p. 593From Babylon the prophet turns to the house of Jacob again. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel: the Lord of Hosts is his name” (ch. xlviii. 1, 2). And it goes on to say that God foreknew their froward disposition and had spoken of it beforehand.
There is a challenge to Israel after the flesh here. It was not enough to be “called by the name of Israel,” to “call themselves of the holy city,” if they did not exhibit the faith and obedience of Jacob by reason of which his name was changed to Israel, and did not behave as true citizens of Zion. The expression, “Come forth out of the waters of Judah,” which is treated in our version as an allusion to national extraction, seems rather to indicate the apostacy of the people who had come or gone forth from “the waters of Judah” to drink at other sources. In a similar expostulation in Jeremiah God says (ch. ii. 13): “My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” And in an earlier chapter of Isaiah the house of Israel is rebuked for “refusing the waters of Shiloah” (viii. 6), which was literally despising the word that God sent to Judah, even the everlasting covenant with David.
Be this as it may, it is quite plain that insincerity and hypocrisy, coupled with fair profession, is the thing rebuked in Jacob. There were those who were of Judah and yet not of Israel p. 594 from God’s point of view. They were of Judah after the flesh, but not princes with God in obediently striving for His blessing. Christ himself afterwards had much to say of such, and to such. In him “the waters of Judah” were made manifest and accessible as never before. “If any man thirst,” said he, “let him come unto me and drink” (John vii. 37). But the invitation was refused, in that the leaders of the people refused his word and work. On this he told them they were not really Abraham’s children, or they would do his works, and not seek to kill “the Seed” so long promised (John viii. 39-40).
And after Christ the apostles spoke plainly on the same matter; Paul declaring to the Romans that “they are not all Israel who are of Israel” (ix. 6). And elsewhere, he forbids communion with “any man that is called a brother,” who flagrantly disgraces his name and calling. The Lord Jesus himself, in Rev. iii. 9, is very severe on such a class, and says: “I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but do lie; behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” This necessitates the post-resurrectional humiliation of the hypocrites, among whom no doubt will be those who specially Satanized Isaiah in his day and generation.
As to “the holy city” of which the hypocrites delight to “call themselves” citizens, Jesus says: “there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Rev. xxi. 27). This “holy city” is, of course, the body politic of the redeemed. But it is also true of Jerusalem herself under Messiah, that “there shall no more come into her the uncircumcised or the unclean.”
But “treacherous” professors have their place. God declared by the prophet that He knew all about them from the beginning, which is very evident when we turn to the prophecies of Moses in the law. In Deut. xxxii. especially, in view of the foreseen corruptions of “the latter days,” Moses, by the Spirit, recounted God’s kindness and wonderful works in Israel, His jealousy at their forsaking Him for other gods, His purpose to provoke them p. 595 to jealousy by forsaking them (for a time), for other people, and His last crowning mercy to His land and people in the restitution of all things. It is to this ancient pronouncement, and others like it, that Isaiah directs the attention of the people.
And God said that for His Name’s sake He would defer His anger, that His Name might not be polluted (v. 9, 11). This was a frequent declaration in the Law and the prophets. Moses was anxious concerning God’s Name and glory when He threatened to disinherit Israel and make of Moses a nation (Num. xiv.). Probably this was said to prove Moses, and to elicit from him the beautiful intercession recorded in the context; but the fact remains. Even the restoration yet to come is explicitly defined to be, not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of God’s Holy Name (Ezek. xxxvi.). Israel has ever been exceedingly complacent with his notions of posing as “the Apostle among the nations,” though, at the same time, inveterately rejecting “the Apostle” of God, that is Christ Jesus. All flesh will be given to understand that the coming Kingdom of God upon earth is established for His Name’s sake, and that both Israel and the Gentiles, so long astray from “truth and righteousness,” can only partake of its blessedness on the basis of righteousness learned under judgment.
And “for the elect’s sake,” as well as for His own Name’s sake, God “bears long” with the hypocrites, who are only vessels unto dishonour in His house, where the others will abide for ever as vessels of honour. It goes on to say here (xlviii. 12) “Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel, my called; I am he; I AM THE FIRST; I ALSO AM THE LAST. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them they stand up together. All ye assemble yourselves and hear; which among them hath declared these things. The Lord hath loved him, he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be upon the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him and he shall make his way prosperous.”
Here was a prospect of One who should be truly “called by the name of Israel,” and who should be a manifestation p. 596 of the Father. And not only so but “in Him” should be a multitude of “Israelites indeed,” in whom, at last, God should be all in all. This is the doctrine underlying the expression cited, as we have previously seen on an earlier occurrence of the same (ch. xli. 4). God, who created the heavens and the earth at the beginning, will, in Christ, establish the new heavens and new earth of Israel, which none of the Babylonian astrologers, ancient or modern, have dreamt of. Cyrus it was who did Yahweh’s pleasure on Babylon in the sixth century before Christ; but Christ will do His pleasure on the Apocalyptic Babylon, causing the holy apostles and prophets to rejoice over the vengeance manifested (Rev. xviii. 20). These two very remote but related crises seem to be covered by the prophecy in this place. It is certain that modern Babylon needs convincing of the reality and majesty of the God of Israel as badly as her ancient Chaldean prototype.
Then the spirit of Christ in Isaiah goes on to speak in the character of the called and sent One, and laments the short-sighted folly of Israel in the encountering of trouble and anguish by disobedience:—“Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me.” And in the lamentation that follows we are forcibly reminded of the later lamentation and weeping over Jerusalem by Jesus when he said he would have gathered her children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings; but they would not. But both Isaiah in this place and Jesus on that later occasion, look through the deepening gloom to everlasting glory at last. The limitation that Jesus puts to Jerusalem’s downtreading is expressed in the words, “until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” And here the prophet at last calls upon Israel to go forth out of Babylon and declare with singing and rejoicing that “The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.” But the section ends with an emphatic warning, running all through these prophecies, between real and sham Israelites: “There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked.”