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Appendix



Is. 42 Hebrew

Is. 42 LXX


Mt. 12


1.

Behold my servant

Jacob is my servant

18.

Behold my servant

A


whom I uphold

I will help him


whom I have chosen

B


mine elect (RV chosen)

Israel is my chosen


my beloved

C


in whom my soul

my soul has


in whom my soul is



delighteth

ac­cepted him


well pleased

D


I have put my spirit

I have put my spirit


I will put my spirit



upon him

upon him


upon him

E



Is. 42 Hebrew

Is. 42 LXX


Mt. 12



He shall bring forth

He shall bring forth


and he shall show

F


judgment to the Gentiles

judgement to the


judgment to the



Gentiles

Gentiles


Gentiles

G


He shall not cry

He shall not cry

19.

He shall not strive

H

2.

nor lift up

nor lift up


nor cry

J


nor cause his voice to






be

nor shall his voice


neither shall any




be


man

K


heard in the street

heard without


hear his voice in the






streets


3.

A bruised reed shall he

A bruised reed shall





not break

he not break

20.

A bruised reed shall






he not break

M


the smoking flax shall

smoking flax shall he


and smoking flax



he not quench

not quench


shall he not quench

N


he shall bring forth

but he shall bring


till he send forth

P


judgment in truth

forth judgment to


judgment unto




truth


victory

Q

4.

He shall not fail (be

he shall shine out



R


broken)






nor be discouraged

and shall not be





(be quenched)

broken





till he have set judg­ment

until he have set





in the earth

judgment on the






earth





and the isles shall wait

and in his name shall


and in his name shall



for his law

the Gentiles hope


the Gentiles hope

S

 

Notes:

 

A. Mt. follows Heb.

B. Mt: "chosen" (hairetizŏ) is a fairly close equivalent of Heb: "uphold" (hazaq)

C. "Beloved" is neither Heb. nor LXX. Allusion to "David my servant (Ps. 89:19,20)?

D. Here all three verbs are regularly associated with the idea of an accep­table sacrifice.

E. Mt.'s change of tense is mystifying here. A perfect would have been splendidly appropriate to the context. Intention to emphasize a future showing forth of judgment to these Jewish "Gentiles" (12:14; 22:15) and their council of judgement?

H. "Strive" in the sense of public debate.

J. "Cry" is a good equivalent of "lift up (the voice)".

L. Why Matthew's switch from singular to plural?

M,N. All at once, complete coincidence of reading!

P. Ekballô here instead of ekpherō, to suggest the casting off of Israelitish adversaries?

Q. Truth' means God's Covenant (B.S. 17.15).

'Victory' indicates Promise fulfilled.

R. Those three lines repeat MNPQ, hence the omission?

S. All at once, after doing without LXX all this time, here it is, verbatim. "Gentiles" may be said to be necessary to elucidate the idiom. "Hope" is OK as equivalent of "wait for", and it delightfully suggests Gen­tiles espousing the Hope of Israel.

"In his name" is desirable to avoid a mistaken inference from the word "torah".

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42 (2). Tribulation and Deliverance (v.10-25)

 

When the development of ideas in this section is analysed it appears, to twentieth century thinking, back to front:

 

a. v.10-13: The New Song of praise to God for what He has done.

b. v. 14-16 describe the deliverance.

c. v. 17-25 explain the tribulation which preceded the deliverance.

 

Isaiah's own day

 

Once again the assembly of ideas and the phraseology in which they are clothed require reference to God's mighty acts on behalf of His people in the reign of Hezekiah.

 

The "New Song" is appropriate to celebrate a new kind of deliverance such as was witnessed in the destruction of the Assyrians. Its call to involve all nations round about in the praise of God found response in Gentile awe and respect for Jehovah and His temple in Jerusalem (see on v.4).

 

At that time the Lord did "go forth as a mighty man;" He did "prevail against His enemies." It is noteworthy that these words twice echo the Hebrew word gibbor (cp. "Mighty God"; 9:6). But here there seems to be intention to suggest the name Gabriel, the angel of the Lord who "went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians" (37:36).

 

The mighty overflowing River Euphrates, that apt symbol of Assyrian expansion (8:7,8), was bidden dry up: "I will make the great river (intensive plural!) islands, and I will dry up the pools" (v.15).

 

The hundreds of thousands of Hebrew captives sent off to Nineveh and Babylon, a far greater captivity than Nebuchadnezzar's, are described in vivid terms:

 

"This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes (round­ed up and herded into caves ready for deportation?), and they are hid in a prison house*: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, restore" (v.22; the Hebrew text echoes Maher-shalal-hash-baz; 8:1).

 

It was the Lord who "gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers" (v.34), and this because "they would not walk in his ways." Fine as Hezekiah's reformation had been, it had touched only a fraction of the nation. "Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle" (v. 25).

 

However, the great destruction at Jerusalem meant release of the captives. God "brought the blind by a way that they knew not...He made darkness light before them, and crooked places straight" (v. 16).

 

It also meant the vindication of the True God against the taunts of those who served the idols of Assyria: "They shall be turned back (literally!), they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images" (v. 17).

 


* The confident attempts of the modernists to assign this prophecy to the time of Cyrus fall down in the face of passages like this. At the time of Cyrus the Jews of Babylon were settled and prosperous.

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A new Exodus deliverance

 

Now it is possible to appreciate why this section of the prophecy (like several others which follow; e.g. 43:1-4, 15-21; 63:9-14) looks back so frequently to the exodus of Israel from Egypt. In the prophet's own day there was a comparable deliverance. Some of these details are worth listing.

 

a. "The Lord...a man of war." This is Ex. 15:3, the song of Moses.

b. "Make the rivers islands...dry up the pools" (v. 15) suggests the crossing of the Red Sea.

c. "a way that they knew not...paths they have not known" (v. 16) — Israel's way through the waters and in the wilderness.

d. "Make darkness light before them" (v.16) — the pillar of cloud and fire.

e. "They that trust in graven images ashamed" (v.17) — the golden calf.

f. "Who is blind as he that is at covenant peace with me?" (v. 19) — God's covenant with an unspiritual people.

g. "He will magnify the Law (given at Sinai), and make it honourable" (v.21).

 

The Last Days

 

Like nearly everything that Isaiah has to say, this prophecy ranges forward to another fulfilment when Israel, still deaf and blind, will once again be a people "robbed and spoiled." Again they will be dragged into captivity (cp. Zech. 14:2; Joel 3:1-6; Dt. 28:68; Is. 19:18,20), and their land given for a spoil to the robbers; and all this because "they do not walk in God's ways, neither are they obedient to his law." Again they will be "snared in holes and...hid in prison houses;" and with no-one to bring rescue: "None to deliver...none to say, Restore.*"

 

But at such a time, when Israel's hope is lost, when they have come (as it would seem) to the end of the road, "the Lord shall go forth as a mighty man...he shall prevail against his enemies...I will bring the blind by a way that they know not...I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.** These things will / do unto them, and not forsake them."

 

The Exodus deliverance under Moses, and the great salvation wrought in the time of Hezekiah will alike pale into insignificance compared with this latest and last great work by God on behalf of His people. It is all written "for the time to come" (v.23); this is a cipher phrase with more than one meaning, for it is "the Spirit of God" written in reverse (s.w. 37:7).

 

In that time redeemed Israel will "sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise unto the ends of the earth." Then all the nations will take up this glad theme (v.10-12), "giving glory unto the Lord, and declaring his praise in the islands." Thus, at last, after God has "long time holden his peace," Israel's calling as "a kingdom of priests" (Ex. 19:6) to educate the nations on God's behalf will be realised, and for this the New Israel will be best qualified of all.

 

The Gospel

 

The early church, in their day, saw intense meaning in the prophet's trenchant phrasing. Jesus intended that they should. He enacted specially impressive miracles on blind and deaf (Mk. 7:31 -37; 8:22-26), parables which most men were too blind and deaf to make sense of, because Israel were "given to the robbers" (v.24; LXX delightfully suggests "those who lord it over them.") With "ears opened, they heard not" (v.20) — the man who was healed disobeyed his instructions (Mk. 7:34,36).

 

Jesus taught his disciples to see the pangs of his suffering as like "the cry of a travailing woman" (v.14; Jn. 16:21) — the birth of a New Creation. It is a figure which will have new meaning in days to come (Mt. 24:8 Gk.).

 


* Verse 25 seems to anticipate Lk. 19:43,44.

