Isaiah 52

52:1 AWAKE, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircum- 2cised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit thee down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. 3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye were sold for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without 4money. For thus saith the Lord God, My people went down at the first into Egypt to so- 5journ there: and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what do I here, saith the LORD, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over 6them do howl, saith the LORD, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed. There- fore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold, it is I. 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith 8unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! The voice of thy watchmen! they lift up the voice, together 9do they sing; for they shall see, eye to eye, when the LORD returneth to Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his peo- 10ple, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all 11the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, de- part ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be 12ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the LORD. For ye shall not go out in haste, neither shall ye go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rear- ward.

Chap. 52. Zion, thought of as embodied in the Jewish nation, is exhorted to arouse herself and come up from her state of depression and degradation. The figures are brought forward from the close of the previous chapter, and conceive of her as having been enslaved and oppressed—the essential idea, however, being her previous low spiritual state and her consequent weakness and disgrace before the nations—to be now exchanged for a new spiritual life under the Gospel dispensation. It was as if the nation had been abused for no good reason—sold, and no worthy price paid to the Lord, who was their rightful owner. Therefore God would redeem them without money (verses 3, 4). His name had been dishonored in their national sufferings; therefore He would vindicate it (verses 5, 6). Joyous messengers announcing the Messiah’s advent and the Gospel age and reign are hailed as coming (verse 7); Zion’s watchmen see them from the city watch towers, and greet them with songs of joy (verse 8). All the wastes of Zion are summoned to join in these songs, and rejoice in all the redemption God has wrought (verses 9, 10); the transition from the old age and state of Zion to the new is thought of as a solemn march or procession, jointly military and sacerdotal; the

Church moving out with slow and solemn tread, joyfully reposing in her God, who both leads her as the captain of her host and follows her as her rear-guard (verses 11, 12). And next “My servant,” the great Messiah, comes distinctly to view. It is of no small importance to note that the ground idea of this chapter is the transition from the Mosaic to the Christian economy, which of course involves the coming of the Messiah and a glorious advance in the spiritual life of Zion. To aid in the illustration of this idea, the prophet alludes to the relations of Israel to ancient Egypt and to Assyria (verse 4). The reference to Egypt and to Assyria is historical and illustrative, and not at all prophetic. H. C.

1. The encouraging assurances of the foregoing context are now followed by a summons similar to that in chap. 51:17, but in form approaching nearer to the apostrophe in chap. 51:9. The last clause contains a general promise of exemption from the contaminating presence of the impure and unworthy, as a part of the blessedness and glory promised to God’s people, as the end and solace of their various trials. A.

The implement of the Church’s work is the Word; the arm of the Church’s power is the ministry; but the power itself is the Holy Ghost. In this view, the call of the text is full of meaning. It is the Spirit’s call: Awake! awake! put on thy strength!—the strength which he proffers. Thy strength is My strength—put it on; put it forth. The strength of the Church is a trinity—the Word, the Ministry, the Spirit—but it is a trinity in unity; for the power, the one power, is the Holy Ghost. The Word, in its adaptation to the wants of man, has a power of congruity; the ministry, by the bond that connects man with man, has the power of sympathy, but neither, alone, is adequate to the supernatural aim of the Church’s mission. The Word, alone, cannot raise the dead; the ministry, alone, cannot convert or save; but the Holy Ghost can make both mighty—the Word a thunderbolt, and the ministry a flame of fire. The Word is the Spirit’s word. It has a Divine authority behind it, a Divine life in it, a Divine power accompanying it. The ministry is the ministration of the Spirit, for, of every function, He is the author and the life. He calls the minister, qualifies him with gifts and graces, fills him with the fulness of the Gospel of peace, and makes his word an arrow that penetrates—a sword quick and powerful, a hammer that breaks in pieces, and a weapon that smites and prostrates the stronghold of Satan. W. M. Paxton.

Wheresoever we lift up the cry, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,” there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!” Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, as in this context, “Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” A. M.

2. The conception of Zion as covered with dust follows the thought in the close of the previous chapter where she lay on the ground, her enemies treading her into the very dust and soiling her garments. So also the “bands of her neck” assume that she has been a captive in bonds.

4. These are special cases under the general statements of the previous verse. Israel went down into Egypt for the innocent purpose of sojourning there a short time only, till the famine should be over. It was therefore a mere outrage on the part of Egypt’s king to seize them and subject them to servile bondage. No price was paid to their Divine owner for them.

