The Second Exodus
History repeats itself, it is said, and certain it is that by the will of God Jewish history is to repeat itself, with variations that will redound to His ever increasing glory upon earth. The Exodus from Egypt in the days of Moses, and the return from Babylon in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, are both divinely before us in this prophecy as illustrations of what God intends to do with Israel in the latter days. The Exodus was, of course, a matter of national history in Isaiah’s day; but the Babylonian captivity was yet in the future; as also, but less remotely, was the Assyrian captivity of the ten tribes, which Isaiah now foretold (viii. 1, &c.) But the spirit of God, speaking of the recovery of Israel “a second time,” included “Assyria” and “Shinar” among the countries of their dispersion, in harmony with the history that was to come.
Looking back upon the Exodus and the return from Babylon, we discern many beautiful analogies, which the gospel p. 227 of the Kingdom of God enables us to apply as light upon our future.
In the case of THE EXODUS, the time specified by God to Abraham was expiring, and a deliverer was provided by a birth of water as it were, and after training, was rejected by Israel, and kept in hiding in a far country till an appointed crisis for his revelation. The people multiplied and waxed more and mightier than the Egyptians. This was met by oppression and the cruel decree of Pharaoh against the male children. In Moses’ case the decree was not only circumvented by God; but was made actively operative against Pharaoh in his own court, through his daughter’s pity for the child who was afterwards to be the ruin of Egypt. After the long time in “a far country,” Moses is divinely sent back to Egypt to deliver Israel. Aaron in Egypt is sent to meet him: “The Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him.” Then came the gathering of the elders of the people, and the doing of the signs. Afterwards came the demand on Pharaoh, and his indignant refusal to recognise Yahweh or let Israel go. The plagues followed, and the exposure and judgment of the gods of Egypt. The slaying of the firstborn was the last stroke threatened. Before it came the Passover was instituted and the beginning of the year changed. Then came the judgment of that awful night, when by one final blow there was brought right home into the heart of every individual in Egypt the conviction that Yahweh alone was God in all Egypt, and that He was with Israel and against Egypt, with all-seeing scrutiny and almighty power.
The consecration of Israel’s firstborn followed, and then came the flight, the passage of the Red Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts, and the fervent song of Moses and Israel on the further shore. Afterwards came the 40 years’ sojourn in the Wilderness, embracing the giving of the law by the disposition of angels, the making of the tabernacle, the manna, the murmurings, the rebellions, the gradual purging out of all the rebels, and at p. 228 length the settlement in the land under Joshua of a tried and purified remnant which swept the land of the ripened iniquity of the Amorites and others, and took their place.
Somewhat analogous, though less dramatically striking, is THE RETURN FROM BABYLON. Again there is an appointed time; and as with Moses, so with Daniel, it is more or less accurately discerned from the revealed counsel of God, and prayers and confessions and yearnings ascend to Him in consequence, in the face of life-threatening difficulties. An Ezra and a Nehemiah stand ready, as Moses stood. Decrees of kings are overruled by God as in the days of Pharaoh. Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes lend themselves to His purpose according to His will. There is the restoration of sacred vessels, the return of priests, the divinely-defended march from Ahava river to Jerusalem, the setting up of the altar, the laying of the foundations of the temple, amidst a strange mixture of joy and mourning that will find no place in the antitype. There is the hindering of the jealous neighbours and enemies, whose rejected appeal, “Let us build with you,” stirs up all their animosity. There is the expostulation and encouragement of the faithful prophets (Haggai and Zechariah), who speak of times then present, and future glory then far remote. There is the subverting of the machination of the enemies by the divinely controlled favourable decree of Darius. And finally the cleansing of Israel by a drastic process of separation from strange wives—a lesson for all time, for the most part little heeded.
When God says He will set His hand “a second time” to recover Israel from these and other countries, He expects us to be informed concerning what He did at the first; lacking which, our ears will be dull of hearing, and our eyes closed, as it was with Israel of old to His displeasure.
Those then, who would understand and prepare for a part in the great and terrible and glorious work of Christ that is to come, must study the divine records of the work of God in the past, in the spirit of Psalm cv., “O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name; make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name, let the heart p. 229 of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face evermore. Remember his marvellous works that he hath done; his wonders and the judgments of his mouth, O ye seed of Abraham, his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen.” “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed,” says an apostle. Therefore the foregoing applies to Gentile converts of the latter days.
