Lecture III. The Book of Isaiah.

This is quoted in Matthew iii. 1-8, where it is applied to John the Baptist, as the forerunner and herald of Jesus. The opening of the prophecy, however, is itself conclusive as to its application. The chapter (xl.) and those that follow it are by a new writer, but we have the old familiar cry of the consoling teacher to a troubled nation:—" Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished." It is obviously the cry of hope to a people on the eve of redemption from its troubles. All difficulties will disappear, the crooked will be made straight and the rough will become plain, and, to "the cities of Judah," the cry will go forth—" Behold your God." It is the word of the Lord to His oppressed" people:" it is a promise of deliverance and return: and it can only be applied to Christ or to John the Baptist as his herald, by unlimited adjustment and arbitrary adaptation.

The point of similarity here is that Jesus did not hasten to assert himself, but charged the people not to make him known: and this is taken as a fulfilment of the prophecy," He shall not cry, nor lift page 18 up, &c.,"—a remarkable illustration of the ease with which predictions were found.^*

But the "servant" spoken of in the prophecy is not a person at all, but Israel or Jacob, the people, personified.^† The Septuagint, indeed, actually reads it so," Jacob my servant, and Israel mine elect:" but this is plain from the two previous chapters. On the same page as this very prophecy, we read (chapter xli. 8), But thou Israel, art my servant," and, in the previous chapter (xl. 27), Jehovah addresses "Jacob" and "Israel," pleading with them. In this same chapter (xlii. 19) He speaks of His "servant" again, and asks "Who is blind, but my servant?"—evidently referring to the people Israel, who could not understand the leadings of God. A little farther on, after many warnings, and descriptions of experiences, and promises of help and comfort, Jehovah again addresses the nation (xliv. 1), "Yet now hear, 0 Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen." So that this verse," Behold my servant, &c.," comes right in the very midst of a whole cluster of passages relating to the Jewish people as God's" servant," and referring to circumstances and events all occurring in the prophet's day. The identification is perfect. It was that people who were called God's" servant;" it was that people that should be gentle, gracious, and influential: and it was for their sakes that "God would go forth as a mighty man," and" stir up jealousy like a man of war," and" cry, yea, roar," and" prevail against his enemies." All that is in connection with the prediction which Matthew applies to Christ; but the merest glance shews how utterly inappropriate it is in relation to him, who certainly was not" blind," and who knew nothing of God as" a man of war" strong" against his enemies." But the whole thing is quite in harmony with the connected picture of a hard-pressed, suffering people, comforted by God as His "servant," and promised help and deliverance and a new career of glory and prosperity, even to the judging of the Gentiles. The passage can only be applied to Christ by sheer force of arbitrary accommodation.^‡

Now I feel that any one who sets out to prove that this was never written concerning Christ has a very difficult task before him, not because the evidence is defective, but because he will have a dead weight of sentiment, habit, and prepossession against him: and I confess that I myself find it very difficult to dissociate Christ from the words" He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." But it must be done.

And, in the first place, note that we must not isolate this chapter, or consider it apart from what goes before and comes after. The division into chapters is purely arbitrary and may really mislead. The description of this supposed person really begins with chapter Iii, 13. In that verse we suddenly find ourselves before what turns out to be a sustained description of a sorrowful witness-bearer, now despised, rejected, or unknown, but soon to be the wonder of many nations. The last verse of lii. and the first verse of liii. are livingly related to one another. They contain a striking contrast which the break sadly destroys.' "The lungs," says Isaiah," shall shut then mouths before him" (with reverence and wonder), for "they shall see what they have not heard of," but we, he adds, did hear, and yet who of us beloved? In fact, the 53rd chapter is inextricably bound up with all that goes before, and it is plain that reference is again to the people Israel, the servant of Jehovah, who, all through, is addressed as His "servant."^* It is plain, too, that the circumstances referred to are either then existing, or just past, or at the very door; and these circumstances are all national and political.

