepare the way,
falls in with the tendency of the whole. In the way of the adulteress,
that which is pointed out is not that it cannot be known, but the moral
incomprehensibility that she, practising great wickedness which is
worthy of death, and will unavoidably bring destruction upon her,
behaves as if there were nothing wrong, as if a permitted enjoyment
were the point in question, that she eats the poisoned bread of
unchaste enjoyment as if it were ordinary bread; comp. ix. 17, xx. 17;
Ps. xiv. 4. Four incomprehensible things in the natural territory are
made use of to illustrate an incomprehensible thing in the ethical
territory. The whole purpose is _to point out the mystery of sin_. In
the case of the _eagle_, it is the boldness of his flight in which the
miraculous consists. The speed and boldness of his flight is elsewhere
also very commonly mentioned as the characteristic of the eagle; it is
just that which makes him the king of birds. In the case of the
_serpent_, the wonder is that, although wanting feet, it yet moves over
the smooth rock which is inaccessible to the proud horse; comp. Amos
vi. 12: "Do horses run upon the rock." In the _ship_, it is the
circumstance that she safely passes over the abyss which, as it would
appear, could not fail to swallow her up. _The way of a man with a
maid_ occupies the last place in order to intimate that [Hebrew: drK],
as in the case of the adulteress, denotes the _spiritual_ way. What is
here meant is the relation of the man to the virgin, _generally_, for
if any _particular_ aspect had been regarded, _e. g._, that of
boldness, cunning, or secrecy, it [Pg 47] ought to have been pointed
at. The way of the man with the maid is the secret of which mention is
made as early as in Gen. ii. 24,--the union of the strong with the weak
and tender (comp. the parallel passage, Jer. xxxi. 22), the secret
attraction which connects with one another the hearts, and at last, the
bodies. The end of the way is marriage. It is the _young_ love which
specially bears the character of the mysterious; after the relation has
been established, it attracts less wonder.--[Hebrew: hrh] is the femin.
of the verbal adj. [Hebrew: hrh]. The fundamental passage, Gen. xvi.
11, where the angel of the Lord says to Hagar: "Behold thou art with
child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because
the Lord has heard thy affliction," shows that we must translate: The
virgin _is_ with child, and not: becomes with child. The allusion to
that passage in Genesis is very significant. In that case, as well as
in the one under consideration, salvation is brought into connection
with the birth of a child. To the birth of Ishmael, the despairing
Hagar is directed as to a security for the divine favour; to the birth
of Immanuel, the desponding people are directed as to the actual proof
that God is with them. If the _Almah_ represents herself to the Prophet
as being already with child, then passages such as Is. xxix. 8, Matt.
xi. 5, are not applicable. A virgin who is with child cannot be one who
was a virgin.--The form [Hebrew: qrat] may be 3d fem. for [Hebrew:
qrah], comp. Jer. xliv. 23; but the fundamental passage in Gen. xvi. 11
is decisive for considering it as the 2d fem.: "_thou_ callest," as an
address to the virgin; in which case the form is altogether regular. It
was not a rare occurrence in Israel that mothers gave the name to
children, Gen. iv. 1, 25, xix. 37, xxix. 32. The circumstance,
therefore, that the giving of the name is assigned to the mother (the
virgin) affords no ground for supposing, as many of the older
expositors do, that this is an intimation that the child would not have
a human father. "Thou callest" can, on the contrary, according to the
custom then prevalent, be substantially equivalent to: they shall name,
Matt. [Greek: kalesousi], _Jerome_: _vocabitur_. The name is, of
course, not to be considered as an ordinary _nomen proprium_, but as a
designation of his nature and character. It may be understood in
different ways. Several interpreters, _e. g._, _Jerome_, referring to
passages such as Ps. xlvi. 8, lxxxix. 25, Is. xliii. 2, Jer. i. 8, see
[Pg 48] in it nothing else than an appeal to, and promise of divine
aid. According to others, the name is to be referred to God's becoming
man in the Messiah; thus _Theodoret_ says: "The name reveals the God
who is with us, the God who became man, the God who took upon Him the
human nature." In a similar manner _Irenaeus_, _Tertullian_,
_Chrysostom_, _Lactantius_, _Calvin_, and others, express themselves.
But those very parallel passages just quoted show that the name in
itself has no distinct reference to the incarnation of God in Christ.
But from the passage chap. ix. 5, (6), which is so closely connected
with the one before us, and in which the Messiah is called _God-hero_,
(the mighty God), and His divine nature so emphatically pointed out
(comp. also Mic. v. 1 [2],) it plainly appears that the Prophet had in
view the highest and truest form of God's being with His people, such
as was made manifest when the word became flesh. (Chrysostom says:
"Then, above all, God was with us on earth, when He was seen on earth,
and conversed with man, and manifested so great care for us.")
According, then, to the interpretation given, this verse before us
affirms that, at some future period, the Messiah should be born by a
virgin, among the covenant people, who in the truest manner would bring
God near to them, and open the treasures of His salvation. In Vol. I.
p. 500 ff., we proved that this explanation occurs already in the
Gospel according to St. Matthew. According to the interpretation of the
Apostle, the passage can refer to Christ only, and finds in him not
only the highest, but the only fulfilment. In the Christian Church,
throughout all ages, the Messianic explanation was the prevailing one.
It was held by all the Fathers of the Church, and by all other
Christian commentators down to the middle of the 18th century,--only
that some, besides the higher reference to the Messiah, assumed a lower
one to some event of that period. With the revival of faith, this view,
too, has been revived. It is proved by the parallel passage, chap. ix.
5 (6). That passage presents so remarkable an agreement with the one
now under consideration, that we cannot but assume the same subject in
both. "Behold, a virgin is with child, and beareth a son"--"A child is
born unto us, a son is given;"--"They call him Immanuel," _i.e._, Him
in whom God will be with us in the truest manner--"They call Him [Pg
49] Wonder-Counsellor, the God-Hero, Ever-Father, the Prince of Peace."
Both of these passages can the less be separated from one another, that
chap. viii. 8 is evidently intended to lead from the one to the other.
In this passage it is said of the _world's power_, which in the
meantime, and in the first place, was represented by _Asshur_: "And the
stretchings out of his wings are the fulness of the breadth of thy
land, Immanuel," i. e., his wings will cover the whole extent of thy
land,--the stretching of the wings of this immense bird of prey,
Asshur, comprehends the whole land. In the words: "Thy land, O
Immanuel," the prophecy of the wonderful Child, in chap. viii. 23-ix. 6
(ix. 1-7), is already prepared. The land in which Immanuel is to be
born, which belongs to Him, cannot remain continually the property of
heathen enemies. Every destruction is, at the same time, a prophecy of
the restoration. A look to the wonderful Child, and despair must flee.
Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Every attempt to assign the
Immanuel to the lower sphere, must by this passage be rendered futile.
For how, in that case, could Canaan be called _His_ land? The
signification "native country" which [Hebrew: arC], it is true,
sometimes receives by the context, does not suit here. For the passage
just points out the contrast of reality and idea, that the world's
power takes possession of the land which _belongs_ to Immanuel, and
hence prepares for the announcement contained in that which follows,
viz., that this contrast shall be done away with, and that this shall
be done as soon as the legitimate proprietor comes into His kingdom.
Farther,--Decisive in favour of the Messianic explanation is also the
passage Mic. v. 1, 2, (2, 3), where, in correspondence to _virgin_
here, we have, _she who is bearing_. The latter, indeed, is not
expressly called a virgin; but it follows, as a matter of course, that
she be so, as she is to bear the Hero of Divine origin ("_of
eternity_"), who, hence, cannot have been begotten by any mortal. Both
of the prophecies mutually illustrate one another. "Micah designates
the Divine origin of the Promised One; Isaiah, the miraculous
circumstances of His birth" (_Rosenmüller_) Just as Isaiah holds up the
birth of Immanuel as the pledge that the covenant-people would not
perish in their present catastrophe; just as he points to the shining
form of Immanuel, announcing the victory over the [Pg 50] world, in
order to comfort them in the impending severe oppression by the world's
power (viii. 8);--so Micah makes the oppression by the world's power
continue only until the time that she who is bearing brings forth. As
Micah, in v. 1 (2), contrasts the divine dignity and nature with the
birth in time, so, in Isaiah, Immanuel, He in whom God will most truly
be with His people, is born by a virgin.
The arguments which the Jews, and, following their example, the
rationalistic interpreters, especially _Gesenius_, and with them
_Olshausen_, have advanced against the Messianic explanation, prove
nothing. They are these:
1. "A reference to the Messiah who, after the lapse of centuries, is to
be born of a virgin, appears to be without meaning in the present
circumstances." This argument proves too much, and, hence, nothing. _It
would be valid against Messianic prophecies in general_, the existence
of which certainly cannot be denied. Do not Jeremiah and Ezekiel, at
the time when the people were carried away into captivity, comfort them
by the announcement that the kingdom of God should, in a far more
glorious manner, be established by Messiah, whose appearance was yet
several centuries distant? The highest proof of Israel's dignity and
election, was the promise that, at some future time, the Messiah was to
be born among them. How, indeed, could the Lord leave, without the
lower help in the present calamity, a people with whom He was to be, at
some future period, in the truest manner? The Prophet refers to the
future Saviour in a way quite similar to that in which the Apostle
refers to Him, after He had appeared: "Who did not spare His only
begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all, how should He not in Him give
us all things freely?" Let us only realize the truth that the hope in
the Messiah formed the centre of the life of believers; that this hope
was, by fear, repressed only, but not destroyed. All which was needed,
therefore, was to revive this hope, and with it the special hope for
the present distress also was given--the assurance, firm as a rock,
that in it the covenant-people could not perish. This revival took
place in this way, that in the mind of the Prophet, the Messianic hope
was, by the Holy Spirit, rekindled, so that at his light all might
kindle their lights. The Messianic idea here meets us in such
originality [Pg 51] and freshness, as if here were its real fountain
head. The faith already existing is only the foundation, only the point
of connexion. What is essential is the new revelation of the old truth,
and that could not fail to be affecting, overpowering to susceptible
minds.