No regard was had to essential righteousness and justice. God might therefore fitly recover them with no money, but indeed at the cost to Egypt of her king and his whole army. Equally without cause was their oppression under the Assyrian power, and with like terrible retribution upon his vast army did the Lord avenge and deliver His people. H. C.

6. In contrast to this state of intense sorrow, God’s people shall learn the truth, that He is “a very present help in the time of trouble.” The words “in that day” prove that the time of deliverance was actually future when the prophet wrote, and had been made present in prophetic vision alone. Birks.—I paraphrase thus: Therefore, because I cannot endure such things longer, My people shall know My faithfulness, power and grace (“My name”); they shall surely know in that day when these coming events shall take place, that I am He who has said and is still saying, “Behold Me!” They shall experience (“know”) the gloriously saving power of their own God, who has so often called their attention and sought to inspire their faith by this expression, “Behold Me!” H. C.

7. How beautiful upon the mountains, etc. This passage is applied by Paul to the ministers of the Gospel. (See Rom. 10:15.) The meaning here seems to be this: Isaiah was describing the certain return of the Jews to their own land. He sees in vision the heralds announcing their return to Jerusalem running on the distant hills. A herald bearing good news is a beautiful object; and he says that his feet—i.e., his running is beautiful. He came to declare that the exiles were about to return; that their long and painful captivity was closed; and that the holy city and its Temple were again to rise with splendor, and that peace and plenty and joy were to be spread over the land. Such a messenger coming with haste, the prophet says, would be a beautiful object. Nahum, who is supposed to have lived after Isaiah, has evidently copied from him this image (1:15):

Behold upon the mountains the feet of the joyful messenger,

Of him that announceth peace;

Celebrate, O Judah, thy festivals; perform thy vows:

For no more shall pass through thee the wicked one;

He is utterly cut off.

Barnes.

Paul is chargeable with no misapplication of the words when he applies them to the preachers of the Gospel. The contents of the message are the manifestation of the reign of God, the very news which Christ and His forerunner published when they cried, saying, The kingdom of God is at hand. A.

The word which is rendered “bringeth good tidings” means precisely one who is publishing this Gospel, corresponding to the Greek Evangelico, and to the etymological sense of the word Evangelist, as we apply it—e.g., to the first preachers of the Gospel. Precisely this expressive word, a herald of glad tidings, appears in chaps, 40 : 9 and 41 : 27, and serves to connect those passages with this. The reader will note the strength of this idea in the verse before us—repeated, expanded, modified in every form to give the fullest and strongest sense of joyful tidings, tidings of good ; publishing peace ; publishing salvation. H. C.

The Gospel of Christ, the Word Incarnate of God, entering into our life is indeed good tidings—good tidings as reaching down to the lowest depths where humanity still lingers, and growing with man’s growth to the utmost bounds of his possible attainments, reaching and growing without limit. It turns our thoughts from what we can do to what God has done and is doing. It discloses in the idea of creation a splendor which communicates its light to all created things. It pierces to the depths of misery, and brings back even from their darkness a promise of hope. It transfigures all personal suffering by the thought of a fellowship with God in Christ. It is a new, an eternal commandment in which all things, our utmost hopes and efforts, are shown to be of Him, and through Him, and unto Him. This is the Gospel which all have to hold and to publish, to hold with a firmer grasp by publishing with a more personal devotion. Here is the joy which we all are charged to make our own by extending it to others. Bp. Westcott.

Thy God reigneth. Christ commissions His ministers to proclaim this joyful truth to Zion, His Church, that every member of His may receive it in faith, change the pronoun, and say, My God reigneth. Christ’s reign is His people’s glory, their triumph on earth, and the song of disembodied saints in glory. W. Mason.

8. The idea is, that when Jehovah should bring back and bless His people, the watchmen should have a full and glorious exhibition of His mercy and goodness. And the result should be, that they would greatly rejoice and unitedly celebrate His name. According to this interpretation, it does not mean that the ministers of religion should have the same precise views or embrace the same doctrines, however true this may be or however desirable in itself, but that they should have an open, clear and bright manifestation of the presence of God, and should lift up their voices together with exultation and praise. Barnes.

