The condition of Judah and Israel in Isaiah's day, was low and sorrowful indeed. The “whole head was sick and the whole heart was faint.” The people were “laden with iniquity;” they had “forsaken the Lord, and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.” And Isaiah's first prophetic mission seems to have been one denouncing lengthened period of heaviest woe against the nation.
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; —and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, —and the houses without man, And the land be utterly desolate, And the Lord have removed men far away, And there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”
(Isa. 6:8-12.)
Here, then, we have a definite revelation of the judicial blindness, and the prolonged dispersion of the nation. But we have also a ray of hope, even here. “As a teil-tree and an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.” The destruction shall not be an utter one. The stock of the nation shall be preserved to germinate again when all the judgments shall be overpast. Such is one of the earliest of Isaiah's revelations.
2. In Isa. 2 (which it would appear was of a date subsequent to the vision of chapter 6) we have the day of future blessedness, with the great and terrible day which shall introduce it, depicted in most express and definite language. We present a few verses of this well-known chapter.
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains And shall be exalted above the hills: and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob;
And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: For out of Zion shall go forth the law,-and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, —and shall rebuke many people:
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, —and their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, —neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isa. 2:2-4.)
The procession of the “word of the Lord from Jerusalem” shall, “in the last days,” constitute Mount Zion the most honored and exalted of all the sites of cities. The religion of the God of Israel shall thence spread throughout all nations. Yet “judgment” and “rebuke” must be inflicted. Then shall the nations learn the art of war no more. The character of the predicted judgment is more definitely revealed thus Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down;
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, And upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.”
And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, Which they made each one for himself to worship, —to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
(Isa. 2:10-12; 18-21.)
Such is the introduction of the “good time” of the future. None, we presume, will allege any previous fulfillment of such prophecies as this. “The great and terrible day of the Lord,” then, is already placed in fullest prominence between us and the reign of the Messiah. It is not the quiet progress of the gathering out of the nations of a little flock, which, whilst little, shall be taken up into heaven, as a whole. It is not an ecclesia—a church called out—from amongst the nations. It is a subjugation of the nations themselves. When the nations are subdued, there will be needed no ecclesia, no out-calling of the saints. The ecclesia will have been glorified and transferred to heaven at the commencement of this period. The revelations of the New Testament enable us to say this. But the prediction before us is not one of calling out, but of universal subjugation. The two things are distinct. The one cannot synchronize with the other. Let us discern the things which differ, and seek to give to each scripture we consider its genuine interpretation.
3. We now present the bright light of the revelation of Isa. 9
“For unto us a child is born,-unto us a son is given:
And the government shall be upon his shoulder: —and his name, shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom;-to order it and to establish it With judgment and with justice, from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isa. 9:6, 7.)
The light dawns apace. We fear to weaken, by any comments on this passage, the impression of the whole.
We remark, however, the perpetuity of the “throne of David.” There shall be One who shall occupy it “thenceforth and ever.” It is not a headship of the church; in which church there is “neither Jew nor Gentile.” Such a place was never occupied by David. David was the sovereign of the Jewish nation. To rule over that nation is to sit on David's throne. To contend respecting any literal material throne, is but to trifle, and to degrade this theme. Even the place of the sovereign's presence is no essential of the question. Other revelations may determine that; but the thought here expressed is, that the very sovereignty which David exercised—the sovereignty over that very nation which had David for its king, shall come, in perpetuity, into Messiah's hands. Where his royal residence shall be is not in this prediction brought into question. The grand thought is, that the Wondrous One, whose names of majesty and glory are here given, shall exercise the very sovereignty that David held so long ago. Not until the nation be reconstituted by the restoration of its scattered members, can this take place, Not until the nation, as a nation, has submitted to the true Messiah's sway, will “David's throne” be occupied as this prophecy reveals. The birth of the Sovereign is not necessarily his accession to the throne. The actual assumption of the reins of power—the actual exercise of such power—is not necessarily coeval with that which constitutes heirship and title to such power. Whatever Christ may be, or may not be, now unto the church; he surely does not now “sit on the throne of David” —he does not now exercise sovereignty over the nation of Jews. The nation is not yet subjected unto him.
4. The eleventh chapter of this prophecy is known to all. The earth is to be “filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” The wolf is to dwell with the lamb, and the leopard to lie down with the kid. There is to be neither hurting nor destruction in all Jehovah's holy mountain. But there are two portions of this chapter which are greatly overlooked by many. These we must present, yet as briefly as possible. The first is as follows:-
“But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth:
And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.” —(Isa. 11:4.)
Here, once more, is the execution of an introductory judgment. He, with whom “a word is a work,” shall pronounce a sentence of smiting upon the earth, and the earth shall be smitten. Yea; thus shall he slay a certain one—a certain person—here emphatically termed “the wicked one” (the adjective “wicked” being here in the singular number). A further element of light is here thrown upon the future. The destruction of some one grand, special opponent shall signalize the setting up of the Messiah's reign. Who this “wicked one” shall prove to be is not in this prophecy further disclosed.
The second portion is as follows: -
“And it shall come to pass in that day, That the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, Which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, And from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, And from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, —and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, And gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” (Isa. 11:11, 12.)
