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 very natural to read the frequent and splendid phrases, in which _righteousness_ is attributed or promised to the people of God in this evangelical prophecy, as if righteousness were that inward assurance and justification from an evil conscience, which, as we are taught by the New Testament, is provided for us through the death of Christ, and inwardly sealed to us by the Holy Ghost, irrespective of the course of our outward fortune. But if we read that meaning into _righteousness_ in Isa. xl.-lxvi., we shall simply not understand some of the grandest passages of the prophecy. We must clearly keep in view, that while the prophet ceaselessly emphasizes the pardon of God _spoken home to the heart_ of the people, as the first step towards their restoral, he does not apply the term righteousness to this inward justification,[134] but to the outward vindication and accrediting of Israel by God before the whole world, in their redemption from Captivity, and their reinstatement as His people. This is very clear from the way in which _righteousness_ is coupled with _salvation_ by the prophet, as (lxii. 1): _I will not rest till her righteousness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth_. Or again from the way in which righteousness and glory are put in parallel (lxii. 2): _And the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory_. Or again in the way that _righteousness_ and _renown_ are identified (lxi. 11): _The Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and renown to spring forth before all the nations_. In each of these promises the idea of an external and manifest splendour is evident; not the inward peace of justification felt only by the conscience to which it has been granted, but the outward historical victory appreciable by the gross sense of the heathen. Of course the outward implies the inward,--this historical triumph is the crown of a religious process, the result of forgiveness and a long purification,--but while in the New Testament it is these which would be most readily called a people's righteousness, it is the former (what the New Testament would rather call _the crown of life_), which has appropriated the name in Isa. xl.-lxvi. The same is manifest from another text (xlviii. 18): _O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments; then had thy peace been as the River, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea_. Here _righteousness_ is not only not applied to inward morality, but set over against this as its external reward,--the health and splendour which a good conscience produces. It is in the same external sense that the prophet talks of the _robe of righteousness_ with its bridal splendour, and compares it to the appearance of _Spring_ (lxi. 10-11).
For this kind of righteousness, this vindication by God before the world, Israel waited throughout the Exile. God addresses them as _they that pursue righteousness, that seek Jehovah_ (li. 1). And it is a closely allied meaning, though perhaps with a more inward application, when the people are represented as praying God to give them _ordinances of righteousness_ (lviii. 2),--that is, to prescribe such a ritual as will expiate their guilt and bring them into a right relation with Him. They sought in vain. The great lesson of the Exile was that not by works and performances, but through simply waiting upon the Lord, their righteousness should shine forth. Even this outward kind of justification was to be by faith.
The other meaning of righteousness, however,--the sense of social and civic morality, which was its usual sense with the earlier prophets,--is not altogether excluded from the use of the word in Isa. xl.-lxvi. Here are some commands and reproaches which seem to imply it. _Keep judgement, and do righteousness_,--where, from what follows, righteousness evidently means observing the Sabbath and doing no evil (lvi. 1 ff). _And justice is fallen away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street, and steadfastness cannot enter_ (lix. 14). These must be terms for human virtues, for shortly afterwards it is said: _Jehovah was displeased because there was no justice_. Again, _They seek Me as a nation that did righteousness_ (lviii. 2); _Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, a people--My law is in their hearts_ (li. 7); _Thou meetest him that worketh righteousness_ (lxiv. 5); _No one sues in righteousness, and none goeth to law in truth_ (lix. 4). In all these passages _righteousness_ means something that man can know and do, his conscience and his duty, and is rightly to be distinguished from those others, in which _righteousness_ is equivalent to the salvation, the glory, the peace, which only God's power can bring. If the passages, that employ _righteousness_ in the sense of moral or religious observance, really date from the Exile, then the interesting fact is assured to us that the Jews enjoyed some degree of social independence and responsibility during their Captivity. But it is a very striking fact that these passages all belong to chapters, the exilic origin of which is questioned even by critics, who assign the rest of Isa. xl.-lxvi. to the Exile. Yet, even if these passages have all to be assigned to the Exile, how few they are in number! How they contrast with the frequency, with which, in the earlier part of this book,--in the orations addressed by Isaiah to his own times, when Israel was still an independent state,--_righteousness_ is reiterated as the daily, practical duty of men, as justice, truthfulness and charity between man and man! The extreme rarity of such inculcations in Isa. xl.-lxvi. warns us that we must not expect to find here the same practical and political interest, which formed so much of the charm and the force of Isa. i.-xxxix. The nation has now no politics, almost no social morals. Israel are not citizens working out their own salvation in the market, the camp and the senate; but captives waiting a deliverance in God's time, which no act of theirs can hasten. It is not in the street that the interest of Second Isaiah lies: it is on the horizon. Hence the vague feeling of a distant splendour, which, as the reader passes from ch. xxxix. to ch. xl., replaces in his mind the stir of living in a busy crowd, the close and throbbing sense of the civic conscience, the voice of statesmen, the clash of the weapons of war. There is no opportunity for individuals to reveal themselves. It is a nation waiting, indistinguishable in shadow, whose outlines only we see. It is no longer the thrilling practical cry, which sends men into the arenas of social life with every sinew in them strung: _Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow_. It is rather the cry of one who still waits for his working day to dawn: _I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?_ Righteousness is not the near and daily duty, it is the far-off peace and splendour of skies, that have scarce begun to redden to the day.