Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions Volume Ii Part 1

Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions.

by Ernst Hengstenberg.

THE PROPHET ISAIAH.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Isaiah is the princ.i.p.al prophetical figure in the first period of canonical prophetism, _i.e._, the a.s.syrian period, just as Jeremiah is in the second, _i.e._, the Babylonian. With Isaiah are connected in the kingdom of Judah: Joel, Obadiah, and Micah; in the kingdom of Israel: Hosea, Amos, and Jonah.

The name "Isaiah" signifies the "Salvation of the Lord." In this name we have the key-note of his prophecies, just as the name Jeremiah: "The Lord casts down," indicates the nature of his prophecies, in which the prevailing element is entirely of a threatening character. That the proclamation of salvation occupies a very prominent place in Isaiah, was seen even by the Fathers of the Church. _Jerome_ says: "I shall expound Isaiah in such a manner that he shall appear not as a prophet only, but as an Evangelist and an Apostle;" and in another pa.s.sage: "Isaiah seems to me to have uttered not a prophecy but a Gospel." And _Augustine_ says, _De Civ. Dei_, 18, c. 29, that, according to the opinion of many, Isaiah, on account of his numerous prophecies of Christ and the Church, deserved the name of an Evangelist rather than that of a Prophet. When, after his conversion, _Augustine_ applied to _Ambrose_ with the question, which among the Sacred Books he should read in preference to all others, he proposed to him Isaiah, "because before all others it was he who had more openly declared the Gospel and the calling of the Gentiles." (_Aug. Conf._ ix. 5.) With the Fathers of the Church _Luther_ coincides. He says in commendation of Isaiah: "He is full of loving, comforting, cheering words for all poor consciences, and wretched, afflicted hearts." Of course, there is in Isaiah no want of severe reproofs and threatenings. If it were [Pg 2] otherwise, he would have gone beyond the boundary by which true prophetism is separated from false. "There is in it," as Luther says, "enough of threatenings and terrors against the hardened, haughty, obdurate heads of the wicked, if it might be of some use." But the threatenings never form the close in Isaiah; they always at last run out into the promise; and while, for example, in the great majority of Jeremiah's prophecies, the promise, which cannot be wanting in any true prophet, is commonly only short, and hinted at, sometimes consisting only of words which are thrown into the midst of the several threatenings, _e. g._, iv. 27: "Yet will I not make a full end,"--in Isaiah the stream of consolation flows in the richest fulness. The promise absolutely prevails in the second part, from chap. xl.-lxvi. The reason of this peculiarity is to be sought for chiefly in the historical circ.u.mstances. Isaiah lived at a time in which, in the kingdom of Judah, the corruption was far from having already reached its greatest height,--in which there still existed, in that kingdom, a numerous "election" which gathered round the prophet as their spiritual centre. With a view to this circle, Isaiah utters the words: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." The contemporary prophets of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was poisoned in its very first origin, found a different state of things; the field there was already ripe for the harvest of judgment. And at the time of Jeremiah, Judah had become like her apostate sister. At that time it was not so much needed to comfort the miserable, as to terrify sinners in their security. It was only after the wrath of G.o.d had manifested itself in deeds, only after the judgment of G.o.d had been executed upon Jerusalem, or was immediately at hand,--it was only then that, in Jeremiah, and so in Ezekiel also, the stream of promise broke forth without hinderance.

Chronology is, throughout, the principle according to which the Prophecies of Isaiah are arranged. In the first six chapters, we obtain a survey of the Prophet's ministry under Uzziah and Jotham. Chap. vii.

to x. 4 belongs to the time of Ahaz. From chap. x. 4 to the close of chap. x.x.xv. every thing belongs to the time of the a.s.syrian invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; in the face of which invasion the prophetic gift of Isaiah was displayed as it had never been before. The section, chap. x.x.xvi.-x.x.xix., furnishes us with the historical commentary on the preceding [Pg 3] prophecies from the a.s.syrian period, and forms, at the same time, the transition to the second part, which still belongs to the same period, and the starting point of which is Judah's deliverance from a.s.shur. In this most remarkable year of the Prophet's life--a year rich in the manifestation of G.o.d's glory in judgment and mercy--his prophecy flowed out in full streams, and spread to every side. Not the destinies of Judah only, but those of the Gentile nations also are drawn within its sphere. The Prophet does not confine himself to the events immediately at hand, but in his ecstatic state, the state of an elevated, and, as it were, armed consciousness, in which he was during this whole period, his eye looks into the farthest distances. He sees, especially, that, at some future period, the Babylonian power, which began, even in his time, to germinate, would take the place of the a.s.syrian,--that, like it, it would find the field of Judah white for the harvest,--that, for this oppressor of the world, destruction is prepared by _Koresh_ (Cyrus), the conqueror from the East, and that he will liberate the people from their exile; and, at the close of the development, he beholds the Saviour of the world, whose image he depicts in the most glowing colours.