** ln 40:4 Israel were bidden do this. But now God does it for them.

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43 (1). "Ye are My Witnesses" (v.1-21)

 

The previous section of the prophecy concluded with a picture of the tribulations of the Jacob-Israel people (42:24) to whose rescue God had come in Isaiah's day. Here now is the complimentary picture of deliverance — the marvels of the great transformation in the nation's status and prosperity brought about by God. Yet, paradoxically enough, though with evident truth, there are censures of the chosen people's spiritual limitations.

 

It is possible that the change of pronouns — he, him, in 42:25, thee, thou, in v.1 — indicates a temporary change of subject from the Jacob-Israel nation to the Jacob-Israel who was their leader and representative. "Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel" — on which W.A. Wordsworth succinctly comments: "Jacob the clay, Israel the vessel formed."

 

This is the man who has already been exhorted more than once: "Fear not...I have called thee by thy name" (41:10,14; 42:6).

 

This Hezekiah lived closer to God than any king since David. From birth he was named as the prototype Immanuel (7:14), and his royal name carried the assurance of divine help. Therefore: "Fear not...thou art mine."

 

A New Exodus

 

Indeed, with the horrors of the Assyrian invasion there had been good grounds for fear. But now quietness and assurance, "for I have redeemed thee." It was in this way that God foretold His saving of Israel from Egypt: "I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm" (Ex. 6:6).

 

This echo of redemption phraseology is the first here of a long series of allusions back to the great deliverance in the time of Moses.

 

"When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire (the pillar of fire?), thou shalt not be burned" (v.2).

 

"The Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour" (v.3; Heb. moshiyah, echoing mosheh, the name of Moses).

 

"I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee" (v.3).

 

"I, even I, am the Lord" (this is Ex. 3:15).

 

"Your redeemer (from Egypt; Ex. 6:6), the Holy One of Israel (at Sinai)" (v.14).

 

"The Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; which bringeth forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise (cp. 26:14): they are extinct, they are quenched as tow" (v. 16,1 7). Sennacherib's army shared the fate of Pharaoh's.

 

"I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen" (v.20).

 

"I am...the Creator of Israel, your king" (v.15; Ex. 15:18).

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Captives and Fugitives

 

The obvious purpose behind these allusions is to proclaim a new deliverance from bondage comparable to the Exodus.

 

Sennacherib's inscription on the Taylor Prism tells of 200,000 captives rounded up. This deportation of populations was a policy first introduced by Tiglath-pileser III (e.g. northern Israel). Now Sennacherib was following the same pattern. But after the destruction of his army and the devastation of his camp before Jerusalem, these captives became a positive threat to the conqueror's own personal survival, so they were promptly sent back home again from Babylon*. There is also a probability that as the shattered disorganized Assyrian army trailed homewards many of them were taken prisoner by men of Israel operating as guerillas in the hills. There would later be large-scale exchanges of these prisoners. Isaiah's word "Redeemer" is that which is used repeatedly in Lev. 25 for purchasing the freedom of a bondslave.

 

Thus the return of multitudes of captives, who had been given up for lost, would have all the appearance of another Exodus.

 

Even the promise of "waters in the desert" probably came literally true, for God gave His people the rich blessings of a Year of Jubilee (2 Kgs. 19:29,30) — and the obvious way to bestow these was through a season of extra-copious rainfall (44:3; 48:21; 49:10; 55:10; 58:11; 66:12.)

 

It may be also, that the exceptional rains made the wilderness tribes unusually prosperous and hospitable instead of being hostile and predatory. "The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness." The language is obviously figurative.

 

It may be taken as certain that many fugitives had fled to other neighbouring countries, anywhere to get away from these fierce pitiless Assyrians; and they too would come streaming back as soon as the news reached them of the rout of the marauders.

 

Hence: "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 limits of the Land" (v.5,6; cp. Ps. 107:2-7,10,14,16 — a Hezekiah psalm).

 

Ransomed by a Redeemer

 

Israel's redeemer-God paid a redemption price for their freedom: "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee" (v.3)**This is the massive victory which Sennacherib won over "the kings of Egypt...and the kings of Ethiopia" (Taylor Prism) at Eltekeh, thus cutting off the last vestige of possible human aid from Jerusalem.

 

But not only Egypt. Babylon also! "For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down their bars (cp. 45:2s.w.), and the Chaldeans in the ships of their land cry (In, out, in, out!)" (v.14). This was another of Sennacherib's victories about the same time.

 

But there was surely an irony about "Egypt for thy ransom," for that plunder assembled by the Assyrians fell to the men of Israel after the fell work of the angel of the Lord!

 


* Another of Sennacherib's conquests about this period. That punitive expedition against Babylon may have made the escape of captives more easy.

** The attempt at a Cyrus application falls down badly here. Cyrus never had these territories. And the details of v.5,6 had no counterpart at the time of the Cyrus restoration.

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God's Court Case — Third Session

 

This prophecy also has an impressive resumption of the court-of-law figure, already used so powerfully (41:1-5,21-29). The third session of the trial now proceeds (v.8-13); and by and by there is to be a fourth (45:20-25).

 

"Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified (i.e. their case in law proved correct: or let them hear (my evidence), and say, It is truth" (v.9).

 

It is the old contention — are the gods of the nations true gods, or is the Holy One of Israel the Lord of all?

 

"Let them shew former things." And this the religions of Nineveh and Babylon proceeded to do, handing down to later generations weird stories of Creation and the Flood, lurid rubbish all of it. Today, the high priests of modern science purvey imagination-taxing fables full of evolutionary fantasy. By contrast with these, the grand simplicity of the Genesis records continues to make its satisfying appeal for faith in the Almighty God.

 

The witnesses for the other side are now called: "Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears...Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." It is the nation of Israel who now stand forward, to prove by their own blindness and deafness the truth of the God of Israel. Strange paradox! but wonderfully true. In Hezekiah's day, that fervent reformation left most of the nation untouched (or there never would have been such a Manasseh reaction). Yet for the sake of His Servant whom He had chosen (37:35), God brought a mighty deliverance to teach the pagan nations His supremacy and also to teach His own heedless people: "that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he" (v. 10).

 

In all succeeding generations it has been the same. The facts would establish a case in any court of law!

 

"Nothing could be more unlikely than the events which have befallen the Jewish nation. Nothing like them has ever been foretold of any other nation, or has ever happened to any other...The Jews, therefore, are a kind of standing miracle; being a monument of the wonderful fulfilment of the most extraordinary prophecies ever delivered, which prophecies they themselves preserve and bear witness to, though they shut their eyes to the fulfilment of them" (Whately).

 

"They (the Jews) stand with their Law and Prophets in their hands, reading them, and authenticating them, yet not perceiving their true purport. This their blindness was foretold, and its penal character proclaimed, in the very books which they have prized above life itself." (William Kay).

 

Jehovah vindicated

 

Everything testified by these witnesses proves the overwhelming truth of the Almighty's case:

 

"I have declared (your salvation beforehand), and have saved (from the Assyrians), and have shewed (i.e. published the news of it), when there was no strange god among you (thanks to Hezekiah's iconoclastic zeal!): therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God (from eternity; LXX). Yea, from this day forth (RV) I am he; and there is none that can deliver (doomed Assyrians) out of my hand: I will work and who shall reverse it?" (v. 12,13).

 

The final challenge there echoes the words of false Balaam, that superb type* of natural Israel hostile to the true Israel: "He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it" (Num. 23:20).

 

Well might the prophet bid the people: "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old (these very things which had formed part of the challenge against the vanity of idols; v.9). Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth..." (v.18,19). And, in truth, until Christ came that deliverance in Hezekiah's day remained unmatched.

 


* Note the correspondence: Balaam was a true prophet, and yet unfaithful. He conspired with worldly power to curse God's elect, and this for the sake of personal advantage. He rode the (Messianic) ass, and sought to force it to his own purposes, but was restricted by the angel of the Lord. He offered an abundance of sacrifices, and repeatedly prophesied good and not evil about God's people. He foretold that the Messiah belongs to the true Israel, but later counselled infecting them with the doctrine of heathenism. This proved successful until at last one rose up to destroy this apostasy. Then Balaam was destroyed.

