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A great national celebration

 

The relief and gladness of the people of Jerusalem at their deliverance, and the startling nature of it, expressed itself in a heartfelt Te Deum. With such a king as Hezekiah leading the nation, it could hardly be otherwise. The king had his own personal thanksgiving to make for the astonishing recovery granted him from an incurable disease:

 

"The Lord was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of
our
life in the house of the Lord" (Is. 38:20).

 

The plural pronoun there neatly indicates a national celebration. Psalm 71:14-17, 21-24 is a splendid, but not isolated, example of how the king's gratitude was expressed.

 

But the national redemption called forth yet more copious expressions of praise from a people brought back from the jaws of death. In "Hezekiah the Great", p.82, it has been stated that such a formal large-scale act of thanksgiving is not actually recorded in Holy Scripture, but can safely be presumed. This is an error, as this quote from what is undeniably a Hezekiah psalm demonstrates:

 

"What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay
my vows
unto the Lord now
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Ps. 116:12-15).

 

So the king, whilst yet stricken and his city beleaguered, had not only prayed for help but had also made vows by which to acknowledge it. These vows, of sacrifices and gifts to the temple, were to be paid before a great assembly of "saints", the holy people.

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Familiar Scriptures more vivid than ever

 

Psalm 118, another Hezekiah psalm, has the same theme:

 

"Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord: this gate of the Lord into which the righteous (plural!) shall enter. I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner" (118:19-22).

 

The attention of readers is commended specially to Psalms 149,150 as ex­pressions of the nation's devotion and thankfulness for a seemingly impossible deliverance from captivity, oppression, and probable genocide. Psalm 47, with the same context, has the praise of God five times in two verses (v.6,7).

 

It is a mystery how Isaiah's delightful psalm (in ch.12) failed to gain acceptance in the complete psalter compiled by Hezekiah's men. Every detail in it is appropriate to the marvel of Jerusalem's escape from death:

 

"...thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: he also is become my salvation (allusion to Siloam and the deep well at Gihon, both inside the walls of the besieged city)...Sing unto the Lord, for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth (see 2 Chr. 32:23). Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee."

 

The lovely words of Isaiah 25 had their primary reference to this national gladness:

 

"It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him...we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation" (25:9).

 

and no wonder, for —

 

"Thou hast been...a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat (cp. the pillar of
cloud
and
fire
at the deliverance of Israel at the first Passover; Ex. 14:19,20), when the blast of the terrible ones (the dreaded Assyrians) is as a storm against the wall (of the city?)"

 

and next morning the people saw how the majesty of their God had

 

'swallowed up death in victory, and wiped away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people (so crudely spoken by Rabshakeh) he had taken away from off all the Land.' —

 

So of course they were glad, rejoicing in His salvation. And the song they sang in the land of Judah was this:

 

"We have a strong city: salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks (26:1).

 

No other wall, no other defences were needed. They had God as their strong salvation. So, for a time at any rate, their praise of Jehovah was loud and heartfelt.

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31. Gentile friendship

 

When Hezekiah was quite a youngster and only lately appointed to rule with his disreputable father, the prophet Isaiah looked forward to what he had been guided to anticipate — that when the new king came to the fulness of his powers, one very impressive outcome of his devotion to the Lord would be the diffusion of his godly influence among many neighbouring Gentile countries.

 

Those early expectations were strongly shot through with warm enthusiastic Messianic language (e.g. 2:1-4; 11:10; 14:1; 16:1,4), but there can be little doubt that the picture being presented was made all the more real and alluring by having the unexpected climax of Hezekiah's reign as its foundation.

 

The Babylon blunders

 

For most readers the most familiar instance of this growing Gentile friendship for a country and people existing in near-isolation among the more powerful neighbours ringing it round, is the inglorious story of the deputation which came to Jerusalem from Merodach-baladan of Babylon. This restless ambitious fellow, an ancestor of Nebuchadnezzar, was almost the only king in that area, besides Hezekiah, who had refused to knuckle under to Assyrian might.

After the wholesale slaughter of those invaders outside Jerusalem, it needed no very considerable political acumen to realise that a strong alliance between Babylon and Judaea should be able to hold Assyrian pride and expansion in check. The entire episode, with all its trappings of political manoeuvre and chicanery, was a faithless blot on Hezekiah's reign; yet (as has been shown in "Hezekiah the Great", ch.20) he was a better man for the experience. Thanks to Isaiah's unpalatable and austere rebuke he came out of it both wiser and greater:

 

"He feared the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented him of the evil he had pronounced against them" (Jer. 26:19);

 

in token of which Micah followed on his denunciation of judgment (3:12) with a repetition and expansion of one of Isaiah's most delectable promises of the Messianic kingdom (4:1-4).

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A different kind of friendship

 

That kind of experience did Hezekiah a lot of good. It taught him how better to react to the rising tide of Gentile eagerness to be friends with such a king who was apparently able to brush off the very worst impact of tough Assyrian aggression. Obsequious deputations appeared one after another in the court at Jerusalem, and lavish gifts accumulated there, to the astonishment of the king and the great delight of his entourage:

 

"The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory" (Is. 62:2).

 

"Nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God" i.e. because of His mighty acts (55:5).

 

"Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers (an allusion here to the expected birth of an heir to the throne?): they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth" (49:23).

 

All Hezekiah's better instincts came to the fore once again, and he made the most of the unique opportunities thus presented to him and his people to bear witness to these ignorant Gentiles concerning the might and power and faithfulness of the God of Israel:

 

"Thy
way...known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations...God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him" (Ps. 67:2,7).