“It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isa. xi. 11). In the countries named there will be accomplished “in that day,” by the hands of “the root of Jesse,” the “prophet” of whom Moses spoke, the antitypical “Joshua” of whom Zechariah testified, a work like that which, in the same countries, was performed by God through these “men of sign” of old. The analogy is expressed not only in this chapter xi. of Isaiah, but in other places as well, as Micah vii., Psa. lxviii., &c., and is striking and obvious to those enlightened in the truth.
The times of the Gentiles are running out, and there is expectation of deliverance for Israel “in the air,” both spiritual and national. Christ is the Moses of the situation, who came “not by water only, but by water and blood.” He is away in the “far country,” and Israel groans in the modern house of bondage of “the north country,” where oppressive decrees and periodical massacres make life intolerable. The saints, like Aaron, are expecting the command, “Go into the wilderness to meet (the prophet like unto) Moses”—“at the mount of God.” And those who are faithful, like Aaron, will be “glad in their hearts.” The antitypical Moses will show his brethren God’s power, to the extent of swallowing up their mortality in life in the twinkling of an eye, and will make known to them his counsels of war, and formulate his demands upon the courts of the powers that be.
p. 230 Refusal and plagues will follow, and the war of the great day of God Almighty, and at last, out of the chaos of destruction, will arise, as out of primeval darkness, the new and beautiful order of the day of Christ. A new era will dawn upon the troubled world, and the Passover be celebrated afresh in the Kingdom of God.
Meanwhile, taking a view of the countries named, we perceive Israel still preserved, but in dispersion in all these districts: a monument to the truth of God (“my witnesses,” He calls them), and an earnest of the blessedness that is to come.
“From Assyria.”—Concurrently with the increasingly virulent attacks of scepticism on the Bible, an increasingly strong defence of “the impregnable rock” has accumulated during the last half-century, which owes a good deal to Assyrian and Babylonian exploration. Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser, Shalmanezer, Sargon, Sennacherib, and others have come to light and are now in the British Museum. They of course agree with the Scriptures, and even mention some of the kings, as Jehu, King of Israel, and Manasseh, King of Judah. One of the most recent ethnological notes, speaking of the Assyrians as pure Semites, as manifest from Genesis (x. 22), and the native inscriptions, adds: “Their descendants, the ‘Chaldeans’ of the mountains near Mosul, still speak a corrupt Aramean dialect, and have features closely resembling those of the Hebrews.” Current estimates place the number of Jewish in Turkey in Asia at 150,000, of whom many are doubtless located in the regions of ancient Assyria.
“From Egypt.”—Although it is evident that nothing like the ancient sojourning in Egypt now obtains in that country, yet there are some 8,000 Jews there, and their number steadily increases with the rising prosperity of the country under British administration. But before the second exodus they will be brought there in full force as in the days of old.
“Pathros.”—This was the name of Upper Egypt, as distinguished from Mazor, Lower Egypt, and Mitzraim, including both. It was here that the disobedient remnant of Judah settled in Jeremiah’s days; after disobeying the word of God which He p. 231 spoke to them. Here they persisted in serving “the Queen of Heaven,” ascribing their misfortunes to their previous neglect of that worship; an inversion of facts that involved them in ruin with the country of their choice, for God gave Pharaoh Hophra into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, as He had previously given Zedekiah, King of Judah. In the resurrection Jeremiah will be familiar with Pathros, and his dealings with Israel in the days of the second exodus will be of a very different character from the galling encounters of the days of his flesh.
“Cush.”—The first mention of this name in the Bible is in Gen. ii. 13, where it defines the whole land compassed by the river Gihon, the second branch of the river of Eden. Cush was the son of Ham, and though his son Nimrod made a great name in eastern “Babel,” the descendants of Cush mostly occupied Ethiopia, or Abyssinia. “Ethiopia” is the term used to represent Cush in the English Bible; but this leads to confusion in Gen. ii. 13, where the retaining of the original name leaves all clear. Cush in Isaiah xi. 11 is in association with Egypt and Pathros, and is doubtless rightly referable to Ethiopia. Menelik of Abyssinia delights to style himself “King of the Kings of Ethiopia” (or Cush, which means black), and it is interesting to learn that there are in his dominions some 50,000 Jews, known as Fellashas, of whom, of course, the world is destined to hear more. In passing, it may be remarked that Isaiah’s description of our own “land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (Cush)” (ch. xviii.), fits the geography of the case both East and West, for British power is found in its Indian Empire beyond the Euphratean districts, and recent developments have consolidated it also upon and beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.