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43(2). The Servant and the Blind Deaf Witnesses (v.1-21)

 

The witness of the NT. is about as emphatic as it well could be that Isaiah 43 is a Christian Scripture. A study of it as an inspired commentary on God's ways with His chosen people in the prophet's own day can teach the student much. But the real message, at once more obvious and difficult to read, centres in Jesus-lmmanuel and his New Israel. The N.T.'s verbal allusions to this prophecy are so copious and yet so elusive that the most patient attempts to build-up a coherent exposition only serve to emphasize the limitations of one's spiritual insight and comprehension.

 

Now, the Jacob-Israel who is apostrophized is no longer Hezekiah but Jesus: "Thus saith the Lord that created thee (the beginning of the New Creation), and he that formed thee..." This second verb is that which describes the work of the potter with the clay, the work of the Creator in making a new Man (Gen. 2:7).

 

What a contrast with the way in which men fashion gods, blind and senseless, in their own image (yes, even in the enlightened twentieth century). But God forms man in His image, to become more and more discerning, to be "precious in his sight" (v.4), to be the prototype (which Israel had failed to be) of "a people whom God forms for himself, that they might shew forth his praise" (v.21).

 

The Servant God's kinsman

 

True, the people God had already formed, but who were blind and deaf, were His eloquent witnesses. But this man of the New Creation is more: "Ye (natural Israel) and my Servant whom I have chosen are my witnesses, saith the Lord: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he.* Before Me there was nothing formed of God (AVm is correct here), neither shall there be after Me (or, other than Me)". It is an emphatic assertion that no merely human Saviour is possible. The Messiah must be a Son of God.

 

This truth is also asserted in other ways: "I have called thee by thy name (the Father names the Child): thou art mine" (v.1).

 

Yet this Son of God shares human weakness: "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee" — he himself needs the salvation of God. But "redeeming" is always the act of a near kinsman. Hebrew ga'al** always implies that. So this Jacob-Israel is to count Almighty God as his near kinsman! And indeed, so also must any other mortal man who would share that redemption!

 

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee (Immanuel)...when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." It was true of Christ in his immunity from the malevolence of his enemies (Jn. 7:30,44; 8:59; 10:39; Ps. 91:11 etc.). True of him also regarding the fire of the divine presence, as it had been true of Moses when mediating on behalf of his less worthy brethren (Dt. 5:22-28). True also for those in Christ in the divine deluge of fiery fury in the last days (2 Pet. 3:10). And, best of all, true for those truly his in the Day of Judgment and its fiery assessment of faith (1 Cor. 3:15).

 

The Servant and his servants

 

"Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable (LXX: thou hast been glorified), and I have loved thee: therefore I will give men for thee, and people for thy life" (v.4). In his prayer of self-dedication Jesus expressed his own thankful appreciation of this prophecy written for his benefit: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me...may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (Jn. 17:24).***

 

However, on the face of it, this Isaiah passage seems to reverse the fine familiar truth so often declared elsewhere: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities" (53:5, and many times in that chapter). But not really, for the Hebrew prepositions are not the same. Here, literally, "I will give men under thee, and people under thy life." This is the OT. counterpart to the frequent NT. assertions that Christ is "made sin for us" — Gk. huper, above us, as though sheltering us under his own personal victory over sin.

 

Appropriately, the prophecy now anticipates the outworking of this communal redemption:

 

"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 (s.w. Heb. 11:13), and my daughters from the ends of the earth".

 

This is an assurance that the promise made to Jacob-Israel at Bethel will come to a quite unexpected realisation (Gen. 28:14,15a). Such prophecies as these in Genesis and Isaiah braced the faith of Jesus, so that, faced with rejection by the natural Israel, he could yet look confidently to a blessing on all families of the earth (the new Israel) through himself, the promised Seed (Gen. 28:14): "Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets (including Isaiah!), in the kingdom of God...And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God" (Lk. 13:28,29)*

 

There will even be a literal fulfilment of these words in the day when the Son of man "sends his angels to gather together his elect...from the uttermost part of the earth (43:6 LXX) to the uttermost part of heaven" (Mk. 13:27)**.

 

These are the people "created" and "formed" for God's glory (v.7) — a New Creation "created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Eph. 2:10).

 

Nor will natural Israel be excluded, for in the day when they say: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Mt. 23:39), they too will be gathered in again, both spiritually and literally from the four corners of the earth, to share Messiah's blessings (49:22; 60:8ff).

 


* The next verse here looks back to Is. 41:4; 44:6.

** ls the meaning here that angels, sent to the uttermost part of heaven, will gather the elect from the uttermost part of the earth?

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New Testament commentary

 

The ensuing section of the prophecy (43:8-13), so obviously about Israel, the blind and deaf nation, being God's irrefutable witnesses, has several remarkable contacts with the NT. It is the kind of allusiveness that is not easy to understand.

 

  1. "Let all the nations be gathered together" (for a legal trial; v.9) is a phrase that is almost quoted verbatim in the Lord's picture of the Last Judgment: "and before him shall be gathered all nations" (Mt. 25:32). This also is a form of trial, but with what a difference! In Isaiah the nations are invited to assess the evidence for God and against false gods. But in Matthew the Judge is the Son of God and the nations (i.e. people out of all nations) are themselves on trial (T.E., ch.17).
     
  2. "Ye and my servant whom I have chosen (mine elect; 42:1) are my witnesses, saith the Lord God...ye are my witnesses...that I am God, from the beginning" (v. 10,12 LXX). The resemblances to the following scrip­tures can hardly be accidental:
     
    "I am one that bear witness of myself, and the father that sent me beareth witness of me" (Jn. 8:18).
     
    "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for the witness of God is this, that he hath borne witness concerning his Son" (1 Jn. 5:9). "And ye (disciples) also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (Jn. 15:27).
     
    The last of these is specially striking as appearing to put the Lord's disciples in the place of "the blind...and the deaf" in Isaiah. But indeed, when thought is given to the marvellous spiritual obtuseness of the twelve on many an oc­casion, this equation is not inappropriate.
     
  3. "There is none that can deliver out of mine hand: I will work, and who shall reverse it?" (v. 13). King Herod Agrippa I sought to reverse it (the Lord's deliverance) when he had Peter locked up and when he received to himself the people's acclamation: "a god, not a man!" (Acts 12:22). They saw him as the saviour of their country. But "before me there was no God...beside me there is no saviour" (v.10,11). So Herod died, and the Lord's witness was "delivered" (12:11 s.w.LXX). By such unexpected fulfilments God provides Himself with yet further witness.

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Remarkable New Testament applications

 

But this is not all. The New Testament provides further commentary, almost startl­ing in its unexpectedness.

 

When Jesus appeared to his disciples walking on the waters (Jn. 6:19), he was bidding them look for a further fulfilment of Isaiah's remarkable words:

 

"I am the Lord, the Holy One...your King...which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters..." (43:15,16). That highly unusual incident was the im­mediate sequel to the passionate desire of the multitude to make Jesus King (Jn. 6:15). And it was just after this that Peter made his first confession: "Thou art the Holy One of God."

 

Isaiah exhorted: "Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old" (43:18)* — this in a context full of allusions to Israel's beginnings, the deliverance from Egypt. This was also the emphasis made by Jesus in his synagogue discourse: "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven...your fathers ate...and died...I am the living bread..." (Jn. 6:32, 49, 51).

 

That day Jesus rejected the appeal to force, with which the minds of the people were obsessed: "the chariot and the horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise" (43:17). By contrast with this, his disciple was promised "eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (Jn. 6:54).

 

Peter, who played such an important role on the occasion referred to, also im­parted new meaning to Isaiah's words.

 

"This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise" (43:21). Peter's version is this: "Ye are a chosen generation...a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness (the blind people that have eyes!) into his marvellous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). But, like his Master, the apostle applied these words to the New Israel. Indeed, he also appropriated these words to the Messiah: "thou wast precious in my sight...my servant whom I have chosen", as Isaiah certainly intended: "a living stone...chosen of God, and precious" (1 Pet. 2:4).

 

Also, continuing the notion of an Exodus deliverance, which is so strongly a feature of Isaiah 43, the apostle went on to allude to his Gentile readers as "strangers and pilgrims" (1 Pet. 2:11).

 

Philip's experience with the Ethiopian eunuch similarly has overtones of Isaiah: "I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert" (43:19) — "as they went on the way (which is desert; v.26), they came to a certain water..." (Acts 8:36). Thus was brought from Ethiopia the first of God's sons from far (43:6).