 

"Say among the Gentiles that the Lord reigneth...he shall judge the people righteously" (Ps. 96:10).

 

"Let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared. He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth" (Ps. 76:11,12).

 

These quotations are all from Hezekiah psalms.

 

One prophecy after another mentions by name the kings and nations who now sought the favour of Jehovah. In the time of the Assyrian invasion, hoping that a hastily patched-up treaty of friendship with Sennacherib and a substantial addition to his army besieging Jerusalem would save them from the havoc of war in their own territories, not a few of them were the very states that had turned against Judah. But now the wheel had gone full circle:

 

"(Tyre's) merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord...for them that dwell before the Lord, to eat sufficiently, and for stately clothing" (Is. 23:18 RVm).

 

Learning about the God of Israel

 

Evidently Tyre had obsequiously asked that it might have the honour of supplying out of its mercantile prosperity a steady tribute of food and fine priestly garments for those who ministered in the temple to Hezekiah's God.

 

"The isles shall wait for his law...I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles...the villages that Kedar doth inhabit, the inhabitants of the rock (Petra in Edom)...let them give glory unto the Lord, and declare his praise in the islands" (Is. 42:4,6,11,12).

 

"The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans... shall come over unto thee...and they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee" (45:14).

 

What a contrast here with the earlier phase when in desperation the princes of Judah sent into Egypt long caravans loaded with the finest of gifts in the hope that Pharaoh might be persuaded to come to the rescue of Jerusalem (see ch. 14!) Now a defeated Pharaoh, trembling but lately at the prospect of inevitable Assyrian in­vasion, was happy to send yet more munificent gifts to his very good friend who had somehow saved the situation and sent the invaders scurrying homeward. "I will also give thee (Hezekiah) for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth...Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship because of the Lord that is faithful (i.e. he keeps his promises), even the Holy One of Israel" (49:6,7).

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Helping the refugees

 

Refugees who had scattered from Judah in all directions in a frantic effort to escape horror indescribable were now being freely offered every possible facility to return in comfort and assurance to their Judaean homes:

 

"I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles...and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders" (49:22);

 

what a lovely figure of speech!

 

But, out of all the richness that is in Isaiah, no prophecy can compare with chapter 60 in its vivid pre-Messianic picture of Messianic glory:

 

"The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising (the appearance of the Shekinah Glory when the hostile camp was brought to desolation; ch.27)...the forces (i.e. resources) of the Gentiles shall come unto thee...the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense, and shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar."

 

So not only Tyre but also various eastern peoples discerned that the best way to cultivate friendship with Hezekiah was to honour the God he worshipped.

 

Accordingly:

 

"The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee...and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel" (60:3,5-7,13,14).

 

Among the presents brought to Jerusalem were gifts of slaves, men chosen for their handsome appearance and dignified bearing. The God of Israel was to be honoured by having men of such fine physique to be His hewers of wood and drawers of water:

 

"The sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord...even them will I...make joyful in my house of prayer...for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people" (56:6,7).

 

A wonderful foreshadowing of a yet more profound truth! More than this, the noble purpose for which God called Israel to be His peculiar people (Ex. 19:5,6) — that they might be a missionary nation, taking to benighted Gentiles the burning message of a covenant-keeping Jehovah — now had a stirring fulfilment (at last!) whilst faithful Hezekiah's fifteen years ran their opportunist course:

 

"I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory...And I will send those that escape of them (of Israel) unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud...to Tubal, and Javan, and to the isles afar off...and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles" (66:18,19).

 

In this often-repeated emphasis on the superb God-given evangelistic opportunities ensuing from the sensational military cataclysm controlled by the destroying angel of the Lord, many diverse nations are mentioned as responding to a unique encouragement to learn divine truth, there is one highly significant omission —

 

Babylon!

 

Merodach-baladan's emissaries may have gone home congratulating themselves on a highly successful diplomatic mission. But in point of fact the Jerusalem treaty might just as well never have been signed.

 

Hezekiah had learned his lesson!

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32. Jubilee

 

Hezekiah, promised the healing of his leprosy, sought and got a sign concerning it. This sign, the shift of the shadow on the sun-dial, he personally witnessed before ever there was any healing at all. It was God's guarantee that on the third day he would go up to the house of the Lord.

 

Another special sign

 

Not long after this, worried by the intensification of the Assyrian threats, he went into the house of his God again, seeking reassurance, and got that as well — in the form of an emphatic promise that he and his people would enjoy the Year of Jubilee which was due to begin in six month's time;

 

"And this shall be a sign unto thee, ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same: and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof" (Is. 37:30).

 

On the face of it, it was impossible that the people, going back to their ravaged farms and homes would be able to survive through two full years, especially since they were already near to starving. But, as will be seen by and by, with the good hand of their God upon them it became easily, lavishly, possible to celebrate this Year of God's Grace in a way that had not been known since the time of David. There is, however, a problem: How could the experience of a Year of Jubilee be a sign that their enemy would be humiliated and swept out of their shattered land, for clearly the Jubilee must come after the destruction of the Assyrians, and not before it?

 

The explanation lies in the two-fold usage of the word "sign" ('oth). certainly in not a few places it signifies a sign or a guarantee of what is about to follow: e.g. the unique behaviour of the shadow on the sun-dial (38:22); and so also the sign of a virgin bearing a son called Immanuel (7:14). But also this word 'oth was used of a celebration or commemoration: the sabbath was a recurring token of the fact long before established that Israel are God's special people (Ex. 31:13; Ez. 20:12); and so also circumcision, administered to each successive generation: "It shall be a token of the covenant between me and you," God had said to Abraham (Gen. 17:11).