2. "The ground of consolation is too _general_. The Messiah might be
born from the family of Ahaz without the Jewish state being preserved
in its then existing condition, and without Ahaz continuing on the
throne. The Babylonish captivity intervened, and yet Messiah was to be
born. Isaiah would thus have made himself guilty of a false sophistical
argumentation."--We answer: What they, at that time, feared, was the
total destruction of state and people. This appears sufficiently from
the circumstance that the prophet takes his son Shearjashub with him;
and indeed the intentions of the enemy in this respect are expressed
with sufficient clearness in ver. 6. It is this _extreme_ of fear which
the Prophet here first opposes. Just as, according to the preceding
verses, he met the fear of entire destruction by taking with him his
son Shearjashub, "the remnant will be converted," without thereby
excluding a temporary carrying away, so he there also prepares the mind
for the announcement contained in vers. 15, 16, of the near deliverance
from the present danger, by first representing the fear of an entire
destruction to be unfounded. A people, moreover, to whom, at some
future period, although it may be at a very remote future, a divine
_Saviour_ is to be sent, must, in the present also, be under special
divine protection. They may be visited by severe sufferings, they may
be brought to the very verge of destruction,--whether that shall be the
case the Prophet does not, as yet, declare,--but one thing is sure,
that to them all things must work together for good; and that is the
main point. He who is convinced of this, may calmly and quietly look at
the course of events.
3. "The sense in which [Hebrew: avt] is elsewhere used in Scripture, is
altogether disregarded by this interpretation. For, according to it,
[Hebrew: avt] would refer to a future event; but according to the _usus
loquendi_ elsewhere observed, [Hebrew: avt] 'is a prophesied second
event, the earlier fulfilment of which is to afford a sure guarantee
for the fulfilment of the first, which is really the point at issue.'"
But, in opposition to this, it is sufficient to [Pg 52] refer to Exod.
iii. 12, where Moses receives this as a sign of his Divine mission, and
of the deliverance of the people to be effected by him: "When thou hast
brought forth my people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this
mountain." In chap. xxxvii. 30, our Prophet himself, as a confirmation
of the word spoken in reference to the king of Asshur: "I make thee
return by the way by which thou earnest," gives this sign, that, in the
third year after this, agriculture should already have altogether
returned into its old tracks, and the cultivation of the country should
have been altogether restored.[4] The fact here given as a sign is
later than that which is to be thereby made sure. The sign consists
only in this, that the idea is vividly called up and realized in the
mind, that the land would recover from the destruction; and this of
course, implies the destruction of the enemy. But in our chapter
itself,--the name of Shearjashub affords the example of a sign (comp.
chap. vii. 18), which is taken from the territory of the distant
future. It is time that _commonly_ [Hebrew: avt] is not used of future
things; but this has its reason not in the idea of [Hebrew: avt], but
solely in the circumstance that, ordinarily, the future cannot serve
as a sign of assurance. But it is quite obvious that, in the present
case, the Messianic announcement _could_ afford such a sign, and that
in a far higher degree than the future facts given as signs in Exod.
iii., and Isa. xxxvii. The kingdom of glory which has been promised
to us, forms to us also a sure pledge that in all the distresses of
the Church, the Lord will not withhold His help from her. But the
Covenant-people stood in the same relation to the first appearance of
Christ, as we do to the second.
(4.) "The passage, chap. viii. 3, 4, presents the most marked
resemblance to the one before us. If _there_ the Messianic explanation
be decidedly inadmissible, it must be so _here_ also. The name and
birth of a child serves, there as here, for a sign of the deliverance
from the Syrian dominion. If then _there_ the mother of the child be
the wife of the Prophet, and the child a son of his, the same must be
the case _here_ also." But it is _a priori_ improbable that the Prophet
should have given [Pg 53] to two of his sons names which had reference
to the same event. To this must be added the circumstance, that the
_time is wanting_ for the birth of two sons of the Prophet. Before
Immanuel knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the country of
both the hostile kings shall be desolated, chap. vii. 15; before
Mahershalalhashbaz knows to cry My Father, My Mother, the riches of
Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the king of
Assyria, chap. viii. 4. The two births hence coincide. At all events,
it is impossible to find the time for a double birth by the same
mother. Several interpreters (_Gesenius_, _Hitzig_, _Hendewerk_,)
assume the identity of Immanuel and Mahershalalhashbaz; but this is
altogether inadmissible, even from the difference of the names. It is
the less admissible to assume a double name for the child, as the name
Shearjashub plainly enough shews that the Prophet was in earnest with
the names of his children; and indeed, unless they had been real proper
names, there would have existed no reason at all for giving them to
them. To have assigned several names to one child would have weakened
their power. The agreement must, therefore, rather be explained from
the circumstance, that it was by the announcement in chap. vii. 14 that
the Prophet was induced to the symbolical action in chap. viii. 3, 4.
He has, in chap. vii. 14, given to the despairing people the birth of a
child, who would bring the highest salvation for Israel, as a pledge of
their deliverance. The birth of a child and its name were then required
as an actual prophecy of help in the present distress,--a help which
was to be granted with a view to that Child, who not only indicates,
but grants deliverance from all distresses, and to whom the Prophet
reverts in chap. ix., and even already in chap. viii. 8.--Moreover,
besides the agreement there is found a thorough difference. In chap.
vii. the mother of the child is called [Hebrew: helmh], whereby a
virgin only can be designated; in chap. viii., "the prophetess." In
chap. vii. there is not even the slightest allusion to the Prophet's
being the father; while in chap. viii. this circumstance is expressly
and emphatically pointed out. In chap. vii. it is the mother who gives
the name to the child; in chap. viii. it is the Prophet. Far closer is
the agreement of chap. ix. 5 (6) with chap. vii. 14. It especially
appears in the circumstances that in neither of them [Pg 54] is the
father of the child designated; and, farther, in the correspondence of
Immanuel with [Hebrew: al gbvr], God-Hero.
(5.) "Against the Messianic explanation, and in favour of that of a son
of the Prophet, is the passage chap. viii. 18, where the Prophet says
that his sons have been given to him for signs and wonders in Israel."
But although Immanuel be erroneously reckoned among the sons of the
Prophet, there still remain Shearjashub and Mahershalalhashbaz. The
latter name refers, _in the first instance only_, to Aram and Ephraim
specially; or the general truth which it declares is applied to this
relation only. But, just as the name Shearjashub announces new
_salvation_ to the prostrate _people of God_, so the second name
announces near _destruction_ to the triumphing _world_ hostile to God;
so that both the names supplement one another. As _signs_, these two
sons of the Prophet pointed to the future deliverance and salvation of
Israel, and the defeat of the world; and the very circumstance that
they did so when, humanly viewed, all seemed to be lost, was a subject
for wonder. But that we can in no case make Immanuel a third son of the
Prophet, we have already proved.
Ver. 15. _Cream and honey shall he eat, when he knows to refuse the
evil and choose the good._ Ver. 16. _For before the boy shall know to
refuse the evil and choose the good, the country shall be forsaken of
the two kings of which thou standest in awe._
The older Messianic explanation has, in these two verses, exposed
itself to the charge of being quite arbitrary. Most of the interpreters
assume that, in ver. 15, the true humanity of the Saviour is announced.
The name Immanuel is intended to indicate the divine nature; the eating
of milk and honey the human nature. Milk and honey are in this case
considered as the ordinary food for babes; like other children. He
shall grow up, and, like them, gradually develope. Thus _Jerome_ says:
"I shall mention another feature still more wonderful: That you may not
believe that he will be born a phantasm. He will use the food of
infants, will eat butter and milk." _Calvin_ says: "In order that here
we may not think of some spectre, the Prophet states signs of humanity
from which he proves that Christ, indeed put on our flesh." In the same
manner _Irenænus_, _Chrysostom_, _Basil_, and, in our century,
_Kleuker_ and _Rosenmüller_ speak.--But this explanation [Pg 55] is
altogether overthrown by ver. 16. Most interpreters assume, in the
latter verse, a change of subject; by [Hebrew: ner], not Immanuel, but
Shearjashub, who accompanied the Prophet, is to be understood.
According to others, it is not any definite boy who is designated by
[Hebrew: ner]; but it is said in general, that the devastation of the
hostile country would take place in a still shorter time than that
which elapses between the birth of a boy and his development. Such is
_Calvin's_ view. But the supposition of a change of subject is
altogether excluded, even by the circumstance that one and the same
quality, the distinction between good and evil, is in both verses
ascribed to the subject. Others, like _J. H. Michaelis_, refer ver. 16
also to the Messiah, and seek to get out of the difficulty by a _jam
dudum_. It is not worth while to enter more particularly upon these
productions of awkward embarassment. All that is required is, to remove
the stone of offence which has caused these interpreters to stumble.
