Jehovah, having thus come as a Redeemer to His people, who have hitherto been lying under the curse, makes an everlasting covenant with them. Ver. 21. " And I, this is my covenant with them, saith Jehovah: My Spirit which is upon thee, and my word which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, and out of the mouth of thy seed, and out of the mouth of thy seed^s seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and for ever? In the words, "And I, this is my covenant with them," we have a renewal of the words of God to Abram in Gen. xvii. 4, " As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee." Instead of DriK we have in the same sense BriK (not DniK, as in ch. liv. 15); we find this very frequently in Jeremiah. The following prophecy is addressed to Israel, the " servant of Jehovah," which has been hitherto partially faithful and partially unfaithful, but which has now returned to fidelity, viz. the " remnant of Israel," which has been rescued through the medium of a general judgment upon the nations, and to which the great body of all who fear God from east to west attach themselves. This church of the new covenant has the Spirit of God over it, for it comes down upon it from above; and the comforting saving words of God are not only the blessed treasure of its heart, but the confession of its mouth which spreads salvation all around. The words intended are those which prove, accord- mcr to ch. li. 10, the seeds of the new heaven and the new earth. The church of the last days, endowed with the Spirit of God, and never again forsaking its calling, carries them as the evangelist of God in her apostolic mouth. The subject of the following prophecy is the new Jerusalem, the glorious centre of this holy church.
It is still night. The inward and outward condition of the church is night; and if it is night followed by a morning, it is so only for those who " against hope believe in hope." The reality which strikes the senses is the night of sin, of punishment, of suffering, and of mourning, — a long night of nearly seventy years. In this night, the prophet, according to the command of God, has been prophesying of the coming light. In his inward penetration of the substance of his own preaching, he has come close to the time when faith is to be turned to sight. And now in the strength of God, who has made him the mouthpiece of His own creative fiat, he exclaims to the church, ver. 1: " Arise, grow light; for thy light cometh, and the glory of Jehovah riseth upon thee." The appeal is addressed to Zion-Jerusalem, which is regarded (as in ch. xlix. 18, 1. 1, Hi. 1, 2, liv. 1) as a woman, and indeed as the mother of Israel. Here, however, it is regarded as the church redeemed from banishment, and settled once more in the holy city and the holy land, the church of salvation, which is now about to become the church of glory. Zion lies prostrate on the ground, smitten down by the judgment of God, brought down to the ground by inward prostration, and partly overcome by the sleep of self-security. She now hears the cry, "Arise" (qumi). This is not a mere admonition, but a word of power which puts new life into her limbs, so that she is able to rise from the ground, on which she has lain, as it were, under the ban. The night, which has brought her to the ground mourning, and faint, and intoxicated with sleep, is now at an end. The mighty word qum% "arise," is supplemented by a second word: 9ori. What creative force there is in these two trochees, quml '<5n, which hold on, as it were, till what they express is accomplished; and what force of consolation in the two iambi, ki-hhd 'orekh, which affix, as it were, to the acts of Zion the seal of the divine act, and add to the apens (or elevation) its Oecns (or foundation)! Zion is to become light; it is to, because it can. But it cannot of itself, for in itself it has no light, because it has so absolutely given itself up to sin; but there is a lijjht which will communicate itself to her, viz. the light which radiates from the holy nature of God Himself. And this light is salvation, because the Holy One loves Zion: it is also glory, because it not only dispels the darkness, but sets itself, all glorious as it is, in the place of the darkness. Zdrach is the word commonly applied to the rising of the sun (Mai. iii. 20). The sun of suns is Jehovah (Ps. lxxxiv. 12), the God who is coming (ch. lix. 20).
It is now all darkness over mankind; but Zion is the east, in which this sun of suns will rise. Ver. 2. " For, behold, the darkness covereth the earth, and deep darkness the nations; and Jehovah riseth over thee, and His glory becomes visible over thee" The night which settles upon the world of nations is not to be understood as meaning a night of ignorance and enmity against God. This prophecy no doubt stands in progressive connection with the previous one; but, according to ch. lix. 19, the manifestation of judgment, through which Zion is redeemed, brings even the heathen from west to east, i.e. those who survive the judgment, to the fear of Jehovah. The idea is rather the following: After the judgments of God have passed, darkness in its greatest depth still covers the earth, and a night of clouds the nations. It is still night as on the first day, but a night which is to give place to light. Where, then, will the sun rise, by which this darkness is to be lighted up? The answer is, "Over Zion, the redeemed church of Israel.,, But whilst darkness still covers the nations, it is getting light in the Holy Land, for a sun is rising over Zion, viz. Jehovah in His unveiled glory. The consequence of this is, that Zion itself becomes thoroughly light, and that not for itself only, but for all mankind. When Jehovah has transformed Zion into the likeness of His own glory, Zion transforms all nations into the likeness of her own. Ver. 3. "And nations walk to thy light, and kings to the shining of thy rays" Zion exerts such an attractive force, that nations move towards her light (? ^l?n as in 11V3? lpn and other similar expressions), and kings to the splendour of her rays, to share in them for themselves, and enjoy them with her. All earthly might and majesty station themselves in the light of the divine glory, which is reflected by the church.
Zion is now exhorted, as in ch. xlix. 18, to lift up her eyes, and turn them in all directions; for she is the object sought by an approaching multitude. Ver. 4. " Lift up thine eyes round about j and see: they all croicd together, they come to thee: thy sons come from afar, and thy daughters are carried hither upon arms." The multitude that are crowding together and coming near are the diaspora of her sons and daughters that have been scattered far away (ch. xi. 12), and whom the heathen that are now drawing near to her bring with them, conducting them and carrying them, so that they cling " to the side" (ch. lxvi. 12) of those who are carrying them upon their arms and shoulders (ch. xlix. 22). mpwj is softened from n|DKn, the pausal form for ftiOKn (compare the softening in Ruth i. 13), from |OK, to keep, fasten, support; whence I&K, 1??^> a fosterfather, a nurse who has a child in safe keeping.
When this takes place, Zion will be seized with the greatest delight, mingled with some trembling. Ver. 5. " Then wilt thou see and shine, and thine heart will tremble and expand; for the abundance of the sea will be turned to thee, the wealth of the nations cometh to thee" It is a disputed question whether the proper reading is **ra, ^ri, or WW? — all three point to fcO* — or ^"ifi, from nan. The last is favoured by the LXX., Targ., Syr., Jerome, Saad., and all the earlier Jewish commentators except AE, and is also the Masoretic reading; for the Masora fnalis (f. 1, col. 6) observes that this WH is the only instance of such a form from nx"i (differing therefore from WJ1 in Zeph. iii. 15, where we also find the readings wn and WD); and there is a note in the margin of the Masora, *]ttn TV?, to the effect that this *&Ttfl is the only one with chateph, i.e. Sheva. Moreover, Wfl (thou shalt see) is the more natural reading, according to ch. lxvi. 14 and Zech. x. 7; more especially as NT is not a suitable word to use (like pdchad and rdgaz in Jer. xxxiii. 9) in the sense of trembling for joy (compare, on the contrary, JHJ, ch. xv. 4, and iljTj in ch. xh'v. 8). The true ren- dering therefore is, " Then wilt thou see and shine," i.e. when thou seest this thou wilt shine, thy face will light up with joy; ndhar as in Ps. xxxiv. 6. Luther renders it, " Then wilt thou see thy desire, and break out," viz. into shouting: Jerome, on the contrary, has, " Thou wilt overflow, i.e. thou wrilt be inundated with waters coming suddenly like rivers."
The impression produced by this revolution is so overpowering, that Zion's heart trembles; yet at the same time it is so elevating, that the straitened heart expands (3HT1, a figure quite unknown to the classical languages, although they have angor and angustia; the LXX. renders it /ecu eKarrjan, after the reading 3iTJ1 in Chayug, and Isaac Nathan in his Concordance, entitled TT\Z TND): for hdmon yam, i.e. everything of value that is possessed by islands and coast lands (Jidmon, groaning, a groaning multitude, more especially of possessions, Ps. xxxvii. 16, etc.), is brought to her; and chel goyim, the property, i.e. (looking at the plural of the predicate which follows; cf. Hag. ii. 7) the riches (gold, silver, etc., Zech. xiv. 14) of the heathen, are brought into her, that she may dispose of them to the glory of her God.
The nations engaged in commerce, and those possessing cattle, vie with one another in enriching the church. Vers. 6, 7. " A swarm of camels ivill cover thee, the foals of Midian and Ephah: they come all together from Saba; they bring gold and incense, and they joyfully make known the praises of Jehovah. All the flocks of Kedar gather together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth will serve thee: they will come up with acceptance upon mine altar, and I will adorn the house of my adorning." The trading nations bring their wares to the church. The tribe of Midian, which sprang from Abraham and Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2), and of which Ephah (Targ. Holdd, the Hutheilites?) formed one of the several branches (Gen. xxv. 4), had its seat on the eastern coast of the Elanitic Gulf, which is still indicated by the town of Madyan, situated, according to the geographers of Arabia, five days' journey to the south of Aila. These come in such long and numerous caravans, that all the country round Jerusalem swarms with camels. nypV as in Job xxii. 11; and *!)33 (parallel to D^D2) from ^33 = Arabic bakr or bikr, a young male camel, or generally a camel's foal (up to the age of not more than nine years; see Lane's Lexicon, i. 240). All of these, botli Midianitefl and Ephoeans, come out of Sheba, wliich Strabo (xvi. 4, 19) describes as " the highly blessed land of the Sabieans, in which myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon grow." There, viz. in Yemen,1 where spices, jewels, and gold abound, they have purchased gold and frankincense, and these valuable gifts they now bring to Jerusalem, not as unwilling tribute, but with the joyful proclamation of the glorious deeds and attributes of Jehovah, the God of Israel. And not only do the trading nations come, but the nomad tribes also: viz. Kedar, the Kedarenes, with their bows (ch. xxi. 17), who lived in the desert, between Babylonia and Syria, in D*TOn (ch. xlii. 11), i.e. fixed settlements; and Nebaioth, also an Ishmaelitish tribe (according to the incontrovertible account of Gen. xxv. 13), a nomad tribe, which was still of no note even in the time of the kings of Israel, but which rose into a highly cultivated nation in the centuries just before Christ, and had a kingdom extending from the Elanitic Gulf to the land on the east of the Jordan, and across Belka as far as Hauran; for the monuments reach from Egypt to Babylonia, though Arabia Petraea is the place where they chiefly abound.2 The Kedarenes drive their collected flocks to Jerusalem, and the rams (^N, arietes, not principes) of the Nabatasans, being brought by them, are at the service of the church H^mc* a verbal form with a
Strabo and Steph. Byz.) more especially a port in northern Ethiopia; Sheba (&OtsO, the principal tribe of southern Arabia, more especially its capital Marib (Mariaba), which, according to an Arabian legend, contained the palace of Bilkis, the fcQ# n3^ft (see Exc. iv. in Kriiger's Feldzug von JElius Gallus, 1862). It is true that the following passage of Strabo (xvi. 14, 21) is apparently at variance with the opinion that the seat of the Sabseans was in southern Arabia. " First of all," he says, " above Syria, Arabia Felix is inhabited by the Nabatseans and Sabseans, who frequently marched through the former before it belonged to the Romans." But as, according to every other account given by Strabo, the Sabseans had their home in Arabia Felix, and the Nabatseans at the northern extremity of the Red Sea, in Arabia Petrsea, all that this passage can imply is, that at that part of Arabia which stretches towards the Syrian boundary, the expeditions of the Sabseans came upon the Nabatseans.