 

Thus Isaiah's reassuring message to Hezekiah really meant that the great deliverance from present hopelessness was to be regularly commemorated by the people each forty-ninth year thereafter. In point of fact Israel's faithlessness guaranteed that the Jubilee would not be so observed in gratitude to the God who had rescued their fathers in Hezekiah's time. However this was the intention, and was so expressed by Isaiah:

 

"Instead of the thorn (growing profusely in an uncultivated war-torn land) shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (55:13).

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Jubilee rejoicing

 

There are several allusions to this double year of rest from toil on the land:

 

"Her iniquity is pardoned, for (in proof of this) she hath received of the Lord's hand double (double grace, double forgiveness) for all her sins" (40:2).

 

Hence also the repetition:

 

"Comfort ye, comfort ye."

 

A later chapter has copious allusions to the lovely features of God's care and generosity in this celebration:

 

"For your shame (i.e. the shame you have endured), ye shall have double (blessing)...therefore in their land they shall possess the double (of Jubilee): everlasting joy shall be unto them" (61:7).

 

The context develops in matchless language a sequence of heart-warming promises of how this Jubilee with its unique features is to foreshadow the graciousness and gladness of the Messianic age:

 

"...to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound (this is the return of the immense numbers of captives taken off into Assyrian bondage), to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Jubilee, God's special year), and the day of vengeance of our God (in the summary obliteration of an invading army); to comfort (as in 40:1) all that mourn...beauty for ashes (the Glory of the Lord in­stead of burnt-out villages), the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (time in this glad year of leisure to rejoice before the Lord, instead of mourning helplessly over the havoc and desolation brought by war); that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified (everything that grew in this lush year grew "of itself" because of a fecundity imparted by the smile of God) (61:1-3).

 

The work gets done

 

There was, apparently, a special divine dispensation in the field of husbandry to make use of imported labour, either the willing help of neighbouring peoples or the less willing labour of prisoners taken in punitive expeditions (see ch.36):

 

"Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers"

 

This left the menfolk of Israel free to re-habilitate their families and to restore their shattered homesteads:

 

"They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations" (that is, the sad ruins that seemed past all restoring) (61:5,4).

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Copious rains, unexampled fertility

 

God did not work his deliverance by halves. In a couple of matchless years the entire country was brought back to its normal fruitfulness, prosperity, and order.

 

And the amazed people saw it all, from start to finish as a palpable act of God. "Hallelujah" was on the lips of everybody, from Hezekiah the Great to the humblest peasant.

 

One awestruck passage after another tells how God "opened the windows of heaven and poured out a blessing".

 

"I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the wild olive: I will set in the desert the fir tree and the plane tree and the cypress together: that they may
see
and
know
and
consider
and
understand
together, that
the hand of the Lord
hath done this" (41:18-20).

 

The Lord God was planting another garden eastward in another Eden,

 

"that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified" (61:3)

 

There is both literality and beautiful spiritual symbolism here.

 

Evidently their God took care to send copious and frequent rains, and these combining with the warm sunshine and the natural fertility of the soil caused self-sown trees and plants to burgeon forth with a vigour that had never before been experienced.

 

Even before these phenomenal seasons began, Isaiah interpreted his own Jubilee prophecy with an unsurpassed richness of language:

 

"Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal, and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear (i.e. plough) the ground shall eat clean provender...And there shall be rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter (of the Assyrians), when the towers fall (those intended for the attack on Jerusalem)" (30:23-25).

 

Judging by the caustic diatribes of strong disapproval interspersed with Isaiah's lyrics of gladness and paeans of praise, it is surely to be doubted whether the nation deserved this marvel of redemption and such an overflowing wealth of added blessings. Nevertheless the windows of heaven were opened wide — for the sake of the faithful remnant, nurtured by Isaiah and his fellow-prophets, and specially for the sake of Hezekiah, their Messianic king of such unconquerable faith and fervent religious zeal.

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33. The Return of the Captives

 

This is one of the most important chapters in this book. It aims at developing in detail (though not as fully and completely as it might), the prophetic pictures of a sensational restoration of the great multitude of prisoners who, according to the Taylor Prism, had been marched away to bondage in the land of the enemy.

 

The Jubilee commandment

 

The second impressive sign appointed for Hezekiah was a great Year of Jubilee at the time of the Assyrian defeat. Once the power of this is appreciated, it is easy to see that a further blessing — the release of the prisoners — would be necessary, for from ancient times God had appointed that this must be an integral part of Jubilee observance and practice:

 

"Ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land...ye shall return every man unto his possession" (Lev. 25:10).

This was re-enunciated for Hezekiah's encouragement when he was promised a Jubilee as a special token of God's salvation from the Assyrian locusts. Isaiah 37:30 specifies the Jubilee as an added gift of grace, and the next verse continues:

 

"And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward" (37:31).

 

This promise of the deliverance of the oppressed was a recurring element in Isaiah's prophecies even before the Assyrian invasion began:

 

"In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled...a nation meted out and trodden under foot...to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion" (18:7).

 

In this context it is the return of refugees from Egypt that is being foretold. But in a great many places it is the freeing of those already in captivity about which the prophet's anticipation specially rejoices:

 

"He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit...The Lord shall beat off (his fruit) from the channel of the River (Euphrates) unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel...A great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem" (27:6,12,13).