Isaiah has especially brought out the view of the Prophetic and Priestly offices of Christ, while in the former prophecies it was almost alone the Kingly office which appeared; it is only in Deut.

xviii. that the Prophetic office, and in Ps. cx. that the Priestly office, is pointed at. Of the two states of Christ, it is the doctrine of the state of humiliation, the doctrine of the suffering Christ, which here meets us, while formerly it was the state of exaltation which was prominently brought before us,--although Isaiah too can very well describe it when it is necessary to meet the fears regarding the destruction of the Theocracy by the a.s.saults of the powerful heathen nations. The first attempt at a description of the humbled, suffering, and expiating Christ, is found in chap. xi. 1. The real seat of this proclamation is, however, in the second part, which is destined more for the election, than for the whole nation. In chap. xlii. we meet the servant of G.o.d, who, as a Saviour meek and lowly in heart, does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and by this merciful love establishes righteousness on the whole earth. In chap.

xlix., the Prophet describes how the covenant-people requite with ingrat.i.tude the faithful labours of the Servant of G.o.d, but that [Pg 4]

the Lord, to recompense Him for the obstinacy of Israel, gives Him the Gentiles for an inheritance. In chap. l. we have presented to us that aspect of the sufferings of the Servant of G.o.d which is common to Christ and His people--viz., how, in fulfilling His calling. He offered His back to the smiters, and did not hide His face from shame and spitting. Then, finally, in chap. liii.--that culminating point of the prophecy of the Old Testament--Christ is placed before our eyes in His highest work, in His atoning and vicarious suffering, as the truth of both the Old Testament high-priest, and the Old Testament sin-offering.

There are still the following Messianic features which are peculiar to Isaiah. A clear Old Testament witness for the divinity of Christ is offered by chap. ix. 5 (6); the birth by a virgin, closely connected with His divinity, is announced in chap. vii. 14; according to chap.

viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Galilee, and, in general, the country surrounding the Sea of Gennesareth, being that part of the country which hitherto had chiefly been covered with disgrace, are, in a very special manner, to be honoured by the appearance of the Saviour, who shall come to have mercy upon the miserable, and to seek that which was lost. Isaiah has, further, first taught that, by the redemption, the consequences of the Fall would disappear in the irrational creation also, and that it should return to paradisaic innocence, chap. xi. 6-9. He has first announced to the people of G.o.d the glorious truth, that death, as it had not existed in the beginning, should, at the end also, be expelled, chap. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19. The healing powers which by Christ should be imparted to miserable mankind, Isaiah has described in chap x.x.xv. in words, which by the fulfilment have, in a remarkable manner, been confirmed.

Let us endeavour to form, from the single scattered features which occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, a comprehensive view of his prospects into the future.

The announcement first uttered by Moses of an impending exile of the people, and desolation of the country, is brought before us by Isaiah in the first six chapters, in the prophecies belonging to the time of Uzziah and Jotham, at which the future had not yet been so clearly laid open before the Prophet as it was at a later period, at the time of Ahaz, and, very especially, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. A reference to [Pg 5] the respective announcements of the Pentateuch is found in chap. x.x.xvii. 26, where, in opposition to the imagination of the King of a.s.shur, that, by his own power, he had penetrated as a conqueror as far as Judah, Isaiah asks him whether he had not heard that the Lord, long ago and from ancient times, had formed such a resolution regarding His people. These words can be referred only to the threatenings of the Pentateuch, which a short-sighted criticism endeavoured to ascribe to a far later period, without considering that the germ of this knowledge of the future is found in the Decalogue also, the genuineness of which is, at present, almost unanimously conceded: "In order that thy (Israel's) days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee."

