1 The pointing connects tf'bJJ "with makkeph, so that the rendering would be, "The people there I have formed for myself;" but according to our view, By should be accented with yethib, and zu with munach. In just the same way, zu is connected with the previous noun as a demonstrative, by means of makkeph, in Ex. xv. 13, 16, Ps. ix. 16, lxii. 12, cxlii. 4, cxliii. 8, and by means of a subsidiary accent in Ps. x. 2, xii. 8. The idea which underlies ch. xlii. 24 appears to be, " This is the retribution that we have met with from him." Bud in none of these can we be bound by the nunctuation.
the self-denial that it involved. The spelling rifcOnn (as in Num. xiv. 31) appears to have been intended for the pronunciation fl^an (compare the pronunciation in 2 Kings xix. 25, which comes between the two). The 'oloth (burnt-offerings) stand first, as the expression of adoration, and are connected with seh, which points to the daily morning and evening sacrifice (the tdmld). Then follow the zebhdchlm (slain-offerings), the expression of the establishment of fellowship with Jehovah (Tnnn is equivalent to TnM*, like npn = nana, ch. xliii. 25). The " fat" (chelebh) in ver. 24 refers to the portions of fat that were placed upon the altar in connection with this kind of sacrifice. After the z*blidcliim comes the minchdh, the expression of desire for the blessing of Jehovah, a portion of which, the so-called remembrance portion ('azkdrdh), wras placed upon the altar along with the whole of the incense. And lastly, the qdneh (spice-cane), i.e. some one of the Amoma^ points to the holy anointing oil (Ex. xxx. 23), or if it refer to spices generally, to the sacred incense, though qdneh is not mentioned as one of the ingredients in Ex. xxx. 34. The nation, which Jehovah wTas now redeeming out of pure unmingled grace, had not been burdened with costly tasks of this description (see Jer. vi. 20); on the contrary, it was Jehovah only who was burdened and troubled. He denies that there was any " causing to serve" (*ttJE?j lit. to make a person a servant, to impose servile labour upon him) endured by Israel, but affirms this rather of Himself. The sins of Israel pressed upon Him, as a burden does upon a servant. His love took upon itself the burden of Israel's guilt, which derived its gravitating force from His own holy righteous wrath; but it was a severe task to bear this heavy burden, and expunge it, — a thoroughly divine task, the significance of which was first brought out in its own true light by the cross on Golgotha. When God creates, He expresses His fiat, and what He wills comes to pass. But He does not blot out sin without balancing
1 The qdneh is generally supposed to be the Calamus; but the calamus forms no stalk, to say nothing of a cane or hollow stalk. It must be some kind of aromatic plant, with a stalk like a cane, either the Cardamum, Ingber, or Curcuma; at any rate, it belonged to the species Amomum. The aroma of this was communicated to the anointing oil, the latter being infused, and the resinous parts of the former being thereby dissolved.
His love with His justice; and this equalization is not effected without conflict and victory.
Nevertheless, the sustaining power of divine love is greater than the gravitating force of divine wrath. Ver. 25. " /, i" alone, blot out thy transgressions for my own sake, and do not remember thy sins" Jehovah Himself here announces the sola gratia and sola fides. We have adopted the rendering " I alone," because the threefold repetition of the subject, " I, I, He is blotting out thy transgressions," is intended to affirm that this blotting out of sin is so far from being in any way merited by Israel, that it is a sovereign act of His absolute freedom; and the expression " for my own sake," that it has its foundation only in God, namely, in His absolute free grace, that movement of His love by which wrath is subdued. For the debt stands written in God's own book. Justice has entered it, and love alone blots it out (mdchdh, i^aXel^eu, as in ch. xliv. 22, Ps. li. 3, 11, cix. 14); but, as we know from the actual fulfilment, not without paying with blood, and giving the quittance with blood.
Jehovah now calls upon Israel, if this be not the case, to remind Him of any merit upon which it can rely. Ver. 26. " Call to my remembrance; we will strive with one another: tell now, that thou mayst appear just." Justification is an actus forensis (see ch. i. 18). Justice accuses, and grace acquits. Or has Israel any actual merits, so that Justice would be obliged to pronounce it just? The object to hazklrenl and sapper, which never have the closed sense of pleading, as Bottcher supposes, is the supposed meritorious works of Israel.
But Israel has no such works; on the contrary, its history has been a string of sins from the very first. Ver. 27. " Thy first forefather sinned, and thy mediators have fallen away from me" By the first forefather, Hitzig, Umbreit, and Knobel understand Adam; but Adam was the forefather of the human race, not of Israel; and the debt of Adam was the debt of mankind, and not of Israel. The reference is to Abraham, as the first of the three from whom the origin and election of Israel were dated; Abraham, whom Israel from the very first had called with pride " our father" (Matt. iii. 9). Even the history of Abraham was stained with sin, and did not shine in the light of meritorious works, but in that of grace, and of faith laying hold of grace. The m'litsim, interpreters, and mediators generally (2 Chron. xxxii. 31; Job xxxiii. 23), are the prophets and priests, who stood between Jehovah and Israel, and were the medium of intercourse between the two, both in word and deed. They also had for the most part become unfaithful to God, by resorting to ungodly soothsaying and false worship. Hence the sin of Israel was as old as its very earliest origin; and apostasy had spread even among those who ought to have been the best and most godly, because of the office they sustained.
Consequently the all-holy One was obliged to do what had taken place. Ver. 28. " Then I profaned holy princes, and gave up Jacob to the curse, and Israel to blasphemies."??nttt might be an imperfect, like?3*0, " I ate," in ch. xliv. 19, and tfSlW, " I looked," in ch. Ixiii. 5; but njJFlW by the side of it shows that the pointing sprang out of the future interpretation contained in the Targum; so that as the latter is to be rejected, we must substitute ^n«j, JWIKJ (Ges. § 49, 2). The " holy princes" (sdre qodesh) are the hierarchs, as in 1 Chron. xxiv. 5, the supreme spiritual rulers as distinguished from the temporal rulers. The profanation referred to was the fact that they were ruthlessly hurried off into a strange land, where their official labours were necessarily suspended. This was the fate of the leaders of the worship; and the whole nation, which bore the honourable names of Jacob and Israel, was given up to the ban (cherem) and the blasphemies (gidduphim) of the nations of the world.
The prophet cannot bear to dwell any longer upon this dark picture of their state of punishment; the light of the promise breaks through again, and in this third field of the fourth prophecy in all the more intensive form. Ch. xliv. 1-4. "And now hear, 0 Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen. Thus saith Jehovah, thy Creator, and thy Former from the womb, who cometh to thy help; Fear not, my servant Jacob; and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen! For I will pour out water upon thirsty ones, and brooks upon the dry ground; will pour out my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine after-growth; and they shoot up among the grass, as willows by flowing waters." In contrast with the cherem, i.e. the setting apart for destruction, there is here presented the promise of the pouring out of the Spirit and of blessing; and in contrast with the gidduphim, the promise of general eagerness to come and honour Israel and its God (ver. 5). The epithets by which Jehovah designates Himself, and those applied to Israel in vers. 1, 2, make the claim to love all the more urgent and emphatic. The accent which connects IB2E *pJl*L so as to make *I"W by itself an attributive clause like to ^1D?, is confirmed by ver. 24 and ch. xlix. 5: Israel as a nation and all the individuals within it are, as the chosen servant of Jehovah (ch. xlix. 1), the direct formation of Jehovah Himself from the remotest point of their history. In ver. 26, Jeshurun is used interchangeably with Jacob. This word occurs in three other passages (viz. Deut. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26), and is always written with kibbutz, just as it is here. The rendering 'lapaeXtWo? in Gr. Ven, is founded upon the supposition that the word is equivalent to l^^^l, — a strange contraction, which is inadmissible, if only on account of the substitution of $ for fe\ The w points back to ~\W\ to be straight or even; hence A. S. Th. evOvs (elsewhere evOvraros;), Jerome rectissimus (though in Deut. xxxii. 15 he renders it, after the LXX., dilectus). It is an offshoot of 1f!=^ (Ps. xxv. 21), like pklT, riDT from!>3T, JIT; and un (= on) does not stamp it as a diminutive (for |iB*N, which Kamphausen adduces in opposition to Hengstenberg and Volck, does not stand in the same relation to 85* K as mannikin to man, but rather as the image of a man to a man himself; compare the Arabic insdn). We must not render it therefore as an affectionate diminutive, as Gesenius does, the more especially as Jehovah, though speaking in loving terms, does not adopt the language of a lover. The relation of Jeshurun to "IB* is rather the same as that of rio?W to DW, so that the real meaning is u gentleman," or one of gentlemanly or honourable mind, though this need not appear in the translation, since the very nature of a proper name would obliterate it. In ver. 3, the blessings to be expected are assigned as the reason for the exhortation to be of good cheer. In ver. 3a water is promised in the midst of drought, and in ver. '6b the Spirit and blessing of God, just as in Joel the promise of rain is first of all placed in contrast with drought; and this is followed by the promise of the far surpassing antitype, namely, the outpouring of the Spirit. There is nothing at variance with this in the fact that we have not the form HKDV in the place of N?>* (according to the analogy of rWjrpjR, mr/mcta, Ps. lxviii. 10). By NOV we understand the inhabitants of the land who are thirsting for rain, and by yabbdshdh the parched land itself. Farther on, however, an express distinction is made between the abundance of water in the land and the prosperous growth of the nation planted by the side of water-brooks (Ps. i. 3). We must not regard 3a, therefore, as a figure, and 2>b as the explanation, or turn 3a into a simile introduced in the form of a protasis, although unquestionably water and mountain streams are made the symbol, or rather the anagogical type, of spiritual blessings coming down from above in the form of heavenly gifts, by a gradual ascent from D?0 and DyTfa (from?t J, to trickle downwards, Song of Sol. iy. 15, Jer. xviii. 14) to 'fl rvn and 'n fD")3 (nsna). When these natural and spiritual waters flow down upon the people, once more restored to their home, they spring up among (p22 only met with here, LXX. ard Targum |U3) the grass, like willows by water-brooks. The willows1
1 " The garab" says "Wetzstein, " was only met with by me in one locality, or, at any rate, I only noticed it once, namely in the Wady So'eb, near to a ford of the river which is called the Hod ford, from the chirbet el-H6d, a miserable ruin not far off. It is half an hour to the west of Nimrin (Nim~ rim, ch. xv. 6), or, speaking more exactly, half an hour above (i.e. to the east of) Zafdt Nimrin, an antique road on the northern bank of the river, hewn in a precipitous wall of rock, like the ladder of Tyre. I travelled through the valley in June 1860, and find the following entry in my diary: 4 At length the ravine opened up into a broader valley, so that we could get down to the clear, copious, and rapid stream, and were able to cross it. Being exhausted by the heat, we lay down near the ford among the oleanders, which the mass of flowers covered with a rosy glow. The reed grows here to an unusual height, as in the Wady Yarmuk, and willows (zafzaf) and garab are mingled together, and form many-branched trees of three or four fathoms in height. The vegetation, which is fresh and luxuriant by the water-side, is scorched up with the heat in the valley within as little as ten paces from the banks of the stream. The farthest off is the 'osar plant, with its thick, juicy, dark green stalks and leaves, and its apple- like fruit, which is of the same colour, and therefore not yet ripe. The garab tree has already done flowering. The leaves of this tree stand quite close around the stem, as in the case of the Sindiana (the Syrian oak), and, like the leaves of the latter, are fringed with little thorns; but, like the willow, it is a water plant, and our companions Abdallah and Nasrallah assured us that it was only met with near flowing water and in hot lowlands. Its bunches of flowers are at the points of the slender branches, and are the nation, which has hitherto resembled withered plants in a barren soil, but is now restored to all the* bloom of youth through the Spirit and blessing of God. The grass stands for the land, which resembles a green luxuriant plain; and the water-brooks represent the abundant supply of living waters, which promote the prosperity of the land and its inhabitants.