Towards this a good beginning has been made by _Vitringa_, without,
however, completely attaining the object. In ver. 14, the Prophet has
seen the birth of the Messiah as present. Holding fast this idea, and
expanding it, the Prophet makes him who has been born accompany the
people through all the stages of its existence. We have here an _ideal
anticipation of the real incarnation_, the right of which lies in the
circumstance, that all blessings and deliverances which, before Christ,
were bestowed upon the covenant-people, had their root in His future
birth, and the cause of which was given in the circumstance, that the
covenant-people had entered upon the moment of their great crisis, of
their conflict with the world's powers, which could not but address a
call to invest the comforting thought with, as it were, flesh and
blood, and in this manner to place it into the midst of the popular
life. What the Prophet means, and intends to say here is this, _that,
in the space of about a twelvemonth, the overthrow of the hostile
kingdoms would already have taken place_. As the representative of the
cotemporaries, he brings forward the wonderful child who, as it were,
formed the soul of the popular life. _At the time when this child knows
to distinguish between good and bad food, hence, after the space of
about a twelvemonth, he will not have any want of nobler food,_ ver.
15, _for before he has entered upon this stage, the land of_ [Pg 56]
_the two hostile kings shall be desolate._ In the subsequent prophecy,
the same wonderful child, grown up into a warlike hero, brings the
deliverance from Asshur, and the world's power represented by it.--We
have still to consider and discuss the particular. _What is indicated
by the eating of cream and honey?_ The erroneous answer to this
question, which has become current ever since _Gesenius_, has put
everything into confusion, and has misled expositors such as _Hitzig_
and _Meier_ to cut the knot, by asserting that ver. 15 is spurious.
Cream and honey can come into consideration as the noblest food only;
the eating of them can indicate only a _condition of plenty and
prosperity_. "A land flowing with milk and honey" is, in the books of
Moses, a standing expression for designating the rich fulness of noble
food which the Holy Land offers. A land which flows with milk and honey
is, according to Numb. xiv. 7, 8, a "very good land." The _cream_ is,
as it were, a gradation of _milk_. Considering the predilection for fat
and sweet food which we perceive everywhere in the Old Testament, there
can scarcely be anything better than cream and honey; and it is
certainly not spoken in accordance with Israelitish taste, if _Hofmann_
(_Weiss_, i. S. 227) thus paraphrases the sense: "It is not because he
does not know what tastes well and better (cream and honey thus the
evil!), that he will live upon the food which an uncultivated land can
afford, but because there is none other." In Deut. xxxii. 13, 14, cream
and honey appear among the noblest products of the Holy Land. Abraham
places cream before his heavenly guests, Gen. xviii. 8. The plenty in
honey and cream appears in Job xx. 7, as a characteristic sign of the
divine blessing of which the wicked are deprived. It is solely and
exclusively vers. 21 and 22 that are referred to for establishing the
erroneous interpretation. It is asserted that, according to these
verses, the eating of milk and honey must be considered as an evil, as
the sad consequence of a general devastation of the hind. But there are
grave objections to any attempt at explaining a preceding from a
subsequent passage; the opposite mode of proceeding is the right one.
It is altogether wrong, however, to suppose that vers. 21, 22, contain
a threatening. In those verses the Prophet, on the contrary, allows, as
is usual with him, a _ray of light_ to fall upon the dark picture of
the [Pg 57] calamity which threatens from Asshur; and it could, indeed,
_a priori_, be scarcely imagined that the threatening should not be
interrupted, at least by such a gentle allusion to the salvation to be
bestowed upon them after the misery (comp. in reference to a similar
sudden breaking through of the proclamation of salvation in Hosea, Vol.
I., p. 175, and the remarks on Micah ii. 12, 13); but then he returns
to the threatening, because it was, in the meantime, his principal
vocation to utter it, and thereby to destroy the foolish illusions of
the God-forgetting king. It is in the subsequent prophecy only, chap
viii. 1; ix. 6 (7) that that which is alluded to in vers. 21, 22 is
carried out. The little which has been left--this is the sense--the
Lord will bless so abundantly, that those who are spared in the divine
judgment will enjoy a rich abundance of divine blessings. Parallel is
the utterance of Isaiah in 2 Kings xix. 30: "And the escaped of the
house of Judah, that which has been left, taketh root downward, and
beareth fruit upward."--If thus the eating of cream and honey be
rightly understood, there is no farther necessity for explaining, in
opposition to the rules of grammar, [Hebrew: ldetv] by "(only) until he
knows" (comp. against this interpretation _Drechsler's Comment._).
[Hebrew: ldetv] can only mean: "belonging to his knowledge, _i.e._,
when he knows." _Good_ and _evil_ are, as early as Deut. i. 39: "Your
sons who to-day do not know good and evil," used more in a physical
than in a moral sense. Michaelis: "_rerum omnium ignari_." The parallel
expression, "not to be able to discern between the right hand and the
left hand," in Jonah iv. 11 (Michaelis: "_discretio rationis et
judicii, ut sciant utra manus sit dextra aut sinistra_") likewise loses
sight of the moral sense. But good and evil are very decidedly used in
a physical sense in 2 Sam. xix. 36 (35), where Barzillai says: "I am
this day fourscore years old, can I discern between good and evil, or
has thy servant a taste of what I eat or drink, or do I hear any more
the voice of singing men or singing women?" The connection with the
eating of cream and honey, by which the good and evil is qualified,
clearly proves that good and evil are, in our passage, used in a
similar sense. To the same result we are led by the circumstance also,
that the evil _precedes_, which must so much the rather have a meaning,
that nowhere else is this the case with this phrase. The evil, the [Pg
58] bad food in the time of war, precedes; the good follows after it:
Cream and honey, the good, he will eat when he knows to refuse the evil
and choose the good, _i.e._, when he is beyond the time where he does
not yet know to make any great difference between the food, and in
which, therefore, the evil, the bad food, is felt as an evil. If the
good and the evil be understood in a physical sense, then, in harmony
with chap. viii. 4, we must think of the period of about one year.
Moral consciousness develops much later than sensual liking and
disliking.--The construction of [Hebrew: mas] and [Hebrew: bHr]
with [Hebrew: b] points to the affection which accompanies the
action.--[Hebrew: ki] in ver. 16 suits very well, according to the view
which we have taken, in its ordinary signification, "for." The full
enjoyment of the good things of the land will return in the period of
about twelve months (in chap. xxxvii. 30 a longer terra is fixed,
because the Assyrian desolation was much greater than the Aramean);
_for_, even before the year has expired, devastation shall be inflicted
upon the land of the enemies. [Hebrew: hadmh] comprehends at the same
time the Syrian and Ephraimitish land.
From ver. 17-25 the Prophet describes how the Assyrians, the object of
the hope of the house of David, and also the Egyptian attracted by
them, who, however, occupy a position altogether subordinate, shall
fill the land, and change it into a wilderness. The fundamental
thought, ever true, is this: He who, instead of seeking help from his
God, seeks it from the world, is ruined by the world. This truth,
which, through the fault of Ahaz, did not gain any _saving_ influence,
obtained an _accusing_ one; it stood there as an incontrovertible
testimony that it was not the Lord who had forsaken His people, but
that they had forsaken themselves. It was a necessary condition of the
blessed influence of the impending calamity that such a testimony
should exist; without it, the calamity would not have led to
repentance, but to despair and defiance.--From the circumstance that in
ver. 17, which contains the outlines of the whole, upon the words: "The
Lord shall bring upon thee and thy people," there follow still the
words: "And upon thy father's house," it appears that the fulfilment
must not be sought for in the time of Ahaz only. In the time of Ahaz,
the _beginning_ only of the calamities here indicated can accordingly
be sought for,--the _germ_ from which all that followed [Pg 59] was
afterwards developed. Nor shall we be allowed to limit ourselves to
that which Judah suffered from the Assyrians, commonly so called. It is
significant that, in 2 Kings xxiii. 29, Nebuchadnezzar is called King
of Asshur. Asshur, as the first representative of the world's power,
represents the world's power in general.
* * * * * * * * * *
We have still to submit to an examination those explanations of vers
14-16 which differ, in essential points, from that which we have given.
Difference of opinion--the characteristic sign of error--meets us here,
and that in a very striking manner, in those who oppose the convictions
of the whole Christian Church.
