[258] See vol. i., pp. 363, 364.
[259] So Ewald, Cheyne and Briggs. Ewald takes lvi. 9-lvii. 11_a_ as an interruption, borrowed from an earlier prophet in a time of persecution, of the exilic prophecy, which goes on smoothly from lvi. 8 to lvii. 11_b_. We have seen that it is an error to suppose that lvi. 9-lvii. rose from a time of persecution.
[260] Ezek. xxi.; _cf._ xxxiii. 30 f.
[261] Delitzsch.
[262] Mishpat and mishpatim, _cf._ p. 299.
[263] Such as is also expressed by exiles in Psalms xlii., xliii. and lxiii., but there with what spiritual temper, here with what a hard legal conception of righteousness.
[264] For these see p. 61.
[265] Literally, _the poor, the wandering_. It was a frequent phrase in the Exile: Lam. iii. 19, _Remember mine affliction and my homelessness_; i. 7, Jerusalem in the day _of her affliction and her homelessness_. LXX. αστεγοι, roofless.
[266] Probably the fresh flesh which appears through a healing wound. Made classical by Jeremiah, who uses it thrice of Israel,--in the famous text, _Is there no balm_, etc., x. 22; and in xxx. 17; xxxiii. 6.
[267] Jer. xxxi. 12.
[268] _Cf._ Job xxiv. 13.
[269] _Cf._ Amos viii. 5.
[270] See pp. 43 f.
[271] Ewald conceives chs. lviii., lix. to be the work of a younger contemporary of Ezekiel, to which the chief author of "Second Isaiah" has added words of his own: lviii. 12, lix. 21. The latter is evidently an insertion; _cf._ change of person and of number, etc. Delitzsch puts the passage down to the last decade of the Captivity, when for a little time Cyrus had turned away from Babylon, and the Jews despaired of his coming to save them.
[272] See pp. 219 ff.
[273] Another slight trace reveals the conglomerate nature of the chapter. If, as the earlier verses indicate, it was Israel that sinned, then it is the rebellious in Israel who should be punished. In ver. 18_a_, therefore, the _adversaries_ or _enemies_ ought to be Israelites. But in 18_b_ the foreign _islands_ are included. The LXX. has not this addition. Bredenkamp takes the words for an insertion. Yet the consequences of Israel's sin, according to the chapter, are not so much the punishment of the rebellious among the people as the delay of the deliverance for the whole nation,--a deliverance which Jehovah is represented as rising to accomplish, the moment the people express the sense of their rebellion and are penitent. The _adversaries_ and _enemies_ of ver. 18, therefore, are the oppressors of Israel, the foreigners and heathen; and 18_b_ with its _islands_ comes in quite naturally.
[274] _Note on mishpat and Ssedhaqah in ch. lix._ This chapter is a good one for studying the various meanings of mishpat. In ver. 4 the verb shaphat is used in its simplest sense of going to law. In vv. 8 and 14 mishpat is a quality or duty of man. But in ver. 9 it is rather what man expects from God, and what is far from man because of his sins; it is _judgement_ on God's side, or God's saving ordinance. In this sense it is probably to be taken in ver. 15,--Ssedhaqah follows the same parallel. This goes to prove that we have two distinct prophecies amalgamated, unless we believe that a play upon the words is intended.
[275] Isa. i. 17; Ezek. ii. 18; Psalm ix. 12.