p. 717We have only to imagine the authorship of chapter lxii. to be restricted to the prophet apart from the control of the spirit of God, to reduce the whole matter to absurdity. It begins:
“For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.”
How could the prophet speak this “of himself”? How could he guarantee the salvation of Zion? How could he know the purpose of the Lord unless the Lord revealed it to him? And how could his prophecies have so far come true, unless the spirit of Christ was in him?
No, it is not the utterance of Hebrew “genius.” It is “the word of the Lord by the prophet” concerning Christ. It is, as it were, Christ speaking beforehand in the person of Isaiah by the spirit. It has become obscured because popular theology—the theology of Christendom, wrongly so-called—has no place for such a work of Christ as is here, and so frequently elsewhere, specified. They, in effect, say, He has no more to do with Zion; his realms of bliss are in other spheres, and the city which once was forsaken will be forsaken of God for ever.
But Isaiah and the other prophets, as well as the apostles, all declare that it is Christ’s express mission to bring about the restoration of Israel. He was “formed from the womb to bring Jacob again to God” (Isa. xlix. 5). He should be “their Prince for ever,” and make their land “like the garden of Eden” (Ezek. xxxvii. 25: p. 718 xxxvi. 35). When he was raised from the dead his apostles naturally thought the time had come; hence their enquiry: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts i. 6). And after this again, though times and seasons were hidden from them, they preached his return from heaven for the restitution of all things God had spoken by the prophets (Acts iii. 21).
And Christ himself, in his own last prophecy from heaven, the book of Revelation, has appropriated the terms of this prophecy and declared himself to be the Righteousness and Salvation of Zion, and the Giver of her New Name, proclaimed by the mouth of the Lord.
This chapter, like others in the same prophet, is full of plays on names; by which the attention of the living was arrested, and knowledge hidden for the generations to come, who should arise to witness the fulfilment of the prophet’s words. Thus Azubah=Forsaken, was the name of Asa’s queen, the mother of Jehoshaphat (1 Kings xxii. 42). Her name applies to the Holy City during the long time of the “great forsaking” (Azubah, Isa. vi. 12). We know nothing of her character; but if it was anything like that of Maacah, Asa’s mother (2 Chron. xv. 16) there may be a correspondence between the name and the cause of the “forsaking.” The final promise of this chapter is that Jerusalem shall be called “a city not forsaken.”
Then again in the days of Hezekiah=Yah is Strength, when Isaiah uttered these words, his queen was named Hephzibah=My Delight is in Her (2 Kings xxi. 1). She was the mother of Manasseh, who filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and made the people “do worse than the heathen.” Her name, however, applies to the city in the time of restoration when “Yahweh delighteth in her.” Hezekiah was a good King, and it is probable that he was supported in his energetic suppression of idolatry and restoration of the worship of Yahweh, by Hephzibah his Queen.
Thus the events of those days and the names of the chief actors of the times were connected in measure with the message of the prophet, as will be more distinctly seen in the resurrection. But the substance is all of Christ. The New Name is representative p. 719 of a new experience. It was referred to by the other prophets before Christ himself made it clear for ever. Daniel in captivity, remembering the promise of restoration, prayed for the city called by God’s name, saying, “Defer not, O my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name” (Dan. ix. 18, 19). Ezekiel concludes his visions of the restoration of the city which had been smitten by the declaration, “The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there” (Ezek. xlviii. 35).
This is the rendering of the Authorised Version; but it is not quite satisfactory. It is quite true that the Lord will be there in the person of Jesus; but the New Name means more than that. Ginsburg (quoted by Rotherham) is doubtless correct when he suggests that shem and not sham is the true pointing, name and not there. This would make the statement run thus: “Yahweh (is) the name thereof,” or “Yahweh (is) her name.” The Septuagint gives “the name thereof” as the translation, but omits “the Lord,” perhaps because the translators could not rise to the idea of the divine name being named upon a city. From Isaiah’s prophecy, however, it is manifest that the city is to be married to God as a virgin is married to a young man. When this occurs the man’s name is named upon the woman, who becomes one with the man and partakes of his affection and care and all his substance.
But Christ has settled the matter for ever by his promise to the church in Philadelphia: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, (even) my new name” (Rev. iii. 12). Here the name of God, the name of the city, and the new name of Jesus Christ are diverse figures of the great salvation to be brought to his people by the Lord Jesus at his return. Hence the following beautiful remarks by Dr. Thomas in exposition of this passage—Eureka, vol. i., p. 399:
“To write the name of the city of the Deity upon one already inscribed with the name of the Deity, is indicative of all such constituting a Body Politic—a Divine Municipality. It is called ‘New Jerusalem’ in contradistinction to the Old Jerusalem under p. 720 the Mosaic constitution, ‘in bondage with her children.’ The latter was the mother of those whose name was good for nothing, but the former is the mother of all who believe the promises concerning the glorious things spoken of her approaching future. At present she is barren and desolate, having no children; nevertheless, this same shall break forth and cry, and become the higher Jerusalem, ‘the free city,’ which is the mother city, or metropolis, of the kingdom and dominion of the Millennial Aion. Jerusalem under Solomon the Second will be ‘higher,’ or more exalted than Jerusalem under Solomon the First, because the Municipality—THE INCORPORATE DEITY—will be her glory. In the times of Solomon, her state and municipal corporations were mortal men, and the glory of the Deity was confined to the temple, between the cherubim; but in the coming reign, the administration from the King to the least in the kingdom, will be immortal and greater than all that are born of women, and of such excellency in the estimation of Deity as to be compared to ‘gold and precious stones’ (1 Cor. iii. 12; Rev. xxi.).”