1. _Rosenmüller_ expressed his adherence to the Messianic explanation,
but supposed that the Prophet was of opinion that the Messiah would be
born in his time. Even _Bruno Bauer_ (_Critik der Synopt._ i. S. 19)
could not resist the impression that Immanuel could be none other than
the Messiah. But he, too, is of opinion that Isaiah expected a Messiah,
who was to be born at once, and to become the "deliverer from the
collision of that time." This view has been expanded especially by
_Ewald_. "False," so he says, "is every interpretation which does not
see that the Prophet is here speaking of the Messiah to be born, and
hence of Him to whom the land really belongs, and in thinking of whom
the Prophet's heart beats with joyful hope, chap. viii. 8, ix. 5, 6 (6,
7)." But not being able to realize that which can be seen only by
faith--a territory, in general, very inaccessible to modern exposition
of Scripture--he, in ver. 14, puts in the _real_ Present instead of the
_ideal_, and thinks that the Prophet imagined that the conception and
birth of the Messiah would take place at once. By [Hebrew: elmh] he
understands, like ourselves, a virgin; but such an one as is so at the
present moment only, but will soon afterwards cease to be so;--and in
supposing this, he overlooks the fact that the virgin is introduced as
being already with child, and that her bearing appears as present. In
ver. 15, the time when the boy knows &c., is, according to him, the
maturer juvenile age from ten to twenty years. It is during this that
the devastation of the land by the Assyrians is to take place, of which
[Pg 60] the Prophet treats more in detail afterwards in ver. 17 ff. But
opposed to this view is the circumstance that, even before the boy
enters upon this maturer age (ver. 16), hence in a few years after
this, the allied Damascus and Ephraim shall be desolated; so little are
these two kings able to conquer Jerusalem, and so certain is it that a
divine deliverance is in store for this country in the immediate
future. And, in every point of view, this explanation shows itself to
be untenable. The supposition that a _real_ Present is spoken of in
ver. 14 saddles upon the Prophet an absurd hallucination; and nothing
analogous to it can be referred to in the whole of the Old Testament.
According to statements of the Prophet in other passages, he sees yet
many things intervening between the Messianic time and his own;
according to chap. vi. 11-13, not only the entire carrying away of the
whole people, (and he cannot well consider the Assyrians as the
instruments of it, were it only for this reason, that he is always
consistent in the announcement that they should not succeed in the
capture of Jerusalem), but also a later second divine judgment.
According to chap. xi., the Messiah is to grow up as a twig from the
stem of Jesse completely cut down. This supposition of His appearance,
the complete decay of the Davidic dynasty, did not in any way exist in
the time of the Prophet. According to chap. xxxix., and other passages,
the Prophet recognised in Babylon the appearance of a new phase of the
world's power which would, at some future period, follow the steps of
the Assyrian power which existed at the time of the Prophet, and which
should execute upon Judah the judgment of the Lord. We pointed out
(Vol. I. p. 417 ff.) that in the Prophet Micah also, the contemporary
of Isaiah, there lies a long series of events between the Present and
the time when she who is bearing brings forth. _Farther_--In harmony
with all other Prophets, Isaiah too looks for the Messiah from the
house of David, with which, by the promise of Nathan in 2 Sam. vii.
salvation was indissolubly connected, and the high importance of which
for the weal and woe of the people appears also from the circumstance
of its being several times mentioned in our chapter. Hence it would be
a son of Ahaz only of whom we could here think; and then we should be
shut up to Hezekiah, his first-born. But in that case there arises the
difficulty which Luther already brought forward against the Jews: [Pg
61] "The Jews understand thereby Hezekiah. But the blind people, while
anxious to remedy their error, themselves manifest their laziness and
ignorance; for Hezekiah was born nine years before this prophecy was
uttered!"--"The eating of cream and honey" is, in this explanation,
altogether erroneously understood as a designation of the devastated
condition of the land. From our remarks, it sufficiently appears that
the expression "to refuse the evil," &c., cannot denote the maturer
juvenile age. And many additional points might, in like manner, be
urged.
2. Several interpreters do not indeed deny the reference to the
Messiah, but suppose that, _in the first instance_, the Prophet had in
view some occurrence of his own time. They assume that the Prophet,
while speaking of a boy of his own time, makes use, under the guidance
of divine providence, of expressions, which apply more to Christ, and
can, in an improper and inferior sense only, be true of this boy. This
opinion was advanced as early as in the time of Jerome, by some
anonymous author who, on that account, is severely censured by him:
"Some Judaizer from among us asserts that the Prophet had two sons,
Shearjashub and Immanuel. Immanuel too was, according to him, born by
the prophetess, the wife of the Prophet, and a type of the Saviour, our
Lord; so that the former son Shearjashub (which means 'remnant,'or
'converting') designates the Jewish people that have been left and
afterwards converted; while the second son Immanuel, 'with us is God,'
signifies the calling of the Gentiles after the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us." This explanation was defended by, among others
_Grotius_, _Richard Simon_, and _Clericus_; and then, in our century,
by _Olshausen_, who says: "The unity of the reference lies in the name
Immanuel; the son of Isaiah had the _name_ but Christ the _essence_. He
was the visible God whom the former only represented." In a modified
form, this view is held by _Lowth_, _Koppe_, and _von Meyer_, also.
According to them, the Prophet is indeed not supposed to speak of a
definite boy who was to be born in his time, but yet, to connect the
destinies of his land with the name and destinies of a boy whose
conception he, at the moment, imagines to be possible. "The most
obvious meaning which would present itself to Ahaz," says _von Meyer_,
"was this: If now a girl was to marry, to become [Pg 62] pregnant, and
to bear a child, she may call him 'God with us,'for God will be with
us at his time." But the prophecy is, after all, to have an ultimate
reference to Christ. "The prophecy," says _Lowth_, "is introduced in so
solemn a manner; the sign, after Ahaz had refused the call to fix upon
any thing from the whole territory of nature according to his own
choice, is so emphatically declared to be one selected and given by God
himself; the terms of the prophecy are so unique in their kind, and the
name of the child is so expressive; they comprehend in them so much
more than the circumstances of the birth of an ordinary child require,
or could even permit, that we may easily suppose, that in minds, which
were already prepared by the expectation of a great Saviour who was to
come forth from the house of David, they excited hopes which stretched
farther than any with which the present cause could inspire them,
especially if it was found that in the succeeding prophecy, published
immediately afterwards, this child was, under the name of Immanuel,
treated as the Lord and Prince of the land of Judah. Who else could
this be than the heir of the throne of David, under which character a
great, and even divine person had been promised?" The reasons for the
Messianic explanation are very well exhibited in these words of
_Lowth_; but he, as little as any other of these interpreters, has been
able to vindicate the assumption of a _double sense_. When more closely
examined, the supposition is a mere makeshift. On the one hand, they
could not make up their minds to give up the Messianic explanation,
and, along with it, the authority of the Apostle Matthew. But, on the
other hand, they were puzzled by the _sanctum artificium_ by which the
Prophet, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking through him, represents
Christ as being born even before His birth, places Him in the midst of
the life of the people, and makes Him accompany the nation through all
the stages of its existence. In truth, if the real, or even the nearest
fulfilment is sought for in the time of Ahaz, there is no reason
whatever for supposing a higher reference to Christ. The [Hebrew: elmh]
is then one who was a virgin, who had nothing in common with the mother
of Jesus, Mary, who remained a virgin even after her pregnancy. The
name Immanuel then refers to the help which God is to afford in the
present distress.
[Pg 63]
3. Many interpreters deny every reference to Christ. This
interpretation remained for a long time the exclusive property of the
Jews, until _J. E. Faber_ (in his remarks on _Harmar's_ observations on
the East, i. S. 281), tried to transplant it into the Christian
soil.[5] He was followed by the Roman Catholic, _Isenbiehl_ (_Neuer
Versuch über die Weissagung vom Immanuel_, 1778) who, in consequence of
it, was deposed from his theological professorship, and thrown into
gaol. The principal tenets of his work he had borrowed from the
lectures of _J. D. Michaelis_. In their views about the _Almah_, who is
to bear Immanuel, these interpreters are very much at variance.
(a) The more ancient Jews maintained that the _Almah_ was the wife of
Ahaz, and Immanuel, his son Hezekiah. According to the _Dialog. c.
Tryph._ 66, 68, 71, 77, this view prevailed among them as early as the
time of _Justin_. But they were refuted by _Jerome_, who showed that
Hezekiah must, at that time, have already been at least nine years old.
_Kimchi_ and _Abarbanel_ then resorted to the hypothesis of a second
wife of Ahaz.
(b) According to the view of others, the _Almah_ is some virgin who
cannot be definitely determined by us, who was present at the place
where the king and Isaiah were speaking to one another, and to whom the
Prophet points with his finger. This view was held by _Isenbiehl_,
_Steudel_ (in a Programme, Tübingen, 1815), and others.
(c) According to the view of others, the _Almah_ is not a _real_ but
only an _ideal_ virgin. Thus _J. D. Michaelis_: "At the time when one,
who at this moment is still a virgin, can bear," &c. _Eichhorn_,
_Paulus_, _Stähelin_, and others. The sign is thus made to consist in a
mere poetical figure.
(d) A composition of the two views last mentioned is the view of
_Umbreit_. The virgin is, according to him, an actual virgin whom the
Prophet perceived among those surrounding him; but the pregnancy and
birth are imaginary [Pg 64] merely, and the virgin is to suggest to the
Prophet the idea of pregnancy. But this explanation would saddle the
Prophet with something indecent. _Farther_: It is not a birth possible
which is spoken of, but an actual birth. From chap. viii. 8, it
likewise appears that Immanuel is a real individual, and He one of
eminent dignity; and this passage is thus at once in strict opposition
to both of the explanations, viz. that of any ordinary virgin, and that
of the ideal virgin. It destroys also
(e) The explanation of _Meier_, who by the virgin understands the
people of Judah, and conceives of the pregnancy and birth likewise in a
poetical manner. The fact, the acknowledgment of which has led _Meier_
to get up this hypothesis, altogether unfounded, and undeserving of any
minute refutation, is this: "_The mother is, in the passage before us,
called a virgin, and yet is designated as being with child._ The words,
when understood physically and outwardly, contain a contradiction." But
this fact is rather in favour of the Messianic explanation.
