_THE CALL TO GO FORTH._
ISAIAH xlviii.
On the substance of ch. xlviii. we have already encroached, and now it
is necessary only to summarise its argument, and to give some attention
to the call to go forth from Babylon, with which it concludes.
Chapter xlviii. is addressed, as its first verse declares, to the
exiles from Judah[117]: _Hear this, Oh House of Jacob, that call
yourselves by the name of Israel, and from the waters of Judah have
come forth_: that is, you so-called Israelites, who spring from
Judah. But their worship of Jehovah is only nominal and unreal: _They
who swear by the name of Jehovah, and celebrate the God of Israel,
not in truth and not in righteousness; although by the Holy City they
name themselves, and upon the God of Israel they lean--Jehovah of
Hosts is His Name!_
_The former things I published long ago;_[118] _from My mouth they
went forth, and I let them be heard--suddenly I did them, and they
came to pass. Because I knew how hard thou wert, and a sinew of
iron thy neck, and thy brow brass. And I published to thee long
ago; before it came to pass I let thee hear it, lest thou shouldest
say: Mine idol hath wrought them, and my Image and my Casting hath
commanded them. Thou didst hear it: look at it whole_,--now that it
is fulfilled,--_and you! should ye not publish it?_ All the past lies
as a unity, prediction and fulfilment together complete; all of it
the doing of Jehovah, and surely enough of it to provide the text of
confession of Him by His people. But now,--
_I let thee hear new things_--in contrast with the former things--_from
now, and hidden things, and thou knewest them not. Now are they
created, and not long ago; and before to-day thou hadst not heard them,
lest thou shouldest say, Behold I knew them. Verily,_[119] _thou hadst
not heard, verily, thou hadst not known, verily, long since thine ear
was not open; because I knew thou art thoroughly treacherous, and
Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee._
The meaning of all this is sufficiently clear. It is a reproach
addressed to the formal Israelites. It divides into two parts,
each containing an explanation _Because I knew that_, etc.: vv.
3-6_a_, and vv. 6_b_-9. In the first part Jehovah treats of history
already finished, both in its prediction and fulfilment. Many of
the wonderful things of old Jehovah predicted long before they
happened, and so left His stubborn people no excuse for an idolatry
to which otherwise they would have given themselves (ver. 5). Now
that they see that wonderful past complete, and all the predictions
fulfilled, they may well publish Jehovah's renown to the world. In
the first part of His reproach, then, Jehovah is dealing with stages
of Israel's history that were closed before the Exile. The _former
things_ are wonderful events, foretold and come to pass before the
present generation. But in the second part of His reproach (vv.
6_b_-9) Jehovah mentions _new things_. These new things are being
created while His prophet speaks, and they have not been foretold (in
contradistinction to the former things of ver. 3). What events fulfil
these two conditions? Well, Cyrus was on his way, the destruction of
Babylon was imminent, Israel's new destiny was beginning to shape
itself under God's hands: these are evidently the things that are
in process of creation while the prophet speaks. But could it also
be said of them, that they had not been foretold? This could be
said, at least, of Cyrus, the Gentile Messiah. A Gentile Messiah was
something so new to Israel, that many, clinging to the letter of the
old prophecies, denied, as we have seen, that Cyrus could possibly
be God's instrument for the redemption of Israel. Cyrus, then, as a
Gentile, and at the same time the Anointed of Jehovah, is the new
thing which is being created while the prophet speaks, and which has
not been announced beforehand.
How is it possible, some may now ask, that Cyrus should be one of
the unpredicted _new things_ that are happening while the prophet
speaks, when the prophet has already pointed to Cyrus and his
advance on Babylon as a fulfilment of ancient predictions? The answer
to this question is very simple. There were ancient predictions of
a deliverance and a deliverer from Babylon. To name no more, there
were Jeremiah's[120] and Habakkuk's; and Cyrus, in so far as he
accomplished the deliverance, was the fulfilment of these ancient
r'ishonôth. But in so far as Cyrus sprang from a quarter of the
world, not hinted at in former prophecies of Jehovah--in so far as
he was a Gentile and yet the Anointed of the Lord, a combination
not provided for by any tradition in Israel--Cyrus and his career
were the _new things not predicted beforehand, the new things_ which
caused such offence to certain tradition-bound parties in Israel.
