Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)

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The ”King” is the Messiah. This appears from the reference to the Song of Solomon i. 16, where the bride says to the bridegroom, the heavenly Solomon, ”Behold thou art _fair_, my beloved” (comp. Ps. xlv. 3;) and from the words immediately following: ”they shall see the land that is far off.” The wide extension of the Kingdom of G.o.d is indissolubly connected with the appearance of the Messiah. Those who refer the prophecy to Hezekiah refer ”the land that is far off” (literally: ”the land of distances”) to ”a land stretching far out,” in ant.i.thesis to the siege when the people of Jerusalem were limited to its area, since the whole country was occupied by the a.s.syrians. But the pa.s.sage, chap.

xxvi. 15: ”Thou increasest the nation, O G.o.d, thou art glorified, thou removest all the boundaries of the land,” is conclusive against this explanation. Comparing this pa.s.sage, as also chap. lx. 4; Zech. x. 9, _Michaelis_ correctly explains: ”The land of distances is the Kingdom of Christ most widely propagated.” In chap. viii. 9, likewise, the Gentile countries are designated by the ”distances of the earth.”

_Farther_--Hezekiah could not be designated simply by ??? without the article. It is only by the utmost violence that the whole announcement can be limited to the events under Hezekiah, which everywhere form the foreground only. We might rather, with _Vitringa_, think of Jehovah, with a comparison of ver. 22: ”For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us,” and of Ps.

xlviii. 3, where he is called ??? ??. To Jehovah, the pa.s.sage, chap.

x.x.x. 20, 21 also refers,--a pa.s.sage which has been so often misunderstood: ”And the Lord giveth you bread of adversity, and water of affliction, and not does thy teacher conceal himself any more, and thine eyes see thy Teacher. And thine ears hear a voice behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it; do not turn to the right hand, nor to the left.” The affliction prepares for the coming of the heavenly teacher; by it the eyes of the people have been opened, so that they are able to behold His glorious form. But although we should understand Jehovah by ”the King in His beauty,” we must, at all events, think of His glorious manifestation in Christ Jesus, who said, He who sees me sees the Father, and in whom the fulness of the G.o.dhead dwells bodily; and it was indeed in Christ that G.o.d, [Pg 158] in the truest manner, revealed and manifested himself as the Teacher of His people.

The close of the whole of the first part of Isaiah is, in chaps.

x.x.xiv., x.x.xv. formed by a comprehensive announcement, _on the one hand_, of the judgments upon the G.o.d-hating world, here individualized by Edom, that hereditary enemy of Israel, who was so much the more fitted for this representation that his enmity was the most obstinate of all, and remained the same throughout all the phases of Israel's oppression by the great kingdoms of the world (he always appears as he who helped to bring misery upon his brethren); and, _on the other hand_, of the mercy and salvation which should be bestowed upon the Church trampled upon by the world.

On chap. x.x.xiv. 4;, 5, where the heaven is that of the princes, the whole order of rulers and magistrates; the stars, the single princes and n.o.bles, compare my remarks on Rev. vi. 13.

The description of the salvation in store for the Church, in chap.

x.x.xv., is pre-eminently Messianic, although the lower blessings also are included which preceded the appearance of Christ. The description contains features so characteristic, that we must necessarily submit it to a closer examination.

Ver. 1. ”_The wilderness and dry land shall be glad for it, and the desert shall rejoice and sprout like the bulb._”

The wilderness is Zion--the Church to be devastated by the world.--”For it,”--_i.e._ for the judgment upon the world, as it was described in chap. x.x.xiv. with which the changed fate of the Church is indissolubly connected.

Ver. 2. ”_It shall sprout, and rejoice with joy and shouting. The glory of Lebanon is given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our G.o.d._”

”The glory of Lebanon,” &c. is a glory like unto that of Lebanon. The real condition of the glory of Zion, or the Church, is brought before us in the subsequent verses only; it consists in the Lords glory being manifested in it. The majestic, wooded Lebanon, and fruitful Carmel, are contrasted with one another; the latter is put together with the lovely fruitful plain of Sharon, rich in flowers; compare remarks on Song of Sol. vii. 6. _Michaelis_ says: ”The Lebanon excels among the forests; the Carmel among the fruitful hills; the [Pg 159] Sharon among the lovely fields or valleys.”--To ”see the glory of the Lord, the excellency _of G.o.d_” means to behold Him in the revelation of the full glory of His nature. Prophecy would have fed the minds of the people with vain hopes, if G.o.d had revealed himself in any other way than in Christ, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily (Col.

ii. 9), and who, along with His own glory, revealed, at the same time, that of the Father; for it was the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, John i. 14; ii. 11.