 

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads" (35:10).

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"Deutero-lsaiah"

 

However, it is in what is often called "Second-Isaiah" where descriptions of this astonishing restoration to farm and homestead abound. Indeed it is the copious detail of these "return" passages which has, rather perversely, become the main evidence (sic!) for the critical conclusion that Isaiah 40-66 should be dated in the time of Ezra-Nehemiah, or even later. This is a point of view bristling with difficulties which the modernist either ignores or else surmounts by a vigorous exercise of imagination.

 

On the other hand, when these disputed chapters (40-66) are received as authen­tic Isaiah and are studied against the background of the unique events of Hezekiah's reign a multitude of otherwise obscure details become luminous and the entire prophetic picture is then immensely satisfying. More on this in later chapters. The fact is that even if a determined attempt is made to pin Isaiah 40-66 on to a post-Babylonian-exile scenario, the discordances are so numerous and so sharp as to make the whole process an exercise in obscurity.

 

Let these eloquent restoration passages (which occur also in Hosea, Amos, Micah and the Psalms) be read as descriptions of the joy of the captives tasting Jubilee freedom and home-coming, and there is virtually no difficulty — except perhaps in the occasional overflow into an understandable enthusiasm for seeing this almost unbelievable experience as an inspiring (and inspired) foreshadowing of a yet greater Messianic deliverance.

 

Historical fact and Messianic foreshadowing

 

The greatest and most sustained description is to be found in Isaiah 49:

 

"Thou shalt say to the prisoners Go forth...They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them (see ch.32 on this). And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted...Thy children shall make haste (to come home): thy destroyers, and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee (Assyrians and their allies slink­ing away from Jerusalem). Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together...The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell (such an unexpected and copious influx that re-settling becomes a major problem). Thou shalt say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate...Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered, for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children" (49:9-11,17-18,20-21,25).

 

These verses are only extracts from a long and eloquent chapter. It is specially noteworthy here, and in the other passages to be quoted, that against all expecta­tion the return described is in prosperity and exuberant joy — a very different picture from that of uphill struggle and contention such as Ezra and his fellows encountered.

 

"I have called thee (Hezekiah)...and I will give thee for a covenant of the people...to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house" (42:6,7).

 

"Fear not, for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west: I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth: everyone that is called by my name" (43:5-7).

 

It is futile to attempt to apply these words to the end of the later Exile; but as a picture of returning captives and scattered refugees now saved for the sake of good king Hezekiah, it answers splendidly — and also provides a moving anticipation of the final re-gathering of scattered Israel in the day of Messiah's glory.

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Shear-jashub

 

The allusion to "my sons...my daughters" may have been specially heartfelt, for it has been suggested that Isaiah's own son Shear-jashub (= a remnant shall return) was surely prominent among those taken off into captivity. Certainly this would add special point to the prophecy centred in him (7:3).

 

Again, the often-encountered exposition of Isaiah 44,45 with reference to Cyrus bristles with incongruity and unanswered problems (see ch. 44(3)), but when applied to this Jubilee restoration, all runs smoothly:

 

"I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and will cut in sunder the bars of iron...He shall let go my captives, not for price, nor for reward" (44:2,13).

 

Micah has a very useful specific prophecy about the wholesale Sennacherib captivity (note 5:5,6):

 

"O daughter of Zion, now thou shalt go forth out of the city, and thou shalt go even unto Babylon" (4:10).

 

It is known that at this time the Assyrians had compelled a mass migration of people from recently-conquered Babylon to replace populations already transplanted from Northern Israel and other conquered countries (2 Kgs. 1 7:24). Those 200,000 Judaean captives Sennacherib boasted about were now "topping up" a depleted Babylon. Micah continues:

 

"There
shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies" (4:10).

 

Isaiah confirms all this:

 

"Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans...say ye, The Lord hath redeemed (a Jubilee word) his servant Jacob (how appropriate is this phrase for slave Israelites a long way from home; Gen. 31:38-41)" (48:20).

 

Another specially eloquent prophecy of this unlooked-for salvation comes in Isaiah 52:

 

"Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."

 

Shear-jashub would be a priest, like his father, and on that account may have been entrusted with the care of some of the holy vessels which had been handed over to Sennacherib's minions (2 Kgs. 18:15).

 

"For (the prophecy continues) ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward" (52:11,12).

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"Resurrection"

 

It was like the resurrection of a people dead and buried. Isaiah and Hosea used the figure, doubtless, because of its splendid appropriateness also, (in an even more vigorous sense), to the days of Messiah.

 

"Thou hast increased the nation...thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth...Thy dead men (these captives, "buried" in Babylon) shall live, together with my dead body (Shear-jashub?) shall they arise. Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in dust...!" (26:15,19).

 

"I will ransom them from the power of the grave (buried alive in Babylon). I have afflicted, and I will make ... (hence Paul's Messianic use of these words; 1 Cor. 15:55). O Death (this is an apostrophe to the Assyrian captor), I will be thy plagues (the angelic stroke; Is. 37:36); O Grave, I will be thy destructions. Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes (no going back on this divine decision)" (Hos. 13:14).

 

In the quite exceptional development reviewed in this chapter there lies, very probably, the explanation of the strange fact that whereas the Assyrian army was almost wiped out at Jerusalem, Sennacherib himself, one of the most beastly destroyers in ancient history, went unscathed for something like twenty years. This release of the captives could only have been at his behest. Then was that decision a tacit acknowledgement of the superior might of Jehovah over all the idols of Nineveh?