8. Zion’s watchmen are the first to see on the distant mountains the feet of those Gospel heralds. This conception is thoroughly Oriental. The bold form of the first clause is expressive. The far-seeing vision of the prophet gave him first the coming heralds seen crossing the distant mountain tops, rushing on with their burden of glad tidings. Next, lo! a shout of the watchmen! All as one they lift up their voice in joyous outcries; at one and the same moment they all catch the sight of the coming heralds. They seem intuitively to seize the joyous import of their tidings and pour forth their soul and voice in triumphant song! Is not the scene inspiring? And why should it not be so painted and so felt? H. C.

9. It is a cold, lifeless thing to speak of spiritual things upon mere report; but they that speak of them as their own, as having share or interest in them, and some experience of their sweetness, their discourse is enlivened with firm belief and ardent affection; they cannot mention them but their hearts are straight taken with such gladness as they are forced to vent in praises. Leighton.

9,10. This section of the prophecy closes here with a glorious promise. It is rehearsed at the opening of the Baptist’s message (Luke 3 : 6), but remains to be more fully realized in the last days. Birks.

10. The Lord girds Himself for mighty and glorious manifestations of His spiritual power that the ends of the earth may see His salvation. To make bare the arm is to gird the loins, leaving the arm uncovered and unincumbered for the most vigorous activities. History records of many celebrated warriors that they went into battle with their right arm naked. The genius of the Christian age is not centralization, but diffusion; is not inaction, but earnest work—its great command being, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” This done, all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God. H. C.

The prominent encouragement to labor for the Christianization of the nations is found in the design and promise of God that every people and nation shall be willingly subject to the spiritual sway of the Redeemer, that the system of truth and faith which has been divinely promulgated shall reach and affect all human hearts and attain a universal and complete supremacy in the earth. Possessed of a complete adaptation to man’s moral condition and needs, and accompanied by the grace and might of God’s Spirit, this Divine system is completely fitted to enter the heart, to subdue the will and to turn to itself the moving springs of affection and action in the soul. Thus it wins the individual. And from the individual its natural necessary tendency is to a continual diffusion. It makes each captivated soul a minister to extend its sway. As the numbers of its members increase, it gathers them into churches, and here organizes agencies for the wider dissemination of its influences. It makes each community in which it is established a centre from which its powerful quickening beams shall continually flow forth with an ever-widening compass and reach, until all are enlightened and its mighty, outspread circle shall include the race! For this the Christian system is fitted—admirably, wondrously fitted—as is the sun to give light and life to the worlds of His system! B.

Countless millions are shortly to awake from the sleep and darkness of a hundred ages to hail the day that will never go down. I see the darkness rolling upon itself and passing away from a thousand lands. I see a cloudless day following and spreading itself over all the earth. I see the nations coming up from the neighborhood of the brutes to the dignity of the sons of God. I see the meekness of the Gospel assuaging ferocious passions, melting down a million contending units into one, silencing the clangor of arms, and swelling into life a thousand budding charities which had died under the long winter. I hear the voice of their joy. It swells from the valleys and echoes from the hills. I already hear on the eastern breeze the songs of new-born nations. I already catch from the western gale the praise of a thousand islands. I ascend the Alps and see the darkness retiring from the papal world. I ascend the Andes and see South America and all the islands of the Pacific one altar. I ascend the mountains of Thibet, and hear from the plains of China and from every jungle and pagoda of Hindustan the praises of the living God. I see all Asia bowing before Him who eighteen centuries ago hung in the midst of them on Calvary. I traverse oceans and hear from every floating Bethel the songs of the redeemed.

“The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other; and the mountain tops, From distant mountains, catch the flying joy; Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.”

E. D. Griffin.

11,12. The conception here is that of the whole people of God moving in solemn procession in which the sacerdotal and military elements are singularly blended. The march through the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan is the model and furnishes the imagery and the descriptive terms. Apparently the thing really meant is the analogous march out from the old ritual economy into the new spiritual kingdom of the Messiah. Or perhaps we might better say, out from Judaism and the old Jewish Church, now effete and putrid in its moral corruptions, into the new Gospel kingdom. H. C.

11. Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.** It is said in Scripture that “they should be holy who bear the vessels of the Lord;” and it is generally believed that the position of a minister is one eminently favorable to personal holiness. But experience shows that such position brings with it great spiritual dangers. Familiarity with sacred things is sure to produce a feeling of indifference, unless counteracted by earnest prayer and secret communion with God. There is nothing more searing to the conscience than an unholy handling of the truth; the use of it for one’s own selfish or ambitious ends. If it does not work to cleanse and hallow him who teaches it, it will defile and harden. That position of isolation and elevation in which a minister is placed is, also, dangerous as inspiring pride and self-confidence. Watching over others, he is tempted to forget to keep watch over himself. If there is any one who is called to scrutinize his own heart, and apply diligently the truth he teaches to himself, it is he who ministers in God’s temple. Churchman.