“Elam” is Persia, speaking roughly, and took its name from Shem’s son Elam. It is associated with Media in Isaiah’s prophecy against Babylon (xxi. 2), and was the country of Chedarlaomer, whose confederacy was defeated by Abraham and himself slain. It was after this exploit that Melchizedek, king of Salem. and priest of the Most High God, brought forth bread and wine and blessed Abraham on his return. Abraham will know all about Elam in the regeneration, when the antitypical Melchizedek p. 232 reigns in Salem, and ministers bread and wine in blessing to his conquering heroes. There are 30,000 Jews, according to current estimate, in Persia, where, in the lands of Semitic origin and ancient settlement, they are better treated than among the Japhetic barbarians of the North quarters.
“Shinar” is Babylonia proper, the territory of the kingdom of Nimrod, the mighty hunter of men and beasts before the Lord. It is the land of Babel, where “the children of men” built the tower, and the Lord confounded human language and scattered them; the land in which the Lord’s nation was captivated for its sins, and the vessels of His temple desecrated in the house of the god of Babylon. It is the land whose chief city, as a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, made nations drunk and mad (Jer. li. 7). Spiritually, its extent stretches far beyond the Euphratean country of Nimrod’s kingdom. As, by the decree of a Roman Emperor, the city Rome was considered and declared to be co-extensive with the Empire, so Babylon, giving its name to that same city, by reason of its spiritual parentage and family likeness, comes before as the designation of an enormous system ramifying into all the earth; and “the land of Shinar,” therefore, stands for all the territory of the enemy, where Israel is hunted and captivated for their sins, and the saints, who are Jews inwardly, have in past times shared the experiences of Daniel and his companions as far as concerns wild beasts and fire. The vision of Zech. v. gives us this idea of “Shinar” as Dr. Thomas has scriptually demonstrated (Eureka i. p. 72). The house of the wicked woman there described, was to be built in the land of Shinar, and established and “set there upon her own base.” “Her own base” is a ricketty foundation. God’s rock foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. iii.), and individuals and communities are built upon him who hear his sayings and do them (Matt. vii. 24). No other “house” will stand. Babylon is condemned beforehand in the Revelation, and the prophets and apostles are to rejoice over her downfall. In Isaiah xi. “from Shinar” suggests this secondary and antitypical view of a feature in the second exodus. Of the number of Jews in the territory p. 233 of ancient Shinar we know little, but the spiritual extension of the territory necessitates the taking in of nearly all the world; and the present estimation of the world’s Jewish population is from ten to eleven millions, whose rising watchword is ZION versus BABEL, IMMANUEL’S LAND versus SHINAR.
“Hamath” was a city and district of Upper Syria, the northern boundary of the land as appointed by God, both past and future (Num. xxxiv. and Ezek. xlvii.). It is at present, of course, included in the Asiatic part of the Turkish Empire, in which as a whole the Jews are numbered at 150,000.
“The Islands of the Sea” comprehended at first mainly those of the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, one of the chiefest of which (Cyprus) is now being spoken of as a “side door” to Palestine in the colonisation movements of Zionism. But wherever there are islands there are Jews, so complete is the dispersion which God foretold. In “the remote islands of the Northern Seas,” as Dr. Thomas described Great Britain and Ireland from a Jerusalem standpoint, the Jews have found more toleration and comfort in the latter days than in any other land of the Gentiles. The Jewish Scriptures have taken hold on these people more than on others, and this, humanly speaking, is perhaps an element in the explanation of the phenomenon. The hold is slight enough truly, but even a traditional veneration for God and His holy word in the days and hands of Cromwell, led to a befriending of the Jews in this country which has progressed from that day to this, and has not been marred by anti-semitic outbreaks such as disgrace the continent of Europe.