2 Quatremere rejects the identity of the Nabatseans and the Ishmaelitish Nebaioth; but it has been justly defended by "Winer, Kless, Knobel, and Krehl {Religion der vorisl. Araber, p. 51).
toneless contracted suffix, as in ch. xlvii. 10), and ascend |to"/£, according to good pleasure = acceptably (with the?V used to form adverbs, Ewald, § 217, i; cf. IWdtson in ch. lvi. 7), the altar of Jehovah (dldh with the local object in the accusative, as in Gen. xlix. 4, Num. xiii. 17). The meaning is, that Jehovah will graciously accept the sacrifices which the church offers from the gifts of the Nabatseans (and Kedarenes) upon His altar. It would be quite wrong to follow Antistes Hess and Baumgarten, and draw the conclusion from such prophecies as these, that animal sacrifices will be revived again. The sacrifice of animals has been abolished once for all by the selfsacrifice of the "Servant of Jehovah;" and by the spiritual revolution which Christianity, i.e. the Messianic religion, has produced, so far as the consciousness of modern times is concerned, even in Israel itself, it is once for all condemned (see Holdheim's Schrift ixber das Ceremonial-gesetz im Messiasreich, 1845). The prophet, indeed, cannot describe even what belongs to the New Testament in any other than Old Testament colours, because he is still within the Old Testament limits. But from the standpoint of the New Testament fulfilment, that which was.merely educational and preparatory, and of which there will be no revival, is naturally transformed into the truly essential purpose at which the former aimed; so that all that was real in the prophecy remains unaffected and pure, after the deduction of what was merely the unessential medium employed to depict it. The very same Paul who preaches Christ as the end of the law, predicts the conversion of Israel as the topstone of the gracious counsels of God as they unfold themselves in the history of salvation, and describes the restoration of Israel as "the riches of the Gentiles;" and the very same John who wrote the Gospel was also the apocalyptist, by whom the distinction between Israel and the Gentiles was seen in vision as still maintained even in the New Jerusalem. It must therefore be possible (though we cannot form any clear idea of the manner in which it will be carried out), that the Israel of the future may have a very prominent position in the perfect church, and be, as it were, the central leader of its worship, though without the restoration of the party-wall of particularism and ceremonial shadows, which the blood of the crucified One has entirely washed away. The house of God in Jerusalem, as the prophet lias already stated in ch. lvi. 7, will be a house of prayer (beth t'philldh) for all nations. Here Jehovah ealls the house built in His honour, and filled with His gracious presence, " the house of my glory." He will make its inward glory like the outward, by adorning it with the gifts presented by the converted Gentile world.
From the mainland, over which caravans and flocks are coming, the prophet now turns his eyes to the sea. Vers. 8, 9. " Who are these who fly hither as a cloud, and like the doves to their windows? Yea, the islands wait for me; and the ships of Tarshish come first, to bring thy children from far, their silver and gold with them, to the name of thy God, and to the holy One of Israel, because lie hath ornamented thee." Upon the sea there appear first of all enigmatical shapes, driving along as swiftly as if they were light clouds flying before the wind (ch. xix. 1, xliv. 22), or like doves flying to their dovecots (celeres cavis se turribus abdunt, as Ovid says), i.e. to the round towers with their numerous pigeon-holes, which are provided for their shelter. The question is addressed to Zion, and the answer may easily be anticipated, — namely, that this swarm of swiftly flying figures are hurrying to a house which they long to reach, as much as pigeons do to reach their pigeon-house. The kl which follows is explanatory: this hurrying presents itself to thine eyes, because the isles wait for me. The reason for all this haste is to be found in the faith of those who are hurrying on. The Old Testament generally speaks of faith as hope (? njp as in ch. li. 5, xlii. 4); not that faith is the same as hope, but it is the support of hope, just as hope is the comfort of faith. In the Old Testament, when the true salvation existed only in promise, this epithet, for which there were many synonyms in the language, was the most appropriate one. The faith of the distant lands of the west is now be<nnnin£ to work. The object of all this activity is expressed in the word fc^np. The things thus flying along like clouds and doves are ships; with the Tartessus ships, which come from the farthest extremity of the European insular quarter of the globe, at their head (flJBWia with munach instead of metheg, in the same sense as in Num. x. 14; LXX. iv 7rpcoroL<;; Jerome, in principio, in the foremost rank)l i.e. acting as the leaders of the fleet which is sailing to Zion and bringing Zion's children from afar, and along with them the gold and silver of the owners of the vessels themselves, to the name (&£?, to tne name, dative, not equivalent to ]V??; LXX. Sea, as in ch. lv. 5) of thy God, whom they adore, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath ornamented thee, and thereby inspired them with reverence and love to thee (T^s for T)$$, as in ch. liv. 6, where it even stands out of pause).
The first turn (vers. 1-3) described the glorification of Zion through the rising of the glory of Jehovah; the second (vers. 4-9) her glorification through the recovery of her scattered children, and the gifts of the Gentiles who bring them home; and now the third depicts her glorification through the service of the nations, especially of her former persecutors, and generally through the service of all that is great and glorious in the world of nature and the world of men. Not only do the converted heathen offer their possessions to the church on Zion, but they offer up themselves and their kings to pay her homage and render service to her. Vers. 10-12. u And sons of strangers build thy walls, and their kings serve thee: for in my wrath I have smitten thee, and in my favour I have had mercy upon thee. And thy gates remain open continually day and night, they shall not be shut, to bring in to thee the possessions of the nations and their kings in triumph. For the nation and the kingdom which will not serve thee will perish, and the nations be certainly laid waste? The walls of Zion (T£bn doubly defective) rise up from their ruins through the willing co-operation of converted foreigners (ch. lvi. 6, 7), and foreign kings place themselves at the service of Zion (ch. xlix. 23); the help rendered by the edicts of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes Longimanus being only a prelude to events stretching on to the end of time, though indeed, in the view of the prophet himself, the period immediately succeeding the captivity really would be the end of time. Of the two perfects in ver. 10b, *IW?«J points to the more remote past; T^PITj! to the nearer past, stretching forward into the present (cf. ch. liv. 8). On pittedch, patescere, hiscere, see ch. xlviii. 8, where it is applied to the ear, as in Song of Sol. vii. 13 to a bud. The first clause of ver. 11a closes with nWj; tiphchah divides more strongly than tebir, which is subordinate to it. At the same time, " day and night" may be connected with " shall not be shut," as in Eev. xxi.
25, 2G. The gates of Zion may always be left open, for there is no more fear of a hostile attack; and they must be left open ad importandum, that men may bring in the possession of the heathen through them (a thing which goes on uninterruptedly), D^ru DiT370*. The last words are rendered by Knobel, " and their kings are leaders (of the procession);" but ndhug would be a strange substantive, having nothing to support it but the obscure V^ from 8$p\ for rintf in Cant. iii. 8 does not mean a support, but amplexus (Ewald, § 149, d). The rendering " and their kings escorted," i.e. attended by an escort, commends itself more than this; but in the passage quoted in support of this use of ndhag, viz. Nah. ii. 8, it is used as -a synonym of hdgdh, signifying gemere. It is better to follow the LXX. and Jerome, and render it, u and their kings brought," viz., according to ch. xx. 4, 1 Sam. xxx. 2, as prisoners (Targ. zeqiqin, i.e. b'ziqqZniy in fetters), — brought, however, not by their several nations who are tired of their government and deliver them up (as Hitzig supposes), but by the church, by which they have been irresistibly bound in fetters, i.e. inwardly conquered (compare ch. xlv. 14 with Ps. cxlix. 8), and thus suffer themselves to be brought in a triumphal procession to the holy city as the captives of the church and her God. Ver. 12 is connected with this n'huglm; for the state of every nation and kingdom is henceforth to be determined by its subjection to the church of the God of sacred history (*W, SovXevew, in distinction from shereth, Siatcovelv, Oepairevetv), and by its entrance into this church — the very same thought which Zechariah carries out in ch. xiv. 16 sqq. Instead of W*3, "O is more properly pointed according to certain MSS. with munach (without makkeph); the article before haggoyim is remonstrative, and the inf. intens. chdrobh makes the thing threatened unquestionable.
From the thought that everything great in the world of man is to be made to serve the Holy One and His church, the prophet passes to what is great in the world of nature. Ver. 13. " The glory of Lebanon will come to thee, cypresses, plane-trees and Sherbin-trees all together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and to make the place of my feet glorious." The splendid cedars, which are the glory of Lebanon, and in fact the finest trees of all kinds, will be brought to Zion, not as trunks felled to be used as building materials, but dug up with their roots, to ornament the holy place of the temple (Jer. xvii. 12), and also to this end, that Jehovah may glorify the "holy place of His feet," i.e. the place where He, who towers above the heaven of all heavens, has as it were to place His feet. The temple is frequently called His footstool (hddom ragldiv), with especial reference to the ark of the covenant (Ps. xcix. 5, cxxxii. 7; Lam. ii. 1; 1 Chron. xxviii. 2) as being the central point of the earthly presence of God (cf. ch. lxvi. 1). The trees, that is to say, which tower in regal glory above all the rest of the vegetable world, are to adorn the environs of the temple, so that avenues of cedars and plane-trees lead into it; a proof that there is no more fear of any further falling away to idolatry. On the names of the trees, see ch. xli. 19. Three kinds are mentioned here; we found seven there. The words VI rv W'fctiYl "imn BTU are repeated verbatim from ch. xli. 19 (on these repetitions of himself, see p. 288).
The prophecy now returns to the world of man. Ver. 14. " The children also of thy tormentors come bending unto thee, and all thy despisers stretch themselves at the soles of thy feet, and call thee i City of Jehovah, Zion of the Holy One of Israel! " The persecutors of the church both in work and word are now no more (ch. xxvi. 14), and their children feel themselves disarmed. They are seized with shame and repentance, when they see the church which was formerly tormented and despised so highly exalted. They come shechodch (an inf. noun of the form jintp, Lam. v. 13; used here as an accusative of more precise definition, just as nouns of this kind are frequently connected directly with the verb *J?n, Ewald, § 279, c), literally a bow or stoop, equivalent to bowring or stooping (the opposite to romdh in Micah ii. 3), and stretch themselves " at the soles of thy feet," i.e. clinging to thee as imploringly and obsequiously a^ if they would lay themselves down under thy very feet, and were not worthy to lie anywhere but there (as in ch. xlix. 23); and whereas formerly they called thee by nicknames, they now give thee the honourable name of " City of Jehovah, Zion of the Holy One of Israel," not " Sanctuary of Israel," as Meier supposes, since q'dosh Israel is always a name of Jehovah in the book of Isaiah. It is a genitive construction like Bethlehem of Judah, Gibeah of Saul, and others.