^* The suggestion has been made that the reference is to some well-known representative of the righteous part of the nation—some suffering confessor or martyr—who would be sufficiently recognised by the description given of him, and whoso life and death stood as a testimony against the nation in general, seeing that it was the prevailing iniquity and faithlessness that made him necessary and that sealed Ms doom. It is certainly suggestive that in chapter 1. 5-6, we have this servant of God represented as saying "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." But this speaker is evidently supposed to be existing in Isaiah's day. See also chapter lvii. 1, where we have a pathetic reference to the central fact that" the righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart." See too chapter lviii. 1, where the prophet is summoned to "shew the people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." The 53rd chapter deals, in a highly poetic form, with the national sorrow on the one hand, and the national sin on tile other:—that is the central fact.

page 20 In the previous chapter the prophet calls upon Zion to awake, and upon Jerusalem to arise, to shake herself from the dust, and put on her beautiful garments. Direct reference is made to the people's captivity in Egypt and Assyria, and Jehovah announces His resolve to restore them. Then the prophet breaks out into that splendid cry—" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." What "good tidings "? It goes on to tell us. The good tidings are such to the watchmen upon the poor crumbling walls, to the mourners in the "waste places of Jerusalem;" for the Lord, it says, "has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations." Therefore the cry comes,—" Depart ye, depart ye,"—that is from captivity—" ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be in the rear." What is all that but the plainest possible description of a great national event—even the restoration of the captive "servant" of the Lord, the people Israel, to its own land? And yet we are asked to believe that the very next verse leaps over more than 500 years, and, without any warning or reason, commences a description of circumstances and scenes, and of a person altogether unrelated to what has just been discussed with so much point and fervour:—yes I and unrelated to what comes after; for, when this chapter ends, the reference again becomes obvious to a people regaining its place among the nations and shining with fresh glory. The widowed and childless nation shall return from captivity; it shall" break forth on the right hand and on the left:" its children "shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited;" and "no weapon that is formed against it shall prosper." All that is only capable of one explanation—and that explanation is the historical one,—that the predictions of these chapters relate solely to Israel as the servant of the Lord and to its fortunes in captivity and restoration. The 52nd chapter is political and national; the 54th chapter is political and national; and the 53rd chapter is surely the same. It is simply incredible that between two chapters, plainly referring to present or impending local and political events, a chapter should occur, referring to events altogether different and to characters and transactions more than 500 years ahead.

The person of chapter 58, then, is obviously a people—the people all along treated and spoken of as a person; all along called God's "servant,"—the people also spoken of in Hosea xi. 1, where it is expressly said;—" When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my soil out of Egypt:" i.e. when the people Israel was in its infancy, I brought it up out of the land of Egypt. It is the nation, then, that is called God's servant or son: it is the nation that is now sorrowing," despised and rejected:" and the sorrows and sufferings of the nation were truly described as borne on account of the sins and follies of individuals. The prophet-poet, with a striking fervour of imagery, pictures the servant of Jehovah, the Jewish nation, in captivity: and we sent him there, he cries,—we with our sins and wanderings: "all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on him (i.e. on the nation, on His page 21 servant Israel) the iniquity of us all." In other words—the nation suffers for the people's sins. And now Israel, he says, is like a lamb brought to the slaughter; the nation has gone to its grave, with the wicked rich despoilers.' The nation itself is personified, and upheld as a separate tiling—not in itself base or evil. It, says Isaiah, had not been violent or false: it was still God's servant, God's chosen, or, as Hosea actually calls it, God's son; the sins of individuals had ruined it for a time, but God would bring it again from the degradation to which those sins had hurled it; and once again it should shine and rule, and" divide a portion with the great," and" divide the spoil with the strong." All this harmonizes with the chapters that go before and after, carries out the figure of the nation as a beloved and chosen servant of God, and leads on to the splendid promises that follow, connected with the restoration of the oppressed nation to its country and its prosperity.

The 49th and 50th chapters give a striking instance of the vivid way in which the nation could be personified and treated as a person. In the 21st verse of the 49th chapter the nation is pictured as a once childless mother rejoicing in children, with kings and queens as nursing fathers and mothers. Then in the first verse of the 50tli chapter it is treated as a woman who might possibly have been divorced. But the book abounds with this poetic treatment of the nation. I admit that it is not easy to see the meaning of every reference in the 53rd chapter, on the hypothesis that the person spoken of is really the people Israel; but we ought not to expect that: and yet I feel sure that a plain translation and a careful reading of it will bring out the meaning very much more clearly than most people would suppose.^* Grasp well the fact that, all through, the people Israel is personified and addressed as God's servant: grasp also the fact that the prophet draws a sharp distinction between the chosen beloved nation and the individuals that are included in it: grasp finally the fact that the one burning thought in his mind is the restoration of this poor crushed sorrowing people to the old land; and I believe the chapter, with the chapters that go before and follow after, will be wonderfully clear. But, if we take it violently out of its historical connections and make it refer to a person and to events 500 years ahead; if, in a word, we read it as an extended prophecy of Christ, we shall still find it difficult to see the meaning of every reference. "What, for instance, are we to understand by Christ seeing his seed or his descendants, by his prolonging his days, by his dividing a portion with the great, and