When Jehovah has thus acknowledged His people once more, the heathen, to whose gidduphim (blasphemies) Israel has hitherto been given up, will count it the greatest honour to belong to Jehovah and His people. Ver. 5. " One will say, I belong to Jehovah; and a second will solemnly name the name of Jacob; and a third will inscribe himself to Jehovah, and name the name of Israel with honour." The threefold zeh refers to the heathen, as in Ps. lxxxvii. 4, 5. One will declare himself
assume an umbelliferous form. This is the 2iy of the Bible.7 Consequently the garab or (as nom. unitatis) the garaba cannot be regarded as a species of willow; and Winer's assumption {Real- Worterbuch, s.v. Weiden), that the weeping willow is intended at any rate in Ps. cxxxvii. 2, is an error. In Arabic the weeping willow is always called shafshaf mustachi (the drooping tree). At the same time, we may render D'QIJJ ' willows,' since the garab loves running water as well as the willow, and apparently they seek one another's society; it is quite enough that the difference should be clearly pointed out in the commentary. The reason why the garab did not find its way into my herbarium was the following. On my arrival in Salt, I received the first intelligence of the commencement of the slaughter of the Christians on Antilibanus, and heard the report, which was then commonly believed, that a command had been sent from Constantinople to exterminate Christianity from Syria. This alarming report compelled me to inquire into the actual state of affairs; therefore, leaving my luggage and some of my companions behind, I set off with all speed to Jerusalem, where I hoped to obtain reliable information, accompanied by Herr Dorgen, my kavas, and two natives, viz. Abdallah the smith, from Salt, and Nasrallah the smith, from Ain Genua. For a ride like this, which did not form part of the original plan of my journey, everything but weapons, even a her barium, would have been in the way. Still there are small caravans going every week between Salt and Jerusalem, and they must always cross the Hod ford, so that it would be easy to get a twig of the garab. So far as I remember, the remans of the blossom were of a dirty white colour."
(Compare vol. i. 328, where we have taken nachal ha ardbhlm, according to the meaning of the words, as a synonym of Wady Sufsaf or, more correctly, Safsaf. From the description given above, the garab is a kind of viburnum with indented leaves. This tree, which is of moderate height, is found by the side of streams along with the willow. According to Sprengel (Gesch. d.er Botanik, i. 25), the safsaf is the salix subserrata of Wildenow).
to belong to Jehovah; another will call with the name of Jacob, i.e. (according to the analogy of the phrase 'Jl DKO fcO^) make it the medium and object of solemn exclamation; a third will write with his hand (Vv, an ace. of more precise definition, like non in ch. xlii. 25, and ynst in ch. xliii. 23), " To Jehovah," thereby attesting that he desires to belong to Jehovah, and Jehovah alone. This is the explanation given by Gesenius, Hahn, and others; whereas Hitzigand Knobel follow the LXX. in the rendering, " he will write upon his hand ' layehovdh,y i.e. mark the name of Jehovah upon it." But apart from the fact that kdthabh, with an accusative of the writing materials, would be unprecedented (the construction required would be ^^?V)} this view is overthrown by the fact that tattooing was prohibited by the Israelitish law (Lev. xix. 28; compare the mark of the beast in Rev. xiii. 16). DBQ fcOp is interchanged with 0^2 na^ to surname, or entitle (the Syriac and Arabic are the same; compare the Arabic hunye, the name given to a man as the father of such and such a person, e.g. Abu-Muhammed, rhetorically called metonymy). The name Israel becomes a name or title of honour among the heathen. This concludes the fourth prophecy, which opens out into three distinct fields. With nrijn in ch. xliv. 1 it began to approach the close, just as the third did in ch. xliii. 1, — a w^ll-rounded whole, which leaves nothing wanting.
THE RIDICULOUS GODS OF THE NATIONS; AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL, WHO MAKES HIS PEOPLE TO REJOICE.
A new pledge of redemption is given, and a fresh exhortation to trust in Jehovah; the wretchedness of the idols and their worshippers being pointed out, in contrast with Jehovah, the only speaking and acting God. Ver. 6. " Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel, and its Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts; I am first, and I last; and beside me there is no God? The fact that His deity, which rules over not only the natural world, but history as well, is thus without equal and above all time, is now proved by Him from the fact that He alone manifests Himself as God, and that by the utterance of prophecy. Ver. 7. "And who preaches as I do? Let him make it known, and show it to me; since I founded the people of ancient time! A nd future things, and what is approaching, let them only make known" Jehovah shows Himself as the God of prophecy since the time that He founded DPijTDy (K^i?* refers to the continued preaching of prophecy). 'Am 'oldm is the epithet applied in Ezek. xxvi. 20 to the people of the dead, who are sleeping the long sleep of the grave; and here it does not refer to Israel, which could neither be called an " eternal " nation, nor a people of the olden time, and which would have been more directly named; but according to ch. xl. 7 and xlii. 5, where 'am signifies the human race, and Job xxii. 15 sqq., where roldm is the time of the old world before the flood, it signifies humanity as existing from the very earliest times. The prophecies of Jehovah reach back even to the history of paradise. The parenthetical clause, "Let him speak it out, and tell it me," is like the apodosis of a hypothetical protasis: " if any one thinks that he can stand by my side." The challenge points to earlier prophecies; with rrisn&0 it takes a turn to what is future, nvriK itself denoting what is absolutely future, according to ch. xli. 23, and nifcon "ibw what is about to be realized immediately; lamo is an ethical dative.
Of course, none of the heathen gods could in any way answer to the challenge. So much the more confident might Israel be, seeing that it had quite another God. Ver. 8. "Despair ye not, neither tremble: have not I told thee long ago, and made known, and ye are my witnesses: is there a God beside me? And nowhere a rock; I know of none? The Jewish lexicographers derive tfnn (with the first syllable closed) from nrn (m); whereas modern lexicographers prefer some of them to read Vpn, tirehu, from n*}) (Ges., Knobel), and others WPR (Ewald). But the possibility of there being a verb nrn, to tremble or fear, cannot for a moment be doubted when we think of such words as KV, JHJ, compare also s\. (applied to water moving to and fro). It was not of the heathen deities that they were directed not to be afraid, as in Jer. x. 5, but rather the great catastrophe coming upon the nations, of which Cyrus was the instrument. In the midst of this, when one nation after another would be overthrown, and its tutelar gods would prove to be worthless, Israel would have nothing to fear, since its God, who was no dumb idol, had foretold all this, and that indeed long ago (tW?, cf. C'NiD, ch. xli. 2G), as they themselves must bear witness. Prophecies before the captivity had foretold the conquest of Babylon by Medes and Elamites, and the deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian bondage; and even these prophecies themselves were like a spirit's voice from the far distant past, consoling the people of the captivity beforehand, and serving to support their faith. On the ground of such well-known self-manifestations, Jehovah could well ask, "Is there a God beside me?" — a virtual denial in the form of an interrogation, to which the categorical denial, " There is no rock (i.e. no ground of trust, ch. xxvi. 4, xvii. 10), I know of none (beside me)," is attached. The heathen gods are so far from being a ground of trust, that all who trust in them must discover with alarm how they have deceived themselves. Vers. 9-11. " The makers of idols, they are all desolation, and their bosom-children worthless; and those who bear witness for them see nothing and know nothing, that they may be put to shame. Who hath formed the god, and cast the idol to no profit? Behold, all its folloicers will be put to shame; and the workmen are men: let them all assemble together, draw near, be alarmed, be all put to shame together?' The chdmudlm (favourites) of the makers of idols are the false gods, for whose favour they sue with such earnestness. If we retain the word ^^)., which is pointed as critically suspicious, and therefore is not accentuated, the explanation might possibly be, u Their witnesses (i.e. witnesses against themselves) are they (the idols): they see not, and are without consciousness, that they (those who trust in them) may be put to shame." In any case, the subject to yebhoshu (shall be put to shame) is the worshippers of idols. If we erase tV&\}9 B^Hy will be those who come forward as witnesses for the idols. This makes the words easier and less ambiguous. At the same time, the Septuagint retains the word (jcal fAaprvpes avToav elotv). As "not seeing" here signifies to be blind, so " not knowing " is also to be understood as a self-contained expression, meaning to be irrational, just as in ch. xlv. 20, lvi. 10 (in ch. i. 3, on the other hand, we have taken it in a different sense). $£7 implies that the will of the sinner in his sin has also destruction for its object; and this is not something added to the sin, but growing out of it. The question in ver. 10 summons the maker of idols for the purpose of announcing his fate, and in /*$n w37 (to no profit) this announcement is already contained. Ver. 11 is simply a development of this expression, " to no profit." W, like VBJ in ver. 14, is contrary to the rhythmical law milra which prevails elsewhere. V^in (its followers) are not the fellow-workmen of the maker of idols (inasmuch as in that case the maker himself would be left without any share in the threat), but the associates (i.e. followers) of the idols (Hos. iv. 17; 1 Cor. x. 20). It is a pernicious work that they have thus had done for them. And what of the makers themselves I They are numbered among the men. So that they who ought to know that they are made by God, become makers of gods themselves. What an absurdity! Let them crowd together, the whole guild of godmakers, and draw near to speak to the works they have made. All their eyes will soon be opened with amazement and alarm. The prophet now conducts us into the workshops. Vers. 12, 13. u The iron-smith has a chisel, and works with red-hot coals, and shapes it with hammers, and works it with his powerful arm. He gets hungry thereby, and his strength fails; if he drink no water, he becomes exhausted. The carpenter draws the line, marks it with the 'pencil, carries it out with planes, and makes a drawing of it with the compass, and carries it out like the figure of a man, like the beauty of a man, which may dwell in the house." The two words chdrash barzel are connected together in the sense of faber ferrarius, as we may see from the expression chdrash 'etsim (the carpenter, faber lignarius), which follows in ver. 13. Chdrash is the construct of chdrash (= charrdsh), as in Ex. xxviii. 11. The second kametz of this form of noun does indeed admit of contraction, but only to the extent of a full short vowel; consequently the construct of the plural is not *Bhn, but ^"J1? (cn> x^v* 16, etc.). Hence ver. 12 describes how the smith constructs an idol of iron, ver. 13 how the carpenter makes one of wood. But the first clause, <na Bhn "W^> is enigmatical. In any case, *W» is a smith's tool of some kind (from *TO, related to tBJ), And consequently Gesenius, Umbreit, and others, adopt the rendering, " the smith an axe, that does he work,...;" but the further account of the origin of an idol says nothing at all about this axe, which the smith supplies to the carpenter, that he may hew out an idol with it.