Ver. 3. ”_Strengthen ye the slack hands, and confirm ye the tottering knees._” The words are addressed to all the members of the people of G.o.d; they are to strengthen and confirm _one another_ by pointing to the future revelation of the glory of the Lord.

Ver. 4. ”_Say to them that are of a fearful heart: Be strong, fear not; behold, your G.o.d will come for vengeance, for a gift of G.o.d: He will come and save you._”

”To them that are of a fearful heart,”--literally of a ”hasty heart,”

who allow themselves to be carried away by the Present, and are unmindful of the _respice finem_.--??? and ???? are Accusatives, used in the same manner as in verbs of motion, to designate the object of the motion.--On ????, ”gift,” comp. remarks on Ps. vii. 5. ”The gift of G.o.d” forms a contrast to the poor gifts, such as men offer. He comes for vengeance upon His enemies, and for bestowing the most glorious divine gifts upon His people. The words: ”He will come and save you,”

are an explanation of ”the gift of G.o.d.” It is in Christ that the words: ”He will come and save you,” found their true fulfilment,--a fulfilment to which every lower blessing pointed, and which is still going on, and constantly advancing.--That which, in the subsequent verses, is said of the concomitant circ.u.mstances of this salvation, is by far too high to admit of the fulfilment being sought in any other than Christ. All these forced explanations, such as: ”In their joy they feel _as if_ they were healed” (_k.n.o.bel_, after the example of _Gesenius_), only serve to show this more clearly. They are overthrown even by the parallel announcement of the impending resurrection of the dead in chap. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19.

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Ver. 5. ”_Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped._”

The blind and deaf are the individualizing designations of the wretched; in Luke xiv. 13-21, the blind are named along with the poor, lame, and maimed as an individualizing designation of the whole genus of _personae miserabiles_; comp. John v. 3. But this individualizing designation must be carefully distinguished from the image. The blind and deaf are mentioned as the most perspicuous _species_ in the _genus_; but they themselves are, in the first instance, meant, and that which has been said must, in the first instance, be fulfilled upon them. _Farther_--as blind and deaf are, without farther remark and qualification, spoken of, we shall, in the first instance, be obliged to think of the bodily blind and deaf, inasmuch as they, according to the common _usus loquendi_, are thus designated. But a collateral reference to the _spiritually_ blind and deaf must so much the rather be a.s.sumed, that they, too, form a portion of the genus here represented by the blind and deaf; and the more so that it is just Isaiah who so frequently speaks of spiritual blindness and deafness; comp. chap. xxix. 18: ”And in that day (in the time of the future salvation, when the Lord of the Church shall have put to shame the pusillanimity and timidity of His people), the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind see out of obscurity and darkness;”

xlii. 18: ”Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind and see;” xliii. 8: ”Bring forth the blind people, that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears;”

lvi. 10; vi. 10; Matth. xv. 14; John ix. 39; Ephes. i. 18; 2 Pet. i. 9.

Spiritual blindness and deafness are specially seen in the relation of the people to the leadings of the Church, and to the promises of Scripture. The blind cannot understand the complicated ways of G.o.d; the deaf have, especially in the time of misery, no ear for His promises.

Besides the natural and spiritual blindness, Scripture knows of still a third; it designates as blind those who cannot see the way of salvation, the helpless and drooping; compare my Commentary on Ps.

cxlvi. 8; Zeph. i. 17; Isa. xlii. 7. Now, it is blindness and deafness of every kind which, along with all other misery, shall find a remedy at the time of salvation.--If we ask for the fulfilment, our eye is, in the first instance, attracted by Matt. [Pg 161] xi. 5, where, with an evident reference to the pa.s.sage before us, the Lord gives to the question of John: ”Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another,” the matter-of-fact answer, that the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk: comp. Matth. xv. 31: ?ste t???

?????? ?a??sa? ??p??ta? ??f??? ?a???ta?, ??????? ???e??, ??????

pe??pat???ta? ?a? t?f???? ??p??ta?; xxi. 14; ?a? p??s????? a?t? t?f???

?a? ????? ?? t? ?e?? ?a? ??e??pe?se? a?t???; Mark vii. 37, where after the healing of the deaf and dumb, the people say: ?a??? p??ta pep????e ?a? t??? ??f??? p??e? ????e??, ?a? t??? ??????? ?a?e??. Yet shall we not be able to see, in these facts, the complete fulfilment of the prophecy, in so far as it refers to the healing of the bodily blind and deaf--inasmuch as it promises the healing of all, not of some only--but only a pledge of the complete fulfilment of it; just as Christ's raising some from the dead only prefigures what He shall do in the end of the days. The complete fulfilment belongs to the time of the resurrection of the just, of which it is said: Whatever is here afflicted, groans, prays, shall then go on brightly and gloriously.