We cannot overestimate the importance of this passage. It supplies
us with the solution of the problem, how the presently-happening
deliverance of Israel from Babylon could be both a thing foretold
from long ago, and yet so new as to surprise those Israelites who
were most devoted to the ancient prophecies. And at the same time
such of us as are content to follow our prophet's own evidence, and
to place him in the Exile, have an answer put into our mouths, to
render to those, who say that we destroy a proof of the Divinity of
prophecy by denying to Isaiah or to any other prophet, so long before
Cyrus was born, the mention of Cyrus by name. Let such objectors, who
imagine that they are more careful of the honour of God and of the
Divinity of Scripture, because they maintain that Cyrus was named two
hundred years before he was born, look at verse 7. There God Himself
says, that there are some things, which, for a very good reason,
He does not foretell before they come to pass. We believe, and have
shown strong grounds for believing, that the selection of Cyrus, the
mention of his name, and the furtherance of his arms against Babylon,
were among those _new things_, which God says He purposely did not
reveal till the day of their happening, and which, by their novel and
unpredicted character, offended so many of the traditional and stupid
party in Israel. Must there always be among God's people, to-day as
in the day of our prophet, some who cannot conceive a thing to be
Divine unless it has been predicted long before?
In vv. 3-8, then, God claims to have changed His treatment of His
people, in order to meet and to prevent the various faults of their
character. Some things He told to them, long before, so that they
might not attribute the occurrence of these to their idols. But other
things He sprang upon them, without predictions, and in an altogether
novel shape, so that they might not say of these things, in their
familiarity with them, We knew of them ourselves. A people who were
at one time so stubborn, and at another so slippery, were evidently
a people who deserved nothing at God's hand. Yet He goes on to say,
vv. 9-11, that He will treat them with forbearance, if not for their
sake, yet for His own: _For the sake of My Name I defer Mine anger,
and for My praise_--or _renown_, or _reputation_, as we would say
of a man--_I will refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold
I have smelted thee, but not as silver: I have tested thee in the
furnace of affliction. For Mine own sake, for Mine own sake, I am
working;--for how was My Name being profaned!_[121]--_and My glory to
another I will not give._
Then he gathers up the sum of what He has been saying in a final
appeal.
_Hearken unto Me, O Jacob, and Israel My Called: I am He; I am First,
yea, I am Last. Yea, My hand hath founded Earth,_[122] _and My right
hand hath spread Heaven; when I call unto them they stand together._
_Be gathered, all of you, and hearken, Who among them_--that is,
the Gentiles--_hath published these things_?--that is, such things
as the following, the prophecy given in the next clause of the
verse: _Whom Jehovah loveth shall perform His pleasure on Babylon,
and his arm_ shall be on _the Chaldeans_. This was the sum of
what Jehovah promised long ago;[123] not Cyrus' name, not that a
Gentile, a Persian, should deliver God's people, for these are among
the new things which were not published beforehand, at which the
traditional Israelites were offended,--but this general fiat of God's
sovereignty, _that whomever Jehovah loves_, or _likes, he shall
perform His pleasure on Babylon. I, even I, have spoken_--this, in
ver. 14_b_, was My speaking. _Yea, I have called him; I have brought
him, and he will make his way to prosper._ Again emphasize the change
of tense. Cyrus is already called, but, while the prophet speaks, he
has not yet reached his goal in the capture of Babylon.
Some ambassador from the Lord, whether the prophet or the Servant of
Jehovah, now takes up the parable, and, after presenting himself,
addresses a final exhortation to Israel, summing up the moral meaning
of the Exile. _Draw near to me, hear this; not from aforetime in
secret have I spoken; from the time that it was, there am I: and now
my Lord, Jehovah, hath sent me with His Spirit._[124]
_Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, Holy of Israel, I am Jehovah thy
God, thy Teacher to profit, thy Guide in the way thou shouldest go:
Would that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments, then were like
the River thy peace, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea!
Then were like the sand thy seed, and the offspring of thy bowels
like its grains!_[125] _He shall not be cut off, nor shall perish his
name from before Me._
And now at last it is time to be up. Our salvation is nearer than
when first we believed. Day has dawned, the gates are opening, the
Word has been sufficiently spoken.
_Go forth from Babel, fly from the Chaldeans;
With a ringing voice publish and let this be heard,
Send ye it out to the end of the earth,
Say, Redeemed hath Jehovah His Servant Jacob.