In the solemnly introduced short summary of the history of the covenant-people, in chap. vi., there is, after the announcement of the impending complete desolation of the country and the carrying away of its inhabitants in vers. 11, 12, the indication of a _second_ judgment which will not less make an end, in ver. 13: "But yet there is a tenth part in it, and it shall again be destroyed;" and this goes hand in hand with the promise that the _election_ shall become partakers of the Messianic salvation.

The Prophet clearly sees that, by the _Syrico-Ephraemitic_ war, the full realization of that threatening of the Pentateuch will not be brought about, as far as Judah is concerned; that here a faint prelude only to the real fulfilment is the point in question. Although the allied kings speak in chap. vii. 6: "Let us go up against Judea and vex it, and let us conquer it for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal," the Lord speaks in chap. vii. 7: "It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pa.s.s." And although the heart of the king and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind, the Prophet says: "Fear not, let not thy heart be tender for the tails of those two smoking firebrands."

It is a.s.shur that shall do more for the realization of that divine decree first revealed by Moses. It is he who, immediately after that expedition against Judah, shall break the power of the kingdom of the ten tribes, chap. viii. 4: "Before the child shall be able to cry: 'My father and my mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried before the King of [Pg 6] a.s.syria." The communion of guilt into which it has entered with Damascus shall also implicate it in a communion of punishment with it, chap. xvii. 3. The adversaries of Rezin shall devour Israel with open mouth, chap. ix. 11, 12. Yea a.s.shur shall, some time afterwards, put an end altogether to the kingdom of Israel; "Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it shall not be a people any more," chap. vii. 8. Upon Judah also severe sufferings shall be inflicted by a.s.shur. He shall invade and devastate their land, chap. vii. 17, and chap. viii. He shall irresistibly penetrate to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, chap. x.

28-32. But when he is just preparing to inflict the mortal blow upon the head of the people of G.o.d, the Lord shall put a stop to him: "He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by the mighty one," chap. x. 34. "a.s.shur shall be broken in the land of the Lord, and upon His mountains be trodden under foot; and his yoke shall depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders," chap. xiv. 25. "And a.s.shur shall fall with the sword not of a man," chap. x.x.xi. 8. These prophecies found their fulfilment in the destruction of Sennacherib's host before Jerusalem,--an event which no human ingenuity could have known even a day beforehand. But Isaiah does not content himself with promising to trembling Zion the help of G.o.d against a.s.shur in that momentary calamity. In harmony with Hosea and Micah, he promises to Judah, in general, security from a.s.shur. He says to Hezekiah, after that danger was over, in chap. x.x.xviii. 6: "And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the King of a.s.syria, and I will defend this city."

Behind the a.s.syrian kingdom, the Prophet beholds a new power germinating, viz., the Babylonian or Chaldean; and he announces most distinctly and repeatedly that from this shall proceed a comprehensive execution of the threatenings against unfaithful Judah. According to chap. xxiii. 13, the Chaldeans overturn the a.s.syrian monarchy, and conquer proud Tyre which had resisted the a.s.sault of the a.s.syrians.

s.h.i.+nar or Babylon appears in chap. xi. 11, in the list of the places to which Judah has been removed in punishment. In chap. xiii. 1-xiv. 27, Babylon is, for the first time, distinctly and definitely mentioned as the threatening power of the future, by which Judah is to be carried into captivity. The corresponding announcement in chap. x.x.xix. is so [Pg 7] closely and intimately interwoven with the historical context, that even _Gesenius_ did not venture to deny its origin by Isaiah, just as he was compelled also to acknowledge the genuineness of the prophecy against Tyre, in which the Babylonian dominion is most distinctly foretold, and even the duration of that dominion is fixed. The 70 years of Jeremiah have here already their foundation.

The Prophet sees distinctly and definitely that Egypt, the rival African world's power, on which the sharp-sighted politicians of his time founded their hope for deliverance, would not be equal to the Asiatic world's power representing itself in the a.s.syrian and Babylonian phases. He knows what he could not know from any other source than by immediate communication of the Spirit of G.o.d, that, by its struggle against the Asiatic power, Egypt would altogether lose its old political importance, and would never recover it; compare remarks on chap. xix.

As the power which is to overthrow the Babylonian Empire appear, in chap. x.x.xiii. 17, the Medes. In chap. xxi. 2, Elam, which, according to the _usus loquendi_ of Isaiah, means Persia, is mentioned besides Media. This power, and at its head, the conqueror from the East, Cyrus, will bring deliverance to Judah. By it they obtain a restoration to their native land.[1] Nevertheless Elam appears in chap. xxii. 16 as the representative of the world's power oppressing Judah in the future; and from chap. xi. 11 we are likewise led to expect that the world's power will in future shew itself in an Elamitic phase also, and that the difference between Babel and Elam is one of degree only, just as, indeed, it appeared in history; comp. Neh. ix. 36, 37.

