_FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION._
ISAIAH xliii.-xlviii.
We have now surveyed the governing truths of Isa. xl.-xlviii.: the
One God, omnipotent and righteous; the One People, His servants and
witnesses to the world; the nothingness of all other gods and idols
before Him; the vanity and ignorance of their diviners, compared with
His power, who, because He has a purpose working through all history,
and is both faithful to it and almighty to bring it to pass, can
inspire His prophets to declare beforehand the facts that shall be.
He has brought His people into captivity for a set time, the end of
which is now near. Cyrus the Persian, already upon the horizon, and
threatening Babylon, is to be their deliverer. But whomever He raises
up on Israel's behalf, God is always Himself their foremost champion.
Not only is His word upon them, but His heart is among them. He bears
the brunt of their battle, and their deliverance, political and
spiritual, is His own travail and agony. Whomever else He summons on
the stage, He remains the true hero of the drama.
Now, chs. xliii.-xlviii. are simply the elaboration and more urgent
offer of all these truths, under the sense of the rapid approach of
Cyrus upon Babylon. They declare again God's unity, omnipotence
and righteousness, they confirm His forgiveness of His people, they
repeat the laughter at the idols, they give us nearer views of Cyrus,
they answer the doubts that many orthodox Israelites felt about this
Gentile Messiah; chs. xlvi. and xlvii. describe Babylon as if on
the eve of her fall, and ch. xlviii., after Jehovah more urgently
than ever presses upon reluctant Israel to show the results of her
discipline in Babylon, closes with a call to leave the accursed city,
as if the way were at last open. This call has been taken as the mark
of a definite division of our prophecy. But too much must not be put
upon it. It is indeed the first call to depart from Babylon; but it
is not the last. And although ch. xlix., and the chapters following,
speak more of Zion's Restoration and less of the Captivity, yet ch.
xlix. is closely connected with ch. xlviii., and we do not finally
leave Babylon behind till ch. lii. 12. Nevertheless, in the meantime
ch. xlviii. will form a convenient point on which to keep our eyes.
Cyrus, when we last saw him, was upon the banks of the Halys, 546 B.C.,
startling Crœsus and the Lydian Empire into extraordinary efforts,
both of a religious and political kind, to avert his attack. He had
just come from an unsuccessful attempt upon the northern frontier of
Babylon, and at first it appeared as if he were to find no better
fortune on the western border of Lydia. In spite of his superior
numbers, the Lydian army kept the ground on which he met them in
battle. But Crœsus, thinking that the war was over for the season, fell
back soon afterwards on Sardis, and Cyrus, following him up by forced
marches, surprised him under the walls of the city, routed the famous
Lydian cavalry by the novel terror of his camels, and after a siege
of fourteen days sent a few soldiers to scale a side of the citadel
too steep to be guarded by the defenders; and so Sardis, its king and
its empire, lay at his feet. This Lydian campaign of Cyrus, which is
related by Herodotus, is worth noting here for the light it throws on
the character of the man, whom according to our prophecy, God chose to
be His chief instrument in that generation. If his turning back from
Babylonia, eight years before he was granted an easy entrance to her
capital, shows how patiently Cyrus could wait upon fortune, his quick
march upon Sardis is the brilliant evidence that when fortune showed
the way, she found this Persian an obedient and punctual follower. The
Lydian campaign forms as good an illustration as we shall find of these
texts of our prophet: _He pursueth them, he passeth in safety; by a
way he_ almost _treads not with his feet. He cometh upon satraps as on
mortar, and as the potter treadeth upon clay_ (xli. 3, 25). _I have
holden his right hand to bring down before him nations, and the loins
of kings will I loosen_,--poor ungirt Crœsus, for instance, relaxing
so foolishly after his victory!--_to open before him doors, and gates
shall not be shut_,--so was Sardis unready for him,--_I go before thee,
and will level the ridges; doors of brass I will shiver, and bolts of
iron cut in sunder. And I will give to thee treasures of darkness,
hidden riches of secret places_ (xlv. 1-3). Some have found in this
an allusion to the immense hoards of Crœsus, which fell to Cyrus with
Sardis.
With Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks,
who held the coast of the Ægean, was bound to come into the Persian's
hands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a long one. The
Greeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a
threat, but the Persian laughed at it and it came to nothing. Indeed,
Sparta's message was only a temptation to this irresistible warrior to
carry his fortunate arms into Europe. His own presence, however, was
required in the East, and his lieutenants found the thorough subjection
of Asia Minor a task requiring several years. It cannot have well been
concluded before 540, and while it was in progress we understand why
Cyrus did not again attack Babylonia. Meantime, he was occupied with
lesser tribes to the north of Media.
Cyrus' second campaign against Babylonia opened in 539. This time
he avoided the northern wall from which he had been repulsed in
546. Attacking Babylonia from the east, he crossed the Tigris, beat
the Babylonian king into Borsippa, laid siege to that fortress and
marched on Babylon, which was held by the king's son, Belshazzar,
Bil-sar-ussur. All the world knows the supreme generalship by which
Cyrus is said to have captured Babylon without assaulting the walls
from whose impregnable height their defenders showered ridicule upon
him; how he made himself master of Nebuchadrezzar's great bason at
Sepharvaim, and turned the Euphrates into it; and how, before the
Babylonians had time to notice the dwindling of the waters in their
midst, his soldiers waded down the river bed, and by the river gates
surprised the careless citizens upon a night of festival. But recent
research makes it more probable that her inhabitants themselves
surrendered Babylon to Cyrus.
Now it was during the course of the events just sketched, but before
their culmination in the fall of Babylon, that chs. xliii.-xlviii.
were composed. That, at least, is what they themselves suggest. In
three passages, which deal with Cyrus or with Babylon, some of the
verbs are in the past, some in the future. Those in the past tense
describe the calling and full career of Cyrus or the beginning of
preparations against Babylon. Those in the future tense promise
Babylon's fall or Cyrus' completion of the liberation of the Jews.
Thus, in ch. xliii. 14 it is written: _For your sakes I have sent
to Babylon, and I will bring down as fugitives all of them, and
the Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing_. Surely these words
announce that Babylon's fate was already on the way to her, but not
yet arrived. Again, in the verses which deal with Cyrus himself, xlv.
1-6, which we have partly quoted, the Persian is already _grasped
by his right hand by God, and called_; but his career is not over,
for God promises to do various things for him. The third passage is
ver. 13 of the same chapter, where Jehovah says, _I have stirred him
up in righteousness, and_, changing to the future tense, _all his
ways will I level; he shall build My city, and My captivity shall he
send away_. What could be more precise than the tenor of all these
passages? If people would only take our prophet at his word; if with
all their belief in the inspiration of the text of Scripture, they
would only pay attention to its grammar, which surely, on their own
theory, is also thoroughly sacred, then there would be to-day no
question about the date of Isa. xl.-xlviii. As plainly as grammar
can enable it to do, this prophecy speaks of Cyrus' campaign against
Babylon as already begun, but of its completion as still future. Ch.
xlviii., it is true, assumes events as still farther developed, but
we will come to it afterwards.
During Cyrus' preparations, then, for invading Babylonia, and in
prospect of her certain fall, chs. xliii.-xlviii. repeat with greater
detail and impetuosity the truths, which we have already gathered
from chs. xl.-xlii.
1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness
and personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured
by His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative.
To illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the
chapters under consideration. _I, I Jehovah, and there is none beside
Me a Saviour. I am God_--El. _Also from to-day on I am He._[85]
_I will work, and who shall let it? I am Jehovah. I, I am He that
blotteth out thy transgressions. I First, and I Last; and beside Me
there is no God_--Elohim. _Is there a God,_ Eloah, _beside Me? yea,
there is no Rock; I know not any. I Jehovah, Maker of all things.
