PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)
Smith, George Adam · 147,013 words · 201 reading sections
_Four Points Of A True Religion._
With Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks, who held the coast of the Ægean, was bound to come into the Persian's hands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a long one. The Greeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a threat, but the Persian laughed at it…
680 wordsSECTION 62_Four Points Of A True Religion._
1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness and personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured by His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative. To illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the chapters under consideration. _I, I Jehovah, and the…
981 wordsSECTION 63_Four Points Of A True Religion._
Now the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign God, was the deity of a little tribe. _I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am God, I Jehovah am He._ We cannot too much impress ourselves with the historical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and Egypt with their large empires, Lydia with all he…
669 wordsSECTION 64_Four Points Of A True Religion._
3. _Wood-graver--he draws a line,_ _Marks it with pencil,_ _Makes it with planes,_ _And with compasses marks it._ _So has made it the build of a man,_ _To a grace that is human--_ _To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars._[89] 4. _Or one takes an ilex or oak,_ _And picks for himself from the trees of the wood;_…
808 wordsSECTION 65_Four Points Of A True Religion._
Ah, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no long-extinct volcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by the writings of the Exile. But they treat of man's perennial trouble; and conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned letters and figures with words we feel like swords…
1,027 wordsSECTION 66_Four Points Of A True Religion._
Now the question has been asked, To what predictions does the prophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so evidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering this question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the prophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify t…
565 wordsSECTION 67_Cyrus._
[85] _From to-day on_, Ez. xlviii. 35; but others take it _Also to-day I am He_. [86] Renan's theory of the "natural monotheism" of the Semites was first published in his _Histoire des Langues Semitiques_ some forty years ago. Nearly every Semitic scholar of repute found some occasion or other to refute it. But with R…
897 wordsSECTION 68_Cyrus._
Yet it is very remarkable, that our Scripture states not one moral or religious virtue as the qualification of this Gentile to the title of _Jehovah's Messiah_. We search here in vain for any gleam of appreciation of that character, which drew the admiring eyes of Greece. In the whole range of our prophecy there is not…
706 wordsSECTION 69_Cyrus._
Sternly replies the Almighty: _Woe to him that striveth with his Moulder, a potsherd among the potsherds of the ground! Saith clay to its moulder, What doest thou? or thy work_ of thee, _No hands hath he? Woe to him that saith to a father, What begettest thou? or to a woman, With what travailest thou? Thus saith Jehova…
735 wordsSECTION 70_Cyrus._
Observe the difference. It is characteristic of the two nations. The Greek views Cyrus as an example; therefore cannot too abundantly multiply his morality. The Hebrew views him as a tool; but with a tool you are not anxious about its moral character, you only desire to be convinced of its force and its fitness. The Gr…
824 wordsSECTION 71_Cyrus._
Now put all these results, which the Jews, regardless of the character of Cyrus, saw flowing from his policy, as the servant of God on their behalf, side by side with the influence which the Greeks borrowed from Cyrus, and say whether Greek or Jew had the more true and historical conscience of this great power,--whethe…
1,085 wordsSECTION 72Footnotes:
And so, too, in our own day, though we may not see any religious character whatsoever about certain successful movements--say in science, for instance--which are sure to affect the future of the Church and of Faith, do not let us despair, neither deny that they, too, are in the counsels of God. Let us only be sure that…
617 wordsSECTION 73_Bearing Or Borne._
ISAIAH xlvi. Chapter xlvi. is a definite prophecy, complete in itself. It repeats many of the truths which we have found in previous chapters, and we have already seen what it says about Cyrus. But it also strikes out a new truth, very relevant then, when men made idols and worshipped the works of their hands, and rel…
683 wordsSECTION 74_Bearing Or Borne._
Now, over against this kind of religion, which may be reduced to so many pounds avoirdupois, the prophet sees in contrast the God of Israel. And it is but natural, when contrasted with the dead-weight of the idols, that God should reveal Himself as a living and a lifting God: a strong, unfailing God, who carries and wh…
691 wordsSECTION 75_Bearing Or Borne._
1. The first requisite for stable and buoyant life is ground, and the faithfulness of law. What sends us about with erect bodies and quick, firm step is the sense that the surface of the earth is sure, that gravitation will not fail, that our eyes and the touch of our feet and our judgement of distance do not deceive u…
