Volume Ii Part 1 (1/2)
Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions.
by Ernst Hengstenberg.
THE PROPHET ISAIAH.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Isaiah is the princ.i.p.al prophetical figure in the first period of canonical prophetism, _i.e._, the a.s.syrian period, just as Jeremiah is in the second, _i.e._, the Babylonian. With Isaiah are connected in the kingdom of Judah: Joel, Obadiah, and Micah; in the kingdom of Israel: Hosea, Amos, and Jonah.
The name ”Isaiah” signifies the ”Salvation of the Lord.” In this name we have the key-note of his prophecies, just as the name Jeremiah: ”The Lord casts down,” indicates the nature of his prophecies, in which the prevailing element is entirely of a threatening character. That the proclamation of salvation occupies a very prominent place in Isaiah, was seen even by the Fathers of the Church. _Jerome_ says: ”I shall expound Isaiah in such a manner that he shall appear not as a prophet only, but as an Evangelist and an Apostle;” and in another pa.s.sage: ”Isaiah seems to me to have uttered not a prophecy but a Gospel.” And _Augustine_ says, _De Civ. Dei_, 18, c. 29, that, according to the opinion of many, Isaiah, on account of his numerous prophecies of Christ and the Church, deserved the name of an Evangelist rather than that of a Prophet. When, after his conversion, _Augustine_ applied to _Ambrose_ with the question, which among the Sacred Books he should read in preference to all others, he proposed to him Isaiah, ”because before all others it was he who had more openly declared the Gospel and the calling of the Gentiles.” (_Aug. Conf._ ix. 5.) With the Fathers of the Church _Luther_ coincides. He says in commendation of Isaiah: ”He is full of loving, comforting, cheering words for all poor consciences, and wretched, afflicted hearts.” Of course, there is in Isaiah no want of severe reproofs and threatenings. If it were [Pg 2] otherwise, he would have gone beyond the boundary by which true prophetism is separated from false. ”There is in it,” as Luther says, ”enough of threatenings and terrors against the hardened, haughty, obdurate heads of the wicked, if it might be of some use.” But the threatenings never form the close in Isaiah; they always at last run out into the promise; and while, for example, in the great majority of Jeremiah's prophecies, the promise, which cannot be wanting in any true prophet, is commonly only short, and hinted at, sometimes consisting only of words which are thrown into the midst of the several threatenings, _e. g._, iv. 27: ”Yet will I not make a full end,”--in Isaiah the stream of consolation flows in the richest fulness. The promise absolutely prevails in the second part, from chap. xl.-lxvi. The reason of this peculiarity is to be sought for chiefly in the historical circ.u.mstances. Isaiah lived at a time in which, in the kingdom of Judah, the corruption was far from having already reached its greatest height,--in which there still existed, in that kingdom, a numerous ”election” which gathered round the prophet as their spiritual centre. With a view to this circle, Isaiah utters the words: ”Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” The contemporary prophets of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was poisoned in its very first origin, found a different state of things; the field there was already ripe for the harvest of judgment. And at the time of Jeremiah, Judah had become like her apostate sister. At that time it was not so much needed to comfort the miserable, as to terrify sinners in their security. It was only after the wrath of G.o.d had manifested itself in deeds, only after the judgment of G.o.d had been executed upon Jerusalem, or was immediately at hand,--it was only then that, in Jeremiah, and so in Ezekiel also, the stream of promise broke forth without hinderance.
Chronology is, throughout, the principle according to which the Prophecies of Isaiah are arranged. In the first six chapters, we obtain a survey of the Prophet's ministry under Uzziah and Jotham. Chap. vii.
to x. 4 belongs to the time of Ahaz. From chap. x. 4 to the close of chap. x.x.xv. every thing belongs to the time of the a.s.syrian invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; in the face of which invasion the prophetic gift of Isaiah was displayed as it had never been before. The section, chap. x.x.xvi.-x.x.xix., furnishes us with the historical commentary on the preceding [Pg 3] prophecies from the a.s.syrian period, and forms, at the same time, the transition to the second part, which still belongs to the same period, and the starting point of which is Judah's deliverance from a.s.shur. In this most remarkable year of the Prophet's life--a year rich in the manifestation of G.o.d's glory in judgment and mercy--his prophecy flowed out in full streams, and spread to every side. Not the destinies of Judah only, but those of the Gentile nations also are drawn within its sphere. The Prophet does not confine himself to the events immediately at hand, but in his ecstatic state, the state of an elevated, and, as it were, armed consciousness, in which he was during this whole period, his eye looks into the farthest distances. He sees, especially, that, at some future period, the Babylonian power, which began, even in his time, to germinate, would take the place of the a.s.syrian,--that, like it, it would find the field of Judah white for the harvest,--that, for this oppressor of the world, destruction is prepared by _Koresh_ (Cyrus), the conqueror from the East, and that he will liberate the people from their exile; and, at the close of the development, he beholds the Saviour of the world, whose image he depicts in the most glowing colours.