 

But the beginning of all this was in Jesus. He is the One whom "the beast of the field shall honour, the dragons and the owls: because I give the waters in the wilderness." By the remarkable details in his brief temptation narrative, Mark recalls this: "In the wilderness forty days...and he was with the wild beasts: and the angels ministered unto him" (Mk. 1:13; this immediately after an allusion to Is. 42).

 


* Compare the assurance given in Jer. 16:14,15 and Rev. 21:4. Instead, "a new thing shall spring forth" (v. 19). Here is one of the great Messianic words tzamach.

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43 (3). Free Forgiveness or the Curse (v.22-28)

 

The connection of this section with what has preceded is easy and obvious. Always God sought in His chosen people those who would "shew forth His praise." With the natural Israel written off as a failure in this respect, God turned to the New Israel (1 Pet. 2:9), but not without an expostulation to those now no longer reckon­ed as His obedient beloved children:

 

"Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; thou hast been weary of me, O Israel" (43:22). Yet, / have not wearied thee with incense," i.e. insisting on a wearisome burning of incense in the temple. Instead, "thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities" (v.23,24).

 

Hundreds of years later, another prophet of the Lord was to harness Isaiah's words to an identical situation: "Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it (the of­fering of sacrifice at God's altar)...Ye have wearied the Lord with your words..." (Mal. 1:13; 2:17; cp. Is. 1:14). And this prophet also looked for response from the Gentiles: "God's name shall be great among the Gentiles" (1:11).

 

"I have not caused thee to serve with an offering," God remonstrated (43:23) — meaning, of course, that the sacrifices He had taught the people to offer were no burden or exaction.

 

But, conversely, "thou has made me to serve with thy sins" (v.24). So close was the bond between the Lord and His Servant (52:13), suffering for men's wayward­ness, that it was almost as though God Himself were the Servant, bearing a burden of iniquities (53:11).

 

"Thou hast not brought me the lamb (or, kid) of thy burnt offerings." They had! But the spirit in which the offerings were made reduced their value to zero in God's sight, simply because "thou hast not honoured me with thy sacrifices.*".

 

Sins Blotted Out

 

All this unworthiness notwithstanding, the God of Israel stands offering with open hand His gift of full and free forgiveness:

 

"I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake (just possibly, for my Afflicted One; 53:7), and will not remember thy sins" (v.25).

 

Here is the first mention of one of the most lovely and satisfying themes to be found in all the richness of later Isaiah: "I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee" (44:22). "For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off" (48:9). And Isaiah 53 says the same thing no less than twelve times.

 

This blotting out of transgressions might be a symbolic act of wiping clean, "as a man wipeth a dish" (s.w. 2 Kgs. 21:13). Or the allusion could be to the ritual of the Day of Atonement. On that day the high priest entered the holy of holies wrapped, so to speak, in a dense cloud of incense (Lev. 16:12,13), "that he die not" in the presence of the Divine Glory. This is certainly the idea in Is. 44:22, and may well be here also, since there is allusion to incense in v.23.

 


* lt has been pointed out that v.22-24 are marvellously like Ps. 50 in their theme, and that v.25 corresponds very closely with Ps. 51.

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New Testament Commentary

 

Peter's allusions to Is. 43, in a discourse which, it can be demonstrated, was spoken on the Day of Atonement, appear to interpret this "blotting out" with reference to the splashing of the sacrificial blood on the mercy seat (a thing which could not be done in his day because the temple had no ark of the covenant):



Acts 3


Isaiah 43

19.

That your sins may be blotted out

25.

I am he that blotteth out thy


out (Gk. anointed out).


transgressions.

16.

His name, through faith in his

19.

For my name's sake.


name, hath made this man




strong.



13.

His servant Jesus

10.

Ye and my servant whom I




have chosen are my

15.

... whereof ye are witnesses.


witnesses.

17.

Your rulers.

28.

I have profaned the princes of




the sanctuary.

13.

The God of our fathers.

27.

Thy first father hath sinned.

13.

Hath glorified his Servant

4.

LXX. Thou wast glorified.


Jesus.

7.

Created for my glory.

 

(For further details: "Acts", H.A.W., p.44ff).

 

There is another possible link with the gospels: "Thou didst stand before me in thy sins and in thine iniquities" (v.24 LXX). The mind goes instinctively to the New Testament picture of the woman who had been taken in adultery, now left standing in the presence of Jesus whilst "the princes of the sanctuary" (v.28) slunk away. She stood forgiven, with transgressions blotted out... for mine own sake" — "Neither do I condemn thee..."

 

Remembering and not Remembering

 

This gracious divine assurance: "I will not remember thy sins" (v.25) has a most attractive counterpart in Psalm 103, a psalm much used by Isaiah: "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (v. 14). These scriptures contrast beautifully with the sorry allusion in Hebrews 10:3 to the Day of Atonement: "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." Isaiah's gospel rises above this.

 

Nevertheless there is a wholesome reminder that if strict justice take its course, these unscriptural men of Israel are in a sorry case. Again it is the language of a court of law: "Let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified" (cp. 41:1,21-29; 43:8-13; 45:20-25).*

 

From a rigid legalistic point of view (the attitude so beloved by men of Israel in all generations), the people of God had no standing at all — necessarily so, because of their ancestry: "Thy first father (Jacob; v.28; 48:8; 58:14) sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me." Can any stream rise higher than its source?

 

There is here a lovely play on words, for "teachers" also means, much more often, "scorners". By their derision hurled at the Crucified (Lk. 23:36), these men marked themselves out for utter rejection: "Therefore have I profaned the princes of the sanctuary (see 1 Chr. 24:5), and have given Jacob to the curse."

 

In Hezekiah's day the time-serving Urijah (Is. 8:2; 2 Kgs. 16:11-16) was put out of office in favour of the faithful Eliakim (22:20). And so also in the yet more impor­tant first-century fulfilment — Caiaphas rent his high-priestly clothes (Mt. 26:65), and thus, without meaning it, he signified his own demoting from office. And, for the fell work done that day, Jacob was given to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.

 


* Compare also 43:26; 44:3 with 42:21; 43:2.

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44 (1). The New Israel (v.1-5).

 

The earlier exposure of Israel as a "blind and deaf" people (42:18ff) had been followed immediately by an assurance that God would nevertheless preserve them (43: 1ff).

 

Now a similar censure of the inadequacy and insincerity of their religious practice (43:22) is followed by a similar promise (44:1-5) that God will yet find for Himself a true Israel of God-blessed, Spirit-guided individuals.

 

The insistent Jacob-Israel theme is not let go; it is intensified (v. 1,2,5). The familiar phrases are repeated, with added emphasis: "my servant...whom I have chosen...the Lord that made thee, and formed thee...Fear not."

 

But now there is steady reminder that God is bringing to birth a New Israel — not a self-dependent "Supplanter" like the Jacob born from the womb (Gen. 25:26; 27:36), not "crooked" like the Jacob made lame by his futile fight against the angel of his God-controlled adversity (Gen. 32:25,31), but a people deserving the affec­tionate nickname Jeshurun — "straight, upright" — which had been forfeited by an earlier generation who had "waxed fat and kicked" (Dt. 32:15).

 

And who are these, this New Israel to whom the prophet turns with such gladness? They are typified by the startled captives, set free from the willows and water courses of Babylon (v.4; Ps. 137:1,2*) to come thankfully home to God and His Servant in Jerusalem. They are typified, too, by the Gentiles who learned with awe that "God is in thee of a truth" and who in that spirit came to Jerusalem to dedicate themselves to His service.

 

An Outpouring of the Spirit

 

These provide the pattern and type for the New Nation who warm God's heart with their individual dedication to Him. These are the "thirsty" and the "dry ground" upon whom his Spirit is poured, so that tzama' (thirsty) is changed into that lovely Messianic word tzamach, (spring up): "They shall spring up among (not, as) the grass" — the grass which the wind-Spirit of the Lord has shrivelled up (40:7). It is a picture of a dry parched hillside on which, thanks to a refreshing shower from Heaven, there is now to be seen, pushing its way through the dead dry shrivelled grass, an eager growth of new life full of vigour.

 

And this growth will not share the fate of "the grass of the field" which has been cast into the oven of the hot desert wind, but with roots reaching down to life-giving moisture they flourish as willows even in adversity.

 

All this had already been anticipated by Isaiah in a lovely prophecy: "...until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and (thus) the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest (a wilderness)" (32:15).