And they thirsted not in the deserts He caused them to walk;
Waters from a rock He let drop for them,
Clave a rock and there flowed forth waters!
No peace, saith Jehovah, for the wicked._
We have arrived at the most distinct stage of which our prophecy
gives trace. Not that a new start is made with the next passage.
Ch. xlix. is the answer of the Servant himself to the appeal made
to him in xlviii. 20; and ch. xlix. does not introduce the Servant
for the first time, but simply carries further the substance of the
opening verses of ch. xlii. Nor is this urgent appeal to _Go forth
from Babylon_, which has come to Israel, the only one, or the last,
of its kind. It is renewed in ch. lii. 11-12. So that we cannot
think that our prophet has even yet got the Fall of Babylon behind
him. Nevertheless, the end of ch. xlviii. is the end of the first
and chief stage of the prophecy. The fundamental truths about God
and salvation have been laid down; the idols have been thoroughly
exposed; Cyrus has been explained; Babylon is practically done with.
Neither Babylon, nor Cyrus, nor, except for a moment, the idols, are
mentioned in the rest of the prophecy. The Deliverance of Israel is
certain. And what now interests the prophet is first, how the Holy
Nation will accomplish the destiny for which it has been set free,
and next, how the Holy City shall be prepared for the Nation to
inhabit. These are the two themes of chs. xlix. to lxvi. The latter
of them, the Restoration of Jerusalem, has scarcely been touched by
our prophet as yet. But he has already spoken much of the Nation's
Destiny as the Servant of the Lord; and now that we have exhausted
the subject of the deliverance from Babylon, we will take up his
prophecies on the Servant, both those which we have passed over in
chs. xl.-xlviii. and those which still lie ahead of us.
Before we do this, however, let us devote a chapter to a study of our
prophet's use of the word righteousness, for which this seems to be
as convenient a place as any other.
FOOTNOTES:
[117] Bredenkamp will have it, that the prophet here mentions first
Northern Israel and then Judah: _O House of Jacob_, the general term,
both _those that are called by the name of Israel, and that have
come forth from the waters of Judah_. But this is entirely opposed
to the syntax, and I note the opinion simply to show how precarious
the arguments are for the existence of pre-exilic elements in Isa.
xl.-xlviii. The point, which Bredenkamp makes by his rendering of
this verse, is that it could only be a pre-exilic prophet, who would
distinguish between Judah and Northern Israel; and that, therefore,
it might be Isaiah himself who wrote the verse!
[118] _Former things_ (ri'shonôth). It is impossible to determine
whether these mean _predictions_ which Jehovah published long ago,
and which have already come to pass, or _former events_ which He
foretold long ago, and which have happened as He said they would. The
distinction, however, is immaterial.
[119] Literally, _also_. But נם, a cumulative conjunction, when it
is introduced to repeat the same thought as preceded it, means _yea,
truly_, profecto, imo.
[120] Ch. xxv., which is undoubtedly an authentic prophecy of Jeremiah.
[121] The Hebrew has not the words _My Name_. The LXX. has them.
[122] A second time without article though applied to the whole world.
[123] Giesebrecht takes this as an actual quotation from some former
prophet: a specimen of the ancient prophecies which Jehovah sent to
Israel, and which were now being fulfilled. At least it is the sum of
what Jehovah's prophets had often predicted.
[124] This very difficult verse has been attributed either to
Jehovah in the first three clauses and to the Servant in the fourth
(Delitzsch); or in the same proportion to Jehovah and the prophet
(Cheyne and Bredenkamp); or to the Servant all through (Orelli); or
to the prophet all through (Hitzig, Knobel, Giesebrecht. See the
latter's _Beiträge zur Kritik Jesaia's_, p. 136). It is a subtle
matter. The present expositor thinks it clear that all four clauses
must be understood as the voice of one speaker, but sees nothing
in them to decide finally whether that speaker is the Servant, the
people Israel, in which case _I am there_ would have reference to
Israel's consciousness of every deed done by God since the beginning
of their history (_cf._ ver. 6_a_); or whether the speaker is the
prophet, in which case _I am there_ would mean that he had watched
the rise of Cyrus from the first. But _cf._ Zech. ii. 10-11, Eng.
Ver., and iv. 9.
[125] Or _like its bowels_, referring to the sea.