I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside Me there is no God. I
am Jehovah, and there is none else. Former of light and Creator of
darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil, I am Jehovah, Maker
of all these. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, God,_ Elohim,
_beside Me, God-Righteous,_ El Ssaddîq, _and a Saviour: there is none
except Me. Face Me, and be saved all ends of the earth; for I am
God,_ El, _and there is none else. Only in Jehovah--of Me shall they
say--are righteousnesses and strength. I am God,_ El, _and there is
none else; God,_ Elohim, _and there is none like Me. I am He; I am
First, yea, I am Last. I, I have spoken. I have declared it._
It is of advantage to gather together so many passages--and they
might have been increased--from chs. xliii.-xlviii. They let us
see at a glance what a part the first personal pronoun plays in
the Divine revelation. Beneath every religious truth is the unity
of God. Behind every great movement is the personal initiative
and urgency of God. And revelation is, in its essence, not the
mere publication of truths about God, but the personal presence
and communication to men of God Himself. Three words are used for
Deity--El, Eloah, Elohim--exhausting the Divine terminology. But
besides these, there is a formula which puts the point even more
sharply: _I am He_. It was the habit of the Hebrew nation, and indeed
of all Semitic peoples, who shared their reverent unwillingness
to name the Deity, to speak of Him simply by the third personal
pronoun. The Book of Job is full of instances of the habit, and it
also appears in many proper names, as Eli-hu, "My God-is-He," Abi-hu,
"My-Father-is-He." Renan adduces the practice as evidence that the
Semites were "naturally monotheistic,"[86]--as evidence for what was
never the case! But if there was no original Semitic monotheism for
this practice to prove, we may yet take the practice as evidence
for the personality of the Hebrew God. The God of the prophets is
not the _it_, which Mr. Matthew Arnold so strangely thought he had
identified in their writings, and which, in philosophic language,
that unsophisticated Orientals would never have understood, he
so cumbrously named "a tendency not ourselves that makes for
righteousness." Not anything like this is the God, who here urges
His self-consciousness upon men. He says, _I am He_,--the unseen
Power, who was too awful and too dark to be named, but about whom,
when in their terror and ignorance His worshippers sought to describe
Him, they assumed that He was a Person, and called Him, as they would
have called one of themselves, by a personal pronoun. By the mouth
of His prophet this vague and awful _He_ declares Himself as _I, I,
I_,--no mere tendency, but a living Heart and urgent Will, personal
character and force of initiative, from which all tendencies move and
take their direction and strength. _I am He._
History is strewn with the errors of those, who have sought from
God something else than Himself. All the degradation, even of the
highest religions, has sprung from this, that their votaries forgot
that religion was a communion with God Himself, a life in the power
of His character and will, and employed it as the mere communication
either of material benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been
the mistake of millions to see in revelation nothing but the telling
of fortunes, the recovery of lost things, decision in quarrels,
direction in war, or the bestowal of some personal favour. Such are
like the person, of whom St. Luke tells us, who saw nothing in Christ
but the recoverer of a bad debt: _Master, speak unto my brother that
he divide the inheritance with me_; and their superstition is as far
from true faith as the prodigal's old heart, when he said, _Give
me the portion of goods that falleth unto me_, was from the other
heart, when, in his poverty and woe, he cast himself utterly upon his
Father: _I will arise and go to my Father_. But no less a mistake do
those make, who seek from God not Himself, but only intellectual
information. The first Reformers did well, who brought the common
soul to the personal grace of God; but many of their successors, in a
controversy, whose dust obscured the sun and allowed them to see but
the length of their own weapons, used Scripture chiefly as a store
of proofs for separate doctrines of the faith, and forgot that God
Himself was there at all. And though in these days we seek from the
Bible many desirable things, such as history, philosophy, morals,
formulas of assurance of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, maxims
for conduct, yet all these will avail us little, until we have found
behind them the living Character, the Will, the Grace, the Urgency,
the Almighty Power, by trust in whom and communion with whom alone
they are added unto us.
Now the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign
God, was the deity of a little tribe. _I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am
God, I Jehovah am He._ We cannot too much impress ourselves with the
historical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and
Egypt with their large empires, Lydia with all her wealth, and the
Medes with all their force; which was already feeling the possibilities
of the great Greek life, and had the Persians, the masters of the
future, upon its threshold,--it was the god of none of these, but
of the obscurest tribe of their bondsmen, who claimed the Divine
Sovereignty for Himself; it was the pride of none of these, but the
faith of the most despised and, at its heart, most mournful religion of
the time, which offered an explanation of history, claimed the future
and was assured that the biggest forces of the world were working for
its ends. _Thus saith Jehovah, King of Israel, and his Redeemer Jehovah
of Hosts, I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God. Is there
a God beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any._
By itself this were a cheap claim, and might have been made by any
idol among them, were it not for the additional proofs by which it
is supported. We may summarise these additional proofs as threefold:
Laughter, Gospel and Control of History,--three marvels in the
experience of exiles. People, mournfullest and most despised, their
mouths were to be filled with the laughter of Truth's scorn upon the
idols of their conquerors. Men, most tormented by conscience and filled
with the sense of sin, they were to hear the gospel of forgiveness.