(f) Others, farther, conjecture that the wife of the Prophet is meant
by the _Almah_. This view was advanced as early as by _Abenezra_ and
_Jarchi_. By the authority of _Gesenius_, this view became, for a time,
the prevailing one. Against it, the following arguments are decisive;
part of them being opposed to the other conjectures also. As [Hebrew:
elmh] designates "virgin" only, and never a young woman, and, far less,
an older woman, it is quite impossible that the wife of the Prophet,
the mother of Shearjashub could be so designated, inasmuch as the
latter was already old enough to be able to accompany his father.
Gesenius could not avoid acknowledging the weight of this argument, and
declared himself disposed to assume that the Prophet's former wife had
died, and that he had thereupon betrothed himself to a virgin.
_Olshausen_, _Maurer_, _Hendewerk_, and others, have followed him in
this. But this is a story entirely without foundation. In chap. viii.
13, the wife of the Prophet is called simply "the prophetess." Nor
could one well see how the Prophet could expect to be understood, if,
by the general expression: "the virgin" he wished to signify his
presumptive betrothed. _There_ [Pg 65] _is an entire absence of every
intimation whatsoever of a nearer relation of the Almah to the
Prophet_; and such an intimation could not by any means be wanting if
such a relation really existed. One would, in that case at least, be
obliged to suppose, as _Plüschke_ does, that the Prophet took his
betrothed with him, and pointed to her with his finger,--a supposition
which too plainly exhibits the sign of embarrassment, just as is the
case with the remark of _Hendewerk_: "Only that, in that case, we must
also suppose that his second wife was sufficiently known at court even
then, when she was his betrothed only, although her relation to Isaiah
might be unknown; so that, for this very reason, we could not think of
a frustration of the sign on the part of the king." _Hitzig_ remarks:
"The supposition of a former wife of the Prophet is altogether
destitute of any foundation." He then, however, falls back upon the
hypothesis which _Gesenius_ himself admitted to be untenable, that
[Hebrew: elmh], "virgin" might not only denote a young woman, but
sometimes also an older woman. Not even the semblance of a proof can be
advanced in support of this. It is just the juvenile age which forms
the fundamental signification of the word. In the wife of the Prophet
we can the less think of such a juvenile age, that he himself had
already exercised his prophetic office for about twenty years. _Hitzig_
has indeed altogether declined to lead any such proof. A son of the
Prophet, as, in general, every subject except the Messiah, is excluded
by the circumstance that in chap viii. 8, Canaan is called the land of
Immanuel.--_Farther_,--In all these suppositions, [Hebrew: avt] is
understood in an inadmissible signification. It can here denote a fact
only, whereby those who were really susceptible were made decidedly
certain of the impending deliverance. This appears clearly enough from
the relation of this sign to that which Ahaz had before refused,
according to which the difference must not be too great, and must not
refer to the substance. To this may be added the solemn tone which
induces us to expect something grand and important. A mere poetical
image, such as would be before us according to the hypothesis of the
ideal virgin, or of the real virgin and the ideal birth, does [Pg 66]
surely not come up to the demand which in this context must be made in
reference to this _sign_. And if the Prophet had announced so solemnly,
and in words so sublime, the birth _of his own_ child, he would have
made himself ridiculous. _Farther_,--How then did the Prophet know that
after nine months a child would be born to him, or, if the pregnancy be
considered as having already commenced, how did he know that just a son
would be born to him? That is a question to which most of these
Rationalistic interpreters take good care not to give any reply.
_Plüschke_, indeed, is of opinion that, upon a bold conjecture, the
Prophet had ventured this statement. But in that case it might easily
have fared with him as in that well known story in _Worms_,
(_Eisenmenger_, _entdecktes Judenthum_ ii. S. 664 ff.), and his whole
authority would have been forfeited if his conjecture had proved false.
And this argument holds true in reference to those also who do not
share in the Rationalistic view, of Prophetism. Predictions of such a
kind may belong to the territory of foretelling, but not to that of
Prophecy.
[Footnote 1: _Meyer_, _Blätter für höhere Wahrheit_, iii. S. 101.]
[Footnote 2: _Caspari_ very justly remarks: "Nothing can be clearer
than that 2 Chron. xxviii. 5 ff. comes in between 2 Kings xvi. 5 a.
b.; that the author of the books of the Kings gives a report of the
beginning and end; the author of the Chronicles, of the middle of the
campaign." But we cannot agree with _Caspari_ in his transferring to
Idumea the victory of Rezin. According to Is. vii. 2, Aram was encamped
in Ephraim. According to 2 Kings xvi. 5, _both_ of the kings came up to
Jerusalem and besieged her. The expedition against Elath, 2 Kings xvi.
6, was secondary, and by the way only.]
[Footnote 3: The words: "In threescore and five years more, Ephraim
shall be broken and be no more a people," have, by rationalistic
critics, without and against all external arguments, been declared to
be _spurious_. The reasons which serve as fig leaves to cover their
doctrinal tendency are the following: (1) "The time does not agree,
inasmuch as the ten tribes sustained their first defeat very soon
afterwards by Tiglath-pilezer; the second, nineteen to twenty-one years
later, by Shalmanezer, who, in the sixth year of Hezekiah, carried the
inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes away into captivity." But
the question here is _the complete destruction of the national
existence of Israel_; and that took place only under King Manasseh,
when, by Azarhaddon, new Gentile colonists were brought into the land,
who expelled from it the old inhabitants who had again gathered
themselves together; comp. 2 Kings xvii. 24 with Ezra iv. 2, 10. From
that time, Israel amalgamated more and more with Judah, and never
returned to a national independence. This happened exactly sixty-five
years after the announcement by the Prophet. Chap. vi. 12 compared with
ver. 13 shows how little the desolation of the country (ver. 16) is
connected with the breaking up as a nation. It is, moreover, at least
as much the interest of those who assert the spuriousness, as it is
ours to remove the chronological difficulties; for how could it be
imagined that the supposed author should have introduced a false
chronological statement? His object surely could be none other than to
procure authority for the Prophet, by putting into his mouth a prophecy
so very evidently and manifestly fulfilled. (2) "The words contain an
unsuitable consolation, as Ahaz could not be benefitted by so late a
destruction of his enemy." But, immediately afterwards, he is even
expressly assured that this enemy will not be able to do him any
immediate harm. _Chrysostom_ remarks: "The king, hearing that they
should be destroyed after sixty-five years, might say within himself:
What about that? Although they be _then_ overthrown, of what use is it
to us, if they now take us? In order that the king might not speak
thus, the Prophet says: Be of good cheer even as to the present. At
that time they shall be _utterly_ destroyed; but even now, they shall
not have any more than their own land, for 'the head of Ephraim,'" &c.
The preceding distinct announcement of the last end of his enemy,
however, was exceedingly well fitted to break in Ahaz the opinion of
his invincibility, and to strengthen his faith in the God of Israel,
who, with a firm hand, directs the destinies of nations, and, no less,
the faith in _His servant_ whom He raises to be privy to His
secrets.--(3.) "The use of numbers so exact is against the analogy of
all oracles." But immediately afterwards (ver. 15 comp. with chap.
viii. 4), the time of the defeat is as exactly fixed, although not in
ciphers. In chap. xx. Isaiah announces that after three years the
Egyptians and Ethiopians shall sustain a defeat; in chap. xxiii. 15,
that Tyre would flourish anew seventy years after its fall; in chap.
xxxviii. 5, he announces to Hezekiah, sick unto death, that God would
add fifteen years to his life. According to Jeremiah, the Babylonish
captivity is to last seventy years; and the fulfilment has shown that
this date is not to be understood as a round number. And farther, the
year-weeks in Daniel.--But in opposition to this view, and positively
in favour of the genuineness, are the following arguments: The words
have not only, as is conceded by _Ewald_, "a true old-Hebrew
colouring," but in their emphatic and solemn brevity ("he shall be
broken from [being] a people") they do not at all bear the character of
an interpolation. If we blot them out, then the Prophet says less than
from present circumstances, from ver. 4, where he calls the kings "ends
of smoking firebrands," in opposition to ver. 6, and from the analogy
of ver. 9, where the threatening is much more severe, he was bound to
say. His saying merely that they would not get any more, was not
sufficient. He could make the right impression only when he reduced
that declaration to its foundation--_i.e._, their own destruction and
overthrow. Ver. 16, too, would go far beyond what would be announced
here, if we remove this clause. He announces destruction to the kings
themselves. Finally, the symmetrical parallelism would be destroyed by
striking out these words. The words: "If ye believe not, ye shall not
be established," would, in that case, be without the parallel members.
They are connected with the clause under discussion so much the rather,
that in them it is not specially Judah's deliverance from the Syrians
and Ephraimites that is looked at, but its salvation in general.]
[Footnote 4: By a minute and trifling exposition of what is to be
understood as a whole, and comprehensively, many misunderstandings have
been introduced into this passage. The defeat of Asshur should take
place very soon, but the devastation of the country had been so
complete that a longer time would be required before the fields would
be again _completely_ cultivated.]
[Footnote 5: _Gesenius_ mentions _Pellicanus_ as the first defender of
the Non-Messianic interpretation. But this statement seems to have
proceeded from a cursory view of an annotation by _Cramer_ on _Richard
Simon's Kritische Schriften_ i. S. 441, where the words: "this
historical interpretation _Pellicanus_ too has preferred," do not refer
to Isaiah but to Daniel. Nor is there any more ground for the
intimation that _Theodorus_ a Mopsuesta rejected the Messianic
interpretation.]
