21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a house of the LORD? u2 Kings xx. 8. arida," &c.-CELSUS, V. 11. See the note on 2 Kings xx. 7. Philemon Holland translates the passage as a medical man:-"The milke or white juice that the figge tree yieldeth is of the same nature that vinegre : and therefore it will cruddle milke as well as rennet, or rendles. The right season of gathering this milkie substance is before that the figs be ripe upon the tree; and then it must be dried in the shadow: thus prepared, it is good to break impostumes, and keepe ulcer open." A. M. cir. 3292. cir. annum ᎪᎢ CHAPTER XXXIX. A. 4. M. cir. 3292. Olymp. XVII. 1. B. C. cir. 712. cir. annum Numa Pompilii, The Babylonish monarch sends letters of congratulation and a present to Hezekiah, on account of his recovery from his late dangerous illness, 1. The king of Judah shows the messengers of Merodach-baladan all the treasures of his house and kingdom, 2. The prophet takes occasion from this ostentatious display of the king to predict the captivity of the royal family, and of the people, by the Babylonians, 3-8. Ta that time Merodach-bala- | And Hezekiah said, They are dan, the son of Baladan, king come from a far country unto me, Numa Pompilii, of Babylon, sent letters and a even from Babylon. R. Roman., 4. present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 2 b And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, d * and all that was found in his treasures there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. с 3 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? *2 Kings xx. 12, &c.- - 2 Chron. xxxii. 31.- Or, spicery. 4 Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them. 5 Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts : f 6 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. 7 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, d Or, jewels.- Heb. vessels or instruments. Jer. xx. 5. NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIX. Hitherto the copy of this history in the second book of Kings has been much the most correct; in this chapter that in Isaiah has the advantage. In the two first verses two mistakes in the other copy are to be corrected from this for pin hizkiyahu, read pr vayechezek, and was recovered; and for you" vaiyish-sonally mentioned before. See Houbigant. ma, he heard, read nov” vaiyismach, he rejoiced. Verse 1. At that time Merodach-baladan] This name is variously written in the MSS. Berodach, Medorach, Medarech, and Medurach. geo Bes; that is, D‘ɔɔi umalachim, and ambassadors; which word seems to be necessary to the sense, though omitted in the Hebrew text both here and in the other copy, 2 Kings xx. 12. For the subsequent narration refers to them all along, "these men, whence came they?" &c. ; plainly supposing them to have been per ·Verse 6. To Babylon] babelah, so two MSS., (one ancient ;) rightly, without doubt, as the other copy (2 Kings xx. 17) has it. This prediction was fulfilled about one hundred and fifty years after it was spoken: see "And ambassadors"] The Septuagint add here xa Dan. i. 2, 3-7. What a proof of Divine omniscience! Promises of restoration B. C. cir. 712. cir. annum A. M. cir. 3292. which thou shalt beget, shall is the word of the Fulfilled, Dan. i. 2, 3, 7. Good days. LORD A. M. cit. 3292. h1 Sam. iii. 18. B. C. cir. 712. He cir. annum shall Numa Pompilii, my R. Roman., 4. Verse 8. Then said Hezekiah] The nature of He-land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all zekiah's crime, and his humiliation on the message of God to him by the prophet, is more expressly declared by the author of the book of the Chronicles: "But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up; therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works. Howbeit, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the that was in his heart." 2 Chron. xxxii. 25, 26, 30, 31. There shall be peace and truth in my days.] I rather think these words should be understood as an humble inquiry of the king, addressed to the prophet. "Shall there be prosperity, oh shalom, and truth in My days?-Shall I escape the evil which thou predictest ?" Understood otherwise, they manifest a pitiful unconcern both for his own family and for the nation. "So I be well, I care not how it may go with others." This is the view I have taken of the passage in 2 Kings xxi. 19. Let the reader judge whether this, or the former, should be preferred. See the concluding notes on 2 Kings xx. CHAPTER XL. In this chapter the prophet opens the subject respecting the restoration of the Church with great force and elegance; declaring God's command to his messengers the prophets to comfort his people in their captivity, and to impart to them the glad tidings that the time of favour and deliverance was at hand, 1, 2. Immediately a harbinger is introduced giving orders, as usual in the march of eastern monarchs, to remove every obstacle, and to prepare the way for their return to their own land, 3–5. The same words, however, the New Testament Scriptures authorize us to refer to the opening of the Gospel dispensation. Accordingly, this subject, coming once in view, is principally attended to in the sequel. Of this