Nation, against whom all fact seemed to be working, their God told
them, alone of all nations of the world, that He controlled for their
sake the facts of to-day and the issues of to-morrow.
2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But
we have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these
crushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were
image worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men
intellectually,--it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed,
degrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater
and him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and
soul, One God, Maker of heaven and earth: it is a difference that is
absolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore,
although the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world
with the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud
faces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of
the One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage.
Its text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices
that utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its
tone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in
impetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity
of our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised.
1.
_Formers of an idol are all of them waste,_
_And their darlings are utterly worthless!_
_And their confessors_[87]--_they! they see not and know not_
Enough _to feel shame._
_Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast?_
_'Tis to be utterly worthless._
_Lo! all that depend on't are shamed,_
_And the gravers are less than men:_
_Let all of them gather_ and _stand._
_They quake and are shamed in the lump._
2.
_Iron-graver_--he takes[88] _a chisel,_
_And works with hot coals,_
_And with hammers he moulds;_
_And has done it with the arm of his strength._
_--Anon hungers, and strength goes;_
_Drinks no water, and wearies!_
3.
_Wood-graver--he draws a line,_
_Marks it with pencil,_
_Makes it with planes,_
_And with compasses marks it._
_So has made it the build of a man,_
_To a grace that is human--_
_To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars._[89]
4.
_Or one takes an ilex or oak,_
_And picks for himself from the trees of the wood;_
_One has planted a pine, and the rain makes it big,_
_And 'tis there for a man to burn._
_And one has taken of it, and been warmed;_
_Yea, kindles and bakes bread,--_
_Yea, works out a god, and has worshipped it!_
_Has made it an idol, and bows down before it!_
_Part of it burns he with fire,_
_Upon part eats flesh,_
_Roasts roast and is full;_
_Yea, warms him and saith,_
_"Aha, I am warm, have seen fire!"_
_And the rest of it--to a god he has made--to his image!_
_He bows to it, worships it, prays to it,_
_And says, "Save me, for my god art thou!"_
5.
_They know not and deem not!_
_For He hath bedaubed, past seeing, their eyes,_
_Past thinking, their hearts._
_And none takes to heart,
Neither has knowledge nor sense to say,_
_"Part of it burned I in fire--_
_Yea, have baked bread on its coals,_
_Do roast flesh that I eat,--_
_And the rest o't, to a Disgust should I make it?_
_The trunk of a tree should I worship?"_
_Herder of ashes,_[90] _a duped heart has sent him astray,_
_That he cannot deliver his soul, neither say,_
_"Is there not a lie in my right hand?"_
Is not the prevailing note in these verses surprise at the mental
condition of an idol-worshipper? _They see not and know not_ enough
_to feel shame. None takes it to heart, neither has knowledge nor
sense to say, Part of it I have burned in fire ... and the rest,
should I make it a god?_ This intellectual confidence, breaking out
into scorn, is the second great token of truth, which distinguishes
the religion of this poor slave of a people.
3. The third token is its moral character. The intellectual truth of
a religion would go for little, had the religion nothing to say to
man's moral sense--did it not concern itself with his sins, had it
no redemption for his guilt. Now, the chapters before us are full
of judgement and mercy. If they have scorn for the idols, they have
doom for sin, and grace for the sinner. They are no mere political
manifesto for the occasion, declaring how Israel shall be liberated
from Babylon. They are a gospel for sinners in all time. By this they
farther accredit themselves as a universal religion.
God is omnipotent, yet He can do nothing for Israel till Israel put
away their sins. Those sins, and not the people's captivity, are the
Deity's chief concern. Sin has been at the bottom of their whole
adversity. This is brought out with all the versatility of conscience
itself. Israel and their God have been at variance; their sin has
been, what conscience feels the most, a sin against love. _Yet not
upon Me hast thou called, O Jacob; how hast thou been wearied with
Me, O Israel.... I have not made thee to slave with offerings, nor
wearied thee with incense ... but thou hast made Me to slave with thy
sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities_ (xliii. 22-24). So
God sets their sins, where men most see the blackness of their guilt,
in the face of His love. And now He challenges conscience. _Put Me
in remembrance; let us come to judgement together; indict, that thou
mayest be justified_ (ver. 26). But it had been agelong and original
sin. _Thy father, the first had sinned; yea, thy representative
men_--literally _interpreters, mediators--had transgressed against
Me. Therefore did I profane consecrated princes, and gave Jacob to
the ban, and Israel to reviling_ (vv. 27, 28). The Exile itself was
but an episode in a tragedy, which began far back with Israel's
history. And so ch. xlviii. repeats: _I knew that thou dost deal very
treacherously, and Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee_
(ver. 8). And then there comes the sad note of what might have been.