 

 

N.B. Other passages on this theme: Isaiah 42:16; 45:20; 27:12,13 (a reference to the Jubilee trumpet); 57:1,14; 56:8; 60:4,9; Psalm 85:1; 107:2-7.

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34. Fruitfulness and Prosperity

 

"If ye shall say, what shall we eat in the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years..." (Lev. 25:20,21).

 

This promise of heavenly care eased considerably the strain which the prospect of two years without cultivation would put on the faith of every conscientious Israelite. Because of the nerve-shattering ravages of invasion, Hezekiah's Jubilee proved a special test of faith. Had not the callous depredations of Assyrian armies created a starvation crisis? How could the nation hope to survive?

 

Nevertheless, before ever the promise of God was revealed of Assyrian defeat and Jubilee rejoicing (37:29,30), Isaiah anticipated with an almost unnatural confidence that the impending Jubilee would provide abundantly for the needs of a people "scattered and peeled" by the invasion:

 

"Is it not yet a very little while (the prophet knew beforehand how long to the forty-ninth year), and Lebanon (the wild open country) shall be turned into a fruitful field" (29:17).

 

Thereafter, in one charming passage after another, Isaiah described the lush blessedness of the holy year:

 

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; and the desert shall re­joice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing (i.e. this will be the reaction of the people living in the most arid areas)" (35:1,2).

 

The blessing of Heaven

 

The simple explanation of this paradox would be for the Land to experience a year (or maybe two years) of exceptional rainfall — not the short excessive downpours which are fairly normal in Israel, but regular moderate rains approximating more closely to the British type of climate. These, along with the bounteous endowment of sunshine commonplace in Mediterranean areas, would be a sure guarantee of exceptional growth even in the absence of tillage and careful farming. This is the ex­planation of a most extraordinary fruitfulness, as supplied by the prophet himself in a remarkable sequence of passages:

 

"In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water...grass with reeds and rushes" (Is. 35:6,7).

 

"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass" (32:20).

 

This latter passage seems to imply that because of the terribly run-down state of the country there was a special divine relaxing of the normal Jubilee commandment against systematic tillage (Lev. 25:11).

 

One of Hezekiah's Songs of Degrees is perhaps more specific on this:

 

"He that goeth forth and weepeth (because his farm is now a wilderness of destruction), bearing precious seed (because hardly any is left after the recent tribulation), shall doubtless come again with rejoicing (at harvest-time), bringing his sheaves with him" (Ps. 126:6).

 

Amos also has an entrancing picture of these days of unexpected plenty; and he too implies a relaxation of Jubilee law to allow of a normal agricultural programme:

 

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed...and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and in­habit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them" (Am. 9:13,14).

 

No wonder Amos used all this as a basis for a prophecy of the Messianic age.

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Lovely language literal and symbolic

 

Against this background of an incredibly beneficent Jubilee, how eloquent do the prophet's figures of speech become:

 

"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth...Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and in­stead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree" (55:10,11,13).

 

It was to be expected, of course, that in a countryside neglected as the Holy Land necessarily was because of invasion and the flight of the peasantry, thorns and briars would abound in heart-breaking profusion. Instead, the smile of the Lord en­couraged the fast growth of self-sown firs and maples. No wonder, then, that they were

 

"called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord,
that he might be glorified" (61:3).

 

"Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness...and let righteousness spring up together; /
the Lord have created it"
(45:8).

 

"Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever (no more Assyrian invasion), the branch of
my planting,
the work of my hands, that I may be glorified" (60:21).

 

The Day of Atonement

 

Yet another "undesigned coincidence" arises from the fact that the beginning of the Year of Jubilee was to be proclaimed on the day of Atonement (Lev. 25:9). Isaiah 58 is a chapter with plenty of allusions to the day of Atonement; but it also has this Jubilee language:

 

 

"And the Lord shall...satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they...shall build the old waste places (war's legacy of ruin)...and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (58:11,12).

 

When the Assyrians had been sent packing, there would be a fever of reconstruc­tion. Fired houses and ruined farm buildings would need immediate attention. Understandably, this theme — the re-building of shattered homes and burnt cities — has plenty of emphasis. The greater leisure afforded by the second year of agricultural "holiday" allowed for restoration to normality in record time.

 

"...that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof...He shall build my city and he shall let go my captives, not for price, nor for reward, saith the Lord of hosts" (44:26; 45:13).

 

These passages are commonly but quite mistakenly applied to Cyrus in the post-exilic period — an exposition that should have been abandoned long ago; see later exposition of Is. 44,45).

 

Out of a copious catalogue of other Jubilee passages, the following might usefully be considered: Is. 25:6; Joel 2:19; 3:18; Mic. 4:4; Ps. 67:6; 81:16; 85:12 (a day of Atonement psalm); 96:12; 107:35-38; 133:2,3; 147:8,9 (nearly all of these are demonstrably psalms of Hezekiah's time).

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35. Queen Hephzibah

 

It can readily be inferred from 2 Kings 21:1 that Hezekiah's wife was called Hephzibah (= my delight is in her). The probable details about her have been put together in "Hezekiah the Great", ch. 19.

 

So far as can be discovered, she was a Tyrian princess. The marriage took place in the year of Jubilee, and two years later her son Manasseh was born. Since it was normal for kings of Judah to marry very early, it is somewhat surprising that Hezekiah's marriage should not take place until he was 39. There are two possible explanations of this unusual phenomenon.