^* Take for instance verse 9, which contains more than one misrendering of the Hebrew. The verse The verse reads:—" And lie made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because lie had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth:" and the margin gives us a reference to Matt, xxvii. 57-60, where, curiously enough, a "rich" man is said to secure the body of Jesus;—a wonderful fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy! thinks the reader. But the true sense is:—Although he was neither violent nor deceitful, ho made his grave with the wicked, and was with sinners in his death. The authorised version bears improbability on the face of it, and adequate knowledge has decided against it.

page 22 dividing the spoil with the strong? And yet all these are features in the description; and they have great significance when applied to the picture of a nation rising triumphant above its sorrows and its foes.

This is Jeremiah's description of his own case, and the suggestion has been made that Isaiah's description of the man "despised and rejected" referred to Jeremiah. But one thing appears to be certain,—that Isaiah wrote entirely concerning his own times, that he referred entirely to the condition of the nation in his day, and that only by arbitrary accommodation and adjustment can his words be taken as descriptive of Christ.

To show how loosely the Evangelists quoted passages from the Old Testament as predictions, just take the reference to the 4th verse of this chapter, in Matt. viii. 16-17.

" When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed of devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses."

This is quoted as a direct case of fulfilment; but what is the fact? In the Gospel the case is one of healing physical sicknesses, of taking sicknesses away: in Isaiah, as we have seen, the case is one of the bearing of sorrow for another, in consequence of moral evil,—a totally different thing; and yet Matthew calls it a fulfilment of the prophecy!

Now, note here first that the writer attributes to Christ the cry of Isaiah, "Lord, who hath believed our report?" The people did not believe in Christ, and the writer says that Isaiah foresaw this 750 years before, and referred to that, in fact prophesied that, when lie said," Lord, who Hath believed, &c." This is a striking instance page 23 of the loose way in which such old sayings were lifted out of their place in the Old Testament and made to apply to the events of the New. The other quotation will shew the same thing. The writer of "John" expressly says that the unbelief of Christ's hearers was a fulfilment of the prediction "He hath blinded their eyes, &c." The writer of John goes so far as to say that the people could not believe because Isaiah had said that, and that Isaiah said it, having Christ in his eye, 750 years before. What are the facts? Turn to the place where Isaiah has recorded this alleged prophecy of Christ, and what do you find? You find that the reference to the prophet himself is as direct, as explicit, and as limited as anything could be. He tells us how, in the year that king Uzziah died, he saw a vision, in which the Lord spoke to him and said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then he replied, "Here I am; send me." And the Lord sent him, giving him this charge;—.(see verses 9-10.) But not only does the narrative distinctly limit the whole thing to the prophet and the people of his time: the prophet's question, after receiving the charge, and the reply to his question, still more definitely fix it: for he asks," Lord, how long?" and the reply is given," Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate;" a description of things having no relation to anything in the life of Christ, but very true to events that happened in the days of the prophet.

But the moment we turn to the passage, and read what goes before and after, the connection of Christ with the passage utterly vanishes. This promised "Branch" from the stem of Jesse will, it says, be as an "ensign," which shall rally the people, who will be delivered out of the hands of their oppressors, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the other unfriendly powers. (See verses 10-16.) The whole reference is purely national and political, relating to the prophet's own day or to a time very near to it. To this "Branch," Zechariah (who wrote about the same time) refers (iii. 8 and vi. 12), and nothing is plainer than that it points to a political leader and deliverer in his own time. See also Isaiah iv. 2, where this "Branch" is promised, again in connection with escape from captivity. The" Branch" is probably Zerubbabel.

There is considerable difference between the two, but this is a common occurrence. The difference in the words, however, is nothing compared with the difference in sense. Paul quoted the words in relation only to the saving of all Israel, but Isaiah wrote them concerning a salvation accompanied by "vengeance" and" fury "against the enemies of the Lord. In short, Isaiah had in his mind the destruction of political enemies and the triumphs of the nation, (see chapter lix. from verse 17 to lx. verse 14,) while Paul thought only of a spiritual redemption. He quoted words that were moderately apt, but no real prophecy.