the prophet gives us sufficient notice by introducing a voice commanding another proclamation, which calls off our attention from all temporary, fading things to the spiritual and eternal things of the Gospel, 6–11. And to remove every. obstacle in the way of the prophecy in either sense, or perhaps to give a farther display of the character of the Redeemer, he enlarges on the power and wisdom of God, as the Creator and Disposer of all things. It is impossible to read this description of God, the most sublime that ever was penned, without being struck with inexpressible reverence and self-abasement. The contrast between the great Jehovah and every thing reputed great in this world, how admirably imagined, how exquisitely finished! What atoms and inanities are they all before HIM who sitteth on the circle of the immense heavens, and views the potentates of the earth in the light of grasshoppers,—those poor insects that wander over the barren heath for sustenance, spend the day in continual chirpings, and take up their humble lodging at night on a blade of grass! 12-26. The prophet concludes with a most comfortable application of the whole, by showing that all this infinite power and unsearchable wisdom is unweariedly and everlastingly engaged in strengthening, comforting, and saving his people, 27-31. A. M. cir. 3292. cir. annum C COMFORT ye, comfort ye my her warfare is accomplished, that a Numa Pompilii, e See Job xlii. 10; chap. lxi. 7. David, and of the people, under the kings of Babylon. As the subject of his subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise of the restoration of the kingdom, and the return of the people from that captivity, by the merciful interposition of God in their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to this event. As the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe of Judah, which would otherwise have soon become & Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4; John i. 23. Mal. Psa. Ixviii. 4; chap. xlix 11. Chap. xlv. 2. iii. 1. undistinguished, and have been irrecoverably lost, was necessary, in the design and order of Providence, for the fulfilling of God's promises of establishing a more glorious and an everlasting kingdom, under the Messiah to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, the prophet connects these two events together, and hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intimations of the latter; and sometimes is so fully possessed with the glories of the future and more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the question. Indeed this evangelical sense of the prophecy is so apparent, and stands forth in so strong a light, that some interpreters cannot see that it has any other; and will not allow the prophecy to have any relation at all to the return from the captivity of Babylon. It may therefore be useful to examine more attentively the train of the prophet's ideas, and to consider carefully the images under which he displays his subject. He hears a crier giving orders, by solemn proclamation, to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; to remove all obstructions before JEHOVAH marching through the desert; through the wild, uninhabited, impassable country. The deliverance of God's people from the Babylonish captivity is considered by him as parallel to the former deliverance of them from the Egyptian bondage. God was then represented as their king leading them in person through the vast deserts which lay in their way to the promised land of Canaan. It is not merely for JEHOVAH himself that in both cases the way was to be prepared, and all obstructions to be removed; but for JEHOVAH marching in person at the head of his people. Let us first see how this idea is pursued by the sacred poets who treat of the exodus, which is a favourite subject with them, and affords great choice of examples : straight place. Or, a plain place. bOr, a them, and to supply them with water in the thirsty de- Say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob: Waters from the rock he caused to flow for them; "Remember not the former things; Even now shall it spring forth; will ye not regard it? Chap. xliii. 18, 19. "But he that trusteth in me shall inherit the land, And shall possess my holy mountain. Then will I say: Cast up, cast up the causeway; make clear the way; Remove every obstruction from the road of my people." Chap. lvii. 13, 14. "How beautiful appear on the mountains The feet of the joyful messenger, of him that announceth peace; Of the joyful messenger of good tidings, of him that Of him that saith to Sion, Thy God reigneth! For face to face shall they see, when JEHOVAH re- Verily not in haste shall ye go forth; And the God of Israel shall bring up your rear." Babylon was separated from Judea by an immense tract of country which was one continued desert; that It is mentioned in history as a remarkable occurrence, that large part of Arabia called very properly Deserta. Nebuchadnezzar, having received the news of the death of his father, in order to make the utmost expedition in his journey to Babylon from Egypt and Phoenicia, set out with a few attendants, and passed through this desert. Berosus apud Joseph., Antiq. x. 11. This