But this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change of style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it is quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward into the glorious vision of his people's future salvation, and again to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their present distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will certainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these different feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the recurrence of some of our prophecy's most characteristic thoughts. We feel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another hand than that which has mainly written "Second Isaiah." It may be at once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases, reminiscences and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in use when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing for him to do in a prayer, in which he represented the whole people and took upon himself the full burden of their woes.
If such be the intention of chs. lxiii. 7-lxiv., then in them we have one of the noblest passages of our prophet's great work. How like he is to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the loftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge of his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and sorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said of the Servant, he himself _bears the sin of many, and interposes for the transgressors_. Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear some obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer.
It opens with a recital of Jehovah's ancient lovingkindness and mercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with the previous section. In ch. lxii. the prophet, though sure of the coming glory, wrote before it had come, and _urged_ upon _the Lord's remembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth_. This work of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in lxiii. 7: _The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record_, literally, _cause to be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us_. And then he beautifully puts all the beginnings of God's dealings with His people in His trusting of them: _For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them._ This must be understood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the Presence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, God's own Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God.[287] _In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them, and carried them all the days of old._ Then he tells us how they disappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days of old. _But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against them._ This refers to their history down to, and especially during, the Exile: compare ch. xlii., vv. 24, 25. Then in their affliction they _remembered the days of old_--the English version obscures the sequence here by translating _he remembered_--and then follows the glorious account of the Exodus. In ver. 13 the _wilderness_ is, of course, _prairie_, flat _pasture-land_; they were led as smoothly as _a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that come down into the valley_--cattle coming down from the hill sides to pasture and rest on the green, watered plains--_the Spirit of Jehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious name_. And then having offered such precedents, the prophet's prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people feel no longer at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: _Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and thy compassions are restrained towards me._ Then he pleads God's fatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates between the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and, notwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of old; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and remember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over them, as the power of the potter over the clay.