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הארץ

and also stand in a contrast which is not to be mistaken. 2. Hitzig, Ewald, Meier, and others not only refer "the fruit of the land," but also the "Sprout of Jehovah" to that which Jehovah makes to sprout forth.1 It is true that, in the prophetic announcements, among the blessings of the future the rich produce of the land is also mentioned (comp. chap. xxx. 23-25), and the same is very expressly done in the Law also; but in not a single one of these passages does the strange expression occur, that this fruitfulness should serve to the escaped for beauty and glory, for exaltation and ornament, or any other that bears the slightest resemblance to it. Against this explanation there is, in addition, the circumstance that the barrenness of the country is not at all pointed out in the preceding context. Finally-When we understand this expression as referring to the Messiah, this verse, standing as it does at the head of the proclamation of salvation, contains the fundamental thought; and in what follows we obtain the expansion. In the verse before us we are told that in Christ the people attain to glory,—and, in those which follow, how this glory is manifested in them. But according to this view, every internal connection of the verse before us with what follows is entirely destroyed. 3. According to Hendewerk, by the "Sprout of the Lord," "the collective person of the ruling portion in the state during the Messianic happy time," is designated. This opinion is the beginning of a return to the Messianic interpretation. But then only could that ideal person be here referred to, if elsewhere in Isaiah too it would come out strongly and decidedly. As this, however, is not the case; as, on the contrary, the Messiah everywhere in Isaiah meets us in shining clearness, it would be arbitrary to give up the person in favour of

1 So Gesenius also in the Thesaurus: "The whole earth shall be holy and shall more beautifully bloom and be adorned with plenty of fruits and corn for the benefit of those who have escaped from those calamities." Gesenius' wavering clearly shows how little satisfaction the non-Messianic explanation affords to its own abettors. Besides the explanations of by "the new growth of the people," and "the rich produce of the country," he advances still a third one, viz., " 8 divinely favoured ruler," an explanation which has even the grammar against it, as we are at liberty to translate only: "The Sprout of the Lord;" and likewise the analogy of, according to which the Genitive can have a reference to the origin only.

to

a personification. 4. Umbreit acknowledges that, in the case of mmm, the Messianic interpretation is the only correct one. "The two subsequent prophecies in chap. ix. and xi.," he says, "are to be considered as a commentary on our short text." But it is characteristic of his compromising manner that by "the fruit of the land" he understands "the consequences of the dominion of the Messiah for the land, the fruits which, in consequence of His appearing, the consecrated soil brings forth,"—thus plainly overlooking the clear contrast between the Sprout of the Lord, and the fruit of the land, by which evidently the same thing is designated from different aspects.

Ver. 3. The Prophet now begins to show, more in detail, in how far the Sprout of the Lord and the fruit of the land would serve for the honour and glory of the Church. The words: "He that was left in Zion and was spared in Jerusalem" take up the idea suggested by the "escaped of Israel" in ver. 2. The double designation is intended to direct attention to the thought that the remnant, and the remnant only, are called to a participation in the glory. Zion and Jerusalem, as the centre of the covenantpeople, here represent the whole; this is evident from the circumstance that at the close of ver. 2, which is here resumed, the escaped of Israel were spoken of. Ever since the sanctuary and the royal palace were founded at Zion, it was, in a spiritual point of view, the residence of all Israel, who even personally met there at the high festivals.-Whoever is left in Zion "shall be called holy." The fundamental notion of holiness is that of separation. God is holy, inasmuch as He is separated from all that is created and finite, and is elevated above all that is finite; comp. my Commentary on Rev. iv. 8. Believers are holy, because they are separated from the world as regards their moral existence and their destiny. Here only the latter aspect is considered. Holy in a moral sense they were already, inasmuch as it is this which forms the condition of their being spared in the divine judgments. They become holy because they are partakers of the beauty, of the exaltation, and ornament which are to be bestowed upon the escaped by the Sprout of the Lord. The circumstance that they have been installed into the dignity of the saints of God implies that, when the Spirit of the Lord has appeared, the world's power has no longer any dominion over them, but that,

on the contrary, they shall judge the world. In like manner we read in Exod. xix. 6, in the description of the reward for faithfulness: "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation;" comp. ver. 5: "And now if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, ye shall be a property unto me out of all people." In reference to the exalted dignity and glory, holiness occurs in Deut. vii. 6: "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself out of all the people that are upon the face of the earth." When the company of Korah said: "All the congregation, they are holy" (Numb. xvi. 3), they had in view, not the moral holiness but the dignity,—a circumstance which is quite obvious from words added: "And in the midst of them is the Lord." And so Moses likewise speaks of the dignity in Numb. xvi. 7 : " Whom the Lord shall choose, he is the holy one." In Rom. i. 7; Heb. iii. 1, holiness is declared to consist in being loved, called, and chosen by God.—As regards the fulfilment of this promise, it has its horas and moras. It began with the first appearance of Christ, by which the position of the true Israel to the world was substantially and fundamentally changed. It was not without meaning that, as early as in the apostolic times, the "Saints" was a kind of nomen proprium of believers, comp. Acts ix. 13, 32. We are even now the sons of God, and hence even already installed into an important portion of the inheritance of holiness; but it has not yet appeared what we shall be, 1 John iii. 2. But the beginning, and the continuation pervading all ages, viz., God's dealings throughout the whole of history, whereby he ever anew lifts up His Church from the dust of lowliness, afford to us the guarantee for the completion, which is, with graphic vividness, described in the last two chapters of Revelation." To be called" is more than merely "to be;" it indicates that the being is so marked as to procure for itself acknowledgment.-The words: "Every one that is written to life in Jerusalem" anew point out that judgment will go before, and by the side of grace. according to the fundamental passage in Ps. lxix. 29, "not living ones" (Hoffmann, Weiss. i. S. 208), but "life." In Revelation, too, the book of life, and not the book of the living ones, is spoken of. "To be written to life" is equivalent to being ordained to