Ilitzig renders it, " The smith, a hatchet does he work, and forms it (viz. into an idol);" but what a roundabout way! first to make a hatchet and then make it into an idol, which would look very slim when made. Knobel translates it, "As for the cutting-smith, he works it;" but this guild of cuttingsmiths certainly belongs to Utopia; The best way to render the sentence intelligible, would be to supply fa: " The smith has (uses) the madtsdd" But in all probability a word has dropped out; and the Septuagint rendering, otl co^vvev t€/ctcov alhnpov cr/ceTrdpva) elpydcraro, k.t.X., shows that the original reading of the text was nvyo hr\2 Bnn nn, and that Tin got lost on account of its proximity to in\ The meaning therefore is, " The smith has sharpened, or sharpens (chidded, syn. shinnen) the mdatsdd" possibly the chisel, to cut the iron upon the anvil; and works with red-hot coals, making the iron red-hot by blowing the fire. The piece of iron which he cuts off is the future idol, and this he shapes with hammers (VTOP the future of W). And what of the carpenter? He stretches the line upon the block of wood, to measure the length and breadth of the idol; he marks it- upon the wood with red-stone (sered, rubrica, used by carpenters), and works it with planes (maqtsuoth, a feminine form of ytepp, from Jftfi?, to cut off, pare off, plane; compare the Arabic mikta), and with the compasses (inechugdh, the tool used, ldchug} i.e. for making a circle) he draws the outline of it, that is to say, in order that the different parts of the body may be in right proportion; and he constructs it in such a manner that it acquires the shape of a man, the beautiful appearance of a man, to be set up like a human inmate in either a temple or private house. The piel "Wfl ("^n), from which comes yHaavehu, is varied here (according to Isaiah's custom; cf. ch. xxix. 7, xxvi. 5) with the poet ^r\} which is to be understood as denoting the more exact configuration. The preterites indicate the work for which both smith and carpenter have made their preparations; the futures, the work in which they are engaged.
The prophet now traces the origin of the idols still further back. Their existence or non-existence ultimately depends upon whether it rains or not. Vers. 14-17. " One prepares to cut down cedars, and takes holm and oak-tree, and chooses for himself among the trees of the forest. He has planted a fig, and VOL. II. O the rain draws it up. And it serves the man for firing: he takes thereof, and ivarms himself; he also heats, and bakes bread; he also works it into a god, and prostrates himself; makes an idol of it, and falls down before it. The half of it he has burned in the fire: over the half of it he eats flesh, roasts a roast, and is satisfied; he also warms himself, and says, Hurrah, 1 am getting warm, I feel the heat. And the rest of it he makes into a god, into his idol, and says, Save me, for thou art my god? The subject of the sentence is not the carpenter of the previous verse, but " any one." QSrw apparently stands first, as indicating the species; and in the Talmud and Midrash the trees named are really described as DTiX ^D. But tirzdh (from tdraz, to be hard or firm) does not appear to be a coniferous tree; and the connection with 'allon, the oak, is favourable to the rendering aypioftaXavo? (LXX., A. Th.), ilea (Vulg.). On 'immetSy to choose, see ch. xli. 10. pfc (with Nun minusculum), plur. tttfiK (b. Ros-ha Sana 23a)' or D^ (Para iii. 8), is explained by the Talmud as ^V, sing. *njJ, i.e, according to Aruch and Rashi, laurier, the berries of which are called baies. We have rendered it " fig" according to the LXX. and Jerome, since it will not do to follow the seductive guidance of the similarity in sound to ornus (which is hardly equivalent to opecvos).1 The description is genealogical, and therefore moves retrogressively, from the felling to the planting, njni in ver. 15a refers to the felled and planted tree, and primarily to the ash. Dno (of such as these) is neuter, as in ch. xxx. 6; at the same time, the prophet had the D^V (the wood, both as produce and material) in his mind. The repeated *|N lays emphasis upon the fact, that such different things are done with the very same wrood. It is used for warming, and for the preparation of food, as well as for making a god. On the verbs of adoration, hishtachdvdh (root shach, to sink, to settle down) and sdgad, which is only applied to idolatrous worship, and from which mes'gid, a mosque, is derived, see Holemann's Bibelstudien, i. 3. to may no doubt be taken as a plural (= Dr6, as in ch. xxx. 5), " such things (talia) does he worship," as Stier supposes; but it is probably pathetic, and equivalent to
1 The dpict of Theophrastus is probably quercus ilex, which is still called dpiot,; the laurus nobilis is now called fixhcc, from the branches which serve instead of palm-branches.
Sb, as in ch. liii. 8 (compare Ps. xi. 7; Ewald, § 2 17, a). According to the double application of the wood mentioned in ver. 15, a distinction is drawn in vers. 16, 17 between the one half of the wood and the other. The repeated chetsyo (the half of it) in ver. 16 refers to the first half, which furnishes not only fuel for burning, but shavings and coals for roasting and baking as wTell. And as a fire made for cooking warms quite as much as one made expressly for the purpose, the prophet dwells upon this benefit which the wood of the idol does confer. On the tone upon the last syllable of chammothl, see at Job xix. 17; and on the use of the word ntf"} as a comprehensive term, embracing every kind of sensation and perception, see my Psychologie, p. 234. Diagoras of Melos, a pupil of Democritus, once threw a wooden standing figure of Hercules into the fire, and said jocularly, " Come now, Hercules, perform thy thirteenth labour, and help me to cook the turnips."
So irrational is idolatry; but yet, through self-hardening, they have fallen under the judgment of hardness of heart (ch. vi. 9, 10, xix. 3, xxix. 10), and have been given up to a reprobate mind (Rom. i. 28). Vers. 18, 19. " They perceive not, and do not understand: for their eyes are smeared over, so that they do not see; their hearts, so that they do not understand. And men take it not to heart, no perception and no understanding, that men should say, The half of it I have burned in the fire, and also baked bread upon the coals thereof; roasted flesh, and eaten: and ought I to make the rest of it an abomination, to fall down before the produce of a tree?" Instead of np, Lev. xiv. 42, the third person is written np (from tdchach, Ges. § 72: Anm. 8) in a circumstantial sense: their eyes are, as it were, smeared over with plaster. The expression 2?~7K 2W or 3?"?2 (ch. xlvi. 8), literally to carry back into the heart, which we find as well as ajvg D^, to take to heart (ch. xlii. 25), answers exactly to the idea of reflection, here with reference to the immense contrast between a piece of wood and the Divine Being. The second and third t6 in ver. 19 introduce substantive clauses, just as verbal clauses are introduced by PSI. "lbs? is used in the same manner as in ch. ix. 8: "perception and insight showing themselves in their saying." On bill, see Job xl. 20; the meaning "block" cannot be established: the talmudic bul, a lump or piece, which Ewald adduces, is the Greek /&w\o?.
This exposure of the infatuation of idolatry closes with an epiphonem in the form of a gnome (cf. ch. xxvi. 7, 10). Ver. 20. " He who striveth after ashes, a befooled heart has led him astray, and he does not deliver his soul, and does not think, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" We have here a complete and self-contained sentence, which must not be broken up in the manner proposed by Knobel, u He hunts after ashes; his heart is deceived," etc. He who makes ashes, i.e. things easily scattered, perishable, and worthless, the object of his effort and striving (compare riiach in Hos. xii. 2), has been led astray from the path of truth and salvation by a heart overpowered by delusion; he is so certain, that he does not think of saving his soul, and it never occurs to him to say, " Is there not a lie in my right hand?" All that belongs to idolatry is sheqer — a fabrication and a lie. njn means primarily to pasture or tend, hence to be concerned about, to strive after.?r)W is an attributive, from tdlal = hdthal, ludere, ludificare (see at ch. xxx. 10).
The second half of the prophecy commences with ver. 21. It opens with an admonition. Ver. 21. u Remember this, Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art servant to me, 0 Israel: thou art not forgotten by me" The thing to which the former were blind, — namely, that idolatry is a lie, — Jacob was to have firmly impressed upon its mind. The words u and Israel," which are attached, are a contraction for " and remember this, O Israel " (compare the vocatives after Vdv in Prov. viii. 5 and Joel ii. 23). In the reason assigned, the tone rests upon my in the expression " my servant," and for this reason " servant to me " is used interchangeably with it. Israel is the servant of Jehovah, and as such it was formed by Jehovah; and therefore reverence was due to Him, and Him alone. The words which follow are rendered by the LXX., Targum, Jerome, and Luther as though they read ^^n N7, though Hitzig regards the same rendering as admissible even with the reading W^n, inasmuch as the niphal iTO has the middle sense of eiriXavOavecrOaL, oblivisci. But it cannot be shown that nizkar is ever used in the analogous sense of fiLfivqaKeaOai, recordari. The niphal, which was no doubt originally reflective, is always used in Hebrew to indicate simply the passive endurance of something which originated with the subject of the action referred to, so that nissftdh could only signify " to forget one's self." We must indeed admit the possibility of the meaning " to forget one's self" having passed into the meaning " to be forgetful," and this into the meaning " to forget." The Aramaean *gWK also signifies to be forgotten and (with an accent following) to forget, and the connection with an objective suffix has a support in WDJJW in Ps. cix. 3. But the latter is really equivalent to *1K IDrp^ so that it may be adduced with equal propriety in support of the other rendering, according to which ^jn iS equivalent to v fflWI (Ges., Umbr., Ewald, Stier). There are many examples of this brachyological use of the suffix (Ges. § 121, 4), so that this rendering is certainly the safer of the two. It also suits the context quite as well as the former, "Oh, forget me not;" the assurance "thou wilt not be forgotten by me" (compare ch. xlix. 15 and the lamentation of Israel in ch. xl. 27) being immediately followed by an announcement of the act of love, by which the declaration is most gloriously confirmed. — Ver. 22. " I have blotted oat thy transgressions as a mist, and thy sins as clouds: return to me; for I have redeemed thee" We have adopted the rendering "mist" merely because we have no synonym to "cloud;" we have not translated it " thick cloud," because the idea of darkness, thickness, or opacity, which is the one immediately suggested by the word, had become almost entirely lost (see ch. xxv. 5). Moreover,?\> 1$ is evidently intended here (see ch. xix. 1), inasmuch as the point of comparison is not the dark, heavy multitude of sins, but the facility and rapidity with which they are expunged. Whether we connect with ^no the idea of a stain, as in Ps. li. 3, 11, or that of a debt entered in a ledger, as in Col. ii. 14, and as we explained it in ch. xliii. 25 (cf. mdchdh, Ex. xxxii. 32, 33), in any case sin is regarded as something standing between God and man, and impeding or disturbing the intercourse between them. This Jehovah clears away, just as when His wind sweeps away the clouds, and restores the blue sky again (Job xxvi. 13). Thus does God's free grace now interpose at the very time when Israel thinks He has forgotten it, blotting out Israel's sin, and proving this by redeeming it from a state of punishment. What an evangelical sound the preaching of the Old Testament evangelist has in this passage also! Forgiveness and redemption are not offered on condition of conversion, but the mercy of God comes to Israel in direct contrast to what its works deserve, and Israel is merely called upon to reciprocate this by conversion and renewed obedience. The perfects denote that which has essentially taken place. Jehovah has blotted out Israel's sin, inasmuch as He does not impute it any more, and thus has redeemed Israel. All that yet remains is the outward manifestation of this redemption, which is already accomplished in the counsel of God.