The fourth turn (vers. 15-18) describes the glorification of Zion through the growth and stability of its community both without and within. A glorious change takes place in the church, not only in itself, but also in the judgment of the nations. Vers. 15, 16. " Whereas thou wast forsaken, and hated} and no one walked through thee, I make thee noiv into eternal splendour, a rapture from generation to generation. And thou suckest the milk of nations, and the breast of kings thou wilt suck, and learn that I Jehovah am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.'9 Of the two ideas of a church (the mother of Israel) and a city (metropolis) involved in the term Zion, the former prevails in ver. 15, the latter in ver. 16. For although nivy and nxw are equally applicable to a city and a church (ch. liv. 6, 11), the expression "no one walked through thee " applies only to the desolate city as she lay in ruins (see ch. xxxiv. 10). The fusion of the two ideas in ver. 15 is similar to ch. xlix. 21. Jerusalem will now become thoroughly a splendour, and in fact an eternal splendour, a rapture of successive generations so long as the history of this world continues. The nations and their kings give up their own vital energy to the church, just as a mother or nurse gives the milk of her breasts to a child; and the church has thereby rich food for a prosperous growth, and a constant supply of fresh material for grateful joy. We cannot for a moment think of enriching by means of conquest, as Hitzig does; the sucking is that of a child, not of a vampyre. We should expect meldkhoth (ch. xlix. 23) instead of mHakhlm (kings); but by 1W (as in ch. lxvi. 11 for,,7.^) the natural character of what is promised is intentionally spiritualized. The figure proves itself to be only a figure, and requires an ideal interpretation. The church sees in all this the gracious superintendence of her God; she learns from experience that Jehovah is her Saviour, that He is her Redeemer, He the Mighty One of Jacob, who has conquered for her, and now causes her to triumph (*3K *3 with miniach yethib, as in ch. xlix. 2Qb, which passage is repeated almost verbatim here, and ch. lxi. 8).
The outward and inward beauty of the new Jerusalem is now depicted by the materials of her structure, and the powers which prevail within her. Vers. 17, 18. " For copper I bring gold, and for iron I bring silver, and for wood copper, and for stones iron, and make peace thy magistracy, and righteousness thy bailiffs. Injustice is no more seen in thy land, wasting and destruction in thy borders; and thou callest salvation thy walls, and renown thy gates" Wood and stone are not used at all in the buildino- of the new Jerusalem. Just as in the time of Solomon silver was counted as nothing (1 Kings x. 21) and had only the value of stones (1 Kings x. 27), so here Jehovah gives her gold instead of copper, silver instead of iron; whilst copper and iron are so despised with this superabundance of the precious metals, that they take the place of such building materials as wood and stones. Thus the city will be a massive one, and not even all of stone, but entirely built of metal, and indestructible not only by the elements, but by all kinds of foes. The allegorical continuation of the prophecy shows very clearly that the prophet does not mean his words to be taken literally. The LXX., Saad., and others, are wrong in adopting the rendering, " I make thy magistracy peace," etc.; since shdlom and tseddqdh are not accusatives of either the predicate or the object, but such personifications as we are accustomed to in Isaiah (vid. ch. xxxii. 16, 17, lix. 14; cf. ch. xlv. 8). Jehovah makes peace its pequdddh, i.e. its u overseership " (like gebhurdh, herosi lip, in ch. iii. 25, and 'ezrdh, helpership, in ch. xxxi. 2), or magistracy; and righteousness its bailiffs. The plural *J^3 is no disproof of the personification; the meaning is, that tseddqdh (righteousness) is to Jerusalem what the whole body of civil officers together are: that is to say, righteousness is a substitute for the police force in every form. Under such magistracy and such police, nothing is ever heard within the land, of which Jerusalem is the capital, of either chdmds, i.e. a rude and unjust attack of the stronger upon the weaker, or of shod, i.e. conquest and devastation, and shebher, i.e. dashing to pieces, or breaking in two. It has walls (ver. 10); but in truth "salvation," the salvation of its God, is regarded as its impregnable fortifications. It has gates (ver. 11); but fhilldh, the renown that commands respect, with which Jehovah has invested it, is really better than any gate, whether for ornament or protection.
The fifth turn celebrates the glorifying of Jerusalem, through the shining of Jehovah as its everlasting light and through the form of its ever-growing membership, which is so well-pleasing to God. The prophecy returns to the thought with which it set out, and by which the whole is regulated, viz. that Jerusalem will be light. This leading thought is now unfolded in the most majestic manner, and opened up in all its eschatological depth. Vers. 1, 20. " The sun will be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness will the moon shine upon thee: Jehovah will be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun will no more go down, and thy moon will not be withdrawn; for Jehovah ivill be to thee an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning will be fulfilled." Although, in the prophet's view, the Jerusalem of the period of glory in this world and the Jerusalem of the eternal glory beyond flow into one another; the meaning of this prophecy is not that the sun and moon will no longer exist. Even of the Jerusalem which is not to be built by Israel with the help of converted heathen, but which comes down from heaven to earth, the seer in Rev. xxi. 23 merely says, that the city needs neither the shining of the sun nor of the moon (as the Targum renders the passage before us, " thou wilt not need the shining of the sun by day"), for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, i.e. God Himself is instead of a sun to her, and the Lamb instead of a moon. Consequently we do not agree with Stier, who infers from this passage that u there is a final new creation approaching, when there will be no more turning round into the shadow (Jas. i. 17), when the whole planetary system, including the earth, will be changed, and when the earth itself will become a sun, yea, will become even more than that, in the direct and primary light which streams down upon it from God Himself." We rather agree with Hof mann, that " there will still be both sun and moon, but the Holy Place will be illumined without interruption by the manifestation of the presence of God, which outshines all besides." The prophet has here found the most complete expression, for that which has already been hinted at in such prophecies in ch. iv. 5, xxx. 26, xxiv. 23. As the city receives its light neither from the sun nor from the moon, this implies, what Rev. xxi. 25 distinctly affirms, that there will be no more night there. The prophet intentionally avoids a f6y *rifrO parallel to DEri^ "riNp. We must not render the second clause in ver. 19, " and it will not become light to thee with the shining of the moon," for ^Wl never means to get light; nor " and a3 for the shining of the moon, it does not give the light," as IIitzicT and Knobel propose, for rObpl is used alone, and not rrvn FUifc as the antithesis to DOV T)fc6, in the sense of " to light up the night" (compare HJJ as applied to the shining of the moon in ch. xiii. 10, and FH3 to the glittering of the stars in Joel ii. 10), and even the use of rWn is avoided. The true rendering is either, " and for lighting, the moon will not shine upon thee" (Stier, Hahn, etc.); or, what is more in accordance with the accentuation, which would have given HOT tifchah and not tsalceph gadol, if it had been intended to indicate the object, "and as for the lighting" (p as in ch. xxxii. lb). The glory of Jehovah, which soars above Jerusalem, and has come down into her, is henceforth her sun and her moon, — a sun that never sets, a moon *)DiO N? which is not taken in towards morning, like a lamp that has been hung out at night (compare *l?££j ch. xvi. 10, withdrawn, disappeared). The triumph of light over darkness, which is the object of the world's history, is concentrated in the new Jerusalem. How this is to be understood, is explained in the closing clause of ver. 20. The sum of the days of mourning allotted to the church is complete. The darkness of the corruption of sin and state of punishment is overcome, and the church is nothing but holy blessed joy without change or disturbance; for it walks no longer in sidereal light, but in the eternally unchangeable light of Jehovah, which with its peaceful gentleness and perfect purity illumines within as well as without. The seer of the Apocalypse also mentions the Lamb. The Lamb is also known to our prophet; for the " Servant of Jehovah" is the Lamb. But the light of transfiguration, in which he sees this exalted Lamb, is not great enough to admit of its being combined with the light of the Divine Nature itself.
The next verse. shows how deep was his consciousness of the close connection between darkness, wrath, and sin. Ver. 21. " And thy people, they are all righteous; they possess the land for ever, a sprout of my plantations, a work of my hands for glorification" The church of the new Jerusalem consists of none but righteous ones, who have been cleansed from guilt, and keep themselves henceforth pure from sinning, and therefore possess the land of promise for ever, without having to
The life of this church, which is newly created, new-born, through judgment and grace, gradually expands from the most unassuming centre in ever widening circles until it has attained the broadest dimensions. Ver. 22a. " The smallest one will become thousands, and the meanest one a powerful nation" " The small and mean one," or, as the idea is a relative one, u the smallest and meanest one" (Ges. § 119, 2), is either a childless one, or one blessed with very few children. At the same time, the reference is not exclusively to growth through the blessing of children, but also to growth through the extension of fellowship. We have a similar expression in Mic. iv. 7 (cf. v. 1), where 'eleph is employed, just as it is here, in the sense of *P*V> " to thousands (or chiliads)."
The whole of the prophetic address is now sealed with this declaration: Yer. 22b. " I, Jehovah, will hasten it in His time," The neuter flj- (as in ch. xliii. 13, xlvi. 11) refers to everything that has been predicted from ver. 1 downwards. Jehovah will fulfil it rapidly, when the point of time (jcaipos) which He has fixed for it shall have arrived. As this point of time is known to Him only, the predicted glory will burst all at once with startling suddenness upon the eyes of those who have waited believingly for Him.
This chapter forms a connected and self-contained whole, as wTe may see very clearly from the address to Zion-Jerusalem, which is sustained throughout. If we compare together such passages as ch. li. 17-23 ("Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem"), ch. Hi. 1, 2 ("Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion"), and ch. liv. (" Sing, O barren"), which are all closely related so far as their contents are concerned, we shall find that these addresses to Zion form an ascending series, ch. lx. being the summit to which they rise, and that the whole is a complete counterpart to the address to the daughter of Babylon in ch. xlvii.
