p. 741“Wilt thou refrain thyself . . . O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?” So Isaiah concludes the prayer of chap. lxiv. In the next chapter comes the answer of God, which was in effect that God would reveal Himself to another people because of Israel’s rejection of His goodness; and that He would “afflict Israel very sore” for a long time to come. During this the long-looked-for Seed should be manifested; and afterwards the true “Israel of God” should be saved, and all nations blessed in the glory of the “new heavens and new earth” that should at last be manifested.
We are told by one eminent critic that “Ch. lxv. 1-7 is not, properly speaking, an answer to the prayer of the preceding chapter, though possibly inserted by the editor with that intent.”
What preternaturally good “editing” some of the critics believe in. Here is a man who “possibly” slips in as an answer of God a disjointed passage from somewhere else, and his “scissors-and-paste” arrangement is so excellent that it works out true in the national history centuries afterwards, and receives the recognition and approval of an inspired apostle! Surely it requires as much faith to believe in such “editing” as to believe with the apostle Paul, that it was the work of the spirit of God by the prophet Isaiah.
We decline the guidance of a criticism which, whatever may be its value in certain technical proficiencies, nevertheless invites us to discount the judgment of Christ and the apostles. With us the construction of Christ and the apostles comes first, and nothing is acceptable that in the least disturbs it.
Paul in Rom. x., xi., xv. is our guide. He does not distinguish between Isaiah, Isaiah II., and “Tritojesaia.” He says:—“Esaias p. 742 is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Rom. x. 20-21). And his argument throughout this epistle to the Romans is a beautiful exposition of God’s purpose concerning the “everlasting salvation” of Israel, and the participation therein of an engrafted Gentile remnant.
The apostolic construction of the passage in question is that it is the answer of God to the prophet, to the effect that before God “rent the heavens and came down,” He would bring in “the fulness of the Gentiles, and so all Israel should be saved.” This purpose, as Paul reminded the Roman believing Gentiles, had been revealed by God from the beginning, even by Moses (Rom. x. 19; Deut. xxxii. 43), and was frequently referred to in the Psalms and the prophets. In the light of this revelation we can read ourselves into Isa. lxv. 1, and examine our standing with reference to the great principles unfolded in the context as to the acceptability of the prophet and the obedient remnant of Israel with that of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the hypocrites.
It might be added that Christ’s parable of the great supper, in illustration of God’s invitation to the kingdom of God (Luke xiv.), is the divine comment upon the earlier message of Isa. lxv. 1, 2. The slum-dwellers, and people of the highways and hedges of Christ’s parable, correspond to the “nation not called by God’s name” in Isaiah; and the people who “with one consent began to make excuse,” are the “rebellious people” of the previous divine allusion. They “walked in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts” (v. 2). They did not heed the word of God through the prophets, in gracious invitation and in reproof and correction, but “did evil, and chose that in which God delighted not” (v. 12). Christ, in his parable, indicates what “their own thoughts” ran on, to the exclusion of all ideas of the kingdom of God. It was lands, cattle, marrying and giving in marriage, till there was no “convenient season” left for thinking about God and His kingdom.
Worse than that, they perverted God’s appointments in their idolatrous practices, while all the time professing superior holiness: p. 743 “I am holier than thou.” They sacrificed in gardens, burned incense on bricks, remained among graves, and ate swine’s flesh. All these things point to direct infractions of the Mosaic law, and to participation in the worship of the “heathen round about,” as is elsewhere and so often rebuked in the prophets. They were the spiritual ancestors of those whom Christ himself denounced as “graves which appear not” (Luke xi. 44); and elsewhere as graves which do appear, even “whited sepulchres”; outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of corruption. They were the spiritual progenitors of all those, to this day, who turn the truth of God into a lie, and walk in pride and “strong delusion,” “after their own thoughts.”
God said He would visit the transgressors, as “it was written,” and “measure their former work into their bosom.” But the covenant with the fathers should not fail by reason of the unbelief and disobedience of that generation. In the language of Paul, the elect should obtain it, though the rest were blinded (Rom. xi. 7).
“Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it; so will I do for my servants’ sakes (or Servant’s sake, as the LXX. and some MSS. have it—that is, ‘for Christ’s sake’) that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains; and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me” (verses 8-10).
The “Seed,” “Servant,” “Inheritor of Yahweh’s mountains,” the “Head” of the elect, and “Blessing” for Israel and all nations, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly, after many generations had come and gone, and many neglecters and blasphemers had been destroyed, he appeared and spoke of “the regeneration” which God proposed, and promised to the disciples who “sought God” and who followed him, the eternal inheritance here promised beforehand. He even adopted the similitude of the “new wine,” saying concerning himself as the bridegroom, and concerning his doctrine as opposed to that of the Pharisees: p. 744 “Men do not put new wine into old bottles (wine skins), else the bottles break and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved” (Matt. ix. 17). Hence he committed his “gospel of the kingdom” to new men, even to the apostles, his “elect,” and both were preserved. The Pharisees could not contain this doctrine, neither can the clergy to this day. The twentieth century situation with reference to Christ and the inheritance is far more closely analogous to that of the first century than at present appears. When Christ comes there will be a wonderful revelation.