An intimation of an European phasis of the world's power, hostile to the kingdom of G.o.d, is to be found in chap. xi. 11.

After the Kingdom of G.o.d has, for such protracted periods, been subject to the world's power, the relation will suddenly be reversed; at the end of the days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be exalted above all the hills, and all nations shall flow into it, chap. ii. 2.

This great change shall be accomplished by the Messiah, chaps. iv., ix., xi., x.x.xiii. 17, who proceeds from the house of [Pg 8] David, chap. ix. 6 (7), lv. 3, but only after it has sunk down to the utmost lowliness, chap. xi. 1. With the human, He combines the divine nature.

This appears not only from the names which are given to Him in chap.

ix. 5 (6), but also from the works which are a.s.signed to Him,--works by far exceeding human power. He rules over the whole earth, according to chap. xi.; He slays, according to xi. 4, the wicked with the breath of His mouth (compare chap. l. 11, where likewise He appears as a partaker of the omnipotent punitive power of G.o.d); He removes the consequences of sin even from the irrational creation, chap. xi. 6-9; by His absolute righteousness He is enabled to become the subst.i.tute of the whole human race, and thereby to accomplish their salvation resting on this subst.i.tution, chap. liii.

The Messiah appears at first in the form of a servant, low and humble, chap. xi. 1, liii. 2. His ministry is quiet and concealed, chap. xlii.

2, as that of a Saviour who with tender love applies himself to the miserable, chap. xlii. 3, lxi. 1. At first it is limited to Israel, chap. xlix. 1-6, where it is enjoyed especially by the most degraded of all the parts of the country, viz., that around the sea of Galilee, chap. viii. 23 (ix. 1.) Severe sufferings will be inflicted upon Him in carrying out His ministry. These proceed from the same people whom He has come to raise up, and to endow (according to chap. xlii. 6, xlix.

8), with the full truth of the covenant into which the Lord has entered with them. The Servant of G.o.d bears these suffering's with unbroken courage. They bring about, through His mediation, the punishment of G.o.d upon those from whom they proceeded, and become the reason why the salvation pa.s.ses over to the Gentiles, by whose deferential homage the Servant of G.o.d is indemnified for what He has lost in the Jews, chap.

xlix. 1-9, l. 4-11. (The foundation for the detailed announcement in these pa.s.sages is given already in the sketch in chap. vi.,--according to which an election only of the people attain to salvation, while the ma.s.s becomes a prey to destruction.) But it is just by these sufferings, which issue at last in a violent death, that the Servant of G.o.d reaches the full height of His destination. They possess a vicarious character, and effect the reconciliation of a whole sinful world, chap. lii. 13-liii. 12. Subsequently to the suffering, and on the ground of it, begins the exercise of the Kingly office of Christ, chap. liii. 12. He brings law and righteousness to the [Pg 9] Gentile world, chap. xlii. 1; light into their darkness, chap. xlii. 6. He becomes the centre around which the whole Gentile world gathers, chap.

xi. 10: "And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, the root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glory;" comp. chap. lx., where the delighted eye of the Prophet beholds how the crowds of the nations from the whole earth turn to Zion; chap. xviii., where the future reception of the Ethiopians into the Kingdom of G.o.d is specially prophecied; chap. xix., according to which Egypt turns to the G.o.d of Israel, and by the tie of a common love to Him, is united with a.s.shur, his rival in the time of the Prophet, and so likewise with Israel, which has so much to suffer from him; chap. xxiii., according to which, in the time of salvation.

Tyre also does homage to the G.o.d of Israel. The Servant of G.o.d becomes, at the same time, the _Witness_, and the Prince and Lawgiver of the nations, chap. lv. 4. Just as the Spirit of the Lord rests upon Him, chap. xi. 2, xlii. 1, lxi. 1, so there takes place in His days an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, chap. x.x.xii. 15, xliv. 3, comp. with chap. liv. 13. Sin is put an end to by Him, chap. xi. 9, and an end is put especially to war, chap. ii. 4. The Gentiles gathered to the Lord become at last the medium of His salvation for the covenant-people, who at first had rejected it, chap. xi. 12, lx. 9, lxvi. 20, 21. The end is the restoration of the paradisaic condition, chap. xi. 6-9, lxv. 25; the new heavens and the new earth, chap. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22; but the wicked shall inherit eternal condemnation, chap. lxvi. 24.