 

It may be that betrothal took place a good while earlier but that the king's developing disease hindered the actual marriage. It could be that his queen, finding herself about to be given in marriage to a husband with such affliction, was loth to ratify their union by a formal marriage ceremony. In other words, without the necessary modern legalities she declared herself divorced. The marriage was at an end. Tyrian princesses were an imperious lot. So such an action would not be out of character. In Judaea this would be regarded as a divorce, for betrothal had all the binding force of a marriage (cp. Mt. 1:18,19).

 

Or, very differently, it may be that it was the king who insisted on divorcing her. For, in spite of the "auld alliance" between Tyre and Jerusalem, in the Assyrian war Tyre and Zidon came in on the side of the invader (Ps. 83:7; 48:7;ls. 23:8,9,11; and ). In such circumstances it would hardly be unnatural for a disgusted Hezekiah to send his Gentile wife away.

 

Already one vivid figure of speech after another in Isaiah has been shown to be rooted in actual happenings at the time he was prophesying; e.g. the waters of Siloam, all the features of the Jubilee were both factual and also figurative, the whirl­wind, fire and storm at the wreck of the Assyrian camp, the disease of the king, Shear-jashub in captivity, and the remarkable post-war growth of Gentile friendship. Then what was it that led the prophet to use these words?:

 

"Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? ... for your transgressions is your mother put away" (50:1).

 

It is surely not unlikely that some important divorce, known to all the nation, provoked the use of this figure.

 

Later on, Hezekiah's restoration to health and to his kingdom, and the sensational rout of the invincible Assyrian army doubtless made desirable a patching up of the friendship between Tyre and Judaea. Thus would take place a fresh and finer wedding ceremony, one which finds its way into Isaiah's prophecies in several places:

 

"He (the Lord) hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels" (61:10).

 

And the wedding itself became an acted parable of redemption,

 

"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate, but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married (to Him). For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (62:4,5).

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Another Isaiah prophecy is much more specific:

 

"Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate (Hephzibah the divorcee) than the children of the married wife (Hephzibah when at first queen in Jerusalem)...For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused" (54:1,6).

 

This is strange language to use, unless Isaiah had some strong contemporary reason for such a drastic figure of speech.

 

Hezekiah's willingness to resume the marriage was, of course, linked with his great eagerness to be assured of the continuation of the royal line without break until the promised Messiah should come (2 Sam. 7:12-16). Hence, then, the further promise:

 

"I will give thee the sure mercies of David" (55:3; Acts 13:34),

 

the fulfilment of the great Promise.

 

The king's psalm of thanksgiving on recovery from his sickness mentions the same element of anxiety, now set at rest:

 

"The father to the children shall make known thy truth" (38:19; see "Hezekiah the Great", ch. 12).

 

The Song of Degrees, Psalm 132:11,12, has the same emphasis:

 

One psalm after another has this happy anticipation of blessing in the royal family:

 

"He (the Lord) maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children" (Ps. 113:9).

 

"The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children" (Ps. 115:14).

 

So it may be safely inferred that Manasseh was only the first of a copious family.

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Two Songs of Degrees develop this theme:

 

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man so are the children of thy youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them" (Ps. 127:3-5).

 

"Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table...Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel" (Ps. 128:3,6; see "Songs of Degrees", Geo. Booker, for fuller details).

 

The Wedding Ode has a delightful allusion which helps to explain why the firstborn of this marriage was called Manasseh:

 

"Hearken, O daughter, and consider...
forget also thine own people,
and thy father's house" (Ps. 45:10).

 

Not only do these words look back to the Gentile bride described in Deuteronomy 21:13, but also Manasseh means "causing to forget". (For the same reason Joseph's wife Asenath was happy to have her firstborn named "Causing to forget thine own people").

 

The family has become a parable. This is specially true in a lengthy passage in Isaiah 66:

 

"Rejoice greatly with her (Jerusalem), all you who mourn over her.

For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts;

you will drink deeply

and delight in her overflowing abundance ...

you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.

as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you"

(66:11-13 NIV).

 

But again it has to be emphasized that these prophecies about Hezekiah and Hephzibah, as all else that is written in Isaiah, have a wide-ranging Messianic meaning, which, necessarily, has been kept in the background in this book. But the student who would dare to assert that the Messianic reference is not there and was not intended, has wandered a long way from the essential truth of these Holy Scriptures.

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36. The State of the Nation

 

All was set fair, for a wonderful fifteen years at least. Judah had its best king for long generations. He had at his side a fine capable team of godly advisers. The wonders of a wonderful Year of Jubilee had lifted the nation out of the shambles of war, and had blessed them with an unbelievable era of prosperity coming in like a fast-flowing tide. All Judah's Gentile neighbours were disposed to be friendly, that is, except for the Edomites, ever determined to nurse a quarrelsome vengeful spirit. But a punitive expedition, designed to remind these implacable brethren that their treachery in the time of Sennacherib's invasion was not forgotten, had cowed them into good behaviour (see commentary on Is. 63:1-6).

 

Guiding his policies, Hezekiah had a team of half a dozen prophets of the Lord, any one of whom was fit to be a world figure. So the king could surely look with confidence for a new reformation, like his dramatic year of accession, only better. The old hangover from the sordid reign of disreputable Ahaz could be considered a thing of the past. A wonderful new order was now to rise up out of the ashes of their battered war-torn world.

 

 

A New Creation

 

"Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Is. 65:17,18).