12. This verse is crowded with allusions to the earlier history of Israel, some of which consist in the adaptation of expressions with which the Hebrew reader was familiar, but which must of course be lost in a translation. Thus the hasty departure out of Egypt is not only recorded as a fact in the Mosaic history (Ex. 11:1; 12:33, 39), but designated by the very term here used רַבִּי (Ex. 12:11; De. 16:3), meaning terrified and sudden flight. There is likewise an obvious allusion to the cloudy pillar going sometimes before and sometimes behind the host (Ex. 14:19, 20). “For” has reference to the promise, implied in the preceding exhortation, of protection and security. A.

The Lord’s people are bidden go out with displayed banner, not in haste, or as cowards; and the reason is given, Because the Lord will go before them in the vanguard, and behind them in the rearward, and shall so compass them that they need to stand in awe or be feared for none. Thus He would have them avowing their Lord and boldly professing holiness. Dickson.

7-12. I prefer the interpretation of this passage which applies it primarily and specially to the change from the Mosaic to the Gospel dispensation, including as its leading events the advent of the Messiah, the setting up of His kingdom and the proclamation of the Gospel. 1. Because of the connection of this passage with that which immediately follows (52: 13-15 and 53), where we have a very specific description of the great personage who is here represented as coming and reigning, and as leading His people forth into a new spiritual world of life and labor, this personage being surely the Messiah and none other. 2. Because of the close analogy of this passage with chap. 40: 1-11, which manifestly refers to this great transition from the Mosaic to the Christian age, coupled with the coming of Christ. 3. Because the entire passage admits of a natural, easy and forcible construction on this hypothesis. H. C.

Here the chapter should have closed. Here closes the account of the return of the exiles from Babylon. The mind of the prophet seems here to leave the captive Jews on their way to their own land safe, with Jehovah going at their head and guarding the rear of the returning band, and to have passed to the contemplation of Him of whose coming all these events were preliminary and introductory—the Messiah. Perhaps the rationale of this apparent transition is this. It is undoubtedly the doctrine of the Bible that He who was revealed as the guide of His people in ancient times, and who appeared under various names, as “the angel of Jehovah,” “the angel of the covenant,” etc., was He who afterward became incarnate—the Saviour of the world. So the prophet seems to have regarded Him; and here fixing his attention on the Jehovah who was thus to guide His people and be their defence, by an easy transition the mind is carried forward to the time when He would be incarnate, and when He would die for men. Leaving, therefore, so to speak, the contemplation of Him as conducting His people across the barren wastes which separated Babylon from Judea, the mind is, by no unnatural transition, carried forward to the time when He would become a man of sorrows and when He would come to redeem and save the world. According to this supposition, it is the same glorious Being whom Isaiah sees as the protector of His people, and almost in the same instant as the man of sorrows; and the contemplation of Him as the suffering Messiah becomes so absorbing and intense, that he abruptly closes the description of Him as the guide of the exiles to their own land. He sees Him in His humiliation. He sees Him as a sufferer. He sees the manner and the design of His death. He contemplates the certain result of that humiliation and death in the spread of the true religion, and in the extension of His kingdom among men. Henceforward, therefore, to the end of Isaiah, we meet with very few references to the condition of the exiles in Babylon, or to their return to their own land. The mind of the prophet is absorbed in describing the glories of the Messiah, and the certain spread of His Gospel and His kingdom around the globe. Barnes.

52:13 BEHOLD, my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Like as many were astonished at thee, (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men,) so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they understand.

53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgement he was taken away; and as for his generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living? for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many: and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

THE clear prediction of the sufferings of Christ, with which this section begins, forms the centre and heart of these later prophecies. It reveals the Divine method for accomplishing the second part of the opening promise to Zion, “that her iniquity is pardoned;” while it sets before the Church, in plainest outlines, the great Sacrifice and Divine Sin offering of the Incarnate Son of God. It also prepares the way for a glorious promise of the fruitfulness of the true Church, delivered at length from the reproach of long ages of barrenness, and later signs of desertion and neglect, and of her growth into a beautiful city of God; with an appeal to all the Gentiles once more, to come and partake freely of the sure mercies provided for them in the Son of David, the promised Immanuel, the Lamb of God, appointed to take away the sin of the world. Birks.