795 wordsSECTION 76_Bearing Or Borne._
3. But this gospel of God's love bearing our sins is of no use to a man unless it goes with another--that God bears him up for victory over temptation and for attainment in holiness. It is said to be a thoroughly Mohammedan fashion, that when a believer is tempted past the common he gives way, and slides into sin with …
734 wordsSECTION 77_Bearing Or Borne._
And now, if that be God's bearing--the gift of the ground, and the lifting of the fallen, and the being a soul and an inspiration of every organ--how wrong those are who, instead of asking God to carry them, are more anxious about how He and His religion are to be sustained by their consistency or efforts! To young me…
532 wordsSECTION 78_Babylon._
[101] _Crouches_, Kara`; _cowers_, Kores. [102] Bredenkamp. [103] Sayce, _Fresh Light_, etc., p. 140. [104] See p. 39 f. [105] There is a play on the words 'anî `asîthî, wa'anî, 'essā'--_I have made, and I will aid_. [106] Lam. v. 7. [107] Ver. 4, second clause, and vii. ISAIAH xlvii. Throughout the extent of B…
880 wordsSECTION 79_Babylon._
The sin and the curse never left the generations, who in turn succeeded those impious builders. Pride and godlessness infested the city, and prepared it for doom, as soon as it again gathered strength to rise to heaven. The early nomads had watched Babylon's fall from afar; but when their descendants were carried as ca…
725 wordsSECTION 80_Babylon._
Here now are his own words, rendered literally except in the case of one or two conjunctions and articles,--rendered, too, in the original order of the words, and, as far as it can be determined, in the rhythm of the original. The rhythm is largely uncertain, but some verses--1, 5, 14, 15--are complete in that measure …
878 wordsSECTION 81_Babylon._
"_Our Redeemer! Jehovah of Hosts is His Name,_ _Holy of Israel!_" Not the least interesting feature of this taunt-song is the expression which it gives to the characteristic Hebrew sense of the wearisomeness and immorality of that system of divination, which formed the mass of the Babylonian and many other Gentile re…
842 wordsSECTION 82_Babylon._
Forgetfulness of God, cruelty, vanity of knowledge (which so easily breeds credulity) and vanity of wealth,--but the parent of them all is idolatry of self. Isaiah told us about this in the Assyrian with his war; we see it here in Babylon with her commerce and her science; it was exposed even in the orthodox Jews,[116]…
747 wordsSECTION 83_Babylon._
But while speaking of the state, we should remember individual responsibilities as well. Success, even where it is the righteous success of character, is a most subtle breeder of cruelty. The best of us need most strongly to guard ourselves against censoriousness. If God does put the characters of sinful men and women …
434 wordsSECTION 84_The Call To Go Forth._
[108] _Cf._ Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_. [109] The Turanians, who occupied Mesopotamia before the Semitic invasion, were the first builders of cities. [110] Babylon, as far as we can learn, first rose to power about the time of that Amraphel who fought in the Mesopotamian league against the neighbours and friends of Ab…
828 wordsSECTION 85_The Call To Go Forth._
How is it possible, some may now ask, that Cyrus should be one of the unpredicted _new things_ that are happening while the prophet speaks, when the prophet has already pointed to Cyrus and his advance on Babylon as a fulfilment of ancient predictions? The answer to this question is very simple. There were ancient pred…
665 wordsSECTION 86_The Call To Go Forth._
_Hearken unto Me, O Jacob, and Israel My Called: I am He; I am First, yea, I am Last. Yea, My hand hath founded Earth,_[122] _and My right hand hath spread Heaven; when I call unto them they stand together._ _Be gathered, all of you, and hearken, Who among them_--that is, the Gentiles--_hath published these things_?--…
777 wordsSECTION 87Footnotes:
Before we do this, however, let us devote a chapter to a study of our prophet's use of the word righteousness, for which this seems to be as convenient a place as any other. [117] Bredenkamp will have it, that the prophet here mentions first Northern Israel and then Judah: _O House of Jacob_, the general term, both _t…
475 wordsSECTION 88I. Righteousness.
_THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ISRAEL AND THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD._ ISAIAH xl.-lxvi. In the chapters which we have been studying we have found some difficulty with one of our prophet's keynotes--_right_ or _righteousness_. In the chapters to come we shall find this difficulty increase, unless we take some trouble now to def…
654 wordsSECTION 89Ii. The Righteousness Of Israel.
One of the simplest forms of the use of _righteousness_ in the Old Testament is when it is employed in the case of ordinary quarrels between two persons; in which for one of them _to be righteous_ means _to be right_ or _in the right_.[132] Now to the Hebrew all life and religion was based upon covenants between two,--…
818 wordsSECTION 90Ii. The Righteousness Of Israel.
This is the predominant meaning of the term, as applied to Israel, in Isa. xl.-lxvi. Israel's unrighteousness is her state of discredit and disgrace under the hands of God; her righteousness, which she hopes for, is her restoral to her station and destiny as the elect people. To our Christian habit of thinking, it is v…
1,267 wordsSECTION 91Iii. The Righteousness Of God.