 

That last phrase illustrates how this, like all other figures of speech, is somehow inadequate or inaccurate, for in the natural world when did a fertilizing shower turn a fruitful farm into wild useless growth? But in the world of God's Spirit this is what happens. However, the main intention is a new and better people of God, created because God is at work in a new way:

 

"Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up (tzamach again!) together; I the Lord have created it" (45:8). It is the divine fruitfulness of God's Year of Jubilee.

 

Contemporary Joel had the same happy message:

 

"Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things...the pastures of the wilderness do spring...the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength...rejoice in the Lord your God: for he giveth the former rain in righteousness...I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh...for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said (through Isaiah), and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call" (2:21-32).

 


* A psalm which, as Thirtle (OT. Problems) has shown conclusively, belongs to the time of Isaiah.

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Bearing the Name of the Lord

 

But though the promised deliverance is to be "in Mount Zion", it will not be for Israel only: "This (Gentile) shall say, I am the Lord's; and this shall call himself by (or, call upon himself) the name of (the God of) Jacob*; and this shall inscribe on his hand: 'The Lord's,' and shall dignify himself** with the name of (the God of) Israel" (v.5).

 

This expressive figure of speech — the name written in the hand — tells of a bond not to be broken. It is the sign of the slave tied to his master (as in Rev. 13:16). Thus Paul gloried in the fact that he bore the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17).

 

But it was also a bond tying the master to his slave: "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands," God declared to His community of true Zionists (49:16), and went on to prophesy a remarkable accession of strength from the Gentiles.

 

The Accession of the Gentiles

 

"Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth...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...Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? (49:18-21).

 

From now on the theme of the conversion of the Gentiles to an Israelitish faith better than that of Israel itself, constantly appropriates the prophet's pen. Again and again he uses the remarkable accession of Gentile devotees to the religion of Israel in Hezekiah's day, to point his readers to a time when a greater than Hezekiah would convert ignorant Gentiles to be the true seed of Abraham.

 

"The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans...shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine...they shall fall down before thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else..." (45:14).

 

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

 

"The sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord...even them shall I bring to my holy mountain...for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, besides those that are gathered" (56:6-8).

 

"The sons of strangers shall build up thy walls...men will bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles" (60:10,11).

 

These are only samples of a theme and variations of increasing fascination and loveliness.

 


* As in Ps. 24:6.

** As in Job 32:21,22.

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44 (2). Idols cut down to size (v.6-20)

 

One of the outstanding characteristics of this section of Isaiah (ch.40-48), which becomes very evident from a straight reading of the text, is the way the prophet recurs time and again to favourite themes — the Servant of the Lord, God's witnesses, "Fear not", waters of refreshing, the apostrophe to Jacob-Israel, and so on. One of these themes is the withering exposure of the follies of idolatry. This onslaught now reaches its climax in a sustained diatribe of blistering contempt. But first comes an assertion of the supreme authority of the God of Israel:

 

"Thus saith

Jehovah,

the king of Israel,

his Redeemer,

the Lord of hosts,

the First and the Last.

Beside me there is no god."

 

All of these divine titles are to be considered against the background of the great crisis of Hezekiah's reign. It was not a contest between the military might of Assyria and the military weakness of Israel, but a challenge made by the futile god of Assyria against the supremacy of Israel's God.*

 

He is Jehovah, who made such "great and precious promises" to the fathers of the race. He is the true King in Jerusalem — Hezekiah was only His representative. This Jehovah is, somewhat startlingly, Israel's Redeemer. The fact was proved by the thunderbolts of wrath hurled against the invader (though, indeed, many a pious man in Israel must have been led to wonder in what ways so great a God could be 'near kinsman' — go'el — to so paltry a people!). He is the Lord of hosts of angels who do His bidding in this world of His and who shattered the might of Assyria beneath the walls of Jerusalem.** He is the First and the Last, foretelling from earliest days what He means to do, and then bringing all to pass in its proper time.

 


* Observe the force of the catalogue of passages quoted in ch. 7 (Pt. 3).

** Note the allusion to Michael ("Who is like unto me?") in 44:7.

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  • 2 weeks later...

These remarkable names of God are all brought together in the Apocalypse, because that great prophecy is also an exhortation to the New Testament Israel of God to have no truck with the false gods of power.


Revelation 1:8

Isaiah 44:6

I am Alpha and Omega

The First and the Last

The Lord (= Adonai)

The King of Israel

God (see RV etc)

Beside me, no Elohim

Which is, and which was, and which is

Jehovah

to come


The Almighty (LXX: Lord of hosts)

The Lord of hosts

Him that loved us, and washed us

The Redeemer.

from our sins in his own blood.

This remarkable parallel not only interprets the name Jehovah, it also suggests that all these divine titles now belong to Jesus!

 

In particular, the repeated title: "The First and the Last" emphasizes, in Rev.1, the "shewing of things which must shortly come to pass" (cp. Is. 44:7). In Rev. 21:6,8, it suggests the reprobation (as in Is. 44) of all that make a lie. And in Rev. 22:13,14 it graciously offers the tree of life in place of the tree of death so effectively cut down by the keen edge of Isaiah's invective (44:13-17).

 

The challenge to the gods of the heathen is not mere emotional rhetoric; it gets down to the brass tacks of commonsense argument:

 

"Who is like unto Me? Let him stand forth (LXX), and proclaim it, and declare it for me, since I appointed the People (Israel) of old, and the things which are coming (in the near future) and which shall come (in the remote future). Let them (the idols) declare them!"

 

It is a repetition of an earlier appeal (43:9)*. Only a God who is from everlasting to everlasting can first challenge contemplation of His great acts in past history, and then proceed to foretell what He will do in the years to come, and then do it.

 

And yet again: "I have declared the former things from the beginning...I did them suddenly, and they came to pass...I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them" (48:3,6).

 

No other religion makes this challenge, or responds to it. Today's fashionable enthusiasm for Islam and Buddhism and what-not is so much hot air, for none of these cults, hoary though they may be, can point to unmistakable divine vindication in past history, and none of them can offer a single prophecy, either fulfilled or for the future.

 

With the God of their fathers behind them, Israel may face every test of faith with relaxed confidence: "Fear ye not, neither be afraid." All such exhortations in Isaiah have the same point. In those days there was no terror to compare with the paralys­ing dread of invasion by cruel pitiless Assyrians, (cp. 10:24; 31:4; 37:6; 41:10-14; 43:1,5; 51:7,12).

 


* And also of the "court of law" metaphor (41:1,21 -29; 43:8-13; 45:20ff).

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So the prophet stiffened the backbone of his fellows with the simple practical argument that with Israel God was a God of limitless power, whilst the inspiration and support of Sennacherib's legions was a senseless dumb idol! Then what must be the outcome?

 

"Ye, Israel, are my witnesses. Is there a God* beside me? (2 Chron. 32:7,8) Yea, there is no Rock** (v.7). But, by contrast, they — these futile idols — are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know" (v.9). Thus these still and silent deities eloquently proclaim their own futility. True, Israel also had repeatedly shown themselves to be spiritually deaf and blind (43:8); yet that very deafness and blind­ness was a witness to the truth of God (see ch. 13 Pt.3). They were custodians of a prophetic witness for which they themselves provided impressive undesigned fulfilment.

 

"Graven image!" — with the contemptuous repetition of this opprobrium, Isaiah now really got into his stride in his onslaught on the futilities of pagan religion.

 

"Behold, all that join themselves thereto shall be ashamed, and the workmen, they are of men." In clever fashion he made a characteristic play on the double meaning of his Hebrew: "All its sorceries (s.w. 47:9,12) shall be brought to shame; and the enchantments, they are of men (i.e. contrived by unscrupulous priests)".

 

There follows a short contemptuous description of the making of a metal god: "The smith sharpeneth a tool and worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with ham­mers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms" — and all this while the god is a useless piece of metal, not even fit to be admired.

 

Even "the strength of the arms" of the dedicated god-maker fades away as he works, for the mumbo-jumbo of this ridiculous religion requires that he goes to his "holy" work fasting. So "he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint" — the obvious point behind this irony being this: If the one who makes the god has such failing powers, then just how much almightiness is there in what he makes?

 

What a contrast with "the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth — He fainteth not, neither is weary...He giveth power to the faint..." (40:28,29).

 

Is it possible to believe that one who could be so contemptuous of idols would go on to extol the divine right of idol-worshipping Cyrus or to appropriate a man of such crass religious ignorance as a type of Messiah? This prophecy now under con­sideration poses a big problem in the interpretation of what comes next.