52:13-53:1-12. Many centuries before Christ’s death and resurrection a prediction was uttered, which not only foretells these events down to the minutest detail, but expounds their significance in such a way as afterward apostles, Church fathers, reformers, only did. . . . If the resurrection of Christ is a fact, if His death and resurrection are the central facts of history, which we know them to be, and if Jesus was justified in declaring Himself to be the Messiah and His entire work to be the fulfilment of the law and the prophets, it will then seem perfectly natural and becoming that the preparatory revelation should foreshadow and foretell these particular facts in the fullest and exactest manner; and we see that

Jesus and Paul were specially careful to demonstrate the Divine necessity of these fundamental facts from the prophetic word of the Old Testament. Auberlen.

52:13-15. Here Jehovah speaks. He speaks of His servant the Messiah, and describes the state of His humiliation and of His subsequent exaltation. These verses contain in fact an epitome of what is enlarged upon in the next chapter. The sum of it is, that His servant should be, in the main, or on the whole, prospered and exalted (verse 13); yet He would be subjected to the deepest trial and humiliation (verse 14); but as the result of this, He would redeem the nations of the earth, and their kings and rulers should regard Him with profound reverence (verse 15). A display of the Divine perfections would accompany the work of the servant of Jehovah such as they had never beheld, and they would be called on to contemplate wonders of which they had not before heard. Barnes.

The preceding context (52:1-12) treats directly of the coming of the Messiah and of the opening of the Gospel age, the grand transition from Judaism to Christianity—the latter, thought of as opening a new and glorious era of spiritual light and of the power of Divine truth and of the Spirit unto salvation for all the tribes of the earth. Applying it to the transition from Judaism to Christianity, the connection of verse 13 with what precedes is direct and close. Nothing could be more appropriate than to pass from general views of the Gospel age to a more specific view of its great central personage, the Messiah. The connection becomes even more close if we accept the correct view of “the God of Israel their rearward” as presented in the clause immediately preceding. For, who was He that moved at the head of the columns of Israel in their forty years’ procession through the wilderness, manifesting His presence in the pillar of cloud and of fire? His character is well defined and His person identified in these words: “I will send an angel before thee: beware of Him and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions, for My name is in Him” (Ex. 23:20-23). This “angel,” so called because sent on this special mission, can be no other than the Messiah, called “the God of Israel” because He led them through that wilderness to Canaan. Here also He appears in analogous relations to His people in the Christian age as the Lord’s servant.

The connection of this passage (verses 13-15)

with chap. 53 is also direct and immediate. Indeed, the passage (chap. 53:1-10) takes up and expands the thought, briefly presented in the parenthesis (chap. 52:14), showing how it came to pass that “His visage was so marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men.” The remaining verses (chap. 53:10-12) correspond with the leading thought in chap. 52:14, 15—the wonderful relation between Christ’s humiliation and sufferings on the one hand, and His transcendent success in saving lost men on the other.

As to the personage spoken of here as “My servant,” only one opinion can be sustained—He is the great Messiah. The connection with the verses preceding shows it. The usage of this term in 42:1-4; 43:10; 49:3, 6; 53:11, and the New Testament quotations of this class of prophecies (e.g., Matt. 12:18-21), combine to place this construction beyond all doubt. Furthermore, the perfect coincidence between this passage and the New Testament doctrine of Christ, first crucified, then rising triumphantly and exalted gloriously, and rewarded with victorious success in the salvation of the nations—brings in an array of evidence which it would seem no candid mind can resist.

52:13. Deal wisely. All His ways will be characterized by consummate wisdom. He will show that He understands perfectly the moral nature of the race He came to save, and will bring the best possible appliances of truth and motive to bear on their consciences and on their hearts. Gifted with such wisdom, and managing His stupendous mission to earth so wisely, the consequence will be, “He will be exalted and lifted up, and be very high.” The drift of this entire passage, closing with chap. 53, contemplates, not Christ’s simple exaltation on His throne in heaven, irrespective of His success in His work as Saviour of men, but precisely His success in this great work—the glory of victory over Satan and sin in the grand conflict in which human souls, the living nations of men, are the prize for the conqueror. H. C.