But there was another Person, whose righteousness was in question during the Exile, and who Himself argues for it throughout our prophecy. Perhaps the most peculiar feature of the theology of Isa. xl.-lxvi. is its argument for _the righteousness of Jehovah_. Some critics maintain that righteousness, when applied to Je…
694 wordsSECTION 92Iii. The Righteousness Of God.
In this very suggestive passage _righteousness_ means far more than simple correctness of prediction. Indeed, it is difficult to distinguish how much it means, so quickly do its varying echoes throng upon our ear, from the new associations in which it is spoken. A word such as _righteousness_ is like the sensitive tone…
773 wordsSECTION 93Footnotes:
One passage is of great interest, because in it _righteousness_ is used to play upon itself, in its two meanings of human duty and Divine effect--lvi. 1, _Observe judgement_--probably religious ordinances--_and do righteousness; for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed_. * * * * * To comp…
762 wordsSECTION 94Book Iii.
Having completed our survey of the fundamental truths of our prophecy, and studied the subject which forms its immediate and most urgent interest, the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, we are now at liberty to turn to consider the great duty and destiny which lie before the delivered people--the Service of Jehovah. T…
612 wordsSECTION 95_One God, One People._
ISAIAH xli. 8-20, xlii.-xliii. We have been listening to the proclamation of a Monotheism so absolute, that, as we have seen, modern critical philosophy, in surveying the history of religion, can find for it no rival among the faiths of the world. God has been exalted before us, in character so perfect, in dominion so…
801 wordsSECTION 96_One God, One People._
The next question is, Why should this particular portion of mankind be a nation, and not a single prophet, or a school of philosophers, or a church universal? The answer is found in the condition of the ancient world. Amid its diversities of language and of racial feeling, a missionary prophet travelling like Paul from…
754 wordsSECTION 97_One God, One People._
This racial disposition the Hebrew carried with him into his calling as a nation. The ancestor, who gave the people the double name by which they are addressed throughout our prophecy, _Jacob-Israel_, inherited with all his defects the two great marks of the religious temper. Jacob could dream and he could wait. Rememb…
1,143 wordsSECTION 98_One God, One People._
Now for this service,--which had been the purpose of the nation's election at first, the mainstay of its unique preservation since, and the reason of all its singular pre-eminence before God,--Israel was equipped by two great experiences. These were Redemption and Revelation. On the former redemptions of Israel from t…
1,124 wordsSECTION 99_One God, One People._
So that when Jehovah says that _He has magnified the Revelation and made it glorious_, He speaks of a magnitude of a real, historical kind, that can be tested by exact methods of observation. Israel's _election_ by Jehovah, their _formation_, their unique _preparation_ for service, are not the mere boasts of an overwee…
667 wordsSECTION 100Footnotes:
In short, we shall have no difficulty about these Divine methods with a single, elect people, if we only remember that to be Divine is to be practical. _Yet God also is wise_, said Isaiah to the Jews when they preferred their own clever policies to Jehovah's guidance. And we need to be told the same, who murmur that to…
473 wordsSECTION 101_The Servant Of The Lord._
ISAIAH xli. 8-20; xlii. 1-7, 18 ff; xliii. 5-10; xlix. 1-9; l. 4-10; lii. 13-liii. With chapter xlii. we reach a distinct stage in our prophecy. The preceding chapters have been occupied with the declaration of the great, basal truth, that Jehovah is the One Sovereign God. This has been declared to two classes of hea…
719 wordsSECTION 102I.
Now we might naturally expect that so indispensable and fondly imagined a figure would also be defined past all ambiguity, whether as to His time or person or name. But the opposite is the case. About Scripture there are few more intricate questions than those on the Servant of the Lord. Is He a Person or Personificati…
855 wordsSECTION 103I.
2. We say "at first," for very soon the prophet has to make a distinction, and to sketch the Servant as something less than the actual nation. The distinction is obscure; it has given rise to a very great deal of controversy. But it is so natural, where a nation is the subject, and of such frequent occurrence in other …
747 wordsSECTION 104I.
It is a similar winnowing process, through which we see our prophet's thoughts pass with regard to Israel. Him, too, experience teaches that _the many are called, but the few chosen_. So long as his people lie in the shadow of captivity, so long as he has to speak of them in the passive mood, the object of God's call a…
715 wordsSECTION 105I.
The next references to the Servant are a couple of paradoxes, which are evidently the prophet's attempt to show _why_ it was necessary to draw in the Servant of Jehovah from the whole to a part of the people. The first of these paradoxes is in ch. xlii. ver. 18. _Ye deaf, hearken! and ye blind, look ye to see! Who is…
812 wordsSECTION 106I.