The words of Jehovah Himself pass over here into the words of another, whom He has appointed as the Mediator of His gracious counsel. Vers. 1-3. " The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is over me, because Jehovah hath anointed me, to bring glad tidings to sufferers, hath sent me to bind up broken-hearted ones, to proclaim liberty to those led captive, and emancipation to the fettered; to proclaim a year of grace from Jehovah, and a day of vengeance from our God; to comfort all that mourn; to put upon the mourners of Zion, to give them a head-dress for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, a wrapper of renown for an expiring spirit, that they may be called terebinths of righteousness, a planting of Jehovah for g lor if cation." Who is the person speaking here? The Targum introduces the passage with N*3J IDS. Nearly all the modern commentators support this view. Even the closing remarks to Drechsler (iii. 381) express the opinion, that the prophet who exhibited to the church the summit of its glory in ch. lx., an evangelist of the rising from on high, an apocalyptist who sketches the painting which the New Testament apocalyptist is to carry out in detail, is here looking up to Jehovah with a grateful eye, and praising Him with joyful heart for his exalted commission. But this view, when looked at more closely, cannot possibly be sustained. It is open to the following objections: (1.) The prophet never speaks of himself as a prophet at any such length as this; on the contrary, with the exception of the closing words of ch. lvii. 21, " saith my God," he has always most studiously let his own person fall back into the shade. (2.) Wherever any other than Jehovah is represented as speaking, and as referring to his own calling, or his experience in connection with that calling, as in ch. xlix. 1 sqq., 1. 4 sqq., it is the very same " servant of Jehovah" of whom and to whom Jehovah speaks in ch. xlii. 1 sqq., Iii. 13-liii., and therefore not the prophet himself, but He who had been appointed to be the Mediator of a new covenant, the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of
Jehovah for the whole world, and who would reach this glorious height, to which lie had been called, through self-abasement even to death. (3.) All that the person speaking here says of himself is to be found in the picture of the unequalled " Servant of Jehovah," who is highly exalted above the prophet. He is endowed with the Spirit of Jehovah (ch. xlii. 1); Jehovah has sent Him, and with Him His Spirit (ch. xlviii. 16b); He has a tongue taught of God, to help the exhausted with words (ch. 1. 4); He spares and rescues those who are almost despairing and destroyed, the bruised reed and expiring wick (ch. xlii. 7). " To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house:" this is what He has chiefly to do for His people, both in word and deed (ch. xlii. 7, xlix. 9). (4.) We can hardly expect that, after the prophet has described the Servant of Jehovah, of whom he prophesied, as coming forward to speak with such dramatic directness as in ch. xlix. 1 sqq., 1. 4 sqq. (and even ch. xlviii. 16b), he will now proceed to put himself in the foreground, and ascribe to himself those very same official attributes which he has already set forth as characteristic features in his portrait of the predicted One. For these reasons we have no doubt that we have here the words of the Servant of Jehovah. The glory of Jerusalem is depicted in ch. lx. in the direct words of Jehovah Himself, which are well sustained throughout. And now, just as in ch. xlviii. 16b, though still more elaborately, we have by their side the words of His servant, who is the mediator of this glory, and who above all others is the pioneer thereof in his evangelical predictions. Just as Jehovah says of him in ch. xlii. 1, " I have put my Spirit upon him;" so here he says of himself, "The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me." And when he continues to explain this still further by saying, u because" (]W from »W, intention, purpose; here equivalent to "1BW \VS_) " Jehovah hath anointed me" (pidshach 'dthl, more emphatic than m'sJidchanl), notwithstanding the fact that inashach is used here in the sense of prophetic and not regal anointing (1 Kings xix. 16), we may find in the choice of this particular word a hint at the fact, that the Servant of Jehovah and the Messiah are one and the same person. So also the account given in Luke iv. 16-22 — viz. that when Jesus was in the synagogue at Nazareth, after reading the opening words of this address, He closed the book with these words, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears " — cannot be interpreted more simply in any other way, than on the supposition that Jesus here declares Himself to be the predicted and divinely anointed Servant of Jehovah, who brings the gospel of redemption to His people. Moreover, though it is not decisive in favour of our explanation, yet this explanation is favoured by the fact that the speaker not only appears as the herald of the new and great gifts of God, but also as the dispenser of them (" non prceco tantum, sed et dispensator" Vitringa). The combination of the names of God ('Adonai Yehovah) is the same as in ch. 1. 4-9. On hisser, evayyeX^ecp {-ea6ai)j see p. 145. He comes to put a bandage on the hearts' wounds of those who are broken-hearted:? ^?n (B>3n) as in Ezek. xxxiv. 4, Ps. cxlvii. 3; cf.) Kfih (Nan), vol. i. p. 200; \ P^V?, p. 336. Iftj &$> is the phrase used in the law for the proclamation of the freedom brought by the year of jubilee, which occurred every fiftieth year after seven sabbatical periods, and was called shenath hadderor (Ezek. xlvi. 17); deror from ddrar, a verbal stem, denoting the straight, swift flight of a swallow (see at Ps. lxxxiv. 4), and free motion in general, such as that of a flash of lightning, a liberal self-diffusion, like that of a superabundant fulness. Peqach-qodch is written like two wrords (see at ch. ii. 20). The Targum translates it as if peqach wTere an imperative: " Come to the light," probably meaning undo the bands. But qodch is not a Hebrew word; for the qlchoth of the Mishna (the loops through which the strings of a purse are drawn, for the purpose of lacing it up) cannot be adduced as a comparison. Parchon, AE, and A, take peqachqoach as one word (of the form?h?0?, ^H"]1]^), in the sense of throwing open, viz. the prison. But as pdqach is never used like pdthach (ch. xiv. 17, li. 14), to signify the opening of a room, but is always applied to the opening of the eyes (ch. xxxv. 5, xlii. 7, etc.), except in ch. xlii. 20, where it is used for the opening of the ears, we adhere to the strict usage of the language, if we understand by p'qacliqoach the opening up of the eyes (as contrasted with the dense darkness of the prison); and this is how it has been taken even by the LXX., who have rendered it teal rv(j)\ol<; avd^Ke^nv, as if the reading had been &yvb) (Ps. cxlvi. 8). Again, he is sent to promise with a loud proclamation a year of good pleasure (rdtson: syn. ytsliudli) and a day of vengeance, which Jehovah has appointed; a promise which assigns the length of a year for the thorough accomplishment of the work of grace, and only the length of a day for the work of vengeance. The vengeance applies to those who hold the people of God in fetters, and oppress them; the grace to all those whom the infliction of punishment has inwardly humbled, though they have been strongly agitated by its long continuance (ch. lvii. 15). The 'dbhelim, whom the Servant of Jehovah has to comfort, are the " mourners of Zion," those who take to heart the fall of Zion. In ver. 3, DlBv • • • ^5?j ne corrects himself, because what he brings is not merely a diadem, to which the word sum (to set) would apply, but an abundant supply of manifold gifts, to which only a general word like ndthan (to give) is appropriate. Instead of "13$, the ashes of mourning or repentance laid upon the head, he brings 1NQ? a diadem to adorn the head (a transposition even so far as the letters are concerned, and therefore the counterpart of IBS); the " oil of joy" (from Ps. xlv. 8; compare also 'jnro there with "•nfc n^D here) instead of mourning; " a wrapper (cloak) of renown" instead of a faint and almost extinguished spirit. The oil with which they henceforth anoint themselves is to be joy or gladness, and renown the cloak in which they wrap themselves (a genitive connection, as in ch. lix. 17). And whence is all this? The gifts of God, though represented in outward figures, are really spiritual, and take effect within, rejuvenating and sanctifying the inward man; they are the sap and strength, the marrow and impulse of a new life. The church thereby becomes " terebinths of righteousness" (v^: Targ., Symm., Jer., render this, strong ones, mighty ones; Syr. dechre, rams; but though both of these are possible, so far as the letters are concerned, they are unsuitable here), i.e. possessors of righteousness, produced by God and acceptable with God, having all the firmness and fulness of terebinths, with their strong trunks, their luxuriant verdure, and their perennial foliage, — a planting of Jehovah, to the end that He may get glory out of it (a repetition of ch. lx. 21). Even in ver. 35 with Drp topi a perfect was introduced in the place of the infinitives of the object, and affirmed what was to be accomplished through the mediation of the Servant of
Jehovah. The second turn in the address, which follows in vers. 4-9, continues the use of such perfects, which afterwards pass into futures. But the whole is still governed by the commencement in ver. 1. The Servant of Jehovah celebrates the glorious office committed to him, and expounds the substance of the gospel given him to proclaim. It points to the restoration of the promised land, and to the elevation of Israel, after its purification in the furnace of judgment, to great honour and dignity in the midst of the world of nations. Vers. 4-6. " And they will build up wastes of the olden time, raise up desolations of the forefathers, and renew desolate cities, desolations of former generations. And strangers stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners become your ploughmen and vinedressers. But ye will be called priests of Jehovah; Servants of our God, will men say to you: ye will eat the riches of the nations, and pride yourselves in their glory." The desolations and wastes of 'oldm and dor vddor, i.e. of ages remote and near (ch. lviii. 12), are not confined to what had lain in ruins during the seventy years of the captivity. The land will be so thickly populated, that the former places of abode will not suffice (ch. xlix. 19, 20); so that places must be referred to which are lying waste beyond the present bounds of the promised land (ch. liv. 3), and which will be rebuilt, raised up, and renewed by those who return from exile, and indeed by the latest generations (ch. lviii. 12, lip*?; cf. ch. lx. 14). Chorebh, in the sense of desolation, is a word belonging to the later period of the language (Zeph., Jer., and Ezek.). The rebuilding naturally suggests the thought of assistance on the part of the heathen (ch. lx. 10). But the prophet expresses the fact that they will enter into the service of Israel (ver. 5), in a new and different form. They " stand there" (viz. at their posts ready for service, i al-mishmartdm, 2 Chron. vii. 6), " and feed your flocks" (|K¥ singularetantum, cf. Gen. xxx. 43), and foreigners are your ploughmen and vinedressers. Israel is now, in the midst of the heathen who have entered into the congregation of Jehovah and become the people of God (ch. xix. 25), what the Aaronites formerly were in the midst of Israel itself. It stands upon the height of its primary destination to be a kingdom of priests (Ex. xix. 6). They are called " priests of Jehovah," and the heathen call them " servants of our God;" for even the heathen speak with believing reverence of the God, to whom Israel renders priestly service, as " our God." This reads as if the restored Israelites were to stand in the same relation to the converted heathen as the clergy to the laity; but it is evident, from ch. lxvi. 21, that the prophet has no such hierarchical separation as this in his mind. All that we can safely infer from his prophecy is, that the nationality of Israel will not be swallowed up by the entrance of the heathen into the community of the God of revelation. The people created by Jehovah, to serve as the vehicle of the promise of salvation and the instrument in preparing the way for salvation, will also render Him special service, even after that salvation has been really effected. At the same time, we cannot take the attitude, which is here assigned to the people of sacred history after it has become the teacher of the nations, viz. as the leader of its worship also, and shape it into any clear and definite form that shall be reconcilable with the New Testament spirit of liberty and the abolition of all national party-walls. The Old Testament prophet utters New Testament prophecies in an Old Testament form. Even when he continues to say, u Ye will eat the riches of the Gentiles, and pride yourselves in their glory," i.e. be proud of the glorious things which have passed from their possession into yours, this is merely colouring intended to strike the eye, which admits of explanation on the ground that he saw the future in the mirror of the present, as a complete inversion of the relation in which the two had stood before. The figures present themselves to him in the form of contrasts. The New Testament apostle, on the other hand, says in Bom. xi. 12 that the conversion of all Israel to Christ will be " the riches of the Gentiles." But if even then the Gentile church should act according to the words of the same apostle in Bom. xv. 27, and show her gratitude to the people whose spiritual debtor she is, by ministering to them in carnal things, all that the prophet has promised here will be amply fulfilled. We cannot adopt the explanation proposed by Hitzig, Stier, etc., " and changing with them, ye enter into their glory" (Jdtliyammerivom ydmar = murJ Tliph.: hemir, Jer. ii. 11; lit. to exchange with one another, to enter into one another's places); for y dinar = 'dmar (cf. ydchad — 'dchad; ydsham = 'dsJiam; ydlaph = 'dlaph), to press upwards, to rise up (related to tdmar, see at ch. xvii. 9; sdmar, Symm. opdorpi- yelv, possibly also 'dmar with the hithpael hitliammer, LXX. tcaraSwacrTeveiv), yields a much simpler and more appropriate meaning. From this verb we have hitliammer in Ps. xciv. 4, "to lift one's self up (proudly)," and here hithyammer; and it is in this way that the word has been explained by Jerome (superbietis), and possibly by the LXX. (OavfiaaOyjaeaOe, in the sense of spectabiles eritis), by the Targum, and the Syriac, as well as by most of the ancient and modern expositors.