Isaiah lxiii. 1 is not quoted in the New Testament, but is often referred to as having a reference to Christ. It is a perilous passage to quote; for this Saviour, whoever he is, is not only like Christ because he comes in" righteousness" and is" red" as with blood, but he is also one who treads his enemies in his anger, and tramples them in his fury: and it is their blood and not his own that stains this awful Saviour.

Thus far the parallel seems sufficiently striking, and if we idly took the matter for granted it would seem as though Isaiah had, in some way, foretold the advent of such a teacher. But a little thought will dispel that idea. In the first place this description of the gracious speaker was probably written about the year 425 B.C.^* and there is nothing so peculiar in that description as to compel us to look so

^* The reader will note that various dates are assigned to different portions of this book. This is in accordance with a now generally accepted theory, that the book was written by different hands at different times, from the days of Ahaz to the time of Nehemiah, covering a period of about 300 years.

page 25 far ahead for a person of whom it should be true. Whom does it describe? Plainly, the writer himself, lie says" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me:" and he undoubtedly thought he had been commissioned to preach good tidings to his fellow-countrymen. In a previous chapter (1. 4) similar words are used:—" The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. "This is all he professes in the verses before us; for all he does is to describe a good teacher, who should preach good tidings to the meek, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom to the bound, and tell of the judgments of the Lord. That is all: but the description might have applied to many persons during those 425 years, as well as to the prophet himself. But, beyond that, go to the passage in Isaiah, and what do you find? You find features that not only are not found in Christ and in his circumstances, but you find features that make the description utterly inapplicable to him. In fact, the quotation in Luke stops in a very curious manner just at the place where the inappropriateness of it begins to be manifest. It quotes the words "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," but it does not add, as the verse in Isaiah docs, "and the day of vengeance of our God.". That" day of vengeance "was appropriate in Isaiah's day, but not in Christ's. The truth is that the passage in Isaiah, like all the other passages adduced, relates to national and political events in or near the prophet's own time. In the previous chapter there is a florid description of the coming glory of the nation,—" Arise, shine," it says," for thy light is come:" and, to make it certain that the reference is to the nation, we find the statement,—" For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall utterly perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." What can that be but a reference to political ascendancy and national glory? Then it goes on to say:" The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet." It would puzzle the cleverest commentator to extract from that a spiritual meaning or a reference to Christ, but its appropriateness as a description of national ascendancy is obvious. Then comes the passage before us, with its description of the comforting and sympathetic teacher, who proclaims freedom for the captive, and the day of divine vengeance;—thus continuing the story of the nation's deliverance from its oppressors. Immediately following this, we find the promise, "They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." And that is a vital part of the passage which, nevertheless, is quoted by Christ as fulfilled in himself. The merest glance at it shows that his explanation is purely arbitrary, that the fragment he takes out is violently sundered from its connection, and that in no real sense can the passage be taken as a prophecy concerning Christ,—as it clearly relates to a long and sustained description of national and political events, connected with the Jews and referring to events happening or about to happen in the prophet's day.

What then? must we accuse Christ of error or falsification? By no means, though we should be obliged to do so if we accepted the orthodox theory that he meant to say Isaiah really wrote the passage as a prophecy to be fulfilled in Christ. My explanation is that Jesus meant to say no such tiling—that lie simply read the words as a kind of text or motto, and that his announcement of fulfilment only meant that he had the old tidings to tell; and perhaps there was also the feeling that he could tell those tidings in a purer form, in a more spiritual form, uncontaminated with the old thirst for vengeance, and unlimited by local and political references.^* In that sense it was true that the old description of the consoling teacher was fulfilled in Christ;—not because Isaiah had the slightest idea of describing any one but himself or some one in his day, but because his description of a consoling teacher was mice more realised, and that in a very pure and perfect form. It was a case of simple adaptation of old words to new events, not as fulfilments of prophecies, but as appropriate illustrations of character.

This finishes our examination of the great prophetic Book of Isaiah, and I am not sorry that it ends with Christ himself quoting that Book; for that leads us to a glimpse of the truth—that he fulfilled old hopes by surpassing them, and realised old dreams by making them more than true. He did not fulfil ancient prophecies concerning himself, for there are none: but he came in the spirit of the old hopes and longings, sifted out the things that were local, earthly, and temporary, and made them universal, spiritual, and eternal: and it will be well for us if our faith in him be based upon things that are universal, spiritual, and eternal too.