[Footnote 1: _Vitringa_: There are no predictions in reference to the temporal deliverance of the Jewish Church, in which the Prophet shews himself more than in those which relate to the downfall of the Babylonian Empire, and the deliverance of the people of G.o.d by Cyrus.]

[Pg 10]

THE PROPHECY--CHAP. II.-IV.

THE SPROUT OF THE LORD.

It has been already proved, in Vol. i., p. 416 ff., that this discourse belongs to the first period of the Prophet's ministry. It consists of three parts. In the first, chap. ii. 2-4, the Prophet draws a picture of the Messianic time, at which the Kingdom of G.o.d, now despised, should be elevated above all the kingdoms of the world, should exercise an attractive power over the Gentiles, and should cause peace to dwell among them; comp. Vol. i., p. 437 ff. In the second part, from chap. ii. 5-iv. 1, the Prophet describes the prevailing corruption, exhorts to repentance, threatens divine judgments. This part is introduced, and is connected with the preceding, by the admonition in ii. 5, addressed to the people, to prepare, by true G.o.dliness, for a partic.i.p.ation in that blessedness, to beware lest they should be excluded through their own fault. In the third part, chap.

iv. 2-6, the prophet returns to the proclamation of salvation, so that the whole is, as it were, surrounded by the promise. It was necessary that this should be prominently brought out, in order that sinners might not only be terrified by fear, but also allured by hope, to repentance,--and in order that the elect might not imagine that the sin of the ma.s.ses, and the judgment inflicted in consequence of it, did away with the mercy of the Lord towards His people, and with His faithfulness to His promises. Salvation does not come without judgment.

This feature, by which true prophetism is distinguished from false, which, divesting G.o.d of His righteousness, announced salvation to unreformed sinners, to the whole rude ma.s.s of the people,--this feature is once more prominently brought out in ver. 4. But salvation for the elect comes as necessarily as judgment does upon the sinners. In the midst of the deepest abas.e.m.e.nt of the people of G.o.d, G.o.d raises from out of the midst of them the Saviour by whom they are raised to the highest glory, chap. iv. 2. They are installed into the dignity of the saints of G.o.d, after the penitent ones have been renewed by His Spirit, and the [Pg 11] obstinate sinners have been exterminated by His judgment, ver. 3, 4. G.o.d's gracious presence affords them protection from their enemies, and from all tribulation and danger, ver. 5, 6.

The first part, in which Isaiah follows Micah (comp. the arguments in proof of originality in Micah, Vol. i., p. 413 ff.), has already been expounded on a former occasion. We have here only to answer the question, why it is that the Prophet opens his discourse with a proclamation of salvation borrowed from Micah? His object certainly was to render the minds of the people susceptible of the subsequent admonition and reproof, by placing at the head a promise which had already become familiar and precious to the people. The position which the Messianic proclamation occupies in Isaiah is altogether misunderstood if, with _Kleinert_ and _Ewald_, we a.s.sume that the pa.s.sage does not, in Isaiah, belong to the real substance of the prophecy; that it is merely placed in front as a kind of text, the abuse and misinterpretation of which the Prophet meets in that which follows, so that the sense would be: the blessed time promised by former prophets will come _indeed_, but _only_ after severe, rigorous judgments upon all who had forsaken Jehovah. It is especially ver. 5 which militates against this interpretation, where, in the words: "Come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord,"[1] the prophet gives an _express declaration_ as to the object of the description which he has placed in front, and expresses himself in regard to it in perfect harmony [Pg 12] with Heb. iv. 1: f????e? ??? ?p?te ?ata?e?p?????

?pa??e??a? ... d??? t?? ?? ??? ?ste?????a?. This shows, that after the manner of an evangelical preacher, and in conformity with his name, he wishes to allure to repentance by pointing to the great salvation of the future;--that the ?????e ? as??e?a t?? ???a??? of the first part serves as a foundation to the eta??e?te ??? of the second.