There is already good ground, therefore, for exuberant rejoicing; and the reply of the church to these words of divine consolation is as follows: Ver. 23. "Exult, 0 heavens; for Jehovah hath accomplished it: shout, ye depths of the earth; break out, ye mountains, into exulting; thou forest, and all the wood therein: for Jehovah hath redeemed Jacob, and He showeth Himself glorious upon Israel" All creation is to rejoice in the fact that Jehovah has completed what He purposed, that He has redeemed His people, and henceforth will show Himself glorious in them. The heavens on high are to exult; also the depths of the earth, i.e. not Hades, which would be opposed to the prevailing view of the Old Testament (Ps. lxvi., cf. lxxxviii. 13), but the interior of the earth, with its caves, its pits, and its deep abysses (see Ps. cxxxix. 15); and the mountains and woods which rise up from the earth towards heaven — all are to unite in the exultation of the redeemed: for the redemption that is being accomplished in man will extend its effects in all directions, even to the utmost limits of the natural world.
This exulting finale is a safe boundary-stone of this fifth prophecy. It opened with "Thus saith the Lord," and the sixth opens with the same.
The promise takes a new turn here, acquiring greater and greater speciality. It is introduce^ as the word of Jehovah, who first gave existence to Israel, and has not let it go to ruin.
Vers. 24-28. " Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, and He that fanned thee from the womb, I Jehovah am He that accomplisheth all; who stretched out the heavens alone, spread out the earth by Himself; who bringeth to nought the signs of the prophets of lies, and exposeth the soothsayers as raging mad; who turneth back the wise men, and maketh their science folly; who realizeth the word of His servant, and accomplished the prediction of His messengers; who saith to Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited! and to the cities of Judah, They shall be built, and their ruins I raise up again I who saith to the whirlpool, Dry up; and 1 dry its streams! who saith to Koresh, My shepherd and he will perform all my will; and will say to Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the temple founded! " The prophecy which commences with ver. 24a is carried on through this group of verses in a series of participial predicates to ^JK (I). Jehovah is 'oseh hoi, accomplishing all (perficiens omnia), so that there is nothing that is not traceable to His might and wisdom as the first cause. It was He who alone, without the co-operation of any other being, stretched out the heavens, who made the earth into a wide plain by Himself, i.e. so that it proceeded from Himself alone: ^KO, as in Josh. xi. 20 (compare *3D, ch. xxx. 1; and mimmenni in Hos. viii. 4), chethib ViK "'D, " who was with me," or " who is it beside me? " The Targum follows the heri; the Septuagint the chethib, attaching it to the following words, rk crepes Biaa/ce$do~€i. Ver. 25 passes on from Him whom creation proves to be God, to Him who is proving Himself to be so in history also, and that with obvious reference to the Chaldean soothsayers and wise men (ch. xlvii. 9, 10), who held out to proud Babylon the most splendid and hopeful prognostics. " Who brings to nought (mepher, opp. meqlm) the signs," i.e. the marvellous proofs of their divine mission which the false, prophets adduced by means of fraud and witchcraft. The LXX. render baddlm, iyyaaTpifivOcov, Targ. bldin (in other passages = fob, Lev. xx. 27; 'oboth, Lev. xix. 31; hence = irvOcov, irvdcoves). At ch. xvi. 6 and Job xi. 3 we have derived it as a common noun from JTJ3 = Ntp?» to speak at random; but it is possible that rna may originally have signified to produce or bring forth, without any reference to fiarToXoyeip, then to invent, to fabricate, so that baddlm as a personal name (as in Jer. 1. 36) would be synonymous with baddd'im, mendaces. On qosemimy see ch. iii. 2 (vol. i. 131); on y'holel, Job xii. 17, where it occurs in connection with a similar predicative description of God according to His works. In ver. 26 a contrast is drawn between the heathen soothsayers and wise men, and the servant and messengers of Jehovah, whose word, whose 'etsdh, i.e. determination or disclosure concerning the future (cf. yaats, ch. xli. 28), he realizes and perfectly fulfils. By " his servant" we are to understand Israel itself, according to ch. xlii. 19, but only relatively, namely, as the bearer of the prophetic word, and therefore as the kernel of Israel regarded from the standpoint of the prophetic mission which it performed; and consequently "his messengers" are the prophets of Jehovah who were called out of Israel. The singular " his servant" is expanded in " his messenger" into the plurality embraced in the one idea. This is far more probable than that the author of these prophetic words, who only speaks of himself in a roundabout manner even in ch. xl. 6, should here refer directly to himself (according to ch. xx. 3). In ver. 26b the predicates become special prophecies, and hence their outward limits are also defined. As we have 2'^n and not '•SOTi, we must adopt the rendering habitetur and cedijicentur, with which the continuation of the latter et vastata ejus erigam agrees. In ver. 27 the prophecy moves back from the restoration of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah to the conquest of Babylon. The expression calls to mind the drying up of the Red Sea (ch. li. 10, xliii. 16); but here it relates to something future, according to ch. xlii. 15, 1. 2, — namely, to the drying up of the Euphrates, which Cyrus turned into the enlarged basin of Sepharvaim, so that the water sank to the depth of a single foot, and men could "go through on foot'* (Herod, i. 191). But in the complex view of the prophet, the possibility of the conqueror's crossing involved tne possibility of the exiles' departing from the prison of the imperial city, which was surrounded by a natural and artificial line of waters (ch. xi. 15). iTOV (from ^V = /?¥, to whiz or whirl) refers to the Euphrates, just as mHsuldh in Job xli. 23, Zech. x. 11, does to the Nile; iTThru is used in the same sense as the Homeric 'fltceavoio peeOpa. In ver. 28 the special character of the promise reaches its highest shoot. The deliverer of Israel is mentioned by name: " That saith to Koresh, My shepherd (i.e. a iroiyJr}v
\acou appointed by me), and lie who performs all my will" (ch8phet8} OeXrjfia, not in the generalized sense of 7rpa>y/j,a), and that inasmuch as he (Cyrus) saith to (or of) Jerusalem, It shall be built {tibbdneh, not the second pers. tibbdnl), and the foundation of the temple laid (liekhdl a masculine elsewhere, here a feminine). This is the passage which is said by Josephus to have induced Cyrus to send back the Jews to their native land: " Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfil what was so written" (Jos. Ant. xi. 2). According to Ctesias and others, the name of Cyrus signifies the sun. But all that can really be affirmed is, that it sounds like the name of the sun. For in Neo-Pers. the sun is called char, in Zendic hvarg (Jcari), and from this proper names are formed, such as chars id (Sunshine, also the Sun); but Cyrus is called Kuru or Khuru upon the monuments, and this cannot possibly be connected with our chur, which would be uwara in Old Persian (Rawlinson, Lassen, Spiegel), and Koresh is simply the name of Kuru (Kvp-o<?) Hebraized after the manner of a segholate. There is a marble-block, for example, in the Murghab valley, not far from the mausoleum of Cyrus, which contained the golden coffin with the body of the king (see Strabo, xv. 3, 7); and on this we find an inscription that we also meet with elsewhere, viz. adam. k'ur'us. hhsdya \ thiya. hahhdmanisiya, i.e. I am Kuru the, king of the Achasmenides.1 This name is identical with the name of the river Kur (Kvpos; see i. 393, note); and what Strabo says is worthy of notice, — namely, that " there is also a river called Cyrus, which flows through the so-called cave of Persis near Pasargadaa, and whence the king took his name, changing it from Agradates into Cyrus" (Strab. xv. 3, 6). It is possible also that there may be some connection between the name and the Indian princely title of Kuru.
1 See the engraving of this tomb of Cyrus, which is now called the " Tomb of Solomon's mother," in Vaux's Nineveh and Persepolis (p. 345). On the identity of Murghab and Pasargadse, see Spiegel, Keil-inschriften, pp. 71, 72; and with regard to the discovery of inscriptions that may still be expected around the tomb of Cyrus, the Journal of the Asiatic Society, x. 46, note 4 (also compare Spiegel's Geschichte der Entzifferung der Keilschrift, im " Ausland" 1865, p. 413).
(ch. xliv. 24 sqq.), the subject of which is Cyrus, the predicted restorer of Jerusalem, of the cities of Judah, and of the temple, is now followed by a second strophe (ch. xlv. 1-8), having for its subject Cyrus, the man through whose irresistible career of conquest the heathen would be brought to recognise the power of Jehovah, so that heavenly blessings would come down upon the earth. The naming of the great shepherd of the nations, and the address to him, are continued in ch. xlv. 1-3: " Thus saith Jehovah to His anointed, to Koresh, whom I have taken by his right hand to subdue nations before him; and the loins of kings I ungird, to open before him doors and gates, that they may not continue shut. I shall go before thee, and level what is heaped up: gates of brass shall I break in pieces, and bolts of iron shall I smite to the ground. And I shall give thee treasures of darkness, and jewels of hidden places, that thou mayest know that I Jehovah am He who called out thy name, (even) the God of Israel." The words addressed to Cyrus by Jehovah commence in ver. 2, but promises applying to him force themselves into the introduction, being evoked by the mention of his name. He is the only king of the Gentiles whom Jehovah ever calls meshlchl (my anointed; LXX. ra> XpLGTO) fiov). The fundamental principle of the politics of the empire of the world was all-absorbing selfishness. But the politics of Cyrus were pervaded by purer motives, and this brought him eternal honour. The very same thing which the spirit of Darius, the father of Xerxes, is represented as saying of him in the Persa of ^Eschylus (v. 735), 0eo? <yap ovk rj^Onaev, ax? eixppcov e<j>v (for he was not hateful to God, because he was well-disposed), is here said by the Spirit of revelation, which by no means regards the virtues of the heathen as splendida vitia. Jehovah has taken him by his right hand, to accomplish great things through him while supporting him thus. (On the inf. rad for rod, from rddad, to tread down, see Ges. § 67, Anm. 3.) The dual deldthaim has also a plural force: "double doors" {fores) in great number, viz. those of palaces. After the two infinitives, the verb passes into the finite tense: " loins of kings I ungird " (discingo; pittedch, which refers primarily to the loosening of a fastened garment, is equivalent to depriving of strength). The gates — namely, those of the cities which he storms — will not be shut, sc. in perpetuity, that is to say, they will have to open to him. Jerome refers here to the account given of the elder Cyrus in Xenophon'a Cyropadia. A general picture may no doubt be obtained from this of his success in war; but particular statements need support from other quarters, since it is only a historical romance. Instead of "Igfa p^itf?) in ver. 2, the keri has IB^K; just as in Ps. v. 9 it has l^n instead of "^?1. A hiphil Ttyin cannot really be shown to have existed, and the abbreviated future form "igntf would be altogether without ground or object here. D'nvrn (tumida; like B^W, amosna, and others) is meant to refer to the difficulties piled up in the conqueror's way. The "gates of brass" (nedhushdh, brazen, poetical for nechosheth, brass, as in the derivative passage, Ps. cvii. 16) and "bolts of iron91 remind one more especially of Babylon with its hundred " brazen gates," the very posts and lintels of which were also of brass (Herod, i. 179); and the treasures laid up in deep darkness and jewels preserved in hiding-places, of the riches of Babylon (Jer. 1. 37, li. 13), and especially of those of the Lydian Sardes, " the richest city of Asia after Babylon'* (Cyrop. vii. 2, 11), which Cyrus conquered first. On the treasures which Cyrus acquired through his conquests, and to which allusion is made in the Persce of ^Eschylus, v. 327 (u O Persian, land and harbour of many riches thou"), see Plin. h. n. xxxiii. 2. Brerewood estimates the quantity of gold and silver mentioned there as captured by him at no less than £126,224,000 sterling. And all this success is given to him by Jehovah, that he may know that it is Jehovah the God of Israel who has called out with his name, i.e. called out his name, or called him to be what he is, and as what he shows himself to be.