Sharon, meaning “plain,” is the low country that stretches north from Jaffa to the foot of Mount Carmel. It was conquered by Joshua (xii. 18), and in the zenith of the glory of the kingdom of David and Solomon was a place of pasturage for cattle (1 Chron. xxvii. 29). But it was overrun by the enemies and invaders of Israel, and will yet be overrun once more by the invading hosts of the latter days (Isa. xxxiii. 9); but ultimately, as is here stated, will become a “fold of flocks,” whence will come the sacrifices to Jerusalem, as in the days of old.
Achor, meaning “trouble,” is the rugged ravine that runs out into the plain just west of Jericho. It took its name from Achar (LXX.), the “troubler” of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed at the outset of Israel’s conquering career in the land of promise, and caused the death of many of his brethren. He was here stoned to death and destroyed, with all his belongings. Afterwards, Israel prospered in the war, and the valley of Achor became “a door of hope” for the conquerors. The literal and allegorical are mingled here without confusion. Israel will come this way again, after the type of the Exodus of old; and, after the expurgation of the “troublers,” will “sing there as in the days of her youth, even as in the days when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hos. ii. 15). The very name of the place is an exhortation to all who know its history.
“But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for Gad, and furnish the drink-offering for Meni” (verse 11). The Revised Version translates the terms—“Fortune” and “Destiny”; but it appears p. 745 that they are the names of “two well-known Syrian deities,” and that they go back to the old Babylonian star-worship. The Septuagint speaks of “the table for the devil” (demon); and Paul connects the Corinthian worship of Venus with the older idolatry rebuked by the prophet. Speaking of the bread and wine with which he taught the Corinthian converts to remember Christ, and warning them against even appearing to fellowship the abominable idolatry current in Corinth, he says:—“The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils (demons) and not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Cor. x. 20-22).
This is an allusion to Isa. lxv. 11, and brings the subject of the prophecy down to about A.D. 60, and to the lands of the Gentiles. And it is to be remarked that it may be brought down to our own times and country; for the “tables” of the apostacy, from Rome downwards, are “tables of demons.” This may seem monstrous, but it is strictly true. Thus, for instance, “Father Ignatius” says: “Far worse than any kind of idolatry is the Christian religion if the Host on the Altar is not Very God.” And again, a certain “Rev.” Grantham says: “Every crumb on the paten, every drop in the chalice, has now become the whole Body, Blood, Soul, Spirit, and Divinity of Jesus. Now is the time for you to worship him.” These are not Roman Catholic sayings; they are only those of ritualists within the pale of the Church of England.
Now the Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven; the “demon” in question is “another Jesus,” an imaginary “Very God,” made in multitudes of conventicles week by week by the presiding priests of the cultus, and worshipped by their devotees. Is it surprising that “the sword and slaughter” have not departed from “Christendom”?
Sometimes some of the weaker latter-day brethren of the prophets are seduced from the truth and allured back again into these associations. They do not discern the situation, nor perceive that p. 746 they are traitors in the camp of the Lord’s enemies, and thereby “provoke him to jealousy.”
Whatever dimness of vision may obtain among men, God has very clear ideas as to who are His servants and who are not, and the distinction and division is very sharply drawn in the following verses. Earnest men of clear vision will ask of the scriptures the question: “In what does Yahweh delight?” (v. 12). And they will find the true answer, and choose accordingly. They will experience the truth of Christ’s saying, “Henceforth there shall be division,” for they will find themselves separated from the sects of Christendom in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Of the hypocritical professors it is written (v. 15), “Ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name. Thus he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.”
The “other name” is “the name of Jesus Christ.” He is “the God of truth” (Heb., Amen, faithfulness), “for how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen unto the glory of God” (2 Cor. i. 20). Therefore unto the “yea and nay” “luke-warm” Laodiceans he writes, “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness” (Rev. iii. 14), exhorting those “wretched and miserable, poor, blind and naked” professors to buy of him “gold,” and “white raiment,” and “eye-salve,” to “be zealous and repent,” and promising those who should hearken and obey, a place and throne in the Father’s kingdom, that is, a place of honour in “the new heavens and new earth,” of which the prophet Isaiah here speaks by the same spirit. Of these also the apostle Peter spoke when contemplating the destruction of Jerusalem, and more remotely the destruction of the kingdoms of men. “Nevertheless,” he says, “we according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. iii. 13). The old heavens and earth were destroyed because of the prevailing unrighteousness.
p. 747 In the Apocalypse the Lord Jesus also enlarges upon the symbolic glory of the “new Jerusalem,” and the vanishing of “the former troubles.” Anyone can see, even upon a superficial examination, that the Apocalypse is rooted in the prophets, as it declares, saying, “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall sound, the mystery of God shall be finished as he hath declared to his servants the prophets” (Rev. x. 7). To Isaiah God declared His intention to make Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy, saying, “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.” The Apocalypse is the more mature revelation of the mystery through the “Seed,” the “Inheritor,” “the God of truth,” that is, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Under him the saints will “rejoice for ever,” while the nation of Israel and the nations of the earth will rejoice in such long life that “the child shall die an hundred years old.” “As the days of a tree”—(some trees live more than a millennium) will be the days of God’s people, and they will “wear out the work of their hands.” The wild beasts of the earth will be tamed, especially the national “beasts” (see Daniel and Revelation); “but as for the serpent, dust shall be his meat” (“His enemies shall lick the dust”—Psa. lxxii. 9; “the nations shall lick the dust like a serpent”—Mic. vii. 17). “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord.”