THE PROPHECY, CHAP. VIII. 23-IX. 6.
(Chap. ix. 1-7.)
UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN.
In the view of the Assyrian catastrophe, the Prophet is anxious to
bring it home to the consciences of the people that, by their own
guilt, they have brought down upon themselves this calamity, and, at
the same time, to prevent them from despairing. Hence it is that, soon
after the prophecy in chap. vii., he reverts once more to the subject
of it. The circumstances in chap. viii. 1-ix. 6 (7) are identical with
those in chap. vii. Judah is hard pressed by Ephraim and Aram. Still,
some time will elapse before the destruction of [Pg 67] their
territories. The term in chap. vii. 16: "Before the boy shall know to
refuse the evil and choose the good," and in chap. viii. 4: "Before the
boy shall know to cry, My father and my mother," is quite the same.
This is the less to be doubted when it is kept in mind that, in the
former passage, evil and good must be taken in a physical sense. The
sense for the difference of food is, in a child, developed at nearly
the same time as the ability for speaking. If it had not been the
intention of the Prophet to designate one and the same period, _he
ought to have fixed more distinctly the limits between the two
termini._ It might, indeed, from chap. viii. 3, appear as if at least
the nine months must intervene between the two prophecies of the
conception of the son of the Prophet, and his birth. As, however, it
cannot be denied that there is a connection between the giving of the
name, and the drawing up of the document in vers. 1 and 2, we should be
obliged to suppose that, in reference to the first two futures with
_Vav convers._ the same rule applies as in reference to [Hebrew: vicr],
in Gen. ii. 19. The progress lies first in [Hebrew: vtld]; the event
falling into that time is the birth.
Chap. viii. 1-ix. 6 (7), forms the necessary _supplement_ to chap.
vii., the germ of which is contained already in chap. vii. 21, 22. The
Prophet saw, by the light of the Spirit of God, that the fear of Aram
and Ephraim was unfounded; the enemy truly dangerous is Asshur, _i.e._,
_the whole world's power first represented by Asshur._ For the King of
Asshur is, so to say, an ideal person to the Prophet. The different
phases of the world's powers are intimated as early as chap. viii. 9,
where the Prophet addresses the "nations," and "all the far-off
countries;" and, at a later period, he received disclosures regarding
all the single phases of the world's power which began its course with
Asshur. With this the Prophet had only threatened in chap. vii.; here,
however, he is pre-eminently employed with it, _exhorting_,
_comforting_, _promising_, so that thus the two sections form one whole
in two divisions. _His main object is to induce his people, in the
impending oppression by the world's power, to direct their eyes
steadily to their heavenly Redeemer, who, in due time, will bring peace
instead of strife, salvation and prosperity instead of misery, dominion
instead of oppression._ As in chap. vii. 14, the [Pg 68] picture of
Immanuel is placed before the eyes of the people desponding on account
of Aram and Ephraim, so here the care, anxiety, and fear in the view of
Asshur are overcome by pointing to the declaration: "Unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given." It is of great importance for the right
understanding of the Messianic announcement in chap. viii. 23, ix. 6,
that the historical circumstances of the whole section, and its
tendency be clearly understood. As, in general, the Messianic
announcement under the Old Testament bears a one-sided character, so,
for the _present occasion_, those aspects only of the picture of the
Saviour were required which were fitted effectually to meet the
despondency of the people in the view, and under the pressure of the
world's power.
After these preliminary remarks, we must enter still more in detail
upon the arrangement and construction of the section before us.
The Prophet receives, first, the commission to write down, like a
judicial document, the announcement of the speedy destruction of the
present enemies, and to get it confirmed by trust-worthy witnesses,
chap. viii. 1, 2. He then, farther, receives the commission to give, to
a son that would be born to him about the same time, a name expressive
of the speedy destruction of the enemies, vers. 3, 4. Thus far the
announcement of the deliverance from Aram and Ephraim. There then
follows, from vers. 5-8, an announcement of the misery which is to be
inflicted by _Asshur_, of whom Ahaz and the unbelieving portion of the
people expected nothing but deliverance. _Up to this, there is a
recapitulation only, and a confirmation of chap. vii._ But this misery
is not to last for ever, is not to end in destruction. In vers. 9, 10,
the Prophet addresses exultingly the hostile nations, and announces to
them, what had already been gently hinted at at the close of ver. 8,
that their attempts to put an end to the covenant-people would be vain,
and would lead to their own destruction. The splendour of Asshur must
_fade_ before the bright image of Immanuel, which calls to the people:
"Be ye of good cheer, I have overcome the world." _Calvin_ strikingly
remarks: "The Prophet may be conceived of, as it were, standing on a
watch tower, whence he beholds the defeat of the people, and the
victorious Assyrians insolently exulting. [Pg 69] But by the name and
view of Christ he recovers himself, forgets all the evils as if he had
suffered nothing, and, freed from all misery, he rises against the
enemies whom the Lord would immediately destroy." The Prophet then
interrupts the announcement of deliverance, and exhibits the subjective
conditions upon which the bestowal of deliverance, or rather the
_partaking_ in it, depends, along with the announcement of the fearful
misery which would befal them in case these conditions were not
complied with. But, so he continues in vers. 11-16, he who is to
partake of the deliverance which the Lord has destined for His people,
must in firm faith expect it from Him, and thereby inwardly separate
himself from the unbelieving mass, who, at every appearance of danger,
tremble and give up all for lost. He who stands as ill as that mass in
the trial inflicted by the Lord; he to whom the danger becomes an
occasion for manifesting the unbelief of his heart;--he indeed will
perish in it. At the close, the prophet is emphatically admonished to
impress this great and important truth upon the minds of the
susceptible ones. In ver. 17: "And I waited upon the Lord," &c., the
Prophet reports what effect was produced upon him by this revelation
from the Lord,--thereby teaching indirectly what effect it ought to
produce upon all. In ver. 18, the Prophet directs the desponding people
to the example of himself who, according to ver. 17, is joyful in his
faith, and to the names of his sons which announced deliverance.
Deliverance and comfort are to be sought from the God of Israel only.
Vain, therefore,--this he brings out, vers. 19-22--are all other means
by which people without faith seek to procure help to themselves. They
should return to God's holy Law which, in Deut. xviii. 14, ff. commands
to seek disclosures as regards the future, and comfort from His
servants the Prophets only, and which itself abounds in comfort and
promise. If such be not done, misery without any deliverance, despair
without any comfort, are the unavoidable consequences. From ver. 23,
the Prophet continues the interrupted announcement of deliverance. That
which, in the preceding verses, he had threatened in the case of
apostacy from God's Word, and of unbelief, viz., _darkness_, _i.e._,
the absence of deliverance, will, as the Prophet, according to vers.
21, 22, foresees, really befal them in future, as [Pg 70] the people
will not fulfil the conditions held forth in vers. 16 and 20, as they
will not speak: "To the Law and to the testimony," as they will not in
faith lay hold of the promise, and trust in the Lord. The calamity
having, in the preceding verses, been represented as _darkness_, the
deliverance which, by the grace of the Lord, is to be bestowed upon the
people (for the Lord indeed chastises His people on account of their
unbelief, but does not give them up to death), is now represented as a
great _light_ which dispels the darkness. It shines most clearly just
where the darkness had been greatest--in that part of the country
which, being outwardly and inwardly given up to heathenism, seemed
scarcely still to belong to the land of the Lord, viz., the country
lying around the lake of Gennesareth. The people are filled with joy on
account of the deliverance granted to them by the Lord,--their
deliverance from the yoke of their oppressors, from the bondage of the
world which now comes to an end. As the bestower of such deliverance,
the Prophet beholds a divine child who, having obtained dominion, will
exercise it with the skill of the God-man; who will, with fatherly
love, in all eternity care for His people and create peace to them; who
will, at the same time, infinitely extend His dominion, the kingdom of
David, not by means of the force of arms, but by means of right and
righteousness, the exercise of which will attract the nations to Him;
so that with the increase of dominion, the increase of peace goes hand
in hand. The guarantee that these glorious results shall really take
place is the zeal of the Lord, and it is this to which the Prophet
points at the close.