 

However, on this present theme Isaiah has only just got going. The fashioning of the wooden image comes in for even more scornful censure:

 

"The carpenter stretcheth out a line; he marketh it out with a pencil; he shapeth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compasses" — here is the draughtsman at work, "making it after the figure of a man (a god made in the image and likeness of one of his creatures!), according to the beauty of a man***, to dwell in the house (the temple)" — and that is all that this god can do: just stay where he is put, and do nothing.

 

The process of making the god is excoriated with growing gusto: "He heweth down cedars, and taketh the cypress, and the oak."**** LXX continues here: "God planteth, and the rain (i.e. His rain) doth nourish it."

 


* The only occurrence in Isaiah of Eloah, to make deliberate contrast with 2 Chr. 32:15 — Sennacherib's boast that "no (no god — eloah) was able to deliver his people out of mine hand."

** Another of the expressions binding the two halves of Isaiah's prophecy together; 17:10; 26:4.

*** The word so often describes the glory of God!

**** It has been well observed that these are all trees of Palestine. But if "deutero-Isaiah" lived all his days in Babylon, why does he choose to mention these?

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From first to last (contrast v.6), the idol does nothing for itself. Even the stuff it is made from is the superb creation of the God of heaven and earth.

 

With a scorn and sarcasm matched only by Elijah on mount Carmel (1 Kgs. 18:27), Isaiah holds up before all the world the pathetic nonsense of all idol-making. Is it his zest for the task or is it that he feels the need to spell out the lesson in simple repetitious ABC fashion, as though for children, which makes him repeat his argu­ment? (v. 14-15, 16-17,19).

 

Here, then, is the caustic delineation of a man chopping a tree down. With half of it (v.16RVm) he makes a roaring bonfire and enjoys the light and warmth of the blaze. With half of it he stokes his oven and bakes his bread and roasts a joint of meat, and then has a good feed. Then with odds and ends that are left ("the residue"; v. 17), he gets to work to fashion his noble worshipful deity* before which he now prostrates himself in beseeching adoration: "Deliver me; for thou art my god."

 

Isaiah is hard put to decide between the intelligence of the god and of its devotee: "They know not, neither do they consider...None calleth to mind, neither is there knowledge nor understanding." Lord, what fools these mortals be!

 


* In v. 16 LXX reads "gods" — as who should say: "First a batch of loaves, and then a batch of gods"!

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44 (3). The Cyrus Problem (v.28)

 

The double mention of Cyrus (44:28; 45:1) in the next section of Isaiah is the one fact far outweighing any other, which has decided the moderns in favour of a captivity date for Isaiah 40-66.

 

They lay it down as a dogma: there is no such thing as genuine prophecy in such detail as this, foretelling more than 150 years beforehand not only that Jewish captives would return home to rebuild Jerusalem, but also the name of the man who would encourage them to it.

 

Therefore, they argue, this prophecy was written at, or immediately before the time when these things happened — B.C. 537 approx.

 

Believers in the inspiration of Holy Scripture argue back: But there are comparable prophecies elsewhere, and there is therefore no reason why this Isaiah passage should not provide another example. Then the famous mention of Josiah in 1 Kgs. 13:2 is cited. It has to be, because there is actually no other strictly parallel example available. It is, of course, true that God could inspire one of His prophets with detail of this kind. But does He? Did He?

 

Actually the Josiah prophecy is hardly a good foundation to build on, for those words: "Josiah by name" could well be an editorial parenthesis inserted for explana­tion's sake at the time 1 Kings was being put together. It is noteworthy that, when Josiah arose to fulfil this prophecy (2 Kgs. 23:15-18), the record there makes no allusion to it. With the inserted phrase at 1 Kgs. 13:2 the compiler has already made all the explanation that is necessary*. No! this way of defending a contested position is not too satisfactory. The confident critical onslaught is more easily and more accurately defeated with other weapons than these.

 

There are far too many details in this section of Isaiah disallowing any reference to Cyrus at all. Such a statement may appear somewhat arbitrary, but indeed there are very good reasons behind it:

 


* lt is useful also to observe that in 1 Kgs. 13:32 there is a similar anticipation of later historical fact in the mention of Samaria (16:24), not yet built in the time of the Josiah prophecy.

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  1. As has been shown (or will be), all the prophecies in Isaiah 40-66 are built on Hezekiah and his times. Then the sudden insertion of about 25 verses about Cyrus is completely out of character and away from the main purpose of this part of the book, which so evidently is: to use Hezekiah in order to foreshadow the Messiah.
     
  2. All through ch. 40-53 "my servant" is another title for "Jacob-Israel". Many times these names come in close conjunction (e.g. 41:8; 44:1,2; 48:20; 49:3). This is evident in two places (44:21; 45:4) in the section (44:21 -45:19) now under special consideration. Then is it credible that in the middle of this mass on uniform usage there should be a sudden solitary allusion to Cyrus as "my servant"?
     
  3. The same portion of the prophecy includes two of Isaiah's characteristic blasts against idol-worship. "The Lord...that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad" (44:25). "They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols'' (45:16). And all this follows immediately on the prophet's most withering onslaught on the folly of idol-worship (44:9-20). In such a context is it con­ceivable that Cyrus, a dedicated idolater, would be held up for the esteem and adulation and gratitude of the faithful?
     
    It used to be said that Cyrus was a monotheist. This is now known to be nonsense. The finding of the Cyrus Cylinder has settled that point. Here are a few quotations from it:
     
    "He (Marduk, the chief god of Babylon) scoured all the lands for a friend, seek­ing for the upright prince whom he would have to take his hand. He called Cyrus, king of Anshan."
     
    "Marduk the great lord...went at his (Cyrus's) side like a friend and a comrade."
     
    "I am Cyrus, the king of the world...whose rule Bel and Nabu cherish." "I sought daily to worship him (Marduk)."
     
    "At my deeds Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced, and to me...he graciously gave his blessing, and in good spirits before him he (glorified) exceedingly his high (divinity)."
     
    "The gods whose abode is in the midst of them (all the countries west and east), I returned to their places, and housed them in everlasting abodes...May all the gods whom I have placed within their sanctuaries address a daily prayer in my favour before Bel and Nabu, that my days may be long, and may they say to Marduk my lord: 'May Cyrus the king who reveres thee, and Cambyses his son...' " (the text breaks off here).
     
    Another inscription found at Ur assigns Cyrus's victory to the help of Sin, the moon god.
     
    Such details as these make it a moral and intellectual impossibility for the writer of this part of Isaiah (even if not Isaiah himself) to laud and extol Cyrus in the way that he appears to do.
     
  4. In addition to all this, it is obvious (so obvious that one is left wondering why the critics have not noticed it!) that the characteristic phraseology in this "Cyrus" prophecy is used over and over again in this part of Isaiah with reference to Jacob-Israel:
     
    1. "The Lord, which hath called thee (Cyrus?) by thy name" (45:3,4). Cp: "From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name (Israel)" (49:1,3).
    2. "I have raised him (Cyrus?) up in righteousness" (45:13). Cp. "Who raised up the righteous man from the east?" (41:2). Is this Cyrus also?
    3. "I will make straight all his (Cyrus's?) ways" (45:13. Cp. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (40:3).
    4. "Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God" (45:14). this can only apply to Israel.
    5. "His anointed, to Cyrus" (45:1). But all through the Old Testament this very common but exalted title is used only of Messiah or a king reigning in Jerusalem. It is almost impossible to believe that a prophet of the Lord would give this high dignity to a pagan monarch.
      "He shall perform all my pleasure" (v.28) is quoted (from LXX) by Paul with reference to David (Acts 13:22), a detail entirely in harmony with OT. usage. On the other hand, if this phrase really belongs to Cyrus what right had Paul to appropriate it to bolster up his argument about David?
    6. If the prophecy is about Cyrus, why should the Hebrew text of consecutive verses apparently make allusion to the names of Hezekiah and Hephzibah, his wife?: "whose right hand I have holden" (45:1); 'all my pleasure" (44:28). A most remarkable coincidence!
    7.  

      [*] The prophecy includes details (45:14) which were never true of Cyrus in any sense: "The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans...shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine...in chains they shall come over...they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else." But such words as these, however understood, are very clearly applied to God's glorifying of Israel: 49:23; 60:9-16. It is easy to find an application of these words to Israel in the time of Hezekiah, but they are palpably untrue regarding the restoration from the later Babylonian captivity.