The shame of banishment will then be changed into an excess of joy, and honourable distinction. Vers. 7-9. " Instead of shame ye ivill have double, and (instead) of insult they rejoice at their portion: thus in their land they will possess double; everlasting joy will they have. For Uehovah love righty hate robbery in ivickedness; and give them their reward in faith" fulness, and conclude an everlasting covenant with them. And their family will be knoivn among the nations, and their offspring in the midst of the nations: all who see them will recognise them, for they are a family that Jehovah hath blessed" The enigmatical first half of ver. 7 is explained in ver. 2, where mishneh is shown to consist of double possession in the land of their inheritance, which has not only been restored to them, but extended far beyond the borders of their former possession; and ydronnu chelqdm (cf. ch. lxiv. 14) denotes excessive rejoicing in the ground and soil belonging to them (according to the appointment of Jehovah): chelqdm as in Mic. ii. 4; and mishneh as equivalent not to Ito JWO, but to HBh* rutjfo. Taking this to be the relation between ver. lb and la, the meaning of lakhen is not, " therefore, because they have hitherto suffered shame and reproach;" but what is promised in ver. la is unfolded according to its practical results, the effects consequent upon its fulfilment being placed in the foreground (cf. vol. i. p. 448); so that there is less to astonish us in the elliptically brief form of ver. la which needed explanation. The transition from the form of address to that of declaration is the same as in ch. i. 29, xxxi. 6, Hi. 14, 15. nfiifcl is a concise expression for ncfa nnrn, just as VOTPfi in ch. xlviii. 9 is for *n?nn fVETi. Chelqdm is either the accusative of the object, according to the construction of Jfl, which occurs in Ps. Ii. 16; or what I prefer, looking at npn in ch. xlii. 25, and T??fi in ch. xliii. 23, an adverbial accusative = Dpfru. The LXX.,
Jerome, and Satd. render the clause, in opposition to the accents, " instead of your double shame and reproach;" but in that case the principal words of the clause would read DDppn Min. The explanation adopted by the Targum, Snad., and Jerome, " shame on the part of those who rejoice in their portion," is absolutely impossible. The great majority of the modern commentators adopt essentially the same explanation of ver. la as we have done, and even A. E. Kimchi does the same. Halm's modification, " instead of your shame is the double their portion, and (instead) of the insult this, that they will rejoice," forces a meaning upon the syntax which is absolutely impossible. The reason for the gracious recompense for the wrong endured is given in ver. 8, " Jehovah loves the right," which the enemies of Israel have so shamefully abused. u He hates n?iyn pn, i.e. not rapinam in holocausto (as Jerome, Talmud b. Succa 30a, Luther, and others render it; Eng. ver. "robbery for burnt-offering"), — for what object could there be in mentioning sacrifices here, seeing that only heathen sacrifices could be intended, and there would be something worse than gdzel to condemn in them? — but robbery, or, strictly speaking, "something robbed in or with knavery" (LXX., Targ., Syr., Saad.), which calls to mind at once the cruel robbery or spoiling that Israel had sustained from the Chaldeans, its bozezlm (ch. xlii. 24), — a robbery which passed all bounds. rb\y is softened from n^y (from 5% Sq^), like ntky in Job v. 16, and fbty in Ps. lviii. 3 and lxiv. 7; though it is doubtful whether the punctuation assumes the latter, as the Targum does, and not rather the meaning holocaustum supported by the Talmud. For the very reason, therefore, that Israel had been so grievously ill-treated by the instruments of punishment employed by Jehovah, He would give those who had been ill-treated their due reward, after He had made the evil, which He had not approved, subservient to His own salutary purposes, npys is the reward of work in Lev. xix. 13, of hardship in Ezek. xxix. 20; here it is the reward of suffering. This reward He would give flp$?3, exactly as He had promised, without the slightest deduction. The posterity of those who have been ill-treated and insulted will be honourably known (jnfa as in Prov. xxxi. 23) in the world of nations, and men will need only to catch sight of them to recognise them (by prominent marks of blessing), for they are a family blessed of God. *?, not quod (because), although it might have this meaning, but nam (for), as in Gen. xxvii. 23, since hikkir includes the meaning agnoscere (to recognise).
This is the joyful calling of the Servant of Jehovah to be the messenger of such promises of God to His people. Vers. 10, 11. " Joyfully I rejoice in Jehovah; my soul shall be joyful in my God, that He hath given me garments of salvation to put on, hath wrapped me in the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom who wears the turban like a priest, and as a bride who puts on her jewellery. For like the land which brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden which causes the things sown in it to sprout up; so the JLord Jehovah bringeth righteousness to sprouting, and renown before all nations" The Targum precedes this last turn with "Thus saith Jerusalem." But as vers. 4-9 are a development of the glorious prospects, the realization of which has to be effected through the instrumentality of the person speaking in vers. 1-3 both in word and deed, the speaker here is certainly the same as there. Nor is it even the fact that he is here supposed to commence speaking again; but he is simply continuing his address by expressing at the close, as he did at the beginning, the relation in which he stands in his own person to the approaching elevation of His people. Exalted joy, which impels him to exult, is what he experiences in Jehovah his God (2 denoting the ground and orbit of his experience): for the future, which so abounds in grace, and which he has to proclaim as a prophet and as the evangelist of Israel, and of which he has to lay the foundation as the mediator of Israel, and in which he is destined to participate as being himself an Israelite, consists entirely of salvation and righteousness; so that he, the bearer and messenger of the divine counsels of grace, appears to himself as one to whom Jehovah has given clothes of salvation to put on, and whom He has wrapped in the robe of righteousness. Ts'ddqdh (righteousness), looked at from the evangelical side of the idea which it expresses, is here the parallel word to yeshudh (salvation). The figurative representation of both by different articles of dress is similar to ch. lix. 17; yaat, which only occurs here, is synonymous with rdtdh, from which comes madteh, a wrapper or cloak (ver. 3). He appears to himself, as he stands there hoping such things for his people, and preaching such things to his people, to resemble a bridegroom, who makes his turban in priestly style, i.e. who winds it round his head after the fashion of the priestly migbaoth (Ex. xxix. 9), which are called ^"}NQ in Ex. xxxix. 28 (cf. Ezek. xliv. 18). Rashi md others think of the mitsnepheth of the high priest, which was of purple-blue; but \T\y does not imply anything beyond the migbadhy a tall mitra, which was formed by twisting a long linen band round the head so as to make it stand up in a point. JH3 is by no means equivalent to konen, or heJchl?iy as Hitzig and Hahn suppose, since the verb kdhan = hun only survives in kohen. Klhen is a denom., and signifies to act or play the priest; it is construed here with the accusative 1N2, which is either the accusative of more precise definition ("who play the priest in a turban;" A. &>? vvfi^nov leparevofievov aTetydvay), or what would answer better to the parallel member, " who makes the turban like a priest." As often as he receives the word of promise into his heart and takes it into his mouth, it is to him like the turban of a bridegroom, or like the jewellery which a bride puts on (tadeh, kal, as in Hos. ii. 15). For the substance of the promise is nothing but salvation and renown, which Jehovah causes to sprout up before all nations, just as the earth causes its vegetation to sprout, or a garden its seed (3 as a preposition in both instances, instar followed by attributive clauses; see ch. viii. 23). The word in the mouth of the servant of Jehovah is the seed, out of which great things are developed before all the world. The ground and soil (^erets) of this development is mankind; the enclosed garden therein (ganndh) is the church; and the great things themselves are tseddqdh, as the true inward nature of His church, and fhilldh as its outward manifestation. The force which causes the seed to germinate is Jehovah; but the bearer of the seed is the servant of Jehovah, and the ground of his festive rejoicing is the fact that he is able to scatter the seed of so gracious and glorious a future.
