former part of the book. From the forty-eighth chapter, however, we have entirely lost sight of Babylon; and the interwoven subject is more especially the transactions of the first advent, and of Gospel times. This circumstance distinguishes the last series of the prophecies of Isaiah, from the one we are now to consider.

SECTION I.

Remarks on the Fortieth Chapter.

THE prophecy, on which we now enter, opens with a consolatory message to Jerusalem, a congratulation that the time of her hard service, which she had been compelled to endure on account of her sins, is now ended — that her Lord had inflicted upon her chastisements, which he deemed equivalent to her offences.

1. COMFORT ye, comfort ye, my people, Shall your Elohim say.

2. Speak ye cheeringly' to Jerusalem, And proclaim unto her,

That her warfare is accomplished,

That the punishment of her iniquity is fulfilled: '

So Bishop Stock. Bishop Lowth has, " Speak animating words." Literally, "Speak to the heart."

"Niph. præt. ¬¬ acceptata, approbata est (pœna iniquitatis ejus), vel rectius soluta est (coll. conjug. transit Arab.et, contentum redidit, dedit quod pla

2

cerit; hinc apud Thalmudicos,

numeravit pecuniam. V. I. D. Michaelis in Suppl., p. 2262. Et in passivo solutus est."-SIMON.

"Magistri Judæorum vocem , hoc loco vertunt perficere, absolvere, et accipiunt non pro peccato, sed pro vy peccati pœna, ut sensus sit; absoluta perfectaque

That she hath received at the hand of Jehovah,
The retribution' for all her sin.

This, if the attending circumstances agreed, which they do not, might be supposed to relate to the termination of the seventy years captivity; but can by no means relate to the justifying of the ungodly, through the atonement in the blood of Christ. The Jerusalem here addressed had been the object of punishment, or chastisement, as a people for her sins: the punishment had not been remitted, but the time was arrived when the imposed penalty had been paid; which is the meaning of the phrase, "Her warfare," or "time of hard service, is accomplished." As, therefore, neither the events of the restoration from Babylon, nor of the first advent as they affected Jerusalem, correspond with the prophecy, we are compelled to fix our eyes on the already predicted era of her final restoration, and reconciliation to her covenanted God: and we shall find it to be the common description of prophecy, and of the Scriptures in general, that until that epocha, Jerusalem is in a state of affliction and desolation, both as to her" people," and her "land;" but that then, at length, the righteous discipline of God

has attained its object, "the consumption decreed is accomplished." The cup of trembling is taken from the hand of Jerusalem, and given into the hand of her enemies.

3. A voice crieth:

In the wilderness prepare ye the way of Jehovah ;
Level in the desert an highway for our Elohim.

4. Let every valley be raised,

And

every hill and eminence be lowered:

And let the projections be levelled,

And the rough places be made smooth:

5. And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together:

Surely the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.

The idea of a voice proclaiming an order for the preparation of a road through the desert," is taken," as Bishop Lowth observes, "from the practice of the Eastern monarchs, who, whenever they entered upon an expedition, or took a journey, especially through desert and unfrequented 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 meaning of the language before us, disrobed of its imagery, is, that Jerusalem is to prepare for the coming of her King. But why is a way to be prepared in the wilderness? Is this a mere ornamental circumstance of the metaphor? or does the Divine Presence approach in this direction to Zion, before its manifestation to all flesh? The last prophecy which we considered, and the parallel one of the sixty-eighth psalm, with other Scriptures, fully prove that a miraculous conducting of Israel,

*

Isaiah, xxxv.

or rather of some part of Israel, through the deserts of Arabia, like a second Exodus from Egypt, is predicted as part of the business of the second advent: and it appears again, Jerusalem's warfare is accomplished before they arrive.

We learn, moreover, that this passage of Jehovah through the desert, whomsoever it may immediately concern, issues in the manifestation of the divine glory to all the world: "And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." Now this cannot relate to the partial, and comparatively inglorious restoration of the Babylonian captives; nor can it find a complete fulfilment in the events of the first advent. The Messiah did, indeed, then visit his people, but not invested with the visible glory of the divine Majesty; but, in circumstances of the greatest humiliation, as "behoved" him according to the intimations of prophecy,." before he entered into his glory." But knowing from former prophecies, that he is to appear in his glory;—not, as at the first advent, to his three chosen disciples, on the mount of transfiguration, but to "all flesh :"- and that he, or the people under his immediate conduct, will then proceed through the wilderness towards Zion, can we hesitate to refer the prophetical description before us to that event?

Hence we are led to a necessary conclusion, that though the ministry of John the Baptist, as it announced and prepared the way for the first advent, is spoken of in the New Testament "as a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord," &c.: and he is said to have come" in the spirit and power of Elias:" yet that John's ministry was not what was ultimately intended by the voice in this passage, or by Elijah in Malachi; but that these symbols must have a more remote and fuller

accomplishment hereafter. The The analogy, indeed, between John's ministry and the office of " the Voice" here is clear. He prepared the way of the same Jehovah ; but He came not then in his glorious pomp through the wilderness therefore the voice must cry again. John, in no sense, "restored all things;" but Elijah, or whatever be intended by Elijah's coming, will. And he is to come, as we shall see hereafter, "before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes." But the gospel day was not the great and terrible day of the Lord, but the visitation of mercy. To return: a second proclamation is issued:

6. A voice saith, Cry;

And I said, what shall I cry?

"All flesh is grass,

And all its richness' as the flower of the field.

7. The grass hath withered, the flower hath fallen, Because the breath of Jehovah hath blown upon Surely the people is grass,

8. The grass hath withered, the flower hath fallen, But the word of our Elohim shall stand for ever."

it.

This proclamation is ever true, and always applicable to the glory of man. It was especially applicable to the circumstances of the passing glory of the world, as contrasted with the glorious and incorruptible produce of the Gospel, considered as the seed of life. To this effect St. Peter quotes the passage before us. The world, with all its glories, is but the short-lived display of the vegetable beauties of the opening spring, soon faded, withered, and

here evidently means the חסר 1

turgid luxuriancy, or rich exuberancy, of the vegetable world, and

what is analogous to this in the flourishing state of human nature.