The solemn administration of Christ’s kingly office could not take place till the prophetic and priestly were discharged; the one, by teaching His people and raising their affections and desires by the clearest revelation of happiness in a future state; the other, by making intercession for them, by the atonement of bloody sacrifice, the sacrifice of Himself. This is plainly told us in the ensuing chapter, the twenty-second Psalm, and other prophecies of the Old Testament, which Paul does in effect but expound in Heb. 2 : 10 ; 10 : 12, 13 ; Phil. 2 : 7-11. Stanhope.

What being is He who, inverting all the ordinary modes of judgment, is “to sprinkle many nations,” and “be exalted and extolled and be very high,” and “see His seed and prolong His days;” because He is “brought as a lamb to the slaughter,” and “hath poured out His soul unto death;” because “He has made intercession for the transgressors;” because “He is despised and rejected of men,” “wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities;” because in short He is the lamb “on whom God has laid the iniquity of us all?” There stands the picture on the page of prophecy—who shall ever be seen to answer it? Centuries come and go, but the lamb that is to be struggles all this time in the womb of providence—expected and not seen, yet waiting always for the birth.

At last the fulness of time is come; when a strange, new prophet appears, announcing the kingdom of God now at hand. And he breaks out suddenly at his preaching and baptism by the Jordan, as a particular unknown man is seen approaching to claim the baptism, in the strangely worded salutation—“Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” Now at last the advances and preparations of so many ages are ended, the Lamb of God is come. Only what conceivable impulse, if not the direct impulse of the Spirit of God, could have opened the prophet’s mouth in this strangely worded salutation? And who is He that He should bear this appellation? That will be known some three years hence more perfectly. When this wonderful, only spotless being of the world, after having breathed purity and love on it for so long a time, goes to His cross in dumb submission to His enemies, and dies there staining the fatal post with His blood, having yet no bone of His passover-body broken, we begin to catch some first intimation of the prophet’s meaning, when he declares—“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,” also of the New Testament prophet in his strange salutation—“Behold the Lamb of God.” And then what does He Himself do, three days after, when He encounters the two disciples going back, heavy-hearted, into the country, but open to them all the ancient Scripture, showing out of it how certainly Christ ought to suffer, and so to be the Lamb of prophecy. Bushnell.

14,15. The parenthetic clause in verse 14 suggests the grounds of the astonishment occasioned by the aspect of this servant of the Lord during His humiliation. His visage (general aspect) was that of one worn, wasted and wan—a tearful sufferer, surpassing in these respects what they had ever seen among men. Could He be a King and yet wear such an aspect? Could He be a good man, and yet such a sufferer, moving in a rank so low, and in poverty so extreme? So the many thought, and hence they were astonished at Him—the prophet using here a verb which as Dr. Alexander remarks “expresses a mixture of surprise, contempt and aversion.” Such was this “servant” of God in the days of His humiliation in the flesh. With this, the prophet puts in strong antithesis the days of His subsequent success and glory. The many individuals were amazed at His marred visage, and saw only things toward which they felt contempt and aversion; but the many nations shall be baptized into a new life unto God; their kings shall shut their mouths in reverential awe before Him, rejoicing and admiring that through Him they see what no tongue had ever told them before.

The word “sprinkle” is richly expressive. Its established use in the Mosaic ritual clothes it with significance as an emblem of moral purification, bringing the sprinkled one into a new moral state and into new moral relations to God as both forgiven and cleansed. Ezekiel takes up from Isaiah this very term and expands its precious significance, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes that ye may keep My judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36 : 25-27). H. C.

15. The wonders of redemption would stand by themselves as unparalleled in all that they had heard or seen. What is here predicted has been fulfilled. The mystery of the incarnation and the atonement, the sufferings and the death of the Redeemer, His exaltation and His glory, are events which are unparalleled in the history of the world. They stand by themselves, and they will stand by themselves forever in the history of human events. They are events fitted in their nature to excite the profoundest admiration and wonder. That the Son of God should become a man; that His visage should be so disfigured by grief as to have scarcely the aspect of a human being; that He should suffer and die as He did; and that He should be exalted as He is over this whole world, and have the most elevated place

in the universe at the right hand of God, are all events fitted to excite the deepest wonder and the profoundest admiration. And it has been done. The prophecy has been fulfilled. It has been a fact that kings and princes have bowed with profound veneration at the name and presence of the Redeemer; and from the time of Constantine not a few of earth’s mightiest monarchs have professed a profound regard for the character and the laws of the Messiah. Barnes.