* * * * * * * * * *
Chap. viii. 23 (ix. 1). "_For not is darkness to the land, to which is
distress; in the former time he has brought disgrace upon the land of
Zebulun and the hind of Naphtali, and in the after-time he brings it to
honour, the region on the sea, the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of
the Gentiles._"
[Hebrew: ki] stands in its ordinary signification, "for." Allow not
yourselves to be turned away by anything from trusting in the God of
Israel; hold fast by His word alone, and by His servants,--such was the
fundamental thought of the whole preceding section. It meets us last in
ver. 20, in the exhortation: [Pg 71] "To the Law and to the testimony!"
in so far as this is rich in consolation and promise. The Prophet,
after having, in the preceding verses, described the misery which will
befal those who do not follow this exhortation, supports and
establishes it by referring to the _help of the Lord_ already alluded
to in vers. 9 and 10, and to the _light of His grace_ which He will
cause to shine into the darkness of the people,--a darkness produced by
their unbelief and apostacy; and this light shall be brightest where
the darkness was greatest. All the attempts at connecting this [Hebrew:
ki] with the verse immediately preceding instead of referring it to the
main contents of the preceding section, have proved futile. [Hebrew:
ki] can neither mean "nevertheless," nor "yea;" and the strange
assertion that it is almost without any meaning at all cannot derive
any support from Isaiah xv. 1: "The _burden_ of Moab, _for_ in the
night the city of Moab is laid waste;" for only in that case is
[Hebrew: ki] without any meaning at all, if [Hebrew: mwa] be falsely
interpreted.--Ver. 22, where the phrase [Hebrew: mevP Cvqh] "darkness
of distress" is equivalent to "darkness which consists in distress"
(compare also: "behold trouble and darkness" in the same verse), shows
that [Hebrew: mveP] and [Hebrew: mvcq] are substantially of the same
meaning.--Our verse forms an antithesis to ver. 22; the latter verse
described the darkness brought on by the guilt of the people; the verse
under consideration describes, in contrast to it, the _removal_ of it
called forth by the grace of the Lord.--[Hebrew: la] may either be
connected with the noun, or it may be explained: not is darkness. It
cannot be objected to the latter view that, in that case, [Hebrew: aiN]
should rather have stood; while the analogy of the phrase: "Not didst
thou increase the joy," in chap. ix. 2 (3), seems to be in favour of
it. Here we have the negative, the ceasing of darkness; in chap. ix. 1
(2) the positive, the appearance of light. The suffix, in [Hebrew: lh]
refers, just as the suffix, in [Hebrew: bh] in ver. 21, to the omitted
[Hebrew: arC].--The [Hebrew: k] in [Hebrew: ket] is, by many
interpreters, asserted to stand in the signification of [Hebrew: kawr]:
"Just as the former time has brought disgrace," &c. But as it cannot be
proved that [Hebrew: k] has ever the meaning, "just as;" and as, on the
other hand, [Hebrew: ket] frequently occurs in the signification, "at
the time" (compare my remarks on Numb. xxiii. 13 in my work on Balaam),
we shall be obliged to take, here too, the [Hebrew: k] as a temporal
particle, and to supply, as the subject, Jehovah, who [Pg 72] always
stands before the Prophet's mind, and is often not mentioned when the
matter itself excludes another subject. Moreover, it is especially in
favour of this view that, in vers. 3 (4), the Lord himself is expressly
addressed.--As regards [Hebrew: aHrvN], either [Hebrew: ket] may be
supplied,--and this is simplest and most natural--or it may be taken as
an Accusative, "for the whole after-time."--[Hebrew: hql] means
properly to "make light," then "to make contemptible," "to cover with
disgrace," and [Hebrew: hkbid] properly then, "to make heavy," "to
honour,"--a signification which indeed is peculiar to _Piel_, but in
which the _Hiphil_, too, occurs in Jer. xxx. 19; the two verbs thus
form an antithesis. The [Hebrew: h] _locale_ in [Hebrew: arch] (the
word does not occur in Isaiah with the [Hebrew: h] _paragog._) shews
that a certain modification of the verbal notion must be assumed: "to
bring disgrace and honour." [Hebrew: arch] thus would mean "towards
the land." The scene of the disgrace and honour, which at first was
designated in general only, is afterwards _extended_. First, the land
of Zebulun and Naphtali only is mentioned, because it was upon it
that the disgrace had pre-eminently fallen, and it was, therefore,
pre-eminently to be brought to honour; then the whole territory along
the sea on both sides of it.--[Hebrew: iM] can, in this context
which serves for a more definite qualification, mean the sea of
Gennesareth only ([Hebrew: iM knrt] Numb. xxxiv. 11, and other
passages), just as, in Matt. iv. 13, the designation of Capernaum as
[Greek: hê parathalassia] receives its definite meaning from the
context.--[Hebrew: drK] occurs elsewhere also in the signification of
_versus_, _e.g._, Ezek. viii. 5, xl. 20, 46; it will be necessary to
supply after it [Hebrew: arC], just as in the case of the [Hebrew: ebr
hirdN] following. It is without any instance that [Hebrew: drK] "way"
should stand for "region," "country." The region on the sea is then
divided into its two parts [Hebrew: ebr hirdN], [Greek: peran tou
Iordanou], the land on the east bank of Jordan, and Galilee. The latter
answers to the land of Zebulun and Naphtali; for the territory of these
two tribes occupied the centre and principal part of Galilee. In
opposition to the established _usus loquendi_, many would understand
[Hebrew: ebr hirdN] as meaning the land "on the side," _i.e._, this
side "of the Jordan," proceeding upon the supposition that the local
designations must, from beginning to end, be congruous. Opposed to it
is also the circumstance that, in 2 Kings, xv. 29, the most eastward
and most northward countries, Peraea and Galilee are connected. [Pg 73]
In that passage the single places are mentioned which Tiglath-pilezer
took; then, the whole districts, "Gilead and Galilee, the whole land of
Naphtali." By the latter words, that part of Galilee is made especially
prominent upon which the catastrophe fell most severely and completely.
In the phrase, "Galilee of the Gentiles," Galilee is a geographical
designation which was already current at the time of the Prophet. There
is no reason for fixing the extent of ancient Galilee differently from
that of the more modern Galilee,--for assigning to it a more limited
extent. We are told in 1 Kings ix. 11, that the twenty cities which
Solomon gave to Hiram lay in the land of _Galil_, but not that the
country was limited to them. The qualification, "of the Gentiles," is
nowhere else met with in the Old Testament; it is peculiar to the
Prophet. It serves as a hint to point out in what the disgrace of
Galilee and Peraea consisted. This _Theodoret_ also saw. He says: "He
calls it 'Galilee of the Gentiles'because it was inhabited by other
tribes along with the Jews; for this reason, he says also of the
inhabitants of those countries, that they were walking in darkness, and
speaks of the inhabitants of that land as living in the shadow and land
of death, and promises the brightness of heavenly light." It is of no
small importance to observe that Isaiah does not designate Galilee
according to what it was at the time when this prophecy was uttered,
_but according to what it was to become in future_. The distress by the
Gentiles appears in chap. vii. and viii. everywhere as a _future one_.
At the time when the Prophet prophesied, the Jewish territory still
existed in its integrity. In vers. 4, and 5-7, he announces Asshur's
inroad into the land of Israel as a _future one_; in the present
moment, it was the kingdom of the ten tribes in connection with Aram
which attacked and threatened Judea. The superior power of the world
which, according to the clear foresight of the Prophet, was
threatening, could not but be sensibly felt in the North and East. For
these formed the border parts against the Asiatic world's power; it was
from that quarter that its invasions commonly took place; and it was to
be expected that there, in the first instance, the Gentiles would
establish themselves, just as, in former times, they had maintained
themselves longest there; comp. Judges i. 30-38; _Keil_ on 1 Kings ix.
11. But very soon after this, [Pg 74] the name "Galilee of the
Gentiles" ceased to be one merely prophetical; Tiglathpilezer carried
the inhabitants of Galilee and Gilead into exile, 2 Kings xv. 29. _At a
later period_, when the Greek empire "peopled Palestine, in the most
attractive places, with new cities, restored many which, in consequence
of the destructive wars, had fallen into decay, filled all of them,
more or less, with Greek customs and institutions, and, along with the
newly-opened extensive commerce and traffic, everywhere spread Greek
manners also," this change was chiefly limited to Galilee and Peraea;
Judea remained free from it; comp. _Ewald_, _Geschichte Israels_, iii.
2 S. 264 ff. In 1 Maccab. v. Galaaditis and Galilee appear as those
parts of the country where the existence of the Jews is almost
hopelessly endangered by the Gentiles living in the midst of, and mixed
up with them. What is implied in "Galilee of the Gentiles" may be
learned from that chapter, where even the _expression_ reverts in ver.
15. With external dependence upon the Gentiles, however, the spiritual
dependence went hand in hand. These parts of the country could the less
oppose any great resistance to the influences of heathendom, that they
were separated, by a considerable distance, from the religious centre
of the nation--the temple and _metropolis_, in which the higher
Israelitish life was concentrated. A consequence of this degeneracy was
the contempt in which the Galileans were held at the time of Christ,
John i. 47, vii. 52; Matt. xxvi. 69.--But in what consisted the
_honour_ or the _glorification_ which Galilee, along with Peraea, was
to obtain in the after-time? Chap. ix. 5 (6), where the deliverance and
salvation announced in the preceding verses are connected with the
person of the _Redeemer_, show that we must not seek for it in any
other than that of the Messianic time. Our Lord spent the greater part
of His public life in the neighbourhood of the lake of Gennesareth; it
was there that Capernaum--His ordinary residence--was situated, Matt.
ix. 1. From Galilee were most of His disciples. In Galilee He performed
many _miracles_; and it was there that the preaching of the Gospel
found much entrance, so that even the name of the Galileans passed over
in the first centuries to the Christians. _Theodoret_ strikingly
remarks: "Galilee was the native country of the holy Apostles; there
the [Pg 75] Lord performed most of His miracles; there He cleansed the
leper; there He gave back to the centurion his servant sound; there He
removed the fever from Peter's wife's mother; there He brought back to
life the daughter of Jairus who was dead; there He multiplied the
loaves; there He changed the water into wine." Very aptly has
_Gesenius_ compared Micah v. 1 (2). Just as in that passage the birth
of the Messiah is to be for the honour of the small, unimportant
Bethlehem, so here Galilee, which hitherto was covered with disgrace,
which was reproached by the Jews, that there no prophet had ever risen,
is to be brought to honour, and to be glorified by the appearance of
the Messiah. It was from the passage under review that the opinion of
the Jews was derived, that the Messiah would appear in the land of
Galilee. Comp. _Sohar_, p. 1. fol. 119 ed. Amstelod.; fol. 74 ed.