It is of this great consummation that the spirit of Christ in the prophet speaks, saying: “I will not hold my peace . . . I will not rest till it be accomplished.” What though appearances are against it? The purpose of God required not a continual manifestation of divine power, but the intervening of a time when God would “hold his peace”—and that “a long time”—as it is written: “I have a long time holden my peace; I have been still and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once” (Isa. xlii. 14).
There is a time for the silence, and it does not argue inactivity or lack of progress in the divine work. Behind the veil Christ is preparing the situation all the time. A people is being taken out from among the Gentiles by faith in the promises and obedience to the divine commandments. One by one they are laid aside in the dreamless sleep of sheol, and are clean forgotten by succeeding generations, but not by God. He appoints a set time, and will remember them. This was Job’s hope in his day. And then there is the punishment of Israel and the nations, and the preservation of Israel for the crisis of the latter days. Moreover, p. 721 there is the subjugation of the earth by the advancing march of what is called “civilisation,” that it may be ready in time for transfer to the King and his people at his coming. Could we but penetrate the invisible with our faithful scrutiny, we should see the angels of God at work just as much now as in the days of Daniel and the Persian kings. There is progress though there is silence, and in this sense, God “rests not.”
Jerusalem is rising in token of the approach of the time when she shall be made “a praise in the earth.” There are now many more Jews in the city than the number that returned in the days of the Restoration from Babylon. And though the purpose of God is scarcely known in its purity and fulness, there is here and there an increasing belief in a certain sort of Millennarianism, which is, at any rate, nearer to the truth than the old views that relegated Zion and Jerusalem to spheres “beyond the realms of time and space.” It is beginning to be realised in certain quarters that the city that was Forsaken is the city that is to be the Delight of the Lord, and to be married to her God, even to the Sons of Zion.
How far this may be due to the personal testimony of Zion’s true “watchmen” will never appear till the return of the Lord; but these are here exhorted to pray day and night for the peace of Jerusalem, which they do unceasingly. This is indeed the test that decides between the false and the true watchman. Both are spoken of by the prophet, who himself illustrated the true in his own person. He spoke of the blind, ignorant, dumb dogs of watchmen, greedy dogs who could never get enough. By another figure these were “shepherds who could not understand” (ch. lvi. 11). The others, the true, were, like the prophet, of clear vision and good understanding, not at all greedy; and as shepherds they intelligently guided and protected the flock against the evil beasts that abounded on all hands.
The situation remains in measure unchanged. “Christendom” is full of the blind, ignorant, and greedy watchmen, of “shepherds that cannot understand.” The faithful watchmen contend with these concerning the purpose of God, and warn the wicked of the error of his ways. They get little thanks for it, but p. 722 they must not refrain, or the blood of the unwarned will come upon their heads. Their time is coming, when they will be able to say in Zion: “As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever” (Psa. xlviii. 8).
In the day of Jerusalem’s deliverance, it is said that her children shall eat and drink and praise the Lord in “the courts of his holiness.” This involves the rebuilding of the temple, which is particularly specified by Ezekiel and Zechariah. Ezekiel, in the last nine chapters of his book, particularises on the details of construction and ordinances related to the courts of Yahweh’s holiness, and sees in vision the glory of the Lord enter the house by the way of the east (ch. xliii.), which portends as real (and more glorious) an occupation of the temple as that in the days of Solomon. Elsewhere Ezekiel sees “upon the tables the flesh of the offering” (ch. xl. 43). The whole vision has greatly troubled commentators who are ignorant and faithless of God’s purpose to restore again the kingdom to Israel. They sing:
“Pleasant are thy Courts above,\ In the land of light and love,”
but they have no delight in the coming glory of Jerusalem. They dream of “souls” departing to shadowy realms of bliss, and neglect the promise of everlasting inheritance of the earth in Christ Jesus. And because the watchmen of Zion challenge them and tell them the truth, they are accounted enemies. It is a grievous situation, but when once the glory of the Lord is revealed in Christ returned, then “all flesh shall see it together.”
“Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones, lift up the standard for the people. Behold the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord; and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.”
p. 723 Thus the climax is reached in the proclamation of Christ’s second coming in the glory of the Father with the holy angels as he said, when he shall reward every man according to his works. There is no mistaking the time now that the word of Christ in the apostles has made it clear. Nineteen hundred years ago John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord in the sense of preparing a situation and a people for the manifestation of Messiah. But he did not “prepare the way of the people” so that they might be proclaimed as “the holy people, and the redeemed of the Lord.” On the contrary, John himself was imprisoned and beheaded, and the Lord Jesus himself “lifted up,” not as a standard in victory, but “as the serpent in the wilderness” was lifted up by Moses, a sacrifice for sins. The “reward” was far distant in the future, the “salvation” was only revealed in Jesus personally in his resurrection from the dead to life eternal. And the city was “forsaken” and given into the hands of the Romans, who profaned the sanctuary, and deluged the courts of the temple, where Christ had ministered and had been rejected, with the blood of the blind and guilty watchmen who could not discern the day of their visitation.
It was not then that the prophet’s divine proclamation of the coming of Zion’s salvation found fulfilment. It is still future; but now not far distant. “A set time to favour Zion” has been appointed (Psa. cii. 13), and her true children know that it is nigh. Therefore, like Daniel, they set their hearts to understand, and chasten themselves before God, praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and that they may be remembered for good in the day of her deliverance.