A second and third object are introduced by a second and third $&?. Vers. 4-7. " For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I called thee hither by name, surnamed thee when thou hiewest me not. I Jehovah, and there is none else, beside me no God: I equipped thee when thou knewest one not; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and its going down, that there is none without me: I Jehovah, and there is none else, former of the light, and creator of the darkness; founder of peace, and creator of evil: I Jehovah am He who worketh all this." The &OP&0 which follows the second reason assigned like an apodosis, is construed doubly: " I called to thee, calling thee by name." The parallel *I3?K refers to such titles of honour as " my shepherd " and " my anointed," which had been given to him by Jehovah. This calling, distinguishing, and girding, i.e. this equipment of Cyrus, took place at a time when Cyrus knew nothing as yet of Jehovah, and by this very fact Jehovah made known His sole Deity. The meaning is, not that it occurred while he was still worshipping false gods, but, as the refrain-like repetition of the words " though thou hast not known me " affirms with strong emphasis, before he had been brought into existence, or could know anything of Jehovah. The passage is to be explained in the same way as Jer. i. 5, " Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee " (see Psychol, pp. 36, 37, 39); and what the God of prophecy here claims for Himself, must not be questioned by false criticism, or weakened down by false apologetics (i.e. by giving up the proper name Cyrus as a gloss in ch. xliv. 28 and xlv. 1; or generalizing it into a king's name, such as Pharaoh, Abimelech, or Agag). The third and last object of this predicted and realized success of the oppressor of nations and deliverer of Israel is the acknowledgment of Jehovah, spreading over the heathen world from the rising and setting of the sun, i.e. in every direction. The ah of niijJBD} is not a feminine termination (LXX., Targ., Jer.), but a feminine suffix with He raphato pro mappic (Kimchi); compare ch. xxii.i. 17, 18, xxxiv.
Shemesh (the sun) is a feminine here, as in Gen. xv. 17, Nah. iii. 17, Mai. iii. 20, and always in Arabic; for the west is invariably called TOD (Arab, magrib). In ver. 7 we are led by the context to understand by darkness and evil the penal judgments, through which light and peace, or salvation, break forth for the people of God and the nations generally. But as the prophecy concerning Cyrus closes with this self-assertion of Jehovah, it is unquestionably a natural supposition that there is also a contrast implied to the dualistic system of Zarathustra, which divided the one nature of the Deity into two opposing powers (see Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, p. 135). The declaration is so bold, that Marcion appealed to this passage as a proof that the God of the Old Testament was a different being from the God of the New, and not the God of goodness only. The Valentinians and other gnostics also regarded the words " There is no God beside me " in Isaiah, as deceptive words of the Demiurgus. The early church met them with Tertullian's reply, " de his creator profitetur malts quo? congruunt judici," and also made use of this self-attestation of the God of revelation as a weapon with which to attack Manicheeism. The meaning of the words is not exhausted by those who content themselves with the assertion, that by the evil (or darkness) we are not to understand the evil of guilt (malum culpa?), but the evil of punishment (malum porno?). Undoubtedly, evil as an act is not the direct working of God, but the spontaneous work of a creature endowed with freedom. At the same time, evil, as well as good, has in this sense its origin in God, — that He combines within Himself the first principles of love and wrath, the possibility of evil, the selfpunishment of evil, and therefore the consciousness of guilt as well as the evil of punishment in the broadest sense. When the apostle celebrates the glory of free grace in Rom. ix. 11 sqq., he stands on that giddy height, to which few are able to follow him without falling headlong into the false conclusions of a decretum absolutum, and the denial of all creaturely freedom.
In the prospect of this ultimate and saving purpose of the mission of Cyrus, viz. the redemption of Israel and the conversion of the heathen, heaven and earth are now summoned to bring forth and pour down spiritual blessings in heavenly gifts, according to the will and in the power of Jehovah, who has in view a new spiritual creation. Ver. 8. u Cause to trickle down, ye heavens above, and let the blue shy rain down righteousness; let the earth open, and let salvation blossom, and righteousness; let them sprout together: I Jehovah have created it? What the heavens are to cause to trickle down, follows as the object to w. And what is to flower when the earth opens (pdthach as in Ps. cvi. 17; compare aprilis and the Neo-Greek anoixis, spring), is salvation and righteousness. But tzedek (righteousness) is immediately afterwards the object of a new verb; so that njjTO V&j which are thought of as combined, as the word W (together) shows, are uncoupled in the actual expression. Knobel expresses a different opinion, and assumes that VW is regarded as a collective noun, and therefore construed with a plural, like mjDK in Ps. cxix. 103, and ffnon in Hag. ii. 7. But the use of yachad (together) favours the other interpretation. The suffix of Vritfna points to this fulness of righteousness and salvation. It is a creation of Jehovah Himself. Heaven and earth, when co-operating to effect this, are endowed with their capacity through Him from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, and obey now, as at the first, His creative fiat. This " rorate cosli desuper et nabes pluant justum" as the Vulgate renders it, is justly regarded as an old advent cry.
The promise is now continued in a third strophe (ch. xlv. 9-13), and increases more and more in the distinctness of its terms; but just as in ch. xxix. 15-21, it opens with a reproof of that pusillanimity (ch. xl. 27; cf. ch. Ii. 13, xlix. 24, lviii. 3), which goes so far to complain of the ways of Jehovah. Vers. 9, 10. " Woe to him that quarrelleth with his Maker — a pot among the pots of earthenware? Can the clay indeed say to him that shapeth it, What makest thou? and thy ivork, He hath no hands? Woe to him that saith to his father, What begettest thou f and to the woman. What bringest thou forth? " The comparison drawn between a man as the work of God and the clay-work of a potter suggested itself all the more naturally, inasmuch as the same word yotser was applied to God as Creator, and also to a potter {figulus). The word cheres signifies either a sherd, or fragment of earthenware (ch. xxx. 14), or an earthenware vessel (Jer. xix. 1; Prov. xxvi. 23). In the passage before us, where the point of comparison is not the fragmentary condition, but the earthen character of the material i^adamdh), the latter is intended: the man, who complains of God, is nothing but a vessel of clay, and, more than that, a perishable vessel among many others of the very same kind.1 The questions which follow are meant to show the folly of this complaining. Can it possibly occur to the clay to raise a complaint against him who has it in hand, that he has formed it in such and such a manner, or for such and such a purpose (compare Rom. ix. 20, " Why hast thou made me thus")? To the words " or thy work " we must supply num dicet (shall it
1 The Scptuagint reads shin for sin in both instances, and introduces here the very unsuitable thought already contained in ch. xxvhi. 24, " Shall the ploughman plough the land the whole day? "
Bay); pd'al is a manufacture, as in ch. i. 31. The question is addressed to the maker, as those in ch. vii. 25 are to the husbandman: Can the thing made by thee, O man, possibly say in a contemptuous tone, " He has no hands?" — a supposition the ridiculous absurdity of which condemns it at once; and yet it is a very suitable analog}^ to the conduct of the man who complains of God. In ver. 10 a woe is denounced upon those who resemble a man who should say to his own father, What children dost thou beget? or to a wife, What dost thou bring forth? (t'chilin an emphatic, and for the most part pausal, fut. parag., as in Ruth ii. 8, iii. 18.) This would be the rudest and most revolting attack upon an inviolably tender and private relation; and yet Israel does this when it makes the hidden providential government of its God the object of expostulation. After this double woe, which is expressed in general terms, but the application of which is easily made, the words of Jehovah are directly addressed to the presumptuous criticizers. Ver. 11. " Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker, Ask me what is to come; let my sons and the work of my hands be committed to me!" The names by which He calls Himself express His absolute blamelessness, and His absolute right of supremacy over Israel. WNE> is an imperative, like 'Wftt? in Gen. xxiii. 8; the third person would be written W#B\ The meaning is: If ye would have any information or satisfaction concerning the future (" things to come," ch, xli. 23, xliv. 7), about which ye can neither know nor determine anything of yourselves, inquire of me. n«f with an accusative of the person, and?V of the thi^g, signifies to commit anything to the care of another (1 Chron. xxii. 12). The fault-finders in Israel were to leave the people of whom Jehovah was the Maker (a retrospective allusion to vers. 10 and 9), in the hands of Him who has created everything, and on whom everything depends. Ver. 12. "I, I have made the earth, and created men upon it; I, my hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I called for th^ *!£*?£» according to Ges. § 121, 3, is equivalent to my hands, and mine alone, — a similar arrangement of words to those in Gen. xxiv. 27, 2 Chron. xxviii. 10, Eccles. ii. 15. Hitzig is wrong in his rendering, " all their host do I command." That of Ewald is the correct one, " did I appoint;" for tsivvdh, followed by an accusative of the person, means to give a definite order or command to any one, the command in this case being the order to come into actual existence (= esse jussi, cf. Ps. xxxiii. 9).
He who created all things, and called all things into existence, had also raised up this Cyrus, whose victorious career had increased the anxieties and fears of the exiles, instead of leading them to lift up their heads, because their redemption was drawing nigh. Yer. 13. " I, I have raised him up in righteousness, and all his ways shall I make smooth: He will build my city, and release my banished ones, not for price nor for reward, saith Jehovah of hosts." All the anxieties of the exiles are calmed by the words " in righteousness," which trace back the revolutions that Cyrus was causing to the righteousness of Jehovah, i.e. to His interposition, which was determined by love alone, and tended directly to the salvation of His people, and in reality to that of all nations. And they are fully quieted by the promise, which is now expressed in the clearest and most unequivocal words, that Cyrus would build up Jerusalem again, and set the captivity free (gdluth, as in ch. xx. 4), and that without redemption with money (ch. lii. 3), — a clear proof that Jehovah had not only raised up Cyrus himself, but had put his spirit within him, i.e. had stirred up within him the resolution to do this (see the conclusion to the books of Chronicles, and the introduction to that of Ezra). This closes the first half of our sixth prophecy.