Solisbae: [Hebrew: baret dglil itgli mlka mwita]. "King Messiah will
reveal himself in the land of Galilee." But we must beware of putting
prophecy and fulfilment into a merely accidental outward relation, of
changing the former into a mere foretelling, and of supposing, in
reference to the latter, that, unless the letter of the prophecy had
existed, Jesus might as well have made Judea the exclusive scene of His
ministry. Both prophecy and history are overruled by a higher idea, by
the truth absolutely valid in reference to the Church of the Lord, that
where the distress is greatest, help is nearest. If it was established
that the misery of the covenant-people, both outward and spiritual, was
especially concentrated in Galilee, then it is also sure that He who
was sent to the lost sheep of Israel must devote His principal care
just to that part of the country. The prophecy is not exhausted by the
one fulfilment; and the fulfilment is a new prophecy. Wheresoever in
the Church we perceive a new Galilee of the Gentiles, we may, upon the
ground of this passage, confidently hope that the saving activity of
the Lord will gloriously display itself.
Chap. ix. 1 (2). "_The people that walk in darkness see a great light,
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them light
ariseth._"
"The people" are the inhabitants of the countries mentioned in the
preceding verse; but they are not viewed in contrast to, and exclusive
of the other members of the covenant-people,--for [Pg 76] according to
chap. viii. 22, darkness is to cover the whole of it--but only as that
portion which comes chiefly into consideration. _Light_ is, in the
symbolical language of Scripture, salvation. That in which the
_salvation_ here consists cannot be determined from the words
themselves, but must follow from the context. It will not be possible
to deny that, according to it, the darkness consists, in the first
instance, in the oppression by the Gentiles, and, hence, salvation
consists in the _deliverance_ from this oppression, and in being raised
to the dominion of the world; and in ver. 2 (3) ff., we have, indeed,
the farther displaying of the light, or deliverance. But it will be as
little possible to deny that the sad companion of outward oppression by
the Gentile world is the _spiritual_ misery of the inward dependence
upon it. _Farther_,--It is as certain that the elevation of the
covenant-people to the dominion of the world cannot take place all on a
sudden, and without any farther ceremony, inasmuch as, according to a
fundamental view of the Old Testament, all outward deliverance appears
as depending upon conversion and regeneration. "Thou returnest," so we
read in Deut. xxx. 2, 3, "to the Lord thy God, and the Lord thy God
turneth to thy captivity." And in the same chapter, vers. 6, 7: "The
Lord thy God circumciseth thy heart, and _then_ the Lord thy God
putteth all these curses upon thine enemies." Before Gideon is called
to be the deliverer of the people from Midian, the Prophet must first
hold up their sin to the people, Judg. vi. 8 ff., and Gideon does not
begin his work with a struggle against the outward enemies, but must,
first of all, as Jerubbabel, declare war against sin. All the
prosperous periods in the people's history are, at the same time,
periods of spiritual revival. We need only think of David, Jehoshaphat,
and Hezekiah. Outward deliverance always presents itself in history as
an _addition_ only which is bestowed upon those seeking after the
kingdom of God. Without the inward foundation, the bestowal of the
outward blessing would be only a mockery, inasmuch as the holy God
could not but immediately take away again what He had given. But the
circumstance that it is the _outward_ salvation, the deliverance from
the heathen servitude, the elevation of the people of God to the
dominion of the world, as in Christ it so gloriously took [Pg 77]
place, which are here, in the first instance, looked at, is easily
accounted for from the historical cause of this prophetic discourse
which, _in the first instance, is directed against the fears of the
destruction of the kingdom of God by the world's power_. Ps. xxiii. 4;
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear
no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,"
must so much the more he considered as the fundamental passage of the
verse under consideration, that the Psalm, too, refers to the whole
Christian Church. It was in the appearance of Christ, and the salvation
brought through Him, in the midst of the deepest misery, that this
Psalm found its most glorious confirmation.--[Hebrew: clmvt], "darkness
of death," is the darkness which prevails in death or in Sheol. Such
compositions commonly occur in proper names only, not in appellatives;
and hence, by "the land of the darkness (shadow) of death," hell is to
be understood. But darkness of hell is, by way of a shortened
comparison, not unfrequently used for designating the deepest darkness.
The point of comparison is here furnished by the first member of the
verse. Parallel is Ps. lxxxviii. 4 ff., where Israel laments that the
Lord had thrust it down into dark hell. The Preterite tense of the
verbs in our verse is to be explained from the prophetical view which
converts the Future into the Present. How little soever modern exegesis
can realise this seeing by, and in faith, and how much soever it is
everywhere disposed to introduce the _real_ Present instead of the
_ideal_, yet even _Ewald_ is compelled to remark on the passage under
consideration: "The Prophet, as if he were describing something which
in his mind he had seen as certain long ago, here represents everything
in the past, and scarcely makes an exception of this in the new start
which he takes in the middle." At the time when the Prophet uttered
this Prophecy, even the _darkness_ still belonged to the future. As yet
the world's power had not gained the ascendancy over Israel; but here
the light has already dispelled the darkness.
It now merely remains for us to view more particularly the quotation of
these two verses in Matt. iv. 12-17. [Greek: Akousas de]--thus the
section begins--[Greek: hoti Iôannês paredothê, anechôrêsen eis tên
Galilaian.] Since, in these words, we are told that Jesus, after having
received the intelligence of the imprisonment of [Pg 78] John, withdrew
into Galilee, we cannot for a moment think of His having sought in
Galilee, safety from Herod; for Galilee just belonged to Herod, and
Judea afforded security against him. The verb [Greek: anachôrein]
denotes, on the contrary, the withdrawing into the _angulus terrae_
Galilee, as contrasted with the civil and ecclesiastical centre. The
_time_ of the beginning of Christ's preaching (His ministry hitherto
had been merely a kind of prelude) was determined by the imprisonment
of John, as certainly as, according to the prophecy of the Old
Testament, the territories of the activity of both were immediately
bordering upon one another, and by that very circumstance _the place_,
too, was indirectly determined; for it was fixed by the prophecy under
consideration that Galilee was to be the scene of the chief ministry of
Christ. If, then, the time for the beginning of the ministry had come,
He must also depart into Galilee. The connection, therefore, is this:
After he had received the intelligence of the imprisonment of John--in
which the call to Him for the beginning of His ministry was implied--He
departed into Galilee, and especially to Capernaum, vers. 12, 13; for
it was this part of the country which, by the prophecy, was fixed as
the main scene of His Messianic activity, vers. 14-16. It was there,
therefore, that He continued the preaching of John, ver. 17.--[Greek:
Kai katalipôn tên Nazaret]--it is said in ver. 13--[Greek: elthôn
katôkêsen eis Kapernaoum tên parathalassian, en horiois Zaboulôn kai
Nephthaleim.] Christ had hitherto had His settled abode at Nazareth,
and thence undertook His wanderings. The immediate reason why He did
not remain there is not stated by Matthew; but we learn it from Luke
and John. In accordance with his object, Matthew takes cognizance of
this one circumstance only, that, according to the prophecy of the Old
Testament, Capernaum was very specially fitted for being the residence
of Christ. The town was situated on the western shore of the Lake of
Gennesareth. Quite in opposition to his custom elsewhere, Matthew
describes the situation of the town 80 minutely, because this knowledge
served to afford a better insight into the fulfilment of the prophecy
of the Old Testament. The designation [Greek: tên parathalassian]
stands in reference to [Greek: hodon thalassês], in ver. 15. [Greek: En
horiois], &c., may either mean: "In the borders of Zebulun and
Naphtali," _i. e._ in that place where [Pg 79] the borders of both the
countries meet,--or [Greek: ta horia] may, according to the analogy of
the Hebrew [Hebrew: gbvliM], denote the borders in the sense of
"territory," as in Matt. ii. 16. From a comparison of [Greek: gê
Zaboulôn kai Nephthaleim] of the prophecy in ver. 15, to which the
words stand in direct reference, it follows that the latter view is the
correct one. Whether Capernaum lay just on the borders between the two
countries was of no consequence to the prophecy, and hence was of none
to Matthew.--The phrase [Greek: hina plêrôthê] does not, according to
the very sound remark of _De Wette_, point to the intention, but to the
objective aim. The question, however, is to what the [Greek: hina
plêrôthê] is to be referred,--whether merely to that which immediately
precedes, viz., the change of residence from Nazareth to Capernaum, or,
at the same time to [Greek: anechôrêsen eis tên Galilaian]. The latter
is alone correct. The prophecy which the Evangelist has in view
referred mainly to Galilee, or the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali in
general; but, according to the express remark of the Evangelist,
Nazareth itself was likewise situated in Galilee. The advantage which
Capernaum had over it was this only, that in Capernaum the [Greek:
hodon thalassês] of the prophecy was found again, and that, therefore,
thence the [Greek: peran tou Iordanou] of the prophecy also could be
better realized, inasmuch as across the lake there was an easy
communication from that place with the country beyond Jordan. T
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