 

Everybody knew that Isaiah meant these words to inspire the people concerning the golden glory of Messiah's reign. But everybody knew, as well, that Isaiah meant his fine poetic phrases to goad the people into a more intense dedication fit for Messiah's coming. And to make this the more evident, he talked in terms of the feverish and happy rehabilitation which was going on to bring in a "new heavens and earth" worthy of their good king — a healthy godly people, busy with their building and planting, and rejoicing in what was almost a Paradise restored.

 

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner (all this describes the end of the old disreputable order): but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished" (51:6).

 

This was the target — a new reformation that would sweep away all abuses and that would bring their good king's piety and godly zeal into every home in the land.

 

"I have put my words in thy mouth (Isaiah's or Hezekiah's mouth?) and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion (the temple and its devotees), Thou art my people" (51:16).

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To achieve all this there must be exhortation of a very forthright but attractive character:

 

"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (55:6,7).

 

"Where is the house that ye build unto me?...To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word" (66:1,2).

 

"And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken" (62:12).

 

To describe this fresh movement towards re-dedication amongst a thankful regenerated people, Isaiah constantly talked in terms of a New Creation:

 

"I am the Lord, that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself" (44:24).

 

"Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded" (45:11,12).

 

One example after another of this sort makes clear that all this is double-purpose language — not only emphasizing the might of Jehovah, the great Creator, but also setting out His present and future Purpose to fashion a New Creation out of men and women new-born in His family of the redeemed. Those who fail to read this phase of the prophet's message rob themselves of a great deal of its uplifting stimulation.

 

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a gar­ment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner (this is a vivid way of describing the passing of the old unspiritual order; cp. 50:9): but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished" (51:6). "Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together" (48:1 2,13; see also 45:18; Ps. 102:25-28 — a Hezekiah psalm).

 

A "Born-Again" Israel

 

Those identifying themselves with this new holiness movement became a new and separate people whose devotion to Jehovah was well-marked by their devotion to the temple:

 

"Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the ministers of our God" (61:6).

 

And this was the expression of their faith and devotion:

 

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me...with the robe of righteousness..." (61:10).

 

"One shall say, I am the Lord's: and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand: The Lord's' (the phrasing is just like that found by archaeologists on contemporary items of property); and shall surname himself by the name of Israel" (44:5).

 

The student who concentrates on this aspect of Isaiah's message finds it vigorous, heady, exhilarating stuff.

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The old nature also

 

But the quality of human nature, and especially of human nature in Israel, guaranteed also a national trend in a very different direction. It was ever thus. In the Bible story there are never sheep without goats. He calls His own sheep by name. But He has also curt words of reprobation for the rest of the flock, the wayward and the undisciplined.

 

And so it was in Hezekiah's post-war reformation. So Isaiah had not only to inspire and direct; he must also, in duty bound, castigate and censure the others — the thankless and self-centred, the irreligious and the apostate. There were plenty who went along with the new surge of religious spirit just because that was the thing to do. "Hypocrisy is the compliment that vice pays to virtue" — and in this generation there was no lack of either.

 

"Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel...which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness..." (48:1).

 

"I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously (as the Assyrians had done, making their empty promises; see ch. 13); thou wast called a transgressor from the womb" (48:8) —

 

this with allusion to the name of Jacob the grabber.

 

On the Day of Atonement especially, these went through the motions of repentance and devotion (as they do to this day), but it was all a matter of form and not at all of the inner spirit:

 

'Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet (blown on the Day of Atonement); shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways...they take delight in approaching to God" (58:1,2).

 

There is no stiffer irony to be found in Holy Scripture than this. The same chapter goes on to catalogue the shouting contrasts between the gross abuses they blithely tolerated and the spirit of the New Creation to which they were called. But it was effort wasted, for:

 

"Thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass" (48:4).

 

Isaiah could achieve little, for many of the religious leaders were on the wrong side:

 

"His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark: sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber...shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain" (56:10,11).

 

"Thy first father (Jacob) sinned, and thy teachers (today) have transgressed against me. Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary. " (43:27,28).

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A reformed nation in decay

 

Formality took over; the spirit was dead. Let Isaiah speak out never so bluntly (and in this he was reinforced even more vigorously by his contemporary, Micah the Morasthite), there was little heed given. It was as much as he could do to hold his faithful remnant together.

 

"O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river" (48:18).

 

But these, the formalists and the worldly, raised in defence a barrage of derision against the pietists. Isaiah himself was their special target:

 

"They make a man an offender for a word (because of the Word?), and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate" (29:21).

 

Idolatry became fashionable again. It was quite the done thing to attend the temple services and then go off to the high places for a religious kick of a different sort:

 

"I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face, that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth in­cense upon altars of brick" (65:2,3).

 

Nor did they stop at such perversions, but went off into religious abuses of an abominable kind (v.4). And yet they appropriated to themselves a religious aura rather like the king's new clothes:

 

"Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day" (65:5).

 

There was evidently a craze for gambling also — all done in the name of religion, with special devotion to the gods of Good Luck and Destiny (65:11 RV).

 

This social decay showed itself in a variety of other ways:

 

"Your iniquities have separated between you and your God...your hands are defiled with blood...your lips have spoken lies...None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth" (59:2-4).

 

This was only the beginning of a long diatribe. Micah joined in with equal vigour. But the forces of decay were too strong. Once again the nation was on the slippery slope.

 

"We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags...there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee; for thou hast hid thy face from us...because of our iniquities" (64:6,7).