Nearly all the more recent commentators regard the prophet himself as speaking here. Having given himself up to praying to Jehovah and preaching to the people, he will not rest or hold his peace till the salvation, which has begun to be realized, has been brought fully out to the light of day. It is, however, really Jehovah who commences thus: Vers. 1-3. " For Zioris sake I shall not be silent, and for Jerusalem! s sake I shall not rest, till her righteousness breaks forth like morning brightness, and her salvation like a blazing torch. And nations will see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory; and men will call thee by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah will determine. And thou wilt be an adorning coronet in the hand of Jehovah, and a royal diadem in the lap of thy God." It is evident that Jehovah is the speaker here, both from ver. 6 and also from the expression used; for chdshdh is the word commonly employed in such utterances of Jehovah concerning Himself, to denote His leaving things in their existing state without interposing (ch. Ixv. 6, lvii. 11, Ixiv. 11). Moreover, the arguments which may be adduced to prove that the author of ch. xl.-lxvi. is not the speaker in ch. lxi., also prove that it is not he who is continuing to speak of himself in ch. lxii. Jehovah, having now begun to speak and move on behalf of Zion, will " for Zion's sake," i.e. just because it is Zion, His own church, neither be silent nor give Himself rest, till He has gloriously executed His work of grace. Zion is now in the shade, but the time will come when her righteousness will go forth as nOgah, the light which bursts through the night (ch. lx. 19, lix. 9; here the morning sunlight, Prov. iv. 18; compare shachar, the morning red, ch. lviii. 8); or till her salvation is like a torch which blazes. "W1 belongs to TB$>3 (rnercha) in the form of an attributive clause = 1#2t, although it might also be assumed that nyn* stands by attraction for iinn (cf. ch. ii. 11; Ewald, § 317, c). The verb nya, which is generally applied to wrath (e.g. ch. xxx. 27), is here used in connection with salvation, which has wrath towards the enemies of Zion as its obverse side: Zion's tscdeq (righteousness) shall become like the morning sunlight, before which even the last twilight has vanished; and Zion's yeshudh is like a nightly torch, which sets fire to its own material, and everything that comes near it. The force of the conjunction 1# (until) does not extend beyond ver. 1. From ver. 2 onwards, the condition of things in the object indicated by ly is more fully described. The eyes of the nations will be directed to the righteousness of Zion, the impress of which is now their common property; the eyes of all kings to her glory, with which the glory of none of them, nor even of all together, can possibly compare. And because this state of Zion is a new one, which has never existed before, her old name is not sufficient to indicate her nature. She is called by a new name; and who could determine this new name? He who makes the church righteous and glorious, He, and He alone, is able to utter a name answering to her new nature, just as it was He who called Abram Abraham, and Jacob Israel. The mouth of Jehovah will determine it (3£J, to pierce, to mark, to designate in a signal and distinguishing manner, nuncupare; cf. Amos vi. 1, Num. i. 17). It is only in imagery that prophecy here sees what Zion will be in the future: she will be " a crown of glory," u a diadem," or rather a tiara (f,senlph; ChetJiib tsenuph = mitsnepheth, the head-dress of the high priest, Ex. xxviii. 4, Zech. iii. 5; and that Gf the king, Ezek. xxi. 31) " of regal dignity," in the hand of her God (for want of a synonym of " hand," we have adopted the rendering "in the lap " the second time that it occurs). Meier renders HVP Yn (*!??) Jovce sub prcesidio, as though it did not form part of the figure. But it is a main feature in the figure, that Jehovah holds the crown in His hand. Zion is not the ancient crown which the Eternal wrears upon His head, but the crown wrought out in time, which He holds in His hand, because He is seen in Zion by all creation. The whole history of salvation is the history of the taking of the kingdom, and the perfecting of the kingdom by Jehovah; in other words, the history of the working out of this crown.
Zion will be once more the beloved of God, and her home the bride of her children. Vers. 4, 5. " Men will no more call thee 6 Forsaken one; ' and thy land they will no more call 'Desert:1 but men will name thee 'My delight in her J and thy home ' Manned one:' for Jehovah hath delight in tliee, and thy land is married. For the young man marrieth the maiden, thy children will marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth in the bride, thy God will rejoice in thee" The prophecy mentions new names, which will now take the place of the old ones; but these names indicate what Zion appears to be, not her true nature which is brought to the light. In the explanatoryclause ^ stands at the head, because the name of Zion is given first in distinction from the name of her land. Zion has hitherto been called 'azubhdh, forsaken by Jehovah, who formerly loved her; but she now receives instead the name of chephtsl-bhdh (really the name of a woman, viz. the wife of Hezekiah, and mother of Manasseh, 2 Kings xxi. 1), for she is now the object of true affection on the part of Jehovah. With the rejoicing of a bridegroom in his bride (the accusative is used here in the same sense as in iviJ nn»fe> J"IDK>; Ges.
§ 138, 1) will her God rejoice in her, turning to her again with a love as strong and deep as the first love of a bridal pair. And the land of Zion's abode, the fatherland of her children, was hitherto called shemdmdh; it was turned into a desert by the heathen, and the connection that existed between it and the children of the land was severed; but now it shall be called betuldh, for it will be newly married. A young man marries a virgin, thy children will marry thee: the figure and the fact are placed side by side in the form of an emblematical proverb, the particle of comparison being omitted (see Herzog's Cyclopaedia, xiv. 696, and Ges. § 155, 2, h). The church in its relation to Jehovah is a weak but beloved woman, which has Him for its Lord and Husband (ch. liv. 5); but in relation to her home she is the totality of those who are lords or possessors {bdale, 2 Sam. vi. 2) of the land, and who call the land their own as it were by right of marriage. Out of the loving relation in which the church stands to its God, there flows its relation of authority over every earthly thing of which it stands in need. In some mss. there is a break here.
Watchmen stationed upon the walls of Zion (says the third strophe) do not forsake Jehovah till He has fulfilled all His promise. Vers. 6, 7. " Upon thy walls, 0 Jerusalem, have I stationed watchmen; all the day and all the night continually they are not silent. 0 ye who remember Jehovah, leave yourselves no rest! And give Him no rest, till He raise up, and till He set Jerusalem for a praise in the earth." As the phrase hiphqld fal dignities to make a person an overseer (president) over anything, it seems as though we ought to render the sentence before us, " I have set watchmen over thy walls." But hiphqld by itself may also mean "to appoint" (2 Kings xxv. 23), and therefore Tnbirri>y may indicate the place of appointment (LXX. hc\ rtov reiyewv aov, upon thy walls; 'lepovo-aXijft, Karearnaa tpv\afca<;). Those who are stationed upon the walls are no doubt keepers of the walls; not, however, as persons whose exclusive duty it is to keep the walls, but as those who have committed to them the guarding of the city both within and without (Song of Sol. v. 7). The appointment of such watchmen presupposes the existence of the city, which is thus to be watched from the walls. It is therefore inadmissible to think of the walls of Jerusalem as still lying in ruins, as the majority of commentators have done, and to understand by the watchmen pious Israelites, who pray for their restoration, or (according to b. Menachoth 87a; cf. Zech. i. 12) angelic intercessors. The walls intended are those of the city, which, though once destroyed, is actually imperishable (ch. xlix. 16) and has now been raised up again. And who else could the watchmen stationed upon the walls really be, but prophets who are called tsophim (e.g. ch. lii. 8), and whose calling, according to Ezek. xxxiii., is that of watchmen? And if prophets are meant, who else can the person appointing them be but Jehovah Himself f The idea that the author of these prophecies is speaking of himself, as having appointed the shorn'rlm, must therefore be rejected. Jehovah gives to the restored Jerusalem faithful prophets, whom He stations upon the walls of the city, that they may see far and wide, and be heard afar off. And from those walls does their warning cry on behalf of the holy city committed to their care ascend day and night to Jehovah, and their testimony go round about to the world. For after Jerusalem has been restored and re-peopled, the further end to be attained is this, that Jehovah should build up the newly founded city within (conen the consequence of bdndh, Num. xxi. 27, and 'dsdh, ch. xlv. 18, Deut. xxxii. 6; cf. ch. liv. 14, and Ps. lxxxvii. 5), and help it to attain the central post of honour in relation to those without, which He has destined for it. Such prophets of the times succeeding the captivity (n'b/ulm 'ach&ronlm; cf. Zech. i..4) were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Haggai stands upon the walls of Jerusalem, and proclaims the glory of the second temple as surpassing that of the first. Zechariah points from Joshua and Zerubbabel onwards to the sprout of Jehovah, who is priest and prince in one person, and builds the true temple of God. Malachi predicts the coming of the Lord to His temple, and the rising of the Sun of righteousness. Under the eyes of these prophets the city of God rose up again, and they stand upon its pinnacles, and look thence into the glorious future that awaits it, and hasten its approach through the word of their testimony. Such prophets, who carry the good of their people day and night upon their anxious praying hearts, does Jehovah give to the Jerusalem after the captivity, which is one in the prophet's view with the Jerusalem of the last days; and in so lively a manner does the prophet here call them up before his own mind, that he exclaims to them, " Ye who remind Jehovah, to finish gloriously the gracious work which He has begun," give yourselves no rest (domi from ddmdh = ddmam, to grow dumb, i.e. to cease speaking or working, in distinction from chdshdh, to be silent, i.e. not to speak or work), and allow Him no rest till He puts Jerusalem in the right state, and so glorifies it, that it shall be recognised and extolled as glorious over all the earth. Prophecy here sees the final glory of the church as one that gradually unfolds itself, and that not without human instrumentality. The prophets of the last times, with their zeal in prayer, and in the exercise of their calling as witnesses, form a striking contrast to the blind, dumb, indolent, sleepy hirelings of the prophet's own time (ch. lvi. 10).
The following strophe expresses one side of the divine promise, on which the hope of that lofty and universally acknowledged glory of Jerusalem, for whose completion the watchers upon its walls so ceaselessly exert themselves, is founded. Vers. 8, 9. "Jehovah hath sworn by His right hand, and by His powerful arm, Surely I no more give thy corn for food to thine enemies; and foreigners will not drink thy must, for which thou hast laboured hard. No, they that gather it in shall eat it, and praise Jehovah; and they that store it, shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary? The church will no more sue- cumb to the tyranny of a worldly power. Peace undisturbed, and unrestricted freedom, reign there. With praise to Jehovah are the fruits of the land enjoyed by those who raised and reaped them. ftW (with an auxiliary pathach, as in ch. xlvii. 12, 15) is applied to the cultivation of the soil, and includes the service of the heathen who are incorporated in Israel (ch. lxi. 5); whilst *)?*< (whence VBDNO with D raphatum) or *)DK (poel, whence the reading VBDNO, cf. Ps. ci. 5, mHoshni; cix. 10, ve-dorshu. for which in some codd. and editions we find VBDND an intermediate form between piel and poel; see at Ps. Ixii. 4) and P?i? stand in the same relation to one another as condere (Jwrreo) and colligere (cf. ch. xi. 12). The expression ^chatsroth qodshij in the courts of my sanctuary, cannot imply that the produce of the harvest will never be consumed anywhere else than there (which is inconceivable), but only that their enjoyment of the harvest-produce will be consecrated by festal meals of worship, with an allusion to the legal regulation that two-tenths (mdaser shenl) should be eaten in a holy place (liphne Jehovah) by the original possessor and his family, with the addition of the Levites and the poor (Deut. xiv. 22-27: see Saalschutz, Mosaisches Recht, cap. 42). Such thoughts, as that all Israel will then be a priestly nation, or that all Jerusalem will be holy, are not implied in this promise. All that it affirms is, that the enjoyment of the harvest-blessing will continue henceforth undisturbed, and be accompanied with the grateful worship of the giver, and therefore, because sanctified by thanksgiving, will become an act of worship in itself. This is what Jehovah has sworn " by His right hand," which He only lifts up with truth, and " by His powerful arm," which carries out what it promises without the possibility of resistance. The Talmud (b. Nazir 3b) understands by Ity J/Vtr the left arm, after Dan. xii. 7; but the 1 of yPDl is epexegetical.