was the nearest way homewards for the Jews; and whether they actually returned by this way or not, the first thing that would occur on the proposal or thought of their return would be the difficulty of this almost impracticable passage. Accordingly the proclamation for the preparation of the way is the most natural idea, and the most obvious circumstance, by which the prophet could have opened his subject. These things considered, I have not the least doubt that the return of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon is the first, though not the principal, thing in the prophet's view. The redemption from Babylon is clearly foretold, and at the same time is employed as an image to shadow out a redemption of an infinitely higher and more important nature. I should not have thought it necessary to employ so many words in endeavouring to establish what is called the literal sense of this prophecy, which I think cannot be rightly understood without it, had I not observed that many interpreters of the first authority, in particular the very learned Vitringa, have excluded it entirely. Yet obvious and plain as I think this literal sense is, we have nevertheless the irrefragable authority of John the Baptist, and of our blessed Saviour himself, as recorded by all the Evangelists, for explaining this exordium of the prophecy of the opening of the Gospel by the preaching of John, and of the introduction of the kingdom of Messiah; who was to effect a much greater deliverance of the people of God, Gentiles as well as Jews, from the captivity of sin and the dominion of death. And this we shall find to be the case in many subsequent parts also of this prophecy, where passages manifestly relating to the deliverance of the Jewish nation, effected by Cyrus, are, with good reason, and upon undoubted authority, to be understood of the redemption wrought for mankind by Christ. man described B. C. cir. 712. 6 The voice said, Cry. And he A. M. cir. 3292. said, What shall I cry? All flesh Olymp. XVII. 1. is grass, and all the goodliness Numa Pompilii, thereof is as the flower of the field. R. Roman., 4. cir. annum Job xiv. 2; Psa. xc. 5; cii. 11; ciii. 15; James i. 10; 1 Pet. i. 24. ample recompense for the effects of past displeasure, on the reconciliation of God to his returning people. To express this sense of the passage, which the words of the original will very well bear, it was necessary to add a word or two in the version to supply the elliptical expression of the Hebrew. Compare chap. lxi. 7; Job xlii. 10; Zech. ix. 12. non chattaah signifies punishment for sin, Lam. iii. 39; Zech. xiv. 19. But Kimchi says, "Double here means the two captivities and emigrations suffered by the Israelites. The first, the Babylonish captivity; the second, that which they now endure." This is not a bad conjecture. Verse 3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness" A voice crieth, In the wilderness"] The idea is taken from the practice of eastern monarchs, who, whenever they entered upon an expedition or took a journey, especially through desert and unpractised countries, sent harbingers before them to prepare all things for their passage, and pioneers to open the passes, to level the ways, and to remove all impediments. The officers appointed to superintend such preparations the Latins call stratores. Ipse (Johannes Baptista) se stratorem vocat Messiæ, cujus esset alta et elata voce homines in desertis locis habitantes ad itinera et vias Regi mox venturo sternendas et reficiendas hortari.— Mosheim, Instituta, Majora, p. 96. "He (John the Baptist) calls himself the pioneer of the Messiah, whose business it was with a loud voice to call upon the people dwelling in the deserts to level and prepare the roads by which the King was about to march." Diodorus's account of the marches of Semiramis into Media and Persia will give us a clear notion of the preparation of the way for a royal expedition: "In her ex-march to Ecbatana she came to the Zarcean mountain, which, extending many furlongs, and being full of craggy precipices and deep hollows, could not be passed without taking a great compass about. Being therefore desirous of leaving an everlasting memorial of herself, as well as of shortening the way, she ordered the precipices to be digged down, and the hollows to be filled up; and at a great expense she made a shorter and more expeditious road, which to this day is called from her the road of Semiramis, Afterward she went into Persia, and all the other countries of Asia subject to her dominion; and wherever she went, she ordered the mountains and precipices to be levelled, raised causeways in the plain country, and at a great expense made the ways passable."