 

These developments help to explain why the histories have so little to say about the second half of Hezekiah's reign. What might well have been a fine Messianic kingdom in embryo petered out in empty religion and increasing iniquity. And Hezekiah, Isaiah, Micah, Joel, Habakkuk, for all their reforming zeal, had little strength against the creeping decadence.

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The end of two good men

 

So Hezekiah died an unhappy man, hoping — but not too confidently — that in time his son would emulate his own honouring of Jehovah. But alas, Manasseh means Forgetting.

 

And Isaiah lived on into that evil time and was chased by the boy king's KGB. They sawed him in two (Heb. 11:37). And more recently their successors have sawed his message in two, but still it lives, and inspires.

 

And Hezekiah sleeps with his fathers. Yet he too lives on, and he too inspires.

 

IN MEMORIAM

REGIS

ET VATIS

DUI HOMINES BONI

DEO GRATIAS

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ISAIAH

PART TWO

 

 

ISAIAH

 

Chapter 1

 

1:1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

 

Very little is known about Isaiah the man. The rabbis say his father Amoz was brother to king Amaziah, but this is only a guess (those rabbis were great at making vague possibilities into certainties). It can be definitely inferred from 6:1 that Isaiah was a priest; he was also a statesman with ready access to the king and to the high priest (8:1). He lived in "the valley of vision" (the prophets' quarter), with a wife called "the prophetess" (8:3); this does not mean "Mrs. Prophet", but that she too prophesied. This fact may explain certain remarkable characteristics of "Second Isaiah" — but that is another story. Isaiah had two sons, Shear-jashub (7:3) and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (8:1). There is a Jewish tradition that in later years, pursued by Manasseh's men, Isaiah took refuge in a hollow tree. Whereupon the king had the tree sawn through, and the prophet as well. This seems to be confirmed by Hebrews 11:37. Modern critics have lent a hand, and have sawn Isaiah's prophecy in two. This exposition will shew little sympathy with such "Deutero-lsaiah" ideas.

 

The chronology of Isaiah's time is in chaos. Those who take the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah as strictly sequential make Isaiah's prophesying about 65 years. But Uzziah's immense reign (very much of it as a leper, 2 Chr. 26:3,21), and other hints, suggest regencies, something after this pattern:

 

__________________________Uzziah

 

____________Jotham

 

_________________Ahaz

 

Hezekiah____________________________________________________

 

If this is correct, those 65 years shrink to about 45.

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It is not at all certain whether Isaiah's prophecies are in chronological order. Chapter 6 bears all the signs of being the prophet's initial commission, a fairly close parallel to Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 1,2; and Is. 2:1 follows on very suitably.

 

If this is accepted, then the pattern is probably, but not certainly, this:

 

Ch. 6: lsaiah's initiation as a prophet

2-5:Uzziah-Jotham

7-14: Ahaz

15-17: Hezekiah

 

But what about chapter 1?

 

One suggestion is that it was written last of all; and this idea finds support in a number of verbal resemblances with the last group of chapters, e.g.:

 

v.1a = 65:17

v.4 (the Holy One of Israel) seems to demand that it be preceded by 6:3; all the other occurrences look back to that verse.

v.6 seems to call for association with the leprosy allusions in ch. 53.

v.11,13 = 66:3

v.17 = 58:6,7

v.18 = 55:7

v.20 = 65:3; 66:17

v.31 = 66:24

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Yet over against these considerations there is the picture of a Land devastated by war (v.7), with Jerusalem besieged but saved (v.8) and turned back to righteousness (v.26). All these details are apparently an anticipation of the bad and good times of Hezekiah's reign.

 

Then precisely where chapter 1 belongs is not easy to decide; ch. 15,16 (see note on 16:13) could well be an older prophecy deliberately included here by Isaiah. It is not possible to be sure about these conclusions.

 

Why no mention of Manasseh in ch. 1:1? Perhaps because persecution put an end to further prophesying as soon as Hezekiah died. But there is some reason to believe that even ch. 40-66 belong to the earliest part of Hezekiah's last 15 years. So Isaiah may have ceased prophesying 10 years or so before the great king's death.

 

He prophesied "concerning Judah and Jerusalem." But a quick survey reveals that not a few of his prophecies are about other nations — Babylon, Egypt, Moab, Syria, Tyre, Edom. It is all the same. These pronouncements, however Gentile they may appear to be in subject, are only spoken concerning the marked impact these nations made on Israel. Indeed, in such chapters as 13 and 17 it will be seen in due course that even the burden of Babylon or of Damascus is not so much about them, as about God's people.

 

There is one small problem here to which no really satisfactory answer appears to be forthcoming — that whereas this introductory verse says "Judah and Jerusalem", thereafter (e.g. in 3:1,8; 5:3) the names are reversed. The modernist says that this proves that 1:1 was a heading added by a later editor. Perhaps! But one could wish for a better explanation than that.

 

The entire set of prophecies is referred to as "the Vision of Isaiah...which he saw;" this is clear from 2 Chr. 32:32 where the historical chapters (36-39) are in­cluded in "the vision of Isaiah." Yet apart from the outstanding experience described in chapter 6 there are no visions of the kind seen by Daniel or Zechariah. It would seem possible that "vision" had come to be used to describe any prophetic communication, as in 13:1 or Obad. 1 or Hab. 2:3, where vision as such was not involved. The earlier word for "prophet" was "seer", but this fell into disuse, perhaps because it was taken over (and so became discredited) by clairvoyants (see 8:19). The more usual word for prophet: navi', is possibly connected with a verb meaning "to touch", as signifying a man touched by the finger of God (6:7).

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