The concluding strophe goes back to the standpoint of the captivity. Vers. 10-12. " Go forth, go forth through the gates, clear the way of the people. Cast up, cast up the road, clean it of stones; lift up a banner above the nations! Behold, Jehovah hath caused tidings to sound to the end of the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him. And men will call them the holy people, the redeemed of Jehovah; and men icill call thee, Striven after, A city that will not be forsaken" We cannot adopt the rendering proposed by Gesenius, " Go ye into the gates," whether of Jerusalem or of the temple, since the readtng would then be tF\yw ttfc (Gen. xxiii. 10) or tnyifc (Jer. vii. 2). For although 3 ^V may under certain circumstances be applied to entrance into a city (Judg. ix. 26), yet it generally denotes either passing through a land (ch. viii. 21, xxxiv. 10; Gen. xli. 46; Lev. xxvi. 6, etc.), or through a nation (2 Sam. xx. 14), or through a certain place (ch. x. 28); so that the phrase "W? "ay, which does not occur anywhere else (for in Mic. ii. 13, which refers, however, to the exodus of the people out of the gates of the cities of the captivity, "W VihjW do not belong together), must refer to passing through the gate; and the cry D^JJBQ vuy means just the same as bap W? (" Go ye forth from Babylon") in ch. xlviii. 20, Hi. 11. The call to go out of Babylon forms the conclusion of the prophecy here, just as it does in ch. xlviii. 20, 21, Hi. 11, 12. It is addressed to the exiles; but who are they to whom the command is given, " Throw up a way," — a summons repeatedly found in all the three books of these prophecies (ch. xl. 3, lvii. 14)? They cannot be the heathen, for this is contradicted by the conclusion of the charge, "Lift ye up a banner above the nations;" nor can we adopt what seems to us a useless fancy on the part of Stier, viz. that ver. 10 is addressed to the watchmen on the walls of Zion. We have no hesitation, therefore, in concluding that they are the very same persons who are to march through the gates of Babylon. The vanguard (or pioneers) of those who are coming out are here summoned to open the way by which the people are to march, to throw up the road (viz. by casting up an embankment, hamsilldh, as in ch. xi. 16, xlix. 11; maslfd, ch. xxxv. 8), to clear it of stones (siqqel, as in ch. v. 2; cf. Hos. ix. 12, shihhel me? Mam), and lift up a banner above the nations (one rising so high as to be visible far and wide), that the diaspora of all places may join those who are returning home with the friendly help of the nations (ch. xi. 12, xlix. 22). For Jehovah hath caused tidings to be heard to the end of the earth, i.e. as we may see from what follows, the tidings of their liberation; in other words, looking at the historical fulfilment, the proclamation of Cyrus, which he caused to be issued throughout his empire at the instigation of Jehovah (Ezra i. 1). Hitzig regards V^V as expressing what had actually occurred at the time when the prophet uttered his predictions; and in reality the standpoint of the prophets was so far a variable one, that the fulfilment of what was predicted did draw nearer and nearer to it iv Trvevfxari (p. 123). But as hinneh throughout the book of Isaiah (vol. i. 425), even when followed by a perfect (p. 10), invariably points to something future, all that can be said is, that the divine announcement of the time of redemption, as having now arrived, stands out before the soul of the prophet with all the certainty of a historical fact. The conclusion which Knobel draws from the expression " to the end of the earth," as to the Babylonian standpoint of the prophet, is a false one. In his opinion, " the end of the earth" in such passages as Ps. lxxii. 8, Zech. ix. 10 ('aphse-drets), and ch. xxiv. 16 (k'naph hadrets), signifies the western extremity of the orbis orientalisj that is to say, the region of the Mediterranean, more especially Palestine; whereas it was rather a term applied to the remotest lands which bounded the geographical horizon (compare ch. xlii. 10, xlviii. 20, with Ps. ii. 8, xxii. 28, and other passages). The words that follow (" Say ye," etc.) might be taken as a command issued on the ground of the divine hishmia ("the Lord hath proclaimed"); but hishmia itself is a word that needs to be supplemented, so that what follows is the divine proclamation: Men everywhere, i.e, as far as the earth or the dispersion of Israel extends, are to say to the daughter of Zion — that is to say, to the church which has its home in Zion, but is now in foreign lands — that u its salvation cometh," i.e, that Jehovah, its Saviour, is coming to bestow a rich reward upon His church, which has passed through severe punishment, but has been so salutarily refined. Those to whom the words " Say ye," etc., are addressed, are not only the prophets of Israel, but all the mourners of Zion, who become mebhasserim, just because they respond to this appeal (compare the meaning of this " Say ye to the daughter of Zion" with Zech. ix. 9 in Matt. xxi. 5). The whole of the next clause, " Behold, His reward," etc., is a repetition of the prophet's own words in ch. xl. 10. It is a question whether the words u and they shall call thee," etc., contain the gospel which is to be proclaimed according to the will of Jehovah to the end of the earth (see ch. xlviii. 20), or whether they are a continuation of the prophecy which commences with " Behold, Jehovah hath proclaimed." The latter is the more probable, as the address here passes again into an objective promise. The realization of the gospel, which Jehovah causes to be preached, leads men to call those who are now still in exile " the holy people," " the redeemed" (lit. ransomed, ch. li. 10; like peduye in ch. xxxv. 10). " And thee" — thus does the prophecy close by returning to a direct address to Zion-Jerusalem — " thee will men call d'rushdh" sought assiduously, i.e. one whose welfare men, and still more Jehovah, are zealously concerned to promote (compare the opposite in Jer. xxx. 17), — " a city that will not be forsaken," i.e. in which men gladly settle, and which will never be without inhabitants again (the antithesis to 'azublidh in ch. lx. 15), possibly also in the sense that the gracious presence of God will never be withdrawn from it again (the antithesis to 'dzubhdh in ver. 4). naJW is the third pers. pr., like nuchdmdh in ch. liv. 11: the perfect as expressing the abstract present (Ges. § 126, 3).
The following prophecy anticipates the question, how Israel can possibly rejoice in the recovered possession of its inheritance, if it is still to be surrounded by such malicious neighbours as the Edomites.
Just as the Ammonites had been characterized by a thirst for extending their territory as well as by cruelty, and the Moabites by boasting and a slanderous disposition, so were the Edomites, although the brother-nation to Israel, characterized from time immemorial by fierce, implacable, bloodthirsty hatred towards Israel, upon which they fell in the most ruthless and malicious manner, whenever it was surrounded by danger or had suffered defeat. The knavish way in which they acted in the time of Joram, when Jerusalem was surprised and plundered by Philistines and Arabians (2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17), has been depicted by Obadiah. A large part of the inhabitants of Jerusalem wdre then taken prisoners, and sold by the conquerors, some to the Phoenicians and some to the Greeks (Obad. 20; Joel iv. 1-8); to the latter through the medium of the Edomites, who were in possession of the port and commercial city of Elath on the Elanitic Gulf (Amos i. 6). Under the rule of the very same Joram the Edomites had made themselves independent of the house of David (2 Kings viii. 20; 2 Chron. xxi. 10), and a great massacre took place among the Judaeans settled in Idumaea; an act of wickedness for which Joel threatens them with the judgment of God (ch. iv. 19), and which was regarded as not yet expiated even in the time of Uzziah, notwithstanding the fact that Amaziah had chastised them (2 Kings xiv. 7), and Uzziah had wrested Elath from them (2 Kings xiv. 22). " Thus saith Jehovah" was the prophecy of Amos (i. 11, 12) in the first half of Uzziah's reign, "for three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not take it back, because he pursued his brother with the sword, and stifled his compassion, so that his anger tears in pieces for ever, and he keeps his fierce wrath eternally: And I let fire loose upon Teman, and it devours the palaces of BozrahV So also at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and the carrying away of the people, Edom took the side of the Chaldeans, rejoiced over Israel's defeat, and flattered itself that it should eventually rule over the territory that had hitherto belonged to Israel. They availed themselves of this opportunity to slake their thirst for revenge upon Israel, placing themselves at the service of its enemies, delivering up fugitive Judaeans or else massacring them, and really obtaining possession of the southern portion of Judaea, viz. Hebron (1 Mace. v. 65; cf. Josephus, Wars of the Jews, iv. 9, 7). With a retrospective glance at these, the latest manifestations of eternal enmity, Edom is threatened with divine vengeance by Jeremiah in the prophecy contained in Jer. xlix. 7-22, which is taken for the most part from Obadiah; also in the Lamentations (iv. 21, 22), as well as by Ezekiel (xxv. 12—14, and especially xxxv.), and by the author of Ps. exxxvii.., which looks back upon the time of the captivity. Edom is not always an emblematical name for the imperial power of the world: this is evident enough from Ps. exxxvii., from Isa. xxi., and also from Isa. xxxiv. in connection with ch. xiii., where the judgment upon Edom is represented as a different one from the judgment upon Babylon. Babylon and Edom are always to be taken literally, so far as the primary meaning of the prophecy is concerned; but they are also representative, Babylon standing for the violent and tyrannical world-power, and Edom for the world as cherishing hostility and manifesting hostility to Israel as Israel, i.e. as the people of God. Babylon had no other interest, so far as Israel was concerned, than to subjugate it like other kingdoms, and destroy every possibility of its ever rising again. But Edom, which dwelt in Israel's immediate neighbourhood, and sprang from the same ancestral house, hated Israel with hereditary mortal hatred, although it knew the God of Israel better than Babylon ever did, because it knew that Israel had deprived it of its birthright, viz. the chieftainship. If Israel should have such a people as this, and such neighbouring nations generally round about it, after it had been delivered from the tyranny of the mistress of the world, its peace would still be incessantly threatened. Not only must Babylon fall, but Edom also must be trodden down, before Israel could be redeemed, or be regarded as perfectly redeemed. The prophecy against Edom which follows here is therefore a well-chosen side-piece to the prophecy against Babel in ch. xlvii., at the point of time to which the prophet has been transported.
This is the smallest of all the twenty-seven prophecies. In its dramatic style it resembles Ps. xxiv.; in its visionary and emblematical character it resembles the tetralogy in ch. xxi.-xxii. 14. The attention of the seer is attracted by a strange and lofty form coining from Edom, or more strictly from Bozrah; not the place in Auranitis or Hauran (Jer. xlviii. 24) which is memorable in church history, but the place in Edomitis or Gebal, between Petra and the Dead Sea, which still exists as a village in ruins under the diminutive name of el-Busaire. Ver. 1. " Who is this that cometh from Edom, in deep red clothes from Bozrah? This, glorious in his apparel, bending to and fro in the fulness of his strength?" The verb chdmats means to be sharp or bitter; but here, where it can only refer to colour, it means to be glaring, and as the Syriac shows, in which it is generally applied to blushing from shame or reverential awe, to be a staring red (o£ea>9). The question, what is it that makes the clothes of this new-comer so strikingly red? is answered afterwards. But apart from the colour, they are splendid in their general arrangement and character.
swollen body), and possibly through the medium of hdddr (which may signify primarily a swelling, or pad, oy/co?, and secondarily pomp or splendour), " to honour or adorn;" so that hddur signifies adorned, grand (as in Gen. xxiv. 65; Targ. II. LXX. (bpatos), splendid. The verb tsd'dh, to bend or stoop, we have already met with in ch. li. 14. Here it is used to denote a gesture of proud self-consciousness, partly with or without the idea of the proud bending back of the head (or bending forward to listen), and partly with that of swaying to and fro, i.e. the walk of a proud man swinging to and fro upon the hips. The latter is the sense in which we understand tsoeh here, viz. as a syn. of the Arabic mutamdil, to bend proudly from one side to the other (Vitringa: se hue illuc motitans). The person seen here produces the impression of great and abundant strength; and his walk indicates the corresponding pride of self-consciousness.
