only excepted," the everlasting power of the Godhead is pledged for his support; "I have given thee for a covenant of the people;" or, perhaps, " for an everlasting covenant." That is, this holy Man was made the sacrificial medium through which the just and holy God became reconciled to his people for ever, and through which he pledged to them everlasting benefits. Thus he became "the Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant." He bought his sheep from the hand of justice, by the penal afflictions and the sentence of death, which he endured. The Gospel is the "New Testament," or "covenant in his blood;" for where a Testament is, there must of necessity be the death of the Testator of that propitiatory victim that ratifies the covenant. So that the whole mystery of redemption in the blood of Jesus, and the consequent assured peace and liberty of his purchased people, are all implied in the word covenant. In the subsequent portion of the visions of Isaiah, these mercies are foretold more at large. 66 The immediate effects of this giving the Messiah to be a covenant for the people," strange to say, would be chiefly seen among the Gentile nations; a light to lighten the Gentiles," in a certain measure he was to become, before he became "the glory of his people Israel." This prominent fact, in the prediction before us, began to have its fulfilment when St. Paul received his commission to go to the Gentiles, "to open their blind eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Christ." We see in this connexion a particular meaning in the foreboding of the next verse: 8. I am Jehovah, this is my name, And my glory will I not give to another, For it has turned out, that the children of these enlightened Gentiles, still retaining the form and institution of the Gospel, have lapsed into idolatry; and at this hour are giving the worship, due to God alone, to other mediators, and to images, and to pictures. The ninth verse appeals most forcibly to us, who have lived to see these things; and, by God's mercy, have been recovered from the general apostacy to hear his word: 9. The former predictions,' lo! they came to pass! And new things do I declare, Before they spring forth, I will cause you to know them. Former predictions are now clearly seen to have been fulfilled. We may call the present times the era of the understanding of the prophecies: and new things may daily be expected to be disclosed to the faithful people of God, "out of the Scriptures of truth:" and, surely, it is wonderful to read what follows! The people, whoever they may be, to whom these things pertain, are directed to welcome some great approaching events with songs of praise and among "the distant coasts," a people are distinguished as "descending on the sea in ships :" and as we have already seen in part, the parallel prophecies do uniformly point out some great maritime nation in the isles of the Gentiles, as ordained to be an instrument of some extraordinary providence of God in the last days. May the interpretation be to my country! 10. Sing ye to Jehovah a new song, His praise from the end of the earth: They that embark on the sea, and cover it,' And not only are these distant coasts, and this maritime people, to prepare these congratulatory shouts ; but the Deserts of Arabia are expressly pointed out as interested in the expected event: 11. Let the Desert cry aloud, and the cities thereof, The villages which Kedar inhabiteth. Let the inhabitants of the rock shout for joy, Let them shout aloud from the summit of the hills; 12. Let them ascribe glory to Jehovah, And publish his praises to the distant coasts. 2 Why Arabia is to unite in this new theme of praise with the distant coasts, or rather is to be the first announcer to them of the happy tidings, the parts of the prophecy already examined have explained. Through the Desert, the divine Shechinah, before its more public manifestation, conducts a people towards Zion, "as he did some time from the depth of the sea." * It is plain from what follows, that the event anticipated in the congratulatory songs of Arabia, and of the distant coasts, is the coming of the Messiah: not as that "meek and lowly" teacher, who "came unto his own, and his own received him not;" but as the avenger of 1 So Bishop Stock. Literally, Sinai, in the same country; to "and its fulness." 2 "The wilderness," Arabia Deserta; the rocks, ArabiaPetræa; the mountains, Paran, Horeb, which also belonged Kedar, a clan of Arabians, dwelling for the most part in tents." See Bishop Lowth's note. * Chap. xxxv., xl., xli. 17; and Psalm lxviii. his people's wrongs, charged to execute the judgment of the Almighty, as "the lion of the tribe of Judah :" 13. Jehovah shall come forth as a champion, And like a warrior shall he rouse 'his' ardour. He shall call out, and raise the shout! And upon his enemies he shall exert his strength. 14. Must I for ever be silent? Must I hold my peace, and contain myself? Must I cry out like a travailing woman? Must I stand appalled' while I pant with desire? 15. I will make desolate the hills and the mountains, And I will dry up all their herbage; And I will turn the rivers into arid tracts,' By these metaphors, no doubt, the change which the manifested wrath of Almighty God will make in the countries that are the seat of the enemy, is intended. It agrees with what was before predicted of the mystic Edom.* Again, we view HIM as the leader of his people, by that miraculous route that restores their happiest rem nant: 16. And I will lead the blind by a way they know not, By paths they know not will I conduct them. "bu, vulgo desolabo, sed incerta est verbi significatio activa; malim ergo exponere obstupesco; sequitur et hio pariter, i. e. miror."-SIM. Ler. Heb. 2 With Houbigant and Lowth, איים for ציים reading Chap. xxxiv. I will turn darkness into light before them, These things will I do for them, And I will not forsake them, This language seems to impress us with the idea, that the people who are the object of this guidance are themselves ignorant of the issue; and what follows below corroborates the conjecture. But, first, the confusion of the idolatrous foe, with whom we are well acquainted from former prophecies, is described: 17. They were turned backward, they were utterly confounded, Who trusted in the graven image: Who said to the molten image, "Ye are our Elohim." What follows is, I conceive, addressed to the people in the Desert" led by a way they knew not:"— 18. O ye deaf, hear ye, Look, ye blind, that ye may see; 19. Who is so blind as my servant, Or so deaf as he to whom I send my messengers?' Who is blind as he that is fully instructed,' And deaf as the servant of Jehovah? |