Vengeance will come, the retribution of Elohim,
He himself will come, and will save you.'

In these dreadful times, therefore, the waiting people of God, wherever they are found; or, as I rather conclude, especially that particular part of returning Israel that is to be conducted through the desert,-are warranted to expect the appearance of that God whom they adore, in the character of their deliverer. This is, doubtless, what more ancient oracles foretold: "The Lord" cometh "with his holy myriads;"-" I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that in the last day he shall rise upon the earth, and of my flesh shall I see Elohim," &c. &c. *

5. Then shall the eyes of the blind be open, And the ears of the deaf shall be unclosed:

6. Then shall the lame bound like a stag,

And the tongue of the dumb shall sing.
Surely, waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert:

7. And the glowing sand shall become a pool,

And the thirsty soil springs of water.

In the haunts of serpents shall be pasture,
Grass, with reeds and rushes:

8. And there shall be an highway there,

* Compare xxv, 9.

"Behold your God! To avenge

he cometh!

God, who maketh retribution,
He will come and save you!"
HORSLEY.
“The word 7777 is by mistake

added to the first member of the sentence, from the beginning of the following member: 16 MSS. (7 ancient) have it but once; so, likewise, the Syriac.”—BP. Lowтu.

And it shall be called the way of the Holy One.'
The unclean shall not pass on it!

And HE' shall be among them walking on the way,
And the foolish shall not err.

9. No lion shall be there, nor beast of prey,
It shall not ascend it, or be found on it.

10. But the redeemed shall journey,

And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return:
And they shall come to Zion with singing,
And perpetual joy shall be upon their heads.
They shall obtain gladness and joy,

And sorrow, and sighing, shall flee away.

These beautiful figures, I am aware, have been very generally explained of the spiritual privileges of Gospel times; but, certainly, from a mistaken rule of interpretation. What the believer now possesses is, indeed, an " earnest," and " foretaste," of heavenly joys to come. But he is every where taught, that he is "saved in hope" that "is not seen," and for the object of which, he "waits;" -he still "groans, being burdened, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body. He is ever bid, with the whole church, to fix his expectation on the coming of Jesus Christ in his glory.

In the passage before us, we have a declaration, asplain as words can declare it, of a personal appearance of

"But he shall be with them walking in the way,' i. e. God; see verse 4. Our old English versions translated the place to this purpose, our last translators were misled by the authority of the Jews, who have absurdly made a division of the verses in the midst of the

sentence, thereby destroying the construction and the sense."-BP. LOWTH.

"Their own Lord walking, &c. -BP. STOCK.

LEY.

"The Holy One."-BP. HORS

the God of Israel. What, however, will strike us as remarkable is, that he is not here described as coming in the clouds of heaven; but as leading a company of his people through the desert-and by the desert, emphatically named, is always meant the desert of Arabia—and as bringing them safe to Zion, where they enjoy everlasting felicity. A miraculous conducting of certain of the tribes of Israel through the desert, has before been intimated to be one of the wonders of the second advent, especially in Psalm the sixty-eighth. This Psalm, indeed, if. referred to, will show the exact connexion of the different scenes of this wonderful period: and prophecies yet to be considered, will again bring before us the miraculous passage of the desert.

CHAPTER II.

THE SECOND SERIES OF THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH, CHAPTER TO THE FORTY

FROM THE FORTIETH

EIGHTH INCLUSIVE.

INTRODUCTION.

We now enter upon a train of prophecies, most beautiful and most important, which all admit to relate, as to their ultimate objects, to Christ and his kingdom. Some, with Vitringa, apply the language-which will indeed with difficulty bear any other application-immediately to these great objects; others, with Bishop Lowth, suppose an allusion throughout to the restoration from the Babylonian captivity; considering that restoration as a type, or mystical allegory, of future spiritual mercies.

These spiritual mercies have been too generally understood, both by those who consider them as immediately referred to, and by those who suppose them remotely alluded to under the guise of allegory, respecting the

"Binas deprehendi hypotheses, quas docti viri in prophetia exponenda sectantur. Altera eam directè refert ad regnum Messiæ."

"Altera ad statum Ecclesiæ Judaicæ, liberandæ ex exilio Babylonico.""_" Priori sententiæ plerique subscribunt interpretes Christiani; veteres certe omnes, Euseb.

Hieron. Cyrill. Theod. Procop. et Lyranus quoque; ad quos eousque accedunt Judæi, ut ipsi quoque hanc prophetiam nostram, et plerasque sequentes ad tempora Messiæ referunt, et plane asserant, sermonem hic verti ad Ecclesiam Judaicam afflictam ut se habet in præsenti exilio."-VITRINGA.

present privileges and enjoyments of the faithful under the Gospel. Privileges and enjoyments great indeed, and, in the anticipation of Christian hope, all that prophecy has predicted; but still in themselves by no means agreeing with the plain language of prophecy: or, if a type and allegory be admitted, most unmeet to fulfil such type, most unlike the symbol of such allegory. For these Gospel privileges, in their fullest possession, as we have had occasion to remark before, leave a people "waiting for their Lord"-a people "groaning, being burdened." But the prophecies on which we enter, discover a people vindicated in the full enjoyment of promised glory; and their Redeemer manifested in power, and in the splendour of the divine majesty.

The events of the first advent often, indeed, come within the view of the prophetic vision, and something of an inceptive fulfilment may sometimes be admitted; but the main view of the prophecy extends itself far beyond. A conquering, not a suffering Messiah, with a triumphant, not an afflicted and dispersed church, is the grand theme of the whole prophecy, from the fortieth chapter to the end of the book.

This part of Isaiah, however, may conveniently be divided into two series. The one from this chapter to the forty-eighth is distinguished, as we have observed before, by the circumstance of its interweaving with the main subject some notices and predictions of the more immediate catastrophe of the Babylonian captivity, and the restoration of a remnant of Judah; not, I think, in the way of type and mystical allegory; but more in the nature of an episode, a side-way glance, as it were, from the main subject,-in the same manner as Assyria, and sometimes Babylon, has been the subject of prophecy in the