shall be redeemed by right, and her converts by righteousness. But the transgressors and sinners are destroyed together, and they that forsake the Lord are consumed." Comp. Matt. iii. 11 : avròs ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ και πυρί, where likewise a double washing, that of grace and that of wrath, is spoken of. In chap. xxxii. 15: "Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high," Isaiah likewise points to the regeneration which, in the Messianic time, will be accomplished by the Spirit; and it is, according to the whole usus loquendi of the Old Testament, most natural to think of the Spirit transforming from within. The Spirit of God scarcely occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament as the executor of God's judgments; so that the supposition is very natural that the spirit of destruction has been brought in by the spirit of right only. The word is, by some, understood as "burning," by others, as "destruction." We ourselves decide in favour of the latter signification, which occurs also in chap. iv. 13, for this reason, that it is in that signification that is, in Deuteronomy, used as the terminus technicus of the extirpation of the wicked. If the Church does not comply with the command: ἐξαρεῖτε τὸν πονηpòv è iμâv avтŵv, 1 Cor. v. 13; Deut. xiii. 6 (5), God himself will enforce His authority by His Spirit, who carries out the judgments of the avenging God, just as He carries out every influence of the Creator upon the created. On the "Spirit of the Lord," comp. my remarks on Rev. i. 4.

Ver. 5. The image is here taken from the journey of Israel through the wilderness. During that journey, they were guided and protected by a symbol of God's presence, which by day presented itself as smoke, and by night assumed the form of flaming fire. By this symbol the God of Israel was designated as the jealous God, as the living, personal energy, energetic in His love for His people, energetic in wrath against His and their enemies. Comp. especially Exod. xiii. 21: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light;" and xl. 38: "For a cloud was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night;" comp. Numb. ix. 15, 16. The same phenomenon is to be repeated in future, although in a different form. In a manner the most real, the Lord will manifest himself as the living energy of His Church, dwelling in the midst of her, and ruling over her as

a protector, so that the world's power can no longer injure her. That such will be done in and by His Sprout, in Christ, appears from the relation of the verse under consideration to ver. 2; for the verse before us still belongs to the expansion of the proposition placed at the head of the whole: "The Sprout of the Lord becomes for beauty and glory, and the fruit of the land for exaltation and ornament to the escaped of Israel." Christ in His person and Spirit is the true Shechinah, the true indwelling of God in His Church. This indwelling is, even in the Law, designated as the highest privilege of the covenant-people; its being raised to a higher power is therefore to the Prophet the highest blessing of the future, the source from which all other blessings flow. That which the heathen in vain longed for and imagined; that which Israel hitherto possessed only very imperfectly, a praesens numen, whereby the antithesis of heaven and earth is done away with, and earth is glorified into a heaven ;—that, the purified Church of the Lord possesses in the most perfect and real manner, and, in it, absolute security against the world, a decided victory over it. The words: "Over her assemblies," show that the whole life of the people shall then bear a religious character, and shall be a continual service of God, comp. Acts ii. 42, where, as a type of the completion of the Church, it is said: "And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." is only the name for that which is called, "the assembly," and stands in Levit. xxiii. and Is. i. 13 of the religious assemblies which were held on the holy days, comp. my pamphlet: Ueber den Tag des Herrn S. 32. The same phenomenon is, according to its appearance by day, designated, at the same time, as clouds and smoke. Smoke is never "vapour, vapoury clouds" (Knobel); and here the smoke by day corresponds with the flaming fire by night. If then the smoke can be considered as a product of the fire only (comp. my remarks on Rev. xv. 8), the cloud cannot come into consideration according to its matter, but according to its form only. The smoke assumes the form of a cloud which affords protection from the burning sun of tribulations, as once, in the burning desert, from the scorching heat of the natural sun, comp. Num. x. 34 : "And the cloud of the Lord was upon them;" Ps. cv. 39: “He spread a cloud for a covering;" Is. xxv. 5. The cloud which

thus affords protection to the Church turns a threatening face towards her enemies, Rev. xv. 8.-The words: "For above all glory is a covering" point to the ground of the protecting, gracious presence of God in the Church. Several interpreters explain the sense thus: "As we cover and preserve precious things more carefully, in order that they may not be injured, so does God in His grace surround His Church, which has been adorned with glorious virtues, and raised to the high dignity of the saints of God, and protects her from every danger." Others understand by- the whole glory mentioned in the preceding context; but in that case we should expect the article. One may also supply the limitation: For, in the Kingdom of God, there is a covering over all glory.