-Diod. Sic. lib. ii. If the literal sense of this prophecy, as above plained, cannot be questioned, much less surely can the spiritual; which, I think, is allowed on all hands, even by Grotius himself. If both are to be admitted, here is a plain example of the mystical allegory, or double sense, as it is commonly called, of prophecy; which the sacred writers of the New Testament clearly suppose, and according to which they frequently frame their interpretation of passages from the Old Testament. Of the foundation and properties of this sort of allegory, see De S. Poës. Hebr. Prælect. xi. NOTES ON CHAP. XL. "The whole of Verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye] this prophecy," says Kimchi, "belongs to the days of the Messiah." The writer of the apocryphal book called Baruch Verse 2. Double for all her sins" Blessings double expresses the same subject by the same images, either to the punishment."] It does not seem reconcilable taking them from this place of Isaiah, or from the comto our notions of the Divine justice, which always pun- mon notions of his countrymen: "For God hath apishes less than our iniquities deserve, to suppose that pointed that every high hill, and banks of long conGod had punished the sins of the Jews in double pro- tinuance, should be cast down, and valleys filled up, to portion; and it is more agreeable to the tenor of this make even the ground, that Israel may go safely in the consolatory message to understand it as a promise of glory of God." Chap. v. 7. The Jewish Church, to which John was sent to announce the coming of Messiah, was at that time in a barren and desert condition, unfit, without reformation, for the reception of her King. It was in this desert country, destitute at that time of all religious cultivation, in true piety and good works unfruitful, that John was sent to prepare the way of the Lord by preaching repentance. I have distinguished the parts of the sentence according to the punctuation of the Masoretes, which agrees best both with the literal and the spiritual sense; which the construction and parallelism of the distich in the Hebrew plainly favours, and of which the Greek of the Septuagint and of the evangelists is equally susceptible. John was born in the desert of Judea, and passed his whole life in it, till the time of his being manifested to Israel. He preached in the same desert: it was a mountainous country; however not entirely and properly a desert; for though less cultivated than other parts of Judea, yet it was not uninhabited. Joshua (chap. xv. 61, 62) reckons six cities in it. We are so prepossessed with the idea of John's living and preaching in the desert, that we are apt to consider this particular scene of his preaching as a very important and essential part of history: whereas I apprehend this circumstance to be no otherwise important, than as giving us a strong idea of the rough character of the man, which was answerable to the place of his education; and as affording a proper emblem of the rude state of the Jewish Church at that time, which was the true wilderness meant by the prophet, in which John was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Verse 4. Crooked] The word py akob is very generally rendered crooked: but this sense of the word seems not to be supported by any good authority. Ludolphus, Comment. ad Hist. Æthiop. p. 206, says "that in the Ethiopic language it signifies clivus, locus editus:" and so the Syriac Version renders it in this place, y arama: Hebrew, y aramah, tumulus, Thus the parallelism would be more perfect: "the hilly country shall be made level, and the precipices a smooth plain." acervus. Verse 5. "The salvation of our God."] These words are added here by the Septuagint: 70 dwangiov SOU SOU, 137 My eth yesuath Eloheynu, as it is in the parallel place, chap. lii. 10. The sentence is abrupt without it, the verb wanting its object; and I think it is genuine. Our English translation has supplied the word it, which is equivalent to this addition, from the Septuagint. This omission in the Hebrew text is ancient, being prior to the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate Versions: but the words stand in all the copies of the Septuagint, and they are acknowledged by Luke, chap. iii. 6. The whole of this verse is wanting in one of my oldest MSS. certainty of God's word. B. C. eir. 712. 8 The grass withereth, the A. M. cir. 3292, flower fadeth: but the "word Olymp. XVII. 1. of our God shall stand for Numa Pompilii, ever. John xii. 34; 1 Pet. i. 25. cir. annum R. Roman., 4. Verse 6. The voice said, Cry-"A voice saith, Proclaim"] To understand rightly this passage is a matter of importance; for it seems designed to give us the true key to the remaining part of Isaiah's prophecies, the general subject of which is the restoration of the people and Church of God. The prophet opens the subject with great clearness and elegance: he declares at once God's command to his messengers, (his prophets, as the Chaldee rightly explains it,) to comfort his people in captivity, to impart to them the joyful tidings, that their punishment has now satisfied the Divine justice, and the time of reconciliation and favour is at hand. He then introduces a harbinger giving orders to prepare the way for God, leading his people from Babylon, as he did formerly from Egypt, through the wilderness; to remove all obstacles, and to clear the way for their passage. Thus far nothing more appears to be intended than a return from the Babylonish captivity; but the next words seem to intimate something much greater : "And the glory of JEHOVAH shall be revealed; And all flesh shall see together the salvation of our He then introduces a voice commanding him to make |