3. The captives. — The description grows denser. These are more needy than even the broken-hearted. They are the victims of habit, evil habit, ill-regulated deeds settling or settled down into an ill-regulated life. If women, they are such as St. Paul describes (2 Tim. iii. 6), " silly women laden with sins, led captive with divers lusts."
The word does not describe those whose condition is a woeful one by reason of bonds and imprisonment. It has nothing to do with either gaol or dungeon. By paying attention to the exact significance of the original meaning we shall best know how to interpret the Hebrew. The term means literally " those carried off as booty." It depicts what must have been one of the bitterest moments in the experience of the prisoner of war, the moment when the power of the conqueror dragged him away from home and native city, wlien he saw for the last time loved walls and
^ A. T. Burln'idgo.
ISAIAH 451
ways and faces without which life was without joy. Thus, as generally used, it denotes the ever present bitterness of the enslaved among strange faces in a strange country ; the sad memories, the troublous longings which would haunt him even when the treatment he experienced was the kindest and his lot was of the easiest and pleasantest.
IT Crouched in the corner of every house sat a thing, without home, without rights, without hope, called the slave ; the victim of every caprice, the safety-valve of every passion, the tool of every lust. The work of construction Christianity wrought out. It restored the family life by restoring the marriage relation. It made every Christian home a retreat where purity might repose in the bosom of order. It created that type of Christian gentleness which we see in our mothers and sisters and wives. It touched the brow and heart of the slave — not just snapping the chains and then leading; him forth to a freedom he could not use. It first touched the slave's soul, and taught him to raise his branded brow, and to know that he was a free man, that Christ had made free — free from the yoke of sin, and therefore free one day to walk as king.^
4. Them that are hound. — The proper and more general sense of the verb 'asciv is " to bind," but in its special sense as applied to prisoners the original meaning seems to have faded out. The history of the word presents us with an excellent illustration of the elasticity of the Hebrew language. In earliest times one can understand how "a prisoner" and "a bound-man " were synonymous terms. But when arrangements for confining a person guilty of some offence were rendered more secure, the bonds might be dis- pensed with and a man might be shut up in prison without being pinioned. However, the old word was still used, and such a man was known as ^dslr, literally " one bound," properly " a prisoner." The place where he was confined was known as " the house of the bound," " the prison house." Illustrations of this can be found in the histories of Joseph and of Samson (Gen. xl. 3 and xxxix. 20 ; Judg. xvi. 21). A reference to the context will make it clear that though referred to as 'cisir Joseph and Samson were evidently not pinioned. But, while losing its old significance, 'as^r gathered about itself a fresh meaning. One of the most dreadful horrors of the prison house was its darkness, and, if this were not ^ Archbishop Alexander, Primary Convictions.
452 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
absolute, its sunless gloom. Thus the word came to signify a prisoner, as one to whom light was denied. In several passages " prisoners " are classed in the same category with " the blind " and " them that sit in darkness ' (Isa. xlii. 7, xlix, 9 ; Ps. cxlvi. 7, 8). It is evident that it would be a mistake to adhere strictly to the original significance of the word. The literal meaning " the bound " is no longer applicable, and there must be substituted for it, as characteristic of "the prisoner," " one who is longing for the hght." In the interpretation of Isa. Ixi. 1, it is quite possible that even the idea expressed in the term " the prisoner " may be dismissed, and only the broader significance of " one who is longing for the light " retained.
It is their eyes that are bound. And so these are in worst case of all, for they cannot see their condition. They are as good as dead — dead in trespasses and sins. " She that liveth in sin is dead while she liveth." When Lazarus came forth from the tomb his face was bound about with a napkin, for that was the way they did with the dead. The eyes were closed and bound. These are they who say, " I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and do not know that they are " wretched and miserable and poor and bhnd and naked."
A spirit lay bound in a house of clay, Closed to the light of God alway, Dark with the gloom of mortal sin, — Earth without and a Spmt within.