Ver. 6. God-this is the sense-protects His Church from every danger and calamity. By His gracious presence in His Sprout, He affords to them that protection which a hut does from sun, storms, and rain. Luther says: "In this passage, accordingly, Christ is held up to us as He who, in all tribulations, bodily as well as spiritual, is our protection." There is an allusion to the 21st verse of Ps. xxxi. (which was written by David): "Thou hidest them in the secret of thy countenance from the conspiracy of every one; thou keepest them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." The pavilion in this Psalm is a spiritual one, viz., God's grace and protection. That word of David shall be gloriously fulfilled when the Sprout of the Lord shall appear. The "Sun" comes into consideration in its scorching quality; and the "heat" is in Scripture the image of temptations, sufferings, and trials; comp. remarks on Rev. viii. 12, xvi. 8; Song of Sol. i. 6; Ps. cxxi. 6; Matt. xiii. 6, compared with ver. 21; Is. xlix. 10, xxv. 4; and, according to the last passage, we must especially have in view the enmity and assaults of the world's power. The "rain" appears as an image of tribulation in the Song of Sol. ii. 11; Is. xxv. 4: "The spirit of the terrible ones (the passions of the kings of the world, and conquerors) is like a violent shower against the wall;" xxxii. 2. A comparison of the Messianic prophecy in chap. ii. with that which we have now considered shows very clearly how necessary it is to regard the single Messianic prophecies as fragments only, supplementing one another, inasmuch as commonly

a few aspects only were presented to the spiritual eye of the Prophet. Just as the description in chap. ii. receives an important supplement from the passage now considered, inasmuch as the latter contains the mention of the personal Messiah, so it, again, supplements that before us by announcing the participation by the Gentiles in the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom.

THE PROPHECY, CHAP. VII.

IMMANUEL.

A crisis of the most important nature in the history of Israel is formed by the Syrico-Ephraemitic war, by the expedition of the allied kings, Rezin of Damascus, and Pekah of Samaria, which had been already prepared under the reign of Jotham, aud which broke out in the first years of Ahaz. It was in consequence of

this war that Asshur came into the land. The inroad of the Assyrian King, Pul, under Menahem of Israel, had been transitory only, comp. Vol. i. p. 165. It was only with the invasion under Ahaz that the tendency of Asshur began of making lasting conquests on the other side of the Euphrates, which could not fail to bring about a collision with the Egyptian power. The succeeding powers in Asia and Europe followed Asshur's steps. “Hitherto"-so says Caspari, in his pamphlet on the Syrico-Ephraemitic war, S. 17 ff.-" hitherto Israel had to do with the small neigbouring nations only,—now, in punishment of their sins, oppressed by them; then, in reward of their obedience, oppressing and ruling over them. And the Syrico-Ephraemitic war itself had been a link only in the chain of these attacks—its last link. Israel, having arrived at the point of being hardened, and having entered upon a path in accordance with this tendency, required another more severe corrective-its being crushed by the mighty world's power. The appearance of these mighty powers, just at the period when Israel entered upon their hardening, is most providential.—The beginning of the end of the kingdom of the ten tribes had come, and

the breaking up of its independent political existence had commenced. As enmity to Judah had given its origin to the kingdom of the ten tribes, so also did it bring about its destruction; born out of it, it died of it. It owed its existence to the incipient enmity; when the latter was accomplished (Isa. vii. 6), it caused its death.-The Assyrians came to the help of Judah, but charged a high price for their help, viz., Judah's submission and fealty. Thirty heavy years of servitude, and, to a great part, of fears of the worst, 2 Kings xvi. 18; Is. xxxiii. 18 (?); xxxvii. 3, followed for this kingdom also; and when, at the close of this period, it freed itself from them after the fashion of the kingdom of Israel, it shared nearly the same fate, 2 Kings xviii. 31 ff. It was only to the mercy of the Lord, who looked graciously upon the feeble beginnings of conversion, that it owed its deliverance. The Assyrian power, which had put an end to the kingdoms of Damascus and Israel, and which was the first power that appeared on the stage of history and came into conflict with the people of God, became a significant sign of the final fate of the world's power in its attacks upon the Kingdom of God. But, as a prelude to the long series of visitations which it had to endure from the world's power in its different phases, Judah was even now led to the very brink of destruction; there came a period, the 14th year of Hezekiah, when almost nothing more of it was to be seen by the outward eye than its metropolis exposed to the utmost danger."

A remarkable proof of the fact that the spirit which filled the prophets was a higher one than their own, is the fact that Isaiah recognized so distinctly and clearly the importance of the decisive moment.

In close connexion with the great crisis at which the history of the people of God had arrived, stands the richer display of the Messianic announcement which begins with the chapter before us. Messiah is henceforth represented to Judah as an Immanuel against the world's powers, as the surety for its deliverance from the severe oppressions hanging over it, as He who at last, at His appearance, would conquer the world, and lay it at the feet of the people of God.

After these general introductory remarks, let us turn more particularly to the contents of the chapter before us. It was