       

      It is also to be noted that the associated phrase: "I will direct all his ways", makes little sense regarding Cyrus, the pagan empire-builder. But reference to godly Hezekiah presents little difficulty.

       

      And in the same verse, the words: "not for price, nor for reward" appear in flat contradiction with 43:3: "Egypt for thy ransom." Yet the Cyrus expositors are logically committed to apply both passages to the Persian king. The modernists casually cut this Gordian knot by pronouncing "not for price, nor for reward" an interpolation (e.g. Wade, p.295).

       

      [*] The mandate given by Cyrus to the captive Jews in Babylon is introduced (Ezra 1:1-3) with a pointed allusion to relevant Jeremiah prophecies, but the Cyrus prophecy in Isaiah is given no mention. Yet this would have been far more to the point. This omission has never been adequately explained. Admittedly, the argument from omission can be precarious, but in this instance it carries much more force than usual.

       

      [*] The religion of the Persians was dualistic, with a god of light and good and a god of darkness and evil. It has often been claimed that Is. 45:7 was written with pointed allusion to this: "I form the light, and I create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

       

      If indeed there is such an allusion implicit here, the words can only be read as a denunciation of the religion of Cyrus. Somewhat out of place, surely, in a prophecy which is supposed to extol Cyrus as "the Lord's anointed"! Actually, these words enunciate what is a commonplace truth in other Scriptures which have nothing to do with the Persian period; e.g. Dan. 2:22; Ps. 139:11,12.

       

      [*] Much is often made of the words: "I girded thee, though thou hast not known me" (45:5). But the word "though" is a translator's addition; it is not in the text. Literally: "and thou didst not know Me", with reference not to the religion of this Anointed but to his birth, or before. Isaiah 49:1 and the Immanuel prophecy (7:14) provide good parallels.

       

      [*] Has God ever given Israel a Gentile deliverer? Captivity prophet Jeremiah foretold: "Their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me (hopelessly untrue of Cyrus!): for who is he that hath been surety for his own heart?" (30:21).

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All these considerations lead to one plain conclusion — that the name of Cyrus has no business in this prophecy at all. Indeed, if the words "of Cyrus" (44:28) and "to Cyrus" (45:1) are omitted, there is no dislocation of the text, and the entire section fits into place as another characteristic prophecy about "Jacob-Israel". As will be seen (ch. 18), the exposition of the words goes easily, and actually involves a good deal of repetition because the theme itself is a repetition of much that Isaiah has already written in ch. 40-44.

 

Then how did the name of Cyrus come to be there at all? There are four possible explanations of this:

 

  1. it is a misguided rabbinic comment which has crept into the text.
     
  2. It is a misreading of a similar Hebrew word meaning "(God's) workman" or "craftsman" — a deliberate contrast between Hezekiah's zeal for the temple and the fashioner of idols whose work Isaiah has so often and so caustically derided.*
     
  3. The name of Cyrus was deliberately inserted by Jews (political Zionists) who wanted to influence the new king into helping them back to their homeland.
     
  4. By reading the Hebrew "to Cyrus" (LCVRS) as two words, with the slightest possible alteration**, the passage reads: "that saith to thee, the inheritor (s.w. 65:9), my shepherd." If this is the correct approach, then there comes to light a very intriguing play on words, for now the Hebrew words for "inheritor" and "perform" (in v.28) make up the name of Jerusalem (also in v.28).

 

It is the third or fourth of these explanations which is the most likely. The Jews have always evinced a willingness to influence politically powerful Gentiles in their favour by phoney exposition of their Holy Scriptures.

 

In just this way Josephus got to work on Vespasian. His own record (B.J.3.7.3,9 and 4.9.7 and 6.5.4) implies that he made unscrupulous use of Biblical prophecies and shrewd fabrications or interpretations of his own dreams, about the exaltation of Vespasian, and later Titus, to the dignity of Caesar.

 

Onias the high priest used Isaiah 19:19,20 as a prophecy to persuade Ptolemy and Cleopatra to grant him permission to build a temple in Egypt (Ant. 13.3.1 .)*** It seems very probable that Ptolemy Soter the first Greek king of Egypt took his royal name (Saviour) from that prophecy.

 


* This is the explanation favoured by J.W. Thirtle in "Old Testament Problems", ch. 16.

** A yod for a waw, a common enough mistake in the Hebrew MSS!

*** And in his footnote at this place, Whiston argues very persuasively for another Jewish corruption of the text of Isaiah.

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Similarly the high priest Jaddua claimed a divine revelation in a dream and succeeded in softening up an angry Alexander (the Great) by showing him a prophecy in Daniel about himself (Ant. 13.8.4,5).

 

And in modern times political Jews, unbelievers without any confidence whatever in the authority of their own Scriptures, have been ready enough to use the Promises in Genesis to bolster up their claims to the Land of Israel.

 

In exactly the same way, it is suggested, Babylonian Jews made the smallest alterations imaginable to their copy of Isaiah in order to gain the special favour of Cyrus*. Josephus records (Ant. 11.1.2) that Isaiah's prophecy was brought to the attention of the Persian king:

 

"Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfil what was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews..."

 

The Cylinder of Cyrus quotes phrases out of Isaiah: "whom he (Marduk!) took by his hand...he called him by name" (45;1,4). Also, Isaiah's words: "that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me" (45:6), are very closely matched by a passage in the Cylinder of Cyrus, only applied to himself, not to the God of Israel.

 

Another expression: "Their sighing I stilled," is quoted from Isaiah 21:2. How would Cyrus know these words without having some Jewish mentor to steer him to an out-of-context application of this Scripture to himself? The implication seems to be that someone was more intent on making an impression on Cyrus than on rightly dividing the Word of Truth **

 

Strabo says that originally Cyrus's name was Agrodates. Since Cyrus is Elamite for 'shepherd' (Is. 44:28), it begins to look fairly likely that it was in pleased reaction to the prophecy of Isaiah that the king changed to the more familiar name. The remarkable fact that Xenophon refers to Cyrus as "God's shepherd" tends to strengthen this conclusion.

 

The over-all result from this analysis would appear to be that this Scripture, a genuine prophecy of Isaiah, was not about Cyrus at all, but — as will be expounded in the next two chapters — about Hezekiah and about the Messiah of whom he was so splendid a prototype.

 


* Thus, hundreds of years before Jesus, the scribes were saying: "We have no king but Caesar"!

** It is difficult to imagine men like Ezra or Nehemiah going in for antics of this sort. Yet it may be inferred from Ezra 1:1-4 that Cyrus had some Jewish adviser at his elbow, for the phraseology of his proclamation is thoroughly Hebraistic in every phrase. And this Jewish courtier, whoever he was, would be quietly laughing up his sleeve because Cyrus is also marvellously like the Hebrew word for "potsherd" (see Is. 45:9).

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Additional Note

 

W.A. Wordsworth (in "En-Roeh") has some searing comments to make on this Cyrus problem:

 

"It is contrary to all analogy that Isaiah should have foretold the coming of Cyrus: incredible that any prophet, inspired to write the preceding paragraph (in Isaiah 44) ridiculing idolatry, should give to one, who boasted himself a worshipper of Merodach, the titles "My Shepherd and anointed". It is almost incredible that scholars, who know the facts about Cyrus and believe the Spirit of the Holy One spoke through the prophets, should have acquiesced so long in the abominable in­sult to the most inspired of seers, which results from the Deutero-lsaiah hypothesis..."

 

"It is in favour of the faithfulness of the Jewish scholars (according to their lights) that the Messianic Text cannot without some violence to grammar be made to give the sense they require..."

 

"I would draw special attention to Christ's saying: 'I am the good shepherd, I am the door of the sheep; all that came before me were thieves.' I feel no doubt that this refers to the mis-reading 'Cyrus, my shepherd;' In accepting the titles Yahweh's shepherd and his Christ (anointed), Cyrus was a receiver of stolen goods..."

 

"Why have Christian scholars followed the blind into the ditch? Nothing has done more to sap the vitality of the Church than the vague sense that the OT. is discredited, a delusion which is the result of the "assured results" of critical studies. Of this whole building of Babel the Deutero-lsaiah delusion is the chief comer brick; and of that delusion the name of Cyrus is the crumbling clay..."