Here, then, is a future deliverance of the whole nation, which shall be as complete and wondrous as the exodus from Egypt. The return of a few tributaries to Cyrus from Babylon—a few from one only of the two grand divisions of the nation—cannot have been the fulfillment of this majestic prediction. Let the remainder of the chapter be read. The return here announced is to take place in the day of the destruction of the future “wicked one.” It is to take place in the day when all the ferocity of the earth shall be brought to a close. A yet future restoration is here announced.
And how affecting is the song of triumph which shall then be sung. “And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry,” &c. Let this song be perused, in view of this, its legitimate connection. Read chapter 12 as connected with what immediately precedes it.
5. We have, in the next place, “The burden of Babylon,” followed by a vast series of such “burdens,” and consummated by a most solemn representation of an universal judgment.
But here a difficulty at once presents itself. The doom of Babylon is announced in terms which embrace the whole earth, and which, though the formal empire of Babylon, as well as its metropolitan city, have long since passed away, can scarcely be regarded, on any sound principle of interpretation, as having been fulfilled.
“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, Cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, —to lay the land desolate And he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light:
The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, —and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
And I will punish the world for their evil, —and the wicked for their iniquity;”
Was this fulfilled in the taking of Babylon, by the army of the Medes? Surely it was not. Here then is mystery still. Further light is required. Has such light been subsequently vouchsafed?
We think that a solution has been furnished in the revelations given to Daniel. There Babylon stands as the head of Gentile power—of the power which during the “times of the Gentiles,” should tread down the nation of Israel. This power is shown as a united whole, though in another respect comprising four empires. The whole image of Dan. 2 is represented as perishing at one and the same time. “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together,” verse 35. Thus, though the reins of imperial power might pass from Chaldean hands, and the metropolis be utterly destroyed, Babylon would still exist. The constituents of her empire—the elements of Gentile sovereignty—elements both morally and essentially one with the dominion once exercised from the city which bore the name—these still exist. Babylon still remains: only at the period when the times of the Gentiles shall have been fulfilled will she cease to be. Let this be borne in mind, and much light will be gained as to the “burdens” of Isaiah. They comprise both the past and the future. Certain announcements therein were fulfilled in past ages, others point to the future. So, in Dan. 12, verse 12, “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.” Here the loss of “dominion” is expressly distinguished from the termination of existence.
The announcement of universal judgment is made formally and with most solemn definiteness, in ch. 24 to 27 and again in ch. 34. In ch. 24 we have the following language “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
And it shall come to pass, That he who fleeth from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit;
And he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be caught in the snare:
For the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
The earth is utterly broken down, The earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage;
And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” (Isa. 24:17-20.)
The conquest over Satan and his hosts is next intimated: “It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones, that are on high.” See Rev. 12:7-12. Then the subjugation of the powers of earth, (as in Rev. 19:19-21) “and the kings of the earth upon the earth.” Read verses 21 and 22. The glory of the earthly city is next presented; whilst in Rev. 21 the heavenly one is seen. Then the millennial “feast of fat things” is declared, as is the reign in Rev. 20:4. The removing of delusion from the nations is also seen in both places: compare Isa. 25:7, and 27:1, with Rev. 20:1-3. The first resurrection also is in each: compare Isa. 25:8, “He will swallow up death in victory,” (when understood as explained in 1 Cor. 15:54) with Rev. 20:4-6. These coincidences are truly wonderful. And it is in connection with all these that we have the one decisive and solemn declaration, “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” Let this declaration serve for the end of strife. Such is the agency which will subdue the earth unto the Lord. When these universal desolations are abroad, then, and alas, not till then, will the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness.
We will only present, in conclusion of our present paper, two other prophecies of these judgments and their results. The first has reference especially to Israel's earthly city itself.
“Now will I rise saith the Lord;
Now will I be exalted;—now will I lift up myself.
Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble:—your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime:
As thorns cut up shall they be burned on the fire.
Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done;
And ye, that are near, acknowledge my might.
The Sinners in Zion are afraid;—fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.
Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
(Isa. 33:10-14.)
The results of this terrible interference of Jehovah are then described.
“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, A tabernacle that shall not be taken down;
Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, Neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.
And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick:
The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” (Isa. 33:20, 24.)
The second passage speaks of the whole world. The following call to attention follows the quotation just given.
“Come near, ye nations, to hear; —and hearken, ye people: Let the earth hear, and all that is therein;
The world, and all things that come forth of it.
For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, —and his fury upon all their armies:
He hath utterly destroyed them, —he hath delivered them to the slaughter.” (Isa. 34:1, 2.)
Let the subsequent portion of the prophecy be read; and the following beautiful passages will be found to form its close.
“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness;
The unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: The warfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, It shall not be found there; —but the redeemed shall walk there:
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads:
They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isa. 35:8-10.)
Such is the dawning light of prophecy, such the bright beams which shine forth beyond all the terrible and darkening clouds of impending judgment. After the well-known historical portion, which, in this prophetic book, follows the revelations now glanced at, we have, in chapters 11-66, a further prophecy of vast comprehensiveness and importance. But the way in which prophetic light is gradually afforded is the point which is sought to be exemplified in these hasty sketches. We purpose, therefore, only to adduce some few instances of predictions in the subsequent prophets, which afford particulars of special interest, in the one or two further papers which will close this series, on the “dawning light of prophecy.” The midday splendor of revelation opens upon us in the New Testament, and from its brightness we are reluctant for any length of time to detain attention.