The second half is uttered in the prospect, that the judgment which Cyrus brings upon the nations will prepare the way for the overthrow of heathenism, and the universal acknowledgment of the God of Israel. The heathen submit, as the first strophe or group of verses (ch. xlv. 14-17) affirms, to the congregation and its God; the idolatrous are converted, whilst Israel is for ever redeemed. With the prospect of the release of the exiles, there is associated in the prophet's perspective the prospect of an expansion of the restored church, through the entrance of " the fulness of the Gentiles." Ver. 14. " Thus saith Jehovah, The pi oductions of Egypt, and gain of Ethiopia, and the Sabo?ans, men of tall stature, will come over to thee, and belong to thee: they will come after thee; in chains they ivill come over, and cast themselves down to thee; they pray to thee, Surely God is in thee, and there is none else; no Deity at all." Assuming that VihjP has the same meaning in both cases, the prophet's meaning appears to be, that the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Meroites (see ch. xliii. 3), who had been enslaved by the imperial power of Persia, would enter the miraculously emancipated congregation of Israel (Ewald). But if they were thought of as in a state of subjugation to the imperial power of Asia, how could the promise be at the same time held out that their riches would pass over into the possession of the church? And yet, on the other hand, the chains in which they come over cannot be regarded, at least in this connection, where such emphasis is laid upon the voluntary character of the surrender, as placed upon them by Israel itself (as in ch. lx. 11 and Ps. cxlix. 8). We must therefore suppose that they put chains upon themselves voluntarily, and of their own accord, and thus offer themselves spontaneously to the church, to be henceforth its subjects and slaves. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Saba are the nations that we meet with in other passages, where the hcereditas gentium is promised to the church, and generally in connection with Tyre (yid. Ps. lxviii. 32, lxxii. 10; compare ch. xviii. 7, xix. 16 sqq., xxiii. 18). Whilst the labour of Egypt {i.e. the productions of its labour) and the trade of Ethiopia (i.e. the riches acquired by trade) are mentioned; in the case of Saba the prophecy looks at the tall and handsome tribe itself, a tribe which Agatharchides describes as having acofiara a^coXoycorepa. These would place themselves at the service of the church with their invincible strength. The voluntary character of the surrender is pointed out, not only in the expression " they will come over," but also in the confession with which this is accompanied. In other cases the words hithpallel 'el are only used of prayer to God and idols; but here it is to the church that prayer is offered. In the prophet's view, Jehovah and His church are inseparably one (compare 1 Cor. xii. 12, where " Christ" stands for the church as one body, consisting of both head and members; also the use of the word " worship" in Rev. iii. 9, which has all the ring of a passage taken from Isaiah).?JK is used here in its primary affirmative sense, as in Ps. lviii. 12. There can be no doubt that Paul had this passage of Isaiah in his mind when writing 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25, aTraryyeXkcov otl 6 @eb$ 6W<*>? iv vfilv €(ttl, or, according to a better arrangement of the words, on
What follows in ver. 15 is not a continuation of the words of the Gentiles, but a response of the church to their confession. The nations that have been idolatrous till now, bend in humble spontaneous worship before the church and its God; and at the sight of this, the church, from whose soul the prophet is speaking, bursts out into an exclamation of reverential amazement. Ver. 15. (( Verily Thou art a mysterious God, Thou God of Israel, Thou Saviour." Literally, a God who hides Himself (mistatter: the resemblance to fivarnp-icoSn^ is quite an accidental one; the e is retained in the participle even in pause). The meaning is, a God who guides with marvellous strangeness the history of the nations of the earth, and by secret ways, which human eyes can never discern, conducts all to a glorious issue. The exclamation in Rom. xi. 33, " O the depth of the riches," etc., is a similar one.
The way in which this God who hides Himself is ultimately revealed as the God of salvation, is then pointed out in vers. 16, 17: " They are put to shame, and also confounded, all of them; they go away into confusion together, the forgers of idols. Israel is redeemed by Jehovah with everlasting redemption: ye are not put to shame nor confounded to everlasting eternities." The perfects are expressive of the ideal past. Jehovah shows Himself as a Saviour by the fact, that whereas the makers of idols perish, Israel is redeemed an everlasting redemption (ace. obj. as in ch. xiv. 6, xxii. 17; Ges. § 138, 1, Anm. 1), i.e. so that its redemption is one that lasts for seons (alcovla XvTpcoais, Heb. ix. 12): — observe that fshudh does not literally signify redemption or rescue, but transfer into a state of wide expanse, i.e. of freedom and happiness. The plural ' 'oldmiin (eternities = al F coves, ceva) belongs, according to Knobel, to the later period of the language; but it is met with as early as in old Asaphite psalms (Ps. lxxvii. 6). When the further promise is added, Ye shall not be put to shame, etc., this clearly shows, what is also certain on other grounds, — namely, that the redemption is not thought of merely as an outward and bodily one, but also as inward and spiritual, and indeed (in accordance with the prophetic blending of the end of the captivity with the end of all things) as a final one. Israel will never bring upon itself again such a penal judgment as that of the captivity by falling away from God; that is to say, its state of sin will end with its state of punishment, even "W ^rV'^V, i.e., since *W has no plural, el? ala)va<; tcov alcovcov.
The second and last strophe of this prophecy commences with ver. 18. By the fulfilment of the promise thus openly proclaimed, those of the heathen who have been saved from the judgment will recognise Jehovah as the only God; and the irresistible will of Jehovah, that all mankind should worship Him, be carried out. The promise cannot remain unfulfilled. Vers. 18, 19. " For thus saith Jehovah, the creator of the heavens (He is the Deity), the former of the earth, and its finisher; He has established it (He has not created it a desert, He has formed it to be inhabited): I am Jehovah, and there is none else. I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Into the desert seek ye me! I Jehovah am speaking righteousness, proclaiming upright things." The athnach properly divides ver. 18 in half. Ver. 18a describes the speaker, and what He says commences in ver. 186. The first parenthesis affirms that Jehovah is God in the fullest and most exclusive sense; the second that He has created the earth for man's sake, not u as a desert " (tohu: the LXX., Targum, and Jerome render this with less accuracy, non in vanum), i.e. not to be and continue to be a desert, but to be inhabited. Even in Gen. i. 2, chaos is not described as of God's creation, because (whatever may be men's opinions concerning it in other respects) the creative activity of God merely made use of this as a starting-point, and because, although it did not come into existence without God, it was at any rate not desired by God for its own sake. The words of Jehovah commence, then, with the assertion that Jehovah is the absolute One; and from this two thoughts branch off: (1.) The first is, that the prophecy which emanates from Him is an affair of light, no black art, but essentially different from heathen sooth- Baying. By " a dark place of the earth" we are to understand, according to Ps. cxxxix. 15, the interior of the earth, and according to Job x. 21, Hades; the intention being to point out the contrast between the prophecies of Jehovah and the heathen cave-oracles and spirit-voices of the necromancists, which seemed to rise up from the interior of the earth (see ch. lxv. 4, viii. 19, xxix. 4). (2.) The second thought is, that the very same love of Jehovah, which has already been displayed in the creation, attests itself in His relation to Israel, which He has not directed to Himself "into the desert" (tohu), just as He did not create the earth a tohu, Meier and Knobel suppose that baqshitniyxvhich. is written here, according to a well-supported reading, with Koph raphatum (whereas in other cases the dagesh is generally retained, particularly in the imperative of biqqesh), refers to seeking for disclosures as to the future; but the word 7W*Y1 would be used for this, as in ch. viii. 19. He has not said, " Seek ye me (as in Zeph. ii. 3) into the desert," i.e. without the prospect of meeting with any return for your pains. On the contrary, He has attached promises to the seeking of Himself, which cannot remain unfulfilled, for He is " one speaking righteousness, declaring things that are right;" u. when He promises, He follows out the rule of His purpose and of His plan of salvation, and the impulse of sincere desire for their good, and love which is ever true to itself. The present word of prophecy points to the fulfilment of these promises.
The salvation of Israel, foretold and realized by Jehovah, becomes at the same time the salvation of the heathen world. Vers. 20, 21. u Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye escaped of the heathen! Irrational are they icho burden themselves with the wood of their idol, and pray to a god that bringeth no salvation. Make known, and cause to draw near; yea, let them take counsel together: Who has made such things known from the olden time, proclaimed it long ago? have not 1, Jehovah? and there is no Deity beside me; a God just, and bringing salvation: there is not without me I " The fulness of the Gentiles, which enters into the kingdom of God, is a remnant of the whole mass of the heathen: for salvation comes through judgment; and it is in the midst of great calamities that the work of that heathen mission is accomplished, which is represented in these prophecies on the one hand as the mission of Cyrus, and on the other hand as the mission of Jehovah and His servant.
Hence thi3 summons to listen to the self-assertion of the God of revelation, is addressed to the escaped of the heathen, who are not therefore the converted, but those who are susceptible of salvation, and therefore spared. By " the heathen " (haggdylm) Knobel understands the allies and auxiliaries of the Babylonians, whom Cyrus put to flight (according to the Cyropcedia) before his Lydian campaign. But this is only an example of that exaggerated desire to turn everything into history, which not only prevented his seeing the poetry of the form, but obscured the fact that prophecy is both human and divine. For the future was foreshortened to the telescopic glance of the prophet, so that he could not see it in all its length and breadth. He saw in one mass what history afterwards unrolled; and then behind the present he could just see as it were the summit of the end, although a long eventful way still lay between the two. Accordingly, our prophet here takes his stand not at the close of any particular victory of Cyrus, but at the close of all his victories; and, in his view, these terminate the whole series of catastrophes, which are outlived by a remnant of the heathen, who are converted to Jehovah, and thus complete the final glory of the restored people of God. Throughout the whole of these prophecies we see immediately behind the historical foreground this eschatological background lifting up its head. The heathen who have been preserved will assemble together; and from the fact that Jehovah proves Himself the sole foreteller of the events that are now unfolding themselves, they will be brought to the conviction that He is the only God. The hithpael hithnaggesh does not occur anywhere else. On the absolute JTP tfi>, see at ch. xliv. 9 (cf. i. 3). To the verb haggishu we must supply, as in ch. xli. 22, according to the same expression in ver. 21, DDTibaty (your proofs). " This" refers to the fall of Babylon and redemption of Israel — salvation breaking through judgment. On me'dz, from the olden time, compare ch. xliv. 8. God is " a just God and a Saviour," as a being who acts most stringently according to the demands of His holiness, and wherever His wrath is not wickedly provoked, sets in motion His loving will, which is ever concerned to secure the salvation of men.