In all the countries of this divine enumeration Israel remains in dispersion, and in more or less antitypical Egyptian and Babylonian conditions, such as were specified to obtain in the latter days. It is noteworthy that here and in other prophecies the uniting of the severed kingdoms of Israel and Judah is specially emphasised. A fantastic theory (Anglo-Israelism), that obtained considerable currency some years ago, and is not yet entirely extinct, has, while in a rude manner drawing attention to the prophets, quite obscured this fact.
p. 234 Anxious to identify Britain with “the lost ten tribes,” it has glorified “Ephraim” to the point of almost totally eclipsing Judah, though it is undeniably plain that to Judah the royalty belongs. It would be vain to follow its benighted ramblings; but occasion may be taken of noting afresh the uniform declaration of God by the prophets that the division of Israel is to be healed not by British ascendancy indeed, though that has its place in the work, but by divine power in the hands of “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Isaiah, who here speaks of the reuniting of Israel and Judah, was a witness of the “envy” between the two kingdoms, and the “vexing” wars that threatened the stability of the Davidic covenant. Jeremiah spoke in similar strain (iii. 18), “In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the North to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.” Ezekiel, with his symbolic sticks labelled Judah and Ephraim, which he joined together and made one in his hand (xxxvii.) graphically represented to the captivity the unification of the nation in the hands of the Son of David. And other illustrations might be given.
How deeply interesting and impressive is the spectacle of the first breath of national and political life stirring the dry bones of Israel. This “unification of the nation,” though, of course, without the faintest reference to the “Son of David,” much less to “Jesus of Nazareth,” is the spirit of the Jewish movement in these latter days. In the book that started Zionism: “A Jewish State,” by Dr. Herzl, he speaks with an insight, earnestness, and emphasis that are almost prophetic. He was doubtless an instrument in God’s hands, though he did not discern the true nature of the mighty work to which he stood related. He says, when rehearsing the phases of Amti-Semitism:—
“We are a people—ONE PEOPLE.”
“We have honestly endeavoured everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and p. 235 property as our fellow-citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers.”
Again, discussing the effects of Anti-Semitism, Dr. Herzl says:—
“We are one people—our enemies have made us one in our despite, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and, thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and a model State. We possess all human and material resources necessary for the purpose.”
These things are so: the scattered elements of the nation are there, and ready, and it needs only the divine Architect to “restore again the Kingdom of Israel.” But the nation will not become “one nation” until the Lord brings it about; but here is the first blush of the thing visibly before us. These things were written in 1896. In the following year the first Zionist Congress was held at Basle, and for the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem the national voice of Israel fell upon the ears of an astonished world. It portends the return of Christ and the setting up of “the ensign,” round whom, after centuries of alienation and suffering, the rescued tribes of Israel will at last rally.
Details of the restoration of Israel are scattered up and down the prophetic scriptures like parts of a dissected picture, for the exercise of the senses of those to whom the “hope of Israel” should come, whether of Jewish or Gentile extraction. Micah, who was contemporary with Isaiah, speaks as he does of the world-astonishing marvels of the second exodus (vii. 15). So also does Zechariah (x. 9-12). Various details are seen in vision by various prophets, and putting them all together in their proper places, we arrive at a more or less complete vision of the whole, in proportion to our skill in the placing of the disjointed parts. In this synthetical work, so far as we are aware, nothing has excelled, if indeed anything has equalled, the labours of Dr. Thomas in his books Elpis Israel and Eureka.
p. 236 It will be found upon study that the work of restoration is as deliberate and well marked a matter as the process of disintegration and scattering. Just as there was a time in which the nation of Israel was split into the rival kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah; there will be a time, in the days of the greater than Solomon, in which they will be joyously re-united. Isaiah’s prophecy of this came at a time when the enmity between the two kingdoms was at its height, and when the faithful remnant in Israel needed some encouragement concerning “the sure mercies of David,” because of the threatening overwhelming of his throne and kingdom at the hands of Ephraim and Syria. It was glad tidings for the prophet to say: “The envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them.”
The Philistines, Edom, Moab, and Ammon figure in Bible history only as Israel’s more or less successful enemies; and it is certain that nothing like the state of affairs depicted by Isaiah (xi. 14) has ever been seen from that day to this. Those who deny the restoration of Israel and declare that these ancient territories will never be subject to his dominion, deny the truth, and in effect, as the apostle says, “make God a liar.” This is the position of Christendom as a whole, though many, by reason of the striking Jewish developments current, are more or less disposed to admit portions of the truth. But where, in the preaching of churches and chapels, is it put forth as the express function of the Lord Jesus “to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the desolations of Israel?” Yet in Isaiah xlix. it is said of him that Yahweh formed him from the womb to be His servant, “to bring Jacob again to him.” It belongs to the latter-day revival of the truth to exalt the matter to its true place, whence by Gentile complacency and perversity it has been dethroned; and to emphasise the fact that the Gentile contingent of Christ’s people are but the slip of the wild olive, grafted p. 237 contrary to nature upon the good olive tree of Israel, where they stand only by faith (Rom. xi.).