_O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace
been as the river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea_
(ver. 18). As broad Euphrates thou shouldst have lavishly rolled, and
flashed to the sun like a summer sea. But now, hear what is left.
_There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked_ (ver. 22).
Ah, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no long-extinct
volcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by
the writings of the Exile. But they treat of man's perennial trouble;
and conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned
letters and figures with words we feel like swords. And therefore,
still, whether they be psalms or prophecies, they stand like some
ancient minster in the modern world,--where, on each new soiled day,
till time ends, the heavy heart of man may be helped to read itself,
and lift up its guilt for mercy.
They are the confessional of the world, but they are also its gospel,
and the altar where forgiveness is sealed. _I_, even _I, am He that
blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not
remember thy sins. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I
have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud
thy sins; turn unto Me, for I have redeemed thee. Israel shall be
saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be
ashamed nor confounded world without end._[91] Now, when we remember
who the God is, who thus speaks,--not merely One who flings the word
of pardon from the sublime height of His holiness, but, as we saw,
speaks it from the midst of all His own passion and struggle under
His people's sins,--then with what assurance does His word come home
to the heart. What honour and obligation to righteousness does the
pardon of such a God put upon our hearts. One understands why Ambrose
sent Augustine, after his conversion, first to these prophecies.
4. The fourth token, which these chapters offer for the religion
of Jehovah, is the claim they make for it to interpret and to
control history. There are two verbs, which are frequently repeated
throughout the chapters, and which are given together in ch. xliii.
12: _I have published and I have saved._ These are the two acts by
which Jehovah proves His solitary divinity over against the idols.
The _publishing_, of course, is the same prediction, of which ch.
xli. spoke. It is _publishing_ in former times things happening now;
it is _publishing_ now things that are still to happen. _And who,
like Me, calls out and publishes it, and sets it in order for Me,
since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming,
and that shall come, let them publish. Tremble not, nor fear: did
I not long ago cause thee to hear? and I published, and ye are My
witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? nay, there is no Rock; I know
none_ (xliv. 7, 8).
The two go together, the doing of wonderful and saving acts for His
people and the publishing of them before they come to pass. Israel's
past is full of such acts. Ch. xliii. instances the delivery from
Egypt (vv. 16, 17), but immediately proceeds (vv. 18, 19): _Remember
ye not the former things_--here our old friend ri'shonôth occurs
again, but this time means simply _previous events_--_neither
consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; even
now it springs forth. Shall ye not know it? Yea, I will set in the
wilderness a way, in the desert rivers._ And of this new event of the
Return, and of others which will follow from it, like the building
of Jerusalem, the chapters insist over and over again, that they are
the work of Jehovah, who is therefore a Saviour God. But what better
proof can be given, that these saving facts are indeed His own and
part of His counsel, than that He foretold them by His messengers
and prophets to Israel,--of which previous _publication_ His people
are the witnesses. _Who among the peoples can publish thus, and let
us hear predictions?_--again ri'shonôth, _things ahead_--_let them
bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, and let them hear
and say, Truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah_, to Israel
(xliii. 9, 10). _I have published, and I have saved, and I have
shewed, and there was no strange god among you; therefore_--because
Jehovah was notoriously the only God who had to do with them during
all this prediction and fulfilment of prediction--_ye are witnesses
for Me, saith Jehovah, that I am God_ (_id._ ver. 12). The meaning
of all this is plain. Jehovah is God alone, because He is directly
effective in history for the salvation of His people, and because
He has published beforehand what He will do. The great instance of
this, which the prophecy adduces, is the present movement towards
the liberation of the people, of which movement Cyrus is the most
conspicuous factor. Of this xlv. 19 ff. says: _Not in secret have
I spoken, in a place of the land of darkness. I have not said to
the seed of Jacob, In vanity seek ye Me. I Jehovah am a speaker of
righteousness,_[92] _a publisher of things that are straight. Be
gathered and come in; draw together, ye survivors of the nations:
they have no knowledge that carry about the log of their image, and
are suppliants to a god that cannot save. Publish, and bring it here;
nay, let them advise together; who made this to be heard_,--that is,
_who published this_,--_of ancient time?_ Who _published this of old?