published in ver. 22: " Turn unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and none else." The first imperative is hortatory, the second promising (cf. ch. xxxvi. 16 and viii. 9): Jehovah desires both, viz. the conversion of all men to Himself; and through this their salvation, and this His gracious will, which extends to all mankind, will not rest till its object has been fully accomplished. Ver. 23. " By myself have I sworn, a word has gone out of a mouth of righteousness, and ivill not return, That to me every knee shall Lend, every tongue swear." Swearing by Himself (see Gen. xxii. 16), God pledges what He swears with His own life (compare Rom. xiv. 11, "as I live"). Parallel to *l??fJ »3 is the clause 2Mh *&) W ngTX *BB fcttP. Here Rosenmiiller connects "m T\\n^ together as if with a hyphen, in the sense of a truthword (Jerome, justitice verbum). But this is grammatically impossible, since it would require HpTC ~\T\; moreover, it is opposed both to the accents, and to the dagesh in the Daleth. Hitzig's rendering is a better one: " Truth (LXX. St/catoavvrj), a word that does not return," — the latter being taken as an explanatory permutative; but in that case we should require vh for tib\ and tseddqdh is not used in the sense of truth anywhere else (compare tsaddlq, however, in ch. xli. 26). On the other hand, np*"i¥ might be equivalent to npivi (" in righteousness;" cf. ch. xlii. 25, ^pn = HDnzi), if it were not incomparably more natural to connect together np*TC HaD as a genitive construction; though not in the sense in which "^D muin is used in post-biblical writings, — namely, as equivalent to " out of the mouth of God" (see Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. Col. 385), — but rather in this way, that the mouth of God is described attributively as regulated in its words by His holy will (as "speaking righteousness," ver. 19Z>). A word has gone forth from this mouth of righteousness; and after it has once gone forth, it does not return without accomplishing its object (ch. lv. 11). What follows is not so much a promising prediction (that every knee will bend to me), as a definitive declaration of will (that it shall or must bend to me). According to ch. xix. 18, xliv. 5, "to me" is to be regarded as carried forward, and so to be supplied after " shall swear" (the Septuagint rendering, opelrat,... tov Qeov, is false; that of Paul in Rom. xiv. 11, t^o^oXoy/jaeraL tu> Qew, is correct; and in this case, as in others also, the Cod. Al. of the Sept. has been corrected from the New Testament quotations).
This bending of the knee, this confession as an oath of homage, will be no forced one. Ver. 24. " Only in Jehovah, do men say of me, is fulness of righteousness and strength; they come to Him, and all that were incensed against Him are put to shame." The parenthetical insertion of "i*?K v (?, with reference to, as in ch. xli. 7, xliv. 26, 28) is the same as in Ps. cxix. 57. "H^ has a restrictive sense here, which springs out of the affirmative (cf. Ps. xxxix. 7, lxxiii. 1), just as, in the case of raq, the affirmative grows out of the primary restrictive sense. The " righteousness " is abounding (superabundant) righteousness (Rom. v. 15 sqq.). T'V is the strength of sanctification, and of the conquest of the world. The subject to Nto11 (which is not to be changed, according to the Masora, into the more natural *K3J, as it is by the LXX., Syr., and Vulg.) is, whoever has seen what man has in Jehovah, and made confession of this; such a man does not rest till he has altogether come over to Jehovah, whereas all His enemies are put to shame. They separate themselves irretrievably from the men who serve Him, the restoration of whom is His direct will, and the goal of the history of salvation. Ver. 25. " In Jehovah all the seed of Israel shall hecome righteous, and shall glory" Ruetschi has very properly observed on this verse, that the reference is to the Israel of God out of all the human race. i.e. the church of the believers in Israel expanded by the addition of the heathen; which church is now righteous, i.e. reconciled and renewed by Jehovah, and glories in Him, because by grace it is what it is.
This brings the sixth prophecy to a close. Its five strophes commence with " Thus saith the Lord;" at the same time, the fifth strophe has two " woes" (hoi) before this, as the ground upon which it rests.
There follows now a trilogy of prophecies referring to Babylon. After the prophet has shown what Israel has to expect of Cyrus, he turns to what awaits Babylon at the hands of Cyrus. Vers. 1, 2. " Bel sinketh down, Nebo stoopeth; its images come to the beast of burden and draught cattle: your litters are laden, a burden for the panting. They stooped, sank down all at once, and could not get rid of the burden; and their own self went into captivity." The reference to Babylon comes out at once in the names of the gods. Bel was the Jupiter of the Babylonians and, as Bel-Merodach, the tutelar deity of Babylon; Nebo was Mercury, the tutelar deity of the later Chaldean royal family, as the many kings' names in which it appears clearly show (e.g. Nabonassar, Nabo-polassar, etc.). The pyramidal heap of ruins on the right bank of the Euphrates, which is now called Birs Nimrud, is the ruin of the temple of Bel, of which Herodotus gives a description in i. 181-183, and probably also of the tower mentioned in Gen. xi., which was dedicated to Bel, if not to El = Saturn. Herodotus describes two golden statues of Bel which were found there (cf. Diodorus, ii. 9, 5), but the way in which Nebo was represented is still unknown. The judgment of Jehovah falls upon these gods through Cyrus. Bel suddenly falls headlong, and Nebo stoops till he also falls. Their images come to (fall to the lot of) the chayydh, i.e. the camels, dromedaries, and elephants; and behemdh, i.e. horses, oxen, and asses. Your flNBtt, gestamina, the prophet exclaims to the Babylonians, i.e. the images hitherto carried by you in solemn procession (ch. xlv. 20; Amos v. 26; Jer. x. 5), are now packed up, a burden for that which is wearied out, i.e. for cattle that has become weary with carrying them. In ver. 1, as the two participial clauses show, the prophet still takes his stand in the midst of the catastrophe; but in ver. 2 it undoubtedly lies behind him as a completed act. In ver. 2a he continues, as in ver. 1, to enter into the delusion of the heathen, and distinguish between the numina and simulacra. The gods of Babylon have all stooped at once, have sunken down, and have been unable to save their images which were packed upon the cattle, out of the hands of the conquerors. In ver. 2b he destroys this delusion: they are going into captivity (Hos. x. 5; Jer. xlviii. 7, xlix. 3), even " their ownself " (naphshdm), since the self or personality of the beingless beings consists of nothing more than the wood and metal of which their images are composed.
From this approaching reduction of the gods of Babylon to their original nothingness, several admonitions are now derived. The first admonition is addressed to all Israel. Vers. 3-5. " Hearken unto me, 0 house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel: ye, lifted up from the womb; ye, carried from the mother s lap! And till old age it is I, and to grey hair I shall bear you on my shoulder: I have done it, and I shall carry; and I put upon my shoulder, and deliver. To whom can ye compare me, and liken, and place side by side, that we should be equal?" The house of Jacob is Judah here, as in Obad. 18 (see Caspari on the passage), Nah. ii. 3, and the house of Israel the same as the house of Joseph in Obadiah; whereas in Amos iii. 13, vi. 8, vii. 2, Jacob stands for Israel, in distinction from Judah. The Assyrian exile was earlier than the Babylonian, and had already naturalized the greater part of the exiles in a heathen land, and robbed them of their natural character, so that there was only a remnant left by whom there was any hope that the prophet's message would be received. What the exiles of both houses were to hear was the question in ver. 5, which called upon them to consider the incomparable nature of their God, as deduced from what Jehovah could say of Himself in relation to all Israel, and what He does say from D^DJpjn onwards. Babylon carried its idols, but all in vain: they were carried forth, without being able to save themselves; but Jehovah carried His people, and saved them. The expressions, " from the womb, and from the mother's lap," point back to the time when the nation which had been in process of formation from the time of Abraham onwards came out of Egypt, and was born, as it were, into the light of the world. From this time forward it had lain upon Jehovah like a willingly adopted burden, and He had carried it as a nurse carries a suckling (Num. xi. 12), and an eagle its young (Deut. xxxii. 11). In ver. 4 the attributes of the people are carried on in direct (not relative) self-assertions on the part of Jehovah. The senectus and canities are obviously those of the people, — not, however, as though it was already in a state of dotage (as Hitzig maintains, appealing erroneously to ch. xlvii. 6), but as denoting the future and latest periods of its history. Even till then Jehovah is He, i.e. the Absolute, and always the same (see ch. xli. 4). As He has acted in the past, so will He act at all times — supporting and saving His people. Hence He could properly ask, Whom could you place by the side of me, so that we should be equal? (Vav consec. as in ch. xl. 25.)
The negative answer to this question is the direct result of what precedes, but a still further proof is given in vers. 6, 7. " They who pour gold out of the bag, and weigh silver with the balance, hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, that they m ay fall down, yea, throw themselves down. They lift it up, carry it away upon their shoulder, and set it down in its place: there it stands; from its place it does not move: men also cry to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one out of distress." There is no necessity for assuming that Dvjn is used in the place of the finite verb, as Hitzig imagines, or as equivalent to DyT En, as Rosenmiiiler and Gesenius suppose; but up to nafe* the whole is subject, and therefore w^. is the point at which the change into the finite verb occurs (Ges. § 131, 2). The point in hazzdllm is not the extravagant expenditure, as Ewald thinks, but the mean origin of the god, which commences with the pouring out of gold from a purse (zul = zdlal, to shake, to pour out). Qdneh is the lever of the scales (tcavcov), The metal weighed out is given to a goldsmith, who plates the idol with the gold, and makes the ornaments for it of silver. When it is finished, they lift it up, or shoulder it (VlKfe^ with a distinctive Great Telisha), carry it home, and set it down in the place which it is to have under it (vnnjn). There it stands firm, immoveable, and also deaf and dumb, hearing no one, answering no one, and helping no one. The subject to PPV. is any p#*¥. The first admonition closes here. The gods who are carried fall without being able to save themselves, whereas Israel's God carries and saves His people; He, the Incomparable, more especially in contrast with the lifeless puppets of idols.