In the fall of Israel the initiative was taken by Ephraim, whose kingdom was founded from the first upon apostacy from God in the hands of “Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” Ephraim came to an end in the days of Hezekiah. Their evil example was followed by Judah, and the prophets protested against it, especially Ezekiel, but without avail; and Judah’s captivity followed in the days of Zedekiah. Judah, returning from the Babylonian captivity, in a future generation filled up the cup of their iniquity in the rejection of Jesus, who became to them “a gin and a snare,” and they were afterwards overthrown and scattered as they remain at this day. But Jesus was not known to the “diaspora.” When he spoke of going unto the Father the Jews said: “Whither will he go that we shall not find him? Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?” But as he is to be “a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to both the houses of Israel” (Is. viii. 14), Ephraim must yet get to know him.
Whatever scraps of information may have distilled through missionaries among scattered Jewish peoples in Gentile lands, they relate to quite “another Jesus,” than he of apostolic testimony; and the knowledge that the ten tribes are to come to is of a very different character from these hazy dreams. The revelation of Joseph to his brethren is the type of the future manifestation, and the order is, “the tents of Judah first;” just as David was first made king over Judah in Hebron. The same kind of order is suggested by the events of the Exodus. First the manifestation of the rejected Moses to Aaron and the elders of Israel, and afterwards to all the people, followed by the divine demands on Pharaoh.
In the antitype the Lord Jesus, the rejected ruler and deliverer of Israel, returns as a nobleman from a far country whither he had been “to receive for himself a kingdom and to return” (Luke xix.). He comes after long absence—“After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them” (Matt. xxv.). The time of his coming is that of the p. 238 sixth vial of Apocalyptic revelation when the symbolic Euphrates is drying up, and the frog-demons are provoking the kings of the earth to war. His first work is “reckoning with those servants” — the judgment of his household, which implies the resurrection of the dead. This is introduced in the parable of the ten virgins in the same chapter, Matt. xxv., and is the subject of plainer speech elsewhere both by Jesus and the apostles and prophets. Apart from this rising up of the spirit’s “dead body” (Is. xxvi.), there could be no “perfect man” in manifestation as the multitudinous Christ—no “ensign of the people” on the mountains of Israel, and no restoration of Israel such as the gospel of the kingdom of God promises. Christendom does not believe this; but would gladly omit resurrection and judgment altogether.
The first work of Christ, however, will take Christendom by surprise as completely as it will Israel, and will result at last in the discernment “between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not” (Mal. iii.). The details of the judgment are revealed in various phases. Although Omnipotence and omniscience are with the Judge and his angelic retinue, it is evident that it will be a work of time—though as to how long we cannot speculate with profit. It is revealed that acceptance by the Lord is followed by change of this body of our humiliation into the divine nature in a moment at the appointed time; and that rejection by him is followed by weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and excommunication from the camp of the saints into that of “the devil and his angels,” there to await the “everlasting fire” prepared for their consumption.
The locality of the judgment-seat of Christ is revealed to be in the lands that witnessed the mighty revelations of God to Israel of old. Christendom has no idea of this; but consigns the whole inheritance of Christ and the saints to a fiery destruction at some perpetually receding “last day” of its benighted speculations. The truth delivers people from this, giving them to understand that God proposes to put things right upon earth where they have gone wrong, to regather the nation of His p. 239 choice to the land whence He scattered them for their sins, and to reveal Himself in glory through the prophet like unto Moses to the resurrected “ancients of Israel,” in the place where He at the first revealed Himself to Moses, who was “faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.” When Elijah fled from the wrath of Jezebel he instinctively came to this locality—“unto Horeb the mount of God” (1 Kings xix. 8). Elijah with Moses upon the mount of transfiguration spoke of Christ’s “decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” And Elijah with Moses will have to do again with “Horeb the Mount of God” in the days of the second exodus. The sixty-eighth Psalm, which speaks of that exodus (verse 22), and which speaks also of the resurrection and victorious ascension of Christ (verse 18 with Eph. iv. 8), locates the future manifestation of God in Sinai (verse 17). The italics in the Authorized Version are unauthorized and misleading The margin of the R.V. lets a little light in, though not much. It is beautiful and fitting that in the place where Moses received of Israel offerings of the willing-hearted for the “worldly sanctuary,” there the Lord Jesus should receive his own willing-hearted “that the Lord God might dwell in them” (Psa. lxviii. 18; Eph. ii. 22).