 

"The inscription (of Cyrus) also shows, out of Cyrus' own mouth, that he reversed the policy of Nabonidus, which by centralizing all worship in the temple of Merodach had tended towards monotheism; Cyrus showed favour to all the heathen gods; how could the writer of Isaiah 44 call such a broad-minded idolater Yahweh's Shepherd and anointed?"

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44 (4). A Greater than Cyrus is here (v.21-28)

 

In this new prophecy of forgiveness and redemption there is once again the ambiguity already encountered. Jacob-Israel may be the nation, or may be the leader of the nation — Hezekiah (45:4 suggests the former).

 

First, then, the exhortation to "remember these things," i.e. the long drawn-out castigation of the follies of idol-worship (v.9-20). There is a special reason for avoidance of all such folly: "I have formed thee." This sums up in a phrase the many long years of discipline needed to change their forefather Jacob into Israel, and also the patient instruction of Jacob's seed. "I have formed thee" — what a contrast with the prophet's biting commentary on the ignorant pagan patiently shaping and fashioning his god and then prostrating himself in worship before it!

 

Do not forget this lesson, O Israel, for you will not be forgotten*. "He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."

 

Sins Forgiven

 

And now, the most sublime assurance imaginable: "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions...return unto me; for I have redeemed thee" (v.22).

 

Repent because you are forgiven! This seems to be the wrong way round. "Repent ye, therefore, that your sins may be blotted out," was Peter's exhortation. But in Hezekiah's day, the people had been redeemed from inevitable destruction (as it seemed), and for the sake of their great leader had been forgiven — and this at a time when most of them had failed to join in the surge of reformation their king had called for.

 

"Blotted out as a thick cloud" is a direct allusion to the Day of Atonement, for even the high priest, the most worthy man in the nation, was required to go into the Divine Presence enveloped in a cloud of incense, "that he die not" (Lev. 16:13).

 

Three times it is emphasized that "the Lord hath redeemed Jacob" (v.22-24). Well might heavens and earth erupt into uncontrolled rejoicing: "Break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein." These trees which might be fashioned into gods for worship (v. 13,14) cry out and shout in adoration of the God who has made them. And well they might, having been saved from further depredations by callous Assyrians envious of a verdure-clad land so much better than their own.

 

This appeal to all Nature to join in glorifying the God of Israel is a common feature of Isaiah's writing. He has an entire psalm about it (104); cp. 42:10-13; 45:8; 49:13; 55:13. And if inanimate creation, then how much more ought God's greater works — His redeemed — to rejoice in Him?

 

The God of Israel has vindicated Himself against all bogus religion coming from the minds of men, whether home-made or imported: "He frustrateth the tokens of the liars (the priests; LXX: ventriloquists; 20th century: mediums; cp. 47:13), and maketh diviners mad."

 

To help His people, "he confirmeth the word of his servant (Hezekiah: "There be more with us than with him...with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles;" 2 Chr. 32:7,8). He performeth the counsel (i.e. prophecy; 46:11) of his messengers"* (Isaiah, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk — what a team!).

 


* This could be (as LXX): "Thou shalt not forget Me." The Hebrew word also means "shrink" (s.w. Gen. 32:32!) — You shall not shrink away from Me.

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Comfort for Zion

 

The prophets of the Lord gave specific assurance: "Jerusalem shall be inhabited, and the cities of Judah shall be built." Boastful Sennacherib talked openly of de­porting these men of Jerusalem to a land far away (36:16,17). With his long catalogue of victories against "the fenced cities of Judah" (36:1) he mocked their resistance and scared them with tales of devastation.

 

But the word of the Lord said exactly the opposite. The strong-flowing Assyrian tide must recede. "I will dry up thy rivers." It was Jehovah who had brought this irresistible invader into the land: "The Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many" (8:7,8; cp. 17:12, and contrast 37:25). So only the Lord could save his people and this for the sake of His Servant: "He is my shepherd (gathering the lambs with his arm; 40:11; he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord; Mic. 5:4). He shall perform all my pleasure (here is a lovely play on Hephzibah, the name of Hezekiah's wife), saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."

 

There is no problem about these words. The foundation referred to is the altar of burnt-offering which apostate Ahaz had ruthlessly shifted out of the way, so that the temple service might centre round his new Assyrian altar (see the details in 2 Kgs. 16:10-16; B.S. 4.09). But one of Hezekiah's first reforms had been the restoration of the traditional order: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried-stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation" (Is. 28:16). Peter expounds this passage in explicit fashion about an altar in a temple (1 Pet. 2:4-9).*

 

A reassuring promise of the re-building of Jerusalem was just as necessary, for, years before, the cataclysmic earthquake in Uzziah's reign (Am. 1:1; 3:14,15; 9:1-6,14; 8:8; Zech. 14:4,5; Is. 2:10-22; 64:1; Jos.Ant. 9.10.14) had left large parts of the capital in ruins, and the beggarly policies of king Ahaz had made restoration mostly out of the question. Hezekiah had inherited a Jerusalem difficult to defend because of its shattered walls (see 22:9,10; 2 Chr. 32:5). But now, with the Assyrian ebb-tide flowing strongly, and a great surge of prosperity lifting the nation out of its miseries, the restoration of city and country went on apace.

 

Further Fulfilment

 

And now it is time to turn to the Messianic reference of this prophecy.

 

It is possible to demonstrate that Peter's healing of the lame man at the gate of the temple took place on the Day of Atonement. (See "Acts", HAW, ch.12). Hence his words: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord..." (Acts 3:19). This is Isaiah 44: "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy trans­gressions... return unto me (i.e. repent);" followed by the season of refreshing: "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: Shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains...for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified him in Israel."

 

Here, "shout" could also read: "sound a trumpet" (as in Num. 10:2,9; 2 Chr. 13:12 and LXX). Read this way, there is anticipation of NT. association of cloud and trumpet in prophecies of the Lord's second coming (Mt. 24:31; 1 Th. 4:16,17; Rev. 1:7,10; 14:15), when the most wonderful of all seasons of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord.

 


* Matching this plural, LXX has "servants", thus providing a parallelism. In that case, the allusion to Hezekiah disappears.

** For fuller details of this large and impressive topic see the commentary on Isaiah 8:14; 28:16.

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New Creation

 

"It is I, Jehovah, that maketh all (these) things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." Why the Covenant name of God here? Surely "Elohim" would be more suitable, putting emphasis on His mighty power!

 

But no! This is a prophecy of new heavens and earth, the New Creation in Christ, and any name except Jehovah would be out of place.

 

Appropriately, then, this is the first of a series of links with Isaiah 40 (see v. 12,22 there):



Chapter 44


Chapter 40

26.

That confirmeth the word of his servant.

8.

The word of our God shall stand for ever.

26.

His messengers

9.

Thou that bringest good tidings.

26.

Jerusalem inhabited, cities of Judah built.

9.

Jerusalem...the cities of Judah.

28.

My shepherd

11.

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.

45:2

Crooked places straight.

4.

The crooked shall be made straight.

22.

Blotted out thy transgressions.

2.

Iniquity pardoned.

 

Such a comparison becomes another nail in the coffin of Cyrus, for assuredly Isaiah 40 is not about him. But reference to the Messiah and to his true prototype Hezekiah is easy.

 

Messiah and Moses

 

This Scripture has also a series of allusions to Moses, the fitness of which in a Messianic prophecy needs no emphasis:

 

"Thou art my servant (44:21)...The Lord that formed thee from the womb (v.24)...That frustrateth the tokens of the liars (v.25)...That saith to the deep, Be dry (v.27)...my shepherd (v.28)...l will loose the loins of kings, to open before thee the two leaved gates (deliverance from captivity; 45:1 )...l will go before thee (v.2)...I will give thee the treasures of darkness (Sinai; v.3)."

 

Allusions such as these to Moses and the Exodus crop up frequently right through Isaiah. But it is the saving of a New Israel, and by the hand of One greater than Moses, one who is "my shepherd (Jn. 10:11), who shall perform all my pleasure (Mt. 17:5)."

 

There is here also a promise that God will "confirm the word of his servants (LXX), and perform the counsel of his messengers." The world became aware of this when disciples went and "preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and con­firming the word with signs following" (Mk. 16:20).

 

But their message involved the destruction of the old unregenerate Jerusalem, and the building of a New Jerusalem, in its place, a Jerusalem with a temple holy to the Lord, with its foundations laid immovable — "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3:11). Through him, and only through him will the cities of Judah be built. All the dedicated efforts of political Zionism are destined to perish.

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