The threatening of punishment contained in the second part is dest.i.tute of any particular reference. It bears a general character, comprehending the whole of the mischief with which the Lord is to visit the unfaithfulness of His people. Most thoroughly was the animating idea realized in the Roman catastrophe, the consequence of which is the helplessness which still presses upon the people. The preparatory steps were the decay of the people at the time of Ahaz--especially the Chaldean overthrow--and, generally, everything which the people had to suffer in the time of the dominion of the a.s.syrian, Chaldean, Medo-Persian, and Greek kingdoms. As none of these kingdoms were as yet on the stage, or in sight, it is quite natural that the threatening here keeps altogether within general terms; it was given to Isaiah himself afterwards to individualize it much more.

It is with the third part only that we have here more particularly to employ ourselves.

Ver. 2. "_In that day the Sprout of the Lord becomes for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the land for exaltation and ornament, to the escaped of Israel._"

Ver. 3. "_And it shall come to pa.s.s, he that was left in Zion, and was spared in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written to life in Jerusalem._"

Ver. 4. "_When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall remove the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of right and the spirit of destruction._"

Ver. 5. "_And the Lord creates over the place of Mount Zion, and over her a.s.semblies clouds by day and smoke, and the brightness of flaming fire by night, for above all glory is a covering._"

Ver. 6. "_And a tabernacle shall be for a shadow by day from the heat, and, for a refuge and covert from storm and from rain._"

Ver. 2. "_In that day_" _i.e._, not by any means _after_ the suffering, but _in the midst of it_, comp. chap. iii. 18; iv. 1, where, by [Pg 13]

the words "in that day," contemporaneousness is likewise expressed.

Parallel is chap. ix. 1 (2), where the people that walketh in darkness seeth a great light. According to Micah v. 2 (3) also, the people are given up to the dominion of the world's powers until the time that she who is bearing has brought forth. Inasmuch as the Messianic proclamation bears the same general comprehensive character as the threatening of punishment, and includes in itself beginning and end, the suffering may partly also reach into the Messianic time. It dismisses from its discipline those who are delivered up to it, gradually only, after they have become ripe for a partic.i.p.ation in the Messianic salvation.--There cannot be any doubt that, by the "_Sprout of the Lord_" the Messiah is designated,--an explanation which we meet with so early as in the Chaldee Paraphrast (?????????? ?????? ????? ????????? ?????

????????? ????????), from which even _Kimchi_ did not venture to differ, which was in the Christian Church, too, the prevailing one, and which Rationalism was the first to give up. The Messiah is here quite in His proper place. The Prophet had, in chap. iii. 12-15, in a very special manner, derived the misery of the people from their bad rulers. What is now more rational, therefore, than that he should connect the salvation and prosperity likewise with the person of a Divine Ruler? comp. chap.

i. 26. In the adjoining prophecies of Isaiah, especially in chaps.

vii., ix., and xi., the person of the Messiah likewise forms the centre of the proclamation of salvation; so that, _a priori_, a mention of it must be expected here. To the same result we are led by the a.n.a.logy of Micah; comp. Vol. i. p. 443-45, 449. _Farther_--The representation of the Messiah, under the image of a sprout or shoot, is very common in Scripture; comp. chap. xi. 1-10; liii. 2; Rev. v. 5. But of decisive weight are those pa.s.sages in which precisely our word ??? occurs as a designation of the Messiah. The two pa.s.sages, Jer. xxiii. 5: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I raise unto David a righteous Sprout;" and x.x.xiii. 15: "In those days, and at that time, shall I cause the Sprout of righteousness to grow up unto David," may at once and plainly be considered as an _interpretation_ of the pa.s.sage before us, and as a commentary upon it; and that so much the more that there, as well as here, all salvation is connected with this Sprout of Jehovah; comp. Jer. xxiii. 6: "In His days Judah [Pg 14] shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is His name whereby he shall be called: The Lord our righteousness." The two other pa.s.sages, Zech. iii. 8: "Behold, I bring my servant _Zemach_," and vi. 12: "Behold, a man whose name is _Zemach_" are of so much the greater consequence that in them _Zemach_ (_i.e._, Sprout) occurs as a kind of _nomen proprium_, the sense of which is supposed as being known from former prophecies to which the Prophet all but expressly refers; or as _Vitringa_ remarks on these pa.s.sages: "That man who, in the oracles of the preceding Prophets (Is. and Jer.) bears the name of 'Sprout.'" Of no less consequence, _finally_, is the parallel pa.s.sage, chap. xxviii.