I Jehovah, and there is none God beside Me: a God righteous_,--that
is, consistent, true to His published word,--_and a Saviour, there is
none beside Me_. Here we have joined together the same ideas as in
xliii. 12. There _I have declared and saved_ is equivalent to _a God
righteous and a Saviour_ here. _Only in Jehovah are righteousnesses_,
that is, fidelity to His anciently published purposes; _and
strength_, that is, capacity to carry these purposes out in history.
God is righteous because, according to another verse in the same
prophecy (xliv. 26), _He confirmeth the word of His servant, and the
advice of His messengers He fulfilleth._
Now the question has been asked, To what predictions does the
prophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so
evidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering
this question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the
prophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify that
unfounded belief, to which so many think it necessary to cling, that
Cyrus was actually named by a prophet of Jehovah years before he
appeared. Had such a prediction existed, we can have no doubt that
our prophet would now have appealed to it. No: he evidently refers
only to those numerous and notorious predictions by Isaiah, and by
Jeremiah, of the return of Israel from exile after a certain and
fixed period. Those were now coming to pass.
But from this new day Jehovah also predicts for the days to come,
and He does this very particularly, xliv. 26, _Who is saying of
Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They
shall be built; and of her waste places, I will raise them up. Who
saith to the deep, Be dry, and thy rivers I will dry up. Who saith of
Koresh, My Shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall fulfil: even saying
of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the Temple shall be founded._
Thus, backward and forward, yesterday, to-day and for ever, Jehovah's
hand is upon history. He controls it: it is the fulfilment of His
ancient purpose. By predictions made long ago and fulfilled to-day,
by the readiness to predict to-day what will happen to-morrow, He is
surely God and God alone. Singular fact, that in that day of great
empires, confident in their resources, and with the future so near
their grasp, it should be the God of a little people, cut off from
their history, servile and seemingly spent, who should take the big
things of earth--Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba--and speak of them as counters
to be given in exchange for His people; who should speak of such a
people as the chief heirs of the future, the indispensable ministers
of mankind. The claim has two Divine features. It is unique, and
history has vindicated it. It is unique: no other religion, in that
or in any other time, has so rationally explained past history or
laid out the ages to come upon the lines of a purpose so definite,
so rational, so beneficent--a purpose so worthy of the One God and
Creator of all. And it has been vindicated: Israel returned to their
own land, resumed the development of their calling, and, after the
centuries came and went, fulfilled the promise that they should be
the religious teachers of mankind. The long delay of this fulfilment
surely but testifies the more to the Divine foresight of the promise;
to the patience, which nature, as well as history, reveals to be, as
much as omnipotence, a mark of Deity.
* * * * *
These, then, are the four points, upon which the religion of Israel
offers itself. _First_, it is the force of the character and grace
of a personal God; _second_, it speaks with a high intellectual
confidence, whereof its scorn is here the chief mark; _third_, it is
intensely moral, making man's sin its chief concern; and _fourth_, it
claims the control of history, and history has justified the claim.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] _From to-day on_, Ez. xlviii. 35; but others take it _Also
to-day I am He_.
[86] Renan's theory of the "natural monotheism" of the Semites was
first published in his _Histoire des Langues Semitiques_ some forty
years ago. Nearly every Semitic scholar of repute found some occasion
or other to refute it. But with Renan's charming genius for neglecting
all facts that disturb an artistic arrangement of his subject, the
overwhelming evidence against the natural monotheism of the Semite
has been ignored by him, and he repeats his theory unmodified in his
_Histoire du Peuple d'Israel_, i., 31, published 1888.
[87] Literally _witnesses_--_i.e._, of the idols.
[88] This word is wanting in the text, which is corrupt here. Some
supply the word sharpeneth, imagining that חדד has fallen away from
the beginning of the verse, through confusion with the יחד which ends
the previous verse; or they bring יחד itself, changing it to חדד. But
evidently ברזל חרשׁ begins the verse; _cf._ the parallel עצים רשׁח
which begins ver. 13.
[89] Here, again, the text is uncertain. With some critics I have
borrowed for this verse the first three words of the following verse.
[90] Perhaps _feeder on ashes_.
[91] Chs. xliii. 25; xliv. 21, 22; xlv. 17.
[92] See ch. xiv. of this volume.