Isaiah has especially brought out the view of the Prophetic and Priestly offices of Christ, while in the former prophecies it was almost alone the Kingly office which appeared; it is only in Deut.
xviii. that the Prophetic office, and in Ps. cx. that the Priestly office, is pointed at. Of the two states of Christ, it is the doctrine of the state of humiliation, the doctrine of the suffering Christ, which here meets us, while formerly it was the state of exaltation which was prominently brought before us,--although Isaiah too can very well describe it when it is necessary to meet the fears regarding the destruction of the Theocracy by the a.s.saults of the powerful heathen nations. The first attempt at a description of the humbled, suffering, and expiating Christ, is found in chap. xi. 1. The real seat of this proclamation is, however, in the second part, which is destined more for the election, than for the whole nation. In chap. xlii. we meet the servant of G.o.d, who, as a Saviour meek and lowly in heart, does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and by this merciful love establishes righteousness on the whole earth. In chap.
xlix., the Prophet describes how the covenant-people requite with ingrat.i.tude the faithful labours of the Servant of G.o.d, but that [Pg 4]
the Lord, to recompense Him for the obstinacy of Israel, gives Him the Gentiles for an inheritance. In chap. l. we have presented to us that aspect of the sufferings of the Servant of G.o.d which is common to Christ and His people--viz., how, in fulfilling His calling. He offered His back to the smiters, and did not hide His face from shame and spitting. Then, finally, in chap. liii.--that culminating point of the prophecy of the Old Testament--Christ is placed before our eyes in His highest work, in His atoning and vicarious suffering, as the truth of both the Old Testament high-priest, and the Old Testament sin-offering.
There are still the following Messianic features which are peculiar to Isaiah. A clear Old Testament witness for the divinity of Christ is offered by chap. ix. 5 (6); the birth by a virgin, closely connected with His divinity, is announced in chap. vii. 14; according to chap.
viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Galilee, and, in general, the country surrounding the Sea of Gennesareth, being that part of the country which hitherto had chiefly been covered with disgrace, are, in a very special manner, to be honoured by the appearance of the Saviour, who shall come to have mercy upon the miserable, and to seek that which was lost. Isaiah has, further, first taught that, by the redemption, the consequences of the Fall would disappear in the irrational creation also, and that it should return to paradisaic innocence, chap. xi. 6-9. He has first announced to the people of G.o.d the glorious truth, that death, as it had not existed in the beginning, should, at the end also, be expelled, chap. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19. The healing powers which by Christ should be imparted to miserable mankind, Isaiah has described in chap x.x.xv. in words, which by the fulfilment have, in a remarkable manner, been confirmed.
Let us endeavour to form, from the single scattered features which occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, a comprehensive view of his prospects into the future.
The announcement first uttered by Moses of an impending exile of the people, and desolation of the country, is brought before us by Isaiah in the first six chapters, in the prophecies belonging to the time of Uzziah and Jotham, at which the future had not yet been so clearly laid open before the Prophet as it was at a later period, at the time of Ahaz, and, very especially, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. A reference to [Pg 5] the respective announcements of the Pentateuch is found in chap. x.x.xvii. 26, where, in opposition to the imagination of the King of a.s.shur, that, by his own power, he had penetrated as a conqueror as far as Judah, Isaiah asks him whether he had not heard that the Lord, long ago and from ancient times, had formed such a resolution regarding His people. These words can be referred only to the threatenings of the Pentateuch, which a short-sighted criticism endeavoured to ascribe to a far later period, without considering that the germ of this knowledge of the future is found in the Decalogue also, the genuineness of which is, at present, almost unanimously conceded: ”In order that thy (Israel's) days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee.”
In the solemnly introduced short summary of the history of the covenant-people, in chap. vi., there is, after the announcement of the impending complete desolation of the country and the carrying away of its inhabitants in vers. 11, 12, the indication of a _second_ judgment which will not less make an end, in ver. 13: ”But yet there is a tenth part in it, and it shall again be destroyed;” and this goes hand in hand with the promise that the _election_ shall become partakers of the Messianic salvation.
The Prophet clearly sees that, by the _Syrico-Ephraemitic_ war, the full realization of that threatening of the Pentateuch will not be brought about, as far as Judah is concerned; that here a faint prelude only to the real fulfilment is the point in question. Although the allied kings speak in chap. vii. 6: ”Let us go up against Judea and vex it, and let us conquer it for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal,” the Lord speaks in chap. vii. 7: ”It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pa.s.s.” And although the heart of the king and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind, the Prophet says: ”Fear not, let not thy heart be tender for the tails of those two smoking firebrands.”
