III. THE DIVINE SAVIOUR (ch. lxiii. 1-7).
Once again the prophet turns to hail, in his periodic transport, the Solitary Divine Hero and Saviour of His people.
That the writer of this piece is the main author of "Second Isaiah" is probable, both because it is the custom of the latter to describe at intervals the passion and effort of Israel's Mighty One, and because several of his well-known phrases meet us in this piece. The _speaker in righteousness mighty to save_ recalls ch. xlv. 19-24; and _the day of vengeance and year of my redeemed_ recalls ch. lxi. 2; and _I looked, and there was no helper, and I gazed, and there was none to uphold_, recalls lix. 16. The prophet is looking out from Jerusalem towards Edom,--a direction in which the watchmen upon Zion had often in her history looked for the return of her armies from the punishment of Israel's congenital and perpetual foe. The prophet, however, sees the prospect filled up, not by the flashing van of a great army, but by a solitary figure, without ally, without chariot, without weapons, _swaying on in the wealth of his strength_. The keynote of the piece is the loneliness of this Hero. A figure is used, which, where battle would only have suggested complexity, enthrals us with the spectacle of solitary effort,--the figure of trampling through some vast winefat alone. The Avenging Saviour of Israel has a fierce joy in being alone: it is his new nerve to effort and victory,--_therefore mine own right arm, it brought salvation to me_. We see One great form in the strength of one great emotion. _My fury, it upheld me._
The interpretation of this chapter by Christians has been very varied, and often very perverse. To use the words of Calvin, "Violenter torserunt hoc caput Christiani." But, as he sees very rightly, it is not the Messiah nor the Servant of Jehovah, who is here pictured, but Jehovah Himself. This Solitary is the Divine Saviour of Israel, as in ch. xlii. 7 f. and in ch. lix. 16 f. In Chapter Eight of this volume we spoke so fully of the Passion of God, that we may now refer to that chapter for the essential truth which underlies our prophet's anthropomorphism, and claims our worship where a short sight might only turn the heart away in scorn at the savage and blood-stained surface. One or two other points, however, demand our attention before we give the translation.
Why does the prophet look in the direction of Edom for the return of his God? Partly, it is to be presumed, because Edom was as good a representative as he could choose of the enemies of Israel other than Babylon.[284] But also partly, perhaps, because of the names which match the red colours of his piece,--the wine and the blood. Edom means _red_, and Bossrah is assonant to Bôsser, a _vinedresser_.[285] Fitter background and scenery the prophet, therefore, could not have for his drama of Divine Vengeance. But we must take care, as Dillmann properly remarks, not to imagine that any definite, historical invasion of Edom by Israel, or other chastening instrument of Jehovah, is here intended. It is a vision which the prophet sees of Jehovah Himself: it illustrates the passion, the agony, the unshared and unaided effort which the Divine Saviour passes through for His people.
Further, it is only necessary to point out, that the term in ver. 1 given as _splendid_ by the Authorised Version, which I have rendered _sweeping_, is literally _swelling_, and is, perhaps, best rendered by _sailing on_ or _swinging on_. The other verb which the Revised Version renders _marching_ means _swaying_, or moving the head or body from one side to another, in the pride and fulness of strength. In ver. 2 _like a wine-treader_ is literally _like him that treadeth in the pressing-house_--Geth (the first syllable of Gethsemane, the oil-press). But ה ור in ver. 3 is the _pressing-trough_.