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vouchsafed to Israel is expressly said to be an everlasting salvation, and therefore cannot apply to the return of the remnant of Judah to Jerusalem by the permission of Cyrus.

17. Israel is saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation, They shall not be ashamed nor confounded for ever and

ever.

And what follows clearly marks the glorious reign of the promised Redeemer :

18. Surely thus hath Jehovah spoken:

The Creator of the heavens, He is the Elohim :

He that formed the earth and made it, He doth order it; Not for an empty waste did he create it; he formed it to be inhabited.

Does not this seem to imply that some great and beneficent changes are, at this period, to take place in the structure of this globe? "The Father of the age to come" will, indeed, "comfort us concerning the earth which the Lord hath cursed."

The following verse insists upon the perspicuity of the oracles of God, as contrasted probably with the mimicking efforts of the heathen diviners and oracular institutions:

I am Jehovah, and there is none else:

19. I have not spoken in secret,
In a dark place of the earth:
I said not to the seed of Jacob,
To no purpose inquire ye of me.
I, Jehovah, have spoken truly,
'I' have announced right things.

There are, we know, some things in the Scripture prophecies over which a designed obscurity dwells, till subsequent prophecies shall explain, or the event disclose; but then all will appear plain, accurate, and precise: and this should be an argument with us, to take the language of prophecy in the fullest and most obvious sense, to be careful not to confound the predicted wonders of the second advent with the figures and flowers of rhetoric.

Those of the nations that escape the terrible calamities of the last days are next addressed:

20. Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together, O ye escaped of the nations!

These are encouraged by a repeated admonition of the vanity of that idol worship which surrounds them :

They understand not, who bear about the wood of their images,

And pray to a god that cannot save.

They are again enjoined to give diligent heed to the sure word of prophecy, as though prophecy, explained by its inceptive fulfilment, and by other means, were destined to be a particular "demonstration of the Spirit" in the

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"God the Just One and the Saviour."-HORSLEY.

That this and the remainder of the oracle is to be applied to the Redeemer, Immanuel, the Saviour God, is abundantly clear from a comparison of the quotations of what follows in the New Testament:

22. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, For I am God, and there is none else.

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In Jesus Christ, then, behold a "Just God and a Saviour," or, God the Just One and " the Saviour," and there is none else. I and the Father are one;" and it is to HIM, as dying upon the cross for our sins, rising again for our justification, and sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, that all the ends of the earth are to look, that they may be saved.

23. By myself have I sworn,

A true decree hath

gone out of my mouth,
A word that shall not be revoked:

That to me every knee shall bow,
And every tongue shall swear.

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St. Paul will explain this verse: "For to this end Christ both died and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living."-" For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." He that speaks and pronounces the oath in this passage is therefore God the Son. The consequences of this " arising" of the "Elohim," "" that is to inherit all nations," are plainly told to us in the following verses:

24.." Verily, in Jehovah," shall it be said of me, "Is there vengeance and strength.

Unto him shall approach and be confounded

All that were incensed against him.

25. In Jehovah shall be vindicated, and shall glory, All the seed of Israel."

The day is now arrived when all shall know, and be compelled to own," verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, there is a God that judgeth the earth.” Jehovah, shall it be confessed by all, is now displaying the righteous acts of his vengeance with almighty power. His enemies and friends alike feel the effects of this; the one to their shame and confusion, the other to their everlasting joy.

SECTION VI.

Remarks on the Forty-sixth and two following Chapters.

THUS, after his wonted manner, has the Spirit of prophecy again led us to contemplate the consummation of the church's felicity in the erection of Messiah's throne. The prophetic lamp now scatters some rays on the more immediate concerns of the remnant of Judah in the Babylonian captivity, and in the restoration by Cyrus. ends with a very remarkable address to that portion of Judah which should at that era be restored to build their city, but not in such circumstances as themselves, perhaps, imagined.

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This fresh episode begins with our forty-sixth chapter. The idols of Babylon are compared to beasts of burden, that break down beneath their load, and are overtaken and seized, both themselves and those they are attempting

to carry off. On the other hand,* those that had relied on the support of the God of Israel should be carried through all their journey, and brought in safety to its end, and should obtain its object. The folly of these idol-worshippers is exposed, †―Israel are bid to reflect deeply upon it, and exercise their reason as men; and the event has shown, that rebellious and corrupt as they were in other respects, yet the Jewish church was completely cured of image-worship in the Babylonian captivity: insomuch, that in the prophecies of the latter days, which we have considered, this idolatry distinguishes, not the descendants of the patriarchs, but their opponents. The prophecies, it should seem from the remainder of the chapter, which had so expressly predicted the deliverance of the Jewish nation from their slavery by Cyrus," the ravenous bird from the east," and the execution of righteous vengeance upon their cruel persecutors, was so far blessed to the nation, that they never afterwards preferred the graven and molten images of their enemies, as they frequently had done before, to "the Lord God of their fathers,"

An apostrophe to the fallen Babylon, once so proud and so secure, and the cruel tyrant of afflicted Israel, occupies the forty-seventh chapter. The inefficacy of all the arts of the Chaldean astrologers and magicians to foretel or to remedy her approaching fate, is pointed out in the most beautiful and striking language. The forty-eighth chapter, which finishes this series of prophecy, is evidently addressed to that people who had been restored by Cyrus, according to the predictions above. They are addressed in the first verse as "Jacob" and

* Ver. 3. VOL. I.

↑ Ver. 5, 6, 7.

↑ Ver. 11.

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