It is a.s.shur that shall do more for the realization of that divine decree first revealed by Moses. It is he who, immediately after that expedition against Judah, shall break the power of the kingdom of the ten tribes, chap. viii. 4: ”Before the child shall be able to cry: 'My father and my mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the King of [Pg 6] a.s.syria.” The communion of guilt into which it has entered with Damascus shall also implicate it in a communion of punishment with it, chap. xvii. 3. The adversaries of Rezin shall devour Israel with open mouth, chap. ix. 11, 12. Yea a.s.shur shall, some time afterwards, put an end altogether to the kingdom of Israel; ”Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it shall not be a people any more,” chap. vii. 8. Upon Judah also severe sufferings shall be inflicted by a.s.shur. He shall invade and devastate their land, chap. vii. 17, and chap. viii. He shall irresistibly penetrate to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, chap. x.
28-32. But when he is just preparing to inflict the mortal blow upon the head of the people of G.o.d, the Lord shall put a stop to him: ”He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by the mighty one,” chap. x. 34. ”a.s.shur shall be broken in the land of the Lord, and upon His mountains be trodden under foot; and his yoke shall depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders,” chap. xiv. 25. ”And a.s.shur shall fall with the sword not of a man,” chap. x.x.xi. 8. These prophecies found their fulfilment in the destruction of Sennacherib's host before Jerusalem,--an event which no human ingenuity could have known even a day beforehand. But Isaiah does not content himself with promising to trembling Zion the help of G.o.d against a.s.shur in that momentary calamity. In harmony with Hosea and Micah, he promises to Judah, in general, security from a.s.shur. He says to Hezekiah, after that danger was over, in chap. x.x.xviii. 6: ”And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the King of a.s.syria, and I will defend this city.”
Behind the a.s.syrian kingdom, the Prophet beholds a new power germinating, viz., the Babylonian or Chaldean; and he announces most distinctly and repeatedly that from this shall proceed a comprehensive execution of the threatenings against unfaithful Judah. According to chap. xxiii. 13, the Chaldeans overturn the a.s.syrian monarchy, and conquer proud Tyre which had resisted the a.s.sault of the a.s.syrians.
s.h.i.+nar or Babylon appears in chap. xi. 11, in the list of the places to which Judah has been removed in punishment. In chap. xiii. 1-xiv. 27, Babylon is, for the first time, distinctly and definitely mentioned as the threatening power of the future, by which Judah is to be carried into captivity. The corresponding announcement in chap. x.x.xix. is so [Pg 7] closely and intimately interwoven with the historical context, that even _Gesenius_ did not venture to deny its origin by Isaiah, just as he was compelled also to acknowledge the genuineness of the prophecy against Tyre, in which the Babylonian dominion is most distinctly foretold, and even the duration of that dominion is fixed. The 70 years of Jeremiah have here already their foundation.
The Prophet sees distinctly and definitely that Egypt, the rival African world's power, on which the sharp-sighted politicians of his time founded their hope for deliverance, would not be equal to the Asiatic world's power representing itself in the a.s.syrian and Babylonian phases. He knows what he could not know from any other source than by immediate communication of the Spirit of G.o.d, that, by its struggle against the Asiatic power, Egypt would altogether lose its old political importance, and would never recover it; compare remarks on chap. xix.
As the power which is to overthrow the Babylonian Empire appear, in chap. x.x.xiii. 17, the Medes. In chap. xxi. 2, Elam, which, according to the _usus loquendi_ of Isaiah, means Persia, is mentioned besides Media. This power, and at its head, the conqueror from the East, Cyrus, will bring deliverance to Judah. By it they obtain a restoration to their native land.[1] Nevertheless Elam appears in chap. xxii. 16 as the representative of the world's power oppressing Judah in the future; and from chap. xi. 11 we are likewise led to expect that the world's power will in future shew itself in an Elamitic phase also, and that the difference between Babel and Elam is one of degree only, just as, indeed, it appeared in history; comp. Neh. ix. 36, 37.
An intimation of an European phasis of the world's power, hostile to the kingdom of G.o.d, is to be found in chap. xi. 11.
After the Kingdom of G.o.d has, for such protracted periods, been subject to the world's power, the relation will suddenly be reversed; at the end of the days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be exalted above all the hills, and all nations shall flow into it, chap. ii. 2.
This great change shall be accomplished by the Messiah, chaps. iv., ix., xi., x.x.xiii. 17, who proceeds from the house of [Pg 8] David, chap. ix. 6 (7), lv. 3, but only after it has sunk down to the utmost lowliness, chap. xi. 1. With the human, He combines the divine nature.
This appears not only from the names which are given to Him in chap.
ix. 5 (6), but also from the works which are a.s.signed to Him,--works by far exceeding human power. He rules over the whole earth, according to chap. xi.; He slays, according to xi. 4, the wicked with the breath of His mouth (compare chap. l. 11, where likewise He appears as a partaker of the omnipotent punitive power of G.o.d); He removes the consequences of sin even from the irrational creation, chap. xi. 6-9; by His absolute righteousness He is enabled to become the subst.i.tute of the whole human race, and thereby to accomplish their salvation resting on this subst.i.tution, chap. liii.