Accompanied by this glorious multitude, he goes forth from the land of the South on the work of conquest and national reconstruction of Israel that this psalm and the prophets in various places describe. He comes into his land and discovers a defenceless remnant of his nation that have been made a prey by the King of the North, who has taken Jerusalem, and doubtless supposes that his old dream of Universal Empire is at length about to be realised. He is terribly undeceived by the outburst of divine judgments depicted in Ezekiel xxxviii., xxxix., and elsewhere, in which, as in Joshua’s time, the confederacy of the North is overwhelmed in destruction. The result of this marvellous and unexpected deliverance of the land and city is to reveal to the astonished remnant in the land that “Jesus of Nazareth is He:” and, as the result of beholding his p. 240 wounded hands, they perceive that he whom their fathers sold and put to death, is indeed the Messiah. As with Joseph’s brethren of old, so with these—fear, shame, and penitence take hold of them—“the spirit of grace and of supplication” takes the place of the spirit of rebellion which for so many centuries took the form of the “message sent after him”—“We will not have this man to reign over us.”
Judah and Jerusalem being thus delivered, the proclamation is sent forth to the nations to submit to God’s king enthroned in Zion (Psa. ii.; Rev, xiv.). The bulk of Israel is still scattered among the nations—north, south, east and west. They are commanded to “give up” to “keep not back,” as was Pharaoh of old (Isa. xliii. 6). They refuse, and the war is carried into their countries, and nations and kingdoms are broken to pieces by God, with Israel as His “battle-axe and weapons of war” (Jer. li.). It is little dreamt of by the nations among whom the ten or eleven millions of Jews are scattered, that this is the relation of the ancient people to God and towards them! It is in the course of these developments that they are brought again into Egypt, and disciplined in the wilderness as were their fathers, with the like result of purging out the rebels from among them and providing a purified and humbled generation that shall worthily occupy the Land of Israel as “a righteous nation,” under Messiah and the saints, who are themselves in a higher sense, “the righteous nation which keepeth the truth” (Isa. xxvi. 2). This leading of Israel through the wilderness as in the days of old is plainly prophesied by Ezekiel (ch. xx.), since whose days no such movement has taken place. His contemporaries did not believe it, any more than ours do. He complained: “Ah, Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?” In a sense our contemporaries are less excusable than they, for so much more of Ezekiel’s prophecy is now history. We witness the latter-day colonization movement of which he spoke (ch. xxxviii.), and the second exodus “by the same word” is sure to be witnessed presently.
The prophecy of Isaiah concerning the rise and triumph of Immanuel which concludes in his twelfth chapter, necessarily p. 241 touches but briefly the outlines of these great developments. He says in the conclusion of the eleventh chapter, “The Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with His mighty wind shall He shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dry shod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His people which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” From this prophecy it has been supposed by some that it is God’s intention to close the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; and from other scriptures it has been supposed that Jerusalem itself would be approachable by water from the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
But these suppositions are unwarranted. The purpose of smiting the sea and the river is to “make men go over dry shod” as in the Exodus. Zechariah (ch. x. 11) repeats the prophecy, saying, “He shall pass through the sea with affliction and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.” Here there appears to be a blending of the literal and figurative, as also in Isaiah xi. The sea of Egypt and the Nile and the Euphrates have all been literally manipulated in the divine purpose in the past, and will be so again. But they also stand as symbols of the Egyptian and Assyrian powers. In this particular prophecy (Isa. viii. 1), “The waters of the river strong and many” are the symbol of “the king of Assyria and all his glory.” And in Rev. xvi. the drying up of the Euphratean waters is the symbol of the decline of the Turkish Power for the preparation of “the way of the kings of the east.”
So there are physical and political miracles in store for these ancient countries, and new literal and figurative highways will be opened in consequence. There has been a dead block for a long time, territorially, politically, and religiously; but the coming of Immanuel will change it all. Great international routes of pilgrimage to Jerusalem will be opened up as the result of his victories (Isa. xix. 22-25; Zech. xiv. 16). And the voice of thanksgiving and melody will resound in Zion, because God’s salvation is known in her in all the earth.