,is חיים The meaning of

life, Acts xiii. 48; comp. my Comment. on Ps. lxix. 29; Rev. iii. 5. Life is not naked life,-a miserable life is, according to the view of Scripture, not to be called a life, but is a form of death only-but life in the full enjoyment of the favour of God; comp. my Comment. on Ps. xvi. 11, xxx. 6, xxxvi. 10; xlii. 9; lxiii. 4. The Chaldean thus paraphases it: "All they that are written to eternal life shall see the consolation of Jerusalem, i.e. the Messiah." Comp. Dan. xii. 1; Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xx. 15, xxii. 19; Phil. iv. 3; Luke x. 20. The bodily death of believers cannot exclude them from a participation in being written to life; for, being a mere transition to life, it can, in truth, not be called a death. Here, too, the word of Christ applies: "The maid is not dead but sleepeth," Matt. ix. 24. The fact that there is no contradiction between bodily death and life, i.e. a participation in the blessings of the Kingdom of Christ, is pointed out by Isaiah himself in chap. xxvi. 19: "Thy dead men shall live, my dead bodies shall arise, for a dew of light is thy dew."

Ver. 4. The Prophet points out that before the Church is raised to the dignity of the saints of God, a thorough change of its moral conditions, an energetic expunging of the sin now prevailing in her, must take place, "When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion." The "daughters of Zion" are none other than those whose haughtiness, luxury, and wantonness were described in chap. iii. 16 ff., and to whom the deepest abasement was then threatened. The filth, under the image of which sin is here represented (comp. Prov. xxx. 12 : "A generation pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness) forms the contrast to the splendid attire which is there spoken of. Behind this splendid attire the filthiness is concealed. The filth is not washed away (1 Cor. vi. 11; Eph. v. 26) from the daughters of Jerusalem,- for, inasmuch as this washing away is accomplished by means of the spirit of destruction, it could not apply to them-but from Jerusalem; comp. the phrase, "from the midst thereof," which immediately follows. Jerusalem, the city of the Lord, in which no unclean person, and no unclean thing are permitted to dwell, is cleansed from the filth with which its unworthy daughters contaminate it. "And shall remove the blood of Jerusalem." The "blood of Jerusalem" is the blood which attaches to Jerusalem, which has been shed

in it. The connection of the punishment of the sins of avarice on the part of the rulers, in chap. iii. 13-15, with the punishment of the luxury and ostentation on the part of the women, is illustrative of the relation of filth and blood to each other. Blood is shed in order to furnish pride and vanity with the means of their gratification. The avarice of the rulers, and their shedding of blood, are put together in Ezek. xxii. 13; comp. ver. 27: "Her princes are in the midst thereof like wolves ravening the prey, shedding blood, destroying souls, to get dishonest gain." Bloodguiltiness those too incur who deprive the poor of the necessary means of support, Mic. iii. 2, 3. The comparison of

chap. i. 15: "Your hands are full of blood," and of ver. 21: "But now murderers," compared with vers: 17, 23, 26, shews that we have to think especially of unjust judges and avaricious rulers. Yet, there is no reason for limiting ourselves to the nobles and rulers alone; comp. Ezek. xxii. 29: “The people of the land use oppression, and boldly practice robbery, and vex the poor and needy, and oppress the stranger." Where sins so gross are still prevalent, where the law of the Lord is so wantonly broken, an installation into the dignity of the saints of God is out of the question. For that, it is absolutely essential that exertions be made that the high destination of the people: "Ye shall be holy for I am holy," become a truth; that in a moral point of view it show itself as truly separated from the world,— and that is something so infinitely great, that men are utterly unable for it, that it can proceed from God only, with whom nothing is impossible. The last words of the verse are commonly explained: "by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of destruction or burning." In that case the putting away of the filth and blood by the judging activity of the Lord, by the destruction of sin, would be spoken of. v, however, may also be taken in the sense of "right:" by the spirit of right which lays hold of, and changes the well disposed (comp. Mic. iii. 8: “But I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of right and might"), and by the spirit of destruction which consumes the disobedient. In favour of the latter view are the parallel passages; above all, chap. xxviii. 6, where it is said of the Messianic time, "In that day the Lord will become, &c.," "And for a spirit of right to him that sitteth for right;" farther, chap. i. 27, 28: "Zion