"Who is this?" asks the seer of a third person. But the answer comes from the person himself, though only seen in the distance, and therefore with a voice that could be heard afar off. Ver. lb. li I am he that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to aid? Hitzig, Knobel, and others, take righteousness as the object of the speaking; and this is grammatically possible (2 = rnrepi, e.g. Deut. vi. 7). But our prophet uses p1¥3 in ch. xlii. 6, xlv. 13, and npiva in an adverbial sense: u strictly according to the rule of truth (more especially that of the counsel of mercy or plan of salvation) and right." The person approaching says that he is great in word and deed (Jer. xxxii. 19). He speaks in righteousness; in the zeal of his holiness threatening judgment to the oppressors, and promising salvation to the oppressed; and what he threatens and promises, he carries out with mighty power. He is great (2"}, not 3"J; S. vTrepfia^cov, Jer. propugnator) to aid the oppressed against their oppressors. This alone might lead us to surmise, that it is God from whose mouth of righteousness (ch. xlv. 23) the consolation of redemption proceeds, and whose holy omnipotent arm (ch. lii. 10, lix. 16) carries out the act of redemption.
The seer surmises this also, and now inquires still further, whence the strange red colour of his apparel, which does not look like the purple of a king's talaror the scarlet of a chlamys. Ver. 2. " Whence the red on thine apparel, and thy clothes like those of a wine-presser V* SfVTO inquires the reason and cause; nft^ in its primary sense, the object or purpose. The seer asks, " Why is there red (adorn, neuter, like rabh in ver. 7) to thine apparel?" The Lamed, which might be omitted (wherefore is thy garment red?), implies that the red was not its original colour, but something added (cf. Jer. xxx. 12, and lamo in ch. xxvi. 16, liii. 8). This comes out still more distinctly in the second half of the question: " and (why are) thy clothes like those of one who treads (wine) in the wine-press " (b'gath with a pausal a not lengthened, like baz in ch. viii. 1), i.e. saturated and stained as if with the juice of purple grapes?
The person replies: Vers. 3-6. " I have trodden the winetrough alone, and of the nations no one was with me: and I trode them in my wrath, and trampled them down in my fury; and their life-sap spirted upon my clothes, and all my raiment was stained. For a day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption was come. And 1 looked round, and there was no helper; and I wondered there ivas no supporter: then mine own arm helped me; and my fury, it became my support. And I trode down nations in my wrath, and made them drunk in my fury, and made their life-blood run down to the earth." He had indeed trodden the wine-press (pitrdh = gaih, or, if distinct from this, the pressing-trough as distinguished from the pressing-house or pressing-place; according to Furst, something hollowed out; but according to the traditional interpretation ivompur = pdrar, to crush, press, both different from yeqebh: see at ch. v. 2), and he alone; so that the juice of the grapes had saturated and coloured his clothes, and his only. When he adds, that of the nations no one was with him, it follows that the press which he trode was so great, that he might have needed the assistance of whole nations. And when he continues thus: And I trod them in my wrath, etc., the enigma is at once explained. It was to the nations themselves that the knife was applied. They were cut off like grapes and put into the wine-press (Joel iv. 13); and tliis heroic figure, of which there was no longer any doubt that it was Jehovah Himself, had trodden them down in the impulse and strength of His wrath. The red upon the clothes was the life-blood of the nations, which had spirted upon them, and with which, as He trode this wine-press, He had soiled all His garments. Netsach, according to the more recently accepted derivation from ndisachj signifies, according to the traditional idea, which is favoured by Lam. iii. 18, vigor, the vital strength and life-blood, regarded as the sap of life. H (compare the historical tense W in 2 Kings ix» 33) is the future used as an imperfect, and it spirted, from ndzdh (see at ch. Hi. 15). s^?fJ^ (from?N3 = 7V3, ch. lix. 3) is the perfect hiphil with an Aramaean inflexion (compare the same Aramaism in Ps. lxxvi. 6, 2 Chron. xx. 35; and ^K?n? which is half like it, in Job xvi. 7); the Hebrew form would be wKJH.1 AE and A regard the form as a mixture of the perfect and future, but this is a mistake. This work of wrath had been executed by Jehovah, because He had in His heart a day of vengeance, which could not be delayed, and because the year (see at ch. lxi. 2) of His promised redemption had arrived. vN3 (this is the proper reading, not vlNS, as some codd. have it; and this was the reading which Rashi had before him in his comm. on Lam. i. 6) is the plural of the passive participle used as an abstract noun (compare D^n vivi, vitales, or rather viva, vitalia = vita). And He only had accomplished this work of wrath. Ver. 5 is the expansion of *W, and almost a verbal repetition of ch. lix. 16. The meaning is, that no one joined Him with conscious freewill, to render help to the God of judgment and salvation in His purposes. The church that was devoted to Him was itself the object of the redemption, and the great mass of those who wrere estranged from Him the object of the judgment. Thus He found Himself alone, neither human co-operation nor the natural course of events helping the accomplishment of His purposes. And consequently He renounced all human help, and broke through the steady course of development by a marvellous act of His own. He trode down nations in His wrath, and intoxicated them in His fury, and caused their life-
1 The Babylonian mss. have Tl^iOK with chirek, since, the Babylon iau (Assyrian) system of punctuation has no seghol.
blood to flow down to the ground. The Targum adopts the rendering " et triturabo eos" as if the reading were EO?PK}, which we find in Sonc. 1488, and certain other editions, as well as in some codd. Many agree with Cappellus in preferring this reading; and in itself it is not inadmissible (see Lam. i. 15). But the LXX. and all the other ancient versions, the Masora (which distinguishes D"OB>fcfl with 3, as only met with once, from D"DB*fl with 1 in Deut. ix. 17), and the great majority of the MSS., support the traditional reading. There is nothing surprising in the transition to the figure of the cup of wrath, which is a very common one with Isaiah. Moreover, all that is intended is, that Jehovah caused the nations to feel the full force of this His fury, by trampling them down in His fury.
Even in this short and highly poetical passage we see a desire to emblematize, just as in the emblematic cycle of pro- Dhetical night-visions in ch. xxi.-xxii. 14. For not only is the name of Edom made covertly into an emblem of its future fate, D^N becoming D'lK upon the apparel of Jehovah the avenger, when the blood of the people, stained with blood-guiltiness towards the people of God, is spirted out, but the name of Bozrah also; for bdtsar means to cut off bunches of grapes (vindemiare), and botsrdh becomes bdtsir, i.e. a vintage, which Jehovah treads in His wrath, when He punishes the Edomitish nation as well as all the rest of the nations, which in their hostility towards Him and His people have taken pleasure in the carrying away of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem, and have lent their assistance in accomplishing them. Knobel supposes that the judgment referred to is the defeat which Cyrus inflicted upon the nations under Croesus and their allies; but it can neither be shown that this defeat affected the Edomites, nor can we understand why Jehovah should appear as if coming from Edom-Bozrah, after inflicting this judgment, to which ch. xli. 2 sqq. refers. Knobel himself also observes, that Edom was still an independent kingdom, and hostile to the Persians (Diod. xv. 2) not only under the reign of Cambyses (Herod, iii. 5 sqq.), but even later than that (Diod. xiii. 46). But at the time of Malachi, who lived under Artaxerxes l^ongimanus, if not under his successor Darius Nothus, a judgment of devastation was inflicted upon Edom (Mai. i. 3-5), from which it never recovered. The Chaldeans, as Caspari lias shown (Obad. p. 142), cannot have executed it, since the Edomites appear throughout as their accomplices, and as still maintaining their independence even under the first Persian kings; nor can any historical support be found to the conjecture, that it occurred in the wars between the Persians and the Egyptians (Hitzig and Kohler, Mai. p. 35). What the prophet's eye really saw was fulfilled in the time of the Maccabaeans, when Judas inflicted a total defeat upon them, John Hyrcanus compelled them to become Jews, and Alexander Jannai completed their subjection; and in the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, wrhen Simon of Gerasa avenged their cruel conduct in Jerusalem in combination with the Zelots, by ruthlessly turning their well-cultivated land into a horrible desert, just as it would have been left by a swarm of locusts (Jos. Wars of the Jews, iv. 9, 7).
The New Testament counterpart of this passage in Isaiah is the destruction of Antichrist and his army (Rev. xix. 11 sqq.). He who effects this destruction is called the Faithful and True, the Logos of God; and the seer beholds Him sitting upon a white horse, with eyes of flaming fire, and many diadems upon His head, wearing a blood-stained garment, like the person seen by the prophet here. The vision of John is evidently formed upon the basis of that of Isaiah; for when it is said of the Logos that He rules the nations with a staff of iron, this points to Ps. ii.; and when it is still further said that He treads the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God, this points back to Isa. lxiii. The reference throughout is not to the first coming of the Lord, when He laid the foundation of His kingdom by suffering and dying, but to His final coming, when He will bring His regal sway to a victorious issue. Nevertheless ch. lxiii. 1-6 has always been a favourite passage for reading in Passion week. It is no doubt true that the Christian cannot read this prophecy without thinking of the Saviour streaming wdth blood, who trode the wine-press of wrath for us without the help of angels and men, i.e. who conquered wrath for us. But the prophecy does not relate to this. The blood upon the garment of the divine Hero is not His own, but that of His enemies; and His treading of the wine-press is not the conquest of wrath, but the manifestation of wrath. This section can only be properly used as a lesson for Passion week so far as this, that Jehovah, who here appears to the Old Testament seer, was certainly He who became man in His Christ, in the historical fulfilment of His purposes; and behind the first advent to bring salvation there stood with warning form the final coming to judgment, which will take vengeance upon that Edom, to whom the red lentil-judgment of worldly lust and power was dearer than the red life-blood of that loving Servant of Jehovah who offered Himself for the sin of the whole world.
There follows now in ch. lxiii. 7-lxiv. 11 a prayer commencing with thanksgiving as it looks back to the past, and closing with a prayer for help as it turns to the present. Hitzig and Knobel connect this closely with ch. lxiii. 1-6, assuming that through the great event which had occurred, viz. the overthrow of Edom, and of the nations hostile to the people of God as such, by which the exiles were brought one step nearer to freedom, the prophet was led to praise Jehovah for all His previous goodness to Israel. There is nothing, however, to indicate this connection, which is in itself a very loose one. The prayer which follows is chiefly an entreaty, and an entreaty appended to ch. lxiii. 1—6, but without any retrospective allusion to it: it is rather a prayer in general for the realization of the redemption already promised. Ewald is right in regarding ch. lxiii. 7-lxvi. as an appendix to this whole book of consolation, since the traces of the same prophet are unmistakeable; but the whole style of the description is obviously different, and the historical circumstances must have been still further developed in the meantime.