The second admonition is addressed to those who would imitate the heathen. Vers. 8-11. " Remember this, and become firm; take it to heart, ye rebellious ones! Remember the beginning from the olden time, that I am God, and none else: Deity, and absolutely none like -me; proclaiming the issue from the beginning, and from ancient times what has not yet taken place, saying, My counsel shall stand, and all my good pleasure I carry out: calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a distant land: not only have I spoken, I also bring it; I have purposed it, I also execute it.19 The object to which "this" points back is the nothingness of idols and idolatry. The persons addressed are the D^JRPtfi (those apostatizing), but, as *B*BWnn shows, whether it mean avhpi^eaOe or KparaiovaOe (1 Cor. xvi. 13), such as have not yet actually carried out their rebellion or apostasy, but waver between Jehovahism and heathenism, and are inclined to the latter. It^'ann is hardly a denom. hithpalel of fc^N in the sense of "man yourselves," since £"N, whether it signifies a husband or a social being, or like PfoK, a frail or mortal being, is at any rate equivalent to £*?X, and therefore never shows the modification u. WH (HCW) signifies to be firm, strong, compact; in the piel (rabb.), to be well-grounded; nitlipael, to be fortified, established; here hithpoel, u show yourselves firm " (Targ., Jer.: fundamini ne rursum subitus idololatrioe vos turbo subvertat). That they may strengthen themselves in faith and fidelity, they are referred to the history of their nation; nfofew are not prophecies given at an earlier time, — a meaning which the priora only acquire in such a connection as ch. xliii. 9, — but former occurrences. They are to pass before their minds the earlier history, and indeed " from the olden time." "Remember:" ziklir u is connected with the accusative of the object of remembrance, and ^ points to its result. An earnest and thoughtful study of history would show them that Jehovah alone was El, the absolutely Mighty One, and 'Eldhlm, the Being who united in Himself all divine majesty by which reverence was evoked. The participles in vers. 10, 11 are attached to the u I " of "Jto3. It is Jehovah, the Incomparable, who has now, as at other times from the very commencement of the new turn in history, predicted the issue to which it would lead, and miqqedem, i.e. long before, predicted things that have not yet occurred, and which therefore lie outside the sphere of human combination, — another passage like ch. xli. 26, xlv. 21, etc., in which what is predicted in these prophecies lays claim to the character of a prediction of long standing, and not of one merely uttered a few years before. The TVB'&O, in which the nw'fcO are already in progress (ch. xlii. 9), is to be regarded as the prophet's ideal present; for Jehovah not only foretells before the appearance of Cyrus what is to be expected of him, but declares that His determination must be realized, that He will bring to pass everything upon which His will is set, and summons the man upon the stage of history as the instrument of its accomplishment, so that He knew Cyrus before he himself had either consciousness or being (ch. xlv. 4, 5). The east is Persis (ch. xli. 2); and the distant land, the northern part of Media (as in ch. xiii. 5). Cyrus is called an eagle, or, strictly speaking, a bird of prey (cyit1), just as in Jer. xlix. 22 and Ezek. xvii. 3 Nebuchadnezzar is called a neslier. According to Cyrop. vii. 1, 4, the campaign of Cyrus was aeros %pvcrovs eVt &6paro<; fiaicpov avarera/jLevos. Instead of inyi| B^K, the keri reads more clearly, though quite unnecessarily, ^TO? ^** (see e.g. ch. xliv. 26). The correlate *|K (ver. 116), which is only attached to the second verb the second time, affirms that Jehovah does not only the one, but the other also. His word is made by Him into a deed, His idea into a reality. W is a word used particularly by Isaiah, to denote the ideal preformation of the future in the mind of God (cf. ch. xxii. 11, xxxvii. 2Q). The feminine suffixes refer in a neuter sense to the theme of the prophecy — the overthrow of idolatrous Babel, upon which Cyrus comes down like an eagle, in the strength of Jehovah. So far we have the nota bene for those who are inclined to apostasy. They are to lay to heart the nothingness of the heathen gods, and, on the other hand, the self-manifestation of Jehovah from the olden time, that is to say, of the One God who is now foretelling and carrying out the destruction of the imperial city through the eagle from the east.
A third admonition is addressed to the forts esprits in vers. 12, 13. "Hearken to me, ye strong-hearted, that are far from righteousness! I have brought my righteousness near; it is not far off, and my salvation tarrieth not: and I give salvation in Zion, my glory to Israel." All that is called in Hellenic and Hellenistic vovs, X070? crvveihnais, 6v/jl6<;, is comprehended in KapEla; and everything by which bdsdr and nephesh are affected comes into the light of consciousness in the heart (Psychol.}). 251).
1 The resemblance to dsros (ethrog) is merely accidental. This name for the eagle is traceable, like avis, to a root vd, to move with the swiftness of the wind. This was shown by Passow, compare Kuhn's Zeitschrift, i. 29, where we also find at 10, 126 another but less probable derivation from a root i, to go (compare eva, a course).
According to this biblico-psychological idea, J? *T?N may signify either the courageous (Ps. lxxvi. 6), or, as in this instance, the strong-minded; but as a synonym of 3? "p.Tn (Ezek. ii. 4) and 4? ^p (Ezek. iii. 7), viz. in the sense of those who resist the impressions of the work and grace of God in their consciousness of mental superiority to anything of the kind, and not in the sense of those who have great mental endowments. These are " far from righteousness" (lseddqdh), that is to say, they have despaired of the true, loving fidelity of Jehovah, and have no wish for any further knowledge of it. Therefore they shall hear, and possibly not without impression, that this loving fidelity is about to manifest itself, and salvation is about to be realized. Jehovah has given salvation in Zion, that is to say, is giving it even now, so that it will become once more the centre of the renovated nation, and impart its glory to this, so that it may shine in the splendour bestowed upon it by its God. We have here the side of light and love, turned towards us by the two-faced tseddqdh, as a parallel word to tUshudh, or salvation. With this admonition to the indifferent and careless, to whom the salvation of which they have given up all hope is proclaimed as at the door, this prophecy is brought to a close. In three distinct stages, commencing with "hearken," "remember," " hearken," it has unfolded the spiritual influences which the fact declared in vers. 1, 2 ought to have upon Israel, and resembles a pastoral sermon in its tone.
From the gods of Babylon the proclamation of judgment passes on to Babylon itself. Vers. 1-4. " Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, 0 Chaldo?ans-daughter! For men no longer call thee delicate and voluptuous. Take the mill, and grind meal: throw back thy veil, lift up the train, uncover the thigh, wade through streams. Let thy nakedness be uncovered, even let thy shame be seen; I shall take vengeance, and not spare men. Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is His name, Holy One of Israel." This is the first strophe in the prophecy. As ver. 36 clearly shows, what precedes is a penal sentence from Jehovah. Both H3 in relation to rtaro (ch. xxiii. 12, xxxvii. 22), and 733 and &**&? in relation to H3, are appositional genitives; Babel and Chaldeans (0*lfe£ as in ch. xlviii. 20) are regarded as a woman, and that as one not yet dishonoured. The unconquered oppressor is threatened with degradation from her proud eminence into shameful humiliation; sitting on the ground is used in the same sense as in ch. iii. 26. Hitherto men have called her, with envious admiration, raJckdh va dnuggdh (from Deut. xxviii. 56), mollis et delicata, as having carefully kept everything disagreeable at a distance, and revelled in nothing but luxury (compare *oneg, ch. xiii. 22). Debauchery with its attendant rioting (ch. xiv. 11, xxv. 5), and the Mylitta worship with its licensed prostitution (Herod, i. 199), were current there; but now all this was at an end. ^pin, according to the Masora, has only one pashta both here and in ver. 5, and so has the tone upon the last syllable, and accordingly metheg in the antepenult. Isaiah's artistic style may be readily perceived both in the three clauses of ver. 1 that are comparable to a long trumpet-blast (compare ch. xl. 9 and xvi. 1), and also in the short, rugged, involuntarily excited clauses that follow (compare vol. i. 427). The mistress becomes the maid, and has to perform the low, menial service of those who, as Homer says in Od. vii. 104, aXerpevovai fivXws eirt firfKoira Kapirov (grind at the mill the quince-coloured fruit; compare at Job xxxi. 10). She has to leave her palace as a prisoner of war, and, laying aside all feminine modesty, to wade through the rivers upon which she borders. Chespl has # instead of £, and, as in other cases where a sibilant precedes, the mute p instead of /(compare 'ispi9 Jer. x. 17). Both the prosopopeia and the parallel, " thy shame shall be seen," require that the expression "thy nakedness shall be uncovered" should not be understood literally. The shame of Babel is her shameful conduct, which is not to be exhibited in its true colours, inasmuch as a stronger one is coming upon it to rob it of its might and honour. This stronger one, apart from the instrument employed, is Jehovah: vindictam samam, non parcam homini. Stier gives a different rendering here, namely, " I will run upon no man, i.e. so as to make him give way;" Hahn, ' I will not meet with a man," so destitute of population will Babylon be; and Kuetschi, "I will not step in as a man."
Gesenius and Rosen miillor are nearer to the mark when they •nggest non pangam (paciscar) cum homine; but this would require at any rate fflNTTlN, even if the verb JNQ really had the meaning to strike a treaty. It means rather to strike against a person, to assault any one, then to meet or come in an opposite direction, and that not only in a hostile sense, but, as in this instance, and also in ch. Ixiv. 4, in a friendly sense as well. Hence, " I shall not receive any man, or pardon any man " (Hitzig, Ewald, etc.). According to an old method of writing the passage, there is a pause here. But ver. 4 is still connected with what goes before. As Jehovah is speaking in ver. 5, but Israel in ver. 4, and as ver. 4 is unsuitable to form the basis of the words of Jehovah, it must be regarded as the antiphone to vers. 1-3 (cf. ch. xlv. 15). Our Redeemer, exclaims the church in joyfully exalted self-consciousness, He is Jehovah of hosts, the Holy One of Israel! The one name affirms that He possesses the all-conquering might; the other that He possesses the will to carry on the work of redemption, — a will influenced and constrained by both love and wrath.
In the second strophe the penal sentence of Jehovah is continued. Vers. 5-7. " Sit silent, and creep into the darkness^ 0 Chaldeans-daughter! for men no longer call thee lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people; I polluted mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou hast shown them no mercy; upon old men thou laidst thy yoke very heavily. And thou saidst, I shall be lady for ever; so that thou didst not take these things to heart: thou didst not consider the latter end thereof" Babylon shall sit down in silent, brooding sorrow, and take herself away into darkness, just as those who have fallen into disgrace shrink from the eyes of men. She is looked upon as an empress (ch. xiii. 9; the king of Babylon called himself the king of kings, Ezek. xxvi. 7), who has been reduced to the condition of a slave, and durst not show herself for shame. This would happen to her, because at the time when Jehovah made use of her as His instrument for punishing His people, she went beyond the bounds of her authority, showing no pity, and ill-treating even defenceless old men. According to Koppe, Gesenius, and Hitzig, Israel is here called zdqen, as a decayed nation awakening sympathy; but according to the Scripture, the people of God is always young, and never decays; on the contrary, its ziqndh, i.e. the latest period of its history (ch. xlvi. 4), is to be like its youth. The words are to be understood literally, like Lam. Iv. 16, v. 12: even upon old men, Babylon had placed the heavy yoke of prisoners and slaves. But in spite of this inhumanity, it flattered itself that it would last for ever. Hitzig adopts the reading *W n"J5|> and renders it, " To all future times shall I continue, mistress to all eternity." This may possibly be correct, but it is by no means necessary, inasmuch as it can be shown from 1 Sam. xx. 41, and Job xiv. 6, that IV is used as equivalent to "1KW *ty, in the sense of " till the time that;" and g'bhereth, as the feminine of gdbher = gebher, may be the absolute quite as well as the construct. The meaning therefore is, that the confidence of Babylon in the eternal continuance of its power was such, that " these things," i.e. such punishments as those which were now about to fall upon it according to the prophecy, had never come into its mind; such, indeed, that it had not called to remembrance as even possible " the latter end of it," i.e. the inevitably evil termination of its tyranny and presumption.