It is futile to inquire what this better portion of Israel actually was, for whom the prophet speaks in the first person. Some have argued, from the stress which the speaker lays upon his gifts of speech and office of preaching, that what is now signified by the Servant is the order of the prophets; but such forget tha…
1,015 wordsSECTION 107I.
But we are by no means compelled to adopt the impersonal view of ch. liii. On the contrary, while the question is one, to which all experts know the difficulty of finding an absolutely conclusive answer one way or the other, it seems to me that reasons prevail, which make for the personal interpretation. . Let us see w…
1,009 wordsSECTION 108I.
The _second_ main objection to identifying an individual in ch. lii. 13-liii. is, that an individual with such features has no analogy in Hebrew prophecy. It is said that, neither in his humiliation, nor in the kind of exaltation, which is ascribed to him, is there his like in any other individual in the Old Testament,…
696 wordsSECTION 109I.
So far, then, from the difference between ch. liii. and previous prophecies of the Messiah affording evidence that in ch. liii. it is not the Messiah who is presented, this very change, that has taken place, explicable as it is from the history of the intervening centuries, goes powerfully to prove that it is the Messi…
660 wordsSECTION 110I.
4. We have now exhausted the passages in Isa. xl.-lxvi. which deal with the Servant of the Lord. We have found that our prophet identifies him at first with the whole nation, and then with some indefinite portion of the nation--indefinite in quantity, but most marked in character; that this personification grows more a…
428 wordsSECTION 111Footnotes:
[149] A king's courtiers, soldiers, or subjects are called _his servants_. In this sense Israel was often styled the _servants of Jehovah_, as in Deut. xxxii. 36; Neh. i. 10, where the phrase is parallel to _His people_. But _Jehovah's servants_ is a phrase also parallel to His worshippers (Psalm cxxxiv. 1, etc.); to t…
458 wordsSECTION 112Chapter Xvii.
_THE SERVANT OF THE LORD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT._ In last chapter we confined our study of the Servant of Jehovah to the text of Isa. xl.-lxvi., and to the previous and contemporary history of Israel. Into our interpretation of the remarkable Figure, whom our prophet has drawn for us, we have put nothing which cannot b…
657 wordsSECTION 113Chapter Xvii.
* * * * * 1. In the Old Testament we cannot be sure of any further appearance of our prophet's Servant of the Lord. It might be thought, that in a post-exilic promise, Zech. iii. 8, _I will bring forth My Servant_ the _Branch_, we had an identification of the hero of the first part of the Book of Isaiah, _the Branch o…
806 wordsSECTION 114Chapter Xvii.
Our Lord, then, sprang from a generation of Israel, which had a strong conscience of the national aspect of the Service of God,--a generation with Isa. xl.-lxvi. at its heart. We have seen how He Himself insisted upon the uniqueness of Israel's place among the nations--_salvation is of the Jews_--and how closely He ide…
949 wordsSECTION 115Chapter Xvii.
With the four Gospels in existence, no one doubts or can doubt that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the cry, _Behold My Servant_. With Him it ceased to be a mere ideal, and took its place as the greatest achievement in history. 3. In the earliest discourses of the Apostles, therefore, it is not wonderful that Jesus should…
685 wordsSECTION 116Footnotes:
5. Such, then, is the New Testament reflection of the Prophecy of the Servant of the Lord, both as People and Person. Like all physical reflections, this moral one may be said, on the whole, to stand reverse to its original. In Isa. xl.-lxvi. the Servant is People first, Person second. But in the New Testament--except …
605 wordsSECTION 117_The Service Of God And Man._
ISAIAH xlii. 1-7. We now understand, whom to regard as the Servant of the Lord. The Service of God was a commission to witness and prophesy for God upon earth, made out at first in the name of the entire nation Israel. When their unfitness as a whole became apparent, it was delegated to a portion of them. But as there…
645 wordsSECTION 118I. The Conscience Of Service.
As several of these lines indicate, this is a Service to Man, but what we must first fasten upon is that before being a Service to Man it is a Service for God. _Behold, My Servant_, says God's commission very emphatically. And throughout the prophecy the Servant is presented as chosen of God, inspired of God, equipped …
703 wordsSECTION 119I. The Conscience Of Service.
But can we turn our backs on God, without hurting man? The natural history of philanthropy would seem to say that we cannot. This prophecy is one of its witnesses. Earliest ideal as it is, of a universal service of mankind, it starts in its obligation from the universal Sovereignty of God; it starts in every one of its…
666 wordsSECTION 120I. The Conscience Of Service.
But, though we had never heard of Positivism or of the Socialism that denies God, our age, with its popular and public habits, would still require this example of Service, which our prophecy enforces: it is an age so charged with the instincts of work, with the ambition to be useful, with the fashion of altruism; but s…
418 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.